westwhere | the sunken

the sunken | moonrise

THE SUNKEN | MOONRISE

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The final Arc VI event lasts three days ICly and until 23 July OOCly. Yancai goes back another two years in time to the Huntress’ visit, Miang-Si’s corruption and the memory-meddling rite of the ladies of the lake.

The party can choose to stay neutral, only heading to the House of Commerce to access its now-active beacon — or they can inevitably get mixed up in the affairs of Yancai and endanger the village’s time loop.

For a quick catch-up: the latest clues | everything about Arc VI.

BOAR’S HEART

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Rattled, on high alert, feeling watched and skin prickling from static electricity, characters wake to find Yancai has gone back another two years in time. It is now nearly dry, barring rare waterways. Mould is absent. The village bustles with activity: a heavy influx of new arrivals comes by sea, and frequent fishermen’s and merchants’ markets set up in the open road — enjoy fresh fish delicacies, discounted pearls, rare cloth textiles and dyes that include the unique Yancai green!

■ No more hauntings take place, and only one moon loiters above the village. Villagers still remember the party under their false identities.

■ Word has spread of the conflict between elder Quanze Tsaymien’s council and a beautiful woman who has taken up in the forests at the village’s outskirts. Gossipmongers say she wastes away in the woods weeping — while ground cracks beneath her feet, grass wilts, waters poison and animals drop dead nearby. Young men are drawn to her and are later forcibly recovered in a state of rambling, feverish exhaustion. Village healers gladly accept your nursing help.

■ Village elders have given the woman — correctly identified by the party as the Huntress — until the following sunrise to leave Yancai on pain of death. You have 24h to encounter her.

■ The forests are livelier than in previous iterations of Yancai, but you feel perpetually… watched, as if sharp eyes follow your progress. These heavy gazes may belong to the young men bewitched to protect the Huntress, or to razor-clawed venom-spitting creatures that hunt her.

■ You may find some of the aforementioned creatures bleeding on the forest path. They possess slightly above canine intelligence, cannot communicate in human tongues, and hesitate to let you approach — but nursing one might reward you.

■ The death-touched (necromancers, those who died or revived, or otherwise marked) may optionally feel compelled to join the Huntress. Physical distance dwindles her pull, as can your own magic or solutions.

■ Luck (?) leads you to a silent and bloodied forest clearing, come sunset. Here, two dozens of Yancai’s recent dead have risen alive and surround the Huntress, some battling the creatures that assail her, while she speaks to 16-year-old village beauty Miang-Si. There is a gaping, if regenerating hole in the Huntress’ chest; in one hand, she holds her yet-beating heart she cuts in several parts she wraps in parchment. She asks Miang-Si to bury these pouches near Yancai to ‘hold her power close,’ in exchange for permanent and ever-blossoming beauty.

■ Wait as the Huntress and her forces retreat — then catch up to Miang-Si, capture her, or find the pouches. The ground where they are buried is desaturated, brittle, nearly pulverised. Hawks and ravens circle above and plunge down to claw at intruders, or attempt to pick up children or feebler adults. To the magically or death-sensitive, the pouches emanate a revolting aura of withering death.

■ Beware if heart pouches were buried beneath aged, thick trees — their roots burst out like nooses and writhing spiders’ legs, looking to either slam you against the tree trunks or entrap you within.

■ Finding at least two heart pouches prevents the dead from rising in Yancai in the years to come! Keep the heart cuts fettered — touching these parts directly can overwhelm you with the need to consume this or other hearts, to compensate for the sudden and unfeeling… coldness in your chest.

WAKE, UNWAKEFULLY

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Sunrise finds the Huntress gone from Yancai — while waves of the dead rise from the sea to attack the village. Some come chained, or dragging pieces from the casket-ships in which they were set for water burial.

This is the first undead attack witnessed by Yancai villagers, who are largely clumsy, slow and petrified. Some sentimentally believe their revived relatives never died and plead not to kill them. Many are caught in undefended areas, such as open port harbours, fishing boats, markets — and need help to travel to their families. The Huntress’ spell starts dissolving by midday, with the dead largely pulling back into sea and lake waters

■ Beware the village waterways: touching the water replenishes the strength of the dead and saps yours. Look closely at the bottom of the waterways, and you find them lined with dozens of resting corpses. Some wake slowly, as they clutch shards of glistening black mirror — best to… use a very long oar… or plunge very quickly to recover shards.

■ Carrying a mirror shard puts the dead around you to blissful sleep. Those who possess a cut of the Huntress’ heart can take control of up to 20 of the risen dead. Necromancers can control up to 10, even without such a token.

MOTHER MOON

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Come midday of Day II, Yancai villagers start to move freely and reunite with loved ones. Waters begin to gently rise and flood the grounds, while the first spores of black mould appear on walls.

The first to help the injured are the washerwomen of Yancai, who favour the young and magically sensitive. You notice they work in perfect synchrony and have developed a hand sign language they can teach you. Keep an ear out, and one might entrust they are hedge witches, the so-called ‘ladies’ of the lake.

■ Join them, either invited or unseen, when they gather at one of Yancai’s three great lakes. Each lady picks up one of the silver coins tossed in the water for luck-bearing. Take one yourself, and you will be able to breathe and speak underwater, following as the ladies dive and swim through thin underwater passageways. Beware countless skeletal remains that line the lakes and sinister fish — both burst out to shackle your limbs, or sound the alarm about intruders.

■ You find the ladies have begun to shelter and ward the dead in lake caves, to avoid their rising up again. The ladies re-emerge in the forest, speaking of a protection rite they agreed with the elders’ council. They are not strong enough to break the Huntress’ lingering spell, but hope to later recruit nascent witch Miang-Si, who teases she has power from the Huntress. For now, the ladies have decided to create a five-year time loop, moving Yancai back and forth in time whenever the dead attack.

■ To achieve their rite, the ladies use large pieces of black mirror confiscated from the Huntress’ dead and the energy of the hunter’s moon that shines down a bloody red tonight. Those with a lunar connection feel the moon aches, disgusted by this violation. Even those unaffiliated with the moon feel irascible and prone to violence while under its gaze.

■ Interrupting the rite rescues the moon, earning you a reward, and breaks villagers from the five-year loop, allowing them to live their true lives. It also exposes Yancai to the dead, unless you remove the heart cuts. Co-ordinate and choose wisely.

■ The ladies conduct their chanting, rune-painting and summons throughout the night of Day III in the forest. You have a wealth of options to break their spell: interfere with the magic flows, disrupt the guarded ash circle of convened witches, summon irate villagers to raid, persuade Miang-Si to intervene, break or steal the rite’s black mirror pieces… You can also reach out to the coven’s strongest witches, who agreed to sacrifice themselves to become overseers in the time flux — the Lumberjack, Red Lady, White Woman, Man in Black and the Milk-Toothed Babes. You can still sign up for a RNG draw to chat.

BAIT & BEACON

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To take attention off the ladies of the lake, Yancai’s council organises a sumptuous masked banquet and charity auction for the victims of the undead attack at the lavish House of Commerce. The House has been thoroughly cleansed by the time of your arrival, with only faint, clumsy traces of blood, decay and debris lingering from the previous offensive.

On site, servants are still jittery from the undead assault, while openly armed guards walk the grounds and answer any small provocation. Be kind to the staff or offer sympathy for their likely recent losses, and they might let you in unnoticed, or offer a hand.

■ Anyone who brings an item for the auction or who ~~can pretend s/he~~ possesses massive wealth can join the banquet. Show up with anything you can brazenly talk up as elite, exquisite or one-of-a-kind — or perhaps auction your services?

■ The House of Commerce contains a locked room with the village’s now fully active beacon. The Master of Commerce has the only key-tokens to access this quarter, somewhere in his study room — pick a lock, sweettalk the staff, or work your magic to get inside the study and grab one of the rune-inscribed tokens. The study room brims with scrolls, globes, letters to and from the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company and maps of… Arc I’s Sa-Hareth in the west, where hand-written news reports say the dead are rising.

■ Back at the banquet, the richest wine and… relaxing herbs and powders are offered freely or sometimes slipped into food to ease spirits. Aiming for levity, participants don comical animal masks or play a local game of ‘bait or hook,’ whereby they approach you with the aforementioned fishing bait or fish hook in closed fists, asking you to pick one. Depending on your choice, you must ‘bait’ the audience with a song or dance, or ‘hook’ them in with a joke or anecdote.

■ Around midnight, attendants are invited to an increasingly competitive auction, punctuated by elbowing, loud voices, crowding and the occasional threat. Beautiful concubines might stick to your arms, asking to be purchased this or that (exorbitant) small nothing as a gift. Participate to keep up your cover, but beware landing in hard debt!

■ Most banquet goers pretend they are indifferent to the undead attack, but some question whether the woman of the forest was to blame — while others mention that the mysterious, far too independent coven of the ladies of the lake is meeting even now, and might be cursing Yancai.

■ However you spend your night, the witch Karsa asks you to infiltrate the House of Commerce by dawns and attempt to leave through the beacon. This will only be possible if at least one person has picked up a key-token…!

QUESTIONS

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Wrath draws back when she does - mouth parted. His gaze drags over her face to see her before him. He can see the memory in her gaze but also the newness of it all. In many ways, and as ancient as he is, this is new to him too.

They did not have enough time together before the curse took her from him (Would there ever be enough time?).

"I did. You kept the Huntress far, and there was more than enough time to retrieve it. It was buried in a pouch, but we will want to ward it when there is a chance."

Wrath has only had the chance to look at it, but it radiates compulsive, dark magic. He is certain this organ could potentially be as dangerous as the many others the group has collected. His hand cups the side of her face, fingertips brushing against her cheekbone.

A different sort of relief fills her.

His thumb brushes close to the lone scrape on her cheek, a minor injury compared to what she and Lan Wangji left in the forest. That Emilia is prone to anger and violence is nothing new. But it's been enhanced tonight, and she's certain it has something to do with the moon shining bloody red above them.

She tries not to wince, one hand falling back to her side. The other remains at her chest, fingertips rubbing the skin there, the relief in her expression soon replaced by discomfort.

"I don't think we have a lot of time."

The moon aches, and she can feel that ache as though it's screaming at her.

Wrath's thumb lingers underneath the cut upon her cheek. It is a battle wound, and that makes it beautiful, but he hates seeing his wife in any pain at all. If he didn't already know she had cut through all of her enemies without need for him, he would be seeking vengeance of his own, but his thumb rests against her chin. His expression shifts to concern as her hand rests against her chest.

He knows without her saying that she feels it again - the wrongness of the moon, the wielding of the moon for the likes of these mortals who think they have any right to do so in their desperation.

"Then we must act." His hand lifts to slide over her own against her chest as if he could somehow ease the ache through will alone. Of course, he cannot. He has never had any dominion over the moon.

"We need to stop their ritual, protect the moon, and we will."

Emilia is not without reservations.

The talk she had with Five remains at the forefront of her mind. Interrupting the ritual could come with its own grave consequences, consequences that could hurt innocent people. They remain blissfully unaware for now. Time was already broken, yes, but what if they create a worse problem by trying to fix it?

She weighs the risk because she needs to, and yet she can't let it go. Not when she feels the moon's violation, its disgust at being used in this way. With the anchors removed, they have to try.

The conviction in his voice pulls her gaze up and his eyes hold her fast, a polished gleam in the darkness. When she tilts her head just so, she can see the black flecks that dot the gold of his irises.

"We'll need to find them first."

Wrath is not as familiar with the manipulation of time itself. All Five has ever told him leads Wrath to believe that leaving such an anomaly untouched would be reason for an apocalypse. Neither of the two of them need experience with manipulating time itself to know that such a violation of the moon is wrong.

It is a wrong that must be righted regardless of the consequences. He sees the seriousness in his wife's gaze too, and he knows she feels this violation more keenly than anyone else in their group. Given who her mother is... it would be impossible for her not to.

"Then let's begin looking. They have a great deal of magic, but there is more in this forest right now. I do not know that we will be able to find them through searching for traces of their magic alone."

It makes it difficult to parse one individual from the next, but he starts to move beside his wife, into the trees. His dagger is out and ready. The heart is secure.

"We might if I follow the moon."

Its ache.

Her senses are not as honed as Wrath's, vestiges of the curse keeping her in a vise-like grip. But the moon is no liar; she closes her eyes and zeroes in on that painful tug, the power of the moon if nothing else. Fortune's sake, and fortune alone, allows her this realization: the pull is stronger if they delve back into the forest.

The water has begun to rise and flood the grounds, closer to what she remembers when they first stepped foot in Yancai. It makes the floor of the forest progressively muddier as she goes, but she's undeterred.

What started out as a print becomes a full-on run, well aware that Wrath will be by her side. She's found her grip on her own dagger once more, tightening said grip once the chanting grows audible.

Wrath moves beside her as she leads the way, following the pull of the moon, and he trusts her to lead them true. And she does. Her mother would be proud that she feels such a conviction to stop the wrong that is being done to the moon - red as it currently is in the sky.

He slows down as they hear the chanting, and he gestures to Emilia toward the edge of the upcoming clearing. He draws the shadows along with them to conceal their movements and allow them to investigate from a distance. The shadows curl up around the both of them, slipping around her limbs in cool, familiar greeting, and they do the same to him.

These witches are desperate but desperation does not excuse their behavior here (ignorance can only forgive so much, but after speaking to the Lumberjack... they can stop this ritual without any violence needed). It's clear from here that they are using the mirror shards to channel the energy of the moon, and beyond that, there's a circle of ash on the ground - guarded, yes, but their abilities will allow them to affect this ritual without having to get too close.

They are hardly the only ones providing distractions for this ritual, attempting to stop it from happening.

Emilia takes in the scene before her as the familiar comfort of Wrath's shadows wrap around them. She has been in their place once before, fear and desperation creating a recipe for something truly ugly. There was no obstacle she would not have removed, no dark spell she would not have tried to set right her own terrible wrong.

Perhaps that is why she can't find it in herself to judge it so harshly, certain as she remains of what must be done. She knew it the moment she found that observatory, the moment she stepped forward and dipped her hand into the bowl. It's a different certainty than the one she felt delivering Haiva to the sirens.

She does not regret that day, her wretchedness. May she not regret this.

Thorn-covered vines erupt from the earth, directly underneath the ash that circles the convened witches. With just a thought, the vines tilt in the direction of the black mirror pieces, intent on wrapping around them. She focuses on the ingredients of the spell, as opposed to the witches themselves. She does not want to have to hurt them.

A confluence of choices, of actions, as others around her do their part.

And the moon, the moon. Its disgust crawls all over her skin.

The sudden appearance of Emilia's vines has caused many of the witches to scramble and startle. They are still desperate after all, believing this is the only way to save their village. Their chanting has stopped, and they communicate their fear, try to coordinate against an attack to their ingredients they could not have anticipated. Wrath can feel their fear as it radiates from them (their voices high pitched, their pulses pounding, breathing fast), and it feeds his power even at this distance.

He welcomes the sharpness of their emotion, drinking it in, allowing it to become fuel for what is about to occur.

The gold of his eyes brightens in the darkness like a predator surveying prey though he has no intention to attack. He could if he wished, and even in the midst of all of this, Wrath enjoys seeing his wife's power - her strength. So much of it has been taken from her for too long, and she wields it with such targeted ease now.

As the witches attempt to attack the vines that have come and gather their shards back to them, Wrath sends the shadows from him toward the ritual to aid in his wife's efforts. These shadows roll away from him in large waves that soon cover the area where the ritual was taking place, preventing them from seeing the vines as the thorny vines start to wrap around what shards they can find

The witches are no match for them, for her.

She'd once thought herself a witch, and has only come to understand that she is the source of their power. And so there is no way the ritual will hold: the moon is released from her unwilling duty.

Not without consequence.

There was the House of Manouk to escape, but also a boon in the form of a moonstone. She holds that moonstone in her palms now, as she sits a ways away from the stone hut she and Wrath have settled into. Finding the waypoints the Merchant once informed them of was no easy task, but the real challenge has come now that they've returned to the present — to a caravan of Alem survivors. It's ... discomforting, to say the least.

She sits, quiet and thoughtful, under the light of a near full moon.

It is not long before Wrath steps out of the hut after her.

They have wondered about the effects of holding this moon stone while the moon itself is at its strongest, but they have yet to have the chance to find out. The moon did not exist within the pocket dimension between time. As drab as he finds the accommodations during this leg of their journey, he is grateful for the walls, the door, and the connection to a more natural world. The Underworld has no moon neither after all nor does it have the sun.

Wrath drinks in the sight of her first - gorgeous as she is, sitting under the light of the moon. His gold eyes sharpen as he appreciates the sight of her. There is the awareness in the back of his mind of how long he spent being made to forget her entirely, having her ripped from his mind. He does not want to lose any moment to truly be grateful for her presence.

He decreases the distance between them - steps silent, shadows skittering out beneath his feet. "...what have you noticed?"

"Not yet."

His is a welcome presence, and the warmth that comes with it — with his closeness — no longer startles or frightens her. The depth with which she has come to embrace her love for him leaves no room for it.

Emilia looks up just in time to see the shadows bend to his will. Envy would say they are the balance to the underworld, and moments like these she can see it. The darkness that swirls around him in acknowledgement before skittering. The moon glow that covers her, radiating a soft glow down to her fingertips.

She has darkness too, though.

There is a bit of silence following her answer, the look of her suggesting this is a night of bittersweet contemplation. When she speaks again, it's quiet, glancing back up at the sky. "Of all the places to land."

Wrath admires the glow covering her - how it highlights her beauty, how it reminds him of who her mother is. Her mother remains in his House, of course. She saved Emilia the evening that Wrath made a reckless mistake in his hope to free Emilia of the curse, to let some of her memories return to him. He has made many mistakes though he is loathe to admit them, and he would not admit them to anyone else.

He remains quiet in the silence, reading it for what it is. They could have ended up anywhere in this world at all, but of all places, it's here.

"You mean that we have found ourselves once again with the refugees from Alem, with Deimar?"

He stood near Emilia when she threw Haiva to the sirens. He removed the royal prince's eyes and fed them to his hellhound. It was a necessity, but that does not necessarily make it any easier for her to encounter his people again. She has a mortal heart, and it is tangled in all of the complications that come with it. Though even Wrath has never had to dine and work alongside the loved ones of those he has condemned.

They exist in small pockets of lost time and space, entirely contained. Dare I say it, in... glamorised prisons.

The Merchant said this of the exiled tyrants they stumbled on in the House of Manouk. Her heart has been heavy ever since realising the same was done to her by Nonna. The Shifting Isles was her prison.

A beautiful prison. Blissfully ignorant and full of laughter and light. She might have never left it, had she not sought answers for her twin's disappearance. She understands now that was the point. Remembers, now, just how brutal she'd been in her righteous vengeance. Not unlike when she delivered Haiva to the sirens.

"What else would I mean?" she asks, the sigh all but soundless. She does not regret her choice. She would stand by it, if not the decision to allow these people to believe Haiva a savior when he was letting the jatharin kill them off one by one, so long as he could remain exempt of accountability.

"It feels wrong to be here." To accept their kindness.

Wrath watches her face. In a rare moment, he wears only a shirt without a jacket, and the shirt is white. The sleeves are rolled up, revealing more of his arms than would ordinarily be seen including both tattoos. He does not say anything at first. There is silence that fills the space between them, which comes with the proper weight that this moment requires. He may not fully understand, but he wants to try.

He sits beside her. His hand slides over her own, tracing the lines of the bones within her hands up along her fingers to each tip. Their tattoos meet as he presses their arms together, and his gaze darkens with contemplation. He can sense her emotions, but when the emotions become more complicated and tangled then it becomes more difficult in turn.

Guilt is an emotion he is familiar with despite being eternal (or perhaps because of it - countless time to make mistakes even if those mistakes are different than the kind a mortal might make).

"...you feel guilty."

Helplessly, her attention wanders back to him as he lowers to the ground beside her. He is a terribly arresting sight, even when her spirits are down. It's almost unfair how good he always looks.

"No. And yes."

Mortal feelings are complicated, in a mortal way she's aware he has no experience with. It was all so simple when she was only Fury. She regretted nothing of her actions. Until him.

"I don't believe I would make a different choice. It's the lie that doesn't sit well with me."

To become a real player in the Seven Circles, Emilia had to learn deception and cunning. Her first instinct is to charge at things head on. She is always, always negotiating her the volcanic nature of her temper. It frightens her, sometimes, to think of what she might be without this mortal heart.

His heart (and he does have one - demonic though it may be) fills with love for his wife that her issue is having to lie about her deed. He remembers the way she rushed up to him when he looked over the body of her dead sister without fear, with only the knowledge it was wrong that he should be there. She screamed as if she was feral. She rushed at him in all her fury, in her form which did not have access to so many of her powers. It was as if she could not handle the wrongness of it, and of course, she could not.

The goddess of fury and vengeance could do nothing else even if she could not remember it.

There is even a soft smile on his face as he looks at her, which briefly reveals his fondness for her reasoning.

"I wish you did not have to lie about it. It was the right choice to make, but you saved a young girl from having to make a sacrifice in his stead. Mortals truly become unreasonable when they hold too much faith in false miracles."

In false beliefs. Even in the Shifting Isles this was true - so much like life with its hatred and fear of witches, demons.

"Mm," is soft agreement that falls back to contemplation.

This she agrees with readily. Faith that never questions, faith with no sense of selfness ... it is dangerous to Emilia. Zealotry. She made what she believes was the least terrible choice in a sea of terrible choices, a feeling that is no longer new to her. She was ready to swallow its bitterness then.

And now.

After a slight pause, she speaks again, aware he has been giving her space and time to find the words. "I'm still ... learning to co-exist with the parts of me that are Emilia and the parts of me that are Fury."

They're both her. She will not pretend that Fury is merely the past, something she does not need to own as she would want to own that day in the gardens with Haiva. It's all her, good and bad and deadly.

Wrath had been looking up toward the moon. His hand remains in her own but his gaze falls when she does speak again. It rests upon her face, seeking their bond so he might feel what she does, but beyond all that, she does not hide it from him any longer. She is vulnerable. She is open, and he does not fail to appreciate that especially after all the time she could not trust him, had learned to not trust demons - the devil being the worst of them all.

"...it must be a difficult path to navigate. As Fury, you would not have felt any guilt at all. When you had only your mortal memories, I imagine you could not have imagined doing what you did."

They were both different before they met one another, before they fell in love with one another. They have changed each other, and even now more than before, they have been changed. He believes it is for the better through their relationship with one another, through all of the adversity they had stacked against them. They found their way here to one another even in another world all together, even with the curse, even with her made to hate him, even with his brothers and her sister.

"Gods, no."

Emilia would have not thought herself capable of hurting a fly, much less would she have chosen vengeance over mercy. Nonna taught her kindness and the true meaning of family. She also taught her shame and left her helpless. It may be that she will never not have complicated feelings about the woman. But despite the truths she's learning, she can't find it in her heart to hate the woman who became her grandmother.

She supposes that remains the strongest proof of how successful the curse was. Underneath it, she might still be a goddess. But she feels as mortals do, and there is no ignoring that.

It's a train of thought she would not like to follow, so Emilia halts it in its tracks. The next sigh to leave her does loosen her chest a bit, and she gives his fingers a light squeeze, thumb stroking the surface of his hand.

"I'll be glad when we leave."

There is a soft smile at her reaction - the gods, no as if she is not a goddess herself. Wrath does know she does not fully feel like one but she does feel mortal. It is in the guilt that she has. It is in the wonderful work she does in the kitchens and the kindness she shows to others, but there is Fury within her as well.

It is a difficult path to travel, and it is not one he can relate to, advise her on - though... perhaps. It has been some time since he thought of being the angel version of himself. It is not something he likes to speak of, and the experience is so different.

Still there is technically two versions of himself, but the navigation is such a different- such a different and less clear-cut version here for her with the curse having stolen so much, with the two sides merging. His gaze falls to the wonderful warmth of her hand as she touches him with such fondness, such softness.

"Mm. The accommodations certainly leave a great deal to be desired..."

Emilia catches the softness of that smile, and she's abruptly struck with a desire to be even closer. She wonders if he feels that, too, through their bond. She wonders if he ever marvels at the difference like she does.

Amusement crinkles the corners of her eyes, for all that they've been discussing something quite heavy.

"The king of demons is not accustomed to stone huts?"

She remembers his earnest outrage the day she brought him that godsawful suede blouse from the marketplace, though the fact he was trapped in her summoning circle in a cave likely also played a part, ahem.

All the same, to tease him is irresistible.

Wrath does feel that she wishes to be closer, and he answers the desire by winding his arm around her waist and drawing her into his lap so he might be incredibly close to him. He smiles at her as he meets her gaze, noting that amusement that crinkles her eyes, the color of them as they remain this close.

He flashes her a grin that is damned predatory.

"Gods, no."

Yes, this is purposefully quoting her words from moments before - the very ones that made him smile so softly at her.

"My understanding is if there were not stone huts, we would be forced to dwell in holes in the mountain walls." The smile is lost as he grimaces instead. Truly deplorable. "What I wouldn't give for a stay similar to Taravast for once - the accommodations were far better, and you had access to a kitchen."

Seamless and natural, her arms slip around his neck to keep herself in place. He smiles again, and her heart lurches in her chest a bit. There's an ease to him tonight, contentment, and it's terribly arresting.

And she's well aware it has nothing to do with this jungle.

"Goodness, not the mountain walls."

Taravast was something else, though. It reminded her so much of Venice. The palace of the Doxe alone carried such splendor, for all that its owner was rotten. It would've been worth burning it to the ground.

She summons an orange blossom, but instead of weaving it into her hair like she always does, she tucks it behind his ear instead. "Stop pouting. Actual Alem was far worse."

Wrath raises an eyebrow at her as she places that flower behind his ear. Excuse you. No one else in any realm in any version of any world would be able to do that, but there is a contentment to him tonight with her on his lap, with her arms wrapped around his neck, with the reality of how much he missed her and felt he may never see her again.

There's a huff of a sound - haughty like the demon king he is, but also, half amused. The amusement is harder to pick out.

"I do not pout."

He is the devil. He does many things but pouting is not among them (neither is wearing a flower behind his ear, but he makes no attempt to remove it at the moment).

"Alem was terrible as far as accommodations go, but it was a war." So that was understandable. He is accustomed to wars (naturally). "The train may have been my favorite."

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