Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sleeping alone has always been weird for Lyr.

Ever since she was little, she has grown accustomed to the presence of others: her mom, her crewmates —at home or at sea, there was always someone else in the room. It never even occurred to her that it was out of the ordinary until she met more people outside of the sailing business, people like Ciara and Damien and Guthrie, who were really clear about their sleeping privacy needs.

Never before, in 24 years, has she been in a situation where there were as many rooms to sleep in as there were people in the group —Even if one of those rooms is the living room.

When the party arrived at the house, they discussed sleeping arrangements only briefly. Mostly, they thought, they were glad there were enough beds for all of them. They thought they might leave it up to a draw or a coin flip who got to sleep on the couch. They would choose when it was actually time to use the beds, they decided. No one counted on Lyr and Damien’s little late night escapade.

When they finally get back from the tower of knowledge, panting and reeling, trying to understand what just happened, the lights are out, and Lorem and Guthrie have taken one bedroom each.

“Well, that’s fair, that one’s probably on us…” whispers Lyr, the consequences of their actions dawning on her.

“‘We’ll draw lots or something, we can leave that for later!’” Damien mocks Guthrie’s tone earlier in the day. “Thanks for the heads up, Guff.” He seems crankier than usual.

“Were you expecting them to wait up until we got back from the suicide mission?”

“A light on would have been nice!” he grumbles. “It’s fine, I’m just tired. I was kinda looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight, if I’m being honest.”

Lyr thinks about it for a bit. She had been entertaining trying to innocently suggest bringing the couch into one of the rooms, but it seems a tad too late for that. If there is someone she does not particularly want to room with, it is Damien.

“I mean…” she considers for a minute. If she had to guess by the way he carries himself and how he was in… when they met, she can concede he probably needs a real bed more than she does right now. She’s slept in her fair share of couches and sleeping bags before. “I can take the couch, if you want.”

Damien doesn’t even pretend to fight her on it —his face lights up in a second.

“Really?” (the question is rhetorical, he does not give her time to answer) “Thanks Lyr, you’re the best. Goodnight”.

Before she can fully finish comprehending what he said, Damien gives her a clap on the arm and all but runs into the last remaining empty bedroom and shuts the door. Not fifteen seconds later, Lyr can hear a light snoring coming from inside. She can’t help but utter a quiet chuckle.

If anything, the couch is pretty nice. It is a bit stiff in places where the stuffing has compressed or moved around, but all in all it is one of the nicer non-beds she has found herself sleeping on. There is even a compartment under it with a blanket and a thin pillow inside. She settles in to sleep content enough, trying not to think too much about what happened at the tower. They will discuss it with the others in the morning; things are fine. Everything is fine.

But the room is so quiet.

Lyr tries to remind herself that she is not alone in the house, that her friends are right there. But she cannot hear them, cannot really sense them through the closed bedroom doors.

The only sound she can hear is the faint chirping of crickets outside.

She would  have had nightmares in any room this empty.

She is in the large, open field where the party found the largest, nastiest of the skull bugs in the entire dungeon. They are spread out thin, fighting this creature the best they can. She is on a ledge on one side of the room (is it a room? there is no ceiling overhead, no walls), while Lorem is on the opposite side of the large outcropping that surrounds the lake in the center. Guthrie is at the entrance to the room, ducking behind stone stairs; Damien is… not Damien anymore. He is monstrous, and he is all teeth, and he is baring those teeth and snarling at the monster before him.

He is the first to get hit.

A shining, sickly blue beam of energy crashes into him in a split second, and he is knocked prone, recoiling backward and shaking his head violently.

Before Lyr has time to react, the same shining burst of magic comes for her, and her head is splitting open, red hot. Her thoughts are pouring down her throat like magma, burning on the way down, mixing with the erupting fear, and shame, and regret. When she opens her eyes, she is on the precipice, and all of her companions are struggling to hold their own. The skull bug is focusing on Lorem now, and she has struck her spear into the ground, leaning on it for support. The bug has turned away from Lyr, and if she could just get a little closer…

She takes a few steps back, and then springs forward with all the strength she can muster. She jumps up beyond the outcrop and toward the monster. She shuts her eyes and braces for what comes next. She gathers as much as she can of her will and her magic, lets it flow through her arms and her hands, and claps.

She feels the current course through her body and exit through her fingers, swelling the sound of what might have been a regular clap tenfold, hundredfold, until all anyone can hear is the sound of cracking, shattering thunder. It fills her ears and her head and pushes out the magma, it fills the entire room. And then it is gone as fast as it came.

All that is left is deafening silence.

When Lyr lands in the water, her ears are ringing.

She opens her eyes to see the lake has become a puddle in the middle of a crater that extends easily twenty feet out from where she is rising to stand.

At the edges of the crater there are four figures. Four prone, motionless figures.

Lorem, Guthrie, Damien. Each and every one of them unconscious. All of them covered in bright red, fractal slashes that sprawl all over their skin and creep out from under their clothes. Damien’s go all the way over his eyelids and cover them in a bloody spider’s web before extending out all over his face and down his neck. Guthrie’s hair stands on end, and his arms and legs look as if every single one of his blood vessels has burst. And maybe they have.

Lorem’s hands might as well have been dunked in a bucket of blood. The lesions wrap around every inch of skin and up her arms, they disappear under the cuffs of her sleeves and reemerge from beneath her collar, visibly extending from her chest and creeping up her neck into her face and ears.

“What did you do? ” The voice resounds impossibly behind her, and she knows before she even turns around.

She is in her childhood home.

Her hands are burning.

Kneeling in front of her is her father, a milky blue skinned elf with cold, piercing eyes. He is fully clad in elven regalia: rich fabrics, gold and silver trims, lace finishes, incrusted stones. His hair is down; long, silvery blond and peppered with thin braids. He looks out of place inside this small, bare brick, single bedroom house.

In her father’s arms is her mom. Unconscious. Her entire left side wracked with the same thin red fractal pattern that now sprawls over Lyr’s own hands and wrists, starting within her left ear and trickling down her face; on her arms, peeking under her sleeves, under the rolled-up cuffs of her pants. They are hair-thin and dark, like thousands of interconnected paper cuts all along her skin. Her eyes are closed, but her expression is still a soft smile. Looking up, her father’s icy blue eyes try and fail to hide fear behind contempt.

She wants to apologize, to help, to heal her; wants to take back the horrifying power that she did not know could burst out from her body and break her mother’s.

All attempts at words get stuck and die inside her throat.

The silence is deafening.

It might be her heart threatening to rip itself out of her chest that finally wakes Lyr up.

People in plays and novels always shoot up after a bad dream, throw off the covers, jump out of bed. After Lyr’s eyes slam open, she just remains lying down on the couch, trying to control her rapid breathing —the last thing she needs on top of everything else right now is to hyperventilate.

The image of her unconscious mother is burned into her mind, as it has been for years. Lyr feels a tight knot settle in her throat, but the tears don’t come; maybe crying about it would be too much respite from confronting what she did. She stares at the front door of the house and prays to a god she has not prayed to in a long time. Corald said he would take care of her. Corald said he would make sure she was okay. She still implores for Milil to guard her. To guard all of them.

This silence is going to drive her crazy.

She pushes the blanket off and sits up on the couch, which creaks slightly under her weight. Her ears welcome the sound warily, as one welcomes the rising sun after a night of incessant work. She walks over to the open kitchen and roots around in a couple of cupboards until she finally finds a glass, then rinses it before pouring herself a drink. The water is lukewarm, and it’s hard to swallow through the stubborn knot in her throat, but it helps.

She almost does not hear the soft creaking of wood behind her, but at this point she may be too anxious to miss anything. She hesitates before turning to face the sound.

As soon as she spots Lorem standing at the bottom of the stairs and squinting at her, all her defenses come down. She freezes, holding the glass halfway up to her face.

“Hi,” she manages.

“Hi,” responds Lorem. “Is everything okay? You’re just kind of… hanging out in the dark by yourself?”

“Oh, shit, right, sorry.” She quickly casts light on her glass and leaves it on the kitchen counter. “No, yeah, I was  just… Getting some water…” She gestures awkwardly toward the glass, which is now casting a faint purple light.

“Oh, good.” Lorem remains standing there at the bottom of the stairs, looking a bit uncomfortable. She is wearing a pair of cute, star-pattern pajama pants and a hair bonnet. “I thought elves were supposed to be graceful and nimble?” She gives Lyr a small smile.

Lyr cannot tell if she is still startled by Lorem’s sudden appearance, or if there is another reason for her heart to be beating so fast again.

“Oh, stars, did my racket wake you up? I’m sorry, it’s…”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Lorem steps closer and leans on the bar. “You’re good. I’m a light sleeper, anyway.”

Lyr feels a small smile forming on her lips. She grabs the pitcher from the counter and gestures with it towards Lorem.

“Do you want some water?”

“Sure, thank you.”

Lyr pours her a glass and they stand quietly for a minute, sipping on their drinks. This silence is completely different from the one before: interlaced with soft breaths and the sound of water being drunk. It is a silence she can relax within. The purple light reflects off of Lorem’s skin in a way that makes the iridescent patches in it dance slightly, in colors she cannot quite place. Lilacs and deep blues and spots of gold. It is mesmerizing and conflicting.

So much so, apparently, that she is caught staring. A faint, dark purple joins the palette on Lorem’s cheeks as she looks down.

“They’ve been like this as long as I can recall,” she offers.

“They’re beautiful.” Lyr blurts out.

It takes her half-asleep brain a split second to realize what she just said.

“I mean! I- they’re! they’re cool! to look at! it’s not like-!” Lyr feels her face heat up, and her heart rate keeps getting faster somehow. Lorem starts laughing softly and, oh, it’s so over. She will never form a coherent sentence around her again.

“No, it’s okay, you’re good.” Lorem says, still chuckling. “Thanks.”

Lyr’s heart does a flip inside her chest. She takes another sip of water.

“No, thank you . I…” She hesitates for a moment, but decides to continue. “I had a really awful dream, and… Well. You being here really helped me come down from it. So thanks.”

Lorem’s face immediately shifts; from that soft smile that has been twisting at Lyr’s heartstrings into a worried expression.

“Oh, no. Is that what woke you up?”

“Yeah. It was… yeah. Not a fun one.”

The silence takes on a tension that was not there before, but Lorem shuts it down almost immediately.

“Are you… okay?” She pushes off her lean on the bar and walks around it, closer to Lyr. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Flashes of the dream strike Lyr’s mind. The monster, the spell, her friends’ bodies strewn around her…

“I’m… better now. I’d rather not talk about it, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’m just glad you’re doing better.”

Lorem puts out a tentative hand and, after a moment, sets it on Lyr’s arm and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Are you okay to go back to bed?”

Lyr is about to simply say yes and be done with it, but something about Lorem’s face, something in the purple lighting or maybe even something in the water, makes her actually consider the question.

“Well… I…” She almost regrets opening that window, but it is too late now to back out, so she decides to power on. “It’s just… The silence. It was so quiet out here, and it’s been killing me. I’m… not really used to sleeping in an empty room. On the ship we have bunks, and at home there’s only the one bedroom, and…” She pumps the breaks. That may have been too much oversharing for one night. She looks up at Lorem and her expression is near undecipherable, something worried and curious and soft and confused. And through it all she still shimmers in the light. “Is it too weird if I ask to sleep in your room?”

Lorem’s eyes shoot open and the dark tint is back on her cheeks. She looks completely taken aback by the request.

“I- I mean- that’s, uh. You-” It is not until she starts stuttering that Lyr realizes how that must have come across.

“Oh, gods, that came out wrong,” she interrupts. “I didn’t mean- I meant, like, on the floor or something, crap, not… It’s- I’ve honestly slept in worse places, and-” before she is done, Lorem is interrupting her right back.

“You are NOT sleeping on the floor of my room.”

Her response was surprisingly firm. Lyr recoils a bit, but she gets it. Her face is boiling hot now, but she is at least thankful for the honesty.

“I get it, it’s fine, don’t worry, thanks f-”

“I don’t mind sharing the bed,” Lorem clarifies, a shy smile back on her lips. “What I mean is! It’s a double, it’s fine, honestly.” She looks away, and it feels pointed. Lyr chooses to ignore it. The silence is a bit tense and a bit warm.

“So… shall we?” Lorem offers her a sheepish hand. Lyr’s heart is really not appreciating the workout.

She takes Lorem’s hand and it seems that neither of them realized that grabbing each other’s hand would imply- well- actually holding hands. They both look away, but don’t let go as Lorem leads Lyr upstairs and into the bedroom.

The mattress gives as they each sit on it. It is softer than the sofa, but not by much. The sheets are a good mix of rough and soft, and the pillows are the same kind that was stored inside the couch.

Lorem lies down, and Lyr hesitates, but after a single stern look she is pulling the blankets over herself. She lies on her back, silently wishing her heartbeat is not as loud as it seems from inside.

“Goodnight,” Lorem says.

Lyr turns her head briefly to say it back, and her face is so close… and she’s still smiling at her.

“Goodnight.” She turns back toward the ceiling as fast as she can.

Lyr feels Lorem shift and settle in turned away from her, and breathes out slightly. She lets her eyes close and wills herself to go back to sleep.

It takes a while for her heartbeat to calm down and her thoughts to slow, but after a few minutes she is past the initial agitation.

She drifts off listening to Lorem’s steady breathing, letting her presence envelop her like a blanket, weaving itself through the silence and filling it with repose.

She does not dream again that night.

(And, well. If the two wake up snuggled together —that’s not for anyone else to know)