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Umbra has long been the power in our dynamic. I might be able to navigate conversations more easily but he is the one who can cut through the battlefield as though it were butter. So when Roathe asked me to go into the Descendia, I was skeptical if I would even be able to. It would require Umbra’s help, but I couldn't see him wanting to go out of his way for some high ranking Orokin—known for his cruelty, serving Nitokh, letting his battalion of Dax be turned into devils—Uriels—in some twisted ‘honor’ flavored punishment for some failure.
But if not Umbra, who? My other warframes have languished since I met him.
As I stand at the POM-2 staring at Roathe’s request, the cool metal hand rests on my forearm. Umbra. Telling me to feel him out on it—communicate the only way we know how.
“I know you won't want to help with this,” I respond.
His grip tightens. Insisting. So I let our minds intermix like they so often do. Flooded with his love for me and the sense of welcome reprieve, I’m simultaneously hit with the disdain he feels for Roathe. He knew the instant I met the man that I was drawn to him, but he couldn't—and still doesn't—understand why.
But then I’m hit with an eagerness to comply with Roathe’s request for help, and am confused. Ensorcelled with layers of reasoning—justice, vengeance, even pettiness which is new for Umbra. Perhaps he just likes an opportunity to wipe the floor with another Orokin—another golden lord who thought himself above Dax.
While my interest in helping Roathe is more out of—well, wanting to get into his pants, but also just… to understand the man. I’m glad that Umbra could see his own silver lining about it.
Without a word—as always—Umbra moves to the navigation console and plots us a course to the Sanctum Anatomica. He can feel my own girlish reaction to him basically whisking me away. Our minds entangled in our own love for each other as much as any goal we have in mind.
So often, we go to a battlefield together—unleash mayhem on our enemies—the entire time, focused on each other. Even if I leave him momentarily for one reason or another, I look back at him, eager to see him in action, to see those rippling muscles draw back his bow and unleash a screaming arrow of fury at a distant target, or unleash the exalted blade through a group, with a trailing flash… and he always knows I'm watching.
It is funny though when someone sees me leave the warframe, and then he keeps walking, fighting, destroying. “How do you do that?” They ask me. And I have to explain that Umbra is his own man.
Nevertheless, we arrive in the sanctum and meet Natah and the triad at the dark refractory. Roathe watches from the sidelines, his skepticism plain on his face even if he's trying to hide it.
It doesn't escape me that he gets a great and private joy at the notion of inflicting his traumatic memories on someone else. He would dress it as torment, but I think deep down he wants someone to commiserate with. Once I've taken off my outer wear, Roathe offers me a hand down into the pool. A gentlemanly gesture offered by a devil’s clawed hand. Perhaps just to see if I recoil, but I don't. I rest my palm in his—warm, hardened and sharp, and he grins with cruel delight. I don’t think he grasps that I might actually want to help him—be his friend.
“I'm rather surprised you accepted,” he says to me.
“Even against our advice,” Lyon adds.
“Remember, if things get dire I will pull you out of there,” Natah reminds me. “This Orokin isn't worth your life.” Her sentient voice, deeply neutral, telling me everything she feels about this plan. Even though she didn’t know ‘me’ growing up… She treats me the same as she treats the kid… I’ve been through centuries of executions, and finding myself with a ‘mother’ figure again has been… Surprising. Even as she stands over me in all her sentient glory, making a clear threat to Roathe through intonation alone.
Umbra stares down at me in the pool. I know he will be there on the other side. I know he won't let things go too awry, deal or no.
Most of the descent is wading through the conflicts Roathe has navigated first hand. Literal or otherwise. Lyon and Marie make a great many quips at his expense, though Roathe doesn't seem to care. I suspect much worse has been said about him—or to him.
Through each floor I get a sense of the man underneath the facade—the “devil of Tau”. A man, pure and simple. A man used by Nitokh, sure. A great strategist, almost certainly. Capable of cruelty that I can't imagine, undoubtedly—but a man who has lived through centuries of Orokin social expectations and pressure to perform, or fail… absolutely.
He’s made it clear that his loyalty was never to the empire, but to Nitokh, and by the end, he was rethinking that too. And I have to give him credit, someone who does something and fails… at least tried.
So I’ll wade through all this because he deserves someone to try for him. Not to use him, strike some deal, or paint him as some great evil—to just treat him like a human being.
When Umbra and I reach the bottom, and Roathe sits chained on a throne, I wonder about the significance of it all. He told me about the constant deception in the empire… he told me he loved Nitokh in a way he couldn't even explain, while plotting to kill her. That he would rule over a new kingdom of his own making, until he could figure out a better system of governance.
This throne he sits on—chained to—is it the throne he’d have built for himself? Or is it the throne he had been lashed to by the Orokin society?
Roathe gives us no ceremony before he attacks us with all his fire and brimstone fury.
“Alight!” He snarls as the fires wick away our shields, “Alight!” he repeats, the intensity growing around us and just as we get an opening, I can feel that same restraint in Umbra that I felt against Ballas on Lua. The inability to strike against an Orokin.
But Umbra has me, now. So too will he always. By my hand in his, bound by no such chains, I drive the blade into Roathe’s chest.
“Good form, heh…” he says in his dying breath. “See you soon.”
That was the first time… I've since delved into the Descendia four more. Each time he tells me some new details he's recalled about his life—his history. He confides his deepest thoughts about the sentient war, the pure and true terror that so many refused to acknowledge was real. He seems so guardedly happy to talk to someone about everything, it makes every literal stab through the heart hurt more and more. I hate doing this to someone I’d call a friend, at this point. I doubt Roathe has any sincere definition of the word in his vocabulary, though.
It made his insistence on stopping all the more perplexing. Telling me it was good enough. I wondered what it was he didn't want either of us to see. What inkling had he gleaned from it all that he was now so scared to reveal? I guess… He has a strategist’s mind, and can see his own strategic inclinations as he proceeds through it all… But to not even tell me why?
I accepted it, with confusion. Maybe ‘respected his decision’ is more apt.
But after everything we’ve talked about, confronted, confided, I’ve only grown more fond of him.
Umbra relaxes in the orbiter, but notices the purpose in my gait as I approach him, and lay my hand on his neck, letting him feel all the things I feel, and think, of Roathe. Asking him if he would still love me if I let these feelings grow, the same way I've let my feelings for him grow like wildfire—and never stop.
His dislike of Roathe is still there. He still doesn’t see the man as worth my time or care. But I also feel a recognition, and he raises a hand, gesturing at the gilding that covers him. Reminding me he’s from the same era, the same society. A plurality of partners was not a novel concept. Maybe I should have recognized that sooner.
When I go to the cathedral, alone, I think Roathe knows right away what I’m going to ask him.
“What brings you to my private hell?” He quips as I approach. His eyes look me over as I stand in front of him, noticing the distinct lack of Umbra shell.
“I daresay I know you pretty well,” I venture. “And you’ve gleaned somewhat into my opinions as well. But I’m as curious as a kavat, and determined to die like one. So I’m wondering if you’re as curious as me. To take ‘us’ further.”
“Further, you say?” A grin crosses his mouth as he tosses the book in hand over his shoulder. “Do tell.”
A nervous smile presents itself as I lean in close, my fingers touching his chin and tilting his head upwards to meet my lips. I feel him lean into it immediately. His claws touch my cheek tenderly, his warm breath lingers over my skin.
I know the rumors about no one knowing how to love like the Orokin. I have no idea how true that is, but I wager I will find out.
When I move to pull away he grabs my hand, same grin on his face as before. “Someone finally shows a little bit of class around here! But are you so certain you know what you're getting yourself into?”
“No, but I mean to find out,” I reply. “Maybe I’ll figure out why everyone is so eager to demonize you.”
“Because I deserve it,” he retorts. “But far be it from me to correct you. Maybe we should commit some sins together…” he suggests with a snarling laugh.
“You really lean into the whole devil act don't you?” I jest.
Roathe rises from his chair, still gripping my hand in his claws. “It's only too fitting,” he says, wrapping his arms around me, leaning in for a proper kiss. This time craning my neck to reach him. No matter what is spoken of him, or what he admits himself about his morals… He kisses with all the passion of someone who means it desperately.
Everyone has warned me away from him. Even Roathe. They may yet be right, but I stand by my original thesis, that he deserves to be treated like a human being. Just as much as anyone. And I will happily treat him like a handsome devil. He can call me his pet all he wants, but it's me who took the first leap. Into his arms and into his mind.
Everything he does and says speaks to a man that wants to be in control of his situation. Even now—Marie and Lyon would strip him of his power in an instant if they could.
But a burning question lingers in my mind. Roathe claims that Albrecht gave him that serum against his will. He claims that Albrecht brought him to Marie and Lyon and left him in their charge.
In all my chasing after the man, cleaning up the disasters he's left in his wake, he's not inflicted this serum on anyone against their will. Moreover, why inflict this upon Roathe, and then leave him, a much more powerful creature, in the care of a priest and a nun? It doesn't fit Albrecht’s pattern, or make sense.
I stare into his eyes, his sclera turned obsidian black, silvery irises gleaming with lustful intent but also a sweet vulnerability that tells me and me alone that he's putting himself at risk, taking this leap of faith with me. There's almost an innocence to his uncertainty that he tries to hide.
But I know Roathe probably better than anyone left alive… maybe even better than himself, right now. For all the devilish jesting and talk of sin… he yearns for something real.
I offer to take him off of Lyon and Marie’s hands for a bit. “Worst case… I can use transference and drag him back myself,” I say.
For whatever reason, they trust me. I never know if people are simply afraid of me, or if I genuinely have earned trust amongst people like Loid or now these parishioners.
“Don't give me some line about being a kaithe, cantering or otherwise,” I warn him as I lure him away from the cathedral, to a deserted corner of the sanctum, even forgotten by Loid as the dust can attest.
“Not even about a stallion?” He quips, his feet clip clopping on the stone floor—somehow his footsteps alone managing to lend an erotic flavor to his mere existence.
I smile, a bit of blush escaping my control which really makes him grin.
“Look at you,” he says sweetly. “Do you have any idea what that little bit of red in your cheeks does to me?”
“None at all, but…” I raise my hand to his neck, my fingertip tracing the pointed shape of his ear. “I bet you'd love to show me.”
Together in this golden, abandoned corner, he hooks a claw under the collar of my coat, then another, his grinning lips barely touching mine as a menacing chuckle rises out of him.
He's confessed the vicious urges that Uriel imposes on his already compromised morality, but I trust him to keep them… mostly in check.
He rips the garments from my body, casting them aside as his other hand draws me close, presses me against his waist.
“Had I known your mind was so deep in the gutter I would have suggested this ages ago,” he snarls at me, the claws of his left hand and fingertips of his right reach beneath the band of my waist, pushing my remaining clothes away, leaving me naked before this devil, leaning into him, wanting him, yearning for him. That tail of his caressing the inside of my leg, traveling up my thigh—I'll admit, I've wondered what it can do…
“It doesn't suit a devil to give chase,” I remark, briefly closing the gap between our lips again. I take his gauntleted hand in mine, bringing it close, kissing the blue fingers still resembling a human hand.
“So gentle,” he remarks. “As caring with every touch as you are with your words.”
He often makes me feel like a bit of a sap. When I so deliberately try to see his side. I told Lyon I wanted to set Roathe on a better path, but how can I do that without first understanding him?
The claws sink into my skin as he grips down on my waist. I’ve sometimes found Umbra a bit… rough but he's a sight easier to be touched by than this poor soul. But suffering his claws comes easy when his kiss alone sets my heart alight.
He moves to push me up against a long forgotten desk. Groaning as it skids a few inches, Roathe presses his body against mine—that claw relinquishing its hold of me to clear the surface of all its papers and clutter.
His other hand grabs my neck, a mix between vicious and loving, as he pushes me down. The talons wrap my leg around his waist, my other following suit.
“You… are a beautiful creature, pet… and I cannot wait to ravage you, and leave you dripping with devil seed.”
His words do things to my body—making my lust grow, and my heart eager.
He leans forward, the claws moving between my legs as his lips try to silence my gasping moan at his sharp touch.
“Don't you worry… you will enjoy every second of it,” he assures me, as he presses his hot, hard tip between my legs. Gauging my reaction. My interest. Deeming himself welcome.
He sinks between the lips of my womanhood, not yet penetrating inside, but getting ready. Taunting me. Testing me. His eyes burning into mine, taking in every detail of my expression.
“Roathe,” I whisper, caressing his cheek. “Take me.”
His grin turns wolfish, and his clawed hand grabs my face, pressing me down against the desk as he thrusts himself inside me with reckless abandon. I can't hold my voice back.
“Oh, you delicate flower… How you wilt, wrapped around my manhood, so tight like a constricting vine, enjoying every inch I give.”
And I've done precious little to play hard to get. I didn't want to be. I wanted him.
However, it doesn't stop me from just phasing through his sharp grip to wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him as he drives himself deeper into me. I even hear a sound of surprised delight escape his controlled facade as his less sharp hand hugs me even tighter to him in a display of real affection.
“You can be as rough as you want,” I warn him. “but I will have your lips on my skin, Roathe.”
His forehead pressed to mine, a laughing growl in response, he adds “I was hoping you would. Foolish of me to try and deny you. Even the way you look at that Excalibur of yours says it all.”
“Umbra,” I specify his name, or as close as he has, feeling a defensive instinct take over. “And you won't say another word about him.”
“Oh! A nerve!” Roathe nuzzles me gently, retracting himself before plunging in again. “Fear not, pet, I don't judge. But just remember… When you're with me… You're mine, and mine alone.”
I smile, nuzzling him back, and moving in for another kiss.
He pulls away, and sinks in one last time before he finds a rhythm, the desk rocking onto two legs with every movement of his hips. He knows precisely what he wants, displays no shame like Umbra had the first few times, before we could just get lost in each other. Roathe doesn't care that he's half a warframe, for the purpose of getting his rocks off.
It's as refreshing as it is rough. I can tell he is holding himself back but he can't help the sharp protrusions from his body grinding his hips against me, unleashing all the years of unsatisfied lust into mine.
His wavering control brings me to the edge. I can feel him pumping inside me harder and faster, his temperature rising as so much of his energy is focused between my legs, inside me. My teeth latch into his shoulder, my spine arches and Roathe relishes my gasps of relief, and even pain.
“You are easy to please,” he tells me. “I won't hold back, then.” His thrusts become harder, more desperate, even greedy. Like my insides are his plaything. He burns hotter by the moment, in every way. My throbbing insides can't take much more, nearly begging him to finish, begging for it to be over in the best way. As he reaches his own climax, he consciously removes the taloned hand from my body and grips the edge of the desk, wood compressing, claws sinking in, as he lets out a moan of ecstasy I’d have scarce thought him capable of.
Both of us gasping, staring into each other's eyes, I can see a look of horror in his expression as he collapses on the desk next to me. “I… I let myself get carried away…”
I roll atop him, straddling his waist. “I hope you will again some time,” I admit, caressing his cheek as I kiss him again, his chest heaving, his breath hot against my skin, his touch… gentle…
It's like a different man.
Part 2
Roathe hasn't responded for a few days. I've been busy with other things but worrying has gotten the better of me, so I go down to the cathedral and find him, sitting there unbothered. All I can manage is a shrug at him.
“Ah, here to relieve me of the tedium of the day?” He asks me.
“No, I'm here to make sure you're alright. I thought Marie and Lyon killed you and didn't know how to tell me.”
He laughs, “They wouldn't have a snowflake’s chance.”
“You haven't spoken in days. I…” Maybe I’m just being clingy. But Roathe grabs my hand, smiling at me.
“You're too sweet for this world,” he tells me. “I've merely been relishing the freedom of not getting murdered by you. On repeat. And not worrying about whatever else was locked away.”
“We have to get your memories back at some point,” I tell him. “I don't like it either. But I know it's important to you, deep down. Whatever you're scared of finding—”
“If any of it were so important, why tuck it away?” He interrupts.
I sigh, making no progress. Again.
Turning to leave he quips “and here I thought you might sit on my lap.”
“Not until you come to your senses,” I respond.
I approach Lyon, looming opposite him at the altar.
His eyes shift up at me, and he raises his hands to his face, the stress of it all getting to him. “Lovers quarrel?” He asks, lowering his hands.
“He's shut me out,” I confess. “And I don't know how to convince him.”
“Sometimes asking for forgiveness is easier than permission, but you didn't hear that from me,” he says with a coy smile. “Roathe will never give you permission if his sense of dignity is at risk.”
I sigh. My fingers curling into fists on this altar as my frustration grows. “Maybe. But going behind his back?”
“If your conscience weighs on you, I know a priest who can take your confession,” he adds. “But Sol knows you do his work.”
In frustration, I return to the orbiter.
Umbra knows it's bothering me. I take his hand, asking his thoughts on it.
His sense of determination is at the forefront of his emotions. There is also a measure of… Just deserts.
“I… may have given you a generous read on ‘justice’ at first,” I admit. “You want him to have to sit with whatever he's done.”
I smile at Umbra, the unwavering glare affirming my understanding. My hand glides up his arm and over his shoulder as my other arm follows suit, hugging him.
He embraces me in kind. Knowing my read on the situation is different.
“I might be wasting my time. You're right. But you already know I'm not going to give up that easily. We have some Descendia to run.”
I transfer into him and we go back in. We go back down to the bottom and Roathe is there. I don't understand how it works, but he's there.
“I told you to stop!” He shouts. “I'm fine!”
“Roathe, we have to do this,” I remind him. “You know as well as I do that no matter what these memories are, we’ll get through them.”
“Can never just leave well enough alone,” He snarls at me. “A blistering kiss, for you!”
His fire burns hotter today. Umbra’s shields get depleted quickly, and even the hound’s shield boosting isn't enough. I try to retreat a distance away but that damn Gulphagor is on us, gnashing and clawing. As embarrassing as it is, when Roathe strikes us again we fall. Umbra and I both.
“On your knees, where you belong,” Roathe growls.
I transfer out of Umbra, crumbling to my knees. The air here burns my skin, but I make him look me in the eyes. “Roathe…”
He grins at me, and grabs my face. As the alarms of the dark refractory ring in my ears he thrusts his broiling cock down my throat.
As I come to, in the pool, gasping and angry and upset all at once, I look up at Umbra. “I'm sorry…” I say to him. “I didn't… I’ll fix it.”
I rethink the build for him, swapping some things around. Making sure that he can withstand Roathe’s attacks next time. Before I can approach the pool again he stops me, moving himself between me and the water, staring.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, even though I’m not. “I'm embarrassed,” I say, and it’s not a lie but it’s… definitely not everything. “Embarrassed that I let that happen to you. Embarrassed that I let that happen to me.”
I move to walk past him but he stops me again, grabs my shoulder and spins me back towards him.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, my temper wearing thin, or rather… feeling defensive and… letting my temper erupt as a result.
He’s worried. Angry. Still confused as to why I’m doing all, and the further I go, the more I am, too. But I don’t know what else to do.
I get back in the water, and close my eyes. “Again.”
As I approach the throne this time, Roathe laughs. “You want more? I can give you more. Step out of that husk, darling.”
I don't even respond to him this time. I just set to killing. This time he doesn't stand a chance. And when I clutch the blade and drive it through his heart I stare into his eyes as he fades.
“I do… hate… this part.” He tells me. And so do I.
Again. And again. And again.
I delve into the descendia over and over, and each time Roathe pleads with me to stop. Even begs. Each time a new memory opens up for him and I hear his recollection of trying his best to strategize against the sentients, only to fail. Trying to game Nitokh only to fail. Trying to game his men, and lie to them, only to turn those lies on himself behind closed doors and weep with futility and desperation. The final piece of the puzzle falls into place and Roathe laments about history remembering him as a coward, because he vanished. His men, all transformed into devils thinking their fearless and ruthless commander fled. The woman he served and loved, abandoned. His plot to overthrow all of it, deserted. Because he took that serum from Albrecht himself. To start anew.
“Coward,” he calls himself, as he fades in my arms one last time.
The sound of the alarms rising around us as I yell “You're not a coward!” But instead scream it into the empty room of the refractory pools, Umbra kneeling at the edge, seething.
I close my eyes, tears welling up because I know how much this hurts Roathe. I can feel it all in there.
I curl up in the water, clutching my knees and crying into my lap because I know.
And I have to confront him in person, now. He is going to be so angry that I dredged it all up. Stripped him of his own control and ideals of himself and proved that what he knew was wrong.
I carry myself to the cathedral, steeling my heart for the confrontation. Battling him is one thing but facing him like this… After that last fight…
As I set foot in the dreary stone walls the angry clip-clop of his feet approaches me. “Why!?”
“We had to,” I start.
“You idiot! I told you, time and time again, to stop!” He shoves me, backs me into the wall. Marie and Lyon watch, but know this is a difficult conversation that must be had.
“Roathe—it’s okay,” I tell him. “None of it defines who you are, now!”
He lashes out, grabbing my throat, talon pressing into my skin. “I should burn you to ash,” he snarls.
Umbra moves himself between us. Stares Roathe down with the same silent glare as when the two of us are playing Komi, listening to Cut Through and mutually pretending it isn't special to either of us, when he's carefully folding a paper flower, dismissing the hounds, turning off Ordis’ comms, and locking the door to the chambers. Because he knows what's going to come next, like he always does.
“Out of my way, Dax. I’ll rid us both of this betrayer,” he snarls, knowing full well that Umbra can't fight him on his own. Umbra knows it too, but stands there anyway.
I reach out and touch Umbra’s shoulder, vanishing out of Roathe’s grip and into safety.
Part 3
Just like I curled up in the refractory pools, I curl up in the recesses of Umbra’s psyche.
He goes back to the camp where we first met all those years ago. Me stumbling out of the forest and into his life. Normally I would step out of him and lose my mind on my own but this time… I don't.
He feels all my fear and sadness, but at no point wants to shut me out, his own emotional embrace telling me to stay right where I am for as long as I need.
He kneels in the sun, near the waterfall, meditating. Keeping his calm as hard as he can while I lose my shit in his head.
Kahl and Chipper both stare at him, and Chipper tries to ask if we're okay, but of course Umbra doesn't answer him. After a while they give up, assuming Umbra is alone for a change.
From his perspective, I see the sun set, and the moon glisten on the water. Patch comes to find Umbra who reaches out and pets the poor thing, even as it tries to coax him into play. I watch Lua come and lay in his lap as kavats do, Umbra accepting that she's there…
I tried so hard to meet Roathe half way. I wanted him to know that he's not just a devil. He's a person worth getting to know, to understand, and worth going through the hellfire of the Descendia to help.
I thought that if I showed him that not everyone wants to dismiss him as a villain, maybe he would course correct and try to be better. But instead he took it as blind acceptance for all his malignance. That morals and scrutiny are for lesser beings… like myself.
Through it all, Umbra kneels placidly. He brought me home and planted himself in the most calming spot he could find for me to explode into a million pieces as he quietly holds them all together... Not letting one piece slip through the cracks.
When the sun comes up the next day and Umbra still hasn't moved, I finally come out. I manifest in his lap the way the kavat often does, staring up at him with eyes yearning for attention. He reaches down and strokes my cheek, gentle as can be…
A unique exhaustion lingers. I’ve exerted so much emotion over the last day that there is none left. All of it still snaps to the forefront, though I try to focus on what I know I need to do next.
I never expected that I would be in this position, making the choice that I am about to. I spent centuries as a victim of this very thing, and here I'm about to inflict it on someone else. Someone I've come to care deeply for. Someone who is about to forget who I even am. I have no right to, but I'm going to. I guess deep down I'm just another Orokin, willing to do unthinkable things because I think it's the right, if not the most ethical, choice…
How I'll reconcile it all going forward, I have no idea—if I manage to at all. I think about Umbra, and how he had his memories stolen too.
In some twisted and desperate attempt to rationalize my choice I think… Surely Albrecht brought Roathe to Lyon and Marie for a reason. Surely he saw a need to… somehow make this Devil of Tau… a better man.
I walk up to the pom-2, that familiar cheery music playing. The green and happy background reminding me so much of Duviri during Joy. I go into the system settings and click on the cathedral.
No PC should have this kind of power—to, at the touch of a button, reset a group of people, a pocket of time and space. I refrain from using it as much as I can, though I still remember slamming my fist against the cement in that power plant—Thrax's voice mirrored in my head. Again!
I click the button and the history in the KIM vanishes before my eyes, I wonder what, if anything, any of them feel in that moment, but am almost glad that I don’t know.
Part 4
I walk past Loid in the Sanctum, waving and smiling as I enter the cathedral. Lyon and Marie pay me no mind as I approach Roathe in the corner.
He preemptively sets down the book in his hand, a smile on his face as I approach, more sincere than I’m… honestly used to. “And what can I do for you?”
“Want to take a trip with me?” I ask. “I thought you could use a break from this place.”
“Whisk me away like some damsel?” He surmises with a grin. “I thought you'd never ask.”
It's a real leap of faith, to bring Roathe to Duviri. I’ve avoided going back a long time… it incites such complicated feelings. He asks me questions and I can't even… find the words to answer him honestly.
I extend my hand to him and when he puts his palm to mine, I use transference with this devil for the first time.
A feud washes over me between his own thoughts and the intrusive notions that erupt from Uriel in the background. More than that, as hard as he tries to bury it, I can feel the intense anger and disapproval he carries toward himself, and everything he's become. More than anything else, that crushes me.
“Hmm. I cannot express how unprepared I was for… this,” he admits.
I whisk away this handsome damsel to the enchanted kingdom of my childhood that he is so curious about.
In an effort to, I guess, surprise him, I take control and close his eyes.
“Oh we’re doing this, are we?” He asks, playing along. “How quaint.”
Duviri manifests around us, the colors of joy saturate the land in green and yellow, the air smells of flowers and grasses, the sun is warm. With the golden towers looming in the background, the beautiful landscape before us, I let him open his eyes.
He says nothing but I can feel his interior awe of the sight. The familiarity and recognition of high Orokin society, preserved in this little… pocket dimension. The colors and the architecture and the aesthetics of it all make what remains of the Orokin he was, look like he belongs, and hit him with a wave of nostalgia that I've never known. A sense of ‘returning home’ that he was even less prepared for than the transference.
Vocally a staggered laugh escapes him, but I feel everything going on in his head. A triumphant recognition, realizing he outlived Orokin empire and a sad sense of mockery at his own expense for the same thing. That without the Orokin empire, he has nothing.
I step out, realizing it’s…. Rude to linger in his thoughts in a moment like this. Even though he didn’t have any internal protest for my being there… It didn’t feel right.
His eyes shift to me with the saddest smile on his face. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”
But, I didn’t bring him here just to give him a melancholy trip down memory lane. “I wanted to share a part of myself that… I really don’t share very often. The Hex have asked so many damned questions about this place… But I’ve never dragged any of them here. But I knew that… on some level… You’d get it. Once you saw it.”
“Did you bring me here before you trifled with my memories?” he asks me.
I’m not sure if he’s asking because of how familiar it feels, or if he’s just wondering if this is a re-attempt at the same tactic. “No. And maybe that was… part of the problem. I…” I stop and think about my words, and then sit on the green grass, looking out over the floating islands and everything on them. “I’m really sorry, Roathe.”
He sighs deeply and sits beside me. “If I had been given the same choices—the same power—as you, I can’t promise I wouldn’t do far worse things with it,” he admits. “I can fault you for your tact, but not… your intent.”
After everything—tried, done, reset—I can’t tell which of my heartstrings are being pulled by the weight of it all, and which are being pulled by the residual emotions from being in his head. But I can feel the sting of tears in my eyes and the failed attempts to bite them back. The color around us fades as this universe responds to my emotions. My excitement and ‘joy’ at bringing him here, as if seeing the ‘solution’ so clearly, fades as a harder truth surfaces to the forefront.
Somehow, despite it all, I still see the man who was crafted through the centuries of his society, hardened into the Grand Carnus, but deep down, just a guy who didn’t deserve everything that happened to him. Doesn’t deserve all the shit he’s taking now, even from me, but that I’ve had to give him to try and get him on the path he does… deserve…
And I hate it. I hate pretending that I don’t see how he arrived where he did. Because I do. I see it all.
And as stupid as it sounds—feels—I want to kiss him again.
“I’ll be honest with you,” I start, looking up at him. Still trying and failing to keep my tears to myself. “You’ve told me how few real friends you had. I didn’t blame you for assuming that whatever situation we had was going to fall into a similar situation… And I guess that’s part of why I brought you here. I thought maybe I could… Show you that I want to be a real friend.” Even as I’m saying it though, I realize that’s not the entire truth. “Honestly, I want to be more than your friend, and hoped that bringing you here would show you that. Somehow.”
“It has,” he admits. “It’s the first real thing I’ve ever seen in my life. So I’m left wondering—what ever are you waiting for?”
I look him in his silvery gleaming eyes, the corner of his mouth curling before I lean in close, hesitant, the tip of my nose touching his briefly before I commit. It could all go terribly wrong. I don’t think I could handle it, if it does but… my own greed for him clouds my mind. Enough that I lean into him just a little more, just enough to kiss him and feel that warmth again.
Eyes closed, my heart sinking into him in freefall, his fingertips touch my cheek, followed by his palm as he pulls me in.
The first real thing he’s ever seen—as impossible as that sounds, I believe him. Though it only puts the pressure on more for me to be everything I can for him. And I want to.
Opening my eyes, the world’s color has returned, stronger than ever. Roathe sees it too, eyes flitting about at the trees, the flowers, the grass, then back to me.
Smiling, I reach up and touch the… ‘chyrinth’ that adorns his face, sheepishly asking to remove it, wanting to see his face unsullied with accessories.
He breathes a laugh and closes his eyes, a quiet granting of permission. Gingerly I remove it, setting it in the grass beside us. “Better?” he asks.
I smile and put my hand to his cheek, feeling the contours of his jaw and sharp structure of his cheekbone, his blue skin starkly contrasted to my own, entrancing. Just like the others, so much lost to the infestation.
I don’t know what all of Albrecht’s plans are—and I think I’d be foolish to speculate—but I am selfishly counting the silver lining of meeting Roathe—complicated and heart-rending as it’s been. Irrational and stupid as I am for letting my heart lead me as I have. But somehow I think that… This was the point. Roathe and I simply playing whatever weird part we have in the plan. And perhaps seeing Roathe at his worst was part of it too.
The grass around us erupts with flowers, in a radiating wave, the two of us stand up in surprise, the bright greens and yellows shifting to an almost pinkish rose hue as the grasses turn flaxen amidst the wildflowers. The trees grow vines of petals, the water shimmers to reflect the aurora of color in the sky, the two of us observe the change, Roathe clearly assuming this is normal while I…
I’ve never seen this shade of Duviri. The spiral is joy, anger, envy, sorrow and fear—this is none of them. This is new. An emotion that Duviri never had before.
Love…
Of course. That’s what Duviri’s been missing.
I turn back to Roathe, and just as he notices my attention on him, I kiss him again. This time with the understanding and the confidence and passion that it brings. Surprised at first, he leans into the moment quickly.
I shove him, smile on my face. Jumping and throwing my arms around him as he lets himself topple to the ground, grinning at me, not unlike the first time, in the sanctum—but both of us have changed so much since then. Now it feels like an acknowledgement rather than recognizing an opportunity.
Staring down at him, his beautiful face framed in the flower petals that surround us, I can finally admit what Duviri has already understood and confessed on my behalf.
“I love you, Roathe…” I speak the words with all the knowledge of his memories, his past, his want to make a better world… Because I know that a good person is buried deep in there, and I’ve been dragging him back out kicking and screaming.
“... I’d never realized that I had love for Nitokh, until you pointed it out,” he tells me, his hand reaching up to me and pulling me closer while his other rests on my waist. “But I can say with certainty that I love you, even before this kingdom of yours laid it out so plainly. When I found myself in this time, and learned about ‘the Usurper’, I never expected that my own heart would be next,” he grins.
I laugh, his refusal to stop calling me that persisting. And how can I even argue about it now?
His silver fingernails travel down my skin, finding the clasps of my jacket. He works them open deftly and the difference in his approach is not lost on me, from before. I know the talons of his left hand will hook into my skin, when the passion takes him, but the furious greed in his lust is more controlled, as he unveils me.
Bringing his hand to my face, I run my fingers over the organic metal that has grown over his knuckles and joints, kissing his palm and removing the armor, moving my lips down his forearm, taking the armor from his shoulder, an occasional surviving patch of his tender blue skin lingering underneath, split with red that blurs the line between enameled flesh and armor subsumed into his very being.
I explore him amidst the wild petals, stealing all the armor from his body that I can—seeing as much of him as I can. Knowing he is still in there. Beneath Uriel, beneath the veneer of the Grand Carnus, beneath the title of Nitokh’s concubine, strategist, advisor, commander of Dax, beneath all the cruel lies, terrible deeds, devilish reputation… Is a man begging to be remembered.
Beneath the remnants of that chest plate, the rough and jagged flesh of Uriel seizes much of his torso, bits of the armor grown into it, never to be relinquished, but it doesn’t matter to me. I touch and kiss every inch of him indiscriminately, working my way to the ornate loincloth that dangles about his waist.
All the while, he watches me, his eyes re-memorizing the details I’d stolen from him— of my face, my body. Seeming surprised that none of it deters me. Finally he leans forward, wrapping his fingers behind my neck, thumb stroking my ear, he kisses me, then my neck, then my shoulder.
The silver fingertips trace down the front of my body, and between my legs, a smile widens across his face as he nuzzles me. His touch, gentle enough to be almost tickling as he feels his way in, the fingernails sharp but cautious, before he pulls his hand away and replaces it with his manhood, not untouched by the infestation—gorged with lust. But feeling him again, in all his intensity, is such a gift.
Moving his hands to my waist, he pulls me down, pressing himself deeper. A moan escapes him, his sharp body against mine, as I touch his gray, volcanic chest, the hot energy that escapes his ribs, glowing under my fingers.
“Roathe… I missed you so much,” I confess, the regret plain on my face, even if torn between lust.
“Well then, I’ll be on my best behavior. Maybe that way you won’t have to again,” he tells me with a quiet chuckle.
If I fuck this all up again, I don’t deserve any of it, but Roathe is surprisingly… accepting of the situation. Surprisingly genuine.
Wrapping an arm around my shoulder, he lays back again, pulling me with him as he starts a rhythm, kissing me again as I move with him.
“Yes,” I whisper almost involuntarily, grabbing the hooked growth on his shoulder.
The spiked chains on his waist clink together in tandem with our movement, flower petals fly on the breeze around us and he refuses to let go. The strength he exerts into me grows with his pace, and his eventual dissatisfaction with his own leverage. He rolls, pushing me down into the flowers and throwing one of my legs over his shoulder, holding my wrist to the grass with his other hand, at first kissing my leg, then biting it, as he thrusts harder against my hips, wanting in deeper. His tail coils around my ankle, keeping me splayed wide open to him.
“What will it take?” he asks in a growl. “What do I have to do to make sure you never have to miss what I feel like? Because no matter how many times you ‘reset’ me, I won’t forget the feeling of you, clenched around me, again. I know your hand now—been counting cards.”
“Yes, Roathe,” I repeat again, his name worming its way on my lips as I enjoy both him and his demanding tone. “Don’t stop.” I plead.
“Trust me I won’t,” he says quietly. “I’m going to fuck you until you understand, Usurper.”
“U-understand what?” I ask breathlessly.
He leans forward, folding me in half as he pushes even deeper inside of me to whisper into my ear, “That I’m here to stay. That I’m yours. That I won’t lose you again to whatever cost ‘us’ the first time around.”
His declarations melt my heart, and I want to proclaim that it was me, it was my poor judgement, and my inability to grow a spine and tell him he was twisted. It was my fault, and not his. But if I do, it puts it all at risk again, so instead I cling to him, and kiss him, and run my fingers through his hair, feeling his need, as dire as my own.
He nuzzles my neck, kisses it, bites down, his pace becoming more intense, each breath becoming shorter and every moan more desperate.
The thought of him spilling freely inside me sends me over the edge, and my uncontained, unabashed cry of lust makes it real. He plunges, his voice catches, and we both remain locked together, every fiber of our being tensed and simultaneously, blissfully, released.
After a moment, Roathe’s teeth release my skin, and instead he nuzzles me and kisses me in a markedly different way. Quiet, slow, tender. The sort of kiss that speaks not to passion as it had previously, but to love—meant to reach my very soul. True, honest and as naked as we are, lying here like so many flowers.