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November 10 - November 11, 2025
Fairhrim directed a small, shy smile towards Choking Hazard. (She had never managed a small, shy smile towards Osric. Simply a note for the record.)
Osric noticed it only because he had, himself, gone still, as he decided where to amputate Choking Hazard’s arm because he had touched his Haelan.
A glove was waved Aurienne’s way. “You make everything so unpoetic.” “I’m sorry. Would you like me to say it again, in iambic pentameter?” “Yes.”
Fyren: lukewarmest greetings. No tutu today?”
After the usual friendly exchange—Osric threatened to turn the deofol into a toilet brush; the deofol advised him that his chin looked like a testicle—Osric received directions to a clinic in the village of Mortehoe, in Dumnonia.
“D’you think I should ask her about my droopy ball?” asked Leofric. “This is a clinic for torn nipples.” “How’d you tear yours?” “Polo.” “Posh cunt,” said Leofric.
“More than you,” said Leofric. “I’ve never met a Haelan before. She wasn’t that bad, honestly, was she? Bit prim, but that’s to be expected; they’ve all got bargepoles up their arses. She didn’t judge me in the slightest for the nipple clamps. Shall I wait for you? D’you want me to hold your hand while she diddles your nipple?”
“Bit disappointed he didn’t See me coming, to be honest,” said Osric.
“—but I am, nevertheless, choosing to put my trust in you.” “Don’t. I don’t know where it’s been.” “Cruel. I was being vulnerable.”
She wasn’t charmed by him; she wasn’t frightened by him; she wasn’t seduced or intrigued by or remotely curious about anything to do with him. Who did she think she was? Her utter lack of interest killed him. He hated her.
“You and your brains,” he breathed. “You and all your pretty edges. You’re doing it.”
What did having one’s hand kissed by a Fyren feel like? Reckless. Heady. Like life being lived. Like an impending disaster.
Learned quickly that emergency medicine is the science of making it internal medicine’s problem. And the two on the far right are yours?”
and, worst of all, the Fyren had kissed her hand, and it gave her blushes instead of shudders of morbid disgust to think about it, and everything was Wrong.
Aurienne eyed Xanthe. Xanthe eyed Aurienne. “Good thing about my blimp-sized bollocks,” said Aurienne. “May they carry you swiftly, and may the winds be fair,” said Xanthe.
“May I ask about your companion?” Mordaunt clattered into a semblance of a guardish position beside Aurienne, who said, “This is my protector, Phlegmley. He’s one of our sergeants at Swanstone.
(A knight in shining armour he wasn’t, but a knight in shining passive aggression—yes.)
“Have you got the time? I hadn’t the room for a watch in this stupid armour; it hasn’t any pockets.” “Should’ve put it in your codpiece,” said Aurienne, consulting her pocket watch. “My codpiece is already full.” “Of what?” “My cod.” Aurienne cast a cynical eye towards the codpiece. “Had to coil it up,” said Mordaunt.
“Never mind how,” said Aurienne. “I’ve just killed Lord Wellesley.” Mordaunt tutted. “Murderer.” He stood over Wellesley’s corpse and wiggled a finger over it in a circle. “That was meant to be my job. I was going to enjoy it. But I forgive you.”
“Yes. This is my—Friend,” she said, having never sounded so constipated around a word. “Osric Hungwell,” said Osric, offering his hand to Fairhrim’s parents.
Osric continued to feel superior to Fairhrim, and all was well in the world, except for the knife in his guts, and the fact that she might, after all, be prettier than him.
“Do you know how lucky you are that your bowels weren’t perforated? I’m still not certain whether or not I need to involve Cath—” “Who’s Cath?” “A trauma specialist.” “Short for Catheter, I suppose.”
The touch of his fevered hands had no grammar; there was no orthography to the pain of her heart squeeze.
Just pretty. Osric did not want Fairhrim to be beautiful. He was susceptible to beauty. He was an Appreciator of beautiful things. He wanted to acquire them. He wanted them to be his.
“Although Perfect Aedan has got faults.” “Which?” asked Aurienne. “Have you seen his ears?” “What’s wrong with them?” “They’re massive.” “They aren’t.” “Look at those things, scooping up the very air. Could he leave some decibels for the rest of us?”
“Very well. I will dance as nature intended.” “Barefoot, tipsy, and with flowers in your hair.” “You paint a lovely picture.” “You are a lovely picture.”
Then came the tender apocalypse of his lips on hers.
Her body didn’t know what her brain knew; her heart beat wild in her chest; breathing became an act of discipline, irregular ins and outs and ins and outs between the press of rain-wet lips.
He released a long, shuddering breath against her skin. He held her against him rather possessively for a kiss that meant nothing.
Cristina Neves liked this
He released hers slowly. Leather slid against silk, palm slid against palm, fingertip slid against wet fingertip, and whatever had been woven between them stretched and tore and severed with a snap.
It was meant to be only a dance. But she had looked up at him, and he had discovered how her wet hair caught pentagrams of stars, and watched raindrops trickle down her throat and make a necklace of moon glitter there, and the kleptomaniac urge had risen, and he, weak-willed fool that he was, had yielded to it.
Her touch was an aching, fragile beauty. It was a hinge that swung him into something else. An awareness. An understanding that came in a bursting, ecstatic, agonised thrill. He and she sat in the moonlight as lover and beloved. He hadn’t paid attention. He had been stupid—gods, so stupid. He no longer owned his heart.
