Private Tales The Fall

[Feyre]

Fey hadn't realised how hard she'd been pulling on the man's grip until she collided with the ground. By the time she looked up, his fingers were already squeezing on the trigger and she'd yelled at him to stop before she realised what she was saying.

There was a numbness that came with watching the bolt collide. Of course it was satisfying to see the beast she so passionately loathed being struck down, but there was also a short, sharp burst of fear that coursed through her that eased slightly as she heard his voice and watched him struggle to sit up. The old man had failed to kill him with the first shot, and whilst she'd believed it'd been the devil's wrath that she'd feared, she realised quickly that there was more to it than that.

She scrambled toward Raziel and reached to grab one of the knives, but rather than turn it on him this time she turned, brandishing it from her knees as she stared up at the man who already had his second bolt loaded. "I said stop!" she demanded, realising that a blade was of very little use should he decide to shoot her.

"You can't protect me." she frowned at the old farmer, her voice quivering and her breaths frantic. "And until I find someone who can, I need him, Devil or not."

 

[Raziel]

So this was how he died. Shot by a bumpkin and then knifed to death by a noble brat. Raziel looked down at the feathered shaft sticking out of his chest. It was fascinating to watch his own lifeforce being leached away.

The tiefling let out a quiet sigh. He wondered if he would feel the final moment of his own life acutely. Was it a jarring switch from life to death or a slow slip into the darkness.

Feyre turned the knife on the farmer. This was even more fascinating. For once he did not say anything. A sudden renewed vigor had him drawing himself up to one knee. He remained silent, watching to see how this would play out.

The farmer was looking between Feyre and a pitchfork against the wall. He had expected this no more than Raziel.

 

[Feyre]

For a moment, the man seemed to consider shooting them both and being done with it.. "Move now, girl.. Let me put the beast out of it's misery." he grumbled at her, his tone carrying an edge of warning.

"No." she answered quickly, her fingers tightening on the blade. "Please, please go back inside with your wife. Let me help him and we will be on our way, take the coin for your troubles. There is no reason for anyone else to be hurt... And when my father finds out that you pointed that weapon at me you can be certain that you'll live out the remainder of your days in a cell. Now please go."

The man's brow furrowed and he spat at the ground before taking a few slow steps backwards. Feyre watched him step out of the barn, and the moment he did she turned to Raziel and dropped the blade, looking over him in assessment of his wounds. She wasn't a healer, but the fact that he was still alive and upright had to be a good thing. "Can you ride?"

She could still feel the crossbow aimed at her back, but she tried to ignore it.

 

[Raziel]

He became intrinsically aware of how difficult it was to breathe. Normally it was like the beating of the heart, something that happened. Now, with the bolt lodged just below his collarbone, each breath was agony.

"I'll ride away from here," he growled.

He didn't question this. Raziel did not fear death itself. If he did, then he would have chosen a very different path. That did not mean he wanted to throw away all the excitement he could get out of more years of life.

Raziel stood up slowly. There was grim determination on his face, despite the colour having drained away.

The reins were slippery, his hands slick with blood. Breathing slow and shallow he leaned on the horse for a moment.

"To a stream," he said quietly.

 

[Feyre]

Feyre nodded quickly. She couldn't lift him, but she looked around and rushed to drag a small barrel toward him to help him get up. She linked the horses reins, her attention shifting back to toward the farm house every few seconds to make sure he wasn't coming back, and she pulled herself up into the saddle behind him and reached around him to grip the bloody reins.

She could smell the familiar blood and smoke and she held down the nausea it conjured and kicked hard at Kaval's sides and urged him onward. The shallow river they'd crossed wasn't far, and she grit her teeth until they got there. She led them through a copse of trees and into the clearing before she'd slip down and offer her hand up to him with a stubborn look of defiance.

 

[Raziel]

There was no joy in her expression as she offered a hand. No smug satisfaction in the reversal of their roles. He would not have begrudged her that. Feyre had done what she felt needed to be done, despite how it made her feel. He could respect that.

Raziel took the offered hand and slipped down to his feet. Darkness encroached on the edges of his vision. His considerable willpower kept him upright.

"We are going....to the water...to get this out of me..." he said to her. He was going to need her help with this. He didn't have the strength left. Whilst the blood was power and power could become magic, there was nothing to be done until the bolt was removed.

Raziel took two slow steps away from her and drew a knife. His coat had come from a fine tailor on College Street in Elbion. Bringing the knife to cut from the arrowhead to the lapels came with regret.

He stumbled to the waterside, shedding his coat and then his shirt. The smooth crimson skin of his arms and chest were covered in pale fine lines. A thousand small cuts to learn his trade in blood rituals.

Raziel dropped to his knees. This time he applied to point of the knife to himself. With his eyes screwed shut he sliced his own flesh. The tip of the blade followed the wooden shaft until it found the point. Still intact. Lodged in his ribs.

He was breathing fast and hard. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He was barely away of Feyre's presence, but managed to speak.

"Pull it out," he groaned. "If it...helps...this will hurt me...a lot..."

 

[Feyre]

Feyre could only watch. She followed him to the water's edge and knelt close by, her honey hues fixed on him as though afraid he might break at any moment. It was a fear she hadn't expected, and one that confused her. Amidst her loathing of the demon, was the realisation that she needed him, and she needed him alive, well and capable if she had any chance of getting to where she needed to go. He'd both ruined and saved her life, even from her own hands, and he'd let her live after she'd attempted to murder him in his sleep. She felt sure that he wasn't going to hurt her, at least not yet, and in that certainty it was difficult not to feel safe.

Her gaze wandered over his crimson sinews and the scars scribbled all over him, her gaze narrowing slightly under a furrowing brow as he pried the blade into his own flesh. She felt saliva thicken at the back of her throat with the nausea she felt as she watched, his words making her more anxious still.

"I.." her jaw clenched. For once, hurting him wasn't her priority. She let out a groan of her own and shuffled closer to him, her bloody hand reaching to curl her fingers around the protruding arrow shaft and she gripped hard as the other hand came to rest on his shoulder. "On three.." she nodded and let out a long breath and readied herself..

"One....." and instead of the second count, she yanked the arrow as hard as she could.

 

[Raziel]

He threw his head back and cursed the sky. Tendons went taut across his neck. His tail whipped back and forth in a frenzy behind him. It hadn't needed to be a surprise. The point was to use the knife as the same time to ensure the point came out.

Too late.

Raziel collapsed forward, one hand grasping her shoulder just to stay upright. The pain of the thing coming out was far, far worse than going in. Fire seemed to be trying to burn his lungs out from the inside. His body was trying to breathe hard and fast, to send him into shock. At the same time each movement was his chest was exquisite agony.

He felt his own pulse start to slow, the pain having sent its rhythm wild. With a trembling hand he reached for the river. He had knelt down just close enough to grab handfuls of water to clean the wound. Stained pink, it streamed down his chest with each splash.

"Is the point...in tact?" he asked.

 

[Feyre]

Her body jolted in fright at his furious pain and she grimaced, half expecting him to retaliate. Her fingers held fast onto the broken shaft, for should she need to defend herself she wouldn't have thought twice about jamming it into his eye.

She was rigid as he buckled forward and held onto her, her heart pounding in her chest and her breaths heaving to keep up. Fey watched as he cupped the water to clean the wound, and she glanced to the arrow in her hand and her heart struck up to a pitch once more as she realised what he'd meant. There was no arrowhead attached, the wood had splintered. She swallowed nervously, and held the wooden shaft out to him with a look of mute apology and apprehension..

"Perhaps we'd be better getting you to a town, we can't be far from the next.." she reasoned hesitantly.

 

[Raziel]

"Fuck!" he hissed.

One of those guards had made it back. If they stopped moving and anyone came asking with a description of his appearance they would find him helpless and bedbound if infection set in.

Raziel tried to slow his breathing and his frantic pulse. He reached for his coat and rifled through the pockets.

There was no pleasant answer as to why he would have a set of blood-stained plyers in a coat pocket. Especially not for Feyre.

"Do you know...how to set a fire going?" he asked. Raziel was quite determined to see this done now.

 

[Feyre]

Her golden eyes seemed to darken as they settled on the grisly tool he’d fished from his coat pocket, her cheeks paling a little in accordance with the cold sweat she felt rush down her spine. Her mouth was dry and so she swallowed as he asked her about a fire and her head shook at first. She’d never had to start a fire before, and rather than admit that she cleared her throat and nodded quickly. “I.. can try.” She’d seen it done too many times not to have gotten the basic idea, and so she let go of him and stood to collect what she could find on the forest floor, dried grass for kindling, small twigs and a few larger branches, and she formed a small pile on a larger rock by the water’s edge.

If only she had a fucking candle…

Rocks…or wood… She didn’t want to ask him, and so she settled on finding two rocks and she knelt over the little pile, and struck them together, over and over, flinching every time she smashed or grazed her fingers which quickly bled for they were not used to such manual labour. Her jaw clenched as she continued, until finally the spark caught hold of the kindling and her gaze widened. “HAH!” She knelt closer and blew gently on the flame, spreading it through the kindling until it crawled over the larger branches and the fire grew.

Yes.. she could get a fire going…

 

[Raziel]

Raziel had washed the pliers as well as he could. If he was stopped on a road by bandits he supposed they might have thought him some kind of field surgeon for the tools he carried. He did not put people back together.

He instructed her to hold the leather of the pliers and to hold them over the flames. He didn't know why burning the implements clean stopped sickness reaching the blood, but it did. Now came the hard part.

Raziel didn't trust her to try this. Not one bit. Even as the darkness threatened to draw him under and his hands trembled. He held both the pliers and the knife, finding the metal head with the blade. He grasped and twisted and pulled.

He screamed to the sky, a raw, unfiltered cry of pain. Pliers and arrowhead went flying, splashing in the shallow waters. Raziel's head lolled to the side and he finally let the pain drag him under.

 

[Feyre]

Her nose wrinkled as she looked down at the pliers in her hand, wondering how many people he'd tortured with them. She clenched her jaw and huffed, holding them over the flame as he'd instructed, and after handing them back to him she moved to the other side of the little fire to watch him, deciding it best to keep her distance. She was glad he hadn't asked her to do it, unsure her stomach would have handled such a grisly task.

Her gaze narrowed as his screams rattled in her ears, but she watched all the same. Her stomach was strong enough to watch this, to see him in pain, to see him weak, to see him fall unconscious. She stared at him laying there for quite some time without expression as thoughts rushed through her mind and she took her time trying to piece them together. It crossed her mind, several times, how easy it would have been to kill him now, but she'd already had that opportunity, she'd already stopped the old man from firing another shot, she'd already helped him because she knew she needed him and she growled irritably as she finally crawled to his unconscious body and pushed him onto his side.

She used one of his blades to cut some fabric from his shirt and she wrapped it under his arm and around the wound as best as she could before covering him with his jacket and letting him rest by the fire. After tying the horses and washing in the stream, she lay down at the opposite side of the fire, and let the flames lull her to a much needed sleep.

 

[Raziel]

"You didn't kill me," Raziel observed. The sun had been up for a short time now, but hadn't crested the trees. Wisps of cloud were salmon streaks woven through the pale blue sky. There was an off silence in the air.

Raziel didn't stand up. He was lying down on the other side of the fire. The other side of what had been a fire. It was just a pile of ash now.

He barely moved, amber eyes watching her intently, waiting for her to stir. When she did start to wake he repeated his observation.

The pain was growing by the second. It felt as if his chest was connected to the space behind his eyes. Certain the pain pulsed in both places to the same rhythm.

 

[Feyre]

A shiver rippled over her as she stirred, though whether it was due to the cold that had settled in her bones or the devil's voice rousing her from her vexatious slumber was uncertain. Her dark lashes forced their way open and her sleepy gaze met his, and she let out a quiet groan that came with sleeping on the cold, hard ground and realising once again how utterly fucked her life was, and that it hadn't all been one hilarious nightmare.

His words weren't a question, and so she gave him no answer as she sat up and folded her arms around herself, rolling as much of the tension from her shoulders and neck as she could. The silence was palpable, and she cleared her throat to break it as she finally pulled herself to a staggered stand and rubbed at her face.

"I'll get another fire going.." she decided with a huff as she went about gathering what fire fodder she could. "I'm not going anywhere until I've thawed."

 

[Raziel]

He was too exhausted to truly appreciate the inner turmoil that Feyre did not hide well. She had been forced to save his life. After he had so lovingly slit the throat of her guardian right before her eyes. After he had been the centre of the turning wheel that had ground her family line to dust.

She didn't even know how central he was to all the ills that had befallen her. A fact he was waiting to gloat about for another day.

It almost made the pain worth it. Not quite. He would have her evaporate from the world, all chance of finding more entertainment in her misery slipping through his fingers like mist. All if it would make the agony go away.

"I need something from you to survive," he whispered. "When the fire is going."

 

[Feyre]

Feyre let out a quiet snort of a laugh as she bundled what she could into her arms, her eyes rolling before she spared him a half glance incredulously.

"Pray tell what else I can do for you My Lord." she muttered spitefully, ignoring the aches in her muscles as she bent, shivering to pick up more branches and rip more dried grass from the earth.

 

[Raziel]

Raziel breathed slowly. The coat she had draped over him rose and fell. He fixed her with a stare, looking for all the world as if he held just as much power as he ever had.

"Some of your blood," he stated, crisp and clear.

 

[Feyre]

Feyre froze as he answered her, her head slowly turning to frown at him.. "You're serious aren't you?.." she asked and threw the pile of wood and kindling down in front of him. "You seem to be surviving just fine without my blood. I've seen what you can do with it, and I've no desire to be a fucking puppet." she scowled at him and dropped to her knees to arrange the pit.

"You have some nerve, do you know that? After the hell you have put me through, everything you have taken from me without the barest shred of remorse or care for anything or anyone other than yourself. I saved your life, and you want more from me. No. You're getting none of it, you're going to rest until you can ride and you're going to get me to the Bletchley Estate safely, then you're going to get out of my life and as far away from me as you possibly can - or so help me I will find a mage to flay you living." she seethed as she stripped the damp bark from a log with aggression, her nails breaking against it's surface.

"I hate you."

 

[Raziel]

If her display in any way upset the tiefling it did not show. He watched her with almost idle interest.

"Very well," he croaked. "I might, of course, still die. But with just five drops of your noble blood I could be on the move before midday."

He growled in pain, but made the effort to roll onto his back, to pull his coat up over his head.

 

[Feyre]

Fey dragged her eyes over him with a venomous glare.

Would he die? She wasn't sure, it was no doubt some ploy to get her blood, and yet she debated on whether it was a risk she could afford to take. If he died it was for nothing, all of it. All she wanted to do was forget it all and go on with her new life oblivious.

Her jaw clenched and she rubbed at her face with a growled huff.. "You have to swear that it isn't a trick. Swear that you're going to use it to heal and that's all." she frowned.

 

[Raziel]

Raziel grinned to himself beneath his coat. He waited for the count of five before murmuring softly and turning very slowly back to face Feyre.

There wasn't a hint of amusement on his face when he looked up at her. He was pained, possibly even grateful.

"Five drops and use for...nothing...more..." he croaked.

 

[Feyre]

Feyre watched him for a moment longer after his promise was made, replaying his words over and over in her mind as though checking it for some sort of flaw. She'd already made a deal with the devil, she was already up to her neck in a river of shit, if a few drops of blood got her out of here and away from him sooner then it might be worth it.

She stared into those amber eyes and growled to herself as she pushed herself to her feet and stomped to kneel down next to him, her brows arching expectantly. "Well hurry up about it." she rolled her eyes and let a huff escape her chest, trying to ignore the feeling that she'd live to regret it.

 

[Raziel]

Raziel grimaced as he pushed himself up to sit before her. The coat fell away, revealing the dark stains across the shirt she had tried to bind the wound with. It wasn't a place easy to bind tight, just below the collarbone. A little bad luck and it would have collapsed his lung, a few inches away and it could have pierced his heart.

There was a slender knife in his hand. He hadn't appeared to reach for a blade, but it was suddenly there. Raziel moved with exceptional care. Palm up, he reached out with his other hand and wrapped his fingers around her hand. Raziel lifted her arm slowly, cupping the back of her hand with his own.

"This will barely hurt," he promised, looking up from her arm. Pushing up her sleeve, he cradled her arm like a lover. The flat of the blade was cold against the exposed skin above her wrist. The smooth steel was slid down her arm with deferential care.

 

[Feyre]

Feyre could only stare at him defiantly as he took her hand in his, her jaw clenching as a finger of nausea poked at her stomach at the thought of what she'd just agreed to. His magic was a ghastly sort, but it matched him perfectly and served to make him all the more abhorrent to her, and yet, her gaze lowered to watch silently as he readied her arm and pressed the cold steel to her skin.

Her gaze narrowed slightly, but she made no sound as he sliced through her skin, feeling only the slightest sting as the knife cut and the first ruby bead bloomed in it's wake. Her eyes lifted and moved between his face and her wound, finding an unsettling sort of curiosity in how her blood could help him heal.