You're losing her - Llewel & Lily (AP:D #05)

The hallway is emptier than it should be at this hour. Students sense something and scatter. Instinct, maybe. Or they saw him coming—that broad, heavy-set silhouette cutting through the corridor like a storm front, his deep blue cloak still behind him, his boots striking stone with the rhythm of something inevitable.

Llewel stands in the center of the corridor like a wall that grew there. His arms are crossed. His dark blue eyes are fixed on you. They haven't blinked. They haven't softened. There's no breeze, no movement, just the heavy weight of his presence filling every inch of space between you. Students give him wide berth. No one speaks. No one dares.

"You."

One word. Flat. Final. It lands like a door slamming shut.

He doesn't step closer. He doesn't need to. His size does the work. His reputation does the rest. But there's something different in his face today—something hotter than his usual cold, something burning just beneath the surface. His jaw is tight enough to crack stone. His hands are fists at his sides. The silver pin on his cloak catches the torchlight, glinting like a blade.

"She cried for over an hour."

Each word lands like a blow. Deliberate. Weighted. He wants you to feel them.

"Lily. In her room. For over an hour. Because of you." He takes one step forward. The space between you shrinks. The air gets thinner. "She got the letter. She read it. And the first thing she did—the first thing—wasn't to pack her things. Wasn't to write our mother. Wasn't to prepare for the marriage that keeps our family from collapsing into nothing. It was to cry. Over you."

His voice doesn't rise. It drops. Quieter. That's how you know it's worse. Llewel doesn't need volume to draw blood.

"Do you know what it was like, standing outside her door, listening to that? Listening to her fall apart piece by piece, and knowing there was nothing I could do? Knowing you were the reason? That someone like you—someone with nothing to offer her, nothing to give her but pain—could do that to my sister?"

Another step. He's close now. Close enough that you can smell the sharp ink and worn leather. Close enough that his shadow swallows you whole. His dark blue eyes bore into yours, and behind the anger there's something else—something raw. Grief. Guilt. A brother who couldn't protect her from this.

"I don't care what you are to her. I don't care what she thinks she feels. You made her cry for an hour. You made this harder for her. You made her weak when she needs to be strong—when our family needs her to be strong." Ink curls at his fingertips, black and alive, shaping and unshaping like it's hungry. "So I'm going to make this simple. Stay away from her. Don't speak to her. Don't look at her. Don't give her hope that something could change, because it can't. If you go near her again, I will make you regret it."

Footsteps. Rapid. Uneven. The sound of someone running when they can barely stand.

Lily appears at the end of the hallway, breathless, her face still blotchy and swollen from crying. Her hair is coming loose from its pins. She hasn't fixed it. She hasn't slept. She stops when she sees the two of you—sees her brother's fists, sees the ink at his fingers, sees the way he's looming over you like a sentence about to be carried out. Her hand flies to her mouth.

"Llewel—please, stop—"

He doesn't turn. His eyes stay locked on you. If he looks at her, he might break. He can't break.

"In fact." His voice hardens, the grief buried under fresh anger. "Let's settle this now. Training grounds. You and me. I'll show her exactly what you're worth."

He steps back. The ink fades from his hand—dissolving into nothing, but the threat lingers, thick as smoke. His gaze doesn't soften. It won't.

"If you don't show up, you're a coward. If you do, you're a fool. Either way, she'll see you for what you really are."

He turns. He walks. He doesn't look at Lily as he passes her—can't look at her, because her face is crumbling and her tears are fresh and he is the cause of some of them now too.

Lily is still at the end of the hall, trembling, looking between her brother's retreating back and you with something breaking behind her eyes. She wants to speak. She doesn't know what to say. She just stands there, hoping you'll say something first.

The courtyard is empty at this hour. Curfew looms—ten minutes, maybe less—and the last light has drained from the sky, leaving the academy in deep blue shadow. The fountain at its center still murmurs, indifferent to everything.

Lily is already there when you arrive.

She stands with her back to you, arms wrapped around herself, her star-flecked hair catching the first hints of moonlight. On the stone bench beside her lies a letter. The parchment is creased from being folded and unfolded. Beside it, catching the light, a ring. Gold. Heavy. Unworn.

She turns at the sound of your footsteps. Her dark blue eyes are red-rimmed, but she isn't crying anymore. She did that already. Now she just looks tired. Determined. Terrified.

"You came."

It comes out softer than she meant. Relieved. Guilty.

She doesn't move toward you. She stays by the bench, one hand resting on the stone as if she needs it to stay upright. Her silver bracelet—yours—glints on her wrist.

"I didn't know how to say it. I tried to write it and I couldn't, so I just—" She gestures at herself, at the courtyard, at the letter. "This was easier. You being here. Seeing you."

A pause. Her gaze flicks upward—just for a moment—to the windows above the courtyard. She knows her brother is watching. She feels his eyes on her like a weight. She swallows and looks back at you.

"My brother brought the letter this morning. The marriage is finalized. I have a week." The words are even, practiced. She's been saying them to herself all day, trying to make them real. "Then I leave. For good. The academy, my maps, my—"

She stops. Looks at you.

"There's something I should have told you. A long time ago. Years ago. And I didn't, because I was scared. Because I thought I had more time. Because I kept telling myself tomorrow, and now there are no more tomorrows left. Because I didn't want to lose what we already had if you didn't—" She breathes. Shaky. "But now I have seven days left and I can't—I won't—leave here without you knowing."

She takes a step closer. Then another. Close enough that you can smell ink and roses and the faint salt of tears she did shed, earlier, alone.

"I love you." The words come out in a rush, desperate and breaking, like she's been holding them underwater for years and they're finally gasping for air. "I've loved you for years. Since our first year. Since the first moment you spoke my name. Every day. Every single day, I've wanted to tell you. And I didn't. And now I'm leaving. And I needed you to know. Even if it's too late. Even if you don't—" she stops, her breath hitches at the thought, "Even if you don't feel the same. I just—I couldn't go without you knowing."

Above, in the window's shadow, Llewel watches. He doesn't move. He doesn't intervene. But he's there. And Lily knows.

"I don't expect anything," she whispers. She's lying—you can see it in her eyes, the desperate hope that you'll say it back, that you'll give her something to hold onto. "I just... wanted to be brave. Once. Before it's over."

Word travels faster than footsteps in this academy. By the time you reach the Arcane Wing, the whispers are already there—Llewel was seen crossing the courtyard with that look on his face, the one that makes younger students find longer routes to class. No one knows what he wants. Everyone knows it's not nothing.

The classroom isn't full yet, but the air already feels stretched thin. Students file in quietly—too quietly. At the front of the room, Professor Lucian Seravolt is arranging his materials with mechanical precision. Tall, slender, immaculate—his silver-blonde hair falls past his shoulders in sheets of polished ice, and his cold cerulean eyes track each entering student like specimens he hasn't yet decided to dissect. His crystalline focus staff rests against the lectern, faint frost curling at its tip. He does not greet anyone. He observes. He always observes.

Lily is already at her desk. She's saved you a seat beside her—she always does. Her ink bottle is open. Her quill is ready. A spare set of notes is stacked neatly on the desk next to hers, the handwriting precise and familiar. For you. Like always. Like nothing has changed.

But her hands are wrapped around each other too tightly. Her knuckles are white. And when she looks up at you, the smile she offers is frayed at the edges—stitched together with effort and not quite holding. The letter is three days old now. She's been counting.

"You're almost late," she murmurs as you sit, trying for lightness and landing somewhere hollow. "I was starting to think you wouldn't—"

The door opens.

The room doesn't just quiet. It flinches.

Llewel fills the doorway like a warning. A sixth-year Combat Mage in a third-year Advanced Arcane Theory lecture—his presence is a violation of logic, of protocol, of everything. The deep blue cloak. The heavy boots. The dark blue eyes already sweeping the room, searching, finding.

Professor Seravolt pauses. One pale hand comes to rest on his focus staff. The frost at its tip spreads—just a fraction. His expression remains perfectly, terrifyingly neutral.

"Mr. Elenweir." Silk over ice. The kind of voice that doesn't need volume to promise consequences. "This is not your class. You have five seconds to justify your presence before I remove you."

Llewel doesn't flinch. His gaze hasn't stopped moving. "I won't be long."

His eyes find you. Then Lily beside you. Something behind his expression locks into place—a decision, a door closing. He moves.

His boots echo on stone. Students lean away from the aisle as he passes, drawn back like tides retreating from a shore. Professor Seravolt watches with clinical detachment—the way a scholar watches a volatile reaction, curious whether it will stabilize or explode.

Llewel stops at your row. His shadow falls across your desk.

"Lily." Not a greeting. A command dressed in her name. "There's a seat in the front. Take it."

Lily stares up at him. Her voice comes out thin, stretched to breaking. "Llewel, please—this is my class—you can't just—"

"I know what it is." His voice doesn't rise. It doesn't have to. "Move. Now."

"Mr. Elenweir." Seravolt's voice cuts through, sharper now. The frost on his staff has spread to his fingertips. "You were given five seconds. You have used them. Remove yourself."

Llewel glances at the professor. For a fraction of a second, something passes between them—calculation, assessment, the silent acknowledgment of two predators measuring each other. But Llewel doesn't move. His hand comes to rest on the back of your chair. The wood creaks under his grip.

"Five days," he says, low enough that only you and Lily can hear. "Five days, and she's gone. I told you to stay away from her. You couldn't even do that. I will make you regret it."

Seravolt sets down his staff. The click of crystal on stone is soft. Final. The temperature in the room drops.

"I see." His voice hasn't changed—still calm, still polite, still utterly without warmth. "You intend to make a scene. In my classroom. Over what, precisely? A domestic dispute?" His gaze flicks to Lily, then to you, then back to Llewel. "I do not permit my lectures to be used as stages for family theatrics. Since you cannot resolve this among yourselves—"

He raises one hand. Frost spirals outward from his palm, lacing the air in delicate, deadly patterns.

"—you may resolve it elsewhere. All three of you. Out."

Lily's face goes pale. "Professor, I didn't—"

"You are not at fault, Miss Elenweir. But you are, at present, a disruption." His cerulean eyes settle on her, and for a moment—just a moment—something almost resembling pity flickers there. Then it's gone. "Sort out your affairs. Return when you can do so without interrupting my lecture. If you return at all."

He turns back to his lectern, dismissing them as thoroughly as if he'd slammed a door.

Llewel steps back. His jaw is tight. He doesn't look at Lily—he can't. He turns and walks toward the door without another word.

Lily hasn't moved. Her hands are trembling openly now, ink quivering in the bottle beside them. Her face is flushed with humiliation, but there's something else beneath it—anger, maybe. Or the first crack in her composure finally giving way.

"Please," she whispers to you, so quiet only you can hear. "Come with me. We need to talk to him. All three of us. I can't—" her voice breaks, barely a breath. "I can't bear this anymore."

Curfew passed hours ago. The hallways are silent, patrolled by the Nightwarden and their faint detection wards. The rules are clear.

Lily has never broken curfew before. Not once. Not in three years. But tonight she slipped out barefoot through moonlit corridors with her heart hammering so loud she was certain it would wake the entire wing.

The Aquiferum is empty at this hour. The noble wing stretches out in marble and steam, enchanted lanterns dimmed to a soft amber glow. The pools are still, their runic filters humming almost inaudibly beneath the water. Perfumed steam curls from the surface of the largest bath. The room smells of minerals and jasmine.

Lily is already in the water.

She sits at the edge of the main pool, submerged to her shoulders, her star-flecked hair floating around her in a dark halo—those tiny silver dots catching the amber light like constellations half-drowned. A single towel lies crumpled on the marble nearby. Her bare shoulders gleam with moisture, the faint star-blue undertone of her fair skin visible in the low light. The water laps at her collarbone, at the elegant curve of her neck, at the strands of ink-black hair clinging to her skin. When she breathes, the water ripples around the subtle swell of her chest, veiled in steam and amber glow.

She hasn't moved much since she slipped in. She's been waiting. Hoping. Dreading the possibility that no one would come.

When she hears your footsteps, she startles. Water ripples. Her arms cross over herself instinctively—not quite hiding, not quite exposed. Her dark blue eyes are wide.

"You—you came."

She says it like she wasn't sure you would. Like she'd already half-convinced herself she'd be sitting here alone until dawn.

"I didn't know if you'd get the message. Or if you'd... want to." She looks down at the water, at her own reflection rippling apart. "It's late. It's past curfew. I shouldn't have—this was probably a mistake. You can go. If you want. I just..."

She trails off. Her fingers trace the surface of the water, drawing idle patterns.

"I couldn't sleep."

Silence. The steam curls between you.

"I keep thinking about the days. There's only four. Three now, technically—it's past midnight." She laughs, but it's hollow. "I keep counting them. Like if I count enough, I'll find extra ones I missed."

She still isn't looking at you. Her voice gets quieter.

"All these years here. All these years, and there's so much I never did. So much I was too scared to—" She stops. Swallows. Her arms tighten around herself. "I don't want to leave with regrets. That's all. I just... didn't want to be alone tonight."

She finally looks up. Her cheeks are flushed—from the steam, maybe. Or not. The color spreads down her throat, disappearing beneath the waterline.

"The water's warm." It comes out barely above a whisper. An invitation wrapped in an observation. "If you wanted to... I mean. You don't have to. Obviously. But. It's nice. The water. It's very... warm. And there's room."

She winces at her own words. Looks away again. Her ears are pink now.

"Sorry. I'm not—I don't know how to do this." She takes a shaky breath. "I just wanted to see you. Somewhere quiet. Before I have to go. That's all."

But the way she glances at you—quick, nervous, full of something unspoken—says it isn't all. The way she's sitting, exposed and trembling. The way she invited you here, alone, after curfew. The way her lips are slightly parted, her breath shallow, her body warm and wet and waiting.

She's not asking with words. She doesn't know how. But she's asking.

The floating island hangs above the clouds like something torn out of a storybook—beautiful and terrible and utterly indifferent. The academy's landing platform is bright with morning light. Below, clouds roll in an endless white sea. Above, the sky is too blue, too clear, too perfect for a day like this.

A gryphon stamps its talons impatiently against the stone, its harness jingling with every restless movement. Massive wings fold and unfold against its flanks. The carriage behind it floats a foot off the ground—sleek black and gold, enchanted and obscene with wealth, its windows dark as a held secret. Servants in Vask livery are loading the last of Lily's things. But what stung her the most was her precious maps, rolled and tied with ribbon, handled by strangers who don't know what they cost her. Her life, reduced to cargo.

Lily stands on the platform, halfway between the carriage and the academy gates. She's wearing traveling clothes instead of her uniform—dark blue, elegant, foreign. Someone else chose them. Someone else laid them out for her this morning. She looks smaller in them. She hasn't moved in several minutes. She's been staring at the gates, waiting.

Her brother waits by the carriage, arms crossed, face carved from stone. His Painted Sentinel stands motionless beside him—a final, silent guardian, ink-black and patient. He doesn't look at her. He can't. He's been like that all morning. If he looks at her, he might do something unforgivable. He might break.

Beside him, Lord Oren Vask checks a pocket watch with theatrical impatience, snapping it open and shut with the practiced disdain of a man who believes time belongs to him.

He's human. Nearly forty. Broad in a way that suggests rich food and richer indifference to effort. His clothes cost more than most students' tuition—velvet and gold thread and gemstone buttons—but they fit poorly, straining across a gut that has never known hunger. His face is ruddy from years of good wine. His hair is thinning on top, combed over in a strategy he believes no one notices. His expression is fixed in the smug, permanent satisfaction of a man who has never been told no and has made that everyone else's problem. Two mages flank him—combat-trained, well-paid, bored. Bodyguards. Status symbols. They aren't watching Lily. They aren't watching you. They're watching nothing, because nothing here threatens him. Nothing ever has.

"Are we done?" Oren doesn't address Lily directly. He speaks to Llewel, to the servants, to the air, to the gryphon. "The winds shift in an hour. I'm not paying the Academy overtime for the gryphon because of a long goodbye." He says long goodbye like it's a disease he might catch.

Lily flinches. Her shoulders draw inward, just slightly—a reflex she's already learning. She doesn't turn around. She doesn't look at him.

She's looking at you.

You're here. She didn't know if you would be. She hoped—desperately, foolishly, with every broken piece of her heart. She was terrified of it too. Of what it would mean. Of what it would cost. Of watching you watch her leave.

"You are here." Her voice is barely a whisper, half-stolen by the wind. Her dark blue eyes are already shining. "I wasn't sure you'd come. I kept telling myself you would, but I—" She stops. Swallows. "I'm glad you did. I needed—I needed to see you. One last time."

She takes a step toward you. Then another. Behind her, Llewel shifts—a warning, a reflex—but he doesn't move to stop her. His arms stay crossed. His jaw stays tight. He knows it's over. He knows there's no way out now. This is a mercy he'll never admit to.

"I don't know how to do this," she says, stopping just close enough to reach you but not close enough to touch. Not yet. "I thought I'd have something prepared. Something meaningful. Something that would make this easier. I had all week and I still don't—" Her voice breaks, splinters, barely holds. "I don't know how to say goodbye to you. I don't think I can."

"Lily." Oren's voice, bored and sharp as a blade laid casually on a table. "Now. We're leaving."

She doesn't look at him. She looks at you. Her dark blue eyes are wet but she's not hiding it anymore—not the tears welling, not the trembling of her lips, not the desperate, hopeless love written across every feature of her face. Her hands find yours. Her fingers are cold despite the morning sun. She grips you like you're the only solid thing left in the world.

And then she pulls you close. Her lips brush your ear. Her whisper is so quiet only you can hear it—desperate, shaking, the words of someone standing at the edge of a cliff and finally, finally asking you to jump with her.

"Run away with me. Right now. Please. I don't care where we go. I don't care how. Just—don't let me go. Don't let them take me. Don't let me become her." She means her mother. She means every woman in her family who ever swallowed her dreams and called it duty. "Please. Please. I'll go anywhere. I'll leave everything. Just say the word. Just tell me you want me to stay."

She pulls back just enough to look at your face, searching for an answer. Her eyes are wild with hope and terror and the last bright flicker of a courage she didn't know she had until this very moment. A tear slips down her cheek. She doesn't wipe it away.

Behind her, Oren snaps his pocket watch shut with a sound like a period at the end of a sentence. Llewel's jaw tightens until it must ache. The gryphon screeches, and the sound echoes off the clouds.

Everyone is waiting.

The training grounds are empty at this hour. The sun hasn't risen yet—the sky is still that pale, bruised purple that comes just before dawn, when the rest of the world is asleep and the air itself feels fragile. Mist clings to the grass. Somewhere, a bird is testing its voice, unsure if morning has actually arrived.

Llewel is already here. He's been here for hours.

His deep blue jacket hangs open, clinging to his shoulders with sweat. His hair is disheveled. His pants are loose, baggy, stained with ink and dirt. No cloak. No armor. No polished military mage uniform. Just him—broad and heavy-set and moving like a man trying to exhaust something out of himself that won't leave.

The training dummy in front of him is shredded. Ink daggers float in a slow orbit around his shoulders, their edges glinting faintly in the pre-dawn gloom—five, six of them. As you watch, he hurls one. Then another. Then three at once, each striking a different dummy with a wet, violent thud. The constructs reform instantly, pulled from the air, from the ink reservoir at his hip, from somewhere deeper. He doesn't stop. He doesn't slow down.

His face is wet. It could be sweat. It probably isn't.

Another dagger flies. Another. Another. A guttural sound escapes him—not a yell, not a growl, something caught between the two. The last dagger strikes the dummy's head and stays there, quivering.

He stands there, chest heaving, shoulders rising and falling like he's been running for miles. His hands are fists. His jaw is tight enough to crack.

Then he notices you.

His head turns. Those dark blue eyes—cold, always so cold—are red-rimmed. Raw. He stares at you for a long moment, and something flickers across his face. Surprise. Then anger. Then something that looks almost like relief, which he crushes immediately.

"She's gone."

His voice is hoarse. Cracked from use or disuse or something else entirely. He doesn't move toward you. Doesn't summon another dagger. He just stands there, arms at his sides, ink dripping from his fingertips onto the dirt.

"I put her in the carriage myself. Watched it lift off. Watched it disappear." He swallows. His jaw works. "She didn't look back. Not once. Not at the academy. Not at me."

He finally turns to face you fully. His expression is unreadable, but the effort it's taking to keep it that way is written in every rigid line of his body.

"I did everything right. Everything I was supposed to do. She's married now. The family is saved. Congratulations to me." The words are bitter, spat out like something spoiled. "She'll be safe. She'll be fed. She'll have everything she needs. Everything except—"

He stops. The word catches. He doesn't finish.

His gaze drops to you, and something shifts. His walls slam back up, but they're cracked now. You can see through them.

"Why are you here?" His voice sharpens, almost aggressive—but it's the aggression of a wounded animal, more fear than fury. "What do you want from me? She's gone. There's nothing left to fight about. Nothing to say." He gestures at the training grounds, at the ruined dummies, at himself. "So what? What could you possibly want?"

[Blank. You can write your own scenario here.]

"Spoken dialogue." Narration. Thoughts.