Fantasy Anthroterra (1:1, closed, scantilycladsnail & ThieviusRaccoonus)

[scantilycladsnail]

“The Harlekin aren’t a monolith,” Avarice noted.

He moved back toward the bed, pulled up the old chair he’d been lounging in earlier, and sat—forward now, elbows on knees, voice low and clear, like he was letting Mordecai in on a secret too old to say out loud.

“They’ve got a council, like what we saw in the City of Unity; likely Poise re-creating his old life."

A breath.

“They are terrifyingly good at staying invisible.”

His tail curled lightly around the leg of the chair, a flick betraying tension he otherwise kept masked.

“But not all Harlekin answer to the council. Some don’t even know the council exists yet. Others just… drift. Contract killers. Chaos-touched. Old blood made wrong.”

His voice dropped further, more measured now.

“But most of them, even the free agents, still orbit the council. Like flies around a candle. Sometimes they take assignments. Sometimes they cross paths. Sometimes they’re used without even realizing it.”

A pause. He looked up at Mordecai again.

"They have the ability to create more Harlekin... which is why the encounters are getting more frequent, but they've made a handful of bad selections... Do you remember Finn from the Soul Games? He was one of the first kin out. He got dealt a bad hand after the reset-- Astra died, he thought himself dead too, but woke up with a mask. He's been working with us since. They're planning something. Coordinated. Big. The attacks aren't random."

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai’s posture stiffened. Not from surprise—he had known, somewhere in the marrow—but from the confirmation. The naming of the thing.

His jaw clenched, his hooves braced against the floor as if grounding himself from the spiral clawing at the edge of his mind.

“I—” He started, voice rough. Then stopped. Exhaled.

“This is…” He shook his head slowly, the words dragging like iron. “This is what we needed.” A nod followed—slow, deliberate. Genuine. “Thank you.”

His eyes shifted, sharp and tired all at once. “Poise recreating his old life. That tracks.” A short, bitter sound escaped him—half-scoff, half sigh. “Especially after what he thinks I stole from him.”

But then, softer—more distant, more careful: “Things aren’t the same now. Not with Ephraim.” His gaze lowered briefly, thoughtful. “Not with Vengeance walking beside her.”

He fell quiet for a beat, reflecting on the mention of Finn. It sat strange. Heavy.

“A Harlekin on the inside… feels wrong.” His tone didn’t accuse—only acknowledged the complexity. “But if it’s him—if it’s Finn—and he’s bringing us this…” He met Avarice’s eyes. “We use it. Carefully.”

His voice dropped further, a different weight now settling.

“They struck Umbrafane already. Ephraim’s parents were killed.” The words came clean and cold. “Poison. Quiet. Surgical.” His gaze sharpened, like a knife slowly unsheathing. “Classic Poise. Strategy before spectacle.”

Then he paused, measured, before continuing.

“There’s something you need to know,” he said, tone even—no drama, no flourish. Just fact.

“I released a plague,” Mordecai said. “Targeted. Engineered. Harlekin only. We got one, maybe more. It’s slow, eats them from the inside. But it doesn’t touch kin.”

His eyes narrowed, watching Avarice carefully now.

“That means Finn’s at risk.” A breath. "Do you know if they're planning anything else?"

 

[scantilycladsnail]

Avarice didn’t speak at first.

He let Mordecai’s words roll through the air like thunder through deep snow—quiet, but rumbling. Heavy. Permanent.

The mention of Ephraim’s parents made his ears dip, just slightly, before he sat back in the chair and exhaled, long and slow.

“…Her parents,” he echoed, voice softer. “Gods. I’m sorry,” he murmured. “For her. For you.”

Then, more guardedly:

“As for Poise…”

A pause. His smile returned—crooked, tight, lacking humor.

“He’s rebuilding. Just like you said. Not the same shape, maybe, but the same sickness. Surrounds himself with theatric loyalists. Orphans. Runaways. Everyone craving identity, purpose, absolution."

A flick of his tail. A scoff.

“He hasn’t changed. He’s just more clever. No character development, as you'd say."

And then—

The plague.

Mordecai said it like an afterthought, like an update in a war briefing.

“You—”

He stopped himself, jaw working, breath shallow.

“Damn, Mordecai,"

Then came the question.

“Do you know if they’re planning anything else?”

Silence. Avarice’s ear twitched.

He didn’t answer right away.

Didn’t meet Mordecai’s eyes.

Instead, he looked away—toward the window, toward the sliver of Umbrafane’s skyline.

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai didn’t move.

Didn’t press.

But the quiet in his chest shifted—turned colder.

His eyes remained on Avarice, unmoving, while the fox looked anywhere but back. A flicker of breath passed between them, then another. And when Mordecai finally spoke, it was quiet. Too quiet.

“You didn’t answer.”

Not accusatory.

Not surprised.

Just... true.

He leaned back against the headboard, hooves braced lightly against the floorboards, arms folding across his lap as he studied Avarice the way one studies smoke curling from beneath a closed door—calm, but ready to rise.

“If you’re holding something,” he murmured, “I need to know. Not later. Not after the next funeral.”

A pause. No anger. But something harder than wrath. Responsibility.

“I’ve seen what Poise leaves in his wake. I’ve cleaned it. Buried it. Watched Ephraim crack from it.” His voice dipped lower, steel sliding beneath silk. “And I won’t do it again.”

Another pause, letting that land.

Then, slightly softer—but not gentler.

“If Finn’s slipping. If the inside’s crumbling. If you saw something—say it.”

A beat.

“Please.”

 

[scantilycladsnail]

Avarice held his breath—longer than he should have.

Like saying it aloud might give it shape. Might make it realer than it already was.

Then—quiet. Flat.

“He’s planning to turn you. Ephraim. The kids.”

His voice was low, not for secrecy, but because anything louder might break the room.

“That’s what the first attack was about,” he continued, each word like it scraped its way out of his throat. “Not just a warning. Not just cruelty. They were trying to take the kids."

He let the silence hit before he pressed on—slow, steady, with the weariness of someone who’s carried a truth too long.

“They have learned that if they change you into a Harlekin; Wrath will never be able to take on another Vessel, nor would Mercy from Ephraim. They’ll be trapped."

“Seems Harwin found that out the hard way. He gave himself to Poise, but Wrath's remnants of magic shackled him in place."

A glance toward the window now—just briefly.

“And Poise learned from it. He realized that the same magic would effectively trap Wrath in an infinity of his own void."

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai’s grip tightened around the bed sheets—knuckles pale beneath the dark fur, jaw clenched like iron catching in the throat of a furnace.

The words sat there.

Poise. The children. Harlekin.

Turned.

He drew a breath that barely made it past his ribs.

Slowly, he pushed his legs over the edge of the bed, spine stiff with effort. He reached for the black robe draped over the chair, dragging it over his shoulders like armor he hadn’t earned back yet. Then came the cane—cold wood, familiar in the way only pain could be.

The click of it against the floor echoed too loud in the still room.

“No…” he muttered, low. Flat. Disbelieving.

He moved to the window—slow, dragging slightly, his leg still uncertain beneath him. His free hand braced against the frame, eyes scanning the Umbrafane skyline beyond. But he wasn’t seeing the city.

He was seeing something else.

Something far worse.

“…Have you told Ephraim this?” he asked, voice quiet—dangerously quiet. Not like thunder. Like the silence before it.

His gaze didn’t move. He stayed there, staring into the world like he might will it still.

His fingers flexed once on the cane, jaw working behind closed lips. And then—very softly:

“If they ever touch our children again…try to touch Ephraim.”
A pause.
“…I won’t ask Wrath to burn them.”

He turned slightly then, just enough for Avarice to see the look in his eye. Hollow. Measured.

“I’ll do it myself.”

 

[scantilycladsnail]

Avarice stayed where he was.

Just watched Mordecai pull himself from the bed like a man made of worn bones and unfinished vows—watched the robe fall over his shoulders like mourning, watched the cane strike wood like a war drum with no audience.

And for a moment, Avarice remembered why he’d never stopped fearing him.

When Mordecai turned, when that look passed over his shoulder like frost across stone—cold, still, final—Avarice exhaled through his nose and leaned back in his chair, hand dragging down his muzzle.

“...No,” he said at last. “I haven’t told her.”

His voice came quiet. Honest. Without excuse.

“She was... different when I saw her. Sharp. Angry.” He gave a slight shrug, expression dipping into something like sheepishness—if a fox could manage such a thing. “Didn’t feel like the right time to add cosmic psychological warfare involving her literal children to the table.”

“Figured you’d handle it better.”

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai exhaled—slow, uneven—as he leaned harder on the cane, his gaze fixed on the window like he could will the outside world to answer for itself.

“The world’s changed her,” he murmured, voice dry, worn from the weight still lingering in his bones. “Bent her. Pulled at her seams. Ephraim's always carried more than she should’ve. Always tried to hold together what the world kept prying from her fingers—her family, her power, her place.”

His legs gave the faintest tremble beneath him. He caught it before it could become more. One hand clutched tighter around the cane. Then, with a grunt of effort, he turned and moved slowly—carefully—back to the edge of the bed. He sat down, hunched forward, elbows resting on his knees, breath dragging behind his ribs like it didn’t want to be there.

“She was Mercy once. That wasn’t a title. It was her.” His thumb grazed the side of his palm—absently, like brushing an old scar. “She healed with her hands, but more than that... with her presence. With her belief that people—no matter how broken—were worth saving.”

A pause.

“She saw Wrath in me... and she didn’t flinch.”

He looked down. Quiet.

“But Mercy,” he said, voice tighter now, “takes more than strength. It takes faith. And faith… is the first thing this world starves from you. You give and give until you bleed out—and then they ask why you didn’t save more.”

He looked up again. Eyes dark, tired, unblinking.

“When Mercy couldn’t save the ones she loved most… it didn’t die. It just learned the truth. That to protect what remains, you sometimes have to cut first.”

He leaned back slightly, the mattress groaning under the motion.

“She didn’t become cruel. She became Vengeance. And Vengeance still protects. Still watches. But now she strikes. Now she looks for danger before it has a name.”

His voice softened.

“She’ll never admit it, but sometimes... I think she still misses what she used to be. Misses the world that never gave her the chance to stay soft.”

Another breath. His fingers rubbed over his temple, as if trying to press the headache from his skull.

“I wish I could take it all,” he muttered. “All the grief. All the doubt. Every wound she swallowed to keep someone else from hurting. Gods know I would. But I can’t.”

A long silence. The kind that hung too heavy.

His tone darkened.

“And now Harwin wants to erase us. Me. Her. Wrath. Mercy. And with Poise pulling the strings again... it’s all beginning to feel like the same game we’ve played before—just with higher stakes.”

He closed his eyes, jaw clenched.

“They strike, we recover. They vanish, we scramble. Every time we think we’re ahead, another knife finds our ribs.”

His fingers twitched.

“I don’t even remember last night,” he said hoarsely. “I was sitting in Brakarhall. Then—nothing. Just blur. Like falling into ice. My limbs locked. My vision swam. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. But I remember Ephraim’s voice.”

He swallowed.

“Breaking. Calling my name. The way her hands shook when they grabbed me.”

He looked toward the fire, his face drawn in a way Avarice hadn’t seen in years. No armor. No sharp words.

Just weight.

“I’m supposed to be the one with the answers.”

A breath.

“How low do you have to be… to touch someone’s children?”

His eyes finally turned, slow and burning.

“Children, Avarice.”

And nothing more needed to be said.

 

[scantilycladsnail]

Avarice didn’t interrupt. He never did when Mordecai really started speaking—not when the weight came out, not when the layers peeled back.

He just listened.

And gods, did it hurt to listen.

That voice, worn like gravel over glass. The way Mordecai sat—shoulders heavy, back curved, like grief was stitched into the very shape of him. It wasn’t just pain. It was patterned pain. The kind that had grooves worn into the soul.

Mercy to Vengeance.

Answers to silence.

Children caught in the crossfire.

Avarice leaned back in the chair, one hand dragging over his muzzle, then letting it drop to his knee. He looked into the fire too—like it might spit out a better answer than the one burning behind his teeth.

Then, quietly:

“So why do you keep playing the game?”

His voice wasn’t cruel. It was soft. Honest.

“You keep running. Planning. Reacting. Every time they strike, you patch the wound, rebuild the walls, and brace for the next. You’ve got the maps. The eyes. The right hands on the right strings.”

He shifted forward, elbows on knees again, gaze sliding to Mordecai now.

“But it’s all reaction. Not just here in Umbrafane… but before.”

“They always come back.”

His words dropped like stones in still water. No accusation. Just truth.

“I’m not saying serve yourself up on a silver platter,” he added, raising his brow slightly. “I’ve heard what they do to sacrifices. I wouldn’t hand you over for anything.”

He exhaled through his nose, ears flicking once in thought.

“But maybe—just maybe—you don’t wait for the next strike. Maybe you step into their circle, before they draw another one around Ephraim.”

He let that hang. His voice quieter now.

“Harwin doesn’t want Mercy. Doesn’t want Vengeance. He wants you and Wrath.”

Avarice sat up straighter, more composed now—less a fox in a chair, more a tactician sketching a different kind of battlefield.

“Ephraim... she’s a proxy. A target of circumstance. But you? You’re the origin. You’re the bloodline. The echo Harwin never let go of. Wrath chained to your soul. He’s spent years trying to find a way back to that moment.”

A pause. A sigh.

“And now, he thinks killing Ephraim is the only way to get it.”

His voice dropped, softer now.

“But what if he just has to think long enough that it isn’t? What if you give him a new path—just enough to stall the Council’s orders? Make him doubt. Just for a while.”

“Sometimes…” he said, leaning back, eyes glinting faintly now, “when it comes to guys who chase you...”

He shrugged, casually.

“You stop running. And you walk straight up to them. Let them think they caught you. Let them get close. Close enough to kiss you. And close enough to kill them if they try.”

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai didn’t speak right away. His fingers absently rubbed at his knees, eyes fixed on the fire’s flicker. A moment passed before he glanced toward Avarice—just briefly.

He’s grown. Still sharp, still surviving. Still here.

Mordecai exhaled, slow and quiet.

“You don’t understand what stepping into that circle costs,” he said at last, his voice low—cold at the edges, but something vulnerable bleeding beneath. The words lingered, then his shoulders eased, just slightly.

“It’s a damn tightrope. I could risk myself—burn everything I’ve rebuilt—if it meant keeping Ephraim safe. Keeping the others safe. But what if it’s still not enough?” His voice dropped, weary. “Is that the choice now? Either lose myself… or lose them?”

A humorless scoff. Self-directed.

“There was that old timeline, when I convinced myself I didn’t care. I was bitter. Old before my time. Hiding from the world. Miserable.”

He looked up, meeting Avarice’s eyes.

“But then you showed up. And the others. Then Ephraim.” A faint breath. “And somehow, despite everything I claimed to hate… I stayed. I chose to stay.”

A pause. He rubbed a hand through his hair, voice quieter now.

“So tell me, Avarice.” His eyes didn’t waver. “What are you really implying? I don’t even know where Poise is hiding.”

He leaned forward, the firelight drawing shadows across his face.

“But I’m listening.”

For once, the teacher was silent—waiting to learn. "I don't think Ephraim will like this though." He said, raising an eyebrow to him. A fair warning.

 

[scantilycladsnail]

7 Reward: This is definitely avarice, too snobby to be anyone else.

 

[scantilycladsnail]

Avarice raised both hands in mock surrender, the flicker of a grin returning to his muzzle like a familiar coat.

“Hey,” he said, shrugging, “I’m just throwing out ideas. No bad ideas in a brainstorm, right?”

He leaned back in the chair again, arms draped lazily over the sides like the conversation wasn’t pressing its claws into the edge of the world.

“But seriously…”

The grin softened into something more thoughtful.

“You’re right to be cautious. I don’t understand what stepping into that circle would cost you. Not entirely. You’ve carried things I can’t even imagine. But what I do know is Poise.”

He tapped a claw against the side of his temple.

“I remember him from the Council. Never did a thing unless he was sure he’d excel at it. Precision. Control. Image. That was his armor—and his weapon. Poise doesn’t gamble. He curates.”

A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“And that’s where we hit him.”

Avarice leaned forward now, voice dropping to a conspiratorial pitch—mischief threaded through strategy.

“He knows you hate his theatrics. He relishes that. So what if you flipped the script? What if you set the stage? Found a way to invite him? Make it look like he’s being offered a new role in a drama only he could star in.”

His smile sharpened.

“Stroke his ego. Just enough. Convince him he’s holding all the cards… then swap the deck.”

He sat back again, one leg crossing over the other, tail flicking behind him in lazy arcs.

“Or—and hear me out—we do the opposite.”

A beat.

“Attack the ego. Publicly. Subtly. Start rumors. Seed doubt. Spread just enough dirt to itch under his skin. True or false, doesn’t matter. Just believable enough.”

A wink.

“What if we whispered he’s lost favor with the Council? That he’s been left out of major ops? That his magic’s waning? Or—my favorite—that he’s cash poor.”

He stifled a laugh, just barely.

“Or gods forbid—that he can’t dance.”

He raised his brows at Mordecai, playful now but serious beneath it.

“You want to lure out a man like Poise? You don’t just wave a sword. You wave a mirror. Show him something he has to refute. Show him you're more talented at something that he is acclaims himself to be a master of... he knows you can beat him combat, you already did it once. Why would he fight you again?”

Then, a little softer:

“But yeah. You’re right.”

A pause.

“Ephraim’s going to hate this.”

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai didn’t respond right away.

The fire cracked softly in the hearth, but his expression didn’t shift—stone still, like something carved from endurance and ash. Only his hands moved, one thumb running along the edge of his palm in a slow, grounding motion.

He let Avarice's words settle. Let them echo.

Then, finally, he spoke—low, dry.

“You make it sound so clean,” he muttered. “Elegant. A neat little snare with silk edges and a perfect bow.”

He exhaled through his nose. Not a scoff. Something heavier.

“But I’ve worn the strings before, Avarice. I’ve seen what happens when you step too close to a stage you didn’t build. I don’t do performances. Not the kind they want. That… kind of exposure, the spectacle of it—it isn’t power to me. It’s vulnerability. It's blood on the floor and nobody noticing ‘til the applause stops.”

He leaned forward slightly, eyes catching the firelight in their tired gleam.

“I’ve always been the one in the shadows. The whisper between movements. The blade they didn’t know was already drawn.” His jaw clenched faintly. “I never staged the act. I just made sure the final line hit.”

There was a pause.

He rubbed at his face with one hand, voice softer now.

“And say we do it. Say we bait him with a mirror, a mask, whatever twisted version of himself he can’t resist… does that mean bringing him here? Into Umbrafane? With Harwin at his back?”

His gaze lifted to meet Avarice’s now, steady and sharp.

“You know how Poise and Harwin are. You know what they've tried on us. I can’t—I won’t—risk her safety on a script that might fold the moment one of them decides to improvise.”

A beat.

“And we don’t know what else Poise has under his cloak. Harwin wasn’t always the creature he is now. If Poise has bound something to him—or worse, merged with him—we may be staring at a stage that doesn’t obey its own physics.”

He sat back again, but slower this time. Tired. Like the weight of every move was stacking higher.

“…I’m not saying no,” he admitted, voice quieter. “Just…”

A breath.

“I don’t know how to fight like that. With words and pageantry. With rumors and masks. I know how to cut clean. Not how to mislead a man who already lives in illusions.”

His eyes drifted to the window then—out toward the city. Toward her.

“And if I misstep? If he turns on her instead of me…”

His voice stopped there. Not out of doubt. Out of restraint. Out of a fear too old and too raw to give words.

Then, quieter still:

“If we do this, it has to be perfect. No cracks. No noise. No open ends."

A beat.

"I rather have myself be killed first before she falls."

 

[scantilycladsnail]

Avarice went quiet.

The flicker of the fire caught in his eyes, but there was no light behind them now—just reflection. Just weight.

Mordecai’s words had settled in the air like ash. Final. True. The kind of truth that didn’t need argument.

And for once, Avarice didn’t offer one.

He didn’t smirk. Didn’t shrug. Didn’t lace the silence with his usual slyness. He just sat there, still as snowfall, listening to a man who had already buried too much to gamble on theatrics.

After a long moment, he leaned back in the chair with a soft exhale—no dramatics, just breath—and let his gaze drift toward the ceiling beams, as if he might find a simpler answer somewhere in the rafters.

“…Yeah,” he said quietly. “It’s a bad idea.”
The door creaked.

Bootsteps on wood. Measured. Familiar.

And then her voice, low but alert. That edge she carried like armor, even in the quiet.

“...What’s a bad idea?”

Ephraim stood in the doorway, the evening chill still clinging to her cloak, faint traces of fog trailing in behind her. Her gaze swept the room—Mordecai seated at the bed’s edge, robe drawn around him like a mantle. Avarice in the chair, still turned slightly away.
Avarice blinked once.

Then slowly—reluctantly—he turned his head from the ceiling and looked back at Mordecai.

Then—smooth as old velvet, with the faintest lift of his brow—he turned to Ephraim and smiled.

“Oh, nothing serious,” he said, tone light. Easy. Too easy. “We were just talking about... outfit ideas for Mordecai, maybe something a little less... grim."

Ephraim squinted.

Not suspiciously. No—offended.

Comically.

She stepped further into the room, unfastening her cloak with a practiced flick and tossing it over the nearest chair like she owned the air it displaced. One brow arched high, the other flat—her expression somewhere between a military tribunal and someone who’d just heard someone insult her favorite wine.

“Less grim?” she repeated, tone dry enough to parch the walls. “You do realize we dress the same, yes? You're aware of that. You're looking at it.”

She gestured loosely to her black-on-black ensemble—buckled coat, ash-toned pauldrons, and dark gloves that looked like they could strangle secrets from stone.

Then she turned to Mordecai, deadpan.

“Are we grim, Mordecai?”

A pause.

“I thought we were dramatic. There’s a difference.”

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai arched a brow, the barest flicker of dry amusement in his eyes.

“You need to work on your lies,” he said, voice low and even. “Everyone knows I couldn’t care less about fashion.”

A slight shrug followed, measured, deliberate.

“She dresses better than I do anyway,” he added, glancing toward Ephraim. “Puts intention into it. I wear the same vest and tie every day and call it ritual.”

His gaze lingered on her a beat longer, a subtle smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth—just enough to soften the rasp in his tone.

Then his eyes drifted back to Avarice, cool and unblinking.

“And I’m not taking style advice from someone who looks like a fox that got dressed in the dark and declared it avant-garde.”

He let the words settle with a faint exhale—more amused than biting—and leaned back on the bed, settling his head against the pillow.

“Oh—and he’s already insulted the interior design,” Mordecai added hand gesturing around the room, tone faintly rueful. “Called it ‘very bleak.’”

His eyes closed.

“Apparently, we’re both an aesthetic tragedy.”

 

[scantilycladsnail]

“An aesthetic tragedy,” she echoed, unbuckling her second glove with a little snap. “Well. We’ll just have to redecorate with your blood, Avarice. Bit of red might do the place some good.”

She shot him a sidelong glance—narrowed, glinting, wicked in the way only friends could be—and let the silence stretch just long enough to make him slightly uncomfortable.

Then she moved.

Crossed the space between them and perched herself on the edge of the bed beside Mordecai, one gloved hand resting gently on his shoulder. She didn’t look down at him right away. Just let her presence settle beside his like a quiet shield.

Her voice softened.

“You’re here,” she said quietly, to him—not for show, not for Avarice. Just truth, just confirmation. “And you’re talking.”

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding since she walked in. Her thumb brushed against Mordecai’s collar.

“I’m relieved."

Then, turning to Avarice again, she raised a brow—still sharp, but now tinged with warmth beneath the blade.

“Thank you; for staying with him.”

A beat.

“Even if your taste is criminal.”

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai exhaled softly, his eyes still closed, hand rising just enough to rest gently against Ephraim’s arm.

“I’m glad,” he murmured, voice rough with fatigue but steady.

A pause. His brow furrowed slightly.

“I… don’t remember much from last night. We went to Brakarhall, and then—I woke up here.” A faint shake of his head. “I don’t think I even drank.”

There was confusion in his tone, but no panic. Just the quiet calculation of someone trying to stitch the missing pieces together.

He opened his eyes then, glancing toward Avarice.

“Seeing you when I woke up? Thought I was dead.”

A dry huff escaped him—a laugh, but only barely.

Then, after a moment, he added with a touch more clarity.

“Avarice. Would you give us a moment?”

His tone wasn’t harsh—just tired. Quietly certain.

“Go entertain the children.”

A beat. The faintest smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth.

“You’ve always been so good with kids.”

 

[scantilycladsnail]

Avarice gave a long-suffering sigh—theatrical, of course—and pressed a hand to his chest as if he’d just been fatally wounded by the request.

“Banished. Like a villain in act three,” he muttered. Then, rising with a stretch that was far too performative for someone in a war-touched home, he added with a smirk, “I am good with kids. They like me. I talk at their level.”

He paused at the door, tail swaying lazily behind him.

“Also, I was going to teach them how to cheat at cards, but it seems someone already beat me to it."

Ephraim stayed still.

She didn’t follow him with her eyes. Didn’t speak.

She just watched Mordecai, letting the quiet sit between them—not as a wall, but as a waiting space. Her hand stayed on his arm, steady, patient.

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai rolled his eyes as Avarice made his exit.

“Thank you, Avarice,” he muttered, dry as dust.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Silence followed—thicker, but not uncomfortable. Just… quieter. Real.

Mordecai let out a slow breath, the kind that lived deeper than lungs. He shifted slightly, the tension in his shoulders loosening as he sat up, his robe falling in closer folds around him. His shoulder brushed against hers—familiar, grounding.

He looked at her then. Not past her. Not through her. At her.

One hand found hers—steady, calloused fingers curling around her glove like an anchor.

A simple question. Low. Honest.

“…Are you doing alright?”

 

[scantilycladsnail]

Ephraim’s lips curved—barely. Not a smirk. Not quite a smile. Just that small, wry tug at the corner of her mouth that said you know better.

“I’m supposed to ask you that,” she replied, voice quiet, dry at the edges. But not distant.

Her hand didn’t pull away. She turned it slightly instead, let his fingers rest against the curve of her palm. Her thumb brushed once across his knuckles—absent, thoughtful. Like a rhythm she’d known for years.

“I was terrified.”

She said it plainly. Not like a confession. Not like weakness. Just fact. A stone laid gently on the table between them.

“You were sitting there, and your eyes were open, but you weren’t in them.” Her jaw tensed, just slightly. “And I couldn’t fix it.”

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai watched her, eyes steady—focused, but gentle in a way he rarely let show. Hearing those words from her… terrified… it struck something quiet in him. She didn’t say things like that often. Not out loud.

It sounded foreign. And that made it land harder.

His grip on her hand tightened—just slightly. Not a squeeze. Just presence. Grounding.

“I don’t remember what happened,” he said softly. “Just that I felt… frozen. Heavy. My vision was gone, sound was all muffled—like I was stuck beneath something.”

A pause.

“But I could feel you.”

His voice dropped further, the words almost a breath.

“You were there. Even through the static.”

He leaned in, his shoulder brushing hers again—not in apology, but reassurance. A quiet reminder that whatever storm he’d vanished into, he’d found his way back.

“I’m sorry you were scared,” he murmured. “But I’m here now.”

And he meant it.

All of it.

 

[scantilycladsnail]

Ephraim didn’t speak right away.

She just looked at him—eyes locked, searching, seeing.

The stillness in her was different now. Not cold. Not guarded. Just full. Of memory. Of weight. Of the thousand things she’d carried in silence.

Then, slowly, her free hand came up, fingers brushing back a stray curl from his brow. Not dramatically. Not delicately.

Just… intimately.

“I know,” she said, her voice low. Certain. A quiet breath wrapped in iron, “We’ll find who did it,” Ephraim said, "Until then, we're drinking water only." she said with a smile.

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai watched her in silence, something tightening behind his eyes.

He’d assumed it was one of his episodes—another fracture, another shadow surfacing from the old places in his mind. He’d blamed his own body. His past. His mind.

But Ephraim’s words shifted the ground beneath that.

His brow furrowed slightly. A quiet confusion, then realization.

“…I see.”

The words came low. Steady. But his fingers curled against the sheets—slow, deliberate. Like he needed to hold something still while everything else slipped.

Someone had touched his drink. In Brakarhall. Right under his nose.

A breath escaped him—not loud, not sharp. Just controlled.

Who?

He didn’t say it. Didn’t need to. The question wrapped itself around the silence like smoke.

His voice returned, quieter.

“Well. At least Avarice is here now.”

His gaze drifted—not far, but away from her eyes. Toward the wall. The firelight. Somewhere he could set the grief down for a second.

“He… survived.”

The words were simple, but not light. There was something layered beneath them. Relief, yes. But also something else.

 

[scantilycladsnail]

“You’re not going.”

Her voice cut clean through the quiet. Not cruel. Not loud.

Just decided.

Her hand didn’t leave his. Her touch stayed steady, grounding. But there was iron beneath it now.

“You’re not going after Atticus.”

A pause. Her gaze held him firm.

“It’s not safe. I’m not—” she stopped herself, just for a beat, jaw tightening—“I’m not letting you leave again when we don’t even know what they did to you.”

She took a breath, slow and sharp, then softened it—not her stance, just the delivery.

“We’ll send someone else. Someone expendable.”

She let that hang, knowing full well what the suggestion might stir—but meaning it anyway.

“You’ve already done more than enough. And I’m not risking you on a trail that might just be another noose.”

 

[ThieviusRaccoonus]

Mordecai didn’t answer at first.

His body went still, jaw tightening as he looked past her shoulder—eyes unfocused, yet burning with thought. Her words lingered in the air like smoke, sharp and impossible to ignore.

His hand remained in hers, but his grip had shifted—tense, uncertain.

“Ephraim, I—”

The words caught. Stumbled.

He stopped.

Let the silence settle between them, heavy and pulsing.

Then, finally, he spoke—voice low, quiet, rasped over something deeper.

“I can’t do that.”

He blinked once, slow, deliberate. Then met her eyes.

“These Harlekin… they’re not like the others. You know that. We’re still learning what they are, what they’re capable of. Sending someone else, someone who hasn’t seen what we’ve seen—it’s not just risky. It’s reckless.”

A pause.

“If I start pulling back every time something goes wrong… I become predictable. Weak. They’ll smell hesitation like blood.”

His breath slipped out—shallow, reined in.

“I can’t afford that.”

But then… something in him shifted. A thread of steel relaxing beneath her touch.

His fingers moved slightly under hers. Not pulling away—just grounding.

“…But I know why you’re saying it.”

The edge softened. His gaze dropped for a beat, then found hers again.

“You’re not wrong. I just…”

He trailed off, the words harder to chase now. He shook his head and shifted upright, dragging the weight of himself forward inch by inch.

“I’m exhausted, yes. But I’m still standing.”

He gave a faint breath of a laugh—dry, mirthless.

“I’ve always been.”

But his ears flicked, betraying the doubt underneath. Avarice’s words still lingered. The spiked drink. The holes in memory. The bridge between control and collapse.

Should he retreat?

Was that strength, or surrender?

His eyes drifted—then returned to her.

“…I don’t know what the right move is,” he admitted, barely above a whisper.

And that, for Mordecai, was almost as rare as a wound.