Home is where my hearth is

Maea

Stars, hide your fires

Night had fallen, starless, godless, full to bursting with memory and old fear. Heavy curtains had been pulled over every window in the Treehouse to keep the darkness at bay, and candles blazed on every table, lamps burning without fuel, fed by one Ancient's refusal to allow any shadow across her threshold. She had a book splayed open across her lap, a steaming mug of tea nestled between whitening fingers and a heaping plate of pastries on the coffee table before her. Yet those pale eyes were staring unblinking into the roaring fire, unseeing. If the room was a bit too hot even for the deepest of winters, if some of the wax candles had started to bend in exhaustion, losing structure in the sweltering heat, it did not register. Unseen things were striding across the fields of memory, nameless and shapeless, that left behind a bitter aftertaste of old dread. 

Shii had endured its companions slow spiralling with some patience. It happened every year at this point, and usually passed on its own. But when beeswax began to drip, drip drip onto a polished wood counter, pooled and began to trickle over the edge to the floor, it'd had enough. Zooming around the room, it first tried to catch the attention of the woman it adored, and when that failed, it darted off in search of the Tall one. That one had hands, and voice, and could shake the girl out of her waking nightmares. Shii would make him. It would make them both wake up, so that the silence and long glances cast between them could end. Upon finding the Tall one, the wisp began a whisping dance before his face, pulsing and whispering in the ways of the tricksters until Liam would have no choice but to follow.

Let not light see my black and deep desires

Liam was aware of Maea's slow descent into darkness. How could he miss it, when he'd seen the same thing happen the year before, when he knew of the fears that plagued her during LongNight? But when he'd left her in the overbright, overheated room, he'd thought she'd be alright for long enough for him to fix them some food and drink. Apparently - or according to Shii, at least - he'd thought wrong.

The wisp appeared before him, bobbing and weaving and clearly trying to attract his attention. It didn't have to try very hard; Liam was on high alert himself, though not as haunted as his partner when it came to this time of year. Seeing the will-o-wisp dance and hearing it whisper had him setting aside the sandwiches he'd been making, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel as he followed towards the fireplace and the pale Ancient that sat before it.

The heat was stifling, the light blinding. Liam wouldn't have been surprised if the shadows of LongNight had long since fled into the darkness beyond their treehouse. But he approached the roaring hearth anyway, feeling sweat bead upon his brow as he knelt next to Maea, gently reaching out to take the book from her hands, enveloping her fingers with his own. "Maea, love," he said gently, coaxing her back into herself from whatever nightmare of her own making she'd fallen into. "Come back." Back to the treehouse, back to him, back from where he could not follow.

liam

I'd rather be a hopeless lover than cursed with disbelief

code by sky

Maea

Stars, hide your fires

Ffar away indeed, she responded only slowly. The vice like grip around book and mug eased, but though Maea turned her gaze from the blazing hearth her eyes remained glazed, staring through Liam as though she didn't recognise him. His voice sounded distant to her ears, the words meaningless - but the hands that closed around hers were warm. Warmer by far than she, who remained cool to the touch even in the stifling heat, as though it was her own inner fire that leached out. In a way it was true. Keep it up long enough, and even she would drain herself dry by feeding the candles with so much fear.
"Hmm?" came a belated hum, some long moments too late. "Did you say something?" A slow blink followed by the flutter of pale lashes. A shallow breath brought new air into her lungs, and only then did she seem to realize that she'd barely moved for several minutes.

Let not light see my black and deep desires