Disclaimer: The characters portrayed in this fic are the rightful property of Laini Taylor.
He finds her as she is sharpening her blade, tucked away in a secluded cave, the grating sound of stone against steel bouncing off the walls. She knows that she doesn't really have any use for her sword anymore, but it's an old habit that she's not going to drop anytime soon. The repetitive movement of the sharpening stone sliding across her blade had been a small source of comfort for her whenever she had trouble sleeping during their countless missions, haunted by the gruesome tally etched across her hands.
And so, unable to sleep, she had traveled deep into the Kirin caves, guided by the eerie whistling of the wind trough the hewn rock. And like so many times before, she had searched for comfort in the act of sharpening her sword—her weapon of destruction. A sharp sword, she had once thought, would help protect her from the beasts. But now, after having met the chimaera, and fought with them, felt their pain, she can't help thinking about all of the lives it has assisted her in taking, and the comfort is gone.
But no—she knows now that the slain chimaera were resurrected, brought back to life with Brimstone's magic, and that they had not, in fact, died. Not permanently, at least. Although it doesn't make her feel any better, especially considering all of the innocent chimaera she had slaughtered, with no chance of resurrection, following Jael's orders after the destruction of Loramendi like the mindless Misbegotten soldier she was.
And still she continues to slide the rock across the glistening steel, honing her weapon of destruction, the sound a dull background to the turmoil raging in her mind. She doesn't know exactly what's brought it on. Maybe it's the knowledge that their world is on the brink of destruction, with the beasts pushing, pushing, pushing at the fabric of their universe, eager to devour their entire existence. Or maybe it's the aching emptiness that is the space that Hazael had unknowingly occupied in her battle-hardened, dusty shell of a heart.
Or maybe it's the chimaera boy. The kind-hearted, beautiful chimaera who fought like poetry, a lithe and sinuous dance between him and his opponent. Who had led the revenants to battle—and even victory—against the Dominion all while playing the role of a cold, bloodthirsty general in a horrifyingly brutal body. Whose soul she had captured like a fleeting butterfly in her canteen after he had sacrificed his life for Karou's cause, knowing full well that he was condemning himself to evanescence—permanent, irreversible death.
Her hand falters at the same time as her heart at the thought.
She wonders what she would have done, had Karou told her that there was nothing in the canteen, that her efforts to save the chimaera boy were in vain, and that his soul had evanesced, never to be seen again. She would have been devastated, surely, and humiliated. Heartbroken?
No. Being heartbroken would mean that there had been something to break in the first place. And she is fairly certain that her chest is empty—or that her poor, warrior heart is already lying shattered at its bottom. But there's no denying that she had felt something for the beautiful chimaera boy in her hollow, splintered chest, regardless of what and how.
And she still feels it now, she knows. The tightening in her gut, the warmth that blooms across her cheeks whenever she meets his deep, brown eyes. And the time they had flown together—there had been a lightness in her that she could never remember feeling before. And at the sight of the humans careening towards them on the back of a stormhunter, she had laughed—laughed! When has she ever laughed in her life?
There's definitely something about this sweet Kirin that has brought a change in her. And although she is still confused about what she feels—and how it is possible for her to feel it; he is a chimaera, for crying out loud!—she decides that she likes it. She feels different, but it's a good different. Better. The iron grip crushing her chest ever since Hazael's death has loosened somewhat, leaving her more room to breathe again.
And perhaps, even, to begin to piece together her mangled excuse for a heart.
She smiles a little at the thought—a battered, battle-weary smile, but a smile nonetheless—and suddenly realizes that the raging thoughts in her head have quieted down. It seems that simply thinking about the chimaera has a positive effect on her.
She returns to her thoughts, distractedly running the stone across her blade. She's wondering what it would feel like to touch his skin, feel his comforting warmth beneath her fingertips, or caress the smooth ridges of his horns—she can still remember the weight of the tip of his old horn resting in her palm, the feel of her hand in his—when, pink-cheeked, she is jolted out of her reverie by the sound of approaching footsteps.
No, not footsteps—hoofsteps, like the first time he had approached her in his new body.
She panics. She swivels around to face the wall to conceal her blush, and, in her haste, almost slips off of the stone on which she is sitting. In an attempt to appear nonchalant, she takes up the sharpening stone and slides it, albeit shakily, across her blade. She prays to the godstars that he didn't notice the lapse in the sounds of her sharpening.
She squeezes her eyes shut. What is it about this boy that has her acting this way? Panicking—when has she ever panicked in the presence of a chimaera? She is supposed to be fearless—and she always has been, up until now. Now, she can feel her palms sweating nervously, her sword almost slipping from her grasp.
The clip of his hooves draws nearer and then falls silent.
A pause.
From the doorway, his voice cuts through the shriek of stone on steel like wings slicing effortlessly through the air. Her skin tingles.
"Liraz?"
His smooth, silky voice manages to make the guttural chimaera language sound like music. It has the same effect on her as the first time she heard it. Her heart makes a sudden appearance and thunders in her chest, and her insides tie themselves up in incomprehensible knots. Her cheeks and wings flare in response.
She halts her movements and takes a breath, clears her throat, desperate to not be as tongue-tied as the first time. You are not a stalagmite.
"Ziri."
She tries not to wince when her voice comes out scratchy and high pitched. She coughs and tries again.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice is steady this time—thank the godstars.
He walks closer—slowly, as if approaching a wild animal. Her back is still facing him.
"Looking for you."
She doesn't think it's possible for her to get any redder. She swallows.
"What are you doing here?" He's even closer.
"Sharpening," she replies, curt, to avoid any vocal mishaps. To demonstrate, she runs the stone over her sword, once, the sound reverberating off the walls.
She feels him move around the rock she is sitting on. Waits as he settles himself beside her, their wings brushing. She wills her face to return to its normal color. Of course, her cheeks don't pay her any heed, and they stay as red as ever. She can only hope that he won't notice in the dimness.
She tries to find something to break the silence, but she can't think of anything to say, so she continues to sharpen her sword. She can feel his gaze on her, but she keeps her eyes trained on her hands. His eyes are burning into her skull, which is odd, she thinks, because isn't she supposed to be the creature of fire here? Regardless, her cheeks and ears flame, and she silently curses the brightness of her wings, because he surely can't miss her blush in their light. Stupid, stupid feelings.
Flustered—Liraz, flustered?—her hand jerks and her sleeve slides up, revealing her tattoos. Her kill tally. She sucks in a breath at the sight of her blackened fingers, and her heart sinks. She goes to pull her sleeve back down, but Ziri's hand is there to stop her. His bare fingers rest on her marked ones, and she feels as if she's been shocked by his hamsas. But no, Karou resurrected him without them, and besides, she's protected from their magic now.
"Don't," he says. "Please don't."
She freezes, and then nods. She watches him as he picks up her hand, lifting it carefully, as if it were a fragile piece of glass or a beautiful, fleeting butterfly and not the hand of a skilled murderer. His eyes flicker to hers, a question in them, and she nods again. He slowly—delicately—rolls up her sleeve, exposing the full extent of her despicableness. She wants to look away, but her eyes are drawn to his other hand as he raises it to brush his fingers across her innumerable tattoos. He raises goosebumps in his wake.
Seemingly entranced, he murmurs, "I've killed too, you know."
"Not as much as me," she answers, quietly. And it's true—nobody has as many kills as her. As far as she knows, her tattoos are the most extensive, sprawling up her forearms, more numerous than any other seraph soldier's. It wouldn't surprise her if the White Wolf himself had fewer kills than her.
"I know," Ziri replies. He looks up from her hand, into her eyes. "But…the soldiers you've killed, most of them were resurrected. The ones I killed, they were gone for good. No resurrection for them." He pauses. "And besides, does it really even matter? Once you've killed a person, you've killed a person. And whether it's one or one thousand, the guilt is all the same. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"I…I don't know."
"I think what I'm trying to say is that the number of people you've killed doesn't matter—we're all guilty of the same crime in the end."
She's not exactly sure that she understands. Because surely having killed more people would make you more guilty? She hopes he's not saying this simply to make her feel better about her tally. She clears her throat and looks away. She wants to pull her sleeve back down, hide the evidence of her crimes, but Ziri is still holding on to her hand, tracing the raised flesh of her marks.
She doesn't know why she decides to tell him. But it seems necessary, as his fingers dance over the ashes and soot embedded into her skin. She hopes that maybe it will make him see that she is not as monstrous as she seems to be, as her tally makes her out to be. And—she has to admit it to herself—she wants to tell somebody.
"Sometimes, I—" she starts, looking down at her distorted reflection in her sword. She swallows and then continues, her voice quiet. "Sometimes I dream that I, um, somehow I cut my arms off, hoping that they'll grow back clean, you know? Unmarked, without my kills. Except, they never do. At least, not in the dream. I always wake up before they can. But I can never go back to sleep unless I imagine that my arms do grow back, clean." She stops, takes a breath. "So when Ten—I mean, Haxaya—was going to, um, cut off my arms, I thought, 'This is my chance.' My chance to be clean, I mean. Even though I know it's impossible, but I suppose I was delirious at the time. But still, I felt relieved, because then I wouldn't have to figure out how I would cut both my arms off myself, right? Just, get a vengeful chimaera to do it for you." She laughs, but it is harsh and bitter. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
She waits. Ziri is silent, and when she looks at him, he is staring at the wall ahead of them, although he still holds her hand in his own. She is afraid to move, worried that if she disturbs him he will realize what a horrible, twisted person she is, despite her having shared one of her deepest, most shameful desires with him. She looks down, not wanting to see his expression when he finally comes to his senses.
And so she is startled when Ziri says forcefully, firmly, "There is nothing wrong with you." She glances at him, and he is staring at her with a burning intensity, his eyes begging her to believe him. And she almost does—his eyes are so earnest, still so kind despite all of the horrors he has beheld.
But she can't. Because she knows that at her core, there is something terribly, irreparably wrong with her. She doesn't have the same kindness in her as Ziri—war has torn her apart, chewed her up and spat her out, hopelessly mangled and broken. She wasn't—isn't—strong enough to remain untouched by the things she has seen and done; not like Ziri.
She lied when she was confessing to Ziri. She knows what's wrong with her: everything is wrong with her. Everywhere she goes she trails death and chaos. Her sword is not her weapon of destruction—she is the weapon of destruction. She is exactly what she was born to be: a Misbegotten weapon, and no more. She makes herself sick.
Ziri, sensing her inner turmoil, drops her hand and turns toward her. Eyes blazing, ears flattened (she hadn't realized before that he had antelope ears—they were mostly hidden by his hair) he cups her face in his hands—gently—and forces her to look at him. Alarmed, she drops her sword and it clatters to the ground. Her first instinct in response to his movement, his proximity, is to fight back—after all, it's been beaten into her ever since she was a child that the chimaera are the enemy. Her pulse thunders and her hand twitches towards her sword. She freezes immediately, however, realizing her mistake, although her heart refuses to settle. It pounds against her ribs like a frantic war drum.
"There is nothing wrong with you," he enunciates, slowly, as if she is a child.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. He is so very, very wrong.
"No, listen to me." He's deadly serious. Where did her lighthearted, smiling chimaera boy go? "There is nothing wrong with you. How could you believe that there is?"
She exhales shakily and shakes her head weakly.
"No, no, no, no, no. You need to trust me on this. Okay?"
She opens her eyes and he gives her a small smile. Her head nods, just barely, seemingly of its own volition.
"Okay," he breathes, relieved. He releases her face and settles back into his spot, seeming a little flustered by what he had done, if the faint blush across his cheeks is any indication. But despite his nervousness, he seems satisfied with her wordless answer.
However, she is still not convinced, and she can't stop herself from saying, "Even if there's nothing wrong with me, there's still nothing right." It's the truth—of course there can be nothing right about a murderer like her. There is nothing good inside her, and what little she might have once had has been stripped away by the realities of war and life as a Misbegotten soldier.
Ziri, on the other hand, he is the epitome of goodness, thriving even when it seems like nothing good can survive. And in that way, she thinks, he is so much like Hazael, and it chokes her to realize it.
She looks up at Ziri—sweet, kind-hearted Ziri—and finds him staring at her, an incredulous expression on his face. He gasps out a laugh, and she wonders how he can still find it in him to do so when she feels like she is being swallowed by the beasts—by nithilam. She misses the giddiness she felt earlier, before she flashed him her tattoos and sent everything spiraling downwards into this talk of killing and guilt.
Her pulse spikes, however, briefly, at the sound of his laugh, short-lived though it is.
"Do I have to make you a list?" he asks. His grin is disbelieving.
"Huh?" she says dumbly, uncomprehending.
He holds up his hand, and then clears his throat several times and glances at her nervously, but the smile still plays across his lips.
"You're fearless," he begins, counting it off on his finger.
She can only sit watching him, dumbfounded.
"You're powerful."
"You're awe-inspiring."
Funny, she thinks, that it should sound like he is describing himself.
"You're selfless."
Except that she knows he's talking about her.
"You're beautiful."
As she observes him, she notices the flush creeping up his neck with every word he says.
"You're compassionate."
She also notes that he looks everywhere but at her.
"You obviously love your brothers."
She can feel her own blush spreading across her face. (She also doesn't miss how he says brothers—not brother.)
"And, um…" He coughs and looks down at his hooves, mumbling something incoherent.
"What?" she asks. She has to stop herself from grinning, in spite of her brokenness—it's a perfect reversal of the first time they spoke after his resurrection. Her heart swells at the sight of this graceful Kirin warrior, now reduced to a blushing and stuttering mess before her eyes.
Deep inside her, the mangled shards that tear at her conscience every time she moves begin to piece themselves together.
Ziri cuts his gaze towards her before flitting his eyes away again, like a skittish bird. "You have a beautiful voice," he mutters finally, just barely audible. He then cringes visibly at his confession, his face coloring a violent shade of red.
She's confused. A beautiful voice? As in, singing voice? When did she ever sing for hi—oh.
She can feel her own cheeks burning.
"I, um. I—" And there it is. She's back to the awkward and bumbling mess she is whenever she's around Ziri. How does he manage to do this to her? And—oh godstars, he's looking at her with this hopeful expression and he wants her to say something, doesn't he?
"Um, uh… Thank you?" she stammers. She doesn't know what to say—the only compliments she has ever received were in regards to her aptitude at slaughtering chimaera. Why would someone ever praise something like her singing? She never, ever sang—in fact, her whole life she'd been lead to believe that skills like singing or dancing were useless, frivolous things.
Until now, of course. Once again, Ziri has managed to completely alter her perception of the world.
He smiles at her obvious discomfort, his eyes lighting up. Chuckling, he decides to take pity on her and spare her any more embarrassment.
"The song," he says. "What was it?"
"It's, ah, an old seraph lullaby." It feels as if there is an armada of those chimaera hummingbird-moths flitting around in her stomach, but it's not a bad feeling. They land on the destroyed remains of her goodness, sitting at the bottom of her stomach. "I think it might have been my mother who sang it to me, but I can't really remember. I'm surprised I still know the song, really. I didn't think I actually knew any songs, being Misbegotten and all…" She trails off.
Ziri is watching her attentively, his hands clasped before him. The blush has mostly receded from his face, and now instead of looking shy and bashful, he looks…the only word she can think of is enraptured. It's so completely different from what she's used to—the only expressions that chimaera have turned towards her in the past were undisguised terror as she bore down on them, weapons screaming towards their death, or barely contained disgust. Nothing about this is normal—what even is normal anymore, anyways?—but she doesn't think that she could feel any more comfortable.
He doesn't say anything, still fixated on her. She stares right back at him, watching the way his eyelashes flutter as he blinks or the almost imperceptible twitching of his wings or the way his horns gleam in the glow of her wings. Neither of them moves, scarcely daring to breathe, simply observing the other. He is truly beautiful, she thinks, even though she knows this body was not originally his own. He is still Ziri, she knows, and he was still Ziri even when he wore the Wolf's body. He will always be Ziri; there is simply no way to change him.
She stares openly, drinking in his features even more thoroughly than when he first presented himself to her as Ziri, and not an intruder in another body. He gazes right back at her, not hiding anything, eyes shining. She can feel the flush creeping up her neck, and by the looks of it, he's feeling a little bit ruffled himself.
He is the first one to break their stare. He blinks rapidly and then shakes his head, sitting up as he does so. He grins sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck, and says, "Sorry, I…" He chuckles uncomfortably.
She feels as if she might spontaneously combust from embarrassment. Staring at him like that, her newfound emotions playing uncensored over her face—what was she thinking? She doesn't know why she did it, and didn't stop; she had felt hypnotized, everything beyond her control. And she feels nervous, too, because she doesn't like not being in control of herself—she's gone too long wearing a meticulously sculpted mask, her feelings hidden away deep, deep inside, carefully controlling how others perceive her. But at the same time it was…nice, being able to finally drop the mask and let him have a glimpse of her, uncovered and vulnerable.
She wants to reassure him, tell him that he did nothing wrong. She begins to speak, but Ziri does so at the same time, and their words clash awkwardly in the air between them. They both clamp their mouths shut, practically in tandem. She blushes, and he does, too. And then they both go to apologize, managing to embarrass themselves once again.
How are they both so bad at this?
As she contemplates if it is possible for her to sink into the floor and simply disappear, Ziri bursts suddenly into bright, boyish laughter.
At her bewildered expression, he says, "Don't worry, I'm not laughing at you. It's just, I've never done this before, and I have no idea what I'm doing." At 'this', he gestures between the two of them, a seraph and a chimaera, sitting together in a darkened cave in the middle of the night.
She can detect the nervous note in his voice, and she knows that he is telling the truth. She is a bit surprised, frankly, that he has never courted anyone before. But it doesn't matter, she decides—she's just as inexperienced as him, and since neither of them knows what they're doing, they'll just have to figure it out themselves.
She tells him so, and he beams at her. She offers him a small, fleeting smile in return.
It's amazing, she thinks, how he can affect her. The lightness from before is back, along with the giddiness and awkwardness that accompanied it, and her earlier melancholy is already a distant memory. She feels less…broken, somehow.
They are silent for a bit, each wondering how exactly they're supposed to 'figure it out', until Ziri says, seemingly out of the blue, "Thank you."
She is baffled. "For what?" she asks. What has she done for him to warrant thanks?
"For singing for me," he replies, sincerely, honestly. "It was a very beautiful song, even if I couldn't understand it. It was much better than incense," he jokes. "That stuff makes my head feel foggy."
Her lips turn up infinitesimally. She doesn't bother to point out that, technically, he didn't have a head as a soul. Instead she replies, "It was my pleasure. I'm glad I could help avoid any…head…fogginess." She stumbles over her words, unused to this easy banter that flows between them.
Ziri mhm's and nods. "Much nicer to my ears, too." He twitches them quickly and then laughs.
She lets out a short hiccup of a laugh at his antics.
Suddenly serious, he asks, "Would you ever sing for me again?"
She is a bit taken aback at first by his forwardness, and he seems to realize it and begins to apologize. "Sorry, sorry I—"
She cuts him off. "No, no, it's fine." She frowns. "I would sing for you…eventually…except, I don't think I know any other songs."
He brightens. "I could teach you some," he offers. "I know a lot of chimaera songs. I had a very musical family." He doesn't need to tell her that he means his adoptive family—she knows about what happened in these Kirin caves when he was young.
Something stirs within her. "Really?" The prospect makes her unusually excited.
"Of course," he replies. "If you want, actually, we could start now. There's nobody around."
She tries to hide her enthusiasm by appearing reluctant. "Alright…"
"I could even teach you the actions that go with the songs," he says, smiling cheekily.
She flashes him an annoyed look. "Let me think about it."
He laughs out loud at that and the scowl melts from her face.
He sobers up quickly, however, and she misses the sound of his laugh, but when he starts to quietly hum a slow, rocking tune, she decides that she can do without. He taps his fingers against his leg, and then gradually, his voice melds to form the words of a silky, swaying ballad. The sound fills the cave, echoing softly off the walls.
And she begins to think that maybe, feelings aren't so bad, after all.
Author's Note:
Originally this was going to be a fluffy little one-shot about Ziri finding Liraz and thanking her for singing for him when he died and instead it turned into...this.
I'm sorry if it seems...angsty or OOC. I'm not very good at writing in-character.
Also, I didn't want their relationship to be a mirror image of Karou's and Akiva's, so I tried make it more lovestruck-teenageresque and focus on their inexperience and blushiness around each other (which I find absolutely adorable, to be honest). Sorry if I went a bit overboard. Of course, they do have their serious moments, as can be seen by Liraz's oh godstars I'm a horrible monster and Ziri's no you're not you're beautiful scene.
Furthermore, I'm sorry if Liraz seems excessively emotional and stuff, but as we can see in chapters 42, 73 and 77, Ziri has brought about a huge change in Liraz's demeanour, and I believe that his impact on her would only increase over time, leaving her more open and comfortable with her emotions.
And finally, if you would be so kind as to review (the longer the better!), I will be eternally grateful.
Oh, and before I forget, any mistakes made in regards to...stuff, I guess, are entirely my own. I didn't check the book much while I was writing this.