Disclaimer: I'm only playing in Pat's beautiful playground.

A/N: Hey there, guys. Last October, I took a break from my Harry Potter epic to write a short one-shot for Denna because the scene of her and Kvothe on the greystones that night would not leave me. Nine months later, this story has entirely taken over my life, and here we are. NOHH is complete at 30 chapters, and will be posted weekly. Or some such. This story comes with several trigger warnings, which may contain spoilers. But if you need them, they are: non-con/rape, underage, violence, suicide, prostitution, drug addiction, pregnancy loss and abortion, depression and PTSD, and minor character death. Thank you for reading. I hope you're all staying safe. If you need an escape from the world, I hope you find it here. And for anyone wondering, yes, I will now be returning to work on the TP sequel, which is still happening! :)

And huge thanks to MournfulSeverity, Hegemone, and Farbautidottir for all the betaing. And for putting up with my crazy. You guys are amazing.

Chapter 1: Under the Influence

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I'm coming undone. Splitting at the seams. The edges all blurring together. My mind is running wild, slipping into crevices where the shadows loom. It's there, in those shadows, that the denner takes hold of me. It's there that it latches on, pulls out my secrets, pulls out the thoughts I keep hidden away under lock and key and propels them into the soft night.

I speak. I can't stop.

The cursed denner; it's to blame. I know it. It is.

Isn't it?

Oh Gods. Merciful Tehlu.

Maybe it's only given me courage. These words pouring out of me with my control shred to pieces. Is it the denner? Or is it only me?

"You always know what you're doing," I whisper. The words are warm. Fluttery, like butterflies. They send shivers down my arms as they reach for the freedom of the sky. How long have I held on to them? I'm afraid to speak them now, and yet I've never been more brave.

He looks at me, his hair aflame even in the night, his eyes reflecting the glow of the fire below. His eyes pull more from me. More words. More heart.

Men. They are always taking. Always. And I usually keep my heart chained tight. But tonight the denner has hold of me, and I can't stop. Not for all the world.

"You're important, with your green eyes looking at me like I mean something."

I've forgotten how it feels to mean something to someone. It's been ages and years since I last felt a hand on my arm that wanted to give instead of taking.

Love. I want to think I've known it. I want to believe that truth — that the thing I'm searching for exists. Even if he… even if he doesn't…

"It's okay that you have better things to do," I add softly, nodding with understanding. I'm not sure my head moves, really, but the intent is there. More than anything, I understand the turning of the world. Hope is a luxury I haven't allowed myself to afford. Not since—

"It's enough that I get you sometimes," I breathe, forcing the memories aside. "Once in a while. I know I'm lucky for that"— my voice falters —"to get you just a little."

His eyes flicker to mine for just a moment. They are deep. Unwavering. Tired and weary like river stones worn away. Full of secrets layered upon secrets with the edges too sharp to touch. I told him I could read them just that morning, but in the end I know nothing. Whatever they're whispering now, their voice is lost in the wind.

He gives me a nod and glances away, staring out over the hillside. Is he searching for the draccus, or is it my words he's running from?

And what would he want of me after all, when I'm all used and soiled and broken inside.

I shiver, trembling violently against his arm. It's not the cold so much as the futility of it all. Even here, under the open sky with my heart laid bare before him, I can't seem to touch his at all.

"I know you don't think of me…"

What is it I was hoping to find? Gods, I've learned my lesson, haven't I? He cares, perhaps. There is something there, I can see that much. But his dreams are bigger. Too big to be held down. He is like the wind, passing by me in random patterns, even swirling around me for small moments in time before blowing away into the open air with nothing but the breeze on my skin to remember him by. Unchainable.

What is he searching for?

"I think about you all the time, Denna," he says, and his voice is so placating, it cuts. I might have no more than one suit of clothes to my name and I might be lost here in a mess of my own making, but I haven't yet sunk so low as to ask for pity.

"Don't patronise me," I snap, my voice cross. And then I sink into self-doubt again. I'm projecting. It isn't his fault he doesn't love me. This is what comes of hope. Of expectations.

"You don't think of me like that," I add, my voice softer now. "That's fine." I keep my words steady, though my heart cracks just a little. I think of the girl in the Eolian, with her arms around his neck and her mouth close enough for kissing. Beautiful as all the world.

"But if you're cold too, you could come over here and put your arms around me." The hope is there in my tone, naked and fleeting and buried so deep he can't see. Half a loaf. Gods, I'll take a quarter loaf now. A sliver even, just to feel the warmth of his touch, if only for a moment.

Pathetic.

The denner is sapping away at all my strength; at all the self restraint I built up through the years. Here, wrapped in a thin blanket and the dark, cold night, I'm falling to pieces.

"Just a little." My words are hardly more than a whisper in the wind.

There is the barest pause, enough to send cold dread through my heart, and then, in the empty silence, he shifts closer. His arms reach out, wrapping around me. I feel the tension slip away, melt into the greystone below me, as if it were a lodenstone and I was sheathed in iron.

"That's nice," I whisper, letting my body relax into his arms. He's warm, like fire burning through the cold night. "I feel like I've always been cold."

I fall into silence, letting my eyes drift to the north. But my mind has drifted even further. It's falling through the shackles of the intervening years. They have hardened me, certainly. Cut me into pieces that have healed with crooked scars.

When was the last time… that I haven't been cold?

Not the simple cold of a long winter spent under the eaves with nothing but a thin blanket for warmth, nor the cold of an empty stomach that chills your entire soul. No, it's the absence of warmth that haunts me; the type of warmth a body makes when it stands firm beside me, cloaked in love.

Love.

There it is again. When is the last time I knew its face? Felt its outline? I think I've been looking for it ever since… ever since it all fell apart.

It's a dark place, the memory. I don't go there often. I bury it in my mind so I don't have to see it. I hide it in the corners of vast rooms swathed in rich fabrics. In the embraces of men I let into my arms but not my heart. In the names I wrap around me in layers so thick that sometimes I nearly forget who I am.

Sometimes, it slips out of the shadows as I vanish into the night. Pulls at me. But I push it aside, always. There's enough pain in it all without remembering.

It hurts — this path I've chosen. But this pain is easier. Simpler. This pain I can bear.

But the denner pulls at me, breaks down the walls in my mind until the memories flicker. Her smile. Easy laughter. A warm hand grasping mine.

But can I really blame the denner? I suspect he's the one who makes me remember. Denna, he calls me now. She was a sweet girl. Innocent. Too good for this world.

I had hidden her. Put her into that box in my mind along with everything else. But she slipped out of that darkness when he came. And now when he's beside me, so is she. Kvothe and Denna. They go together, like a harmony. When we're together, I am Denna… and Denna is me. She is the best part of myself, but she always has been. It's no surprise. No lie.

Denna. She was wild, and sweet, and brave, and she took what she wanted, and gave back twice that in return. She was all heart, with love bursting out at every moment. She taught me everything.

How to live. How to laugh. How to breathe without falling.

And in the end… she taught me how everything could break.

It's no wonder I still can't pick up the pieces. Without her, the job is too big for me alone.