A/N: so i'm back, y'all. because i have exams in, as i write this, forty-six [update: forty-one] days, my mind has decided i cannot focus on that so this monstrosity was born. i…have no idea what i was doing with this. plot holes? they were clearly part of some overarching narrative. or metaphorical. i don't know. (clearly.)
this was partially inspired by the myth of orion & artemis. i can't tell you an exact version of it because even i don't know. just roll with it, alright?
all you really need to know is that orion = hunting and walburga = archery & the moon (somehow. somewhere. i swear i slipped that in.)
thank you to the tornadoes for letting me write for them :D
title from the phoenix by fall out boy! i shit you not, i googled 'fall out boy lyrics stars' to find the title. i know it's not really related to the story but - deadlines. also i've been loving this song lately x
thank you to evie on the qlfc server for beta-ing!
Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Tutshill Tornados, Chaser 1 (Reserve)
Optional Prompts:
[genre] fantasy
[setting] starry night
[au] mythology
content warnings: canon incest (Orion & Walburga, second cousins), mentions of alcohol, drugging (heavily implied), descriptions of wound, use of poison, death
silver clouds with grey linings
Walburga is sitting on the muddy ground when Orion comes out to join her. The stars are studded in the night sky and the moonlight shrouds her face, emphasising its shadows and angles. She doesn't look at him. Silently, she passes a flask to him.
The silence between them is awkward, unnatural. She breaks it, finally, a few moments later – "The Lord isn't pleased with you."
Orion sniffs at the flask and drinks. Wine. "I know," he says, and feels that weigh on him. His fingers flex. She doesn't offer up anything more and so he doesn't either. "What did he say?"
She gives a mean laugh. "Say? He didn't say. He doesn't have to say. Just made a circle of those poor mortal henchmen become dust."
"That isn't the worst of it," Orion says, almost light-hearted. Lord Voldemort, as he prefers to be called nowadays, has made many worse threats – and hardly ever followed up on them. Orion's skill with hunting makes him too valuable. He isn't such an idiot that he considers himself safe, not really, not when he knows just how easily men and gods can change their loyalties.
Walburga looks at him. The edges of her skirts are soaked in brown, but her hands, placed at her sides, are perfectly clean. Ironic, when Orion knows exactly how long she spent shooting at Lord Voldemort's whims today. Her gaze is sharp but shifting – she's looking at the stars, now, glimmering with the power of their stories. They looked different millennia ago.
"Do you intend to ever comply?" she says finally. Orion thinks he hears a note of concern in her voice. He wonders if it's for him – he's never quite sure, nowadays.
Lightly, "Perhaps." Orion knows it's not a laughing matter but nevertheless he's amused by the sharpening of her eyes and flare of her nose. Lord Voldemort will have words with him about his insolence. He drinks some more wine. There's a slight tang to it. Or maybe Voldemort will just speak to Walburga instead. She hides her indignation well, but being a messenger owl grates on her nerves.
He's thinking of Sirius, now. Orion wouldn't say he loves his son – that's a strange, foreign emotion, and either the stories are blatantly untrue or he's just not a good enough father, but he doesn't really need to be, so. Well. – but he likes him. Sirius has ability and drive but not the belief to do what Voldemort requires. Someday he'll pay for that, but Orion intends to delay it by as long as his mouth and skill can.
He lifts the flask to his lips and throws it back. He's starting to feel a little drunk as the last of it settles in his stomach. He gets to his feet.
"I'm going to run," he tells Walburga, unnecessarily. She tilts her head up to look at him and nods.
"I'll see you at home." She rises and turns. Once her silhouette's almost out of sight, Orion runs.
Running comes with the domain of hunting. The different constellations in the sky flash by too fast for even his eyes. He doesn't strain easily but as the landscape trundles by his breaths start to get shorter, his head starts to ache almost imperceptibly and the strain in his legs notches up from unnoticeable to on the far edge of pleasant.
The Black Forest's vegetation is thicker and denser, so it's easy to realise when he's run into it. He stops when the trails become narrower and less marked-out, still far enough from the centre of the forest for any animals truly worth hunting. He likes the calm air of the night – it feels like it's carrying him away.
Something sings through the air, a sharp sound. Orion turns instinctively. It takes him far too long to realize it's an arrow, now stuck in his side. There's a substance spilling out of the opening wound, something gleaming and sticky but also something so relentlessly golden it seems to light up –
Oh. Blood.
He's not sure what to make of the sight. His brain is sluggishly catching up – the sticky substance was the only poison known to affect immortals. Made of the hate of damned souls, Voldemort said once, and the glow of the moon. Oh.
The moon.
"You should've known better, lover." Walburg's voice is breathy, lifting at the last word. He startles, but the uncertainty gives her the time to move over him. She's a picturesque vision, out of the corner of his eye because he can't seem to move without his side sending a flush of pain up his body, illuminated by the moonlight and the paleness of her face contrasted by the surrounding forest, even with her face twisted like a particularly lethal canine. Lover. Orion is reminded of the illicit nature of their meetings, both cloaked in darkness, and the thrill, running through all his limbs, every time she kissed him.
He tries to say something, but instead chokes – on a laugh, on a word, on a stream of blood.
"Sirius will inherit," says Walburga, like his death is a sure fact. Which it is, really. Death. That, like love, is a foreign concept. Once, he'd known to fear it. "But all he does is roughouse with the boys and flirt with the girls. Lord Voldemort is wary of the direction he'll take House Black in." She pauses, breathes out. There's something manic to her expression now. "If he does."
It takes Orion a moment to sort through her words, one by one, to find the meaning behind them. "No." Even that single word makes him want to double over in agony, if he could. The pool of gold on the ground only grows larger.
"Yes." She laughs, and straightens so he can't see her face. "You should've listened, Orion. You aren't as valuable as you think. In Lord Voldemort's service, one can always be replaced."
She starts to leave.
"The hunter becomes the prey."
He doesn't ruminate. He just lies there, watches his blood spill out of him in a daze. His vision clouds over and blacks out.
The constellations Orion and Sirius are close enough to each other for one of their namesakes to leap over, and touch the other.
wc: 1047 (gdocs)
