Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Wet Silk, Floss, Giblets

Little bits of Maris splattered the stones and walls. The largest chunks were at Ormiss' and Ethat's feet.

Ethat gulped down whatever part of Maris he'd been chewing on just because he'd exploded. He pawed through the entrails.

Ormiss flicked gore off his hands and stepped back, ignoring how splattered he was.

The smell was...was something. A combination of butchery and something more disgusting.

Ethat found the liver and gulped it down with relish.

"Not again," Itek said under his breath.

"What are you doing?" I snapped out of my stupor and stormed over to Ethat. "Stop that! Stop eating that!"

Ethat had a piece of something dangling out of the corner of his mouth and gave me a nonplussed me? look.

Korr alighted in a wave of frost and transformed. He looked at the mess and threw up his hands. Ethat went back in to eat something else. Korr smacked him with a wave of ice.

Thunder crashed overhead.

Ormiss looked up at the storm, which now brewed violent and dark and green over our heads, with more clouds racing from the horizon. Wind tore at our hair.

Something fluttered on the wind, and Soir's raven-form, all purple-black and fluttering, silky wings, flapped into view and he dropped neatly in the middle of the scene.

Great. Lord Busy-Body there. Although I had to be impressed he could fly in this wind. The rest of his ravens got batted away and hunkered down on ledges and sills.

Ormiss tossed his wind-swept hair and leveled me with his best I am NOT sorry look.

"I have told you, brother," Korr told Ethat in an icy tone. "To stop eating people. Especially demon-touched. You will suffer for that later."

Ethat licked his chops in defiance, then belched fireflies at his brother.

"Are you hurt?" Itek asked, standing close, his voice soft under the howl of the wind. He brushed the back of one of my arms. "Or is it just this?"

I shivered. "I'm fine."

Soir, his bound-clothes twisting and dancing around him in twists of purple, approached, his hair as wild and unbound as Ormiss', the blacks of his clothing flickering purple in the wind.

"Lady Theia," he said with concern that almost seemed genuine. "What was this about?"

"The matter is under control, Lord-Raven," Itek said.

"The matter appears to be digesting, Lord-Ambassador," Soir replied, flicking a finger at Ethat. "I am the master of Haven. When someone is turned into giblets on the street, I take an interest in that."

"He attacked me," I said tersely. Now the demon-touched was fucking dead? What was even going on anymore? "I suppose Asund was--wait, where did you even come from, Asund?"

"I was sitting guard outside your door," Asund replied with a proud flick of his short hair. He ran his hand through it.

"You were what?" They were spying on me like the Ravens were? Could I not be fucking trusted to live on my own?

Apparently not. Apparently I could not be trusted to live on my own.

"You think I would permit you to have no guards at hand?" Ormiss demanded.

"Who are you permitting to do anything?" Asund growled. "I don't take orders from you, I just happen to know you don't have a lot of options to keep her safe."