PART 1 OF THIS WEEKEND’S DOUBLE UPDATE!!!!

CHAPTER 53 WILL BE OUT TOMORROW (CURRENTLY BEING EDITED), SO I THOUGHT YA’LL COULD HAVE THIS ONE FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Malcolm

°

He should be watching his books.

Like the others, he should be manning them diligently, mirroring their efforts to consume enough information to prepare for warfare and protect the cause of it sitting beside him.

He knows this, and yet, he watches me. Only me.

Not pointedly, for his eyes remain on Kalem’s while they talk, the two of them not so secretly conversing beneath a bubble of his magic. But I have spent enough time with Aias to know by now what it feels like to be watched by him, even when he is looking away.

I feel it in my bones, through the collar, and in that quiet place he’d invaded before it, and while no one else notices, Aias’ concern lies entirely with me.

It is because of earlier. I shocked him a little, but I do not know what he expected from me. To play dumb? Unlikely when he had always been vocal about how attractive he found my mind. But maybe it was how I worded it. Maybe how I acted.

It would be a lie to say I was not annoyed in the moment, but I think anyone else would have been, had they felt what I did through my collar, only to receive no explanation for it afterwards.

If Aias’ magic rang like a chime through my veins whenever we were apart, then when he was with Lincoln, it reverberated through me like a church bell falling from its tower window.

I felt it in every crevice of my being, had struggled just to exist when it first began seeping from him, and yet, when he reappeared, hair perfectly in place, he acted as though nothing had happened, and tried to make me do the same.

So yes, I had been a little sharper than I usually might, and I did not regret it— not after all I’d learnt from Kalem.

Purple-pink skies. Two Moons. Conquered planets. Endless species. And goddess who governed them all.

Kalem knew so very much without even understanding the value of it, while I only knew the name of that Goddess, and even that was a presumption. Much was when everything Aias shared with me came blotted with bleach— a fact I was fine with until the conversation with Kalem, and his secret one with Lincoln.

It was one thing when he hid things from all he encountered, another entirely to discover myself as the one kept furthest in the dark when I should be the sole entity exposed to the light.

Burying my nose in my pages, I take a deep breath and force myself to hold it.

Patience had led me this far, all the way to the collar wrapped around my neck, and patience would lead me further.

Aias might not share with me the details of his realm as he did with Kalem, but I knew that he was to be submerged in water if he turned ill, that his unnamed best friend was a quiet, stoic type, that he adored open skies and thought tag was a competition…

I knew what mattered, and if I was patient, I would learn more. Patient… and smart.

“Alright!” I snap, shutting the book in my hand with enough force to startle Aias’ tuned ears. Unaware, Lincoln and Kalem shift their attention onto me, and I smile to keep it there. “I think that is enough of that,” I say, sliding the book into the space beside me. “We have spent hours talking about Kalem and plans for the new clan, and my brain is fried.”

Hardly, when I have been devising them for months before Lincoln even agreed, but we all had roles to play.

“What would you rather do, Pisen?” Aias asks, turning himself and his watchful eyes towards me as he does. He senses the play, but has no clue what it is. Good.

“We need to let off some steam,” I push to my feet. Aias’ eyes narrow, but I barrel on. “We— the four of us— have never once done anything fun together, ever! I say it’s about time we rectified that, if not for us, for Kalem. I bet he is dying to do something other than cleaning.”

“I like cleaning,” Kalem pipes up with a careful smile.

I blink at him, but maintain my own. “Okay, well, I want you to do something other than cleaning.”

“I second that motion,” Lincoln agrees readily, and Kalem does everything but clutch his chest at the apparent betrayal.

“Linc’s on board— that has got to be a sign,” I say, and they do not know it, but it was the truth. Lincoln was only ever on board to be horizontal. Wequie would already have us out the door if he were here.

“Let’s do something crazy!” I say, grinning at the pair that are quick to smile back at me, Lincoln’s tiny smile included.

Kalem looks to Lincoln, and he does not need to utter a word. Lincoln senses the silent plea and nods. The boy almost combusts. When he faces me again, his smile rivals mine as he quickly bobbles his head.

“The angel’s on board!” I cheer, and Kalem mirrors me in throwing a fist upwards.

I chuckle before pinning my attention on my final target, who just so happened to be my primary target, and the only one who had no choice in this matter. And by the look in his eyes, he knows it too. Still, acts, parts and plays…

I wait until I’m standing just before him to sink to my knees. Aias watches me quietly, his expression interested, if slightly confused. “What are you planning, pisen?” He whispers, his magic making it for my ears alone.

“Why must I be planning something?” I retort while my smile morphs into a smirk. Golden eyes warm the same way my collar does. “What do you say? Do you want to do something crazy with me?”

Still eyeing me, Aias lets me see his scepticism, as well as his amusement, before he nods and reaches out to trace a finger down the length of my face. “Something crazy with you…” he muses as his fingers find my collar, sending tingles racing down both our spines. “…That sounds like something I would enjoy.”

I surge up to kiss him, and Aias lets me.

“So, what are we going to do?” Kalem asks when we part, squirming about already.

“I have no clue,” I admit as a similar restlessness races through me. “I say, we get in one of Linc’s best cars and we see where the night takes us.”

Aias and I had gotten up to much that these two never knew about, but it was always tied to the war. Tonight, I wanted something that had nothing to do with that, and while I had something in mind, luck would have to take my side just this once.

Lincoln sends a scowl my way immediately. “That sounds dangerously close to one of Wequie’s beloved adventures.”

He hastily looks around as though Wequie might jump out from the shadows, but unfortunately for us both, our third is nowhere close to here. But we both knew odds were, we’d find him some point in the night. We always did.

“As much as I would love to have Wequie with us, I think that would be too extreme for Kalem’s first adventure.” Adventures among us three were a crazy affair— the boy didn’t need to be exposed to that just yet.

“So this is an adventure?” Aias asks, and when our eyes meet, I tense slightly.

Aias’ eyes shine, not from wariness or mirth, but from excitement, as though I just promised him an entirely new collection of silks.

Maybe I would learn more about Aias tonight after all.

“Why not?” I reply as I pull Kalem to his feet before doing the same to him. “We can do anything and end up anywhere. Nothing is off-limits.”

“Nothing?” Kalem echoes, eyes gleaming like Aias’.

“Nothing,” I confirm with a wink before I turn to the last co-conspirator.

Lincoln is still slumped in his chair, the one he tries to sink lower into while I stalk towards him. It’s useless. He won’t get away from me, and he knows it, so when I grab his hands and force him up too, he doesn’t fight me, not even a little.

I hold his dark gaze. “If we do not allow ourselves to let loose every now and again, we are going to kill ourselves before some dickhead can do it himself. So I say, let’s get out there and enjoy our eternal lives.”

It’s a speech I’ve given him before, with other words perhaps, but no less familiar, and while Lincoln usually tries to fight me, he, for once, surrenders right away, Lady Luck apparently along for the ride.

“Alright,” he laughs, shaking his head as he does. “Let’s do something fucking crazy.”

°

“When you began this ordeal, I must admit that I did not expect you to lead us here,” Aias says as we walk through my front doors with Lincoln and Kalem in tow.

“We are making a pit stop,” I supply, and he frowns. “We are only grabbing some items before leaving again.”

“And that is a ’pit stop’?” He asks, and my smile takes on a life of its own.

“Precisely.”

Aias nods to himself, and there is nothing in this world that can stop me from pressing a fresh kiss to his cheek. It pinkens slightly when I leave it before that invisible wall of his blankets him once more.

“You are no longer mad at me then?” He asks as we turn down the corridor that leads to our rooms.

“When was I ever mad at you?”

Aias’ expression turns incredulous. “Pisen.”

“Pyro.” He scowls, and I have no choice but to revel in all the joy his presence brings to my heart before I relent. “Bothered or annoyed, sure, but not mad.”

“I bothered you,” Aias repeats before he pales slightly, almost missing his next steps in the process. “I annoyed you?”

I stare at him as we reach our doors, confused until I realise that his panic is sincere. The mere suggestion of bothering me in any way and…

“No,” I whisper as I push inside when my own skin begins to heat. “Never.”

Aias follows me, the topic nowhere close to finished where he is concerned, but it is forced to a pause when a throat clears rather loudly from behind us. We turn in unison to face Lincoln where he stands in the doorway with a protective arm stretched in front of a glowing Kalem.

“When I said let’s do something crazy, I didn’t mean let’s do something this fucking crazy,” Lincoln gripes before he throws a less-than-pleasant glare at the bed.

Aias chokes out a sputtered laugh. “You could only be so lucky.”

“I—”

“We are just getting clothes,” I cut in before Lincoln can throw some insult. “I decided on ‘pixie festival’, and we can’t go in our current attire, so Aias’ will have to do.”

Disgust, horror and absolute glee engulf the room all at once.

“You plan to share my clothing?” Aias gasps first, thoroughly appalled, or maybe that was repulsion. “Mine? With that vermin?!”

“A PIXIE FESTIVAL!” Kalem hollers. “WE’RE GOING TO MEET PIXIES?!? AHHHHH!”

Kalem disappears, popping all over the room and the rest of the manor while he shrieks for all to hear.

“I would rather go naked,” Lincoln deadpans above the screams.

I make for the wardrobe.

“You are welcome to,” I retort to Lincoln, and then to Kalem’s blinking form, “Yes, a pixie festival— you’re going to love it.” And finally, to my pyro, “You once did the same with my clothing, and I never complained.”

“I was clothing those in need, not dirtying your attire by letting a charlatan parade around in them,” Aias shoots back, hot on my heels while I open the wardrobe doors, exposing his extensive collection of silks.

“Acts of service from us both then,” I return with a wink.

Aias gapes, sputtering before he slips between his clothing and my reaching hand. He catches it, clasping it tight while he glares over my shoulder at Lincoln. “Sharing clothing is an intimate act amongst elves, pisen.”

I falter.

“You wore my clothes the day we met,” I whisper back, and something in Aias’ gaze turns itself about before he nods.

I blink at him, suddenly at a loss.

I was under no delusions that Aias thought us to be as close as I had when we first met, or that he’d felt the draw I did to him, but perhaps… there had always been something there. Under the surface.

My collar warms like my skin as I swallow the emotion that suddenly clogs my throat. “What if I choose ones you’ve never worn, and you let them keep them.”

Aias seems no more appeased by that suggestion, but he nods, relenting just as Kalem stops his teleporting and ambles to my side. He peers into the wardrobe, mouth falling open in total awe at the array of colours before he zones in on the yellow options like a bee to pollen.

I could not recall ever seeing Aias in the colour, but there are a few options, including a loose blouse with ruffles circling the wrists and a shorter cut on the matching bottoms that I have ever seen Aias in.

I eye its owner for only a moment before turning to Kalem with a smile that hides all else. “Try this.”

Kalem manages only a scream this time before he begins to strip, nudity a foreign concept to him. I glance at Lincoln, but he’s too deep in a scowling match with himself to take notice.

Rolling my eyes, I move to the darker shades, yet another array of tones I’ve never seen Aias in, but they are here, and I already know they are all Lincoln will tolerate. Amongst the dark browns, there is one set of tinted burgundy, and I thank the Gods for it as I pluck it free and hand it over despite the mounting protests.

“Nude is still an option,” I promise while he dangles the garment between two pinched fingers as though it is radioactive. While Kalem fights for his life to wiggle into his clothing, and Aias parts from his death-stare at Lincoln to help his friend, I finally find something of my own to wear.

I drift to the only section of Aias’ wardrobe that rivals his cream tones in abundance, and yet another that I have never seen him in— green. They’re all sorts of shades, from pastels to dark navies, each a different design and more beautiful than the last.

It’s not my first time gazing upon it, though never having stared at it when he was close, but tonight, I allow myself ample observation.

In the end, I pick a simple shirt pinned at the chest by silver pins that match the sleekness of my collar and the trousers hung with it. I waste no time dressing in them.

Strangely, while the silks are too large on Kalem and too long on Lincoln, mine swaddle me perfectly, the arm holes just wide enough for mine where they would naturally billow for Aias.

It is almost as though—…

Aias turns to me just as I do him, a smile resting on his lips from his incessant fiddling with Kalem, but it fades the moment he glimpses me. It slips away from him like a passing wind, while in his eyes, a world of emotions illuminates him from the inside out.

I swallow, and struggle not to move as he surveys me from head to toe, sparing no piece of me in his mission before he whispers, “I think you suit elven fashion very nicely, pisen.”

I nod, manning my smile while he watches me with silent hunger that touches me in all the ways he can not now. I feel the caress of it anyway, and surrender beneath its pressure until he is at my side and close enough to return the kiss I paid to his cheek earlier.

“Well, shall we get back on the road?” He asks, tossing the question to the pair already tangled in another hug.

I nod, but before I can get a word out, the world pulls and twists itself out of its natural form, answering to the elven magic that deposits us back in my driveway.

A sound escapes the man beside me, him and the only other vampire present.

Kalem looks down immediately, teeth digging into his bottom lip while he trembles with effort to keep himself together. I don’t even bother.

Laughter bellows out of me for all to hear, and the minute he hears it, Kalem joins in. Bending over, the little sunflare clutches at his stomach as tightly as he can while we laugh at the two stoic _ who’d just screamed from a little teleportation.

For once, Aias and Lincoln glare at us instead of each other.

“I am… going to remember this forever!” I wheeze as I blink away the tears in my eyes.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough of that,” Lincoln snaps, shoving us both forward.

“S-Sorry, Master,” Kalem tries, but he’s still giggling, and he doesn’t seem capable of stopping it.

“Sure you are,” Lincoln grumbles. “Now, everyone get in.”

“I want to drive!” I declare, breaking from the line and making a dash for the wheel.

Lincoln was in a giving mood tonight, and while he had yet to let me drive one of the precious cars he’d collected while I was asleep, if he was ever going to change his mind, this was my best chance.

I slip into the front seat and let my fingers glide lovingly over the smooth leather. It was rich and perfect and—

“No.”

I look up to where Lincoln stands outside the car with a scowl that was anything but giving.

“Why not?” I whine, hands tightening around the wheel.

Lincoln tracks the movement. “Because I said so.”

I stare up at him, silently begging, but he remains impassive. I turn to my pyro.

“Aias!”

Aias blinks back at me, amusement obvious, but he knows I want this, so he does not make me beg. He turns his attention to Lincoln and matches his scowl. “Is the vehicle not safe for him to drive?”

“My car is just fine if someone who isn’t named ‘Malcolm’ drives it,” he retorts dryly. Kalem opens his mouth. “Or Kalem.”

Kalem’s mouth falls shut to make room for a pout.

“Well,” Aias drawls, gaze holding mine before a wicked smile stretches across his lips, “lucky for us, I fit the bill.”

I gape at him, same as Lincoln, until he reaches the door and opens it. He stares at me expectantly.

“You were supposed to help me,” I complain, not moving.

“You can not get it all, pisen, otherwise you’ll grow greedy, and you already are, aren’t you?” He retorts, using that tone he knows undoes me. I shake my head, tightening my hands over the wheel until he pats my cheek. “Out now, pisen.”

Dumbly, I step outside because, well… I didn’t disobey often, and that pat felt better than being behind the wheel ever would.

“Oh no,” Lincoln growls as he marches up to Aias, “you aren’t driving either.”

“My name is not Malcolm or Kalem,” Aias replies quizzically while he leans lazily against the open door. “I was under the impression that those were the only requirements. Is that not what you just said?’

“Yes, but—”

“Well, then I guess you should get in and enjoy the ride,” he cuts in before sliding into the front seat and shutting the door firmly behind him.

Kalem and I share a nervous glance, waiting for the moment Lincoln snaps and tries to drag Aias out the window by his hair. He contemplates it, thinks it over while he glares at Aias through the glass, fists clenching until the angel in our midst slides his palms over them.

“Lincoln,” he whispers, and I tense, stunned to hear his name spoken from the lips that had only known ‘Master’ thus far. It draws Lincoln’s red gaze immediately, and Kalem smiles widely before pushing onto his toes to kiss him. “You said that you wanted to do something really fun and crazy tonight, Master. So please don’t be mad with Aias for trying to do it too.”

My lips fall open as I realise, belatedly, that Kalem was far sharper than I had given him credit for until now.

Lincoln can’t even pretend to hold out. He sighs like we’ve just asked for his soul before nodding his head in stiff agreement. “If you cause even a single scratch…” he warns Aias.

“I shall fix it,” he retorts lazily before turning the key to bring the car to life. “Now, get in already. I thought we were supposed to be having fun tonight. The only fun I’ve had so far was seeing this elderly man so bothered.”

“I’ll saw off his fucking ears,” Lincoln mutters, but he’s moving away from the wheel, and we’re really doing this.

Grinning, I run around the front so that I can claim the next best thing. “Shotgun!”

My fingers circle the handle a second after Kalem appears inside and locks it. He grins up at me through the window, smiling as though he’s just been handed a mop.

I stare at him, too shocked to move for a moment before it catches up to me what this little demon just did.

“I called shotgun!”

Kalem shrugs from the inside and giggles. “I don’t know what that means.”

I peer at him through the window, but he just keeps laughing, spurred on by the traitor seated beside him who does the same. Elves.

“Lincoln!” I whine while I tug at the handle. “Tell him to get out! I called shotgun!”

“Malcolm,” Lincoln sighs as he opens the door behind Aias’. “I know this may be hard to comprehend, but… I really don’t care.”

He shuts the door behind himself as if that’s supposed to be that.

Like hell. I keep trying at the handle, then circle over to Aias’ side to try getting in from his end, but he pays me one look that sends me back to Kalem’s. The boy doesn’t budge, no matter what I say or do, and no one tries to make him, which is a betrayal beyond articulation.

That is precisely why, when I get into the car, I can not be blamed for taking matters into my own hands.

“For future reference, Kalem,” I say as I drag myself over the inner console to look him directly in the eyes, “when someone calls ‘shotgun’, that means they get to sit in the front seat. No. Matter. What. They could come to the car last, and it’ll still be their seat. They could be banished from ever entering a car again, and it would still be their seat. It is the law, and you violated that law. Do you know what happens to people who violate the law, Kalem?”

Kalem’s lips tremble, giggles gone. “T-They go to prison?”

…not what I meant, but who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

“Dear Gods,” Lincoln grumbles while I nod earnestly for Kalem.

“That is exactly what happens, Kalem. But I will let you get away with it just this once, because you did not know. But if you do it again, I’ll have to send you to prison. Do you understand?”

Kalem nods quickly, swallowing deeply as he musters up his courage. “I am so so sorry. I w-will never do it again. Not to you or anyone else again! I promise!”

“Alright, that is enough, pisen,” Aias scowls despite the smile he tries to hide as he pushes me back. “Buckle yourselves in so that we can get on the road.”

I lean back and do just that, and in the front, Kalem scrambles to do the same.

“A question for the elf,” Lincoln pipes up just to make Aias sneer.

“Which one?” I mutter with a chuckle.

“Do you even know how to drive?” Lincoln asks, and though he tries to sound calm, I know the way his vocal cords tighten when he is concerned.

Aias does not reward him with a reply, too busy studying the inner workings of the car and the gears as though he can see through each layer. He likely can, and while I have never seen Aias behind a wheel, I am sure he would not have gotten behind it if doing so meant risking my or Kalem’s lives.

Lincoln’s? Undoubtedly.

“No,” he eventually replies as he sets his hand over the gear stick and the other on the steering wheel, “but I shall figure it out.”

My phantom heart drops just as Lincoln shrieks, “Figure it out?!” but it is lost to the sound of rubber burning as Aias slams his foot down on the gas and tugs at the gear stick.

The car shoots forward, veering straight for the largest tree he had brought back to life, but he twists the wheel just before impact, sending us all hurling to the left while he spins the car around only to circle the front fountain in an endless doughnut.

Kalem’s hands dart up to his mouth. Lincoln’s hands claw at the interior, and I let the laughter that bubbles up my throat free as Aias finally breaks and speeds down the driveway with a smile as free and wild as any I’ve ever seen.

“Wooo!!” I cheer, and he goes faster.

“Elf!!!” Lincoln hollers, still plastered to the interior where he stays while Aias sets us out on the open road.

—————

AHHHHH how good it is to revisit one of the most wholesome parts of Master- THE PIXIE FESTIVAL!!!!!!

Thoughts??????

Thoughts on Malcolm’s POV???? Of him realising that little detail about the green silks?? On the fucking cheek kisses?!?!?

Like I said, Chapter 53 is already done, but I also want Chapter 54 to follow quickly cause I’ve waited literal years to see some parts of this from their POV! Like who remembers the headbands ugh??

Need to see them being adorable in the festival together!

Thanks for being patient with slow updates, I can promise this month to make up for it!

Don’t forget to like / comment if you enjoyed! I love reading them! And sneak peeks are always up on Patreon/my website early for the Gold tiers!

Until next time,
Byeeeeeeee Humansssssss