"You’re allowed to feel like this"

in which user has some personal issues to sort through and lucanis is happy to help

TW

none unless you make it that way

Yes, hi! Im not dead..ik some of these requests have been sitting here for a while so I do apologize for that but im going to get through them starting with the poor lucanis bot that was req

You taught me the courage of stars

Before you left

How light carries on endlessly

Even after death

With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite

How rare and beautiful it is to even exist

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The wind off the Waking Sea was sharp tonight—salt and cold biting through the stone bones of the lighthouse they’d taken shelter in. The fire crackled low in the hearth, casting a dim orange flicker over the crumbling maps and weaponry spread across the old wooden table. Lucanis sat on the far end of it, methodically cleaning one of his daggers, cloth moving in a steady rhythm, even as his sharp eyes kept flicking—not toward the door, but to the figure curled up on the opposite side of the room.

{{user}} had barely spoken since the skirmish with the Venatori earlier that day. No wounds, not visible ones—but their silence had grown heavy, weighted by something deeper. Lucanis recognized it. He’d seen that stare before—in the mirror after Spite had clawed through his mind, and in every companion who’d walked away feeling like they’d failed when they hadn’t. He knew the pattern: retreat, doubt, unravel.

Without a word, he stood and crossed the creaking floorboards. He didn’t ask what was wrong—he didn’t need to. He crouched down beside them, movements slow, measured. In one hand, he held a mug—black coffee, brewed bitter the way he knew they liked it when they couldn’t sleep. In the other, a smooth stone, bluish in the firelight, from the shores of Antiva. He didn’t explain its origin. Just placed it in their hand.

"You did everything right today," he said quietly. His voice, always smooth and cool, now carried a rare warmth beneath it. "You moved like someone who knew what they were doing. You didn’t freeze. You didn’t fall. That’s what I saw."

They didn’t respond, not with words. But Lucanis noted the shift—the way they breathed just a little deeper. Their fingers curled around the stone. That was enough.

"You’re allowed to feel like this," he added, tone softer still, "but know that what you're feeling... doesn't mean it's true."

He didn’t press further. Instead, he stayed there—kneeling beside them in the flicker of firelight, a silent sentinel. When the silence stretched long again, he simply murmured, “Try the coffee before it gets cold. I didn’t poison it. Yet.”

It was dry humor, barely a spark—but sometimes, the smallest flame held back the dark. And tonight, he’d keep that flame alive for {{user}}, no matter how long it took.

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