poisoned blades
An Awkward Waking
Nightshade groaned as he started to push himself to his feet. He could feel that he was cold, and somehow very wet. He eased open his eyes and found the same colored and textured walls as there were in the crypt. “I’m in the crypt…” he realized. Nightshade pushed himself to his feet and he looked around, rubbing the back of his head where he felt a bump. “Luckily I landed in some water. That probably broke the fall. The fall…Windfire!”
He began splashing through the knee deep water, hoping that Windfire hadn’t landed face down or on her back. He found her quickly and scooped her up, he couldn’t tell with the lack of lighting if she was conscious or not. He just began carrying her toward the only possible way out.
“W-what happened?” she asked weakly.
“Windfire…” Nightshade blushed and was glad that there was too little light for her to be able to clearly see that detail. “We fell somehow…into a waterway beneath the crypt.”
“You’re carrying me…” Windfire realized.
Nightshade tightened his grip on her, pulling her closer to him. “I am.”
“Why?” Windfire asked.
“W-what’s the last thing you can remember?” Nightshade asked.
“I remember handing you my handkerchief and us sitting down but I can’t remember what we were talking about…” Windfire rubbed her forehead.
Nightshade pressed his memories, everything in his mind to try and remember how they wound up in a flooded plane beneath his family’s tomb—but nothing came from his efforts. His memories only extended back to where Windfire’s ended. “Me too.”
“Nightshade?”
“Yes?” he blushed. Hearing her say his name was invigorating,
“W-why did you pick me up?” Windfire stammered. She had always wanted Nightshade in so many ways. Seeing him as a valiant hero wasn’t in any of her wildest fantasies. He is so cute. I wish there was more lighting in here…
“To carry you because I didn’t know if you were awake or not,” Nightshade replied, trying to talk over the splish-splash of his boots delving into the fairly deep water.
Windfire gasped as a surge of pain from a headache hit her. A memory faded back to her. She saw Nightshade sitting beside her, naked on a bed… “You think I’m perfect?” she asked shyly.
Nightshade stopped moving. She can’t read minds because he can’t read minds. Then the memory faded back to him too. There was no need to ask how she knew that—or to deny ever saying or thinking that. “W-what?”
“You told me…that I’m perfect…” Windfire declared. “It was after we were…together…”
Nightshade heard the blush in the young witch’s voice. “Together as in?”
“You know…” Windfire blushed.
“You remember…something?”
“I’m so confused that I think I’m crossing the present with prophetic dreams and visions…” Windfire murmured.
“P-prophetic? Our dreams are going to happen?” Nightshade asked. He was moving again and at a fairly quick pace.
“Yes. Didn’t you know that?” Windfire replied evenly.
“N-no I didn’t. Are all of our dreams prophetic?” Nightshade blurted.
“The future priest and priestess aren’t capable of normal dreams,” Windfire whispered into his ear.
Nightshade’s endless nights of dreams that wore him out as if he were acting them out in reality streamed back to him. He chalked them up to his secret obsession with Windfire. Everybody has sex dreams after all. It just seems that all of his are eventually going to happen. “Oh by the dark god…” Nightshade whispered. 
“What is it? Did you foresee something really bad?” Windfire caressed his cheek with her fingertips.
“Quite the opposite,” Nightshade breathed.
“Do you want to talk about it? Maybe I can help,” Windfire suggested. After seventeen years and three hundred sixty-four days, she had an excuse to talk to him intimately. Despite their coven’s endless feud for power she was always drawn toward her counterpart.
Nightshade considered that idea. What would he say? I love you. I always have. I want to be a witch—or if you’d rather be a warlock I think we could arrange that. I dream about you every night. I am drawn to you. I haven’t slept a night without seeing you at peace with me in a dream. Marry me and end the coven’s feuding? Do you love me too?
“Nightshade?” Windfire prodded the man who was carrying her.
“Huh?” he asked, hoping that his thoughts didn’t get blurted out.
“Do you want to talk about the dream? I know we’re not on the best of terms because of birthrights but still, it helps me when I tell somebody about one of my dreams,” Windfire whispered in his ear again.
“Even despite the human superstitions that if you tell somebody your dreams whether they’re good or bad they won’t come true?”
“I know better,” Windfire whispered. “My dreams will always come true. So will yours.”
“Well, I don’t talk about my dreams…so I don’t know how to start,” Nightshade lied. “He could have recalled every romantic dream he’d had about her—the dreams were all centered around their romance. Even his predictions of his siblings and her siblings being born was shown to him as them being the mother and father….
“Well, the day I predicted that Flameshade would be born my dream showed me as a mother. A hooded male witch was the father. I was holding our daughter—Snowgust and their father was holding our son…”
“Wait, did all of the birth predictions happen like that?” Nightshade asked.
“Yes,” Windfire nodded.
“Did you ever figure out who the father figure was—or maybe see his face?” Nightshade asked as he carried her into a larger room with several torches that were lit by magic.
“No, but my mother keeps telling me that it just means that I will marry somebody who obscures his feelings for me,” Windfire said thoughtfully.
“So she thinks you know him?”
“She is positive that one of the male witches from a lesser coven will ask for permission to marry me,” Windfire breathed.
“Not looking forward to marriage?” Nightshade guessed.
“Not if it’s forced. You can’t force love to spark where there is no love. Just like you can’t hide love where it exists,” Windfire’s blushing was more evident in the torch-lit room. Nightshade set her gently on the ground against a wall and settled down beside her.
“Will your wretch of a mother let you choose not to marry—or who you want to marry?” Nightshade wondered.
“She wants me to marry a powerful man, I already know that,” Windfire muttered.
“You don’t like your mother too much,” Nightshade commented. “I called her a wretch and you didn’t defend her.”
“I couldn’t defend her if I wanted to,” Windfire said disdainfully.
“Well, could you listen to one of my dreams now that I know what details to focus on?”
“Sure,” Windfire said with a smile.
Nightshade pulled up his hood and Windfire gasped, placing her hands over her mouth. “I had the same dreams you’ve been having, Windfire.” He glanced over at his counterpart with a smirk, “And I am the man from your dreams.”
Windfire finally managed to speak, “N-Nightshade…”
He put his hood down and turned toward her, “Yes?”
“B-but we can’t…we can’t be together…” Windfire shook her head.
“Whatever happened to the witch who agreed to end the feud with me?” Nightshade asked.
“It still holds…I want the feud over just as much as you do,” Windfire assured him. “B-but we’re not just witch and warlock…we’re from rival families…”
“Are you afraid?” Nightshade asked.
“Yes,” Windfire hugged her knees and shivered.
“Oh, come here…” Nightshade pulled the petit witch between his legs and let her lean back on him. “I wish I could keep you from shivering. Dry your clothes or something…”
Windfire turned her head and looked up at Nightshade. “Aren’t you cold? You should be soaked…”
“I’ll be fine, Windy,” Nightshade whispered as he wrapped his arms around her. “Although I do need a good break. I carried you for a pretty good distance…”
“Windy?” she asked.
“It’s shorter than your whole name,” he shrugged.
“You know that I could have walked, right, Shade?” Windfire asked.
“Shade?”
“It’s shorter than your whole name,” Windfire shrugged.
Nightshade smiled and chuckled a little. “And yes, I know. I just wasn’t going to let you get even more wet, tired or cold,” Nightshade smiled as turned over to face him.
“You do know that you’re supposed to be evil, right?” Windfire asked.
“You do know that good girls don’t associate with bad boys, right?” Nightshade countered.
“How do you know that I don’t like evil men—or that I’m bad?”
“I’d guess from the contents of our dreams that you really like at least one of them,” he teased. “And you’re a witch. You’re at least a little evil.”
Windfire laughed as she cuddled closer to him, laying her head on his shoulder. “You’re nothing like I expected.”
“You’re not what I expected either,” Nightshade whispered.
“Do you think it is safe to sleep?” Windfire asked weakly.
“Go ahead,” Nightshade whispered. He nervously pressed his lips to her forehead and felt a surge of relief when she nestled even closer to him. “I’ll protect you…” he vowed.
“Nightshade?”
“Yes?” Nightshade gulped.
“Did you really have all of the same dreams as me?”
“Every last one,” Nightshade replied.
“Your heart was already beating really fast…” Windfire murmured. “And your breathing was already really quick.”
“Trying to see if I lied?”
“I was hoping. But you’re already too nervous,” Windfire observed.
“You missed the fluttery feelings and my body feeling hot and cold at the same time…” Nightshade whispered.
Windfire glanced up at him. “Uh, Nightshade…”
“Yes?”
“I used to have the biggest crush on you,” Windfire admitted.
“Me too,” Nightshade replied. “I was obsessed with you. Actually, the only reason I looked forward to the raids was to see you…”
Windfire blushed, “Do you have any other dirty little secrets?”
“I’ve got just as many as you do…” Nightshade said slyly.
Windfire met his gaze and melted into his deep eyes. “Wow…”
“Do you remember this dream?” Nightshade asked as he leaned in to kiss her.
Windfire met his lips with hers. After they kissed for a long while he caressed her cheek with his fingers. “I remember every single dream.”
“Now the question is…” Nightshade accepted another kiss, “Do you want them all to be true? Or do you not want to love a warlock?”
Windfire smiled and kissed him again and again. “Can you love a white witch?”
“I already do,” he said with full sincerity before taking another kiss.
“Is this what you had in mind when you said that you wanted a truce?” Windfire asked.
“This is what I really wanted…” Nightshade replied before pulling her against him.

poisoned blades 3