Home in the darkness

Samhain dance scene/Niall's POV

The memory of home wraps me in the bonfire’s warm embrace. Your friend plays the drums masterfully and I can’t help but to smile at the memories the rhythm brings with it. 

Samhain with ma. The food, the love, the joy. Oh, how she loved to dance. She told me to never fear the darkness in my home forest. The darkness holds family within and they would never let anything bad happen to me.

It was a time when the sadness in her eyes was lifted as she danced crazy around the bonfire. 

Like you. 

Violent happiness guides your steps as you move with the rhythm of the drums, with the crackling of the fire. And I can’t help but to smile at the sight of it, despite something saying that I shouldn’t.

You belong here in this forest, you’re one with the flames, with the darkness. You make your home here among the foreign trees and I long to seek its warmth. The warmth of home. The sight of you traps the air in my throat, it makes me forget that I shouldn’t look at you. I shouldn’t be here.

And I dance with you, my mind free of worry, free of any uncertainty about the future, about what could become of you if I keep gravitating towards you. How much danger I put you in, how I shouldn’t.

You dance like the gods are watching.

I smile as the weight of the world is lifted from my shoulders.

Then, I frown.

The gods aren’t watching, are they?

Gods of the old home, the ones I haven’t prayed to for years.

I peek over my shoulder despite my mind begging me not to. Not because I expect to see a vengeful god peering at me from the darkness. No, that would be silly. 

I chuckle but the delight in my voice is fake, it’s a stillborn as it falls from my lips. Something lurks in the shadows. Not just the Dead, nor the Others. No. Something more sinister, more ancient.

More hateful.

No friends reside in these lands.

Darkness worms inside me, it fills me with dread and decay, it denies me of air. I blink as black tendrils oozing of rot slither towards me, whispering the omen of death, death that it will bestow upon me.

I will drown you and watch life flee your eyes, whoreson of the spring.

Something grabs my hand and I almost scream.

You.

Your smile blinds me as you yank me towards the bonfire. You, the fire, it stings my eyes with its violent brightness.

I’m out of breath, primal fear screams at my ear, asking me to flee from this place, from your touch.

The harbinger of doom.

You ask me if I’m alright. The question reminds me to breathe the burning air and to keep holding your hand as if it was my lifeline. Happiness still lights up your face despite the worry I must have caused. Seeing it makes me feel foolish.

I overreacted. 

And I smile, despite my wildly beating heart. 

“Let’s dance.” I trust you to keep the monsters at bay.

*author's note: The Samhain chapter will be most heavily altered later, just for the mere fact that I will combine Marcus’s and Niall’s scenes together, as well as Tinsae’s and Camilla’s. Honestly, it just makes sense. Also the dance scene will be getting some more meat in it. Despite what was written earlier, Niall is definitely not having a good time lol.