sacred lost things almandines Summary: "I will not leave you to navigate this alone," she said firmly. Occtis frowned. Vaelus had practically attached herself to him even before he'd been summoned to the Palazzo Davinos, and for all he searched for logic and answers, he simply could not reconcile it. "Why, exactly?" he asked. "It has always been my path to protect things that are sacred." The corners of her eyes crinkled, betraying a veiled smile. "I do not believe I am stepping out of line by counting you among them." what does it mean to be alive?

early c4 occtis/vaelus
3.5k
mature
tags below

🔗 archiveofourown.org/works/79480786

#fearnefic

Poor Man's Proof almandines Summary: "With anyone else, he might have taken offense to the sudden, presumptuous touch each time she wrapped a hand around his wrist or slipped her palm into his and pulled, but in the past weeks, he’d found himself less and less frustrated by the way she inserted herself into his space and his mind so effortlessly. It felt less like a boundary broken than one that never really even existed." A promised journey.

post-DT wol/erenville
11k
mature
tags below

🔗 archiveofourown.org/works/574428...

#fearnefic | #misstora

"She's very unlike your usual, you know." She laughed, a damnable, musical sound, her hand falling away from his face to instead take his own. "You're right," he said, unable to find the strength to share her humor in it. "She's nothing like my 'usual,' if you must put it that way." She is nothing like you. "I'm sorry—I meant nothing by it." She squeezed his hand, the warmth of her skin muted by soft leather gloves. "But I must ask. Why her? Why stay?" "Circumstance demands it," he said. He would not burden her with the truth of it, though he knew she only asked out of concern—whether for both his and Arina's wellbeing, or the health of the Scions' organization, he did not care to make the distinction. In a fairer world, he imagined he might hear envy in her questions, but that was wishful thinking, and he had learned long ago that wishful thinking would get him nowhere. She gave him a soft, sad smile. "If that is the way of it. You know that I am here, should you wish for an ear." "Another time, perhaps," he said. He'd taken enough of hers today.

2 am, timeline is asleep, post w/olcred but it's thanmin

#fearnefic

2025 writer wrapped favorite characters: thancred arina (wol) keyleth (critical role) favorite tropes flashbacks doomed relationships casual sex that doesn't stay casual goals for next year keep the momentum original writing take more risks favorite piece altar one where you tried something new anchor

i stole this format from @mischiefmilly.bsky.social

2025 was a good writing year, even if I only really wrote in the latter half of it. so here we are 💜

#fearnefic

anchor almandines Summary: Vilya's face is little more than a distant echo in the depths of Keyleth's memory; a crusted-over puncture wound at the back of her heart, slowly healing like a scab and just as itchy. Vax'ildan is instead a vivid, weeping slash across the front of it, bloody and raw and held open by the dagger she refuses to remove, every feather and every dream tearing it wider and wider. It's different. At least her mother only left once. -- Keyleth can go anywhere but forward.

y'all mind if I critical role post on main again?

post-campaign 1 vaxleth (but it's only keyleth)
2.4k
mature
tags below

🔗 archiveofourown.org/works/76692646

#fearnefic

you're so right. or at least, she should try

#fearnefic

Sidurgu was a walking tale of violence, brushstrokes painted broadly from scuffed, rusted armor to the shadows that lingered beneath his eyes and in them. A hundred tiny lines made a vivid canvas of his hands, stretching and whitening the skin until it fit poorly over his bones and cutting deep into the expanse of onyx scale that now grew rough and uneven. Callused fingers and palms told endless stories of blood—of a desperate, painful grip on the hilt of a burden far heavier than any man should wield. One might be forgiven for assuming a man so sharp and stoic would himself be violent, too beaten and shattered, betrayed by the crookedness of fingers that had broken and healed a touch wrong. But not a single shred of that violence could be found in his touch when he closed a hand around Khaliun's and held it there. She'd spent so many years forced to be larger than life, but swallowed by his touch, she felt mercifully small.

this christmas my treat is getting to write friend OCs

#fearnefic | #scribbles&mischief

Liars' Dance almandines Summary: Thancred sometimes fancied himself a man of many secrets, if only because an air of mystery went far when it came to drawing the unguarded attention of many a fair maiden, and he thought himself equally adept when it came to insight. It took a liar to know one, after all, and he knew them well. But the Exarch's secrecy felt different somehow, and it left a bitter taste on his tongue. alone in a new world, thancred's only guidance comes from a regrettable source: the crystal exarch

pre-ShB thancred/exarch
12.4k
mature
tags below

🔗 archiveofourown.org/works/75525016

#fearnefic

"It's been worse lately," the man said. "There have been more, since Eulmore changed. Road's never been all that safe, but now it's even less. Without a Minfilia fighting—" Thancred gripped the mug with a sudden force that sent some of his drink sloshing into the fire where it sizzled and popped in a quiet rage. "Wicked white, man, are you alright?" "Fine," he said tersely. Miller shrugged. "Few years back, it used to be that going out was safer so long as you had an escort. Entire weeks could pass without an attack, and when there was one sometimes you'd hear a grand story about Her, leaping out of the shadows with a scythe as big as she was. A veritable Warrior of Darkness, cloaked in light and flame." He paused and took a long breath and a drink. Thancred tracked his gaze as it lifted to the sky, where embers from the fire drifted up among the tiny, ever-present motes of light that hung in the air. "Now you're lucky to go two days without hearing about some grisly death," he said. "And that's if there's even anyone left who saw it. No savior here. Not anymore."

fearne with another too-long snip, ooh how novel how shocking

#fearnefic

But a knife was just a knife, confined to the length of his reach and the deftness of his hand. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. He had to do better. He had to be stronger. It was a weakness he could not allow. The last time he indulged such thoughts, when he'd watched a burning battlefield from an agonizing distance, cut the throats of its doomed victims himself, and slept away the following week at the bottom of a bottle of gin, well… He would not repeat his mistakes. Unfortunately, for that he needed guidance. What good was a weapon, after all, when pointed at nothing? The knowledge that none could properly wield him but the Exarch weighed heavy on his shoulders as he and what remained of the caravan trudged their way back to the Crystarium.

gives a man another little existential crisis at #scribbles&mischief

#fearnefic

At the perfectly reasonable age of thirteen, Thancred's mentor took him to the wooded mountains on the far edge of the Isle of Yorn, a day at sea to the south of Old Sharlayan, and left him there. He was given only a small pack with a single day's rations, a chunk of flint, and knife a bit too large to fit comfortably in his hand. "Survive" had been the order, and the advice to do so lacking, but he had. The air there was cold and salty, the woods dark and dense, the land cragged, and the nights unforgiving. Necessity and solitude were harsh teachers, though no harsher than his usual one, and desperation quickly made him a model student. There he began to perfect the art of hunting; of starting, controlling, and hiding a fire; of disappearing into the shadows upwind of passing beasts. They were skills which served him well in Eorzea, and even more in Garlemald, but beneath the lavender canopy of the land outside the Crystarium, he might as well have been the green child dropped in the wilderness again. Here there were no shadows to hide in, no cold in need of shunning by way of fire, and what little wildlife remained was sparse and skittish.

a snip that's just a little too long for the ellipsus snip tool? wow groundbreaking brand new something fearne has never done before

anyway, wip wednesday

#fearnefic

Were he watching closer, he might have seen the grit of teeth behind the curated impassivity on Thancred's face, but the Exarch found himself too preoccupied by the loops and angles of the Archon mark emblazoned on the side of his neck. With a single finger, he tugged the collar out just an ilm, then with another he traced the tattoo. Beneath a growing sheen of sweat, he could feel the texture of it—the marks healed, yes, but the lines were too bold and the skin there too sensitive, so they remained ever so slightly raised. It was subtle, but enough to find and feel if one knew what they were looking for. Even after all this time, he remembered well receiving his own: the ceremony headed by Studium leadership who spoke in the monotone voices of people who had done this often enough to be thoroughly bored by the script; being led to a private chamber after the fact where an apologetic woman brandished an intimidatingly large needle; the way the aetherial ink stung for days, itching down to his bones in a way broken skin would not do alone. They were memories the man before him would share, as were the memories he clung to dearly from walking the snow-dusted streets of Old Sharlayan. He could never say as much, but the thought alone ached to the pit of his stomach. Here stood a piece of home he could not reach for. There would be no reminiscence over tea, though Thancred did not strike him as the wistful type anyway, nor would there be a chance to acknowledge the homesickness seeing those marks injected into his very soul—at least, not in the company of any save himself and the dingy old mirror he'd never bothered to dispose of from his private chambers, despite the stranger who stared back at him with shadowed eyes every time he passed the thing in his haste to return to his work.

i've been working on this all day, take it i guess!!!!!!!! it's too long for an ellipsus snip!!! who cares!!!!!!!!!!!!

#fearnefic

"You're provoking me." "Like you did when you put a knife in my hand? It was cruel, you know," he said. There was an anger in Thancred's eye Arina had not seen before—not the distant, forlorn wrath she'd grown used to, the one that swelled like a sulfurous sea at any mention of Hydaelyn, but a raw and present fury aimed straight at her. The Echo tugged at the edges of her senses. She shoved it down with force and clenched her fists. She did not need his rage tainting and compounding her own. "What would they do if they knew their hero's capacity for cruelty?" There was no aether behind her fist when it connected with his cheekbone. Only a sickening crunch as it sent him reeling backward into the table, knocking a glass of water clean over to shatter on the floor.

i hear it is wip wednesday?

#fearnefic | #arina

altar almandines Summary: At the top of the ramp, memories waited like knives in the dark. A better survivalist would have avoided them. He would have avoided them, were things the same as they were a year ago. But he had no other reminders now, so the knives would have to do. a long-building grief also so this can be filtered for people who have the term muted: thanmin

thancred/minfilia
3.4k
mature
spoilers through post-ShB
tags below

🔗 archiveofourown.org/works/73135666

#fearnefic

Thancred was well-accustomed to walking in shadow, but not when that shadow belonged to a man. Cut loose to wander the Crystarium alone, he'd drawn strange glances but little more. The place fair bustled with the displaced and disheveled, and a crowd was as good a camouflage as any, but it was rather impossible to slip by unnoticed when that crowd instead parted in reverence and respect for his hooded escort. The eyes upon him dug beneath his skin like a bone-deep itch he could not scratch as the Crystal Exarch paraded him through the city, up ramps and stairs to its uppermost levels where rays of scorching not-sunlight beat down hot at all hours. They walked for an eternity until the sounds of voices—"Exarch!" "My lord!" "'Tis good to see you about!"—finally drowned in the ring of hammers on metal and the full-bodied rush of air through a blacksmith's bellows.

yeah re-outlining and allowing myself some PoV swaps feels like a magic fix. breaking news update, local editor's woes all fixed by structure

#fearnefic

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" the Exarch said in a practiced, even voice. It had become a script of sorts, a verbatim greeting each time the Archon burst in, and it made him feel much like a territorial predator circling his competition, waiting to see who struck first. But he had barely enough time to brace himself as a raised fist shot toward him. This time there was no crack of crystal on crystal nor skull-shaking impact—only the muffled thud of a gloved fist meeting the wall above his head. Thancred planted his other hand beside the Exarch's head, thoroughly caging him in. The Exarch glanced up just enough to see desperation in one golden eye.

back at it (yes at the panera)

#fearnefic

For better or worse, G'raha Tia had been a historian. Of all things from the distant past, it was this to which the Crystal Exarch clung the tightest. Deep in the bowels of the Tower, the Ironworks had left him a library, stocked full of every text they could find from cookbooks to magic texts to schoolchildren's notepads, and from it he had carefully curated his own private collection: a single shelf of rare and esoteric tomes preserving the history of a long-dead world's dark future. He'd obsessively read every page that even so much as mentioned the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in passing, committing the words within to his mind so thoroughly he could still recite many of them from memory if asked. "Thancred Waters" was a name he knew only in ink. He was a ghost who haunted the margins—a handful of words in the dark and little more. This, the Exarch had long surmised, was by design.

shoves my calamity history HCs at everyone at every opportunity

#fearnefic

Grief could make monsters of even the best of men; this, the Crystal Exarch knew well. He could see it in the way Thancred's eyes narrowed each time anyone mentioned the Oracle, in passing or otherwise, in the ripple of defensiveness and the flexed fingers; in the way he hid behind the shadows cast on his own face by a curtain of hair he refused to cut though it had begun to grow long and unkempt over the months since his arrival—a subtle attempt at what the Exarch himself had mastered with the help of magic: total concealment of emotions, made all the easier with shrouded eyes. Few things had grown as familiar to him as grief. He'd witnessed it in the fallen shoulders of a brother mourning a sister's sacrifice; in the hands of a mother who could never again hold her child; in the heavy, dogged steps of ten thousand men whose losses built the foundation of this city moreso than any stone or brick.

#fearnefic

fearne in the panera, what will she do

#fearnefic

Emery and Ash almandines Summary: It had been one night—only one night of poor foresight a decade ago, yet here he was, lost in her labyrinth, tangled in thorns all over again, still navigating the consequences without a compass. And he hadn't the strength to pull himself away. the past does not stay buried

cw: violence, blood, dubcon
(or: the consensual stabbing / consensual murder fic)

ShB wolcred
5.1k
explicit
tags below

🔗 archiveofourown.org/works/72332161

#fearnefic | #arina

"If you had a choice of who came back out of the Antitower, would you have chosen her?" "Arina." She glared at him for a long moment, then her eyes flicked to the blade in his hand and back. "It has been years," he said. "Why now?" "Answer me," she said, in lieu of her own. Thancred shut his eyes and took a slow breath. How many years even had it been? And she still carried it like this?

breaking news: local man projects his own bullshit on everyone except himself, more at 10

#fearnefic

Arina woke with a rattling gasp fit for the halls of a haunted tomb, and the sound climbed Thancred's spine with frigid fingers. "Good morning," he said flatly, though it was neither good nor the morning, and he watched her shakily prop herself up on her elbow and slowly sit. The blanket fell forward, exposing the bloodied mess of her clothing—a woven green top without sleeves, stained beyond rescue. She turned to face him. Her eyes were dark and sunken, heavy little bruises forming beneath them. She looked utterly terrible—gaunt, exhausted, bloodless—and it struck him just how much she looked the same as he did on the rare occasions he allowed himself to meet his own eye in the mirror.

i like writing

#fearnefic

"No," he cut in. "Absolutely not. I don't know what you came here thinking you'd achieve, but you won't." He made to pull open the door and usher her through it, then lock it behind her, but her fist beat him to it and held it firmly shut. "I will," she said, and he fought not to roll his eyes at the insistence. She'd always been headstrong, stubborn, and infuriating. Years ago, he'd found it charming. A challenge to be conquered. Now it was just an obstacle, a frustration that stood between him and his drink and his silence. Or so he told himself, because maybe one day he might be able to believe it.

love it when they love each other and they both fucking hate it

#fearnefic (shb arinacred)

sorry mocha it's just that my hand slipped last night you must understand

#fearnefic

Thancred had not allowed a woman to wake beside him in the morning for nearly a decade. Leaving had become muscle memory much the same as the twist of a dagger or the exact way he'd taught himself to smile to pry trust from a stranger. He'd used that same smile not so long ago on the woman who now slept with an arm over his waist, but for some cursed reason, neither the smile nor the leaving had managed to stick this time. He should pry himself out from under her arm and steal away on silent feet. At least, that was what he told himself every morning, every time she'd knocked on his door for the past three moons, and not once did he have the strength to do it. He couldn't leave. He owed her that much, didn't he? So he stayed put, eyes fixed on the ceiling while he listened to shallow, ragged breathing, feeling almost less himself than he had when someone else entirely steered his hands.

back on my post-ARR bullshit it seems

#fearnefic | #arina

Secretkeeper almandines Summary: Three years he had prepared for this. Three years to steel his heart and paste a mask of iron upon his face. Three long years, still so few they paled beside a century of meticulous planning. His own desperate heart should be silent. So he willed it; so it roiled regardless. an ending, and an unexpected beginning

ShB exarch/urianger
3.7k
mature
tags below

🔗 archiveofourown.org/works/71622871

#fearnefic

heavy sigh. i guess we continue

#fearnefic

preemptive grief

#fearnefic

vomited out some shb and i feel better now

#fearnefic | #arina