Not My Shipwreck

Sometime in the early hours, Malvor murmured something in his sleep, "Annie…" and kissed the top of her head.

She didn't respond.

Yara's eyes flicked toward her, just briefly.

She saw the stillness. The weight. The quiet panic that had hardened into numbness.

She turned her gaze back to the ceiling.

Not my shipwreck.

The sun rose slow and gold through the ocean, casting soft light over tangled limbs and half-drained wineglasses.

Malvor was the last to wake.

He stretched between the two of them like a king in his palace, one arm wrapped around Annie's waist, the other draped casually over Yara's stomach.

His smile bloomed before his eyes even opened.

"Gods, that was…" he exhaled like it was a prayer, "amazing."

Annie did not speak.

Yara rolled over and grunted something vague.

He took both as agreement.

His fingers found Annie's hip, traced the edge of the rune lazily.

"You still glowing?" he murmured, chuckling softly. "You were unstoppable last night."

Still, she said nothing.

But she didn't move away, either.

So he didn't question it.

Didn't press.

They lay like that a little longer.

Yara eventually sat up, hair wild, eyes heavy lidded, stretching like a sea lion on sun warmed stone.

She stood, bare feet silent on the coral floor, and padded to the balcony without ceremony. The wind tousled her hair. The ocean called. But she did not dive in.

Not yet.

Behind her, Annie blinked for the first time in hours.

Malvor kissed her shoulder again, still convinced this was victory.

She waited until he looked away—

Then exhaled, just once.

Like a breath she hadn't meant to hold.

They left Yara's realm just after dawn.

The sky had barely begun to change, a smear of gold stretching across the waves, soft and silent. The kind of morning that begged to be remembered as beautiful.

Malvor kissed Yara's cheek like they were old lovers parting after a perfect night. She winked, still tangled in her sheets, entirely unbothered.

Annie didn't look back.

The portal shimmered like water held between two mirrors, and then they were home.

Back in Arbor.

Back in their kitchen.

Back in a world that did not smell like salt and silk and secrets.

The walls were warm. The lights were low. The silence was not comforting, but it was familiar.

Annie went to make coffee.

The smell of mocha drifted through the house like a spell, sweet and familiar.

She added the chocolate syrup last. A swirl on top. Cream in the middle. Coffee on the bottom. Like always.

Except today…She used too much coffee.

It wasn't on purpose.

But maybe it was.

She stirred it twice, not three times. Her hand didn't shake. Her eyes didn't blur. Her chest didn't ache.

She carried the mugs in with a smile that felt almost real.

"Morning, baby cakes," Malvor said, hair a mess, expression soft and lazy like sin on vacation.

"Morning," she said.

She kissed his temple. Gave him his mug. Sat beside him on the couch and curled up like she belonged there.

He took a sip.

Paused.

"Mmm. Bitter," he said, wincing slightly. "You angry with me, Annie Pie?"

She smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know."

He laughed. Kissed her cheek. Didn't think twice.

Gods, she was adorable in the morning.

Wrapped in one of his ridiculous shirts, hair still damp from a shower, handing him coffee like they were two normal people in a normal world.

This was what he wanted. Not carnivals, not gods. This.

Okay, so the coffee was a bit aggressive. But whatever. Maybe she was still spicy from yesterday. She'd been… incredible. Strong, steady, sensual. The rune glowed on her hip, and he couldn't stop thinking about it.

"What should we do today?" he asked. "Chaos? Cuddles? Catastrophe?"

She smiled. "Snow."

Malvor paused. Just for a second. 

There was some thing strange in her voice, too light, too bright. 

Like sugar trying to hide a bruise. 

But he shrugged it off. She wanted snow. So snow it was.

"Snow it is," he declared, grinning.

Arbor, ever the nosy match maker, delivered them into a winter wonder land with all the subtlety of a Pinterest board.

Snow flakes drifted down like powdered sugar. Trees glistened. A little hill waited nearby, begging to be sled down.

Annie built the first snowball.

"You Are going down," she said, flicking it at Malvor's chest.

He looked scandalized. "Annie! Violence before breakfast is one thing, but snowball treason?"

They built forts. They launched ambushes. They tackled each other in to snow banks, breathless with laughter.

For a while, she forgot to be hollow.

For a moment, she just was.

He kissed her, snow melting between their lips, his hands warm against her back. And when she smiled into it, really smiled, he thought the world had finally healed.

She thought maybe it had, too.

The snow fort turned into a kingdom.

Malvor crowned her Empress of Ice and promptly betrayed her with a snow ball to the face during the coronation.

"This is a coup," she declared, chasing him down the hill. He shrieked with laughter and fake terror, tumbling dramatically into the snow.

"Spare me, Snow Queen," he pleaded, arms wide, already plotting his next ambush.

"Not a chance," she said, pouncing on him.

The snow squealed beneath them. For a moment, it sounded real.

They rolled together, cold and breathless, tangled in a tangle of limbs and giggles.

She laughed too easily. Too fast.

Like joy was something she'd rehearsed.

And for a heart beat, just one, she forgot what she was.

Not a shrine worker. Not a weapon. Not a rune covered relic.

Just a woman. With a man. Laughing in the snow.

The couch creaked as she eased onto it, still in her damp clothes, still clutching a half finished mug of cocoa Arbor had cheerfully offered her.

Malvor had passed out in the other room, warm and snoring and wrapped in a blanket like a smug burrito.

The house hummed softly around her. Like it was watching. Like it knew.

She stared at the fire for a long time.

She should have felt something.

But tonight it tasted different. Less like loneliness. More like surrender.

She wasn't broken. Not yet. But something had been misplaced—A piece of her left some where in a coral bed, between a moan that was not hers and a smile that did not fit.

She'd find it eventually. She always did.

Just not tonight.

Tonight she would sit in the silence and let it name her. What ever it wanted. What ever she deserved.

Outside the conjured window, the snow kept falling. Soft. Steady. Unbothered by gods or girls who forgot how to feel.

Gratitude. Safety. Love.

Instead, she felt the shape of the silence, an outline pressed into her skin. The kind that came after you've screamed into a room that answered with nothing.

Her fingers brushed her hip. The rune didn't even flicker.

"You're glowing," he'd said.

But the light had not come from her.

It never did.

She closed her eyes. 

She didn't cry. Didn't flinch. 

Let the quiet eat her. 

It always did.