Desa groggily blinked her eyes open, rolling over on the couch. It was three in the morning if the clock on the cabinet was to be trusted. She sat up on the couch and looked around, it was dark and silent in the living room. She looked down over her body and noticed a blanket resting on her lap. She didn't remember getting one herself.

Was Aksel back? She must've slept through it. It was a miracle she had slept at all even if it was for a couple of hours. It was probably lack of sleep from the previous nights and her body's way of telling her she needed rest. Knowing sleep was probably not going to come again and she would spend the rest of the night just tossing and turning, Desa got up silently and looked down the hallway. Door to Aksel's room was closed. He was probably sleeping. It was an unusual feeling but she felt weird that she hadn't seen him for the whole day.

She lived alone, so it shouldn't have bothered her but it was as easy as breathing to get used to the presence of someone beside you. You were less prone to feeling alone when you woke up in the middle of the night. Like she did now. Even if Aksel was out of sight, she felt better by being close to someone.

Sighing she turned to the couch, grabbed the blanket and walked over to the window overlooking the harbour. She placed the blanket down on the windowsill and sat down. Hugging her knees to her chest, she tucked her chin on her arms and overlooked the scenery. It was quiet and calm with no one left on the street except for the row of different sized ships and boats slightly rocking to the lullaby of the soft waves. The blue silvery hue of the moonlight cast a shimmery glow across the sea's surface making out a serene picture.

The best part of insomnia was having the night all to herself. The stars were visible, the moon guided people to sleep, but for the daring, it was just another adventure calling. Desa leaned over and grabbed the wine bottle she had taken from one of the crates down stairs when no one was looking. She unscrewed the cork and brought the dark green bottle to her lips, chugging a substantial amount in a rather unladylike fashion. She didn't even taste the flavour of the sour grapes until her fourth sip and then placed the bottle between her legs.

Brushing her hair back from her face, she rested her head back against the wooden windowsill watching the sea. Her measly apartment had one view and it was the neighbours windows, as it was smack in the middle of the town. All she could do was count the different coloured bricks at the adjacent building to pass the time or what plant Mrs. Finnick decided to kill this month. The view from Aksel's house was considerably better.

She could get used to not sleeping with a view like this. Then chuckled silently to herself. Getting used to hiding at a target's house. Sure this was a great plan, Sontarro was going to be so fucking mad when he found out what she'd been doing. Rubbing her eyes, she tried to cast away the headache starting behind there. Not working in the least bit, she picked up the wine bottle again and drowned half the bottle. Wine was the least effective way to get drunk and one bottle was going to have little to no effect, definitely not enough to cause her to blackout and have a somewhat decent night.

As she sat back again, placing the bottle down, she was content to find that having no alcohol in her system for four days had lessened her body's tolerance. Desa could feel her cheeks flushing and her mind becoming weightless like a cloud, pushing her consciousness back, having her experience the world around her through a haze. These were the only times she felt like she was in control of herself. Her body relaxed, her mind far away and unburdened. If only she could stay high forever.

Fae knows she tried.

She closed her eyes and smiled as she felt the telltale signs of the room slightly moving beneath her. It was all a trick her intoxicated mind was playing on her but she relished it all the same. Desa didn't know how long she stayed like this with her eyes closed but when she next opened them, a figure was standing in the room.

She squinted her eyes as the figure came away from the shadows and stood by the table, half illuminated by the light shining through the window. Aksel's almost perfect features became clearer as Desa stopped squinting her eyes and felt a relaxed smile stretch across her lips. He still looked good when she was high. His angular yet soft face increased the effect alcohol had on her body, creating a pleasant buzz going through her veins.

"Couldn't sleep?" Aksel's deep voice asked as he stopped behind the closest wooden chair to her. It was exactly three steps she noted.

Desa looked at the straight long strands that looked impossibly black in the darkness of the night but she knew they were a deep blue in the daylight. They fell across his face in disarray but perfect harmony, his grey eyes looked light under the moon, like silver coins she would work to earn till her last breath. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top, leaving a great deal of the smooth expanse of his chest bare for her gaze. She averted her gaze and turned her head towards the window, looking but not seeing the harbour below.

"You could say that." Desa simply replied.

Aksel slided the chair back from the table and sat down facing her. She cast a side glance and her gaze was fixed on how his strong, muscular thighs moved as he gracefully settled down. She closed her eyes to will them to obey her wishes to not ogle him but they seemed to have a mind of their own, going straight to his face the minute she opened them.

How did he capture her attention so completely? She wanted to gaze at him till there was nothing she couldn't see when she closed her eyes. She cast am over all look at his face in an effort to find what took her self control away like this. Every single part of him was normal, elven when you looked at it separately but when you took a step back to piece it all together, he took her breath away.

Desa shook her head and the room spun a little, but it wasn't enough, so she grabbed the bottle from between her legs and took a sip.

"Where did you get that?" Aksel's voice was stern.

Desa squeezed her eyes shut. She forgot for a second that she had taken this without permission. Oh well. She opened her eyes again and cast her most innocent smile Aksel's way.

"Oh this?" She lifted the green bottle to shake it a bit, sloshing the liquid inside. She looked at the bottle like she was seeing it for the first time. "Can't say that I recall."

Aksel frowned in reply, not saying anything. After a minute of silence, Desa sighed. "Oh fine I got it from one of your crates. Figured I should get a payment for my work. Considering you probably weren't going to pay me." She smiled sweetly.

Aksel just crossed his arms and leaned back. "You need to work more than one day to cover the cost of that bottle." He said. "Not to mention, it's going to be a nightmare finding that one crate that is missing a bottle now thanks to you."

Desa just shrugged in reply. "One bottle missing, sure your clients wouldn't mind."

"I work hard to strive a respectable business, and a decent work ethic is what keeps clients as regular customers."

"I'm glad you don't see the irony of talking to your attempted killer about your work ethic." She chuckled and she lifted the bottle to her lips. Just as she was about to take another sip, the dark red liquid floated out of the bottle and swooshed away from her lips. Her gaze snapped to Aksel as his fingers swirled the floating glob of wine beside him and then sent it away from the room. A second later, Desa heard a sloshing, which sounded uncannily like wine pouring down a kitchen drain.

Desa turned her attention back to the bottle in her hands and turned it upside down. Not a single drop was left. Sighing she placed the bottle down on the ground and turned her gaze to Aksel. He seemed amused by all of this.

"You know what I want to know?"

"Mhm." Aksel hummed in reply as his amusement glinted in his eyes. He placed his elbow on the table and that damn index finger was trailing his bottom lip again.

She licked her lips, absentmindedly, still tasting the remainder of the wine on her lips. "I want to know why you don't use your water bending to kill me. You don't seem to be in a dilemma to use it in any other instance." She said as her hand gestured towards the kitchen where the wine had floated a second ago.

A tiny smile turned the corners of his soft lips up. "I don't like abusing my power."

Desa just silently huffed and turned her attention to the window. A single water sprite was strolling down the wooden walkway between the ships. He seemed to enjoy himself as his gait looked to be of a man intoxicated. He took a wrong step in the dark and splashed into the water. Desa wasn't worried, sea sprites could breathe underwater. He could sleep at the bottom of the sea and wake up in the morning for all she knew.

"What happened to your finger?" Aksel's voice snapped her out of her daze. She looked down and saw that she had been drawing circles across the ugly stump of her missing pinkie. When she noticed, she stopped the nervous habit.

"I cut it off." Desa whispered.

"Why?" Aksel asked making her turn her attention back to him.

His face revealed nothing, he could be mocking her or genuinely curious about her. She couldn't decipher the motive behind his words. It was frustrating. Thankfully the wine in her system was helping her make her decisions tonight.

"To get rid of a ring. An ugly silver ring with a red gemstone on it. One day when I woke up, I had it on me and I couldn't take it off. Thought if I cut it off I'd be free." She raised her hand in front of her face and wiggled her little ugly stump. "Was thirteen when I finally got the courage to try it."

She lowered her hand and then a cruel laugh escaped her lips. "Guess how much that helped." She said. "But can't complain. This right here-" she said showing between the space separating them. "I got to have three steps of freedom after that."

Which amounted to nothing. So what if she actually had control of her movements unless she stepped three steps close to her targets? She was still enchanted to kill them. Sontarro would punish her and force her until she did it. At the time, she had been so hopeful that getting rid of the ring was it. The spell on her had allowed her to cut her finger off since it wasn't a killing blow and she was going to be finally free. Desa had tried hiding when she learned she still couldn't leave Avilfell and it hadn't taken long for someone working for Sontarro to find her hiding huddled in the furthest place she could go.

When he learned she had cut her finger to get rid of the ring, he had made her pay. It hadn't been worth it to get three steps of freedom. The ring had been part of the enchantment but not all of it. And there was nothing more she could try to cut off. It wasn't important enough for Sontarro to put a new ring on her. She agreed, Desa would still have to do his bidding with other without the ring.

She tucked her hand away in her lap. Aksel was looking at her like he could see right through her, see the pain, the loneliness and the despair she hid away beneath a cloak of aloofness. It made her want to crumble in his arms and fall to million little pieces and never get back up again. She was angry at him for showing all this understanding and kindness to her when she was forced to eventually kill him. Didn't he realise how hard he was making this for her?

"I'm sorry you had to go through that." He said, his voice as solid as the promise of empathy behind it.

"Don't." She said, turning her gaze away to the window. She focused on the glass and the scenery behind blurred into blobs of colour blue, black and navy. "If you were really sorry, you would kill me. Give me what I want so I didn't have to live with myself after all I've done." She said solemnly.

When Aksel didn't reply, Desa turned her gaze to him again. There was sadness in his eyes but the answer was also written there. He was not going to kill her.

"You know, not all the scars you've seen are done by others." She said lifting up her arms. Desa didn't have to look to know where every ugly jagged, straight, little, large scars were placed. She knew all of them with a hatred that rivalled even the most black hearted of orcs. Some, if not most were done to her by her own hand.

"I can't kill myself." She said, her voice wavering at the end. Her lips squeezed together to stop her voice from coming out so weak. Then she locked her gaze with Aksel's so he could see the truth in them. "Whenever I try, the knife doesn't go fully in, my legs won't allow me to jump off a roof, my lungs won't drown in water, my powers won't fatally suffocate me in my nightmares. If I didn't need someone else to do it, believe me I would not be here right now."

She raked a hand through her black locks, needing him to understand just how desperate she was to end all of this. She was just so tired of living like this. No matter where she went or what she did, Desa never felt alive. She was just a shell, barely breathing and moving between commands.

"No one should be left with dying as their better option." Aksel said grimly.

The wooden chair creaked as he rose up from it. "Let's get you back the freedom to kill yourself and then we can talk about you dying again." His voice was so full of steely conviction that Desa's lips only slightly parted but no words came out. Aksel's hand gripped the back of the wooden chair and he stood there like he wanted to do or say something but he was stopping himself.

He took his hand away from the chair and made his way to the hallway. Just as he was about to disappear from her sight, Aksel turned around and looked into her eyes.

"I promise we'll break this."

And with that, she was once again alone. In the darkness of the night, her thoughts echoed back to her. She wondered what would break first, her or the enchantment.

Thanks for reading ❤️

This took so long to finish writing I don't know I was stumped for a while. Anyways here it is!