Entwined | 𝘠𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘤

Silence Broken

"That's it my Prickly Queen, time to let them know what we're made of."

Hope burst in Charlotte's chest, flowing throughout her whole being before finally exploding outward. Her vines soared towards Yami's voice, reaching even though he felt so far away.

He was there.

Just on the other side of this barrier that held her prisoner.

And nothing would stop her from breaking through.

At last her vines took hold of something solid, something other than this vast void, and she crushed it, tangling the hard surface in a mess of briars and roses.

A sound broke her cage of silence, and with a large crack the darkness around her crumbled and all five of her senses rushed back. The arid smell of hot sand and a thick dryness filled her mouth. Wisps of hair fell over her face as feeling returned to her limbs, and she realized she was lying in a nest of her briars.

Then a shadow loomed large over her, bending down before her eyes could adjust to the light.

"Char..."

Calloused fingers brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead, and then everything became Yami.

The heat seeping up from the ground beneath her was chilled compared to his scorching touch. His breath caressing her nose, his particular scent carried by the wind, and at long last his parched lips on hers restarted her heart.

"You're okay," he rasped.

"Yes." She nodded. A second—that's all she would give herself to bask in their reunion. If he was here, then her captors must be aware of that, too. Finally finding strength in her arms, she wrapped them around his neck as Yami scooped her up and captured her in the kiss that could only belong to a starving man.

His lips were salty, tinged with sweat and dry from the wind and sand, but sweeter than she had ever tasted. The softness of hers met him in a hot, desperate exchange. She moaned, clinging to his arms as tingles spread to her toes.

Potent, concentrated magic flowed through her veins and into her vines, where roses blossomed the color of passion, the color of courage, and the color of the blood she'd spill to those who had taken her.

"Are there others?" she whispered, forcing herself to break away. There would time for a longer reunion later.

"I came with a rescue party of eight, plus myself." Yami's voice was a harsh whisper, as if she had stolen his very voice. "Feugoleon, Nozel, and William were also captured. Are they with you? Where are your captors?"

"I don't know," she answered, using him as a crutch as she took in their surroundings. There wasn't much, beside the small oasis of turquoise water and three large, black stone pillars that swallowed the sun.

"Well isn't this touching," a voice boomed from above. "Now we can capture more of you prideful mages who call yourselves leaders."

Charlotte braced herself against Yami, but her muscles wouldn't move.

No.

She had been prepared to charge in, knew not a second could be wasted once she was freed, but it was already too late. A shadow pooled at their feet, it's source the remains of a broken pillar.

"Those arrogant good-for-nothing bastards," Yami spat from clenched teeth. From the rage in his eyes, she knew hes been trapped, too. Neither could move.

"If you can only fight in the shadows," Yuno's voice called out, also from above, but not as distant. "Then let us even the playing field."

A gust of wind so powerful that she would have surely been knocked to the ground if not for the paralyzing shadow magic swept past them, ramming into something just out of her peripheral vision. The sound of wood beams and stone creaked, then crashed as sand danced in the air and reduced their visibility to a minimum.

Robbed of her senses once again, Charlotte poured all her conscious effort into her vines. This time she was still free, not yet bound by whatever had—

A glint from the shards of the broken pillar shone through the sandstorm. The pillar. It wasn't a stone decoration, it was a shadow prison. Pushing her vines outward, she tried to remember where the other pillars had been located. If only she could break them...

A/n: This scene was so hard to write and idk why T_T