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irishseeeker · 3 years

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the story of us

summary: Five times Kate Sheffield and Anthony Bridgeton were just friends and one time they were more.

find chapter 1 here or here

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chapter 2: I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?

Anthony Bridgerton’s summer gets significantly better the minute Kate Sheffield steps off the train.

He’d been abroad for the first two weeks of the summer with friends from university, Kate had only come for a few days before she went away with Mary and her sister, and he returned to England to wait out the rest of the summer with his family. He couldn’t stay away for too long, the guilt of leaving his mother and siblings alone would nag at him until he couldn’t focus on anything else. They needed him.

When they hugged on the platform, the familiar, comforting scent of lilies and soap filled his nostrils and he felt this calm feeling seep deep into his bones.

He’d missed her.

When they broke apart, he took her suitcase and he raised an eyebrow at the bouquet of red roses tied up with brown paper and a ribbon.

“Aw, did you get me flowers?” He teased, and she stuck her tongue out at him. He snorted loudly.

“They’re for your mum, dipshit.”

He pulled up her suitcase’s handle, beginning to wheel it and walk with her off the platform. “Charming. What did you get me?”

“Oh, this.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her middle finger, smirking as she waved it at him.

They walked out of the train station and towards his car. It was a quiet station, right in the middle of the countryside. The main station was in the middle of town, which was a twenty minute drive.

He pressed a button on his car keys and the boot automatically opened. He was driving their Range Rover, one of their bigger cars for the country. They always spent the summer at their country home Aubrey Hall in Kent, leaving London for most of the summer.

The countryside used to be his favourite place.

Now, it just reminded him of his father. Every room and the long hallways were plagued with memories. Memories that would only grow older. His father wouldn’t. His father would never be a part of another memory.

“Jesus, did you pack your entire wardrobe in here?” He huffed as he bent down, putting his weight onto his knees as he hauled her suitcase into the boot.

She scoffed. "You brought at least six suitcases to university.”

They climbed into the car, Anthony clicked in his seatbelt. He turned to glance at Kate, who was tying her hair back in a plait. The golden sun shone through the window, lighting up Kate’s face and dotting it with subtle sparkles.

It suddenly became quite hard to breathe.

“Anthony?”

Her timid voice snapped him out of his daze, turning to her. “Yeah?”

Kate was frowning at him, her nose wrinkling like it always did. “You’re staring. Is there something on my face?”

“I wasn’t staring,” He mumbled, turning on the car and avoiding her eyes. “We better get back. Mum will kill me if we’re late for lunch.”

“I hope your mum hasn’t gone to too much trouble,” Kate murmured, fiddling with her hands with a nervous expression on her face. He knew that look, he had seen it a lot over the past two years. She was biting her bottom lip, which was an unwelcome distraction while he was driving. “It’s so nice of her to let me stay.”

He had been with Kate for five minutes and his mind was already drifting there.

It started a few weeks ago.

He had a dream.

It had started out relatively normal. He was laying on his bed, naked, wrapped in a white sheet. He wasn’t alone.

A woman was with him. A naked woman, her long legs covered by the white sheet. He couldn’t tell who she was at first, laying flat on her stomach tucked against his side.

He notices the dark curls first.

Anthony wraps a thick strand around his hand, watching it slowly twirl around his fingers and wrist. He can see the sharp edge of her jawline, the flutter of her long eyelashes and the fullness of her rose tinted lips.

All of her features form a face.

Kate.

Her face is carved into his memory. He can’t stop thinking about the sprinkle of dark freckles across her nose, the slight pink tint to her cheeks and the delicate leanness of her fingers as they stroked his cheek.

It’s like he never truly saw her before and now she’s all he can see.

The dream always ended the same way. Kate slowly moves on top of him, her hands on either side of his face as her body pressed against his, chest against chest. She leans down slowly, their lips inches apart-

He always wakes up the same way-panting and sweating.

At first, he thought it didn’t mean anything. Kate may be the first woman he had a platonic relationship with that he wasn’t related to and having a sexual dream about her didn’t mean anything.

It couldn’t mean anything.

But-

He kept having the same dream.

The woman was always Kate.

It was ruining his life.

It’s not like he had never noticed Kate. He wasn’t blind. She had always been beautiful. Anthony had just never thought of her that way. He had never allowed himself too.

Kate was his best friend. Kate had sat down in the same tutorial as him and quickly began to argue with him and he had been stuck ever since.

He wouldn’t lose her because of his behavior. His track record with women had been treacherous and Anthony knew it was mostly his fault.

Something had died inside of him when his father did and he had accepted that. It wasn’t fair to expect others to as well. He was emotionally unavailable and he wasn’t ready for a relationship. Siena had proven that.

That painful disaster wasn't something he planned to repeat.

He couldn’t fix himself. There was a part of him that would always be broken.

Anthony realized he hadn’t responded to Kate, so he asked her about her trip. He knew most of the details, they had facetimed nearly every day since they had been apart.

Kate had suddenly appeared in his life and she had remained there ever since. It still frightened him, how in two years she had become so vital. Kate had become his anchor. He never intended for her to happen but it was out of his control. Kate had fit into his life in a way no one else had since his father had.

She was the first person in a long time Anthony felt understood him. There had only been one other person who ever could and he had died.

Kate had lost her dad too. It wasn’t a taboo topic between them. They could speak openly about who they had lost and they understood each other.

He didn’t have to be anything for her. He didn’t have to be her emotional support person like he had to for his mother. He didn’t have to be a surrogate father like he did for his siblings. He didn’t have any pressurizing responsibilities like he did in every other part of his life and he didn’t have to put on a false façade that he was fine and everything was fine.

Anthony would do anything for Kate, he just didn’t have to. It was a comforting thought that lifted the heavy weight off his shoulders just a little.

He had survived two years without crossing that line with Kate.

His subconscious had decided to take it upon itself and do it for him. It was as if a switch inside of his brain had flicked and it was all he could think about. Thinking of Kate in that way.

Lately, Kate was all he could think about.

He was convinced his subconscious was playing tricks on him-if something was meant to happen between them, it would have.

It didn’t matter, in the end.

Kate would never see him in that way. Kate had always been hard to read but he had become accustomed to seeing through the cracks in her built up walls and he was certain she would never feel anything for him but friendship.

He could live with that.

He just couldn’t live without her.

“Here we are,” He said, nodding his head towards the house as they pulled up at the two black iron gates guarding the property. He pushed on the break, reaching out the window to type in the key code to open the gates. “Aubrey Hall.”

“Wow,” Kate said, leaning forward towards the dashboard as they drove up the long pebbled driveway towards the house. “It’s beautiful. It’s finally time to meet the Bridgertons.”

Anthony let out a low chuckle, nodding his head. He didn’t doubt for a second Kate knew every little detail he had told her about all of his siblings, he did talk about them a lot. She had met Benedict and Colin a few times when they visited Oxford and had seen Benedict quite a bit once he became a student himself but she had never met his younger siblings or his mother.

He had never brought anyone to Aubrey Hall before.

His mother, of course, appeared at the front door as soon as the car came to a stop. He didn’t doubt she had been waiting at the window, peeking behind their curtains for them to arrive. Violet Bridgerton had been asking a lot of questions about Kate since Anthony had asked if she could come to stay.

His mother didn’t ask questions without insinuations behind them.

Benedict and Colin had found it particularly amusing, taking every opportunity to take the piss out of Anthony. They gleefully egged on their mother’s eagerness of meeting Anthony’s potential girlfriend despite Anthony reminding his family daily Kate was his friend.

Apparently, he talked about Kate a lot. He obviously disagreed, which made Ben and Colin tease him further. What fun things do you have planned for you and Kate when she comes, Anthony? A romantic picnic in the gardens? What would Kate say about that, Anthony? Aw, didn’t you and Kate do that Anthony? Anthony, are you feeling okay? You haven’t talked about Kate in five minutes. The girls had even joined in. Even Frannie, his sworn ally, had teased him a little.

Traitor.

He was adamant he did not talk about Kate that much.

It was a perfectly normal amount.

They got out of the car and Violet walked towards them, ignoring Anthony as she pulled Kate into a hug. “Kate, it’s so wonderful to finally meet you. Please, come in! Anthony, get her bags darling.”

“Miss Bridgerton, it is so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for having me,” Kate said, handing her the bouquet of tulips and a gift bag. “It’s not much, but I hope you like them.”

“Kate, we have heard so much about you.” Violet Bridgerton smiled at her and gasped at the gifts, ignoring Anthony’s glare at her jibe and Benedict’s snort from the doorway. “Oh! You shouldn’t have. Thank you so much. These are gorgeous, I’ll have to get a vase-girls, stop that right now! Excuse me, dear.”

Daphne and Eloise were on their third argument of the day, right on schedule. They quickly shut up and ran away from their scowling mother who was charging towards them.

They all watched Violet in amusement before turning back to each other, and Benedict grinned at Kate and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“Katharine.”

“Benedict.” Kate chimed back at him, reaching up to squeeze his cheek. “You’re so grown up.”

Benedict turned to smirk at Anthony, his eyes sparking with amusement. “Anthony has been counting down the days until you arrive. Marking them off that little corgi calendar you gave him, bless his little heart-”

Kate gasped, turning to Anthony delighted. It made something inside of his chest flutter a little. “You’re using the calendar?”

Anthony shrugged, trying to appear unbothered. “It’s practical. The girls liked the pictures.”

“Ben, I hope you’re not taking the piss out of our brother without me.”

Lord give him strength.

Colin, his 18 year old brother who was about to set off travelling on his gap year in a few weeks, strolled into the room. His brown hair was sticking up in all directions and he probably just woke up.

Benedict, smug as ever, turned to smirk at his younger brother. “I was only warming up.”

“Hey, Kate.” Colin grinned easily at her, crossing his arms as he joined them. “Don’t lie, Anthony. The girls liked looking at it for a few minutes. I drew a penis on it one time and you got all moody-”

Anthony narrowed his eyes at his brothers.“I will murder you, you know that right?”

Kate glanced between the three brothers, looking highly amused. “This is going to be fun.”

Deciding he had had enough of his brothers for the afternoon and validly cautious of what else was going to come out of their mouths, he gestured towards the staircases. He nudged Kate along. “As delightful as this little catchup is, I’m going to show Kate her room.”

“Can we get you guys anything? A snack? A condom?” Colin called after them, Benedict and his snickering filling the hallway. Kate snorted from beside him, jogging up the steps.

Anthony threw the first thing he could grab, which happened to be one of Hyacinth’s tiny pink uggs. It narrowly avoided his great aunt’s blue clay pot on the hall table as it hit Colin smack on the head.

“I’d ask for one but then you’d actually have to be having some to need them, right Col?” Anthony winked at his brother who was rubbing his head, glaring at Anthony from across the hall. “Hang in there, mate.”

“I have plenty of sex, thank you very-”

“Colin Bridgerton!”

His mother had walked into the hallway just as her third youngest opened his mouth and landed himself right in it. Her jaw dropped open and Anthony took the opportunity, laughing at his squirming brother, to nudge Kate upstairs just as his mother started giving out to Colin.

“They’re idiots,” Anthony said, rolling his eyes as they walked along the first floor’s maroon carpet towards her bedroom. His eyes anxiously flicked towards Kate, hoping they could ignore the awkward mention of condoms.

He was going to kill Colin later.

“Funny idiots,” Kate agreed, smiling at him as her eyes moved around the hallway and the painting and pictures on the walls. All of the siblings were on the first floor, except for Gregory and Hyacinth who were on the second floor with their mother.

“I’ll give you a tour later, let's just drop off your stuff first.” He opened the door to the guest room, that would someday be Gregory’s room-it was right opposite his bedroom. “Here we are. I’m just across the hall.”

“This place is incredible. It’s so beautiful,” Kate said, turning to him with a teasing smile. She dramatically bowed, her long dark hair flipping over her head and back as she stood up. “Lord Bridgerton.”

“Fuck right off,” Anthony said, collapsing on the bed and Kate joined him. The familiar memorizing scent of lilies and soap filled his nostrils. Kate had looked up their families on an ancestry website last year and had found out Anthony was from a long line of nobility and had called him Lord Bridgerton for a solid month.

God, he had missed her.

He turned to her, flexing his biceps as he stretched his stiff arms over his head. “Are you happy to be home?”

She nodded, her chest moving up and down slowly as she relaxed on the bed. “I loved being away, but it’s so nice to be back and to be home. Did you get my postcards?”

The last person he had gotten a postcard from had been his grandmother when he was younger until Kate. She’d sent him a few from around Europe, from Rome to Paris, and he kept them all in the drawer beside his bed. He’d started eagerly checking the postbox everytime post had come once she had started sending them. “I did. They were great. They’re in my room. Otherwise, Gregory or Hyacinth would find them and colour them in. I loved the Amsterdam one.”

“I thought you would. Oh! I got you presents,” Kate said gleefully, pulling neatly wrapped bundles out of her bag as she sat up on the bed and crossed her legs. “They’re not much, but I thought you might like them.”

“You didn’t need to get me anything,” Anthony said, completely stunned as he took the presents Kate eagerly handed him. She looked so excited and it made his stomach flutter uncomfortably.

It wasn’t butterflies. Anthony didn’t get butterflies. It was probably a digestion issue or something.

He unwrapped the first present, grinning at the perfectly neat wrapping. It was so Kate. Each corner was perfectly taped and folded properly. He unwrapped a small shot glass wrapped in bubble wrap.

“A shot glass, of course.”

He let out a low chuckle, “I wouldn’t expect anything less, Sheffield. Thank you, this is brilliant.”

The next present was a big box of foreign sweets and crisps, ones that reminded him of being on holiday. There was a mixture of haribos, chewy sweets from Spain and exotic crisp flavors that you could never get in England.

His mouth watered. He had an extreme sweet tooth and Kate was always pestering him to eat some fruit or vegetables. He’d smugly remind her he’d never had a cavity. “This is amazing. I’ll be hiding these from everyone or they’ll be gone in an hour.”

He unwrapped the next package which was an assortment of jams, of different colours and varieties.

She grinned as she pointed out the different flavors. “I thought you’d like them for when we go back to university. I know how much you love jam, I wouldn’t want you to starve. I got them in Normandy, at a farmer’s market. The pear one is unbelievable.”

Anthony had never been gifted in the kitchen. They’d been lucky to grow up with nannies and cooks, and both his parents had been talented in the kitchen-something that was not passed onto Anthony. Besides meals in the catering hall at university, Anthony had solely survived on toast with butter or jam before Kate took pity on him and started feeding him.

“This is the last and my favourite one.”

The package felt soft and he carefully unwrapped it, curiously pulling the little bag out of the paper. It was a brown leather case with a fine detail of stitching around the edge.

“It’s made out of Italian leather,” Kate explained, gesturing to the case. “It’s a case for your pocket watch, so you don’t break it. It can clip onto anything, so you’ll always have it.”

“Thank you,” He mumbled, looking oddly dazed. He reached into his pocket, slowly pulling out the silver chained pocket watch his father had passed onto him. It didn’t really make sense, having a pocket watch when watches and iPhones existed. It was old fashioned.

The watch had been passed through the Bridgertons for years and his father had loved it. He’d let Anthony play with it when he was younger until he had been given it on his eight birthday. It was one of the last things Anthony had of Edmund Bridgerton before he died.

He opened his mouth to say something, failing to find any words that could explain how grateful he was. The pocket watch slid into the case perfectly. “Kate. This is..this is amazing. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Kate said, smiling softly at him and lightly squeezing his arm. He was staring right into her soft brown eyes, full of warmth and kindness. She knew how much it meant to him and she had thought about him and got him this.

He wasn’t used to people thinking about him like that.

He felt something stirring inside of him, a tight feeling in his chest about to burst as he looked at her. She was looking right at him and he swore he saw her eyes flicker between his eyes and lips. “Kate-”

They both jumped startled as their eye contact broke, the moment fading, when there was a loud knock on the door, followed by a voice. “Anthony? Kate? Lunch is ready.”

They stood up slowly, Anthony sliding the protected pocket watch into his pocket and clipping it to the inside of his pocket’s material and headed to the door.

Benedict had been the one sent to fetch them, Colin was nowhere in sight. “Colin is trying to convince Mum to let him eat lunch. His comment didn’t go down well earlier and he’s apparently corrupting our younger siblings.”

Anthony let out a deep chuckle, turning to Kate with a smirk. “If you want to punish Colin, take away his food. He inhales anything in sight.”

Once they sat down for lunch, Kate was an immediate big hit with the Bridgertons. Hyacinth threw a fit until she was allowed to eat lunch on Anthony’s lap, quite suspicious about his new friend. Kate quickly got into her good graces when she put two carrot sticks in her mouth to look like a walrus, making walrus noises until Hyacinth laughed so hard she spat out some of her juice.

Daphne chats away to Kate about her plans to study architecture in Cambridge after her final year in school, which Anthony had spent the last few weeks helping her prepare for her applications and for her interviews. Daph announced she was pleased there was finally another female in the house to combat the massive levels of testosterone, as Eloise apparently didn’t count (who gives her the finger which their mother quickly scolds her for) and Frannie is always disappearing.

Anthony knows he shouldn’t have favourites. He loves all of his siblings, he really does-but Francesca is his favourite.

His brothers are his best friends, Daph is the person he shares a lot of the same hobbies with-riding, swimming and Eloise is the person he debates and watches documentaries with. At six and three, Gregory and Hyacinth are still babies. It’s different with them, they don’t remember their father. Anthony desperately tried to be that for them. He had to take care of them after their father died and Hyacinth was born a month after and their mother didn’t leave bed for weeks. Anthony is definitely their favourite sibling and it does wonders for his ego.

Francesca, however, is Anthony.

They both aren’t the loud ones-they leave that to Colin and Eloise. They’re not the artistic ones either-Daphne and Benedict were the ones who had art shows and were stars in their school plays.

Anthony is pretty sure Francesca is the only other sibling who will join the family business in the future. He can’t say for sure because Gregory and Hyacinth are so young, but he doesn’t doubt if for a second for Francesca. They read the newspaper most mornings together, they send each other articles and book recommendations when she’s at home and he’s at university. They’re both fiercely competitive and play on any sports team they can.

Frannie is very serious for a twelve year old with an incredible emotional intelligence, something Anthony was always told he was like, except for the emotional intelligence part-he’s been told he’s rather lacking in that area-and he knows she worries about him. Their father’s death had given him a responsibility that he didn’t want her to have. Francesca didn’t agree. She had been nine when he passed. Yet, she had always been at this side-helping with the babies, insisting he ate if he had forgotten and talking to Colin when he acted out in grief and fought against Anthony helping him.

They had all helped each other in their grief but Francesca was the one who saved Anthony from drowning.

They understood each other and Anthony wouldn’t have survived that first year after Edmund’s death without her. Their mother had been recovering from a traumatic birth and was still grieving, he had cancelled his gap year plans to take care of the family before university and was trying to stop them from falling apart.

Whenever she needed time alone, she disappeared in the house, usually to her bedroom, the library or the treehouse. Anthony had always retreated when he needed some time to breathe. Her spots had become Anthony’s spots, whether it was in Kent or in London, and they would sit in silence doing whatever.

Frannie turns to him one morning at breakfast, handing him the finance part of the paper and taking a sip of her orange juice. “I like her.”

“Kate?” The topic of their conversation was cooking pancakes with Eloise and Daphne, the three of them laughing about something. She catches his eye, grinning at him before turning to listen to what Eloise was saying.

“So do you,” Francesca said, as if it was a casual thing to say. “I think you should, you know. It would be nice, to be happy.”

Anthony actually stutters. “I-I am happy.”

Francesca sighs, shaking her head. “Of course you are. You have been since Kate arrived. I wonder why?”

Everyone else joins the table, cutting off their conversation as they hand out the pancakes. Anthony stares at Frannie in bewilderment before turning back to his food. If his internal battle and feelings were that obvious, he needed to work on being more subtle.

That summer is the best Anthony has ever had.

One warm August afternoon, Anthony takes Kate away from the house so he can get her to himself for a bit. He decides to take her horse riding to the nearby stables where they used to take lessons and go riding.

Anthony hadn’t ridden since the summer of his father’s death. They had spent every summer in Kent before their father died and before that, they had lived there until Anthony was five before permanently moving to London. Their father had always loved riding and had taken them out for rides and lessons, but their mother was never that fussed. Anthony had been shocked when his mother announced she wanted to go back to Aubrey Hall this summer, having been so insistent on staying in London for three years straight. He didn’t think she would ever be able to go back, but she seemed to be coping well so far or he just hadn’t seen her break down.

His siblings could just go to the stables if they wanted to go for a ride, but none of them were that fussed except for Daphne. She had always loved riding and she had competed in competitions for years before quitting to focus on school. It wasn’t the same after their father died, he had always been at every single one of her competitions. It had usually been the two of them and their father going out for rides together during the summer.

Anthony and Daphne had gone for daily rides since their arrival in Kent, deciding to continue the tradition they had always loved. Convincing Kate to, on the other hand, was not looking likely.

Kate was biting her bottom lip, looking at the horse in front of her. “I don’t know.”

“You’ll be fine.”

She was still hesitant. “Is there like a pony or something? Something smaller?”

“This is the smallest mare they have. She’s very calm. Eloise rode her last week and she’s never been fond of riding.”

“I don’t trust it,” Kate whispered, stepping closer to Anthony as if she was afraid the horse could hear her.

Anthony let out an amused, slightly frustrated huff. He was trying to be patient, but it was wearing thin. “It’s a horse, Kate.”

Kate turned to glare at him, narrowing her eyes. “Not all of us came out of the womb and onto a saddle, Anthony. Horses are large and intelligent creatures. What if it doesn’t want me to ride it and throws me off?

“Do you trust me?”

Kate sighed, rolling her eyes. “Yes,” She said, begrudgingly.

He extended his hand to her. “I promise you’re not going to fall off. I’m going to walk you around before we go for a ride. She’s a good horse, she won’t throw you off. Just get up and shut up.”

“Wow. You’re so kind. With an attitude like that, it’s a mystery to why you’re single.”

He mimicked her, and she mimicked him back, and they stood there mocking each other for a few minutes until she shoved him into the muck.

He wouldn’t talk to her for ten minutes, covered in dirt, and she nearly wet herself she was laughing so hard, and he eventually joined in.

He eventually helped her onto the horse, a gentle brown mare called Iris. Kate clutched at his hand as he helped her up and the electricity sent jolts down his spine. He walked her around for a bit before leading her for a ride across the fields, which Kate seemed to love.

They trotted for most of it and Kate made him take a picture with her with the blooming fields in the background to send to Mary and Edwina.

He definitely doesn’t send it to himself later and keep it on his phone.

It was one of the best afternoons of his life.

Things tended to be amazing whenever Kate was around.

It was becoming quite the problem, especially whenever she smiled or laughed, causing him to get this uncomfortable, warm feeling in his chest.

Kate even gets up with him in the mornings with the babies when he gave his Mum a break, watching cartoons with Greg and Hyacinth who wake up at illegal hours most mornings.

The rest of his siblings slowly join them, everyone tired and weary as they sit on the couch. The early morning silence slowly begins to fade with the chatter in the room.

“I love this.”

“Mm?” He hums, turning his attention away from the cartoon to look at Kate.

“How noisy it is here. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family so much. It could just get quiet at times, you know? I’ve always wanted a big family.”

“Oh,” says Kate softly, looking down at a sleeping Hyacinth against his chest. “She’s adorable.”

“Yeah,” said Anthony, smiling down at his sister. “Until she’s screaming her lungs out after you turn off Peppa Pig after four hours of watching it.”

Kate chuckled softly, “She's quite the character. She looks like you, you know.”

“You think?” said Anthony, his voice softer.

She nodded, smiling warmly at him. “You’re doing an amazing job, you know that right?”

It wasn’t anything like his father would be doing if he was still here. Anthony had made his peace with the fact he could never be the man his father was. However, hearing it from Kate made it feel like he was doing something right.

“Alright, Greg,” Anthony was kneeling down to his little brother’s height, holding him steady. “I’m going to take these stabilizers off, and you’re going to pedal towards Kate. Just like we practiced on Eloise’s old bike.”

Gregory blinked up at him, eyes wide and terrified. “What if I fall?”

“You get back up,” said Anthony, brushing his thumb over his cheek slowly. “Besides, I’m going to be right beside you. I’d never let you fall.”

After a few tries, a few near falls and some tears, Gregory successfully cycles around the front garden all by himself.

He swung Gregory around, grinning at her laughter as the rest of the Bridgertons clapped.

Kate was smiling at him, and the sun made her face glow, and he knew in that moment he would do anything just to see her smile like that at him for the rest of his life.

They sat around the fire on the patio later that evening, roasting marshmallows on metal rods.

“I’m sorry if this is boring,” said Anthony, biting his lip as he glanced around at his family. “I know it’s not the most exciting summer.”

“Are you kidding?” said Kate, grinning at him as she shifted Hyacinth on her lap. She had refused to sit anywhere else, and Kate didn’t seem to mind at all. Anthony was eternally grateful, as he didn’t have it in him to deal with a Hyacinth Bridgerton tantrum that evening. “This is amazing. Thank you for inviting me.”

She’s smiling at him again and it’s getting very hard to ignore the hammering inside of his chest.

“She fits in well, don’t you think?” Violet Bridgerton says to Anthony in the kitchen, one evening after dinner when they’re both cleaning up. “As if she belongs here.”

“Mum,” Anthony says sternly, in a tone usually reserved for a parent scolding a child, but he knew exactly what she was insinuating. His mother’s favourite hobby was meddling in his love life. “Don’t go there.”

He wouldn’t let himself go there.

He had been internally debating it with himself for a while now, but he always came to the same conclusion. His reputation wasn’t stellar. His relationships never worked out.

He wouldn’t risk losing Kate.

It almost felt normal, her teasing him over a girl-as if the last few years hadn’t happened. As if his father’s death and Anthony’s role in the family hadn’t drastically changed everything. As if his relationship with his mother wasn't broken.

“Where, dearest?” Violet said, smirking at her son before walking back into the dining room.

Anthony sighed, leaning against the counter. He pushed the thoughts spiraling in his head and his recurring dream to the back of his head.

The women in his life were going to kill him.

They get the train to London on a Saturday for their friend Rob’s 21st birthday, and they stay for the night. They spend the day wandering around London, grabbing lunch at Camden market before getting ready at his house.

Kate’s dress is black and clings to her curves in a way that forces Anthony to remember to breathe.

Rob’s parents are divorced and his dad spends a lot of his time abroad, so the party is in his dad’s empty townhouse in Kensington. The party is in full swing by the time they arrive and they’re both drunk and laughing within an hour. They haven’t seen their university friends in a few weeks and when Anna sees them, she screams and jumps into their arms.

They eventually get separated, Anthony plays beer pong with some of Rob’s school friends and Rob, Luke and Ethan from uni. His head is buzzing, he feels slightly dizzy but the party is packed, he’s having a good time and he keeps on drinking.

When he eventually spots Kate, she’s leaning against the wall of the kitchen talking to a tall guy. Anthony doesn’t recognize him and the feeling in his chest isn’t warm or fuzzy.

He can’t help himself. “Who is Kate talking to?”

Rob turns his head around, looking in the direction Anthony nodded. “Oh, that’s David. We’ve played football together a few times in uni. He’s decent.”

Anthony takes a long swig of his beer.

Kate eventually finds him outside with the rest of their friends, Anna beside her as they join the group. It had taken everything in him to not interrupt her conversation with David, or whatever the fuck his name was. Kate was far too good for him. He had distracted himself with a blonde girl called Ella instead, who had left the party over an hour ago.

It didn’t work.

“Hey,” said Kate, yawning softly as she climbed onto his lap, pulling his blanket over herself. Anthony tries to look unaffected, but his heart is hammering inside of his chest. She's all he can smell-lilies and soap. The scent is overwhelming. They were all sitting in camper chairs around a firepit, and they stayed there until 5am before Rob told people they could stay over in any bedroom that they wanted.

He carries a drunk Kate to bed, finding an empty bedroom and laying her carefully on the bed.

He takes off her heels, wipes her makeup carefully off with the wipes she had brought in her bag and he leaves a glass of water beside her bed. “G’night.”

“Where are you going?” Kate asked, frowning slightly as lifted her head off the pillow. She looked so adorable, her eyes half closed as she looked at him.

“I’m going to sleep on the sofa.”

“I’m pretty sure someone is having sex on the sofa. Just sleep here.” Kate mumbled, yanking at his shirt to get him onto the bed.

Anthony hesitated, biting his lip. This was definitely crossing a boundary. The rest of the rooms were taken, the couch was currently in use and he didn’t fancy sleeping on the floor. He also knew he wouldn’t sleep at all, knowing Kate was right beside him.

He convinces himself he’s staying to make sure she’s alright, in case she needs to get sick or needs something. Kate is already asleep by the time he climbs into bed, determined to stick to his side. He’s practically falling over the edge of the bed when he falls asleep.

They wake up in each other’s arms the next morning.

“Do you ever think about the future?” Anthony asks Kate one evening, after a long day of eating food in the living room and having a Friends marathon.

Kate’s lying on her back, attempting to throw popcorn in the air and catch it with her mouth. “My only plans are becoming a solicitor and getting a corgi.”

Anthony snorted. “I don’t get your obsession with those dogs.”

“Insult corgis and see how it works out for you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a threat, Sheffield?”

“No, it’s a warning.”

They’re sitting on opposite ends of the long sofa. She kicks his foot, and he grabs her foot and pulls her towards him. He knows exactly what he’s going to do, and so does she-he ignores her protests.

“Anthony, I swear to god-”

He grabs her easily, leaning over her as he tickles her sides. She’s incredibly ticklish at the age of twenty one-and there’s a loud cough.

Anthony springs off Kate like a cat touching water.

“I just came to see if you guys wanted pizza,” Eloise says slowly, a mixture of amusement and shock plastered on her face. “We’re ordering some for dinner.”

“Pineapple, please.” Kate squeaks, avoiding Eloise’s gaze and instead focusing on the screen.

“Pepperoni,” Anthony says, trying to keep his facial expression impassive as he held his sister’s gaze. Eloise leaves after that, an amused hum leaving her lips before she wandered off.

They stay on opposite sides of the couch for the rest of the night.

They go for a swim in the lake the evening before Kate goes home. The sky looks like cotton candy, the sun setting in the distance and the warm air makes the cold lake bearable.

“Why do we have to swim in the lake when there’s a perfectly good pool?” Kate asked, glancing back at the house and back at the lake. “There’s nothing in it, is there?”

“Adventure, Katherine.” He took off his t-shirt, stepping into the lake before feeling his feet sink lower and eventually lose their grounding. “There isn’t anything. Come on.”

Kate hesitantly follows him in at a snail pace, which forces Anthony to stare at the water instead of her yellow bikini.

“What was that?” She squeaked, splashing the water as she jumped up in the air, feeling something brush against her feet. She grabbed him, launching herself into his arms.

“Don’t be such a baby,” He teased, trying desperately to ignore the fact she fit perfectly into his arms.

Kate always fit.

His hands were wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him. This was breaking every boundary and rule he had put in place, but he just couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He could feel her soft skin under his fingertips, drawing patterns against her skin.

He felt her body relax, but she didn’t let go of him. She looked at him, pouting slightly. “I’m not a baby.”

“Kate?”

“Mm?”

Their faces are very close.

He lets out a shaky breath. “I’m glad you came here.”

She blinks at him, nodding her head slowly as a small smile erupts on her lips. “Me too.”

He’s going to kiss her. He’s going to kiss her. There’s no way he can’t kiss her. He has to kiss her. He’s going to ki-

There was a scream, and both of their heads flicked towards the two children running towards them, Colin and Benedict behind them.

They quickly broke apart, Anthony swimming towards the edge of the lake in case Gregory or Hyacinth rushed in. He nodded at his brothers apologetic stares, who clearly hadn’t meant for their younger siblings to disturb Anthony and Kate.

He doesn’t kiss her.

“Thanks for having me.”

“Thanks for coming.”

They’re both standing on the train platform, Kate’s train pulled into the station a minute ago. She’s going back to Somerset for two weeks before university starts, and then they’ll be together again.

He tries not to look as disappointed as he feels.

“I’ll see you in two weeks?”

“Not if I see you first,” She said, grinning at him as she slowly pulled him into a hug. She can never reach his neck, so she wraps her arms around his waist instead and leans her head against his chest.

Anthony holds her tightly. Anthony had needed her here this summer. It had been their first time at Aubrey Hall since their father died. Kate had made it easier. She’d made it fun.

As her train pulls out of the station and a waving Kate through the window disappears, he can’t help the pang of regret he feels as he watches her go.

He can’t help but think of everything he should have said, but didn’t.

He has a bitter taste in his mouth for the rest of the day.

“I think everyone’s going to the pub in an hour. Do you want to go?”

They’re finally back for their final year of university, and they’re busier than ever. Before they know it, the leaves have fallen off the trees and the cool November weather has taken over Oxford. The workload, readings and assignments are piling up and they had spent the evening reviewing each other’s thesis proposals and giving feedback to each other.

Kate looks up from her laptop, typing for a few seconds before shaking her head. “I can’t. I have a meeting.”

Anthony looks up from his laptop, raising an eyebrow. “A meeting?”

Kate takes a deep breath, staring at Anthony with a “If I tell you this, you have to promise you won’t make fun of me.”

That catches Anthony’s full attention, “I promise.”

“It’s our last year here,” Kate begins, closing her laptop and standing up. “I want to make the most of it, get more involved. So, I’ve joined the botanist society.”

Anthony blinks. “The what?”

“It’s a science society, about gardening and plants. I always use to garden with dad. It’s actually really fun and interesting. We just drink and chat and they organize trips to museums and botanical gardens. There’s a trip to the Netherlands later just before Christmas, I’m going to go.”

His face softened. He knew what it was like, avoiding things if they reminded you of someone you lost or clinging to them for dear life. He could take the piss out of her, but he doesn’t. “I think it’s great. I didn’t know we had a botanist society.”

“David told me about it, actually.”

“David?” Anthony asks as if he doesn’t know, but he knew exactly who David was. He can hear his hammering pulse in his ears.

“I met him at Rob’s party. He’s in his final year of biology. He’s nice.” Anthony doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything. He just feels sick. Was David going to be there?

“That reminds me,” Anthony says, swiftly changing the subject before he said something stupid. “I got us tickets to the law ball. We should go together.”

Kate blinks at him through her reflection in the mirror. “Together?”

Anthony shrugs, blushing slightly at his impulsivity. “Everyone else is bringing dates. Anna and Luke are going as friends. We’re both single. Unless you’re bringing someone else?”

Kate shakes her head quickly and Anthony has to stop himself sighing in relief. “No, no. That’s a great idea. I’d love to.”

It was getting extremely difficult to fight his feelings.

Kate looked beautiful.

He can’t stop the words coming out of his mouth and tries to hold in his grin when Kate blushes and rolls her eyes at him.

It’s the night of the Law Ball and their entire friend group is having pre-drinks in the common room before they headed to the college where the ball was being held.

Kate’s wearing a long lavender dress, with a V-neck cut and straps that hang loosely on her shoulders. Her hair is long and wavy down her back and he has to count slowly in his head to stop himself from staring at her.

Anthony didn’t like taking pictures but if they involved wrapping his hand around her waist, pulling her close to him-he’d never complain again taking them for the rest of his life.

Anna insists on getting multiple shots of them together, which takes a few minutes. Anthony swore he saw her wink at him at one point or he was just drunker than he thought.

The ball is brilliant, their entire friend group sits at the same table and he doesn’t remember the last time he laughed so much. They’re all drunk and sloppy, confessing their love for each other and how much they’ll miss each other when they graduate. Anthony spins Kate around the dancefloor and her arms are around his neck, and he wants to stay in that moment forever.

That voice rings in his head.

Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her.

He doesn't kiss her.

“I’ll see you when you get back.”

It was around 4am when they all walked back to their rooms, after a quick stop at McDonalds for some food. Kate had a flight in about five hours and Anthony left their friends to walk her to their room.

Kate’s smile is playful as she hands him back his suit jacket . “Not if I see you first.”

Kate flies to the Netherlands with the botanist society the next morning and Anthony goes home to London. He desperately needed a distraction and his family were the perfect fit. He brought Gregory to football, Hyacinth to swimming and spent the night with all of them while their mother went out with some of her friends.

He couldn’t focus on any of his readings for his lectures.

He couldn't stop thinking about her.

Nothing could distract him from his thoughts. The more he thought about her, the more he realized what an idiot he’d been.

He should have kissed her. He should have kissed at the ball, he should have kissed her in Kent, there were a thousand different times he should have kissed her.

It suddenly clicked. He couldn’t deny it anymore. The final piece of the puzzle.

He was in love with Kate Sheffield.

After the long weekend, he arrived in Oxford after Kate did. He had spent the day having a Sunday roast with his family before driving back to university.

His hands were shaking as he heard of his phone buzz, seeing Kate’s name appearing on his screen.

Kate: i’m back! Where are you?

Anthony: Just parked. Where are you? I’ll come to you

Kate: i’m at the pub! come!

He was going to tell her.

He had to tell her how he felt.

They could make it work.

They had wasted nearly three years not being together.

He didn’t bother going back to his room as he sprinted to their local pub, which was only a five minute walk from their accommodation.

It wasn’t just him. He was sure of it. Right? They had a moment over the summer at Aubrey Hall. There had been so many moments over the years. Kate had always been there for him. They had nearly kissed, they would have kissed if he hadn’t been interrupted. His younger siblings had asked if Kate was coming to visit soon while he went home over the weekend. His family loved her.

He lo-

“Anthony!”

His head flicked around the pub, focusing on the voice that called his name. It belonged to Anna, who was sitting at a table with Rob and Luke. He rushed towards them.

“Hey. Have you seen Kate?”

“She’s busy,” said Anna, the frown on her face evident as she nodded her head towards the bar. Anthony raised a curious eyebrow at her expression before turning around to follow her nod.

Kate was standing with her arms around David, who leans down and kisses her.

He felt something inside of him break.

Kate’s face lights up when she spots him and Anthony manages a smile, ignoring the pain in his chest.

“Anthony!” Kate said, walking towards him with a grin as she wrapped her arms around him to pull him in for a hug. “This is David.”

“I really like him. Please be nice,” Kate whispered in his ear, smiling up at him before taking a step back.

Kate looked so happy.

David grins at Anthony, placing two pints on the table before extending his hand. “Hey mate, nice to meet you.”

He had to remind himself, having Kate was better than not having her at all.

He couldn’t be a dick. He couldn’t push her away.

He swallows the vile taste in his mouth, mustering a smile as he shook his hand. “Hi. Nice to meet you. So, how was the trip?”

He sits there and he listens as they talk about their trip. David is a biologist.

It becomes clear quite quickly David is everything Anthony isn’t.

Anthony hated flowers. Flowers and plants usually meant bees.

“I’ll be right back,” Anthony said, standing up and grabbing his coat as he walked out of the pub. He walks around the side, where there’s no smokers or people chatting. He leans his head against the brick wall and tries to breathe.

He reaches for his phone, sending a text Benedict. He needed his brother. He needs someone. He couldn’t have Kate. His chest was so tight, he was finding is hard to breathe.

“I was wondering where you got off to.”

Anthony’s head snapped up as he saw Kate standing a few inches from him, looking at him curiously. He tries to control his breathing. She looks concerned, walking towards him. “Is everything okay?”

Anthony nodded, trying to relax and he stood up straighter. “Long day with the family. I’m just exhausted.”

He didn’t want to ask, but he did. He had to. “So, how did you two happen?”

The soft smile that breaks out on her face nearly destroys him, but he tries to smile back. “We met at the party, but I didn’t think anything would actually happen. We’ve seen each other at events and meetings for the past few weeks. He’s nice, you know? We have a lot in common. He told me he liked me during the trip and asked me to go to dinner. He bought me flowers. It was sweet.”

Kate had once told Anthony that she was the only person to ever buy her flowers. He had sent them to her every birthday and Christmas since then.

Now he wasn’t.

That was another thing David had taken from him.

“Do you like him?” Kate asked, taking a sip of her glass of water. She looks hesitant as she asks the question and Anthony knows he has to be careful. He doesn’t want to hurt her, none of this is her fault.

He had been wrong about everything.

No. “I suppose. I don’t really know him.”

“Anthony.”

“He seems nice.”

“Why do I bother asking?” Kate teased, taking a sip of her drink. “You don’t like anyone.”

Anthony didn’t miss a beat. “I like you.”

Anthony wanted to bitterly laugh at the irony of it all, but he stopped himself. This wasn’t about him.

Kate rolled her eyes. “I like you too. Seriously, though. It’s important to me that you like him.”

He pretends to look at the group of people ahead of them, just to avoid looking at her. “I want you to be happy. If he makes you happy, that’s all that matters.”

Even if it makes him feel like this.

Kate hesitates, before giving him an affirming nod. “I am.”

He swallows hard. “Good.”

She leans her head against his shoulder, and they stand there in silence. It’s not uncomfortable, it’s just silence.

“We’ll always be friends, right?” Kate breaks it eventually, shaking her head. “God, I sound so childish. I just mean-we’re graduating soon. I know we’re both moving to London. I just-I don’t want us to drift apart.”

Anthony swallows his feelings and shakes his head, smiling playfully at her. “Do you think you can get rid of me, Sheffield?”

“Never, Bridgerton,” She said, laughing at him. It was ridiculous how her smile and laugh made him feel so light and free. He didn’t have the right to feel like that with her. Not like this. “You’re stuck with me.”

“Let's go back inside.”

He can’t sit in there for the next hour and watch them. The thought alone makes him nauseous. “I’m going to head back. I’m shattered and I have some reading to do for the seminar tomorrow.”

Kate looks slightly disappointed, but she musters a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” They walked to the font of the pub and he smiled as she walked in, turning around to shoot him a smile over her shoulder as she walked in.

He watched her through the window, joining the table where their friends sat. He watched David’s arm wrap around her shoulders and Kate’s head fall back as she laughed at something he whispered into her ear.

She looked happy.

It isn’t because of him.

That’s a particularly hard pill to swallow.

27 notes · View notes

silcrow-story · 3 years

Text

Salvage III

The Past Peripheral

Dana walks upstairs just as soon as she’s sure June’s left, tries not to catch her eye as she walks by. Her hood’s back up, her tears have dried; she appears as composed as she can.

As she opens the door to her apartment, she becomes acutely aware of how tired she is. She’s been awake for just shy of twenty-four hours; she flips her phone open to check the time, make a mental note of it. 09:03. She’ll need to make it through to sunset, yet.

She can hear Nadia pacing back and forth in her room; the walls aren’t all that thick, and it’s not such an unfamiliar sound. She marks a pang of sympathetic worry in her chest, sets her cup of coffee by the sink, and walks to the far end of the kitchen, turns left at the window, steps into her room.

Once she’s at rest, face-down on her air-mattress, sleeping back spread half-open, she tries to clear her head of all thoughts of the present and future as yet haunt her. She likes to slip into the past when no-one’s looking; if she’s careful and she keeps her hands steady, there’s nothing can hurt her there. She’s had no such luck with the present. Fuck it, she thinks, the cutting-room floor can have the rest, and lets a neatly edited memory wash over her, envelop her like an autumn wind.

Another equinox, and 1500 leagues away; a shallow field awash in mid-afternoon sunshine. It’s not really all that far from civilisation – indeed, it’s within an arm’s reach, if she cared to, but she doesn’t, and for the moment it’s a world apart. Not quite warm, not quite cool; not still nor silent but subtly alive.

It’s a shallow scene, but for now it’s enough to get lost in, as the amphetamines in her blood dissolve into inactive metabolites. Only one or two ghosts here, she thinks, and only shadows to fight. It was a simpler time; she doesn’t even mind that particular cliché. She can’t hear Nadia’s pacing anymore; maybe it’s the two sets of walls, maybe Nadia’s taken a moment to lie down herself, maybe Dana’s simply sufficiently sequestered in reverie. It’s alright like this, she thinks. And it is, for the moment.

She’s casting a sidelong glance at a ghost as a cloud passes over the sun. She’s rarely lonely in these memories, the ones she’s set aside as outposts of retreat. The grass is green but drying as the season starts to turn; it’s dying, and it goes without a fight. And yet, and yet, despite it all, the witch-hazel in seed alights on some soft breeze, borne on by thin white strands that seem all to few to bear the weight of new life. New life was all around, then, even in the face of winter’s coming on; perhaps, then, there is new life now, despite cruel summer that she knows comes hence – it’s a notion that’s easy enough to entertain, from the safety of this scene.

But the present moment intrudes, like a knife between two ribs, and the set falls away and Dana tosses and turns ‘til she’s left alone on the sound-stage, staring up at the popcorn ceiling, and there’s a crack in it as ever. Behind her eyes, and above, and out, there extends some black corridor, the lights therein having burnt out at once in maybe a dozen frames between them. A dozen frames duly lost, disposed of, swept away.

Two hours pass in relative quiet, and relative peace; while she can’t quite fall asleep, Dana can at least rest her eyes, and let the redness fade, and breathe.

In the room across the kitchen, Nadia’s stopped pacing, although her racing thoughts have yet to slow. She’s given June her number, and she’s said she means to get back to her when she’s sorted all this out, and she does. It took her a full minute after June left to realize that she hadn’t even thought to look at what, besides her name and address, might be written in the notebook to which she’s still holding on so tight.

And so she lay out across her bed, and hesitating only slightly, opened it to the first page, and found it entirely blank.

She hadn’t been sure what she expected; it wasn’t that much of a letdown. And now, as she reclines again, she almost wants to keep looking, press on. The longer she lets the thought linger, the more she supposes there must be something in there, after all, that the book mightn’t’ve come to her under such circumstances for nothing, and –

– and so she gives into the temptation, and takes a look at the second page.

Which second page is blank as well, but that’s to be expected. She doesn’t stop before turning to the next one, and the next one, and the next, the pages tumbling one by one, a mid-tempo cascade. A crescendo, tense and off-kilter. A page, and then another.

Christopher doesn’t want to think about death, as he passes the gas station, heading west-southwest, walking as fast as he can manage without really exerting himself. He doesn’t want to think about death, but it’s an inevitability when he’s out walking around this time of day. The song that’s playing isn’t that much help; the singer’s pleading desperately that someone might remember him, hanging on tight to his only hope, and Christopher wishes he couldn’t relate quite so much as he does.

He’s lived in this college town for several years now; it’s been several years since he’s been a student. He doesn’t think all that much about his two brief semesters of study at the university these days; he’s had other things on his mind. Though he’s held his ground, this town, his almost-home, for so significant a fraction of his life, his mind remains cluttered with images – places, voices, memories, some his own and others not. He knows this gas station, and a few others; the convenience stores, most all of them; St. Peter’s Hospital and its blessed, damned emergency room; much of the college campus, the fountain, the sculpture; the stairway up the hill, from 19th Avenue to 20th; the list goes on.

So, too, does Christopher go on, past a grocery store and an apartment complex and the high school and its baseball field, and another apartment block, and finally the traffic light at the intersection where he crosses the parkway to stand kitty-corner from the State Archives. He’s been walking toward the sunset, but now he turns away, and sets off uphill, toward his final destination. He’s got an appointment to make, and he knows it; he exhales sharply, raises his hood, and tries to let his music drown out the passing traffic.

The trees rise tall around him and the soft, slow song surrounds him in a tenebrous indigo haze, the swelling sub-bass a premonition of the twilight impending. The clouds are perforated, now, punctured as to let stray beams of early evening light pierce through and dapple with marbled shadows the ground beneath the boughs through which they pass. Nonetheless, the atmosphere, the signs of imminent rain, all have yet to pass. The singer’s deep in love and fear, and feeling trapped, her voice arcing from a dark half-whisper to an empassioned cry as she pleads for her beloved to see, to bear witness, to notice her if only as an afterthought. Christopher pretends once more that he’s not in her shoes – it’s just a song, it’s just a nice song – and sets his own shoes to the pavement, and presses on; the branches of impassive evergreens above sway on, and shatter all kaleidoscopic his thin shadow.

Hours earlier and just a block or so west-southwest, June’s leaving Nadia’s apartment, trying to gather her thoughts. It’s fairly early yet, all things considered, and there aren’t many people about; in her going back she passes just one figure, furtive in a hoodie, face freckled with the falling rain from whence she’s stepped, which figure stands still briefly before walking by, wordless. June’s too preoccupied to pay her much mind.

She’s only slept an hour or so out of the past twenty-four; she had to rise well before dawn to make on time the spot that Christopher’d prescribed. She knows she needs to get some rest, but she’s still thinking, about Nadia and the notebook and how she’d not once opened it, not once. That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?

It’s still on her mind as she unlocks her own apartment door, blue-grey, cold steel handle, brass key. It’s all but underground, apartment 20, room D; her room’s only window looks out on the rocky embankment and shallow depression in the hillside into which the complex as a whole is wedged. She imagines it’d make most any other tenant a bit uncomfortable; the lack of natural light in the morning, the proximity to the sidewalk and the parkway’s traffic overhead. June doesn’t mind, really. She takes some strange comfort in her room’s position – it’s surrounded, and so in some implict sense protected. Once she’s inside, door locked behind her, overhead light switched on, she surveys her room and all her scattered thoughts at once.

Her room’s only slightly cluttered, but all that’s scattered around gives the impression that there’s more clutter than is actually present. Clothes are strewn across the floor; the desk beneath the window’s covered in stray papers, and the several spiral-ring notebooks from whence they’ve been torn. Her laptop’s still open on her bed; the battery’s running low. It’s become a bit overwhelming, June realises for the third time this week, having so much up in the air. So many diversions, and Nadia, and Christopher, and whatever’s in that notebook only amount to one more. One more cul-de-sac, one more dead end…

Her train of thought careens into oblivion as she notices she’d been wondering about the contents of the notebook for the first time. It wouldn’t have been right to look, she thinks, so why am I regretting it now? It’s really Nadia, if anyone, who needs to know.

June takes off her glasses and closes her laptop and tumbles into her twin bed. She can’t remember the last time she’s had a good night’s sleep, and so she closes her eyes, and wonders briefly if there’s anywhere she ought to be right now. It doesn’t take long for sleep to overtake her; sleep, first, and then dreams.

She doesn’t realise she’s dreaming at first; the feeling is real, even if the setting isn’t. She’s lying down on something, hard metal, brushed steel, bleachers. It’s a soccer pitch, and it’s late at night, but there’s something different about the sky here. It’s vast, and as close to black as blue can get, and there are more stars than usual – so many more that it’s striking first, then more captivating with each passing moment.

As she watches this foreign starfield, June gradually becomes aware of the fact that she’s not alone. There are a few ghosts there with her – perhaps two or three, their faces half-turned away from the camera in shadow. She doesn’t recognise them quite yet, and she doesn’t feel especially obliged to. The stars wheel above her, and she begins to notice the planets among them; first Venus, then Mars. It’s spring, she decides. The air smells like spring. It’s Aries season, and she can tell by the nip in the air that she’s up north. Up north, and west of somewhere; she’s too fascinated by the fractals forming from the depths of the firmament’s parabola above.

She gets to her feet, eventually, and feels dizzy, feels like she’s falling, and that’s when she realises it’s a dream. She doesn’t want to wake just yet, though, so she holds on tight, and stands straight and tall as she can, and stays a while longer.

Nadia’s still in her room, flipping through page after page. She’s not really sure what she’s looking for, at this point. Some indication, perhaps, that the book was hers, or that it wasn’t – surely, it was left where it was for a reason.

Around the twenty-first page she begins to notice marks – not words or letters, just faint pencil-strokes. As she sees the first her breath catches in her throat; the mark itself bears no significance to her, but its presence there does. Someone was here before, she thinks, and shivers at the thought. This wasn’t just something I’d lost and forgotten; somebody gave this to me.

Of course she wonders why, but at this point that question seems far out of reach. What could be the use of wondering why, when it’s not even clear yet just what it is that’s happening. She’s begun to feel altogether out of her depth, and the water-line only rises higher and higher still as the stray pencil strokes begin to articulate themselves into shapes, lines, symbols, and then, at last, numbers. Coordinates, Nadia realises, then, numbly. They’re coordinates. 4*.***, -12*.*** . The datum doesn’t carry any significance to her, on the face of it; she’ll have to look them up later. It’s the implication of their presence that gets to her; the idea that she’s being directed, being by some unseen force guided unto a destination. Just like June was, she thinks, and shivers again, and closes the notebook. Would it be more senseless to go, or not to, she thinks. Is this ‘Christopher’ the one behind it all, or is he being strung along, just like we are? What is there for me to lose? What, if anything, might I stand to gain?

There are far, far to many ambiguities for her comfort. She’s got to work tomorrow, got other things to attend to; she hasn’t, after all, much time to invest in this sort of game. But regardless of what it could mean, regardless of its potential to be a scam, a fiction, a trick, it’s not so easy a thought to let go. Open questions have a way of doing that, of worming their way into a consciousness before their intrusion is even noticed, of quietly yet constantly. A mystery is a vulnerability in the mind’s defenses, a slowly spreading crack in the walls and ceilings, a stray pencil-mark on a white blank page that renders itself with time entirely indelible.

Nadia knows what she has to do, and so, reluctantly setting her notebook aside, she opens her phone – it’s early evening, now, perhaps a quarter to seven – and dials ten digits, holds it to her ear, lets it ring. The rain’s stopped, outside, and there’s a gap in the clouds just broad enough to let through the window, obliquely, the pale glow of some thin sunbeam.

When Dana arrives at the lookout, Topher’s waiting, and she breathes a sigh of relief. It’s a beautiful sunset, over the bay, and it’s in plain view; naturally, he’s staring at his shoes. He hasn’t noticed her yet, or if he has, he’s given no indication, so she ascends the wooden tower to join him, and they stand there in silence for a moment as the red-gold radiation of the sun – not quite below the tree-line – cascades about them.

Eventually, she turns away from the sunset, looks straight at him. “I hope you’ve not been waiting too long,” she says, and she mostly means it.

Christopher takes out his earphones, shakes his head softly. “Nah.”

After another moment, he says, “Do you suppose they’ll make it?”

“Nadia has the coordinates. Nothing for it but to wait,” Dana replies. They’ll come, she thinks. He can’t think we’ve left that much up to chance.

The sun has descended all but entirely into the Pacific by the time June and Nadia pass beneath the arch of rock, walk among the trees, and glance up at the lookout, freeze when they see the figures there, silhouetted in civil twilight.

Hours earlier, June is still lingering in the dreamscape, walking a campus in too many layers of clothing, passing a facade of sheet-glass and aluminum. What’s beyond is all a blur of green and gold, and so she looks closer, turns to face it properly, and allows the blur to articulate itself into something vast and strange.

There rises within that strange greenhouse some titanic plant, a primordial mass of pure life, a vital, verdant relic of another age. The trunk that forms its core is one with the vines that twine about it, and the ruddy blooms that sprout thence, and the roots that seem in their writhing to set the loam in which they’re stuck to shake like something breathing – all these, and more, and stranger parts, are one being. For all the shock of its immense and bizarre form, it evokes in June more respect than revulsion; it is a thing of this Earth, no alien, no stranger. She doesn’t approach, but merely stands, looks on, her upward gaze almost supplicant.

The dream, as dreams so often do, lets the scene seem not as strange as in the waking world it surely might. And so, anaesthetized to the intrinsic anomaly of that great tree’s existence, June lets the time slip by just looking, admiring, inquiring – identifying all its tendrils’ avenues and leaves’ expanses – and at peace.

Then from the metal eaves perhaps five meters overhead there blows a wind, a warm gust from the exhaust-fans, and it rushes to subsume her psychosoma, like a flood. There is a trepidation, a murmur of spring, a stench of mould and compost, and then a fresh, sweet taste, like strawberries and sugar; the world ripples, the ghosts and their faint voices leaving first, and then the greenhouse and its denizen, and then, alas, June, and she is awake.

The call comes but a minute or two later; June’s surprised it didn’t wake her. She picks up, and it’s Nadia; she’d known, somehow, it would be.

Nadia says hello, and says she was looking through the notebook, and asks if she’s free to come over, because there’s something she wants to talk about. June’s only a few doors down, and curious as ever; so, despite the fact she’s only just awoken, she says she’s on her way, and hangs up, and steps outside.

The air is crisp and clear, the clouds shot through with early evening warmth, as June enters the parking lot, and tries to clear her head. The endeavor doesn’t go far, and it only takes her a moment to decide against it; she’d rather have less on her mind going in, she reasons, as she starts up the two flights of stairs to Nadia’s apartment. She’s trying not to wonder what she’s walking into; in this effort, at least, she is successful.

Having reached the blue-grey door, and facing the number 12 in cracked black plastic stuck thereto at eye level, she knocks for the second time that day.

Dana wakes up slowly, despite never really having slept. Her bags are packed, and she’s ready to go, more or less. She flips her phone to check the time – 6 minutes to 7 in the evening. She was making good time before; now, alas, she’s running late. Topher must be there already, at this point, she thinks, and is only just stepping out the door to her room when she’s stopped in mid-stride by a knock at the door.

Before she can decide to dart back inside her room, or to answer the door, Nadia’s stepped out, crossed the kitchen, noticed her standing there. Dana glimpses the notebook she’s got clenched in her right hand – is June here already? I s’pose we won’t be waiting long, then…

And then Nadia’s opened the door, and June is stepping inside. She seems surprised to see Dana standing there, across the kitchen, by the bright blue folding chair and tense, and unsure what to do. Dana’s not quite sure why, but she hopes June doesn’t recognise her from earlier; June cocks her head, adjusts her glasses, tries to decide whether or not she does.

“Oh, hi! You...you must be Nadia’s roommate,” she says, with as much xeniality as she can manage through what’s left of the haze of dreams about her head.

Dana cracks a smile and says she is, and she’s sorry, she was just on her way out and didn’t mean to interrupt; it’s an evident affectation and she knows it, but June and Nadia step aside, and Dana leaves, and sets off to where her associate waits.

Moments later, in her room, Nadia’s sitting cross-legged on her bed, reading off coordinates; June just stands and listens, wide-eyed – no less confused, and no less curious.

“...and so I looked them up, the coordinates,” Nadia says, almost breathless, livelier than June’s yet seen her, “And they’re like, right here. At the lookout in the arboretum. Did – did Christopher or whoever it was mention anything like this?”

“He didn’t say anything about- no. He didn’t say much at all, really, and I hadn’t had the time to ask, and I didn’t look. Didn’t look in the notebook, I mean.”

Nadia hunches over a bit, looks down at the dusty beige carpet, furrows her brow. A moment, still and taut, goes slowly by; June feels awkward, but she simply stands, and waits, and another moment goes by. Then, at last, Nadia raises her head, and looks June dead in the eye, and says exactly what she was hoping to hear.

“What say we go check it out?”

#silcrow #silcrow-story #03

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ohdearhiddles · 4 years

Text

TITLE: Angel of Death

CHAPTER: 2/?

CH. SUMMARY: You tell Loki that you are a monster, and Loki tells you that he is one, too.

WORD COUNT: 3652 (Link to Ch. 1 )

AUTHOR NOTES/WARNINGS: mentions of death; So, I'm definitely going to edit this chapter eventually. Also I think I lied, this is definitely going to be a bit longer than 3 chapters. The more I think about the story, the more I want to add to it, so who knows how many chapters there will be. I hope you like it x (AO3 LINK)

Your feet felt impossibly heavy as you walked back to your apartment. The sun had just dipped over the horizon, painting the sky a magnificent orange, purple, and blue as it bid the day farewell. The streets were bustling at their usual speed, people weaving through one another like needles embroidering a ritualistic path in order to create something beautiful. These people, their lives were beautiful. You found yourself envious for the first time in a while, wishing that you could walk the streets as you used to. The unspoken wish to be free from whatever curse had befallen you was on the tip of your tongue.

You wanted to scream.

You wanted to cease to exist but exist all the same.

There was a point in time when you had believed that curses were things of fairytales and that if they were to exist in the real world, it certainly wouldn't happen to you. For your entire life, you felt as though you had lived in a way that would've made even the gods proud. You did right by others, and in return, the world did right by you. Yet here you were, paying for a crime you didn't commit and running into the law when you had meant no harm. Things like that made you wonder if gods really existed.

As you neared the apartment complex, your heart began to hammer in your chest. You were struck with the sudden realization that you had missed the "date" that Loki had planned for the two of you that evening; although, maybe it was for the better. Now the handsome gentleman would be able to see that he was better off in another woman’s presence rather than yours, and you would no longer need to worry about your lips ever touching him. No matter how many times you ran that thought through your mind, the weight on your shoulders didn’t go away. It was as if the world not only bestowed a curse on you, but now they handed you a rare specimen of a suitor that was barely out of your reach.

The world was cruel and the gods made fun of your every move.

You held your head up high, letting your mind wander to more pressing matters like how you were going to explain the lethal situation that all the men from that file had found themselves in. Would you spend the rest of your life constantly looking over your shoulder? Will they condemn you for your crimes? Or worse, would they take you away to live as a lab rat for the rest of your life?

From the corner of your eye, you saw your reflection on the glass window of a local shop. You stopped to stare at it, wondering if your reflection felt as bad as the both of you looked. The makeup you had put on had worn off from the countless times you had rubbed your hands over your face in distress since leaving the station. Glancing at the reflection of your hands, you pulled them up, analyzing your palms and then flipping them over to analyze the backs of them as well.

Were these the hands of the monster you had become?

Shaking your head, you turned back to the sidewalk. These thoughts were something you had thought many times over the past few years, and you had done what you could to keep them at bay. You had finally reached your building when you stopped in your tracks.

Sitting on the stairs, a bouquet of flowers at his feet, was Loki. His elbows rested on his thighs as he stared off into the distance. You were shocked to say the least. Not only had he witnessed you get into a police car, but he had sat down and waited for your return. The thought of him watching the sun set all on his own made you feel a tad guilty. He was a man that seemed to deserve more than a potential future convict as a date, and he definitely deserved more than a date that ditches him for an interrogation room.

His eyes met yours, a piercing gaze that you had matched many times before. Loki picked the flowers up from the stairs, standing to greet you. A sheepish grin appeared on your face at the sight of him. This was in no way romantic. In fact, a man that sits and waits for a date to come back from the police station is most likely insane, but who were you to care?

Loki held out the bouquet, his jaw clenching as he waited for you to take it. Your heart felt heavy at the unhappy expression on his face and you couldn’t help but let your eyes drift down to your feet in embarrassment.

“How long have you been sitting here?” You asked, eyes still trained on your shoes.

“Long enough,” he spoke, his voice still so confident despite his date for the night being driven away by law enforcement seconds before he arrived to pick her up. You felt his eyes following your every movement as you began to walk towards the entrance of the complex. It felt intimidating how he was looking at you; it reminded you of when you had first encountered him. His presence itself was intimidating, but when his eyes met yours, you always felt so small, so incomparable.

Loki followed your lead, walking only a couple steps behind as you began the ascent to your home. He was quiet and so were you, but this silence was different than usual. Sure, the two of you didn’t always talk when you met. Sometimes you just sat in the presence of one another, enjoying the feeling of not being alone in the universe - a soft, peaceful silence. This silence, however, was sharp like the finest blade forged by the heavens. It was filled with the strength of every secret hidden between the two of you, strong enough to bring down giants and break through mountains. It was an invisible blade, threatening you to break down the walls you had built or else it would do the job for you.

It wasn’t until the door shut behind Loki that he spoke again, “Care to explain?”

His tone wasn’t as intimidating as it was before. Perhaps he read your body language and understood that you weren’t in a good state of mind after such an encounter, or perhaps he had just gotten over his anger and realized that you didn’t willingly ditch him. Either way, you were happy that he didn’t seem too angered by your sudden disappearance.

“It’s a long story,” you responded, walking over to your sofa to sit down. Once again, Loki followed.

“I have quite a lot of time.”

At his statement, you looked up. His green eyes pierced through yours, trying to decipher the thoughts running through them. Loki sat down next to you, turned slightly to face your distraught self, as he cleared his throat, “The woman I was meant to accompany this evening seemed to have had some unexpected business to take care of.”

You smiled at his words, knowing that the man before you was only trying to make you smile. He was quite good at it; in fact, you had smiled more in his presence than you had smiled in the past 6 years, and for that, you were both thankful and terrified. Loki’s presence terrified you. At the beginning of the night, you had told yourself that this would be the last time you met with him. Now, as you tried to tell yourself the same thing, it was met with downright rejection.

Loki had willingly stayed, waiting for you to return to receive an explanation. So, he was quite possibly insane, but part of you wondered if his kind of insanity would mix well with your own. Since you were a woman that killed others with whatever venomous talent you possessed, maybe insanity was what you needed in your life. But when has insanity ever been the cure for anything?

Sighing, you shook your head, “I don’t think you want to hear it, Loki. It’s not exactly a good first impression.”

“So, it’s a secret?” A grin replaced the more concerned look he had only a minute or so before. The grin was gorgeous. Of course, everything about this man was gorgeous, and for a split second you thought: If he really is insane, then insanity has never looked so good.

It was true. He was by no means an earthly kind of attractive. His long black hair, sharp jawline, and lean figure along with the English accent made him seem otherworldly.

“A secret better left unsaid,” you responded, nodding.

“Oh, but what’s the fun in that?” Loki taunted. His tone seemed more playful, as if the barrier you had placed between the two of you was more of a fun obstacle course than a warning sign that said ‘No Trespassing.’ Part of you wanted to urge him to break down the walls while the more logical side told you not to trust a man that had fun poking at secrets. You were always the type to ignore logic, though.

As Loki continued to grin childishly, you turned to face him completely. You gazed into his emerald colored eyes, hoping to find security and a place in which you could safely put your trust. There was no such place in Loki’s eyes; there was something much better. You couldn’t quite put it into words or coherent thought what you saw in his eyes when they met yours this time. It was as if light and dark had met and formed a fine line in which the two of you could walk upon, a grey area where all right and wrong needn’t exist. If there was a paradise for those who had fallen so far from the grace of god and man alike, Loki knew where it was. His eyes held the promise of acceptance, a promise he, too, seemed to yearn for.

When you looked away, there was no further decision making needed. If he was meant to turn his head the other way when you fully opened your heart to him, then that was what you would have to accept. But just like the day when he first sat next to you, there was something in him that made Loki seem sad, vulnerable, and even relatable. Although he looked as if he had just walked down from a pedestal made of jade and gold, he also seemed as though he had walked through hell and back.

If there was one individual to grace this planet that would not run away, it would be him.

“Can I trust you?” You asked him, testing the waters.

Loki paused, seemingly contemplating your words. His eyebrows furrowed and his grin vanished, and you wondered if he was already thinking about backing out. Now, if you had been able to read minds, you’d know that it was quite the opposite. Inside Loki, a terrible war raged on.

Trust. A small yet powerful word that could start or end the most destructive of battles. Could you trust him? Was there anyone in all the nine realms that was truly trustworthy?

His jaw was clenched as he stared at you, and you wondered what was going through his mind. The silence between you continued for what felt like a century before he spoke up.

“Yes,” he finally answered, nothing more and nothing less. Nodding, you sat up straighter, attempting to get a hold of your nerves. This was it - the moment of truth.

So, you began, “I’m not sure how to explain, but I’m not normal.”

Loki didn’t react. He just sat there, his eyes trained on your hands that were attempting to break free from the skin covering them. The silence only urged you on.

“I didn’t know I wasn’t considered normal until I was about 21,” you continued. “It started when I was 16 and people around me started dying. I didn’t understand why, but it was a pretty big topic back then. My high school boyfriend passed away from a car accident, but we found out later he had died before impact, which was why he had crashed in the first place.”

“The next year, when I was 17, my dad passed away. The doctor said it was probably his heart, but-” The words were caught in your throat. If you said it now, you would have to fully admit that you had killed your own father. However, even you knew that there was no going back anymore. By now, you had already revealed that the deaths most likely had something to do with you, and that alone was enough to incriminate you if Loki chose to hand you over to the police.

The feeling of a cold hand enveloping your own caused you to flinch. From the corner of your eye, you watched Loki’s eyes widen at your surprise pulling his hand back almost immediately. “It was me.”

“What was?” He asked, eyes trained on the palms of his hands.

“My father, his death, it was my fault.” You admitted, the feelings of guilt rushing through you like an unforgiving wind. Loki’s eyes snapped up to look at you, his expression serious now as he spoke, “It was not your fault.”

“No,” you countered, “It was. My father, my ex boyfriend, the men I saw throughout college, it was all me. It wasn’t until I watched the news one day that I even realized that the city saw their deaths as a string of murders. It all clicked. The deaths, the unanswered phone calls, and the rumors that people needed to stay away from me - it all made sense. I wasn't just a bad omen, I was killing people. By the time I was 21, I had killed 11 men and I was being called the city’s Angel of Death - a cold-hearted murderer.”

“Did you kill those men?” Loki asked, his voice unwavering. It was almost as if death did not phase him in the slightest, and for a brief second you were thankful that he was not scared of you or what you had said.

“Did you not hear me?” You retorted, standing from your spot on the sofa. “They call me the Angel of Death.”

Loki stood as well, his expression hardening at your words. He loomed over you, his presence once again becoming much more intimidating than you would have liked. “I heard you, but perhaps you aren’t listening. I’m asking a rather important question.”

He took a step closer before speaking once more. “Did you, Y/N, kill those men?”

Your eyes began to water, tears of pain and guilt flooding your body and soul. There was no turning back; this was you, revealed. This was vulnerability. This was trust.

“No,” you said, tears beginning to fall. “I didn’t mean to.”

The tears kept falling as Loki took the final step to close the distance between you two. His arms wrapped around your waist, his chin resting on the top of your head as he calmed you with the gesture. Normally, this type of action made you feel suffocated; however, coming from him, it was like a warm blanket of security had just tightened its grasp on you. The words Loki whispered next set fire to your rabid thoughts, “I believe you.”

You pulled away in that instant, eyes turning cold, “Believe me?”

“Yes, I believe that you did not mean to kill those men.”

“But I killed them. Intentionally or not, their blood is on my hands and the police will come for me,” you cried, realization dawning on you. This was no time to be comforted by the hands of a ner stranger. In this moment, you were a key suspect in a string of crimes that would lead to your family disowning you, your friends hating you, and every good deed you had done to be erased from the face of this earth. You were dangerously close to being another killer on the long list of individuals to curse at the night sky about.

“You said it yourself - you did not kill those men.” Loki reassured, his determination matching yours. His hands were at his sides, clenching and unclenching with every other word he said.

“I did,” you whispered as a reply. The unspoken horror had never been repeated so many times in one night, and you had never heard yourself say the words aloud until now. Every life you ended, every death you had caused hammered down on you, weighing on you like rain water in a cloud. You were darkening, threatening to burst with a downpour of storms until you flooded all that your shadow touched. Your thoughts began to consume you, eyes going dark as Loki stood before your stiff body. His words floated in your mind: I believe you.

“I’m a monster,” you stated as if it were fact.

“You are not,” Loki countered your remark, fighting back. “I have seen many monsters, and you are not one of them.”

“You’ve seen monsters?” You asked, eyebrows raising in a mocking way. Part of you was genuinely curious while the other part of you wanted to scream at him for trusting you even in the slightest. “I just told you that the blood of 11 men is on my hands, and you, you say I’m not a monster?”

Loki didn’t respond at first. He stood quietly, eyes staring off into the distance, and for a moment you thought that you had won the argument. That is, until he spoke again, “If you were to know the things I have done, you would think much kinder of yourself.”

Curiosity. What a peculiar trait curiosity is. The trait of being curious seemed to break through even the toughest armors and most foolproof disguises. It was a fluid trait that demanded its rightful place as being the most dominant feeling an individual could possess. So, despite the current situation and the weight of the world resting on your shoulders, a small childlike piece of you wanted to know what the raven-haired man meant. What horrors had he seen? What had he done?

“What does that mean?” You questioned, watching for his reaction.

Loki continued to stare off as if there were demons wandering your halls and he had the duty of looking for them. Little did you know that the demons were not so far off that they had to be sought after. No, the demons were right there in the eyes of the man you had somehow grown attached to in the past few weeks.

“It simply means that you are not the only person in this room that has done the unspeakable,” he responded, voice strained as if he had struggled tremendously to even say the words. You froze, unable to process what he meant by what he had said. If Loki was also a murderer, that means he would have done so with the full intention of killing someone. Unless he was like you, cursed by fate to send those you love to an early grave.

Somehow, you wished it was the latter.

“And what does that mean?” You repeated, growing more wary of the fact that you didn’t know much about this man at all. Long talks in a public park is quite different than allowing a man into your home, and this was beginning to seem like a bad idea.

“You are not a monster no more than I am an innocent.”

“So, you’re saying that you’ve killed people.”

Those emerald eyes met yours once again, fear radiating from his gaze as he realized that he, too, can no longer take back what he has said. The confidence and intimidating aura that once covered his entirety now seemed something of the past. The walls were coming down, and both of you had exposed yourselves, more vulnerable than either of you were comfortable being.

“I am saying that I have done things I am not proud of, but I am working on fixing that,” Loki said.

“What did you do?” You questioned, finding it only fair that he share his secrets since you had shared yours. However, if you had been in your right mind, you would know that the world does not work that way. One secret does not equal another being told. Some secrets are too big, revealing much more than one hidden detail. This you would have seen in the mixed expression on Loki’s face as you had asked.

He seemed to take in a large breath before speaking, “I have done many things, but I believe you will be familiar with the memory of a god trying to take over your city.”

Neither of you spoke for a moment as the words floated through the air with no destination.

“I’m an idiot,” you said, breaking the silence. The words Loki had spoken were rattling around in your mind like dice during an astounding game of Yahtzee. “Loki.”

He raised an eyebrow at you, waiting for you to continue to speak.

“You’re the god. You’re not just named after the Norse God of Mischief; you are him. You attacked this city, you-” You stopped speaking as you came to a full understanding of what he had meant when he said he had done things he was not proud of. People had died; so many lives were lost because of him. Looking up, you met his cautious gaze, eyes filled with worry as he stood in front of you with his metaphorical armor laid at his feet. All the cards had been played, and there was no turning back for either of you.

“Do you still believe you are the only monster here?”

(Chapter 3)

#loki laufeyson #loki #loki x reader #loki x you #loki x mutant!reader #mutant!reader #mutant powers #loki imagine #loki imagines #mcu imagines #ohdearhiddles imagines #ohdearhiddles imagine

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rainhoeunicorn · 4 years

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Osamu wasn’t sure if it was his hair that was pointing perfectly on the east and west. Did he find it funny? No, it was cute, it was nice. He wanted to touch it. Osamu breathed deeply, it’s hot, he thought, the weather is hot.

Summer had started last month according to the weather station. He’s been looking forward to eating summer fruits and swimming and the long, lazy vacation days they had for the school break. Osamu watched the cloudless blue sky, waiting for a puff of cloud to pass by, then he suddenly heard the Student Council president’s voice, calling his name. Osamu closed his eyes, he was sleepy, he opened them again and walked lazily towards their classroom’s door. The president had come to their class to ask him to take photos of their school’s best athlete, said they needed it for the school festival brochure and posters. He was reluctant to take it, he was doing nothing in their class, he just finished setting up the online site they had asked him to do for the School festival and was waiting for the bell to ring but it was only after lunch, he was bored and wanted to sleep but the president was pushy. He was sweating and panting from running all over the school to make sure that everyone’s doing their job, to help those clubs who were out of manpower in building their booths. He was sweating, he smelled of sweat mixed with peaches, Osamu like him, at least he used to. But the president had decided to date someone else, Osamu guessed he liked flashy, popular, persistent and loud guys. He had fun making Onigiri for him anyway, he just hoped he also loved the rice balls Osamu made for him, those they ate together at the council’s room when he was too busy to get lunch and Osamu decided to accompany him and eat with him. It felt like it happened a long time ago, now that the president looks a lot happier and brighter. Akaashi, the president, gave him the Archer, the athlete’s schedule in a piece of paper before running off again, but Osamu managed to tell him to ask his boyfriend for a new shirt and he’ll be targeted after running around in sweat soaked shirt sticking to his body. Osamu sighed and unfolded the paper, reading the schedule and name of the the Archer—Suna Rintarou.

Suna Rintarou, he knows him by the name. Who wouldn’t? Osamu took his belongings from his seat and went to find the Archery Club’s training hall. The day’s clear and he doesn’t like it, the sky lacked clouds and it made the weather feel hotter. Suna Rintarou—a very popular name, made their school popular and known to the whole nation because of his archery skills, that’s all he knows about the Archer, Osamu only caught it on a TV news his mom was watching when they got home from school and Osamu had to peek at the living room to ask if there’s any chance it’ll rain soon. Their mom said no, there isn’t.

He feels sticky, Osamu stopped on his tracks and thought maybe he’d just come go check the Archer later when he knows more about Suna, would it be disrespectful if he doesn’t know a second thing about the nationally popular athlete of their school? Would he ask what the photo was about or if Osamu had watched any of his games before? Osamu sighed, Akaashi said he needed it right away. He walked towards the Archery Club.

The training hall was wooden—almost everything here’s made out of wood and it relaxed Osamu although he felt like he was back in time. The whole hall gave him a rush of nostalgia. He breathed it all in.

“Hi, is Suna Rintarou here?” He asked a third year.

“Yeah, he’s coming right up on the field. Akaashi already notified us, hurry along. Just don’t make too much noise.”

The practice hall was silent, guess archers needed it to focus and it was just polite to be quiet. There were three sets of targets in front and they were set a few meters away from the starting point, there’s a line of three archers—bows up, arrows drawn.

He walked slowly and silently around to get a place at the corner, a position where he could capture the best moment. Osamu took a seat and waited for the star to come up. The place was strangely cool, even without the air conditioner that most practice halls had, but he worried about whether the archers were not feeling too hot in their training garments. When he was finally settled, he remembered a few things about archery in their History class. He sighed, he learned more about archery in their history class than PE class. Their teacher emphasized just the three most important things that had caught his attention and the only ones he remembers now, since he wasn’t so much into traditional sports. Osamu liked volleyball, basketball and sometimes soccer, he liked how the play, the game, the ball kept on moving along with the body of the players. There was no time to waste, they gotta move of they will lose.

Archery had three goals, he remembered their old teacher said, Osamu straightened as he saw Suna was next in line. Archers want to reach these three states…

Osamu started setting up his camera, finding the better angle, Shin or Truth, when the archers aim true, he could still hear his teacher’s voice.

He finally found a good angle with good lighting, Zen or Goodness, with virtuous spirit and attitude toward all persons and all things which relate to archery. Suna was coming up, he was standing on the shooting line and Osamu wondered if Suna was a person or a deity standing there, nocking an eternal arrow directed to an evil spirit instead of a target.

Suna stepped forward and the little light that’s coming from a hinge between the wooden walls caught him, it made him look like he was basking in a godly glow, heck, Osamu thought it was like whole universe was working on putting a breath-taking spotlight on him, letting everyone know that he’s the real star and every glowing orbs in the outer space is nothing compared to him when he’s standing there all pristine and beautiful.

Third or last but the best state—is beauty or bi, beautiful shooting is realized naturally.

Osamu caught his breath; he wasn’t shaking but he felt like something about him wasn’t steady. He didn’t care about how the wood under him was squeaking slightly under his weight, or that everyone else was watching him watch Suna.

The Archer lifted his bow, Osamu saw his tender but tight hold on it. He felt like Suna was befriending the bow, and then the arrow, Suna drew it close, slowly, his grip firm but still the gentleness is there. Osamu lifted the camera, he wants to capture, this magnificent act, this beautiful scene. He couldn’t describe how one person, one scene, one archer could make him want to take a photo of everything—from the point where he walked towards the line, the way he’d caressed the string, the way he’d placed the arrow like he’s the only person who’s ever done archery the right way, to the way he’d drawn and then…

Whoosh!

Thump.

Osamu didn’t know that he’d been holding back his breath until Suna had made his shot. Suna did two more shots but Osamu had been two engrossed at his capture. In the photo looked like a glorified archer from the past, he was…

“Miya-kun?” Osamu looked up, the captain of the Archery club had approached him, “We’re actually done with today’s practice. Did you get what you needed?” Osamu nodded, still dazed.

How long had he been standing there, looking at Suna’s photo? The training hall was almost empty, everyone had gone already. What the hell is wrong with him?

“Senpai, I’ll close up, you can go ahead.” Osamu looked at the guy, Suna’s back was to him, they were alone.

Just him and Suna—and just that thought was enough to put him on a whirlwind of thoughts again.

“Are you now going home?” Suna was looking at him, he couldn’t read the archer’s face, Osamu opened his mouth and thought of something to say, he could just say yes and exit. But it seemed like his body wasn’t cooperating, he stayed there standing like a statue, mouth tightly clamped. What should he do? Can he really just go out of the hall and get home? Should he just let this opportunity past? If Osamu walks up to him, what is he supposed to tell him? How is he supposed to start a conversation with someone he just met and they haven’t even introduced themselves?

What would Atsumu tell him to do? What would Atsumu do? He wanna hit himself for thinking of his unhelpful twin at this time of crisis.

It’s just him and Suna alone in the hall, and before Osamu could think of a way out or stall Suna until he makes up a plan on how they could talk, Osamu’s body had enough of his bullshit and made its own way to the Archer, stopping only when he’s six steps away from Suna.

“I’m Osamu Miya,” he held out a hand to Suna, which the latter took.

“Suna,” he introduced briefly. Up close Osamu was sure he was going to die if he gonna get any closer to Suna that this. If he looked radiant earlier because he was on his game, now he looked ordinary and more like a normal student but it seemed to have a greater effect on Osamu’s whole being.

“T-The photo…” He stutters and feel warmth slowly creeping up to his face, he’s not some school girl talking to his crush for the first time! What the hell is wrong with him today? “Do you wanna see your photo before I submit it to the council?” Osamu didn’t know what kind of response he was expecting but it relieved him that Suna only looked at him, down the camera and then shrugged. Osamu looked at the camera, at the photo he took of Suna. He heard rustling and clicking of keys, he looked up and Suna was already outside the training hall, he followed suit.

Outside, the sun’s already set, the sky was a mixture purple and bluish black. Suna locked the door to the practice hall and then shrugged on his backpack. He was finally going to leave, Osamu thought, but Suna stopped on his tracks and looked back to him over his shoulder.

“Can you print a copy of that right now?” Suna asked.

Osamu was confused but he answered, “I can. Why?”

Suna wasn’t looking at him anymore, he was facing ahead, “Maybe you can give me a copy if there’s still a computer shop open somewhere.”

Osamu’s heart gave a pinch, a thump and then it was beating faster, the anticipation and excitement of doing something and going somewhere with someone who might be a potential new friend. He jogged to catch up to Suna until they’re walking side by side.

He’s happy and glad, but also knew he gotta still play it cool.

Osamu didn’t kinda get how much or why he’s not acting like himself that moment and confused about himself even more for thinking that he’s doing exactly what Atsumu might do which he considers gross. Osamu didn’t stutter, he didn’t even believe in love at first sight. He knew, or at least he tried to convince himself it wasn’t love at first sight.

He didn’t get much of what’s happening now with him, but at least he knew a certain thing,

Suna Rintarou was beautiful.

#osasuna #haikyuu #haikyuu osamu #haikyuu suna #inarizaki #manga #anime #hq!!#atsumu miya #miya osamu #miya atsumu #suna rintarou #akaashi keiji

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katherinemacbride · 3 years

Text

Sticky Metaphors: The Matter of Meaning

Exposition

In living with an awareness of the entanglement of matter and meaning, words have consequences. If you directly translate a metaphor from another language into the one we are speaking, chances are it will carry the shape of the idea but not the historical context. Metaphors reveal connections that have become embedded within a culture to the point of passing unremarked.

One day in the past I wrote urgently: I will be as attentive as possible to my use of metaphor in my writing. I will be mindful of the implicit ideologies embedded into certain metaphors and try to invent alternatives. I came to this writing with a fear of metaphor, grounded in feminist critique of the patriarchal and imperialist power of language as representation. However, while language is indeed an ineffective tool in conveying the complexity of the material world, it is also a tool that I have. Rather than disavowing metaphor, I will seek to engage with it creatively, engaging with its etymological root of “carrying across.”

Metaphors have several components: the “tenor” is the concept and the “vehicle” is the image that carries it across. Leaning too hard into the vehicle of metaphors risks cutting away the tenor, the weight, of what they’re describing. My favourite writing often asks the words to hold tightly to the dual roles and responsibilities of tenor and vehicle, to pack a tense density into metaphors that troubles the insistently not-yet-dead Western notion of the separability of matter and meaning. Leaning into metaphor so the weight of the tenor holds your body in place in the vehicle makes some of the co-constitution tangible; what’s present, what’s excluded, and what’s cutting the present-and-excluded together and apart. It collapses some of that distance. Both/And. Carry over.

Cutting together and apart (entanglement)

In Meeting the Universe Halfway, Karen Barad (2007) describes how matter and meaning are entangled. Each apparatus – boundary-making practice – makes “agential cuts.” Barad is initially writing about observing electrons in the lab; how they can behave differently depending on which apparatus is being used to observe them. But she extends her point that there is no “outside” from which to observe “objectively” into a call to responsibility based on the collapsing together of ethics, ontology, and epistemology: matter is performative and discourse is material. Each cut of a boundary-making practice into matter-discourse excludes certain possibilities in order to make others intelligible. An electron appears as a wave or a particle or both, depending how it is observed.

To give something a name or a category is a boundary making practice. A name brings different possibilities of meaning nearer and farther. A category formation limits or enables, effecting those captured within it and those excluded beyond its boundary.

There is no separability between the boundary-making practice that cuts, the intelligibility it produces, and the matter that uses this intelligibility to make meaning. What the boundary-making practice excludes – cuts out, cuts away – always remains present, even if it is not knowable to the intelligibility it co-constitutes, cuts together. Barad calls this “exteriority-within.”

Some humans use managerial language to hide or elide the violence of boundary-making cuts that deny the intricacies of interdependency and its responsibilities. In this system of globalised racial capitalism, names like “detention centre” or “managed extraction” mean toxicity and death for many to pay for profit and property for some.

Transformation-in-relation (working models)

In the week-long residential workshop “Mobilis in Mobili: On Space, Time, Motion, and Forces,” organised by philosopher and physicist Gabriel Catren for non-physicists and physicists alike [1], participants use language to make transitions and translations. We move between thinking in spacetimes that feel different to the experience of being on Earth, and the tactile and conversational space of the room where we are learning while sitting on sofas, listening to music in the breaks while birds look in the window.

Wild use of metaphors abounds over meals as people who speak humanities try and integrate maths and physics into everyday speech. During the day “geometry” was a schema of axioms; now it means “a mode of arrangement or relations.” I have struggled with visualising the matrices used to plot the four dimensions of objects in motion. Over dinner I start to use “matrix” to mean "complex field of relations.” The poetry of “worldline” attracts like a gravitational pull. I think it means the totality of all of the positions a particle holds in space and time while it holds to one identity; here it speaks to the stories of matter and the paths I track for orientation through spacetime I have learned how to feel in limited ways. The word “intuition” gains density and strength; a valuable, and fallible, guiding tool that connects to non-linguistic ways of knowing that stretch space and time. A question that’s used frequently to open conversation is, “What is your intuition on that?”

In this multi-disciplinary space people listen carefully to each other and ask thoughtful questions trying to understand one another’s ways of doing things. These conversations happen while bodies cook or stack the dishwasher repeatedly; side by side joint attention on an external object can make it easier to share verbally. Eye contact checks crucial points of meaning but bodies provide most of what is necessary.

Someone explains to me that mathematicians do not have to speak great English. There is less pressure on words because they can use mathematical formulae. It can hold working models for to all who know it regardless of what other languages they think in. This form of abstraction holds its poetics differently than words – the expressive texture isn’t as loose, the axioms are firmer, the parameters of the abstract space are more transparent – but it’s no less weird or wild.

In this learning space, the workshop leader uses working models instead of metaphors. We’re thinking beyond the visualisable dimensions and properties of space and time on Earth so we stay grounded with thought experiments where dimensions and properties of space and time off-Earth can be broken down into proofs. There is a train leaving the train station. Inside the train there is a clock and there is an infinite array of clocks all along the train tracks. The train and the station and the clocks are all in a vacuum…

Interlude (unnaming)

We met in the overburdened garden. One of us was already not comfortable identifying as he and had yet to find an articulation for this feeling, but soon would move quickly through they into she. Another of us was freshly out of a long-term relationship feeling the pressure of liminal fertility. One was me, she then, not now. Summer and sage stroked our skin and the resting containers of sun tea. We read, sat beside one another, with texts laid out on the horizontal planes around and between us.

Reading beside [2], not through or into, just with. Looking for ways to talk, without names [3], about what ways of knowing might be possible through the end of the world [4]. We were trying to apply our words differently to the world, to not rely on the pieces of code that we’d built in our schools, our friendships, our amniotic sacs, our visits to government offices, our experiences of being employed when that was still a thing, in all the times we’d done something we didn’t want because someone else did, and in all the times we’d made someone do something they didn’t want but we did. We were searching for a metaphor-less methodology for collective thinking. Reading transversally, without a singular guiding line, without shortcut words to make maps of shortcut worlds, we fumbled.

Transformation-in-relation (fermentation)

Fermentation is a metabolic process where one compound is broken down through anaerobic respiration into other compounds. For example, a carbohydrate can be fermented into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Fermentation has been used figuratively for a long time to speak about activity and agitation – passion – usually now in relation to the production of ideas and cultural objects. The word “ferment” itself comes directly from the Latin: fermentum for the noun, fermentare for the verb. This latter may itself be a contraction from the Latin verb fervere (to boil or foam). The Proto-Indo-European root of fervere is bhreu-, which I speak in words for food, fire, water, and feelings: bread, bratwurst, braze, burn (the Scottish word for stream), brew, barmy, brood, embroil.

Columbian artists’ collective Laagencia have a practice of creating open programmes called Escuelas de Garaje. The event I write about here, Escuela de Garaje – vol. Fermentation, took place in August 2020 in and around an art space in Rotterdam called Rib [5].

We were sitting, standing, moving in the long art space in the neighbourhood where many artists were sitting in subsidised real estate. Some in the neighbourhood were building mutual aid, open-source infrastructures, and friendships with neighbours who weren’t artists; some were grumbling. For the first time, the window to the long art space invited entry. Laagencia had painted basic information across the large shop window about what was happening inside, when, and said that anyone could join. They kept the door open and played music out into the street: salsa, cumbia, reggaeton. People who wouldn’t usually come in stopped by to listen and chat.

Fermentation was encouraged in weekly practices of reading, open kitchen/bread-making, and visiting places together. Laagencia’s gatherings were accumulating a larger, looser collective to mind out for the fostered bacterial cultures. Microbial life was being centred and given human attention. Already-ongoing neighbourhood activities of food production and anti-gentrification organising were also being centred [6].

I joined for “fermentreadings.” People talked, listened, settled, stirred, ate, drank, read, together. Someone brewed coffee. Someone sliced bread. Someone talked about how they made the drink in the bottle they held. Someone put a piece of electronic equipment into a mason jar of polluted river water to learn if microbes might grow in the relation of these substances. Someone cooked sourdough pancakes with leftover starter on a hotplate. Someone washed cutlery. The long art space was filled with life. The table gave bottles and jars of differently coloured liquids and pickled foods; hand-written labels. The reading happened incrementally but non-linearly, by consent, each chunk digested slowly with conversation about lived experiences and effervescent connecting of ideas and matter.

In the practice of Laagencia, fermentation is happening literally and figuratively. They activate multiple processes of transformation-in-relation that remind the humans engaging in these processes of the fragility of the epistemological structures we have been given at school that prop up the state we are standing in, feed its extractive economy, and, in this Dutch neighbourhood six meters below sea level, produce the very ground we are standing on.

Fermentation insists there are many ways of knowing and being that are not to do with profit and property. Bacterial boundary-making practices create possibilities that humans depend on for life. Around these processes of transformation and onto-epistemological humbleness, fermentation as metaphor supports the gathering of heterogenous groups through its affective power. In their self-published pamphlet Garage School Fermentation (2020), Laagencia write: “Through fermenting we learn that matter and metaphors can still be changed.”

Cutting together and apart (listening)

Listen to your body, to your dreams, to your intuition. Listen to the voices of your ancestors, to what the Earth is telling you.

These are things some people say and other people understand but some people find troublesome. The trouble accumulates around the questions of whether listening is meant literally or figuratively, and where might the edges of literal or figurative be. In Western traditional thought, listening describes what happens when some humans perceive and understand sound. Often it is connected to the ears and the brain, sometimes to the body. But the separation of the senses into touch, taste, hearing, sight, smell (and the subsequent expanding list of nerve-neurology perception pathways with names like proprioception, pain reception, temperature sensing) is only one way of making this cut.

As a thought experiment, imagine someone raised in a Western knowledge system who experiences the senses as separate and their body as autonomous and independent. Perhaps for this person, listening is a sensory modality where it is easier for them to experience themselves as porous in relation to other life, to feel that their body is an integrated system that cannot be disconnected from other systems. Perhaps this experience and the collapse of separation, autonomy, and independence it invokes is why sound is often gendered and racialised into noise or why sound is used so often as an instrument of torture [7].

Like sound, skin-to-skin touch of human hands is also sensed as an oscillating wave of vibration through the nervous system. Current ways of thinking say that what is being vibrated differs (air, flesh) and the nerves and brain region processing the vibration are different. But that is only one way of cutting this experience into intelligibility. A different cut, towards the category of the waveform rather than the parts of the human it is waving through, could say that what is happening in hearing and touch perception is more similar than different. With this cut, we’d need to find more words for what we experience when we listen to mechanical, electromagnetic, or gravitational waves as they move through us.

But sticking with the cut of listening being about sound, we still grow complicating connective paths among what the cut has just separated. If listening is hearing – i.e. the sensing and perception of vibrating sound waves within a frequency range that stimulates the auditory apparatus of animals, plus the integration of what is being heard into a form of meaning (Oliveros, 2005) – then listening is an accumulation of experience and memory.

But sound waves don’t only vibrate within the frequency range of the human auditory apparatus. Some humans learn to interpret technical instruments or the behaviour of non-human life and matter who do sense that frequency range. Listening here involves reading through the accumulation of memory and experience of a trained listener, like a seismologist or a cardiographer. But experience and memory (even only of sound) don’t only live in the brain; they live in the body and its environment, and through cultural and spiritual practices. What kind of listening listens to them?

Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, makes this cut (2020): “…we say that we know a thing when we know it not only with our physical senses, with our intellect, but also when we engage our intuitive ways of knowing, of emotional knowledge and spiritual knowledge. And that’s really what I mean by listening.”

If I wanted to propose a non-extractive and non-dominating listening then it would need to attend to and integrate what has happened and been repressed from experience and memory, and become aware of effects that are not compressed into a waveform but experienced or remembered in another way. Listening as a description of this more-than-sonic experience might become a temporary metaphor for the kinds of attention and awareness that English doesn’t have so many good names for, like how Fred Moten and Stefano Harney define hapticality in The Undercommons (2013, p. 98): “the capacity to feel through others, for others to feel through you, for you to feel them feeling you.”

This is listening as poly-sensory, poly-temporal experience. The frame of this listening is understood differently than in Western scientific understandings of human hearing – listening involves listening to “sounds” that are not normatively “sounded,” and entities that do not produce sound in a normative way are entities one can listen to. It is possible to listen into times other than the present. This listening is a collective activity, in relation with others, although those others do not have to be humans; different forms of life and matter are interdependent and co-constitute the listening possibilities. Understanding is not the only intention and may well not be achievable. Listening to plural ontologies, epistemologies and cosmologies asks for learning from their plurality of stories, memories and experiences; things known and unknown; beliefs.

Coda

We slip into metaphors comfortably like worn-in shoes, borrowing their easy clarity. Metaphors can carry affective energy for gathering political collectivity to change practices of thinking and doing. They can connect actions and materials to ideas and feelings. Depending on how they are used, they can also conceal power. Leaning too hard into the vehicle risks losing the tenor. My metaphors are mixed and made in relation to yours so, how do we take care of them and mind where we are as we use them without fumbling too much?

1 The workshop was held at Performing Arts Forum, France in September 2018. Performing Arts Forum is a building run on principles of self-organisation by members where individuals or groups may stay for relatively low cost. The reproduction and sustaining of this space by all those who inhabit it is a central aspect of spending time there. Sometimes people organise specific workshops there, such as this one, which are open to all who respond to the announcement.

2 One of the pieces of paper was a photocopy of page eight of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (2003). There, she proposes “beside” as a prepositional relation that carries more plural (and spatial) possibilities than “beneath” or “beyond,” which invoke linear time through a focus on either origin or telos. In her argument, “beside” is non-dualistic, for multiple things can be beside each other and need not be equal, equivalent, or oppositional. So “beside” offers a mode with which to avoid the dualisms of a variety of linear logics, not only temporal ones.

3 Other pieces of paper held a print out of Ursula K Le Guin’s “She Unnames Them,” a short story originally published in the New Yorker in 1985. The story describes the aftermath of a societal process of unnaming living beings from categorising nouns: “I could not chatter away as I used to do, taking it all for granted. My words must be as slow, as new, as single, as tentative as the steps I took going down the path away from the house, between the dark-branched, tall dancers motionless against the winter shining.”

4 Yet other pieces of paper held a printed-out scan of Denise Ferreira da Silva’s “Toward a Black Feminist Poethics: The Quest(ion) of Blackness Toward the End of the World” (2014). That paper works through two questions: “Would the poet’s intention emancipate the Category of Blackness from the scientific and historical ways of knowing that produced it in the first place, which is also the Black Feminist Critic worksite? Would Blackness emancipated from science and history wonder about another praxis and wander in the World, with the ethical mandate of opening up other ways of knowing and doing?”

5 Laagencia describe themselves as: “an office of art projects that promotes investigation and processes in art + education, stimulates debate on artistic and instituting practices, experimenting with different strategies and methodologies of work to propose formats of mediation, public programs in collaboration, self-publishing exercises, and alternative ways of doing with others…The project is made up of five artists, without any kind of hierarchy, all of them are directors, producers and participants.” https://laagencia.net/laagencia/ [K’s translation.]

6 It is beyond the scope of this text to adequately address the long-term gentrification of Rotterdam. Present in the events I describe are multiple complex local histories of the ways in which some artists have been willingly instrumentalised by the municipality in gentrification processes while others have been active in anti-gentrification movements, the particularities of European white supremacy in the Dutch context, and a regional experiment in running a municipality as a neoliberal form of service provider.

7 Noise is an imprecise category, with contextual meanings in different forms of practice or disciplines of knowledge. It has frequently been mobilised in multiple different ways as one side (bad) of a highly mobile (following the moving needs of a power structure) good/bad binary. Persons, beings, forms, or sounds can be coded as noisy following multiple logics of white supremacist imperialist patriarchal oppression. For just a few examples across a range of disciplines and oppressions see: Weheliye 2005, Kheshti 2015, Stoever 2016, Thompson 2017, Steingo and Sykes 2019, Robinson 2020.

References

Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

da Silva, Denise Ferreira. “Toward a Black Feminist Poethics: The Quest(ion) of Blackness Toward the End of the World.” The Black Scholar 44, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 81–97.

Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. Wivenhoe: Minor Compositions, 2013.

Kheshti, Roshanak. Modernity’s Ear: Listening to Race and Gender in World Music. New York: New York University Press, 2015.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. “The Intelligence of Plants,” interview by Krista Tippett, On Being with Krista Tippett, WNYC Studios, February 25, 2016.

Laagencia. Garage School Fermentation. Self-published pamphlet. Rotterdam, August 2020.

Le Guin, Ursula K. “She Unnames Them.” New Yorker, January 21, 1985.

Oliveros, Pauline. Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice. New York: iUniverse, 2005.

Robinson, Dylan. Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

Steingo, Gavin, and Jim Sykes, eds. Remapping Sound Studies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019.

Stoever, Jennifer. The Sonic Colour Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening. New York: New York University Press, 2016.

Thompson, Marie. Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect and Aesthetic Moralism. London: Bloomsbury, 2017.

Weheliye, Alexander G. Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005.

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occasionalfics · 5 years

Text

Not Such A Long Shot

main masterlist | thor masterlist | taglist | ko-fi | ao3

For: Me. But also all of you, because I feel weird not having posted something in what’s probably weeks but feels like months.

Pairing: Alpha!Thor x Omega!Reader

A/N: You absolutely did read that pairing tag right. I almost never write a/b/o because it’s just not really my thing but I felt like alpha!Thor was vastly underrated (except by @spacelabrathor who’s a god damn MASTER at it) and wanted to remedy the issue.

I’ve been working on this for at least two weeks. Probably more. It’s not edited, probably not my best work, definitely not really finished. It was meant to go on longer than it currently is but I’ve forgotten the direction I was going to go in and decided to just post this and write more later if I remember.

I don’t have a beta reader and didn’t want to read through 25 pages of this before I posted it. I’m sorry about that. I hope you like it anyway.

Honestly I’m so tired today I couldn’t even be bothered to fix the italics formatting throughout this whole thing in one sitting. Maybe I’ll fix it later, maybe I won’t. Does it make that much of a difference when you read it? (I legit would love responses!)

Warnings: SMUTTY SMUT (just one section, but still), NSFW/18+ CONTENT AHEAD. Not a super confident Reader, but she knows what she wants.

Words: 10,177 (like I said, 25 pages)

You feel like one of the most pathetic Omegas to have ever lived.

Most Omegas find their Alphas and go straight into bonding, but you? You had always made things more complicated for yourself.

And the walking embodiment of such a reminder has absolutely no idea that you exist.

You don’t blame him. The last five or so years have been extremely difficult for him, and for most of that time, you were nothing but a tiny, run of the mill SHIELD Agent. Even now, as just...an Avengers Agent, you still blend in with the crowd.

It’s...kind of the job of a spy to do so.

But for an unbonded Omega? One who, at some point over the last five or so years, imprinted on an untouchable and uninterested Alpha?

It’s torture.

Thor comes back to Midgard and tells his friends about Ragnarok. He and Bruce relate all of the relevant details, and they somehow trickle down the chain of command to you. Your ears perk up when you’re notified that Thor’s back, and without thinking, you head for the residential floors.

You’ve memorized where Thor’s apartment is. You’ve never gone in, knowing what kind of boundary that breaks, but you’ve gone to the floor, stood in the hallway, and nearly cried yourself dry on particularly bad nights of your last few heats.

You can’t help it.

Your body decided, long ago, that Thor was the one. The Big One. Your heart and mind haven’t really caught up to your biology and it fucking sucks, but it’s the reason why you’ve abandoned your work station and head upstairs.

Remain calm, you remind yourself. He doesn’t even know who you are.

You think of the countless times you’ve tried to mate with another Alpha before. And each time since you imprinted, every one of those Alphas have told you how terrible you smell. So you’ve gone home alone too many times, unable to even see the man you’ve been physically pining over for years, knowing he has no idea who you are, feeling like the scummiest, most useless Omega in the entire universe.

You don’t deserve him. He works so hard to keep everyone save, pulls so much of the weight of the team when he is around that you wonder how they ever manage to work without him. You just keep quiet, fill out paperwork, and go on the occasional mission when your skills are required and relevant.

But he doesn’t make you feel so bad about your job when you find him in the common area. The Valkyrie is sitting next to him, drinking beers from glass bottles, feet up on the table in front of them while they watch the local news.

When Thor sees you, he smiles. “Hello there,” he calls, raising his beer.

You give a small wave. He nods to one of the seats beside the couch. “Come, join us!”

He doesn’t even know you, but he’s acting like he does.

The Valkyrie looks at you, her expression unreadable. You’d say your jealous of her, but she’s an Alpha, too. You can smell it on her, feel the guarded and dominant energy flowing off of her. She’s not competition, though. That much you can tell right away.

You do as Thor had offered, taking the chair right next to him.

“Waiting for Stark?” he asks.

You shake your head, unable to look at anything else but him now that you’re so close.

You wonder if he can feel what you feel: the sun falls over his glorious face in waves that make your stomach churn; his smile is bright and makes your chest tight and fluttery; his one remaining eye - that you’d just noticed - is a deep, earnest blue that might cause slick to pool between your legs if you were in heat.

At least the Gods had mercy on you there. For now.

“I, uh,” you say. Instinct wins over, despite the logical parts of you screaming not to say what you say next: “I heard you were back.”

If he did feel what you were feeling, his smile wouldn’t be falling like it is. He must not be imprinted like you are. It’s unfortunate, but you know it happens sometimes.

You don’t like what people have said about the Omegas with unrequited imprints. This isn’t faring well.

“Just wanted to say hi,” you say. You remember that he doesn’t know you, despite you having been in the background of his story for the last few years. You try not to hold that against him while you hold a hand out toward him, attempting a softer smile because you don’t want to scare him away. You don’t want to be one of those Omegas. “I’m (Y/N).”

You don’t deserve him. He’s too kind. His smile comes back as he leans toward you and shakes your outstretched hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, (Y/N),” he says.

And if he feels anything more than what one normally feels upon first introduction, he doesn’t show it.

“This is my friend,” Thor says, pointing now at the Valkyrie. “We call her Val.”

She nods. “My friends call me Val,” she corrects. “Everyone else calls me Valkyrie.”

You know it’s meant for you. Clearly it is, since neither of them know you. Gods you plead in your head why did I come up here?

“Don’t mind her,” Thor says, maybe, just possibly picking up on your anxious energy. “Her bark’s much worse than her bite.”

“My bite is plenty horrifying, thank you,” she jokes, and Thor laughs with her.

You want that. To laugh and be at ease around him. To know him.

But since you’ve known of him, your crush has been exclusively on the sidelines. You imprinted on him from across a room, when he hadn’t even been looking at you. Your schoolgirl feelings for him had just...mounted and climaxed, and then you were suddenly attached to him chemically, without his permission or knowledge.

Sometimes - actually, make that most of the time, you hate being an Omega. This kind of shit only happens to Omegas who don’t settle down and pick a good mate that they’re realistically worthy of before it’s too late.

This is ridiculous. This was always ridiculous. Why did I come here?

You go to stand, but before you can, Thor clears his throat and turns the television off. You can’t tell if you’re relieved that he’s leaving the room or not.

“We were just about to head out for karaoke night,” he says. “Would you like to join?”

For just a moment, you wonder how he has time for karaoke when his entire kingdom lives in your backyard now, but you don’t question it.

Your crush dictates that you simply smile gratefully at the offer and accept.

At three more beers in, the Valkyrie ran off with a Beta she’d met ten minutes prior. Thor’s other friends - the Avengers, the team you’d worked under for years and barely ever met personally - are sprawled around the bar, some dancing, some drinking, some talking. Bruce is letting loose with a wildly off-key rendition of “I Think We’re Alone Now.”

But you haven’t left Thor’s side all night. You’ve got a respectable distance between you, and you refuse to drink more than you should. Closing that space seems...wrong. He doesn’t know you, doesn’t know how you feel. Doesn’t know that you physically cannot help but be drawn to him.

You swirl around your second drink, the ice long melted intentionally to dilute the alcohol. You watch Bruce with a smile, trying your hardest to ignore the suffocating heat of the Alpha beside you. He smells like...rain and wind, like the beach and a forest all at once. You want to lean back into him, let him hold you and touch you and smell you, but you know that wouldn’t be right. Or fair.

So you slump forward and focus harder on Bruce’s shoddy footwork.

“Not having fun?” he asks from behind.

You can’t tell if he knows you’re holding back or if he genuinely just thinks you’re a depressed drunk.

“I am,” you say, attempting your best smile and convincing voice. And acting is a huge part of what you do when you go on missions, so you think you’re pretty successful now.

Except that Thor’s smile turns somewhat sad. “C’mon,” he says, and then one of his hands is placed at the small of your back.

Your eyes widen as you ask, “Where?!”

He nods at the dance floor. It seems weird that there’s a dance floor for karaoke night, but you doubt anyone drunk enough truly cares.

“Let’s go dance!” he says, and he sounds so light hearted and genuine that you find you can’t deny him. You can’t even question him anymore.

You slide out of the booth, then wait for him. Thor follows you out, and when he turns back to face you, he takes one of your hands in his.

Something in his face twitches, but you swear you imagined it. In no time at all, he’s back to smiling and pulling you out onto the floor behind him. He finds a place he likes, between two other couples and a handful of single women dancing with their glasses raised. Some of them look back at Thor, but his eyes never leave you.

You don’t see that much, though. All you focus on is his one hand on your hip, the other holding your hand out beside you. Your free hand grips his shoulder as he sways you out of time to the music, neither of you appearing to care.

There’s something electric between you. You know you feel that, but can only hope that he feels it, too. It’s more than imprinting. It’s more than a crush. It’s...connection, you think. He smiles down at you and you smile back and follow his lead through the dance because it’s all that you can think to do. You never want this moment to end.

But then it does, with the song, of course.

Thor lets go of you, except for your hand. You try not to laugh giddily at the thought that, if he didn’t want to be holding onto you, he wouldn’t be. Somehow, you’ve been blessed by the Gods.

He brings you to the bar, orders two more drinks, and then makes sure you’re comfortable on your stool before he sits on his own. You’re not sure you want to keep drinking, but then Thor doesn’t even seem to care about the glasses placed in front of you when they do come. He holds his in his free hand, sure, but his eye is zeroed in on your reaction to him and nothing else.

“I don’t want this to sound weird,” he starts, “but you smell...so familiar.”

You shrug. It’s not that weird, you know. Scents are how everyone distinguishes themselves.

“I’ve been...around. In the background, I guess.”

“What- the whole time?” he asks.

You nod, picking up the drink to take little sips. It’s not too bad that way, thankfully. A simple drink, with plenty of tropical flavoring to make it bearable.

“Well somebody’s gotta keep an eye on day-to-day stuff around the city,” you tease, flashing a smile at him because you really can’t make your face do anything else. Even when you drink again, your cheese are still puffed into a rather gleeful expression, because just being in his presence is enough to light you up.

The feeling leaves you thinking about how pathetic of an Omega you are. But it also...makes you think about how close he is. How he chose to invite you, to dance with you, to drink with you. He could have any Beta or Omega he wants...and he’s looking at you.

He keeps looking at you. The whole night, actually. The only time he’s not really looking is when, four drinks later each, you’re straddling his waist in a corner booth and his hands are roaming the curve of your hips. His one eye is shut, but you can only tell because there’s no flutter of eyelashes on your cheek.

You don’t care, though, because your tongue is tangled with his, and he noises he’s making fill you with warmth and electricity that makes the hairs on the back of your neck and along your arms stand up. The sheer Alpha energy wafting off of him is consuming you beyond comprehension, pushing you closer and closer to a point of no return, but you don’t care.

Five years of pining and it only took introducing yourself to get him in your clutches. You laugh at the thought.

He pulls back, dipping his head to the side because your lips drag to follow his. His eye barely opens, but you’re so close that it doesn’t matter. He can easily see you right where you are.

“What’s so funny, Little One?” he asks, using a name he’s just taken to calling you moments ago.

You bite your bottom lip lazily and shake your head. “Absolutely nothing,” you tell him, breath heavy as it falls across his face.

You’re just about to dive right back in when someone clears their throat. Your body wants you to ignore them, but your mind, as gone as it is, knows better. The authority in the person’s voice screams Alpha, and despite them not being your Alpha, you still heed their warning.

Looking over your shoulder, you find the Valkyrie standing, watching, arms crossed. Possession in her eyes like a bright fire.

You’d thought she wasn’t competition, but maybe you were wrong.

“What happened to your friend?” Thor asks from below you.

“Sent her on her way,” the Valkyrie says. “You should, too.”

Your face drops. Your heart skips a painful beat as you realize...he’s going to listen to her. She is competition, despite being an Alpha herself and despite having had her own source of fun earlier in the night.

Without hesitating any longer, you slide off of Thor’s lap, twisting to sit before pushing yourself out of the booth. He calls your name, and you can’t help but stop, but you don’t turn to face him. You look at the Valkyrie, see the fire still burning in her irises, and scurry away. Out of the bar, onto the street and down a block without thinking twice.

You’re lucky that you’re able to hail a cab without a hitch. You know how lucky you are, but you don’t really feel lucky.

Really, you feel even more pathetic now. Thor had brought you up so high over the course of one night, but a single glower from the Valkyrie and you were reduced to embers, the dying bits of a fire burned long into the night.

You manage to keep it together until you reach your apartment. The second your door is locked, the tears come. You slip out of your shoes and tear your work clothes from your body before shakily managing to get in bed. The covers come up over your head, and only then do you let out a room-shaking sob.

How you could have read the room any differently than to know the Valkyrie would never let you have him, you can’t say. Something about the whole situation didn’t make sense, but the feelings of shame and embarrassment wash over you so strongly that you don’t care to think the night through.

Your little crush would be the end of you. Unrequited Imprinted Omegas, more often than not, became old maids, never mating, suffering through heat after heat until, one day, their bodies aged and decided they no longer needed to bear babes. Then, they were useless to anyone.

Everything hurt as you acknowledged your future.

You don’t cry beyond that night. Knowing that your crush is entirely one-sided meant acknowledging that you couldn’t just imagine yourself into mating. You wouldn’t let yourself get lost in the fantasy of being Thor’s Omega anymore.

So, you avoid him. It’s not too hard, since your department is well below the residential floors and no one really comes to visit much. You have work to keep you busy, and plenty of books and television to catch up on at home.

You hate that your biological systems have decided that, if you can’t have Thor, you won’t have anyone. But until you know whether or not this Imprint will fade, you have to accept the possibility that you may end up alone. It wasn’t ideal, but it happened, and you know it does.

A week after karaoke night, you see a doctor. You tell them, reluctantly, about your Imprint. You tell them that you’re certain the feeling is unrequited, that there’s no possible way he formed as quick a connection as you had. You ask to be put on suppressants, so that you won’t have to suffer as much pain during your heats, since you’ve convinced yourself you’ll be the only one getting you through them until you don’t get them anymore.

They give you a higher dose than they normally would for someone who’s never been on suppressants before. But they tell you that they want to help with the emotional impact of an unmatched Imprint. They say the medication will dull the ache, will cloud the thoughts and memories of the person you’re imprinted on. This specific dose and brand of suppressant will make it easier for you to function on a daily basis without falling into depressive spirals.

Within days, you can tell there’s a difference. You’re not anxious about going into work, not constantly thinking about running into Thor again. The image of the Valkyrie’s smoldering eyes doesn’t haunt your dreams as much.

You feel...almost normal. Still a little pathetic, but you’re getting there.

On occasion, when the rest of the team is already on mission, you’re recruited for your special abilities.

One of those abilities is flight. Meaning that you have your pilot’s license, so sometimes Tony Stark himself asks if you’ll captain a jet for some of his friends. You almost never turn him down - you can’t remember the last time didn’t eventually regret turning Tony Stark down for anything.

You wish you had this time. You’re stuck on a ship with Bruce Banner, the Valkyrie, and Thor. Their camaraderie distracts you as you attempt to fly the jet, but more than that, Thor’s scent completely engulfs you and doesn’t let you go for a second.

Not even when you’ve landed the jet and let them off to fight whatever Hydra group they’ve found this time.

The longer the smell of him lingers, the more frustrated you become. You try to hold it together, remember that you’re on suppressants and nothing is supposed to happen to you. If you hold your breath and close your eyes, you can actually calm down a little, you think.

But then you take in a deeper breath and you’re filled with him all over again.

“Fuck,” you mutter, shutting your eyes as hard as you can. But that proves to be a bad idea, too, because the second you rest your head against your seat, all you can see is him. You can practically taste his tongue on yours, as if you’d only been kissing him the night before and not nearly a month ago.

You whimper, and it’s the single most lamentable noise you’ve ever heard.

Heat settles in your belly. Slick gathers between your thighs. Blood rushes in your veins so hot and heavy and fast you’re sure you can hear it.

You need release. It doesn’t make sense because you’re not due to be in heat for a week and it shouldn’t feel this intense while you’re on these suppressants, but you don’t think about that right now or, really, even care.

You look over the back of your seat. There’s no noise coming in from the dropped walkway at the opening at the back of the ship. The three of them only left a little while ago, so they won’t be back for some time.

Reaching forward to your control panel, you turn up the volume on your comm, just in case, but also shut off your mic. You can hear them if they call you, but they can’t hear you.

The zipper to your tac pants is too easy to slide down. You roll up your sleeve, reach below the fabric of the pants, and find your folds already drenched. You gather slick on your fingers and reach your clit, rubbing in slow circles at first.

Your eyes shut and all you can see is Thor. All you can smell and feel and taste is Thor.

Your mind wanders. You dream of Thor touching you like this, teasing and pleasing you, beaming when he knows how wet you are for him. You hear imaginary praises that set butterflies free in your stomach, and the taste of your name on his tongue is so real and glorious that you whine as loudly as possible. Your back arches against the metal chair uncomfortably, but you keep going.

Two of your own fingers reach down and enter you, but you almost convince yourself that they’re his. That he wants to see you beneath him, stretching for him, preening and keening for him. You know he’d be bigger than you are, but you are all you have to work with.

You move quickly, hitting your spot before long, pushing against your chair and moaning out into the world as if you’re in your own bed. You clamp your free hand over your mouth, just in case you hit a button or someone comes back without announcing themselves.

The last thing you need - the last thing you could even handle - is being caught in this act.

You clench around your fingers and come messily, but thankfully, entirely alone. It’s the first time, maybe ever, that you’re glad to not have any company.

After giving yourself ample time to calm down, you rush off to the restroom to clean yourself up. Now that you’ve taken care of yourself, you don’t need two Alphas and a Beta to board the ship and immediately know what you’ve done in their absence.

It rains for three days straight after that mission. It wasn’t a hard or taxing mission in particular - or so Bruce had explained upon returning to the jet - but something about it had affected Thor enough for him to keep a continuous storm hanging over the city.

You don’t dare ask him about it, though. It’s not any of your business how he feels and what he does.

But then, on a late night after work, he shows up at your apartment. He has the decency to knock, and even more to ask for permission to enter your space.

An Omega’s home is a sacred place. A safe space. So many parts of being an Omega in a large city are dangerous, and a home is meant to be somewhere to escape all of that.

So when an Omega lets an Alpha in after that Alpha has submitted to their will? It’s… huge.

You and Thor both know that. The remarkably surprised look on his face when you allow him into your living room tells you that much.

He looks around as he enters, taking in the picture frames of you and work friends, you and childhood friends, and you and your parents. His mouth hangs open, even and especially when you tell him to get comfortable and take a seat wherever.

You immediately think you shouldn’t give him so much power in your space, but you actually don’t regret it. You offer him a drink and try not to take it personally when he declines politely.

He seems pleased when you set your own glass of water on the coffee table in front of the couch. You sit with one leg bent so you can face him, and you smile without even having to think about it.

“So. What’s up?” you ask him.

He sighs and wrings his hands out. “I think I owe you an apology.”

You wish that were true, but you can’t, for the life of you, figure out what it is he should be sorry for. You’ve gone over everything in your head since that karaoke night and you’ve never once found anything to blame Thor for.

It wasn’t like he knew you. Wasn’t like he owed you an explanation or anything.

You shake your head. “No, Thor, it’s okay-”

“But it’s not. I have so much to say and...I don’t think I know where to begin.”

In the silence that follows, you think about how weird this is. Your feelings for Thor are intense - or were - but you still don’t really know one another. One night of drunken making out does not make a solid foundation for any kind of relationship. He shouldn’t feel like he has anything to apologize for.

You’ve been keeping yourself in check with reality this whole time, you realize. And it’s been helping and hurting - more of the former, thankfully.

But it doesn’t change the fact that he is in your space, working up to some kind of apology for...what, abandoning you? It’s not really like he did that, either, and it was long enough ago that he shouldn’t still feel so sorry.

He’s an Alpha. An extremely good looking Alpha with the appeal of a pirate and the gentle touch of an Angel (which you know from first hand experience now). He could have any Omega or Beta he wants - and you know that’s not the first time you’ve thought so.

More than anything, you kind of want an explanation. But who are you to demand such a thing from him?

He laughs at himself, bringing you back to reality for you. “You’d think in my quest to find you, I would’ve thought of what to say.” He shakes his head and looks down at his lap. “It’s just… Since that night, I haven’t...stopped thinking about you?”

Despite ending the statement as a question, Thor still can’t bring himself to look at you.

You sigh a little sadly and tell him, “It’s been weeks since that night. And we were just on a mission together-”

And he nods, effectively cutting your thoughts off at the root. “I know I’ve disappointed you. I could tell on the jet. I hesitated to come out here, to you, because I know I’ve done wrong by you.”

Something inside you yells out to take his hand and comfort him, but you fight the impulse. It wouldn’t be appropriate, despite your nature telling you otherwise.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been granted the leisure to have thoughts of this nature, (Y/N). That’s no excuse to mistreat any unbonded Omega, but it’s true in any case.” He smooths out the denim of his jeans, but doesn’t say more.

So you grip the back of your couch for a little grounding of courage before asking him, “If you’re so concerned with treating unbonded Omegas right, why did you buy me drinks? Invite me to dance? Let me…” Despite your best efforts, a lump forms in your throat. You try to push past it by clearing your throat, but can’t manage to finish the last question. You go on with, “Why let all of that night happen the way it did if you were already taken?”

At that, he finally turns back to you, his brow arched in a question over his one eye. “What do you mean, taken?”

“Why hide it, Thor? The Valkyrie is clearly better suited to your needs.” You think only of preparedness for battle when you say it. “Who am I to keep you away from her?”

“What are you talking about?” he asks, as if he hasn’t a clue.

Anger bubbles in your stomach, but you try to keep it contained when you say, “She’s the one that came over and separated us. She told you to get rid of me. What other explanation is there for that?”

“(Y/N),” he says softly. So softly that you can’t not look up at him again. “Val and I are not bonded. We’re not together. Neither one of us is taken by each other, or anyone else for that matter.”

“But she-”

“Was looking out for you. I don’t know if you remember much about our...tryst, but I was far too close to...well, to be frank, taking you right there in that booth.”

You are...stunned. This is not what you expected at all. And you have nothing to say - your mind is, inconveniently, blank as you try to process his explanation.

“Val is hard to read. I can see where you might’ve come from to think otherwise. She only wanted me to release you to keep you safe, in a very public setting, with Alphas all over the place.”

“And I ran-”

“I regret not going after you, at least to make sure you made it home safely.”

The sincerity in his voice is echoed in his eye. You now feel a little bad, since you’re still keeping a huge secret from him when he’s given you every explanation you could need. But...how do you tell an Alpha like Thor that you’ve only recently been suppressing your longstanding feelings for him, and that those longstanding feelings are more than just feelings?

You decide you won’t. Or can’t. Not yet. His thinking of you, of seeking you out, is not equal to being Imprinted. Telling him now will not help anything.

Besides, your meds are helping. Even with him so close you could touch now, you still don’t feel the same dread you had before you’d approached him the first time - dread caused by anxiety over a possible rejection.

You can’t set yourself up for that so early on.

“Is...that all you wanted to say?” you ask. If he gets up and leaves now, then you know it’s done and over. You’ll do what you have to in order to move on.

But if he stays…

You wait, and eventually, he shakes his head.

“It’s not.” He shifts to face you like you’ve been facing him and clears his throat. “I’d regret leaving you now if I didn’t ask if you would like to show me around town one night. My friends are sometimes helpful but mostly have their own haunts, so I’ve mostly only seen a handful of the same bars.”

You take him to Times Square, just for the hell of it. You take him to see Wicked and he cries through intermission, drawing the wary eyes of more than a few other Alphas. But he hardly seems to care.

You take him to a 24-hour diner after the show and down coffee and hashbrowns and pancakes galore, and you laugh and talk and enjoy his presence like you had at karaoke night. He’s cordial and kind, not like many other Alphas you know. You’re more surprised that you’re the only Omega you know that’s Imprinted on him than the fact that you are still Imprinted on him.

How are you the only Omega not willing to let this moment pass?

When he brings you back to your apartment, you don’t want him to leave. You try to invite him in, but he shakes his head, though he doesn’t appear to be able to stop smiling at you.

“I won’t repeat my mistakes from the bar,” he says, only moving through the motions of attempting to pull his hand from yours. But there’s no real effort there. No muscle behind his actions.

You know if he really wanted to leave, he’d have no problem pulling you off of him.

“Just come in. We can talk, that’s all. I just don’t want this to end.”

“And neither do I-”

“Then come in,” you say, really, truly trying to get him to budge.

He doesn’t. But he does smile, even laugh at your attempt. “I’m not going to move this too quickly. I told you I don’t believe in mistreating Omegas.”

“You’d be mistreating me more by leaving now.”

He seems to pause at that, and you take the opportunity to tug on his hand in yours. You must take him by surprise, because he’s jostled over your threshold and into your living room. He laughs at that, too. You shut the door and lock it - but the lock is simple and on the inside of the door, so you both know he’d be able to unlatch it if he truly wants to leave.

When he doesn’t do anything other than stand up straight again, you move closer to him.

“We can just...watch a movie. Have some popcorn or something,” you say.

“It’s so late,” he tries. And it is, but there’s a distinct lack of emphasis behind his words.

“All the more reason for you to not be wandering the streets of New York, all alone and unfamiliar with the grid system, as you are.” You smirk up at him, knowing that, since he’s already here, you’re going to win this debate. “Nothing has to happen. And...if it does-”

“Which it won’t,” he says, eyebrows raising nearly up to his hairline.

“We just won’t let it ruin this.”

“But nothing is going to happen. I’m only going to stay if you agree to that.”

He drives a hard bargain, you think. And while half of you wants something to happen so badly, the more logical part that’s been bringing you back to reality over the last five years reminds you that his worry is legitimate. That just because nothing is going to happen tonight, that does not mean something won’t happen eventually.

“Okay, okay,” you say. “I accept your terms.” And then, before you can convince yourself otherwise, you stretch up on your tiptoes to press a small kiss to the soft hairs of his beard, right along his cheek. When you set back on your heels again, you smile and tell him to get comfortable. “My movies are in the rack next to the TV. Pick one and I’ll be right back with a snack.”

It nearly breaks your heart when he tells you he won’t spend your next heat with you.

You waste five whole days in bed, rolling back and forth, eating ice cream and cold pizza when you’re not weighed down by an entire wholesale-sized pack of Icy Hot wraps around your abdomen. It’s honestly not your worst heat, so you’re finally glad you’re taking suppressants.

All you really want, though, is Thor with you. Holding you, caring for you in every way an Alpha is meant to during heats. Sometimes you dream about him so viscerally that you search for him when you first wake up, but quickly remember his gentle but firm rejection when you’d asked him to stay.

At the end of the fifth day, you clean everything. Every surface in your apartment shines and sparkles and has no trace of a heat whatsoever before you even dare to call him.

He comes over for breakfast the next morning. You’ve got two more days off from work - a preliminary statute to all Omega contracts under Stark Industries - and since you’re sure your heat is over, you and Thor both agree it’s safe for him to come over.

But you’re quiet. Unusually so. From the moment he shows up, you’re not yourself. He’s so used to holding your hand now, to you cuddling up against him, and he knows something is wrong.

When he asks as you’re preparing eggs, you let out a deep sigh.

“I just… I really wanted your help over the last couple of days. That’s it.” You know there’s no use in lying to him, especially not on top of the secret you’re still keeping.

No, you still haven’t told him about your Imprint. It’s too embarrassing to think about now. Maybe there will be a good time to talk about it, but you don’t think it’s now.

He doesn’t say anything until you finish with the eggs. When you bring them to the table and immediately turn around to continue cooking, he stands up and gently grips your hand. You try to keep going, but he calls your name so softly, you nearly melt back into him. But you stop yourself before you fall too far.

“I have one strict rule for myself and many, many smaller, more specific rules follow it. First and foremost, I protect those who cannot protect themselves.” He tugs on you gently, clearly wanting you to face him, but you stand your ground.

“It wasn’t your protection I needed, Thor.”

“No, you’re right. You needed to be protected from me.”

He must’ve known that would get you to look at him. He seems to be anticipating the incredulous, offended glare you send at him.

“One of those more specific rules I’ve set for myself is that I do not share a bed with an unbonded Omega, for the first time, during their heat. I will not stoop to the level of the majority of Alphas, who only seek out their own pleasure.”

“So you’d rather let me writhe in pain for days instead.”

He sighs, practically growls from deep in his chest, but he doesn’t look or smell or feel angry to you. Frustrated, perhaps, but to be fair, you are too.

“Of course I don’t want that. Of course I wanted to be there for you. But what kind of man - what kind of Alpha would I be if I took advantage of that pain? What happens to this-” he holds your intertwined hands up in front of your face - “if I act selfishly on your discomfort?”

On the one hand, you want to tell him that it isn’t as if you weren’t begging for his company. But...on the other, you kind of get it. And you’ve known Thor long enough now to really hear what he’s saying: that this isn’t just about his comfort, but yours. That he wants to take this courtship at your comfort speed, not his.

You don’t think you were wrong to ask him to help you. But at least now, you’re not really upset with him for turning you down, either.

You have a lot of important, heavy conversations in succession. You draw lines and create boundaries, come to compromises and agreements over a series of weeks and long, drawn-out dates.

And after each one of these dates, you feel so much better than you have since he’d come back from Asgard. Or with what was left of Asgard.

Thor doesn’t think you’re a pathetic Omega. He thinks you’re attentive and sweet, affectionate and maybe a little over eager. But he likes that. He’s told you, often, that he likes seeing you light up when something excites you. He reminds you how long it’s been since he’s been able to focus on taking moments like those in, and he appreciates every one of them.

You know pushing off telling him the Big Secret will only complicated things later on. And with how open you’ve become with one another, you don’t really want to continue keeping it from him.

You wait until after a movie ends, then turn to face him, practically curled into his side on your couch. You tell him that you have something to say, something important. He bends the arm across the back of the couch and rests his forehead against his fist, one of his clear signs that he’s listening.

“So...that day, when I just showed up in the common area?”

“Yes?”

You want to get the words out. They struggle to fight against the lump in your throat, because saying this is…weird and you know it. You manage to get out, “Well, I didn’t just show up.”

He laughs at that. “I assumed as much, (Y/N). I never took you as one gifted with teleportation.”

And you know it’s a joke, but it doesn’t sit well in your tumultuous stomach. You try to brush off the sick feeling that threatens to take over, knowing it’ll only get worse the longer you drag this out.

“Before you left after Sokovia, I was hanging around the tower. I think...I think it happened at that party, before Ultron showed up.”

You can’t meet his eye. He must feel the nervous energy flowing from you now, because he pushes hair behind your ear, then lets his hand make a slow trail down your arm until he can hook his fingers between yours.

The warmth of his palm reminds you that this is necessary. That, for this courtship to work the way you want it to, you have to be honest with Thor. Ask for forgiveness for not being open about it before, but don’t keep keeping it from him.

“I...don’t know. I saw you at the bar at some point, talking to Steve and Natasha. I guess you looked over at me or just...in my direction or something, but the second you glanced my way, I felt it.”

His lack of response, lack of question, makes you wonder if he’s following. If he is, and he’s this quiet, you think that can’t be a good thing.

But you have to get it out. The exact words, feelings.

“It was like I’d gone fishing and my hook caught in you but you wouldn’t come when I pulled or let the line go. Like every light in the room shone on you and you alone. And- Gods, this all sounds crazy, I know.” You force yourself to look at him again. His expression is blank, but attentive. “But I did- I Imprinted that night. And I- I hoped it would go away. I’ve read about Imprints that fade over time. And you left Earth for two years, so I waited, day after day, for that...tethered feeling to just go away.”

“It didn’t,” he says.

Slowly, you shake your head and smile sadly at him. “So that night, I thought I might try to do something about it, you know? See if I could, I don’t know, get it to go away if I looked at you or something. Never actually heard or read anything about that working before, but I thought Hey, why the hell not? But, Thor, I just wanted you to know that, through it all, I never once let myself believe it was mutual. I-”

“Why?” he asks.

You’re stunned for a moment. You stare at him, dumbfounded and confused. “Wh-why?” you ask back.

“Why would you convince yourself it wasn’t mutual?”

You blink. And blink. And blink again.

“I-I mean. You’re...Thor. And I-”

“You’re (Y/N),” he says as simply as it is true.

“Well, did you Imprint that night too?” you ask him, eyes widening in curiosity and possibility. You even lean a little further into him, hoping for a specific answer but knowing it’s probably not what you’re going to get. The Gods don’t like you that much...do they?

Thor sighs, but his smile returns. “It’s not...quite the same for Alphas, I believe. If what Stark says about him and Pepper is anything to go off of, of course.”

You don’t really know that much about an Alpha Imprinting, now that you think about it. So you wait for him to explain with bated breath, heart stopping every few seconds to skip an anxious beat.

“From what I know, it’s less of a tethering on our end and more of...being tethered. We feel the pull, but more so as a need to protect. A desire to provide for the Omega who’s chosen us. The whole...system, I think, is meant to pull two people together. Sometimes it’s not perfect, but sometimes,” he drifts, bringing the back of your hand to his lips. He kisses the soft skin there, never breaking eye contact with you. “Sometimes it works out.”

“But what about all that time between when I Imprinted and karaoke night? There’s no way I was on your mind for...years like that.” You didn’t mention that he’d famously courted another Omega before you, and that sometimes, even now, Stark employees asked about her when he was around.

“I told you, it’s been so long since I could even consider this.” His hand squeezes yours gently. “I always felt a calling to return to Midgard. Maybe after that night, you were a part of that call. When you found me and Val that day, it was like...like I’d been given answers to questions I didn’t even know I had to ask. Your presence made sense. And that need to protect you only got stronger after you ran that night.”

“Did you know then?” you ask him. “You’d said you hadn’t stopped thinking about me after that night. Was it because you knew I’d Imprinted?”

He takes a second to think, then shrugs. “Maybe. I think I had an inkling, but more than that, I was just following my instincts. Waiting for that tug to come, to help me find you and see you again.”

The more you think on it, the more you realize that this is just...how Thor functions. He’s not a normal Alpha, so why would anything about your relationship with him be normal? He’s told you many times how lonely he’s been the last few years, how unavailable he’d been to Omegas like you before now. How being back on Earth, back with the Avengers, is really what’s given him the time and energy to focus on things outside of the care and safekeeping of his kingdom.

Because, really, they’re not a Kingdom anymore. It’s a whole complicated mess full of legal and international political jargon that you don’t like bringing into your home, so for now, you put that thought to the back of your mind, knowing you’ll come back to it later.

“So, to be clear,” you finally say to him, relaxing against his side again. “You’re...not mad at me for keeping this from you for so long?”

He chuckles. “Why would I be mad? Honestly, I’m rather flattered.”

You’d turn to face him fully, only you’re far too comfortable where you are now. The validation of your feelings blooms a new affection for Thor deep within you, and you silently thank the Gods for giving him to you.

Bashfully, you tell him, “Some Alphas think Imprinting is just a myth. A lie Omegas use to tie them down and force them into bonding.” You know that’s not how Thor operates, but he asked. “I didn’t think you’d be one of those Alphas, but I was still nervous and, honestly, kind of embarrassed to admit it. It’s not...easy to admit that I didn’t really get a say in picking you.”

Without letting go of your hand, he wraps you up entirely in his arms. Thor is warm and huge and so fucking comfortable. He smells, frankly, to die for, and he’s...all yours. Somehow. At least for this moment.

“You don’t regret it, do you?” he asks softly, lips in your hair now.

“Of course not. I just, really, didn’t want you to think I was making it up, using Imprinting as a trap or something.”

“I’d never.”

“I know. If I regret anything, it’s not telling you sooner.” You tuck your face into the safe, inviting little nook between his shoulder and jaw.

The two of you are just a tangle of limbs and two steady heartbeats. The only other words spoken between you for some time are a whispered, tiny, “I forgive you,” from Thor, but you can tell from the scent he gives off and the kisses against your hair that he doesn’t really think there was anything to forgive in the first place.

Thor is the single most patient Alpha you’ve ever met, let alone been with. He waits for you to come around, to ask for things other Alphas might just demand of their Omegas. But he’s different, and you know it’s because of the whole not having been able to think about romance in a while thing he constantly brings up.

You like this little transition of power. It’s nothing, really, not in the grand scheme of things. But in your home, it’s kind of...everything at the same time.

By Thor letting you make the moves, he’s consistently telling you that you make the rules. You decide when you’re comfortable letting him in, staying the night. He trusts that you’ll respect his status as the Alpha, and in that trust, he gives you something you didn’t even really know you were missing.

Freedom.

It’s almost chilling to know that. But instead of running from something so gigantic, you run toward it.

You woo him by ordering his favorite food one night, ply him with just a little bit of the ale he likes from the corner store (not like it can get him drunk anyway), and sit far too close to eat when there’s a perfectly good chair across the table from him. Neither of you care, though.

Normally, you two sit on the couch and watch movies after dinner.

Not tonight.

You lead him by the hand to your room, ignoring the couch and the television and everything in between because none of it is important. When he asks where you’re taking him, you don’t answer other than to giggle and open the door to your bedroom without a second thought.

You have no doubts. No second guesses. You are absolutely certain you want this.

So you don’t hesitate to pull him into your room. Thor stops short after you’ve shut the door, but he just looks around your space. Wonder and curiosity line his eyes, and his hand loosens around yours as he takes everything in.

If an Omega’s home is sacred, their bedroom is the most protected place in the home. It’s a place only those an Omega trusts fully get to see. So you let Thor take in everything - the dark blue-gray walls, the golden star stickers placed in cascading patterns all around the room, the matching blue and gold bedding, your desk against the far wall with just a stack of papers, your computer, and a lamp on it - and feel proud that he seems to be in awe.

You might never know if you moved closer to his side or if he pulled you against him, but suddenly, you’re practically clinging to his torso. He looks down at you and smiles, baby blues shining like an afternoon storm.

“This all…” he gestures to the room at large, “feels very you.”

“You like it?” you ask, chin against his shoulder as you look up at him.

He shakes his head, but it’s his unwavering smile that keeps you from worrying. “Love it,” he whispers, lowering his face so his lips barely touch yours.

Your mind wraps itself around the true meaning of his words. The energy he’s giving off is electric - excited and relaxed and warm and a little frantic - and you melt into it. You press your lips up to his, and he breathes you in deep.

In what feels like an instant, he hooks his hands under your knees and lifts you until your knees are at his sides. He walks you both to the bed and turns to sit on the edge of your mattress with you in his lap, calves against the sides of his thighs.

You start to pull back and take in the position he has you in because...it’s so...not Alpha behavior. Everyone Alpha you’ve been with before has pinned you down and taken you their way, and you’ve been just fine with that. There’s nothing wrong with following one’s nature, you know, as long as everyone involved consents.

But this...you on top…

You almost move to lay on the mattress yourself, because the idea of being nearly crushed by Thor’s weight is so enticing.

But then his hands slide up and around you. He pulls you closer, until your chests are pressed to one another with no space between them. His fingers dig into your back a bit, just to be as close to you as possible, and your breath gets caught in your throat.

The feeling you get when you’re beneath an Alpha - a feeling of trust and comfort and being protected - fills you. It deepens when you, slowly, reach out and wrap your arms around Thor’s broad shoulders. His scent clogs your brain, and you whine needily because of it.

“You okay?” he asks breathily, eyes heavy-lidded as he watches you carefully.

You nod. “Just...not used to this, I guess.”

“You want me to-”

“No,” you whisper. Your hips stutter to make your point. “No, I like it.”

His smile broadens somehow. “Good,” he responds. “Me too.”

You let yourself think that he’s unlike other Alphas one more time. And then you lose yourself in the best fathomable way.

Your clothes are gone in a flash - before you can even recognize how - and your skin gets hot, almost like you’re in heat when you’re not. You know you’re not because there isn’t an inherent, desperate desire for Thor within you that springs forth painfully. Every sensation of lust and want and admiration is totally normal, coming from a place of trust, knowing you’ve both earned it from one another.

He was right to want to wait for this. There’s no pain at all, actually. No annoying nagging of your internal clock reminding you that you’re of ripe reproducing age.

There’s just you and Thor and heat and fun and freedom. And that combination makes his touch all the more sweet, all the more intense against your back.

Maybe you’re not in heat, but you’re still positively drenched for him. He’s long and wide, but still presses into you without much resistance. Your walls are tight around him, and you feel every inch of his cock stretch you out, delicious seconds of tension fading until you’re seated fully on him.

When you’re able to look him in the eye again, all you see reflected in his one shiny orb is a culmination of all the things you’re feeling, too. Words you can’t say yet, only partially because you’re out of breath. Things you’re saving for another day, because right now, all that matters is Thor’s hands on your hips, raising you up off his lap and back down again.

You like being in control of the position, you realize, but you also like when he takes the lead and pounds into you, rendering most of your body useless and totally at his mercy. He’s rough without being aggressive, just tight fingers and loud moaning and tense teeth against your own. He’s, truly, not like any other Alpha you know or have ever known.

Pressure builds within you, increases when one of his hands slides down your body until his fingers find your clit. He rubs small circles into your wet, sensitive skin, and you pull your mouth from his because kissing is nearly impossible when your chest feels this tight. Breathing isn’t coming easily, but you’re not complaining because you’re positive that you’re ascending to another plane of existence.

A gate breaks open. Pleasure - hot, enormous waves of it - washes over you, engulfing you like Thor’s arms do. Everything is him and this lovely, dirty, star-shattering feeling inside of you. You cry out his name. His teeth find your shoulder and dig in - not too far from where he might leave a mark one day, you briefly think - and the pain adds to the lofty, intense sensations rolling through you.

Your walls squeezing him bring Thor over - his knot swells, despite not being in a rut. He fills you with his cum, which you know won’t do anything until you’re off the blockers. For now, for once, you’re kind of grateful for them.

He goes into Total Alpha mode when you both calm down. Thor turns you both, lays you on your comforter, and kisses you tenderly to distract you before he pulls out. The distraction only works so much, but you only whine because you already miss the feeling of him inside you. You relax beneath the satisfactory gleam in his eye, one that seems to promise that he’s not going anywhere, that that feeling will return soon enough.

You whine again when he backs off the bed, but he only chuckles at the sound, shaking his head as he heads to your bathroom. You listen as he rummages around, turns the sink on and off, and finally returns with one wet washcloth and one dry one.

“Is this you calling it a night?” you ask, a little weakly because your body’s more exhausted than you’d like to admit.

He gently presses the wet washcloth to the spots along your thighs were your release has mixed with his and spread. “We have work in the morning,” is his response.

You don’t really like it, but he’s right. If you’d had the next...day or two off, you’d keep going, never leave the bed if that was what Thor wanted. It’s absolutely what you want.

But it’s already kind of late, and indulging on a work night doesn’t entirely seem smart.

“But, just for the record,” you try again, unconsciously spreading your legs further for him, “we could go again if we wanted to, right?” You bite your bottom lip, but that doesn’t hide the downright smirk you’re giving him.

His matches yours. “Of course.”

You let him clean you up in relative silence, satisfied with that answer. You almost...wish you were in heat - the both of you could call out of work and stay here, go as many times as your body required. But you know his rule - his only rule - and you don’t regret sticking to it.

When he gets in bed beside you, you realize that you won’t be needing the comforter below you. His skin his scalding, and he insists on holding you as close as he can get you. You’re still sticky from earlier sweat, and you know more is to come if he’s going to be so close all night, but you somehow don’t seem to mind.

A little while later, before your eyes start to feel too heavy, you sigh and finally tell Thor, “I’m on suppressants, you know.”

He nods. “I do.” When you give him a questioning, confused look, he shrugs. “I found them on the counter one night. I wanted to ask about them, but…”

You face him and scratch the tip of his chin with a single pointer finger. “But?”

“You have every right to choose to be on them or not, (Y/N). And I couldn’t fathom a way of bringing up the subject with you that didn’t innately make me sound controlling.”

“So you’re okay with me taking them then?”

“I…” He takes a second, but seems to fight a war with himself. You can’t stop your heart from sinking in the stretch of his silence. “I’m an Alpha. I try not to think of medications like that in this way, but it does almost feel as though you take them to keep me at arm’s length.”

Maybe at first you think. But not for the reasons you’re considering.

“No,” you whisper instead. “No, I started taking them when I thought Val was your mate. When I thought I was just some dumb Omega with a biological crush on you but had no chance of ever getting- well, where I am now, I guess.”

“And now?”

You can’t help but frown because your answer is...not as meaningful as you’d wish it was. “Now I just-” You sigh. “They’re just a habit now. And I have to say, they were kind of a godsend during my last heat.”

You know you didn’t say that to make Thor feel worse, but his own frown deepens anyway. You shake your head.

“I just mean that fighting the pain alone was nearly impossible before. But last time, it was bearable. Doesn’t mean it has to be that way every time, though.”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

You give him a small, hopeful smile. “I can be persuaded to stop taking them. They were just a way to protect myself when I thought you were already taken.”

Something stirs in him so quickly, you nearly miss it. But it’s not fleeting, and you can tell by the slow buildup of something against your leg. His smile returns, stretching out across his glorious face at the same pace.

“Funny how those things work themselves out, isn’t it?” he asks.

#thor x reader #alpha!thor x omega!reader #alpha!thor #thor fic #thor odinson x reader

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blackasteriia · 4 years

Text

The Valley

a Drabble for @teardownheaven

Shattered glass, howling wind, a screeching cacophony silenced by a stuttered heartbeat. Xion ricocheted upright. She gasped for breath, sweat coating the back of her neck and shoulders. A mattress gave beneath the shift of her weight. Her legs tangled with sheets, a quilt spread across her lap. Her pulse rushed and her eyes darted to take in her surroundings. She was in a bedroom. Thin shafts of light broke between the curtains, warm and soft. The walls were a pale violet hue and hung with framed, pressed flowers in pastel shades. There was a mirror adjacent to her. On the floor below, Xion heard the stamp of feet. Then a back door slammed.

Her memories of yesterday returned in sequence. Arriving in the valley, finding Aeleus, eating dinner, and passing out on the couch. Somehow, she landed in a bed upstairs. She had the thinnest, faintest memory of Aeleus moving her. It was daylight again. She had slept a full eleven hours, at least. Despite residuals of twisting fear from the nightmare, Xion felt rested. Her head swam with impatient, nervous energy. The room was small, crushing, and stifling; claustrophobic. She'd been here too long. Xion never spent more than a couple of days on a world. She'd been on this one almost a week. It was time to go.

Xion tossed the blankets aside and slid out of bed. Her eyes landed on the mirror. Her reflection looked back at her. Her hair was a rat's nest, all tangled. The bruise on her cheek had putrified brown. Her bag had was by the door with her clean clothes folded atop. Xion changed and ran her fingers through her hair. She crept from the room and emerged into the upstairs hallway. The house groaned as it settled on its frame. Xion slipped down the stairs, light-footed.

In the kitchen, Xion dropped her bag on the counter. She entered the pantry and pillaged it for cans of beans, fruits, and vegetables; granola bars; and a box of pasta. She could cook it in a can. Xion stuffed her finds in her bag. She froze with a can of pineapple in hand. On the opposite counter by the sink was a plate of food. Cut fruit; bacon; a bagel spread with peanut butter, honey, and banana; and two boiled eggs. All arranged and left out for some reason. Xion crammed a couple of pieces of bacon into her mouth and gnawed on the bagel while she finished packing.

Xion filled her canteen with water from the sink. While the water ran, she looked out the window. It faced the West. Veiled in the growing light was Aeleus a quarter-mile out. He waded in hip-high weeds, reaping and cutting away the vegetation. The water overflowed. Xion gasped and shut-off the sink. She slurped the excess and returned the canteen to her bag. She polished off the fruit and wrapped the eggs in paper towels for lunch. Xion rinsed the plate and put it in the dishwasher.

With her bag slung over her shoulder she walked out of the kitchen. In the living room, Xion pivoted and retraced her steps. One more thing. Xion returned to the kitchen and opened the fridge. On the middle shelf was the pitcher of tea from last night. She poured herself a glass. It tasted bitter yet sweet, with hints of citrus lemon and mint. It was cold and refreshing, she'd never had anything like it. Now satisfied, Xion put the glass in the dishwasher and walked to the front door to leave.

Xion's hand wrapped around the doorknob and froze. A sudden lock in her muscle, hesitation. In her mind, she traced her path. Walkthrough the kitchen, go out the back door and find Aeleus in the fields. She said goodbye, apologized again and thanked him for the meals. They parted on good terms, she could stay or come back. Except she was stealing his soap and his food. It wasn't safe, it wasn't a good idea, she didn't know him. He was living a good life with someone who cared about him. One that did not need intrusions.

She forced the front door open and clambered down the porch steps. Xion crossed the yard to the road. She looked North. There was one house in that direction. A two-story home framed by trees. Power emanated from the quaint glass windows and the dirt. The magic was old, volatile and strange. Tangled in it was that man from yesterday. The one Aeleus liked, for some reason. The wind tugged on her, dry and hot. Xion turned on it and faced South. The sun rose on the North-Eastern horizon. Warmth reflected off the stone and sand hills. Despite the heat, Xion guessed this world wasn't far past Spring. No cars passed her as she walked towards the town. On the paved roads closer to civilization there were signs of life. Old men fetched their newspapers or mail. Kids jaunted on their way to school. A woman stood on her front porch with steaming coffee, in her bright pink bathrobe and hair curlers. Eyes followed Xion.

It was a small town, a handful of blocks carved out of the desert. There were small shops, specialty and general. A couple of dinners. People gathered out on the sidewalk while waiting for breakfast. They smoked cigarettes and shot the breeze. In the center of town was a large, older building. A town hall, of sorts, Xion guessed. There was a plaza with a large monument in front of it. Across the street were a grocer and gas station. She approached the monument in the plaza. Plaques of bronze adorned the carved granite. She couldn't read it, but it looked like a list of names and dates. Xion glanced North. Down the main street rumbled the powerful engine of a motorcycle. The guard hairs pricked along her neck.

Xion shoved her hands in her coat pockets. She crossed the lawn of the town hall and ducked behind the building. She peered around back around the shrubs. The Undertaker pulled into a parking spot in front of the grocer. Xion sucked on her teeth and adjusted her bag. He turned off the bike and dismounted with a backward swing of his long leg. A man sitting outside the store on a bench waved his hand in greeting. He caught the Undertaker in conversation. The two men spoke. The Undertaker stood with his hands on his hips, confident but open. The other man seemed to respect him.

This world was not devoid of magic but it acted like it was. The ground beneath her churned with worms, not a saturation of power. It leaned neither into the dark nor the light. A stable balance for an uninteresting, boring, and unnotable planet. There were a million like it. So many, Xion had forgotten their names since she visited them. Yet, the North was a din of resonating voices. There were mages who were of a comparative or greater power than the Undertaker. They lived in places like Radiant Gardens, Twilight Town, the Land of Departure. Those worlds of convergence. Not in an easy to miss corner of the universe, this primordial backwater. This world acted like it was normal and simple, a convenient veil. The truth laid in its shadows which the denizens ignored with practiced obfuscation. It was a contrasting picture of mysteries that Xion was too curious to ignore.

Across the street, the Undertaker broke from his conversation partner. The door chimed as he entered the grocery. Xion broke from her hiding space and crossed the road. The man who had spoken to the Undertaker had sat back down on the bench. Xion stepped-up on the curb and walked up to him. He looked about sixty with crinkled, dry and tan skin, the texture of leather from years in the sun. He had bright blue eyes, cool as ice and yet vibrant. Xion glanced past him and through the glass front of the store. Between a display of homemade bars of soap, she saw the Undertaker. He spoke with the store clerk in a back aisle.

“You're new here ain't ya,” the man on the bench said to her. “I ain't seen you anywhere before. Ya look like you're from Houston, dear, did your parents move here?”

Dear, that was what Aeleus called her last night. Xion'd heard it before. It was a pet name of some sort.

“Xion,” she corrected, half-distracted. She kept an eye on the Undertaker in the store, “I'm Xion, and yeah, I guess I'm new.”

“Xion, that's a pretty name, like a flower,” the man chuckled. “I'm David Sigmon, I own a farm South-West of here that raises buffalo. You're not, his, are ya?”

David glanced over his shoulder at the Undertaker in the store. She followed his gaze and met his eyes when he looked back at her. Her head tilted to the side, and then she blanched. “His kid? No, I don't even know who he is.”

"Ya look like him is all," David shrugged.

"He has red hair," Xion drawled as she crossed her arms.

“Well, that's not all there is to it,” David muttered. He shook his head. "It must be a coincidence."

“Who, is he?” Xion asked.

“The Undertaker,” David answered.

“No, his name,” Xion grunted. Epithets were never a good sign—it meant he was significant. “I don't even know what an Undertaker is.”

“No one calls him his name anymore,” David said. “Just the Undertaker-- that's what you call a funeral home director, dear. He runs the home up the road from here. If ya ain't related to him, I'd steer clear. He's doesn't take to foolishness, but he's a solid man. Where ya from, Xion?”

“Not here,” she replied.

“Where's your parents, then?” David continued. He pushed to his feet. “Who gave ya that bruise?”

Xion's eyes tore from the window and to where David stood over her. He shoved his hands in his overall pockets. His brow knit, expression softened. Blue eyes traced the mark on her cheek. Xion shifted away, finding inches of space on a crowded street.

“If ya need help,” David began, “There's plenty of people in this town who'll hear ya out. Ain't no reason to be afraid--”

Inside the store, the clerk led the Undertaker to a shelf. He picked up a box of metal bits and turned towards the front counter. His gaze rose from the clerk preparing to ring him-up to the window. He saw Xion through the glass and their eyes met. A bolt of lightning coursed Xion's spine.

“Where's the library,” Xion snapped. “I need to find the library. I-I promised to meet my mom there in an hour.”

David jolted, surprised by the question. “Your mom--” He pointed towards the North. “The library is on the far end of town. Walk all the way down this street to Milton Road. Take a left and it'll be before ya start headin' down towards the reservoir. It's the old buildin’ with azaleas in front of it, used to be the town hall. Big 'ole blue flowers--” he used his hands to show the approximate size of the blooms, as wide as her head. “Ya can't miss it.”

“Thanks,” Xion grunted, she brushed past David.

Xion quickened into a walk and then a short jog. She turned into a random alley and circled around the block. Cats sat on the retaining walls and under the stoops of buildings. The town was coming alive. Shops and restaurants opening, people milling about as they began their day. A car passed by on the street. The sun was at a higher arc now. Between the people, vehicles, and clustered buildings, the town warmed by several degrees. The library was as David said, an old building with blue azalea bushes at the end of the road. Xion entered through the front door.

Air conditioning hit Xion across the face like a blast. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the low light of indoors. The doorbell jangled as it closed behind her. The walls were an old plaster and the floors of strong wood paneling. Dozens of bookshelves lined the walls and stood in rows. There was a desk to the right of the front door and behind it sat a small, younger woman in red frame glasses. She sat with a novel in her lap and her feet propped onto the desk. She looked-up as Xion entered. Xion glanced around, marveling at all the books. Distracted, she approached the desk.

“Hey, hun,” the librarian said. She put aside her novel and took her feet down. On her pink blouse was a name tag, 'Loraine.' “I haven't seen you before. Are you new in town?”

“You could say that,” Xion answered. “Do you have anything in here that can teach someone how to read?”

“How to read?” Loraine repeated. “What do you mean?”

“Like, if you have someone who can't read,” Xion elaborated. “Something you can use to teach them.”

“Is this for a younger sibling?” Loraine asked.

“No,” Xion said. She shook her head, “It's for me.”

“You can't read?” Loraine clarified. She pointed at Xion.

“Never learned," Xion said.

Loraine glanced around her. She leaned back in her chair to look under the disk. She dove forward and plucked something from by her feet. Loraine placed a wide but thin book on the desk. It was bright blue and green. She flipped it open to a random page and pointed to some words. There was a picture of a running dog on it. “Read that.”

Xion frowned and leaned closer. It was a small passage, a chunk of text in big script. Xion could recognize some of the letters, the common ones. There was a pattern to it. Over her three years, she had memorized a couple of words. None of that helped her interpret the code Loraine presented her. It was gibberish. Xion shook her head as she leaned back.

“Seriously?” Loraine gaped. Xion ducked her head, eyes falling. Loraine waved her hand and hurried to her next thought, “Where are your parents?”

Xion tapped her finger against the edge of the desk. “I don't have any.”

“Who's responsible for you?” Loraine tried.

“I am,” Xion snapped. Her fingers curled against her palm.

“Do you go to school in the valley?” Loraine asked.

“I've never gone to school,” Xion scoffed. "That's why I can't read."

Loraine rested both her hands on the edge of the desk. Her lips parted and a silent exhalation of air escaped. No words as her eyes darted over Xion's features. The bruise, her cheekbones-- Xion saw herself that morning. She knew what she looked like and squirmed under the scrutiny. Xion stepped back from the desk. This was a waste of time.

Loraine took a deep breath, and murmured, “okay, um, no time like the present. This way.”

The chair rolled back as Loraine stood. She circled around the desk and lead Xion to a back corner of the library. The shelves were shorter. In the middle of an open area was a bright floral red and blue rug. Loraine knelt by a shelf and began to pull books. She made a stack of laminated, neon and pastel reading material. Children's books used to teach babies their alphabet.

“Now, what was your name, hun?” Loraine asked as she stood with the books. She shuffled over to a table and laid them out. She ordered them, shuffling them around a bit.

“Xion,” Xion answered.

Loraine nodded to herself and returned to the desk. Xion picked-up one of the books. It had a cartoon lizard on the front. She flipped it open and on the first page was an ant, with a big 'A' right beside it. 'A is for Ant,' it read. On the next page was a bumblebee, and 'B is for Bee.' 'C is for Cat,' 'D is for Duck,' and so on, Xion could recognize the animal standing in for the letter. There was a sound to each word, she muttered it to herself. Elephant, Fox, Giraffe, Horse, and so on. Each letter began its word, forming the approximation. Xion realized that if she saw the word again she could associate the animal to it.

Loraine returned, she held in her hands a pen and paper. She sat down and indicated for Xion to do the same. Xion sank into the chair beside Loraine, her leg tucking beneath her. With a brush of her hand, Loraine cleared a space on the table.

“Your name is Xion, right?” Loraine asked. “She-on?” 

“It has an, 'X,'” Xion said, “I know how it's spelled.”

Loraine handed Xion the pen. Xion had seen people write before. She mimicked an approximate grip. She jammed the tip into the paper and with a trembling had created the symbols. Her writing broke across the lines and in big-script. The cross-section of an X, the long part of an 'I', 'O,' and 'N.' A copy of what she'd seen before. On the top of lists, in documents, reports. Loraine pointed at what Xion wrote.

“This is an, 'X,'” she said. “An 'I,' 'O,' and 'N. Xion.'”

“'I,' like, in, 'iguana,” Xion muttered. She reached for the book she had been looking at and flipped to the page with the green lizard. “'ih’-guana?” 

“Sometimes, letters have different pronunciations. Depending on where they are on in a word,” Loraine said. She flipped back to 'E for elephant.' “These are both 'E,' but one is lower case. In 'elephant,' we have the syllables, 'el' and 'eh.' You can hear, 'ee' in words like 'easy.” She took the pen from Xion. Loraine printed, 'easy,' on the piece of paper. She stayed in the lines and wrote quick but legible. She pointed to each letter in the word, “'E,' 'A,' 'S,' and 'Y.' Easy.”

Loraine then wrote all the letters in sequence, twenty-six in total. She began at the beginning and named them, all the way to the end. From A-Z, Xion realized. Xion then went through it on her own, twice, with corrections from Loraine. She suggested Xion that she copy the alphabet herself and say the name of each letter. Once she memorized it, she could begin to read. Loraine left Xion with the task and returned to the desk.

Xion's handwriting was a joke. There were significant fine-motor skills required for the task and Xion did not have them. She couldn't match the small, tight script of Loraine. Each letter was a wild foray into unknown territory. Her 'A' looked unstable. The loops of her 'B,' were too round or too flat. Her hand cramped, a painful seize of the muscles. Xion rolled-out her wrist and switched hands.

She filled both sides of the paper with written letters. Then Xion picked-up the book. From A-Z, she read each word aloud and named the letters. She could see how they hung together. It was a complex, interwoven and confusing system. There was a disconnect between the letters and the sounds of the words. 'A,' had the pronunciations, 'ah,' 'ai,'; 'B', the pronunciations of 'bee,' 'bu, 'ba.' She spent several minutes on a bit about 'apples,' in one book. Xion attempted to dissect the word. She took note of all the ways the letters could represent the sounds. There had to be a rhyme and reason to the pronunciation.

“I'm not sure how old she is, a teenager?” Loraine's hushed voice carried over the library. Xion's focus broke from the page but she didn't look-up. Instead, she listened. “She's bruised-up and scrawny. She said she didn't have parents. I have never seen her in the valley before and I know every child in this town. She can't read either!"

A pause as Loraine listened. Xion looked-up to see Loraine on the phone by the desk.

“She might be a runaway,” Loraine's eyes darted to Xion.

Xion met her gaze. Loraine startled, hand slipping over her mouth. She turned her back, hand falling to her hip. The words broke into incoherent whispers.

“I need someone to check--”

“--she's at the table practicing the alphabet--”

“I'll try.”

The phone clicked as Loraine returned it to the receiver. Xion pushed to her feet. She gathered the books in her arms then approached the front desk. Loraine smiled, eyes brightening as Xion laid the books out.

Xion pointed at the stack, “I want to take these with me.”

“You do?” Loraine asked. “ You can check 'em out here. That's great-- let's see, you don't have a library card do you?”

Xion shook her head.

“Okay, then, we'll sign you up for one,” Loraine said with a nod.

She tapped something into the keyboard of her computer. Her eyes darted over the screen. She slowed and exaggerated the movement of reaching for the mouse. Xion put her hand on her hip, unimpressed by the attempt to stall for time. She could steal the books. No, she'd wait and see what happened. The fewer waves she made, the better. It was never good to disturb the worlds too much.

“It's gotta, load,” Loraine told Xion. She looked up from the screen at Xion. “Did you get very far?”

“I memorized the letters,” Xion stated. Xion glanced out the front door. Through tinted glass and little gel stick-on books, she could see the street. She couldn't feel the power of Aeleus or the Undertaker anywhere. Devoid of magic as it was, there were few on this world that could hurt her.

“Oh, here it is,” Loraine exclaimed. She adjusted her glasses, “Ah, okay, so what's your name?”

“Xion,” Xion said.

“Xion--” Loraine repeated, leading on.

“Just Xion,” Xion said.

“Okay, no surname,” Loraine muttered. “I wonder if it'll accept that... and yes, it will. Okay, Xion, how old are you?”

Xion drummed her fingers on the edge of the desk. “Three.”

“Really?” Loraine scolded.

“Sixteen,” Xion corrected.

“So you were born in 1986?” Loraine asked. “On what day?”

“Pick one,” Xion answered.

“Um, okay, November twenty-fifth is a lovely birthday and you seem like a Sagittarius,” Loraine said after a long pause of staring at Xion. “And I'll need a valid ID?”

Xion tilted her head to the side.

“Anything with your face and name on it,” Loraine elaborated. Xion shrugged her shoulders and Loraine hissed through her teeth. “I'll vouch for you, we'll also wave the five dollar registration fee, won't need to worry about that. Alright, it is May 2, 2002 for the issue date, and last thing: I need an address to mail it to when it prints.”

Xion scowled, shoulders heaving with an impatient sigh.

“You know what?” Loraine said. She laid her hand flat on the desk. “We'll uh, send it to the library. Come by here in about a week and you can pick it up. Alright, Miss Xion, you're in the system. I'll print you a temporary card and you can check out.”

The printer churned and spat out a piece of paper with a bar code. Loraine presented it to Xion with a flourish and another smile. Xion accepted the paper. Loraine then began the slow process of scanning each book. The device projected a small red beam and beeped when Loraine passed the books beneath it. Beep, beep, beep, the seconds whittled by. Outside on the street, a black and white car pulled up. P. O. L. I. C. E, written across the side. A man in a uniform climbed out. He came up the front walk-- beep, beep, beep.

The bell jingled when he pushed open the door. His hand looped in his belt. He was old, tall and long-legged but a little soft in the stomach. He had pale and wrinkled skin, white hair shaved a tight quarter inch. Loraine put Xion's books into a plastic bag. Xion watched her. She did not hand Xion the bag until the policeman was at the counter. The policeman leaned against the desk and clasped his hand in front of him. He stared at Xion. Xion pulled the books to her and then turned to match his gaze. He had brown eyes.

“I'm Sheriff Keith Markland,” he told her, extending his hand towards Xion. Xion stared at it 'till he retracted it after a prolonged pause. “Is your name, Xion?”

“No,” Xion said.

“Yes, she’s Xion,” Loraine interjected.

She stepped back from the counter, wrists looped with her bags. She moved to push past him but he raised an arm to block her path. Xion looked down at the arm. It was such an arbitrary barrier. Xion could rip it off and beat him to death with it. She had half a mind to, for touching her. Instead, she receded and ducked her eyes. There didn't have to be any trouble. No one had to get hurt. She hadn't a clue what she did wrong that Loraine would call the authorities on her. Maybe Aeleus reported the theft and now it'd all escalated into this. A lot of trouble for soup cans. Xion sighed, shoulders sagging with growing exhaustion.

“Now hold on a second, there,” Keith said. He straightened, “There's no need to be in a rush. You're not in trouble or anything. I've just gotten some concerned calls related to you and I've come to check that you're okay. Now, Xion, why don't you tell me where you're from?"

“I'm from Houston," Xion said.

“Oh, the big city?” Keith asked as he straightened a bit. “What's your favorite thing about Houston?”

“It's hot,” Xion answered. She matched his gaze. “I can't stand cold weather.”

“Anything else?” He asked.

“Nah,” Xion shrugged, natural and easy. “I never much liked it there.”

“And why was that Xion?” Keith asked. Loraine stood behind the desk, glancing between them and hanging off every word. “What was wrong with Houston?”

“No one cared about me,” Xion began. Her mind searched, so long as she kept off physical details. “They ignored me.”

“Who ignored you?” Keith asked.

“The people I lived with,” Xion muttered. She ducked her head, pulled her fingers through her hair.

“Is there anyone you're staying with now?” Keith asked. Xion glanced-up.

The answer to this question could not be 'no.' Xion told Loraine wrong. She told David wrong too. The thoughtless ways she answered their questions got her in this mess. This was a small town, where everybody knew everybody. People defined themselves by family. They saw her as an unattended child. They were wrong. Convincing them otherwise would be an impossible chore. Keith needed to hear the names of her 'caretakers.' If she did not give them, he'd find them. The list of potential names was short.

“The Undertaker,” Xion listed off. She chewed on her lip, watched recognition dawn on his face, “And Aeleus Rask.” 

“Aeleus?" Loraine repeated as she interjected herself into the conversation. "Isn't he the guy who moved up the road, near the funeral home? He bought that decrypted old property no one wanted."

"Yeah, I thought that was odd," Keith agreed, "And I heard he wanted to grow out there."

"Nothing but scrub grows out there," Loraine stated. “No one’s been able to cultivate it since-- well.”

“Since before my papaw’s time,” Keith told her.

"Crazy," Xion interjected.

Both adults looked down as if remembering she was there. Her arms crossed and impatience pursed her lips. She didn't have time for the local gossip. They had no idea that their soft-spoken neighbor was the most feared man of the Organization. Nor that more than likely, Aeleus was using supernatural means to fix-up his land. It was best if it stayed that way.

“Is the Undertaker your father, or is he taking care of you?” Keith asked.

“Aeleus is,” Xion said. She scratched at her jaw, “He's my... dad.”

That sounded wrong, even to her.

“Aeleus is,” Keith repeated. His disbelief and confusion were clear. He and Loraine shared a look, "Does he take good care of you? Do you like him?"

"Yeah, I guess," Xion shrugged. "He's fine.”

"Where'd that bruise come from?" Keith asked.

"I fell," Xion said. Loraine and Keith stared at her. It was the first honest thing she said and they disbelieved her. Xion groaned, "I slipped off a rock and face planted. It's embarrassing and I don't wanna talk about it. Next question."

"Xion," Keith said. "I would like you to come with me, please. I'd like to talk with your father and you look like you need a ride."

“You're kidding,” Xion growled.

Keith shook his head and Xion closed her eyes. She almost snarled with frustration but cut the noise. These people were driving her nuts. She had the books. If Xion bolted now she could take them. Except Loraine had been nice and Xion wouldn't repay that with theft unless she had to. Xion had to take the food from Aeleus, it was a matter of survival. The books were optional. If Xion was dodging the law, Aeleus, and the Undertaker, then she wasn't keen on staying on this world. She burnt her bridges too soon.

Xion put her hand on her hip and gestured for Keith to show the way. He bid farewell to Loraine and Xion followed him out of the library. He opened the passenger door of the car for her. Xion slid into the seat, putting the books in her lap. Keith crossed around the front and clambered into the driver's side. He started the car and it lurched down the road towards the East.

There were signs on the road, for churches, and stores, and street. Xion voiced the letters to herself, whispering their names like a spell. “S. T. O. P.; B. A. P. T. I. S. T.; M. I. L. T. O. N.; S. L. O. W.” 

“You really don't know how to read?” Keith asked. He kept his eyes on the road. He pulled off the main road and onto the long drive that led to the funeral home. Aeleus' house loomed on the horizon. Xion's fingers scraped against her thigh, tearing into the denim of her pants. “It's okay if you don't. Some people pick-up on it slower.”

Xion didn't answer. She leaned her elbow against the window, hand covering her mouth. Since she arrived in this valley she had been unsettled. Hesitant, flinching, and frightened, like a child somewhere she did not belong. Fear was not in Xion's design. There was one way forward.Xion had to learn how to read. So she could interpret Vexen's notes. So she could understand herself. Nothing was more important at this moment. She'd handle Aeleus. If he or anyone else got in her way, she'd go through them.

Keith pulled into the driveway of Aeleus' house. He pushed open his door and walked around the front of the car to open Xion's. She clambered out of the car and followed him up the front walk. She was at his elbow as he knocked on the door. There was quiet in the house but Xion could sense that Aeleus was home. Then the window darkened with a shadow and the door swung open. Aeleus appeared through the mesh of the screen door.

“Good afternoon, Sheriff Markland!” Aeleus exclaimed with a smile. His eyes flashed when he saw Xion off to the side: surprise, relief, confusion. “Is there anythin’ I can do for you, today?”

Keith placed his hand on Xion's shoulder. She looked down at it. Her jaw tightened. She side-stepped to the right so his hand slipped off. Keith glanced down at Xion then returned his gaze to Aeleus. His thumbs hooked in his belt loops, “Is this your daughter, sir?”

The crease between Aeleus' brow was imperceptible and momentary. Between seconds his face brightened and he nodded with confident vigor. “Oh, yes, of course! I’m glad you found her, I was gettin' worried. Is she in trouble?”

“No, not at all,” Keith said, he raised his hand to assuage Aeleus' worry. “People in town had some concerns about her is all. I went ahead and gave her a ride home. Do you mind if I talk with you a sec? We can let the youngin' go on in.”

“Of course,” Aeleus said, he pushed open the door with his arm. “Xion, darlin', come on in. Lunch is on the table, go ahead and eat. I'll catch-up in a bit.” 

Xion darted from Keith's side and ducked under Aeleus' arm to enter the house. She turned the corner into the kitchen. Once behind the wall, she leaned back, out of sight of the men but in hearing range.

“How long has she lived with you, if you don't mind me askin'?” Keith asked. He placed his foot on the inside of the doorstop, looking-up at Aeleus.

“A couple of days,” Aeleus said. “Not long at all. Was she in town? She said she wanted to go to the library in the mornin.'"

“I picked her up at the library," Keith answered in confirmation. "So, I guess she did. There were a few calls about a wayward teenager this morning but I couldn't find her until Loraine called me. Is she in school?"

"She's gonna be homeschooled," Aeleus answered. "Her first family didn't teach her anythin', the bastards. I adopted her not long ago from a bad way. We got a lot to work on."

“Where she from?” Keith asked.

“Dallas,” Aeleus said. Xion smoothed her hand over her face and muffled a groan.

“Ah, right,” Keith grunted. “Well, that all makes a bit more sense. Thanks for sheddin' a little light on this situation. Now that everyone in town has seen her, we probably won't have to do this again. Have a good day, sir."

“Pleasant days, sir,” Aeleus called as he closed the door behind him. Xion remained against the wall, arms tightening and eyes squeezing shut. Aeleus sighed and then walked around the corner. “Now that's outta the way, did you sleep alright last night?” 

Aeleus crossed the kitchen and began to wash his hands in the sink. Xion watched him. Her eyes fell to the table. There was a spread of bread, sliced meats, pickles, carrots, celery, and two plates. Plus a new pitcher of iced tea, fresh and cold. Xion shrugged her bag off, ladened with cans and soap. She laid it at her feet. She was hungry again, since breakfast that morning. Xion stayed where she was though.

“Are you cultivating weeds out in that field?” Xion asked, glancing out the window.

Aeleus chuckled as he dried his hands, “Right now, yes. I bought this land for cheap 'cause no one else wanted it. It's been that way for a while. While I fix it up the only thing that's liked it is the goats.”

“You're going to miss the growing season,” Xion pointed-out.

“Ah, but it'll be ready next year,” Aeleus said.

"You really came out here to farm?" Xion grunted.

He laughed again, grinning at her as he beckoned her over to the table. “You look as hungry as I feel, come and eat.”

Aeleus sat in a chair at the table. Xion slunk from the wall and took the opposite seat. Aeleus took two slices of bread. He spread them with mayo and mustard. Then stacked the bread with ham, cheese, lettuce, slices of pickle, and made a sandwich. He arranged chips, celery, and carrots on his plate. Xion didn't move, staring at him and watching. Again she looked out to the horizon, North.

“I stole your stuff,” Xion stated.

Aeleus bit into his sandwich. He pressed his knuckles to his mouth as he chewed. He held up a finger for Xion as he swallowed, he chased it down with a swig of tea.

“Food and the soap,” she continued.

“The soap?” Aeleus grunted, he coughed and choked. “That's where that went-- I was looking for it this morning... don't matter. I left it out for you, that's fine.”

Xion leaned forward, eyes narrowing.

“It's not theft if I give it to you,” Aeleus said. “I told you you were welcome here. Whatever I have is yours. That's how it is in the valley, people look after each other. Now go ahead eat.” 

Still eying Aeleus, Xion reached over the table and began to arrange her own sandwich. Mayo, mustard, roast beef, lettuce, pickle, bread; then an assortment of chips and veggies. Food was food and she needed to eat. Xion sunk her teeth into sandwich. She closed her eyes, savoring the assortment of flavors. This was the most she'd ever eaten, three full meals in a row. It felt extravagant but she was still so hungry. She didn't care why Aeleus was feeding her. Even if it was to fatten her up to cook her in a stew. She cared about getting to eat.

“So, I gotta admit I'm curious,” Aeleus said. He'd only taken a couple bites but she was halfway through hers. “What'd you do to earn a ride home in the sheriff's car?” 

Xion shrugged and her feet scuffed against the floor. “You're not in trouble or anything,” Aeleus reassured her with a grin. “I was just wonderin', is all.”

“I don't know,” Xion growled. Her hand smacked the table edge. She put her sandwich down. “I was talking to the librarian. She got upset when I told her I couldn't read. Everyone is this town is so patronizing.”

“They see a kid that may need some help, they’re just concerned is all,” Aeleus began, even as she finished her sentence. He paused there, as though the rest of what she said digested at that moment. The ice clinked as it melted and shifted in the pitcher. He pinched his nose and groaned into his hand, “You can't read.”

“I told you last night,” Xion grunted. “Why else would I get those books for kids? I have to learn how.”

“I must've missed it,” Aeleus said, his hand smoothed over his hair. “Vexen didn't teach you?”

“I am a weapon,” Xion said. She picked up a chip and popped it in her mouth. It had a satisfying crunch. “I follow orders and I kill heartless. I don't need to know how to read. At least, that's how I always understood it.”

Xion shrugged but Aeleus worked his hand over his jaw. There was a darkness in his eyes but it wasn't directed at her. Instead of his gaze was off elsewhere, his thoughts on something else. He growled, “That son of a bitch.”

“Vexen didn't expect--” She paused. “Me. To exist. You were there, we both know why I was created.”

“That's not an excuse,” Aeleus said. He leaned forward, arms bracing on the table. “You were a child.”

“Not really,” Xion grunted. “It doesn't matter what Vexen did, it's what I'm going to do. I have these books now. I can teach myself how to read. It'll just take time.”

Aeleus' foot tapped beneath the table. He nodded to himself and then smiled for her again. “You can stay here, while you figure it out.”

“What's the catch?” Xion demanded.

“No catch,” Aeleus said. He lifted his hands. “I know you can feed yourself and take care of yourself, you have this long, but-- it's hard to learn like that. I'm offering to give you space where you can focus on what you need to. When you're ready to go, no questions--” he waved his hand. “Just leave. And you can come back, anytime you want. As long as you want.”

“Yeah, I get that you're saying, that,” Xion said. She stood, pushing up from the table. She snarled, “But why? And don't give me some sentimental,” Xion sputtered her voice raising to a shout, “junk?! Why?! Why do you care?! Why even pretend?!”

Aeleus remained seated. He dropped his hands to interlace in his lap. Every movement, every nuance of his expression she watched. Her eyes drilled into him, as though she could strip away layers of skin, muscle, and bone. And underneath all that, was the answer. Not as he presented it. Not through the distortions of bias and lies. The truth as it was in this moment. Aeleus remained as opaque and ungiving as the Earth which he commanded. She couldn't see through him. He took his time with his reply. He heard and listened to her, and he thought about it.

He met her eyes. “Because you deserve it.”

Xion flinched and pulled back as though Aeleus burned her. Her hands fisted and she chewed on words, but no noise came out. She bolted from the table. Xion snatched the bags with the books from the hallway as she passed. The front door slammed as she marched out onto the porch. She breathed in the fresh air as a breeze pulled at her hair. Xion sighed and sat down on the steps. Her legs hooked beneath her. She opened the first book and began to read.

#✰*✦ The face in the mirror⎧IC⎫#✰*✦ The Waking Hour⎧VERSE⎫#teardownheaven #wtf #why is this so long i'm shocked

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catsafarithewriter · 5 years

Text

Day 1: Outer Space

A/N: It’s started! Welcome to the TCR Birthday Bash 2019 - and day one begins with Outer Space. I’m taking a sort of anachronistic amalgamation of sci-fi (a few places from Star Trek, a species from Star Wars, a little actual space science from my meagre knowledge) and smushing them together. None of this fits either series, it’s just an easy little head-nod. (And saves me having to make up names.)

There was hair in Haru’s eyes.

There was hair in Haru’s eyes and there was nothing she could do about it.

She tilted her head back, her breath echoing back to her in the confines of the EVA helmet, but that just achieved another loose strand falling across her face . Typical. She squinted between her hair and lowered her gold visor down against the glare of Darmok II’s sun that was beaming blindingly through the hole where her ship’s bow had once been.

At her lowered visor, the sun’s beams became tolerable. It did not, however, stop the flashing red warning lights.

Something trickled along the back of her neck and into the specially-designed absorption pad at the nape of her helmet. It felt sticky. Sweat, possibly. Another droplet ran down her nose and onto her lips. She tasted metal.

Blood.

“Fine rescue mission this turned out to be,” she mumbled to no one.

It wasn’t even her job. She was just a mechanic by trade, shuttled over to Tanagra Space Station to replace their last expert in Quadex power cores.

(Quite how they had misplaced the previous mechanic, Haru hadn’t been told, but weird things tended to happen when you worked on a space station on the edge of the Neutral Zone - the expanse of impartial space between Federation and Cathar territory.)

(She was pretty sure she didn’t want to know the answer anyway.)

So, long story short, there was really no reason why she should have detoured off course to respond to the weak distress call emanating from Darmok II, except that no one else was close enough to hear it and her mother didn’t raise a quitter. (She had, however, raised a fool, and Haru was quickly learning the two were a potent mix for stupidly rash decisions.)

Haru pulled herself over to the shattered console, trying to find an explanation for why her ship’s electronics had suddenly cut out halfway through the planet’s meagre atmosphere. The solar panels were still in one piece though, and the backup generator had kicked in and was devoting most of its power to warning its sole occupant that there was a breach in pressure.

Haru glanced back up to the giant tear in the ship’s hull. “No shit, Sherlock,” she muttered before proceeding to switch off the alarms. The red lights dimmed and were replaced with an unsteady glow. She began to appraise the situation.

The communication console was shattered beyond repair. A shard of the hull embedded into the panel had seen to that. Well, better the console than Haru, although if she couldn't get a signal up to Tanagra, then she was probably as good as dead anyway. The shuttle had an oxygen reclaimer that would work indefinitely, but that required water and power and not being open to the vacuum of space.

Her suit, on the other hand, was still intact, but it only had about six hours before the carbon dioxide scrubbers ran out. She shifted across the wrecked shuttle and felt the stronger gravity of Darmok II weigh her down. Five hours, she amended. Her suit readouts confirmed her heart rate was already rising, along with her oxygen intake. Not fatal. Not worrying, short-term anyway. She wouldn’t be on this planet long enough to test the long-term effects - one way or another.

The scanner was still working though. Great. So she could be extra sure she was dying alone while the life support system in her suit ran dry. Typical.

A single dot onscreen beeped to the ship’s starboard.

Or... not so alone, she amended.

She fumbled with the display until it informed her that, yes, there was another life form on this planet. Faint, but alive. And close. Two kilometres, as improbable as that was.

The SOS call. It had to be.

So, option one: Attempt to revive her ship to send out a distress call to reach Tanagra. Hope she could get it up and working in under five hours.

Option two: locate the SOS ship and modulate their communications system to Tanagra’s signal. Hope it was possible. Hope their console was in better state than hers. Hope their ship wasn’t running out of oxygen.

If she had any common sense, she would side with option one.

The little dot continued to beep and Haru muttered a curse.

Common sense had never been her forte.

The SOS ship was, ironically, in a better shape than Haru’s.

She clambered onto the rocky outcrop it had crash-landed on, and leant heavily against the hull. Geez, the extra gravity was taking its toll. Her suit informed her that it was 1.2g - just a little over Earth’s usual gravity, but she wasn’t accustomed to Earth. She was accustomed to space and floating and not having to carry her own weight.

She leant there for a few moments longer. The carbon dioxide scrubbers levels sank a little lower. Time was marching on.

She rolled her head to one side and eyed the ship. It was damaged and dented and dull, but there was no insignia on it. She located the exterior hatch and, after some prodding and poking and muttered curses, navigated her way inside and through the airlock.

She froze at the hatch.

The source of the life signs sat in the cockpit of the shuttle. Unconscious. No blood. They wore an EVA suit - similar in function to Haru’s, but altered in design - with helmet removed. Haru tried to focus on those details and not the fact that she was staring at a Cathar.

His face was feline - although Haru had been told that there was no actual feline ancestry in the Cathar race, just a coincidence of the universe - but it was quite one thing to know, another thing to see. Ginger fur ran across his face, cream markings resting beneath his eyes. His mouth was ajar. Haru could see sharp canine teeth.

A Cathar. She inhaled sharply. The pure oxygen intake made her momentarily dizzy. What was a Cathar even doing on this side of the Neutral Zone? The Federation and the Cathar weren’t exactly enemies but... there was a reason for the Neutral Zone. Relations were taut. History was fraught. And she was standing in a Cathar shuttle.

She exhaled and made herself approach. Enemy or no, she had responded to his distress signal. And she was here now.

She gently set the helmet onto his head, clicking it into place and trying to avoid catching his whiskers. His suit’s readout confirmed he wasn’t dead. Somehow. There was a heartbeat - slow, almost impossibly slow - his body in complete shut-down. A form of hibernation, perhaps? Torpor? A way to survive the killing environment he was stuck in? The suit looked undamaged. Power still running. His oxygen tanks were empty.

She shouldn’t do it. Time was tight enough against her even as it was, let alone halving her remaining air to save - to try to save - someone who could turn against her.

She replaced one of his used oxygen tanks with one of her full ones. It probably wouldn’t be enough to revive him, but perhaps it would be enough to stop him dying. The hibernation would only sustain him for so long, after all.

She collapsed down into the seat beside him and located something resembling an update of the ship’s functions. It was airtight, but unbreathable. The oxygen reclaimer - or the equivalent on the ship - looked to have been damaged in the crash. The power was low, but only because the solar panels had been misaligned. The communications console was working - and still sending out the SOS - but the system was unrecognisable. She’d need to be a Cathar to understand it.

Maybe if she could get the oxygen reclaimer from her ship, she could buy a little more time...

Movement flickered in the corner of her visor and she turned just in time to see the Cathar lung at her. She screamed, jolted back, and smacked against the side of the ship, the Cathar pinning her into place and his visor inches away from her own.

He growled something in a language Haru didn’t understand.

“I’m not here to hurt you!” Haru yelped back. She tried to shift away, but the Cathar’s grip was strong. “I’m just trying to help!”

The Cathar didn’t release her. He said something else, something Haru again didn’t recognise.

“I... I don’t understand,” Haru faltered. Dammit. Naturally the universal translator would be broken too. On both their ends, it would seem. “But I was trying to help.” She held up her hands in what she hoped was a universal sign for placating. “I’m just,” she repeated, calmly, “trying to help.”

The Cathar’s gaze flickered over the rest of his ship, over the console Haru had manhandled to bring up the ship’s readouts, and then back to Haru herself. His eyes were bright green, almost gemlike. Slitted and feline. Definitely not human. He started to say something else and then those gemlike eyes unfocused and his legs buckled.

Haru caught him, to the surprise of them both.

“You’re welcome,” she grunted. She set him back in his seat and, against all her survival instincts, clattered down into the chair beside him. “That’s what you get for trying a stunt like that so soon after waking up.” She groaned and watched her air tick ever lower. “Look, I know you can’t understand me, but we don’t have much time and we need to do something otherwise we’re both going to die in...” She did the calculations, “two hours.”

The Cathar didn’t say anything.

“Honestly, I came here to help. Check your oxygen levels if you don’t believe me.” She motioned weakly to the tanks attached to his back and hoped it was self-explanatory enough.

He gave her a long, baleful stare, but eventually cast his attention to his suit. She could tell he had found the oxygen readout when he went very still. He uttered a single, questioning word.

She tapped the communication console, where the distress call was just about still working, and then tapped the side of her helmet. “I heard you. I didn’t realise it was a Cathar ship at the time,” she muttered to herself, “but I still heard you.”

From the confusion in his eyes, her answer didn’t seem adequate.

She moved onto other matters, pulling herself out of her seat and towards the back of the small craft. She ignored the way the Cathar leant away from her as she passed. She tapped the defunct oxygen reclaimer. “I have a working one in my ship,” she said, motioning her words as best she could. “We could bring it here and survive a little longer. But I need your help to move it. Do you understand?”

The Cathar rose to his feet, and now it was Haru’s turn to lean away. He was tall. Not beyond human height, but still... tall enough for her to step back. He eyed the oxygen reclaimer, his gaze no longer aggressive, but still wary. He nodded.

Moving the oxygen reclaimer alone would have been completely impossible.

Between two, it was just nearly impossible.

Haru collapsed down into the small craft, alarms beeping inside her suit and red warning signs on the life system readouts.

Stupid, really. She’d accounted for collecting the oxygen reclaimer, but not for the extra oxygen intake/carbon dioxide outtake while dragging it across Darmok II, or for the hour it would take to refill the Cathar’s ship to a breathable atmosphere.

She was going to asphyxiate by an error of sixty minutes.

The world swan before her eyes, the headache she’d been ignoring for the last hour now pulsing through her brain. The Cathar had his back to her, fiddling with some panelling in the wall and barely sparing her a glance. Charming.

“See if I save your life next time,” she wheezed. Typical. If she’d known Cathars had a lower respiration rate, she would have saved a little more air for herself.

He turned to her, tubing and mask in one hand, and detached his oxygen tank. Haru inhaled sharply - or tried to, anyway. Her head just span some more. The world momentarily flickered. “What...?”

He approached. Haru couldn’t have scooted away even if she’d wanted to. She was concentrating on not blacking out. She couldn’t even spare the energy to flinch as he placed his gloved hands around her helmet. After a long moment, he found what he was looking for and removed it. He attached the mask to the lower half of her face and motioned for her to breath.

She gasped and oxygen - wonderful oxygen - rushed into her lungs. She didn’t even realise she was leaning against the Cathar until he tapped the mask and she looked up.

Satisfied she wasn’t still inhaling, he removed his own helmet and took a breath from the oxygen mask himself.

“Thank you,” she mumbled the next time it was her turn.

The Cathar tilted his head.

She motioned to the makeshift oxygen mask, and then between the two of them. “For, you know, not leaving me to die.”

She wasn’t sure he understood, but he almost seemed to smile. Maybe that would be enough.

She leant away, straightening and patting her chest. “Haru.” If they were going to be stuck together until they figured a way off this planet - or until death came for them - she would at least know the name of her companion. “Haru,” she repeated, and then gestured to him.

There was definitely a smile this time.

“Baron.”

#tcr birthday bash 2019 #tcr birthday bash #the cat returns #day 1 outer space #the actual premise i'm borrowing from a next gen star trek ep #called darmok #i've also been flipping through a book called ask an astronaut #for uh actually wolf 359 purposes #but there's been some fun things I learnt #oh and also inspiration taken from the martian and artemis #concept haru and baron stuck on a planet together and have to work together to get off #god that got long

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soveryanon · 5 years

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Reviewing time for MAG135 /o/

- Fun fact! The verb “extinguish” has appeared as a word in all three of the Daedalus statements, in relation to the three different powers involved:

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “There’s nothing, nothing but empty, uncaring void lacing dead worlds and dead stars all-together like a tapestry of lonely meaninglessness. Humans have existed for the smallest sliver of a fraction of a moment in the existence of the universe, and we will be extinguished just as quickly. And when we are at last gone forever, into the quiet emptiness of death, there will be nothing left but the cold universe. And nothing shall mark our passing because there is nothing to do so.”

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “Most people can’t even properly appreciate the size of our own planet, seeing it only in crudely rendered diagrams or maps; but compared to us… the planet is immense. More than large enough for the swell of humanity to grow and… ultimately extinguish itself. [SCOFF] Yet compared to the wider universe… it isn’t even a noticeable speck.”

(MAG135) ELIAS: I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside. I… believe they call it “The Extinguished Sun”, though that’s as much as I know.

- I love how The Dark still feels like… that one fear which should be super stereotypical (Cult Of Darkness.) and yet always manages to get under your skin anyway, and is that one thing that we’re apparently never managing to get rid of. Julia and Trevor butchered Darvish in Summer 2010? No problem. Things happened in March-to-May 2015 at the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel, apparently derailing or temporarily neutralising The Dark’s activities? Ahaha, we’ll manage. Maxwell Rayner was killed by Section 31 officers on Elias’s Personal Tip in February 2017? IT’S FINE. WE CAN STILL DO SOMETHING. I had Questions about how The Dark was connected with Gertrude’s death, I’m delighted that we’ll be digging into their activities again, since Jon isn’t sure what happened – isn’t even sure whether Gertrude had managed to neutralise them! I wonder if the matter of March/May 2015 as the date of Gertrude’s death will be explained, or if I should finally put that to rest as a simple mistake.

… Interestingly, following the pattern of solar eclipses: the total solar eclipse over Ny-Ålesund that Basira had pinned down actually took place on 20th March 2015, which is… neither when Mark Bilham went into the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel (March 11th), neither when Gertrude officially died (March 15th or May 15th), but is around the time she should have died according to Oliver’s dreams. In real life, the next solar eclipse (partial) in Ny-Ålesund happened on August 11th 2018, so that could be the planned date for the upcoming half-baked new ritual attempt indeed… but the date is a bit weird for the overall pacing of season 4. We’re in… beginning of April? 2018, and usually getting a statement a week (more or less). So that doesn’t easily coincide with a midseason finale, nor with the season finale? Unless Team Archive hurries to get to Svalbard very soon, in the hope of neutralising The Dark before August 2018. (Funny bit: there was a partial solar eclipse in South America on February 15th 2018… the day Oliver visited Jon and he woke up from his “coma”.)

I have no idea: there are so many things to keep track of, currently (Peter’s own plans? The Extinction’s threat? Elias’s intentions regarding The Watcher’s Crown? The Web’s schemes and intentions for Jon? Now, The Dark’s activities?) – I… do like that it indeed gives us a feeling that, outside of pure narrative… all the Fears have their own agenda, they’re not just queuing up for the Archives team to take care of them? They’re not dependant on them, they carry on Doing Their Things and bringing their own terrors? And it’s… very bittersweet to think that it will probably always be like this.

- I’m so mad about the fact that Manuela’s story makes… so much sense with how Jan had described her:

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “Manuela Dominguez was quite a big name in certain areas of the physics community. Or at least she had been; I hadn’t heard of any work she’d done for a good few years and, as I said I’m more on the engineering side of things so… it wasn’t really something I kept up with in detail. While she was happy to talk, Manuela apparently didn’t like to discuss her professional life on Earth, or the specifics of the research she was doing on the Daedalus. Like Chilcott, her research was kept entirely separate from mine, and while we spent plenty of time together, I never did figure out exactly what it was. Something to do with lasers, I think.”

I never ever thought for one second that it might have been “it’s because she’s part of the cult, Cass, and has been for the past years” aND YET IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE AND SEEMS SO OBVIOUS IN RETROSPECT… I’m so mad, I love this series and it keeps making me feel like a Fool. (But with love. Cackling at my face, but with love.) Another thing that gets a bit… “funny” in retrospect:

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “It was the sense of a presence, of there being something out there… something that wasn’t the Earth, and it was getting closer… When it started, I tried to talk to Manuela about it, but she seemed to think I was talking about aliens and quickly changed the subject. […] And that cry came again; so loud, and long, and deep that I couldn’t not be the sound of a living thing – so vast and so ancient that thinking about it made me weep. And I screamed in turn. My hands touched the rail at the exact moment that Manuela came to check on me. I was moving again. She asked if I was alright, though she… clearly had no interest in the answer. She said she’d felt the station shake, bu–ut when I pressed, she… claimed she hadn’t heard anything. Her eyes were red and I noticed for the first time that the tips of her fingers were burned. I… don’t know why I asked her, really. I knew then that she hadn’t heard it – that she would never hear it. And I felt completely alone. I remember I almost envied Chilcott, because at least he had known what he was signing up for.”

…………………… She probably assumed that Jan had heard her “battery” screaming, uh, hence the quick denial.

- WHY DO WE KEEP GETTING OPPORTUNITIES TO GET SAD ABOUT JAN KILBRIDE??? There was already something very… sensitive and heart-wrenching in his statement from MAG106, in his thought and overall tone (I’m apparently very weak to characters pulling the ~I would have liked to still be able to think that ignorance meant safety~ shtick ;;), even more with Melanie’s narration – she was absolutely perfect for that one, with her voice slightly cracking and the overall impression of throat tightening… And I was already sad for him with that statement alone! Even sadder when thinking he was probably the man with beautiful eyes seen with Gertrude during The Buried’s ritual! And season 4 keeps making me sad about him, godsdamnit, first with Jon mentioning how he ended, and now with:

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “Either way, it was clear my two fellow astronauts were patsies, sent up there to suffer. I almost felt bad for them, but it was in most ways a relief to know I wouldn’t need to worry about them interfering with my own project. […] the closest I ever came to discovery was when Kilbride expressed confusion at the rate that our supplies were diminishing. It was really only the two of us anyway, with Chilcott sealed away, having his own little breakdown. And Jan was always a bit of an idiot, so ready to believe anyone’s lies… But I suppose I don’t need to tell you that – do I, Gertrude?”

(The insidiousness was creepy, sure, but come on, Dark people, we’re so used to Voyeurs all the time, you spilling that You Know What Gertrude Did With Jan doesn’t feel mind-blowingly threatening compared to the others <3)

I wonder if we’ll hear again about the Daedalus. Melanie had noticed that Jan’s statement felt like it ended abruptly (presumably, Gertrude was told he was here and interrupted him to have a chat?) – so there could be another half lying around, or a live-statement with Gertrude, or… I don’t know. But now that we know that there was a 4th person on the station (WHICH WAS A “HOLY ARCEUS” MOMENT), and given that Manuela mentioned that she wasn’t sure of the Lukases&the Fairchilds’ own motives + that… the person who had taken care of the calculation must have been aware of the extra body, but she didn’t say it was Rayner’s team taking care of that aspect, it still feels like there might have been another story against the Currently Official Story (once again):

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “I don’t know how he convinced Fairchild and the Lukases to help finance the project – a life as long as his is evidently very good for one’s finances, but even so, space exploration is a whole other magnitude of expenditure. I don’t entirely know if they were working on rituals of their own, or simply pushing the boundaries of their own fears, their masters. […] Exactly how the launch was arranged, I couldn’t tell you, but I assume the calculations must have been done by one of ours. Otherwise, well… weight is very important when planning a launch, and it could hardly have escaped their notice that there were four people in that rocket.”

I’m very appreciative of the way the Daedalus had been handled in the canon, slowly taking “shape”. We first had Carter Chilcott’s testimony, who… couldn’t tell us a lot about the life aboard, except for his own experience, since he was precisely isolated; we then had Jan, who was more in control but still unaware of what was at work there; and now, we’re getting Manuela, who turned out to have been totally aware of the aim of the mission. This could be the end of the story, or there could be yet more to put things into perspective (ha), we’ll see!

- I don’t know which shade of queer Manuela was/is but: definitely queer (“Anything they did not understand became unnatural and I found myself crossing that line from an early age. Although strangely, out of everything I was, it was always my desire to pursue a scientific career that they railed against with the most energy.”). AND SO AWFUL HOLY HECK… I’m glad that Daisy wasn’t in the room with Jon because his tone was so into it that… he might have freaked her out a bit? It was terrifying, so… deceptively sweet while digging the knife deep into your flesh…

- One thing that gets me a lot (in a “HHHHHhhHHHH” way) is when… avatars talk about their patrons? The reverence, the worship in their words? And Manuela was especially “HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” is that regard: yes, absolutely terrible, and did you hear that drive and that passion? (It’s hot/aesthetically pleasing, is what I want to say.)

I still have… the impression, in a way, that the Daedalus never actually happened in the TMA universe; Melanie had mentioned that feeling in MAG106, though she pointed out the existence of pictures of the crew’s return to Earth, but somehow… I can’t help but feel like indeed, it was too out of our realm to truly have happened, and that it was all staged by another entity/by the Lukases&the Fairchilds, to pretend it had happened when actually the staff had stayed on Earth all along, and that they organised the press releases about it? But it’s also awfully fitting that yes, Fears experiments sound so impossible that it can’t have been happening. If there is no twist, it seems like avatars are drawing powers from their patrons proportionally to the faith they have in them?

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “Scientifically, it was nonsense of course. Dark energy and the like don’t work like that, not even remotely. But that wasn’t important. What mattered was that it felt like science, and that was all I needed. To do my work, to create the Black Star would need a parody, an aping mockery of science. But it would also need the deepest of darknesses. When I told Maxwell what I actually needed, he told me such a thing was impossible, but I insisted. And so he began his work on the Daedalus.

[…] My experiments continued largely uninterrupted, pushing the boundaries of light, darkness and fear. It was dangerous work and more than once, I got too close to the light and it almost destroyed me. But it didn’t. I could regale you with the technical terms or scientific disciplines I played with and rendered meaningless, but in the end all you actually need to know is that I succeeded. A tiny, terrible sun of the pitchest black, shining beautiful Darkness all around it.”

Like a twisted “believe in fairies” – things getting the power you give them, similarly to symbols? Sarah had, back in the days, said the Trophy Room Taxidermy Shop got its powers from people’s interactions with it (MAG096: “What is the significance of this place?” “Nothing, except what people give it. But they give it a lot, make it a place of power for us.”)

If the experiment did indeed happen in space: there had been hypotheses that the “falling satellite debris” which killed Oliver had been the Daedalus, and I had dismissed it because the dates didn’t match at all… but I’m a stupid potato and: of course the crew returned to Earth through a shuttle, and this was explicitly stated by Manuela. So it could still have been the Daedalus going full-on Icarus.

… But on the other hand: while the name “Daedalus” finally takes a bit more meaning with this episode (the story about ~getting too close to the sun~), Daedalus was actually the prudent one, who remained wary of the sun and was clever enough to always escape the murder attempts. Icarus went too close to the sun (and drowned in the sea, leaving Daedalus alone). Daedalus… gave his name to the maze, and brings corridors to minds. (But the “Daedalus project” was an actual, historical one, which never got completed in our world… Rah, I don’t know! The fact that we learned that Manuela had actually been full-on avatar in the space station, and not an innocent scientist victim of The Dark, makes me paranoid about another… twist regarding the station x’))

We’ve had another reference to Icarus in the canon, though: “George Icarus” was the name under which Leitner was buried, as Tim discovered in MAG114. Paid by the Institute. It fits Leitner very well but… given the ties between “Daedalus” and “Icarus”, it feels like a very weird coincidence – so did you get involved in the space project in one way or another, Elias… *squints*)

- Regarding the 4th person on the Daedalus, I’ve been grabbing my face a lot and screaming in silence about the sheer HORROR of suddenly learning that… there was someone else aboard, with Manuela very casually dehumanizing him at every possible turn (“one unlucky nyctophobe”, “I never learned his name, never needed to; he was simply a battery”, “The final experiment had left my battery in such a state that no amount of sound-proofing could dampen the screams, and I was glad of the peace and quiet.”). I wonder if it’s someone we’ve already seen mentioned somewhere…? The only potential one (in my mind) would be Peter “Pete” Gordo, who worked at the Wakefield Prison in MAG052 – Exceptional Risk, and had touched the Dark creature when it came to butcher Robert Montauk. Both the (awful) statement-giver and Jon had highlighted that he had vanished shortly after, in 2002, so he was probably a “half-finished meal” too…

Since Manuela… didn’t mention killing him but implied that she had left him behind (alone) in the station when she went back to Earth with the other two, I wonder if he might have turned into Something Else, or if he plainly died of exhaustion / lack of oxygen / starvation / Fear (alone, in the dark empty infinite space). Conceptually, it could be a good tie-in if he had somehow become an avatar of Extinction, but I don’t know how that could fit with his primal fear and what happened to him. One thing I have in mind, though: Daedalus was the inventor who helped Pasiphae copulate with the bull, in the myth, and the Minotaur wouldn’t have been conceived without it. So… Daedalus contributed to Creating The Monster (before working to contain it). Not sure it could be relevant, but just in case… there is that.

(- Extra-funny thing about Icarus/Daedalus……………… remember how Peter had called Jon in MAG134? A “bull-headed Archivist”. Congrats, Jon! It might have been involuntary (IS IT.) but you’re officially the Monster In The Labyrinth, right now, according to the Lonely creepy boat captain.)

(And again: considering that it turned out Martin was the one who gave Jon the connection to the outside that helped pull him out of the coffin, does that make Martin an Ariadne.)

- So, we got a new name for a ritual (The Dark is ~The Extinguished Sun~) but we also got the notion of a “stronghold” mentioned by Elias:

(MAG135) ELIAS: I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside.

=> Breekon had described the Institute as “The Eye’s Pedestal” (MAG128, “That was the first time we saw what would become this place, The Eye’s Pedestal.”), too. The question is still pending for Point Nemo (a Vast one? An End one?) and Hill Top Road (neutral ground or Web? Desolation? Spiral?). For the Lonely, Carter Chilcott had very specific dreams reminiscent of the graveyard from Naomi’s statement and of the Tundra’s journeys:

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “The hallucination stopped. I did not even get the comfort of company in my delusions, though at some point, the line between dreaming and reality seemed to blur. I’d be sleeping, strapped into my bed in the middle of the void, or at the same time floating through ancient graveyards or the open, empty sea. They weren’t hallucinations though, they were dreams – even if the cold seem to seep out of them, and into the bones of me.”

And there were the places where ritual attempts took place – the Wax Museum for The Stranger (though the Taxidermy Shop was also “a place of power” for them), that Elias claimed to be unable to access (and Jon did feel weird with no conception of time there); the town of Bucoda, for The Buried; Sannikov Land, for The Spiral; the Gnostic church near Istanbul for The Flesh (and potentially the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel for The Dark). Given how these places got… severely destroyed after their rituals got thwarted, it sounds like they were only been temporary places to build up power? Ny-Ålesund and the plain… sea are a bit more permanent than those punctual places, though? (Please, Team Archive, don’t go bombing the whole of Ny-Ålesund.)

- If we’re going to be digging a bit more into Dark-related activities… will we get a confirmation of what the fuck was happening re:Maxwell Rayner? Did he just have a remarkably long lifetime thanks to “feeding” his god, like Simon Fairchild, since we know that he was already around in the XIXth century and Manuela herself made a reference to the fact he had been around for very long (MAG135: “a life as long as his is evidently very good for one’s finances”)? I know the favourite fantheory on this one is that he’d been body-hopping but I’ve never been convinced since we didn’t really have descriptions of him changing, except that he was often Kind Of Old. There… has indeed been a suspicious trend of him targeting or getting a child around him: an unnamed one in 1864 (MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss: “He is led around by a young Arabian lad of ten or eleven, though the ease with which he carries himself makes me suspect this assistance is an affectation rather than necessity.”); in 1995, Julia was attacked by the creature when she was 12; Basira and the other officers were sent against Rayner after he had kidnapped Callum Brodie, twelve years old, in January 2017 (MAG073, Basira: “Yeah. Callum Brodie. Twelve… twelve years old. Disappeared from his home in Dalston three weeks ago.”) – but it’s not necessarily to get a new body…? I always had the impression that it could plainly be because… well, the fear of the Dark is more prominent in children? So they could perhaps feed Dark-people better?

- I mostly wonder if (/hope that) we will get a bit more information about the relationship between Robert Montauk and Maxwell Rayner, in the process! Because… honestly, except for the fact that Robert’s wife apparently belonged to the People’s Church of the Divine Host (since she had the pendant) and that Robert killed around 40 people between 1990 and 1995 that may or may not have all been related to the cult, there are a loooot of things I’m still uncertain about? And Jon still had Questions about it too:

(MAG052) ARCHIVIST: So what is this thing that seems to have stalked Robert Montauk through so much of his life? And what’s its connection to Rayner? Were they summoning it, containing it, worshipping it? Whatever the case, it seems as though Montauk earned its anger. I feel it might be worthwhile getting a few more torches for the Archive.

(MAG074) ARCHIVIST: Well, that seems to close the book on Maxwell Rayner. Maybe the whole People’s Church of the Divine Host. I can’t help but feel I’ve got the last chapter of a story and I don’t even know the title. At least I hope it’s the last chapter. I still can’t find much about the company Outer Bay Shipping. Looks like a shell corporation, but tracking corporate ownership is not something I’m skilled at.

* Was Julia’s mother a runaway from the cult, or an active participant? It sounded to be the latter since Julia mentioned that she used to have friends who… didn’t inquire on her disappearance (MAG009: “apparently no-one noticed she was gone, which was strange as I have vague memories of her having friends over a lot before she vanished.”) Had she left her pendant to trap Julia too? Did she disappear to protect Julia? Did she willingly get spirited away? Actually, Robert told Julia she was “gone” but since Robert’s last victim had disappeared from his previous life a few years before his murder (MAG009, Archivist: “Christopher Lorne was a member of the church and his family hadn’t heard from him in the six years prior to his murder.”)… could it be possible that Julia’s mother is actually… still alive… and very Invested in the cult…

* Robert apparently did these things in order to protect Julia from… the cult? The creature? Maxwell? Julia did highlight that protecting her was one of his concerns (MAG009: “He whispered to me then, when he thought I was asleep, promised to protect me, to make sure that ‘it wouldn’t get me too’.”), but she didn’t really come out of the story acknowledging that it was what he was trying to achieve, I felt – not even to renounce his methods or success. Even when we got her live-statement in MAG109, she presented his actions as unrelated to her. But what was Robert doing exactly, and why…?

* Julia highlighted that they didn’t get any money problems (MAG009: “it was only after his arrest that I discovered that had been the point he’d resigned his job on the police force. I don’t know where the money came from after that but we always seemed to have enough.”) sooo was Maxwell Rayner paying for Robert’s… services?

* Robert and Rayner apparently hated each other by the time of Robert’s imprisonment, when Rayner visited him in Wakefield Prison in late March 2002, a few months before getting butchered by The Dark’s creature (… or one of them):

(MAG052, Phillip Brown) “It was an older guy, I’d guess late 50s, wearing a well-tailored black suit and an expression of disgust. When I brought Montauk in, his face fell, and he went very pale. I’d helped folks beat Robert Montauk a dozen times or more, but I had never seen him look scared. He sat down opposite the old man, and they looked each other in the eye through the thick glass. I think the visitor might have been blind. His eyes were cloudy, but he had no cane or dog. And it didn’t seem to affect how he looked at Montauk. Neither of them spoke. The seconds turned into minutes and still they didn’t say a word. They just sat there staring. Given where I work, it’s really something to be able to say that I’ve never seen two people who hated each other as much as Robert Montauk and that old man.

[…] I was tense, ready to fight off Montauk if he decided to make a move, but instead, a soft voice came from out of the darkness. I didn’t recognise it, but I thought it sounded like it came from the old man, and I don’t think he was talking to me. [STATIC:] “You didn’t think you could kill it for long, did you?” [/STATIC] That’s what it said. Then Pete got the door open, and a shaft of light poured in from the corridor. I could once again see Montauk and the old man sat there, motionless. It didn’t seem like they’d moved an inch, though as I went to take Montauk back to his cell, I noticed that he was crying.”

But before that, Rayner had apparently sent Robert after his next targets (MAG009, Julia: “He asked me to tell my father that it was Detective Rayner on the line with a new case for him.”), so? Unless the last one was someone that Robert went after without Rayner’s approval? Christopher Lorne, Robert’s last victim, was the only identified one, and was confirmed to have belonged to the People’s Church of the Divine Host. Was he an exception, or were all the previous victims from the cult too? In that case, why the heck was Maxwell Rayner getting them killed…? Or were they typical sacrifices in the cult? What happened, for Rayner to have come to loathe Robert, although he previous appeared to be giving him instructions…?

* Unless… was the man who phoned the Montauk’s house and pretended to be “officer Rayner” actually Maxwell Rayner, or someone making fun of him? Julia mentioned that the voice was old (fitting Rayner, forever a bit old) but… that it had an accent (MAG009: “It was a breathy voice, like that of an old man, and at the time I decided he had a German accent, though, when I was young a lot of different nationalities and accents were lumped together in my mind under the label ‘German’.”). If we know one thing from Maxwell Rayner’s voice, at least during the XIXth century, it’s precisely… that it just sounded unremarkable in English (MAG098: “Both speak perfect English, with no accent I can recognise”) – though the statement also dealt with German folklore and Rayner Knew about it, so who knows. Same person, different perceptions? Body-hopping after all? “Maxwell Rayner” being a mantle and a role more than the same person/soul?

- tl;dr Given how The Dark has been a huge part of Julia’s story and there is still room for Questions regarding Robert Montauk… if the Archival staff is planning to go after the remnant of the cult, I really hope that it will be Julia’s cue to come back… Although it has been stated that she couldn’t handle the idea of travelling by boat for very long.

- Re: Manuela’s DRIVE, how fitting that this was also an episode in which Elias casually mentioned his own ~patron~ (I’m really glad that Peter and Elias are now using that word too! It had, so far, mostly been used by other people to refer to avatars’ gods, not avatars themselves presenting their gods this way). Elias rarely mentions The Eye unprompted, and there was something interesting in the way the plural “you” from Manuela’s statement, referring to Gertrude and Elias, became that implied “we” from Elias, referring to him and… Jon, nowadays.

(MAG135) ELIAS: Fine. Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron.

Not the first time Elias amalgamated Jon and himself in the same ~we~ (MAG092: “It doesn’t please your master?” “Our master, Jon.”) but it was especially noticeable since Manuela had totally reduced the relevant Eye agents to the Archivist and the Head of the Institute, too. I don’t know how to explain that but… I felt like there was a bit of an echo, between the fact that Manuela had her own “we” (“even with the loss of Darvish, we will still be victorious”) with clearly identified, more powerful figures (Maxwell, Darvish, Manuela herself), and the… Eye people. There is mostly Elias and Jon, they’re the ones with powers, and as Manuela is describing The Dark’s ritual coming closer at the time of her statement, I feel like the shadow of the Watcher’s Crown is silently looming in a corner?

- As usual: e v e r y t h i n g about Elias. It’s been twice in a row now that Peter appears in an episode only for Elias to do the same in the very next episode and it feels like a competition between the Two Bastards to claim the Throne. Or a friendly competition between Alasdair Stuart and Ben Meredith to see who will manage to make people laughscream the most.

Anyway, non-exhaustive bullet list of Elias being… Elias:

* Do you think he will manage to give ONE GOOD PERFORMANCE REVIEW ONE DAY. I mean, how did he handle Melanie, who worked the hardest of all the assistants in the beginning of season 3, who read the most statements after Martin, who was given work by Jon, and all despite the lack of Archival training&direction (as she called Elias out on)?

(MAG106) ELIAS: And… how are you finding it? MELANIE: Is that a joke? ELIAS: Aside from the obvious, I mean. MELANIE: Oh well, I… I suppose it’s been… unstructured. Without Jon around, and with you being sat up here lurking, there’s not been a lot of useful direction. ELIAS: I see. MELANIE: I mean, you pick out a statement occasionally, and Jon might phone in to ask after some… scrap of information, but to be honest, no one’s even really told me what an “archival assistant” is actually supposed to do.

[A FEW EVIL SPEECHES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE SESSIONS LATER]

MELANIE: [BROKEN SOBS] ELIAS: Anyway. Aside from all of that, I’d say your performance has been… satisfactory.

Meanwhile, Jon, who managed to snap out of the chaos that was The Unknowing, saw through Nikola, managed to compel Tim back to awareness enough for Tim to use the detonator…

(MAG135) ELIAS: Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron. His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing.

… was “disappointing”. THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAID IN MAG120, THOUGH, YOU JERK:

(MAG120) ELIAS: You’re doing well, Jon. I only hope you can continue your growth without my guidance.

Insert the “My job here is done.” “But you didn’t do anything…?” meme here.

Elias, just face it: you’re a shit boss, a shit manager, a shit leader, absolutely terrible when it comes to actually giving direction, they’re not responsible for this!! :w

* Well, at the same time, calm your Jon!boner Elias:

(MAG135) BASIRA: Then you messed up. Way he tells it, he doesn’t know how he got out of there. ELIAS: But he did. And his powers were no small part of it. Even if he required some assistance, they were what saved him. And he’s still achieved what no one – mortal, monster, or anything in-between – has ever been able to. He climbed out of The Buried. […] If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera.

I had wondered whether Jon wasn’t beginning to get a biiit more powerful than was to Elias’s taste (since he mentioned to Basira that he has given instructions to prevent Jon from visiting him if Jon was inclined to it in MAG127, and Jon demonstrated in MAG128 how he’s now able to… extract statements from unwilling subjects, plus the overall droplets of knowledge), but it sounds like it’s actually going according to plan. Elias had already mentioned that Jon was… supposed to grow his own powers and be the one to take care of The Unknowing, back in MAG102, but here, Elias came across as especially powerless compared to Jon (“I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside.”) and… not even trying to pretend anymore that He Has An Important Role On His Own. Jon is the Archivist, we knooow, we’ve been told, but what is Elias’s function in this mess, then…?

* I’m not sure that there is anything more behind the “detective” title he’s giving to Basira since, as mentioned another time… it was something Georgie initially used (MAG122: “You’re the detective.”) and Elias uses it precisely because Basira pointed out that it wasn’t her title?

(MAG135) ELIAS: Nice to see you again, detective. BASIRA: Still not a detective. Never was. ELIAS: Oh, but everyone else seems to be getting a title these days, why shouldn’t you– BASIRA: [SLAMS HANDS ON THE TABLE] Cut the shit! […] ELIAS: I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective. The stakes are far too high for that kind of… indulgence. […] ELIAS: Good luck. Detective.

It sounds mostly, to me, like a cat staring you RIGHT IN THE EYES while slowly pushing your favourite mug off the table? Doing it just to piss her off? Elias never used “Archivist” with Jon either (except in statement-mode in MAG120, but he went back to “Jon” when addressing him directly through the tape right after the static had faded), so I’m not sure there is particular… substance to it. On the one hand, it would sound like the perfect title for a Hunter-Beholding activity (tailing someone or something and learning about their privacy, potentially cumulating both fears of being hunted and exposed). On the other hand, I can’t help but feel like it could be another jab at Martin, who had mentioned his own lack of special pet name:

(MAG092) ELIAS: You think you’re the only police officer eager to do violence and call it justice? No, there are plenty of other rabid dogs out there, mad with the Hunt.

(MAG116) ELIAS: Oh, and, Jon, technically, I can’t stop you, but I would heavily advise against bringing any… rogue… elements. MARTIN: You can just say Tim.

(MAG118) MARTIN: Oh. That’s it, isn’t it! Martin’s just acting out! I mean, Daisy’s a rabid dog, and Melanie’s a potential killer; Tim’s a… a, a rogue element, but Martin? Oh, Martin’s just, just acting out! He’ll have a cry, and a lie-down, and feel much better!

(And once again: Elias did mention that Jon had received ~assistance~ to get out of the coffin… but managed to not name Martin directly, pfftttr.)

* Even more rattling chain sounds every time Elias opens his mouth => he’s using his hands a l o t when talking, uh. Gesturing person. VERY dramatic person. Is it a prerequisite for working at the Institute, was that the reason Elias chose Jon as the next Archivist.

* Oooh, Elias.

(MAG135) BASIRA: [SLAMS HANDS ON THE TABLE] Cut the shit! What are you playing at? ELIAS: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.

When you’re playing at too many things at the same time that you can honestly not answer that question.

* Overall: I LIVE FOR ALL THE ELIAS-BASIRA EXCHANGES THIS SEASON… In season 1 and 2, they probably would have had very civil and cordial discussions but… beginning season 3, yes, Elias had begun to Let It Out way more (was it costing him that much to hold off and to appear proper and respectable? … or did the role just become Free Ben Estate.) and it’s even worse now. He’s so bratty and petty, and Basira had always been so straight-to-the-point and no-bullshit (except when it comes to office gossip) that it’s delightful and feels like she has to handle a spoiled brat while not being paid enough for this.

(MAG135) BASIRA: If you’re lying about this– ELIAS: You’ll kill me? [HUFF] I can hardly wait. [STEPS DEPARTING]

eLIAS, THAT’S LOW (the thing about kill-me-and-you’re-all-dying still stands, that’s precisely why they chose to get him arrested) AND YOU HAVE NO PRIDE YOURSELF.

* Though I am also very mad that Elias confirmed that His Plan regarding Basira’s investigations… was to get her out, because she’s Jon’s impulse-control.

(MAG135) ELIAS: Would you simply believe I wanted you and Daisy reunited? BASIRA: No. ELIAS: Fine.

I LOVE BASIRA SO M U C H…

Elias… called Basira out on her “pride” (“I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective.”), and I’m worried that he might be spot-on on this one, like he was with Melanie and Tim. Though he’s currently nurturing Basira’s frustrations – sending her all over the globe before basically admitting that she couldn’t have done anything relevant herself? Now talking her down? Insisting that Jon is their best chance, apparently not taking her into consideration at all except as a potential messenger? Offering an “idea” that turned out to have been manipulation, and now giving new instructions while highlighting that she’s in no position to refuse? Either he’s still awfully bad when it comes to hurting people and not expecting them to get back at you, either he’s Compensating Hard for the prison time, either he’s trying to foster harsh reactions from Basira (and it won’t help her to warm up to Jon if Elias keeps presenting Jon as their most reliable chance ;;).

- I am HYSTERICAL over the fact that we’re finally getting another bit of something related to Elias’s backstory and that it’s that he was apparently acquainted with MAXWELL RAYNER:

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “I come to you with a warning. And an offer. When you read this, I would consider it a great favour if you could share my words with the Head of your Institute. Tell him that Maxwell Rayner sends his regards and offers… sanctuary. A time of holy Darkness is at hand, when The Eye will close forever, and in the spirit of the friendship they once shared, he offers an opportunity – to surrender. Forsake the Ceaseless Watcher; abandon your position, and you shall be spared in the Blind World to come. In the spirit of reconciliation, and to convince you of our sincerity… I offer my story. Much as it may pain me to feed the sick voyeur that lurks in this place.

[…] That’s all I really came here to say! To let you know we had succeeded. And to make your boss an offer on behalf of Maxwell. […] So by all means, do your worst. Or prostrate yourself, both of you, before the Forever Blind – and perhaps you might be spared. Maxwell and I await your decision, with keen interest.”

ELIAS……………………

And nothing says more than “(ex)friendship” than confirming that you gave a tip to Section 31 to ensure they would go after and get rid of your old ~~friend~~, uh:

(MAG073) ARCHIVIST: […] Oddly enough, all I can think about is how did the police know where Rayner was keeping the boy? Basira didn’t seem to know, and the Church clearly wasn’t expecting the police to arrive. With a few exceptions, Rayner managed to stay off the grid for two decades. How did they find him now? Someone must have known what was happening and tipped them off. And I don’t think it was anyone inside that building.

(MAG135) ELIAS: You thought the final death of Maxwell Rayner might have sufficiently derailed them? Yes, that was my hope too, but alas it would seem not. BASIRA: Maxwell… You… You called in that tip, sent us out to their warehouse. ELIAS: And now I’m sending you out again.

(I’m so glad that it was confirmed!)

Until now, almost everything we had about Elias’s… life outside of the Institute was the Infamous Bits about His Official Backstory (which directly contradicted the small mention from MAG029 that he was a filing clerk at the Institute in 1972 – or at least, highlighted that uhoh, something doesn’t match here and that’s a twenty-years difference, the staff should have noticed):

(MAG049) ARCHIVIST: Supplemental. Elias Bouchard is a difficult man to pin down, certainly since he became head of the Institute in 1996 […]. It was a remarkably fast climb to the top, as from what I can find, it looks like he only joined the Institute five years before, in 1991, working in the Artefact Storage. […] And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know. He apparently graduated with a Third from Christ Church’s College in PPE, and I found an old gossip column in the student newspaper that – sure well – that mentioned him. If I’m not reading too much into it, the implication seems to be that he was… something of a… pothead [CHUCKLES]. Was he… like that when he first came to work here…?

If this information is accurate: the time of Elias’s studies and his starting at the Institute would match the time-period during which the People’s Church of the Divine Host were officially active (MAG009: “a small cult that grew around the defrocked Pentecostal minister Maxwell Rayner in London during the late eighties and early nineties. […] Mr. Rayner himself disappeared from public view sometime in 1994 and the group fragmented shortly afterwards.”). How the heck did Elias apparently meet him, though? And mostly: … how could Rayner even have The Audacity to offer for them to just… resign? Manuela mentioned that she supposed “there is also an element of provocation here as well” and YOU DON’T SAY…

Wild hypotheses about the Rayner-Elias relationship, not in any particular order of Seriousness:

* Since Manuela only referred to “the Head of the Institute”, without naming Elias, and she referred to the fact that Rayner had been around for very long (we have a statement mentioning him from 1864): it’s an Old Thing, whether or not “Elias” is actually Jonah Magnus. (At the same time… given The Show that Elias is currently putting on, he really doesn’t read to me as being potentially 200+y old? He sounds way too immature and petty and frustrated to be this old?)

* Okay, so amongst the Eye-folks, there seems to be a trend of “x all the Entities”. Gertrude: thwarting all the Entities’ rituals. Jon: getting whumped by all the Entities and having scars to Show. Martin, man of 16 Fears: being courted by all the Entities. Elias: bedding all the Entities??

* Elias was a member of the cult during his Wild Days, before swinging another way when it began to crumble and/or before getting a Revelation at the Institute?

- … It’s also possible that the things about “friendship” were actually awfully sarcastic and cruel in their own ways. We have had the example of Mike Crew who was pursued by an entity and managed to escape it by giving himself fully to another, it… could have been something like that with Elias, too? Escaping the Dark by throwing himself into Beholding?

One thing I find striking is that, quite often, when we learned about the Spooky backstory of people who are currently tied to the Institute, Beholding wasn’t exactly the main Fear that they had encountered – mostly, they witnessed someone around them getting taken by a Fear, and were spectators who didn’t try (or manage) to stop it and… pressed on to know what was happening:

(MAG081) ARCHIVIST: And of course, in my heart, I knew that no-one else could have possibly seen anything as horrible as I had. Well, maybe I could have named one person, but… I watched him disappear forever. […] I had no idea what was going on, not really, but I was somehow desperate to get that book back. He was much bigger than me, though, so all I could do was follow as he walked down alleys and side streets. […] A strange conviction that, if I had been able to face that thing myself, maybe I could have saved him. Stopped it. Ridiculous, of course, I was eight.

(MAG101) MICHAEL: When he was in school, [Michael Shelley] lost a friend to something like me. His friend was named Ryan, but those in power simply called him schizophrenic. I don’t know if he was, but it doesn’t matter. He was so dreadfully afraid his world wasn’t real that to make it so was almost nothing. Michael was there when he was taken; he never got over what he saw. Or didn’t see. After much searching and despair, it drove him into the waiting arms of the Institute, where he met Gertrude Robinson.

(MAG104) TIM: I always tell myself there was some force there. Something that held me in place and meant that all I could do was watch. But sometimes when I think back, I remember how my legs shook, and maybe I could move. … Maybe I’m just a coward.

(Tim was literally a SPECTATOR in a theatre… Plus, add Basira who witnessed one colleague be taken by Diego Molina during her first Section 31’d case, and another colleague get killed by Natalie Ennis; Daisy who saw her colleague be taken by the coffin during her first Section 31’d case; Melanie… who didn’t lose anyone close to her in the process but still witnessed the strange things happening to “Sarah”, and a ghost getting butchered in the train.)

Survivor’s bias, but still noticeable – does Beholding put a claim on almost everyone who survived a Spooky encounter, maybe?

So I don’t know, really, but somethingsomething could the Dark actually have been the experience that originally pushed Elias towards the Institute…? (Jon had assumed, and seemed to have been validated in that regard, that Elias had trouble Watching in the tunnels, which are notoriously very dark. Perhaps the best way to insure Elias would shut the heck up would be to… plainly put a blindfold on him, and he would turn catatonic.)

- Meanwhile: Peter was mentioned for the first time in MAG033, appeared for the first time in episode MAG100. He has had a speaking presence in five episodes since then. He has been an absolute chatterbox when it comes to Elias – there has been no episode in which he didn’t mention him. Elias has been around since MAG017, has had a speaking presence in… eight? episodes since Peter appeared. And still. Has made. No mention. Whatsoever. Of. Any. “Peter Lukas”. Elias………………

(- Assuming that they do know each other, given that Elias said that:

(MAG135) ELIAS: Have you ever seen the Aurora borealis? It’s lovely this time of year. It would be a shame to lose them.

… Did he see them while on The Tundra? Romantikku.)

- Elias managed to not even mention Martin when describing that Jon had ~received help~ to get out of the coffin, and I want to believe that he’s still bitter about his arrest. Though… I really got the feeling, with MAG134 and how Martin described it, that it was The Web and… interestingly, Elias didn’t seem as wary of what happened as Peter.

So either it was actually Beholding guiding Martin there, either it gives some credentials to the idea that Elias had been collaborating or tolerating The Web at the Institute for a long while? There is also that strange connection between Jon and Martin: the fact that Martin just knew that Jon was alive (MAG088, Martin: “It’s the not knowing, you know? I mean, Jon’s still alive. Not sure why, but I’m sure of that. But Sasha, I…”) + the “DIG” from the same episode’s statement, read by Martin, creeping into Jon’s dreams (MAG120). So still no certainties about it but… there is something.

- I… am… very… wary… of the way Elias is OH SO VERY CONVENIENTLY pushing in the direction of Jon’s own uncertainty.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: I mean, the Sun’s still there so I assume they failed. Unless they’re still… waiting to attempt it. That’s not the sort of statement you give… four years before you try to actually… ! … Or is it… The timeframes on these, er, “attempts”, the–these rituals, well… they seem variable, to say the least. When I try to think about it, uh– […] [SIGH] I’ll keep digging. If there is another ritual upcoming, I’ll need all the information I can get on it. I can’t believe Gertrude didn’t have a plan for it. I hope I’m just being over-cautious, that it’s already long since dealt with, but… we’ll see. […] I can’t afford to be just living one day at a time, I need… a plan. But I don’t even know what I’m trying to achieve… And no one… no one wants to tell me. Hm. [SIGH] End recording.

(MAG135) ELIAS: I have been observing a recent increase in people and supplies being moved to the small town of Ny-Ålesund, in Svalbard. An increase which I believe may be linked to a rather desperate attempt, by the People’s Church of the Divine Host, to perform a crude ritual of their own. To bring their… “Mr. Pitch”… into the world. […] I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside. I… believe they call it “The Extinguished Sun”, though that’s as much as I know. If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera. […] Feel free to do your own research to confirm what I’m telling you. Just don’t take too long.

It… it sounds way too much like throwing Jon a bone to ensure that he will get a Dark scar/experience, since Jon had been unable to Know whether Gertrude had managed to stop them or not. It doesn’t feel like Elias is taking this threat too seriously (compare it to the way he had handled The Unknowing?!), but more that he’s pretty confident that they won’t manage anyway and that he can… totally afford to be totally shitty about it since, anyway, he knows that Jon and the others will get worried and will get invested because they can’t afford to risk allowing another ritual to succeed? I find it hard to believe that The Dark is currently any threat but I totally understand that just in case, yes, the Archive Team would feel like they must intervene.

… and with The Lonely (and The Extinction), the only physical scars/marks that Jon is still missing? Are from The Dark. He’s never experienced it directly either and… catapulting him over to Svalbard sounds like the IDEAL opportunity for it, uh. Elias didn’t explicitly say that stopping The Dark was why he needed Jon to get stronger – there were two separate things, he implied causality but… didn’t explicitly say that it was the case so. Suspicious. Of course he would need Jon stronger for The Eye’s ritual, ultimately, after all…?

… But another thing that makes me flip out? IS THAT ELIAS IS NOW FACTORING IN THAT JON CARES FOR THE EXTENDED ARCHIVE TEAM:

(MAG092) ELIAS: You may believe yourself to have friends, to have confidantes, but in the end, all they are, is something for you to watch, to know, and ultimately to discard.

(MAG135) ELIAS: […] His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing. I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait.

………………… and yes, Jon will probably get a new injury on the way: he’ll get mauled by one of the Dark creatures in best case scenario, he could lose his eyes at worst (… does he even need them nowadays. I mean, YES it would be heart-breaking but. It sounds like One Of These Things very likely to happen to him.)… but I’m more worried about Basira.

Because if Elias is now factoring in that to push Jon further, you have to use the fact that he cares, Ny-Ålesund sounds like a Big Danger for BASIRA.

She was there when Maxwell Rayner was killed.

The only other witnesses were police officers (all Section 31’d nowadays). She didn’t kill Rayner herself but. But. I do not trust Elias one second to not spread (or have already spread) misleading rumours letting Dark cultists think that Basira had been the one to kill Maxwell Rayner. Jon had noticed people wearing the People’s Church pendants outside (MAG123) and we still don’t know why they’re hanging around so close to the Institute but really… I can’t help but feel like if they’re targeting someone, it’s Basira, and not Jon.

- About Jon’s feeling regarding the way the other staff members look at him…

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: I don’t… like interacting with the rest of the Institute these days. The way they look at me, I– … I don’t know. I don’t know what they’ve heard, what the rumours going around are, but… they have definitely heard something…! [SIGH] And they can’t wait until they don’t have to talk to me anymore. Can’t honestly say I blame them, none of this is easy. Everyone’s just trying to get through as best they can. Living one day at a time.

I’m not sure of what is happening, so:

* Is there indeed something noticeable in Jon nowadays? A gaze a bit too intense, an overall aura, something that makes you think “he’s spooky” without being able to pinpoint how? Too many eyes? Daisy was in the room when he read MAG133’s statement, I still feel like if anyone would be able to tell… it would be her.

* Alternatively, it… could also be an effect of the Lonely, again, since Jon had mentioned feeling isolated/lonely and… he’s very prone to feeling this as soon as he’s physically alone. It could just be that Jon feels like he can’t connect and that nobody wants to talk to him, while people are just… behaving towards him normally, but the Lonely is warping his perception.

* Alternatively: did Peter spread rumours on him through memos.

* Alternatively… oh, Jon… there could be so many reasons for people to not want to get involved with you Just In Case… Objectively: the Archives were attacked by Prentiss’s worms in Summer 2016. Jon was a mess for the following six months, before a body was discovered in the Archives and Sasha disappeared; Jon was on the run and the prime suspect. He came back and was on and off for a few months… before Tim died in an explosion in the Wax Museum alongside him, and Jon was hospitalised. And now he’s back. He means trouble, he means danger and, yes, people thought that Tim was having a breakdown when he was ranting about what was actually happening (as Martin told Jon in MAG102) but… Tim was popular. Tim used to be social, chatting with students and acting as relay between them and Jon (when they noticed errors in MAG033)… and Tim died.

Even Tim aside, there was the matter of Elias’s arrest and… Elias looked like he was actually well-liked by the staff? He was invested in the Institute’s life:

(MAG098) MELANIE: Uh, Martin? Have you seen Elias? MARTIN: Oh, uh… no. But Tuesday lunch he normally meets with the Library staff, I think?

And Rosie was chill with him (you don’t go “Yep, will do” at a boss you fear…). It’s possible that people resented Jon for Elias’s arrest and/or thought that Jon had framed him (which. to be honest.)? There are so many reasons for people to just… be wary of him, indeed…

- Jon’s voice was… something, at the beginning of MAG135. Sulky, tired, crushed? He reminded me of how he had introduced MAG129’s statement right after his encounter with Martin (clearly… unwell and plain sad); could have been caused by what he recounted regarding his interactions with the rest of the Institute, or by the content of the statement itself (it… wasn’t great news and Jon had no certainty about a possible positive outcome), but I wonder if it mightn’t be that reading statements left by Avatars is more taxing, since they’re more involved with the Fears? Does it feed Beholding a bit too much? He was very tired after Jane Prentiss’s; he collapsed after Breekon’s; he was clearly not fine with Manuela’s here. The only exception I can think of is MAG074 – Fatigue, which left him exhausted despite not apparently being (as far as we know) from an avatar?

- Raise your hand if Jon keeps slowly breaking your heart into small pieces when he has to tell himself, again and again, that he has to focus and that he can’t save everyone…

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I… heard someone. He was begging for me to save him. Said he couldn’t breathe. … I can barely breathe. I couldn’t find him. But I am… n–not here for him. I don’t even know him.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: At least, the coffin’s gone. I gave Artefact Storage some very specific instructions, and they’ve got it solidly sealed away. … Is locking it up the right thing to do? There are other people in there. And Daisy and I got out, but– … No, I, uh… I can’t think about that. Even if I could somehow be sure of recreating our escape, I–I can’t save everyone that’s been taken. I–It’s not my job to try, I– And I can’t spend another three days in there, I just… I need to let it go.

(But I’m still worried that this could be… how Gertrude started out, too. At first focusing on people around her and on the missions ahead, before gradually coming to thinking that the others were necessarily sacrifices for the Greater Good. Though in Jon’s case: he’s been… very consistently upset and sad for victims overall. So right now, he’s encouragingly… totally unlike Gertrude. Caring so much.)

- Bring as many torches as you can, once again. And your Web lighter, Jon? What happened to that one since the end of season 3 ;;

(… They don’t even need to go to Svalbard, actually, since there was still the matter of St. Paul’s Church in West Hackney, from MAG063, though Jon hadn’t managed to find any connection with the People’s Church of the Divine Host but… it was clearly a Dark creature lurking there? And the statement was from 2014.)

- If Team Archive goes to Norway in a group expedition trip… I’m picturing the door of the Archives, closed. Jon having left a note warning people that they’ll be away for a week or two, the Archives will be closed during that time. Scribble from Daisy underneath: “If we don’t die.” (Helen having added “Of fun!”, before adding something else about this door being closed, but people can still knock if they need a door, she’d do her bestest.) Melanie put a message encouraging to NOT take a job here if they happen to hire new staff after their disappearances in ~dark conditions~. Basira tried to salvage the memo with a mention about contacting the police with a mention of Section 31 if they failed. Martin passing by, one day, and losing it because pETER, WHAT DID YOU ALLOW TO HAPPEN AGAIN, YOU SAID THEY WOULD BE SAFE–

- Elias said the words “SVALBARD” and “AURORA BOREALIS” in an episode about “DARK MATTER”, so my heart is screaming and seeing this as His Dark Materials representation. Come on, the Archives crew are millennials, they have read the trilogy, right right right? :w

… Well, maybe not Jon, who probably didn’t manage to finish the first volume and/or gave up on the second one when he realized that Will’s cat wouldn’t be the main protagonist. (Maybe he secretly stanned Lyra a bit for her tendency to just run away from the College. And also panserbjørne. He would stan The Bears.) Sasha’s first dream job was to be a witch because Serafina was DANG COOL, with becoming an aeronaut coming in close second; cue Heated Bi Debates with Tim, because his tiny bi heart had been awakened through other options (Lord Asriel? Terrible, but hot!! Marisa Coulter? Terrible but hella hot!!). Basira got her lesbian awakening with Mary – smart clever scientist who went Fuck Injustice? Sign her up. Melanie loved Will, loved WILL’S KNIFE, and also loved to read about bears savagely murdering each other (oh no, sheer horror if she ever finds out she had that in common with Jon!). Helen might need to have the story told to her but she goes “!! I can open doors and Windows too! :D”. Georgie loved the technology and the Gallivespians communicating through Lodestone resonators (… actually, Jon probably made her think about the Gallivespians. A lot). … Aza mentioned to me that “ahah, Martin must have projected so hard on Will” and I hate her, it was supposed to be all fun headcanons but oh no now it’s awfully sad (=> Will’s mother being sick and needing his help! Not being reliable, but it doesn’t matter, she loves him! And turns out that Will’s dad had never abandoned them, not exactly, and that he had always loved them all very much!) (YEAH NOW IT’S SUPER SAD WHEN THINKING ABOUT MARTIN PROJECTING.)

(Let’s compensate the Sad by thinking about Jon and the assistants going on a boat trip to Norway, and NOTHING BAD HAPPENING, they’ll manage to neutralise the Dark’s feeble attempt and nobody will die or be gravely injured or traumatised by anything :| So they get to enjoy the trip, even if it’s probably on the Tundra and Jon is seething because still no sign of Peter Lukas anywhere, Martin is there though mostly inaccessible (… all alone on the boat to fuel it?), but Jon still managed to grab him at some point to have Meaningful Discussions in the cold of the deck, at night, when they’re undignifiedly bundled up in layers and layers of down jackets, Martin being especially starry-eyed at the starry sky because as he had mentioned in MAG113, he never got to travel much, and he’s getting Something Nice for once even if it’s when on their way to probably die a dark death – but they don’t and it stays something nice :[)

(What do you mean, I slept 2h30 last night and worked overtime today and I’m surviving thanks to my 7th coffee.)

MAG136’s title is out and AAAAAAAAAAAAH???? WEB??? WEB??? I want to think that a twist could be at work here (The Corruption and The Desolation ought to be offended, tfw still no episode almost halfway into season 4 :w) but it screams WEB, it screams especially strongly SHE, SHE, THE WIFE… Though Annabelle was “the story-spinner” and this is another title altogether. On the one hand, Jon has been repeatedly lamenting over his overall lack of direction, so it could be Her Cue to go see him in person or send him someone who survived her… but on the other hand mmmm, too soon for that maybe? Could also be something about Raymond Fielding, perhaps? (Or twist and it’s not Web.) (… second-meaning could be about so many people… Peter? Elias (ha, he wished.)? Annabelle?)

#mag135 #long post/#tma liveblog #the magnus archives #tma season 4

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thedcdunce · 5 years

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Donna Troy

“I'm Donna Troy, bitch.” - Donna Troy

Real Name: Donna Hinckley Stacy Troy

Aliases:

Wonder Girl

Darkstar

Goddess of the Moon

Wonder Woman

Troia

Princess Donna

Donna Prince

Gender: Female

Height: 5′ 9″

Weight: 140 lbs (64 kg)

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

Race: Amazon

Powers:

Divine Empowerment

Abilites:

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced)

Tactical Analysis

Swimming

Photography

Equipment:

Donna Troy's Lasso

Lasso of Persuasion

Bracelets of Submission

Troia Costume

Amazon Armor

Universe Orb

Darkstar Exo-Mantle

Amazonian Weapons

Donna Troy's Lasso

Lasso of Persuasion

Universe:

Earth-One

New Earth

Base of Operations: New Cronus, 14218 Athena Drive

Citizenship: American

Origin: Magical clone of Wonder Woman

Marital Status:

Widowed (Terry Long; husband)

Divorced (Coeus; husband)

Occupation:

Photographer

Guardian of the Universe Orb

First Appearance: The Brave and the Bold #60 (July, 1965)

Last Appearance: Justice League of America Vol 2 #60 (October, 2011)

Powers

Divine Empowerment: As a magical replicate of Diana, Donna possesses most of her powers. At various times she has lost and gained her powers, even abilities unique to her.

Accelerated Healing

Charisma: Donna has truth-coaxing powers like Diana; even without a Lasso of Truth people find it almost impossible to lie to her.

Flight: Donna can glide on wind currents for short periods of time.

Psychic Link: While Wonder Woman has a psychic rapport with animals, Donna has a psychic rapport with her. This allows one to feel the other's emotions, dreams and even thoughts.

Superhuman Agility

Superhuman Durability

Superhuman Reflexes

Superhuman Speed

Superhuman Stamina

Superhuman Strength

Abilities

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced): Like all Amazons, Donna is well trained to fight with various weapons and in the martial arts, and often practices with a kind of staff which seems to be her personal weapon of choice.

Archery

Weaponry

Tactical Analysis

Swimming: Donna is able to navigate through the depths of the oceans.

Photography: She has studied photography at New York University, and was a co-founder of Aurora Photo Studio.

Equipment

Donna Troy's Lasso: Donna's original golden lasso.

Lasso of Persuasion: Anyone who is held by the silver lasso of persuasion and with less will than Donna is compelled to do what she tell them to do.

Bracelets of Submission: Donna possesses a pair of bracelets that are common among Amazonian women. She is able to use these bracelets to deflect ranged attacks such as gunfire, missiles, and lasers. In close combat, Donna can use them to deflect punches, kicks, and melee weapons.

Troia Costume: A costume composed of various items gifted by the Titans of Myth, including an amulet of Cronus, a mystic net from Oceanus and Tethys, golden armor forged by the sun itself from Thiaand Hyperion, an earring of balance by Themis, a bracelet that used to belong to Phoebe, and from Criusand Mnemosyne a cloth from the starry firmament. This cloth became an important part of her later costumes, as it allowed her a map to everything, including New Cronus.

Amazon Armor: A heavy and ornate battle-armor much like her sister's, but made of a silver-colored metal.

Universe Orb: The Universe Orb is the repository of all knowledge and history of Universe.

Darkstar Exo-Mantle: As a member of the Darkstars, Donna wore the standard Darkstar Exo-Mantle as part of their group, granting her superhuman strength, speed, and agility. The exo-mantle also possessed a personal force field for protection against physical impact and energy attacks. The main weapons were twin maser units that fired energy blasts with pinpoint accuracy; however, it seems that Donna did not undergo the surgical procedure to attain the instant mastery of maser control that the other Darkstars had, and had a split-second delay in reaction time when wearing the less powerful deputy version of the exo-mantle. A powerful shoulder mounted cannon complemented the maser system of the Darkstars' exo-mantle. With the exo-mantle, one could achieve high speeds during flight, all the while protected from wind friction by the force field. Since leaving the Darkstars, Donna no longer possesses the exo-mantle.

Amazonian Weapons

Donna Troy's Lasso

Lasso of Persuasion

Origin

Donna was created to be a playmate for the young Wonder Woman by the sorceress Magala, who used a magical mirror to create a duplicate of Diana, though with her own personality. She was abducted by Dark Angel who mistook her for the real Diana, and cursed her to experience a cycle of countless tragic lives, given the name Donna Troy as a cruel joke to her origins. But it would not be until the intervention of Wonder Woman, Hippolyta, and the Flash years later that she would learn this.

In one of the lives she ended up living, Donna was orphaned by her birth mother, Dorothy Hinckley, a dying unwed teen who had given her up for adoption. After Donna's adoptive father Carl Stacey was killed in a work-related accident, her adoptive mother Fay Stacey gave her up for adoption again, unable to raise the toddler because of mounting expenses. Donna remembered being rescued from a fire by the goddess Rhea who, being one of the mythological Titans, brought her to New Cronus and raised her as one of twelve Titan Seeds, orphans from various planets who would have died if Rhea had not saved them. Each one was given the name of a place that worshiped the Titans, and Donna was given the last name of Troy in homage to the ancient city. She was returned to Earth at age thirteen, where her memories of New Cronus were erased until such a time that she would return and take her place among the Seeds as gods.

Wonder Girl and Troia

When Donna experienced having superhuman powers and abilities, she adopted the identity of Wonder Girl. Donna became one of the founding members of the Teen Titans, even suggesting the name of the group from a residual memory.

She married Terry Long, a college professor, and soon became pregnant. This incited the Team Titans group from the future to confront her, claiming that her son would threaten the future as Lord Chaos. Donna voluntarily gave up her powers to prevent this. She later requested for her powers to be returned but was denied. She was inducted into the Darkstars and rejoined the Teen Titans as a Darkstar. Terry later divorced Donna citing that her superhero role put the family in danger and gained sole custody of their son. She turned to teammate Kyle Rayner for comfort, but left him after Terry, Robert and Jenny Long, were killed in a tragic car accident.

The tragedy caused Dark Angel to appear and make Donna start anew with a totally different life, causing everyone but Hippolyta and Wally West to forget her existence as the Donna Troy who became Wonder Girl and Troia. Together with Wonder Woman, Hippolyta and Wally helped restore the life of Donna Troy, breaking her out of the curse that Dark Angel had bound her to. She was then adopted as a daughter of Hippolyta. Consequently, Hippolyta decreed that Donna, as her daughter, would be granted the privilege of a royal station and a title. As such, a coronation was held and Donna was thereafter referred to as Princess Donna amongst the Amazons.

Death

An android named Indigo appeared, badly damaged and in need of repair. In her attempts to repair herself and call for aid from other androids, she caused a Superbot to go rogue during a meeting of the Teen Titans and Young Justice; Donna and Omen were killed during the attempts to stop it.

The Return of Donna Troy

Donna Troy had discovered that, like every other person after the destruction of the multiverse, she was an amalgam of every alternate version of Donna Troy in the former realities. Unlike everyone else, Donna was the repository of knowledge of every alternate universe version of herself. She learned that her counterpart on Earth-Two was saved by a firefighter and raised in an orphanage, while her Earth-S counterpart died in the fire. She also discovered that her sworn enemy of the past, Dark Angel, was in fact the Donna Troy of Earth-Seven, saved from certain death by the Anti-Monitor, just like the Monitor had saved Harbinger. When the parallel realities were condensed into one, Dark Angel, who had somehow escaped the compression of every Donna Troy into one single person on the new Earth, sought to kill her. Every life she forced Donna to relive was, in fact, an aspect of an alternate Donna, as a way to avoid the merging and remain the last one standing. When she was defeated, Donna became the real sum of every Donna Troy that existed on every Earth, a living key to the lost Multiverse.

Donna had been reborn after her death at the hands of the Superman android. The Titans of Myth, realizing that she was the child who was destined to save them from some impending threat, brought her to New Cronus and implanted false memories within her mind to make her believe she was the original Goddess of the Moon and wife of Coeus. The Titans of Myth incited war between other worlds near New Cronus in order to gain new worshippers. They used the combined power of their collective faith to open a passageway into another reality, where they would be safe from destruction. Donna was another means to that end, until she was found by the Titans and The Outsiders who restored her true memories. This was not without casualties, however. Sparta, who was restored to full mental health and stripped of the bulk of her power, had been made an officer in the Titans of Myth's royal military. She was sacrificed by the Titans of Myth in an attempt to lay siege to the planet, Minosyss, which housed a Sun-Eater factory miles beneath its surface. Sparta's death had inadvertently helped trigger Donna's memory restoration. Athyns had also reappeared by this time, and aided the heroes and the Mynossian resistance in battling the Titans of Myth. It was then that Hyperion, the Titan of the Sun, revealed Donna's true origins to her and ordered her to open a passageway into another reality by means of a dimensional nexus that once served as a gateway to the Multiverse itself, within the Sun-Eater factory's core. This turned out to be the Titans of Myth's real target. Donna did so, but fearing they would simply continue with their power-mad ambitions, she banished most of them into Tartarus. However, Hyperion, and his wife Thia, were warned of the deception at the last moment. Enraged, they turned on Donna, intending to kill her for the betrayal, but Coeus activated the Sun-Eater to save her and Arsenal. As the Sun-Eater began absorbing their vast solar energies, Hyperion and Thia tried to escape through the Nexus, but they were both torn apart by the combined forces of the Nexus' dimensional pull and the Sun-Eater's power. Coeus, who had learned humility and compassion from Donna, vowed to guard the gateway to make certain the other Titans of Myth remained imprisoned forever. After this, Donna gained all knowledge of her alternate selves and was entrusted with the Universe Orb by Harbinger.

Infinite Crisis

Donna led a group of heroes to New Cronus to deal with a rip in space caused by Alexander Luthor, attacking him through the rift. The team suffered loss, including the death of Jade and several others who went missing. Donna also procured a "red sun eater" in order to defeat Superboy-Prime. Afterwards, Donna returned to New Cronus where she analyzed the history of the universe as it had been recorded in Harbinger's old Universe Orb.

One Year Later

Donna Troy assumed the mantle of Wonder Woman. Diana stepped down, feeling the need to "find out who Diana is". In the midst of a fight with Cheetah and Giganta, Donna was overwhelmed when Doctor Psycho manipulated her into believing that Diana was attacking her with deadly force. At the same time, Diana, posing as a government agent, arrived on the scene. Circe is behind the attacks and capture.

Donna worked alongside ex-boyfriend Kyle Rayner, who had taken up the powers and title of Ion again. They fought against one of the Monitors who attempted to remove them from the newly rebuilt time-stream, claiming the two were unwanted anomalies. Donna returned to earth with Ion in time for him to say good-bye to his dying mother.

Donna later joined several former Teen Titans in their battle against Deathstroke and his Titans East team.

The Challengers from Beyond

Donna soon after attended Duela Dent's funeral with the Teen Titans. After the burial, she was confronted by Jason Todd, who sought her out as a kindred spirit. She repeatedly ran into the helpful Jason while trying to investigate Duela's murder. Her investigation was put on hold once she discovered the Amazons had invaded Washington, D.C. She traveled to the city and confronted the recently revived Hippolyta to put a stop to the invasion. The Amazon Queen informed her that she would consider a withdrawal, only if Donna could include Diana in the peace talks, Donna left to find her sister, discovering that Jason Todd had followed her to Washington as well. Jason told Donna that he believed the Monitors were responsible for Duela's death, but before anything else could be done, both warriors were attacked by the Monitor's aide, Forerunner. They were consequently saved by the seemingly benevolent "Bob," and recruited to help locate Ray Palmer. Their journey took them across the expanse of the new Multiverse, whereupon they were also joined by Donna's former boyfriend, Green Lantern as well as Ray Palmer's successor Ryan Choi. This loose confederation of adventurers became known as the Challengers from Beyond. After several haphazard missions in the Nanoverse, they eventually found Palmer in the parallel reality known as Earth-51. Shortly thereafter, their colleague Bob the Monitor betrayed them, and Earth-51 was destroyed as a result of the Morticoccus Virus. With Palmer in tow, the Challengers eventually returned to their home dimension. Donna, Ray and Kyle agreed that with the growing individuality of the fifty-two existing Monitors, there was too much room for corruption. They all agreed to serve as a watchdog group in order to "Monitor the Monitors".

Return of the Titans

Returning to Earth, Donna reunited with her old teammates the Titans. The group reformed after discovering that the children of one of their deadliest foes, Trigon, had been systematically hunting down members, both old and new.

Blackest Night

Donna had a horrific encounter with her deceased son Robert and husband Terry, revived as undead beings in the Black Lantern Corps. She was bitten by Robert, becoming "infected" by the Black Lantern's power. Donna, along with Superboy, Kid Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and several other resurrected heroes, were targeted by Nekron, the being responsible for the Black Lanterns. Donna's previous deaths made her vulnerable to the Black Rings. However, unlike the other heroes, Donna was converted by being infected with the Black Lantern's power rather than having a ring forced on her.

Justice League

Donna Troy became part of the new Justice League's lineup, along with Mon-El, Batman, and Hal Jordan.

Her recruitment began when she volunteered to help Mikaal Tomas and Congorilla track down the supervillain Prometheus. She accompanied them to the JLA Watchtower alongside Starfire and Animal Man, only to discover that Red Arrow had been mutilated by Prometheus. During the ensuing battle, Donna was impaled through the wrists, but freed herself, taking down Prometheus after he defeated the rest of the team. Unfortunately, the villain destroyed Star City via a teleportation device.

In the aftermath, Donna was told by Wonder Woman that she could benefit from being a part of the JLA. To that end, she officially joined the team, even recruiting Cyborg and Starfire as well.

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