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knitting-gay-nerd · 3 years

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I Will Stand in the Dark for You

Turn Week 2021 | Day 2: Favorite Historical Event/Location

The Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line, starting at about midnight January 1, 1781, Jockey Hollow

The following is a dramatization from the perspective of Temperance Wick, who, according to New Jersey legend, ran into some rebelling Continental soldiers just after midnight during the Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line, tricked them so that they couldn’t take her horse, and hid him in a bedroom in her house. It is of course not historically accurate, for several reasons that include the presence of my original character Henrietta Wick, the mention of a nonexistent Dr. Kemble, and the fact that Tempe’s midnight ride likely never happened.

This is directly related to my fanfiction, All Done Up in Blue & Gold, although you do not need to have read it to understand this, and it contains the mildest of spoilers, as this will be from Henrietta’s point of view in the story itself.

This is over 3,000 words. Enjoy!

Mother’s labored breathing unnerved me. It was clearly audible even from the doorway, where I stood. Whatever this fever was, it had taken a toll on her. We had gone for the doctor, our brother-in-law William Leddel, when she first fell ill, but he told us that she would eventually recover and simply to take care of her as we normally would. She had become bedridden only days after Father’s funeral.

Her condition was not improving, but remaining stagnant. Father was not yet dead two weeks, and it seemed Mother might follow him into the good Lord’s arms before long.

“Tempe.” Henri’s hand rested, palm up, on Mother’s forehead. She looked at me, concern clear on her face, her brow knit together and fear shining in her widened eyes. My stomach wrenched itself into a knot. “Get Dr. Kemble.”

I straightened bolt upright from my position leaning against the side jamb of the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s burning up, worse than before, and she seems delirious. Get him now. Hurry!”

“Shouldn’t I get William? He’s been looking after her, and he’s our brother in law—“

“Kemble’s closer. Go!”

“Should you be looking after her? The baby—“

“I’m fine, Tempe! Go! Do you want to lose Mother as well?”

“No, of course I don’t!” I snapped back at her, tears pricking at my eyes. I ran, pulling on my outer clothes as quickly as possible, then running along the path through the snow to the barn to saddle Colonel.

I clicked my tongue, leading him out of the stall. “Come on boy. Ready for a nighttime ride?”

He nickered at me, nuzzling my shoulder. “We’re all business tonight, Colonel. You’ll do me proud, I’m sure.”

I kept up a meaningless chatter as I tacked him up, from his bridle to finally tightening his girth. It was a distraction for me as much as for him. Then, I led him out of the barn to mount.

“Allons-y,” I whispered. I knew he couldn’t gallop all the way to the doctor’s house, and it was dangerous to gallop, especially because Colonel was cold and the ground was frozen. However, it was imperative to reach our destination with as much speed as possible, and the doctor would have a fresh horse ready to visit Mother. We proceeded at a walk, until he was warm enough to trot.

Only the Pennsylvania Line was camped on our land this winter, but their New Year’s Eve festivities were loud and raucous as I traveled through the woods. Thankfully, I was not set upon by any drunken soldiers, but I could hear their singing and see their fires from the road. It was late, almost midnight. Mother is dying, I thought. I urged the Colonel into a canter, pushing the limits of safety given the conditions.

A few moments later, I realized that a canter was too leisurely for the gravity of the situation. Mother was dying. If ever there was a time to throw caution to the wind that streaked past me as I rode, it was now. Fuck caution, I thought. Mother would hate that that word even came to my mind. She would call it “unladylike”. Henri and I both had disappointed her in that regard. It can go to hell and reside with Lucifer himself.

I kicked Colonel’s sides, forcing him into a gallop.

The wind whistled in my ears, only the beating of my heart louder than it. My eyes watered from the cold rush of air. Colonel slowed to a canter as we reached town, only a few men in varying degrees of drunkenness milling on the streets.

“Whoa,” I called as we reached the doctor’s house. I swung down from the saddle, tying Colonel to a post. I scratched under his mane, whispering, “You did so good, boy. Thank you.”

I rapped on the door. No one answered. I knocked louder, then yelled, “I need help! Please!”

“Hold your horses, young lassie, I’m coming!” A female voice called out. After a moment and a bit of fiddling with the latch, the doctor’s maid opened the door. “What do you need, Miss?”

“My mother is severely ill. We’re afraid she might be on death’s threshold. Where’s Dr. Kemble?”

“Oh, Miss, he came home not an hour ago, drunk out of his wits. He’s not in any shape to come, and I doubt he’d be of any help.”

I sighed. “Alright. I’ll go the other way and get Dr. Leddel, then.”

“Before you go, what’s wrong with her? I might be able to offer some advice.”

“She’s in a right fever, burning to the touch and seeing things that aren’t there.”

“If you’ve any dogwood or tulip poplar bark, make a tea and get her to drink it, if you can. It will bring her fever down some. She might have to sweat it out.”

“Thank you.”

“Your mother is in my prayers.”

“Keep my sister in them as well. She’s with child, and we’re the only ones left to take care of Mother.”

“I will. God be with you!”

“Thank you.”

I mounted Colonel and urged him into a trot. He was tired, but we still had a distance to travel to reach the house Phebe and Dr. Leddel lived in. It was in the opposite direction of Morristown, on the way to Mendham. Dr. Leddel was my brother-in-law, but Mendham was farther than the doctor’s house in Morristown.

With any hope, however, we would get back home in time and the remedies Kemble’s maid had given me would be unnecessary.

We proceeded through the woods at a trot. An uneasiness came over me as I approached the point where I could hear the soldiers when I was going in the opposite direction. It was much quieter than it had been then, although not enough time had passed for their celebration to die down so completely. Just then, a shot rang out, with shouting following it. Colonel shied. He wasn’t used to gunshots, as he had never been trained to ignore such sounds. Once he recovered, I urged him on into a canter, a bleak attempt to escape whatever was happening in the camp.

I relaxed once I could no longer hear the commotion. We slowed to a trot. Despite my relative calm, Colonel remained alert, his ears pricked in the direction of the woods to our left. Rustling came from that direction, but I ignored it, assuming it was an animal. Even a few minutes later, Colonel was nervous, strange behavior because he was usually a sure horse in the woods.

Colonel’s ears swiveled, facing behind me.

“You! Stop!”

“We’re taking your horse.”

I urged Colonel on faster.

A man called out, “Continental Army. We’re commandeering your horse.”

I stopped. The man who spoke last came up to Colonel’s head and took hold of his bridle. “Get down.”

“What is the meaning of this, gentlemen?”

The brown eyes of the man who held my horse’s bridle met mine, and I was shocked by how young he looked. He was at least five years younger than me, to be certain. His dirty blond hair was in a rough queue, with strands falling out near his face. His face was thin, and he looked hungry. Yet, he had somewhat of a commanding air about him, and the two men who followed him to my side seemed subservient to him. “We’re marching on Congress to get the money we’re owed. Our bounty’s up, and we’re done. We’re barely fed and never paid for three years now.”

“Then you’re not Continental Army and cannot commandeer my horse.”

“That was only to get you to stop. Now, dismount, and we’ll be taking him. Don’t forget, we have muskets.”

“You don’t want Colonel. He’s just been at a hard gallop over to Dr. Kemble’s house. He’s too tired to make it far enough to be worth your while.”

“You think you can trick us with that? He looks fresh to me!” One of the other men said.

“Shut it, Kip, this lady probably knows more about horses than you. Please dismount, ma’am.”

“Alright, sir. Would you please help me down?”

He smiled at me. “Of course.” As he moved his hand from Colonel’s bridle, I felt a pang of regret for what he’d gone through. He was just a boy, and, if he’d been in the army for three years, he had spent most of his teenage years starving in winter camps, fighting in battles, and marching along the road. No one deserves that life, especially not someone so young. What I did not regret, however, was what I was about to do.

I turned Colonel’s head towards home and kicked his sides. Shouting erupted behind me, but we were already at a run, and far ahead of where they could catch up to us on foot.

We kept up the gallop until we reached the house. They wanted Colonel, they wanted to take him and march with him to Congress to demand their pay. No. Colonel was mine, and if they wanted him, they’d have to go through me. I couldn’t get William now, but we had to have some dogwood or tulip poplar bark that could be brewed into a tea. Now, how to hide Colonel…

They recognized me, they must have. I didn’t tell them who I was, but they would follow me home and put two and two together quickly enough. Where could I hide a horse that they wouldn’t find him? The barn would be the natural place to look; I couldn’t put him there. Not only would he be found right away outside, he would have no protection from the weather, should it start to storm. He needed somewhere with a roof, at least, preferably walls…

That’s it. The house.

I led him inside, where his shoes clopped against the wood floor. Henri ran from Mother’s bedroom.

“Temperance Wick! What is that horse doing inside? And where is Dr. Kemble?”

“Dr. Kemble is drunk in his bed at home, and Colonel is inside because the soldiers are rebelling and tried to take him. I can’t very well hide a horse in a barn where they will look first!”

“You will be the death of me! What shall we do about Mother now? We can’t ride out to Phebe’s with the soldiers in mutiny!”

“Dr. Kemble’s maid told me to brew her tea with dogwood or tulip poplar bark. She said it should help with the fever.”

“Of course! That’s what Mother used to do for us. There should be some in the cellar. Daisy!”

Daisy hurried from the kitchen. “Yes, Miss—why is Colonel inside?”

“The soldiers are mutinying, and it’s the only way to keep him from being commandeered,” I answered.

“Yes. Boil some water. We need to make dogwood tea for Mother. It should help her fever. Prepare more wet cloths as well. Tempe, find the dogwood bark in the cellar.”

“What about the soldiers?”

“I’ll take care of them. While Daisy brews the tea, you can keep watch. I’ll load a shotgun and stand guard at the door. Daisy, you can take care of Mother?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Good. Get the field hands first. They can use the other shotguns and stand guard at the north and south. Tempe and I will stay inside and watch from the house. Go.”

Daisy went off to find the few male servants we kept around during the winter to haul wood and perform miscellaneous outdoor tasks. “Tempe, after you get the bark, you can use Father’s pistol. I’ll get it and the shot.”

“All right.” Colonel snorted. “What should we do about him?”

“I don’t know; you’re the one who brought him inside! Find a place for him. You’re right, we can’t keep him in any of the outbuildings, that’s where they’ll look first. I’ll get the bark while you hide him, then I’ll get the shot. Father’s pistol is in his study; get it after you hide Colonel.”

I nodded, and Henri went into the cellar. I took Colonel’s reins and led him through the house, thinking of a good place to put him. Eventually, I led him into a bedroom, pulled the feather mattress off the bed frame, and led him onto it to soften the sounds of his hooves.

“Alright, boy. Stay here.” He nuzzled me and nickered. I scratched underneath his mane. “And try to stay quiet.”

I left him in there, closing the door behind me. This was a most strange night, even among years of strange days and nights. I entered Father’s study, a room that hadn’t changed much since his death.

The books he and Henrietta loved so much sat on the shelves, exactly where they had been before. I too had read some of them, but their reverence far surpassed mine. Though there were not many in retrospect, they were plenty to entertain and teach us.

I walked to the desk, where his pistol lay. I was much faster at loading and a much better shot with the pistol than the shotgun, so it was better for me to wield it and for Henri to have control of the shotgun. I picked it up and returned to the parlor, where Henrietta was commanding our defense, a veritable general, though one pregnant and clad in skirts and petticoats.

At this point, Isaac and Jeremiah, the two men we had sent Daisy for, had been brought to Henri. Daisy herself was presumably brewing the tea for Mother, after which she would tend to her. Henri was giving the men instructions.

“Jeremiah, you go to the north, and Isaac, you go to the south. The men could be here any minute. Do not confront them, but if they attack you, do not hesitate. If one of you hears a gunshot, run to help the other. Tempe, there are three men, correct?”

“Yes.”

“So you’ll likely be slightly outnumbered, but we trust you. Go, and may God be with you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you. Good, you’ve got the pistol. Go by the window and watch, and keep a keen ear. It’s dark outside, so we’ll likely hear them before seeing them is feasible.”

“God willing, they won’t come, or if they do, they won’t see Isaac or Jeremiah.”

“They threatened you, a lady, so we can’t expect that they’ll leave them alone.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“That’s all we can be.” She nodded at me, and I left for the back of the house. She took her stance, her shotgun pointed at the door. I stood by a window, my pistol cocked, trying to breathe as quietly as possible and listening intently.

I stood there for what felt like hours. It was surely only a few minutes, but they dragged on as I listened and waited. The candles lighting the hallway flickered as the silence continued.

Henri broke the silence, saying in a low voice that carried through the mostly silent house, “I hear them.”

“Aye,” I responded.

A moment later, their voices were audible on my side of the house.

“Where could she have gone with that horse?”

“Why do we need it? Can’t we just march with everyone else?”

“Shut your gobs, we’ll check the barn and outbuildings and get going. Whoever’s in the house, it’s not worth messing with them, they’re probably armed.”

I waited a moment, then peered out the window, cupping my hands around my face so I could see. The mutineers were walking through the snow towards the barn.

“Henri. Henri, come here.”

“No, we need to maintain our positions.”

“Fine, they’re going to check the barn and other buildings, then leave. I think we’re safe. They said it’s too dangerous to try the house.”

“Alright. We’ll stay here until they’re surely gone.”

Silence fell again. I tried to keep my focus on the task at hand: defending my home from traitors, but my thoughts wandered. I thought about how these men were driven to this point by neglect and hunger. I thought about how my mother was on her deathbed as I stood by the window with my late father’s pistol. I thought about how my sister, pregnant with my brother-in-law’s child, was left responsible for taking care of my ill mother and defending our home, as I, feeling as helpless as I did as a child, tried not to get in her way. I thought about how Father was gone. I thought about how broken I felt inside, and wondered if Henri felt the same. I thought about how and why the thought of being left alone scared me, even though I didn’t want to fall in love or marry anyone. I thought about how desperately I longed to be happy with someone, though not in love with them. I thought about how I didn’t want to be in love, and didn’t know if I could. I thought about how I was expected to marry, expected to have children, expected to be happy with only that. I thought about how little I wanted, and how much I wanted at the same time. I thought about how much I could have, and how little I could have. I thought about how broken and divided I was, and how broken and divided the world was.

“They’re gone.”

I relaxed, not even realizing how tensely I had been holding my breath until I released it. I unloaded the pistol and placed it on a table, next to Henri’s shotgun, and together we hastened to Mother’s bedroom. Daisy stood from the chair beside the bed as we entered.

“She drank the tea, and her skin is cooler to the touch. I’ve been applying cool compresses to her forehead as well. She’s sleeping now.”

Henri placed her hand on Mother’s forehead. “You’re right, of course. Thank you, Daisy. You can tell Isaac and Jeremiah they can come back inside now.”

Daisy curtsied slightly, then hurried off.

I staggered to the chair and collapsed into it. I closed my eyes.

“Tempe, are you alright?”

“Tired.”

“You should go to bed.”

“You’ve been taking care of her all day. You should sleep first.” I opened my eyes, and hers, wide, blue, and sincere met mine.

“Mother’s better. We don’t need to stay up with her anymore.”

Suddenly, tears welled in my eyes, and I started sobbing. “Thank God. Thank God!”

She came around the bed, wrapping me in her embrace. “All is well. All is well. Come, let’s get you to bed.”

Still crying, I muttered, “Thank God we're safe. Thank God Mother is improving. Thank God, thank God, thank God.”

As we walked, she asked me, seemingly as an afterthought, “What did you do with Colonel?”

“He’s in the bedroom James used to have.”

“He’ll be safe there, so we shall leave him until morning. It’s been a long night, for him and us.”

Henri led me to our room, where she helped me undress and get into bed.

As she tucked the covers around me, I whispered to her, “You’ll be a great mother.”

The last thing I saw before I fell asleep was her smiling, and the last thing I felt was her kiss on my forehead. The last thing I heard was her telling me, “Goodnight,” then sighing. A wave of love, for her, for Mother, for Father, for everyone I had ever loved, washed over me, and I fell asleep, surrounded and covered by a feeling of safety and love.

#turn week 2021 #turn: washington’s spies #turn washington’s spies #turn amc #temperance wick #henrietta wick #all done up in blue & gold #my writing #writing from Tempe’s POV was fun #this is specifically what I was thinking about when I said that every character I write from the perspective of turns out queer #(I declare Tempe aromantic allosexual and I will fight you if you say different because this is MY STORY and I can do what I want.)#oh and the title 'I will stand in the dark for you' is from the song Sonya alone from Natasha Pierre and the great comet of 1812

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writethehousedown · 3 years

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Things Are Really Cool (In Nazareth) (Ninex)- Ortega

a/n: wow hi, welcome to whatever the hell this is? this is a sort of a kind of a n19f verse/masp verse crossover set some years after the originals take place (but you don’t need to have read either to read this), borne out of the semi-autobiographical experience of my last few weeks at work trying to teach five year olds mid-pandemic. basically Nina’s a stressed primary teacher and Monet is her primary teacher girlfriend. this is fulfilling the prompt “Nice” only ten days late and also probably has one million and one typos in my haste to get it out in time for at least Christmas xo regardless, i hope u all enjoy and in the words of boyband JLS, “mewwy cwistmas”.

disclaimer: there are a couple of lines i’ve yoinked out of tv shows here- “lesbian having a panic attack” is adapted from Kimmy Schmidt and the “what are you, forty?” ones are from Always Sunny. leave me alone i’m too tired to be funny at this time of year xo

fic summary: When Nina’s headteacher asks her to pull a Nativity play out of thin air with only a week to organise it, Nina is simply too nice to say no. As a consequence, she is blindly oblivious to what her girlfriend Monet is planning, with useless lesbian results.

Nina knew she was a people pleaser. Always had been, always would be. She was simply too nice to say no to anyone. She had never been one to say no to anything.

She’d never taken the last remaining teabag for herself way back at uni; she’d always elected to leave it for Brooke or Yvie, knowing that Brooke would be grumpy all day if she didn’t have her morning cup of tea and not wanting to deal with the caffeine crash Yvie would experience if she made coffee as a substitute.

It had even started way further back in her life than her twenties. The most rebellious thing she’d ever done in high school was to pull out one of the cables of her German teacher’s computer at the back so she’d spend the whole lesson fixing it instead of teaching their class. In Primary, she was the stereotypical, insufferable goody-two-shoes: didn’t ever lose a minute of Golden Time, finished both her set tasks and the extension work that accompanied them perfectly, and was the worst kind of tell-tale.

(At the time, she thought her teachers loved that- the fact that she acted as their five-year-old corporate spy, ready to report any wrongdoings to headquarters. Contrarily, now that she was a teacher to five year olds, Nina thought that if she heard one more story about who skipped who in the line she would climb very slowly and very carefully into the staffroom microwave and blow herself into fifty million partially-heated bits.)

So when her headteacher ducked her head into her classroom on a cold, wet, rainy Wednesday after all the kids had been dispatched home, Nina panicked. Her eyes darted up to the displays on her walls. Fuck, there were still Halloween pumpkins blu-tacked up there. There was, so far, nothing on her December learning journey wall. And there were still Very Hungry Caterpillars made from bottle tops pushed into dollops of paint stuck to bright green backing paper which had been there since the kids’ first week at school back in August.

Well. Red and green were Christmassy colours. Right?

But Mrs Del Rio didn’t seem all that interested in the state of her wall displays. She’d come to ask Nina if she could film a Nativity play with her class.

“It’s for the parents really,” Bianca had rolled her eyes, folding her arms in her usual no-nonsense way. “Just something they can watch and share with the families since we can’t do a real Nativity. It doesn’t need to be anything big- just a few songs…one, two…say four. And then just have the kids in their costumes with a couple of lines. With a backdrop, y’know, there doesn’t need to be props. Just the baby Jesus…the gifts for the three Kings….maybe a couple of no vacancy signs for the innkeepers…that sort of thing. Just for before we finish up term. Maybe if it could be done by next Friday. That okay?”

And Nina, because she was a people pleaser, had nodded and said yes! and of course! and Bianca had nodded curtly at her in the frostiest thank-you the world had ever seen before leaving.

It had only taken the time in which Bianca’s heels had slowly disappeared from hearing distance for the reality of the situation to sink in for Nina. She’d just agreed to do a whole Nativity play, with songs, and costumes, and props, in the space of eight days.

She was going to be sick like little Jack had done that day he’d come into class and projectile-vomited halfway onto the carpet and halfway into Nina’s outstretched hands.

Nina was so consumed by the all-encompassing panic that she didn’t even flinch when there was a loud, jaunty knock at her classroom door.

“High Court Enforcement,” came a loud, brash voice, Nina finally turning to see who was there with glazed eyes. Willam leant against the doorframe, her messy blonde waves falling over the shoulders of her dark blue jumper like curly vines. She was the only teacher who could match the sass levels of the Year 6s and was a colleague that Nina both loved and feared. Loved because she was straight-talking and blunt and altogether hilarious, but feared because her girlfriend was the deputy head of the school and anything Nina said to her would definitely be reported back as gossip.

Also because she was, for all intents and purposes, a pint-pot riot.

“Nina. Nina. Nina,” Willam said repeatedly, her voice monotone and her persistence irritating. Nina mumbled something out.

“What?”

Nina raked her hands through her shock of frizzy blonde curls and sighed, her stress levels already rising. “I said I’m a lesbian having a panic attack.”

“Oh, that’s a mood. I was sent round to do the collection for the support staff but I’ve already spent forty minutes chatting to Alyssa instead of doing what I was asked. Got a grand total of a fiver so far,” Willam shrugged blithely, coming into Nina’s classroom and perching on one of the tiny munchkin-sized tables. “What’s up?”

The pressure-cooker that her mind was rapidly becoming told Nina to throw caution to the wind and vent, so she told Willam everything in a series of babbles barely comprehensible in the English language.

“So you’ve just agreed to doing a full Nativity video in the space of a week?” Willam cocked her head, pulling a confused face. “Why didn’t you just tell Bianca to fuck off?”

Nina paused, feeling all her panic momentarily leave her body as she fixed Willam with a glare. “Are you expecting me to answer that?”

“No, no. Shit, wouldn’t it have been amazing if you had, though? What d’you think would’ve happened? Maybe she’d’ve shouted so loud at you her lungs would’ve just exploded.”

Nina couldn’t help but blurt out a small laugh. “That’s way too dramatic. She wouldn’t even fire me on the spot because that would mean management having to go in and cover my class tomorrow while they tried to find my replacement.”

Nina regretted the small barb at their management team as soon as it was out, but Willam seemed nonplussed.

“Yeah. Court’s way too impatient to deal with your lil’ rugrats.”

“I’m too impatient to deal with them. I’m too impatient to deal with them on a day to day basis. How I’m going to teach them four Christmas songs in the space of a week, fuck knows.”

Willam cocked her head again, her smile becoming patient. “Well if anyone can do it, it’s you.”

Willam’s words were a small source of comfort to Nina. Suddenly everything seemed doable. She matched her colleague’s smile, glad she’d arrived in that moment. “Thanks, Willam.”

As soon as her words were out, she saw the small, playful twinkle in Willam’s eye. “Because nobody else would’ve been mad enough to agree to the damn thing.”

***

Getting her class sorted and organised for the day couldn’t really be likened to herding cats. No, this process was far more chaotic than that. At half past nine each day what could only be described as a minor tsunami of children hit Nina’s classroom: throwing their jackets into the designated tubs with wild abandon and subsequently knocking anything and everything off her adjacent desk, unloading every possible snack in their lunchboxes into their trays and Nina’s pleas for them to only take one snack out falling on deaf ears, spilling their water bottles and getting the zips on their jackets stuck and wanting to tell Nina a billion and one things that seemed to have happened in the 18 hours they had spent outwith her care.

During the month of December this chaos only intensified. Hats, scarves and gloves littered the classroom floor as they fell off the kids like baubles off a dead Christmas tree, shrieks filled the air as they discovered a new chocolate in the advent calendar, and at least half the class surrounded Nina like festive zombies as they all battled to win the competition of “Who can tell Miss West about what their elf on the shelf had got up to overnight the loudest”.

Nina hammered the little bell she kept on her desk with the palm of her hand, stress levels already rising. “Okay, Reception! Jackets in tubs, snacks in trays and bums on carpet!”

As her class giggled about their teacher’s use of the word “bum”, Nina sat down in her wheely chair and waited for them all to join her on the little strip of carpet in front of her smartboard. It was moments like these where she’d be hit with a sort of out of body experience; she was someone’s teacher, she was this class’ first teacher. She was sitting in front of her class waiting to take the register and start their day. It was slightly overwhelming, even though she’d been doing the job for a number of years now.

Eventually her kids were all organised and she’d taken the register and made sure they all had a lunch to eat that day. Nina made sure to put on her best excited face as she prepared to tell them about the Nativity.

“Right, Reception!” she said, injecting lots of mystery into her voice like a storyteller. “I have got some very exciting news for you all today!”

Their little faces all grew equally excited as they were expectant, and Nina’s heart almost popped. Just then, Harry, a boy with enough gel in his hair to single-handedly keep Brylcreem in business for a year and huge bottle-top glasses’ hand went up.

“Yes, Harry?”

The boy bounced on the carpet, incredibly eager. “Can I tell you what my elf did last night?”

Ten more hands immediately shot up, and Nina’s heart sank. Great.

But she was still teaching four and five year olds and this was truly the most important thing in their little lives, so she fixed a bright smile on her face and tilted her head inquisitively. “What did your elf do?”

Harry was now sitting on his knees, towering over the other children and threatening to knock himself over with every passing second as he swayed in the nonexistent breeze. “He did a poop in my Dad’s shoes!”

The rest of the class shrieked with laughter in response. Internally, Nina was rapidly reaching her wit’s end. Love it. A bit of toilet humour to start off the Nativity rehearsals. Great. Exactly what’s needed. “Oh my goodness! What a cheeky elf!”

“He did three poops! And you know what else? They were cola jellybeans! I ate them!”

Sophie, a girl with long ginger hair in a low ponytail and a gap in her smile where two baby teeth once lived, gasped in horror. “You ate the elf’s poop?!”

The rest of the class fell about laughing. Nina had to get control back of the situation.

“Well thank you very much for sharing, Harry! Okay everyone, let’s pop our hands down.”

There were still ten hands waving proudly in the air like rebellious flags.

“We can do more elf stories at the end of the day if there’s time!” Nina lied. There would not be time. There was never time. But it placated most of her class enough for them to follow the instruction. There was, however, one remaining hand up which belonged to Jason, a boy with hair so platinum blonde it seemed otherworldly.

“It’s not an elf story! I’ve got a question,” he insisted, shouting out despite the fact his hand was already up. Nina relented, just in case he did have something important to ask. Maybe he was about to pee himself. Highly likely with the Reception kids.

Jason, pleased as punch that Nina was allowing him to speak, put his hand down. “Can I tell you a rhyming word I’ve just thought of?”

Nina’s smile grew all the more gritted, and the muscles in her face all the more tense. This was going to be the longest week she had experienced in living memory.

***

Nina would never get tired of living with Monet. The sound of her singing as the shower provided a backing track, the unholy racket she seemed to make when she cooked (a symphony of swearing, the banging of kitchen utensils, and the clattering of saucepans and baking trays). The smell of the Dior Sauvage she used instead of perfume and the Cantu hair custard she combed through her hair after she washed it. The fact that Nina could get a cuddle from her any time she wanted and the soft squash of her arms around her.

But living with Monet was best at Christmastime. The endless arguments they got into about their Christmas decorations and what looked best where, both stemming from a fierce loyalty to their own family traditions. The way they’d write their Christmas cards to their friends with a Christmas film playing in the background, and the way Monet would tease her about having such picture-perfect, font-like, primary-teacher handwriting. The way Monet would get too excited in the supermarket and load party food into Nina’s shopping basket like a child trying to sneak chocolate.

Even though Nina was completely exhausted, she still felt herself smile as she turned her key in the lock and heard her girlfriend loudly singing along with Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, paired with the blast of the extractor fan.

“Hello?” Nina sing-songed as she closed the door shut, shedding her heavy jacket and her scuffed trainers and her backpack full of jotters that had been haphazardly stuffed in as she left work.

“Hello!” Monet chirped back, in what had become their tradition since moving in together all those years ago. “Your timing’s perfect, I just finished dinner.”

“Ooh. What is for dinner?”

Monet gestured to the pile of grated cheese, pan of bubbling baked beans, and loaf of white bread. “Beans on toast.”

Nina snorted and leaned against the counter. “Wow, don’t I have the most perfect domestic housewife! That must’ve taken, what…two hours?”

Monet reached over and squeezed her side, eliciting a yelp that would probably give their downstairs neighbours the wrong idea. “Shady bitch. It’s this or two rice cakes that’ve been in the cupboard for so long I swear they’re turning fossilised.”

“No, I’m kidding. Of course I’m hungry, thanks hun. I’ll make dinner tomorrow,” Nina promised, sliding into one of their second-hand wooden dining chairs as Monet plated up.

“No you won’t,” Monet frowned. “You look dead. What’re your kids doing to you, beating you with their tiny little chairs?”

“The fucking Nativity,” Nina sighed, pausing to thank Monet as she placed two slices of golden toast covered with beans and flakes of grated cheese down in front of her. Admittedly it did look like absolute heaven.

“Have you told Bianca to piss off yet?” Monet scowled, stabbing her toast so hard she threatened to break the plate in two.

“What kind of fantasy-land school do you work at where you can tell your headteacher to piss off and she actually listens?” Nina cocked an eyebrow at her, and Monet shrugged in agreement as she chewed a mouthful. “No, of course not. I’m going to make it happen, though, even if it kills me. We started learning the songs today, which you would think was a simple enough endeavour. Except my class, who usually can’t shut up if their lives depend on it, have all the singing volume and skill of one of Yvie and Scarlet’s cat’s chew toys. They don’t even sound like cats being strangled, that’d probably be louder. It’s like trying to have a sing-song with a room full of laryngitis patients. Except it’s not a room, because apparently we’re not allowed to sing inside because of covid. But I can teach Phonics and the kids can all make the ‘p’ sound at me until their hearts’ content and shower me with their spit like the world’s shittiest production of Singin’ In The Rain? Anyway, we have to rehearse outside. In December. I think my feet actually fell off.”

As Nina finally finished what had unintentionally become a fully-fledged rant, Monet attempted to compose herself as she wiped away a small tear of laughter from her eye and clutched at her belly. Nina watched as her girlfriend took a few deep breaths, then fixed her with a humoured grin. “But apart from all that, how was your day?”

Nina stuck her tongue out at her in response. “Shut up. How was yours?”

Monet rolled her eyes as she speared a bean. “Awful. Tried to assess time with my class today. God I love them, Neens, but they’re so bad, how can they be that bad?”

“If anyone can help them progress, it’s you,” Nina smiled encouragingly, only getting a shaken head in reply.

“No, I can’t. Nobody can. They’re beyond help. Some of the answers I got today wouldn’t even be believable if they were part of some TV comedy show. What month is Christmas in? ‘Santa’. The kid answered Santa. How many months are there in a year? ‘Sixty six’. How many days are there in a week? ‘Two’. TWO!” Monet cried, outraged. Nina couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up in her throat, and Monet pointed warningly at her in response. “Don’t you dare laugh. This is my reality.”

“Hey, you laughed at my Nativity nightmare!” Nina giggled, to which Monet chuckled guiltily. Nina paused to swipe a bit of toast around the plate with her fork, mopping up any stray tomato sauce. When she looked up from her plate, she saw Monet tapping at her phone. Nina frowned disapprovingly. “Hey. No phones at the table.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Monet apologised quickly, though didn’t put her phone down yet. “Monique’s just sent me a screenshot of her friend that’s getting engaged. Look at the damn size of this ring.”

Monet turned her phone to show Nina. Pictured was a diamond the size of a small Pacific nation and a band encrusted with tiny gems on the finger of somebody she’d never met. Nina couldn’t help the way she screwed her face up, which made Monet blurt a laugh in response. “Not a fan, then?”

Nina pulled a face in thought. She was sure that kind of ring made some girls happy, but to her it just seemed tacky and over-the-top, not to mention heavy. “I’m sure she likes it, but I wouldn’t want something that huge. Imagine working in a Reception class with that?! Play-dough stuck in all the little crevices. And Jesus, what if you lost it? Nah, it would stress me out owning that. I would just want one simple little gold band and one singular tiny diamond. Much less of a burden.”

Monet snorted a laugh as she finished her last mouthful of dinner. “You are the only girl I’ve ever met that would consider an engagement ring a burden. Christ on a crucifix.”

“Well!” Nina protested, before realising she didn’t really have anything else to defend herself with. Then, she narrowed her eyes at her girlfriend playfully, kicking her under the table. “Why’re you so interested in my engagement ring opinions, anyway? You asking?”

Monet chuckled as she put her phone face-down on the table. “Bold of you to assume I can afford council tax, never mind a diamond.”

Nina smiled, shrugging in agreement. “Yeah, fair. What should we do tonight? I have Maths jotters to mark but then that’s me done.”

Monet tilted her head, her expression thoughtful. “I would say fucking our shit days out but I don’t even have the energy to operate a vibrator.”

Nina almost choked on her food as she laughed. “Christ, that’s a mood. Finish dinner, pyjamas, rewatch The Office for the ninety billionth time then bed at 7pm?”

“Sounds good, babe,” Monet smiled, lifting her glass of water up to cheers with as if it was sparkling wine.

***

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! Oh McFun it is to ride in a waffle sofen sleigh, HEY! Jingle bells, Jin-”

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah,” Nina cut in, waving her hands frantically and stopping the twenty-three five and four year olds that had previously been singing their little kidney bean-sized lungs out. “What are the words?”

Her class stared back at her as if she’d just asked her what twenty-eight times thirteen was. Although Jeremiah, who was already working at Year 5 level, could probably have worked that out given enough time.

“Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh,” Nina said, rhythmically and clearly. “You try.”

The children all parroted it back to her in their little voices, word-perfect. Thank God, thought Nina. Jingle Bells seemed to be the only song they recognised, so if they turned out to not know it after all then Nina would very probably need an inhaler despite the fact she wasn’t at all asthmatic.

“Let’s try it with the music!” Nina said cheerfully, making sure the bluetooth speaker she’d brought outside was still on.

“Miss West,” a small voice piped up belonging to Amber, the human embodiment of a whine. “I’m cold!”

“We’ll get inside soon!” Nina replied patiently. “Just let’s practise it one more time!”

“I’m cold too,” piped up Joshua, Amber’s male counterpart.

“I’m freezing,” Amber offered again.

“I know, it’s very cold outside!” Nina smiled sympathetically, even though her teeth were gritted. “But we can’t do our singing inside because of the virus!”

“Why not?” Amber pouted.

Nina didn’t really know. The answer was because of the care inspectorate guidelines, but that was incredibly far beyond the realms of a five-year-old’s comprehension. Just then, an idea struck her.

“Well we need to sing our songs outside so that Santa can hear them when he’s taking his sleigh out for a test drive!” she said animatedly. The wide eyes and ohhhh-s she received in reply made her feel like a genius. Move over, Steven Hawking. “Okay, one more time with Jingle Bells. Nice and loud for Santa!”

“Miss West?”

Nina blinked slowly and heavily, taking a small breath before answering the newest child that demanded her attention. “Yes, Sophie?”

“I’m cold.”

“I’m cold!! We’re all cold!!” Nina replied quickly, just that shade away from snapping so that her class knew she meant business. “We’re doing the song one more time and then we’re going inside! So nice big smiles, nice loud voices, and here…we…go!”

Nina pressed play on the song before any more children could regale her with tales of how their body temperatures had dropped to that of a snowman’s.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!” they all enthusiastically sang. “Oh McFun it is to ride in a waffle sofen sleigh!”

Nina rubbed so hard at her tired eyes that she thought they might disappear into her skull. She was momentarily glad of the fact that she didn’t have a teaching assistant to help her, as to have any other adult witness this would be embarrassing in the extreme.

Just then she noticed around five parents queued up at the nursery adjacent to the playground, watching with wry smiles on their faces as they waited for their children.

“One more time!” Nina cried, as she stopped the music with freezing cold hands.

***

“So Nina, when you gonna wife your girlfriend?”

Nina very nearly spat out her tea, a horrifying milky brown hurricane only just avoided. She hadn’t been expecting to answer deep, meaningful life questions in the staffroom during a lunch hour, but Willam was the human incarnation of petrol on a campfire and with her around things were always in danger of going from zero to a hundred very quickly. To Nina’s relief Courtney was also in the staffroom, and she whipped around from the countertop and gave her girlfriend daggers.

“Willam!” Courtney chastised her in a hiss that Nina wasn’t quite sure was meant to be audible. Willam only gave her an incredulous glare, affronted that she seemed to be the voice of reason in the conversational chaos.

“What?! Just askin’. I mean you’re what…twenty-nine? Twenty eight?”

“Twenty-six,” Nina replied. She was now at the age where being assumed she was older than she was was a curse, not a blessing. (If she’d told seventeen-year-old Nina that one day she would be disappointed at no longer being ID’d for wine at Sainsburys she’d have laughed in her face.)

“Exactly. That’s wifeing age. Mid to late twenties.”

“Hey, I passed that stage long ago, where the hell’s my ring?“ Courtney asked Willam, stirring the coffee she’d poured into one of the many, many “World’s Best Teacher!” mugs that littered the staffroom cupboards. Willam responded by turning around in her chair and positioning her pencil skirt-clad ass in the air.

“Right here, bitch!”

“Christ Almighty,” Courtney turned away from her, rolling her eyes so hard they looked like little spheric dice. As Willam gave her best impression of a seal on laughing gas, Nina cast her eyes over to Sasha who was sitting at the other end of the staffroom. As they caught each others’ eyes they shared a long-suffering smile that mourned the death of peace and quiet.

Nina was glad the conversation had been diverted from the subject of her perceived lack of marriage plans. Until Sasha opened her mouth, that is.

“I wouldn’t worry, Nina. Me and Shea haven’t had that conversation either. I mean we’d both love to, but there’s more important stuff for us right now, you know? We’re saving for a house and I think we’d rather live in a place we’ve chosen for the foreseeable future than just having one singular big lavish day.”

“It’s all about what you want to do with the person you love the most, isn’t it? Not just doing what society wants you to do,” Courtney chipped in, her voice warm and kind. “Like me and Willam used to be total party girls before we got our shit together. And now, like…there’s nothing I’d rather do of a weekend than curl up with her on the sofa and get all cosy with a film and a blanket and a cup of tea.”

Willam scoffed affectionately. “That’s your ideal weekend plan? What are you, forty?”

“Yes? As are you?” Courtney replied incredulously. Nina heard Sasha snort in her chair. As she turned her gaze back to the other two girls she realised that Willam was still looking at her expectantly. Nina sank back into her seat, a little reserved.

“It’s not really something we’ve spoken about? Well…no, we have spoken about it, obviously,” she babbled, watching as Willam took on the look of someone witnessing a victim of cardiac arrest. “Like we both want to get married. To each other, of course. But teaching is just such a busy job all the time and…you know, we only bought our flat last Summer and…I don’t know, it’s nice not to have everything happen all at once, right?”

Courtney nodded emphatically in agreement. “Of course! And I mean, if she asked, you’d say yes, right?”

Nina had to stop herself from pulling a face. How am I having this conversation with my boss? “Well, yeah. God, I couldn’t imagine life without her at all.”

Willam pretended to gag, which Nina thought was pretty rich from the woman who had begun the entire conversation. Courtney seemed to pick up on her girlfriend’s distaste.

“I don’t think Willam has ever said anything that cute about me!”

Willam turned around to look at her girlfriend, disbelief on her face. “Yeah, I only left my damn husband for you. Fuck me, right?”

Nina’s eyes widened as Sasha gave a yelp from across the staffroom. That was a small piece of workplace gossip she hadn’t expected to learn today. As Courtney’s face turned red and she shot Willam a warning glare, she turned to Nina once more.

“Nina, how’s the Nativity going?” Courtney beamed artificially at her, moving the conversation along with all the grace and decorum of a one-wheeled snow plow.

Considering the question, Nina thought that she’d rather be discussing marriage plans with her boss and colleagues again. “It’s going.”

“That’s a ringing endorsement. I’m sure that was on the poster of Titanic too,” Willam chipped in.

“It wouldn’t be any less disastrous than the actual fate of the Titanic, at least the passengers could’ve probably remembered the words to fucking Jingle Bells,” Nina deadpanned, causing Willam to break into fits of clubbed seal laughter.

Sasha pouted sympathetically from the other side of the room. “It’s those cute bits that the parents love, though, isn’t it? They won’t mind if they get the words wrong.”

“I’m sure there needs to be a foundation of at least an audible tune though, Sash,” Nina smiled resignedly back at her.

“If Bianca wants a Nativity so bad, just tell her to come teach your class,” Willam half-suggested, half-yelled. “Or get Court to teach them! They prolly don’t need to be in tune anyway!”

Courtney’s expression appeared to be the same as Nina’s after her morning’s rehearsal. “Do you ever stop talking shit?”

“You think I’m bad? That bell is going to go for the Comp’s lunch break in five minutes, Bob is gonna arrive, an’ then it’s RIP our eardrums,” Willam said, pointing to the staffroom door for dramatic effect.

“At least Bob has never presented his clothed arsehole to his partner in front of his colleagues,” Courtney cut in at once, her tone deadpan and making Nina splutter a laugh.

“Aw, c’mon Court! That’s just banter. These girls don’t mind.”

“It’s unprofessional!” Courtney clutched her chest. Willam only snorted in response.

“Unprofessional? What are you, forty?”

“We’re the same age!!” Courtney cried in response, her incredulous tone only setting Nina off in a further fit of laughter.

It was only later on that night once she had driven back home, parked, and approached her and Monet’s flat that Nina remembered the staffroom conversation. She cast her gaze up to their first-floor window in their red brick building, almost being able to feel the way her heart gave a swell at the sight of their Christmas tree framed proudly within the glass. And as she got in through the front door, Monet greeted her with a hug and a takeaway leaflet.

“We’ve got nothing in the fridge, so I thought we could get noodles? This came through the door today and I think-” Monet raises her eyebrows, slapped the leaflet into the palm of her hand decisively. “- it’s a sign from God.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Nina laughed, shrugging off her coat and feeling grateful for not having to cook.

It was only when they were both curled up on the couch, empty pad thai containers in front of them, that Nina turned to Monet and saw the lights on the tree reflected in her eyes. She turned to her girlfriend, threw an arm round her and snuggled in to her side.

“What’s up?” Monet asked, her voice soft and sleepy and a little concerned.

“Nothing,” Nina sighed. It was true. There wasn’t really anything up, and she was the happiest she’d ever been. But she still turned to Monet, tilting her head up inquisitively. “You don’t feel under any pressure at all, do you?”

Monet snorted. “I feel under pressure to get fifteen children who can’t write the word cat on their own to magically be able to write a sentence by the end of the year, yeah.”

Nina rolled her eyes. “No! I mean, like…in life. You didn’t just…buy this flat with me because you felt you had to, right? You wouldn’t do anything because you felt obliged to?”

Monet raised a single eyebrow back at her. “Yeah, I decided to piss my life savings away on a deposit for a flat because I felt I had to. Jesus Christ, Neens.”

“No, no, I know,” Nina chuckled, realising how silly the whole thing now sounded. “But I just mean…in life, like milestones and stuff. You’d never do stuff because you felt you had to keep up, in some way? Reach some goal by a certain age?”

Monet brought an arm around Nina and cuddled her closer, kissing her hair and resting her chin on top of her head. “Everything I do in life, I do because I want to. Especially when it comes to you. Promise.”

Nina gave her girlfriend a squeeze, happy. She took a deep breath, smelt the fabric softener on Monet’s jumper that they both used but just seemed to smell better and feel softer on everything Monet wore.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

***

Nina sat in a child-sized chair with her knees practically up to her chest, a crumpled, printed-out script on her lap that she’d hastily typed up on her work iPad’s notes app the following evening. Her class sat behind her in costumes pulled on over their school uniforms, with books and pens and pieces of paper with botched photocopying on the back under strict instructions not to talk until the whole thing was filmed.

“Okay, Amber!” she smiled breezily at the small girl whose school blouse was sticking out under her angel costume. “You’re kicking off the video. So your line is two thousand years ago, an angel came to a woman called Mary. Practise it for me?”

Amber gripped the hem of her taffeta skirt in two tiny white-knucked fists. “I don’t want to.”

Nina bit her lip. Great start. Fantastic. “We can give it a try together?”

Reluctantly, Amber parroted the words in tandem with her. So far so good.

“Okay. Now do you want to go up against the backdrop and I can film you doing it?”

Amber’s ponytail full of flyaways swung wildly as she shook her head. Nina thought for a moment. Then her eyes came to rest on Hazel- the class’ Mary and, coincidentally, Amber’s best friend.

“What about if Hazel stands with you?”

That seemed to change things and, only slightly hesitantly, both girls got up in front of the hastily staple-gunned silver tinsel.

“Okay Amber. Two thousand years ago, an angel came to a woman called Mary. Ready?”

A nod in reply.

“Go!”

Amber took a deep, shaky breath in. “Two thousand years ago….a woman called Mary.”

Nina stopped filming, fixed the girl with a kind smile. “An angel came to a woman called Mary. Try again?”

The iPad was back in filming mode, and Amber went again. “Two thousand years ago, a…a…a little cute angel came to Mary.”

Nina stopped filming, fixed Amber with two thumbs up. That’ll do.

Things seemed to be going well as Hazel and Oliver (or, Mary and Angel Gabriel) got through their lines without too many bumps in the road. Then, it was time for Amber to take to the stage (or blue curtain with a tinsel border) once more.

“Okay Amber, so your line this time is…Mary told her husband Joseph. Want to practise?”

“Mary told her husband Joseph,” Amber repeated, with all the enthusiasm of a patient about to undergo a colonoscopy. With two days til the deadline, this would have to suffice.

“Perfect! Ready? Three…two…one…go!” Nina smiled encouragingly, as she hit record.

Amber stood beside Mary and Joseph, a little grin on her own face. “Mary told her husband Joyce.”

“…Joseph,” Nina reminded her. Where the fuck had Joyce come from? She hit record again.

“Three…two…one…go!”

“Mary told her husband Joyce.”

Nina couldn’t stop herself from bursting out laughing. “Joseph, Amber!”

The little girl nodded earnestly. “Joseph Amber.”

Nina spluttered. “No…Amber is your name. Joseph is Mary’s husband.”

“Ohhhhhh.”

Nina shook her head, amused. This was what she loved about teaching. None of the other girls working from home could say that they got to spend their day feeling like they were stuck in an episode of You’ve Been Framed.

“Go again. Mary told her husband Joseph. Three…two…one…”

“Mary told…em…um…I can’t remember,” Amber giggled. Nina could feel her own giggles bubbling up inside herself, but she had to stop otherwise it would set her whole class off.

“Mary told her husband Joseph,” Nina repeated, both Amber and Hazel now giggling to each other. “Shh shh! Okay…three…two…one…”

Amber composed herself, took a deep breath. “Mary told her husband Joyce.”

Christ Alive. Nina gasped incredulously, unable to help herself from laughing now. The whole class, Amber herself, and Nina was pretty sure God, were all doing the same. She put her head in her hands, her whole body now shaking with laughter. “Joseph!!”

She already couldn’t wait to tell everybody she knew this story. Not least so she could cement in her mind that it was something that actually happened to her, and not just simply the script of a comedy show she’d dreamed up. Miraculously, mercifully, she managed to get the rest of her class settled down and for Amber to say the correct line on film, even if Nina could be faintly heard frantically mouthing “Joseph!” in the background.

Eventually they reached the innkeepers. Easy enough, in theory.

“Okay, Carter,” Nina smiled encouragingly at the first innkeeper. “When Mary and Joseph ask for a room, you say ‘no, sorry!’. Okay?”

Carter nodded, half a finger stuck up his nose. Nina gestured to him to put his hands down, then began filming. As directed, Mary and Joseph asked if there was any room at the inn.

“YES,” the little boy shouted. The whole class burst out laughing. Nina did not.

Just then, Willam walked past the open door with her class. She gave her a look of inquisition, shooting her a tentative, questioning thumbs up.

Nina put her head in her hands in reply.

***

By some miracle of nature (although it could also have been Nina giving up on work that afternoon) Nina had made it back to the flat before five o’clock. This never happened- five pm was usually the time she left work, but a day full of recording Nativity clips and then putting them together on iMovie while her class played (read; caused havoc) had been tiring and she needed Monet, chocolate, and Merlot.

Only the first thing she heard when she opened the door to her flat wasn’t Monet singing, or the hum of the extractor fan. It was the grainy crackle of a Zoom call and an incredibly distinctive voice.

“So when you doin’ it? Do it tonight. Do it when she gets home from work.”

Monet’s voice- humoured, long-suffering. “I’m not doing it then, Vanj, she’ll be exhausted.”

“That was honestly your best suggestion? When she gets home from work?” Brooke’s voice. “Aren’t you the pinnacle of romance!”

Nina had realised that Monet was on a Zoom call with all the girls, from the way Vanessa had obviously kissed Brooke on camera was being met with half a dozen cries in protest from the others. She excitedly shrugged off her coat and unwrapped herself from her scarf, eager to see her friends again. Part of her was intrigued, though. Why were they all calling each other without her?

“My question is how you’re going to do it,” Akeria’s voice came, as questioning as always. “It needs to be good but it better not be too damn cheesy.”

“An’ you better make sure she got her nails done, she might say no if she ain’t got her nails done!” Silky came shouting through Monet’s Macbook speakers.

“Yeah, you better make it as romantic as you can, Mo,” Scarlet added, making Nina wonder what the hell it was they were all talking about. Before she could wonder any further, she heard Yvie’s distinctive snort of a laugh.

“You are in no position to speak about romance, I mean, need I remind you how you asked me?”

“Shut up,” Scarlet replied, her tone a little bashful as the other girls laughed.

“Monet I could hire you a plane if you really wanted,” Plastique offered, making Nina snort despite the fact she had no idea what the conversation was about.

“Shut up, bitch,” Nina could practically hear the roll of Akeria’s eyes.

Nina toed her shoes off and finally padded through to the kitchen, where Monet’s eyes grew wide when she saw her, her body visibly flinching.

“Hey, babe!” she smiled, looking a little startled. “You’re home earlier than usual!”

“Oh sorry, am I interrupting your Zoom call with all your side chicks?” Nina deadpanned, forcing her way onto Monet’s lap to see her friends on the screen.

“Ninaaa!!!” Vanessa’s face popped up first, her friend waving excitedly as she sat on her sofa in Brooke’s arms. “How are you, girl?”

“Shattered,” Nina sighed, rubbing her eyes harshly. “Just filmed the whole Nativity with the rugrats today. Think it took ten years off my lifespan. How’re you?”

“Good,” Brooke smiled back through the screen. “We ordered our Christmas food today. Trying to convince this one that we don’t need twelve pigs in blankets between two people.”

Vanessa scowled back at her from their position on the sofa. “Uh, yes the hell we do!”

“Twelve pigs in blankets as well as the turkey, stuffing, and all the veg? Y’all are gonna explode,” Akeria said disapprovingly.

“Kiki! How are you?” Nina cried with delight, seeing her friend’s tired but smiling face appear on screen.

“Good. Don’t stop work for a while yet, but it’s fine. Still flat hunting.”

“How’s Pri?” Nina asked, heartened by the way Akeria looked down, trying and failing to suppress a smile.

“Yeah, she’s good. Still batshit crazy. Horny all the time.”

“The ideal girlfriend, really,” Yvie said, a wry smile on her face.

“Nina!” Silky suddenly cut in, yelling. “Did you hear any of what we were talkin’ about before?”

Nina frowned, shook her head. “Something about planes and nails. And cheese. I’m too exhausted to have paid enough attention. Why, were you having a mad bitchfest about me?”

“Trying to ask the girls how best to dump you,” Monet deadpanned. Nina shot Monet a look and squeezed her leg, resulting in her girlfriend yelping and cracking her knee off the table.

Whatever the previous conversation was was soon forgotten about as excited catchups took over. Silky was excited as she was interviewing some singer that Nina had never heard of and wanted the girls to help her work out what questions she was going to ask her. Yvie and Scarlet were lamenting the fact they had to host both of their families for Christmas and had bought a turkey so big Scarlet wasn’t sure it would fit in their oven, and Plastique was telling them the weirdest things she’d been gifted by companies desperate for her to endorse them on Instagram.

“I got a box of sex toys from LoveHoney. That was probably the most random. Me and Naomi had a wild fucking night that night.”

“STOP BEIN’ GROSS,” Silky had yelled down the line, causing Nina to hammer Monet’s volume down button.

Eventually the call came to an end, but not before lots of promises to catch up soon once the situation across the world was better than the shitshow it was currently. As Monet closed her laptop, Nina threw her arms around her neck and nuzzled into her side.

“I miss them,” she sighed, and Monet patter her back comfortingly.

“I know, babe. I miss them too.”

There was a moment of pensive silence, and then Nina spoke again, the Nativity never too far away from her mind.

“I can’t export this video.”

“What?”

“The Nativity video. I can’t export it,” Nina muttered pitifully against her girlfriend’s shoulder.

Monet kissed her hair, making to stand up. “You get a cup of tea. I’ll fix your video.”

“You’re the best,” Nina sighed gratefully, walking over to the kettle.

It was only after she’d sat down with a cup of tea and Monet had promised she’d sorted her video that Nina thought about the conversation she’d walked in on earlier.

She had a strange feeling that it had something to do with her.

***

When Nina arrived at work that morning, she could tell something was…a little different. She couldn’t really tell what it was. It started with the slightly knowing smile Tatianna shot her from across the corridor.

“Congrats, Nina!” she shouted down to her before she ducked into her own classroom.

“Uh…thanks,” she replied a little too late. Okay, the Nativity process had been stressful, but did she really need congratulated?

She supposed she appreciated it. It had been a whirlwind of a process, after all.

Only the odd thing was, it continued. The congratulations came pouring in; Alaska, Ivy from the Nursery school, Alyssa had cooed and gushed for ages about how exciting it was and how happy she was for her.

Nina had only blinked in reply, a little bewildered. “Thanks, Alyssa. It was a stress, but they managed to pull it off in the end.”

Alyssa gave her a funny look, then realisation seemed to dawn on her. “Oh…they’re non-binary! You know I never knew that, sorry sugar. Well congratulations to you both.”

With that, Alyssa hurried away only leaving Nina more confused than ever.

What in the fuck?

When the bell rang and Nina went to collect her class from the line, things only got weirder. Before she could hurry her class inside, Harry’s Mum waved at her from behind the school gate, beckoning her over. Nina’s heart began to sink- she was going to ask her why Harry was only a shepherd, wasn’t she, or why he didn’t get a solo during Little Donkey, or some-other-bullshit-like-that.

To Nina’s surprise, she held up a sparkly gift bag.

“Hi, sorry for bothering you!” she beamed at her. This was already unheard of- a parent apologising for taking up her time? Nina was beginning to question if she had slipped through a crack in the fabric of reality while she’d been sleeping when Harry’s Mum spoke again. “Me and the other parents had a quick whipround and got you a couple of things and a little card to say congratulations! We thought it was the least we could do given your lovely news.”

It was only after Nina had thanked her profusely, taken the bag and led her children into class that her words sank in. What lovely news was she on about?

Nina taught that morning in a daze. Well, ‘taught’ was pushing it; the last few days of term were always movie days or games days, and today was the former. Nina had decided to inject a bit of an educational element to it by showing her class Nativity and then asking them if they thought the film’s play was better than the one they’d put on. Despite it being one of her favourite Christmas films, though, she still wondered why everyone had been congratulating her today. Maybe her Nativity video had really been so amazingly good that people just had to comment on it. Nina decided that this was the only plausible explanation, and so was feeling particularly spirited as it reached breaktime and she sent the kids out to play.

She was sitting in her classroom reading all the messages she’d missed on her group chat when Willam practically crashed through her door.

“Oh my God!” she yelled, practically vibrating with excitement. “Congratulations, you lucky fucker! That’s gotta be the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen. I mean Bianca probably wants your head on a plate for keeping it in, but still! How’re you celebrating? Should we go to the shop at lunchtime and get prosecco? I mean it’s the last few days of term, I’m sure drinking on the job’s allowed. Court wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Willam was talking with such speed that it took a few seconds for Nina to register everything she’d said. “Why…would Bianca want my head on a plate?”

Willam snorted. “I mean it’s kinda obvious. You don’t think she’s gonna be pissed about it? Then again, maybe she won’t. I don’t know, I can’t get inside her head. I’m not on that Honey I Shrunk The Kids kinda bullshit.”

Nina felt her head was so clouded that even if she possessed the brightest fog lights in the world she still couldn’t see what Willam was trying to say.

“Willam,” she asked, slowly and carefully as she rested her head in her hands. “What the hell are you talking about?”

There was a pause as Willam froze, then as her eyes became huge and wide as she slowly raised a finger to point at Nina. “Jesus Harvey Christ. You…you don’t know, do you?”

Nina frowned, bewildered. “Know what?”

“Oh my God. You don’t know. This is the best thing ever. You don’t even know!” Willam howled with laughter, then, before Nina could ask what she was meant to not know, Willam had dashed out of her classroom and had begun yelling into the hall. “Courtney! Court! She doesn’t know!”

Nina began to feel her heart beat in heavy thuds as the bell went to signal the end of playtime. What didn’t she know?

Eventually Nina managed to reach the end of the day. How, she didn’t know. She was so confused by all the different odd events of the day that she felt she didn’t properly make sense at any point to her class, but that probably didn’t matter as they were all so wrapped up in Christmas nonsense that Nina could’ve left the classroom and they wouldn’t have given a shit.

She was just getting ready to leave work for the weekend when Bianca stuck her head into her classroom and made her almost jump fifty feet in the air.

“Nina,” she began, in her own blunt, abrasive way. She didn’t wait for Nina to greet her as she continued. “I know you must be wandering around with your head in the clouds at the moment, but next time do you think you could maybe just run the video by me first? I mean you’re very lucky that the parents took that well. I mean it’s really about the kids, y’know?”

Nina could only blink at her wide-eyed like a deer in the headlights, getting into trouble but not entirely sure what for. Loath to say anything in response, she simply nodded.

“I mean you should’ve really kept it out,” Bianca frowned. She let the awkward, tense silence hang in the air for a few moments before a humoured smile appeared on her face. “But congratulations. I’m very happy for you.”

Without stopping for Nina to reply, Bianca had turned on her heel and left her classroom. Nina could only look at the space she’d previously been standing in. Maybe all of this was a dream. A fever dream. She’d probably contracted some sort of illness and was experiencing some hallucinogenic vision.

She didn’t know how she made it home without causing a crash, but she managed, and as soon as she was through the door she began to vent to the person she loved most.

“Monet!” she called through to the kitchen, hanging her belongings up. “I’ve had the weirdest fucking day in living memory. So first all the teachers were congratulating me…then I got a present from the parents…then Willam was screaming about me not knowing something…and then Bianca gave me a row at the end of the day…but I still don’t know exactly why…but then she said congratulations to me too?”

It was only when Nina stopped and walked through to the kitchen that she saw the kitchen table all done up with candles and laid beautifully, Nina’s favourite meal (slow cooker beef and buttery mash) on two plates, and Monet sitting at the table with her makeup done, dressed in a backless blue bodycon that Nina had once very nearly broke the zip of trying to rip it off her one weekend away.

“Uh…” Nina frowned, more confused than ever. Slowly, as a smile spread across Monet’s face, she began to connect all the dots of weird and the picture it presented illustrated that somehow her girlfriend had to be behind it all. “Okay, what’s going on?”

Monet got up and leant against the kitchen counter. She very gently took both of Nina’s hands in hers. “You didn’t watch the whole video once I exported it, did you?”

Something like dread crossed with excitement began to pool in Nina’s gut. She narrowed her eyes. “Monet…what did you do?”

Wordlessly, Monet reached back across to the table where she picked up her phone and loaded up the Nativity video. Skipping to the end, she got past the end of Jingle Bells and showed the video to Nina. The screen faded to black, and then, Nina watched as another little title card faded into view.

To the teacher that always gives so much of herself to others, I now want to give all of myself to you.

Miss West, will you marry me?

Love, Monet x

And suddenly everything in Nina felt as if it was made of fire, adrenaline and jet fuel. Her eyes flew open, her hand smacked against her shocked, gaping mouth. Her pulse raced and her heart hammered and all of her limbs turned to jelly to the extent she wasn’t sure she was able to stand any more. When she took her eyes off her phone screen and looked at Monet, her girlfriend was down on their kitchen floor, down on one knee like in every princess movie Nina had ever seen, her hair soft and curled and loose on her shoulders and a bright smile on her painted taupe lips. Gemstone tears brimmed in her dark eyes and hung from her lashes like icicles, and there, in her outstretched hands, was an open navy box.

Inside was a ring - gold band, one small diamond - and it was when Nina saw it that she gave a sob, her own tears springing from her eyes like a broken fountain, uncontrollable and erratic.

“Oh, baby, c’mere,” Monet gave a small laugh, shaking her head and immediately rising from the floor to wrap her arms around her in a hug. Nina took a few shaky, shallow breaths, pawing at Monet’s chest to release herself from her grip and look her in the eyes.

“You! You knew…all this time, and you…you put it in the video, oh my GOD, Monet, I could’ve got in so much trouble…I did get in so much trouble, oh my God…and you didn’t even tell me-”

“I thought you’d at least watch the damn thing through before you uploaded it!” Monet burst out laughing through her tears, and Nina joined in in a lightheaded, giddy way.

“I can’t believe this is real. Fuck. My whole body feels like that time we did poppers in Crete. Oh my God. Is this happening? You want to marry me?”

“Well, I would love to marry you, but I’m waiting on an answer,” Monet smiled bashfully, bringing her arm out from around Nina’s waist and holding the ring up so Nina could see it.

The diamond only seemed to glisten more when she saw it through the tears in her own eyes, and the gold shone warm like the brightest star. It was an engagement ring- her engagement ring- and it was real, and it was surreal, but Monet was in front of her waiting for an answer with tears in her eyes and hope in her heart that matched her own.

And Nina had never been one to say no to anything.

#rpdr fanfiction #ninex #background witney #monet x change #nina west #willam belli #courtney act #things are really cool in nazareth #ortega #fluff #kidfic #proposal fic #ficmas 2020 #day 14: nice #tw: coronavirus reference #submission

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autumnslance · 4 years

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Early ARR: On Aeryn's first mission for the Scions, she and Thancred have to make camp and talk. With no one else around, there's no need for facades from certain rogues--as if the Echo would allow that anyway.

((Worked on this on the FFXIV Write 2020 free day (when not chatting with my FC buddies). Been working on this for awhile so finally yeeting it out there. Below the cut if one prefers Tumblr to Ao3.))

The wind was kicking up, sand and grit blowing as they rode across the dusty old roads toward Drybone. Thancred looked up at the sky and frowned as the rented chocobos kwehed and shook worriedly. Aeryn looked to him, a questioning expression on her face.

“We’ve a sandstorm coming in,” he confirmed, familiar with the signs. “If we push, we can make it to safety before the worst strikes. Come on!” He urged his bird into a gallop, Aeryn’s mount keeping up easily.

He muttered a prayer or three as the chocobos’ talons ate the yalms of roadway, his eyes seeking the cut in the hillside walls that led off to a side road. He finally found it, and kicked his flagging chocobo forward again as the wind surged, the rumble of the coming storm at their backs.

He let out a coughing breath of relief when he saw it. The small house was tucked against a cliffside, well away from the main roads. Thancred had discovered the abandoned building during his surveys over the years, and often used it for camp as he passed through this region. Now it would shelter the two Scions and their birds from nature’s fury.

He leapt off his chocobo into a running landing for the door. He took more time than he liked--less than a minute, but still too many seconds--to find the hidden key and force the swollen old door open. Aeryn had dismounted in the meantime, and led the chocobos inside while Thancred secured the door again.

“That should do--Godsdammit!” Thancred looked at the broken window. He scrambled to the top of an old table, praying again that it held his weight, and leaned out to grab at the shutter. He had to wrench it, and his shoulder a bit, to get the old hinges to finally pull shut. He jammed the latch; no need to leave it open in any case.

Aeryn dug feed from the saddlebags, letting the winded chocobos soothe their nerves with dinner.

“Well, we are not going anywhere for some time,” Thancred said as the wind howled outside the old building. The beams overhead shuddered, but the walls were intact and the door remained latched. There seemed to be no other residents, either; his minor wards must have held.

Aeryn shook sand out of her coat with a grimace.

“Welcome to Thanalan,” Thancred said, dusting sand out of his fair hair. “I stocked some fuel by the fireplace when last I came this way; we shan’t freeze, at least. There’s a well, too, in the sideroom for drinking and bathing and all else.” He removed his chocobo’s tack, patting the tired bird as he retrieved his pack.

Aeryn did the same before joining Thancred at the fireplace on the other side of the small space. The ceiling was low and there were no other rooms; it had either been a single prospector’s house or was always meant to be a traveler’s waystation, forgotten as trade routes altered over time.

She set out bedrolls and rations while he crouched next to the old hearth, pulling a false brick from the wall with a small grunt of annoyance as his knuckles were scraped. In the hollow behind the brick was a battered camp kit and a meager amount of dry rations. “The tea shouldn’t be too gritty,” he said, using a cantrip to start a fire. Aeryn nodded in response, taking their canteens and the old kettle to fill with water while Thancred checked his stored rations alongside what they had packed for the journey.

Aeryn only had the aetheryte to Black Brush Station attuned, so they had had to travel the long way. Thancred had meant to camp at a more populated waystation on the main roads, another bell or two from now. He was glad after fifteen years working in Thanalan he had such eventualities dotted around the region; it paid to be prepared when the weather turned like this.

They settled in, amicably making camp, listening to the wind outside howl with the static of sand scouring the outside of the building. The chocobos were uninjured despite the final push to beat the storm, and fell asleep quickly after deep drinks of water and a treat of gysahl greens. The birds curled up together for warmth as the weather and night brought dropping temperatures.

“We should get to know one another better,” Thancred said as their supper warmed and the tea finished steeping. Aeryn looked up, raising a quizzical eyebrow. He shrugged. “We have the time, and we are colleagues now, are we not?”

She nodded again, a bit wary.

“All right, it may be a ploy to hear more of your lovely voice,” he teased, giving her one of his charming smiles. “Still; I shall start, if you prefer.”

Aeryn blushed, but did smile in return, at least.

Thancred remained crouched by the fire. “Now then; I bet you cannot accurately guess my age. ‘Tis an interesting effect of the--”

“Thirty-one.”

He blinked. “How did you--” He narrowed his eyes. “Yda.”

Aeryn giggled and nodded. “She explained a few things about the archons.”

Thancred sighed dramatically. “I can only guess what she said of me.” He gave Aeryn a pouty look.

She shook her head. “She said you’re a charming pain in the arse, and too clever for your own good. She didn’t speak poorly of any of the order.”

“Well that is something at least,” he replied. “She spoke rather well of you, too, if you were curious.”

Aeryn considered that a moment. “Hope I don’t disappoint.”

Privately, he agreed. Out loud, he answered, “From what Yda and Papalymo said, you arrived in Gridania only a short time ago. Where is it you hail from, if I may ask?”

“Originally, Coerthas,” she answered. “But Mother took us to her homeland in the Near East when I was small.”

“And you decided now that you are grown to return to the realm?” He asked, handing her a tin cup of tea.

She nodded in response as she accepted. “My brother returned a few years ago. I...came to find him.”

“Seems you have found plenty of adventure along the way,” Thancred said. Heroics in Gridania, and yet more with Y’shtola in Limsa, and what he had seen of Aeryn in Ul’dah; like she was always in the right place at the right time, and it all happened to coincide with the Ascians’ schemes ramping up again. A strange feeling, almost like a forgotten memory, tickled the back of his mind for a moment, but he dismissed it. “I know Ishgard’s gates are closed, but have you been back to Coerthas at all yet? Have you other family there?”

She shook her head. “No chance, while establishing myself with the Adventurer’s Guild, and then all that came after. I’ve heard Coerthas has changed since the Calamity, though I barely recall much of it.” Aeryn thought a moment, a small line creasing the space between her grey eyes. “I don’t believe I have any remaining family there.”

Thancred nodded. Before he could ask another question, she looked up, head tilting as she regarded him. “And you? Any family back in Sharlayan?”

“Ah, no, actually. I’m not originally from the City of Learning myself.” He idly rubbed the marks on his neck. “I am an orphan and immigrant; Sharlayan adopted me.”

“Like Yda.”

He raised a brow. “I’m surprised she said so much. She was...young,” he said, playing it safe. He wondered how much Yda had admitted to this young woman; it was easy to forget they were of an age, given…circumstances.

Aeryn only nodded and lapsed back into silence, watching the fire as she sipped her tea. It did not feel uncomfortable, and Thancred stayed quiet himself as he finished warming dinner. He passed Aeryn one of the cooked plates of rations.

“A simple meal, but it shall suffice for tonight,” he said. “Assuming the storm ends by morning, we can dig ourselves out and make it to Camp Drybone by midday. There will be better fare there.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking her share.

“You said your mother’s people are from the Near East. Hannish?”

Aeryn finished chewing the bite of jerky she had been contending with. “No; from an island off the mainland, actually. Traders; we spent half the year, after crossing over the strait, wandering usual routes, before spending the colder, wetter months in our village.”

“Grew up in a merchant caravan, then?”

Aeryn shrugged. “Partly, yes. Mother’s talents, when younger, were more of a minstrel’s.” She considered a moment, then smirked, eyes flicking a glance his way.

“What?”

“She’d have liked you, I think,” Aeryn said. “Probably would have seen through the charms, though.” There was a lilt to her tone; she was teasing him.

“Hrmph,” he couldn’t quite hold the smile back. “And warn me away from her pretty daughter, like as not,” he teased in return, pleased to see her blush once more. He noted again that it was not difficult to make that red appear on her tanned cheeks. “From my understanding, you’ve inherited some of your mother’s talents.”

Aeryn nodded again. “I can sing, and play the lyre and flute well enough.” She hesitated a moment. “I partially went to Gridania first because I’d heard rumors they had real bards in the Shroud. Luciane introduced me to one, but he wants me to practice awhile before teaching me more.”

“I’m sure you’ve the talent for it. We should sing together sometime,” Thancred said. She looked at him, blinking. “Good practice, yes? And the others would likely enjoy it.”

“I...Perhaps,” she replied, smiling. “What about you?”

“What about me, my lady?”

“You said you’re not from Sharlayan originally. What of your people?”

“Oh not much to tell there, I’m afraid,” he replied blithely, turning to the tea kettle. He caught a motion from the corner of his eye, and reflexively batted away the tightly wadded napkin she had flicked his way. “Hey!” He couldn’t help but grin; he recognized a test of reflexes when he saw one.

“You don’t get to deflect that easily,” she replied, grinning back. “Not after getting me to say so much.”

He eyed her a moment, then shook his head. “‘Twould only be fair, you’re right--but there honestly isn’t much to tell. No family to speak of, nor much of consequence occurred, before I met Master Louisoix and he brought me to Sharlayan--the colony in Eorzea, at least. I struggled to catch up with my education, learned to speak like a gentleman, and earned my Sage Marks at a younger age than most.”

She peered at him intently. He wondered if the Echo were showing her any of his memories. “Why do I feel as if some of that were out of spite?” Aeryn asked.

Thancred laughed, noting he had not quite kept a hint of old bitterness from his tone, and she had caught it. “Mayhap there was a bit; not all of the scholars were kind to a young guttersnipe. The ones who mattered though--well, you have met most of them.”

“You all seem close.”

“We’ve been colleagues for many years now.”

“Minfilia isn’t Sharlayan.”

“No,” Thancred said. “Like Yda, she’s originally Ala Mhigan, though she’s lived in Thanalan since she was a child.”

Aeryn gasped, her half-full tea cup dropping to the stone floor. She held her head, as if wracked by a sudden headache. “Are you all right?” There was no response, though she looked right at him. It seemed as if her eyes had taken on a silvery sheen. “Aeryn?”

She blinked, the odd reflection of light in her eyes gone. “I...saw….”

So the Echo did show her something. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a breath, smiling when he opened them. “A moment from my past?” Thancred asked quietly, resigned to explaining whatever the Crystal had deemed necessary to show her.

She nodded, reaching for the fallen tin tea cup and a spare blanket to blot at the spill. “Moments, really. It went quickly.” She closed her eyes. “A parade; a goobue; a miqo’te woman; a card game; a knife in a crypt…” Her eyes opened and she looked at him again. “Minfilia had a different name, as a child.”

He looked at the fire. “I could not save her father that day.” Thancred did not try to hide the old pain and shame; she already knew of it. “He had many enemies; I gave Minfilia her new name to keep her safe from them. F'lhaminn--the Songstress of Ul’dah herself--was part of the conspiracy of wealthy youths that led to all the events you saw. I ensured she took Minfilia in, though I also watched over her for years. Minfilia told me of her Echo when still an adolescent, and so I introduced her to Master Louisoix, via letters at first. The rest, as they say, is history.”

Aeryn nodded. “Papalymo gave me a brief history of the Circle of Knowing, the Path of the Twelve, and how they formed the Scions after the Calamity,” she said. There was still a thread of shakiness in her voice, but color was coming back to her cheeks, and her hands weren’t trembling as much.

“Does it take much out of you? The Echo?” He asked.

She looked at her own unsteady fingers. “Not as much as it did the first few times. Perhaps I’m getting used to it.”

He remembered her fainting at the Sultantree, and again outside the Sil’dihn ruins. The others had reported similar instances. “I hope so; you seemed ready to pass out.”

She grimaced and shrugged, and he feared she would lapse back into her customary silence. “You said you were looking for your brother, here in Eorzea?” He prodded gently.

Aeryn took a moment, then nodded. “He left home about six years ago, to see the realm of our birth and become an adventurer. I wanted to come with him, but Mother begged me to stay. She was ill even then, but had yet to tell us. And my own studies were not yet complete--though once she did take a turn for the worse, I had to give them up entirely.”

“What were you studying?” Something tickled the back of his mind again, but he shelved it for now to focus on her. Her breathing was steady again, and she wasn’t as pale; good.

“Magic. Magic theory, really, I...couldn’t do magic. Not as they taught in Thavnair, at least. I had wanted to learn so I could help my brother on his adventures. Instead I took up martial skills.” She frowned at the fire again, opting for water instead of more tea. “In Gridania, E-Sumi-Yan told me it’s strange I couldn’t learn; he says I have deep aetheric reserves, and it...suddenly seems to come easily enough, now.”

“Eorzea’s an aether-rich land,” Thancred pointed out. “Perhaps you’ll find a magic that agrees with you here. You certainly don’t lack the mind nor the talent, from what I have observed.” If anything, Aeryn's penchant for studying thicker tomes fit right in with many of his fellow archons.

She smiled, the pink tinge returning to her cheeks again as she ducked her head. “Thank you,” she said simply after some hesitation.

He smiled. “Quite welcome. Now, we should get our rest. Morning will come and plenty of work with it. Here, move your roll closer; we’ll have to huddle with the chocobos regardless for warmth, and I swear I shall be a gentleman.” He winked.

She nodded with a slight smile and an eyeroll, recognizing his joke. She shifted her bedding away from the spilled tea staining the floor. They ended up alongside one another, leaning on their chocobos, the chill seeping in even with the thick walls and the fire, the rushing of sandy wind now a constant background noise. The birds’ sleepy chirrs were closer and more comforting, the feathery bodies radiating a pleasant heat against the hyurs’ backs.

“Thancred?”

“Yes?”

“How exactly is my Echo supposed to help, if it still nearly causes me to faint when the visions come?”

He thought about his answer for a moment. “Well, you are getting better at not falling over when it hits you. Perhaps it will aid our investigation into the kidnappings.” He did not want to think about the alternative, the possibility that she might have to do more.

Aeryn’s quiet seemed thoughtful, as if she knew he was holding back. “Goodnight, Thancred,” she finally said.

“Good night,” he replied, staring at the flickering fire, shadows and light playing across the room.

What could one girl, talented as she was, do against something like Ifrit?

He hoped to all the gods they didn’t have to find out.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Lyn Writing #A Realm Reborn #Thancred Waters #Thancred x WoL #pre-relationship #shippy nonsense #Aeryn Striker

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starshineandbooks · 3 years

Text

Even the dangerous kid can find love from a fairytale

Warnings: cursing, harassment, implied/referenced childabuse. Let me know if I missed anything

Pairing: Demus, mentioned Logince

After Virgil left the group in junior year, half way through senior year Janus and Rmeus were so mad they got into a fight and aren’t talking currently, three days until they go to college. The only common piece they have is probably Bia and Roman.

But Janus opens the door to his apartment with a raised eyebrow, “What-”

“Get your shoes on Remus is in trouble and I need you to come help me. Now!” Bia snaps, “Ro’s in my truck, driving, come on.”

“What?”

“Shoes, now damn you!” Bia snaps, hands flitting about and jittery, bouncing slightly. Ready to run and or fight, Janus notes.

Janus pulls his shoes on, gad he already has sock, waiting patiently for Bia to start explaining, he calls up the stairs to his grandmother, “I’LL BE BACK REMUS’ IN TROUBLE APPARENTLY IT’S MY JOB TO BAIL HIM OUT!”

“OKAY! BE SAFE LOVE YOU! TAKE THAT LITTLE SPITFIRE GIRL!” His grandmother calls back.

Janus shuts the door, rushing into the truck still running at the end of his driveway, “So, did anyone want to explain to me what’s happening? Or?”

Bia gives a low growl, “So- fun fact, Remus has always liked dangerous things.”

“I know that.” Janus sighs, “What are we walking into?”

“That shady bar downtown known for assaults and deaths.”

“What?” Janus growls.

“Remus went to the Salty Currant, which is also, unfortunately, mafia territory.” Roman sighs, “Bia should stay out of it if she can, because-”

“Don’t you tell me what to do Crowne.” Bia snaps, “Remus is in danger and you want me to sit pretty?!”

“We want you to not tempt your sperm donor,” Janus counters, “And if you can’t listen I will call Angie.”

Bia grumbles, face souring.

As they break the speed limit they make it to the bar in fifteen minutes, and the boys turn to Bia.

“We’ll be back, if we’re not back in twenty you call the cops.” Roman says simply.

“I still think-”

“Bianca,” Janus snaps, “Please just this once listen to someone else?!”

“You’re lucky Remus is in danger or I’d smack some sense into ya, go save our dumbass loser.” Bia grumbles.

Janus and Roman nod, disappearing into the crowd and bar quickly, agreeing to split up and cover more ground.

Roman shoves past giggling teens and surly drinks, eyes scanning for his brother. He pushes forward through the crowd, beginning to regret splitting from Janus, the loud music and pulsing lights and mass of untrustable strangers.

Janus scowls, shoving through a rougher crowd, one filled with wandering hands on him and jeering looks. But Janus will find Remus, the elder of the Crowne siblings is in so much trouble just as soon as he’s found.

Remus isn’t so much found, instead he charged forwards, snagging Janus’ hand away from some smirking jerk or other and kissing him firmly on the mouth, one arm lacing tightly about his waist.

Janus stiffens, but dosen’t fight, recognizing Remus soft hum in greeting, but he does glare when the crazed teen pulls away.

“Hey there Baby, thought you’d gotten lost,” Remus smirks, and his eyes are softer, sober thankfully.

“Oh really?” Janus growls, dragging Remus towards where he saw a flash of red bomber jacket that resembles Roman.

“Jan-”

“Don’t.” Janus grits, still gripping Remus’ hand, too tight but Remus doesn't say anything, falling silent at the glower Janus gives him.

The two manage to find Roman and Janus calls, “Roman!”

Roman turns, “Jan?”

“We need to go, I got Remus, and we have three minuetes at most before something bad happens.” Janus says, herding the set of brothers out.

They make it out the door just in time for Roman to grab a storming Bia’s hand and drag her back to the truck.

“Uh- Why are you guys even here?” Remus asks.

“Bia.” Janus says simply.

“Bia,” Roman agrees, “But I’ve been so worried!”

“Bia,” Remus sighs, “Why did you drag my brother and Janus here?”

“I’m in less trouble if I’m not alone when I go to kick your ass.” Bia says simply, “And what were you doing here then?!”

“You don’t want details on that one.” Remus shrugs, “But I was having fun.”

“Having fun?” Janus asks his voice sharp as a tack, “Or trying to destroy yourself?”

“It’s all the same thing.” Remus shrugs, “But, thanks for carin’!”

Bia scoffs, opening the driver’s side door, “You are the most pig brained- Ugh!”

Janus shoves Remus into the back seat, clambering in beside Remus, still gripping his hand, “I don’t even know what to say to you, but I- why would you go there? You know it’s dangerous, you could have died!”

Roman takes passenger seat, “I’m glad you’re safe bro, but, c’mon, what’s worth that?”

“Oh I’ll tell ya,” Bia grumbles, backing out of her parking space.

Remus sighs, “Would you stop being a cranky thing? I’ll call Angie on you.”

“You keep yer yap outta my business thank ya,” Bia growls, chewing her lip, “You know Roman and I are in trouble right?”

“What? Why?”

“Logan’s going to kick our asses seven ways from sunday,” She sighs, “He hates this part of town more than I do.”

Remus rolls his eyes, then, “Jan?”

“What?!”

“You wanna let go of my hand? Or- you don’t have to, but it hurts a little, could you loosen your grip?”

Janus lets go, putting his hands in his lap, “Why in the hell would you put yourself there? Last I heard you preferred to not risk your life.”

“Last you heard we were talking.” Remus snaps, “Last yu heard you hadn’t broken my heart!”

“I- what?”

“I’m in love with you you fucking moron, And you were so heartbroken by Virgil leaveing that you let it fester and you broke my heart and left!”

Roman blinks, “Wait- you guys weren’t dating?”

“No,” Bia shakes their head, “they’re both morons.”

“Uh, yeah, it sucked that he left, but you were just using me as a rebound!” Janus snaps, “You loved him!”

“No, you loved him.” Remus pouts.

“You’re all idiots.” Bia sighs, “Why does everyone think that the person they love loves someone else?”

“What?” Janus blinks.

“I’m not talking to any of you until you fix this.” Bia says simply, “Or Logan forgives you for going into the den of the devil.”

Roman winces, “Oh I’m so dead.”

“No, you can kiss him and short circuit his brain, “Bia huffs.

“Hold up,” Remus says, finally catching sight of the splatter of colors, “We have a problem.”

“What?!” Janus glares.

“I- Found my soulmate apparently?”

Janus sours, “Congratulations.”

“Let me see your hand,” Remus pleads, “It’s gotta be you! Why else would you care enough to come get me?!”

Yes because the universe just cares for us that much.” Janus rolls his eyes.

“Ask Remus what colors.” Bia says petulantly.

Remus answers unprompted, “Green, and yellow, black, there’s some white too.”

Bia raises an eyebrow, then,”Janus, look at your hand please, or wherever your mark is.”

“But-”

“Trust me?”

Janus has always been doubtful, but Bia is usually right oddly enough with spiritual or magic may be concerned. Also, even he can’t ignore the hope blooming in his chest lke an intrusive flower of a thorny variety.

So, Janus does, letting his left palm move so he can inspect it, the colors match what Remus had described.

“Oh my god.” Janus whispers.

Remus grins, “Oh thank god!”

“This doesn't make me less angry with you for endangering yourself.” JAnus states, though with less venom than originally.

“Does this mean I can have a kiss before you yell at me more?’ Remus sounds a little hopeful.”

“You can have a kiss if you promise me you won’t needlessly endanger yourself again ever.” JAnus says simply.

Bia sveers sharply left, throwing Remus into Janus, making them kiss anyways, because she’s a stubborn witch who loves her friends.

Remus pulls back, “I promise on my soulmate.”

Janus snorts, suppressing a laugh.

“Oh?”

“He’s very dear to me, lovely snake.”

“Out, get out,” Bia says, stopping at Remus’ house, “And dear god tell your mother you’re okay. Think I freaked her out, sorry.”

Remus groans, but exits the truck with Janus.

Roman and Bia pull awaye.

Janus tilts his head, “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?”

“Always.” Remus grins, “Now you should go so mom can yell at me.”

“Oh no, we’ll both yell at you, let’s go inside.” Janus grins, leading Remus inf for a chewing out followed by worried hovering from Remus’ mother and soulmate.

Remus’ chest warms over with squirming insects in it, Janus is his soulmate now. The world is finally right.

#sanders sides #roman sanders #ssb writes #sweethearts soulmates and snarky remarks #soulmate au #janus sanders #sympathetic! remus #sympathetic dark sides #remus sanders #Bia Whitaman

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tackyink · 4 years

Text

Why do I do this to myself, I ask, as I post the next chapter two weeks after the first one, which took four years, thus defeating the entire point of extensive editing and risking a huge tone shift. Then again, I’ve been whining about it so much that it would be odd not to share.

Chapter 1

— — — — — — — —

Chapter 2

The sun pounds down with criminal intent as Alex and her friend run across the terrace of Mrs. Isabel’s monumental house. They are adventurers this time, or maybe pirates. It doesn’t matter. The reflection of the light on the colorful tiles and whitewashed buildings is blinding, and her friend’s blonde hair makes her glow like she’s wearing a crown woven with sunlight. They are wearing matching pendants of stone that she picked for them while she was on a trip.

Laughing, her friend turns to Alex with a toy chest between her hands, but Alex can’t hear the sounds coming from her mouth and her face is a featureless blur that she can’t make sense of. Who’s this person? The stress of not being able to focus on her face makes the image vanish into white, then black, then...

When Alex woke up, she vaguely remembered dreaming about home, so she didn’t give it much thought. She very rarely remembered dreams, and dreams related to the past were the worst because they were filled with people she hadn’t seen in years, so she wasn’t going to make an effort to recall only to feel bad.

Getting up with a lot effort, she remembered she had gone straight to bed as soon as she got home the day before and she needed a shower. She groaned as she undressed and dropped on the nightstand the seastone pendant she usually wore under her clothes. It was a small, useless thing that may have at some point been used as a bullet and repurposed, but it was a gift from a family friend, and she liked how it looked. A good luck charm of sorts that clearly wasn’t doing its job.

The shower seemed to stretch to infinity as she reviewed the events of the previous day and what she needed to do from then on. She wished that had been a dream. If only things were always that easy.

True to word, the pirates had left with the rising sun. Alex didn’t get to see their ship, even though the first thing she did that morning was go to the port to sneak a glance and contemplate the fish-shaped submarine in its entire tacky splendor. She’d always liked watching ships, ever since she was a kid and sat down at the beach or near the shipyard to see them from up close.

The following weeks were a haze of bureaucracy and preparations to leave her post at the library. She booked a ticket for a passenger ship to the city-island of St. Poplar with the intention of catching another ship from there that could sail her to the Sabaody Archipelago. Then she’d need to request permission to cross the Red Line, and once she was there, well, it wasn’t like she was in a big hurry to return home. But if she didn’t enter the New World soon, there was a chance that once the Poneglyph was be discovered and she’d be held up as soon as she set foot on holy land.

Nearly a month and a half had passed by the time she was able to get all her ducks in a row: training her replacement at work, sending letters to friends and family telling them she was moving, as well as shipping a couple of boxes to the Sabaody Archipelago. When that was done, Alex spent the longest three weeks of her life inside that passenger ship, trapped in a vessel wondering where the heck was her life going, but after several stops along the way, in a very early morning, she arrived to Saint Poplar. She had about a month to go until the renovations started and she became officially a fugitive. Probably. The fact that she wouldn’t be able to know if she was overreacting unless shit hit the fan didn’t help her feel secure in any decision she took, but hey, if she was wrong and nothing happened in the end, she could always go back to Duster Town.

The first thing she did upon arrival was consult the ship schedules at the port. Several pages with timetables were tacked to a board with a glass cover. It was better kept than most information boards she had come across, but it was to be expected, since Saint Poplar and the surrounding islands were popular tourist spots.

By the looks of it, she had missed the last direct ship to Marineford by two days, and the next one wasn’t scheduled yet because there was an Aqua Laguna alert. Joy. She had to explain her predicament to a few locals until one of the women working at the port gave her something useful to work with.

“There should still be a liner leaving Water 7 in a few days. They usually wait until the last day so as many people as possible can leave the island before the sea gets too rough.”

Alex took this information as well as one would take a knee to the solar plexus. Another trip meant more money wasted. It was becoming increasingly evident that she’d have to pick up a job somewhere before she was able to cross the Red Line, because safe passage required money. Lots of it. And unless she robbed a bank, she didn’t think she’d be able to get it before the archive renovation started. She had a gun. And she entertained the idea for the entirety of two seconds before coming back to reality.

“Okay,” she said. If nothing else, she’d be able to sightsee. That was an island she had wanted to visit for a long time. “Do you know where can I take a ship to Water 7?”

“There are no ships to Water 7,” the lady replied, amused. “There’s the Sea Train.”

“Oh! I forgot.” It was very much like her to know the Sea Train was a thing and not remember that it had an actual purpose, besides making a city famous. “Is the station far from here, or…?”

“No, it’s…” She looked below the ship schedules in front of them. There was a faded map of the city behind the glass. She pointed one spot, on the opposite side of the city. It was mostly a straight line from where she was if she followed the main streets. “Here. It’s easy to find.”

She had to resist the temptation to pull out of her backpack a fountain pen and draw the map on the back of her hand, since she didn’t trust her memory all that much, and instead she said, “Thank you very much!”

The woman smiled at her, lifted a crate bigger than Alex without breaking a sweat, and went on her merry way. Meanwhile, she spent the following minutes staring intensely at the map to make completely sure that she wasn’t going to take a wrong turn even though there were absolutely no turns to make. Anxiety was a wonderful condition.

By the time she started moving, she was looking at the next hours in a different light. As inconvenient as this detour was, Alex felt more excited than anything else at the idea of riding a Sea Train and going to the city where it originated. She’d seen the pictures, and it was supposed to be all canals that the locals navigated with little boats instead of wheeled vehicles. May as well enjoy the trip as much as she could, right?

Humming as she went, the trek across the St. Poplar brought her through streets of stone lined with tall buildings, some made of that same stone, but most of them in a more polished classical style. The pediments she saw suggested fifteenth century, so not too old. The less ostentatious houses were brick painted in light tones, with planters hanging from balconies that added little splashes of color to the otherwise muted palette and, in the case of those that were more worn out, provided the exciting possibility of said planters falling on a passerby’s head. Better to stay away from some of those cornices, too.

The atmosphere more than made up for the stoning risk, though. The city was as lively as it could be, and she found herself wishing that she had an excuse to remain in it for a little longer, but it was not to be. Come to think of it, wasn’t there a huge carnival going on in San Faldo around those dates? That explained the people walking around in costumes and elaborate masks. If she ever got to go on vacation again, she was making this area of Paradise her priority.

But if an Aqua Laguna was approaching, she needed to be out of its range as soon as possible, or she risked getting stranded in a place highly frequented by government employees where she could be spotted without backup. Moving swiftly was a priority until she could settle down and lay low to see how the situation unfolded.

She took longer to get to her destination than if she hadn’t kept getting distracted with every little thing that caught her attention, but eventually she was greeted by a platform and a white-gray building with a sign that identified it as Spring Station. She looked out to the sea, unable to see anything at first, until she noticed a shadow beneath the water. Railways swayed back and forth with the waves, a feat of engineering that she wouldn’t have believed had the train not been functional for over ten years. It even connected directly with Enies Lobby, so it had to be reliable. The government wouldn’t be using it to routinely transport their own people otherwise.

She walked into the station and headed straight to the timetable next to the ticket window. There were people sitting inside with bags, and many of them in costume. She wished she could spare the money and the time to join in, or at least run her hands over the velvety fabrics and intricate embroidery. She had done her fair share of sewing and the construction and materials of the costumes were seamstress porn.

The train was scheduled for departure in two hours. Better not to wander too far.

❦

There were many people inside Alex’s car, some dressed in regular clothes, some in costume. She would have liked to sit next to the window, but she was stuck in an aisle seat, and though she wasn’t uncomfortable by any means, she lamented having to spend the trip looking at her feet instead of the sea.

The seats were really nice, though. She wondered how luxurious first class had to be, if her butt was already on velvet and her feet on fluffy carpet. That was where the government agents must go, since when they stopped at Enies Lobby, nobody entered her car or the adjacent ones, judging by the lack of noise.

About an hour passed without incident until she noticed a faint smell, like smoke, and soon after, someone spoke through the PA system.

“Dear passengers, we inform you that the Sea Train is going to make an unscheduled stop at Shift Station for maintenance. The new hour of arrival to Water 7 will be 12 PM. We are sorry for the inconvenience. You may leave your seats until it’s time to resume the voyage.”

Varying degrees of protests filled the car, but Alex couldn’t say she minded. The train was starting to get stuffy with so many people, and she sensed an incoming headache from the nonstop chatter of the group across the aisle.

A scarce minute later, the train reduced its speed until it came to a halt, and immediately after, a stewardess appeared to unlock the doors. Alex decided to get up, find out in what kind of place this Shift Station was, and stretch her legs, because the seat may have been velvet, but the cushion under it was long flattened. First class was hoarding the good ones for sure.

The smell of saltwater hit her in the face with the subtlety of a Buster Call. She was very confused at how much water she was seeing until she realized that the station was little more than a platform on each side of the rails, a lighthouse, and a house in the middle of the ocean.

There wasn’t much to see once the first impression wore off, though she could have easily spent hours just watching the hypnotic swaying of the waves. There had always been something drawing her to it. She thought about how terrifying it had to be getting caught there during a storm, and how solid the little house on the platform must have been to still be standing there for a decade. The station master, if there was one, had to have nerves of steel.

Since she had nothing else to do, she stretched and began to pace around the platform, watching the passengers who had also gotten off the train. Not too many, considering the amount of people that were travelling in it, but she had to admit the platform amidst the waves was not for the faint of heart. She was certainly not going to get close to the edge. She saw mostly the same types of people she had been sitting with, but from the first car appeared a group dressed in expensive clothing and another of men in black suits.

She did a double take when she saw a familiar World Government insignia on the lapels of their jackets. Embroidery work was wasted on those people. They were Cipher Pol agents, and while their presence was more than reasonable, they still put her on edge. Best not to get close. How did one try their hardest to not look guilty without looking even guiltier?

Faced with this unsolvable conundrum, she diverted her gaze to look anywhere but at them, and out of the corner of her eye she noticed one of them look in her direction for a moment before going back to their conversation. Slowly and innocently, if steps could be walked in such a way, she ducked into the building and decided to keep to the shadows until the train was ready to go. Out of sight, out of mind, they said, and in case she actually became a fugitive, she didn’t need to be remembered by a member of an intelligence agency.

The fresh air was nice, though. Definitely worth sharing her vital space with government agents for a few minutes.

“Chimney got clogged again, didn’t it?”

Alex wanted to jump out of her skin when she suddenly heard a voice behind her, but the upside of being in a constant state of mild anxiety was that she just tensed up very hard when she got spooked. Shoulders squared and butt firmly clenched, she turned around to see an old woman with a grin so wide that it dipped into the uncanny valley. She was stocky, with lime green hair tied in braids, and wore a hat with Water 7’s initials that probably meant she worked there.

This was not how Alex had expected the station master to look, and if she had had it in her to worry about complete strangers, she would have been concerned about the woman’s safety.

A small girl with lips and hair conspicuously similar to the woman’s spoke up from behind her, annoyed. “I didn’t! I’ve been going every day!”

The older woman laughed loudly. “I meant the train, not you!”

The girl huffed and left, but the older woman stayed.

Now that she was facing her, her breath hit Alex, and it reeked of alcohol. Oh dear. She hoped the woman didn’t have a terribly important job there. She didn’t get what was so funny about the exchange, but she didn’t want to ask, either.

“I don’t know,” she replied with hesitation, realizing she had been asked a question. “They just told us we were going to stop for a while.”

“It happens sometimes.” She said. The grin was perpetually etched in her face. “They made the chimney too long, but Tom always said it looked nicer that way. You’d think Iceburg would have more sense once he took over, but he says he doesn’t want to change it.”

As soon as those names were dropped, Alex’s brain began to try and make connections like a madman with a wall covered in papers trying to make sense of a conspiracy theory. She didn’t know if the woman was assuming she knew who those people were or she was so drunk that she didn’t care.

Fortunately for Alex, she did know, marginally, who she was referring to – Iceburg, Water 7’s current mayor, was famous worldwide thanks to the Galley-La Company, and by Tom she assumed she meant the man who designed the original sea train. That name would have escaped her, had not a number of coincidences engraved it in her mind.

She couldn’t say if Tom had been forgotten as a relic of a past era or forcibly ejected from public memory as a result of being connected to Gold Roger and ever-present racism. He was a genius inventor, the one who put Water 7 on the world map by building the Sea Train, and the world returned the favor by executing him.

Most executions relating to the Pirate King had happened when Alex was still very young and didn’t pay much attention to anything that went on outside of her immediate vicinity, but Tom’s happened much later, when she was twenty and being aware of the world’s geopolitics was an indispensable part of her studies. They granted him a few more years to finish the Sea Train, and everybody back then had been convinced that his service would be repaid with a pardon, but that wasn’t how the World Government worked.

Unstoppable in their mission to purge every little thing that remained of Roger, they eliminated the man who built the Oro Jackson. Alex’s friend opened a bottle of his wife’s good whiskey, and then another, and suddenly it was four in the morning with him slurring and sobbing on the table, and his wife was halfway through the second pack of cigarettes of the night and Alex was so drunk in solidarity too that it was a good thing that her chair had a sturdy back and armrests, because otherwise she was pretty sure she’d have slid to the sticky floor and stayed there listening to old stories. He had a killer hangover the next day and Alex was just sleepy because young bodies were capable of amazing things, and then everything seemed to return to normal.

That had been a bad year, and a combination of everything happening at once and managing to torpedo her own academic career meant that putting it behind wasn’t an easy thing to do. Aside from Tom’s execution bringing down the mood considerably and her own personal problems, passage through the Red Line was also shut for months after queen Otohime’s assassination, meaning that Alex couldn’t return home at the time the country was going through the worst political unrest in centuries, and even if she had been free to go, the long absence would have made her flunk the year and lose her scholarship. Alex remembered that year like one remembered a fever nightmare: fuzzy, never ending, with huge gaps in the middle, yet sinking its claws so deep within that it was just a mention or reminder away from resurfacing. Sabaody got worse around that time, too, due to Doflamingo’s rise to Shichibukai and king status. His auction house started operating in the archipelago while Marines looked the other way, and kidnapping crews grew in number and activity.

All in all, not the best time of her life. In fact, current technically-not-on-the-run Alex was still faring so much better than past Alex that the thought wrapped around from depressing to funny.

She looked at the Sea Train, trying to imagine it with a shorter chimney. Two men were at the top of the smokebox with big brushes. “I can see their point. The proportions would be off.”

The woman must have been in a very good mood, because she chuckled. “I’m not an engineer or an artist, so I can’t say. Why are you here, anyway? Do you need anything?”

“Oh, no, sorry, it’s just—” She thought about the Cipher Pol agents out there. “There’s a lot of people on the platform.”

“And it’s windy, too,” she said, looking at the sky. “People have gotten blown away before, you know.”

“…Oh. That’s good to know, thanks,” she said, timidly taking a step back into the house so she wasn’t being hit by the wind anymore. Alex still had some time to kill and was curious about the woman, and talkative as she was, she assumed she wouldn’t mind a bit of prodding. “You mentioned Iceburg and Tom. Do you know them?”

The laugh that came next didn’t sound as happy as the other ones, somehow. “Know them? I’ve known Iceburg since he was a little brat. Tom was a good friend. Did you know that Iceburg was his apprentice? Not that these people care,” she nudged her head towards the Cipher Pol agents and Alex sank even deeper into the little house. “Tom died so they could save face, but they won’t touch Iceburg because he’s useful. That’s all they mean to them.”

Alex didn’t know very well how to respond, but she felt the need to say something. “I have a friend who said the same. He sailed on one of Tom’s ships years ago.”

The woman looked at Alex, and beyond the drunken stupor, some clarity shined behind her eyes. “Oh? And what did he think about it? Was it smooth sailing?”

Alex smiled just a little bit. “Not really, but he says it was the best ship in the world.”

The woman cackled, happily this time. “Of course it was! He made the best ships! Not even Iceburg or…” She trailed off, and Alex couldn’t tell if she had forgotten where she was going or she had done it on purpose. “Say, are you headed to Water 7?”

“Yes, why?”

“I need you to do me a favor. All this talk’s gotten me nostalgic and the Aqua Laguna will be here any day, so…” The woman walked to a counter, pulled out a notebook, wrote something, tore out the page and kissed it before folding it twice. She waddled back to Alex and gave her the paper. “Give this to Iceburg.”

Alex’s hand froze with the paper already in it. “I… don’t think I can do that. Isn’t he famous? How am I supposed to meet him?”

The woman brushed her concerns off like nothing, and Alex’s nerves didn’t appreciate that. “Nah, it’s not a problem. Go to Dock 1 in the afternoon, he’s usually there avoiding official duty. Tell them Kokoro sent you. That should be enough.”

“Okay…?” She said, still unsure. “I won’t promise anything, though.”

“No need for promises, just deliver it. I need a drinking buddy.” And she added, “You should go to Blueno’s bar while you’re there. The booze is cheap and the food is good, and that isn’t something you can’t say about many places in the city.”

“Oh?” This new topic was interesting. “Is it very expensive?”

Kokoro laughed. “You’ll see when you get there.”

That sounded ominous for her budget, and Alex didn’t feel too good about this ordeal she had been roped into because the last thing she wanted to do was enable an alcoholic lady. But maybe Iceburg would look after her…? They were longtime friends, according to her.

At any rate, there wasn’t much point in refusing the errand. If delivering the note happened to be too complicated, she could pass and no one would be none the wiser. Her priority was to find a ship and get to Sabaody the sooner, the better.

And when she was there, maybe tell her friends that she had met a friend of a friend.

❦

When Alex arrived to Blue station, she had to remind herself that she had several objectives in mind and sightseeing came second. She put on her sunglasses to block out the glare of the sun and its reflection on the water, and looked up.

In front of her stood a colossal city built upwards and turned fountain, with five different levels of construction that culminated in an upwards surge of water. It was collected by a series of canalizations that crossed the city from the top to sea level and divided the second tier in smaller areas.

Water 7 was one of the many independent state-islands in the area, and though not affiliated with the World Government – it hadn’t been a notable location at all, before the Sea Train that ironically connected it to Enies Lobby was put in motion – its globally renowned shipyards often worked on Marine ships and other vessels for people with important positions in the government. It was said that nowhere else in the world could you find better shipwrights than in Water 7, and the man famously acclaimed for it was Iceburg, current mayor and owner of the aforementioned shipyards. He had founded the Galley-La company a few years ago, recruiting the best shipwrights he could find for his behemoth of an enterprise, and it worked. Alex was actually excited to see firsthand what all the fuss was about.

But first things first, and before taking the mysterious note to the mayor, she needed to find the ship that would take her to the Sabaody Archipelago.

She got unnecessarily lost several times inside the labyrinth of canals and side streets because she refused to walk up to people and ask, but eventually, she found the Grand Canal of the island and the harbor where most ships docked.

It didn’t take her long to mind a means of transport, thankfully. The passenger ship departed the next day in the morning, and with a lot of pain, Alex had to fork over a good chunk of her remaining savings to secure a ticket on such short notice. It wasn’t the end of the world, since, she already counted on having to stay in Sabaody for a while to rebuild her budget, but it stung.

After the more pressing issue was dealt with, she took a walk around the area to find somewhere to eat, maybe try some local specialty, but she felt her hunger vanish when she looked at the prices of the menus outside. Kokoro had been right. What was the place she had mentioned… Bruno’s? Blueno’s? Yeah, that sounded familiar.

Unfortunately, a cursory glance didn’t reveal its location. If it was cheaper, it was probably somewhere less central, and if that was the case, she’d have more luck crossing the bridge to Green Bit unscathed than finding it without assistance.

Face with the unavoidable fact that she had to ask someone if she had any hopes of finding the place, she took a look around and decided she might as well procrastinate on it for as long as she could. She started to walk towards the upper part of the city, the Shipbuilding Island, where the docks were located, or so multiple signposts said. It really drove home that they were the main attraction of the city, more than the canals of the amazing architecture.

Getting there was going to take a while. She could have rented one of those cute Yagara boats, but she was cheap as hell, and, not less importantly, the critters seemed a little overenthusiastic. After the trip, all the walking she had done and the lack of food, she wasn’t in the mood to be social with anybody, human or not.

Maybe she would be lucky and come across Blueno’s place as she went to the shipyards. Yeah. That was a hopeful lie she could hang onto while she forced her body to walk way more than it was used to.

She hummed on her way up, singing to herself when she went through empty streets. As it turned out, the difficulty of reaching the shipyards by foot wasn’t finding the way up, but rather being in the proper sidewalk when she happened upon the next bridge or set of stairs, and after an hour she had lost count of the amount of times she had reached a dead end and had to turn back to the nearest bridge to cross the street and ascend, from the third instance onwards accompanied by a cranky ‘GAAAAH’ as she ran in the right direction. One would have thought this wouldn’t have won her any points with the locals, but she heard a few snickering at her and saying something in a language she didn’t speak but universally translated as ‘hahaha, tourists.’

She’d be the first to admit that going up that monumental city while carrying a backpack wasn’t her brightest idea, but she was damned if she was going to cave in at that point and rent the Yagara. She’d wash downstream on the way back if it came to that, but she had to get to the top now by her own means.

The moment she set foot on Shipbuilding island, she walked a few steps away from the staircase to not block it, dropped her backpack, and then her ass next to it to catch her breath.

When she recovered enough to raise her head instead of thinking how miserably sore she was going to be in the morning, she was greeted by an even better view than when she arrived to the Blue Station, and she pushed her glasses up for a moment to better see the colors of the city.

The lowest level of Water 7 extended below her, clusters of white houses and orange roofs covering the entire expanse of the island that wasn’t occupied by the canals. The wind blew harder at that level, too, with less obstacles in its path, since that part of the city was built on a steep incline, and it carried with it the spray of the central fountain, painting a timid rainbow across the sky. She imagined the view at night being just as stunning.

She chose to view this as the reward for her efforts, and then snorted at her the consolation prize of her own making.

As nice as it was to stare at the city and the sky and sea beyond, she was there with a double mission of getting the note to Iceburg and being a little nosy, so she looked at the monumental stone door she had just crossed with the number three painted on it. She was willing to go out on a limb and assume that that wasn’t Dock 1, so she began to circle around the area to find the next one, and once again she had to go the way she had come when she saw the next door had a four. Alex would be the first to agree that the most powerful force in the universe was cosmic irony, but after the sidewalk business while she made her way up there, this seemed a little excessive.

At least the circular shape of the area and the conveniently located bridges allowed her to cross over the canals with ease, saving her from getting lost again, and in a matter of minutes door number one, wide open, came into view.

At first she didn’t know where to go, since each dock could have easily been a town on their own. She began to walk upwards, wondering how was she supposed to find Iceburg and with little intent to go out of her way to find him if she didn’t have luck. A couple of minutes later, she noticed a group of townspeople standing in a half circle and staring at something. Alex decided to approach them and see what was going on. There was a good chance that the mayor himself was attracting the crowd, if he really was as popular as the rumors said.

Standing at a safe distance from the group, she realized that it was composed mostly by women, and she looked at whatever had them so interested. A man with his torso covered in tattoos was carrying a couple of long planks over his shoulder with surprising ease, and another one, farther away, was sawing a tree trunk so big that it couldn’t be for anything but a mast. He caught Alex’s attention because for some reason he was wearing a top hat that clashed horribly with the rest of his outfit and there was a pigeon sitting on a nearby pile of crates and watching him work with surprising focus. None of them, obviously, looked like mayor material.

Alex wasn’t sure what the crowd was doing there until she heard a hushed comment about the shipwright’s arms and being able to break concrete with those. Oh, God, they were there to ogle at the shipwrights? Alex wasn’t nearly straight enough for this. How was that even allowed? She took a step away from them, but by then a cheerful man wearing a tracksuit of questionable taste had noticed the group and acknowledged them with a wave and a smile. One of the girls swooned, and Alex died a little inside, then died some more because she had worked hard on leaving behind her ‘not like the other girls phase’ but the circumstances weren’t helping matters.

The other workers were busy, but the new face seemed to be free at the moment, he looked friendly, and she had come to the conclusion that she’d have to communicate with strangers if Kokoro’s note was to be delivered. She waved back at the man with the paper in her hand and something that resembled urgency on her face. She wasn’t hopeful, but to her surprise, he started to walk towards her. At the same time, the man with the top hat finished the cut he was making and the white pigeon stood up, cooed at tracksuit guy, and flew to rest on the shoulder of his coworker.

“Hattori is so cute,” one of the women said.

Alex didn’t know anymore who of the three was Hattori. She was even more confused when top hat guy passed near his colleague and the pigeon said, “I’ll take care of it.”

“Lucci’s coming our way!” One of the younger girls said, excited.

“Do you think he’ll pick another fight with Paulie today?”

“I hope so! Did you see what his fingers did to the—”

Alright, time to unplug from the conversation. She could guess that Lucci was the name of the man, because she didn’t think a pigeon, no matter how articulate, could inspire so much passion.

The name gave her pause.

Where had she heard it before? It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Maybe she had heard someone talk about him at some point. He had to be a renowned shipwright if he was working in Dock 1 of Water 7, of all places.

Lucci was tall, but she didn’t realize just how much until he was right in front of her, staring her down in a way that, in any other context, she’d have assumed meant that he was about to snap her neck. Was he taller than Trafalgar Law, or did the top hat made him look like he was? She only knew that if she ever had the back luck of bumping into the guy, she would likely split her forehead against his pectoral muscles. The man was built like a classical marble statue with facial hair, tattoos, and a serious case of resting bitchface. She could empathize with him on the latter.

“Can I help you?”

Alex didn’t know whether to look at the pigeon or the man, and in a panic, she settled on the man because it felt wiser to not lose sight of him than a bird.

And what a bird. That pigeon was easily the size of her head.

“I met a woman named Kokoro at Shift Station. She asked me to give this note to mayor Iceburg,” she said, showing the folded note to him.

He extended a hand for her to pass the paper, and she wasn’t sure how ethical it was to let another person read a clearly personal note with a kiss stamped on it, but to be quite frank, she didn’t care and he and the close attention his group of fans was making her anxious.

A pair of strangely-shaped eyebrows lifted when he read the message.

“Kokoro?” The bird repeated. There had to be a trick there. That was a pigeon, not a parrot, they weren’t supposed be able to enunciate like humans. It was probably unreasonable of her to revoke her suspension of disbelief due to that when she knew there were so many strange creatures living in the Grand Line, but she had to draw the line somewhere. “Mayor Iceburg is doing his rounds right now. He should be here in a few minutes. You can wait for him over there,” he said, gesturing with a wing at a pile of neatly stacked timber across from where his owner had been working, and Lucci returned the note to her. “Don’t be noisy.”

“I wasn’t going to,” she retorted with a mix of indignation and embarrassment, reflexively taking a step away from him and the group she had just been associated with. The movement telegraphed against her will that she found him intimidating, which only served to embarrass her more. “Thank you.”

There really was no way anybody with functioning eyes could mistake her for one of the group. The ladies looked nice, and Alex looked like… well, she couldn’t tell, but she was glad she didn’t have a mirror on hand, because if she looked as sweaty as she felt, she wasn’t a pretty sight. The boots and big backpack on her back were also clear signs that she wasn’t from around there.

Wordlessly, Lucci returned to his job while Alex was left with the impression that she had just been made fun of, not that anybody could tell by the shipwright’s stony face. She relaxed a little when he left her alone, not in small part due to the attention of the group being lifted from her.

That place was nothing like the shipyards she was used to. Canals ran through it, same as in the city below, and led to other slide-like canalizations that connected to the lower levels. There were a lot of those all around the city, she had noticed, acting as roads for the Yagaras, and, she guessed in the case of the larger ones, to help transport the newly built or repaired ships from the docks to sea level.

Some time had passed when she caught sight of a blue-haired man in a striped suit walking in her general direction, closely followed by a blonde woman with a strict expression, and while he was busy inspecting the work of a shipwright, she noticed Alex was away from the crowd and made a beeline for her.

“Excuse me.” The tone of the pleasantry suggested that it was actually her who was excusing Alex’s presence. “Do you have any business here?”

Alex didn’t enjoy being talked down to, so the reply came out harsher that she meant. “As a matter of fact, I do.” When she realized how snappy she had sounded, she explained quickly, “I was told by Kokoro to deliver a message to mayor Iceburg, and he,” she gestured at Lucci, who was busy with his job and not paying them any mind, with the note, “said I could wait for him here.”

“Did he, now,” she replied, sending a skeptical glance at the man, and she extended her hand towards Alex. Someone must have pissed in her coffee that morning. “Let me see.”

That note was going to places, she thought, but the woman must have found its contents acceptable, because she returned it to Alex and told her, “Wait here.”

Alex was about to start having flashbacks of all the bureaucratic mess involved with her recent move out of Duster Town. The woman went to the man in the suit and directed him towards Alex while she walked over to Lucci to tell him something she wasn’t able to hear because she now had to pay attention to the mayor of the city.

“Hello,” he said, sounding much politer than the woman. “Kalifa tells me you have a message for me.”

It was curious, comparing the old descriptions she had heard of the man with his current appearance. He wouldn’t have been caught dead in a suit twenty years ago, for instance.

“Yes, from Kokoro. Here,” she said, finally giving the note to its intended recipient and feeling like she was set free from a curse.

“Hm?” He opened he note, and after just a split second his face turned into a grimace. “Ugh, gross!”

“Uh, what?” The note had already passed two filters, so she couldn’t imagine what could warrant that reaction.

He showed her the note and Alex read it for the first time. Same place, same time? It said. The lipstick imprint of the kiss was smudged and stained the whole page. Iceburg didn’t waste any time in crumpling the paper and tossing it over his shoulder.

“Thank you for delivering the message.”

“Mr. Iceburg! No littering!” The woman from before warned, but someone else replied to her.

“Don’t speak like that to Mr. Iceburg, you wretched woman! And show some property while you’re in the docks!”

The woman didn’t reply, but she sent a death glare to the man who had spoken up, and Alex could have sworn that she pulled down the zipper of her jacket lower than it already was, drawing an even bigger reaction from him.

“Nmaa, don’t mind them,” Iceburg said, sounding bored. WYou don’t seem from around here. Are you visiting?”

“Just passing by before the Aqua Laguna comes,” she replied. “But I wish I could stay longer.”

He smiled with something akin to pride. “It’s a good city, isn’t it? What have you seen so far?”

“Oh, well, I walked around the Grand Canal and the shopping district earlier, and I saw a bit of the city while I walked up here, but—”

“You walked here?”

Oh, this was so awkward. She should have tossed that note into the sea. “I’m a historian,” she replied, because that was an excuse that always curbed people’s curiosity. “I wanted to take my time exploring.”

“If that’s the case, have you seen the maritime museum yet? It’s near the Grand Canal, and there’s a showcase about the origins of the city right now.”

She wasn’t a big fan of museums, truth be told, but professional habit compelled her to go anyway. The list of places she had to visit didn’t seem to shrink. “No, but I’ll be sure to—Oh, that reminds me!” Might as well ask while she had his attention, she thought. “Kokoro recommended going to Blueno’s bar while I was here. Where can I find it?”

“Ah, good idea!” Iceburg’s face lit up. “Let’s see, what can we do… Since you don’t have a Yagara, let me ask Kalifa if she has a map of—”

“No need, Mr. Iceburg.” Someone else piped up. “It’s time for my break, so I can show her.”

The guy in the tracksuit from before was walking up to them, showing a warm smile.

“That would be perfect,” Iceburg replied, and the said to Alex. “This is one of our foremen, Kaku.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Kaku looked young and sounded old at once. “Likewise,” Alex replied. “I’m Alex.”

“Well then, Alex,” he said in a suspiciously cheerful tone. “I don’t have long, so we’ll have to get there in a jiffy. Are you ready?”

As ready as she was ever going to be until she had a good night’s sleep. “Sure. Whenever you…”

A not so inoffensive grin spread on Kaku’s face and he broke into a sprint in Alex’s direction, so fast that she couldn’t duck from his path before he threw an arm around her, easily lifting her from the floor, extra weight from the backpack and all, and he kept running toward the edge of the level and jumped.

She thought she yelled, but she couldn’t hear her own voice against the roar of the wind in her ears and her blood pressure rising at the absolute certainty that she was going to become a pancake, the only doubt being whether she’d be dry or wet at the bottom of a canal.

On reflex, she grabbed tightly onto the only thing available, which was Kaku’s arm firmly wrapped around her torso, and her grip was met with stone hard muscle. What was up with these shipwrights?

She saw Dock 1 get smaller and smaller at breakneck speed as she fell backwards, and she braced for impact and shut her eyes as the first rooftop approached, but they didn’t crash against it because Kaku did something before he hit it. She felt it in the shift of his body, like he had bounced off the surface.

Alex paid more attention to his feet after she realized she wasn’t going to die splattered against a rooftop, and the second time she saw it: right before his shoes touched the roof tiles, he jumped again, stepping on air, effectively creating the illusion that he was jumping from building to building.

The adrenaline-fueled fear of impending doom was suddenly replaced by cold dread.

She had seen that before. She knew what that was.

A civilian couldn’t possibly know how to do that.

So who was the man carrying her right now? The only thing separating her from certain death? Could he have learned to do that anywhere else or could it be a different technique? There was always a chance that he was retired, but he was so young, and already so skilled, and she knew for a fact that the Marines didn’t like letting go of those.

…Marines?

Where… where had she heard the name Lucci, again…?

She had to be imagining things, for sure, but she also had a strong feeling that she needed to take her leave from the island as soon as possible. She was sleeping with a gun under her pillow that night.

With a few last hops, Kaku landed on firm ground and Alex thanked her lucky stars when he put her down safely. She felt lightheaded, and wasn’t sure if it was because of the sudden freefall or that her all-consuming paranoia had her doubting the intentions of one of Galley-La’s foremen, which sounded increasingly stupid the longer her feet where in contact with solid stone.

“Here we are,” he said, gesturing at something behind Alex’s back.

Her reaction was slow, but when she turned around, she saw a door with a big red sign above that said Blueno’s.

She felt a pang of guilt for being afraid of the guy when he had done her a huge favor, albeit in a kind of dickish way. Dock 1 was a good ways away, and she would have given up if she had had to walk there. She looked at him and admitted, “That was pretty cool once I got over the heart attack.”

She still sounded kind of breathless and didn’t know if asking how he had learned to extreme parkour was a good idea.

Kaku laughed with joy that rang true. “My apologies about that. I rarely ever have company on the way down.”

She tried to picture Kaku grabbing Lucci the same way he had done to her and jumping down, and her brain broke during the attempt. “Yeah, I can’t imagine that colleague of yours with the top hat jumping down the…” She trailed off, interrupted by her own thoughts and questions about that other guy, and the pause became awkward. “Anyway—”

“You can ask,” he said, smiling.

She jumped at the opportunity. “Is he a ventriloquist?”

“It’s a hobby,” Kaku replied, amused, as he pushed the door open. “Ladies first.”

Alex didn’t know what it was with every strange man he came across lately that their courtesies sounded vaguely threatening, but she entered the venue, nonetheless.

It was much nicer than she had expected. The bartender was a wide man with a circle beard and hair sticking out like horns, and he was appropriately wiping a set of glasses behind the counter, like every barman should during their first introduction.

“Good afternoon, Blueno!” Kaku greeted him before Alex could say anything, going inside after her.

“Same as always?”

“Please.” He leaned against the bar. Alex sat on a barstool near him and tried to be emotionally ready to be the third wheel in two strangers’ interaction. “Oh, and something for the others, too. Whatever it is. We’re finishing a big repair today and you know how it goes.”

“Is it the Marine warship?”

“A windjammer for a private client. Working metal is a pain, and they want it yesterday.” He sounded displeased for the first time since they had met. “You can’t rush a good job.”

“The customer is never right,” Blueno agreed.

Kaku raised an eyebrow at him. “I hope that wasn’t directed at me.”

“Of course not,” Blueno’s reply sounded paternalistic. Alex could sense the history behind these two. “It’s odd to see you with someone else.”

Kaku put aside his mild annoyance to introduce her. “She’s Alex. She was visiting the shipyards and I brought her along on my way down.”

“Hi,” she said, looking for any other words she had learned during the course of her life and drawing a blank. Someone kill her, please.

“I see. I thought the landing sounded heavier than usual,” Blueno observed.

“Attentive as always.” Kaku commended him. “But what an awful thing to say to a young lady. She’s light as a two-by-four.”

“No offense meant,” Blueno said to her in good humor. “It’s part of the job.”

“None taken, I’m at least a four-by-four.”

There was a hint of a smile, on his face when he asked, “What will you have?”

“Whatever you recommend. I haven’t eaten since I woke up.”

“Can you believe she walked all the way to Dock 1 to sightsee?” Kaku chuckled. “I didn’t think historians were the sporty types.”

“You heard that?”

“I have pretty good hearing, too.”

“I can’t imagine what type of madman wouldn’t ride a Yagara to make that trip,” Blueno replied. No doubts about who he had in mind this time. “A historian, huh? I suppose this city’s fairly old.”

“The architecture’s really interesting.” She replied, finally reaching a topic that she could talk about. Though she was a bit concerned that they knew what she was because Suspicious Foreman was suspicious, she didn’t see what harm could come of it. “It’s impressive to think this is all supported by wood pillars.”

“They keep sinking year by year, though. At this rate, there won’t be a city in a few decades,” Kaku said, surprisingly grim.

“Thanks for showing me the rooftops while they’re still visible, then,” Alex joked in a weak attempt to bring his good mood back.

It worked. He had such a cute smile. “You’re more than welcome.” He turned to the bartender. “Now then, Blueno…”

“Right away,” the man replied, going into the kitchen and leaving Alex and Kaku alone for a few minutes.

A companionable silence, until Kaku broke it and his question put Alex on edge again. “Where do historians in the making study nowadays, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Marineford, mostly. There aren’t many places left.” The same people offering the current curriculum had made sure of it.

“And what drives someone so young to be so interested in history?”

She had been asked that question so many times, and the real answer was always curiosity. To learn the truths that shaped the present. She had the folder with the Poneglyph transcript in her backpack to account for that.

But even partial truths could be dangerous given her current situation, so she replied, “I could ask the same of you. How does someone so young get so good at building ships?”

There was a flash of surprise in his face at the question being turned against him. It was quickly substituted by one of his smiles, but Alex had the impression that he was very aware that she was deflecting on purpose. “I’ve liked them since I was a kid,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you why.”

She shrugged, mirroring his smile. “There’s your answer.”

He laughed lightly and turned to look at the bottles behind the bar with an amused expression. He didn’t insist or say anything else, and the more at ease he looked, the more anxious Alex grew.

It wasn’t long until Blueno showed up again with a bag full of sandwiches wrapped in paper in one hand and a towering plate of pasta with black sauce on the other that she set in front of Alex.

“Thanks,” Kaku said, putting the money on the counter and grabbing the bag. “See you later.” And he faced Alex one last time, lifting his cap a little in a polite gesture and revealing a blonde mass of curls. “It’s been a pleasure. Good luck on your travels.”

“Thank you!”

He left the bar, and his departure added to the leaning tower of pasta made her think that her day was starting to look up until she remembered that she had only mentioned she was leaving soon to Iceburg.

How long had he been listening in?

❦

She couldn’t sleep.

Despite her misgivings, the rest of the day had passed without incident. She booked a room for the night at an inn off the beaten path that Blueno had recommended, checked out the maritime museum, and nearly fallen asleep after half an hour because that was the effect that, sadly, most museums had on her. But she did see an old picture next to a Sea Train model of Tom, his two apprentices, and the master of Shift Station.

Time didn’t wait for anybody, she thought as she flexed her aching hands.

She ended up walking around again, this time only through the lowest district, rejecting even the mere sight of stairs, and saw a cape where someone had built the weirdest and most colorful house of the city. Near it was a scrapyard, and though she had no intentions of going close to either, a couple of locals told her to watch her belongings while she was there. It was a bit nostalgic.

It was difficult to believe, she thought as she stared at the ceiling of her room, that such a vibrant city was sinking under its own weight, and that as soon as the sea swallowed it, there would be nothing but stories being told about it. Maybe that was how those legends of ancient islands that disappeared came to be. Maybe Water 7 would become a legend to, a few centuries down the line.

She fidgeted with the stone around her neck, a nervous habit had for as long as she’d been wearing it. It was better than biting her nails, at least, but it looked weird when she wore it inside her clothes and unconsciously reached for it, so she did her best to avoid it.

She was very tired and sore from all that walking, but try as she might, she couldn’t turn off her thoughts. After way too much tossing and turning, she decided she would rather see more of the city than waste her time in bed. She could catch up on sleep when she boarded the ship to Sabaody, anyway.

She picked up the same pair of jeans she had been wearing all day, the black tank top she usually wore under her sweaters, and tossed around her shoulders the same red shawl she used to wear like a scarf in Harlun. It wasn’t cold outside, but the night breeze was somewhat chilly. Better safe than sorry.

She debated whether to pick up the gun in her backpack or leave it there, and she decided on the former. A present from her father when she came of age for the sake of her safety, and one she had never liked.

It wasn’t too late yet, only a few minutes past 10 PM, and there was still a healthy flow of people on the streets. Alex made her way to one of the many Yagara rental shops still open and paid for one of the small ones. There she went, defeating her own purpose like the hypocrite she was.

“One question,” she told the shop owner as she settled on the boat, “Are the docks open at this hour?”

“They usually leave the doors open, yeah. Sometimes there’s people working at night.” He replied. “Why, you want to go now?”

“I was thinking of checking out the view from the highest part of the city.”

“That so? Then you just need to go up one of the main canals in the Shipbuilding Island.”

“Thanks!” She said, and then patted the Yagara on the head. It was cold, wet and scaly. “Can you bring me to Dock 1? There’s no hurry.” She had seen one of them speeding through a canal early and she was not ready for that.

The Yagara uttered a high-pitched guttural sound that no fishlike creature had any business doing and started to swim at a relaxed pace.

Alex didn’t know how long it took them to get to their destination, distracted as she was watching the city from a different viewpoint, but the higher they went, the less people that seemed to be out. By the time they reached Dock 1, the area was devoid of human presence, and all the ship parts and materials Alex had seen in the morning had been either moved somewhere safer or covered by tarps to protect them from the weather.

The Yagara continued its slow ascent through the canal that separated Dock 1 and 2, and the base of the fountain wasn’t too far when she heard hammering sounds. Someone was still working.

Curiosity, as was usual, got the best of her and she told the Yagara to slow down. Whoever was there also noticed her presence, because the hammering stopped.

A man stepped under the light of a streetlight, hammer in hand, to check out the canal, and Alex realized with surprise that he was none other than Water 7’s mayor, though he had shed the jacket and shirt. He was wearing only an undershirt with those awful striped pants from before and business shoes.

“Who’s there?” He asked.

Alex realized the light didn’t reach her, so he was probably just seeing a shadow, and in the deserted dock it had to be more than a little unnerving. She nudged the Yagara towards the light and replied, “It’s me from before! Sorry to interrupt, I was just passing by!”

Iceburg looked at her with interest and approached her, so she thought it was only polite to step out of the boat.

“Where are you going at this hour?” He asked, stopping at arm’s length of her.

“I was trying to get to the top of the city.” She smiled apologetically. “I’m sightseeing.”

He relaxed upon hearing the explanation, and with a smile, he said, “Glad to see that the scare from earlier didn’t kill you.”

It was official, everybody in Dock 1 had decided to pick on her. “It could have!” She replied. “Does he do that often?”

“Jumping? Yes, but most of the time he doesn’t take people with him. He did it to Paulie once and he was foaming at the mouth when they landed. Never heard the end of it for a week." The fondness with which he spoke betrayed that he hadn’t minded the aftermath as much as the words suggested.

She didn’t know who Paulie was, but he was justified in being upset. She also thought that it was nice to meet a boss that seemed to appreciate his workers. “I don’t see other shipwrights around. Are you working here alone?”

“Nmaa…” he started lazily, “I sent them home. The heavy lifting was done; I can finish it myself.”

Iceburg may have been a shipwright before becoming president of the company, but Alex hadn’t expected him to do manual labor when he had paid other people for it. “The windjammer?”

“Kaku told you?” He sounded pleased, and he answered the unspoken question from before. She assumed he got it a lot. “My day job is meetings, papers and ass kissing all day long. I prefer this.”

This was much easier to reconcile with the stories she had heard of Water 7. “I can’t say I’d mind the papers, but the rest sounds exhausting.”

“Bodies need to move. Weren’t you doing field research today?”

“By accident.” She couldn’t help the smile that appeared on her face. He was easy to talk to, and seeing this side of him, she didn’t feel like she had to watch her words so much. “I’m trying to find a way home. Train and ship schedules brought me here.”

“You chose a difficult time of the year to sail. Is it far away?”

She nodded lightly. “It’s still a ways away.” Nonetheless, she was glad for this detour. Maybe that was why she found the courage to say, “I have a friend who came to this city about twenty years ago. He said you worked on his ship.”

Maybe it was because she lost filters when she was tired.

“Is that so?” He said, curious. “I’ve worked in many ships. Things were very different back then.” He glanced away, at the district that had only taken this shape a few years ago, thanks to him. “Did the ship do its job?”

She wondered what to say. Nothing that could do it justice, for sure. “Brought them to the end of the world, in fact.”

She wished she had been there to see it.

Iceburg’s eyes widened with surprise, and after a short, contemplative silence, he said, “That ship took much from us.” There was hurt in his voice. “I think Tom knew it would be one of his last, so he put his everything in it. He would have done anything for his friends.”

It was easy to forget that every great story had real people behind it. “Sorry for bringing it up.”

He shook his head. “We never regretted it, so… don’t. It was a magnificent ship. Tom’s best work, after the Sea Train.” He paused. “Is your friend okay?”

“Doing alright for sure. He’d be all over the papers if something happened to him.”

“That’s good to hear.” A smile that reached his eyes came back only to morph into a sigh in an instant. “Well, I need to go back to…”

“Of course!” She said very quickly. “Sorry for holding you up. It was a pleasure to meet you.” And to put a face to the stories, too.

“I should say the same,” he said, and it didn’t sound like an empty pleasantry. “Fair winds on the way back home.”

“Thank you.”

As he started to walk away, Alex hopped back on the boat and pulled the shawl tighter around her. Perhaps she should have put on a jacket, after all.

The view from the top of the district was as spectacular as she had hoped.

❦

She wasn’t sure how she got up from bed the next morning. Must have been the fairies that pushed her upright, because everything hurt and she was so exhausted that she couldn’t even open her eyes after a thorough face wash. Somehow, she managed to drag her feet to the dining room and have a light breakfast. Bless the laziness that had prevented her from changing into her pajamas again before she dropped on the bed when she returned from the docks, because she didn’t think she’d have been able to stick her legs in the right holes of the jeans.

She returned to her room, triple checked to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind, and checked out of the inn.

Despite the brief but intense stay, and the uneasy feeling she had since she had met Kaku, she didn’t really want to go, but she had done the right thing booking passage for the ship to Sabaody. Imagine getting stuck in a city next to one of the government’s main islands because of a high tide. No, thanks, she hadn’t come this far to fail when she was a week away from her destination.

So it was with a bit of regret that Alex boarded the passenger ship that would carry her to the archipelago, but she had always been good at ignoring what she felt like doing in favor of what had to be done, and this was going to be no exception.

From the deck, she saw a pirate ship sail past them, black flag with a straw hat billowing in the wind.

#what are tags even and what are titles #degrees of separation

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rokutouxei · 3 years

Text

the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

ikemen vampire: temptation through the dark theo van gogh / mc | T | [ ao3 link in bio ]

The challenge seemed pretty simple: to try to befriend the university bookshop’s most sour employee, Theo van Gogh. As a literature major with a boatload of book recommendations on her back, it ought to be a simple task indeed. But as she uncovers what lies between Theo’s pages, the more she finds it harder to become closer to him without having to put the feeling directly into words. What can she learn from Theo about what it means to stay—and how can she teach Theo about what it means to let go? | written for ikevamp big bang 2020!

[ masterpost for all chapters ]

CHAPTER 18 OF 22

how intricately love crosses love; love makes knots; love brutally tears them apart. I have been knotted; I have been torn apart.

- Virginia Woolf, the Waves

Her phone receives three calls in the span of an hour.

The first one is from an old friend, who rings to ask her how she’ll feel like being neighbors again. Her friend is planning to apply to the university’s MA program, and that she’ll be dropping by within the next week to submit some requirements for the application. She’s asking if she’s free, and if they could hang out a little before she goes home. She bites the butt-end of the marker in between her teeth as they’re talking, scribbling out onto the date on her calendar tacked to the wall. It’s a great phone call.

The second one is from the school she’s going on exchange to. A lady with a thick (but lovely!) accent tells her that they’ve finished signing the paperwork she needs to submit for her student visa. That the document is in her email, and that they’ve forwarded the hard copy to the Office of Student Relations, saying that she should pick it up at their office by the end of the week. She nods and thanks them as they big goodbye. When the call ends, she flutters with excitement.

It’s that last call that’s a little more troublesome.

“Busy today, aren’t we?” Vincent comments with a small laugh, their little conversation about the finalized date for the exhibit cut short once more as she excuses herself to take the call. She awkwardly grins at him as she heads out of the studio, ducking into the living room.

“Yes?” A beat. “Oh, yes. Yes it’s me.” Silence. The smile that was originally on her face upon recognizing that it’s one of the OSR staff organizing her trip disappears quickly. “Is… that really the only schedule available, sir?” More silence. “Oh, no, that’s not—” a pause. “I see. I’m sorry. Yes, I understand.” She bites her lip, looks across the house through to the kitchen, eyes gluing distractedly onto the unwashed coffee mugs on the sink. “Of course. Yes. Thank you. This is noted. I’m sorry. Yes.”

She puts the phone down. Stares at the “ended call” screen before she looks up again, catching Vincent’s stare from the studio doorway. He smiles at her. She smiles back, but she feels so weak.

She turns back to her phone with a sigh.

She has a solution for at least one of the phone calls: the first one. She rings up her friend the next day and proposes a drinking party.

Says she’ll bring her other university friends to introduce to her, and they’ll hang out, then maybe share in the good energy (and the misery) of being in the same university—likely soon, we’re manifesting it!

They agree to crash at a place downtown for the night, everyone pitching in for an Airbnb in the middle of a school week. She invites Dazai, and Isaac, and Arthur; they each invite some other familiar faces, Napoleon, Leonardo, and Sebastian, of course—her friend’s brother.

She doesn’t know if she wants to invite Theo.

Only because it’s been… weird.

She’s sure she wants to invite Vincent, though, and inviting him is tantamount to inviting the other, so she does anyway. But because fate is a cruel tutor, the exact reverse of what she has wanted to happen, happens.

Vincent apologizes profusely, saying he’s in the middle of a rather time-sensitive painting (something about painting while the paint is not entirely dry, and his timer is set to just about tonight) so can she bring Theo instead?

And she knows the drill. Theo does not say no to Vincent.

Theo, of course, could just lie to his brother, a little white lie about coming with her to the little Korean barbecue drinking party they had planned tonight, to introduce her group of friends to her childhood friend, who was in the campus lately because she had applied for an MA in the very same department.

But Theo doesn’t.

He goes with them, just as Vincent had expected him to.

Gets in the small van and listen to Arthur and Dazai sing along to the annoying song on the radio way too loudly, the windows rolled down, she and her friend laughing at the boys making a ruckus, her friend’s quiet, stern-looking older brother focused on driving them out of the campus.

Theo wonders if he should’ve lied, after all.

But he knows that even if he knew that he should’ve, he would have come anyway. Because he knows himself. Knows that he will be lying to everyone else and denying it with his whole chest but in truth, he knows that he is just buying some more time with her. Even if that is time spent sitting at the end of a grill table flipping meat as the rest of the table laughs and makes a cacophony of noises, half-drunk on cheap alcohol. Even if that means just sitting next to her as the long night passes, silent in their fullness, not speaking, not breaking the illusion that everything is alright, that she won’t be leaving him soon, that there’s so much brewing in his chest and he still…

Doesn’t have the courage to tell her a single word of it.

Her hands are numb with her nerves, but the night goes… surprisingly well.

She and Theo hang around each other, passing barbecue and utensils, but they do not… have an explosive argument like she feared they would have. She reminds herself that they have nothing to argue about, that nothing had been done wrong. Still, she doesn’t want to make a scene out here. She’d told her friend she was going to introduce her university friends, and a shouting match in an airbnb isn’t exactly what friends do.

Instead, she pretends like nothing is different. Like nothing had changed drastically over the past few days. Teases Arthur and Dazai as they huddle each other and have excessive amounts of PDA that would have been unacceptable if they were actually a couple. (“They get a free pass because they’re fuck buddies?” “Mmhmm, somehow it doesn’t count.” “Who said it doesn’t count?! This is scandalous!” “Arthur did. …Wait a minute.”) Gapes at Sebastian and his very obvious mental hard-on for Napoleon, who is busy discussing with him something about a historical note on food rituals in the 1600s, or something—she really isn’t paying attention. Texts Isaac with a winky face waiting for him to finally get here like he promised he would.

Ignores the one person she wishes she could talk to right now but does not have the courage to.

And just as Theo makes his way out to the porch, maybe to sober up, maybe to get some time to himself, her friend, face already flushed with alcohol, a silly grin plastered on her face, elbows her lightly, “So, which one of these cuties is the one you’re pining for?”

“Give me a minute,” she says, as she gets up on her feet to follow Theo walking away.

Somewhere in between pizza and the first two or three rounds of beer, Theo goes out to the terrace for a little bit of silence. He’d expected her three usual suspects to come—Isaac, Dazai, Arthur—but he hadn’t expected a crowd, especially not of people he barely knew. The whiskey that Leonardo guy had handed to him was pretty strong, too. He’s still standing straight, but his mind is already spinning in circles.

On one hand, seeing her act so normal gives him some sort of relief. This is what he wanted for her. He wanted to step back, fold the dog-eared parts of his heart back onto itself so that he doesn’t notice them—the bookmarks of affection he’d left along the edges of their friendship’s pages. And sure, pulling away was a feat on its own, particularly because he knew she was leaving, and that made him want to spend even more valuable time with her, but—

This is better for her. He knows that. He understands that. And he’s willing to give that to her.

Besides, she said so herself. She no longer wants anchors.

But on the other hand, seeing her act so normal, so oblivious when he’s torn himself open to give her peace of mind leaves an undesirable taste in his mouth.

But it’s not like he could tell her.

Theo’s just about downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass when she comes out to the porch, the sight of her face like salt to the wound.

It takes him all his strength to smile.

“Mind some company?” she asks, and he shakes his head, leaning against the barrier carefully. “Too loud inside?”

He laughs. “The whiskey was crazy.”

She nods. “Leonardo has a ridiculous alcohol stash. A wildcard during drinking parties.”

She closes the door behind her and leans against the balcony next to him, taking a deep sigh. She’s close enough to him that Theo can smell the faint citrus of her perfume.

Theo doesn’t know what to say but he knows he wants to talk to her.

“Nice shirt,” he says, eyes trained on the pastel yellow linen of the off-shoulder blouse she’s wearing. “Color suits you.” She smiles—even if it hurts a little—and shrugs to emphasize them when he points it out.

“Thanks,” she says. “Finally the season to wear bright colors, you know.”

In his mind, she is still beige coat and black boots in the middle of fall. But even that feels like an entire lifetime ago. The months have gone by in a haze. Theo begins to feel the weight of regret—of letting it pass by out of his grasp—sink inside his gut.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Theo says off-handedly, eyes turned to the ceiling. “Busy?”

“Yeah,” she says, with a half-sigh that’s dragged out of her. She takes a breath and leans her back against the veranda as well, but she looks downward, instead. At the corner of his eye, he catches her pursing her lips as if choosing what to say. “Paperwork.”

“Welcome to bureaucracy,” he jokes, and the two of them laugh.

But just a little.

As if they both knew they were hiding something else underneath the laughter.

“How’ve you been?”

It’s a simple question. One they’ve asked each other a million times before. One that doesn’t have to feel as heavy as it does right now.

“Okay,” she says, but her voice falters. “Could be better.”

Theo hums. She knows that means me too.

“But it’s going great, you know. For both of us.”

That makes him turn.

“With, with the exhibit, right?” she follows up, caught off guard by his gaze. “And with the scholarship, and you’re on your last class, aren’t you? Pre-thesis?”

“Hopefully,” he says.

She smiles at it. “Will be, I promise,” she says.

For a moment, the two of them stand there next to each other in silence. Which should have been normal and comfortable between them, but today…

Today is different.

With another sigh, she decides to just go for it.

“Can I just… get straight to the point?” she asks, as if cautious.

Theo nods, even when his heart is twisting into knots.

“Why have you been ignoring me?”

When she says it, it sounds like her voice is crumpling with the weight of the words.

Theo doesn’t dare look at her. Eyes open but still trained at the ceiling, he says, “I haven’t been ignoring you.”

Her face scrunches up, for the briefest of moments, into a potent kind of anger. An expression that clearly spoke then what the hell have we been doing?! without even a word. Then, it dissolves into something gentler, like defeat. “I’m not mad… just tell me if there’s something wrong?”

A plea for help. Theo hates how transparent he’s become to her, over the few months. Theo wonders if she has something she doesn’t have the courage to tell him either.

“Nothing is wrong,” he insists, closing his eyes as if it makes saying it easier. “It’s just been busy. Like you.”

“Then can I ask why you’ve been upset?”

“I haven’t been upset.”

Theo doesn’t like the feeling. The lie is acid in his mouth. He can avoid questions, he can dodge them, he can make up the most convoluted reasons to divert them—but he does not like lying.

He isn’t lying. He’s not upset.

He’s distraught, and that’s not the same thing.

“Arthur says you’ve been out of character.”

Somehow, the idea that she’s been keeping tabs on him doesn’t make him feel any better. “You know how Arthur is.”

“Arthur doesn’t lie.”

Theo quickly snaps, turning toward her with narrowed eyes. It makes her recoil. It’s an ugly feeling. Theo thinks he deserves it. “Are you saying I do?”

With a deep breath, instead of shouting back, she only shakes her head. “I’m not. You don’t.” She bites her lip as she turns her eyes back to the ground. “…though I kind of wish you were.”

“What?”

She doesn’t answer. Not right away, anyway. Theo looks at her and tries to figure out the expression on her face. It contorts, half-pain and half-pity.

He doesn’t know for who.

“I don’t want to leave like this, Theo,” she says after what feels like forever, her voice as fragile as snowflakes. “It’s like I’ve lost you. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t know where you are. Something happened that made you drifted away. I don’t know what it is. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what it is. I don’t—do you know how important you are to me?” She pauses, out of breath. When they make eye contact, they both look away. “You are important to me. So if something happened, tell me.”

Nothing ‘happened’, he wants to tell her. Something ‘happening’ implies that there was something that changed the way things are. But nothing changed. It’s always been like this from the start. That she was going to go, and he was going to stay.

Nothing happened, it’s just his stubborn heart refusing to shut up or speak up. He doesn’t know which is worse.

Theo doesn’t want to speak because the last time he had spoken they had fought over the one thing that is the most important to her. He doesn’t want to speak because he doesn’t know what it is that he can say.

She takes his silence as a denial.

“Does this just not mean as much to you as it does to me?”

“You’re my friend,” is what he says. Not an answer, but a response.

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

From the inside, there’s a sound of glasses clinking. Someone must have initiated another shot for everyone. But the cheerful laughter that rolls out the window does not lessen the weight of their conversation.

Maybe it makes it worse.

“Dazai says you don’t want me to go.”

The lilt of her voice says curiosity, not anger. That relieves Theo only the slightest bit.

He doesn’t look at her. “That’s a lie.”

“Then why did it make you so upset?”

“I told you, I’m not upset.”

“Not-upset enough to avoid me for weeks?”

“I wasn’t avoiding you.”

“Look, Theo, if you just—”

“You want to go away, so go away,” he says, sharply. He doesn’t like where this conversation is going. He doesn’t want to tell her. He doesn’t want to be someone holding her back. Maybe if he tears at the string holding them together hard enough, she’ll be able to sail away.

But what he said only makes her fold even deeper into herself, distress written plain on her face. Like something snapped inside of her. Guilt begins to tear at him, but this is the only way he knows how to do this. It will hurt, but these are only growing pains. “Are you still holding that against me?”

“I’m not holding it against you.”

“Yes, that’s probably exactly why you brought it up,” she says, her voice now louder. “All of that, all those days and weeks together and you’re still clinging on to that conversation at the rooftop, aren’t you? We don’t need to see eye to eye on it, Theo.”

“I agree, we don’t.” Every word she says in that broken voice makes it harder and harder for him to not just tell her the truth, but he knows he can’t. It will cost them both too much. “I’m still allowed to have my thoughts on it.”

“Right, right.” She laughs. A dry sound. “So you would feel bad, then, huh? That I got offered the finishing course? That I’m considering staying there. Forever. Finish my degree there. Maybe work there. Is that it? Are you going to get mad at me for that?”

For what feels like the billionth time tonight, he says: “I’m not mad at you—”

“Do you know how much this hurts?” she interrupts, but this time her voice is small, like it’s hiding in the back of her throat. She could shout at him all night but it’s this tone that makes Theo hurt the most. “I just thought you’d be a little more supporting, you know, you’re my friend, after all, but…”

“I do support you. I won’t be stopping you from leaving,” he says.

“Then why does it hurt?” she blurts, and it’s obvious on the look on her face that she hadn’t meant to. She turns her back to him, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She takes a few shuddering breaths in the silence Theo doesn’t dare get in the middle of, and continues, “why did it seem like you were disappointed?”

Theo stops. Genuinely doesn’t know what to say, just stares at her back in front of him, feeling like she’s already disappearing out of his grasp. That if he reaches out to her right now he won’t be able to reach her—so he does, stretching a hand to see if he can still touch her, the soft cotton of her cardigan—

And he does, and it makes her turn toward him, anger in her eyes.

“I’m not disappointed,” he says. It’s all he can say. It’s the only truth that his mouth can form a shape around. “I’m very proud of you.”

And somehow—somehow that makes it worse. “Then act like it!” she says, tears already stinging the corner of her eyes. “Don’t just push me away and then expect me to be fine with it.”

“I wanted to give you space and let you focus on what you have to do.”

“I didn’t want to focus you out of my life, Theo!” she says. She looks at him like a wounded beast, pain radiating everywhere. “You don’t get to decide what things I add or cut off from my life, you do know that right?”

The thing is, he could admit right now. Could just tell her that he’s been running himself sick wondering if he should tell her. But he doesn’t want to tell her. Why would he, when all she’s ever really wanted was to go away? Why would he when all she’s wanted was to be free of anything that’s holding her down, and he doesn’t want to be that.

He wants her to go.

He does. Or maybe he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter, because he knows what he has to do.

He’s always been the one that stays.

Which is just a prettier way of saying he’s the one that gets left behind.

Her voice takes him back to the present, the sound of it sinking in his brain.

“Did you ever stop to consider what I’d feel about this?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re my friend, I wanted you to be by my side and—”

“I’m sorry.”

“—it’s not that I couldn’t have done it on my own, but—”

“I’m sorry.”

“—you don’t know what’s going on in my head all the time and I don’t know what goes on in yours,” she says. “Theo, what if I told you I loved you?”

He falters for just a moment, but then he says: “I’m sorry.”

Silence. She looks at him for a long moment, her eyes glassy. No tears fall.

Maybe if they begin to roll down her cheeks, she might just get him to say it.

The tears might get him to hold her face in his hands, wipe the tears away, tell her he loves her too, tell her he still wants her to go.

But before they can, she turns away from him and goes back into the room, shouting as she enters: “Oookay, I’m too sober! Give me some more of that gin!”, and the door closes behind her with a small click.

Theo stands outside on the porch in the late spring night, with no words left in him.

They stay away from each other for the rest of the night.

Theo wakes up just as the sun is about to rise. Napoleon, Leonardo, and Sebastian seem to have taken shelter in the house’s other bedrooms—but he, Arthur, Dazai, Isaac, her friend, and her have camped out in the living room to sleep.

Theo’s eyes scan the room. Professor Newton arrived late last night but joined in just as he’s promised. Her friend had clung all night to Newton like a flirty leech, and the usually-reclusive man had no choice but to stay still and… well, stay flustered; Theo wakes up to him draping his jacket over her friend, as he tries to leave ahead of everyone else to make it to his morning class.

Across the room, Dazai and Arthur are also already awake, watching something intently on Dazai’s phone, giggling and with their hands held together in between them over the blanket. Theo doesn’t know at this point if they are lovers or really just fuck-buddies, but he yearns anyway—to be able to have the courage to connect like that.

And next to Theo, she is asleep, huddled under a blanket with a silly print, a large cartoon penguin sitting on top of an iceberg. The penguin has its arms raised wide, open, laid upon her side like protecting her from danger. From him. And Theo—Theo is about to reach out his hand and brush off the stray lock of her hair that’s now dangled in front of her face, trying his best to not wake her up with his movement.

She makes a small sound, and Theo’s heart stops for a moment, but then she does not wake up.

She’s right there next to him, and she hasn’t left, and it’s still spring, so she isn’t leaving soon, but Theo already feels so lonely. To whom will he recite the interesting lines of poetry that he encounters? To whom will he discuss all sorts of philosophies with, sitting in the alcove, waiting out the rain? Who else will be at the bookstore every week, aggressively haggling for books that already are in set prices, who else will team up with Arthur to make his head hurt? Who else will ring their little bike bell when they pass the bookshop at odd hours of the day?

His hand grazes just the tops of her cheeks as he tucks the stray lock of hair away behind her ear. He imagines the flush of it, should she be awake. But she is not awake, and he gets to be alone in his loneliness. His touch hovers there for just a moment, memorizing her warmth, before he pulls his hand back, and turns away.

Across the room, Arthur is watching, and shaking his head in defeat.

#the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart #ikemen vampire #ikevamp theo

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wxlawson · 3 years

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[ WAGNER ‘WOODY’ LAWSON. 42. CISMALE. HE/HIM] is here! They’ve lived in Silver Lake for [ THREE YEARS ] and are originally from [ TENESEE]. They are a [ MANAGER AT A DUDE RANCH ] and in their downtime love [ COLT STARTING ] and [ TAKING NAPS IN THE HAYLOFT ]. They look a lot like [ MILO VENTIMIGLIA] and live [ IN OASIS APTS ]

Name: Wagner ‘Woody’ Lawson

Age: Forty-Two

Birthday: January 25, 1979

Sign: Aquarius

Home: Quaint two-bedroom home with a small yard

Occupation: Manager at a dude ranch

Character Quote: “Sometimes I feel like Jesse James / Still tryin’ to make a name / Knowing nothing’s gonna change what I am” ~Troubadour by George Strait

Pos. Traits: Hard-Working, Steady, Humble

Neg. Traits: Blunt, Firm, Dissonant

Likes: farm work, aged whiskey, loping through the open country

Dislikes: people who push around others, well-done steak, warm beer

Aesthetic: tennessee whiskey, the smell of fresh hay, roping

~bio~

Born in Tennessee Wagner Lawson was raised along the banks of Mississippi mud, never given a chance to be anything but the down-home country boy, which had always suited Wagner just fine. His daddy was a colt starter and former rodeo champion, having won national titles for roping and reining. From the moment Wagner could waddle he was following his daddy around everywhere, at first just watching as his father worked and as he got older helping with the chores himself. He found that spending time tending to the many horses cathartic and volunteered for just about any chore that would get him around them. Never once did he need to be asked to pitch in to do what was needed at the family ranch, from picking vegetables in the garden for his mama to helping his daddy check the cattle fences. As far as most childhoods go, his was pretty perfect. Sure, sometimes his dad drank too much and sometimes his mom just would not stop fussing over him, but he had no cause to complain.

His father, seeing his boy take an interest in horses at such a young age decided to help Wagner begin to follow in his footsteps. As a kid he enrolled Wagner in the pee-wee portion of rodeos where his wife would take pictures of the young boy struggling to stay on the back of a wildly running sheep, but in the end, he stayed on. He almost always did. With natural talent like that his father was quick to get his son started on the path to becoming a bull-rider. His mama threw fits and got into fights with his daddy, it was too dangerous, he could be hurt, killed even, but as he got older and started to have a mind of his own there was nothing that he wanted to do more. So he practiced, and practiced. By sixteen he was competing on broncs, a safer alternative to the bull, and was cleaning up at junior rodeos, his room becoming full of belt buckles, the tack room full of all the special made trophy tack he had won. But being bucked was far from his only talent. At age ten he had broke his very first colt and at twelve he was winning local roping competitions. He even became adept at helping his dad sort and catch cattle, something he was never fond of but did anyways as it was expected of him. Despite how it sounds, his childhood wasn’t all work. While never the best in school he managed to get passing marks and had a group of boys he roughhoused and fucked around with who were constantly getting him into trouble as a teenager.

Fast forward a few years and he was one of the hottest young bull riders to hit the circuit. But his career as a rider didn’t last as long as anyone would have hoped. The reason? He fell in love. Some would have called the pretty woman he fell in love with a buckle bunny, what with her affinity of dating all the big rodeo stars, but when him and her spent one night together the rest was history. Now twenty-two and married with a baby on the way, Wagner knew he could not be as hell mell as he had been for the past few years. He now had a family to think about; and so, he quit bull riding and switched exclusively to broncs. It was still dangerous, but the risks less than if he was on the back of a bull. Life went on and for the most part the little family was happy, until tragedy struck. On the night of his twenty-eighth birthday, with his wife and little girl in the stands, he overtightened the strap around his hand. At first everything seemed to be going well, he had one of his best times, but as he threw himself off the bucking bronco his hand caught. It was an instant disaster. The animal began to panic, bucking harder and higher, with Wagner hanging on for dear life. His only blessing was that the first hoof to his head knocked him out cold. He was rammed into the side of the fence and drug for minutes before those in charge of wrangling the horse were finally able to calm it down. In the midst of the chaos, his wife, fretting over her husband, had not noticed her daughter slip down through the stands calling out for her daddy. No one noticed her presence in the ring until it was too late. All it took was one wrong move from the frightened animal and the sunshine of Wagner’s life was no more.

The blow to Wagner’s own head had been so severe that he was kept in a medically induced coma for two-weeks, giving the wounded flesh time to heal. When he awoke, his whole world was shattered. He grieved, and as he did his grief turned to anger. Anger at the situation, anger at the long arduous healing process, and anger at himself. But all that anger had to go somewhere, and with the only person around during his recovery being his wife, she took the brunt of it. It took him a little over a year to fully heal physically, and during that time he began to develop a dependency on his pain medication. He spent his days sitting in front of the tv drinking beer after beer on top of the opiates as his wife worked in a small diner to try and keep the roof over their heads. One day, a year and half after the tragic accident, the woman had decided that she had had enough. She gave Wagner an ultimatum, get help or she was gone. It led to largest fight yet, a massive blowout that made it clear where Wagner stood.

At that point he was nearing thirty and with nowhere else to go moved back in with his parents. His father though older now was still tough as nails and no patience for his son’s pansiness as he called it. He put Wagner to work. Sober or not he was expected to help, and if he didn’t, God help him. At first he railed, his rage boiling over and eclipsing everything. Rather than argue with his son, the elder Lawson simply gave him a new task. It would be his only job- start the colts. It was something Wagner had used to excel at, but his anger and rage at the horse’s mis compliance made things difficult. The gentle animals became scared of him and began to lash out. One colt in particular, a beautiful bay, resented Wagner more than any of the others, and he let him know it. That was Wagner’s wake up call. He ended up forming a bond with that colt that pulled him out of his stupor and set him back on track. His special relationship with that animal also earned him a nickname, Woody, because wherever Woody went, Buzz followed. Buzz and Woody quickly began racking up wins in roping and reining competitions, and for the next years, Woody allowed himself to feel the happiness that had come into his life. The two traveled all over the countryside, with Woody picking up odd jobs such as stable hand or working cowboy. Until one competition where in the middle Buzz came up lame with an injury too bad to fix, leaving Woody the tough choice of having to put his beloved companion down.

The loss of his friend sent Wagner ass-first back into the destructive patterns of his life, drugs and alcohol once more waging war inside his body. Only this time he wasn’t a young man, and the substances were taking a heavy toll on his health, not that he cared. His parents, unable to reach him, packed his things and kicked him out. Woody’s father, unable to completely give up on his son, reached out to an old friend who owned a dude ranch an hour outside of LA. For over a year Woody lived there, forced to claw his way back to sobriety through back-breaking labor. The option was always there for him to quit the job, fend for himself, but the company of the horses and being the source of looking after their well-being brought him back from the brink much like it had the last time. A year and a half later he was completely back on the wagon, though he can be known to slip with the drinking whenever the subject of his daughter is brought to the forefront of his mind, mainly around birthdays, his and hers, as well as holidays.

Wanting more independence Woody turned in his resignation, thanking his father’s friend for getting him back on his feet. Much to his surprise, rather than accept his two weeks notice, he offered Woody a promotion: to oversee the entire running of the dude ranch. It is a big job and one he takes very seriously, knowing that the overall welfare of the horses depends on him, even if he is no longer responsible for their day to day care. That was three years ago.

Since then he’s moved into an apartment at Oasis Apartments in Silver Lake, a place where he could have his freedom yet still manage his responsibilities. Anyone who’s ever been inside his apartment will say it looks like a country movie blew up, with saddles scattered on stands throughout the place and rodeo memorabilia hung up throughout, but for him, it’s the closet thing to home.

#tw death.#tw alcohol #tw addiction #tw drugs #tw death of a child #tw death #about || wagner lawson #bio

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irene-sadler · 3 years

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Sir Reynard and the Red Knight

aka ‘The Tournament’

so it turns out medieval tax law is insanely complicated and even a small amount of side reading on it takes forever. if someone else is for some weird reason interested in knights' fees and some of the problems they caused my source material is this chapter in a very lectury 1895 book which goes into detail about English feudal government income in general. this is probably not the most recent scholarship on the subject and i would not try to use it as a source in a paper but I did not feel like battling with JSTOR's shitty search engine just to research a short color plot in my goofy thronebreaker fanfic. anyway welcome to part 2 of our non-adventure, enjoy (or don't, i am not a beggar.)

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A week later, Meve had nearly forgotten about the looming duel. She alighted from her horse in the castle courtyard and was instantly handed a report: in Dravograd there was a disagreement between the human and dwarf smithing guilds, which might soon lead to violence. The Queen turned out her favorite knight to solve the distant problem and settled into days of debate over an ongoing issue at home. The trouble, she learned, was that some of her barons had too many knights, overfilling the quota on which the crown drew an annual tax, and paid more than they preferred or could afford. Meanwhile, others had too few, with the result that the realm burdened them less. The latter outnumbered the former by a mathematically considerable amount, so that the crown’s entitlement had fallen short of the expected amount for the year; a new law was required, and had been drafted. However, the batch of them were incapable of finalizing the text of the proposed rule, especially where it concerned the amounts to be payable, and had come to a hopeless standstill in her absence. In the resulting confusion of numbers and obstruction, she only had reason to recall the tournament and its aftermath because a servant brought an unexpected letter to her office.

She eyed the scrawled writing on the front, was informed that it had been delivered to the kitchen by a sullen-looking speechless brigand, shrugged, and left it, unopened, for Reynard. He found it some days later, when he returned from his mission.

“Gascon doesn’t ever write,” he remarked, frowning suspiciously at the Duke’s name on the envelope, and cut it open it cautiously. He tipped it out over Meve’s desk, but it contained nothing dangerous, only a short note on dirty old paper, written in what appeared to be charcoal.

“I presumed it was about your duel,” Meve explained, “Is it?”

“Not - not as such,” he replied, after reading it over a second time; a baffled frown was on his face. “Says he’s departed on a quest, of all things, not to worry about him, will return when he’s finished, or else when Sir Holt gets around to fighting, whichever happens first.”

Meve took the note out of his hand and stared at the offending word in disbelief.

“A quest? Has he lost his mind? This isn’t a bard’s tale; he has a fief to manage, and -”

“It’s getting on to winter, luckily,” Reynard interrupted in his most reasonable tone, “So, there’s not much managing for him to do, just now.”

“Unless there’s a fire, or a war, or bandits,” Meve snapped, gripping the flimsy paper hard.

“Well, you’ve made two of those possibilities rather unlikely, at the moment,” the Count said; he took the letter away and added as Meve instantly crossed her arms, “I agree; this is a ridiculous notion. However, he does appear to have had the foresight to choose a sensible time of year to have it, which is more responsible than usual. For him, I mean.”

“He might’ve said something, instead of simply vanishing,” she complained, feeling that she was losing ground in the argument by remaining silent.

“-and,” Reynard continued, as if she hadn’t, “He can’t have gone very far, else he’d have no way of knowing when this duel is to take place. If, indeed, it ever will.”

Meve brightened slightly and said, “In that case, you should find it simple enough to hunt him down again.”

“I’ll do it if you wish, of course, but will you hear my advice, first?”

“I usually do, I suppose.”

“I think you should just leave it be, for the time being; he’ll return in due time and patience will answer far better than action, to speed the process.”

“Were he anyone else, I’d have him arrested,” Meve said, the glare staying put on her face but her shoulders relaxing slightly in defeat.

“I know that, but in truth, I believe we’ll have our stray dog back soon enough,” Reynard said gently, “All we have to do is wait.”

Patience, instead of action, was not how Meve preferred to operate, but she did her best to do as Reynard suggested, aided considerably by the ongoing distraction of the tax problem. Intelligence crossed her desk, in relation to the knights’ fees and otherwise; no report contained information on the missing Duke, but one included a rumor that briefly distracted even her from her main priority: an informant ended his confidential message on the exact details of her northern vassals’ taxable estates on a strange note.

“Says here an unknown knight’s rumored to be in th’ area of Hawkesburn,” she said to Reynard, after a glance around to ensure they were alone in the room. “Apparently he wears black armor and jousted with all comers who crossed his path, for two days, defeated three knights, and then, on losing to a fourth, vanished again and hasn’t been seen since.”

“How tiresome,” Reynard replied; she laughed at his stuffily disapproving tone and, as it was difficult to collect fees on the armored head of an unverified rumor, forgot about it. She was, after all, quite busy, cooking up a scheme to end the fee stalemate before it brought the court to a complete halt or, worse, came to blows. She set her accountants and clerks to work and soon delivered a new proposal to the court, a plan that settled the matter in a way that heavily profited the crown at the barons’ considerable expense; the document was of course rejected out of hand. She then threatened a royal command, and was pleased to find that all but the most belligerent of her vassals suddenly favored the original, far more equitable proposal that had been drawn up in the first place.

Meanwhile, the end of autumn passed by; the last of the dull brown leaves on the trees blew away in a windstorm and the branches stood bare against the sky. Reliable reports of a werewolf near the northern border were followed, as Reynard was preparing a force to investigate, by further news that the beast had been dealt with by a black knight. The last holdout against the final version of the new tax law suddenly became perfectly amenable to the proposal, after a personal visit from Count Odo, armed with a sword and a bluntly phrased reminder of the baron’s failure to support the Queen during the war. A somewhat embarrassed young knight of Meve’s court turned up, with a believable, unembellished tale in which a stranger in black armor jousted against him on a bridge and knocked him off into the icy creek below. That same day, the new tax law was finally signed by unanimous consent of the court. The weather settled into its usual, predictable early winter pattern - two days of rain, two of sun, one of icy grayness, followed again by rain.

Then, during the afternoon on one of the rainy days, a traveler arrived in court - a familiar man, dressed in mismatched chainmail and leather armor, and bearing a message from Sir Holt of the Fen. Meve happened to be in the armory, considering a new crossbow that could fire two bolts on a single load; he was shown in, followed immediately by Reynard. The sergeant broke off his explanation of the crossbow’s double trigger system, raised an alarmed eyebrow at the Count’s dark expression, and promptly invited himself out; the messenger seemed to feel similarly about the situation and wasted no time making his speech:

“My master asks for your assistance, Your Grace; he was - “ the messenger paused, frowning uncertainly, produced a paper with writing on both sides, and read from it, squinting nearsightedly, “ - he was, I quote, assailed at night at an isolated crossroads, by a knight errant well armed in black armor who spake not; there they did fight a mighty battle for hours -”

“Skip to th’ end, sir,” the Queen said, casually picking a sword from a rack; the messenger glanced at it, quickly flipped the paper over, and summarized the rest:

“ - anyway, he was struck down by the stranger, following which the black knight disappeared into the darkness, as if by an enchantment, and - well, in short, he requests that you send an appropriate force to apprehend the villain. Also, he wishes to inform my lord the Count that he is prepared to do battle with the same, at the Count’s convenience.”

“About damn time,” the Count growled under his breath.

“To clarify,” the Queen said, a slightly malicious gleam in her eye, “Sir Holt, after challenging the best out of all my knights to a personal combat, wants me to send him along to fight off a brigand that he is unable to defeat, himself.”

“That’s about the size of it, my lady,” the messenger said, absently folding his paper into a square and looking carefully blank. She eyed him thoughtfully, wondering what role, exactly, he filled in Sir Holt’s retinue; the question was irrelevant, and so she set it aside for later consideration.

“I see. Well, Count Odo, what say you?”

“I am at your command, as always, Your Grace,” he said stiffly.

“Very well; we’ll depart for Sir Holt’s lands tomorrow morning,” she decided, idly studying the sword she held. “I believe I’d like to meet this mysterious knight for myself; my court sorceress will solve any enchantments, and there will be nowhere for him to hide.”

The messenger bowed his way out; Meve waited a good half minute for him to be well out of earshot and then stepped across to a large map tacked to the armory wall. She considered the north of the country and noted, casually, “Gascon’s estates and Sir Holt’s aren’t so far apart; they’re neighbors, in fact.”

“Oh?”

“Well,” she said, turning back with the sword pointed toward Reynard, “I know of only one anonymous knight errant in black armor in my kingdom, and I certainly have not been riding about the country in the middle of the night, fighting with passing strangers and killing occasional monsters. At least, not recently.”

“No, I daresay I would have noticed, if you were,” Reynard allowed with a fond smile. “So, then, who do you suspect?”

“I don’t know, yet,” Meve said, looking down the length of the blade at him. “It just seems odd that the place where I fought incognito is so near to where a similarly attired knight is now causing trouble. I take issue, sir, with some stranger stealing my disguise and ruining the reputation I forged in it.”

“Or,” he suggested, eyes narrowing, “Perhaps what’s happened is that Sir Holt, not making any connection between the black knight of the tournament and the similar knight at Hawkesburn, heard the same story we did about the latter and invented this tale of his defeat, to draw me out to the countryside and thereby avoid fighting me on home ground.”

“Ah,” she said, lowering the sword. “Yes, I suppose that’s a plausible theory. I can send someone else out, if you’d prefer.”

Her heart lurched suddenly as a slight, dangerous smile crossed his face. She set the sword down absently, said, “No, I didn’t think you would,” and abandoned consideration of far-away knights, black or red, in favor of the much more interesting example she had immediately to hand.

The next morning dawned clear and the weather remained dry; Reynard’s picked company needed little encouragement to take full advantage. The General was in an uncommon hurry, it was plain to see, and so they traveled until late each night with only short breaks. During their third, bitterly cold, evening, a scout came down the column toward his commander and reported, “Seen an armed horseman not far up the way.”

“A highwayman,” the Count suggested; the Queen, overhearing them, said, “Or the black knight.”

The scout shook his head.

“Not likely a knight, my lady, nor no bandit neither, sir, I figure, but I’ll wager he waits for passerby, whatever.”

“It’s just th’ one man,” the Count said, shrugging; nevertheless the column continued somewhat more slowly, with eyes kept to the dark trees around and arrows on their bowstrings. They reached the turn in the road that the scout indicated and paused; the stranger was still there, sitting his horse in the moonlight under a dark hood, apparently waiting. The Queen and Count both leaned forward to squint suspiciously at the oddly familiar figure, and several of the warband as well; the Count then pulled an exasperated frown and sat up suddenly in his saddle.

“Oh, for the love of -”

“Stand down,” Meve ordered, cutting Reynard off, “We know this fellow.”

The stranger laughed, pulled his hood down, and bowed grandly toward his audience. Meve kicked her horse into motion as Reynard said, irritably, “Nice of you to rejoin society, Brossard.”

“Couldn’t miss your duel, could I?” the Duke replied, brightly; the knight had no time to reply as Meve approached, turned her horse, grabbed the Duke’s stirrup, and yanked upwards, tipping him off the opposite side of his alarmed mount. He hit the road with a grunt and immediately sprang upright, surprised and angry, caught sight of the grim expression on the Queen’s face, and mastered himself with an attempt at a nonchalant shrug. She said nothing and rode away; the column followed, leaving Reynard behind.

“Well,” the Duke said, after the last of the warband passed on, “I suppose my unhorsing was long overdue.”

The Count shook his head disapprovingly, recaptured Gascon’s mare, and waited for the other man to clamber, wincing, back into the saddle.

“Nice to see you, too,” Gascon added, settling himself and picking dead leaves off his jacket. “Ouch.”

“Hmm,” Reynard replied doubtfully, releasing the horse.

“Yes, quite, and no more need be said on the subject. Anyway, I rode out t’ invite you and your company to stay at my place. My other place, I mean; the lodge, not the fort, which is inconveniently located for our, um, purposes. It’s about an hour’s ride from here,” he added, in response to the knight’s unspoken question. “I stationed a man partway, to direct you; I myself ought t’ ride on ahead and ensure all’s prepared. Under the circumstances, if you’d kindly relay th’ invitation to your lady love for me, I’d be much obliged.”

“Yes,” Reynard agreed, “That’s probably th’ only good idea you’ve had all month.”

“Well, you know what they say about clocks,” Gascon said, cheerfully enough. “Or is it th’ one about blind squirrels? Anyway, I’ll see you later.”

He galloped off; Reynard sighed and hurried to catch up with the column.

Half an hour later, at a fork in the road, they found Ethan waiting; the squire awkwardly led the warband through the dark woods, attempting to look anywhere except at its silent leader. They arrived just before midnight at a building which resembled a typical hunting lodge in the same way that Rivia Castle resembled the Brossard fort. Meve displayed no particular interest in the vast exterior, built out of the crumbling remains of an elven fortress, or the several hundred hunting trophies mixed with long since out of fashion furnishings that filled the drafty rooms within it. As they entered, Reynard said quietly to her, “Reminds me of my grandfather, this place,” which dragged a slight smile through her tense displeasure; nevertheless she stayed stubbornly silent until they were out of sight and hearing of anyone else but the uncharacteristically courteous Gascon.

“This house is like that menagerie Foltest keeps in Vizima,” she finally remarked, studying a white bearskin rug with the snarling head still attached, “Except that th’ animals are mostly still alive there, of course.”

“I haven’t had the time to redecorate,” Gascon ventured with the air of a man testing the waters. “In truth, this is only the second time I’ve ever been here, myself. My mother never wanted t’ come here when I was young; said it was creepy.”

“She wasn’t entirely wrong,” Meve said, glancing around at the strange shadows the animal heads threw on the walls in the firelight. Reynard shrugged unconcernedly and put an arm around her. A slightly awkward silence fell.

“Would you like to see a camelopard’s head?” Gascon asked, breaking it; Meve looked interested, instead of icily distant, and he pointed the rare trophy out, just over the fireplace in company with a few other preserved monsters. They sat and regarded it for a moment.

“That,” Reynard stated flatly, “Is a horse’s head with spots painted on it.”

“It was quite a fine horse, however,” Meve said with an amused smile, her bad mood forgotten.

“And they’re well-painted spots,” Gascon replied, grinning.

By morning, the incident on the road the night before had been forgotten, by unspoken mutual consent. Meve and Reynard passed an hour of the morning in an argument over their next move; Gascon, meanwhile, conveniently vanished to negotiate with the enemy camp. Eventually the disagreement was resolved by some cunning diplomacy on Meve’s part; she and Isbel then departed to investigate the mystery of the black knight, leaving Reynard behind to await his second’s return.

Rain had set in; they rode through cold drizzle, accompanied by a miserable escort. Isbel considered the dripping soldiers and the sparse, leafless scrub trees that dominated the roadside and finally said, “If the black knight, so-called, can vanish, perhaps by enchantment, as you suggested when you dragged me along on this excursion, it isn’t by light of day, and certainly not into these woods.”

“I know that,” Meve said.

“Then what, may I ask, is the point of this?”

“Why, the fresh air and exercise,” she replied. Silence returned after, for a time, and then the sorceress, in a tone of deep disgust, said, “You’re hoping to find this person before Sir Reynard does, aren’t you?”

“Well - all right; we’ve something of a wager going, on that ring I won in the tourney, and the next of us to win a fight will also win the prize. He, of course, is expecting this duel any day now, so the sooner I find the black knight, the better, as there’s not much chance he’ll lose it.”

The sorceress sighed, cast a despairing look skyward, and noted, “The black knight perhaps does not exist, or may not be found in these parts.”

“Yes, that’s Reynard’s theory,” Meve said, casually, “But I disagree.”

They returned that evening empty-handed and damp, to find Reynard in a state of abject boredom. His gloom was only slightly lessened by Meve’s return and her lack of success; noticing the depressed atmosphere, she attempted to engage him in a chat about the weather, and then, when the conversation failed, talked aimlessly at him about the latest advancements in crossbow design. Gascon returned as night was falling, long after she’d stopped trying to shift his mood and had resigned herself to examining the hunting trophies in the melancholy silence.

“We’ve chosen the field,” he said, “I just went to have a look, as it’s not all that far away. It looks decent; not too many holes in it, and I don’t think it’ll be flooded from all this rain.”

“When?” Reynard asked, testily.

“Tomorrow evening,” said Gascon, “And I should warn you that th’ opposition’s clearly intending to use the sunset to his advantage, should the weather clear, but then, perhaps it won’t.”

Meve glanced out the nearest window; the rain had turned spotty after dark, and she could see stars through patches in the clouds at the western horizon. She frowned and left the men to an involved discussion of the field’s layout; neither of them appeared to notice her departure. She found Isbel studying the camelopard head with a dubious frown. The sorceress kept up the expression as she explained the latest development and only said, wearily, “These men,” in response.

“I thought,” Meve said, idly, “That, perhaps, you’re right about the black knight.”

“Oh?”

“Yes; he certainly shouldn’t vanish very well, by day, at least; we really ought to be hunting for him at night, instead.”

“In this weather?”

“Well, it’s inconvenient, to be sure, and would make fighting him much more difficult, and I suppose that any advantage is worth th’ effort,” Meve said significantly, eying the older woman. Isbel considered the statement a moment.

“Is Sir Reynard in any significant danger?” she asked, pointedly.

“Doubtful,” Meve replied, waving the idea off as it if was impossible; hadn’t even crossed her mind; “This isn’t that serious of a matter. He may be injured, I suppose, but not killed - not on purpose, at least, and he’s been a knight too long for an accident to be likely.”

“Well then, perhaps I might leave early,” Isbel suggested, looking unconvinced.

“The fight’s tomorrow evening,” Meve noted, apparently ignoring the request, “Do you think that the weather will hold, or clear?”

“I don’t know,” Isbel answered, reluctantly. “It’s hard to tell, so far in advance, at this time of year; I suppose it may not.”

“As you say,” Meve said, flashed her victorious smile, and added, “Travel safely; we’ll see you at home.”

#thronebreaker #witcher #action #romance #sports

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