#we heard jonah speaking through elias but with elias's voice. not jonah's | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bubonickitten · 3 years

Text

Fic summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Full chapter text & content warnings below the cut.

Content warnings for Chapter 29: discussion of Jon’s & Daisy’s restrictive diets & associated physical/mental deterioration (and potential parallels with disordered eating etc.); arguing & relationship disputes (that are not immediately resolved in-chapter); self-harm (burning oneself with a lit cigarette); cigarette smoking; discussion of suicidal ideation; panic & anxiety symptoms; discussions of grief & loss; cyclical mental health issues (post-traumatic anniversary reactions; related self-loathing, internalized victim blaming, & survivor’s guilt; generally speaking, Jon’s relapsing into self-isolating, worse-than-usual headspace, esp towards the end of the chapter); depiction of parental neglect/rejection (Martin's mother). SPOILERS through S5.

There’s also a Hunt-themed statement that contains descriptions of indiscriminate violence & unprovoked warfare against a civilian population. Oh, and a cliffhanger.

Let me know if I missed anything!

_________________

“Statements ends,” Jon says, somewhat breathless as he fumbles to stop the recording.

“You alright?” Daisy asks.

“Fine.” The word is punctuated by a click and a whirr as the recorder resumes spooling.

“Are you, though?”

“Yes.” Scowling, Jon jabs his finger at the stop button – only for it to keep recording.

“It’s the Hunt, isn’t it.” Daisy sighs, rubbing the back of her neck. “Sorry it’s been so prominent for the last few. I’m… not quite scraping the bottom of the barrel yet, but–”

“It’s fine, Daisy.”

“Still, I–”

“I said it’s fine–!” Jon winces at his sharp tone. “I’m sorry, that was… I’m just – on edge, I suppose.”

Which is an understatement, really.

Because it’s September. It’s September, and after September is October, and October is–

Well. These days, he can’t even look at a calendar – can’t even look at the time and date on his phone – without icy dread coursing through his veins.

Sporadic flashbacks have become an everyday occurrence, set off by the smallest of stimuli: a dropped glass shattering on the breakroom floor becomes a window bursting inward into shards; a thunderstorm heralds a fissuring sky, marred by hundreds upon thousands of greedy, unblinking voyeurs; his own voice is a doomsday harbinger, a key crammed into a lock he can’t keep from unbolting. The memories are too immediate, too vivid to feel past-tense.

It’s to be expected. Studies, common knowledge, and anecdotal evidence all point to the impact of anniversaries on mental health. He knows what a textbook post-traumatic stress response looks like. Monster or not, in this particular sense he remains overwhelmingly human. No matter how much he rationalizes it, though, intellectually understanding a psychological phenomenon does little to soften the lived experience of it.

And it does nothing to temper the chilling knowledge – bordering on conviction – that it may happen again.

“Would be worrisome if you weren’t stressed out, considering… you know. Everything.” Daisy leans back in her chair, stretches her legs out in front of her, and rolls her shoulders. “Speaking of the Hunt. Any new developments?”

“I mean… nothing since yesterday? Everything I know, Basira knows.”

“Basira… isn’t keeping me updated,” Daisy says, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

“Ah,” Jon says, with tact to spare. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

Daisy sighs. “She thinks that I think she’s wasting her time.”

“And do you?”

Daisy gives a jerky shrug. “Don’t you?”

“Not… necessarily,” Jon hedges. Truthfully, his answer to that question is as mercurial as his moods these days, shifting from hour to hour, sometimes minute to minute. Daisy gives him an unimpressed look. “I won’t lie and say I’m optimistic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.”

“You sound like Martin.”

“Well, he spent ample time drilling it into me,” Jon says with a wry smile. “I don’t have the same capacity for hope as he does, but improbable doesn’t mean impossible. If I’d had it my way, I’d have lain down and died ages ago. I’m only here now because of him.”

“Mental health check,” Daisy says automatically.

“Not thinking of hurting myself,” Jon replies, just as rote. “You don’t have to do that, you know. I’ve told you, I’m physically incapable of killing myself even if I wanted to.”

“That doesn’t stop you brooding.”

“Anyway, I wasn’t referring to anything recent.”

“Weren’t you, though?” At his blank look, Daisy gives an impatient sigh. “It hasn’t even been a year since you woke up, Sims. Up until six months ago, you were wandering an apocalyptic wasteland–”

“…I found myself utterly alone. Facing down a room full of nothing eyes, willing myself to take action. I never did, though–”

“–I wanted to act, to help, to do something, but – my mind had all but seized up, and I felt helpless to do anything but watch as events progressed–”

“–there was nothing I could do to save him – he died – so did any hope I had of – doing good in the world–”

“–there’s a sort of numbness that you adopt after months or years of bombing–”

“–I did spend a lot of time just… slumped in despair – had no reason to think it would help, but I could see no choice but waiting for death–”

“–hoping against hope that – it wouldn’t be forever–”

“Hey!” Daisy’s voice finally breaks through the rush of static. Or perhaps it was the pressure: Jon looks down to see her bony fingers caging his own in a bruising grip.

“Sorry,” he says, catching himself as he starts to list woozily.

“Not to say ‘I told you so,’ but…” Daisy gives his hands another light squeeze. “You sort of just proved my point there.”

“I’m well aware that I’m – traumatized, or whatever–”

“Not ‘or whatever’–”

“–but I’m not a danger to myself, so could we please just move on?” Jon mumbles, averting his eyes. “You wanted a Hunt update.”

Daisy scrutinizes him for a long moment before she allows the conversational pivot to stand.

“Basira said you’ve heard back from that Head Librarian,” she says, “but she blew me off when I started prying.”

“Zhang Xiaoling,” Jon says, his shoulders relaxing. “She was able to confirm some of Jonah’s intel. They do have a statement about a book matching that description in their records, and she agreed to forward a copy once it’s been digitized. They’re further along in their digitization process than we are–”

Daisy snorts. “Probably because they’re actually working on it.”

“That, and they have the benefit of a Head Librarian who actually has a background in archival studies,” Jon says drily. “In any case, they have a large archive, so it’s a work in progress. She’s processed our inquiry, though, and she says she has someone on it. We should hear back by tomorrow at the latest.”

“Huh,” Daisy says. “Sounds…”

“Like a functioning archive?”

“I was going to say ‘streamlined,’ but sure.”

“The wonders of a hiring process that prioritizes job qualifications as opposed to a candidate’s apocalyptic potential.”

“What are the chances their institution is also led by a centuries-old corpse with a god complex?”

“Non-zero, I imagine.”

Daisy wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, don’t say that.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t have evidence one way or the other.”

“It doesn’t. Does she know about…” Daisy waves her hand vaguely. “All of this? The Fears, Rituals… Jonah?”

The question gives Jon pause. He thinks back to his meeting with Xiaoling all those years ago – well, last June, from her perspective.

“Some of it, I think,” he says slowly. “She seemed familiar with some of the Archivist’s abilities. There were parts of my visit that struck me as odd at the time. I didn’t realize until later that she had been speaking both Chinese and English at different points in our conversation.”

Daisy frowns. “She didn’t clue you in?”

“She didn’t, no. But…”

Elias made a good choice, the Librarian’s voice echoes in Jon’s mind. I did offer him someone, but he thought the language might be too much for him.

It does tickle me, Jonah’s voice chimes in, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose.

“I don’t know if she’s aware of Elias’ true identity.” Jon swallows with some difficulty, his mouth suddenly dry. “Or his intentions.”

“So is it really smart to trust her?”

“If she’s in communication with him, there’s nothing she can tell him that he doesn’t already know. We’re just following up on information he gave us. And he’s likely spying on our correspondence whether she’s in contact with him or not. Not much we can do about that.”

“She could have her own ulterior motives,” Daisy says.

“True enough, but… I got the sense that her primary interest is curation. Studying phenomena, building a knowledge base–”

“In service to cosmic evil,” Daisy says pointedly.

“W-well, yes, but – I don’t think she has delusions of godhood herself, and I don’t think Jonah has tempted her with the idea.” Jon huffs to himself. “He wouldn’t want to share his throne.”

“Hm.”

“I’m not saying we trust her or the Research Centre as a whole. I had reservations about their motives then and I still do. It’s not unthinkable that they’re a front for something more sinister in the same way that the Institute is. But… I don’t think there’s any especial danger in utilizing their library.”

“Sims,” Daisy sighs, “your danger meter is broken beyond repair.”

“In my defense,” Jon says, bracing one arm on the desk to leverage himself to his feet, “at this point, everything is just differing degrees of dangerous.”

As the two of them leave the tunnels, Jon’s phone buzzes in his pocket. When he glances at the screen, he sees a text notification from Naomi – in addition to two missed calls. He frowns to himself. The two of them text regularly, but she rarely calls.

“What’s up?” Daisy asks, her brow furrowing in concern.

“Naomi,” Jon says distractedly, already returning the call. Naomi picks up on the first ring.

“Jon?” Naomi’s voice sounds thick and tear-clogged.

A cold weight settles in Jon’s stomach. “What’s wrong?”

“I j-just” – Naomi pauses to clear her throat – “just needed to hear a familiar voice.”

“What happened?” Jon asks – and realizes too late that in his urgency to discover the source of her distress, he’s poured too much of himself into the question.

“Nothing.” What starts out as a self-deprecating little laugh quickly deteriorates into a half-sob. “Nothing new, anyway. It’s always like this, this time of year. Evan and I didn’t have an exact date planned, but we’d talked about an autumn wedding. Thought it would be fitting, since we met in September, you know? Tomorrow is our anniversary, actually. Or – or it would’ve been. A-and then by the time I’ve picked myself back up, the holidays will have crept up on me, and that’s always hard, and – and then before I know it, it’s March, a-and that’s its own kind of anniversary, and it’s just… it’s a lot.”

“Oh, I – Naomi, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s fine,” she says with a sniff. “Don’t think I would’ve been able to get it all out, otherwise.”

“S-still, I–”

“It’ll be three years this March. And it still feels like it was yesterday. I spend six months out of the year feeling like I’m still stumbling through that cemetery, and I just…”

This time last year, Jon thinks with a lurch, I was still the monster in her nightmares.

And even now, he still pulls her there whenever they’re both asleep.

“When does that stop?” Naomi laughs again, a desperate, pleading thing. “When does the healing come in?”

“I… I don’t know,” Jon says truthfully. “Anniversaries are… they’re hard enough on their own. It doesn’t help that… well, it’s difficult to heal from something when you’re still living it.”

“What do you mean? Evan’s dead,” Naomi says, her voice breaking on the word. “He’s not coming back. It’s… it’s over.”

“There are still the dreams. The narrative might have changed, but the stage dressing is still the same.” Jon draws his shoulders in, one arm pressed tight to his stomach. “Keeping the memory fresh.”

“It’s not so bad.” Naomi sniffles again. “Better than being alone.”

“‘Alone’ or ‘nightmares’ shouldn’t be your only options.”

“I have my own nightmares, you know,” Naomi counters, sounding slightly annoyed. “When I’m asleep and you’re not. And they’re worse, because in them, I actually am alone. Nothing supernatural about it. It’s just… me.” She sighs. “This time last year – and the year before – I didn’t have anyone. And I just… I didn’t – I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not,” Jon says. “Not anymore.”

“I – I know, but I…” Naomi takes a breath. “I was… I was thinking – maybe tomorrow I could come by.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says gently, “truly I am – but it’s not safe. Especially for you, especially right now. Not with Peter here.”

Naomi is already the equivalent of an unfinished meal to the Lonely. That, together with her association with Jon, is more than enough to mark her as a potential target should Peter take notice of her.

“Feels safer than being alone,” Naomi says. “The Duchess helps – a lot – but I…” She lets out a fond but tearful chuckle. “I can’t expect her to grasp the nuances of… grief, or loneliness, or what have you.”

“How about this,” Jon says. “We tell Georgie what’s going on – as much or as little as you’d like, even if it’s as simple as ‘I don’t want to be alone right now.’ I doubt she’d be opposed to having you over.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose. I mean, I – I’ve not spent much time with her outside of just… spamming the group chat with cat photos. I like her, but she’s your friend. I’m just… a friend of a friend.”

Nestled between the words is a familiar sentiment, unarticulated and nonetheless resounding, echoing all of the earnest conviction it had when first she made such a confession: All my friends had been his friends, and once he was gone it didn’t feel right to see them. I know, I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded, they would have said they were my friends too, but I could never bring myself to try. It felt more comfortable, more familiar, to be alone…

“People can have more than one friend,” Jon says. “I can’t speak for Georgie, but she wouldn’t go out of her way to talk to you if she didn’t like you.”

Indeed, that might be the reason Jon was able to open up to Georgie in the first place. He observed early on that she had no qualms disengaging from people whom she had no interest in getting to know. Whatever Jon might have felt about himself on any given day, the simple fact of the matter was that Georgie would never have let him get so close if she hadn’t seen something redeeming in him.

And she likely wouldn’t be letting him stay close now if she didn’t still see something worth salvaging.

“It’s up to you, of course,” he says. “I won’t pressure you. But I think Georgie would be more receptive to friendship than you expect. And I think – I think you’d get along with Melanie, too.” Naomi is silent on the other end of the line. “At the risk of overstepping, I… I know being alone feels like the natural state of things, but it doesn’t have to be. If you want, I can talk to Georgie. Lay the groundwork. I won’t give her any of the details – it’s not my story to tell – I’ll just let her know that you’re feeling alone and could use some companionship.”

“Okay,” Naomi whispers. “Just… let her know she’s not obligated.”

“I will. On the extremely off chance she says no, or if she’s busy tomorrow, I can keep you company remotely. We can spend the whole day holding up the office landline if you want.”

“It’s a Friday.”

“And?”

“It’s a work day?”

“Naomi, my job is wholly comprised of monologuing to any tape recorder that manifests within a six-foot radius and doing my utmost to render my department as counterproductive to both the Institute’s professed and clandestine organizational objectives as humanly or inhumanly possible.” Naomi barks out a startled laugh. “I won’t be fired no matter what I do – which is a shame, seeing as it became my foremost professional development goal somewhere between finding out my boss murdered my predecessor and virtually dying in an explosion at a haunted wax museum. Barring a sudden and unexpected apocalyptic threat – which, admittedly, is unlikely but not unthinkable– I’ve already cleared my non-existent schedule for you.”

“Okay.” Naomi makes a sound somewhere between a sniffle and a chuckle. “Thanks. Really.”

“Any time.”

_________________

The statement is an unnerving, circuitous thing: a firsthand account from an unnamed member of the Drake-Norris expedition in 1589. In many ways, it’s eerily similar to the last statement Jon accessed from Pu Songling’s archives: Second Lieutenant Charles Fleming’s shellshocked, guilt-fueled confession of atrocities committed under orders.

The historical record is rife with accounts of Francis Drake’s cruelty, Jon knows: his role in the transatlantic slave trade, the unprovoked massacres committed in his name, the preemptive strikes that incited further bloodshed. The statement giver speaks in awestruck horror of the bloodlust lurking in the man’s eyes, the vitriolic fervor with which he undertook his campaign to seek out and destroy the remnants of the Spanish fleet – and the depths of his rage when his efforts ended in defeat. Humiliated, he turned his vengeful eye to the Galician estuaries.

The writer tells plainly of his own complicity in the sacking of Vigo, razing the town to the ground and slaughtering its inhabitants with indiscriminate zeal. For four days Drake’s men carried out their rampage, retreating only when reinforcements arrived to stem the tide.

“You may ask yourself,” the Archivist reads on, “how it is that a man born into the reign of Good Queen Bess sits before you today, some four centuries past his due?

“You see, as we left the shores of Galicia that day, I heard from behind us a vicious braying, as if someone had set loose a great host of hounds. They were close – close enough for me to sense their stinking breath hot on the back of my neck. Such a thing was impossible, for we were by that time far from shore, having already rowed half the distance between the beach and the waiting armada. That did not stop me dreading the dogs lunging and tearing into me at any moment.

“I am not ashamed to admit that I let out a whimper.

“As the seconds ticked by and the pack failed to descend upon us, my curiosity grew to outweigh my terror. I turned to look – and was thus ensnared. It was, I realize now, the instant at which I became beholden to the blood. My greatest folly.

“Perhaps I oughtn’t have been so surprised to see no hounds surging toward us atop the waves, but you must understand that the proximity of their snarling was far more convincing than their visual absence. In looking behind us, though, I was able to appreciate the havoc we left in our wake: the great plumes of ash rising from the smoldering rubble, backlit by a flickering orange glow, and wails of despair so profound as to combat the noise of the wind, the waves – even the discordant shrieking of the hounds.

“It was a scene of such devastation as I had never seen before or since. Looking back, I think upon the acrid stench of charred flesh on the breeze with horror and… indescribable remorse. It shames me now to admit that at that time, I had never felt such… rapture.

“That was when a motion caught my eye. Between the distance and the billowing smoke, it should have been impossible to discern such detail, yet there he was: quarry I had left for dead, emerging from the debris and staggering away from the ruins of his… wretched life. As he looked out to behold our retreat, I could see the grief playing on his face, the fury, the fear – but what most set my blood to boiling was the spark of relief I saw in his eyes.

“It awakened something in me – a famished and merciless thing, composed of tooth and claw and a mind beginning and ending and utterly encompassed by the call of the pack. With a roaring in my ears and a single-minded violence supplanting my sensibilities, I deserted the rowboat and swam to shore. A chorus of howls carried me forward, and I let them be my wings, steering me down the swiftest, straightest path to my target.

“I slowed for nothing, and I made certain my prey did not live through the night.

“As you can likely guess, the chase did not end there. Those baying devils who had so called me forth continued to hound my steps, nipping at my heels, spurring me ever onward to the next quarry. Those who once knew me would scarcely have recognized what I became. Whenever I dared look into a mirror, I would see in myself a dogged, seething violence so akin to that which had lived in the eyes of my former commander. A cruelty that once had frightened and repulsed me had become the blood and breath of me.

“For a time I sought to refrain from the chase. The longer I refused the call, the weaker I became. The hounds’ breath on my neck grew hotter; their braying swelled louder. I found myself wasting away: always hungry, never sated. Eventually my faculties began to slip. I would lose myself to such… bestialimpulses, and only the stain of blood on my teeth would return to me my reason. It pains me to confess to you now that it did not take long before I ceased my resistance entirely.

“It was at the turn of the sixteenth century that I happened upon the artefacts now in your possession. Their previous owner was a formidable adversary. I spent nearly a fortnight tracking him before I managed to run him down, and he fought like a tempest before he fell.

“Ordinarily I did not linger after a kill, instinct hastening me ever onward to the next great game. As I turned to leave, though, I was overcome by the sense that the hunt was… unfinished. Troubled, I reached down to check the man’s pulse. I was reassured to find him quite dead, but as I drew back, I noticed the brooch.

“It was a simple thing made of tarnished copper, fashioned into an incomplete ring, the ends of which resembled the heads of dogs. The moment my fingers brushed that ornament, I knew it was meant for me. It went into my pocket with nary a conscious thought.

“The itch of the hunt was still crawling down my spine, though; the frantic snuffling of phantom hounds yet filling the air all around me. I continued to search his person until I found what was calling out to me: a thin volume bound in leather. Curiosity ever my folly, I opened it.

“Up until that point, I had never learned to read nor write Latin with any degree of mastery. Yet I could understand the text within with perfect clarity. The script did not transform to English before my eyes, nor did the book render me proficient in the language. No, I simply… beheld the pages, and the meaning flowed into me.

“The story tells of Herla, legendary king of the Britons, who visits the dwarf king’s realm. Upon leaving, he is gifted a hound and warned not to dismount his horse until the dog leaps down. When Herla and his men return to the human world, they discover that not days but centuries have passed: all those they had known have long since perished, and the Saxons have taken possession of the land. In their distress, some of the men dismount, whereupon they turn to dust. Herla warns the survivors to stay in their saddles, to wait until the dog leaps down.

“‘The dog has not yet alighted,’ the author tells us, ‘and the story says that this King Herla still holds on his mad course with his band in eternal wanderings, without stop or stay.’

“The next several pages are unreadable. The language resembles none I have ever encountered, and I have yet to find a soul who can decipher it. I can however attest its hypnotic qualities. I have spent many hours mired in those words, but I could not for the life of me tell you what I saw there. Others to whom I presented the text found themselves either enthralled or agitated, though none could recall such episodes once lucidity returned to them. I expect you mean to unravel its secrets, but you may do well to let its mystery stand.

“The final passage – a single page, this written in English – tells of Herla’s escape: how, weary and driven to despair, he casts the dog from the saddle and into the River Wye. The instant the hound hits the water, Herla and his band crumble into dust, at last meeting the same fate they spent so many hundreds of years trying to outpace.

“I have had hundreds of years of my own since first reading the tale to digest its message, and that is why I come to you today. Although I have killed several times since these items came into my possession – it should come as no surprise that there are those who covet them – I have not sought out a single hunt since I vanquished the man who yielded me these trinkets. The hounds at my heel have not ceased their clamoring, but so long as the brooch is on my person, they cannot sink their teeth in me. I am always hungry, yes – but I am no longer starving.

“But I am also weary. I have come to understand that even as the hounds can never catch me, they will never leave me. In my four hundred years, I have played the role of both the hunter and the hunted, and have learned that they share the same ultimate plight. Whether I be predator or prey, I am trapped in the throes of an endless pursuit. So long as I should live, my blood shall never quiet.

“And that is the key: so long as I should live. Even now, the fervor in my blood insists that the hunt is eternal, but I know now that one cannot outrun one’s end forever. Much like my constant, howling companions, Death will always be nipping at my heels. In that sense, he is perhaps the ultimate hunter. Just as I have delivered to him so many souls, neither can I escape his judgment. If ever I am to rest, I must bow to his supremacy.

“And so, like Herla, I shall cast the dog away from the saddle. I leave it in your care now, and the book. I should be so lucky to exit this life with the dignity I denied so many others, though I fear I shall be found undeserving of such a swift end. I can only hope that, whatever my comeuppance should be, I shall have the grace to accept it without complaint.”

With a heavy exhale, Jon depresses the stop button on the recorder, then puts his head in his hands, putting pressure on his closed eyes.

“You alright?” Basira asks.

“More than I’d like,” Jon mutters.

“If I thought there was any chance this guy was still alive, I wouldn’t have given you the statement to read.”

“I know. Just…” Jon waves his hand vaguely.

“Unpleasant, yeah.”

And rejuvenating, Jon thinks bitterly. It’s only been a few days since his last statement from Daisy, and already he had begun to feel famished.

“They sent along some supplemental records,” Basira says, rifling through printouts. “The statement is cross-referenced with two objects in their Collections Storage – here.”

The document she slides across the desk contains two catalog listings:

Item No. 9820702-1

Description: Pennanular brooch, copper alloy. Geometric and interlace motifs. Confronted zoomorphic terminals (canine profile). Moderate surface oxidization and patination. Dimensions: 5.5cm x 4.5cm body; 12.5cm pin. Artefact dated ca. 500–700 CE.

Properties: Primary subject (Case No. 9820702) reports mediating effect on the Hunter’s affliction (unverified). Item implicated in subject’s alleged abnormal longevity (unverified). Further study suggests dormancy and/or lack of reactivity to unafflicted subjects (see associated Investigation Log).

Storage: Special Collections – Inorganic Storage, Container Unit No. 982-05. Acid-free board housing, etherfoam packing. Environmental parameters in brief: maintain stable temperature (16-20°C); relative humidity, 32-35%; light levels, <300 lux. Handling protocols as per Acquisitions & Collections Policies and Procedures §3.5.3: Artefact Preservation – Metals – Copper and Copper Alloys.

Access: Upon request. Curator approval required prior to initial visit. Applicants may submit statement of intent to Acquisitions & Collections Department Head Curator for clearance. Terms, procedures, and degree of supervision subject to Curator’s discretion.

Provenance: Surrendered 2nd July, 1982 upon receipt of accompanying statement (Case No. 9820702), subject name unknown. See also Item No. 9820702-2.

Appendices:

· Investigation Log No. 9820702-1;

· Supplemental Documents Nos. 9820702-1.01 through -1.03.

Cross-reference:

· Case No. 9820702;

· Item No. 9820702-2;

· Acquisitions & Collections Catalog §3.6.4: Antiquities – Adornments and Jewelry (Inert).

Item No. 9820702-2

Description: Bound manuscript. Front and back covers unembellished leather (source undetermined) stretched over wood board (source undetermined). Leather cord binding (calf, bovine). Paper and parchment leaves. Ink corrosion and paper degradation present but minimal (fair condition inconsistent with age and media). Dimensions: 8.8cm x 14.0cm x 2.5cm. Artefact dated ca. 1190–1450 CE.

Contents: Eighteen (18) pages total, one-sided.

· Title page (1) iron gall ink on parchment (sheepskin): Gualterius Mappus – De nugis curialium – xi. De Herla rege

· Pages two (2) through four (4) iron gall ink on paper (hemp pulp, linen fiber): Medieval Latin (ca. 12th century) script.

· Pages five (5) through sixteen (16) ink (chemical composition undetermined) on paper (cotton fiber): alphabetic script (unknown roots); refer to Supplemental Document No. 9820702-2.03 for comparative linguistic analysis (inconclusive).

· Page seventeen (17) ink (chemical composition undetermined) on paper (cotton fiber): Middle English (ca. 15th century) script.

· Page eighteen (18) parchment (sheepskin): blank.

Transcripts and translations (where possible) provided in Supplemental Document No. 9820702-2.01*.

Properties: Primary subject (Case No. 9820702) reports total comprehension of Latin portions of the text despite lack of proficiency. Text alleged to diverge from source material (De nugis curialium – Map, Walter, fl. 1200). Both claims verified upon further examination (see associated Investigation Log). Probable association with the Hunter’s affliction.

Storage: Special Collections – Secure Storage. Environmental parameters in brief: maintain temperature at 20-22°C; relative humidity, 32-36%; light levels, ≤50 lux. Housing and handling protocols as per Acquisitions & Collections Policies and Procedures §2.5.5: Document Preservation – Premodern Inks – Iron Gall and §9.2: Special Precautions – Occult and Esoteric Texts.

Access: Restricted.

Provenance: Surrendered 2nd July, 1982 upon receipt of accompanying statement (Case No. 9820702), subject name unknown. See also Item No. 9820702-1.

Appendices:

· Investigation Log No. 9820702-2;

· Supplemental Documents Nos. 9820702-2.01* through -2.07;

· Incident Report No. 9930214.

Cross-reference:

· Case No. 9820702;

· Item No. 9820702-1;

· Acquisitions & Collections Catalog §2.1.1: Archival Media – Occult Books (Active);

· Interdepartmental Bulletin No. 9941002, “The Library of Jurgen Leitner: Lessons Learned.”

*Addendum, 16th February, 1993:Supplemental Document No. 9820702-2.01 reclassified as Restricted Access. Direct all inquiries to Pu Songling Research Library Head Librarian or Acquisitions & Collections Department Head Curator.

“So?” Basira prods. “What do you make of it?”

“Well, assuming the statement is a reliable account, it seems…”

“Promising, right?” Basira says, her eagerness tinted with relief. “If we can–”

She stops abruptly as the tape recorder on the table clicks back on.

“I think that’s our cue to move this conversation elsewhere,” Jon says.

Not that it will stop the tape recorders from listening in, but he has no desire to make Jonah’s surveillance any easier for him.

_________________

It takes some hemming and hawing, but Jon manages to convince Basira that this really ought to be a group discussion. As she recaps the statement and shares her own remarks, Jon keeps a close eye on the other two people in the room. Martin is listening attentively, leaning forward slightly but otherwise at ease. Daisy, though… she’s all corded muscles and jittery legs, taut and precarious on the edge of her seat.

All the while, Basira appears impervious to the storm brewing in Daisy’s eyes, even as Martin catches on and begins chewing on the inside of his cheek, darting nervous glances between the two of them. By the time Basira finishes her overview, the tension in the air is palpable, nearly electric.

For several seconds, no one speaks.

“So,” Martin says, his voice a bit pitchy. He clears his throat before continuing. “Magical, Fear-resistant brooch, huh?”

“It wouldn’t be unheard of,” Jon says. “Remember what I told you about Mikaele Salesa?”

“The apocalypse-proof bubble? Yeah.”

“That camera of his didn’t just protect him from the Eye, it hid him from the Powers in general.”

“What was the catch?” Daisy asks pointedly. “Got to be a catch.”

“Does there?” Martin asks. His hesitant smile falls at Daisy’s blank stare, and he tilts his head back with a sigh. “Yeah, alright.”

“It’s… not entirely benign, no,” Jon says. “In Salesa’s statement, he called it a ‘battery’–”

“–charging itself on all the quiet worries that come from living in hiding, and then when the sanctuary collapses, all that fear flows out at once. No doubt, if my oasis breaks before I die, the Eye will get quite the feast from me, but in this new world–”

“That’s enough of that, I think,” Martin says, resting a hand on Jon’s arm.

Jon bites his tongue, shuts his eyes, and takes a deep breath in, only daring to speak once the tingling on his lips subsides. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for.” Martin offers him a reassuring smile. “Just didn’t want you getting bogged down.”

“That’s one term for it,” Jon says, not quite under his breath. It’s true enough, though. Sometimes it feels like the Archive is pressed up against the door, watching for the tiniest crack, waiting for any opportunity to surge through and drag him under. Lately, Martin has grown uncannily adept at sensing when to interrupt these lapses before they spiral out of control – likely because they’ve been growing more frequent.

“That’s what I thought,” Daisy says. Puzzled at the apparent non-sequitur, Jon glances at her, but she isn’t looking at him. All of her attention is focused on Basira. “This thing is probably the same. It’s not some… some harmless miracle solution. If we mess around with it, it’s bound to blow up in our faces sooner or later.”

“I’m… not sure about that, actually,” Jon says. “The brooch didn’t free the Hunter, it just made it so he couldn’t be caught. I think that’s what it was feeding on – the Hunter’s gradual awareness that he was no different from the hunted, that sensation of being perpetually stalked from the shadows by a greater predator. It spent centuries charging itself on that fear, and it culminated in the realization that he would never escape it. He would always be waiting for the axe to fall, and Hunt was happy to keep him as perpetual prey. If he wanted the chase to end, he had to give up the artefact – and once it was no longer keeping him in stasis, he had a choice to make.”

“Go back to hunting, or let it catch him.” Daisy breathes a humorless laugh. “The Hunt, or the End.”

“But it would keep you alive,” Basira says. “It would buy us time to find a way to free you for real.”

“What about the Leitner?” Martin asks. “That’s what Jonah sent us after in the first place.”

“Turns out it’s not actually from Leitner’s library,” Jon says. “No bookplate, and it seems the statement giver had it in his possession since the 1500s. It’s… difficult to tell from the statement whether it had any significant effect on him. He called it ‘hypnotic,’ but he was already a Hunter by the time he found it. I imagine it might have different effects on someone not already under the Hunt’s influence.”

“He sort of alluded to that.” Basira takes a moment to peruse the statement, running her finger along the page until she finds the relevant line. “Here – they ‘found themselves either enthralled or agitated.’ A bit obscure, but… he says it like it’s an afterthought. If it outright turned anyone into a Hunter, he probably would’ve said so.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous,” Daisy says.

“I never said it wasn’t,” Basira replies coolly. “The record references a transcript, so I assume they had someone read it at some point. And it also mentions an incident report.”

“What was the incident?” Martin asks.

“Don’t know,” Basira says. “They didn’t provide any of the supplemental documentation, just the catalogue listing and the statement itself. But they acquired the book in ‘82 and didn’t make the transcript restricted until ‘93, so… either it was dormant when they first studied it and became active later, or they didn’t study it closely enough to activate its effects, or it doesn’t affect everyone the same way, or – or maybe their workplace safety guidelines just changed and they decided not to risk studying it anymore.”

“Jonah did say something about its effects varying depending on how much of it a person reads, right?” Martin asks. “Though who knows where he got that from.”

“There might be some truth to that,” Basira says. “The catalogue entry does describe what’s on the title page, so I’m assuming that part at least is safe. I’m most curious about the untranslated chunk in the middle.”

And I’m a universal translator, Jon thinks, fidgeting with the drawstring of his hoodie. Basira’s eyes flick to him, as if reading his mind.

“I… suppose I could–”

“No,” Martin and Daisy say simultaneously.

Jon scowls. “You didn’t even let me finish the–”

“You threw yourself into the Buried – twice – to save me,” Daisy says severely. “You can’t keep sacrificing yourself at every opportunity.”

“I wouldn’t be–”

“What, re-traumatizing yourself by reading a Leitner?” Jon shuts his mouth, pressing his lips tightly together. “It’s not worth it, Sims.”

“Daisy,” Basira begins, but Daisy cuts her off.

“No. I’m not having him throw himself to the wolves just because you’re curious.”

Basira flinches, hurt momentarily crossing her face before her expression goes stony.

“You really think that’s what this is about?” she says, her voice shaking. “Knowledge for knowledge’s sake? Me being curious?”

“You can’t tell me you’re not,” Daisy says, and then her expression softens. “And I love that about you, I do – you’re brilliant, Basira – and driven, and passionate, and…” She sighs. “But sometimes… sometimes you need to let things go.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jon notices Martin cross and uncross his legs, his lower lip captured between his teeth. When Jon catches his eye, Martin jerks his chin minutely at Basira and Daisy, a grimace on his face. All Jon can offer is a helpless, equally awkward shrug. Near as he can tell, Basira and Daisy seem to have momentarily forgotten that they have an audience, and judging from their locked eyes and thunderous expressions, he doubts either of them would appreciate a reminder right this second.

“Let you go, you mean,” Basira says tersely. “When you say ‘it’s not worth it,’ what you really mean is that you’re not worth it.”

“Well, I’m not.”

The cavalier tone is the last straw, it seems.

“Why won’t you just let me help you?” Basira slams her hand down on the rickety table, straining its wobbly legs. “You’re just so ready to–” She lets out a frustrated groan. “You never used to give up this easily.”

“Maybe should’ve done,” Daisy says flatly. “Might’ve lowered my body count.”

“Giving up Hunting doesn’t have to mean giving up on living,” Basira says. “I might have finally found an alternative, and you won’t even consider–”

“I’m not doing anything that’s going to hurt someone, and that includes exposing Jon to a fucking Leitner.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Jon mutters testily, the friction finally getting the better of his nerves. “Don’t I get a say?”

“No, you don’t,” Daisy says, rounding on him. Now that all of her brimming agitation is funneled in his direction, he regrets saying anything at all. “Because lately, whenever I ask you if you want to hurt yourself, the best you can give me is ‘it doesn’t matter because I can’t die anyway.’”

“Jon?” Martin says urgently, his eyebrows drawing together.

“Th-that’s not what I–”

“You’re not thinking rationally,” Daisy speaks over Jon’s stammering. “You’re thinking like a condemned man with a rope around his neck and something to prove, and I’m not going to be the noose you use to hang yourself with.”

“Will you listen to yourself?” Basira says heatedly. “You get on my case about double standards–”

“That’s enough!” Martin bursts out. “This isn’t helping. Daisy’s right, Jon. You’re not going anywhere near that book – I don’t want to hear it,” he adds before Jon can retort. “Not now, anyway. We’ll talk later. But Basira’s right, too,” Martin says, turning his attention to Daisy. “You can’t make amends by dying, and you can’t do better going forward if you’re not alive to try.”

“Who says I deserve a chance?” Daisy says.

“Whatever you think you ‘deserve’” – Martin gives Jon a meaningful glance as he says it – “you’ve got a chance, and people who want to help you through it, and you ought to consider that before you assume you’d do more good dead than alive.” He exhales a sharp breath. “Anyway, forget the Leitner, and forget what Jonah said about it. The brooch seems like the more promising option here.”

“I agree,” Jon says, cowed. “Between the book and the brooch, the statement giver credited the latter with keeping the Hunt at bay. And perhaps my bias is showing, but truthfully I – I’m not inclined to see those books as anything but tragedies waiting to happen.”

“What’s the difference?” Daisy says flatly. “It took a decade for something bad enough to happen for them to make the Leitner’s transcript restricted. The brooch could be just as much of a time bomb. Just because it doesn’t have any ‘incidents’ connected with it now doesn’t mean it never will.”

She isn’t wrong. Looking back, Jon had found it infuriating that Leitner would continue meddling with the books even after he witnessed the horror they wrought, all while claiming to have learned from his hubris. Just because this particular artefact isn’t a book doesn’t make it any less ominous.

And yet…

“I think it’s already shown its more sinister side,” Jon says slowly.

“You think,” Daisy scoffs.

“It doesn’t give a Hunter strength, it makes them perpetual prey. It… won’t be pleasant for you, I’m sure,” Jon admits, “but Basira’s right – it could keep you alive while we search for a better solution.”

“There might not be a better solution,” Daisy says stubbornly.

“Which is what I said before you browbeat me into taking statements from you,” Jon counters.

“I didn’t browbeat–” Jon raises his eyebrows. Daisy gives a flustered groan. “It’s just – it’s different, okay?”

Much as Jon wants to disagree, he knows better than to argue. They’d only end up talking in circles.

“I think it’s an avenue worth pursuing,” he says. “Given the alternatives.”

“Please, Daisy,” Basira says. “Just… consider it, at least.”

The for me remains unspoken, but Jon can hear it loud and clear. As can Daisy, it seems – the defiant set to her jaw falters for a moment before she tenses again.

“Fine,” she says grudgingly. “But if it starts to go south–”

“If it manifests any new properties, we’ll prioritize containing it over interacting with it,” Jon says.

“You promise?” Daisy asks, but she looks at Basira when she says it. It takes a moment, but Basira does nod.

“Do you think Pu Songling will let us have it?” Martin asks. “Seems like their protocols are…”

“Rigorous?” Jon supplies.

“You’d almost think they were running an academic institution or something,” Basira says drily.

“Yeah, but treating the artefacts like museum pieces, it’s… it’s weird, isn’t it?” Martin says. “It’s not as if they’re fragile, right? They’re held together by… nightmare alchemy, or whatever.”

“I suppose it’s to be expected,” Jon says. “I know the Librarian has a degree in information science. And I recall her telling me that the Curator is an historian with a background in museology. But you’re right – it would be nice if Leitners were as delicate as the average old manuscript.”

“At least they’re flammable,” Daisy mutters.

“We spoke with the Head Curator,” Basira says. “She’s willing to work out a trade.”

“A trade?” Martin asks.

“Knowledge for knowledge,” Jon says. “An artefact for an artefact. I get the impression that the Librarian and the Curator are both very… collections-oriented. True to their titles, I suppose.”

“Hold up,” Daisy says. “‘The Librarian,’ ‘the Curator’ – are those just job titles, or are they, like… Beholding Avatar titles?” Jon blinks at her, perplexed. “I mean – the way you keep saying them, it’s sort of like…”

“What, ‘Archivist’?” Jon gnaws on his thumbnail as he pauses to consider. “I… don’t know, actually. I wasn’t really doing it consciously? It just…” He shrugs helplessly. “It felt right.”

“Is it coming from the Eye, then?”

“I have no idea, Basira.” Jon leans forward, props his elbows on his knees, and digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Hm.”

“In any case…” Jon exhales slowly, forcing himself to sit up straight again. “They seem to take the research and curation aspects of their roles to heart. They aren’t reckless with their pursuits, they take ample precautions, but the scholars at Pu Songling do study the items that come into their possession. And from what I understand, the Curator takes avid interest in adding to their collection. Same as the Archivist’s role is to record stories. To what extent her efforts are driven by her connection to the Eye versus her own innate curiosity, I couldn’t tell you, no more than I can make that distinction in myself.”

“Sort of a chicken-or-egg situation, then,” Daisy says.

“From an evolutionary perspective, the egg came first,” Jon says automatically. “Amniotic eggs have been around for over three hundred million years. Birds originated in the Jurassic, true galliforms didn’t evolve until at least the Late Cretaceous, phasianids don’t appear in the fossil record until about thirty million years ago, and chickens as we know them were only domesticated about eight thousand years ago–”

“Oh my god,” Daisy groans, putting her head in her hands.

“What?” Jon says, heat rising in his cheeks as Martin muffles a snicker beneath his hand. “I’m not wrong.”

“Pu Songling’s Collections Department is larger than our Artefact Storage,” Basira interjects, “but the, uh… Curator has a shortlist of artefacts she’s been on the lookout for. I checked our records and found a match. A ring – probably belongs to the Vast, based on the reports surrounding it. Looks like the Institute purchased it from Salesa in 2014, shortly before his disappearance. The Curator considers it an ‘equitable exchange,’ but she still wants to assess the ring in person before making the trade.”

“And we still have to talk to Sonja,” Jon adds. “On the one hand, she likely wouldn’t object to being rid of an artefact, but on the other hand… I imagine she won’t be keen on letting it out into the world.”

“I think it would be a harder sell if you were just going to swap it out for another artefact – something unfamiliar that they’d have to develop all new protocols for,” Martin says. “But yeah, even if you won’t be making the brooch her problem, she’ll probably still want to know what we want with it. And I can see her pressing the Curator on why she wants the ring when she gets here.”

“The Curator won’t be coming here,” Basira says evenly, casting a surreptitious glance at Daisy to gauge her reaction. “Says she’s too busy to travel.”

“So you have to haul the ring up to her,” Daisy says.

“I mean” – Basira breathes an uneasy laugh – “it’s a ring. Not much hauling involved–”

“Oh, don’t start–”

“–and there are precautions I can take. Looks like Artefact Storage has relatively thorough documentation for this one.”

“‘Relatively’?” Daisy repeats, unimpressed. “You were just complaining about how sparse their records are. ‘Relatively’ isn’t saying much.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing.” Basira rubs at her face. “I have to do this. Just… trust me.”

“You know I do–”

“Then let me have your back,” Basira says, practically pleading. “Let me help you.”

“Fine,” Daisy mutters, her posture going slack. “Do what you want.”

It’s not exactly a resounding endorsement, but it’s as good as they’re likely to get.

_________________

Despite Daisy’s lack of enthusiasm, Basira immediately throws herself into making arrangements. The Curator at Pu Songling is more than accommodating, seemingly as eager as Basira to make the trade. The real challenge is the Head of Artefact Storage.

It takes over a week of cajoling, lengthy justifications, and a concerted, collaborative effort from Basira, Jon, and Martin before Sonja finally, albeit reluctantly, agrees to discuss the matter with the Curator. Over the following days, Basira and Jon facilitate negotiations between the two: mediating a fair amount of (professional, but nevertheless pointed) verbal sparring early on, and later arbitrating the terms and conditions of the trade.

“You’d think that in the course of dealing with literal supernatural evil on a daily basis,” Basira gripes at one point, “bureaucracy wouldn’t be the biggest priority.”

“I’ve found that the bureaucratic process gives me ample time to make assessments,” Sonja says, unruffled. “Red tape has a way of bringing out the worst in people. Sometimes that’s a procrastinating student who woke up this morning, realized their deadline is next week, and ‘needs access to our materials, like, yesterday,’” she says, complete with finger quotes and a mocking tone. “And sometimes it’s some shady rich snob who’s been consistently cagey about his motives, and eventually he starts to go from impatient and entitled to desperate and frustrated, and that’s when the red flags start popping up crimson. After a while, you learn to distinguish the mundane sort of desperation from the more sinister sort.”

“Huh,” Jon says, smiling to himself. He knew Sonja was clever, but he never knew she was so calculating. It seems Jonah made the same mistake with Sonja as he did with Gertrude – overestimating a person’s curiosity and malleability, underestimating their prudence and pragmatism, and then promoting them to a position where they were free to act in a decidedly un-Beholding-like manner.

Once Sonja is sufficiently assured that the Curator has no intentions of utilizing the artefact or allowing it to venture beyond the secure confines of Pu Songling’s Collections Storage, the process starts to go a bit more smoothly. As expected, Sonja is amenable to the prospect of having one less piece of malignant costume jewelry, as she puts it, provided the Archival staff take full responsibility – both for the ring once Basira signs it out and for the artefact they receive in exchange.

“The ring has a compulsion effect,” Sonja tells them. “Makes people want to put it on – and once it’s on your finger, it’s not coming off until you hit the ground. Luckily it’s not a particularly active artefact, at least not compared to some of the other things we have here. I wouldn’t call it safe, obviously, but” – she raps her knuckles on the wooden beads of the bracelet on her opposite wrist – “it’s never breached containment.”

The how and why become abundantly clear upon seeing the closed ring box, so caked in earth and grime that it’s impossible to make out the color or material underneath.

“Buried, I take it,” Basira murmurs, giving Jon a sidelong glance.

“Yeah.” Jon grimaces at the phantom taste of soil on his tongue. “An artefact to contain an artefact.”

“Looks like the Curator is getting a twofer,” Basira says.

“Fine by me,” Sonja says with a nonchalant shrug. “That’s the box it came in, actually. Don’t know why it works, but it does, and that’s all I care about. So long as you keep it closed, the worst you’ll get is vertigo. As far as we’ve observed, anyway. There’s always a chance that an artefact has more secrets than it lets on at first glance. Assuming you know everything there is to know is a good way to end up in a casket.”

“We’re well aware,” Jon says. “Believe me.”

“Seriously, though – if this goes tits up, I don’t want to hear it,” Sonja says sternly, all but wagging a finger. “And if you call up here a few months from now to tell me that you’ve got a rogue artefact wreaking havoc in the Archives, and I’ve got to put my people at risk to contain it, I will unleash unholy hell.”

The funny thing is, Jon believes her.

_________________

Despite the progress they’re making on obtaining the Hunter’s brooch, dissent continues to simmer within the group – particularly where Daisy is concerned. As the escalating tension in the Archives becomes ever more tangible, Martin begins to feel claustrophobic under the weight of all the things left unspoken.

Daisy is consistently ill-tempered: bellicose in one moment and taciturn in the next, frequently seeking out solitude whenever her agitation gets the best of her. Martin suspects that her volatile mood has as much to do with her deteriorating condition as it does to do with her lingering aversion to the rest of the group’s efforts. Although she and Basira haven’t had another row – so far as Martin is aware, anyway – there’s been an undeniable friction between them. On the worst days, Basira keeps to herself, burying her head in her research while Daisy slinks off to some dark corner of the Archives to brood until Jon comes to drag her away from her thoughts.

Not that Jon is much better. He’s been sullen lately, growing more withdrawn, sleeping less and jumping at shadows even more than usual. Martin often catches him in a trance, staring vacantly into space and droning horrors under his breath. More and more he lapses into statement clips mid-sentence, regardless of how recently he’s had a statement. Sometimes, all it takes is a momentary slip for Jon to lose his footing and devolve into a frenzied litany of back-to-back, fragmentary horror stories. On a few recent occasions he’s lost his voice entirely, though luckily it’s only been for an hour or two at a time.

(So far, Jon says morosely after each episode.)

Most unsettling, though, is the chronic faraway look in his eye, like he’s seeing something else. Like he’s somewhere else, lost across an unbridgeable divide.

Martin is well-acquainted with the sensation of feeling alone in the presence of others. That doesn’t make it any less distressing. It’s not that Jon intends to be distant. He might not even be aware of it; would likely be mortified if he knew just how much that detachment stirred Martin’s longstanding fears of isolation and abandonment. Jon’s still affectionate, after all. Although he seems reluctant to actively seek out comfort these days, he’s still prompt to take an outstretched hand, to lean into a kind touch, to accept a proffered embrace. Still makes a concerted effort to muster, however feebly, a soft smile whenever Martin enters a room. Still attempts to be present and attentive and open.

But sometimes it feels like Jon is out of reach, separated from the rest of the world, watching it pass him by through layers of frosted glass. Martin knows the feeling. What he doesn’t know is how to fix it.

Before long, Basira is set to leave for Beijing, an artefact of the Vast nestled away in her luggage amidst assurances to Sonja that, yes, under no circumstances will Basira attempt to take it on a plane or into the open ocean because, no, Basira does not have a death wish, thank you very much.

Martin half-expects another quarrel to break out on the eve of Basira’s departure, but Daisy is oddly subdued. Perhaps she just doesn’t want to part ways with angry words and unresolved arguments, or perhaps she’s simply come to accept the rest of the group’s decision to move forward with the plan. Considering the dark circles under her eyes, though, it’s just as likely that she’s simply too fatigued to start a fight.

A few days later, Martin descends the ladder into the tunnels to find Jon standing at his makeshift desk, staring down at the map unfurled across its surface – the product of the group’s ongoing efforts to survey the sprawling tunnel system of the former Millbank Prison. The blueprint-in-progress is an equally sprawling thing: sheets of mismatched paper layered one atop the next and taped together, its irregular borders comprised of haphazard angles and dog-eared edges.

The hand-drawn map on its surface is chaotic, reflecting the penmanship of four different authors. Jon’s contributions might be the messiest – the burn scar contracture on his dominant hand renders his lines shaky at best, and his handwriting has always been a tad chickenscratch. Daisy’s isn’t much better. Conversely, Basira’s additions are the neatest, her strokes as steady as the persona she tries to project to the world. Martin’s are passable, if only because, unlike Jon or Daisy, he actually has the patience to use rulers and book edges to trace straight paths.

To be fair, it would probably look a mess no matter how painstaking they were in constructing it. The tunnels are as labyrinthine as expected: a vast network of arterial corridors with offshoots along their lengths, branching into three- or four-way forks, most of which lead to dead ends. Occasionally, they find a path that loops back around and connects other parts of the maze, creating a series of meandering, convoluted closed circuits. It’s difficult to tell just by looking, but they are (Martin hopes) making progress. At the rate they’re going, they have to be on track to find the Panopticon before the winter solstice.

In any case, as Martin approaches the desk, he sees that familiar vacant look on Jon’s face, as if he isn’t actually seeing what’s in front of him. The effect is underscored by the cigarette burning away in his hand, hanging limp and forgotten at his side. Martin clears his throat lightly, in deference to Jon’s hair-trigger startle reflex. He doesn’t count the fact that Jon doesn’t jump at all as a success. If anything, it’s cause for concern.

“Jon?” Martin tries. There’s a slight delay before Jon glances over, giving Martin no acknowledgment aside from a sluggish blink before lowering his head again.

“I, uh…” Martin offers a weak smile, attempting to keep his tone light. He gestures at the cigarette. “I thought you quit?”

Jon shrugs, refusing to meet Martin’s eyes. “Not like it’ll kill me.”

“Might catch up with you later, though,” Martin says, scratching at his neck. “You know, once we find a way out of here.”

“There is no ‘out’ for me,” Jon says mulishly.

“You don’t know that. Or Know it.” Jon’s only reaction is to press his lips tightly together, like he’s biting back a retort. “Look, I’m not trying to nag you, I just wor– Jon!” Martin yelps as he watches Jon put his cigarette out on the back of his hand.

Martin lunges forward, grabbing Jon’s hand and yanking it close to inspect the damage. It’s the same hand that Jude shook, already textured and pitted with webs of hypertrophic scarring. Somehow, Jon managed to plant this newest burn on a patch of previously-undamaged skin, sandwiched between two bands of knotted tissue.

The contours of her fingers, Martin recognizes with a queasy lurch – followed by another when he thinks to wonder whether Jon sought out that scrap of healthy skin on purpose just now.

Jon barely reacts, staring into space with wide eyes and dilated pupils. Martin looks down again to see the circular singe mark already knitting itself back together, leaving only a small, shiny patch of discoloration ringed with a dusting of ash. In all likelihood, even that will be gone by morning.

If only all wounds would heal so easily.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Martin hisses, fighting to keep his voice even. He brushes a soothing thumb over the spot, as if to apologize to the abused skin on Jon’s behalf.

Jogged out of his reverie by Martin’s sharp tone, Jon stares daggers at him, his mouth open as if to unleash a scathing reprimand, the set of his jaw so reminiscent of those early days in the Archives. An instant later, though, he withers, cringing away and fixing his eyes on the floor.

“I wasn’t,” he mumbles, at least having the decency to sound contrite. “Wasn’t really paying attention.”

It’s not the first time Martin’s witnessed a self-inflicted injury. When pressed, Jon always claims that it’s not a deliberate, planned form of self-punishment, but rather a reflex reaction that kicks in when he starts feeling adrift in time. Somewhere along the line, it seems, he convinced himself that physical pain is as good a shortcut as any – a sort of panic button to bring him back to the present when he needs grounding.

Whatever his intentions, though, and no matter what rationalizations Jon wants to dole out, it’s not a healthy coping mechanism. And it’s difficult for Martin to believe that self-punishment doesn’t factor at all, considering Jon’s obsessive guilt spirals and his blasé attitude towards being hurt.

“‘S already healed,” Jon says with a spiritless shrug. He drops the snuffed-out remainder of his cigarette on the floor and unnecessarily grinds it under his heel.

“That’s not the point.” Martin doesn’t realize how tightly he’s grasping Jon’s hand until Jon winces. Although Martin relaxes his grip somewhat, he doesn’t let go. “It doesn’t matter how quickly your body heals, or that you’ve had worse, or whatever other justifications you want to make. You’re still getting hurt. That’s not okay, and – and if it were me in your shoes, you’d be telling me the same thing.”

“I’m sorry.” Jon’s hair falls to cover his face as he ducks his head.

It’s fine, Martin almost says – except it’s not, is it?

“Come on,” he says instead, guiding Jon to sit in the nearest chair before taking a seat next to him. Where before Jon was all stiff limbs and rigid spine, now he looks like he’s given up the ghost, drooping like a wilting flower.

Though he allows Martin to keep hold of his hand, Jon doesn’t return the pressure. And Jon’s skin is freezing – no doubt partly due to the damp chill of the tunnels, and partly because he has, by his own admission, always had shit circulation. Combined with his limp fingers and loose grip, though, the overall effect is far too reminiscent of those months spent keeping vigil over Jon’s hospital bed, his hand nothing but cold, dead weight in Martin’s.

It took too long for Martin to admit that he had been foolish to hope that Jon was still in there somewhere, aware of Martin’s presence, fighting to regain consciousness. The whole time, Martin was just keeping his own company. Jon wasn’t just unreachable – he wasn’t there at all.

(Martin had been wrong about that in the end. He doesn’t know that he’ll ever forgive himself for not being there when Jon woke up.)

Martin bites his lip as he formulates a response. He’s learned over the years that when Jon is like this, it’s best to strike a careful balance between docility and defiance. Push too hard too fast, and Jon will dig his heels in; approach him too tentatively, and he’s liable to interpret concern as pity; force him to talk about his feelings, and he’ll bolt; smother him with tenderness, and he’ll balk.

Granted, Jon has become much more receptive to tenderness over the years. Most of the time, anyway. When his skewed self-worth and convictions about what he does and doesn’t deserve don’t get in the way.

“At the risk of being a nag–”

“You’re not a nag,” Jon says softly.

“When’s the last time you had a statement?”

“A few days ago.” The response is too quick, too automatic.

“A few days ago,” Martin repeats, allowing a bit of disbelief to seep into his voice.

Jon nods stiffly. “Monday, I think.”

“Today is Tuesday.”

“I–” Jon cuts off his own retort, turning to blink owlishly at Martin. “Is it?”

“Yeah,” Martin says, his heart sinking. Jon must be losing time again. “So you had a statement yesterday?”

“No, I – I don’t…” Jon squints up at the ceiling, wracking his brain. “I don’t think so? It’s – I think I would recall if it had been shorter than one day.”

“So, last Monday?”

“I don’t – I don’t know,” Jon says, growing testy. “I suppose. Must’ve been.”

“Are you hungry?”

“I’m always hungry.” The admission is devoid of all the simmering agitation that had been there only moments before. Now, he just sounds tired.

“Well… I think you might be due for one.” Although Martin had been striving for gentle suggestion, there’s a harsh edge to the words. Rather than get Jon’s hackles up again, though, he seems to crumple under what he doubtless reads as an accusation.

“You’re right,” he says hoarsely. “And I’m sorry. I know lately I’ve been…”

“Tetchy,” Martin offers, just as Jon says, “a bit of a prick.”

“Your words, not mine,” Martin says with a tentative grin. Jon returns his own feeble half-smile, but it quickly falters.

“I’ve almost exhausted Daisy’s catalogue,” he confesses. “Only a handful left now. I’ve got to make them last until the solstice.”

An apprehensive chill runs down Martin’s spine at that. “And then what?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

There’s virtually no chance that Jon, prone to rumination as he is, hasn’t been dwelling on it.

“Basira said she has a few statements, right?” Martin asks. “Which… if you already have a statement about an encounter, can you still get nourishment from other statements about it, so long as it’s coming from someone else’s point of view?”

“Probably.” Jon shrugs one shoulder. “The factual details of the encounter are less important than the subject’s emotional response. Different perspective, different story, different lived experience of fear.”

“Then… you have my statement about the Flesh attack, but there’s still Basira’s. And – and maybe Melanie–”

“I’m not taking another statement from Melanie,” Jon says tersely. “She’s been tethered to me for too long without say, and I’m not dragging her back in.”

“But if it’s consensual–”

“It won’t be, because I don’t consent.”

“If the alternative is literally starving–”

“I’ll find another alternative. Or I won’t. But I’m not asking Melanie for a statement.” Jon keeps his head bowed, but he looks up at Martin through his lashes. “The first time she quit, I was worried that she might show up in my nightmares again, but she didn’t. I don’t know if her severance from the Eye will keepher out of my nightmares if she gives me a new statement, and… I can’t risk it. I can’t do that to her. Even if the nightmares weren’t an issue… I’m not going to ask her to relive yet another traumatic experience for my benefit–”

“–I shall choose to die rather than take part in such an unholy meal–”

Jon claps a hand over his mouth, a panicked look in his eye.

“…nor shall I take my own life, whatever extremity my suffering may reach,” he tacks on, too much of an afterthought for comfort.

“Which means we need to plan for the future,” Martin says, forcing calm into his voice despite the way his heart picks up its pace.

“But it can’t involve Melanie,” Jon says – gentler than before, but still firm.

“No, you’re – you’re right,” Martin relents. “It wouldn’t be fair to her. But we could still ask Basira.”

Jon makes a noncommittal noise, his expression rapidly going pinched and closed off again.

“Lately,” Martin says, licking his lips nervously, “lately it feels like you’ve been shutting everyone out again. It isn’t healthy–”

“Healthy?” Jon’s glare could burn a hole in the floor. “I don’t need to be healthy, I just need to be whatever it wants.”

Once, Martin might have been daunted by Jon’s scathing tone. By now, he knows that Jon is all bluster – and that the brunt of it is turned inward, against his own self.

“Please, Jon. Tell me what’s going on. You’re worrying me.”

Those, apparently, are the magic words, because Jon finally capitulates.

“It’s October,” he tells the floor.

“It… is October, yeah.” Bewildered, Martin waits for elaboration. When a minute passes with no response forthcoming, he prompts, “Is that… bad…?”

“Historically, yes, it has been,” Jon says with a tired, frayed-sounding chuckle.

“I… Jon, I need you to help me out here,” Martin says helplessly. “I can’t read your mind.”

“October is when it happens, Martin.” Jon glances at Martin once, quickly, before returning his gaze to the ground. He’s twisting one hand around the opposite wrist now, fingers curled tightly enough to blanch his knuckles. “The eighteenth. When everything goes wrong.”

“You mean…”

Jon’s sharp inhale becomes a choked exhale, which in turn abruptly cuts off as the Archive takes its cue.

“…what settled over me wasn’t dread; there wasn’t enough uncertainty for that. It was doom. I was certain that some sort of disaster was on the horizon–”

“–something bad. Something unspeakable. And I would have helped make it happen–”

“–the fear never really went away. I’ve heard that being exposed to the source of your terror over and over again can help break its power over you, numb you to it, but in my experience it just teaches you to hide from it. Sometimes that might mean hiding in a quiet corner of your mind, but–”

“–soon enough, I could no longer fool myself–”

“–the calm I had been getting accustomed to had been torn away completely, and where it had been was just this horrible, ice-cold terror–”

“–that – we can’t escape the ruins of our own future–”

“–a future where – humanity was violently and utterly supplanted, and wiped out by a new category of being–”

“–there are terrible things coming – things that, if we knew them, would leave us weak and trembling, with shuddering terror at the knowledge that they are coming for all of us–”

“–I think in my heart, I have been waiting for this moment. For the final axe to fall–”

“–we create the world in a lot of ways. I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that, when we’re not being careful, we can change it–”

There’s a breathless pause before Jon continues, in a nearly inaudible whisper: “What could I have chosen to change? Would a different path have been possible?”

“It is,” Martin says firmly, “and we’re on it. What happened last time won’t happen again. We won’t let it.”

Jon doesn’t acknowledge the reassurance.

“I should’ve known,” he says with a quiet ferocity, in his own voice this time. “It was too peaceful. I should’ve known it wasn’t going to last. And – and on some level I did know – I knew it wasn’t over – but I just… I didn’t want to be the one to shatter the illusion, I suppose.” His expression goes taut. “Didn’t much matter what I wanted, in the end. But I still should’ve seen it coming. Can’t let my guard down again.”

“How could you have known?” Martin doesn’t intend for it to come out as exasperated. He tries to reel it back, to gentle his tone. “You’ve said yourself that you can’t predict the future–”

“No, but I knew Jonah had plans for me. And I knew nothing good could come of feeding the Eye, but I kept on anyway.”

“It’s not like you were doing it for fun, Jon! You needed it to survive, and Jonah took advantage of that. Or…” No – that makes it sound purely opportunistic, doesn’t it? In reality, it was all part of Jonah’s long game from the start. “He made you dependent on statements specifically becausehe wanted to take advantage of that.”

“I made choices,” Jon says tonelessly. “I can’t absolve myself of responsibility just because Jonah was nudging me in a particular direction.”

“You were manipulated,” Martin insists, “and I’m not having you apologize for surviving it. For not starving to death.”

“You don’t understand,” Jon says, growing more distressed, reaching up with both hands and tangling his fingers in his hair. “When that box of statements finally arrived, I… I couldn’t shoo you away fast enough. I was hungry, yes, but I wasn’t starving yet. I could’ve waited longer, but I just… I wanted one–”

“–should have fought harder against the temptation – but my curiosity was too strong–”

“You shouldn’t have to wait until you’re literally on death’s doorstep before you fulfill a basic need,” Martin interrupts.

“I should when that ‘basic need’ entails serving the Beholding,” Jon says heatedly. “And I – I should’ve known better – should’ve known not to jump headlong into the first statement that caught my eye. I’d known for a while that the Beholding leads me away from statements it doesn’t want me to know. It logically follows that it would lead me towards statements that would strengthen it. If I’d had any sense, I would’ve been suspicious of anything in that box that called out to me. It didn’t… it didn’t feel any different, but I – I suppose that somewhere along the line I just got used to… to wandering down whatever path I was led. I didn’t think, I never stop to think–”

“If anything, Jon, you overthink. You’re overthinking right now.”

Martin has known for a long time now that Jon will latch onto the smallest details, allow his thoughts to branch into an impossible number of routes and tangents, tie together loose threads in countless permutations in the interest of considering all possible conclusions, no matter how outlandish. He will apply Occam's razor in one moment before tossing it into the bin, only to fish it out again: lather, rinse, repeat. His mind is a noisy, cluttered conspiracy corkboard, and he’ll hang himself with red string if given half a chance, just to feel like he’s in control of something.

“It’s easy to look back and criticize your past self,” Martin says, “but he didn’t know what you do. If we knew the outcome to every action, maybe we wouldn’t make mistakes, but we’re only human–”

“Not all of us.”

“–so we just have to do the best with what we have in the moment,” Martin continues, paying no heed to Jon’s grumbled comment. No good will come of guiding him down that rabbit trail right now. Anyway, Martin has a more pressing concern–

“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this sooner?” he blurts out, immediately wincing at his lack of tact. “That came out wrong–”

“Why didn’t I tell you how quick I was to chase you out of the house and sink my teeth into a statement the moment temptation presented itself?” Jon scoffs. “Because I’m ashamed. Why else?”

“No, not–” Martin scrubs a hand over his face. It’s a struggle, sometimes, not to grab Jon by the shoulders and shake him until all of that stubborn self-loathing falls away. “About the fact that you’ve got a – a post-traumatic anniversary event coming up, I mean. You haven’t been well, and I thought I understood why – thought it was just… all of it, in general. But here I come to find you’ve been agonizing over the upcoming date of the single worse day of your life–”

“One of the worst,” Jon says quietly.

“What?”

“I didn’t lose you until much later.”

Martin’s breath catches in his throat at that, a sharp pang shooting through his chest.

“Well… you’ve got me now,” he says meekly. “So – so you don’t have to suffer in silence, is what I’m saying. What happened to you – no, what was done to you – it was horrible, and it wasn’t your fault. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s the truth.”

“Either I’ve always been caught up in someone else’s web, passively having things happen to me with no control over my life–”

“–the Mother got exactly the result she no doubt wanted, one that would lead to a fear – so acute that I could later have that horror focused and refined into a silk-spun apotheosis–”

Jon bites down on one knuckle, eyes shut tight as he waits for the compulsion to subside.

“Or,” he says after a minute, “or I do have control, and I can change the outcome, which makes me culpable. I don’t know which prospect I hate more. Which probably says some unflattering things about me.”

“It’s not that simple–”

“It is,” Jon says viciously. “If there is another path, then I should’ve found it last time!” He closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and takes a steadying breath. When he speaks again, he’s no longer bordering on shouting, but there’s a quaver in his voice, a fragility that Martin finds more disconcerting than any flash of anger. “The way I see it, there are two options. One, what happened in my future was inevitable and nothing I could’ve done would’ve changed it – which certainly doesn’t bode well for this timeline. Or, the outcome can be changed, in which case my choices matter, and had I just made better choices, maybe I could have prevented all of this from ever happening in the first place.”

“You’re not being fair,” Martin says, his hands clenching into fists – but Jon isn’t listening.

“Doesn’t make much difference, I suppose. The consequences are the same either way–”

“–billions of – people making their way through life who had no idea what was right above their heads–”

“–would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters–”

“–minds so strange and colossal that we would never know they were minds at all–”

“–idiots who destroyed themselves chasing a secret that wasn’t worth knowing–”

“–there, caught up in a series of events that I didn’t understand but that terrified me – I did the stupidest thing I’ve ever done–”

“–running was pointless. To try to escape from my task would only serve to fulfill another. I finally understood what I needed to do–”

“–I don’t know if you have ever drowned, but it’s the most painful thing I have ever experienced–”

“–I do not suppose I need to dwell on the pain, but please know that I would sooner die than endure it again–”

“Would you?” Martin says abruptly. Jon won’t look at him. “Jon, I need to know if you’re feeling like hurting yourself.”

“What would it matter if I was?” Jon still won’t look at him. “I’m categorically incapable of hurting myself in any way that matters.”

Martin blinks in disbelief. “Okay, that’s blatantly untrue.”

Jon has been a glaring portrait of self-neglect for as long as Martin has known him. That simple lack of consideration for himself, together with compounding survivor’s guilt, was the perfect stepping stone to active self-endangerment. Now that Jon’s convinced himself he’s invulnerable to a normal human death, he’s all the more careless with himself.

“I don’t want to die,” Jon whispers. “That’s the problem.”

“What—?”

“Before, I was unknowingly putting the entire world at risk by – by waking up after the Unknowing, by crawling out of the Buried, by escaping the Hunters, by continuing to read statements like it was – like it was something routine, as unremarkable as – as taking tea. Now, though – now I know better. I know what Jonah is planning, I saw what I’m capable of, and still I… I don’t want to die.”

“Well… good,” Martin says. “You should want to live–”

“It doesn’t much matter what I want–”

“–I never wanted to weigh up the value of a life, to set it on the scales against my own, but that’s a choice that I am forced into–”

“–doesn’t get to die for that – gets to live, trapped and helpless, and entombed forever – powerless–”

“–a lynchpin for this new ritual – a record of fear–”

Shit, Martin thinks the instant he recognizes the statement. It’s the worst of them all, virtually guaranteed to send Jon spiraling.

“–both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you – a living chronicle of terror – a conduit for the coming of this – nightmare kingdom–”

“Okay, okay, stay with me–”

“–the Chosen one is simply that: someone I chose. It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck–”

“Jon, can you hear me? Jon–”

“–I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but my god, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was–”

Martin reaches over, taking both of Jon’s hands in his own and squeezing tightly. The pressure seems to do the trick: lucidity sparks in Jon’s eyes and he takes a deep, ragged breath, as if coming up for air.

“There you are. Are you okay?” Martin rubs both thumbs over the backs of Jon’s hands in rhythmic, soothing motions. “Hey, it’s–”

“I don’t want your kindness!” Jon snaps, jerking backwards and snatching his hands out from Martin’s grip.

Both of them lapse into a stunned silence. As mortification dawns on Jon’s face, Martin can feel the color rising in his cheeks. It only takes a few seconds for the blood rushing in his ears to be drowned out by another voice.

Martin can remember with cutting clarity the days prior to his mother’s departure to the nursing home. She had been in (somewhat) rare form, her already-short fuse dwindled down to nothing, sniping at him around the clock, full of caustic observations and spiteful accusations.

I don’t want your help, she had sneered as she entered the cab, swatting his hand away.

It was one of the last things she ever said to him.

“Well, tough,” Martin bites out, “because you deserve it, and you never should’ve had to go without it, and you’re not going to change my mind about that, so you may as well stop trying!”

“Martin, I – I – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

He saw, Martin realizes all at once, his skin crawling with humiliation.

“I’m going to go make some tea,” Martin says, rising to his feet.

Jon reaches out a hand. “Martin–”

“I just need a breather, okay?” Martin says, a pleading note to his voice. His lungs are constricting, his chest is tightening, there’s a lump in his throat, and he really doesn’t want to have a panic attack in the tunnels – or in front of Jon. “I’m not – I’m not angry, okay, I just need some air.”

Jon opens his mouth, then immediately closes it, clutches his hands to his chest, and gives a tiny nod that Martin just barely glimpses before turning to flee.

_________________

“Stop crying,” Jon hisses at himself, furiously scrubbing at his face as the tears slide down his cheeks. “Stop it.”

He plasters the heels of his hands over his closed eyelids. It does nothing to stem the flow, only brings to mind images of pressing himself bodily against a door to hold it closed, only for the crack to continue widening, millimeter after millimeter, the flood on the other side trickling through the gap, rivulets swelling into rivers, frigid eddies biting at his ankles, a whitewater undertow threatening to drag him below the waves–

“Enjoying our own company, are we?”

Once, Jon might have been humiliated to be caught mid-breakdown, raw-voiced and puffy-eyed, especially by Peter Lukas of all people. Several lifetimes spent in thrall to cosmic horrors have a way of putting things in perspective.

“What do you want?” Jon says with as much ire as he can muster.

Peter hums to himself, starting a slow, back-and-forth pace in front of Jon. “It occurred to me that I’ve been derelict in my duties as far as the Archives are concerned–”

“That’s just now occurring to you?”

“–and, as such, I thought it was high time that I met the infamous Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.”

“Well,” Jon scoffs, gesturing at himself, “you’ve met him.”

“I must admit, I was expecting something a bit more… hm.” Peter taps a finger against his lips. “Formidable.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” The scathing sarcasm is rendered pitiful by an ill-timed, involuntary sniffle. Jon can’t bring himself to care.

“The state you’re in, you hardly seem fit to work.” A pause. “Have you ever considered taking some time off?”

“A six-months hospital stay has a way of eating up your PTO, oddly enough. I’m told that payroll already has already had to make special exceptions for my ‘unprecedented’ circumstances.” Jon chuckles to himself. “On multiple occasions. Did you know the Institute considers a kidnapping in the line of duty to be an ‘unexcused absence?’”

“I think you’ll find that Elias and I have different management styles,” Peter says mildly. “I’m open to making allowances – particularly since your department can function so smoothly in your absence. Your assistants have proven themselves to be quite capable of working independently – and seeing as your approach to supervision borders on fraternization, I imagine they would be more productive without excess drama to distract them.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Jon says acerbically.

“No need.” Jon squints at him, and Peter stare him down. “It’s not a request, Archivist. It’s an order.”

There was a time, not long ago, that sneaking up on the Archivist would have been difficult. Only Helen had consistently managed to ambush him, and that was because she didn’t waste time sneaking – she manifested and launched the jump scare in the same instant, giving him no chance to See her approach. Readjusting to a binocular point of view had been a process, but rarely does he find himself yearning for the panoramic field of vision that had been foisted upon him during the apocalypse.

Occasionally, though, there are moments when 360° sight would come in handy. Too late, Jon realizes this is one of those moments.

By the time he notices the tendrils of encroaching fog, they’re already curling around from behind him, pooling at his feet, ghosting across the back of his neck, affixing themselves around his wrists.

“It’s alright,” Peter says placidly, almost soothingly. “You can let go now.”

Jon shivers as his heart pumps ice through his veins, fingers and toes going numb as he struggles for breath.

No. No, no, no, no, no–

“I am not Lonely anymore,” Jon gasps out through chattering teeth.

“No,” Peter says with an air of nonchalance. Then he smiles, sharp and cold and cruel and the only detail Jon can still discern through the fog. “But you will be.”

___

End Notes:

Daisy: hey siri, google what to do if i suspect my bff has been possessed by the ghost of a fussy paleornithologist Jon: why are you booing me????? i’m right

Pretty sure this is the longest chapter yet? Probably bc of the statement. I could’ve split it into two, but, uh. I like that cliffhanger where it is. >:3c (Sorry for that, btw.)

Quite a bit of Archive-speak this chapter. Citations as follows: Section 1: 122/124/011/007/047/155. The Xiaoling quote is from MAG 105; the Jonah quote is ofc from 160; the Naomi quote is from 013. Section 3: 181. Section 5: 058 x2; 144/130/086/143/121/149/134/144/143/069; 147; 017; 147; 057/160/106/111/067/121/129/098; 155/128/160; 160 x3. Section 6: 170, of course.

I’m taking wild liberties with Pu Songling Research Centre’s whole deal. I’m conceptualizing their spookier departments as being like… actually academia-oriented, instead of “local Victorian corpse with illusions of godhood throws a bunch of traumatized nerds with no relevant archival experience into a basement, what happens next will shock you”. Xiaoling is out here like “our digitization is still a work in progress, I’m sure you know how it is” and Jon Sims is like “digitization who? i don’t know her”. (Listen, he tried once. Tape recorder was haunted, he got kidnapped a bunch, there were worms and things, he died (he got better), his boss used him as a battering ram to open a door to Fearpocalypse Hell – it was a lot.)

Likewise, we didn’t get much info about Sonja in canon, so I’m having fun envisioning her as a certified Force To Be Reckoned With (and a bit of a Mama Bear wrt her assistants). Most of the Institute is leery of the Archives (& especially Jon) but Sonja’s seen a lot of shit and Jon Sims doesn’t even rank on her list of Top Spooky Scary Things.

re: the statement – it’s not clear in-text, but I want to clarify that I’m not conceptualizing Francis Drake as being influenced by the Hunt. Fictionalizing aspects of history is tricky, and I’d feel personally uncomfortable chalking up Drake’s real life atrocities to supernatural influence, even in fiction. In the case of this particular fictional member of his crew, he was (like Drake’s real-life crew) complicit in following Drake’s orders for entirely mundane reasons and was only marked by the Hunt at the point in his statement where he first recounts hearing the Hunt chasing after him.

At some point in writing this chapter, I had 137 tabs open in my browser for Research Purposes and like 20 of those were bc my dumb ass seriously considered writing that statement in Elizabethan English before going “what are you DOING, actually.” If I’d tried, it would have come off as inauthentic at best, if not ridiculous, bc I’m unfamiliar with English linguistic trends of the 1500s, and I’d basically be badly mimicking Shakespearean English, which isn’t necessarily indicative of how everyone spoke at the time, and I don’t know what colloquial speech would look like for this particular unnamed character I trotted out as exposition fodder, and it was probably unnecessary to formulate a whole-ass personal history for him for the sake of Historical Realism for a single section of a single chapter of a fanfic, and… In the end, I decided that this pseudo-immortal rando can tell his life story in modernized English, as a treat (to me) (and also to those of you who don’t think of slogging through bastardized Elizabethan prose as a fun endeavor).

Speaking of research – shoutout to this dissertation that had an English translation of the Herla story in Walter Map’s De nugis curialium, and if you want to read the whole story, you can find it on pages 16-18 of that paper. I feel it’s important for you all to know that IMMEDIATELY after Map dramatically proclaims, “the dog has not yet alighted, and the story says that this King Herla still holds on his mad course with his band in eternal wanderings, without stop or stay,” he goes on to say in the next breath “buuuut some people say they all jumped into the River Wye and died, so ymmv. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ anyways, can I interest you in more Fucked Up If True tales?” (Herla throwing the dog into the river wasn’t in the original story though. I made that part up.)

Thank you so much for reading! <3

#the magnus archives #tma #tma fic #long post #tma spoilers #magnuspod

14 notes · View notes

arce-elliot · 3 years

Text

Magnus Archives - First Impressions (Ep. 26-50)

Into Season 2 now! More reactions from someone who had 75% of the series spoiled for them.

EP 26 (A Distortion): - !!!Sasha Statement!!! - reaching INTO her shoulder??? fucking no?? michael can you chill??? - OH okay he was helping nevermind

EP 27 (A Sturdy Lock): - this is just a sad old man

EP 28 (Skintight): - MELANIE!!!!! - G E O R G I E N A M E D R O P

EP 29 (Cheating Death) - Wowee another war one - Fiona Law sounds familiar from somewhere - AYYY Gertrude you old hag

EP 30 (Killing Floor): - Meat 2 Electric Boogaloo: this time with more meat - Remember that one scene in "What Remains of Edith Finch" yeah i get those vibes

EP 31 (First Hunt): - HUNT EPISODE HUNT EPISODE - Oh America? Nice - "i heard whistling" FUCKING BYE - Jon is so tired I'm sorry little bastard man

EP 32 (The Hive): - GOD that was so unsettling wtf - Jane Prentiss is terrifying - Also OLIVER BANKS i think NEAT

EP 33 (Boatswain's Call): - TIMOTHY MY BOY - ah shit peter lukas time - Elias: "research the statements no not that one"

EP 34 (Anatomy Class): - "bone, blood, fruit" IS THIS THE FUCKING APPLE TEETH THING - lmao gimme ur bones - these poor eldritch horrors just wanted to learn :c

EP 35 (Old Passages): - "teenager in all black" ah yes hello Gerard - listening to regular people just dealing w/ Gerard is hilarious - BREEKON AND HOPE??????

EP 36 (Taken Ill): - aww poor old people - Trevor and Julia up to some bullshit I see - ah shit here's that fuckin table

EP 37 (Burnt Offering): - Jon being annoyed at Martin, nice start - Ayy old lady that's Gertrude - DING DING DING i'm a genius - Jon take a nap good lord

EP 38 (Lost and Found): - OH HELL YES HOMOPHOBIC VASE TIME HERE WE GOOOOOOOO - every time Sasha speaks I get so sad I don't want her to go :C

EP 39 (Infestation): - not the bye bye sasha episode :c - stop YELLIN u nerds this is CHAOS - Martin and his fuckin corkscrews lmao - "i refuse to become another goddamn mystery" jon bestie i'm afraid to tell you this - "i don't know what happened to gertrude, she's officially still missing" yet again, jon, bestie, i'm afraid to tell you this - someone right "tim over here" on a piece of fuckin paper and slam it on the window - SASHA NO YOU DUMB SHIT - YES MARTIN GET HIS ASS - oh nice we're trauma bonding - Timmy to the rescue! - SASHA NO MY BABY - this podcast sucks i'm crying i hate it here

EP 40 (Human Remains): - I LIVED THROUGH THAT AND THIS IS MY REWARD, A STATEMENT FROM RAT BASTARD??? i hate it here - hey jon? yell at martin one more time see what happens - your boss is an eldritch monster but oh no scawy gun

EP 41 (Too Deep): - jon really soundin like a whole dumbass here ngl

EP 42 (Grifter's Bone): - *Holt voice* BONE??? - hey lady maybe dont do -gestures to the entire episode- - LEAVE MARTIN ALONE YOU SHIT

EP 43 (Section 31): - wait do i know this voice? she sounds familiar might be from tiktok tho - BASIRA! BASIRA! AYYYYY! FINALLY ANOTHER BRAIN CELL! sasha: dies elias: shit fuck Jon needs a brain cell basira: -makes a statement- elias: perfect are you currently employed - wait is this the fucking uhhhhh other burned dude in the gerry hospital episode???? - B O O K - OH FUCK DAISY - supplementals be like "dear diary, i am still paranoid as shit, end supplemental"

EP 44 (Tightrope): - GERTRUDE! - this statement giver is a clown purist - ah shit circus of the other lol

EP 45 (Blood Bag): - mosquito stinky - stop spying on Tim damn it - HE'S YOUR FRIEND YOU FOOL

EP 46 (Literary Heights): - MIKE CREW AYYY - Run boy run the enderman's gonna get ya - Jon continues to be a Perfectly Reasonable Individual

EP 47 (The New Door): - Michael time? Please Michael Time - OH HELEN? - helen being a real estate agent makes everything i know about her make sense now - MICHAEL THERE HE IS! THERE'S MY BOY!

EP 48 (Lost in the Crowd): - "there's a purity in being alone when you travel" must be nice to be a cishet white man - WAIT IT'S A WOMAN WTF LADY UR GONNA DIE - "long black hair" oh lord hello my dear Gerard gerard: i'm going on holiday this lady: -reeks of the lonely- gerard, grumbling: i swear I have to do everything my damn self

EP 49 (The Butcher's Window): - "Butcher's Window" oh boy we love a good flesh episode - Ah yes the other Jared - we love bi king Tim

EP 50 (Foundations): - I wasn't paying attention to the date so when the statement giver said "Dear Jonah" I about shit myself - Tim no I like Basira

#magnus archives #the magnus archives

5 notes · View notes

iceeckos12 · 4 years

Text

dont spare the horses

Summary: Jon and Martin get domestic. The next logical step is to adopt some cattle.

did i write jonmartin fluff of post-159? I did! spoilers for 159 and everything that happens after. canon divergence after 160. warnings for attempted selfharm.

title is taken from ‘home’ by bruno major.

“How much work is it,” Martin wonders, “To take care of cattle?”

Jon lowers the book he’s reading so he can study Martin’s face. Jon is sitting on one end of the couch, and Martin is leaning against the arm, his feet propped up on Jon’s lap. Jon knows and he Knows what Martin’s face looks like, but it doesn’t hurt to study it again, just in case he’s missed any important details. Like the freckle under Martin’s right eye.

Then Jon remembers that he’s just been asked a question, and his partner is probably expecting for him to take advantage of the remnants of his Beholding powers to answer. Jon closes his eyes and reaches for the embers of it, slowly smoldering away in his soul. It gets harder and harder to find it each time. He thinks that it’s a good thing.

(Sometimes he misses the constant flow of information, the high of all the knowledge in the world at his fingertips.)

He sifts for a couple of seconds through useless information—the Highland cattle breed is the oldest registered breed in the world, happy cows make more milk—before finding what he’s looking for. He sighs and looks up into Martin’s expectant, cow-brown eyes and says, “They’re relatively low maintenance, apparently. I think they require a bit more space than we currently own, though.”

Martin hums and lowers his head to his laptop, apparently satisfied with that answer. Jon watches him for another second, before leaning back into the couch and finding where he’d left off on the page.

It’s not long before Martin speaks again. “How much do you think this safehouse would fetch?”

Jon doesn’t have to be an avatar of omniscience to know where this conversation is going, and how it will end. He would be happy to live out the rest of his days in quiet contentment in their cozy little safehouse, reading his books while Martin publishes award-winning poetry (he feels a little bit like a trophy wife, if he’s being honest. He finds that he doesn’t mind it in the slightest). But if Martin wants to move to somewhere with wide open spaces so they can raise herds of adorable little cows, then Jon will do what he can to make it happen.

Jon closes the book and squeezes Martin’s ankle. “I don’t think we’re allowed to sell Daisy’s safehouse without her permission. Do you want to call her or should I?”

Martin beams at Jon, and Jon thinks that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to make Martin look at him like that again.

-0-

In the end, it’s Basira that saves them.

Three weeks into their stay at the safehouse, they’re woken by a phone call at two in the morning. Jon lets out a confused sound and makes to get out of bed, but Martin shushes him and tucks the blanket over his shoulders, and tells him to go back to sleep. The lack of statements has made Jon weak and tired, and sleep is more important than it ever has been.

Martin picks up the phone. The dirt in the floorboards is rubbing against his feet, and he’s still getting used to the way a chill seems to permeate the entire building in the middle of the night.

“Hello?” Martin murmurs, voice quieted by both his desire not to wake Jon and his proximity to sleep.

“Martin, is that you?” Basira asks, and there’s something in her voice that makes him stand straight up and pay attention. Something is wrong. “It’s Basira.”

“Uh, hi Basira,” Martin pushes his hair back from his face, flicking a gaze into their darkened bedroom. Should he wake Jon? “Something the matter?”

“I put together a bunch of statements for Jon, like I promised,” Basira begins, and there’s a soft rustle in the background. Paper? “I found something.”

Martin sits down slowly, finding and squeezing the edge of the small cardtable that they’ve been eating their meals at the past couple of weeks. “Okay…?”

“Elias—no,” Basira lets out a low, shuddering sigh. “Jonah was going to use Jon to start the apocalypse”

“What?” Martin gapes.

Basira’s voice is shaking slightly, cut through with horror. Martin has never heard her like this, not even when Daisy went missing. “He’s had everything planned right from the beginning—Prentiss, Sasha, whatever the fuck happened to his hand—he was planning on turning Jon into some—some sort of ritual to end the world—”

Martin thinks about the man lying in their bed, made small and terrified by repeated exposure to a world that made him very, constantly afraid. He thinks about the slow spiral, the hunger that ate at what was left of Jon’s humanity, piece by bloody piece. He squeezes the table, and imagines Jonah Magnus’ thrumming pulse beneath his fingertips. “Basira—”

“I wouldn’t have noticed,” she sounds tired, thready, “But there was a spider sitting in the middle of the page, and it drew my attention, and I read—”

“Did you burn it?” Martin demands, the world tilting on its axis like a top. If Basira didn’t burn it, then he will go to London himself.

“Of course I did,” Basira says, and Martin lets out his breath. “Of course I burned it. But Martin, you have to be careful.”

“We will,” he whispers. “You as well.”

“And tell Jon that I’m sorry,” she adds, and then hangs up the phone.

Martin lets the hand holding the phone fall to his thigh. His world is still spinning about him, thoughts jumbled and hazy and all he can think about is that stupid fucking birthday party, where Elias had sang ‘Archivist’ instead of Jon, and Martin hadn’t thought anything of it.

God. Jon.

Martin drops the phone and walks to the doorway of their bedroom, examining the small lump under the blankets. Jon’s long, black-and-grey hair is fanned out over the pillow, and his hands are curled into fists. His face is smooth, free of stress and fear, and for a moment Martin burns at the thought of Jonah Magnus, who’d looked at this nervous, bright man and thought, I will destroy the world with you.

If Jonah was here, Martin thinks, fingers twitching.

But then he sighs, because while Jonah Magnus is not here, Jon is. He comes around to his side of the bed and lifts the covers, sliding in beside Jon, who lets out a fuzzy, confused sound and rolls toward him.

“What was it?” he asks sleepily.

Martin takes Jon’s hand in his, rubbing his thumbs over the scarred knuckles, and says, “Nothing. Sleep. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

-0-

“What do you think about chickens?” Jon asks Martin.

Martin looks up from the flower he was admiring and blinks. It’s a perfect day for once, no clouds on the horizon, and the breeze has picked up just enough to be refreshing. The meadowgrass is soft and forgiving beneath their hesitant footsteps as they stroll arm-in-arm through the fields.

“Well, I mean…” Martin wrinkles his nose endearingly. “I’ve heard that chickens are kind of mean, actually.”

“Not quite as good as cows,” Jon agrees, “But it’d be nice not to have to buy eggs. And we have the space for it, now. We wouldn’t have to get too many.”

Martin studies him, as though searching for some ulterior motives. It’s different from the way people used to look at him at the archives, when that sort of suspicion is warranted. It’s almost playful, a warm smile teasing at one end of his lips. “Is there a particular reason why you want chickens?”

“Well…” Jon frowns, now trying to decide whether or not his reasoning for wanting chickens is embarrassing.

They have a real cottage now, rather than the rickety old safehouse. It’s warm and cozy, with clean white walls meant to be filled with photographs, and thick carpets that are wonderful to wiggle your toes on. More importantly, they are now the proud owners of a few acres of land, perfect for raising lazy herds of cattle.

“It’s just—when you’re raising farm animals,” Jon begins carefully, “I thought it was...standard to have chickens around as well.” It made sense, the way arithmetic made sense. One plus two equals three. People who raise farm animals have chickens, even if they’re not technically a chicken farm.

Martin lets out a light, surprised laugh, his hand finding Jon’s. “Jon do you—do you actually want chickens because you want chickens, or do you want chickens because you like the idea of having chickens?”

Jon feels a flush rise in his cheeks, but he stands his ground. “It’d be useful to have a bunch of chickens around.”

Martin shakes his head and presses a warm, fond kiss to Jon’s temple, like he simply can’t help himself. Jon tightens his hand around Martin’s. “Alright then,” Martin says, “We can get some chickens as well. On the condition that I don’t have to take care of them.”

“Come on,” Jon laughs, shaking his head. “Don’t be mean to my chickens.”

“These are still metaphorical chickens,” Martin corrects. “Who I will not defend you from if they decide to turn on you.”

“Liar,” Jon shakes his head again and smiles, and tucks his arm in Martin’s. They continue ambling onward, the scent of rain and fresh earth rising in the air around them.

-0-

Understandably, Jon does not take it well.

Martin is quiet as Jon falls apart, piece by piece, bit by painful bit. He is quiet as Jon grabs at his hair and makes muffled, heartbroken sounds into his knees, when he reasons out loud with himself, with Jonah. It’s only when Jon grabs a knife and almost gouges his own eyes out that Martin finally intervenes, wrestling the knife from Jon’s grip. Jon collapses into Martin’s lap, weeping, and Martin is crying too, just like he knew he would be if he spoke out loud.

Jon falls asleep against Martin. Martin doesn’t dare move, even when his whole body is screaming at the position.

Martin grimly screens all of their mail after that, every transcript that comes into their house. Jon is a skittish thing, hovering at the edges of the room as Martin scans page after page, starving but terrified of the idea of posing a danger to the world.

He tries to wean himself off the statements as best he’s able. At first he records once every couple of days, then once every four, going as long between each read as he can stand. Martin wishes that he knew how to soothe the worry, but Jon isn’t the only one recovering from the influence of a fear entity. The Lonely has made it hard for him to talk about things that need to be said.

They figure it out, though. Martin starts writing poetry again, figuring out how to put words to paper, figuring out how to put himself to paper. Jon stops beating himself up for choices he didn’t make and crimes that he didn’t commit. Because what else can they do? Sit still? They just didn’t end the world; it only makes sense that they try to at least enjoy it.

Slowly, they figure it out.

-0-

And so, Martin and Jon get some cows.

Martin is in charge of naming the cows. The first one they get is an older cow, a sweet, shaggy brown one Martin quickly names Henrietta. Martin is quite taken with her, always rubbing at the white star on her nose. The second one is a bull, a bit younger than Henrietta but no less sweet. He is dubbed Jackson, and he has a particular fondness for butting his head against your shoulder when you’re not paying attention.

Jon is deeply amused by the way Martin fawns over their cows. He rises well before Jon to feed them, and is usually still gone by the time the rest of the world wakes up. Jon can usually find Martin in the field, prattling away to Henrietta and Jackson, who are a surprisingly attentive audience. Sometimes, Martin even reads them some of his poetry.

Jon is quite taken with the cows as well, if he’s being honest. When he sees Martin in the fields in the morning, dew just beginning to burn off the grass, he’ll climb the fence and pat Henrietta’s star, and Jackson will chew lazily on his sleeve. Martin will beam at him, face gently lit in the rising sun.

Jon is, under no uncertain circumstances, in charge of the chickens. He is in charge of figuring out how to put up the chicken coop, putting up the chicken coop, but most importantly, naming the chickens. Jon’s never been good at naming anything, so he secretly picks the names from old statements. Martin thinks it’s hilarious that there are chickens running around with names like ‘Susan’ and ‘Laura’. The big rooster that Jon buys, that runs around and shrieks menacingly at you until you give him a swift kick, is dubbed, ‘Jonah’, because Jon has always been a bit of a bastard.

They still get letters from the Institute. Jon knows that they do, because each time Martin finds one, his face scrunches up with an awful, alien anger. The letter is quickly reduced to ash in their fireplace, though. Basira tells them all they need to know about the Institute these days, and they have better things to do.

-0-

“So what now?” Jon whispers.

Martin looks down at Jon, who is curled as close against Martin’s side as he is physically able. His long, black-grey hair is pulled into a loose ponytail that spills over and down one shoulder, and his glasses are tucked in his collar. Time has done a good job at wearing down some of his hard edges.

Martin tucks Jon’s bangs behind his ear and lets his hand rest there, gently caressing. Jon sighs and covers it with his own, still watching Martin with those dark, expectant eyes.

“I suppose now…” he trails off, thinking about the Institute, about the safehouse where they now live. Thinking about good cows, and the nightmares they can’t seem to shake, and meadowsweet, and the I love you’s, and the affection so kind that Martin had almost been in tears the first time he felt it.

“I suppose now,” he decides firmly, “we get to live.”

#tma #my writing #tma spoilers #tma post 159 #fix-it #the events of 160 never happen because FUCK that #jonmartin

20 notes · View notes

haberdashing · 4 years

Text

This Place Is Not My Home

TMA fic. After a very long day, Elias returns to his living space... which he doesn’t recognize at all. Luckily, he has a few companions by his side to help him figure things out.

Follow-up to A Rude Awakening and The Blind Meeting The Blind.

on AO3

Elias knew every square inch of his flat, which would probably be more impressive if the place wasn’t so damn tiny.

Objectively speaking, it wasn’t much to write home about, he knew. The space was cramped, the wallpaper was peeling, the hot water supply was iffy at best, it was freezing in the winter and sweltering in the summer no matter how he configured the thermostat, and there was always the lingering scent of mildew and weed (he was trying to cut down on his use of the latter--mostly because it was an expensive habit, partly because he was afraid the smell would catch on his work clothes and James would notice and he’d get in trouble for it--but, well, old habits die hard)...

It was a shitty flat, sure. But it was his shitty flat. Elias didn’t share it with anyone, didn’t have to leech off his trust fund or beg his father for help just to pay the rent. It was a space all his own, one he had earned the right to reside in, one that he worked to maintain as best he could, one where he could relax and unwind after a long day of work without any fear of interruption.

Or, at least, that was how things had been back in 1996. Which felt like it had been only hours ago, but had in fact been all of twenty-three years in the past now.

He still had a flat of his own in 2019, but it wasn’t the same one. It was more centrally-located, for one, compared to his old place, which had always required a lengthy Tube ride to get to work at the Institute. It was on the top floor of a skyscraper, with what was apparently a spectacular view of downtown London, not that Elias himself would ever get to appreciate it.

And it was utterly foreign to him.

It smelled like old books and cleaning supplies, it was actually a reasonable enough temperature inside (slightly warm for Elias’ tastes, but then, he always did tend to be on the warm side), and Elias was pretty sure that a single room in the place could easily contain his entire flat from 1996 with room to spare.

At least he wasn’t there alone when he arrived. Jon and Martin had gone off to do... something with the rest of the night (Elias’ money was on them snogging, or possibly doing more than snogging, though he couldn’t say for sure), but Basira, Daisy, and, to his surprise, even Melanie had agreed to accompany him as he entered what had apparently been “his” living space for years now for the first time.

Admittedly, it became immediately apparent that at least one of them had an ulterior motive for volunteering to help Elias.

“What can I break in here?”

Elias instinctively turned towards Melanie, though he knew well enough that she couldn’t see the gesture any more than he could see the expression on her face. “Wow, rude.”

“I mean, I’ve been dreaming for a while now of going to Elias- er, going to Jonah Magnus’ home and trashing the place. And now he’s dead and everything, and this place practically smells like money... c’mon, let me have this. It’s not even your stuff.”

“It literally is my stuff though. I mean, I might not have picked it out, but legally speaking-”

“Right, because you all are so big on following the law, aren’t you?”

Elias wasn’t sure what exactly Melanie was referencing there, but he could definitely feel an uncomfortable tension settle over the room just the same.

“Just let me break something.”

“Nobody’s breaking anything in my flat.” Elias paused, considering what monstrosities might well be waiting inside, especially given what he now knew about Jonah Magnus’ proclivities. “At least not without getting my permission first.”

“You’re no fun.”

Elias probably would have rolled his eyes at that, if he had them. As it was, he let out an exaggerated sigh and trudged further inside.

It took less than a minute before Elias heard the clang of metal striking marble.

“Elias, can I-”

Elias’ shoulders tensed up a little as he prepared for the inevitable question from Melanie, but her speech stopped suddenly, and when it restarted it was softer and shakier.

“I’m sorry, that just- it sounds wrong, to me, I promised myself I’d never ask Elias for anything again, and I know you’re not the same Elias Bouchard but it’s still weird somehow-”

Elias scratched the back of his head nervously. “You could call me Eli, if that’d help. Some of my old school mates used to call me that. ‘s no skin off my back.”

Admittedly, he hadn’t been called that since he was a teenager, which felt like ages ago, and the wrinkles that were starting to cover his skin were proof that it was even longer ago than it felt...

...but Elias remembered those days fondly, remembered how his father would protest because “We named you Elias because we wanted you to be called Elias!” and how that only made him cling to the nickname more fervently in a fit of teenage rebellion, and it felt right, somehow.

Plus, whatever steps he could take to avoid being confused for Jonah Magnus again, Elias would gladly take in a heartbeat.

“Alright then. Sure. Eli, can I break this?”

“You’re gonna have to tell me what ‘this’ is first.”

“Metal statue of a person wearing robes, it’s got eyes and a smile but no nose, which is surprisingly creepy-”

“First off, what’s your plan for breaking a statue made of metal?”

The long hesitation before Melanie’s response was practically an answer in and of itself.

“I’m sure I can figure something out.”

“Aaaand that’s a no from me.”

Melanie let out a huffy sigh.

“Try again?” Elias said in a more encouraging tone.

“Speaking of creepy, get a load of that painting.”

Elias jumped a little at the sound of Daisy’s voice; he’d been so focused on talking to Melanie and making sure she only destroyed things that deserved it that he’d half-forgotten that Daisy and Basira were there as well. The two of them could be surprisingly quiet when they wanted to be, apparently.

“What painting?” Elias asked.

“It’s hanging in the middle of the hallway, old guy wearing fancy Victorian-looking clothes. Dunno who it is, but I don’t like the look in his eyes.”

Daisy and Basira took a few steps closer to the painting in question.

“I think...” Basira let out a soft gasp. “I know who that is. God.”

“Who is it?”

“Jonah Magnus. The original. I read up on the history of the Institute back when I first joined, I remember that face. The smirk’s familiar enough too.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“He put a painting of himself in his front hallway? Seriously?”

“Apparently. Not terribly subtle, was he?”

Melanie cleared her throat loudly. “Can I?”

Elias let out a shaky laugh as he replied, “Please.”

The painting was taken off the wall, in a way that sounded like it might have scraped against the paint on the way down, but the state of the paint on the walls of his flat was the least of Elias’ concerns right about now. It got handed to Melanie, who wasted no time in attacking it; the sound of a knife stabbing canvas was a peculiar one, but after a few solid stabs she went from stabbing to ripping, the noise indistinct enough that Elias wasn’t sure if she was still using the knife or was tearing the painting apart with her bare hands.

After a minute or two of tearing, small pieces of what had once been a painting landing on the floor with soft thumps periodically, Melanie wiped her hands on her pants and said, “God, that felt good.”

After a brief pause, she added, “Thanks, I guess. I take back that time I got Tim to call you Elias Douchard-”

“Never heard that one before.” Elias said in the driest tone he could muster.

“-and then he posted it on Twitter dozens of times over--he was so proud of himself, too, even though it wasn’t even his idea--think he got a couple hundred retweets out of it, more than I expected really...”

Elias knew he was going to respond with a question, because how could he not after an apology/confession like that thrust upon him without warning, and two possibilities for what that question might be stood out to him.

This was the first time he’d heard the name Tim--from Melanie, from anyone in 2019--and Elias was naturally curious as to who that might be... but whoever Tim was, he clearly wasn’t a part of their little gang anymore, though it sounded as though he once had been, and regardless of the specifics of how exactly this Tim was forced out of the picture, it was almost certainly an unpleasant story that would bring down the mood right when things were finally starting to get a little less somber.

So instead, Elias went for the safe option.

“What’s Twitter?”

Basira let out a soft snort, and Daisy said, “Oh, you sweet summer child...”

“It’s a website--social media thing, the gimmick is you can only write so much--but that’s not the point.”

“What is the point, then?” Elias asked, a hint of teasing in his voice.

“...I’m sorry, I guess? I mean, that’s on the Internet forever now. That’s your- your Internet legacy.”

“If a childish pun being part of my ‘Internet legacy’ is the biggest problem I have to face from all of this, I’ll be damn lucky.”

“Fair point.”

They made their way through the hallway and into another room--The living room? Family room? God, Elias didn’t even know the layout of the place well enough to tell--before Basira spoke up.

“Giant eye tapestry on the couch... he really wasn’t subtle, was he? Or maybe he just thought he was being clever...”

“Go for it.” Elias said, a wry smile on his face.

“I- I wasn’t actually-” Basira laughed a little there. Had he heard her laugh before? If so, he couldn’t remember. It had a nice ring to it. “I was just making a comment, but you know what, sure, I’ll destroy it for you.”

“Good. Probably not in the best taste to have eye stuff all over when, well, you’ve got none.”

Elias had meant the comment to be a light-hearted one, but an awkward silence fell over the room. (He still didn’t know which of the group had done the actual eye-gouging bit--and rather preferred it that way, to be honest--but it belatedly occurred to him that it might be a sore point for more than just him, especially since Melanie’d gone through much the same thing.)

The sound he heard from Basira after she grabbed the tapestry off the couch was a much smaller one than he’d expected, a far cry from the grand spectacle of stabbing and ripping that Melanie had performed, and Elias wasn’t even sure what the sound was until he smelled smoke and heard a series of crackling sounds. A lighter opening and flicking on, then, and fire beginning to consume the fabric. She was burning it, then. Sensible enough, he supposed, though...

“Don’t go burning this whole place down, you hear me?”

“I’ll try not to.”

“If you do, you’ll have to replace everything in it for me, you know. Even the spooky shit.” Elias paused briefly, more for effect than to actually consider his next words. “Especially the spooky shit.”

“And bankrupt myself halfway through?” Basira snorted. “Nice try, rich guy.”

Elias let out a hollow laugh, but he couldn’t bring himself to continue their banter further. Basira probably didn’t know it--aside from the general outline of things, he hadn’t gotten that into his life story with them, probably knew more about each of them than they did about the real him--but it wasn’t the first time he’d had his wealth thrown at him as an insult, and maybe it was a stupid thing to be sensitive about, being mocked for being a trust fund kid, but he was sensitive about it just the same.

After a brief pause, probably the others taking the time to realize that Elias wasn’t planning on speaking up anymore, they went back to trudging through the flat, Basira and Daisy giving an ongoing commentary on what was to be found in there. Elias had had his fair share of money before, but it sounded like Jonah Magnus went above and beyond even the usual shows of wealth he was used to. Everything was luxurious and bespoke and impeccably-made. The sight was probably breath-taking, though Elias wouldn’t know, and those who did were hardly in the mood for admiration.

Meanwhile, Elias had grown used to towels filled with holes around his place, partly because replacing them all would make finances difficult for a bit without dipping into his father’s money one way or another, partly because he was just too lazy to bother with hunting down replacement towels in his free time outside of work.

This was... going to be a bit of an adjustment.

“Mantle’s got some big-eyed Russian nesting dolls-”

“Matryoshka.” Basira muttered.

Elias could hear the grin on Daisy’s face as she repeated, “Yeah, like I said, Russian nesting dolls. Don’t like them one bit, something about their expression... Unlike some people-” And here Elias was sure Daisy was staring at and/or gesturing towards Melanie, not that she’d know any better than he did. “-I didn’t come here to break things, but destroying those would probably put me a little more at ease.”

“Sure, why not.” Elias said, a slight sigh in his voice as he wondered how much of a mess the flat--his flat--was going to be by the time the others were done breaking things in it.

Part of Elias was curious to see how exactly Daisy would go about demolishing the nesting dolls that made her so uneasy. Would she go Melanie’s route, stabbing and smashing them until they were unrecognizable? Or something subtler, like Basira’s flames, quiet but still sure in their destruction?

Elias jumped when he heard the gunshot, flinching as the dolls shattered to pieces. He instinctively threw his hands up in front of his face protectively, only lowering them slowly when he heard Daisy softly laughing.

“I- I thought you knew-” she stammered out between laughs.

“That you had a gun? No, I didn’t! Why do you have a gun, anyway?”

Daisy didn’t respond, but as her laughs quieted somewhat Basira joined in with her own, and Elias began to slump down, feeling that somehow he was the one who crossed a line here...

...until Melanie spoke up to defend him when he himself felt too awkward to speak.

“It’s not really that funny, you guys. And it’s a valid question, you know, if you’re- him.”

That emboldened Elias enough for him to speak for himself again. “New rule: no using guns in my house. Didn’t think I needed to specify that, but apparently I do.”

“You’re right, you’re right, I’m sorry.”

“And why do you have a gun?”

“It’s... it’s complicated.”

“Everything’s complicated with you lot, isn’t it?”

“Like you’re one to talk.” Basira muttered, and Elias could feel his face heating up; rather than respond, though, he just walked onward, forcibly changing the subject as yet more of Jonah Magnus’ household arrangement was uncovered.

They stopped asking to break things, after that, though Elias offered things up for destruction once or twice when they sounded particularly offensive. He realized, as the conversation moved forward, that he hadn’t been the one who had crossed a line there after all, and that they’d probably realized as much as well. Things were calmer, then, a mood of inquisitive exploration rather than righteous destruction.

As Elias walked from room to room of what was now his flat, learning more about what was in it, how perfectly coordinated it all was, how much wealth had clearly been poured into making it just right... it didn’t feel like the space he was exploring was his own. Description after description of the tasteful and mildly eccentric conversation pieces to be found on a number of surfaces there seemed familiar, but not as things Elias himself would have chosen. It felt uncomfortably like this was all his father’s stuff, that perhaps his father had died (had his father died? Elias still didn’t know either way) and he had inherited his old living space. It was an easier scenario to wrap his head around than the reality of things, but not one that really made him feel any better about it all.

Elias would make it his own space eventually, sure, but that would take time, time and effort, and Elias felt like he had used up enough of both already by just getting himself through the day more or less intact.

For now, though, he dragged his hands along the row of suits (”Does this man own a single pair of sweatpants? I know I sure did--what’d he do with them all, bag them all up and give the lot to Oxfam?”), and when Basira noted dryly that he was getting blood on them, he didn’t hesitate in his response.

“Good. That’s a quality aesthetic right there. Imagine me going into a room of businessmen with my fancy bloodstained suit. What are they going to do, point it out, ask where the blood came from?”

He got a few laughs from that, and an appreciative murmur of “Hell of a power move” from Melanie, so that felt like a success, at least. Bloodstains weren’t the kind of mark he really wanted to leave on this place, but it was something, at least. It was... it was a start.

Eventually, the whole of the flat--which was huge, a much bigger space than Elias needed or even really wanted--had been fully explored, and after a bit of awkward discussion, Basira, Daisy, and Melanie left him on his own. It had been a long day, and Elias didn’t hesitate to head to his bed.

The mattress was almost obscenely soft, a far cry from the uncomfortable solid block of a mattress Elias was used to, and it had an imprint in it that fit Elias’ shape perfectly, if he slept on his back. Which he didn’t. Elias was strictly a side sleeper, though he switched which side he slept on periodically, often tossing and turning and switching between the two in the middle of the night.

Elias curled onto his right side and clung to those too-soft sheets and thought about what now was and what had been.

For all the wealth contained within the space that Jonah Magnus had curated as his own over the years, Elias would have gladly traded it all to be back in his shitty, cheap, cramped, falling-apart flat from 1996, to be somewhere that was truly his once more.

He’d never thought he’d wax nostalgic over that flat, had figured he’d be glad to be rid of it once he could get something better, but... well...

Life wasn’t always that simple, was it?

#tma #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #personal #my writing #elias bouchard

6 notes · View notes

grasslandgirl · 4 years

Note

Ok for that super long post im gonna send you like four and you can pick whichever you like bc your writing is so good and i can’t pick just one SO: “Just stay a little longer. Please.” For daisy/basira

maggie you are the SWEETEST AHH ok sorry for getting on these so late but here we go OK

------

It was dark in the archives. Not the Dark-dark, Basira remembered that from Ny-Alesund, how it clung to the edges of your vision like static and made everything dim and fuzzy. (She still had nightmares about Ny-Alesund, about Jon looking at their dark sun, about escaping from the encroaching darkness and it’s protectors via Helen’s tunnels- the lesser of two evils- but that was neither here nor there. Basira had a lot of nightmares.) No, this was the normal dark, the kind of childhood bedrooms, or the corner on your street with no lamp post. Completely mundane, utterly normal, and somehow all the more terrifying for it’s lack of the supernatural.

It was dark, and Basira could hear screams and shouts and shots from what seemed like all angles as she dashed through the winding halls. The more she found out about Jonah Magnus and Robert Smirke and their fascination with the Entities as a group, the more she understood- the darkness of the halls and the stacks of the archives, the winding passages and back halls of the Institute, the scratching in the walls she heard some of the Institute employees- ones who still thought the Jane Prentiss incident was little more than an out of control bug infestation- discussing in the break room; there was something about the institute that made her feel like Elias- Jonah- whoever had been piecing together the Entities for far longer than any of them had anticipated, if she only had the time to look a little closer-

But she didn’t have the time. And really, given what had happened to Jon, she shouldn’t be looking any closer into anything, if she could help it.

So it was dark, and there were noises from all around that would make nearly anyone other than Basira Hussain- ex cop, assistant archivist, possible servant to an evil beholding god- shake in their boots. But Basira was good at thinking on her feet, good at blocking out all information that wasn’t immediately requisite. It was a necessary part of the job. More than that, it had saved her life on multiple occasions.

If Basira had had the time or the energy to be sentimental, she might’ve thought about how it was part of what made her and Daisy such a good team- Basira was good at the detail, the minutia, picking out what was important out of big picture and running with it; whereas Daisy was always good at the big picture stuff, long term threats, risk-gain evaluations in the blink of an eye, knowing when to hold Basira back, looking before they leapt, and when to follow into the fray.

Basira missed Daisy. Not always, not even most of the time, but sometimes- times like this- she missed Daisy-that-was, Daisy-the-hunter, Daisy-of-the-Hunt. She missed her instincts, her senses, her skill in a fight. It hurt Basira, in a quiet, personal place she never let anyone- not even Daisy- see, to watch Daisy, tired and emaciated. Grinning through rigorous physical therapy, not because she enjoyed it, not from any inch of happiness, but because Daisy knew Basira needed to see it. Because Daisy hated it when Basira worried, and hated it more when Basira worried about her. Basira didn’t want to miss Daisy, the Daisy-that was, Hunt-Daisy, but in moments like this, when the Not-Them was stalking the halls of the Institute again, and Julia and Trevor had shown up with bloodlust in their eyes- Basira recognized that, knew it from how Daisy used to look in the last moments of a chase, when she knew she had all but pinned down her quarry; Basira didn’t miss that Daisy- and when Martin and Jon were nowhere to be found.

Basira didn’t ever admit it (but that didn’t make it any less true), but she missed the Daisy that would always have her back.

Because this Daisy, Daisy-without-the-Hunt, Daisy-the-Human, Daisy-the-pale-and-thin-and-tired; Basira didn’t know how to fight alongside her. Basira couldn’t fight alongside her, because she would always feel the urge to fight in front of her, to protect this new, fragile Daisy. And Daisy would hate that, too.

Basira was at the edge of the Institute, now. Some far-flung corner with seldom-used offices and dusty storage. Any shouting she heard was far in the distance, on the other side of the building. Basira ducked into one of the offices, closing and locking the door silently behind her, and finally allowed herself a few spare seconds to take stock of everything.

There was a stitch in her side from running- she was out of practice, having left the force, and weaker than she used to be. She was out of breath and panting, but the adrenaline hadn’t run out yet, and she needed to take as much advantage of that as she could.

Slowly, as Basira leaned against the door and caught her breath, the memory of her last few seconds with Daisy washed back over her; the dam of numbness finally breaking.

Her heart tightened in her chest, her breath caught in her throat- Daisy, shifting. Daisy, eyes turning to red-tinted slits. Daisy, her voice low and growly as she demanded Basira run. Daisy, alone against the hunters against the Not-Them.

Daisy, making Basira promise to kill her the next time she saw her.

Basira took it back, all of it. She didn’t want this Daisy back.

She wanted Daisy back, period.

She squeezed her eyes shut, even though it didn’t do much to stop Daisy’s voice ringing in her ears, that last image of Daisy, crouched and ready by the door as Basira turned to run. Basira tightened her hands into fists at her sides, short nails digging into the meat of her palms.

She exhaled, once, sharply. She opened her eyes.

She had to keep moving.

She had to get back to Daisy.

------------

Daisy leaned against a wall, somewhere. Everything was blurry, and the scent of blood was making it hard for her to focus. Every breath, something in her jumped at the scent, only to realize again, every second, that the blood around her was old, dead.

It roared in her ears like waves, like blasting music, like screams; and Daisy hated that she didn’t hate it. That there was something comforting about the rush, the go-hunt-go-blood-kill-go feeling, the weight of the teeth in her head, the gun in her hand. She hated how she knew who she was in the Hunt; how sometimes it felt like it was the only time she knew who she was.

They were gone- all of them, in one way or another. The Not-Them had splintered- almost. It wasn’t dead, something in Daisy was sure of that, but between three hunters, they had done enough to push it back, out of the institute, back into some dark hole to lick it’s wounds. It would be back, she was positive; but it was gone for now. Trevor had gone next. He was old, and thought the Hunt had given him back his lungs, his strength, his speed, it wasn’t enough. Julia had fared better, and under different circumstances, Daisy might’ve killed her too. As it was, Julia wasn’t used to hunting without a partner, and Daisy was; that made all the difference. She wasn’t dead either, but she had slunk away from the Institute, and Daisy wasn’t dead either. Not yet.

She was tremulously and decidedly aware of every injury on her body, every spot of blood. It felt, almost, like she was back in the Buried. Frozen, unmoving, an unbearable weight pushing down on her, with no one willing to dig down and get her out. Only this time, it was the weigh of the Hunt, of the blood whispering in her ear again, lying over her shoulders like a mantle. She was so, so tired.

Daisy had closed her eyes, maybe for a minute, maybe for hours, when she heard- smelled- sensed something else moving in the institute. Instantly, she was on high alert, sitting shock still and straining to make out who- what- was coming.

Orange and cardamom and bergamot. Somehow, Daisy smelled it over the blood, all the blood. She wanted to pry her eyes open, wanted to sit up, wanted to run- away or towards, she didn’t know- but the weight of the blood was holding her down. Daisy didn’t move.

The scent got stronger.

“Oh,” Basira breathed, and something caught up and tangled inside Daisy’s chest.

‘Promise me.’

‘No. No, Daisy, we’ll figure something out.’

‘These last few months… it was always borrowed time, wasn’t it? Can’t outrun it forever.’

‘Daisy...’

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise.’

‘Thanks. Now run.’

Her last words to Basira, the promise she made Basira make, flashed in Daisy’s mind, all screaming and growls and gunshots.

Basira had looked beautiful; Daisy had noticed it in the last few moments before the blood washed over her entirely, leaving her the Hunt’s plaything once again. Her eyes were wide and warm and brown, and her hijab was perfectly arranged, despite the old, stained scarf she was using. She was wearing one of Daisy’s old sweaters, and the gun in her hand looked more like a shiny metal part of her arm than a weapon. She was angry and determined and terrified, and deep down, buried far below all that, Daisy saw that Basira was heartbroken.

But she had turned and run anyway. Because Daisy had told her to.

But now she was back, and Daisy didn’t know what she was going to do.

Daisy didn’t know what she wanted Basira to do, at this point.

“Daisy?” Basira murmured, and Daisy felt her kneel down beside her. She didn’t smell like blood, Daisy noticed, and tried to focus on that. On the same orange, cardamom, and bergamot lotion Basira had used for years. It was warm, and citrusy, and it had been one of the first things Daisy had noticed upon meeting Basira for the first time- the scent of her lotion.

Basira, Daisy thought desperately, Basira.

But there was too much blood, too many teeth in her mouth to speak.

“Daisy,” Basira repeated, and it was less of a question this time, more of a confirmation. A prayer, Daisy would say, if she didn’t know better. “Daisy,” Basira said, and it sounded like she meant, I’m sorry.

“Daisy,” Basira said, and it sounded like she meant, I came back for you anyway.

“Daisy,” Basira said, and it sounded like she meant, just stay a little longer, please.

“Daisy,” Basira said, and it sounded like she meant, come back to me.

And Daisy pushed against the weight, felt the pressure of Basira’s hand on her knee, the scent of her familiar lotion over the blood, and forced her chin to rise, just a little.

And through the blood and the teeth and the pain, Daisy said, “Basira,” and it sounded like she meant, I’m staying.

[this got WILDLY out of hand.... whoops!! but anyway daisy and basira are safe and in love and happy and i dont CARE WHAT JONNY SAYS!

send me prompts from this list and a pairing/ fandom and I’ll get to it eventually!]

8 notes · View notes

walkerduchess · 5 years

Text

A Game of Hearts - Chapter Ten: Split (The Royal Romance AU)

Pairing: Drake x MC [Liam x MC]

Notes: Again I took too long whith this chapter, sorry. The next should be out faster since I’m off from work for the next 10 days. No flashbacks in this one because SO MUCH HAPPENS. I hope you like it, and if you read, please tell me what you think!

I do not own these characters, they belong to Pixelberry.

Summary: Princess Sapphire’s secrets still hangs between her and Drake, while tensions are rising in the kingdom she’s left.

Word Count: 4579

Tagging: I’m tagging everyone who asked me to. If you want in or out the list just let me know! @confessionsofabrokegirl, @museofbooks, @stopforamoment, @annekebbphotography, @queenodysseia , @drakewalkerisreal

Chapter Ten: Split

His eyes search hers, his lips slightly parted, awaiting for her to say something.

It is a foreign feeling, at least for the princess, to look into someone’s eyes and finding oneself recognized in them. It’s a sentiment similar to that she had upon meeting Hana again, after all those years. It’s alluring and overwhelming at the same time. Her breathing is uneven, and she gives him a small, careful nod.

“How?” He breathes out, “why-- what are you doing here?” His rushed words register the turmoil inside his brain, where a multitude of questions scream at the same time.

She opens her mouth but she doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have dropped all of these questions on you.” Drake says, uncharacteristically soft. “It’s just…” he seems to search for the right words, “you were gone.” His voice doesn’t sound accusing, but rather pained.

Elia doesn’t have to ask to know what he means. She used to see him every morning at sword class and then her father decided she didn’t need further lessons. Without even a chance to say goodbye, she simply never went back.

“I know,” when she finally speaks, her voice is weak, “I was forced to--”

“I asked Max about you,” he blurts out before she can end her sentence, “he… he never gave me direct answers and kept changing the subject, so one day I... stopped asking.” His gaze shifted from her to the ground in front of him.

“I’m sorry, it’s just,” the woman begins, but she knows she cannot give him the truth. She tries to dismiss the thought, a futile attempt in waving away the irrefutable conclusion - a decision, made deep in her conscience, to disclose to this man only the part of her that is easy to accept, the part of her he used to like once, that doesn’t involve any title with a bigger meaning such as Promised Princess or Builder, instead is simple as… Elia. Her face falls and her features turn somber as she speaks words that, despite being true, don’t really give anything away, “some very complicated family things.”

“I gathered it was something like that,” he looks up at her, eyes sympathetic yet clearly waiting for further explanation.

She can only look away, biting her lower lip. It’s not that she doesn’t want to trust him, she simply can’t. Instead, she chooses to change the focus, just a little bit. “I asked about you, too,” she speaks truthfully. At the beginning, every time she’d see Liam, the princess would ask about Drake. Of course she asked as if it was nothing, for she had way too much pride in her pre-teen years - not that it has ever gone away - to admit how much she cared. And she cared a lot. As the years went by, time took him away from her mind for days, then turned it into weeks and even months and years in a row. But she never truly forgot him. And, she realizes now, she also never really stopped caring.

He gives her a small smile, that don’t reach his eyes. She responds with a similar one. They gaze at each other for a while, only the crackling sounds of the fire breaking the silence between them. It’s comfortable, however Elia starts to fear he may ask more questions if they stay there longer, or worse, she fears she might spill it all out just from staring into the abyss held within his dark eyes.

“I better go to sleep,” she gestures at the tent behind them, her voice breaking the moment, “you can wake me or Jonah when you’re tired.”

Drake watches her make her way into her tent and mutters a quiet “good night.”

The Council room is large, yet right now it’s almost claustrophobic, with the voices inside higher than usual, most of them resonating at the same time. Liam closes his eyes and rubs his temples, his elbows resting on the big wooden table. He is exhausted. Even in the few nights he was able to get a good sleep, he’d still wake up feeling drained.

The prince spent the past month in a lethargic state. For the first time in his life, his future isn’t laid out in front of him. He doesn’t know what to do really. He repeats to himself, day after day, that he needs to stay strong for his people. That he can do. He chooses to focus on that, instead of thinking Sophie is gone, and now Drake, too. He couldn’t even tell his best friend he didn’t need to go searching for someone who doesn’t want to be found - again, Liam remembers with a pang of guilt - because Sophie asked him not to tell anyone.

Council meetings have been held daily since Sophie left, to no avail. The Promised Princess was still missing, the war was still happening and everyone in the kingdom seemed to be distressed. The holders clearly don’t know what to do, only repeating the same questions, concerns, search parties’ updates and any other futile idea to solve the situation. At the beginning, Liam felt bad. He knew the princess wasn’t kidnapped but he had to respect her wishes. He can’t say he hasn’t entertained the idea of telling the truth, many times. But something in his heart keeps telling him Sophie must have a very good reason for not wanting people to know she left willingly. She must have a marvelous reason for leaving. Liam is afraid to let himself think otherwise.

“Prince William?” The voice makes him open his eyes to find Lord Hakim glaring at him through his glasses.

“Yes?” He forces a casual tone, straightening up in his chair.

“I just said,” the man’s large shoulders tense and he exhales before continuing, “there is word of a traitor in the South’s army. Other than the Builder, that is.”

“The Builder is likely out of the picture,” Lady Olivia speaks up, “it’s been about a year since their army last showed new weaponry.”

“That does not mean--” Lord Bertrand tries to cut in but Liv is not having any of it.

“Besides,” the red haired woman speaks the word louder, shooting daggers at Bertrand with her eyes, “the odds shifted in our favour again. I say it’s time to attack with full force. I could send resources--”

“Thank you for your assessment, Lady Olivia.” King Brandon stops her war talk, to which she frowns but shortly lets go. “But we are, in no way, attacking our enemy while they have Princess Sapphire.”

The king’s words are cold, but there’s a hint of new moisture in his eyes that doesn’t get past Liam. King Brandon was never the same after Queen Aurora died, everybody knows that. He became somewhat smaller and grimmer. Now, after Sophie left, he only leaves his chambers to go to Council meetings. And even then, it’s as if he’s lost his strength.

“Please, Lord Hakim,” the prince decides to get to the point, at last, “tell us what you know about this traitor.”

Lord Hakim clears his throat then, “My spies reported they heard some talk from the South’s soldiers. They call their commander ‘The Cordonian’ and also mentioned that he is ‘no stranger to castle life’.”

“That could be anyone,” Olivia speaks again, “a guard, a servant…”

“Or a holder,” Hakim adds cautiously.

“What are you implying, Lord Hakim?” King Brandon asks in what seems an unpretentious manner, yet his full attention is turned to the man.

Hakim brings one of his hands to adjust the glasses in his face, “I am just saying,” he speaks hesitantly, “we should take into consideration that Prince Leonard has been gone for eight years, and we are all familiar with his rebellious attitude--”

“Not this again!” Former king Constantine exhales, letting his annoyance show. “We have absolutely no evidence of Prince Leonard’s whereabouts, and therefore no reason to make these assumptions.” The tinge of worry in his voice probably goes unnoticed by every other person in the room, but not to Liam. He knows his father all too well and he knows that, despite all the criticism and dismissiveness when it comes to his eldest son, Constantine loves and misses Leo. Entertaining the idea that Leo could betray his kingdom is painless compared to an infinitely more terrifying one - the idea that Leo could betray his own family. Liam can’t believe this either. He won’t.

“Well,” Lord Landon is the one to speak this time, “Prince Leonard has had exceptional war training his whole life, so it would not be a stretch to say he could become the command--”

“No.” Liam’s voice comes out strong and even, and before he can realize it. The prince is often quiet during the council’s meetings, especially lately, so all eyes turn to him after he speaks. After a brief moment, he sighs, standing up. “My brother has always been… impulsive. But he is a good man. I will not have we defining him a traitor,” his voice is commanding, in that tone the prince knows very well how to but almost never uses. The holders will acquiesce to whatever he says, yet they will be very much aware of how biased he is, so he adds, “not without clear evidence.” He sits down again, closing the matter.

Elia wakes with a light tap on her shoulder. The sky is already lightning up and Jonah is mumbling something to her about going to sleep before he disappears to his tent.

The young woman sits up and stretches, quietly so not to wake the girl sleeping next to her. They’ve been putting up three improvised tents every evening now: one for her and Nora, one for Jonah and Elliot and one for Drake. The sheets she brought aren’t big, so they don’t have much space in the tents, but since Elliot and Nora are small, they can share with someone else without preventing a good sleep.

Stepping outside, Elia proceeds to inspect the leftovers of their meal from the past evening - boiled potatoes and chicken - to see if they can still have it for breakfast. They’re cold, so she manages to light up some branches that have fallen out of the fire the night before to heat the food.

She sits while she waits, humming some made-up melody to herself in an attempt to push Drake-thoughts out of her brain. She focuses on the bright side of things: the Device is finished - thankfully she did it before Drake arrived, with the help of the children -, they have no shortage of food and water, and they’re advancing South.

As if she can’t get the man out of her mind for five minutes, Drake emerges out of his tent and promptly joins her. “Good morning,” he declares, voice hoarse from sleep.

Before her mind can make sense of it, she catches herself smiling at him.

“So you can finally light a fire,” he gives her a side look, the ends of his mouth perking up, “if I keep successfully teaching you things, soon enough I’m going to be sparring you in the field instead of Jonah.”

Elia smiles, joining his tone, “yeah, and I might even beat you.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, now.”

“Hey!” She gives him a light punch in the shoulder, “I did beat you.”

“Once. Over a decade ago. It doesn’t count,” his voice sounds different somehow, lighter. His smile isn’t big, yet it’s contagious nonetheless, and she can’t help but smile too.

Soon enough her smile changes into a wistful one. He remembers too. She hugs both her legs in front of her, resting her head in her knees, face turned to Drake. She wants to say how much she misses those simpler times, however she keeps the thought to herself.

Drake’s smile slowly fades and the princess sees one of his hands twitch slightly towards her, as if he is struggling with himself whether to touch her or not. “Why did you leave?” He finally asks, voice a little lower than before.

His eyebrows are knitted together and his face looks somewhat troubled, in a way that makes it almost physically painful to deny him the answer. But she won’t tell him, so she shifts her head, positioning her forehead in her knees so that she doesn’t have to look at him.

Elia swallows, searching her mind for the right words, but there are none.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened but,” he speaks again and she feels his hand settling on top of hers, between them, “I’m here.”

The princess brings her head up to stare at him again, “I want to, I just…” And it’s true, and she has to make a huge effort to remember why, for his touch on her skin has fogged her mind. “I can’t now.”

His gaze is almost pained, as if it hurt him to leave her alone with her burdens. She holds it, however, in a way of asserting how certain and strong she is, despite how much his eyes burn through hers right into her soul. He takes a moment before speaking again, nodding shortly, “alright.”

Lord Bertrand massages each one of his temples with two fingers with his eyes closed, trying to make his headache go away. When the car stops, he barely acknowledges the “good evening” his driver wishes him, jumping out of the car in a hurry to finally have a good bath and then sleep. He didn’t really need a car, for Thorngate Castle is hardly ten minutes by foot away from Ramsford Castle, but Bertrand isn’t one to walk as if he were a youngster.

Climbing up the stairs, he wills his mind to stop worrying with problems he cannot solve - at least for today - and, especially, wondering what consequences will come upon them all if Sapphire isn’t found soon. It’s been long years since he held a close relationship with his cousin, yet he can’t help but worry about her wellbeing. Of course, Bertrand will not show this weakness, instead he can very well put on the façade that his concern is only for the fate of his kingdom. Besides, his brother is mournful enough for both of them.

Upon remembering his brother, the older man makes his way to Max’s chambers, meaning to check how the tasks he left for him in the morning went. Bertrand usually sticks to his manners, but he doesn’t have enough patience for it tonight, and definitely not with Max. Therefore, he simply barges in through his brother’s doors, in time to see him standing by an open bag, already filled with clothes and some other belongings.

Bertrand’s expression turns confused, “where are you going?”

The younger man turns to him, a bitter look in his eyes, not unlike the one he has ever since his parents died, but this one just looks… defeated. “Away,” he snarls.

“What does that even mean, Maxwell?” Bertrand runs a hand through his face, “It’s certainly too late and it’s been a hard day, so if you could not pull one of your pranks--”

“I’m not a child!” Max interrupts, almost yelling.

It leaves Bertrand brother gaping, thinking for sure something must have snapped inside his younger brother, for he has never in his life spoken with such rage and firmness.

“And you needn’t worry,” Max continues, in a calmer tone, even though his face remains in a scowl, as he turns his attention back to the bag on the floor and begins tying it closed, “I won’t be bothering you or smearing our family’s reputation.”

Bertrand just stands there, pathetically so, while his brother puts the bag in his shoulders, brushes past him in the door and proceeds down the stairs.

The front door shutting startles him, bringing him out of his stupor, and before he knows he is running - the Lord Bertrand running, and he is glad there’s no one but a servant to see it - down the stairs and out the front doors.

“Wait!” He calls when he sees Max struggling to place his bag inside a car outside, aided by the driver, his voice above the appropriate volume, “Maxwell! Wait!”

He stops in a halt beside the car, breathing hard and placing a hand in his chest in an attempt to dull the ache in his lungs.

Max turns to him, “yes?” He’s got the same cold, bitter tone from before.

“Are you leaving? Where to? Why?”

The younger man’s expression softens a little. “Sorry, brother. I made up my mind. There’s nothing for me here.”

Bertrand still doesn’t understand. “Is this about Sophie?”

Max sighs, shaking his head. “You don’t get it. It’s not just Sophie, it’s mum and dad, it’s Leo, Sav, and even Drake now. They’re all gone!

“You have me!” Bertrand yells, not knowing where this came from. But, as he finishes saying it he realizes… it’s true. He does want Max to be with him.

“You have your duties and your council. I won’t drag you backwards anymore.” With a last, somewhat sorrowful glance, the younger brother gets in the car and shuts the door.

It feels like being slapped in the face. Before he can even say anything, the car starts to pull away. “Max!” He screams after the car, pitifully hoping it would turn back around. “Max!”

A week has passed, and Drake’s been nothing but understanding. Elia would never have guessed, in a million lifetimes, that the suspicious and stubborn boy she used to be friends with would give her space instead of pressing her to tell him everything. She doesn’t think he would act this way before he knew she is Elia. The notion of it brings a painful twinge to her heart. Drake is actively choosing to trust her, and yet she won’t do the same for him.

Which is not to say their relationship hasn’t changed. They exchange smiles often, talk more - sometimes even about people they both used to know - and of course, tease each other all the time. It's one of the times like these - when they’ve just eaten and are getting ready to resume travel, talking casually - when he asks, “have you been wandering for long?”

It catches the princess by surprise, because in this moment, in the softness of early morning, she’s let her guard down. A heavy weight settles in her gut again, yet she can’t tell if it’s from guilt or another, more primal feeling that climbs up her throat and threatens to spill from her mouth - betrayal. It causes her eyes to go wide, looking into his for ulterior motives, any hidden wickedness to show how he’s been out to get her this whole time, but the only thing she can find there is care.

He must have noticed her starting to retreat back into herself, for with one step he is close, so close to her and his hand finds hers. “Elia…” His eyes search hers, in a desperate and silent plead. “I don’t know what happened,” he uses his other hand to brush a strand of light-brown hair behind her ear and cups the exposed skin of her cheek, “but you can tell me.”

Her mind screams at her to flee, to not give in to the warm feeling spreading from where his hands touch her. For a second, she listens to it, pressing her free hand to his chest in order to push him away, but, before she can realize it, something switches inside of her and she uses no force, instead just rests her hand above his heart.

Standing close, like this, she has to bend her head up to look at him, his gaze soft and bare just inches away. Elia notes the distinctive movement of him reaching down, incredibly slowly, and she doesn’t really have to think to know what happens next. His lips are inviting, so is all of him, yet in a flash of better judgement she holds back.

“You’re right,” it comes out in a whisper since their faces are less than a breath apart.

Drake knits his eyebrows and she takes it as an opportunity to leave his embrace. Elia takes a deep breath before continuing, “I have to show you something.”

She can’t be sure whether she’s completely out of her mind or simply making a bold move. A leap of faith, like people from before would say. She has to tell Drake or she’ll go insane, she tells herself to soothe her nerves while she fetches the Device from the inside of her bag. The children watch, apprehensive and without saying a word. Maybe she is, indeed, crazy.

When she places the heavy yet compact mechanism, carefully, in the ground, Drake stares at it for a while, looking as concerned as the kids, before finally asking, “what is this?” His eyes are not soft like moments ago, they are straight back to being the cold suspicious ones he had when they first met at the abandoned building.

Elia swallows, summoning up all the courage within her. “This is a device meant for cleaning the poisoned water in Cordonia,” she explains, voice deadpan.

Drake’s expression turns even more perturbed, “and what are you doing with it?” He looks a little scared of the thing, and Elia does not miss his hand going to the hilt of his sword.

“I…” she says carefully, “I built it.” She emphasizes the word on purpose, so he can truly understand. She may be a coward for not speaking the plain truth already, but she holds his gaze throughout the seconds it took him to grasp what she just said.

“You…” he mumbles, and Elia recognizes bewilderment turning briefly into hurt before his expression hardens again. Without saying a word, he unsheathes his sword, causing her to panic a little.

“Drake, this is not a weapon,” the princess holds her hands in front of her, trying to make him listen.

He stares at her then, and there’s a fire in his eyes she has never seen before, so intense that Elia thinks he may rip her head off her body just by looking at her.

“Are you the Builder?” He asks, voice stern but somewhat composed.

“Drake--”

“Answer me!” He almost shouts, and the princess doesn’t miss the littlest of trembles in the man’s hand while holding the sword.

She gathers up her courage. It’s not as if she has much of a choice now, “I was," she chose her words carefully.

“Give me one good reason for me not to end your life right now.” His voice is almost bitter, sword pointed at her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jonah stepping ahead, hand reaching for the hilt of his own sword.

“Jonah, stay back,” she orders. He opens his mouth to protest, but she doesn’t let him speak, “stay with Nora and Elliot. They need you.”

The boy reluctantly steps back then.

The princess has to take some quick breaths to keep her calm, but she is determined to get to the bottom of this. She started it, right? She’s imagined this scenario in her head, multiple times now, and Drake reacting like this is perfectly predictable. Only the hard part begins now.

“My name. My whole name,” she searches his eyes to make sure he is listening, “is Sapphire Aurelia.”

Realization downs upon him when he recognizes the name. He chuckles is disbelief. “Right… you’re the Promised Princess,” he speaks in a sarcastic tone.

“It’s true!”

The fire in his eyes seem to fade a little, giving way to something else… disappointment. “I trusted you, Elia. I let myself be vulnerable around you and--” he stops himself, shaking his head, “I never should have.” And just like that, the fire is back, and he steps a little closer, flawlessly sharpened blade reflecting the sunlight in a threatening gleam.

Although, Elia is not afraid, at least not of being killed. “I’m telling the truth and I’m going to prove it to you.”

He could call her bluff… but Elia sees the hesitation in his eyes even before he speaks, “how?”

Well, there is the problem of the lack of physical proof, so she proposes the only thing she can, “ask me anything! Something only Princess Sapphire would know.”

He chuckles again, shaking his head. “This means nothing.”

Elia did not foresee a moment such as this would become her newest mini-existential crisis. What makes her the Promised Princess? What makes her who she is? The prophecy may say it’s her blood, and her time of birth, and such things, but she lived in hiding for so long it would not surprise her if she came home and there was an impostor in her place. No one would know, she’s certain. So no, this is not it. What makes her the one and only Sapphire Aurelia, the Promised Princess of the Last Prophecy, true and irreplaceable if not for what she knows and what she has lived? No one can take that from her. “This means everything.”

He seems to read the certainty in her expression, because it doesn’t take long for him to decide. “Fine.” He takes a breath and straightens himself, lowering his sword a little.

She knows it’s a small victory, and her lips threaten to pull back in a small smile, yet she holds it back, not wanting to push her luck with Drake.

“Where could Liam always find you?”

It takes her by surprise, for she wasn’t expecting the interrogation to start right away. It’s an easy one, at least, “the library.”

“What game did you love playing so much you inserted you and your friends in it?” Despite Drake’s impassive tone, Elia can’t hold back her smile now. She can’t help it, she’s too fond of the memory and Drake’s wording is amusing.

“Chess.”

“What piece were you?”

“The knight.”

“And Liam?”

“The rook.” She’s impressed. Drake doesn’t even flinch nor takes time thinking of the next question. Elia wonders if he ever really interrogated someone. He must have. And he knows so many details. In her mind, she tries to picture Liam telling Drake about his day and it baffles her how much Drake kept in his mind, even what must surely be boring details for an outsider. “Did Liam tell you all of this?”

“I’m asking the questions.”He did not seem amused by her distraction. “When did you find out about the undercroft?”

She couldn’t possibly forget that day. “Right after mine and Liam’s engagement party.”

He nodded his head, as if he’s at the brink of reaching a verdict.“When did you and Liam first have sex?”

Ah, a trick question. Or - no, Liam wouldn’t have lied to his best friend, would he? “We didn’t.”

Drake purses his lips and Elia can almost burst from the anticipation of not knowing what’s in his mind.

After a moment, he nods to himself, “very well, Princess.”

Elia’s brows shoot up at his words, half of her optimistic about him believing in her, and the other half apprehensive because his threatening posture still hasn’t changed.

She should have seen it coming, she really did, but for some reason, Drake’s next words catch her flabbergasted, as he brings his sword up again and towards her, “gather your things, you’re coming back with me.”

12 notes · View notes

haberdashing · 4 years

Text

No Puppet Strings Can Hold Me Down (3/?)

The Magnus Archives fanfic. An AU that diverges from canon between episodes 159 and 160, in which Peter Lukas’ statement that “he got you” takes on a different meaning.

on AO3

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7

A minute or two passed in silence as Jon walked through the hallways of the Institute, not quite sure where his own legs were taking him, what destination Jonah Magnus had in mind for him.

Then Jon saw Martin, and his heart leaped.

(Metaphorically, at least. Literally, his pulse barely changed, though Jon was certain that if he had control of his own body, his heart would be racing right now.)

Jon felt himself speed up, saw Martin hasten his pace in turn, and only a few moments after Martin had appeared as a speck in the distance, the two were face to face.

“Jon?”

“Martin!”

It was Jon’s voice, it was coming from Jon’s mouth, it was probably what Jon would have said in much the same tone he would have said it.

But Jon was not the one who had made himself say Martin’s name.

If Martin noticed anything was up, though, Jon couldn’t tell--and Jon thought he would have been able to tell now, now that Martin was opening up again, now that the walls that he had spent several long months building up around him were finally starting to come crashing down.

“Are you alright? I- I think I heard a gunshot, I was worried-”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Jon said, though nothing could be further from the truth.

You call this “fine”?

No response from Elias, from Jonah, from whatever he felt like calling the bastard that had abducted his body, but then, he hadn’t really expected one.

“You?”

Martin scratched the back of his head nervously. “I’ll live.”

“You’re not-”

“D’you think I wouldn’t have mentioned if I’d been the one who got shot?” Martin continued, his voice tinged with shaky laughter. “I’m not hurt. I’m okay. I- I think I’ll be okay.”

Jon understood what Martin meant, there, knew that Martin’s definition of “okay” was more expansive than merely not having been shot. There was a deeper kind of “okay” there, and Jon was certainly glad to hear that Martin thought he’d qualify for it once again.

Jon only wished he could say the same for himself.

(Or say the opposite, tell Martin what was actually going on, which was very far from okay in Jon’s book.)

“Where were you?”

The question didn’t have any compulsion to it, not as far as Jon could tell--he certainly wouldn’t have put it there himself, he wasn’t even sure he could anymore--but Martin answered it without hesitation just the same.

“Looking for you.”

If Jon had been thinking straight, had been thinking about it at all, he probably would have suspected that Martin would say as much, but as it was, he hadn’t been expecting it, hadn’t expected Martin to clearly state that he had been seeking out Jon as much as Jon had been seeking out Martin, at least before... well, before.

It would have taken his breath away, if his breath was his own still.

“Well.” There was a brief silence there, a surprisingly comfortable one given the situation, before Jon spoke again, his lips contorting themselves into a wry smile as the words came out. “Look no further.”

“I won’t.” Martin said with a shaky laugh. “I... we should probably go, I don’t think it’s safe here, especially with- with some maniac shooting up the place...”

Is that what I should call you? Some maniac? Fits better than Elias or Jonah, in my opinion-

Jon’s thoughts were interrupted not by Elias-Jonah-some-maniac making some snarky mental response, nor even his own voice responding to Martin, but Martin himself speaking up again.

“Your- your eyes. I just noticed, your eyes look different. Are they- blue?”

Jon laughed, on the inside, where it mattered. Because of course Martin would notice. Martin, who had always been more observant than him, Beholding powers notwithstanding. Martin, who always paid attention to him specifically. Martin, who had always cared so much about him, even when he’d given him so few reasons for Martin to give a damn about his jerk of a boss...

Jonah, for his part, did a fairly convincing impression of someone who had no idea why their eyes might look different than normal. His hands pressed against the area around his eyes, not enough to hurt but enough to seem like a legitimate examination, though Jon honestly wasn’t sure if he’d be able to tell if his eyes had changed shape or size or whatnot by sense of touch alone.

“Are they blue? Do you have a mirror, or-”

Martin shook his head, but he kept his gaze locked on Jon’s eyes--on Jonah’s eyes. “They are blue. I’m sure of it. How did that happen?”

“I don’t know-”

“Aren’t you the one who should know these things?”

Jonah-Jon let out a grunt of mild frustration, and Martin let out a soft snort in response.

“Maybe- maybe the Lonely changed me somehow. I don’t- I don’t know.”

Liar.

“...well, you weren’t the only one in there, you know. Are my eyes any different, then?”

Martin believed Jonah, then, believed that his eye color changing might really be due to his encounter with the Lonely alone, that they were Jon’s eyes transformed and not Jonah’s eyes now on his body, and that probably should have stung more than it did, but...

Jon wondered if Jonah knew what he was doing, when he had his body gaze into Martin’s eyes. Maybe he did, maybe it was part of one of his mind games or a small piece of some greater plan. In that moment, Jon didn’t much care. He could look at Martin, look deep into Martin’s eyes for what had to be longer than would be strictly necessary, their eyes locked on one another as Jon desperately tried to figure out what Martin was thinking, what Martin was feeling, how much Martin knew...

And then the moment ended, Jon was forced to look away, and his head shook roughly, several long strands of hair falling onto his face in the process.

“No, Martin. Your eyes are the same as always.”

“Alright. Good to know.” Martin took a deep breath, then let it out slowly before saying, “We really ought to get going, before the wrong people bump into us-”

“Right, right. Of course.”

As Jon and Martin turned towards the main entrance of the Magnus Institute, the two walking side by side, Jon’s hand briefly brushed against Martin’s, and he wondered, distantly, how differently things might have gone if he had been brave enough to hold Martin’s hand when he had still had the chance.

#tma #tma fic #tma fanfic #tma au #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #the magnus archives au #personal #my writing

2 notes · View notes

walkerduchess · 5 years

Text

A Game of Hearts - Chapter Eight: Suited (The Royal Romance AU)

Pairing: Drake x MC [Liam x MC]

Notes: Not very much happens in this chapter, yet somehow it was extremely hard for me to write. I hope you like it though, and I’ll try my best to have next chapter out faster. As always, please tell me what you think!

I do not own these characters, they belong to Pixelberry.

Summary: Princess Sapphire learns more about the stranger travelling with them.

Word Count: 3576

Tagging: I’m tagging everyone who asked me to. If you want in or out the list just let me know! @confessionsofabrokegirl, @museofbooks, @stopforamoment, @scarlettedragon-deactivated2019, @annekebbphotography, @queenodysseia

Prologue: Promised

Chapter One: Unveiled

Chapter Two: Tied

Chapter Three: Acknowledged

Chapter Four: Disarmed

Chapter Five: Gone

Chapter Six: Unbarred

Chapter Seven: Assisted

Chapter Eight: Suited

It seems as though Aurelia has forgotten how to breathe. She blinks slowly, trying to calm herself and not give any suspicious sign to the man in front of her, who apparently has no clue she is both people he’s looking for.

She decided not to dwell in the subject for another minute, smoothly pretending to be impressed with the heaviness of his task while using it as an excuse to make him leave them. However, each one of the princess’ arguments were readily dismissed by the newcomer. At some point she even started to worry whether he actually knows something about her to not want to leave her side, but she thought it was best to stay safe and keep on going as if nothing is happening. Perhaps he would grow tired of the kids at some point and leave, hopefully.

The sun is already out and moving up in the sky when they finally stop walking again. It appears they are distant enough from the men they left knocked out. The children are playing quietly in a shadowed spot in the yellow grass, with Jonah watching, while the dark haired man prepares a chicken for their lunch. Thanks to the rain, they have enough water to last a couple of days, as well as the remaining chickens to survive.

Aurelia sits close to the man, watching him work in silence.

“I see you still have some suspicions about me.” He says, without looking at her, as he continues to clean the dead chicken with a dagger.

She’s a little annoyed by his - correct - remark. “Can you blame me?”

He places the chicken on the rock he’s using as a table and turns to face her, wiping his hands in his trousers. But instead of replying, he crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows.

She takes the cue to keep on talking. “So apparently you are what - a soldier from the North - on this important rescue mission and you decide to stroll down south with a woman you never saw and her child siblings.” She glares at him. “Forgive me if that sounds suspicious to me, Dragomir” Even his name sounds made up.

“Yeah, well…” He seems to be weighing his words. “I have my reasons but I don’t suppose you’d understand.”

That last line gets her outright offended. “Excuse me?” She furrows her brows. Some small part of her mind screams at her to just leave it be, since she actually is trying to pass as a simple young woman caring for her siblings. Unfortunately, the bigger part of her mind is too curious to not want to know something.

His brows shoot up, he clearly wasn’t expecting her reaction.

Aurelia quickly lets go of her demanding attitude. “Sorry, I just… I’m just saying I can understand better than you think.” Despite the apology, her voice comes out rispid. She curses herself internally, looking down. So much for not drawing attention to herself.

“Fine.” His voice makes her head shift back up. “I’ll tell you if it’ll give you some peace of mind.”

She raises her eyebrows and he resumes working on the chicken, as he begins speaking.

“Firstly, I am not a soldier. Secondly, the princess can be anywhere, so it’s best if I don’t just hurry down south and miss something important. And lastly, what I’ve previously said; it’s safer to travel with company.”

The man is short on his words, but Aurelia listens mindfully. So, he is not a soldier. Who is he, then? He moves and speaks in the way a holder would, but she never heard of any Lord Dragomir. She would have known… right?

“What do you mean, the princess can be anywhere?” She fears she’s pushing her luck but she is unable to resist the urge to know what has happened ever since she left.

He looks at her again. “Well, we all know the South admitted they abducted Princess Sapphire… but a northern spy confirmed she is not in the city. So, they must be hiding her somewhere else. Anywhere else.” He seems to wander in thoughts a little, gazing at the landscape surrounding them. She wants to ask a million more questions. It makes sense, though, the South taking responsibility for her disappearing. This way they have some leverage.

“What do they want in exchange for the princess?”

“The North’s surrender.” Dragomir replies, eyes still unfocused.

“But they won’t do that.” It isn’t a question. Aurelia knows the North has no interest in stopping the war, it is what keeps them alive, literally.

The man gives her a puzzled look, before a somber expression takes over his features. “No, they won’t.” He stays silent for a moment and then turns his attention back to the chicken. She wonders if he knows what happens there too. Who is this man?

It’s been almost two years since her father took her to the undercroft and showed her what their kingdom has to do to survive. He wouldn’t discuss it further with her, and she didn’t have her mother anymore. She wanted to tell Max so many times, at least just to be able to share her feelings, to feel understood. She knew Max would keep her secret, but it would kill him. After his parents died, he was never the same. This truth would only eat him, little by little, from inside out until there was nothing left.

No, she always believed she was strong enough to keep it within herself, even if it led her to tears in the solitude of her chamber, night after night. She could talk to Liam about it, but somehow she always ended up feeling even worse. She felt too much, and Liam was ever so tempered and had too much hope on them. On her. She couldn’t help but feel like an impostor when talking to him. Was she really the princess of the prophecy? Could her ancestors have been wrong? So, at one point, she didn’t talk to him about it anymore. He seemed to cope with it better than her, anyway. Maybe he had someone to talk to.

She remember those days very well, feeling dread, guilty, impotent, hopeless and lonely. And after a while, the pain turned into anger. And that anger fueled her life and her actions, making her see only one way to right the wrong - a way in which her own kingdom would pay the price. It was only fair, right?

Until Hana. The girl’s reappearance in her life came in a moment when she had all those dark secrets piling up inside her. But she wasn’t scared and she didn’t push the princess away. Their time of planning together was little, yet enough for her to find a new perspective, sharing and learning with a true friend.

“This is it.” Hana declares, shifting her eyes from the stretched square of paper on the table until they rest on the princess’ face. “Can you build it?”

Elia’s eyes scan carefully the schematics on the paper one more time before meeting her friend’s gaze, a shy smirk on her lips. “They don’t call me the Builder for nothing.”

Her friend smiles back. “Should we name it?”

The princess presses her lips together, in thought. “Maybe we just call it the Device. Unless you want a very scientific name.”

“Oh, please no.” The girl’s voice is pained, though she has a smile on her lips. “I’m so done of hearing words such as ‘enhanced’, ‘ultraviolet’, ‘fusion’ or whatever else you used to explain to me a million times.”

Elia laughs, but it doesn’t last long once the realization that she should soon part from her friend dawned upon her.

She doesn’t need to say a word for Hana to read her mind through her eyes. “I wish I could go with you.” She voices both of the women’s feelings.

The princess smiles sadly. “I wish that, too. Can’t you stay longer?”

Hana sighs. “I’ve already been gone from the south too long. If I don’t report back to Queen Madeline soon, she’ll cut my head off as soon as I step in the city.”

Elia nods silently, telling herself in her mind that she will see her friend again, and it won’t have to be in secret. Maybe if she repeats it enough she will finally believe it.

“So, you do what you got to do now.” Hana affirms, once they’re out of the castle.

The princess did not expect her eyes would be filled with tears in this moment, and she’s glad she is wearing her hooded cloak to make her feel a little less vulnerable. “Yes… You’ll know when I leave the north.” She asserts, knowing very well that the news of the Promised Princess’ disappearance will travel fast.

“I will.” Her friend smiles. “And in the right time, I’ll wait for you in the south just outside the city limits every first hour in the morning.”

Elia swallows, in a last attempt to refrain her tears from falling. “I’ll try not to make you wait too long.” Before Hana can say anything else, the princess evelops her in a hug. “I’ll miss you.”

“Me too.” Her friend reciprocates the embrace, before steadying herself. “Farewell, my friend.” With that, she turns around and leaves.

It’s been a couple of days travelling with the stranger. Well, maybe not so much of a stranger now that Aurelia knows not only his name, but also where he’s from and what he’s doing. She’s decided to keep as quiet as she could, only talking to him when needed, as to try and hide her annoyance at his adamancy in keeping them company. It’s not like it’s a hard task, since the man is even more reserved than herself. At least he’s proven to be good at hunting, having caught two rabbits with the traps he’d laid so far. And he offers to keep watch while they sleep in an open area, so it’s not just her and Jonah taking shifts in days like these, when they’re travelling through the woods. She will never admit it out loud, but some part of her mind tells her that maybe he is actually a valuable travelling companion. Maybe that is why she is annoyed too.

Jonah is almost as suspicious as herself, but over the last day she has caught the boy glancing furtively at the man whenever he’s practicing the moves with his sword. It’s clear he is trying to hide it, but Aurelia knows better than to misjudge the admiration in his eyes. Now that she thinks about it, ever since they met Dragomir, the boy didn’t take his sword out once for practicing moves. It makes her feel somewhat guilty. She’s been so preoccupied with survival and with the Device that she never offered to give Jonah sword lessons. He would like it very much, she believes.

Eleonora must have taken on the princess’ sentiment, for the girl remained by her side almost all times, quiet as well, helping her in finding and collecting some edible vegetables along the way. Aurelia is stunned at how greener these parts are, and the woods get dense too, with plants and even trees.

The only problem is Elliot. The little boy talks way too much, and has taken an exceptional interest in the dark haired man. He is constantly following and asking Dragomir a million questions. The princess believed the often restrained man would be quickly annoyed at the six year old’s unrequested interactions but, much to her amazement, he seems to enjoy them. One more reason they need to be careful.

A couple of hours before evening arrives again, they settle on a clearing and start putting up their improvised tents - at least that’s something she taught them, not Dragomir. Is she jealous of his abilities? She shoves the thought out of her mind before it can bruise her ego.

“Elliot, come here.” She takes the boy by the hand and leads him far enough so they are not heard.

She sits on the grass and pats the spot beside her so he sits with her.

“You cannot tell Dragomir about the Device. Or who I really am. Do you understand that?” She looks right into his eyes, making sure he follows.

“I do, but why?”

“We don’t know him well. We can’t trust him.”

“But I like him! He saved me! And he got us chickens and rabbits.” He pouts a little, staring at her.

“What is that now?” She drops her jaw, pretending to be offended. “I’ve been getting you food for many days, and I never got this kind of recognition.” Elliot only shrugs, his usual playful smirk on his face. She smiles and tickles the boy in his sides, which makes him instantly start laughing.

After a while, the princess lets him catch his breath. “So, can we agree to not tell him anything? At least until I make sure he’s good for real.”

He seems to think a bit before nodding. “Okay.” His big blue eyes are attentive, and despite his age, she feels he truly understands. She prays she’s right, otherwise this little boy can get them in serious trouble.

The princess lets him go to play with Eleonora, knowing very well Jonah will be overlooking them, so she decides to take some time to treat herself while there’s still daylight. She takes a book from her bag, one of the few she took from the old church, and settles under a big tree, resting her back on its trunk. She reads the title on the book’s worn out cover “Out of the Silent Planet” and that familiar thrill of starting a new book causes an involuntary hint of a smile to her lips.

Her amused look doesn’t slip past the dark haired man’s attention, and before Aurelia notices, he is sliding down to sit next to her. “What’s special about this book?” He gazes between her and the book.

A crease forms in between her brows when she looks back at him. She can almost feel a snarky remark begin to form in her lips, but for some reason she is not annoyed at him for joining her uninvited. It is actually somewhat comforting to have someone close to her age to talk to, so she decides on being nice this time, despite her suspicions and fears. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, you looked quite pleased upon just looking at it.”

She smiles before looking down at the book again. “Every book is special.”

“And what’s special about this one?” He extends his hand and Aurelia places the book in it, their fingers brushing slightly. Although his hands look strong, it feels softer than she had imagined.

“I don’t know, I haven’t read it yet.”

He resumes his inspection of the book cover to stare at her with thoughtful eyes for a while, returning the object to her hands. “Where do you get your books from?”

His question makes her feel a bit nervous and scared of whether he suspects she spends several hours of her days in the larger - and only - library of Cordonia. Well, not anymore, she doesn’t.

“Oh, you know… along the way.” She manages to make herself sound untroubled. “This one I found in the ruins of an old church, some days ago.”

The man nods. “Have you been on the road for long?”

His sudden interest in her catches the princess unguarded. “So, someone decided to be chatty today.” She chooses to try and change the focus of the conversation.

“Well, it’s a long way south so…” He doesn’t have to finish for her to understand. It’s not like they can avoid each other for weeks, so they had no reason not to be friendly, at least that he knows of.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

She could hold back her curiosity only up to a certain extent. “This whole… rescue and kill mission. I mean, if you’re not a northern soldier then why are you doing this?” She pauses for a moment, considering options in her head. “Are you a spy?”

Still facing her, he laughs genuinely at her suggestion. It takes her aback for a moment, she’s pretty sure it’s the first time she witnesses this man laugh. “No, I’m not a spy.” He still has a grin on his face when he speaks and she mentally reprimands herself for noticing how attractive he looks when he’s smiling like that.

After a moment his smile fades and his gaze unfocus. “I don’t really have to do this.” He takes a deep, long breath, as if he’s mulling over his own reply. “It’s just something I’m supposed to do.”

Her eyes study him while she ponders his words. “Supposed to?” Aurelia, more than anyone, knows how it feels. Like you are tied to whatever it is others expect from you. “So you don’t want it.” She dares to assume.

“It doesn’t matter what I want.”

“Of course it does. You always have a choice.”

He chuckles, incredulous at her. “Almost no one in this world have a choice. And I, certainly, am as far as one can be from being one of them.”

“Well, that’s not how I fathom it.” There’s a newfound softness in her voice

His gaze is deep on her before moving to the book in her hands. Something about his eyes change and a corner of his mouth pulls up in an unforeseen smirk. “So you’re not supposed to be reading books while you travel, I guess?” He changes the tone of the conversation as smoothly as someone who’s spent years doing that.

She feels as if she was finally being able to peek through the slight opening of a door to have it suddenly shut in her face. Almost seeing the man behind the stoic exterior until he put the barrier back up.

She lets him have it, forcing a smile and following along with the mood he’s shifted to. “Reading gives you a new amplitude of perspective, you know.”

“So is that where you get your rebellious convictions from?” He retorts in the same teasing tone.

“Rebellious?” She laughs. “Do you take me for dangerous, then?”

She stares at him, waiting for him to answer, yet he stays silent, eyes glued to hers. She doesn’t know how much time passes, only that she starts being tortuously aware of how close they’ve gotten, despite still sitting side by side, and how warm his arm feels against her own. It’s a good feeling, and she bites her lower lip to keep her somehow grounded.

The man clears his throat, bringing them both out of their stupor. “I’ll go light up a fire, it will be dark soon.”

He hurriedly gets up and leaves without giving her a chance to say anything else.

On the next morning, Aurelia is packing their stuff while watching the kids playing. The sunny day lights up her mood so she’s not annoyed to be doing the task all by herself. It’s not like she would ever let Dragomir pack her stuff and risk him finding the Device, anyway.

Jonah is sitting on the grass, watching the man practice with his sword, while holding his own on his lap. The princess watches carefully as the man suddenly stops and points his sword to the teenager. “Care for joining?”

The boy opens his mouth but is incapable of forming any words. Dragomir simply walks up to him and offers him his other hand, pulling Jonah from the ground. Soon enough they are sparring, with Dragomir mostly studying the boy’s moves to correct them or advise him.

Aurelia smiles to herself at the scene. Eleonora and Elliot stop whatever it is that they were doing and go stand near where the two of them are practicing.

Aurelia then shifts her focus to the task at hand and resumes packing their things. When she’s almost done, she allows herself to get distracted and listens to a bit of the conversation happening across from where she stands. The boys have stopped sparring and the kids are all around the dark haired man.

“Your name is weird!” Elliot squirms.

“Lott, you don’t say that to people.” Eleonora readily berates him, causing Aurelia to chuckle to herself.

“It’s fine.” The man’s voice doesn’t sound offended, but rather lighthearted.“It is weird indeed. You can call me Drake, if you want.”

“Don’t you mind children calling you by your short name?” Eleonora voices her curiosity, and there’s some unusual cheerfulness in the girl’s voice. Aurelia smiles once again, not averting her eyes from her hands, as she ties the strings of her big bag. It’s nice to hear them happy like this.

“I don’t wander around many children, but I’ll make an exception for you.” The man replies.

“What’s an exception?” Elliot asks.

However, Aurelia no longer pays attention to their conversation. It took her more seconds than it should for her brain to process the information, her hands suddenly stopping and heart beating faster. She has heard that name before. Could it be-- She finally moves her gaze up to the man outside. She is dumbfounded at herself for not recognizing those deep brown eyes that match his hair, or the defensive but never unkind demeanor sooner. That man is, undoubtedly, her Drake.

#the royal romance #choices fanfiction #post-apocalyptic au #long post #fanfiction #trr drake #trr hana #drake walker #pixelberry choices #playchoices #drake x mc #choices fandom #choices trr #trr au #a game of hearts #trr fanfic #choices #trr #princess sapphire

10 notes · View notes