#immediately followed by 'hey what if the endgame of the series is a zombie apocalypse'

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Jame/Tori. 12 and 16. Happy Birthday! Wishing you a year full of understanding medical professionals.

SAME!!!  Anyway, last night I was reading God Stalk out loud to my partners, because we are all very adorable, and I almost paused the chapter to wax adoring about Jame and Tori because Jame made an idle comment about not understanding how someone could decide not to support their brother, no matter what their brother did.  So you get to go first.

12) What first changes when it starts getting serious?

The first thing that Jame notices as a change, a real change, isn’t something anyone else would notice.  Tori kissed her, and didn’t run--kissed her, and held her face between his beautiful scarred hands, and rested their foreheads together like they did when they were children, like she was safety to him again, and that was--that was new, but she didn’t really think of it as a change.  Everyone else sees it as a change, but not Jame.  She thinks that Tori might not see it that way either.  It wasn’t a change, it was a return to the right shape of things.

The first thing she notices as a change isn’t until a few nights later, when she collapses in a chair and falls asleep.  The dream is pleasantly nonsensical at first--a nightmare, but a real nightmare, which is a relief, of dancing in the Res aB’tyrr in front of the randon council, while her feet bleed and her balance slips on the slick tabletop.  She realizes she’s dreaming when she stumbles, but dances on as if a puppet on strings, until finally the dance ends, and she bows, and takes her bloodied feet and her weariness up the stairs to the loft.  

It’s her brother’s study, at the top of the stairs, and he’s there, sitting in the chair by the fire with one leg crossed over his knee and frowning in concentration, and he blinks at her as she stumbles through the mirror and lands clumsily on the floor.  She braces herself to watch horror flicker over his face--sees the moment of instinctive alarm--and then he asks, “What are you wearing?”

“What?” Jame asks, blank, and then says, “Oh.  It’s a dancer’s costume.  What are you doing?”

Tori’s lips twist briefly and he says, “Trying to sleep.”

“Are you hiding in here on purpose?”

He looks uneasy, almost--apologetic.  “I just need some rest.”  And then he hesitates, and then Tori says, “You can stay.  There’s another chair.”

“What?” Jame repeats.

“I can keep us both here for a while, I think,” Tori says.  “You look tired.”

Jame is nodding before she thinks it through, and collapses in the chair across from Tori--the dreamscape can’t manufacture pain or weariness the way the soulscape can, but she is tired.  She hasn’t slept in days, and she’s all too aware that she’s as likely to wander out the door into a disaster as she is into a restful night.  And Tori’s study--the dream he’s made for himself, a shelter from visions and souls--is warm and quiet, with the fire and the old chairs, and with her brother.  It’s--nice.

Tori offers her a faint smile, and takes his foot off his knee and stretches his legs out in front of him, mirroring her, so that their ankles cross in front of the fire.

16) When the zombie apocalypse comes, how do they cope together?

I genuinely do not think they would bat an eye at a zombie apocalypse.  They essentially grew up in one.  Honestly I think they would be THE clutch people to have in charge, because they are very good at this, before Jame and Tori were dancers or fighters or leaders or soldiers or anything, they were dealing with the undead.

The first thing Jame, in northern Tagmeth, does upon seeing the first haunt in the Riverlands is to sit down with a map and every report she can barter, beg, or borrow, and draws out the advancing line.  She gathers her people and gives them exacting instructions, on how to kill the dead, and she sends a letter to Mount Alban that simply says I need help, cousin, meet me at Gothregor, and she sends out scouts for one week.  At the end of the week, she rolls up her maps, tells everyone to pack everything they want to keep, and takes her people south.

She arrives at her brother’s doorstep unannounced, and the Knorth Kendar are getting used to the way their Highborn do things but also they hate the way their Highborn do things.  It’s not really right for their lordan to show up with every single one of her people in tow and demand to see her brother now.  But, then, most of them have served their lord for years now, and they know that hard-eyed silver stare, and no one stops her from storming out to the barracks where Torisen is going over their census with Rowan.

Tori is already looking at the door when Jame opens it, and he says, “Jame,” and Rowan says, “Lordan,” and Jame says, “I have bad news, and I think we’re the first ones to get it, so we need a plan if we’re going to save our people.”

And Jame thinks it says something kind, about her brother, that even at his worst, he cared about their people to the point of desperation.  And he’s not at his worst anymore, and so she’s not surprised when he gestures to the chair at his other side, facing Rowan, and says, “Of course, what happened?”