#maybe one day ill finish a kalinor specific fic lol

[irmacornelia]

I had a Kalinor fic that I never got around to finishing that im going to cannibalize ideas from for my longfic, so have some of the bits I do have and will probably never finish;

Title: Untitled Kalinor Drabbles Pairings: Kalinor, Cassidy/Nerissa Tags: Pining, minor language, canon-typical violence and angst Rating: T-ish

Apparently everyone has been having the same dream. For a week and a half straight.

Nerissa laughs and suggests magic.

You retort that if you had some fancy magic power, how come you burn the toast every other morning?

Cassidy grins and tells you that you are just bad at cooking.

-

Three months later you are fighting for your life with your friends at your back. This is a much better way to burn energy and rage than tennis. You think that this is the last year you will have an extracurricular like that (or at all -what with how Kandrakar doesn’t give a damn about your education). 

You duck a sword and twist heat and sparks into your palm to shove into your assailant's chest. Fluid and practiced, Kadma twists around and slams a boulder into him as you lean out of the way. A brief moment of eye contact and half-formed :feelings: thrums between you and you both leap back into the fray.

You work well together, your brawler-esque fighting compliments her fluid and reactive style. Yan Lin flits about to deliver death from above and to watch out for threats as Nerissa commands the most amount of attention by your enemies to divert from Cassidy going for the objective. Nerissa is very flashy and does her job well. It’s worked enough times that you and your companions have it down to a routine. You and Kadma pull the grunt work, Nerissa is a massive and threatening distraction tossing lighting and energy blasts, Yan Lin scouts and provides air cover, and Cassidy does the stealing/activating/rescuing. Not that you and your friends can’t do other jobs, but it works best that way. Everyone has a task to do without any prior organizing. Nice and neat and simple(if fighting could be called neat and simple).

Searing another few vaguely humanoid bird-ish enemies and ignoring the acrid tang of burning feathers, you feel like you could do this forever.

-

You have been doing this for a year now and it shows. Strangers are afraid to make eye contact with you, and you have toned muscles underneath your obligatory dresses. You do average in school and while your parents aren’t too happy at the slight drop, it’s doable. You are often tired and busy, and you are quite a bit more confident (because you can kick most everyone’s ass and you have bigger problems) and get into fights a lot during downtime.

You are so much closer with your companions now, as well. You wouldn’t have dared sitting that close with anyone before. You wouldn’t have dared to lean against Kadma while Cassidy braids your hair and chats about most anything.

Its helped, in part, by the telepathy. You and yours had begun to lean on it quite a bit to explain motives and :feelings:. Twining your Presence with someone mentally was oddly pleasant and comfortable, like a sort of warm hug but for your feelings and not your body.

Explaining this caught giggles from your friends.

Kadma was pretty when she laughed.

You were so screwed and couldn’t ever explain why.

A week later you are nimbly jumping across rooftops with your wings aflutter (they are now almost two feet long each and feel a bit sturdier, but they can only slow your fall a bit). You follow Kadma and Yan Lin with Cassidy on your heels as Nerissa blows up the front gates to a stronghold.

You try to avoid the thought that you would be so very lost without being able to fight for your life.

-

It’s been two years since you became a Guardian and you are nearly an adult. You have never dated anyone (you couldn’t -you like girls) and Things are going wrong. You don’t know when they started going wrong, but they are. Maybe it started when Nerissa began a harsh training regimen after a close shave on some world you can’t even begin to pronounce the name of(all harsh clicks and sounds no human throat can make for long without becoming hoarse). Maybe it started when The Council refused to give important information one time too many. Maybe it had always been bad, but no one noticed.

Cassidy came to you one day and told you that she was worried about her.

“Sometimes- Sometimes she talks about scary things, Im not really sure I should say what, but I-i’m really worried.”

She wrings her hands and leans back on the park bench.

“I- um We, um, w-well, she sometimes wakes up screaming and-and I think our, ah, Job,”

Cassidy says with emphasis in-case anyone was listening in,

“Is-Is getting to her. You, ah, you know she does risky things but I can’t help but fear it going to get worse. I, ah, I care about her. A lot. And I don’t know what to do.”

Cassidy trails off toward the end into a whisper. You suppose that’s confirmation enough that they are involved with each other.

“I know.,” You say, “I’m not sure what to do either. Maybe the others might be better help, but we can get through this.”

You both are very much aware how the last group of guardians all died before you were even appointed.

You don’t talk about it.

Your research spree to try to find things to aid Nerissa served more as nightmare fuel than solutions, so help from outsiders was out. Thus you ask the others what to do about Nerissa’s increasingly snappish and reckless behavior the day after.

Yan Lin offers up the idea of distraction during downtime, and you all jump on board. If you can distract her from your other life, perhaps she would relax a bit.

And so you and the others spent a lot of time in-between missions trying very hard to be ‘normal teens’. Cassidy taught the group how to dance over the course of a few afternoons and you all end up at one of the local soda fountains about once a week. Nerissa also spends her time composing songs on her flute again, she names one of them after herself and gives Yan Lin a handwritten copy of the sheet music when asked.

For awhile you feel like it’s like it was Before, and you feel happy and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, but you still feel extra energy to burn curling in your gut. You know Yan Lin is always paying more than a little attention to what’s going on, who is where, and where all of the exits are. Cassidy is stuck to Nerissa’s side like glue and Kadma barely speaks half the time.

(You still all walk silently and twitch at the sight of flashing lights and the sound of metal screaming on metal)

You get a few group shots of the five of you and pretend that the flash didn’t feel like magic firing on you.

-

You had been spending quite a lot of time with Kadma these last few weeks. In the effort to wind down from constant missions from Kandrakar to far off worlds, you had all tried to do only mundane things with mixed results. You’re pretty sure Cassidy leaves glamours on her bed in the mornings to go sleep at Nerissa’s house without getting caught.

You yourself use telepathy with the others nigh-constantly and your tea never goes cold.

You learn that Kadma can sometimes get :Impressions: from animals while you and her go feed birds at the park. Simpler than ones from you and the others, she says, but there all the same.

You brush your magic against Kadma’s and inch closer.

“Can you show me?”, you say.

Her hand brushes against yours in return and sparks of flame burn along your spine.

The corner of her lip curls upwards and she passes along :Impressions: from the Dove pecking at a sunflower seed a few feet away.

You feel more distracted and fuzzy than you have in ages and Yan Lin grins at you the next day like she can tell and you shoot her a :??:.

She rolls her eyes and replies :Warmsafefuzzy-Presence more-than-before:.

She taps her fingers gently on her desk and leans back a bit, :Kadma-and-you?:.

The thrumm to that last Impression nearly made you choke on air.

You suppose that would be fitting considering whom you are Communing with.

:Almost:

The teacher begins her lecture and that was the end of that.

The rest of the group knows you can heat your body temperature to nice and toasty levels and this is exploited mercilessly once Heatherfield started getting chilly. You are only slightly affronted the first time Cassidy ‘calls dibs’ on one of your shoulders. When Kadma leans against your other shoulder your half-formed complaint turns to smoke on your tongue and you just obligingly turn up the heat.

Yan Lin gives you a wink from her spot at the stove next to the teapot when Kadma shuts her eyes and humms in contentment. You nearly throw the nearby pillow at Yan Lin for the following eyebrow wiggle, but you don’t want to ruin the moment.