compassbenchsblog

[getvalentined]

Ever Crisis: The First SOLDIER [September 7, 2023]

[kalrialcock]

dear lily

all day and all night i thought about writing you this letter, saw it unfold in my mind, and so now that i am here with my paper and my ink it does not seem like a real thing, but a task that one undertakes in a dream. when i am finished i will curl this paper up and tuck it in an acorn shell and throw it through your bedroom window; i dreamed this, too, and did i dream you? are you real? are you anything of flesh, do you breathe? sometimes, when i look out of your mirror at you, i think that i am looking at a piece of my own soul, torn loose and tossed into the world. not because you belong to me, but because you are familiar and strange at the same time. lily, you a person, you are a creature all in your own right - and isnt that curious? how can something like you have come to be? i want to unpick you, like stitches, to see what makes you run - but i wont. i will content myself with drawing your name over my wrist bone to consider how you turn my blood into gold. you were small when i was small. i watched you through the bluster, through the blazing star. it was my mother warned me against you, but i heard you singing in the cinnamon fern and thought you were beautiful: a thing i could never touch. like the crest of orion. like the farthest pleiades. you wore erythronium in your hair, like your name; the yellow trout lily. lily, lily. sometimes i think i would eat you if i could. there is a witch in a story who ate a girl she loved, and always there afterwards when she spoke, flowers fell out of her open mouth. i would swallow you up, and you would be lobelia on my tongue for the rest of my life. this is what they say: it is not uncommon for us to want to eat what we love. but you are uncommon. every moment we have spent together is a shining stone in the bowl of my skull. i am greedy, and so i take them out and look at them now and then, like a dragon. the day we went to the buried well and threw butterfly weed down into the black water to count our wishes. the first time you stepped out of your dress for me, gold in the sun, yellow and gold. the night i brought you into the hill, when you clung to me like a lichen and in the hall your eyes were cups of firelight. the day in the rain, both of us laughing. dear lily: my mother taught me many things but she did not teach me this. where does it come from, the thread that ties us together? who spun it? what is it composed of, what is its matter? i have half a mind to unpick myself, to find the source; but i wont. that day in the field of green-and-golds. you said who are you, where did you come from. i said i came from the hill; i am the girl who does not die. you laughed and i fell in love with you there. there: i wrote it down, i turned it into ink and made it something tangible. but you could burn this letter and i would still love you, so it must be something beyond matter. see it here in black and white. i love you, girl from the house on the hill, girl with the hair made of sunbeams. i love you, knot in my heart. i love you, hands on my hands, hands on my ribs, mouth on my mouth. i love you, stone in my shoe. i love only you. only you. only ever you.

yours always juniper

[emberdune]

In which history comes alive again

JUNIPER: Dear Lily. All day and all night I thought about writing you this letter, saw it unfold in my mind, and so now that I am here with my paper and my ink it does not seem like a real thing, but like a task one undertakes in a dream. When I am finished I will curl this paper up and tuck it in an acorn shell and throw it through your bedroom window; I dreamed this, too, and did I dream you? Are you real? Are you anything of flesh, do you breathe? Sometimes, when I look out of your mirror at you, I think that I am looking at a piece of my own soul, torn loose and tossed into the world. Not because you belong to me, but because you are familiar and strange at the same time. Lily, you are a person, you are a creature all in your own right – and isn’t that curious? How can something like you have come to be? I want to unpick you, like stitches, to see what makes you run – but I won’t. I will content myself with drawing your name over my wrist-bone to consider how you turn my blood into gold. You were small when I was small. I watched you through the bluestar, through the blazing star. It was my mother warned me against you, but I heard you singing in the cinnamon fern and thought you were beautiful: a thing I could never touch. Like the crest of Orion. Like the farthest Pleiades. You wore erythronium in your hair, like your name; the yellow trout lily. Lily, lily. Sometimes I think I would eat you if I could. There is a witch in a story who ate a girl she loved, and always afterwards when she spoke, flowers fell out of her open mouth. I would swallow you up, and you would be lobelia on my tongue for the rest of my life. This is what they say: it is not uncommon for us to want to eat what we love. But you are uncommon. Every moment we have spent together is a shining stone in the bowl of my skull. I am greedy, and so I take them out and look at them now and then, like a dragon. The day we went to the buried well and threw butterfly weed down into the black water to count our wishes. The first time you stepped out of your dress for me, gold in the sun, yellow and gold. The night I brought you into the hill, when you clung to me like lichen and in the hall your eyes were cups of firelight. The day in the rain, both of us laughing. Dear Lily: my mother taught me many things but she did not teach me this. Where does it come from, the thread that ties us together? Who spun it? What is it composed of, what is its matter? I have half a mind to unpick myself, to find the source; but I won’t. That day in the field of green-and-golds. You said who are you, where did you come from. I said I came from the hill; I am the girl who does not die. You laughed, and I fell in love with you, there. There: I wrote it down, I turned it into ink and made it something tangible (but you could burn this letter and I would still love you, so it must be something beyond matter). See it here in black and white. I love you, girl from the house on the hill, girl with the hair made of sunbeams. I love you, knot in my heart. I love you, hands on my hands, hands on my ribs, mouth on my mouth. I love you, stone in my shoe. I love only you. Only you. Only ever you. Yours always Juniper.

[andromerot]

mabel, episode eight point five: letter from juniper. in which history comes alive again

Dear Lily.

All day and all night I thought about writing you this letter, saw it unfold in my mind, and so now that I am here with my paper and my ink it does not seem like a real thing, but like a task one undertakes in a dream. When I am finished I will curl this paper up and tuck it in an acorn shell and throw it through your bedroom window; I dreamed this, too, and did I dream you? Are you real? Are you anything of flesh, do you breathe?

Sometimes, when I look out of your mirror at you, I think that I am looking at a piece of my own soul, torn loose and tossed into the world. Not because you belong to me, but because you are familiar and strange at the same time. Lily, you are a person, you are a creature all in your own right – and isn’t that curious? How can something like you have come to be? I want to unpick you, like stitches, to see what makes you run – but I won’t. I will content myself with drawing your name over my wrist-bone to consider how you turn my blood into gold.

You were small when I was small. I watched you through the bluestar, through the blazing star. It was my mother warned me against you, but I heard you singing in the cinnamon fern and thought you were beautiful: a thing I could never touch. Like the crest of Orion. Like the farthest Pleiades. You wore erythronium in your hair, like your name; the yellow trout lily. Lily, lily. Sometimes I think I would eat you if I could. There is a witch in a story who ate a girl she loved, and always afterwards when she spoke, flowers fell out of her open mouth. I would swallow you up, and you would be lobelia on my tongue for the rest of my life. This is what they say: it is not uncommon for us to want to eat what we love.

But you are uncommon. Every moment we have spent together is a shining stone in the bowl of my skull. I am greedy, and so I take them out and look at them now and then, like a dragon. The day we went to the buried well and threw butterfly weed down into the black water to count our wishes. The first time you stepped out of your dress for me, gold in the sun, yellow and gold. The night I brought you into the hill, when you clung to me like lichen and in the hall your eyes were cups of firelight. The day in the rain, both of us laughing.

Dear Lily: my mother taught me many things but she did not teach me this.

Where does it come from, the thread that ties us together? Who spun it? What is it composed of, what is its matter? I have half a mind to unpick myself, to find the source; but I won’t.

That day in the field of green-and-golds. You said who are you, where did you come from. I said I came from the hill; I am the girl who does not die. You laughed, and I fell in love with you, there. There: I wrote it down, I turned it into ink and made it something tangible (but you could burn this letter and I would still love you, so it must be something beyond matter). See it here in black and white. I love you, girl from the house on the hill, girl with the hair made of sunbeams. I love you, knot in my heart. I love you, hands on my hands, hands on my ribs, mouth on my mouth. I love you, stone in my shoe. I love only you. Only you. Only ever you.

Yours always,

Juniper.

nice

[swordatsunset]

THIS WAS AO CRAZY.

[ID: All day and all night I thought about writing you this letter, saw it unfold in my mind, and so now that I am here with my paper and my ink it does not seem like a real thing, but like a task one undertakes in a dream. When I am finished I will curl this paper up and tuck it in an acorn shell and throw it through your bedroom window; I dreamed this, too, and did I dream you? Are you real? Are you anything of flesh, do you breathe?

Sometimes, when I look out of your mirror at you, I think that I am looking at a piece of my own soul, torn loose and tossed into the world. Not because you belong to me, but because you are familiar and strange at the same time. Lily, you are a person, you are a creature all in your own right – and isn’t that curious? How can something like you have come to be? I want to unpick you, like stitches, to see what makes you run – but I won’t. I will content myself with drawing your name over my wrist-bone to consider how you turn my blood into gold.

You were small when I was small. I watched you through the bluestar, through the blazing star. It was my mother warned me against you, but I heard you singing in the cinnamon fern and thought you were beautiful: a thing I could never touch. Like the crest of Orion. Like the farthest Pleiades. You wore erythronium in your hair, like your name; the yellow trout lily. Lily, lily. Sometimes I think I would eat you if I could. There is a witch in a story who ate a girl she loved, and always afterwards when she spoke, flowers fell out of her open mouth. I would swallow you up, and you would be lobelia on my tongue for the rest of my life. This is what they say: it is not uncommon for us to want to eat what we love.

But you are uncommon. Every moment we have spent together is a shining stone in the bowl of my skull. I am greedy, and so I take them out and look at them now and then, like a dragon. The day we went to the buried well and threw butterfly weed down into the black water to count our wishes. The first time you stepped out of your dress for me, gold in the sun, yellow and gold. The night I brought you into the hill, when you clung to me like lichen and in the hall your eyes were cups of firelight. The day in the rain, both of us laughing.

Dear Lily: my mother taught me many things but she did not teach me this.

Where does it come from, the thread that ties us together? Who spun it? What is it composed of, what is its matter? I have half a mind to unpick myself, to find the source; but I won’t.

That day in the field of green-and-golds. You said who are you, where did you come from. I said I came from the hill; I am the girl who does not die. You laughed, and I fell in love with you, there. There: I wrote it down, I turned it into ink and made it something tangible (but you could burn this letter and I would still love you, so it must be something beyond matter). See it here in black and white. I love you, girl from the house on the hill, girl with the hair made of sunbeams. I love you, knot in my heart. I love you, hands on my hands, hands on my ribs, mouth on my mouth. I love you, stone in my shoe. I love only you. Only you. Only ever you.

Yours always

Juniper.]

[cassandraclare]

The Whispering Room: James’ POV

Here it is finally — James’ POV of the Whispering Room scene from Chain of Gold. I wanted to wait until Chain of Iron was released to give more people a chance to read the book, and also because what we learn in COI does inform the scene. I hope you enjoy!

*art by Cassandra Jean

Cortana wove with her words, underlining each one with steel. She turned as her sword turned, and her body curved and moved like water or fire, like a river under an infinity of stars. It was beautiful—she was beautiful, but it was not a distant beauty. It was a beauty that lived and breathed and reached out with its hands to crush James’s chest and make him breathless. — Chain of Gold

James had felt a strange emotion when Daisy first took the stage at the Hell Ruelle. It was a mix of several feelings...

worry on her behalf, annoyance at Kellington, curiosity, and admiration for her bravery and poise. It was unfair of these Bohemians to force her to caper for them, and, he thought, a bit insulting to Shadowhunters in general. He supposed that Matthew had given them a rather unusual view of what the Nephilim were like in such circumstances.

And then she had begun to dance. And suddenly she was not Daisy, his old friend. She was Cordelia, whose name meant heart, whose every gesture was fire. Every earthly worry he’d had had been swept out of his mind. He was conscious only of Cordelia, whirling back and forth across the small stage. Cortana danced around her, shedding light like embers. The dull glow of the lamps illuminated her body, describing her every movement, her every curve as she danced. Her scarlet hair whipped around her in time to the music, and the golden light of the lamps in the Ruelle slipped across her skin, slow and hot, like beads of honey. The cadences of her voice, rising and falling, seemed to weave a cage of silken thread about her audience, and James was no exception.

Later, James would think it was odd that he had not compared her to Grace. Grace had never entered his mind at all. Cordelia danced, and by the end of her performance, James’s entire life had been disassembled and put back together in a new and different shape. He was conscious of Matthew, beside him, also staring as the crowd cheered, his sharp cheekbones flushed. He looked dazed; James couldn’t blame him.

Cordelia descended the stage and slipped through the crowd to come back to them, blushing at the looks and murmured comments she was drawing from the audience now. James could see the desire in the eyes that followed her. Everyone wanted her. He felt a dull fury. They had no right. They did not know Cordelia. She was more than just that dance.

When she reached them she let out a long breath of relief and smiled. She glowed with the exercise of dancing. Sweat beaded along her collarbones, shimmered between her breasts. Her eyes were bright as Cortana’s blade, strapped to her back.

“Bloody hell,” Matthew exclaimed.  “What was that?”

A look of uncertainty crossed Cordelia’s face. James said, “It was a fairy tale, Math,” and Matthew nodded. His dark green eyes searched Cordelia’s face, as if looking for the key to a locked room he had only just discovered.

Cordelia looked uncertain. James couldn’t bear that. She’d been magnificent; she should know it. But he couldn’t say that, of course. It would only make her self-conscious.

“Well done, Cordelia,” James said instead; when he unfolded his arms; his wrist hurt and he wondered if he’d been clenching his hands.

Cordelia. He hadn’t called her Daisy, and she looked a little surprised. It seemed inappropriate, somehow. Daisy was Lucie’s friend, the Merry Thieves’ compatriot; he found it a smaller name than she deserved. Cordelia, though—she had been a queen, hadn’t she? Queen Cordelia, daughter of Leir, ruler of Britain before the Romans had ever landed on those shores. Like Boadicea, a legendary warrior queen. A blazing white fire behind fathomless black eyes.

“Anna has disappeared with Hypatia,” James said, noting the empty settee, “so I would call your distraction a success.”

Cordelia’s lips twitched into a smile. “How long does a seduction usually last?”

“Depends if you do it properly,” Matthew said, with a wink. James felt it as a spark of relief, a bit of lightness amid the feeling that something heavy was sitting on his chest.

“Well, I hope for Hypatia’s sake Anna does it properly,” James said. He registered, with the reflexes of a parabatai, that Matthew had gone still next to him, and wondered what was wrong. “Yet for our sake, I hope she hurries it up.”

All hint of Matthew’s jocular tone from before was gone. “Both of you,” he said urgently. “Listen.”

Did he mean all the muttering about Shadowhunters? Was he only noticing it now? It had followed them since they came into the place. But when James followed Matthew’s gaze, he found Kellington staring with an expression of vexation, not at them but at the door. All questions were answered as through the door came Charles Fairchild, looking around him with a haughty expression. He looked like was about to raid the place; so much for whatever work Matthew and Anna had done for Downworlder-Shadowhunter relations here.

Matthew narrowed his eyes. “Charles,” he sighed. “By the Angel, what is he doing here?”

Charles was, James thought, probably looking for them. He was making his way through the crowd and gazing around him. Luckily for them, the crowd was not interested in letting him through, and he was moving very slowly.

“We should go,” James said. “But we can’t leave Anna.”

In one way, at least, Charles’s arrival was helpful; it threw a bucket of cold water on the roiling heat that had gripped James’s heart since Cordelia had begun her dance. Back to the matter at hand: a demon, a Pyxis, a plan.

“You two run and hide yourselves,” Matthew said, still keeping his eyes on his brother. “Charles will go off his head if he sees you here.”

“But what about you?” said Cordelia.

Matthew shrugged, but James could see the tension in his jaw and his shoulders. “He’s used to this kind of thing from me. I’ll deal with Charles.”

Not for the first time, James wished that his parabatai wasn’t in such a hurry to sacrifice his own reputation. He exchanged a long look with Matthew, but Matthew was sure, and determined, and his desire to rush into his own humiliation was an issue that would have to wait. Nodding, he turned and caught Cordelia’s hand with his own. “This way,” he said, and she nodded back in acknowledgement. As he pulled them into the crowd he heard Matthew’s voice calling, “Charles!” in a hearty tone of pleasant, if entirely false, welcome.

James didn’t know his way around the place, and the crowd made orientating himself even more difficult, but after some trial and error he and Cordelia managed to get behind Kellington and slip into a corridor leading away. This wasn’t safe in itself, since from the main chamber one would have a clear view down the entire corridor. In fact, they were temporarily more exposed than before, and James’s hope for the hallway to take a quick turn or to contain large statuary to hide behind was quickly dashed. He continued to hold onto Cordelia’s hand, not that he needed to; she seemed to know her way better than he did.

Partway down the corridor, James caught sight of an open door — its silver plaque labeling it the entrance to THE WHISPERING ROOM. Swiftly he drew Cordelia inside, out of sight. He slammed the door behind them, causing a loud noise, but he thought it couldn’t possibly be heard over the crowd in the main chamber. Only then did he release Cordelia’s hand and take stock of their surroundings.

The room was dimly lit, but not cold: a scented fire burned in the grate, filling the space with the smell of sandalwood and roses. It was a study, he guessed, based on the gigantic walnut desk against the wall and the bookshelves opposite, but it was too richly decorated to be solely a place for studious contemplation. Phoenix feathers and dragon scales danced across the gilded wallpaper; there were no windows, but the walls were hung with patterned tapestries, the floor covered with a rug so thick James felt his boots sink into it as he moved further into the room.

Cordelia had leaned her back against the wall next to the door. Her eyes were closed and she was taking deep, full breaths, calming herself down. Cortana gleamed gold over her shoulder; the firelight gleamed a deeper gold on her skin, which seemed to take and hold its warmth. James curled his fingers in against his palm.

He wanted to touch her. He half-turned away, pretending to study the books on the wall. Any other time, he would have been fascinated by the titles. Now they seemed distant, neither immediate nor imporant. He could have sworn he heard his own heart hammering. He said, “Where did you learn to dance like that?” surprising himself with the roughness of his own voice.

His gaze snapped back to Cordelia as she opened her eyes and gave a little shrug. There was something magical about the dress she wore: it followed the shape of her own body rather than the shape of corsetry or whalebone petticoats. It slid softly against her skin as she moved, just as her dark red hair tickled the bare skin of her throat, her shoulders. “I had a dance instructor in Paris. My mother believed that learning to dance aided in learning grace in battle.”

The word grace pierced James like an icicle. He could not quite picture Grace at the moment, it was true; could not quite envision her face. He had given Grace his heart — that was an immutable fact, something he knew as he knew that two plus two equaled four. But he had to admit that at the moment his heart did not feel given. It felt like a thrumming machine inside his chest, pumping blood and heat.

“That dance,” Cordelia added with a quirk of her soft mouth that struck James like a blow to the stomach, “was forbidden to be taught to unmarried ladies. But my dance instructor did not care.”

“Well,” James said, keeping his voice steady with practiced control, “thank the Angel you were there. Matthew and I could certainly not have pulled off that dance on our own.”

Cordelia turned away from him, the smile still on her face, as though she were keeping it secret from him. She trailed her hand along the top of Hypatia’s desk. At one end was a stack of papers held down by a large copper bowl of fruit, and she brought her hand up to trace its rim.

James may have been distracted beyond the capacity for distraction he’d known before, but he was still a Shadowhunter. “Be careful,” he said warningly. “I suspect that is faerie fruit. It has no effect on warlocks—no magical effect, at least. But on humans…”

Cordelia pulled her hand back as though stung. “Surely it does not harm you if you do not eat it.”

“Oh, it does not. But I have met those who have tasted it. The say the more you have of it, the more you want, and the more you ache when you can…have no more.”

Cordelia was looking at him now, and though it took a great summoning of courage, he returned her gaze. In her dark eyes the silver and blue flames of the fireplace danced. James could not catch his breath. He had never felt this before, this breathlessness. It was like pain, but with a sweet, sharp edge. Like licking honey from a knife. He said, in a low voice, “And yet. I have always thought…is not knowing what it tastes like just another form of torture? The torture of wondering?”

The door shook on his hinges suddenly, making a clatter that made both he and Cordelia jerk their heads around to look at it. The knob was starting to turn.

Cordelia paled. “We’re not meant to be in here —“

James’s world closed down to just this: Cordelia was here, she was with him, and she looked frightened. He would do anything to stop that look on her face. He caught her in his arms, and the relief was incredible — he had not realized how much he wanted to be touching her until he was. Until he was holding her, and her strength and warmth and softness were all pressed against him, and her face was so beautiful it hurt, and her lips were parted in surprise and without another thought he kissed them.

He could feel her sharp intake of breath with his hands, clasped together at her lower back. She gasped, but did not draw back, or away — he thought he would have died if she had — she leaned into him, her full lips opening under his. She was kissing him back. He tasted honey, smelled jasmine and smoke. His hand slid up her warm cheek and into the soft fall of her hair.

Time stopped.

Cordelia’s arms were around his neck. Her lush mouth opened a little against his, and the kiss deepened. He moved his hand to the back of her neck to bring her closer. Her teeth grazed his lower lip, and he couldn’t help it; he moaned, and felt her tremble against him.

Very far away, a voice chuckled and the door closed with a soft click. This whole thing had been intended as a ruse, he knew, for the benefit of whomever was trying to get into the Whispering Room. Probably some Ruelle attendees, Downworlders most likely, who had snuck off for a rendez-vous.

Ruse accomplished, then. With intense regret, James drew back from Cordelia. Her hand, warm and soft and wonderful, was against his neck; her fingers stroked his pale white scar. Her eyes were fixed at the level of his shoulder. He could hear himself say her name — Daisy, my Daisy — instead of responding, she whispered, “I think more people are coming.”

He knew it wasn’t true. He didn’t care. He knew what she was saying: that she was asking and giving permission at once. All James’ life, he had struggled for control: control over his sudden falls into shadow, control over the dark world he could see, that was invisible to everyone else. He had worked and fought and trained for control every day, and for the first time in as long as he could remember it deserted him.

The walls he had put up burned to the ground in an instant as he caught Cordelia to him. He groaned against her mouth, his hands slipping over the silk of her dress, the hot satin of her skin. He undid the strap that held Cortana, got rid of it somehow — carefully, he hoped — and let himself fall back into delirium.

He did not ask himself why he had never felt desire like this before. He could not. He was lost in the feel of her, the incline of her waist, the flare of her hips, the rise and fall of her chest as she gasped. They were kissing wildly, uncontrolled; they fetched up against the desk, Cordelia’s back to it.

Her body bent backward in an impossible arch, her hands going behind her to brace herself. Her eyes half-closed, her head fell back, revealing the bare column of her throat. He pressed his lips there, eliciting a gasp of surprised pleasure.

His hands trailed up the sleek material of her dress — he could feel the heat of her skin through it — from her waist to the neckline of her gown. His palms followed her curves until the tips of his fingers were pressing into the bare bronze skin just above the neckline of her dress. She was sleek and soft and hot all at the same time, like nothing else he’d ever touched. He heard her whimper; she was saying his name, and his heart beat in time with her words: James, James, Jamie please.

The please undid him; shrugging off his frock coat, he caught hold of her around the waist, lifting her until she was perched on the edge of the desk. The material of her dress bunched around her knees, her thighs, as she took hold of his shirt by the starched front and kissed him. His mouth drove against hers, hot and demanding, even as he clambered onto the desk after her. She reached up her arms for him and he sank down on top of her, bracing his weight with a hand above her head.

He paused, just for a moment, looking down at her. Her scarlet hair fanned out across the desk, her eyes glazed, her full lips red from kissing. He was cradled by her body, her legs on either side of his hips, her skirt rucked up nearly to her waist. She wrapped her long, bare legs around him and he shuddered. What was in him, what he wanted, was inchoate but insistant, a force he’d never known. A yearning like hot wires in his blood, the pain-pleasurable ache of unbearable wanting that drove him to kiss her again, kiss her harder. She tangled her hands in his hair, pulling at it as he kissed her breasts, flicking his tongue over the sensitive skin until she gave a low scream and clutched at him with desperate hands.

He sank down against her and kissed her, hot and deep and hard. She arched into the kiss, her breath coming in gasps. He felt her through the thinner material of his shirt: the heat of her, the swell of her breasts against his chest, her hands smoothing over his chest, his sides.

His hands aching to touch her in kind, to find out what she liked, what made her gasp, and do it again and again . . . Nothing had ever felt like this, nothing. He’d known desire before; so he remembered, so he had believed. It turned out he had stepped into a puddle and thought it was the sea. As Cordelia moved in his arms, as her lips, he realized there was a depth to desire he hadn’t even guessed at: that it was more than just desperation, but joy and need and wanting and being wanted back. It was a fever dream, his hands sliding up under the heavy satin of her skirts, the salt-sweet taste of her skin, the soft sounds of her pleasure as she urged him closer, urged him onward, the desk seeming to spin beneath them.

He heard, as if at a great distance, the sound of the door opening. He lifted his head, saw the slim fair-hared figure in the doorway. Ice washed through his veins. Cordelia stiffened, began to scramble to sit up. No, he thought, but he couldn’t stop her, couldn’t blame her. It — whatever it had been — was over.

He slid off the desk. Already the fever was vanishing, that feeling —the glorious freedom from the burden of his own will — receding. Grasping at his control, he drew it around himself,  reaching for his coat, turning to calmly meet the gaze of his parabatai.

“James?” Matthew said.

[evelestrange]

can you write something about a boyfriend ekko? please, i NEED this.

i'm extremely sorry if this isn't what you were looking for, if it isn't send me another request or dm me and i'll write you something else <333

Enough

my arcane masterlist

┊spoilers: spoilers to season 1

┊pairing: Ekko x fem!zaunite!reader

┊warnings: swearing, kidnapping, being held hostage, graphic depictions of torture, self-deprecation, vomiting, blood and injury

┊word count: 1.5k

┊genre: angst, hurt/comfort

┊summary: You had been kept hostage by Silco's scientist, Singe, for who knows how long. During a shimmer transport, the firelights showed up to intercept it. Only to find you with the cargo.

┊notes: oh my god this is my first request ilysm <3

i had an idea and i SPRINTED WITH IT

all of the firelights' names are made up because i don't know their names :,) i'm so sorry for any confusion

The darkness seemed to blind you as you took in deep breaths. You had to regulate your breathing, trying to stay calm. The ceiling above you was grimey, with green and purple filled tubes twisting around you. There were leather straps over your forehead, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles, successfully preventing your movement.

Your heart hammered in your chest as the room spun weakly. A sickly color bounced off the walls of the room, echoing throughout your vision. Your chest was heaving, stuttering as you struggled to breathe.

The air was so thick.

Your fingertips stung as you tried to move them, any type of movement sent shooting pains through your nerves.

"I'd say I'm terribly sorry for inflicting this upon you, but I'd be lying." A hoarse voice spoke into the air as you felt a pain in your neck, feeling a thick metal stick digging into the flesh.

You could feel the shimmer raging through your veins.

A violent scream tore through your throat, ricocheting across the room and bouncing off the walls. A deep and crazed laugh matched your screams, taunting you.

Mocking your pain.

You sobbed, your cries guttural as you could feel the drug rushing through you, but never the sweet release of the transformation. The persistent ringing in your ears never seemed to subside, like a broken record rewinding and replaying the same line over, and over, and over again. Ever irritating and aggravating. Your entire body shook with animalistic tremors.

The darkness closed in around you, silencing the sound of your body hitting the metal cott repeatedly.

Then, there was nothing.

•⋅⋅•⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘•⋅⋅∙∘•⋅⋅•⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•

"What are you doing to her?!" She screamed, her braided pigtails swinging as she was restrained. "Can't you see she's hurting? Stop!" Jinx continued to scream, her adoptive father holding her back.

"Jinx, you need to relax," he soothed.

"Relax, my ass!" She spat.

"You're drawing attention."

"I don't give a shit," the bluenette cried out as her face burned with rage.

They rocked with the wooden ship, the barrels of shimmer suffocating the containment unit.

"The firelights are directly above us," he hissed. "Do you wish to be caught?!" His irritation was evident as his tone was seething. Her screeching came to a halt as there were a multitude of thuds above them. Then came the yelling, then the heavier thuds.

Bodies dropping to the ground, they assumed.

The trapdoor above them rattled, then began to open. Silco took Jinx, shoving them into a tight open crate as they heard footfalls beside them. A gasp, then a sob.

"What have they done to you?" They whispered. The sound of snapping straps and matched tears as you were lifted into Atla's arms.

"Stop," you mumbled as she moved you from the seat. "Please, it hurts," you rasped.

Her touch was gentle as she supported you, looking around for any threats before ignoring your request. "I'm gonna bring you home, we can take care of you," she assured as she lifted you into a bridal hold. One arm behind your back and another under your knees.

Another pair of footsteps joined hers, the jump off the ladder further shaking the ship. Mirio's heart elated, yet stopped as he caught the face of you in her arms. He took you from Atla, the woman continuing to check the unit for any strays. Her focus wasn't intact as she deemed it safe, not seeing any other threats present. The woman climbed up the ladder, joining Mirio above deck as they watched their leader toss oil all over the barrels of shimmer. His actions were jerked, and aggressive. Mirio held your face into his shoulder, trying his hardest to muffle your whimpers of pain. The man faced another teammate, gesturing his head to their leader, his friend nodding as he caught the man's attention. Ekko turned around to face Mirio, his stance worn and exhausted.

"What are you- who the hell is that?" His distorted voice projected through his mask. Mirio faced him as Ekko stepped closer.

Mirio wordlessly passed you into his arms, Ekko's breathing immediately hitched.

He'd recognize your face anywhere.

He was frozen in time for a moment as he just stared at you, his heart flipping in his chest as he realized you were here.

You were safe, in his arms.

"Burn it all. Don't let anything go untouched." He instructed as he held you, his voice even as he spoke. Atla and Mirio shared a look before looking back at Ekko. Atla's hand came up to his shoulder, the other coming down to stroke your hair.

"Take her home, we'll regroup there."

"No. No, I'm not leav-" his refusal was clipped as Mirio stepped forward.

"For all of us, and yourself."

Ekko continued to contemplate his options, yet the moment your hand clutched his shirt, he knew his answer as he felt your balled fist close to his heart.

Ekko nodded, Atla coming behind him and removing his hoverboard from his back. The woman laid it on the ground in front of him before turning her back to him alongside Mirio, the duo continuing what they came here to do.

The leader stepped on his small aircraft, the device lifting above the ground. The electronic buzzing filled everyone's ears, quickly fading away into the distance as they watched their leader do what was best for himself. For once in his damn life, he was selfish.

And they couldn't be happier.

•⋅⋅•⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘•⋅⋅∙∘•⋅⋅•⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•

Your senses came back to you in pockets, first was your touch, then your smell, your vision, and your taste. The room was bright, but shaded. The wood ran down the walls, making the vibe warm and homely. The smell was familiar, crypres and gasoline.

You neck was stiff as you looked around, you were in the infirmary.

'Was that all just a bad dream?'

The weight on your stomach caused your gaze to fall, the blonde locs resting on your baggy pants and tight T-shirt. Your breath hitched as you saw your veins through your skin.

They were black,

and purple.

You strangled a sob, trying not to wake the man beside you as the realization hit you.

"It wasn't a dream." You whispered as you ran your fingertips up your arms. Your body trembled as you looked at yourself in pure hatred. Your body jerked, bile rising up your throat as you vomited into the can next to the bed. In tandem, Ekko jumped awake, startled by the movement.

You heaved your breaths as you tried to recover from the shock, silent tears streaming down your face as you kept your head down. Ekko's defensive stance softened as he silently came to the side of your bed, taking a towel from a bucket filled with soap and water. He kneeled in front of you, gently running the rug across your mouth, curving under your chin.

You turned your head away from him, scared he'd judge you for what you were.

Who could love someone who was completely and utterly ravaged by shimmer?

Ekko was the very last being on that list.

Even so, he took your chin between his hand, turning your head to face him. His frown was set heavy into his face as his gaze danced across your face. His was bare of paint, how odd.

Your eyes refused to meet his, your hand shook as they fisted to blanket pooled around your lap. Ekko didn't speak as he put his hands on either side of your face, roughly bringing your head to clash against his. His eyes never left your face as he took a deep breath.

A deep, shaking breath.

A drop fell onto your lap, then another, and another.

Your violet eyes raced to his, hyper focusing on the tears he was shedding.

"You- You were gone," he rasped. You inhaled sharply as you heard his voice for the first time in what felt like it could've been years. Suddenly the blanket seemed too itchy, the air too thin and the light too bright as you dragged your arms up his, gripping onto his forearms. Your fingernails dug into his skin, grounding yourself as you cried together. His hands gripped to your scalp, the pain was dull, unnoticed as you both soaked in the other. Being together.

The scene was heartfelt and serene, though there was nothing warm about it.

"I'm so sorry," you sobbed as your hands went to cup his jaw, feeling his sharp cheekbones under your touch.

His eyes shot open as he admired every part of you. "Can I kiss you, please?" His voice was strained with desperation, his fingers somehow gripping you even tighter.

You didn't respond as you pressed your mouth to his.

The kiss was sweet, and it wasn't romantic in the slightest.

It was painful as teeth clashed against teeth as your lips were pressed together with a bruising force. The metallic taste of blood coated your tongue, but you couldn't find a fuck to give.

You pulled away for barely a moment before diving back into him, his arms wrapping tightly around your waist as he pressed your chest to his. Your motions slowly lessened as you both melted into the kiss, your mouths molding together as the kiss turned slow, eventually becoming just a sharing of breaths. His arms never lessened their hold around you.

You both just sat in each other's presence.

Because it was enough.

-

-

-

-@bitchylittlejellyfish @1-danid @holysmokesblog@brooks-lyanna

[weighty-ghosts]

‘Vanishing Spells (or: How Sirius Inadvertently Outed Their Relationship)’

Vanishing Spells (or: How Sirius Inadvertently Outed Their Relationship), by weightyghosts

“James thinks he’s sneaky, Lily knows exactly how to push Sirius’ buttons, Sirius is a tad overprotective, Remus is exasperated with them all, and Peter is definitely sleeping in the common room tonight.”

Rating: teen

Word count: 2918

Pairing: Remus x Sirius

Published: December 16, 2020

Warnings: None

 https://archiveofourown.org/works/28080297

   It’s a frosty December night and the boys are in the Gryffindor common room, still sitting by the fireplace from when they had come in to warm up after a snowball fight with the Slytherins.

Well, it wasn’t so much a fight as a sneak attack that involved the Gryffindors hiding behind Greenhouse Two and pummeling those green-clad gits with exploding snowballs... But the Marauders still considered it a battle won in the war against their enemies.

James and Peter are occupying the couch, finishing their Transfiguration homework (really it’s just James writing and Peter peeking over his shoulder), and Remus and Sirius are in the plush crimson wing chairs that flank the couch.

Remus is engrossed in a book Dumbledore gave him on Non-Being Spirituous Apparitions, and Sirius is sitting sideways with his legs dangling over the arm of the chair, drawing idly on the back of his completed essay, and tapping his foot to an unheard beat (much to James’ annoyance).

Sirius is also trying very hard to stop himself from staring at Remus, but he can’t seem to help his eyes wandering over every few minutes to watch the way the firelight brings out the auburn and gold in the werewolf’s hair, the ends a bit curled from the wet snow outside.

Remus glances up at him but looks away quickly, a light blush spreading up his neck. Sirius bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling, going back to his doodling. This thing between them is still new and exciting, and most importantly: a secret.

A few quiet minutes later, James puts his quill down and stretches his arms over his head, letting out an exaggerated grumbling noise, a habit that Remus finds slightly irritating.

“Hey, Padfoot?” James asks in an offhanded way.

“Mmh?” Sirius murmurs, not bothering to look up from his sketch of a dragon breathing fire on a figure that looks suspiciously like Severus Snape.

“How’s your boyfriend?” James asks casually.

“He’s-“ Sirius glances at Remus automatically, then freezes when he meets amber eyes that are wide with a silent warning.

Sirius’ eyes flick back at James, whose entire face is screaming, “Ha! Got yah.”

“Wait, what? I don’t have a boyfriend!”

“Oh, no?” James arches an eyebrow in disbelief.

Peter puts his unfinished homework down and settles back on the couch to watch the evening’s entertainment.

“No! I think I would tell you if I had a boyfriend.”

“You don’t need to tell me, because I already know.”

Sirius drops his quill in his lap and folds his hands together, eerily similar to how Professor McGonagall does when she knows she’s about to hear a tall tale.

“What is it you think you know?” he asks in a patient tone.

“I know for a fact that you and Remus are seeing each other,” James replies.

“James!” Exclaims Peter, like he’s scolding him for outing an unspoken secret. Which he is.

But Sirius has his wits about him now, and keeps a carefully composed face, lips pulled up in a small smile.

“What makes you say that, Potter?” Sirius asks, adding a little bite to James’ name.

“Well, Black, ” says James, returning the bite in kind, “maybe you’ve forgotten but,” he lowers his voice a little and leans in closer to his friend, “we have a map of the school that shows where everyone is at any given time?”

Remus has to admire how Sirius is able to keep any emotion from showing on his face at this information, like he didn’t even hear it. It’s truly impressive. But he also seems unable to reply, so Remus steps in.

“It’s not a big deal, James, I’ve just been helping Sirius-”

“Yeah I’ll bet you have, Moony,” James says suggestively, with a cheeky grin.

Remus blushes and returns to his book so he can pretend to focus on something else.

“Hey!” Sirius interjects, but immediately regrets showing his obvious dislike of what James was implying when James turns back to him looking rather smug. He continues, more calmly, “I didn’t want to tell you and Pete...but I’ve been having trouble with vanishing spells, so Remus has been helping me practice.”

“Bollocks!” James refutes, “You’ve always been good at charms.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you! It’s embarrassing.”

“That explains it then, Prongs,” Peter says, trying to placate them.

“Thank you, Peter,” Sirius says, and tips an invisible hat to the blond boy.

“Oh come off it!” James jumps back in.

“Come off what?” Sirius asks, his voice rising with indignation. Of course James is right but he’ll be damned if he lets the prat be aware of it. “You think because you saw us together on the map once or twice-“

“Seven times.”

“S-seven times,” Sirius stutters but pushes on, “that we’re suddenly shagging behind your backs?”

“Yes.”

“That’s complete and utter-”

“But it’s not just the map,” James says, straightening up into a more formal position as if he’s about to recite a speech he’s been working on for a long time, and when Sirius sees Peter roll his eyes, he’s fairly sure James has practiced it on him.

“Something has been going on for weeks,” James continues, “You’ve been sneaky and quiet and acting all cute with each other, and going off on your own places,” James turns to Remus now, “and I know Sirius was in your bed at least once because I saw him sneaking back to his own one morning, and we’ve been friends for over five years so if you think I don’t know you two well enough to know when you’re happy and when you’re hiding something, you’re absolute bloody imbeciles.”

Remus and Sirius are quiet for a moment as that sinks in, then open their mouths to speak at the same time.

“What do you mean acting, ‘all cute-’” Sirius asks.

“Sirius was in my bed because I had a nightmare,” Remus states, shooting Sirius a look, “He was just checking if I was alright.”

This makes James pause, chewing on his lip. He knows that it isn’t uncommon for Remus and Sirius to turn to each other when they have nightmares, it had definitely happened before, but he was so sure this had been different. He has a harder time accusing Remus of lying, though, so he decides to address Sirius.

“When I said you’ve been acting all cute with each other, I meant that you’re all affectionate and stuff! And Padfoot,” James looks around the somewhat-busy common room to see if anyone is listening, but they aren’t so he continues, “has been very protective over Moony, lately.”

“That’s true,” Peter says thoughtfully, tapping a finger to his chin as he thinks back to the last couple of full moons.

Remus looks surprised at that and glances at Sirius with questions in his eyes.

“I’ve always been affectionate and protective with him,” Sirius says calmly, but his cheeks are slightly pink and can’t seem to meet Remus’ gaze, “It’s just the way we are.”

“This is different,” James says.

“Nope. You’re wrong,” Sirius says, picking up his quill and going back to doodling as if the matter is closed, “Utterly wrong.”

James crosses his arms petulantly, the frustrated frown on his face displaying how annoyed he is that his friends won’t just tell the truth.

“It’s true, James,” Remus asserts, “There’s nothing going on.”

“Oh, for Merlin’s hairy left b-”

“What’s that, Potter?”

Lily Evans had appeared in the common room as if by apparition, and stood by Sirius’ chair with a bemused expression on her face.

“Er, h-hey Lily,” James stammers as a blush creeps up his neck to the tips of his ears. Sirius rolls his eyes at the way James completely falls apart when this girl they’ve known since she was a tiny, obnoxious Firstie shows up.

The fact that Remus makes Sirius’ brain and insides melt with merely a look is a completely different cauldron of kelpies.

“What are you talking about that’s gotten you so riled up?” She asks with a smile, always enjoying a rattled James Potter, and crosses in front of the fireplace to sit on the arm of Remus’ chair.

She puts a hand on Remus’ shoulder and they smile at each other. Although, Remus’ is a little forced, as he doesn’t particularly want Lily involved in this conversation. They’ve grown to be close friends since becoming prefects last year, and she knows him too well. He’s fairly certain she’s already figured out about him and Sirius.

Remus looks over at Sirius and is surprised at the hostility in his face. He seems to be glaring at Lily, or more specifically, her hand resting on Remus.

Remus sighs loudly, forcing down the urge to roll his eyes, and Sirius’ mouth twitches.

He loves how easily exasperated his boyfriend gets with him.

“I was trying to get these two wankers to admit that they’re seeing each other!” James replies to her.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Lily says matter-of-factly. They all glance at her in surprise (the boys in question looking away quickly so as not to seem too interested, of course).

“What? But you said-” James starts.

“No,” Lily interrupts, “They’re definitely not together.”

Sirius bites his tongue to keep from asking, “Why the hell are you so damn sure?”  

“What makes you say that?” Peter asks, and Sirius reminds himself to be extra nice to Peter tomorrow. Or to at least try to.

“I just don’t think Remus is Black’s type at all, you know? He’s not...” Lily trails off, searching for the right word, “He’s just not really…”

“Not really what?” Sirius demands, forgetting the façade as anger bubbles in him. How dare she imply that Remus isn’t anything?

“Look, as much as I love Remus,” who she throws a pitying look to, and Remus braces for what she’s about to say next, “He’s a...you know... and I just don’t think he’s good enough for you.”

Remus closes his eyes and chuckles, but the sound is drowned out by the explosion that erupts from Sirius.

“WHAT?”  

He’s on his feet, paper and quill knocked to the floor, as conversation in the common room halts and all eyes lock on him.

“Remus John Lupin is the absolute best, most brilliant person in this entire sodding school, you witless wench!”  Sirius bellows, pointing an accusing finger at her while ignoring James’ gasp at how Lily is being spoken to, “And he happens to be exactly my type! Everything about him is my type! He’s beautiful and smart and sexy and funny, and a bloody good kisser, and he makes me very happy, and- and…”

He starts losing steam when he sees the extremely-pleased-with-herself smirk on Lily’s face. His eyes flick to James who goes from looking indignant to surprised to ecstatic at Sirius’ soppy declaration, to Peter who is just dumb-founded, and finally to Remus.

Remus is half covering his bright red face with his hand, attempting to disappear into the fabric of the chair. Sirius hears him laugh softly, though, and his anger is immediately quashed.

“Thanks so much for that, Lily,” Remus says sarcastically.

“You’re welcome,” she says cheerily, planting a kiss on Remus’ forehead. Sirius crosses his arms and frowns. “So predictable, Black,” she continues, shaking her head at him.

“Am not,” he denies, then has the decency to look abashed when adding, “But, you know, you should apologize to Remus for what you said.”

“Oh please, Rem knows I think he’s too good for you. I’ve told him many times.”

“You what?” Sirius looks accusingly at the werewolf.

“I thought she was joking?” Remus replies lamely.

“Lily Evans, you are an absolute genius,” James says, gazing up at her with glazed, adoring eyes. He looks about ready to swoon.

“And you, James Potter, are an absolute moron,” she says simply, “They’ve been hiding this for weeks, and you think they would just come out and say it if you confronted them with it? I told you it wouldn't work. Honestly, you know them better than that,” she adds with a tone like a disappointed school teacher. James could point out that he initially tried to catch Sirius off guard, but he doesn’t seem to want to contradict her. In fact, he seems rather enthralled by her chastising.

“Wait...weeks?” Peter asks in a small voice, looking as lost as he does in Potions.

Lily nods with a smile, rubbing Remus’ shoulder.

Sirius clears his throat and walks over to Remus, figuring he should apologize for blowing their secret, but mostly so he can get Lily away from his sexy boyfriend. He shoos her with a wave of his hands, and she gets up, tossing her hair at him before going to sit in the chair he just vacated.

“Sooorrrry, Mooony,” he croons, then takes the book from Remus’ hand so he can sit down in his lap. Remus’ eyes flash around the room at all the people watching them amusedly, but he rationalizes that there’s no way he could get any more embarrassed than he already is, so settles on sighing and shaking his head.

“You really can be thick sometimes, Sirius Black,” he says teasingly, loosely wrapping his arms around Sirius’ waist.

“Only sometimes,” Sirius says, then his face lights up like he just realized something, “Silver lining, though, Lupin, I can do this now.”

He cups Remus’ cheek, tilting his head up as he leans in and presses their lips together. There are a few cheers and whistles from the other Gryffindors, and Sirius chuckles into Remus’ mouth. Peter and James, however, are busy groaning and dramatically covering their eyes as if they’re witnessing Filch undress.

“Eugh, I don’t want to see that!” James whines.

Sirius pulls away to glare at them, and Remus blushes even more furiously, shooting apologetic looks at their friends. Apparently he could get more embarrassed.

“You wanted to know, James!” Sirius asserts, “You insisted, in fact. Now you have to suffer the consequences.” He turns back to Remus and to pull him in for another kiss.

“Please get a room!” Peter complains.

Sirius detaches their lips again and looks thoughtfully at the blond boy.

“Good idea, Pete,” he grins, “Come along then, my love.”

Remus is sure his face must be about to burst into flames, but he lets Sirius pull him to his feet anyway.

“Oh no,” Peter says, eyes wide, “That’s not what I meant! Please don’t-”

“Don’t worry, mate, we’re only off to work on our vanishing spells,” Sirius replies wickedly, clapping Peter on the shoulder as he drags Remus towards the staircase to the boy’s dorms.

Lily laughs, and Peter looks back at James, who narrows his eyes and crosses his arms.

“Good show, Pettigrew,” he snaps, “Now we can’t go upstairs...bloody ever.”

Lily rolls her eyes at them and gets up from her seat.

“It’s not like they’re going to do anything they haven’t already done in there,” she says, and grins at the horrified looks on the boys’ faces.

Sirius yanks open the door to their room and tugs Remus inside. Remus goes over to sit on the edge of his bed, quirking an eyebrow as Sirius locks the door with his wand. Sirius turns and walks over to him with a sheepish smile playing on his lips.

“Vanishing spells?” Remus asks, his voice full of poorly-suppressed humour as he looks up at Sirius and opens his knees for Sirius to stand between them.

“An excellent cover-up!” Sirius replies, placing his hands on Remus’ shoulders.

“You panicked.”

“I might have panicked.”

Sirius smiles as Remus laughs at him, his favourite sound in the world. “I didn’t like how Lily-”

“The witless wench?”

“The witless wench- was talking about you.”

“I appreciate you defending me,” Remus says with genuine affection in his voice, then slides his hands slowly up Sirius’ thighs, “It was rather sexy.”

Sirius bites his lip, enjoying where this seems to be going. “You know what, Moony?”

“What, Padfoot?”

“I wouldn’t mind practising a vanishing spell on your trousers right about now.”

He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and Remus falls back onto the bed with a groan, throwing an arm over his face.

“What a line,” he grumbles, but Sirius can tell he’s laughing.

Sirius climbs onto the bed, straddling Remus with one knee on either side of his hips.

“Did it work?” He asks, pulling the other boy’s arm down so he can look into his eyes.

“Absolutely not.”

Sirius frowns. “Is the spark gone now that everyone knows?”

“Yes. It’s completely gone. I was only with you because of the sneaking around.”

“Git,” Sirius says, poking Remus in the ribs, “I’m going to make you pay for that.”

“Oh yeah?” Remus’s eyes light up with mischief, “How?”

“Take your trousers off and you’ll find out.”

“Take them off for me.”

“Can’t. We never actually practiced the spell.”

Remus growls and pulls Sirius’ head down to kiss him hard, effectively ending the banter.

*

Half an hour later, James and Peter are standing on the other side of the closed door, trying to discern if it’s safe or not to go inside. When they hear whispering and a muffled moan, James turns to Peter and glares at him, lightly smacking the back of his head. They begrudgingly stomp back down to the common room to settle on the couch, for what will no doubt be a long night of homework.

*

[mitamicah]

Spoilers from both Trollhunters the book and Trollhunters the series!

While reading the book I was really impressed with how many differences there were between the character so I have worked on giving my take on six characters from both media, book vs series, and how they differ from each other :3 

I should mention that while there was illustrations in the book I tried for the challenge not to copy those but follow along the describtions in the book - when possible - to give my own interpretation of the characters ^v^ 

Steve

First up we have Steve. Starting out as the stereotypical bully in both version their paths seperates quickly resulting in two different ending for the musuclar blond Jorgensen-Warner is the book version of Steve. Here's how he is described from our first encounter with him: "He was handsome but in the oddest way- He eyes were too small and his nose piggish: he had a ridiculous amount of hair and a couple of teeth that looked like fangs. Yet somehow in combination these features were sort of mesmerising. His unnatural muscular bulk and odd way of speaking -crisply, politely, as if he were a foreign student who had learned English in class - completed the strange package." page 21-22 For his outfit I went with the description of him on page 224 "[my clothes] ... didn't cast me in the best light when compared to Steve Jorgensen-Warner, who looked rather rakish in blue jeans and a shirt - definitely not a blouse - opened to the third button. He dribbled the ball casually with his left hand." The bold passages is added by me   This Steve is later revealed to be a changeling aka a troll   Before we go on: can any of you explain to me what a "ridiculous amount of hair" even means :'D? I had a lot of trouble with this prompt because isn't this so darn subjective :'D? and the official art look way less ridiculous than I'd figure it'll be :'D x'D Palchuk is the series version of Steve. His facial appearance being way less specific (I'd say he has normal sized eyes, a big roman nose and some more or less normal teeth) and his way of speaking is definitely not polite. Like book Steve, this Steve starts out with pushing smaller guys into lockerrooms yet after that he becomes way less of a terrifying bully and much more of a silly goose who brings a lot of the comic relief in my opinion Douxie says it best in Wizards when he calls Steve the "village idiot" x'D I do not recall seeing Steve being that sporty in the show, he is much more interested in becoming homecoming king  no basketballs around x'D While book Steve is revealed to be the enemy (a troll) series Steve joins the "good guys" creating the creepslayerz with the character Eli Pepperjack

Blinky

Blinky is just called Blinky in the book  Here's a bit of description of him "The third [troll] had scarlet eyes, eight of them on long stems. (...) The thing from my house glided toward me with a surprising grace for something with an indetermined number of legs, all of which were hidden behind a patched kilt scaled with layers of medals, prizes and trophies and award ribbons. An incalculable tangle of tentacles twined around one another as if dying to squeese something to death. As it passed the oven, the firelight revealed olive-green skin, reptilian texture, and lacquer of slime lubricating its undulating appendages Its moth a horizontal gash.. " The bold passages is added by me   So yeah this Blinky is quite something :'D I stopped caring to draw tentacles after a while but overall this was silly but fun to draw  since his teeth later is described as big as traffic cones I believe he must be very tall :'D Also he's close to blind   Has a bit of a dirty mouth but in a very "read" way if it makes sense :'D cannot seem to stop calling Jim dimwitted and tiny and Tobias big :'D Blinky's full name in the series is Blinkus Galadrigal  he has six eyes instead of eight and they are all working just fine, thank you very much x'D His tons of tentacles and legs has been replaced by four arms and two legs and while he is still olive-green he is now made of tone like texture just like the other trolls  the kilt turned into shorts and he is quite a bit smaller now not even as tall as Jim  He still has this very academic way of speaking yet he is way nicer to Jim calling him "Master Jim" instead of "the short one" x'D

ARRRGH!!!

Book ARRGHHH!!!s full name is Johannah Mmmm ARRRGH!!! and she is a pretty big deal warrior among the trolls in the book - she's so badass in fact Blinky has decided to call her by her last name to honor her for her deeds for trollkind   Here's a qoute from the book describing her appearance   "The goliath emerged from the tunnel as comfortably as a dog from a doghouse, coarse black fur pouring into the chamber before I could make out any actual arms or legs (...) Even beneath the fur I could see loops of muscles flexing. (...) ARRRGH!!! was built like a gorilla but three times larger: Two arms, two legs, and, thankfully, just two eyes. Horns, curled like those of a ram (...) The thing's orange eyes cast about with animal perceptiveness, and it used its snout and sniffed. Its jaws fell open to reveal a purple, slavering mouth armed with haphazard daggers of teeth." Page 75-76 The bold passages is added by me   (Also worth mentioning: the qoute is from before the protagonist knows of ARRRGH!!!'s gender which is why he calls her an 'it') At other times in the story we learn that ARRRGH! has quite scarred arms and really wishes for better tooth hygeine; so much so that Tobias actually end up making her a brace out of chicken wire :'D Idk I find it quite adorable :'D Now unto the serie's ARRRGH!!! - first up he is male, his name is Arghaumont and he is famous for another reason than Johannah: he was a general of Gunmar but retreated from the war making him a traitor to his people yet a hero for the good trolls in the series. Series ARRRGH!!! is likewise built like a gorilla but made of stone and having a mane long and green like it is moss  his horns is way smaller and less curvy and his teeth hygeine is never brought up  also his face is way less dog like x'D 

Tobias 

Book Tobias' full name is Tobias M. Dershowitz yet he is going by 'Tubby' or 'Tub'. Here is a describtion of him from the book: "You could call Tobias Dershowitz chubby, if you were being cute, or husky if you were being diplomatic. The fact is he was fat, and that was only the beginning of his problems. His hair was a thick, orange, out-of-control hedge. His face spilled over with the kind of freckles that make kids like Tub look like overgrown toddlers. Worst of all were his braces, marvels of modern torment: whips of stainless steel crisscrossing each tooth seperately and lashed to a dozen silver fasteners. The braces clicked so much when he spoke, you expected sparks. At least he was tall..." page 27 The bold passages is added by me   The outfit I went with is described on page 259 like this: "He stood in the driveway decked out in his best approximation of a ninja: black tennis shoes, black sweatpants, a black hoodie, a belt made from a red curtain sash, and an oversize fanny pack holding his gear (...) It was unfortunate that the fanny pack was lime green..." To describe Tub is a bit difficult because sadly he is not much in the story as I'd liked - mostly he is being quite serious and let us know he is not happy by being sidelined not speaking troll nor being invited on hunts which I completely understand tbh :'D What I do find interesting is how Tub and series Jim has seem to have switched roles a little bit: In the series Jim is the one giving a speech about how he is insecure about his place in life and how he wants more - in the book this is Tub in more than one occassion: "We have to accept who we are. And before you ask, I'll tell you. We're nobody. We have no life. We have nothing to look forward to. We're not special. I just want it to go away. All of it. The stupid being scared. Doesn't it seem we've been scared forever?" page 37 "Jim, you're wrong. We were meant to do this. This is exactly what we've been waiting for. They've chosen us. Of all people! Us! (...) Jesus, Jim, take a look at my life! You know what I'm worth! To anyone? Zero! Nothing! I'm a fat loser and will always be a fat loser. Until this. This is like a present. Full of, man, I don't know. Hope?..." page 196 (talking about trollhunting here btw) Oh yeah and book Tobias gets this badass scene where he uses his dentist's tool to kill trolls I loved that   Now series Tobias is way different :'D first up his name is Tobias Domzalski and his nicknames are Toby and Tobes. He is way shorter and has more neat hair (what is it with the series neating up the hair :'D? x'D). He also seems way cheerier and pretty happy with his place in life more or less  Unlike Tub, Toby is in it from the start being an important player in the story   He doesn't have the same drive to be something more than he is as Tub has instead Toby is going with the flow starting out quite afraid of everything troll and ended up being as brave as the rest of the team *tbh Jim's scared out of his wits too so they mimic each other x'D* Where Tub has dentist tools Toby gets a badass hammer so I'll say its an upgrade  

Claire

First off we have Claire Fontaine, a foreign student from no other than Scotland with a taste for military clothing and liqourice   Here's how she's described in the book   "She tucked her long dark hair behind her ear and left ir with an adorable smudge of white dust. I thought she was beautiful, though she wasn't in the classic sense. The popular girl would say she wasn't skinny enough. They would also point to the fact that she didn't wear makeup or do anything to tame that hair. And her clothes -well, what could be said about her clothes? Her boots were not sexy and knee-high: in fact, they were ankle-high and rubber-soled and looked picked from military surplus racks, an array of pea-green coats and multi-coloured slacks, all of which looked as if they'd been through actual World War II combat. And that beret she wore before and after school wasn't of the look-at-me-I'm Frensh variety: it was more in the style of I'm-going-to-invade-your-country-and-be-your-new-dictator. Only one thing didn't make sense: that bright pink, exceedingly girlish backpack that inexplicably hadn't one anti-establidh patch sewn onto it (...) Oh, I forgot to mention that Claire Fontain came from the UK. That's right- the girl had an accent. I think you are starting to get the picture." page 30-1 The bold passages is added by me It is hinted at that Claire is quite tall and a great deal taller than Jim (more when I get to him) and she is actually a whole year older than Jim since they both have birthday May 2 but Claire is 16 while Jim is 15  Since Trollhunters in this story is not a "protected title" (aka the chosen hero type) Claire ends up being one herself even though nobody even herself didn't know: AND. SHE. KICKS. BUTT! She's even better than the guy that had 40+ years experience so yeah safe to say she's badass :'D Even before that she has a hilarious scene calling out Steve in the wildest shitstorm of Scottish slang I lived for it x'D She's described quite a few times with lots of bracelets, sometimes made of wire so I gave her a bit of both   She's not really a part of the popular group but has her own thing going on   Now onto Claire Nuñez the series' version of this badass   Here Claire is hispanic and pretty much one of the most popular girls seen around  her style is way more ... I've called it punk rock in purple but Idk exactly what to call it x'D she's shorter than Jim and slimmer looking than her book counterpart   She enters the story not as a trollhunter but as a victim of having her brother stolen by changelings and as time progresses she becomes a fastlearning and quite competent sorcerer dealing in shadow magic   Unlike Fontaine, Nuñes is seen wearing make up, shorter hair with dye in it and hair clips instead of bracelets  

Jim 

First up we have book Jim. His full name is James Sturges Jr. and lives with his single parent, his dad, after his mother went away the day before his birthday in start May and never returned. Sturges Sr. had been traumatized loosing his brother to trolls although none of the characters didn't know this yet - only Senior had seen the creatures making him paranoid and in turn making Jim very embarrased about his father. At the same time Jim seems to honestly worry for his father and his behavior too makes Jim very cautious and fearful a character. Book Jim is pretty much a typical teenager for the most part  He is seen to be a tad clumsy and not exactly brave really. And the author's choice of basically not describing him anywhere made my job way harder trying to be book accurate :'D So I've mostly inspired him of the official illustrations in the book   Here's what I could find about our little trollhunter   First off: he's a short fellow  that is first mentioned on page 14; "Sunshine is important for growing boys." (...) "I am not growing" I took after my dad when it came to size and was still waiting for that growth spurt everyone kept raving about. "In fact I think I'm shrinking." This is brought up most of everything Jim through the movie from him not being able to reach a point of a chalkboard (page 32) to people's dissapointing sighs taking meassurements when he is chosen as Romeo (107) and him wearing super high heels for the same reason (224) but also Blinky directly calling him a "little fellow" (page 127) On page 27 we learn that he is getting a bruise on his chin after being slammed into his locker by Steve  Lockers he has been thrown into enough to have learned to open them on the inside :'D He is a skinny fella which Tobias so politely call "lack of muscletone" due to "glandular" at page 120 He is not very good at anything describing his room full of stuff from hobbies he tried and failed at (page 63) The longest describtion about his appearance is probably page 105: "I lowered my eyes and regarded the chewed, dirty fingernails holding my script, thes scuffed shoes on my feet, and realized that these were the symbols of my pityful life: worn-out, insignificant, ready to be thrown beneath Dad's industrial mower" It pretty much says it all when this is the longest quite I could find :'D For the outfit I mostly went by the small describtion on page 89-90: "I tucked the medallion beneath my shirt. After a full day of wearing it, maybe the rest of the suffocating fear would go away too. My plan was to dart into the kitchen, grab my sweatshirt and be out of the house. " I added jeans since he is said to wear jeans on page 283 - the medallion sneak out beneath the sweatshirt/shirt on page 97 which is why I added it on top here as well   Now since there's a bit more to both versions of Jim due to their role as the protagonist I've added in a little extra features here being the medallion in the book vs the amulet in the series and the weaponry given to the characters   For Sturges we have the medallion who's described like this: "It was a bronze medallion conntected to a rusty chain. It was engraved with a foreboding crest: a hideous, snarling face; indecipherable markings of a sevage language, and a magnificent long-sword across the bottom." page 9 The medallion is treated like it is a common artefact if a bit rare in the book - its purpose is to translate trollspeak for the wearer. Jim is giving two swords in the book; a rusty longsword he calls Clairesword (do I need to explain this one?) and a cutlass he calls Cat #6 after the one cat at Tobias' house that liked Jim  x'D For Sturges' personality my feeling about him is that he is a bit more ... passive than his series counterpart. He is not really standing up for himself that much and would rather blend into the background. This qoute from Claire sums him up pretty nicely I believe   "You're a good person, Mr. Sturges. A bit gloomy, but good" page 246 I do like that Jim in this version is a Taurus  (I am a taurus too x'D) born on May 2nd so that's a plus   It is probably also worth mentioning that in this world trollhunters aren't a chosen hero type like in the series: trollhunters or paladin was once a title held by many warriors yet now there's very few left. Sturges was a proud paladin family making Jim a chosen candidate for the honor of becoming a trollhunter but he is not the only one - or even the best - in the book. In fact out of the three trollhunters we learn about I'll say Jim is the weakest (and he is not even the least trained; ouch :'D) Jim doesn't get a nice armour like his series counterpart either but is seen in the illustrations wearing a blue hoodie (like the one in the little doodle)   The full name of Jim in the series is James Lake Jr. He is the child of a single parent and lives with his mother whom Jim "mothers a lot" (Tobias' words in the first episode) This Jim is pretty "tall for his age" (Jim's own words uttered quite a few times across all three series) yet with quite skinny legs (he is called out for this by multiple characters). He is much more competent in life than his book counterpart being an exceptional cook, good at Spanish, seemingly alright in PE and at school he seems to stand pretty good if only holding himself back. Unlike book Jim, series Jim seems much more active and longing to be something more than he is - he is seen to be quite brave and protective of his friends, very kind and selfless. Also even from the start he seems much more nimble than his book counterpart being able to climb the robe (a feat book Jim didn't do before later) and with his training as trollhunter he becomes even more badass   Trollhunter status in the series is way more important since the title is given to only one chosen warrior of Merlin chosen by the amulet of daylight (the medallion in the book). This also makes the amulet way more special and important in the series which probably explains its shine up from rusty bronze thing to silver and blue. While Lake Jr doesn't have named sword he does have a magical armour and sword made of daylight   We do not know the exact birthday of Lake Jr but the creators have replied to a fanquestion saying it would be around fall especially October so by that estimate Jim is probably a scorpio  pretty far from the before mentioned taurus in the book   While Jim Lake Jr isn't seen with long lasting bruises in the original series he does get two more permanent scars in Wizards  

[sailorshadzter]

The pain is quite unlike anything she's felt before.

It's a sucker punch, pain that steals the breath from her lungs and the warmth from her heart. She stands there in the courtyard, watching as the dead are brought in from the battlefield, though beneath her skirts her knees wobble, threatening to give way. Across the way Daenerys comes, blood stained and clutching a sword, her eyes searching for the man that now approaches Sansa. Daenerys comes to a halt where she stands, just for a moment, to watch as the young woman turns at the sound of Jon's approaching footsteps. She turns away before she can see their embrace.

"... Sansa... I'm so-" he's silenced as she throws her arms around him, uncaring of the many pairs of eyes that witness it. He swallows, closing his eyes against the rising tide of emotion within him. She was alive, she was alive. "Sansa..." It's her name there on his lips, like a prayer, the one single thought he's had all battle long. The thought of her, every piece of her, has been what's kept him going, kept him fighting. Knowing that in the end he'd hold her like this again.

Over his shoulder she finally raises her gaze and it's Arya coming now, battered and broken, but alive. Pulling back from Jon, she meets his gray eyes and gives the smallest of smiles, though her eyes are full of tears. "Thank you," she whispers, because she knows it is Jon that has brought them here- even if he did not strike the final blow, it was because of Jon that their family came through alive. Jon opens his mouth to protest, but she presses her fingers to his lips, silencing him once again. His touch lingers at the small of her back, warm despite the layers of wool she wears. "We can be a family now." She draws her hand back, though Jon takes hold of it with his own. "A real family."

Jon knows the war is not yet over, but he will give her this moment, for he wants it just as badly as she does.

She's gone from his arms then, instead she's hugging her baby sister and Arya does not protest. Instead, Jon watches as she sinks into her sister's embrace, while Bran smiles that wane, almost eerie smile at him from his place beside them. Jon comes closer and for a moment, the four remaining Stark children stand there in the courtyard of Winterfell, each one grasping for the hand of another. They had lived... And now the world would come to know what it meant to cross a wolf.

[ x x x ]

The fire crackles in the heart, golden and warm.

He's to be downstairs shortly, for the feast was to begin; a feast which would celebrate both those who had lived and those who had sacrificed their lives in battle. There's a part of him that wishes he might just stay within his rooms, but he knows of all people he must place himself among the others in the great hall. Besides, he figures after a few mugs of ale he might feel more like feasting.

A knock comes.

"It's open," he calls, thinking it to be Davos come to hurry him along. He's tugging on his new doublet when he hears the door open and as he turns, he finds it's not Davos at all, rather, it's Sansa and she looks as if she's stepped out of a dream. Her gown is of a rich fabric that looks black, but as she moves, the firelight reflects the blue-green color that the gown truly is. "You look..." He begins, unable to take his eyes from her, his stare bringing a rosy glow to her cheeks. "You look beautiful." Finally he finds the words.

"Thank you," she says with a soft laugh, hands outstretching so she might adjust his hastily placed clothes. "You look handsome, as well," she goes on, her one hand remaining in it's place pressed against his chest; against her palm she can feel the flutter of his heartbeat. "I thought we might go down together, since Arya... Well, you know how Arya is." It's Jon's turn to chuckle, knowing quite well it would be highly unlikely that he saw his youngest sister in the hall at all that night. He sobers then, for the thought of Arya reminds him... Of what still yet lays unspoken between them. "What are you thinking about?" It's Sansa's voice cutting in. bringing him back as it always does.

Jon freezes; the words... The words are there on the tip of his tongue, right where they've been ever since Sam told him the truth. He wants to tell her, he needs to tell her, but... Once he does, Jon knows everything will change. Nothing would ever be the same again, not once the truth was there in the open. But, as he stares into her soft blue eyes, he finds the strength to speak. "Sansa... There's something I must tell you." He admits, quietly, his hand rising up to take hold of hers. "It's about my father... And my mother." She tilts her head in silent confusion, but does not speak, rather waits for Jon to explain.

And so he does.

When he finishes, she's staring at him with wide eyes, her mouth hanging open in her shock. "Then that means..." She begins, her mind reeling with the words Jon has spoken to her. The truth of his birth, of just where he'd come from. "You're our cousin," she says, surprising him, for he was waiting for her to speak those same, ill-fated words that Sam had; you're the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms. "I told you that you're a Stark," she suddenly says, laughing softly as she takes a step closer to him.

Jon lets out the breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding. "Aye, so you did," he says, suddenly feeling light and warm without the weight of his secret. "I should listen to you more often, I suppose," he says, adopting a tone that matches hers, his words bringing a smirk to her face. She's closer now, though he doesn't know how that's even possible...

"I believe I've told you that before," she's saying and he's nodding.

They've been here before- numerous times, in truth. But its always ended with pounding hearts and racing pulses. It's never gone further than fleeting touches and wandering stares, though there was always a part of them both that wanted it to. "I'll listen now," he says and she's so close now that he can feel the curve of her lips as she grins.

"Kiss me."

And he does, without hesitation.

[docholligay]

An Overwatch Christmas Carol: Stave III---The Second of the Spirits

Hello there! The third part of this is up up up, and at 11,000 words I know it’s long, so if you wanted to read it in parts that’s great and okay! I worked hard on this and I hope you like it! 

Her alarm struck, though she had not set it, and she felt at her own body as she awoke from the horrible nightmare. 

Ana, like most people of her ilk, believed herself ready in any moment for any sort of thing that came her way, that she could master it, and tolerate it, and come out victorious. So have all of us, in a moment where we are very courageous in our own homes and beds, said that same. And so despite the harrowing nature of what she had just experienced, it seemed to Ana Amari that anything between a children’s choir and an army might have been just as expected. 

But what Ana was most unnerved by, and utterly unprepared for, was nothing. The alarm sounded, and still it stayed dark, a cold, and quiet, just as her room had always been, and no matter how many times she looked over to the clock, at five, ten, or twenty minutes, still the same nothing answered her back. This was enough to make her brave, as it might us all, and so she spat her words into the darkness. 

“Ridiculous.” 

There was a light from the other room, at that, peeking and shining under the door with a brilliance Ana did not know.. The apartment in Brixton was tiny and dark, and would never have been accused of any manner of warmth by anyone, and yet now the light coming from the living room was golden and warm, dancing light firelight on the walls despite there being no fireplace anywhere near the building. 

“Right then!” There was a chipper, high voice from the other room, “Come on! Christmas is ‘alf over already!” 

Ana stepped out of bed, creeping toward the door. There had been Jack, and there had been Reinhardt, and despite herself, it was getting harder and harder to pretend that it was all something in her mind. And she knew that voice, had known it for more years than semed reasonable, when she reflected upon it. 

She turned the corner into the living room. There was a tree brightly festooned with ornaments and tinsel, and while it might not have been the finest tree in the world it had clearly been dressed with great enthusiasm. There were stockings hung from the edge of the window, carefully nailed in, mismatched and well-loved. The room rang with an echo of laughter, almost as a chorus, but one voice above them all. 

And, on what had been her coffee table, now grown long and covered with a white cloth, a grand feast, ham with a rich, shiny, glaze, turkey overflowing with stuffing, rich turnip and parsnip gratin, dripping with sauce, bowls full of roasted potatoes and mashed potatoes, pigs in blankets, Yorkshire puddings, and mince pies with brandy butter. 

Tracer sat cross-legged on the end of it, in a bright green sweater, which looked thick and soft even from this distance, a crown of red and green gold star tinsel, mixed here and there with  jingle bells, on her head. There was a Christmas pudding in front of her, and she popped a bit into her mouth before she looked up and saw Ana. She swallowed, licked the fork, and grinned. 

“Right then.” She set down the plate, and leapt to her feet, “Come on! Christmas is ‘alf over already!” 

Ana opened her mouth to protest, but if she had to hear another lecture about narrative structure and known mythologies, she was going to lose whatever was left of her mind. Besides, she had little belief that Tracer would care much about her own feelings on Christmas, and even smaller still was that small pang of regret, the part from last Christmas still dancing in her mind. 

“You already said that.” She allowed. 

Tracer stood up straight for a moment, and considered, hand at her chin. “I did, didn’t I?” she laughed. “Was right both times!” 

Lena Oxton had died. Ana knew this. She knew it in the same way that she knew Jack had died, and Reinhardt had died, and she had attended their funerals, and she had seem them burned or buried. But Tracer’s death was newer to her, having been an interruption to the month of November, the dirt on her grave not quite settled. 

It was as, well, unsettling, as her encounter with Reinhardt had been. The room seemed to respond to her, the lights twinkling when she laughed, the smell of the Christmas feast following her about the room like a cologne. The flames seemed to dance and she bopped about the place, and it was only in that moment, Tracer’s eyes glittering brightly, that Ana noticed something. 

She wore no chronal accelerator. Ana never would have remembered her without it. 

Too much. Draw back. 

“You look fairly good, for someone who has been dead for six weeks.” Ana snorted. 

Tracer’s eyes narrowed, and the cheer left her face. 

“Don’t get smart with me Ana, not in the mood.” She scowled, “Doing this for Jack, because I said I would, so I did, and I’m a woman of me word. But don’t think I particularly feel any sorrow over the idea of you spending the rest of your life alone. I don’t, not a drop.” 

Ana opened her mouth for a moment, and then reconsidered. The image of Jack in her mind, of him somehow gathering this group of people beyond the grave to help her, the constant reiteration that this was her last chance, somehow for once in her life, Ana Amari could not come up with some sharp rebuke. 

She looked straight ahead, and frowned, adjusting her scarf. “The night will be over before you know it, so, let’s go.” 

Tracer nodded. “Right then.” She snapped her fingers, and the two them exploded into sparks against the night, rushing off into the present. 

They were outside as the morning sun shone brightly through the streets of London, even the fog feeling it must cast away into the night and not disturb the sacred joy of that beautiful and crisp day. There was the smallest dust of snow on the ground, though you would have been forgiven for thinking it was so much more for the delight in children’s eyes as they gazed out of their windows. 

Tracer ran down the sidewalk, jumped, grabbed onto a pole and swung back toward Ana, all in one swift motion, landing right in front of her, eyes glittering. 

“Christmas morning!” She gestured grandly, London caught in a sort of pause, the hurry Ana was used to at seven am only a distant memory. “‘appy Christmas, London!” 

Tracer rushed over to where a bunch of pigeons were cuddled on the eave of a window, and pulled two large handfuls of birdseed out of her pockets, tossing it all in front of them. 

“‘Appy Christmas, little ones!” 

“Did you just have that--” 

But Tracer was already off, running through the sidewalks and stopping wherever she found someone to greet. A happy Christmas to the little dog with a biscuit, a happy Christmas to his owner with a box of tea, pulled from that same pocket. A happy Christmas to the nurse just walking to home, hoping her husband could distract the kids long enough so she could see them open presents, a gift card to the Pret by the hospital pressed into her hand even as she looked confused. A happy Christmas to the bus driver with a bottle of scotch, rested by his side with bow. . 

Eventually, Tracer seemed to realize herself, and broke into a laugh that seemed to ripple through the street, the lights glowing a touch brighter as she did it, even the icy lace on the windows seeming to glitter just a little more brightly as she dashed back toward Ana. 

“Right, right, I,” She dramatically paused in front of Ana, “Love Christmas. But you don’t ‘ave to!” She interrupted Ana’s protest, “For that isn’t the real point, not ‘ere, is it?” 

“Giving people all these things, but,” Ana shook her head. “Is the point that people will be driven into debt over it? That it’s an excuse to press honest people into working more and harder, and later? The Christmas spirit, for sale at Mark and Spencer’s.” 

“Marks and Spencer, but I’ll allow it.” She rocked back on her heels. “There are plenty of people who don’t understand the meaning of what Christmas is, and often they’re the ones with the biggest trees, and that’s the God’s honest truth. What I show you ‘ere? Ought to be in every day. Every where. Because it isn’t about any ‘oliday, or turkey, or nothing. Is it, Ana Amari?” 

She drew something out of her pocket, a small gold book,, maybe the size of a credit card, and she flipped it open before pressing it into Ana’s hand. A picture of her and Pharah, Pharah only a baby, long ago and oh so far away. They both looked so different. So full of promise. 

“Come on, Ana, there is just so much to see.” 

She looked up from it only to realize that they were inside someone’s living room, parents looking at each other with tired eyes as a little girl ran happily around a dollhouse, placing the furniture in this room or that. 

“Up all night constructing it, they was,” She shook her head, the bells tinkling, “but it ‘ardly matters. Was all she wanted, right?” 

Tracer drew something out of her pocket, and knelt down next to the girl’s dollhouse, nearly nose to nose with her. Ana, whatever Reinhardt might think, had listened to him, and assumed the same was true here, that they could neither see nor hear the two of them, but the girl paused and looked in Tracer’s direction with such intensity that Ana wondered for a moment. Tracer put something in her palm, and closed her hand around it, smiling. 

Tracer jumped back up next to Ana and threw an arm around her, Ana shrugging it off just as quickly as the little girl opened her hand. 

“Look! Mummy! Daddy! It’s a kitty just like Patch! I didn’t seen it before oh it’s just like her!” 

Her parents looked confused, each looking at the other, but the little girl was radiant in that moment of joy, and though Ana refused to look over at Tracer, she could feel the happiness pouring  off her. 

“I don’t know what you--”

“Next!”

But Tracer’s fingers snapped again, and they found themselves back in Brixton, outside of Ana’s apartment building with the falling, tattered awnings over crumbling bricks at windows. It was nothing to look at, but at least it was a place to sleep, and that was all the more Ana thought of it. It looked particularly dreary, if she were being honest, today, where she could see the scraps of Christmas trees in windows, and plenty without, people like her who didn’t participate in the nonsense of Christmas, who were fully cognizant that nothing changed on one day, no matter when that day was. 

“Up she goes!” 

Tracer grinned brightly, jumped on top of a dumpster out back, and grabbed onto the drainpipe, the tinsel in her hair shimmering in the dim morning light, throwing off stars into the daytime. She quickly began to shimmy up, humming “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” as she did so. 

“Tracer,” She crossed her arms and stared up at her, “I have a key.” 

“...You better not pout, I’m telling you why,” Another pull up the pipe, “Lena Claus is coming, to town,” she looked back down at Ana and shook her head merrily, “No you don’t! Left it in your room, then, didn’t you?” 

She did not wait for an answer, simply started back up the pipe, as Ana felt for a pocket that she realized wasn’t there. 

“Tracer.” 

“What?” She turned around, swinging out with one arm, “Bit too old for this, Amari? I could do it all day.” 

Ana huffed, but scrambled up onto the top of the dumpster and grabbed the pipe. 

“Death has done wonders for you health, but not your attitude, Oxton!” 

Tracer nodded. “That IS true.” 

Ana began to climb behind her, grumbling as her hands tried to gain purchase on the cold drainpipe, her hands aching with the swell in her knuckles. Feeling her age, a bit, but also feeling a bit of something else, something she could not quite place. She looked up at Tracer above her, still climbing, toward the third floor, occasionally giving a bit of a bounce, or a swing. 

Perhaps it was a bit....bad. It was true, that Tracer was well in a way Ana had not seen her in more than a year, and that was all she had said. But there was a sudden realization that Tracer so loved this moment, with a glowing smile and a song on her lips, because she was still basking in the joy of what it was to have her body obey her again, just as it had for years. It felt unkind, even if it wasn’t unfair, to criticize her for it, and she could not remember having had the feeling much before, least of all with Tracer. 

“....Just you wait, poppet, got all her gifts ‘ere in her back trouser pocket, Lena Claus is coming to town…” 

Ana struggled to pull herself up, slipping a bit on the iciness of the pipe. 

Maybe not that bad. 

“That doesn’t rhyme!” Another small slip, and a scowl as one of her slippers dangled off her foot. 

“Slant rhyme, innit?” Tracer looked in a window, “Good enough for Shakespeare, good enough for me. ‘Ere we are!” She cocked her head and laughed down to Ana, her nose wrinkling, with its spray of freckles gathering like bunches of holly, those lights in all the windows bouncing again, along with her. 

Ana slipped again, and felt her foot give way, but with a snap of Tracer’s fingers, they were inside a beige-walled apartment much like Ana’s, same layout, same unloveable carpet, same cheap seaming at the windows, but oh, so much more crowded. Not that it was particularly hard to do, but Ana looked at a man and a woman, sitting on their small threadbare couch together, a toddler sitting on the woman’s lap as the two of them directed the three other little children around the tiny apartment, with only a small smattering of toys to distract them. 

Despite this, the apartment felt warmer than Ana’s own ever had, more filled with light despite the bareness of the walls, and maybe it was only the smile between the parents and their children, or maybe it was the chatter in a language Ana did not know, but knew the feeling of without having to understand the meaning, but somehow she felt a certain twinge of what she had felt all those years ago in that miserable military camp, all those Christmases ago. 

She resented it. 

“I suppose I’m supposed to be amazed it’s Christmas here, too?” She glanced sidelong at Tracer. 

Tracer jumped up onto the back of the couch and sat there, cross-legged, shaking her head. “Ana, s’not Christmas here, they’re Muslim, don’t you notice anything? Thought you was,” she made her hands into claws, “the Shrike!” 

Ana glowered, unable to decide if she were more annoyed at herself or at Tracer, and glanced around. Of course she would have noticed, if she had a moment, if she hadn’t been waiting for whatever lesson Tracer meant to lay upon her. 

“Our point in being here, isn’t Christmas at all, as I said.” Tracer pointed to the both of them. “Inconvenienced by Christmas more than anything, they are. All the schools closed, all the meal programs off or offering a bit of ‘am, nothing really to make them keep the slightest bit merry in all the world. But...look at them. ‘Appy to spend the day with their little family.  New to London, right, and filled with something like the Christmas spirit. And that, Ana, is ‘ope. That, Ana, is universal.” 

Ana huffed. “They have nothing.” she pointed her chin to the kitchen, where daal and rice cooked, spiced carefully and beautifully, “Such a meager feast.” 

“But very appreciated!” Tracer jumped off the back of the couch and shuffled toward the tiny corner of the apartment that served for a kitchen. “She’s been working plenty ‘ard, for the meal they ‘ave here. Everyone knows it.” 

The family chattered happily, even as the father had to rise and place a sweater in the sill of the window to keep out the chill from the cold wind that dared to slip inside, and even as the mother smiled sadly toward the large pan on the stove, her eyes full of wishing for something else. But neither of those small, tiny regrets seemed to be able to steal the joy they had at simply being with their children, despite missing a day’s work, despite missing out on the childcare, despite all the things Ana might have laid, not unfairly, at Christmas’ feet, a sense of pleasantness seemed to endure, like cider hanging in the air long after the drink is gone. 

“I--” Ana began to say something, something in the back of her mind, and then shook it away. 

Tracer nodded, as if knowing that the bounds of this room had been reached in their capacity to teach her student. 

“Need to see something a bit more familiar, don’t you? Come on then!” Tracer walked over to the door, and opened it, ushering Ana through, who came along, though grumbling. 

Tracer reached into her pocket and materialized a large cardboard tray, laden so heavily with delicacies that Tracer had to catch it with her other hand. Biryani chock full of meat, paratha so decadent that it looked as if it might melt under the simple wave of Tracer’s hand, sweet rice smelling richly of cinnamon and raisins, and things Ana did not even know, but made her feel a pang of jealousy and hunger all the same. 

Tracer went to knock on the door, thought a moment, and as a sparkle fell from her fingertips, she drew a Christmas pudding out of her pocket, sauce dripping over the sides, nuts and fruits bright on the top. 

“Just so as to welcome them to the neighborhood, try something new, as well.” 

She set it down with the rest of the food, and then knocked. There was a call from inside and the swiftest patter of feet as a little boy rushed and opened it, even as his father rose from the couch to call after him. At seeing Tracer, his eyes grew wide, but Tracer smiled as she put a finger to her lips, and with one last slip into that pocket, took out a 100 pound note and tucked it next to the pudding. 

She turned and quickly went down the hallway, giggling as the father looked all about the place, unable to see anything at all, while the little boy broke into a bright smile himself, and waved. 

Ana found herself waving back, and then stopped herself when she saw Tracer, hands in her pockets, grinning with such a luminosity that Ana would have sworn the hallway was brighter than it had ever dared to be. 

“So you are what, Noel Baba now? Must be nice, to be so easily loved.” 

“Oh!” She slid down the bannister, and at the end, let herself fall into a somersault and popped back up to her feet in one smooth motion. “I’d love to be Father Christmas, really! But of course, no, there’s no real Father Christmas, so near as I know, but, we all sort of are, right? Father Christmas, and all of us spirits, can only come once a year, and so how lucky and powerful can we be? You, on the other ‘and, ‘ave seen that family at the little mail cubbies for six months now, innit?” 

And did not reply, but it was certainly true, that she had seen her. That she had noticed the mother trying to wrangle to children, and the father’s long hours, and the mother has once admired, in halting English, Ana’s scarf, seeming slightly shy of the ragged edge of her own. She had told Ana her name. 

Ana could not remember it. 

“Always ‘ad the power to do what I did, on any given day, right? Could ‘ave given them all that, but didn’t. Could ‘ave given the bus driver what takes you every day a gift, as well. You’ve ‘ad enough chance to be that bearer, Ana. You waste it, and you can’t pin that on me, not rightly.” 

Ana walked down the stairs after her. “I live on the next floor, you have taught me enough--” 

But as she stepped down another stair, her foot plunged into the snow on the sidewalk, and she looked up. On a simple street, still being rebuilt after the Battle, but about half redone with a grocery store and several apartment building patched back together. But even the ruins were decked with lights here and there, a bit of English humor at the edges of a healing misery. 

“Things like that,” she felt compelled to defend herself, “are only patches on, on a bigger problem.” 

Tracer stopped her walking and turned around. “Right then, so you go about with an ‘ole in your trousers til you can buy new? Mustn’t bother with a patch, of course not.” 

She looked over Ana as they stood, nearly nose to nose. Tracer’s eyes did not linger, and never had so long as Ana had known her. They flitted, instead, like a hummingbird, from moment to moment and bit to bit, but somehow you got the sense that she was taking in all of you, whether you particularly wanted her to or not. In her eyes, Ana saw reflected bright lights of gold and white and green, though she did not recall there being lights so near. 

She was still smiling, had never stopped, and this perhaps annoyed Ana worst of all. 

Tracer cocked her head, and she took a step back, looking up and down at Ana. 

“Like there’s no point in apologizing, right?” 

“I tried--” 

Tracer burst out laughing. “Oh, right, right! When you told ‘er that it wasn’t as if your mum were there for you, and so she might as well get over it and see a therapist? Some apology, I’ll say.” Tracer spun around in a pirouette, but than turned back. “And still--” 

“Fareeha is a military woman. More even than me. To the good.  She works things out in probability, in risk, in order. What would be the benefit of sentimentality, for all that? She does not do things that don’t benefit her. She hasn’t since she was a child. She had a plan, even then. She does what needs doing and I--there’s no reason I would fit into that.” 

Tracer looked at her moment, and gave a confused shake of the head. “You really don’t know her at all, do you? No more, at least, than any clerk in the new office, and that’s the truth.” She did not give Ana a chance to respond, to argue. “Come on, then! Let me introduce you to your daughter.” 

Tracer threw her arm around Ana’s shoulder, and though she took a deep breath and tried very calmly not to sock her right in the jaw, she had to admit that the warmth she had felt in those other rooms, she wanted to feel in Pharah’s home. She wanted to know what it might feel like to have the warmth of Pharah’s love, something that had been lost to her for so long. 

Ana had never been to see the apartment they moved into after the Battle for London, and nearly paused for a moment as Tracer let go of her and jumped on the railing and then through the window, but the snap of her fingers gave no moment to think more of it. Their old place, she knew, had been destroyed, parts of it simply cratered in, Pharah rifling through what they had to try and reconstruct their belongings. Mercy, of course, had gone to pieces, by Ana’s measure, some memory of childhood bothering her enough that she kept her distance. The new place had been built of an old shell, like so many things in London, and Pharah had taken pains with the layout. It was a lovely place, bright and welcoming without being devoid of a certain peculiar charm, seeming less like a new-constructed box and more like it might have been in London all this time, even from the inside. 

The furniture was new, and tidy, and Ana nearly laughed to see what she assumed could only be her daughter’s way of making sure everything had its place, and was put into it. Little cubbyholes built in by the door for shoes, books organized by subject and alphabetized, a few lying on the dark coffee table near where Mercy sat, reading one of them. But it was not without its hominiess, the smell of Mercy’s coffee in the air, and even Ana was not immune to it, walking to the mantle over a small fireplace, where a few framed pictures nestled among bright silver and blue garlands. 

“A bit personal innit?” Tracer looked at the mantle herself, ‘Not quite the barracks you imagined.” 

Ana let her fingers rest on a picture of Pharah and Mercy at their wedding, smiling under the chuppah, the pink roses and daisies in Mercy’s hands blooming brightly. Pharah’s hair was in a low ponytail, tightly held and shining, but she wore still the small gold charm in her hair, as she had for so many years. No longer, of course, not after everything that had happened between them.

Ana gave a mirthless chuckle, “All Angela’s, even before she was punishing me.” 

Tracer grabbed at the picture. “She built that chuppah herself, you know. So it’d be a piece of her that was also Ang’s dream. Didn’t put it that way, of course, Fareeha, but that’s what it was.” 

There were other pictures, crowded family tables and smiling faces in different locations--bright beaches and a ski chalet, even one at Disneyland Paris all of them squeezed into the frame together. There were, of course, none of Ana. 

Tracer pointed to one at the edge of the mantle, Pharah and Tracer side by side as comrades they could not have imagined becoming, everything bright and green around them, both smiling, Tracer holding onto an iron gate, but her other arm firmly around Pharah. Pharah wore her usual deep blue, and Ana found herself jealous at the tightness of her grip on Tracer, the way they grinned at each other, Pharah’s other hand at her shoulder. 

“She cared for me, you know.” Tracer said, tapping at the edge of the picture. 

“Yes,” Ana rolled her eyes and turned away from the mantle, her voice brisker and more cold than even that wind outside “I know, she preferred you to me, because she preferred anyone to me, if this is your point I can just go home, because--” 

“Bloody ‘ell, Ana, it’s not what I said!” Tracer scowled, the lights in her eyes near to bursting with the heat of lost patience. “You are so bloody lucky I owe both Rein and Jack a bloody fucking SCORE of favors--” 

“--Well, you don’t owe me any, so you can just--” 

“God no, you’d ‘ad to ‘ave done something kind for me even once for me to owe you--” 

“--Oh, poor pitiful Lena, as if you don’t have enough adoration, you attention hou--” 

“--You meanspirited little desert rat, ought to let you rot, I ought--” 

“--You don’t know the first thing about--” 

“SHE’S ‘OLDING ME UP IN THIS PICTURE!” Tracer had taken it, and held it in front of Ana’s face. Angela looked up from her book, around the room for a moment, confused, and both Ana and Tracer fell quiet. “Didn’t notice, did you? When you looked? But she is. Was just after me last birthday. Couldn’t really stand on me own much.” 

Ana took the picture from her and looked down at it. Of course it was clear, looking at it now. Pharah's arm was at her waist, and her thumb was looped into Tracer’s belt loop, holding her close to Pharah’s solidness. Her other hand was at Tracer’s shoulder, steadying her, as Tracer did her best to hold herself up. She should have seen it. 

Tracer took it back from her and placed it back on the mantle. “Not many people see that, when they look, because that’s way with Fareeha, right? I meant--and you never knew this--she literally helped take care of me.”

“No benefit to ‘er, mostly a drain on ‘er already limited time, being as she was running all of Overwatch herself. But from the time I started to need a bit of ‘elp, now and again,” she passed a hand across the pictures, and small whirls opened, showing she and Pharah together, in a park, in Tracer’s bedroom, out on Winston’s patio, poring over paperwork, simply sharing a lunch together, “Every Thursday, eight to eight, she did. Earlier, it was Overwatch paperwork,” she touched the edge of that whirl in its frame, and it came alive, she and Pharah arguing playfully over a stack of papers, “Pretending it was on business. Got to be more and more, of course. Took the pressure off Em and Win, when I couldn’t ‘ardly do nothing for meself. Cooked, did the washing,” she touched the edge of another photo, and the two of them were in a dark pub, Tracer in a corner chair with the table tucked up close to her, “Got me out the ‘ouse, when she could. When I could, honestly. And,” her voice got soft, “at the fag end of it all…” 

She touched the edge of a silver frame, the whorl opening just a little more to show Pharah feeding Tracer, Tracer’s body trembling. 

Ana looked at the photos, and then over toward the window, where a soft morning snow was falling, so heavy in the drifts that it was easy to forget that it was built of delicate individual lace. Had she been gone from her daughter’s life for so much of that year? She had known that Pharah had assumed the duties of Overwatch, that she was often too busy to be seen, but she had pictured something so much different. So much more in the ways that Ana had isolated herself. 

“You know,” Tracer passed a hand over all the frames, bringing the photos back to themselves, and put her hands on her hips, “I ‘ave had a bit more fun in me life, than that particular bit of it, that much I’ll say. Don’t much like to think about it, though really, you get so much of life, and only, what, two percent of it, maybe three or four at the outside, is all that bad, than what is there to fuss about? But,” She pointed to Ana, “Much as I ‘ate it, you need to know it. You ‘ave to learn to ‘ear Fareeha, love. You must, if there’s any ‘ope at all.” 

Tracer walked away from the mantle, and away from Mercy, and hustled toward the kitchen, small but well-appointed, and laid out in a certain unmistakeable logic that could only have come from Pharah’s own mind. She had put so much of herself, Ana thought, in this home, even as soft as all the furnishings were, and even with the Shabbat candlesticks and kiddush cup tucked into the corner of the kitchen. It was as if Mercy was the rose and Pharah the trellis, growing around the things that Pharah had made. 

Pharah was studying a cookbook carefully in the kitchen, her eyes narrowed as she read the same recipe over and over again, flipping back and forth. She had, on her kitchen island, a very large ham, and several ingredients in front of her, everything examined and re-examined as she quietly mouthed the words of the cookbook to herself. It was silly, to see it as another rejection of Ana herself, and yet she felt herself bristle at it. It was one thing, that Ana knew she kept no particular part of her Muslim heritage particularly close, but it was another to see something so plainly in front of her. 

Ana watched her with such rapt attention that she did not even notice Mercy come up behind the two of them. 

“Is that a ham?” 

“Yes.” She did not look up from the cookbook, but looked back to the ham, and then at her book, flipping through to another part, scowling at it all the while. “I understand how to make the bacon my father sends. I have learned how to make a fry-up. This seems like it should not be that difficult, but...it’s entirely new to me.” 

Mercy stood silently for a moment. It had never been stated, but she thought that somehow it had been agreed by them that though she understood Pharah was not religious in the slightest, and sometimes a bit aggressively areligious, depending on her mood, Mercy herself was, and the idea of using her cookware to make pork turned her stomach, just a touch. Was she being unreasonable? Pharah did all of the cooking and never asked anything of her, and--

Pharah’s head snapped up, as if she could read the thread running through Mercy’s mind. “This is disposable.” She touched her hand to the aluminium roaster the ham sat in. “For Christmas.” 

Ana turned to Tracer. “You came to show me what, that without my guidance, my daughter is going to forget herself entirely? Become some soft Londoner full of pig fat? I should expect a Christmas tree next? I know that, that is why--” 

“Ana,” Tracer looked over at her, “You ever just think of...shutting up, every now and again? Watch. Learn something. God’s sake.” 

Mercy thoughtfully touched at the edge of the counter. 

“Fareeha. I am Jewish, you are Muslim.” She looked at her wife. “We don’t celebrate Christmas.” 

“Oh!” Pharah laughed, the fierce concentration of her dissipating immediately as she looked to Mercy, “Yes! No, no, Angela this is not for us. I was--” She closed the cookbook. “Tracer loved Christmas, very much. I thought that Emily and Winston, that they probably wouldn’t--Emily loves the ham, especially--that it would be hard for them. I thought I would bring Christmas to them, in some small way. I can’t--” she looked back down at her glistening pink ham, “I can’t give them, what it is they want, of course. But a ham, I can give. After what happened,” her face grew dark, and serious, “after what was done to her…”

Mercy looked at her with great love, gave an adoring huff of a sigh, and smiled. “What a beautiful idea.” 

Pharah pulled herself from her red cloud, and nodded happily. 

Ana stared at the couple, both chatting now about the ham, side by side, neither of them having any particular clue what they were doing, but the room was filled with their love of their friends, and for each other, and their child, so much so that Ana could almost smell the dinner they planned to cook. They glowed completely in the light not of what they were given, but what they were giving, Mercy inelegantly pointing out side dishes, Pharah noting what might be in the well-stocked and organized fridge. 

“My father!” Pharah exploded in the thought, an excited light in her eyes Ana had not seen for many years. Had she missed all the times it had flashed? Had she only seen her daughter’s cool, collected gaze? Pharah looked at the aviator’s watch on her wrist, and then up at a small clock on the side of the cabinet. “He should be awake by now. He would know how to make this, though I think Rebecca prefers a turkey for Christmas.” 

Ana could say nothing, merely took a step toward them, mouth agape. 

“That’s right, Ana,” Tracer got up from leaning against the wall, “Despite your very best efforts, she grew up ‘uman. Despite your very best efforts to make ‘er something like you, she ‘as a bloody ‘eart after all, and friends, and a family, and she takes care of them, when they need it. Must ‘ave been Sam’s influence, I think.” 

Ana felt a flash of guilt, and pain, and then anger, and she whirled around to punch Tracer, who jumped to the side as Ana’s fist plunged through the wall but did not stop her pursuit. Tracer dodged again as she came, Ana frustrated by her age, and Tracer’s grin, humbled by the fact that it had never only been her ability to blink that made her a terrifying opponent, angrier yet still.  Until Tracer stopped in front of her, and let her hit. Ana put her full force behind it, wanting to take away everything this smug little Englishwoman was saying, because if she could simply hit Tracer, make her stop, it would not be true. 

She hit. 

The fist went right through her. 

“I’m a GHOST, ANA.” Tracer erupted into a fit of laughter so hard it took her a minute to recover, which was not nearly long enough for Ana’s taste, and put her hands on her hips, affecting an exaggerated accent, ‘You look fairly good for someone who has been dead six months, forgot that awful quick, didn’t you then!?” 

Ana let her fists fall to the side, though she did not unclench them. “Take me home.” 

“Cut a bit close, that did?” Tracer peered into her face. “You know why I put up with you” 

“Jack--” 

“No, though you do owe ‘im a bit of kindness, for ‘is work in the ‘ereafter for you. But that isn’t it, Ana.” She looked over to where Mercy tenderly touched her belly as Pharah talked on the phone, wishing her father a Merry Christmas, beginning to measure out something for a glaze. “Jack believed in you, and I owe him my field career, and that’s the truth. Reinhardt believed in you, and he was always kind to me. But none of that is why. I’m ‘ere because Angela Zeigler did everything she could for me, from the day she met me, even to the end, and so if I have to spend one day in your miserable company, I will do that for her. Because she is a woman what believes in mercy above all else, and still thinks you deserve it, no matter me own leanings. Think on that, Ana Amari. You’ve done nothing but spit in ‘er face, going on years, and she still ‘olds out ‘er ‘hand so you can do it all over again.” 

Ana crossed her arms, but did not take her eyes off the couple. “And you want me to admire this?” 

“No, don’t expect that much from you, but I do want you to be cognizant of it, at the least.” She nodded back to Pharah and Mercy. “Some people don’t count the cost.” 

Mercy smiled as she backed away from Pharah for a moment. “I am having a wonderful idea. Just wait.” 

Before Pharah could say anything, Mercy had her coat on and was running out of the house, and before Ana could even think to protest, Tracer had the two of them zipping after her. The door to the neighbors was right across from theirs, and Mercy knocked on it aggressively, and then looked at her watch, and then knocked again, perhaps deciding it was a perfectly acceptable hour. 

A man, in a warm Christmas sweater, his slippers still firmly on his feet, answered. 

“Angela? Is everything all right?” 

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” she grasped his hand in both of hers, “But I am wondering, if you have any Christmas decorations you aren’t needing? You see, we have friends, and it has been a very lonely holiday for them, and Fareeha and I have nothing to give.” 

“So she’s going to bother this man and his family on Christmas Day.” Ana laughed, “The Christmas spirit. Togetherness. Poor planning. If family love can be made by cheap tinsel, than what is it anyway?” 

“Shut up, you, and watch.” 

The man startled for a minute, but then nodded his head, “Of course, of course, I know you had some unpleasantness this year, and, I’ll never forget that night you came over, when Camilla was sick.” 

Mercy shook her head, as if it had been nothing, and walked in the door, following him as he looked in closets and pulled out garlands and took some ornaments off his tree, and put them all in a box. He bent down to explain to the children what they were doing, and a little girl ran off to the fridge and brought back a fat santa made of paper plates, a little boy with a stuffed dormouse with antlers. 

They chatted happily to Mercy, and she thanked them profusely, dropped the box right inside her door, and continued onto another house, where there was a tangle of lights given and a bag of tinsel, and then the next, where Mercy was given a large plateful of cookies and other sweets from a little old woman, on and on until Mercy could hardly carry any of it, stacked up as it was. Some of them took it oof their own trees, out of their own kitchens, a spare stocking was taken off the mantle here and there. None of it matched, and all of it was secondhand at best, but it seemed to glisten and gleam with joy. 

As Mercy went to round a last corner, Tracer pulled the two of them into small street that would have been called an alleyway in any civilized city, and pulled out of her pocket a tiny tree. She set it on the ground, and blew on it, and it grew to a fine height, not too large, nothing like the giant affair Winston had set up every year in his home since he’d been in London for Christmas, but smelling freshly of pine. She regarded it, and then threw a strand of tinsel here or there on it, so it would look properly discarded. 

Mercy saw it out of the corner of her eye, backed up, and her eyes grew wide as she took it all in, something she never could have imagined. She clung the little box she had closer, running best as she could toward the house, calling Pharah’s name. 

Ana stood for a moment, the snow falling softly still around her. It was snowing quite a bit, for London, off and on, or maybe it was only Tracer’s wish that this represent Christmas as best it could that made it so. She went to open her mouth, once, twice, but could not bring herself to say what she meant to, what she wanted to. 

“She’s done nothing but help the people around her, be kind to them,” Tracer supplied, “So why wouldn’t they, the one time they get the chance, return it? Come on,” She took Ana by the elbow, “night’s coming on fast.” 

Tracer pulled the two of them down the alleyway, and they turned the corner into what might have been a wall but instead was just another street, in a different part of the city, the darkness having fallen in the moment it took them to slide between the bricks. 

Around them, the warehouse and odd converted apartment buildings rose, lights in this window or that, a tiny balcony with a number of rowdy revelers on it, drinking some hot rum thing that Ana could smell even from the street. Tracer bopped down the sidewalk with her, drawing this thing or that out of her pocket for a stray cat, smiling as she looked into the windows, and then they turned the corner, and her smile faded, just a bit. 

It was the same street she had seen with Reinhardt, and yet it lay so still as the last of the light faded from the city that it hardly seemed that it could have been that same place that had been so fresh and alive, every building like tombstones in a row. 

The house was quiet outside, and so grey. Where before, Ana could have ignored that it had once been a simple shipping warehouse, there was no mistaking it now, the cool metal of it tinny and burnished as the streetlights began to fly on. There were no bright sounds of cheer, or games being played. No lights trimmed the bannisters, no garlands played in the windows, and even the small dashing of snow seemed greyer than Ana had remembered when she had visited with Reinhardt. There was no doubt about the quietness settled over this house, and the darkness of it, just one lone lamp lit, the window before it dimming and greying even that. 

She should have expected it, and yet, somehow, it came as a surprise to her. 

“No point in the, ‘narrative structure’, if Tiny Tim is already dead. As I already told Reinhardt.” She looked over at Tracer. “Aren’t I supposed to turn over a new leaf, and prevent your death?”

Tracer shook her head. “No one could do that, love. If love could have saved me, I’d ‘ave lived forever, and it wouldn’t ‘ave been you that did. Just ‘ow life is sometimes. Sometimes, in life, you lose, love, and that’s the bitter truth of it.” 

“So what’s the point? Exactly.” 

Tracer bucked up her chin and smiled. ‘Come on then! And I will show you, what it is you’re meant to see.” 

They slid through the doorway, Tracer not even attempting any manner of gymnastic endeavor to do so. The smells of fresh baking and cinnamon and apples no longer permeated through the house, and Ana looked about for the giant tree with its bright lights and collection of ornaments, the tinsel hung in garlands around the windows and down the stairway, the music playing, and yet there was nothing, just one lone lamp where Emily sat, even the brightness of her red hair dull in the shadowed light. 

She was reading a book, curled up in the corner of the couch by herself, her hair hanging over the side where the light might have touched her face, and Ana noticed that her eyes ran over and over the same page, as if simply playacting at reading while the whole of her mind was somewhere else. 

The door opened, and a cool deep wind flushed in as Winston came in the door, removing his fogged glasses and wiping them on his sweater. 

“Emily.” He gave her a weak smile. 

“Oh,” she set down her book, page still unread, “I wondered when it was you’d be coming home.” 

She rose to her feet, slowly and quietly, and started toward Winston, who just as quietly took off his shoes and put on his slippers. There was none of the laughter or raucousness that Ana had felt in this room, before, and suddenly, not crowded with a group full of Oxtons, it felt so large. So empty. So silent. 

“I’m sorry, I--” 

“Oh no,” she tightened her sweater around her, “no, don’t be.” 

“I went to--” He hung up his coat, and stared at the wall a moment, “I went to take a wreath, to where she was--well--where she is.” He tried to smile. “One of the silver tinsel ones, with all the rainbow colors and bells? She always--” He took a breath.

“Oh aye, she loved those. Would like that, that you did that, I think.” 

“There are some lovely trees, there, I think in summer it’ll be---she loved green--” Emily touched his arm gently, “--it’s a nice place-- brushed off the stone a little bit. For the wreath.” 

Emily nodded. “Was good of you. I have, well, there’s a ready meal in the oven.” 

They stood there, simply looking at each other, until Winston nodded sadly and slowly worked his way over to the kitchen, opening the oven and taking out the meals inside on their little cookie sheet. Emily had bought several, for him, and he took a large bowl out of the cupboard and dumped them joylessly inside, mixing the mash and what passed for a steak braise all together. He poured himself a large glass of wine, and passed the bottle to Emily, and they sat across from each other at the small table, saying nothing as they quietly ate their food, or picked at it, rather, only a few errant bites here and there. 

“It’s the job.” Ana said, barely convincing herself, the Christmas of the past in this same house still dancing in her head. “We lose people. Good people.” 

“Didn’t bring you ‘ere because I thought you’d care about Em and Win.” Her arms were crossed, and she leaned against the wall, looking at the two of them, her eyes glistening. Then she shook off her sadness, the jingle bells in her hair ringing as she did it, and smiled again. “Ana, did you just call me a good person?” 

Ana  chuckled. “Don’t get a big head.” 

There was a knock at the door, and a robotic voice rang out over the house, echoing in the emptiness of it. 

“Angela is at the door.” 

Winston looked puzzled, but rose up to meet it, trying to pick his feet up a little and put on a brave face, giving an unconvincing smile as he opened the door. Mercy’s cheeks were rosy as she bore the ham in her arms, covered with foil but smelling like a dream, salty and sweet and rich, garlands wrapped around her as she struggled to carry them, her eyes bright with the joy that she was determined to bring with her. 

“Happy Christmas, Winston!” She came in the door without even being asked, “I was wondering, if maybe Fareeha and I could join you? For the cheer?” 

Pharah came up behind her, lugging in the tree and hardly swearing at the pine branches in her face, that same snowflake sweater on in that same bright blue, a red bow jokingly tied in her hair from the decorations they had brought. She looked to Winston, and then took a tattered but convincingly repaired wreath off her arm and stuck it to the door with an adhesive hook, and nodded. 

Winston moved to the side as Emily rose to meet them, Mercy embracing them both and hurrying to the kitchen as Pharah rushed back out to the taxi, bringing in boxes and quickly trimming up the home as neatly as she could with the materials she had been provided, doing an impressive job with the few boxes of scattershot decor. 

And as she worked, the room began to change, even so slightly. Emily began to put ornaments on the tree, and WInston asked Athena to play some Christmas music, and in a few moments the room was not as it had been on that night, but it began to take on the glow of a surviving candle, one that might light others, one that might let this place know warmth again. 

“Fareeha worked--” Ana sighed and walked to where she was decorating the mantle seriously, adjusted each bow, “She worked very hard.” 

“Right, she did. Fareeha is like that, as I’ve said. She took care of me, with not a word. Wouldn’t let me protest it, neither. She’s here for Win, and Em, in their time of need, because Fareeha is nothing if not a rock, right?” 

“She is very practical.” Ana continued to say these things, but they felt further disconnected form her, as if she was a ghost herself, simply saying the things that she had said before, over and over again, in a loop, ever so softly. “No,” she chuckled, just as softly, “Zeina. Not me. Sam. But not me.” 

Tracer faced her, arms crossed, but the look on her face was no longer angry, or cruel, but simply searching. 

“You talk and talk over ‘ow an Amari shouldn’t ‘ave to say nothing, and Fareeha never does, but with her actions. But you still never could speak ‘er language, could you? That all being true, what do you think she’s saying? And what did you say to ‘er, running off all the time, never telling ‘er when you’d be ‘ome, or if, wondering if you’d died until one day, it was true? Or, you let it be true. Even to ‘er.  No Ana, you say Fareeha should speak your language, but she always ‘as. You spoke perfectly bloody clear, to ‘er. 

“L--” 

The thought was interrupted by another knock at the door, a door that did not wait to be answered, but simply opened, and a flood of people came in, all bearing various small things; a Christmas pudding here, a roast there, some garland, gallons of drink. The Oxtons came in, chattering and laughing, and kissed Winston and Emily on the cheeks, and told Mercy how she was glowing, and Mark clapped Pharah’s shoulder and told her what a wonderful job she’d done, and sorry that they had taken a bit of time, but the family was a bit like herding cats, wasn’t it. 

Dva and Brigitte walked through the door to calls of ‘hallo’ and ‘happy Christmas’ and an older woman spotted at Brigitte’s hand as she went toward the kitchen with a large bag of rum and brandy and sweetness. 

“That a ring, Miss Lindholm? Thought we might miss it?” 

Brigitte laughed like a little girl, a blush rising to her cheeks, and flashed its brightness. “I never think you miss anything. She asked me today.” 

Dva shrugged, but in that way that indicated she was quite pleased with herself. “Lena’d give me a hard time for doing it on Christmas.” 

“Oh she would! She was wicked!” an aunt laughed, “But I think it’s beautiful. We would ‘ave invited you personally, but expected you back in the Nordics, we did.”

“We would have,” Dva nodded, “but we thought…”

“Of course, of course, love, say no more, it was right kind of you to think of it, and we’re delighted to ‘ave you! Oi!” She called back to the room, “Guess who’s getting married!” 

There were cheers and jokes and a dozen questions thrown at the happy couple, as cookies and plates of food were passed around. Pharah was complimented on the quality of her ham, Mercy was told how beautifully she glowed, a few children hung off of Winston and asked him to tell the story of how he beat Doomfist again, though he always looked a little sheepish when he told it. Emily was rapidly pulled into an animated conversation over the best of the Christmas puddings, and the tree was lit, twinkling brightly if a bit patchwork. 

Ana would have been lying to say that the room took on the same festivity of the year prior, as there was still the sense of something missing, like an empty spot on a curio shelf, where all the dust and all the space let you know something belonged there, but it was warmer than it had been, and it took on that same glow, even if slightly smaller than the years prior. There was laughter, even if there were a few tears wiped away, a few reassurances that the first year is always the hardest, and didn’t Lena do us all such a favor by bowing out so close to Christmas that the sadnesses seemed to roll together? But still the laughter, the warm, the closeness pervaded, and the rum punch was poured, and they banded together, the lights seeming to grow brighter as they did so. 

Parvati jumped up on the back of the couch, and went to hit the side of her glass before thinking better of it and simply whistling loudly, the room turning to her, and, after a bit, deciding to quiet down to a few muttersw, and listen what she had to say. 

“Happy Christmas, everyone. Know that we all ‘ave a bit on our minds, this year. Not the first time we’ve ‘ad it. Won’t be the last.”

It sounded so much like Ana’s practicality, and so little, and she felt something inside of her pull, some realized notion that to know the facts of the situation and to wield them cruelly were two different swords, than there had been so many people around her that had always known this, and it hd been Ana alone who refused to see. 

“Life’s made up of meetings, and partings, and that’s the way of it, innit?. We’ll carry Lena with us, always.” Parvati raised her glass, “To Lena. I’d say may she rest in peace, but, think we all know that’s the last thing she’d want.” 

Everyone took a drink of whatever they had in their hand, the moment not dark at all, but not because everyone in the room was looking away from the shadow. No, they all clearly knew that shadow, and had sat with it, but they brought their own candle into it, burnishing the pain of the loss with the memory of what had been.

Despite herself, she was taken by the notion. Despite herself, she smiled. 

Tracer leaned in close to her. “You miss the love of it, Ana, and that’s your tragedy. You don’t see how love can make something beautiful. You see the reality of it, but you don’t see how love can make a hard reality somehow bearable.”  

In the back of her mind, London stood, bombed out once again and rebuilding, the patchwork of it stronger and better than what had came before. Hadn’t Egypt done the same? And wasn’t she a daughter of Egypt? How horrible, to know that Tracer was right. 

A man began to sing, not a Christmas carol at all, for Ana was beginning to allow the holiday to melt away and see the truth behind it, the core that came together in a million different worlds, some of which had never seen a Christmas at all, and as his voice raised above the din, they began to join him. 

“...pretty bubbles in the air, they fly so high, nearly reach the sky….” 

 Sniffles and tears mixed in, wiped away with a joyful punctuation. 

“...Then like my dreams, they fade and die!” 

Arms were drawn close around each other, the entire room a tight knot of human light against the darkness, as their voices rose even higher.

“FOOOOOOORTune’s always hiding! I’ve looked everywhere, I’m forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air.” 

There was a collapse of laughter, admissions that Lena would have considered it the fittest hymn and carol and battle song of all, and another round of spiced drinks passed around in pitchers. 

“No matter what, nothing sinks them.” There was admiration in her voice, now. 

Tracer’s voice lowered. “Soft Londoners, full of pork fat.” 

She whipped around to look at Tracer. “Don’t MOCK me.” 

“You mock yourself, “ Tracer snorted, “acting as if it’s some manner of courage to push away every kind thing what comes your way the whole of your life.” 

“I--” Ana stopped herself. 

If she valued honesty, what was the lie in what Tracer was telling her? The whole of her life, she had believed that sentiment came to nothing, and it was only encouraging weakness to pad things for herself, for others. How could she ever have thought it would be so simple? She looked at Pharah, sitting alone at the edge of the room, smiling as she drank at her mug, but still somehow disconnected from it all, rubbing at the edge of her watch with a distant look in her eye. 

“Fareeha,” Ana watched her, “Tracer, tell me she will be happy. Tell me I haven’t ruined her the way I ruined myself.” 

“I live only in the moment, Ana. Future’s not me domain,” She gazed over at Pharah and considered a moment. “But I see something...Fareeha, if you look carefully, you can see a red light about her. You can see a shadow on her face. I see an anger, a rage, deep within her, and if these shadows do not change, I fear for what I see in her. I’m only the ghost of the present, and can’t tell you rightly, of course. But you must remember her getting arrested in Dublin, after I died.” Tracer shook her head. “You turned cold, but Fareeha? Puts lines around everything because she knows what’ll ‘appen if she doesn’t. Fire in her may burn down every good thing in her.” 

Ana could not draw her eyes away from Pharah, could not stop seeing the reflection of red light about her, kept telling herself over and over again that it was just from the tree so near, that there was nothing mysterious about it at all, and that every way she had taught Pharah to make an island of herself had not ruined everything. 

The party continued, Pharah eventually being drawn from her chair and brought into the games, Ana convincing herself that her eye was old, and failing her. The warmth of the party continued, drawn close and near with laughter and joy, kisses on the cheek and close hugs, questions about Dva and Brigitte’s plans, stories about Tracer, all coming together into a mulled wine all its own. 

“Right, then.” Tracer said softly. 

Ana looked back to her, a spirit with sharp words and sharper powers, but very much again a woman Ana had simply known, looking at her family with a sorrowful gaze, wishing she could touch them, sing with them, love them. Tracer was like Ana, in that way, she supposed. 

No. Because her family would delight to hold and kiss her again, to hear her voice ring over the room, to see her smile. Ana’s family would not. Pharah barely looked at her. Mercy hated her, after her actions this morning. Her grandchild would not know her. She felt that same pang of jealousy and hunger that she had in the tiny Brixton apartment, deeper now, and more keen. 

Worst of all was the realization that she had chosen this for herself, over and over again, in every word and action. That she had built the walls so high and so well that no one could hope to scale them, that she had laid the broken glass of her own personal miseries across the top and never for one moment realized that her daughter had the strength to not attempt to climb it any longer. That she would urge others never to try, and show them the scars on her palm from her own failures. 

“Can’t stay much longer.” 

Ana noticed the party beginning to get quieter, the lights in Tracer’s eyes beginning to fade, and a sudden panic began to grip her, the sense that she might lose everything she felt she had only begun to grasp, that she was on the verge of something great, slipping through her fingers. 

“You can’t already go. There’s so much more to teach me.”  

Tracer shook her head, somehow growing thinner, and smaller. “I was never meant to be long in this world, Ana. It was always meant to be brief.” 

“I have,” Ana began, and then cleared her throat, and looked to Tracer, “I, I was wrong, not to come to your Christmas party. To your birthday.” 

Tracer leaned against the wall, and the party faded from view, the golds and reds and greens fading into the greys and blue of the city, Tracer now leaning against the wall of an underground station, cap on her head, leather jacket pulled in close. 

“If I could do it over again, I would not have missed your last year.” She paused, “If I could do it over again, I would not have been myself.” 

“Why didn’t you, Ana?” 

There was no anger in it, not this time, just a hanging sadness as she shook her head and leaned against the wall, some annoucement Ana could not quite make out coming over the station. A chill ran through her, in that moment, only the two of them standing there, the hazy glow of fluorescent lights overhead dimming the world in a way Ana could not quite understand, but knew intrinsically. 

“We wasn’t friends, not really, but…I was dying.” 

Ana opened her mouth to protest that this was in the past, that it was not Tracer’s realm. That there was nothing to explain, because it was past now, and so what did it matter, she could not go back and have attended either. She opened her mouth to say that no one would have wanted her there anyway. She opened her mouth to say that she was jealous Tracer had so much of love. She opened her mouth to say, that she had been too proud to admit she was lonely. 

There was a rumble, down the tracks, the train speeding its way toward the station. She could feel the rush of air coming from the tunnel, the lights in darkness, coming. 

“Was dying, Fareeha was trying to bear up under it for everyone, and you couldn’t even--not for neither one of us--not for anyone.” 

The train began to screech into the station, and Ana had the horrifying realization, all in one moment, that it was here for Tracer, and surely enough, as she glanced up to the clock, that horrible long shadow of a hand was drawing toward midnight. 

“I should have gone,” she barked out as quickly as she could, but that terrible, terrible screeching echoed all through the station, shrieking high and loud as she tried to take Tracer’s hand, only to find that it was fading away, “I never hated you, I only, you were allowed to be light-hearted, and I wasn’t, and I was so--” 

Tracer shook her head, her eyes dull with exhaustion, “Can’t ‘ear you, love. ‘Ave to go now.” 

“I can do it different!” She reached out again, “I can learn to be different! I should have been, and I wasn’t, but, Tracer--” 

The doors to the train opened, and Tracer looked at them with a smile, even as her hand shook. “That’ll be me train. I trust you to the spirit what’s coming round next. You must see that spirit, love, no way round it.” 

“What was the point of Jack sending you if I can’t undo any of this!?” She stood in front of Tracer. “I have learned, now, and so you need to send me back, and I’ll do it better,” Tracer’s body passed through her, and she stepped into the car and grabbed onto a pole, glancing back, “LENA!!!”

The doors slammed shut, and Ana pulled and pulled, but she could not stop the horrible droning of the announcement declaring that they were pulling away from the station, and however she screamed and pounded, Tracer could not hear her, but simply looked up at the advertisements on the side of the car, lost in her own world. The train pulled away as quickly as it had come, speeding into the darkness, the only sound in Ana’s ears her own throbbing heartbeat. 

The photo of she and Pharah was cool in her hand.

[blindbatalex]

proud to present the next installment of the carraville royalty au (masterpost; ao3) [[cw for implied past character death]]

~*~

Gary startled awake.  

He had been stuck in the past again, in the grip of another nightmare, but the dream did not grant him so much as a memory of itself as it receded out of sight, leaving behind only that tell-tale dread that sits deep in your chest.  He sat up in bed.  It was dark, no doubt the middle of the night; he was alone; the only light came from the fire which was throwing strange shadows across the floor.  Far too bright for this time of- he thought but he startled again before he could finish his thought.

 “Hey.”

 Jamie.

He was not alone in the room.  Jamie was sat in an armchair he dragged by the fireplace.  He was only a silhouette with the firelight behind him, more shadow than man.  Gary got out of bed, and walked over to him, not bothering to hide his frown.

“Is your shoulder acting up?”

Not like him to be awake in the middle of the night otherwise; that particular honour was exclusively Gary’s.  

“No,” Jamie replied and Gary noticed now the cup in his hand, the wine bottle on the floor—his flushed cheeks and unfocused eyes.  His husband was wholly and totally sloshed by the looks of it.  “Just enjoying myself some peace and quiet without your constant chattering.”  He took a swig of his drink and smiled.  “Was, anyway.”

Gary spared a longing glance at the courtyard visible outside their window.  Things he would have given for some fresh air now, but alas, ‘Manc lord sneaks around Liverpudlian castle at night’ did not bode well for the tentative peace between their two countries.  He sighed, and as he walked over to the table to get his own cup before dragging the second armchair across from Jamie, he pretended that was the only factor stopping him, that he would have been able to ignore how broken Jamie’s smile was and leave otherwise.

He poured himself some wine, opting to wait for Jamie to say something first.  A drunk Jamie was a talkative one and indeed it barely took him two minutes before he said- 

“The sighting of the first stork of the year is very important in my family.”  

Gary didn’t know what he was expecting him to say, really, but it was not that.  Then again he did have a habit of surprising Gary in the most unexpected of ways.  Gary took a sip of his own drink and waited for him to continue.  

“If the first stork you see is in flight, it means prosperity for the next year, but if it is sat on a branch or the ground, it heralds misfortune, and the more storks you see the more pronounced the effect.”  Jamie’s eyes were lost in the fire.  He was frowning and Gary had a strong urge to rub his eyes—all of this over storks?  

“Last year, Stevie and I were travelling through the Merseyside woods when we sighted the first one,” Jamie said quietly.  “Five of them.  All perched on the branches of an elm tree.”  

Ah.  Half of a log broke off in the fireplace, eaten alive to its core by the merciless flames, and fell with a great crackle, in a flurry of sparks like a fallen warrior. Jamie did not speak of G.errard, not to Gary, not outside of a passing reference.  Gary did not speak to him of David.  They carried with them wounds no eye can see and no balm can heal but these were theirs to carry alone.

“We were making camp in a clearing for the night,” Jamie continued.  “Stevie grinned when I pointed the storks to him.”  Jamie’s lips curled up with the ghost of a smile, G.errard’s smile, maybe. “‘Don’t you worry, James,’ he said, ‘if any sorrows come to bother you, I will draw my sword and fight them off for you.’  Then he drew his sword and pretended to fight what I presume were the upcoming sorrows.” Jamie shook his head.  “He never took it seriously.  But he was like that.  He was such a respected leader among the men, always so serious; you wouldn’t believe what he was like when it was just the two of us.”  He chuckled, the sound bitter as it was wistful.  “Five storks.  I saw them and I let myself get distracted by his grin and-”

Jamie stopped with an uneven exhale.  Gary could see him there, in that clearing, much younger even if it was only a year ago, smiling despite himself as G.errard fought off invisible enemies and light faded around them.

“Yes, indeed—if only you had, you could have singlehandedly stopped a war that was years in the making.”

Jamie’s gaze snapped to him.

“Don’t be smug, Gary,” he sneered.

He had warned Gary of his temper when they first met and yet Gary had only seen it in brief flashes so far, like now.  He didn’t know if Jamie just did not show himself to him or if that part of him had died alongside everything bright and beautiful about them with their late husbands in the war.

Gary lifted his free arm in a show of surrender, and after a short moment, Jamie let his eyes drift back to the fire, jaw still clenched, still frowning.  

For a while, the only sounds in the room were that of their breathing and the crackling of the fire.  

Until they weren’t.

“David was the life of the party, of any party.  He could charm the pants off of anyone and the king would regularly ask for our presence when he had a tricky foreign guest to entertain.  Last feast we were at, at our own castle-”  

Gary stopped as if his brain had only now caught up to his mouth. He did not talk to Jamie about David, he never had.  The wine burned his throat but was already warm in his veins; the log from earlier had burned into nothing.  He wanted to stop, but he could see it there so clearly, their great banquet hall, David laughing with his hair as golden as this fire in front of Gary, his head thrown back.  It was so vivid Gary thought he could reach in and touch it if he only strained enough.

“After-” he continued, “we were one of the last ones to leave the banquet.  On the way back to our chambers, I said something, I can’t remember what it was exactly.”  He had thought and thought about it since, tried to recall what he said, but like water through cupped hands, it had slipped past his mind and was now gone.  Like David.  “I said, ‘everyone loves you,’ or some such thing, and he laughed.  ‘Good thing I love you the most, then,’ he said.”

Mm, Gary had replied in return.  He said he didn’t mind David glowing with attention, and he didn’t, but well, he couldn’t say he minded this not-so-occasional reminder either.  Of course, so did David.

‘What do you mean, mm?’

Gary could not deny him anything he asked for, never could.  He didn’t even drag it out.

‘Means I love you more than anything too.’

David’s head snapped to him then and he was grinning now, a grin that stretched from one ear to the next and sparkled in his eyes.  

‘More than anything?’ 

He was more than a little drunk and so was Gary.  

‘Yes, David.’

He was the most beautiful person Gary had ever seen, even in the dimly lit corridors of their castle.

‘More than the world?’

He was positively preening now.

‘Yes, David.’

‘More than-” David hiccupped and lowered his voice.  ‘Mancunia?’

‘Yes, David.’

He gave Gary a skip and a curtsy.

‘More than…’ He snickered,  ‘Mrs. C.antona’s snowcakes?’

Gary snickered too.  

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’

Drunk as they were, he didn’t expect David to come at him like he did and pin him against the wall, hard enough for the stone to dig into his back.

‘Is that so?’

One of his eyebrows was cocked in an arch, challenging Gary, his cheeks rosy with the wine.  Gary looked into his beautiful green eyes, and said

‘Yes.’

*

When he managed to tear himself away from the past, he found Jamie looking at him. staring almost.

“I just wish,” he said and he was more tipsy than he thought. He did not talk to Jamie about David. “Just wish I told him I loved him more than the cakes.”

Jamie laughed, a sincere full-bellied laugh that roared through the room, and it was now Gary’s turn to be offended.

It was silly, he knew that, but no sillier than storks surely, and time after time he had gone back to that moment, to that ‘is that so-’

Because David had kissed him next and they stayed there tangled in one another until they heard a servant scuttling past and came to their senses, and Gary never did revise his answer when he loved David more than any cake in the world.

“Oh come on,” Jamie doubled down.  “You told him you loved him more than the whole world, and your kingdom, which I’m pretty sure counts as treason, by the way.  Obviously he knew you loved him more than some bloody cakes.”

“Not just some cakes!”

“Fine, more than Mrs C.antona’s snowcakes, specifically.”

Gary was feeling daft now at having brought this up in the first place, and yet, stubborn as he was, he doubled down too.

“You never had them.”

They were served at their wedding but Jamie had not so much as touched them, even after Gary suggested he should.

“What does that have got to do with anything?”

At the very least, this was the Jamie Gary knew, stubborn and obstinate and not moping over storks.

“They are my favourite cakes in the world, which David knew.”

Jamie laughed again, although it was softer this time and shorter, as if a friend he loved had told a brilliant joke.

“If I had to choose between you and the cakes, for example, I would choose the cakes,” Gary bristled, but when he looked up, Jamie’s eyes were- he looked down quickly, at the stone floor, a canvas now for the patterns the firelight drew and retracted.

“Look, Gary,” Jamie’s voice, like his eyes, was fond.  Gary really wanted some fresh air now, a way out of this room and out of the past.  “I will say this once and only because I’m sloshed.  I will deny it rigorously if you bring it up again, alright?”  He groaned, as if steeling himself for something thoroughly unpleasant, and Gary found himself looking up again, too curious for his own good. What was the Scouser playing at? 

“Alright,” Jamie muttered, mostly to himself, before he turned to Gary.  “You are insufferable.” 

Ah well, and here Gary was expecting something unexpected. His bad.

“Yes,” he replied pointedly, “you said so before,” but Jamie barreled on.

“Even leaving your kingdom aside, you can’t sit still, the kitchens have really had it both with your endless appetite for dessert but also for your attempts to improve things that require no improvement.  I will honestly not be surprised if one of them kills you in your sleep one of these days.” 

“Is there a point to this?” Gary felt the need to interject. Because he had heard all of this before, multiple times. 

Jamie met his gaze. 

“Yes,” he said.  “But, you are a good man, simple as that.  And if I can tell that in only a couple of months of knowing you, there is no way B.eckham didn’t know just how much he was loved.”

Five words, five simple words; he had spoken them so quickly and yet they had somehow reached in and lodged themselves in Gary’s throat. He didn’t know what to say, what he could say.  Was it a trick of the firelight, this look in Jamie’s eyes?

“Well, your reason is just as dumb,” he scoffed eventually.

Jamie’s mouth curled downward, the look was gone, and, good, Gary thought to himself.

“There was no way you could have predicted nor stopped the war based a few storks and you know that.”

Jamie opened his mouth to interject but Gary didn’t let him. This felt good.  Anger felt good, familiar like a well-used bow.

“A-a-a, I know what you are going to say.  But if you had taken your ominous warning seriously, if you had known, then you would have used the time you have left so much better.  You would have let him fuck you senseless each night and told him you love him every morning, over and over again. Memorised his smile, the colour of his eyes, every inch of his body.  If you had only known.”

From the expression on Jamie’s face, Gary could tell he hit the nail on the head.  “I know,” he said, laughed.  “Well, life doesn’t work like that, alright?  You couldn’t have known, not based on storks, not based on anything.  None of this is your fault.”

Gary stopped and the silence that rushed in was deafening. Jamie wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his tunic for they were shining now.  Gary touched his own face and frowned at his own fingers when they came back wet.  Across from him, Jamie’s shoulders rose and fell, just the once, in a quiet sob that Gary felt in his own chest.  He wanted to do something he never had before, something like- like- to wipe those tears himself, or to cup Jamie’s cheek in his hands.  Comfort him, like he had comforted Gary after so many nightmares that left him a broken, sobbing mess.  But it was more than that.  What he wanted-  God. What would David think of him if he saw him now?

I miss his smile, Gary wanted to say, because he did, every day.  He missed David and he loved David, so much.  He wanted someone to know, to understand.  And yet, here he was- God.

Jamie for his part, took in a deep and wiped his eyes again, and the moment had passed, leaving only something curling and pulling in Gary’s chest where his heart used to be.

“Let’s never do that again,” Jamie huffed and Gary agreed readily.

“Backgammon?” he asked; he didn’t think any of them could go back to sleep just then.

Jamie nodded, smiled even, and Gary stood up to fetch the board.

[mourningmaybells]

JUNIPER: Dear Lily. 

All day and all night I thought about writing you this letter, saw it unfold in my mind, and so now that I am here with my paper and my ink it does not seem like a real thing, but like a task one undertakes in a dream. When I am finished I will curl this paper up and tuck it in an acorn shell and throw it through your bedroom window; I dreamed this, too, and did I dream you? Are you real? Are you anything of flesh, do you breathe? Sometimes, when I look out of your mirror at you, I think that I am looking at a piece of my own soul, torn loose and tossed into the world. Not because you belong to me, but because you are familiar and strange at the same time. 

Lily, you are a person, you are a creature all in your own right – and isn’t that curious? How can something like you have come to be? I want to unpick you, like stitches, to see what makes you run – but I won’t. I will content myself with drawing your name over my wrist-bone to consider how you turn my blood into gold. You were small when I was small. I watched you through the bluestar, through the blazing star. It was my mother warned me against you, but I heard you singing in the cinnamon fern and thought you were beautiful: a thing I could never touch. Like the crest of Orion. Like the farthest Pleiades. You wore erythronium in your hair, like your name; the yellow trout lily. Lily, lily. Sometimes I think I would eat you if I could. There is a witch in a story who ate a girl she loved, and always afterwards when she spoke, flowers fell out of her open mouth. I would swallow you up, and you would be lobelia on my tongue for the rest of my life. This is what they say: it is not uncommon for us to want to eat what we love. But you are uncommon. 

Every moment we have spent together is a shining stone in the bowl of my skull. I am greedy, and so I take them out and look at them now and then, like a dragon. The day we went to the buried well and threw butterfly weed down into the black water to count our wishes. The first time you stepped out of your dress for me, gold in the sun, yellow and gold. The night I brought you into the hill, when you clung to me like lichen and in the hall your eyes were cups of firelight. The day in the rain, both of us laughing. Dear Lily: my mother taught me many things but she did not teach me this. Where does it come from, the thread that ties us together? Who spun it? What is it composed of, what is its matter? I have half a mind to unpick myself, to find the source; but I won’t. That day in the field of green-and-golds. You said who are you, where did you come from. I said I came from the hill; I am the girl who does not die. You laughed, and I fell in love with you, there. There: I wrote it down, I turned it into ink and made it something tangible (but you could burn this letter and I would still love you, so it must be something beyond matter). See it here in black and white. I love you, girl from the house on the hill, girl with the hair made of sunbeams. I love you, knot in my heart. I love you, hands on my hands, hands on my ribs, mouth on my mouth. I love you, stone in my shoe. I love only you. Only you. Only ever you. 

Yours always Juniper.

[pi-cat000]

MSA time travel idea (part 37)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Vivi POV, 8, 9, 10, Lewis POV, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, Lance POV 18, 19, Lewis POV 2, 21 , 22, Vivi POV 2, 24, 25  Lewis POV 3,  Mystery POV , Vivi POV 3, 29, Lewis POV 4, 31, ViVi POV 4 , 33, 34, Lewis POV 5, Mystery POV 2

Part 38: here

.

Lewis POV

To Lewis, it feels like blinking. Arthur’s workshop breaks apart, splintering into pieces which disintergate around him. The body snatcher, still clutching his shirt, still grinning, dissolves, flaking away. Darkness swallows up the scene leaving only an impression of poisonous green imprinted into his mind.  

When he opens his eyes, it is too pale moonlight and cool blues, greys and browns. He is standing in a clearing of loose rock and packed dirt. Vivi is standing several feet away surveying a grove of bent-looking trees. The bright blue of her sweater and skirt stands out against the muted background. Relieved, he tries to call out a greeting and maybe ask if she is okay but finds the action hard, bordering on impossible. 

He can’t talk. He can’t move either. 

“Are you sure about this one. It says to keep out.” 

Arthur’s voice, loud if slightly muffled, sounds like it is being filtered through a closed door. Vivi turns and hits him with a wide smile. 

“So have half the other places we’ve visited,” she answers, drawing Lewis’s attention to the numinous ‘keep out’ signs hammed into the ground between them. Where are they? Is what he wants to say. 

“Yeah, and I remember getting chased through a forest by a bunch of machete-wielding, red-cloaked wackos,” he finds himself asking instead in a voice suspiciously close to Arthur’s.   

Vivi walks a little way into the trees, disappearing, and-without his impute- Lewis’s attention drifts to examine the entrance to the foreboding cave looming over him. It is far too dark to see into.  He can feel himself breathe and shuffle with apprehension, though Lewis has never been one to fidget. 

“Sometimes, there’s a good reason for the keep out signs.” 

“I’m sure that was a one-off.” 

Lewis’s view quickly shifts, moving, reacting to the comment. And… he finds himself looking into a very familiar face. His own face. Stunned, Lewis stares at the second Lewis who wears an expression of amusement and concern, mouth curled into a loose smile. It's like looking in an uncanny mirror. 

Oh.  His own hand, other-Lewis's hand, lands on his, Arthur's, shoulder, giving a reaffirming pat. 

This is a memory. He is reliving a memory from Arthur’s point of view. That’s why everything feels disconnected and fuzzy around the edges. When tries to concentrate on areas outside Arthur’s line of focus the scene blurs. 

This is what that body snatcher had promised him… a look into Arthur's memories. 

It feels like he's stuck in some sort of hyper-real, virtual reality without any input controls. His ability to hear is muffled, and his sense of touch is muted, almost non-existent, so there is a distinct disconnection between himself and the scene. Despite this distance, it feels invasive. He’s not sure what he ought to have expected upon agreeing to see Arthur’s memories, but this isn't it. Lewis tries to shake his sudden discomfort and guilt, focusing instead on the other-Lewis as he talks. 

 Memory-Lewis looks pretty relaxed despite the disconcerting environment, commenting “If this has you really worried we can always wait out here while Vivi takes her supernatural readings.”

“No." Arthur sighs, waving away the concern, "It’s fine. Probably best not to let Vivi go spelunking with only Mystery as back up.”

“Just stick behind me. I’m sure this will be just as boring as all the other caves we’ve walked through.” 

There is an air of familiarity to their words, like traversing creepy caves is an everyday occurrence. Confused, Lewis searches his recent memories but comes up with nothing resembling this exchange. 

The group of three, having finished their light banter, start into the cave with Vivi in the lead. They talk like they’ve been planning this trip for ages.   Only, no, that can’t be right because Lewis can’t remember ever visiting a place like this with Arthur and Vivi. The cave, now lit with the flickering firelight of the torch Vivi's uncovered, is distinct enough that he would surely remember it.

How was this one of Arthur's memories if Lewis doesn't remember taking part in it? Is it even real or is this another lie? 

Vivi and the other-memory-Lewis walk down the sloping stone tunnel with Arthur quick to position himself between the two of them, so Lewis has a good view of the back of Vivi’s head. Mystery appears at Vivi’s feet, sniffing around, all dog-like. Lewis vaguely remembers Mystery conversing with the body snatcher before turning into a giant fox and biting his arm.  Details of the confrontation are a little fuzzy, Lewis being too preoccupied with his worry for Arthur at the time. This Mystery is acting normal. Arthur barely spares the dog a glance with his vision glued into Vivi. Occasionally, Arthur’s attention wanders over to the cave's uneven walls, examining shadows which waver in the firelight. 

“Maybe there’ll be an actual ghost this time and not a dude playing dress-up?” The other-Lewis comments from behind him. 

 “One can only hope,” Vivi’s voice echoes about and Arthur shudders at her volume, peering into a particularly dark crack in the wall before adding in a half-whisper, “Ah. Objection. A dude in a sheet is plenty scary, thanks. No need for anything else.”

Thankfully, the other-Lewis seems to be picking up on how nervous Arthur is because he attempts to lighten the mood. “Like weird-scary or scary-scary?”

Arthur glances over his shoulder, retorting, “Both.” The interaction is friendly and familiar, no trace of stiffness.  It is easy to imagine that, had they decided to travel around and follow Vivi’s original plans to investigate supernatural locations, then this is what it would have been like. he ease of the interplay, lacking any form of tension, is one that Lewis misses. He wants it back.

The lighter mood doesn’t last long because Arthur spots something moving along the cave walls. An elongated shadow appears and is gone quicker than Arthur can blink. Lewis’s sense of nostalgic longing turns to apprehension and fear. So caught up in enjoying watching Arthur interact with other-memory-Lewis, he had forgotten what this was. A fake memory or illusion designed to mess with him. 

Barely noticeable is a sinister shadow of a recognisable green colour. Arthur doesn't notice it, attention drifting. Lewis begins to study each stone surface around the small group. That thing is here. In the walls. In the floor. Watching and waiting…

“Let’s split up,” Vivi’s announces when the group arrives at a split in the larger tunnel. 

 “What? No way!” Lewis hears Arthur object to which he mentally agrees. Splitting up is definitely a bad idea… Other-memory-Lewis doesn’t appear to share his mindset, unbothered by the location, nodding along with Vivi like an idiot. 

  “Splitting up is a terrible idea. When has splitting up ever worked well for anyone?” Arthur continues. 

 Yes. Listen to Arthur! Even if this is some twisted illusion, Lewis still doesn’t want to see any of them hurt.  

 “If we split up, we’ll cover more ground and get through the cave system faster.” Vivi points out. 

 They’re not listening. 

 “Just remember to take lots of photos. Here have my spare EMF meter.”

 He watches Vivi and other-Lewis pass equipment between them. Arthur groans aloud, rubbing his eyes in frustrated exasperation. His friend is nervous, but not nervous enough to insist on them all sticking together. Lewis watched silently, worry mounting. 

 “Lewis. You go with Arthur. He’ll need the moral support more than I will.”

 “Hey,” Arthur mutters a half-hearted protest. 

 “I’ll take Mystery down that tunnel. Let’s meet up in, say, an hour and report our findings.”

 Mystery. Vivi’s mention of her not-quite-a-dog has Lewis’s attention drifting around. Surely, the dog would stop them from splitting up. In all the chaos and in between getting stabbed, Lewis is sure Mystery had been on their side. Even if the result had been less than ideal. They should stick together with Mystery so the dog could protect them all from whatever danger was lurking in the walls.

 Alas, Mystery seems oblivious, following Vivi as she walks off towards one of the tunnels.  No. What he wouldn’t give to be able to interact and warn the trio. 

Vivi pauses, glancing back.  “Oh, and if it gets too maze-like come back here, so you don’t get lost,” A familiar playful note colours her voice as she takes a light jab at his poor sense of direction, “And don’t fall down any holes.” 

 “We’ll be fine,” Other-Lewis reassures, amused while  Lewis stews in his worry, annoyed at his counterparts carelessness. Idiot. He’s pulled from his worry by the odd experience of getting caught in a headlock when Arthur is too slow to avoid his other-Lewis.  Lewis knows he’s above average height, but it’s a very different experience seeing and feeling it from Arthur’s perspective.

 Vivi snorts, waving, “See you boys in an hour.” She disappears into the dark, the blue of her shirt fading. 

 “You okay there Arthur?” 

 Arthur glances up at the other-Lewis, batting away his arms. 

 “Yeah. Come on. Let’s go poke around a dark, damp, tunnel some more.”

  Lewis might have found the sarcastic comment amusing if he weren’t so busy freaking out, trying to work out which of them the body snatcher will target first. Silently, Lewis watches, wishing he could smack the other-Lewis over the head. Arthur is obviously nervous, this cave is creepy as hell, and he doesn’t appear to care. 

 The trip down the tunnel becomes an expedition of heightening tension. A rope being slowly pulled to its breaking point. Every time the other-Lewis stumbles on a bit of uneven rock has him holding his non-existent breath. The low flickering light does nothing for the ominous atmosphere, causing Arthur to stumble as well, bumping into Lewis several times. Doom presses down on then. It reminds Lewis of a horror movie, in which he is stuck waiting for something terrible to happen. 

 They come to the end of the tunnel without interruption. A narrow stone walkway juts out ahead, ending in a sharp drop. The light of the torch reflects off the mossy walls and spike-covered ceiling and Arthur eyes the pointy stone formations with apprehension.  This is dangerous, Lewis thinks as Arthur shivers. 

 Other-Lewis confidently walks out ahead, leaving his friend to follow at a more cautious pace. If it were up to him he would be grabbing Arthur and dragging him out of this creepy cave system post hast. Sure, this cavern is impressive, but what about self-preservation?   

 It does not take long for the worse to happen. Distracted by the impressive scenery, Arthur trips and brushes up against the cave wall.  When Lewis sees Arthur’s arm start to turn green, everything rings with an overpowering déjà vu. This time, Mystery doesn’t jump in to immediately rip the infected limb free.

 “Hey, Arthur! Come check out this view!” Other-Lewis calls from where he looks to be attempting to peer down into the steep drop. Arthur lunches forward, arm outstretched and aiming for other-Lewis’s unprotected back. 

 “Lew..!” 

 His name is chocked off, so his counterpart doesn’t have time to turn around and brace himself. Lewis is treated to the somewhat horrifying sight of his own shocked expression as he disappears over the edge of the stone platform. He hears the other-Lewis yell, which echoes in the stone chamber, and then he only hears Arthur’s harder breathing. The sound is no longer muffled but distinct and sharp, taking over the memory. 

 Had…had he just watched himself die??

 The next sequence is also disturbingly familiar. White teeth. Bone snapping. Blood droplets spinning in the air. Unlike his own recent experience, Arthur doesn’t immediately blank out, so Lewis is treated to the phantom sting of pain, filtering through the bond. 

“Ah Shit.” He hears Arthur uncharacteristically say in contrast to the nightmare going on around him. Was that the body snatcher?? The scenery blurs and distorts so he no longer has a clear view.  

This couldn’t be real…This wasn’t a real memory because he definitely wasn’t dead. He'll wake up in the hospital, and Arthur and Vivi would be fine. They would work everything out. 

The cave dissolves, breaking apart and fading. 

....

Lewis blinks and opens his eyes to darkness. Complete and utter black presses in from all angles. The memory…or illusion because there was no way that had been a real memory… is finished. For a moment Lewis can’t think, brain stalling as he tries to process what he’s just witnessed. 

It couldn’t have been a real memory. But, if that where the case, then why show it to him? Too upset him?? Well, it has succeeded. Poor Arthur, he had probably been terrified. At least when Lewis had had his own arm bitten off, he had, sort of, understood that Mystery was trying to save him. Arthur and other-Lewis were taken completely off guard. He can’t image what they might have been thinking. Nothing good. Slowly he clenches his fist, drawing it into his chest, clutching it tightly.  When he looks down, he can see his hands and torso, giving off a faint lilac glow. It’s his own arm, whole and attached. There is solid ground beneath his feet, though, when he looks down, all he sees is the same bank darkness.  Lewis glances around in helplessly. Stuck in this empty void, all he can do is feel frustrated and trapped.  

Where is he?

 His vision blurs, and he blinks again. 

...

 Reopening his eyes, Lewis struggles to focus on an off-white ceiling lit by warm natural light. He is lying horizontally on a soft surface. For one brief moment, Lewis thinks he’s made it back to the real waking world. No more nightmare fake-memory. That overhead definitely looks like a hospital ceiling and he seems to be in a bed. 

 When he tries to move, he is faced with a familiar disconnection and lack of control. He still can’t quite feel his limbs or talk. 

 /Arthur./ 

 The voice seems to pull Arthur fully awake and his vision finally focuses, landing on Mystery who leaps nimbly into a vacant chair positioned adjacent to the bed. A curtain blocks out most of the room to his left and a window lets in fading sunlight on the right.

 Lewis is right about this being a hospital. The space is sparse, tilled with grey and white vinyl, consisting of a single bed, and two empty chairs, one with a blue denim jacket slung over the backrest. Bright red eyes catch the light of the fading sun, causing Arthur to flinch slightly under their unnerving intensity. At first, Lewis thinks there is something wrong with the memory when darkness tugs at its edges but quickly realises that it’s because Arthur is too drowsy to properly focus. 

 /You are awake./ The sentence is said with relief, sounding distorted to Lewis who is again relegated to watching from the sidelines. 

 “You’re talking?” Arthur mutters to himself. 

 /…Yes…/

“Oh…” 

 Mystery is silent and Arthur’s attention drifts away to examine the ceiling, vision continuing to dim. If Mystery waits any longer, Arthur is going to fall right back asleep. Lewis wishes he could ask the dog questions. He has so, so many questions about everything that has happened over the last 24 hours. 

 But no…he can’t as he is once again the silent observer. 

 /You do not remember either…/ Mystery’s voice is softer, reserved, almost as if speaking to himself. 

 “Remember...” Arthur repeats, blinking up at the ceiling so Lewis can’t see Mystery’s expression when he asks gently, /What is the last you remember, Arthur? /

“A cave… I think?”

 /Nothing else?/

 “Vivi and Lewis were there...” Arthur winces. Even with the sound muffled Lewis can hear Arthur’s confusion as he clings to consciousness. Mystery lets out a long breath, shuffling back, jumping from chair to the floor.

 /Go back to sleep Arthur. / Mystery, now out of sight, commands softly. The sound fades and Lewis is left alone in the dark, the memory finished. 

...

Once again, he blinks, and he is back in the empty space …still clutching his arm. Lewis glances around, mind churning. What had been the point of that memory? Maybe, it was supposed to mess with his head, tricking him into thinking he had awakened back in the hospital, giving him relief then snatching it away.   He doesn’t get the chance to properly contemplate the ramifications of the scene because the next memory starts suddenly with a lot of panicked movement and activity. 

....

 Instead of drifting back to consciousness slowly, Arthur snaps awake, lunching himself upright, arm outstretched like he's trying to grab something. Lewis’s perspective spins as he tries to reorientate himself within the new memory. Sunlight is streaming through the window, making the white walls and floor unbearably bright. Arthur apparently thinks so too because his vision distorts as his eyes water. 

 “Whoa! Arthur, you’re awake!” Vivi’s startled voice draws Arthur’s attention. His friend’s gaze snaps to her and he blinks rapidly.

 “Vivi…what…ugh...” Arthur groans, doubling over, gripping his bandaged shoulder. Even Lewis can feel a phantom sting of pain, captured faintly in the memory. It is a harsh reminder that this is his future as Lewis might also be faced with a missing limb upon wakening. Perhaps, foreshadowing Lewis’s future is the purpose of this particular fake-memory. 

“Where am I? What is this?”

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re in the hospital,” Vivi reassures and Lewis examines the darkened under her eyes and her gaunt features like she hasn’t been eating properly. The room is the same hospital room from the last fake-memory only it is now daytime. There is also a book, lying discarded, face down on the floor. Vivi had probably dropped it upon Arthur's sudden awakening. 

 “Mystery…Mystery was here…he was…ouch….” Arthur’s grip tightens on his shoulder. For several seconds the scene blurs and distorts as Arthur tries to control his breathing, panting heavily. 

"Why does everything hurt?"

“You shouldn’t be moving around so much…” Vivi answers gently, voice soft and careful. Arthur reaches pull at the bandages on his shoulder to which Vivi immediately grasps his…Arthur’s…hand. Lewis momentary struggles to separate the two, thrown by the affection the action inspires in him. 

“Hey, stop that.”

“My arms gone…” Arthur breathes, shivering, shifting his grip to squeeze Vivi’s hand, staring at her with wide eyes. Her expression radiates concern.

“I can’t remember anything.” Arthur stammers, growing more panicked.

 “The doctor said that’s normal for recent trauma suffers,” Vivi placates, returning the squeeze “…here, I’ll call the nurse now. They should probably be the ones to explain this…Also...I'll text Uncle Lance as well...he'll want to know you're awake...”

 “Trauma?” Arthur interrupts dumbly, looking from Vivi, who reaches for bed’s call remote and then her phone, to his bandaged shoulder like he’s not sure if it is real. Internally, Lewis winces, uncomfortable. Even if this is fake, it still feels like an invasion of privacy.  

 “Were we in an accident? I remember a…a cave or something... It was dark…green...” He shivers again. 

  “I…” Vivi’s voice wavers, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant. 

 “I can’t remember much either…” She admits, uneasy. 

 “Oh..I...I see.” 

They both appear equally confused, lapsing into a disconcerting silence. 

Lewis’s thoughts shift anxiously at the admission. Is it a good or bad thing that neither of them remembers that strange cave nightmare? Did that mean neither of them remembered his death? It had been a pretty traumatic event…maybe it is for the best that they don’t remember. But why include that in this set of fake memories? If the point of all this was to make Lewis suffer, then witnessing Arthur remember unwillingly pushing other-Lewis down a pit would be more upsetting for the both of them. Knowing Arthur, his friend would definitely blame himself for other-Lewis’s death. Surely, forcing him to watch his friend spiral into a circle of self-deprecation would be the worst sort of second-hand torture. 

 “What about Lewis? What does he remember…” Arthur asks suddenly, glancing around like he is expecting the other-Lewis to come strolling around the curtain. 

 Of course, there is no Lewis. If this was continuing on from the last memory then the other-Lewis was dead. Vivi doesn’t respond and Lewis’s feels a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach . Or maybe it’s Arthur feeling that...hard to tell. 

 “Vivi?” Arthur glances back in time to watch Vivi’s expression slacken, eyes growing vacant. 

 “Vivi?” Arthur repeats, flustered, pulling at the hand still holding hers. Several seconds pass and Vivi stares, unfocused and unaware of Arthur and his increasing panic.  The memory ends with a nurse arriving and Arthur trying to physically shake a response out of Vivi.

.

 Lewis is left cut off from his two friends to fret in silent isolation. Around him the dark presses in once more. Even if the memories weren’t real, Lewis still feels a lingering pang of worry and distress at seeing either of his friends hurt. He would give anything to just...walk into that hospital room and alleviate Arthur’s fears and check on Vivi himself. Angry and anxious, Lewis waits for something else to happen. 

How many more of these disquieting, fake memories is he going to have to live through? 

...... 

Note: Hello! It’s been ages (^▽^;) here’s an update. Enjoy!

Part 38: here

[artificialqueens]

Spirit, Part 2/2 - (Gigi x Crystal / Gigi x Nicky) - Opalescentcheetah

A/N: I’m finally back with more magical shenanigans! I’m so sorry this has taken me so long, but I hope the chapter is worth the wait! Thank you again for all the love on Part 1, it really means a lot to me and I’m so glad you all enjoyed it <3 Feel free to drop by my blog, @opalescent-cheetah, to say hi - I love hearing from everyone!

Thank you so much to DenDenMonMon and Crazy4Kameron for beta-ing!

Summary: It’s three years later, and Gigi is going to college to chase her dreams. Unfortunately, the warehouse and the playful spirit that lives in it won’t fit in Gigi’s luggage.

~

Gigi wakes to dappled gold and pillowy warmth. She rolls over, careful not to disturb the gentle arm draped across her midsection, and meets eyes as soft as the sky after the first winter snow.

“Good morning, Miss Goode,” Nicky whispers, a smile in her sleep-heavy voice. Gigi loves the mornings after Nicky stays over, when she can wake up to tender kisses and warm tan skin, to the way Nicky’s eyes seem to sparkle faintly in the half-light.

“Good morning,” she replies softly, their faces close, limbs still entangled. “What’s the time?”

“Nine thirty. I was going to wake you up earlier, but you looked so peaceful.” Nicky’s words are brimming with affection, and it sets Gigi’s heart aflutter. She kisses Nicky again, a brush of butterfly wings at the edge of her mouth, before sliding out of bed and into the crisp morning.

The boxes lining the walls are a harsh reminder that it’s her last full day here, for tomorrow, she and Nicky will be moving to their new college dorm in preparation for their freshman year. There’s an aching nostalgia beneath her excitement; even if it’s only for a few months at a time, Gigi will be leaving behind her family and all her childhood memories. She’ll be leaving Crystal.

~

Gigi laughs as Crystal wraps her up in a white lab coat that’s just a little too tight around the shoulders, smoothing down the rumpled collar with velvet hands.

“Nearly done,” Crystal says, a playful twinkle in her eyes, and Gigi watches as she gathers handfuls of beaded necklaces from a nearby box and begins to sort through them. This has almost become tradition: every time she dresses Gigi up in the clothes they find in the warehouse, the finishing touch is always a stack of accessories. Gigi doesn’t mind it, but her favourite thing is the way Crystal smiles softly to herself while she picks them out, as though she is making the most important decision in the world.

She returns, this time, with all the green and orange ones, and puts them on for Gigi with the utmost care.

“Green for the dress,” she tells her as she works. “And orange to match your pretty hair.”

“I look like a crazy doctor,” Gigi admits when she’s done.

Crystal simply grins, completely unfazed, and hands Gigi a ginger toy cat to finish the look.

“I did a great job,” she says, half to herself. “Didn’t I, Crazy Doctor Goode?”

Gigi snickers, holding the plush cat close.

“Always the best, Miss Methyd.”

~

“Are you ready to go?”

“I am, I am, I’m sorry I’m–”

“Don’t be.” Nicky smiles, wrapping an arm around Gigi’s waist and pressing a kiss to her head. “There’s no rush. She won’t mind if we’re a little bit late.”

“I know, I just wanted to be there earlier so we could spend more time together.” She rifles through her bag, double checking everything.

“I understand that.”

Gigi exhales when her fingers brush a package wrapped in soft tissue.

“I’m ready. Let’s go.”

~

The warehouse door rattles with the late autumn chill, but Gigi hardly notices, curled up in the warmth of an old beanbag with Crystal’s favourite candles burning nearby. The warehouse smells sweetly of caramel, the firelight shivering as Crystal flicks her fingers through it, mesmerised.

“I’m done,” Gigi says, and Crystal looks up immediately, eyes bright with excitement. Gigi hands over her sketchbook and Crystal studies it for a moment before her body begins to shift. Her red hair spills into auburn waves as her ruff disappears, smooth skin and a colourful dress quickly replacing her glittering fur. The crystalline scarlet of her eyes twists into a stormcloud blue and, quite suddenly, Gigi is looking at herself.

“I love the colours,” Crystal murmurs with Gigi’s mouth, running slender fingers up one blue-and-yellow plaid sleeve. The dress skims the tops of her thighs, ivory buttons gleaming, and she’s wearing a pair of chunky white heels with gauzy socks pulled over her knees. It amazes Gigi, how Crystal can so effortlessly bring each of her sketches to life.

She has to admit, though, that she has never gotten used to seeing Crystal wearing her face. Crystal insists on it - “you should see what you would look like in your own design,” she always says, and Gigi doesn’t usually argue.

“I want to see how you would look in it, too,” she tells Crystal this time. Crystal stops midway through a spin - she seems to be enjoying the little flared skirt - and stares thoughtfully at Gigi.

“Okay,” she agrees, her body morphing back into its usual form, red fur bright against the spring plaid. “How do I look?”

Gigi hides her smile behind her hand. “Gorgeous,” she says. “Very colourful.”

“Perfect.” Crystal curtsies clumsily, stumbling in her high heels, and Gigi snickers as Crystal falls into her lap.

“Stop laughing at me,” she whines, but there’s humour laced through her voice as she flicks Gigi over the head with her tail. “I don’t know how you deal with having legs like this. They’re so stiff!”

“I don’t know how you deal with not having feet,” Gigi counters. “Besides, you were spinning around without a problem earlier - you’re just embarrassed that you tripped over.”

Crystal rolls over in Gigi’s lap to face her, eyes wide with mock offense. “I can’t believe you would call me out like that!” She gasps before falling limp, the back of her hand pressed dramatically to her head. “I’m revoking your friendship privileges.”

“I’ll get them back eventually,” Gigi says with confidence, tickling her sides. Crystal wheezes, jolting upright to grab Gigi’s shoulders when she nearly squirms off of her lap.

“And how do you know that?” she queries, her overdramatic act all but forgotten.

“Because you love me,” Gigi teases. Crystal’s grip is tight, her face a breath away, and for a moment Gigi loses herself to the warmth of her eyes and the way they crinkle at the edges as she breaks into a smile.

“Okay. That’s a very good point,” Crystal says, tapping Gigi lightly on the nose. “But I’m keeping an eye on you.”

“Whatever for?”

“You know what for.” Crystal narrows her eyes, still sparkling with playfulness.

“No, I’m not sure I do, actually.” Gigi flutters her lashes innocently. “But… while you’re here, I do have a question for you.”

“Alright…”

“What was your favourite design from today?” Gigi reaches to pick up her sketchbook, letting Crystal lie back down in her lap as she flips through it. When she finally stands, Gigi watches with tingling legs as she shifts into a leather biker number, noticing with amusement that she’s even changed her fur to match the bright pastel hues of the outfit.

Crystal takes a moment to examine herself, toying with the chains dangling from her belt before she makes the silver shinier.

“Yeah yeah yeah, definitely this one.” She twirls, steady now that she’s no longer wearing shoes, and nearly knocks over a candle with her tail. Gigi can’t help but laugh as Crystal bows dramatically, a giddy smile lighting up her face.

~

Gigi holds Nicky’s hand as they walk up the familiar path to the warehouse. It’s a nice day: it’s sunny, the air blooming as warm as the sparks of flame from Crystal’s palms. Gigi thinks of her, already aching with the nostalgia of her late teenage memories - she’s lived here, surrounded by the same people, for her entire life, and she can’t imagine what college will be like without them. She doesn’t even need to leave to know how much she’ll miss it all.

But it’s leaving Crystal that hurts the most. She’s the only one Gigi won’t be able to call or text while she’s gone, and she’s the only one without another life to go on with: all she has is her curse, trapping her in the confines of the warehouse. At least there are the breaks, Gigi reminds herself, when she can come back to meet Crystal’s gentle embrace and see the playful joy in her eyes again. She only hopes Crystal will be okay on her own.

“What are you thinking about?” Nicky asks, swinging their clasped hands.

“Just…” Gigi hesitates. “Just about the last three years, really.” About Crystal. The only part of her childhood she can’t take with her. The words hang unspoken between them.

“You’re going to miss her, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” Gigi rests her head on Nicky’s shoulder as they walk, grateful for her company, her quiet understanding, and for the fact that she doesn’t have to leave Nicky behind, too. “You, Crystal and Jackie were like my first real friends. Do you remember that time when I got locked in the warehouse?”

Nicky snorts. “How could I forget?”

“This is going to sound so cheesy, but I guess that was the day that I realised what real friendship is like,” Gigi murmurs.

“I’m glad you did,” Nicky replies, and there is a heavy layer of seriousness beneath her words. “You stopped trying to be friends with those bullies after you met Crystal. It was such a relief, honestly.”

Gigi can’t help but snicker. “I was so dumb.”

“You’re still dumb,” Nicky says affectionately. “But that’s why I like you.”

“You know what? I’m not even going to argue with that.”

“Good,” Nicky laughs, “because if you tried to act all ‘cool’ again, I might have to reconsider this relationship.”

Gigi draws back, eyes wide with mock offense. “You would never!”

“Try me.”

“I’m not going to. I like you too much for that.”

Nicky presses a kiss to her cheek. “Fine by me. I like you a little too much for that, too.”

Gigi giggles, and they keep walking as road turns to rubble, loose stones crackling beneath their feet. The old warehouse sits, lonely and imposing, at the crest of the hill, its metallic walls gleaming harshly in the morning sun. The sight of it is comfortingly familiar.

Nicky suddenly bursts out laughing. Gigi swings her head around to look at her, loving the way she tilts her face up to the sun and how it dapples her cheeks with roses.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m sorry, I was just” - Nicky snorts mid-sentence - “just thinking about that time Crystal pretended to be me. It was so terrible it was funny.”

Gigi grins at the memory. “Apart from her accent, it was actually pretty accurate,” she teases, laughing when Nicky elbows her playfully.

“Shut up. I knew you could tell the difference immediately.”

“Not until she started talking,” Gigi counters, still smiling. “I went outside just for a moment, and when I came back…”

~

There’s two Nickys.

“Hello, Gigi,” one of them says wryly, her arms crossed over her chest, icy eyes dancing with amusement. The other is crouched on the concrete floor, fixing something on her shoes.

Gigi’s eyes dart from one Nicky to the other. “Hello,” she says eventually, stifling a smile.

“Sacré bleu,” growls the Nicky on the ground as she stands. Her French accent is rough, too throaty and harsh to be real, but it doesn’t matter because Gigi can already see that this Nicky is doing everything in her power not to laugh. “You’re an idiot, Gigi. Salope!”

“Oh my god, I don’t talk like that,” Nicky sighs with breathless laughter, resting her face in her hands. “And if you’re going to keep using French phrases, I need to teach you to use them properly.”

“I think her impression is spot-on,” Gigi giggles.

“Who? What are you talking about? I’m Nicky, I don’t know who that - who that dumb bitch is.” Nicky jabs her thumb at Nicky, face pinched in an exaggerated expression of distaste. Her rough French accent is falling apart over peals of choked laughter, her shoulders shaking with silent mirth.

“You can stop now,” Nicky groans, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “This is insane–”

“Salope!” the other Nicky yells, throwing her arms up in the air with delighted enthusiasm.

~

Gigi is bombarded by a hug the moment the warehouse door swings open.

Crystal’s fur is practically sparking with excitement as she pulls Nicky into the embrace with her tail. Gigi relaxes into the warmth of their arms, feels Crystal’s smile against her cheek.

“Oh my gosh, you guys,” Crystal squeals, stepping back, “you’re both going to college tomorrow! You must be so excited!”

Gigi scans her face, her ruby eyes, for any sign of distress, but Crystal is radiating nothing but sunshine and positivity. Gigi bites her lip.

“We are,” she murmurs. Crystal must hear the hesitance in her voice, because her smile softens as she reaches out to gently pat Gigi on the head.

“I’m going to miss you,” Crystal whispers, almost reassuringly, but she isn’t looking Gigi in the eye anymore. “I have great news too, though! You won’t believe this, but I’m finally allowed to go back to the spirit realm! My… curse, I guess? It’s been lifted!”

“That’s - that’s great news,” Gigi says, trying to smile for Crystal, but her voice breaks. She’d known this day would come eventually, when Crystal would finish her task and be whisked away back to the spirit realm for good, but it’s not enough to prepare her for it. She feels Nicky’s arm on her shoulders as Crystal’s joyful expression crumbles like melting ice. Gigi covers her face with one hand, overcome with shame. “Shit. I’m - I’m sorry, I’m really happy for you, but–”

She trails off when Crystal whimpers. Gigi looks up, only to see her bottom lip quivering, her eyes liquid lava. Crystal falls into her arms, sobbing, and Nicky reaches out with a comforting hand as they slide in a heap to the ground.

“I can’t stand to see you upset,” Crystal sniffles. “I’m going to miss you both so much, you don’t even understand–”

Gigi chokes down a wave of emotion, struggling to maintain her composure as Crystal cries into her shirt. Even Nicky - stoic, calm Nicky, crouching just beside her - looks like she’s blinking back tears.

“I - will I ever get to see you again?” Gigi whispers hoarsely.

“I don’t know.” Crystal’s voice wobbles. “I’ll do my best to come back, I promise, but… there are restrictions.”

“Fuck the rules,” Gigi mutters. “If you’re free now, shouldn’t–”

“I wish it worked like that,” Crystal sighs, cutting her off. “I’m still one of the lower spirits and there are still a ton of rules because… well, I don’t know. I guess they’re worried about us causing too much chaos.”

Nicky jumps into the conversation then, her eyebrow arched in incredulity. “They don’t want you causing chaos in the human realm, and yet they trap you here when you’ve done something wrong? That’s like telling a robber not to steal and then locking them in a bank vault.”

Crystal manages a weak laugh. “It’s so stupid, right?”

“God, I–” Gigi swallows thickly, still holding Crystal close, trying desperately to memorise the way her fur shimmers as it catches the light and how her palms spark with heat every time their hands touch. “I can’t imagine never seeing you again.” Her voice is breaking and she pauses, eyes swimming with tears. “I’m going to miss you so fucking much. Thank you for making the last years of my childhood so wonderful.”

“Aw, don’t get all sappy on me, Miss Gigi.” Crystal’s face is soft with a watery smile as she draws back, hands still clasped around Gigi’s shoulders. “That’s my job, silly.”

This gets a laugh out of Gigi. “I’m stealing it, just for today.”

“Yeah. She’s got to get her feelings out now, otherwise she’ll be a mess in the car ride tomorrow,” Nicky comments lightly, rubbing comforting circles into Gigi’s back.

Crystal giggles. “For real, though, you must be so excited. You’re finally going to fashion school!”

“I am, I’m really looking forward to it.” Gigi wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. “It sucks that I can’t take you and the entire warehouse with me, though.”

“It’s okay. Once you’re there, you’ll be too busy to miss me that much,” Crystal says, but she sounds like she’s reassuring herself as much as Gigi. “And I can finally go home. How good is the timing, though? I got the message just yesterday and begged them for one more day so I could say goodbye.”

“The greater spirits must think you’re crazy - stuck here for thirteen years, and yet you still want an extra day!” Gigi jokes, a genuine smile creeping onto her face. Crystal always makes her smile.

“Oh, I know! They finally told me what my moral task was, too, and you won’t believe this - empathy! They trapped me here for thirteen years because they thought I was annoying!”

Gigi sputters out a laugh. “Seriously?”

“Yeah! Apparently I was insufferable beforehand. They were like” - Crystal puts her hands on her hips and adds a gruff edge to her voice, pinching her brows - “oh, yeah, took you long enough to learn to care about others and stop being such a little brat even though we never told you what the problem was, so, uh, we guess you can come home now.”

“What did you do to piss them off so much?” Gigi asks incredulously. Despite her numerous conversations with Crystal over the course of three years, she doesn’t think she’s heard anything worthy of a decade-long banishment.

“I can only imagine,” Nicky snickers.

“Hey, shut up,” Crystal giggles. “It was kind of like what I was doing here, before I met you - pulling pranks on people just for the laughs, except I was always the only one laughing… Oh, and I guess Rock was too, except she must be a lot more empathetic, because apparently she finished her task five years ago.”

Gigi remembers hearing about Rock: Crystal’s best friend from the spirit realm, equally as spritely and just as much of a prankster. According to Crystal, they got on like a house on fire.

“You must be excited to see her again,” she murmurs.

“Yeah. I doubt she made friends as good as you two, though,” Crystal says, gazing at Gigi and Nicky with unadulterated warmth and affection. “I can’t wait to tell her about you guys. She’s going to be so jealous of all the fun we had.”

“I’ll give you something more for her to be jealous of,” Gigi says, biting back a grin at the way Crystal’s eyebrows shoot up with eager curiosity. She feels for the bulky weight in her bag and pulls out a package, delicately wrapped in orange tissue paper. Crystal’s fur is practically sizzling with excitement as Gigi deposits the gift in her waiting hands.

She tears the paper away with gusto, revealing a motorcycle jacket made of soft leather. It’s a sleek ebony with a red satin inner lining, crimson leather popping at the collar. Crystal toys with the silver buckles before letting out a quiet gasp when she turns the jacket around: her name is embroidered into the leather, red and silver letters gleaming bright against the midnight black.

“Did you make this?” she whispers as she hugs it to her chest, staring at Gigi, wide-eyed with wonder.

“You should’ve seen her,” Nicky says warmly. “She spent hours obsessing over it… she wanted it to be perfect.”

“And it is.” Crystal’s voice is choked with emotion, fresh tears welling at her eyes. “It’s more than perfect… Oh, Gigi, I love it, I’m never going to take it off.” In one swift movement, she slides the jacket onto her shoulders, unable to stop admiring the immaculate craftsmanship.

“I’m glad you like it,” Gigi murmurs. She can’t help but swell with pride at the awe and disbelief blossoming across Crystal’s face - all the long nights she put into finishing the garment feel more than worth it, just for this moment.

“Are you kidding? This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Crystal gushes, pulling Gigi into another hug. “I’m going to wear it all the time so I can think of you every day, and all the other spirits will wish they were banished for thirteen years just so they could have something as cool as this.”

Gigi laughs. “Make sure to emphasise that it’s hand-made and one-of-a-kind. They’ll be really jealous then.”

“Oh, I will!” Crystal promises. “Thank you so much, Gigi. It’s so gorgeous! I can’t believe you made it just for me… it even has my name on it!”

“Do you remember the last time you were shapeshifting into all of my outfit ideas?” Gigi asks her.

Crystal nods emphatically.

“I remember you said your favourite was the leather biker one,” Gigi says, a smile in her voice, “so I made something similar, just more fitting to your colour scheme. Now, you don’t need to turn yourself all pink and yellow.”

Crystal’s cheeks flare gold like she’s been kissed by sunlight. “That’s so sweet,” she squeals, looking like she’s about to cry again.

Nicky shuffles closer, resting a steady hand on both Gigi and Crystal’s shoulders. “Seeing as this is our last day together,” she says gently, “do you guys want to do something fun?”

~

“But, Gigi, our exams–”

“Shush, you’ve been stressing non-stop for three weeks! Give yourself a break,” Gigi says, pausing when she sees Jackie’s dubious expression. “Fine, we’ll revise later. But Crystal’s been dying to meet you, so you’re not getting out of this.”

She leads Jackie to the warehouse, pushing open the door to the charcoal scent of fire… and a lightshow.

Sparks sizzle, shooting up like fireworks until they bounce off the high ceiling and shower the room in a cascade of embers. A ball of scalding gold begins to take shape in the midst of the firestorm, twisting as it expands and splits into two. Behind it, Crystal’s face is illuminated with rippling light, orange flames dancing in her eyes.

She hasn’t noticed them yet. Gigi watches, breathless with awe, as Crystal juggles the fiery orbs between her fingers with unparalleled dexterity. Finally, she closes her fists, plunging the room into a muted darkness still spitting with dying embers–

And then flames shoot up her arms, flaring outwards in a plume of scarlet and gold. The jewel tones of Crystal’s fur are amplified, as though her soul is incandescent, blazing through her skin.

She raises her arms with a fiery swoosh and suddenly, she’s a phoenix, as the topaz flames streaking from her arms billow into brilliant wings.

“Woah,” Jackie breathes, and Gigi can only nod in agreement, lost for words. She’s never been exposed to the true scope of Crystal’s powers before, and stars, how she wishes she had. Crystal is beautiful, shrouded in fire - she looks confident, commanding… she is electrifying.

She is nothing short of a goddess, and Gigi can’t tear her gaze away.

Then Crystal turns, tongues of flame still surging from her arms and back. Gigi takes a moment to admire her, her soft jaw alight with warm gold, before Crystal’s face cracks with realisation.

She’s seen them. In an instant, the flames vanish, leaving nothing but a handful of embers sizzling on the cold concrete floor. The building is abruptly plunged back into a colourless darkness.

A moment later, the warehouse lights flicker to life, and Gigi blinks as her eyes adjust.

“Hi, Gigi!” Crystal waves cheerfully from the lightbox before bouncing over. “And you must be Jackie, right? It’s so good to finally meet you!”

“Crystal! That was incredible!” Gigi gushes, unable to stop herself, her intentions of formally introducing Crystal to Jackie momentarily forgotten. “How come you’ve never done it before?”

“Oh, uh…” Crystal scratches the back of her neck, suddenly shy. “It’s just a thing I’ve been practicing. I didn’t think you’d like it - the last time I did something like that with people around, they, uh… they started burning.” She bites her lip sheepishly as Jackie grimaces. “I think they survived. I mean, they must have, they were okay enough to run away screaming.”

“Ah. Well.” Gigi frowns, not quite sure what to do with this new information. “I thought–”

“Wait, I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Crystal’s eyes are round with worry as she runs up to delicately cup Gigi’s face, checking it for burns, before her gaze flickers to Jackie. “Crap, what an awful first impression. I’m so sorry.”

Gigi’s throat tightens as Crystal steps back, her shoulders drooping with shame. She looks so tiny compared to the whirlwind creature of flame that lit up the warehouse mere moments ago, Gigi almost doesn’t recognise her.

“We’re alright.” Gigi moves closer to hold both of her hands, comfortingly rubbing her thumbs over Crystal’s knuckles. “It was a beautiful show, Crystal. You’re very talented.”

“Really?” she seems to brighten, then, dark lips quirking up in the beginnings of a smile.

“If you don’t mind me asking…” Jackie interrupts, startling them both, “how did you do that, Crystal? When Gigi said you could control fire, I thought she was exaggerating, but… wow.”

Crystal’s smile stretches into a grin, so unreserved and genuine that it makes Gigi’s chest flare with warmth. Crystal wears happiness well.

“Magic,” she tells Jackie easily.

Gigi can’t help but giggle when Jackie’s eyebrows crease in disbelief. Crystal meets Gigi’s gaze, her face flashing with delight, before she steps back and transforms into the thing of legends: a creature made entirely of ice cream.

“Magic,” she says again, her voice slightly more garbled now as ice cream drips down her chin. Jackie’s eyes look like they’re about to bulge out of their sockets, and Gigi almost chokes on her own laughter.

~

They take the long way home, skirting the town, following the lines of trees flanking the unpaved road. Nicky drives, humming softly to the pop music pounding through the car as Gigi shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

She knows that Crystal won’t be there. She knows that she’ll open the warehouse door to be met with a dark silence, colder now that Crystal’s warmth and energy is gone, the faint smell of caramel still lingering if she breathes in deep enough. Gigi knows this, but she still wanted - no, she insisted on coming this way, even if it’s just so she can stand there one more time and let the memories sink into her skin.

They turn a corner, and Gigi’s heart plummets.

She blinks, sure that she’s hallucinating, but the warehouse is no longer silhouetted against the crystalline sky; instead, there are enormous yellow machines, whirring and crunching through what’s left. Gigi’s skin prickles with how hauntingly wrong this is, and it takes her a moment to realise she’s shaking.

The car stops on the side of the road and Gigi feels Nicky’s arm snake around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug across the centre console. Gigi presses her nose into Nicky’s neck, breathing in the familiar French vanilla scent of her.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Nicky murmurs, stroking her hair.

“I knew she wasn’t going to be there. But…” The words tremble, bitter and acrid on Gigi’s tongue. “But this… this makes it all worse.”

She can’t even bring herself to hate the childish whine that’s crept into the edges of her voice. The biggest reminder of Crystal she had left in her life is now gone, and all their memories swept away with it, reduced to rubble. Gigi feels its absence like a stab through the chest.

“I know.” Nicky’s words are weighted with grief. Her embrace is tight, cozy, and Gigi sinks into it as a heavy silence falls over the car.

Several heartbeats pass before Nicky draws back again, gently brushing her thumb along Gigi’s jaw. “Let’s go home,” she murmurs. “We can stop for ice cream or something on the way back, if you want.”

“Wait. I… I want to stand there one last time.”

“Are you sure?” Nicky’s eyes flash with doubt, but Gigi is already pushing open the door, stepping out into the crunch of gravel. She looks back at Nicky and nods, just once.

“One last time,” she says again. “Come on, Nicky. Let’s go say good-bye.”

Nicky hesitates before sliding out of the drivers’ seat, taking Gigi’s hand in her own as they traipse up the hill. There are fences everywhere now, dotted with neon warning signs barring people from getting too close.

It’s not like anyone even comes here, anyways, Gigi thinks to herself. Anyone but us.

She lets out a heavy breath as she scans the wreckage. Sheets of metal and demolished shelving planks are piled in a heap, ready to be removed; the boxes of toys and clothes and things that Crystal loved so much are gone, and with them - and her - all the colour and liveliness of the place has disappeared too. It seems, quite suddenly, like a memory from another lifetime, and the ground that Gigi stands upon is now unfamiliar.

She feels Nicky squeeze her hand as she closes her eyes, remembering the golden days when she’d run up into Crystal’s arms and meet the sunshine in her pearly smile. She holds the memories close in her chest, resurrecting them over the cold, lifeless sight that now lies before her.

A warm breeze whisks around them, stirring up the long grass at Gigi’s feet. For a moment, it feels as though Crystal has her arms around Gigi’s shoulders again, grinning against her cheek.

Gigi swallows down the lump in her throat.

“Goodbye, Crystal,” she whispers to the sky, and when she turns around, she doesn’t look back.

Nicky drives her home, leaving her at the doorway with a gentle kiss and a glaze in her eyes that might be pity. Gigi kisses her back and watches the car disappear before she knocks on the door, three times, breaking into a genuine smile when she sees her parents’ joyous faces. It hits her when she falls into her mother’s embrace how much she’s missed the comforts of her childhood home and her family; no amount of FaceTime calls could make up for this cosy sense of security, this unconditional love.

It feels so good to be home.

When she sits with them at the table, armed with a plate full of fresh biscuits and a hundred stories, she forgets to be sad. Instead, she loses herself in the laughter and the easy conversation.

Later, she opens the door to her bedroom, dizzy with the events of the day. She’s more than ready to finally relax, after the long drive home and the churning horror of seeing the ruined warehouse. A part of her still refuses to believe that it’s gone: to Gigi, it will always be Crystal’s warehouse.

She blinks herself out of her trance and finds herself standing by her old wardrobe. Throwing open its doors, she runs her hand through the rows of old clothes and outfits that didn’t make it to her college dorm.

Her fingers brush soft, worn denim and she stops.

It’s the outfit from the day she met Crystal.

Gigi pulls it out, suddenly choked up. In her mind’s eye, she sees Crystal, flower crown sitting crookedly around her horns as she smiles. She can still hear her bluebell laughter and the loud clicking of an obscene number of beaded necklaces.

She traces her fingers over the seams, smiling at the memories, still crisp and clear despite the years that have passed. Crystal might be gone, but seeing these reminders fills Gigi with so much joy that the ache of missing her doesn’t hurt quite so much.

After another moment of silent reminiscing, Gigi hangs the denim outfit back up in her wardrobe and continues to rifle through the rows of colourful garments. In the shock of seeing the warehouse torn apart, she’d forgotten the collection of things Crystal had given her to take home over the years. The denim number was only the first.

Gigi can’t help but giggle when she finds three plastic takeaway boxes stuffed with accessories. If anything reminds her of Crystal, it’s this: she loved her jewellery more than anything else.

“There can always be more,” she once said sagely, handing Gigi a stack of necklaces. “More is more, and more is… better.”

Sliding the boxes out of her wardrobe, Gigi goes to sit on her bed and–

“Shit!”

She scrambles up as though she’s been burned; there’s something beneath the covers, something that seems to crackle beneath her weight. Whatever it is, she’s sure it’s not supposed to be there. Leaving the boxes of jewellery on her bedside table, she gingerly draws back the sheets.

She nearly cries when she sees it, messily folded, still wrinkled through the sleeves. Her breath catches in her throat when she picks it up, holding it as though it’s made of glass. The bird on the front looks like it might be smiling.

It’s Crystal’s favourite beaded jacket.

She’d pulled it out of a box when Gigi first met her, and she wore it for the rest of the day. Gigi smiles when she remembers how adorably ridiculous Crystal looked, with the colourful patterned jacket and a green-and-gold clown hat, and almost laughs when she thinks back on her own fear. It’s hard to imagine being scared of Crystal now.

Something falls out from between the folds of the jacket when Gigi opens it up, catching her eye as it drifts down to her bed. It’s a sheet of paper, scrawled over with tight, blocky letters.

Hi Gigi!

I kind of timed this really badly because you don’t seem to be back from your big fancy college yet, and if I could figure out where that is, that would be awesome, but the fact is that I have absolutely no idea. Am I rambling? I think I’m rambling.

Stars, Gigi, I miss you so much you have no idea. I’ve been wearing the jacket you made for me every single day and it’s so comfy and beautiful and honestly, I might not be a high-ranking spirit, but I’m definitely one of the coolest. If not the coolest. So thank you for that!

Oh, and Rock wants to say hi, by the way. She’s super jealous of my jacket (as expected) and she wants one too, but I told her she could only have one if she became as close with you as I did. She just told me I sucked. Whatever! I’m still the one with the epic jacket.

Speaking of which, I wanted to leave you something to remember me by too, so here’s my old favourite jacket. It’s really special to me because I was wearing it the first time you came to the warehouse, and I want you to have it now. Can you believe how much things have changed since then? I remember how scared you were and how lonely I was, and somehow we ended up being best friends. I’m really happy we did. Those were some of the best years of my existence, and I’ll treasure them forever.

I’d better wrap this up quick, I can hear footsteps outside your door. I don’t think your family would be too pleased to see a spirit lurking in your bedroom, even if they know who I am! I hope you’ve had the BEST time at college and that I can get permission to come visit your realm again (hopefully when you’re actually back home, so you can tell me all about fashion school!)

Okay, I really should go.

I miss you!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

Love,

Crystal

The note is enough for the dam in Gigi’s eyes to finally break. Trembling with emotion, she slides onto the floor, hugging the jacket and the note so close against her chest that she hears the paper crinkle.

Everything about it feels so wonderfully Crystal, from her fast, messy scrawl to the doodles lining the margins of the page. Gigi reads the note again through blurred eyes, treasuring every word, unable to wipe away her smile even when her cheeks begin to ache. She doesn’t know whether or not Crystal saw the ruins of the warehouse, but suddenly it doesn’t seem to matter. All that’s important is that she managed to come back, and that she still misses Gigi as fiercely as Gigi misses her.

And now, Gigi has another sliver of her, another glorious memory brought to life in fabric and colourful buttons. The statement piece of a collection.

It still smells of embers and caramel candles.

~

She returns the very next weekend.

The door creaks loudly on rusted hinges when she pushes it open and timidly looks inside, only to be met with darkness.

“Hello?”

Her voice echoes once before there’s an enormous crash, followed by the clicking of hooves on hard concrete. A moment later, Crystal appears, half of her face illuminated by the stripe of sunlight through the door.

“You came back!” she squeals, bouncing giddily on the spot, her fur shimmering with crimson stardust.

“I told you I would,” Gigi says, a smile forming on her face of its own accord. “I have something to show you that I think you might like.”

“Ooh!” Crystal claps her hands in excitement, and fiery sparks spray onto the ground. “Hold on, let me get the lights. I keep them off, usually, because I read somewhere that they’re not friendly to your planet.”

Gigi hums in agreement and watches as her grey silhouette darts across to the lightboard. A moment later, the room is washed in pearly white, reigniting the sparkles in Crystal’s hair. She’s beaming, her face alight with elation, and Gigi can’t help but grin too.

“You’re still wearing the jacket,” she comments, stepping into the warehouse and letting the door swing shut behind her. This time, the loud CLANG doesn’t make her jump.

“Oh, yeah.” Sheepishly, Crystal toys with the edges of the colourful garment, tracing the white patterns on the sleeves. “It makes me think of how much fun I had when you were here, and that makes me happy.”

She looks unusually shy, her eyes trained on the floor as her tail twitches behind her. Gigi closes the distance between them and gently adjusts Crystal’s collar, the plastic beads cool beneath her fingertips.

“It suits you,” Gigi tells her warmly. Crystal finally looks up, her candy-apple eyes swimming with what might be incredulity or a wonderstruck elation.

Perhaps it’s both, Gigi thinks, digging around in her pocket for her phone. Crystal is watching her as though she isn’t quite sure whether or not Gigi is real, and that familiar pity wedges itself between her ribs.

“The thing I want to show you today is called Snapchat,” Gigi explains, opening the app. “It has tons of filters that we can mess around with.”

“Filters?” Crystal asks, perplexed, as she peers over Gigi’s shoulder. “Filters for what?”

“For your face.” Gigi suppresses a smile when Crystal scrunches up her nose in confusion. “Here, I’ll show you.”

She picks the infamous dog filter and tilts her phone until they’re both on the screen. A moment later, canine ears and noses appear on their faces, and Crystal starts back in surprise.

“That’s us!” She gasps, gaze darting between Gigi, her phone, and back again in disbelief. “But - but how does that work?” Frantically, she pats her face, feeling her nose and ears and horns, watching with wide eyes as her hands phase through the dog ears on screen.

Gigi bursts into laughter. “I told you, it’s a filter,” she giggles. “The phone scans your face and puts the filter over it, so it looks like you’re a dog, even though you’re not.”

“Oh.” Crystal lets her hands fall, and Gigi can almost see the thoughts spinning behind her ruby eyes. “So humans invented a way to… to pretend that they can shapeshift?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

It seems to click, then, and Crystal’s face lights up with amazement.

“That’s so cool!” she exclaims, stealing Gigi’s phone and peering eagerly at her dog-eared self. “Hey, why did my ears change? I liked the spotty ones!”

“I’ll have the spotty ones now,” Gigi says, shifting until she’s back in the frame and the black-and-white ears appear on her face. “Wait, watch this.” She opens her mouth, and Crystal’s eyes bulge when a long tongue unfurls on the screen. A moment later, Crystal follows suit, howling with excitement when she gets her own dog tongue.

“Are there any more of these ‘filters?’” she asks eagerly, her gaze still on the phone as she pulls faces at herself.

“Yeah! There’s plenty. If you give me my–”

“Wait! I just had the best idea,” Crystal interrupts, tossing the phone back to Gigi before running off. Gigi scrambles to catch it, blinking confusedly as Crystal disappears between the shelves.

“Crystal?” she calls out in concern, but all she hears in response is the scraping sound of something being dragged along the floor, before Crystal comes back around the corner with a large bean bag in tow.

“I found this again the other day,” she explains as she proudly deposits it in front of Gigi. “I thought that… if you came back, maybe we could use it. And here you are!” She throws her arms out for emphasis before flopping down into the bean bag, sending a spray of dust up after her. “It’s been here a while,” she adds, apologetically, when Gigi sneezes.

“That’s fine.” Gigi waves dust particles away from her face before taking a delicate seat on the bean bag. Crystal promptly grabs her shoulders, pulling her backwards until her entire weight is settled in the soft plush, curled up close to Crystal’s side.

“There. Perfect.” Crystal turns her head to grin at Gigi, breath warm on Gigi’s nose. “Now you can show me more of your filters!”

Gigi scrolls through the options as Crystal leans against her shoulder, the beads on her jacket pressing into Gigi’s arm. Finally, Gigi raises her phone above their faces, capturing them both in the frame, and–

Crystal shrieks with laughter, her hands flying to her face. She taps her nose, pulls at the corners of her mouth, snickering when the image on the phone mirrors her actions… except the miniature Crystal reflected back at her has Gigi’s crystalline eyes and button nose, whilst Gigi’s cheeks are glittering with gold, dark lips stretched around a grin.

“Wow, Gigi, you look especially lovely today,” Crystal giggles, pointing at Gigi’s face on the screen. “Red really suits you.”

“Why thank you,” Gigi replies graciously. “You don’t look half bad yourself.”

“I know, right? I should wear blue eyes more often.” She sits up in the beanbag as her features begin to change, and a moment later, Gigi finds herself staring… at herself.

“This is so fucking weird,” she says slowly, unable to stop a smile from pulling at the corners of her lips.

“Thank you. I live to please.” Crystal flicks her hair, still red and sparkling, over her ruff.

Gigi chuckles, lost for words. Crystal’s power is astonishing - when Gigi meets her eyes, it’s like looking in a mirror. It sends a strange shiver up her spine, but when Crystal grins shyly, glossy lips gleaming under the warehouse lights, Gigi can’t help but smile back.

~

Oh, what she wouldn’t give to see Crystal’s smile again. That endearingly playful smile was the only thing that never changed, even as her body shifted into all sorts of weird and wonderful things. Gigi hugs the jacket to her chest, tears streaming freely down her face in the privacy of her bedroom.

She recalls the paradise sunset of that second weekend, when she turned around on her way down the hill to see Crystal’s shimmering form silhouetted in the doorway, the amalgamation of colours on her jacket visible even from a distance. When Gigi thinks of the warehouse, she doesn’t see the wreckage and the big machines; instead, she remembers the glorious sunlight on the edge of Crystal’s face that afternoon, remembers how Crystal breathed life and excitement into everything she touched. She remembers how every day from then, the promise of her return hung silently in the air, sparkling gold and bright.

[hopelessromanticspoonie]

750 Follower Celebration! Loki x reader fluff , prompt 22. They have been friends forever, reader always had Lokis back, even from childhood. But that didnt stop Loki from being a tease all the time... Reader being insecure and shy but with the most stunning singing voice in all of Asgard

Wooo! Thank you so much for sending in this request! It was such a joy to write (as evidenced by the fact that this is a full length one shot OOPS). I hope you enjoy!

Safe Haven

The one time you didn’t feel the anxious jitters of insecurity knocking at your knees was when you sang.

You knew the bright taste of confidence on your tongue when your voice rang out throughout the room, carrying tales of recent splendor and war to the hundreds of those in attendance of the celebratory feast. When so many looked upon you in wonder as you used your well-trained gift to entertain them before the true revelry had begun, you shone your brightest. 

But that high couldn’t last forever, and soon you were leaving the small fire-lit stage to allow everyone to focus on each other, laughing and toasting over honeyed mead and bittersweet wine. And that was when you felt most ill at ease, knowing that you didn’t quite fit in with the boasting warriors and their admirers, nor the wizened academics who conversed quietly amongst themselves.

Thank the Norns for Loki, who caught your eye in the crowd, standing almost a full ahead above the rest. He had been your near-constant companion since your childhood, a spot of brightness and a safe haven wrapped in a dark and emerald green package that turned most others away. But you knew the heart beneath the thorny exterior, warm and inviting and not without laughter, from your years spent exploring all that Asgard had to offer, finding secret passageways in the palace and secreting yourselves away. Him, to practice magic and study in peace, and you, to rehearse, providing a pleasing background accompaniment to his workings.

You slipped through the crowd, shooting sheepish smiles in the direction of those who praised your performance, feeling your cheeks flame from the attention. He held out a glass of your favorite wine, elegant fingertips brushing yours when you gratefully took the drink from him. Holding it gave your fidgeting hands something to focus on. You had always been told that restlessness was most unbecoming of a lady of noble birth, not that you’d care. But it still nagged at the back of your mind.

“You look positively pallid, Little Lark,” Loki commented, concern edging his tone despite the boredom painting his harsh features.

You took your place beside him, your backs to a pillar, surveying the festivities from the edge of it all. “You know how I detest these parties. I do enjoy performing, but the attention afterward is most unsettling.”

He grinned, quirking a fine black eyebrow in your direction. “Perhaps it is not only your otherworldly voice that draws their focus.”

Over the last century or so, Loki’s attentions had turned into something more than the easy friendship you had grown used to. It was unsettling at first, to be the object of flirtation from someone of such a high status, of such regal beauty that to look him fully in the eye made your breath catch in your throat and your heart squeeze. But when he never made any further advances, you took it as harmless banter, sliding into the new roles of your relationship with all the ease and grace of a poorly shod horse. Anything became easier with time, however, and it wasn’t as if Asgardians were lacking that commodity.

Nothing could come of it, anyway. Your birth, while high in Asgardian society, wasn’t that of one who could truly tempt a Prince.

So you easily rolled your eyes, nudging your shoulder into his upper arm. “Ah, yes, these so-called wiles that you insist I possess. How foolish of me to have forgotten them.”

“Indeed, as I have not,” he replied, his velvety voice dropping to a pleasant timbre that sent a chill down your spine.

You clenched the stem of your glass tighter for it, casting a glance up at him to see that he was watching you with such intensity that you were lost in the depths of his eyes. The flicking firelight from the torches scattered around the grand hall added a pleasant warmth to his porcelain skin, and the sharp cut of his cheekbones and jaw cast interesting shadows over his face that captivated you.

“Ah, there you are! Loki, have you been hiding away your songbird from the rest of us?” Thor bellowed, breaking the spell between you.

You tore your gaze away, taking a deep sip from your glass as you dipped your head in polite greeting to the Prince and his friends, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. Their faces were flushed red with drink and merriment, eyes somewhat glassy as they rolled between you and Loki. They paid little mind to the maidens draped along their arms, and you knew that few men were brave enough to attempt wooing Sif.

“Apparently not effectively enough,” Loki replied, swiping a glass of mead from a passing servant with a cutting glance that would kill if he had such abilities.

Thor seemed unbothered by his brother’s coldness, taking a hearty swig from the tankard he held clutched in one hand. “We were telling our companions of the battle that we won only days ago, but I was having difficulty recalling your part in the ordeal.”

You caught the hint of disdain beneath Thor’s easy words, played off as a jest between siblings, but very disrespectful when presented in mixed company. It made your jaw clench, and you quickly finished your glass of wine before handing it to Loki, who made it disappear without comment or moment of hesitation.

Loki’s smile was serpentine, with too much harshness in the pull of his lips and the hardness in his eyes. “Besides assisting the Allfather and his advisors in the strategy of the battle?”

Volstagg sank down onto a table behind him, pulling his female companion onto his lap and wrapping her in his arms. “With your tricks, you could have been absent from the fight entirely and none would be the wiser. It would be the sort of thing a silver-tongued serpent would excel at.”

“Just because he isn’t a great brute like you, does not mean that he does not have the skills necessary to best any enemy before him. There is much to be said for cunning and forethought, especially as he is planning your actions on said battlefield,” you snapped, your hands balling up into fists at your sides. You continued before you completely lost your nerve, already feeling it slip at the shocked attention of the group, “He is your Prince, and you would do well to remember that. He deserves equal respect to that of Thor.”

You felt the weight of their eyes upon you, watching you as your eyes shifted between them, unsure of who was safest to land upon. None was heavier than Loki’s beside you, but you had spent all of your bravery in your outburst. Unable to face the scrutiny any longer, you dipped your chin to Thor before turning on your heel and storming away, needing a moment of fresh air to cleanse the panic from your lungs.

It was bitingly cold outside with a faint breeze blowing about slowly falling snowflakes. You had always loved Asgard in the winter, the warm copper and gold of the city blanketed in brilliant white that cast a hush over everything. It never lasted, horses and footsteps muddying the snow and turning it into a foul gray-brown slush, but the moment was nice while it lasted. The crisp air bit at your lungs and your skin. The fine silk dress that floated from your skin with each movement was quite beautiful, but hardly practical for remaining in the elements for an extended period of time.

The scent of pine and spice, rich and inviting, enveloped you just before a heavy cloak settled over your shoulders. Loki. You would know the earthy aroma of his soaps anywhere. He adjusted it around your arms before coming to your side, leaning a hip against the stone balustrade so he was facing you, arms crossed over his broad chest. As always, he seemed wholly unbothered by the bracing cold.

“Am I going to face punishment for speaking to one of the Warriors Three so candidly?” you asked, digging your hands into the warm fur lining his cloak. The warmth was needed, but it didn’t stop the icy grip around your heart as the consequences of your actions began to race through your thoughts. It had been incredibly disrespectful of you, and in public, no less. Even if you weren’t reprimanded for it, you may lose your tenuous position singing for the royal festivities. Not to mention the dishonor it would bring to your family name.

“They laughed off your anger quickly. No harm was done to their fragile egos,” Loki assured you. He tilted his head to the side, studying you closely. “You need not defend me from them. They are fools.”

“But I must. They treat you as the dirt beneath their boots, and it boils my blood. You are deserving of far better treatment than Thor and his boorish friends bestow upon you,” you insisted.

An unreadable expression crossed his face, and he shifted closer to you, close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath fan across your face and radiate out from his body. His hand came up beneath the cloak to encircle your wrist, branding your skin with the light touch. “You honestly believe this to be true,” he said quietly, awestruck, searching your eyes.

This close, it was difficult for you to form a coherent thought and keep your eyes from trailing to his lips. Would they taste of the alcohol he had consumed moments ago? Surely that was your own imbibement speaking, causing the flutter of excitement in your chest and the color on your cheeks. But somehow you managed to piece together a quiet, “Of course. They are blind to the man you truly are.”

His fingertips grazed your cheekbone as his free hand left his side to brush a stray lock of hair - cold and wet from the falling snow - off of your forehead. His touch lingered, his hand falling down to slip beneath the hem of the cloak and grasp the back of your neck gently. “And who am I?”

It was a challenge, a question that demanded an answer by his soft yet firm tone. You dropped your eyes to the pulse racing in his neck, unable to think when staring into the face of such heartbreaking beauty. “A good man, one of thought and care. Loyal, to those who have earned it, and even to those who haven’t, for a time. Cunning, obviously, with intelligence that rivals that of anyone I know. And my dearest and oldest friend.”

The clearing of his throat drew your attention, and you were then transfixed by the tenderness smoothing across his face. “I am honored that you think so highly of me. But, I believe that I would be more than a friend, if you’d allow me?”

And when you said nothing, unable to process the intent behind his words, he lowered his head, first resting his forehead against yours. His nose rasped against your cheek, and you closed your eyes when the sight of his sooty lashes falling against unblemished cheekbones began to blur.

His lips, you discovered, tasted of bittersweet mead. Surely there must be some remaining on his tongue, for you felt thoroughly intoxicated as his hands dropped to wrap around your waist beneath his cloak, pressing your body into his. He swallowed your breathy sigh, holding you up against the weakness of your knees at the molten heat that rolled through you. At some point your arms wrapped around his shoulders so your fingers could tangle in the hair that brushed against his neck, eliciting a groan from him that stole your breath away.

“Will you allow me, Little Lark, to court you as I have desired for so long?” he asked after the kiss was broken, lifting his head just enough to see you clearly.

You rubbed your thumb over the leather covering his chest, emboldened by the throb of your heart in your kiss-swollen lips. “I am not of advantageous birth. It will not be a favored union.” You loathed to say it, but you had to, anyway.

His answering smile was full of so much happy mischief that you couldn’t help but match it. “Let them balk or whisper their grievances. You have been the only one in my sights for centuries. Say you’ll be mine?”

“I have always been yours, Loki. Why do you suppose I continue to perform in your colors?”

Lust darkened his emerald gaze. “Kiss me again. Like you mean it this time.”

The mirth on his lips was the sweetest nectar of all, banishing any frustration, anxiety, scorn, or melancholy that you had felt moments before. Because this was Loki, and he had always been your safe haven.

***

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