#wr leah chatzy

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Reading Rainbow || Morgan & Leah (feat. Sundew and her pixie troop)

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @phoenixleah & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: The White Crest Supernatural Literacy Initiative has its first test run. Results are....mixed.

Pixies fly in the sky I can go twice as high Just take a look It's in a book A reading rainbow

“Are you sure you’re good to go?” Morgan asked, rocking along the edge of the woods. She had secured her keys and phone to her carabiner and tucked everything else she needed in her knapsack: water, taser, knife, snacks, offerings, stationary. She’d asked Deirdre for advice on what pixies liked best. She’d gone through her checklist, and she had a good feeling about this expedition. The fae were so insular and some of the smaller of the bunch, so underserved by the world. Living out in the wild, away from even an Aos Si, surely they could use a leg up for when they had to deal with humans, or if they wanted to engage with the rest of supernatural society. Literacy had been Leah’s idea, of course. But while she had seemed plenty excited by it when they’d talked, Morgan still worried about that knack for suppression she’d mentioned, and the wolf injuries that were only just healing. Was this too much too soon? Was she being a bad friend for not waiting longer?

Morgan squinted behind her over the glare of mid-morning sunlight. Her friend’s hiking bag was at least half her sized, packing everything from a small library’s worth of board books and mini books, to shiny offerings, to camping equipment, including a tent, for some reason. She was one strong wind away from being knocked over, and Morgan couldn’t help but laugh a little. “We can always come back if you’re not up to it, or if you feel like you uh, need more supplies before going in.”

Leah looked over at Morgan, adjusting the bag over her shoulder with a determined nod.  “I’m fine, really”, she said, although her eyes didn’t quite meet her friends. She was fine, right?  She’d gone out plenty of times since her incident with Ada, and physically, she was fit as a fiddle, thanks to Nisa.  Still, it seemed every time she ventured out lately- first with Nicole and then with Kaden, she was faced with another monster attack to deal with, all before fully processing the trauma of what happened with Ada.  But she wanted to be over it- an encounter with a monster was never much of a bother before, and she was determined not to let it be now.  “I’m fine”, reiterated.  “I’m excited, actually… I really think we could do something good here.”

They had been talking for months about spreading literacy around White Crest, and so doing it here and now was the perfect way to clear her mind from all the annoying anxieties that seemed to be popping their way in these days.   She shook her head playfully, a smirk playing on her lips.  Nicole, too, had something to say about the size of her bag.  “It never hurts to be prepared”, she said, holding up her hands in mock defense.  “I’ve genuinely thought of everything, Morgan.  There’s not one thing we could go back for.”  As they walked toward a small picnic table in the distance, she glanced at her friend again, smiling softly.  “Besides, it’d just be rude to back out now, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t, actually,” Morgan said. “I can handle this just fine on my own if you wanted to take it easy for today. I know you’re all shiny and healed, but that doesn’t mean you have to go running into the trees to look for pixies.” But Leah seemed sure, and they did have all the supplies they needed, and then some. “Come here,” she sighed, reaching for her friend’s hand. “Thank you for doing this with me. Lets poke a little way’s into the trees, okay?”

She squeezed Leah’s hand, securing her grip, and walked to where nature clustered the thickest.

“Oh no!” She called. “I think we’ve already lost our way back to the park! I sure hope no one comes to try and take advantage of us! Don’t you?” She winked and Leah, encouraging her to add to the ruse.

Morgan’s insistence that she didn’t need her help was sweet, but Leah didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity like the one they were about to take.  Maybe Morgan could handle it on her own, but Leah needed to be there, for her own mental health.  She took a deep breath, stepping forward slightly and letting Morgan’s hand wrap around her own.  She was fine.  Her eyes were alert for any tiny creatures buzzing by, knowing that in order to teach a pixie to read, they’d have to find one first.

She nodded at Morgan with a smirk, her eyes becoming comically wide and her arms outstretched.  “I do hope we do not run into any tricks, dear Morgan.  We are just two small friends, trying to find our way home! However will we solve this predicament?”  Her voice was a bit too loud to be believable, but she was really committing to this act they were putting on.  “If only there were someone to play a game with us!”

A high pitched giggle emerged from behind them, followed by a slight rustling of the brush.  She pressed her lips together to suppress a smile, glancing at Morgan to see if she’d noticed.

“What’s that?” Morgan said, still exaggerating her voice for the benefit of any pixies hiding deeper in the trees. “Did you hear something? It sounded kind of scary, don’t you think?” She turned and started walking backwards, nodding encouragingly at Leah. “I think I’ll stop and have some of this candy to make myself feel better.” She slung her bag to one shoulder and took out a bag of candy fruit slices, crinkling it as loud as she could.

A hum of fluttering wings tickled her ears. Morgan turned. “Hello--?”

“GOT YOUR NOSE!”

The pixie was so close, she could only see a glowing blur of pink and green. There was a quiet pop like bubbles bursting under fingertips and then a gory impression of Morgan’s severed nose appeared in the pixie’s arms. She flitted back, cackling so hard with delight she started flying in backflips.

“I’ll take that!” Another pixie squeaked. The fruit candy bag was ripped from her grasp and plunked to the floor. Morgan turned, dazed, and saw two tiny sets of legs sticking out of the opening and kicking to find their balance.

“Wha--oh, Stars!” Morgan felt for her nose, just in case. She wasn’t sure if she got to grow a new one if anything happened to it.

“Made you look! Willowbud, look how dumb she is! I made her look!”

Sighing with relief when she felt it, Morgan finally let herself laugh. “You sure did! That was--whew!--some big magic. But I have much better candy if you and your friends will talk to me.” She grinned slyly at them. “And I have it on some very good authority that it’s one of your favorites.”

Leah followed Morgan slowly, her eyes still wide with fake fear, trying to grab the attention of the pixies that were sure to be nearby.  “I am feeling very, very scared right now, Morgan.  Thank goodness you brought so much candy to keep us well fed and nourished.”  There was somewhat of a robotic tone applied to her put upon acting voice, but she felt it was doing the job all the same.  

It was fascinating to be able to watch the pixies from so close, and she savored every moment, hoping she could remember it all to document later.  She had seen a few as a child, and read about them tons, but being this close was a real treat.  She wondered if the excitement shone on her face as much as it fluttered in her heart.

Strands of her hair floated above her head, and she heard the faint buzzing of wings as another pixie held it up, pulling and prodding as if it were the most interesting thing the pixie had ever seen.  It flew directly in front of her face, it’s glow shining bright on her nose.  “You’ve got a stain on your shirt!”, the pixie squeaked, pointing down toward Leah’s chest.  She looked down, mocking shock, before it flew up playfully, poking her in the nose.  “MADE YOU LOOK!”

The other pixies erupted in fits of giggles before marveling  at Morgan’s news, all rushing toward the candy offered to them.  Leah, for her part, got to work on setting up the mini chairs and table she’d borrowed from her niece’s play set, a perfect size for the pixies before them.  “You can even sit down, if you’d like!”, she offered, grinning slyly and excitedly at Morgan.  This plan might actually work!

Morgan eased to the ground, tearing open a handful of pixie sticks and hold them out. The pixies abandoned the candy fruit slices and flitted over, pulling at their favorites and dousing themselves in sugar.

“That one’s mine!” One of them cried.

“I saw it first!” Said another one.

“It has my name on it! See? It’s Appleseed!”

“They all say the same thing!”

“It’s okay, I have enough colors for everyone!” Morgan said. “But maybe one of you can tell me what these words on the candies do say?”

“Why? Don’t you know, Dummy-Boob?”

Morgan squinted. There was something strangely familiar about this one, the way she fluffed her pollen-strewn hair or flew a little ahead of the others, like she was the boss, or the name she called her. “I asked you first,” she said. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Sundew,” the pixie said. “Can I have yours?”

“No. Deirdre told me all about your little tricks, and she would be mad if you used our friend offerings to trick me. You wouldn’t make a fae mad on purpose, would you?”

The pixies swarmed into a tittering argument about whether Morgan could possibly mean their Deirdre, and who had last visited her and knew how she was doing, and could they trust this human to know anything about her?

“Not a human,” Morgan tried to interject. “And you can call me Morgan, and you can call my very good and also not-human friend here, Leah!”

“Oh! The Morgan Thing! Yes, yes, yes, I knew it all along,” Sundew said. “I remember you! Your face still looks like a Dummy Boob, but I guess since you gave us Pixie Stickses, you’re good for something.”

That was definitely not how to pronounce Pixie Sticks, but Morgan could see the mistake froSundew flew lazily down to the doll furniture and started munching on her treats. Only then did the other pixies join in. If Sundew thought it was alright, then they could enjoy what was being put in front of them. Morgan side-eyed Leah. She had never been especially good at speaking queen bee unless she was bartering something she knew was wanted, and how were they supposed to convince the pixies that this was a ‘them’ thing?

Leah had no doubt that Morgan would be well versed on how to deal with the pixies, especially after she avoided Sundew’s trick about names.  She chuckled at the attempt, observing how the other pixies deflated with disappointment as Morgan refused.  

She smiled shyly at the pixies as she was introduced, offering them a small wave as some of them swarmed around her in curiosity.  “Morgan’s good for a lot of things, actually”, Leah said, noting how much the other pixies seemed to follow this Sundew’s lead.  If they needed to get through to any of them first, it was definitely her. “If you think her Pixie Stickses are good, just wait until you get a look at her flowers and cakes.” Locking eyes with Morgan, she sent her a quick nod, a plan quickly forming in her head.

“Here’s the thing, Sundew.  These human treats that the Morgan thing brought?...”-  she glanced at Morgan at that, amused, before continuing. “...there are tons of them, all over the world.  And they’re totally delicious, right?”  The pixies around them tutted tiny noises of agreement as they munched on their own, and Leah sat down on the grass before she continued on, planting a dramatic, sad look on her face.  “The problem is that Morgan thing here only brought us the very best tastes.  Some of the tastes of the treats?  Just awful.  You get your tongue on one of the bad ones, it’ll be the only thing on your mind for weeks!”

Dramatic gasps erupted around them, and Sundew seemed to lean forward in her tiny chair.  “There’s only one sure way to know which taste you’re about to get, Sundew, and that’s being able to read what flavor treat you’re about to eat.”  She sighed dramatically, sitting back on her hands in the grass.  Maybe, if Sundew thought this was her idea, she’d actually go for it.  “Do you know how to read, Sundew?”  She stared at the sky as she asked, as if the question was as casual as asking someone if they knew how to ride a bike (reading was obviously much more important).

“Of course I can read, Lee-lee,” Sundew said, puffing out her tiny, glowing chest. “And I can write too! Which is more than a dummy boob can do. How else would I know it says pixie stickies?” She proudly rippled open a blue pixie stick and dumped a heap of it onto her face to wipe and lick off her face.

“Okay, well, what about you?” Morgan asked, pointing to another pixie. “How do you know which one tastes the best?”

“Your face knows which one is the best!” Sundew interrupted.

“Obviously red always tastes best,” the other pixie said. “That’s why I get all the red ones.”

“See? We knowsy-knows everything we need to, Morgan Dummy Boob,” Sundew said. “You can tell Deirdre thank you for all her presents and I got that sexy spriggan’s number for her just in case she changes her mind, you’re welcome very much for--”

“Okay, moving on!” Morgan said, growing shrill.

Another pixie flitted up to Leah, pulling on her ear to get her attention. “Do you have any more of the stripey ones with the crinklies? I love the minty ones so much, they’re so good, and the stripes are so pretty and then if you get them sticky, you can put them under people’s fingers and toes and make them scream and it’s sooo much fun.”

“What’s this?” Two more said, picking at the doll furniture she’d brought. Together they pulled up one of the tiny cabinets with mini books and spun it around before letting it fall and tumble on the ground. Then up again, and down again, higher, letting the doors snap on their fragile hinges and all the carefully assembled books fall into the dirt.

“Oh, but you wouldn’t want to make people scream, would you?” Leah chided, tilting her head to the side.  “That wouldn’t be very nice.”  She was too focused on the pixie in front of her to notice the rumblings of Sundew and some of the others, who conspired with tiny whispers and giggles behind her.

Leah let out a sharp gasp as her ear was yanked, the action taking her off guard and causing her heart to flutter.  She closed her eyes and let out a breath, and a flash of snarling, hungry werewolf teeth snapped into her vision.  She had sworn that the flashbacks were over with, that they’d no longer be disrupting and distressing her at the drop of a hat, but somehow, she kept being proved wrong. Opening her eyes with a start, she swallowed a hard lump in her throat, attempting to focus all of her energy on here, on now, on this.  

She reached into her bag, about to feel around for another candy cane to hand over to the small fae with some more coaxing toward reading when the commotion with the doll furniture caught her attention. “Don’t!, ...-stop!”  All that hard work, all the arranging and careful planning she’d done, it was a waste if the pixies weren’t going to take it seriously.  She reached forward, ready to pull the furniture away from them and carefully piece back together, but the pixies were quicker than she was.  

“Don’t stop?  Okay, we won’t!” one of them giggled, picking up the nearly destroyed, tiny books and dropping them again and again.

She pushed herself up into a standing position, determined to snatch the books and furniture away from them for good, when the pixies who had been conspiring behind her let out another raucous round of giggles, and Leah only realized why when it was too late.  

In a matter of seconds, they had managed to tie her shoelaces together, causing her to tumble back toward the ground with a scream, landing on her hands in front of her with a grunt.  Her mind flashed again, and suddenly, she could feel herself tumbling down her hall stairwell with the wolf, breaking and bending and bruising something new with each passing moment.  No.  No no no.  She didn’t want to break anymore, she needed to get away and find a way out and-

“I think we do want to make people scream, Lee-Lee.  Even not-human people, like you!”

She wasn’t in her house, it wasn’t that night, everything was healed. So why did she still feel so broken?  

As she attempted to push herself back up, the pixies swarmed her, tugging at her hair, her ears, her fingers, her clothes- anything they could to elicit more silly screams and prove their point.  Tears stung at her eyes, but she was essentially useless against their tricks, and even as she successfully pushed herself up into a sitting position, they continued to taunt her.

Morgan tried to shield Leah with her body, but there was no point when the pixies could fly over and around her to keep pinching, pulling, and laughing at Leah. “That’s enough!”

“You’re right, we should move onto tickle torture!” Sundew squealed.

“No, that is not what I mean--”

“But she’s so funny when she screams!”

“I know, a-and I understand that but…” But what? What was more important to a pixie than tormenting someone for fun? Panic tensed through Morgan’s muscles. She couldn’t hurt them. She couldn’t scare them. “WHAT IF I KNEW A BETTER WAY!” She shouted. “I know a better way to mess with humans!”

The pixies didn’t stop, but they did look up with eager faces, and some paused in pulling on her hair.

“It’s so fast, once you really know how, and the humans make it so easy, they won’t even know it!”

Sundew folded her arms and flitted up to stare Morgan in the eyes. “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

“I won’t tell you anything about it until you leave Leah alone.”

Sundew didn’t seem to like putting a stop to her fun, but she and the other pixies came to the same conclusion with one exchange of looks. Yes, finding easy ways to trick the humans did sound like more fun.

One by one they let go of Leah and flitted over to Morgan and as they each crowded around her vision, she realized that she had no ideas in her head but one, and she would have to hope very hard that this went over very well. “I--need you all to come over here and give me a little space while I show you.”

She took out a notebook and one of the markers she’d brought and wrote very carefully, one word on each set of lines. She was tempted to add an artistic flourish but remembered from her friend crying behind her that these pixies were not as child-like as they seemed, and she wasn’t in the mood to have her art critiqued. “Okay,” she said, donning her teacher-voice. “Can anyone tell me what this says?”

Silence from the pixies.

“This is a way to get humans to do almost anything you want,” Morgan said. “If you can get them to say this or agree to this in writing, You can have so many kinds of fun. Better kinds. And, it works both ways, so you should probably know how to read it.”

“That doesn’t look like anything so special to me,” Sundew said, glaring skeptically.

“We can break it down. It’s definitely a long phrase. You all know the first word, right?” They did. “And the second one?” Only Sundew knew agree, which she was very proud of. But when they got to terms and conditions, the little pixie folded her arms and stuck up her little nose.

“If you’re lying about these words, you’re going to be in sticky-sticky trouble,” She said. “No one gets away with lying to pixies.”

Morgan held out the marker to her. “If you really think I’m lying, then you should be able to check the box without any worries, shouldn’t you?”

All the pixies looked at her, waiting to see what would happen.

“I could tell you first, though, if you want to trust me,” Morgan said.

Sundew got as far as hovering the marker above the checkbox before her doubt came in. “Fine,” she huffed. “What does it say?”

And Morgan told her which each word meant, one by one, helping the others sound it out slowly. “Alright, so put together what does that mean?”

“I agree to your terms and conditions!”  Willowbud cried. Her face fell as she realized what she’d said. “..Oops.”

“That’s okay, Willowbud. I release you,” Morgan said. “But you see, you don’t have to speak words to make them powerful. You can do all kinds of magic if you learn to write them down and leave them for other people to find. And there’s even more words than that out here. I could teach you some more of them, but, I’m definitely going to need you to do some things for me first.”

Sundew reluctantly agreed and the rest of the pixies let out the rest of their enthusiasm. Morgan would exchange one lesson in exchange for staying on task while they were in the learning area, which would be in her garden next but might change and be established by her later. And she would get one favor for releasing Willowbud so quickly and recognizing Sundew as her very special teaching assistant. When this was settled, Morgan helped the pixies gather all their candy into the spare dinner napkin they’d brought and waved at them as they flew away, carrying the stash between them all.

When the pixies were gone, really, completely, and not even in earshot gone, Morgan sagged on the ground with relief and crawled over to Leah. “Hey…” she said gently. “That was uh...pretty wild huh? Definitely not how I planned to do things. Are you okay? I brought some first aid stuff, if they did anything to you. Is it okay if I take a look? Leah?”

There was no end in sight, no stop to the pulling, and picking, and flashbacks.  The torment- it was everlasting, even with Morgan’s muted voice in Leah’s ears trying to talk the pixies down.  But the endless did have an end, even in the darkest of moments, and slowly but surely, whatever Morgan was saying seemed to lure them away.

As soon as it was possible, Leah pushed herself up, crossing her arms over her chest and walking briskly away from the group to lean against a nearby tree, trying to steady her breathing.  The trees around them, despite staying in the same space, felt like they were closing in on her, inching and inching until she’d soon have no space left to breath.  Suddenly, she was pinned under the wolf again, with no way out of the darkness that encompassed them.  There was a sweat above her brow that hadn’t been there earlier.

Why did she still feel like this?  Why couldn’t it just be over?  She knew she was safe, she knew a bunch of pixies couldn’t hurt her- so why did her brain keep insisting on flashing back to that one, fateful night?

Something in Morgan’s tone shook her out of her thoughts, and Leah’s attention was turned back to her friend and the pixies, who were now surrounding Morgan.  How much time had passed since she walked away from them?  It had felt like hours, at least, but the position of the sun suggested it had merely been a few moments.  

I agree to the terms and conditions.

Suddenly, a new wave of panic bubbled up inside her at what Morgan was saying, at what she was doing, and she closed the distance between them in a flash.

“Morgan-”, she warned, but it was too late- the pixies were already fluttering away with satisfied grins, clearly already planning the tricks they’d play with all they’d learn from Morgan.  Her body slunk back down to the ground, in shock and disbelief at what her friend had just done.

“What did you just agree to?” she asked, her eyes wide and angry. Her voice sounded foreign in her ears.  It was raspy and uneven and held emotion that she was not yet ready to let spill over.  “Why would you… They’re going to torment the whole town, Morgan!  Do you have any idea how dangerous what you just did is?  How much damage it will do?”

She ignored Morgan’s offer of first aid, too enveloped in the thought of what the pixies might do with all they were about to learn.  She was fine.  She told Morgan as such, crossing her arms over her chest again.

Morgan flinched back, bewildered. “What did I--” Leah didn’t look tormented anymore, she looked furious. Instinctively, Morgan inched further away. She replayed the last few minutes, but the only thing she could see as wrong was abandoning her friend for so long. But she couldn’t have done things any faster. Or if she could have, but she didn’t know how. “I--I did what I could. I negotiated a no mischief or violence in the learning area agreement so this doesn’t happen again! I got them to leave you alone! What do you mean damage? They--it’s gonna be fine. They’ll have to write a whole lot more convincingly than Sundew’s chickenscretch before they can scam the town into hopping on one foot til they pass out.”

She still had this impulse that she should do something. Her bag was close by. She should check Leah for injuries, right? But stronger than this impulse was her confusion. “I--don’t understand what’s happening right now, Leah. You need to tell me what’s happening because I don’t--I-I know it wasn’t great but isn’t this what we--what is it you think I should be doing?” Morgan finally met her gaze, her look accusing through her hurt.

This was too much.  There was a thought, somewhere in the back of her head, that maybe Leah wouldn’t be reacting the way she was if she hadn’t just been tormented by the pixies- if she hadn’t spent the last few weeks tormented by nightmares of being attacked by werewolves, and tiny snowmen that liked to stab your ankles.  If the town hadn’t been plagued with people falling into sleep and never woken up again.  “And you don’t think they’ll find a way around that? They’re pixies, Morgan. They’re known for their tricks!  Giving them the power of those words is like tossing a lit match into a dry forest. They’ll learn… they’ll teach each other, and handwriting be damned, they’ll torment the whole damn town with this.”

She held Morgan’s gaze for a moment, her breathing shallow and heavy, before sucking her teeth and looking at the ground below them. “I don’t know”, she muttered finally, her voice small.  “I don’t...know”.  A panic began to rise in her chest, building and building in neverending wave of worry.  “Everything feels like a big deal, Morgan.  Everything feels like it’s about to come crashing down, all the time and all at once.  I can’t differentiate between real danger and everyday mishaps, I can’t-...” She let out a sob and put a hand over her chest, struggling to catch her breath.

“No! They’re not going to take over the world! And what’s wrong with appealing to what they like? We’re not here to change them or make them like humans! I don’t--I don’t--I---” Morgan sputtered, quivering as she tried to assemble the pieces between them faster. Her mind whirred in place, nothing made sense, nothing fit. Weren’t they supposed to accept supernaturals the way they were, as long as there wasn’t recreational murder involved? Sure, the pixies might get up to some intense stuff, but education wasn’t about programming people to be like you. The pixies would always be themselves, that wasn’t something to fix.

But Leah breathed, and then she quieted, and then she cried, and then she panicked. Panic, Morgan knew how to handle.

“Hey. Hey, Leah...can I come close?” She inched towards her, hands in plain sight. “I just want you to breathe with me. You know all about breath control, yeah? It’s, um, it’s actually a nice game to play when your lungs don’t regulate themselves anymore because you’re dead.” She let out an uneasy laugh, unsure if levity was something that would help at a time like this. “Breathe slowly with me, and tell me how you feel.” Tentatively, she reached for Leah’s hands and tapped the familiar rhythm on her knuckles. “In, hold, out. In, hold, out. Where did you go, when they hurt you? Come back to me, help me understand…” She kept tapping, kept breathing, and strained all her dead senses toward the earth, searching for more answers.

Leah’s ears felt like they were clogged, and Morgan’s words were far away and muffled, and she could barely make them out.  But she continued to hold her eyes, silently pleading with her to help stop whatever magic the pixies had sprouted that  was making her lose her breath.  This had to be the pixies, right?  But then Morgan was requesting to come closer, clear as day, and Leah did what she could to let out a nod.  Breath control.  Yes.  It was one of the first things she learned as a child in phoenix training.  Controlling your breath was often the first step in controlling your fire, or even in focusing your heat.  Focus, focus ,focus.

She tentatively let Morgan take her hand- it had felt like an anchor on her chest, as if before Morgan had reminded her about breath control it was the only thing keeping her grounded. In, hold, out.  It was hard, now, but she kept trying.  In, hold, out.  Focus.  In, hold, out.  “I-I...my house, that night…”  In, hold, out.  She was here, not there.  There was far away and gone and didn’t exist anymore, right?  “...with A-...with the, ...werewolf”.  She let out another sob, squeezing Morgan’s hand tight.  “I… it’s still… I can’t stop…” In, hold, out.  In, hold, out.  “I thought I could… be over it.  I thought I could forget.  I can’t even get myself into my fucking guest room to clean up the mess we made, I … I can barely sleep through the night without waking up with a start thinking she’s there again, I…”  She looked at Morgan again, clinging to her for answers, or comfort, or anything.  “...I can’t stop feeling like this.”

“Oh, Leah,” Morgan whispered. She pulled herself closer to her friend and put her free hand on her shoulder and tugged, gently. You can fall, she wanted to say. I’ve got you. Let me catch you. I’ve got you. “Keep focusing. In, hold, out.” She did it with her even if her lungs didn’t need the exercise. “You’re with me now. You’re not alone. I’ve got you, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You’re safe now, Leah. Keep breathing with me.” In, hold, out. In, hold, out…

Steadily they went, one round after another, and all the while Morgan told her I’m here, you’re safe, I’m here. At last, when the worst seemed to be ebbing away, Morgan said, “You can’t hide from it, Leah. It’ll just jump out of the shadows at you like this. Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must take care of what has been given.” She reached up to comb her fingers through Leah’s hair. “I’m sorry. I am so, so very sorry you must carry this with you. That you can’t pretend like it never happened, that you can’t go back to being someone this hadn’t happened to. But you can control it, if you look at it, if you hold it long enough, you can keep it calm and quiet, and one day it won’t be so big or so heavy.” She tugged on Leah again, urging her into her arms. “You have to be the one to decide, though. We don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to. Whatever you need is what we’ll do. I am your friend and I love you and I am here for you as much as you’ll let me.”

In, hold, out.  It was helping, Leah thought. In, hold, out. It seemed to be helping.  The breaths started entering her lungs more willingly, although the pit in her stomach didn’t cease.  And she let herself let go.  For the first time since the incident, she let herself be cradled and held and cared for.  It wasn’t to her sister, or Bea or Jas, who’d all offered countless times to help her pick up the pieces, but it was here, with Morgan, in the middle of the forest, when her resolve finally cracked.  It felt ironic, but she didn’t know why.  She listened to Morgan’s words, her voice grounding and soothing as she let herself be pulled back to earth.  As she was wrapped into Morgan’s arms, she closed her eyes, her breathing finally… finally feeling steady enough to speak.

“I don’t know...how to look at it”, she admitted, anxiety bubbling up in her chest again.  “I-... I’m so used to… I know about the supernatural, you know? I know how to d-deal with them, and handle the dangerous, and help them, and I thought that if something like this ever happened, I wouldn’t be so… sh, so shaken by it.”  She let out a quick breath, bringing her hand up to wipe away at the tears that were falling down her cheeks.  She swallowed a hard lump in her throat, slowly sitting up and pulling away from Morgan, a bit embarrassed at the whole ordeal.  “I didn’t mean to yell at you”, she told her friend, catching her eyes.

Morgan bundled Leah into her arms as tight as she dared. She would have fallen to the forest floor with relief if she could have. Leah’s cries sounded as though they broke her body on the way out, as if her pain had become an invisible creature, clawing its way out. Morgan did her best to soothe the monster away with soft hushes and circles rubbed into Leah’s back, but that was only a bandaid at best. “Hey, don’t worry about me,” she said, brushing the issue aside. “We don’t have to talk about that today. I know you didn’t mean it now.” She kept on, soothing Leah while she held her and hoping with all she had that her dead arms were enough.

“You’re still a person, Leah,” Morgan said into her shoulder. “You can’t theory your way out of being a person, or suffering. You can’t skip around your pain. And feeling pain, carrying suffering, doesn’t make you any less strong or kind or wise, Leah. You are still every bit as valuable, as yourself, as you ever have been. And it’s so hard to feel that sometimes, I know. But nothing is going to be taken away from you if you look at it. If anything, Leah, you will understand more and have an even greater capacity to help people who’ve been hurt after you face this and learn to carry it better.”

Morgan’s skin was an interesting contrast to Leah’s, her friend’s cool and icy while her own burned red hot with embarrassment and sorrow.  It was soothing.  She let herself sink into it as she closed her eyes and listened to the logic that was flowing around her.  She had been so in her head about everything that had happened with the wolf, and all that had happened after too.  The snowmen with Nicole, the ballybog and vodnik with Kaden, and now the pixies with Morgan- they seemed to all be adding to an ever piling list of emotions that Leah was determined to deal with in some sort of metaphorical ‘later’ that she would never let come.  But now, Morgan offered an out- a way to start digging through the pile and know she could still be herself once she reached the other side of it.  And what better way to start than to just… look at it?  To see it, to relive it, so that when the flashbacks inevitably came again, they wouldn’t be so jarring or scary.  The idea scared her beyond belief, but it made so much sense that Leah couldn’t deny it was a good one.

After a long beat of thinking and sighing and breathing again, Leah let her eyes lock with Morgan’s, wondering if they looked as vulnerable as she felt.  “You’re right”, she said finally, her voice just starting to sound like her own again.  “I… I’ve been working so hard on pushing it all back- burying myself in work and scribe things so that I could move on and forget about what happened… but how can I expect to forget about it when I’ve not even let myself really remember it?”  As she spoke, she picked at the grass awkwardly, needing something to do with her hands.   She was fully embarrassed at the scene she’d caused, even if it was just between the two of them.  Because of that, her attention was brought back to the mess the pixies had left- the wrappers and doll furniture were strewn about the grass around them, left without a care in the world.  “Perhaps we should start cleaning up…”

Morgan took Leah’s face gently in her hands and held her steady while they looked into each other’s eyes, gently and clearly. “So remember. On your terms. And it doesn’t have to be alone.” She stroked her friend’s hair as she looked at the mess around them on the forest floor. “That won’t take so long. I still have the store bags, we can put the wrappers in one until we find a recycling bin and put your niece’s furniture in another. Maybe order her some upgrades to make up for the damaged stuff.” She smiled, relieved and confident. “What I want you to do is think about where you want to go next. Anywhere in town, as long as it’s just for you. No tumbling back into work, okay?” Giving Leah one more knowing look, a gesture to show that they were really okay, Morgan reached into her bag and started scooping up the mess.

Leah let herself sink deeper into Morgan’s touch, losing herself in the sheer gentleness that was presented to her.  She let out a slow breath and nodded.  “On my terms”.  As they cleaned up, she thought about what Morgan said.  Normally, she’d probably head to the library basement after an encounter like this, and write down everything she could remember.  But she wanted to be better- to stop feeling like the world might fall apart at the drop of a hat, and so for once, she opted to take a break and take Morgan’s advice instead.  “Morgan?”, she asked as they picked up the last of the garbage, moving on to the tiny furniture.  “Would you like to go to the movies when we’re done here?”  She leaned down to pick up the small table, one of its legs barely hanging on.  “The Nordica is showing old classics tonight… it might be fun.”

Morgan beamed down at Leah as she stuffed the last of the wrappers and tied off the bag. “Oh, yeah? Hmm, I don’t know…” She scrunched up her face, pretending to give it some very serious thought. “You, me, and the rom com double feature with Irene Dunne and Katherine Hepburn?” Then she burst into laughter and pulled her friend up with a helping hand. “I would be delighted, Leah.”

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Transgressions || Morgan & Leah

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @phoenixleah & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Leah has secrets to reveal: one for herself, and one for Constance. Morgan finds that sometimes answers aren’t enough.

CONTAINS: Brief references to past abuse.

“I still can’t believe you found something on her,” Morgan said, following Leah inside. “I must have torn up every other repository of books in town. I even had someone dig up legal documents from the town and county’s files. And all I got was a lousy death certificate, which was wonkily dated because when you surrender your body to pay for an infinite curse alone in the woods, no one’s around to clock your real time of death back in eighteen whatever. Nothing that could help satisfy even a knowledge-focused intention or answer literally anything substantive.” Morgan paused, smiling apologetically. Between all the attempted murder, ingredient hunting, and the convenient lack of support from Nell, Morgan felt like she was being cut down to one brittle edge. But Leah was a good friend, and she would give Morgan the missing pieces she needed in Constance’s story. Pieces she needed to make sense of the fuckery that had plagued her existence, and might give her something to twist the knife when she finally had her pinned down in the exorcism. “Thank you. You are the best. I’m sorry I’m kind of...on edge.”

As Leah led Morgan into the library, long after closing hours, her lips were pressed together to suppress a grin.  There was always a sense of pride that came with coming across information that no one else seemed to have access to, and the praise that came with it didn’t hurt, either.  She let out a chuckle at Morgan’s words, turning around to face her.  “This is what friends do”, she said, brushing off Morgan’s thanks.  “It’s so weird, but as soon as you mentioned her name to me, it sounded strangely familiar”, she explained, reaching behind Morgan to lock the entrance to the library behind them.  She had a few dusty tomes piled up on the front desk, pressing her lips together as she watched Morgan take them in.  They certainly weren’t books you’d find in a typical library, so she wondered if she’d take notice.  “A lot going on lately?” she asked at the admission.  

Morgan shrugged. “Okay, maybe not a lot by White Crest standards, but with the latest nonsense and my being stalked and hunted by a hundred year old ghost teenager, I’m feeling a little...end of my rope-y. You would think that the endless physical stamina thing would come in handy here, but while I am an expert at pulling a good old fashioned all-nighter, the whole not-being-able to sleep thing means my brain will, eventually, in its near inability to reach total unconsciousness, turn on itself and make everything happening to me worse.” She cleared her throat, realizing that she was veering dangerously close to dumping everything on Leah at once. “But! This is going to be great! I mean, she wrecks my car, she sends ghost minions after me, she tries to kill me and friends, it’s like, who are you? Why are you like this? Obviously we are way past reasoning and talking things out nicely, but I would feel pretty satisfied knowing how long she’s been this awful.” She hoped, more than anything, to walk away with what she had done to Agnes that finally made her realize how awful the girl was. Had she hurt her? Or someone else Agnes cared for? It made Morgan’s stomach clench to think of this curse being leveled against a teenage girl who’d just been trying to protect her family. The idea made the whole curse more twisted, that they were all punished for nothing from the very beginning. But the more she was forced to contend with Constance, the more it felt ikely. “Can you walk me through what you got? These definitely don’t look like your average tomes. Like, at all.”

As she listened to Morgan explain, Leah tilted her head to the side in curiosity.  “You need to rest”, she agreed with assurance.  “You’re feeling end of your rope-y because you’re probably physically and mentally at the end of your rope.  I think you’re poor brain has been non-stop stressed since everything with Deirdre and her mushrooms.”  She put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder, noting the cool temperature compared to her own.  It was a relief that her friend now knew her secret, there was no longer stress about explaining mundane things away like her warmth.  There were far more important matters to worry about.  And tonight, apparently, another secret to reveal.  “So once we’re through with her, I’m definitely setting up a fae and zombie approved spa night somewhere in that gorgeous house of yours.” A soft smile began to grow the more Morgan ranted about this girl, … this Constance.  “Sometimes spirits that haven’t moved on have a very very specific one track mind… so… if it’s you she’s back for, it’s you she’s going to concentrate on.  We just need to figure out why.”  She bit her lip as she glanced back at the tomes, leading Morgan over to them tentatively.  “So… in order to tell you how I know what I do and make it make sense, I also need to, sort of, tell you something else about myself.  But this secret, Morgan, it’s even more important that it stays between us than my being a phoenix, okay?”  She glanced to the door that was now behind her, the one to the basement of the library that held years and years of private journals with supernatural knowledge.  “Have you ever heard of the Scribes?”

“No such thing as physical exhaustion for a zombie,” Morgan smirked, her mouth curling bitterly. “It never stops. It’s just the brain that gets tired. I’m pretty sure sapient consciousness wasn’t meant to run twenty four-seven, but that’s what spacing out into the abyss is for!” A small laugh bubbled out of her, but there wasn’t much joy floating in it. “It’s really not… I’m just being a baby. I want a break, I want the skinny ghost bitch gone, and I had this delusion that being done with my curse meant being done with all of this… tragic backstory deluxe family pack.” She sniffled and dabbed at the corners of her eyes before her tears could start running over and make a mess of the books and her makeup job. “Anyways, you were doing me a big favor and we were being proactive.” She moved in close to the books, brushing one open with the tip of her finger. The leather bound volume was—handwritten?

It was then that Leah’s question came. Morgan said nothing a moment, looking from the old journal, to Leah, and back again. “...I have, yeah…” she said slowly. “I kind of… there’s this place in the woods? Rio calls it the Scribrary. It’s been helpful to me over the months. Even if I don’t know how to feel about the whole… hands off, true neutral thing. But they’re not around anymore to—” She stopped, eyes going wide as she looked at Leah. “Is this? Are you—?” Her brain was struggling to compute. “Did past life you steal these?” She asked, lowering her voice to an amazed whisper.

“I don’t think working yourself to the point of exhaustion is being a baby, Morgan.  It’s predictable, honestly.”, Leah said, absentmindedly running her hands over the binding of the tomes.  She softened, sympathizing with Morgan.  “You’d think that your death ending your family curse would have been enough tragedy and inconvenience for one person, but, I hope after this, you can be done with all the bullshit. We’re going to get her gone, okay?  Both you and Constance need to rest, in your own way, and I’m one hundred percent sure we’ll find a way to make that happen.”  The scribary, she’d have to get Rio to get her in there sometime.  She had a lot of information, sure, but the tomes there had to have gone back even further than hers did.

Leah watched carefully as Morgan seemed to play her words around in her head, working out exactly what Leah could mean.  She was always worried if it was suspicious- to be so openly knowledgeable about the supernatural world, to be able to offer help or random spurts of information about any number of creatures.  Some people had to suspect, right?  Suspect that, while yes, the scribes were essentially dead, she and her family had somehow fallen through the cracks of the tragedies and misfortunes that befell them.  But then, there was Morgan’s question, and it was abundantly clear that there were no suspicions, at least not on her friend’s part.  It was a relief, honestly, because as one of the most intelligent and well-read people she knew, Morgan seemed like the person who, if anyone, would have suspected.  She couldn’t help but giggle at the question, her eyebrows raising in surprise.  “Steal them?” she asked, covering her mouth. “No...n-no, they’re not stolen.  They’re mine.”  She looked down at the ones in front of her proudly, pressing her lips together.  “Well, ...ours.  My family’s.”  She let out a breath, a sense of pride filling her up as she looked back to Morgan.  “Because we- well… the scribes aren’t all dead like everyone thinks.  The library’s always been a nice cover, honestly.”  She gestured to the door behind her as she spoke.  “The uh, basement is bigger than you’d think.”  She felt nervous again, hoping that this new information, another secret she’d been keeping from Morgan, wouldn’t turn her friend off in anyway. “It’s not something that many people know about me, because protecting this information is integral to protecting White Crest and the integrity of the scribes, but…”, she ran her hands over the dusty tomes in front of them, grinning, “...well, I’m pretty sure I wrote all of these myself.”

Morgan stared, waiting for some other catch to come in. “Yours,” she repeated. “And ours. Not you and me ours, but you and...your family ‘ours.’ Because you’re...for real scribes.” She gaped, trying not to laugh with disbelief. “Holy shit. The scribes are alive, and the scribes are you and---holy shit!” She doubled over, trying to process. Leah didn’t really seem like the bystander syndrome type. She was always ready to learn and share with anyone, a lot like Rio. Did Morgan have the scribes all wrong, or did it take a mini apocalypse for something good to grow? She turned upright, her face still awed. “I have a lot of questions. Like, a lot. But, I think the first one is...do you actually remember any of those...things? I mean, do you know her or is it more like...as if your great great grandma knew her? You...just discovered this, right? I mean--” Morgan reached out for one of the books, her hand frozen over the pages. “You don’t really know her, do you?”

Leah couldn’t help but laugh at Morgan’s reaction, the giggles bubbling up unexpectedly.  She knew most people thought all the scribes were dead, and honestly, most of them were.  Her family was rare in that they were able to keep their archives over all these years, and she attributed it mostly to some of them being phoenixes. She tilted her head once she calmed down, an apologetic look forming on her face.  “So, sadly, I don’t have many memories of writing this, or of what happened when I was writing it.  I mean, as a phoenix I should be able to piece together some things, but for some reason, that’s not so easy for me in this lifetime.” She really needed to explore the theory that something happened to her memories, because the older she got, the more inconvenient not knowing who she was in the past was becoming.  “I think that’s a better way to look at it.  But luckily… Great Great Grandma Lucrecia seemed to be pretty thorough”.  With that, she pulled the first tome off of the top of the pile, opening to a page that she had marked with a tab earlier.  She looked up at Morgan when she found the page, the traces of a grin playing on her lips.  “It seems like your friend Constance was surprisingly powerful”, she said, turning the book so Morgan could get a better look.

Leah’s giggles were reassuring to Morgan. She wasn’t offended by Morgan's confusion and she hadn’t been sitting on some secret past life friendship. “Okay!” She breathed, “No, that’s good. That’s really good.” She sighed again, laughing as she did. “I mean, you have these resources that literally no one else on the planet has, and you weren’t like, hiding things. Which is great because I feel like this whole time I just...cannot get people to understand why I need what I need out of this mess, and knowing that this is just...exactly what it seems like, which is a fucking miracle…” She wiped her eyes, realizing she was crying and wasn’t even sure why. “Anyway, uh, my thanks to Great Great Grandma Lucrecia. If there’s a way to pay respects to phoenix past lives or past incarnations, however that is, I want to know about it. And do that, if that’s okay.”

She gestured to the book, making sure it was really okay to get a look and peered in. It seemed like Constance had made a regular nuisance of herself at the local scribe library, gobbling up as many magic texts as she could. She told Lucrecia that she had mastered whatever else was given, enough so that Lucrecia was skeptical of her claims, but it seemed Constance could summon at least basic potential in multiple fields of magic. And of course, she didn’t care about using it with tact or responsibility, although Lurecia’s words were much kinder, even sympathetic about it. Constance was well-meaning, too eager, too desperate to impress. She was a prodigy, and she was interested in the art of spellcraft, hoping that she could challenge, and even outrun herself. “Wow, goodie for her,” Morgan grumbled bitterly.

She gestured for Leah’s help with turning the page and came across and entry that gave her pause. “Hey, Leah? What does this line mean? She makes it sound like...Constance was being mistreated? She had to call for a healer...again? Do we know if these injuries were actually attributed to home stuff, or could it have been more magic experimentation going wrong, do you think?” Arcane backlash was nothing to sniff at, but it didn’t necessarily go in line with the broken bones and bruises written about in careful, solemn detai. But then again, Morgan had barely tasted what the backlash of a miscast spell could do. Her mother had been so harsh on any of her flaws, she’d never had the chance to fail that spectacularly. “And what’s this about Agnes visiting with her? Are there more entries like this?”

“It’s a very rare person that gets to see these, Morgan,” Leah started.  “I still try my best to keep within scribe traditions, but it’s been more than a few times that I’ve had to break them to help someone in town.  I’m usually able to pull it off secretly, though.  Like you with the zombie stuff.  But I thought...there was no way knowing about your personal family history could have been explained away.”  She gave Morgan a light nod, signaling it was okay for her to continue.  Given Morgan’s history with books, it was clear she could be trusted not to damage anything. She watched Morgan take in the new information with rapt attention, remembering the little details she’d read earlier that week.  

“It seems that they were attributed to home things, but I can’t be sure.  The fact that I mentioned them in the journals makes me think that they’re supernaturally related.  They’d be some sort of spell backlash then, right?”  She cleared her throat, gesturing to the page.  “But then, there were so many other things to do with Constance that I seemed to comment on, as well”.   Leah pressed her lips together, watching Morgan carefully.  There had been more than a few entries that her past life had written that touched on something very specific.  Something she knew that the Leah, or Lucrecia of the time could definitely relate to.  Anges and Constance, Constance and Agnes.  It was clear what she had been hinting at.  Had she related to it, then, because she’d spent so much of her own time hiding a relationship like theirs?  “It seems that I… well I had some suspicions about how much time Constance and Agnes spent together.”  Although her head stayed low, her eyes traveled up to meet Morgan’s, searching them to see if they understood.  Even now, when Constance was a ghost hell bent on ruining Moran’s life, it felt wrong to out her.  

“Some traditions are meant to be broken,” Morgan said with a little smile. “I don’t know your whole scribe-y ethos, obviously, but I would figure that there shouldn’t be anything wrong with using your power or your knowledge to help people who need it. I mean, what’s the point of all that knowledge if you’re just gonna sit on it, right?” She continued to read, having to force herself to slow down and actually take in the old, loopy script and ink smudges. She was so focused on finding something that would say ‘reason for assholery here’ that Leah’s words reached her at a delay. “She worked in the house,” Morgan muttered. “They were close.” Which made the whole thing where Constance ruined her life extra shitty.

Then Morgan found the word. “Romantic.”

“Oh. You mean...Stars, what the hell? Who does something like this to someone they--” Morgan shook her head and kept flipping. “I guess I’m just glad she had her tiny claws in my great-great grandma and not 19th century you. Seems pretty safe to say you dodged a bullet.” Morgan shivered and started flipping ahead to the months before Constance’s death. “See, look, Constance was-- ‘cast aside.’ They fired her, I guess? But it doesn’t say why just that it was ‘unjust’. Thanks for the objectivity, Lucrecia.” Morgan rolled her eyes and skimmed for more clues. “Wait, you weren’t thinking that it was because they--because of Constance and Agnes, right?” She looked back at the book. Worse things happened to girls who kissed each other, even now. She took a slow breath. “I swear to every atom in the universe, if I was cursed and fucking murdered because of a bad breakup and homophobic parents…” Well, Constance didn’t have a head to roll. But Morgan could try and step up her efforts to get everything she needed for the ritual. Get an exorcist on the phone and see if she could speed things up.

Leah smirked at Morgan’s musing, and she nodded in agreement.  “Sometimes they are, with restrictions, of course.”  She watched Morgan as she read through the pages, taking in the information.  It must have been hard for her to be objective, when Constance had caused so much harm to her family already.  But Lead felt genuinely that there was something else she needed to understand before she knew the whole picture.  “Helping people with the information is what it’s for, I think.  And maybe, with the information I found here, we can find a way to help Constance move on peacefully”.

Leah let out a low, slow breath, closing her eyes as Morgan tried to process what she was reading.  She turned the book back toward herself briefly, only so she could find a specific section she’d flagged enthusiastically a few pages beyond where her friend had already been reading.  “It was a bit more than a bad break up, I think”, she said, pointing out the section of writing.  It was the most candid Lucrecia had been about the whole situation, and her past life seemed utterly torn about how to feel.  “They were going to...they had plans”, Leah elaborated, pausing a bit to turn the book back and let Morgan read on her own.  “But, when they were caught, well…”  she licked her lips, sighing sadly.  “Agnes sort of… abandoned her.  Blamed her, and they forced her out.  And Constance was left with… Well, she was left with nothing.  No home, no family, not even a future to build.  She had nothing, Morgan.  After she and Agnes had promised each other everything.  For all the time I- or Lucrecia spent talking about her frivolousness, I practically weep here in sorrow for how she was treated after they were caught.”  Part of her wondered still, if she had related in some way.

Morgan went stiff at Leah’s mention of the word ‘peacefully.’ It was true that she hadn’t brought up the details of the ritual she was gathering materials for. She didn’t have the stamina to be judged by or lose another friend. But she had kind of hoped that with all the anger and the generational angst she’d been put through, Leah wouldn’t assume giving Constance a peace she hadn’t earned as the default option. Morgan tried to think about at what point things had become so dead-set for her, if she could have ever stomached doing anything different without feeling like her body was going to destroy itself with rage.

She couldn’t.

Destroying her would have been the only way to end the curse, and as those fucking mirrors in that fun house had shown her, there had been no chance in hell Constance’s magic was ever going let her free. She’d been fate-screwed from the beginning and this, numb and broken with no rest or relief in sight, not for now, not for a whole fucking eternity, slipping away from everything, struggling to just manage herself into a ghost of normalcy, having to be bound just so she could take a break from controlling herself all the time.

“That’s just based on what past-you heard from Constance. Who, I would like to point out, also goes around calling herself ‘my justice,’ ‘my fate,’ and my doom.’ You know, when she’s not victim-blaming me for her own bullshit.” Morgan skimmed the words. It was horrible, and some part of it was almost certainly true, but she didn’t feel like dropping everything she’d been working for because, oh, poor baby, abandoned by a girl you liked. Like her curse hadn’t done that to Morgan so many times before White Crest. Like that balanced with all the women in her family she had ground up and broken into monsters.

Morgan closed the book abruptly and stepped away from it, not quite looking at Leah. “Thank you for trusting me, Leah.” She muttered, her voice flattening as she choked down her bitterness. “I appreciate what you’re risking by doing this, and your secret is safe with me.”

Leah alternated between holding her mouth shut tightly and worrying her lower lip with her teeth while Morgan spoke, knowing full well that convincing Morgan to take some pity on Constance wouldn’t be an easy task.  It made sense that Morgan felt the way she did- a lifelong curse that stubbornly followed her into her afterlife for something she had no part in was anything but fair.  But it also wasn’t fair what had happened to Constance.  She worried that striking back instead of trying to find a balance would just continue this cycle further.  “Past me seemed rather annoyed by Constance, mostly, or at least turned off by something about her.  Maybe I was pretentious, or maybe she was childish- who knows.  My point is, despite my aversion to her, I still seem to sympathize and write about what happened to her as if she’s the victim here…  It doesn’t negate all the horrible she’s done to your family, obviously, or to you.”  She let her eyes leave the dusty tome to find Morgan’s, searching them to try and find a way to get her point across.  “Betrayal and tragedy can do something to a person’s psyche, and that’s heightened in the afterlife if left unresolved- that’s all I’m saying.  And when all that tragedy is trapped inside someone for years upon years, thinking clearly is not going to be that someone’s forte.  This information is for you- it’s yours… I’ve made copies of things I found significant just in case you want to study more”, as she spoke, she slipped out a rather bulky folder from inside her desk, sliding it over to Morgan.  “It’s yours to do what you want with it, and despite my opinion, I know whatever you choose to do will be best for you.”

“Hey.” Leah reached out, gently grazing Morgan’s arm, as if that would offer some sort of comfort.  She knew it wouldn't, or couldn’t, rather, but it felt like a necessary thing to do before she spoke.  “I’m sorry this is happening.  You don’t deserve it, and I hope with everything that it’s over soon.  You’ll let me know if there’s any other way I can help, right?”

Morgan understood that Leah was just trying to be a good friend: talking as much dirt as she could manage about someone she had never met before who she knew Morgan hated, balancing her automatic sympathy (the same sympathy everyone wanted to give Constance just because she happened to make the decision that bound Morgan’s existence to perpetual suffering at nineteen) with a take she thought Morgan would appreciate more. As if it would make her stance sting a little less if Morgan thought they could bitch and stitch about her after work, as if this was just a case of clashing friend groups. Morgan’s jaw clenched, but she kept her voice low and even and clear as she spoke. “I am intimately aware of how repeated traumas and tragedy can negatively impact someone’s ability to function, much less thrive. I’ve been in and out of therapy for fifteen odd years, processing my steadily growing pile of baggage and the truly awful things that were done to my mother, because of Constance’s curse,  that she then passed onto me in her own special way. It’s been over a hundred years of crushing my family until they turned that damage on themselves and each other. By the time I came along, the world I was allowed to have was so small… And, you know, I take a strong prescription that has to be injected directly into my brainstem along with some spinal fluid now that my circulatory system doesn’t work anymore, on account of Constance murdering me six months ago. So I get it. I do. I know suffering does something to you after a while.” Morgan’s lip trembled and she bit down on it to keep steady. “I don’t think I need your copies, but I’ll take them, just in case. Because I know you want me to.”

She flinched at Leah’s touch. Part of her was desperate to let it happen, to clutch her hand as hard as she dared and tell her everything, tell her to please, please understand what it’s like to find out you never had a chance, to be born as some invisible monster’s damage toy, to build up so much hope and wind up on the floor over and over again, to have your wires so fucking crossed you want to hide or break over anything that feels like calm or normal, because that means it’s all a second away from being smashed. She could never seem to find the words, and could never let herself back into those dark rooms that had been cut into her. Everything that happened to her was so absurd, so improbable, and with every curse year, the ordinary mishaps of existence sent spikes of terror into Morgan for days, for weeks. It was the best mindfuck of all because part of it, the worst of it, was real.

Morgan remained still, unable to press in, unable to shake her off. “It’s my damage, my problem. You’ve already done enough for me, Leah. I do genuinely appreciate that, and everything else. I should probably go now, right?”

“I-I didn’t mean to… I just meant that-”. Morgan’s reaction wasn’t at all unexpected, but it still made a mixture of guilt and sympathy ping in Leah’s gut.  This situation wasn’t as black and white as either of them wanted it to be, and there was no easy solution- no right opinions.  Two wrongs didn’t make a right, but how many wrongs was Morgan supposed to suffer before she was completely broken?  Still, there couldn’t have been a better way of dealing with Constance than benevolence, right?  Show her the thing she’d be constantly denied all those years ago, show her that change was possible, and send her off to rest peacefully.  Whatever afterlife karmic balance existed would deal with her crimes on their own.  “I’m sorry”, she said, finally.  “There’s no possible way for me to understand where you’re coming from, or how much you’ve been through. My intention was to make this easier, not more difficult for you.  I’m sorry if that’s backfired.”  

She blinked, pulling her hand away slowly after a small squeeze when she realized Morgan was going to remain stiff.  “It’s not only your problem. That’s what you have friends for, you know?  Like I said, despite what I think, whatever you choose is what’s best for you, because you’re incredibly intelligent and compassionate, and you know better about this than anyone.”  She looked around the empty library, letting out a slow breath as she gently traced the tome’s binding. You can leave, but if you’re up for it, I’d like to treat you for lunch.  I never repayed you for letting me stay with you and Deirdre and helping discover my sleepwalking.  How about some Al’s so we can forget about this shit? At least for an hour or two.”

Morgan tried her hardest to not cry in front of Leah. Up until this moment she had trusted Leah with just as much as she did the rest of her friends. Not Constance, that had blown up in her face enough times already and she couldn’t being tricked again, but the promise of an answer, something to tie her closer to Agnes, had been too much to say no to. She couldn’t slam the brakes on a trust like that, or tell her body this wasn’t worth it and have it listen. She scrubbed furiously at the corners of her eyes, but at  the word ‘intention,’ she let her arms fall limp and let the tears fall, surrendering to embarrassment of showing just how much she’d been hurt, just how tired and alone she felt for a walking corpse that could shamble on forever.

“You’re a really good friend, Leah,” she sniffled, staring at the cuffs on her jacket. “I know you’re trying and that’s, that counts for…a lot.” It was almost worth everything. More than she could reckon on from others she’d known longer. It gave her hope. Only, in the past few weeks, hope had cut worse than any other wound. Morgan let out a shaky exhale. “Um, I don’t really eat out anymore, and playing pretend sometimes makes me really sad, when I remember how good stuff used to taste, so I’m just gonna--” She gestured to the door, tried to smile like she was totally okay and certainly not on the verge of blubbering. “But maybe we’ll do something else another time.” Morgan didn’t have it in her to give even a half hearted wave. She shoved the photocopies into her bag and left, eyes narrowed only on the road ahead and how many steps she needed to get through the next minute, and the next, and the next.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Undead and Well Read || Morgan & Leah

Timing: Current 

Parties: @mor-beck-more-problems & @phoenixleah

Summary: Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card! 

Warnings: none!

It had been a terrible few weeks for Morgan. She couldn’t remember when, exactly, it had started, but the woman’s voice in her head was definitely making matters much worse. There was irony, of course, in finally being tired, even sleepy. Three months of death had passed with almost complete, awful consciousness. It would be nice, after everything, to have one six hour zonk-out in Deirdre’s arms to fill her head with nothing but black. Not forever, not for a day, just...six hours in bed to scrub out all the weird shit she was seeing. She dragged herself into the library, almost shambling with the weight of death she couldn’t erase from her mind, and the absence of the life that, apparently, she was never going to have in White Crest no matter what she did. But three months dead and Morgan still didn’t know hot to accept all of this. What acceptance and moving on and being actually okay and not just zombing through functionality was really supposed to look like. All the more reason, she guessed, for finally following up on her plans with Leah.

I deserve to be alone. I don’t want to be alone.

Morgan grimaced and shouldered her way into the library. Intrusive thoughts were hard enough when they were her own. For the first time in her existence, dead or not, Morgan didn’t stop to smell the stacks and run her fingers over the protective wrap over the covers. She went straight to the front desk and slumped onto the counter as soon as it was her turn. “Hey, yeah, I um...called ahead. Leah’s supposed to help me out with uh...a research project I’m doing. Are you maybe please possibly Leah?”

Summer was in its prime.  And with the yearly (spooky) carnival now long gone, residents of White Crest were once again looking for somewhere to entertain themselves and cool off. Leah couldn’t understand why, then,  the library wasn’t crowded beyond belief at this point.  It was cool, it was quiet, it was entertaining… what more could people need?  Normally, she wouldn’t mind the library being slow- less people coming in and out meant more time to add to the archives, and boy did she have a lot to add lately. Between the cursed game with Skylar and her new fae friend’s height problem, she wasn’t sure she’d ever been so backed up since she became a Scribe.  But still, the library staying afloat was the only thing keeping her family’s archives together and intact, thanks to the secret basement.  She couldn’t imagine years of research wasted just because White Cresters would rather go to some lake than read.  

She smiled at the man in front of her, thanking him for the payment of his late fee (his 4th one this year, maybe she should tell this guy to invest in a phone reminder), and watched him as he went on his way to check out more books.  Now that was a person she could relate to.  A woman she didn’t recognize came up next, and the poor thing looked positively exhausted.  She smiled at her, pulling her reading glasses to rest on the top of her head to get a better look.  I called ahead.  Leah wracked her brain to try and think of the call, and it all came at once.  The call… their conversation online.  “Morgan!” She popped out of the stool she was sitting in, turning around to rummage through the shelf behind her.  This was the girl from the internet… the new zombie who loved reading.  “You’re Morgan, right?” she asked, still rummaging.  When she was finally done, she’d pulled about six large books from the shelf, turning around and plopping them in front of Morgan.  In her excitement, she’d forgotten to confirm she was actually the woman Morgan was looking for.  She pressed her hands together, smiling.  “Yes, sorry.  I’m Leah.  You were looking for some...special books, right?”

Morgan’s head perked up at the enthusiasm from the girl. “Yes! Me Morgan! I mean, I’m Morgan! Beck. From the university, and online.” Wow, her mind meld was really getting under her skin. She could usually count on herself to act at least relatively normal in public, even in the middle or White Crest’s nonsense of the month. Despite her gracelessness, she couldn’t help but smile with relief and recognition. So this was Leah. Morgan must have seen her in passing half a dozen times or more without realizing. Even her work outfit and her reading glasses struck her as familiar. “Leah,” sighed, a smile melting over her face. “I cannot begin to express how glad I am to see you. Yes. Please, please take me to the special books. Things have only gotten weirder since we last talked and I would love for something to be easy. Or make sense. Or both.”

“I’m so glad to finally meet you”, Leah said, holding her hand out for Morgan to shake.  Normally she shied away from handshakes.  Her body temperature always made people give her a second glance, and she didn’t have time to be answering questions from people that she barely knew.  But something about Morgan’s recent confession and her coming so willingly to Leah for help made her trustworthy in Leah’s eyes.  She probably wouldn’t even question it.  “Well”, she started, indicating to the books she’d placed in front of Morgan. “These are some of them”.  She was glad she was here to help Morgan through all of this… it must be hard for someone not in the know to try and sift through what was real and what was essentially fanfiction.  “I have more set aside if you need them.  And a few that were checked out before I got to them.  Shall we go sit over there and take a look?” she asked, her head nodding over to a table in a secluded area by a window.  “Weirder?”she asked curiously, picking up half of the stack.  “Weirder how?”

Morgan took Leah’s hand gratefully, amazed that she didn’t mind inviting the chill of corpse-flesh, knowing what she was. She tried to return the kindness by taking her hand with the best care she knew how. “It feels a long time coming, huh?” She said. Am I losing my mind? Have I already lost it? Please don’t lock me up… Morgan went stiff and caughted, as if someone might hear the voice and think them rude. She picked up some of the titles and flipped through some of the chapter headings, her chest starting to tighten in spite of herself. “Are any of these..um...you know...first hand? Or, well, why don’t we take these to that table, like you said. And uh, as for weird…” She cleared her throat, trying to drown out more ruminations on love and sanity. Apparently the woman hadn’t has sex in seven years over this guy and it was all way more than she knew how to process alongside the normal chatter in her dead brain. “I know you know about how things really are around here, but this is something else. Maybe we’ll find something in these books but...uh...magic mind shares shouldn’t be a thing for the undead, right? Because I can’t carry a witchy charge anymore...because I’m, you know, d-e-a-d?”

Leah nodded with a warm smile.  It really had felt like she’d been talking to Morgan for years, when really it hadn’t been more than a few weeks.  Even before she learned about Morgan’s… undeadness, she found talking to the woman was a breeze.  “Some of them are!  Others are collections of records from Scribes”- not her own, Leah noted inwardly, though if Morgan wasn’t finding the information she was looking for, Leah would find a way to slip hers in as well. -”which is just about as close to first hand as you can get.  Scribes are known for being incredibly unbiased.” After confirming that there was someone else there to man the desk, Leah made her way to the table briskly.  She sat down as she listened to Morgan explain.  It was confusing, really, because she had never heard of anyone experiencing mind shares.  “It’s not something I’ve ever heard of… but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.  I mean, personality-wise… it’s not uncommon for you to take on a bit of someone’s personality after… their brain is ingested.”  Morgan had mentioned she was feeding ethically, but Leah didn’t want to judge if that wasn’t still the case.  “You’re just like… hearing this other person’s thoughts all the time?  Is it someone you’re close to?”

Morgan smirked ruefully at the mention of the brain. “Oh yeah, found that out the hard way by accident. He was already dead! Just, so you know. Long dead. No one was using it by the time I uh...happened upon it. And after the whole ‘holy shit this is almost as good as burgers used to be’ thing, came this weird sense of like...wanting to listen to a hockey game? And listen to A Prairie Home Companion? And play like, old people boardgames? It was weird. I called my friend sport. Harmless, but still unsettling. Not actually that big of a fan of doing that blindly again. I don’t want to get essence of asshole, you know? But this feeling is...weirder than that.” She opened the nearest book, flipping through the table of contents and the index for the good parts. There was a section on a zombie hoard that had taken over a town. Bites had spread rapidfire from one starving spawn to the next. Morgan’s stomach lurched at the idea and she picked up a different book. “This new thing is...different. I don’t even know the person I’m hearing. She--” MARRY ME PLEASE. “--Is definitely in a place. And I think I may have seen her in...dream is the only word I can think of. Except I haven’t dreamed or slept since I died. It’s not all the time, more of an eb and flow, but when it flow it’s kind of a lot.”

Leah threw up her arms, a playfully defensive stance to show Morgan that she wasn’t being judgy.  “Hey, you do what you got to do.  If I ever happen to be undead with you, then I’m allowed to judge how you eat.  Until then, I’m just a passive observer.”  She grinned at Morgan’s destination.  All of the archives her family had kept on zombies in the past were written so robotically-- professional and unbiased was basically in the job description of a scribe.  To hear Morgan talk about it so candidly and openly was refreshing.  And amusing, if she were being honest with herself. She chuckled as she answered. “It sounds unsettling!  Thank god you didn’t find someone who liked to listen to polka music, instead.  Now that sounds unsettling.”  It was interesting to watch a newcomer flip through pages that held information all about her new life.  Non-life?  She pressed her lips together, genuinely confused.  “Is it possible someone’s trying to contact you?  I don’t know much about dream visits, but if it’s the same person who’s visiting your day dreams… maybe it’s intentional?”

Morgan’s expression softened at Leah. She hadn’t met a human who she didn’t have to pacify in some capacity in...well she couldn’t quite remember when. She was honest with so few humans these days, and even some of her supernatural friends held reservations against such things as violence and people eating. Maybe she might have even shared their alarm at another time, but she wasn’t even sure of that. But Leah understood somehow. Or at least she understood that there was something beyond her. It was a wisdom that Morgan admired, even envied. Lately she felt like she barreled in with the best of intentions and came up empty. She just wanted everything to be okay and make sense now. Which, now that she thought about it, was a little on the absurd side. She had a few centuries, hopefully, to figure her shit out. What was she rushing for? Morgan smiled at Leah. “You’re pretty great, you know that? And if you do ever wind up undead with me, I’ll make sure you get the five star treatment. A regular gourmet menu of options.” She laughed along with her joke, relieved that it hadn’t made Leah uncomfortable and started flipping through the pages of another book. “Intentional magic sounds about right. I’m not sure how you would casually connect two minds together, but I don’t think the woman in my head is the one doing it. Which is even weirder because, like, who actually knows us? What gives? Are you that bored that you need to power flex on some townies? Oooh...yikes.” Morgan grimaced at another section, a rather dry account of a recorded drunk zombie. The guy had managed to do it when he attacked someone he had a grudge against coming out of a bar. Freshly drunk brains meant freshly drunk zombie. Which apparently meant...a lot more dead drunk people and a very dangerous bar scene for the month or so it took the local slayers to figure it out. She showed it to Leah. “Well I guess I really am never getting drunk for the rest of eternity,” she sighed.

Leah sat up a little straighter, scoffing off the compliment with a wave of her hand.  She always felt a bit uncomfortable accepting praise, especially from someone she didn’t know very well.  It wasn’t that she didn’t like being told she was good at something, moreso that she didn’t know how to respond when someone did.  “I’ll hold you to that!” she laughed, knowing what Morgan was saying was true.  There was something about the other woman that just seemed trustworthy to Leah, and she could tell she was the type to stick to her word.  She leaned on the table, absentmindedly flipping through another one of the books that they’d brought over for Morgan as she listened to her speak.  “Hmm.  It’s all so strange.  I mean, you’re right… if this is a spellcaster or someone like it, why put two random people who don’t know each other through this.  Maybe it’s a common enemy that you and this other woman both have?” she suggested.  It felt weird to suggest that someone as sweet as Morgan might have an enemy.  “Or someone trying to get to your girlfriend through you, even.  You mention she’s got some…” she looked around, sure that no one was close enough to them to hear.  “...special tendencies as well?”  She laughed, patting Morgan on the back comfortingly.  “Maybe you’ll find a way.  I mean...you’ve got a long life ahead of you.  And you’re in a town literally filled with other people in your state.  I find it hard to believe that no one’s gonna find a way to get zombie drunk in the next century.”

Morgan puzzled this over. “She is. Um...different. I’m promise-bound not to go into details. But I did that to myself, I should say, in case of wardens or other...problems. I haven’t actually thought of that before. I don’t think...that something like that would be possible.” The people Deirdre upset tended to be dead. And Deirdre never failed. She had been raised too well. “I don’t think so, I don’t think they’re connected either, or that the woman in my head would hurt her. Although if she does…” Morgan shivered. She would kill her for taking that kind of trouble. Or at least incapacitate her. Something had landed her in one of Regan’s freezers before. Morgan could do it again. She grimaced and turned back to the books. Deirdre didn’t want her looking for answers in death too much. She would also forgive her for killing again, probably, especially, if it involved saving the life they had together. But it was smarter not to add more weight to her back where that stupid human woman she’d killed in the ring haunted her from time to time. Or at least, not to spend too much time thinking of adding more weight. Morgan sighed, skimming contents and indexes for the zombie parts, or the parts where the zombies talked about being how they were. “Are there any zombies who actually...wrote any books? Even fiction stories, or anecdotal testimony? I mean, I didn’t even know these existed, and I really appreciate the whole not just taking inventory of ways to kill or maim or torture me. I’m just...curious, I guess.”

“Oh please, you’re under no obligation to share”, Leah assured.  As curious as she was, it wouldn’t be fair of her to expect Morgan to share the details of her girlfriends special talents when Leah herself wasn’t being very open about who and what she really was.  Besides, after talking to Morgan enough, Leah could probably figure it out on her own, anyway.  She nodded, the girlfriend revenge situation seemed to be out, then.  “It’s just so strange.  I wonder…” she blinked, a new thought crossing her mind in an instant.  “There is the possibility that this mind sharing isn’t related to your undead-ness at all, though, Morgan.  It could just be... one of those unfortunate White Crest things.”  She blinked, adjusting in her seat as she thought it over.  “Maybe you should find this girl… try to talk to her face to face to figure out what’s up.”  She smiled softly at the question, rummaging through the pile on the table.  “If there are books by hunters, they’d be burned before I’d allow them in this library”, she assured as she searched. She found three specific books she had flagged earlier with colored post-it notes, presenting them to Morgan.  “So.  These three are all written by known zombies.  This one”, she said, holding up the smaller of the three.  “Is way old, kind of dull but has a lot of good information.  These other two have a lot of tips on how to deal with everything, ethical feeding… anything that I’d assume might come up. They’re labeled as fiction, for obvious reasons, but I can assure you that these three are all legitimately written by your fellow undead.”

“Oh, Stars. No…” Morgan groaned and let her head fall on her book with exaggerated despair as soon as Leah suggested this was more White Crest nonsense. “I mean this shouldn’t be surprising, and honestly, we’re probably due for something like this. And at least it’s not something that might make me embarrass myself in public like those eyeballs popping up everywhere. But why…” Morgan gave a pitiful puff, floating a fluffy lock of hair until she ran out of air. When that was done, she pulled herself upright and put on a smile. No time to dwell, especially not when Leah was being such a big help to her. Although maybe it was just the comment about the hunters that gave her an extra reason to pick up her energy. “Probably doesn’t matter too much,” she said wryly. “Let’s take a look at these, since apparently they’re free of hunter bias. Gotta say, I’m relieved, but maybe a little surprised. Being misunderstood or not seen the way I feel I really am is what I’m used to for the most part. It uh...seems like it might be personal, so you don’t have to say, but I am curious about why you feel so strongly about them.” She turned back to the books examined the title and perused the first few pages, then flipped to the middle where there seemed to be a death scene. “Leah, these are beautiful. I mean, sad, too, I guess. But...it’s real. It’s how we really are. I’d like to take these home for a little while, if that’s okay.To get to read them properly. I could come back too, but it would just...be nice, you know?”

Leah chuckled sympathetically, squeezing Morgan’s shoulder for comfort.  As a crester, she was almost used to the wild ongoings of the town by now, but she couldn’t imagine the stress it must have brought to a newcomer like Morgan.  “God, I don’t want to think about the eyeballs again.  Thank god that’s over.  Maybe this will be...slightly more harmless?  It sounds more annoying than anything?  Regardless, you’re definitely getting a nice White Crest initiation, aren’t you?”  She let out a laugh at Morgan’s sudden uprightness.  Someone else might have thought it immoral to not allow books by hunters, by Leah wasn’t willing to take any chances.  If their only goal in life was to harm others, she couldn’t support that.  At Morgan’s question, she pressed her lips together, suddenly nervous.  “I, uh…” she swallowed, adjusting her position to look at Morgan.  “I’m just very passionate about justice, and…” She knew it sounded disingenuous, but after a lifetime of being told that no one could know, sharing that she was a Phoenix felt like walking on thin ice over freezing cold water.  Still, Morgan was putting so much trust in her… why couldn’t she give her that same courtesy?  “I can relate”, she said after a long beat.  “To feeling...hunted or sought after.  We’re not so different.”  She ended with a resolute nod, signifying that’s all she’d say on the matter.  She desperately hoped Morgan would understand, and maybe one day Leah would let her know more.  With that, she turned her attention to Morgan’s book, smiling softly at the question.  “Well, that depends.  Do you have a library card?”, she teased.  

Morgan put her hand gently over Leah’s. There was a tension in her that Morgan was growing familiar with the more she saw of the supernatural world. It was a tension that went beyond common sense caution, that hinted at something as awful as it was personal. “I understand,” she said gently. “People can be very cruel sometimes. I’m sorry if you’ve had to suffer because of them. You don’t have to say, ever, if you don’t want to. But you can sometime. I’ll make sure it stays safe with me. I’ll fae promise-bind myself to it if it comes to it.” She gave Leah’s fingers a squeeze and turned back to the two zombie books, cradling them to chest. “Do I have a library card?” She smirked. “Do I have a library card? Please, Leah. If that’s all it takes, then, would you do the honors of helping me check out?”

As her eyes fell to Morgan’s hand over hers, Leah felt herself let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.  She was incredibly thankful that Morgan didn’t press any further, but even more so, her words filled Leah with a giant sense of relief.  If she hadn’t been before, she was sure now that they would remain friends, even after Morgan found the answers she was looking for.  “I’ve been lucky, honestly.  But I think that’s partly because of the secrecy. I appreciate you being so understanding, though.”  A laugh bubbled out of her, and she shook her head.  “No, no… no fae promise binding.  That can be too tricky.”  She grinned, standing up with Morgan and grabbing the rest of the books.  “The pleasure would be all mine”, she said in somewhat of a silly voice, walking back over to the desk.  Once she took Morgan’s card and started entering all her information, she smiled again.  “I’m really glad you’ve been able to find what you were looking for… I hope it’s as helpful as you need it to be”, she said.  Leah slid the card back over to Morgan before continuing.  “Keep them as long as you need, though.  I’ve already waived the return date, so you won’t expect a call from us if they’re not back next month.”

Morgan beamed at Leah as she laughed. Always a good sign when she could share a sense of humor with someone. Morgan gave her a silly curtsey and followed her back to the lobby. She drummed her hands anxiously on the counter, eaget to get hold of them again, until Leah spoke and she found herself faltering, letting one of the books slip from her fingers. “You--you what? Leah that’s--” Morgan couldn’t fight the smile coming over her face. “That’s incredibly kind of you.” She reached over the counter to give her arm a good squeeze, pulling back sheepishly when she realized she might have been too hard. She mouthed an earnest ‘sorry’, took the books, and edged her way out of the library. “I hope this isn’t the only time we hang out in person, Leah,” she said. “I think I really could use a friend like you.”