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nisaconite · 1 year ago

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read on ao3 - this one's for you, @juliettefarbrooke-sso <3

Juliette is all too used to the rifts.

Ever since she and Anne tore one open in the Guardian’s Dale without a keystone after Elizabeth’s death, they’ve been a recurring problem all over the map, sometimes without warning. Where before, Juliette could sense one opening up hours before it actually happened, now she’ll be entirely through one and halfway to Pandoria before she even realizes she’s not galloping through the Forgotten Fields anymore. It’s a testament to just how much bigger they are, too — the most that could ever sneak through a rift just some months ago were a couple crystals, and now she has to herd back shadow seekers and panda rays before she can seal reality into not destroying itself.

“How did I never feel this before?” Juliette had muttered wonderingly on one particular occasion in which the burst of energy emanating from the rift had been so strong she was sure she could’ve felt it from back home even all those months ago.

Anne had shot her a wry smirk. “This never used to happen before. We messed something up bad getting you and Alex out of chaos space.” Juliette felt a strange surge of guilt when she’d noticed the frustrated furrow in the prettier girl’s perfectly-shaped brows, even though she hadn’t exactly had a choice in the matter. “It’s getting kind of ridiculous, honestly.”

“It has to stop eventually, right?” She had suggested hopefully, but quite possibly only ended up jinxing it, because it only got worse from there.

It’s no wonder that what used to be a single-person mission, capable of being undertaken by a druid just barely connected to one of the Circles, now requires at least three Soul Riders — two if it’s Anne and Juliette, who can access the Sun Circle (mostly) at will. Today, though, it’s all five of them, in part because the ripple effect was so bad that Juliette had to take three tylenols and Anne four before either of them could get up long enough to tack up their horses. The migraine lessens when she’s atop Cato, their soul bond soaking up enough of the strain that it recedes to background discomfort, but the point stands. The other part is because they’re all so bored of having to travel halfway across the island to close some rift that they’ve started meeting up halfway like it’s a group hangout instead of the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

Currently, they’re moving at a pace that would make Fripp fall back into a coma if he could see them now, all sipping at the milkshakes that Alex convinced them to grab on their way to the ferry dock at Fort Pinta; Lisa has a brain freeze and is hanging mournfully from Starshine’s back, auburn hair too close to grazing the ground for how short it is. Linda looks mildly anxious, fingers twitching around her reins as if ready to catch the smaller girl were she to fall to her concussion.

Starshine’s complaints make an excellent soundtrack to their current conversation, while their Soul Horses merely indulge him with idle placations. Well, Cato and Concorde do, at least — Tin-Can is laughing in that way Juliette has never known how to explain that horses do, and Meteor has his own troubles.

“I told you,” Alex is insisting, at Anne rather than to her, since she doesn’t seem to care much at all about whether or not she’d been told, “Those milkshakes would be worth the time. You can’t tell me you’re not enjoying this.” She lifts her cup in emphasis.

She is, technically, right. Anne can’t argue her point, because she sips at her plain vanilla with just as much enthusiasm as Lisa, if a little more subdued so as not to share her fate. However, the day Anne agrees with Alex will be the day rifts stop opening on Jorvik, which is shaping up to be an unfortunately distant event, and so she just glares.

“Poor Lisa’s paying the price, though,” Juliette offers as a peace treaty.

“Poor Lisa,” Anne repeats with scorn, “brought this on herself.”

Lisa groans pitifully. Linda massages an imaginary headache out of her temples, just to make a point.

Once upon a time, they all — Linda especially — took this kind of thing more seriously. Then they went through hell trying to save Anne, and lost Elizabeth, and then priority became trying to get Alex to crack a smile again, and then keeping it on her face once she did. Then Juliette realized that she didn’t think she’d actually had a full night’s sleep in weeks, and then she realized that Anne was still playing catch-up on life after two months trapped in a crystal, and then they started focusing on the smaller things. The easier things, like sleepovers to stave off the nightmares, races to have something healthy to compete over, and midnight makeovers to embrace the scars. It works for a while, and Juliette starts to think she might love the Soul Riders, a little, until Fripp catches wind of it and gives them his patented Look of Disappointment, and she’s immediately guilty for messing around when the world is at stake.

That doesn’t mean, though, that they can’t still be bitter and rebellious about their responsibilities, teenage-style, which is how they end up taking their time on the way to the tear in reality just past the idyllic, suburban town of New Hillcrest.

This is their vacation of sorts.

“Pretty sad vacation, if you ask me,” Alex scoffs, and Juliette realizes she’d thought the last part out loud.

Lisa hauls herself back right-side up in the saddle with a grumble of agreement, but also discomfort, and Linda finally relaxes enough to launch into a detailed analysis of some new book series she’d picked up at the library the other day. From what Juliette can understand, it’s a sweet romance with a surprisingly dark twist to it, which she notes with interest that Anne seems to appreciate despite her harsh criticism. That, actually, seems to be the manner in which she appreciates most media, which makes movie nights with her all the more entertaining. She briefly entertains the thought of inviting her to the movies, then brushes it off with a wince — it’d be in poor taste to suggest an outing now. Besides, this is very nearly enough; Lisa offers her own input over the sound of Alex pretending to gag, and Juliette takes a sip of her milkshake to hide her grin. She knows exactly how to cause Linda a heart attack with one simple statement.

“The show was better,” she chimes brightly. She’s only actually seen a few episodes, and the book series definitely sounds like something she’d love to check out, but if there was ever a more surefire way to cause chaos…

Linda’s head turns in her direction so quickly that Juliette is half-surprised it doesn’t fall straight off her neck. Anne snorts. Alex groans. “Oh, no, Juli, why would you say that… do you know what you’ve done?”

She shrugs, struggling to hide a smile. Anne shakes her head at her with amusement, and she flushes, fairly certain she’s doing a bad job of it. Linda, though, notices nothing as she inhales deeply, evidently gearing up for a rant.

“Juliette Farbrooke,” she begins, words enunciated with exaggerated incredulity, “you cannot seriously believe that trashy, commercialized adaptation could ever hold a candle to the depth and nuance of the original literary work! The characters in the show were a mere caricature of their book counterparts, and don't even get me started on the plot deviations!"

Juliette can’t help it anymore, and sputters with laughter. “Aw, but Linds, the actors were so pretty.”

Lisa claps a hand to her mouth, amber eyes wide with mirth. “You did not just go there,” she gasps. They all know how much their friend hates the superficiality of a show being popular solely for an actor. In her eyes, there has never been such a low point in cinema as the one that utilizes teenage idols to make itself popular.

However, this has also been a long-repeated debate amongst their ranks, and Linda throws her hands up in mock defeat rather than deciding to repeat her ever-static point. “I give up! You heathens can have your eye candy-filled shows. If any of you ever come to the side of the true literary treasures, I’ll be here, untainted by the glitzy world of Hollywood.”

Anne leans over to pat her on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Linda. We all have our guilty pleasures.”

It’s funny until Juliette’s stomach drops down to her toes, and the area around them starts to paint itself a sickly sort of pink. Her giggle stalls in her throat as she takes in her friends’ frozen expressions — she never really does know how to describe this part. For the others, Pandoria is wrong and innately difficult to step into, like forcing themselves to suck in a lungful of water, or so Lisa’s said. Juliette wouldn’t know, because for her… it’s too easy, in the scary way that swallowing something toxic is. It’s so natural that she always has to remind herself that it will destroy her if she lets it, and Cato is her only grounding point, chestnut coat warm with the exertion of the ride even through her pants.

She tightens her grip on the reins and chances a glance at Anne. She’s glaring straight ahead with angry determination, but the way her hands shake is clearly visible even through her facade. Honestly, she could break out in tears and Juliette wouldn’t blame her in the least: the rift looks dangerous, yawning wide across the wheat field and casting a hazy short of shimmer across the air, disorienting and eerie. There’s nothing there, not really, but everything on the other side of it is distorted to her eyes, like reflections on the surface of a disturbed pond. She hesitates, but Lisa only shrugs as she hums.

“There’s nothing here,” she offers eventually. Her eyes are bright, but there’s no way to tell if it’s just the glow of their surroundings or the strain of using her magic. “Nothing living, anyway. We’re good to close it.”

Juliette nods and takes a steadying breath as she slips out of the saddle. She keeps her hand very firmly on Cato’s neck, just in case, and he leans into her touch, constant and unwavering to the point where she has to crack the tiniest smile. “Right,” she says, confidence bolstered, “let’s get this done.”

Behind her eyelids, everything is still faintly lit, and Pandoria crackles where can hear it clawing its way in, but she concentrates on the lilting quality to Lisa’s voice as she murmurs a healing song for the dying land around them as unreality wreaks its havoc. Straining to make out the words - I’m closing the door behind - kind of muffles everything else enough that she can feel the thrumming power in her chest, surging in the veins of her arms and all the way to her fingertips. Her hands burn, although not unpleasantly, with the familiar fire of the Sun. Slowly, she stitches the earth back together,��feeling Pandoria pull itself back until Anne says, “It’s done, Juliette. You can stop now.”

She opens her eyes briefly and immediately has to squeeze them back closed, taken aback by just how bright the sky is. She blinks several times in rapid succession, all too aware that what had felt like a few seconds had probably been several minutes while she worked — the first time she’d dealt with something like this, she’d snapped back to reality to find Alex swarmed with shadow seekers from all sides. They’d managed fine in the end, but Juliette thinks, even now, that it’s unnerving to open her eyes and find a gaping but nonmagical crack in the ground rather than a rift as had been minutes prior.

She heaves a sigh and leans back against Cato’s side, barely even noticing the way the metal of her stirrup digs into her back. Her limbs feel like jelly. “Did you guys know they opened this cute little cafe in the main plaza down in New Hillcrest?”

Linda laughs in surprise. “Leave it to you, Juliette, to remember that now.”

“No, no, I’ve been thinking about it this whole time—“

“Well, we do deserve to treat ourselves after that,” Lisa puts in, almost pleading as if for permission. It’s directed Linda and Anne than anyone else, the former being responsible for their general health in the way the mom friends always are, and the latter tending to slip into relapses after having to deal with the dizzy sensation of Pandoria all over again. Today, though, her expression is light with something almost content, and she shrugs. “I’m up for it.”

“Great,” Juliette says with a smile, her exhaustion already dissipating. “Then it’s settled. I could really go for a brownie.”

(She never does end up getting it — Alex and Lisa do a weird rendition of All I Want for Christmas in the middle of July, serenading random patrons from on top of their table until they get kicked out. But Linda is laughing as she scolds them, and Anne smirks with mirth brighter the sun itself, and Juliette thinks that this might all be worth it.)

#sso #sso mc #my writing #lisa peterson #anne von blyssen #linda chanda #alex cloudmill #proper capitalization? on my blog #it's more likely than you think #unfortunately didn't have a lowercase draft this time ://

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