#▐ ❛REM. / my grief for the girl that i loved as a child.

[spring-picnics]

𝕶𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖗 𝕼𝖚𝖊𝖊𝖓

Pairings: Remus lupin x reader

Plot: Your best friend Marlene seems a little off? Regular highschool au.

Warnings: suggestive scenes, horror and suspense, dead bodies, blood, grief, loss, did I mention death? It’s just a dark horror story type thing

Word count: 2.9k

Prompt: you’re insane// people keep telling me that.

A/N: based on my fav horror movie, Jennifer’s body, and I was also channeling some buffy energy for you btvs anon. Also I absolutely love the song killer queen by mad tsai. I made it for @fairydxll’s celebration!!!! Thanks for letting me join <3 and also thanks to @thehalfbloodedwitch for proofreading, love you babe <3

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Her quick hands made light work; first his shirt, then his pants and when she was finally satisfied with his position, she bared her teeth in a malicious smirk. Peter knew he was in trouble then, when her eyes flashed with a spark of something darker, inhumane and hungry. Her grip on his arm had turned from a tender touch to something painful. Peter tried to push away, but when he looked back into her eyes, he knew he was done for. She was the victor, he was the victim.

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“Sweetheart, your boyfriend and his friends are here demanding breakfast again!”

“Don’t worry mum, I’ll try to keep them under control.”

Every Monday, the marauders turn up at your house and help themselves to whatever they can find in your kitchen. What started as a fun little joke turned into a weird tradition that always made your week. But for the first time in almost an eternity, the air was empty and soulless despite the raucous laughter.

As you walked into the kitchen with your bag and books, you could feel a chill in your bones. There was a sinister and foreboding presence that suffocated you. Then your eyes met hers. Perfectly manicured nails pierced into her apple; juice dripping down her hand as a quick and knowing smile graced her face. Her fair skin and short, gold hair glowed like an angel under the light, but you knew better. Blood red lips finally breached the apple, eating it in a predatory fashion, making your stomach churn. You couldn't look away, because once you did, she would have gotten to you, hunted you down until you were nothing but a forgotten and lost soul.

Finally, someone woke you up. Your sweet boyfriend shaking you when he realised that you were gone, stuck in a seemingly endless trance.

“Hey pretty girl, you alright? You seemed a little off there.”

“I’m fine Rem, just tired. Was working on my essay for history pretty late last night,” you responded, while sneaking glances at the blonde girl opposite her.

“Ok darling. Here I made you some toast.” Remus pushed the plate towards you in a calming manner, attempting to relieve some of the fear that hung over you.

The rest of the morning was a blur to you. James and Sirius’ dumb hijinks went unnoticed, Lily’s disapproving mutters fell onto deaf ears and Peter’s absence was brushed under the rug by your apathy. Only Marlene’s new bloodthirsty nature haunted you, continuing to distract you throughout the rest of the day.

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Professor Slughorn marked the class roll. “Frank, Lucius, Marlene.” Each name followed by a softer echo from each child, yet when Peter’s name was uttered there was a blank and awkward silence.

“He’s sick, Slughorn,” Marlene announced with a harsh tone, a stark contrast from her usual jokes and warmth.

You didn't know who Marlene was anymore; she was lacking her soul. There was something completely and utterly wrong about her. The cheap metal rings she wore were rusted and tinted slightly red in a new way, different to before; the scars that used to litter her knees and elbows had been erased. For the first time, you felt sick to be around someone you loved. Maybe if you had been lucky you would have been able to connect the dots earlier.

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Marlene knew she was getting greedy, but she couldn’t help it.

“Hey Malfoy, Do you need a break from studying?”

“Not really Mckinnon. I think I’m fine, thanks,” Lucius answered, before realising what she was actually asking.

As he followed her behind the school, he heard a distant voice trying to stop him, to prevent the evil that was about to occur. When they were finally deep in the forbidden forest, that distant voice became a blaring alarm but the siren in front of him blocked out any warning that his mind could form. Marlene led him further and further astray with her sweet smiles and delicate caresses.

He should have realised what was happening when her honey-like eyes turned dark and raw, a window into the burning rage trapped in her body. He should have backed away when her dainty hands tore his shirt into two in a cruel manner. He should have screamed when her teeth shifted into sharp fangs and when her delicate lips whispered soft promises of death and destruction.

And when she was done with him, she wandered farther away, leaving his limp, lifeless body under the trees; his limb ripped apart, organs strewed all over the dirt. She rid herself of her clothes and dived into the black lake, spending hours in the freezing water with her new revitalised energy. Life and death simultaneously blessed her body. Everything about her was heavenly, yet together, it screamed of hell.

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If you thought you were crazy before, you knew it now. The dots just seemed to connect: Marlene’s date with Peter resulting in his ‘sickness’ and now Lucius and Marlene’s shared absence. They couldn’t and weren’t coincidences to you.

“Remus, something is wrong with Marlene.”

“Yeah, she looks a little too good for someone who has a paper due this friday.”

“No, there is actually something wrong with her. I think she is killing people or a demon or something,” You continued, trying to prove your point.

“Babe, just because you did a paper on occultism, doesn’t mean that everyone around you is evil.”

“Not everyone, just Marlene. Look-” You tried to rephrase, trying to make your argument more realistic, but he interrupted you with a disapproving look.

“Y/N, I know you’re stressed, but don’t do this to yourself.”

So you left it. If Remus didn’t believe you yet, but he would. You are smart and capable, you can definitely prove that your best friend has just turned into a demon that kills men… or you could try to forget it.

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You definitely were not the only person that started to notice the lack of your peers. Each week would end with a new boy missing. Hogwarts is a small town, where the only weird occurrences are random graffiti murals or an animal dead at the side of the road, never multiple missing cases or gruesome corpses. As the local officers slowly started to discover mutilated bodies, obscure theories and conspiracies about what was happening started to fly around.

“James I’m telling you, it has got to be something to do with satanism.” You knew you couldn’t give it up when you knew exactly what was killing these young men. If only somebody would listen.

“You’re insane,” laughed Sirius with a bold smirk on his face.

“People keep telling me that,” You muttered with evident frustration. You were starting to grow sick and tired of the constant disdain that people were treating you with. This wasn’t some half-baked idea you were serving, but a full blown explanation that covered every possible question that your friends had, if only they would listen.

“I can prove it.”

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All you had to do was come up with a plan to prove that Marlene was the root of this problem. It was all or nothing and you had no ideas, not a single one resided in your head, but unfortunately, you had already invited everyone to Marlene’s house as a little ‘surprise party.’

Each marauder started to fill and filter the room, their eager eyes raking over every nook and cranny, except for James and Sirius who continued to make fun of you.

“I’m sorry Y/N, but what do you think we are gonna find? Some incriminating evidence in a drawer,” Sirius mocked as he opened a random drawer, “or under a table?”

However, as he crept under the table, he found a block shaped object, taped directly to the table’s underside. Sirius pulled out a velvety and slightly damp book filled with ominous drawings of pentagrams and the supernatural. When he realised that the book left the tips of his fingers tinted with a light red colour, it made a loud, resounding thud on Marlene’s bedroom floor.

For a minute or two, the whole room stilled; a blanket of silence, trying to protect them from the threatening reality of what Marlene had become.

“Oh my god…” Lily’s voice was barely above a whisper when she walked over to the book.

Each slow step making no sound, as if she was pretending this wasn’t real. Tears hid on her waterline, threatening to drop with each passing second. When she eventually got to the book, she gasped in utter shock and disbelief. Pages and pages of highlights and annotations in bright red pen, taunting her with images and illustrations of bodies that were torn apart.

For the first time in their lives, each marauder was facing the complete unknown. While each member’s notions of reality crumbled, they continued to search for more evidence; they continued to amble, trying to forget what they had just come across while also trying to form some kind of coherent plan.

You sighed deep and long, trying to deal with the fact that you were right in the worst possible circumstance. All you needed was a small break to take everything in, but you couldn’t and you knew that Marlene would have been hiding worse things in her room. Each drawer was rifted through, and when none of you could find anything else, you started to pat the wall like some kind of lunatic, praying for more; you wish that prayer was never answered…

Marlene was always a poster person, ever since you knew her, every wall in her room was covered by something: thrifted vinyl covers, printed pictures, lights and decorations. And today, those decorations weren’t only hiding the wall. You pressed into each fluorescent sign, looking for an answer, and you found one, your hand falling through her second favourite poster, right into a crumbling hole.

“I’m not putting my hand in that,” you responded just as quickly as you took your hand away from the hole.

Remus wordlessly offered himself up and peeked through the broad hole to see a briefcase, large and somewhat flat with a number code on the handle. He fished it out gently so as to not disturb anyone in the room next door and then lightly placed it on her bed.

“Wow, that is not suspicious at all.” You could tell James’ weak gags were just a thin veil of confidence trying to cover up the uneasiness he felt at seeing one of Professor Binns’ bags… especially after he went missing.

“I’m going to go and find a big rock outside to break the lock while I try not to freak out,” Lily responded with an equally shaky voice as she glanced around the room, searching for any chance that Marlene could be watching.

Everyone stayed still until she came back with her mascara slightly ruined and a dark grey stone that was roughly the size of her hand. She gradually marched up to the bed and brought her arm up in anticipation before battering the lock with the tool. Even after the lock was only pieces of plastic, her violent and brutal actions did not cease. The previous silence and shock had shifted into an unhealthy horror as each teen realised the immense consequence of what they had found.

“STOP! Lily stop!” Sirius raised his voice trying to calm the girl down as he wrapped his arms around her. You could see the outline of her shaking underneath the raven-haired boy, his arms failing to protect her from what she felt, from what they had to deal with.

She continued to weep, until her prolonged breakdown was interrupted by your loud gasp. If you were holding it together all this while, you definitely started crying once you saw the carved bones and other trinkets and mementos from people who had recently gone missing. You felt a tight squeeze on your arm and looked up to see Remus holding in tears while he held up Peter’s wallet.

Every person in the room attempted to muffle their sobs, keeping it in as to not worry Marlene’s parents. James and Remus retraced everybody’s steps and cleaned up Marlene’s room with sluggish movements. James’ blue eyes had lost their usual playfulness and were now dull and empty with the growing guilt over what had happened to his friends. Remus kept glancing outside at the full moon as if to tame himself and his regretful thoughts. At first, Sirius kept comforting you and Lily, but now memories of Peter and Marlene just constantly flashed over and over again, reminding him of more people he had just lost. Lily was speechless; the initial shock and terror had glazed over into a numbness as she stared into the abyss. All that she could think about was what they would have to do to get rid of Marlene.

And you. Your eyes were raw and dry, tears refusing to run down your face anymore. Your breath was ragged and uneven, trying to regain composure after the impact of what you had just discovered. It had finally hit you. You couldn’t hear or see anything other than your best friend killing countless men. No matter how much you rubbed your face, you couldn’t rub away the hollow feeling of dread and panic that began to settle.

For a while, everybody just sat there, waiting for something to happen or someone to say something. Eventually, you all started to leave out of fear that Marlene would realise that you all knew.

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Each marauder dealt with the grief differently. Remus buried himself under loads and loads of studying, trying to find any way to bring Marlene back in the hopes that it would somehow bring Peter back too. Meanwhile, James was found in the football field during all of his free time, attempting to win each game in Peter and Marlene’s memory. Sirius had completely given up on any extracurriculars, letting only his brother persuade him to go to school. You and Lily decided to drop everything you both were already doing and dived straight into making a detailed plan.

You both spent weeks planning what you guys thought would be a detailed plan. Lily’s walls were filled with message boards that contained pages of information and several illegally obtained pictures of corpses. You both cut off everyone else to try to force a manageable plan to emerge from your heads.

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All the marauders slowly grew apart over the next month until you and Lily forced them all to meet to stop Marlene.

“Guys we needed you all to come so that we could do something about the Marlene ‘problem,’” Lily blurted.

The room erupted in groans and mutters from the guys, because of their repeated dismissal of the topic. They all tried to shout some kind of response or excuse across to you and Lily before you raised your voice.

“We have a solution!”

When Remus looked at you in awe with something other than dejection for the first time in several weeks, you knew that you had to follow through.

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It was simple. All you had to do was stab Marlene in the heart and then prove it was in self defence. You guys had evidence of her crimes, now you just needed proof that you were in the right to kill.

First, you had to plan the perfect confrontation. One where Marlene couldn’t think it was staged and was forced to attack. Somebody smart enough to realise Marlene is a demon, but dumb enough to confront her alone thinking she wouldn’t attack them; so James was the obvious choice.

“Wait, you guys think I’d do that?” James squealed in disbelief.

“James, you can’t be serious.” Remus disagreed with a judging look on his face

So that’s what you guys planned, James who had enough athletic prowess to go through with the plan would be the bait. Each of you would be witnesses hidden in one of the school classrooms. If that didn’t work out, each of you would lunge at her with as much energy as you could. You had chosen a date right near the end of her cycle, so that she would be at her weakest.

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Marlene stalked into the classroom. Each of you could spot the growing anger on her face as James intervened.

“You’re dead,” she hissed in a lethal tone.

Marlene launched herself at James; her eyes were bright red with fury and her nails were sharp like talons.

He managed to stab her a few times near the chest, yet not in her heart. James tried to quickly back down, before when he fell backwards onto a desk. She limped towards him, while slowly attempting to regenerate.

Marlene reached out for him as her maniacal laughs filled the room. Soft prayers could be heard coming from James, until a loud bang disrupted the room. Marlene was on the ground, with Remus above her holding one of the school’s metal chairs. Lily ran up to Marlene and looked her in the eyes with a determined look, one of vengeance, and for the first time in months, disappointment flashed across her face. She slowly backed up before crashing into Sirius who had a similar frown blessed on his face.

Marlene’s breath started to break up and her eyes started to cloud over. She could feel her heart breaking, even though she had no soul. The rest of the marauders started to close in on her; her eyes flashed across the room and when she finally found an acceptable exit she released an ear splitting shriek and hovered above everyone.

She flew out of the room with a spare glance as a goodbye. You ran across the tables and chairs in a feeble attempt to say bye as she left in her usual dramatic fashion. You guys had let her get away…

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Marlene was never seen again, but every now and then, when Remus reads his morning paper or you watch a true crime documentary, you both share a brief look as you quickly recollect what happened between Marlene and you.

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@𝖘𝖕𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌-𝖕𝖎𝖈𝖓𝖎𝖈𝖘

[ahvarchive]

every night I dream you’re still here; the ghost by my side, so perfectly clear.  when i awake, you’ll disappear, back to the shadows with all I hold dear.  hidden companion — phantom be still in my heart.  make me a promise that time won’t erase us; that we were not lost from the start.  i’d die to be where you are.  i tried to be where you are.

[chrysalispen]

Prompt #14 - Part

a story about family, and grief.

cw for minor character death, lore consistent racism (unfortunately garleans are Like That), depression, and references to alcoholism.

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  Don't cry. Oh, don't cry.

He did not hear her. He continued to weep, tears leaking beneath the seal of his crimson mask of office and into her robes, soaking into the fabric. 

I'll save you, Hades. I'll find another path. I'll save you.

It was her last thought: carried in the drift of her soul as it split into four and ten, like the currents of the spring wind in her feathers. Taking her way home upon the wing to her friends and to the man she loved. 

To the world she loved.

   (To-)

   ~*~

"I'll save you, Vittora," Julian rem Laskaris whispered. "I will."

He sat as he had for days, clutching desperately at the hands enfolded in his own, so pale and wasted they were nearly translucent. She lay still and pliant, her brow cool and clammy and - strangely, he thought - it was damp. He did not realize at first that it was with his tears. He had duties, but he cared nothing for them at this moment. Neither Rabanastre nor the castrum would cease to exist while he tended to his family. The tribunus had not left his wife's bedside in a near sennight.

His brilliant composer, his nightingale, was dying. She had drifted into deeper and longer periods of sleep as she weakened, as time had worn on, and the warmer climes of the Estersands had done little to improve her condition. And now that she was near the end, she had lapsed into this dreamless coma. The final sleep, the chirurgeons had told him, and Julian thought it quite apt.

For there would never be the like of Vittora cen Remianus upon this star, ever again. Not for him. Not in this lifetime, not while he drew breath.

If you have goodbyes to say, they had told him, 'twould be best to see them said now. 

He only distantly heard the sounds of his young daughter's wails for her mother, muffled as they were against her governess' apron. Once again he found himself grateful for L'haiya dus Eyahri's steady presence and the rock it had been in their household, for being able to care for the girl where he knew he could not, even though she was the only child they had borne together.

He could feel her gaze boring into his back. He had looked into that small face only once, and was met with a silent plea for strength and comfort. She had reached for him, and he had turned his back, and he had refused to look again. Aurelia had Vittora's eyes: those deep dark fathomless pools of indigo blue.

Already, he couldn't bear the sight of them.

"I'll save you," he repeated. With the greatest care he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed them to her knuckles, then held one of her palms against his unshaven cheek: rough with gold and brown stubble. "I'll find a way. I'll find someone who can heal you. I swear it."

His attention remained fixed upon the figure in the bed, counting silent beats to the tortured sound of his wife's breaths, living upon the stuttering rise and fall of her chest.

He could see nothing of her face in repose through his tears. 

~*~

He had left Rabanastre for Ala Mhigo. It had been a demotion to do so, but Julian had cared only to leave his grief behind.

It had followed him all the same. His daughter might have the look of a Laskaris but she was every ilm her mother's child, from her dark blue eyes to her iron will, and as she grew the ghost that haunted his halls only became more and more corporeal: a child with his honeyed tresses and his wife's luminous eyes, rebuking him in silence like a vengeful shade as she grew into her majority.

She had befriended her governess' young kinsman, and that he had allowed- he understood the value of allowing her friends and privately felt that a sense of noblesse oblige might not go awry- but even that had to come to an end, as the shadow of Solus zos Galvus' war machine fell upon them as readily as anyone else within the Empire's reach.

But instead of accepting matters as they were the girl had tried to go after them, had made a very public scene of it, and it was not until he had engaged in a furious lecture that he realized how worried he had been. Supper that night was an acutely uncomfortable affair, place settings slammed onto the table with angry emphasis and food all but untouched by both father and daughter as they sat across from each other in a tense and stony silence - neither willing to bend to the other's will. 

At length, the former could stand it no longer. The chair scraped against varnished beechwood flooring as Julian rem Laskaris gained his feet.

"I am retiring. I find my present company exhausting and I have a great deal of paperwork I must finish before cockcrow," he said, his voice flat with restrained ire. "Elle, pray send Cook my regards. The meal was quite fine, merely do I have no appetite. She can put my portion in the cold-pantry and have it brought to me before she retires for the evening."

"Yes, my lord, of course. Mistress Aurelia-"

"-will finish her meal and spend the rest of the evening in her bedchamber." Aurelia's chin snapped upwards, her expression incredulous. Julian continued on, undaunted: "And shall remain ensconced within the grounds for the next sennight. Perhaps more attention paid to her studies will impart the wisdom that her association with your young kinsman clearly has not."

Those dark blue eyes came alight with her fury and he did not miss her governess' wince. The girl might have become less outspoken and more circumspect over the years as her lessons began to shape her deportment, but it was clear she was not about to accept her punishment as meekly as he had expected or hoped- 

-and how very much like her mother she looked, he thought bitterly, at that moment. She stood to face him, hands balled into fists at her sides, lower lip quivering but too angry to cry.

"I am not one of your cohorts," she began, "to wait with bated breath upon your every command-"

"Sit down," Julian barked, suddenly every inch the commanding officer, fists slamming upon the table. She jumped, the spoon in her hand barely missing the rim of her soup bowl to clatter upon the muslin-covered surface. "I am still your father, girl, and you will respect that authority while you remain under my roof."

"That is a laughable assertion," she spat, every inch of her willowy frame screaming defiance, "given the only time I ever speak to you at any length is when you see fit to hand down some manner of discipline-"

His expression was akin to a thundercloud on the horizon. "Young lady-"

"-upon a matter in which you are barely versed!"

"You are on extremely dangerous-"

"Mother might not have agreed with me either, but she would have at least understood why I tried to go find him," she cried. "Would that I had been left with her, and not you!"

Something very like pain flashed through his chest. They were the words of a child, reckless and spoken in her anger- but it hardly mattered. Whether she realized it or not, her words had struck true. 

Slowly, as if physically wounded, Julian turned away. He held his hands clasped behind his back as if at parade rest, but he could feel how they trembled.

"I am going to wash my hands," he said, his words cold and clipped and soft, "and L'haiya will have the rest of your meal brought to you. You are not to leave your quarters until further notice."

"Father, I-"

Without another word, he quit the room, back stiff and straight. He did not heed her anguished sob nor the clatter of running footsteps.

=

It was nearly two hours later that he heard the measured rap upon his study door. 

He sagged forward in his chair, face buried in his hands, an open decanter and snifter at his side, and a gilt-edged picture frame on the desk in front of him. L'haiya shook her head as if to dispel the vision.

"Julian," she said in a low voice.

Without lifting his head from the cradle of his hands he murmured, "I assume she is sleeping."

"Yes. She'll not be leaving the house even with a chaperone until further notice, per your orders." 

She didn't bother to hide the disapproval she felt, and after a long moment, the Garlean's chin lifted ever so slightly, just enough to fix her with a cool and challenging glower. His pale grey irises were bloodshot, and strands of platinum blond hair hung low over his third eye and the edge of his brow, brushing at drink-flushed cheeks.

"You don't approve of my actions."

"I have not approved of your actions where she is concerned for a very long time, my lord."

Julian uttered a short, cold laugh. 

" 'Tis bold of you, to censure me while addressing me as a superior in the same breath. Boldness was ever your curse, Elle." He reached for the gem-cut bottle and tilted it against the lip of his snifter. Golden liquid splashed against the sides of the glass. "You know full well what I could do to you simply for speaking to me in such a fashion."

"With all due respect, my lord, you did not retain my services so that I might bow and scrape to your whims. You have underlings aplenty." Her hands bunched into fistfuls of her skirts. "Vittora was my friend long before you were my employer and I promised her I would look after both of you."

"I do not require a lecture from a savage," he slurred, in tones both petulant and caustic. Her lips thinned with anger.

"You are deep in your cups and thus I will overlook the insult this once."

"That I am 'in my cups' is the only reason I have to countenance your insolence." 

"Then I'm afraid you shall have to countenance it further, because I've come to do what Vittora asked of me," L'haiya retorted, "and speak to you as if we were peers- if only for this moment. I do so in full acceptance of the consequences should you feel they are warranted."

The words hung between them like an omen. 

For a moment the tension from the dining room returned- but this time, Julian did not rise to it. He lifted his glass and drank, grimacing at the numbness and heat from the alcohol, and L'haiya saw for the first time how much silver there was at his temples, how deeply sunken his eyes had become. He looked more like his older brother now than ever.

At last the tribunus exhaled and set the glass back on the desk. It left a wet ring against the varnish, one he didn't seem to notice.

"Very well," he said. "Speak your piece. I shall decide the merit of it."

"I don't think you should need me to tell you this but it seems someone must. You are neglecting your duty to your daughter, Julian, and you are failing her."

That got his attention. His hand froze halfway to the neck of the decanter and his eyes snapped upwards, dark with incredulous anger. L'haiya crossed her arms over her chest, meeting his scowl with an unbending stare of her own. 

"She isn't always the perfect picture of good behavior - no child is - but surely you have not failed to notice how very hard she tries to earn your approval. It will not be so very long before she no longer wishes to seek it. If you would have her speak to you with respect, she must be shown respect in turn."

"She is a child!"

"Aurelia is sixteen summers, Julian. She could well be considered an adult, and for many purposes as far as the Empire is concerned, she would be."

"That you would even suggest-" 

"The viceroy, in recent memory, has spoken to her with more warmth and familiarity. The viceroy, Julian! And it was by form letter, to commend her for her qualification to sit entrance exams! As a representative of the province! What do you even know about your own daughter these days? When was the last time you asked her about her hobbies?" L'haiya snapped. "Or discussed anything with her besides the food at table, or what arrived for you in the morning post?"

He sputtered, jaw slack: astounded at the woman's incredible gall as much as her words.

"I realize that you kept me on explicitly to be her governess and prepare her for her station in life as a citizen of the Empire, and I have filled that duty as best as I am able. But I am not her mother, Julian. And you cannot continue to shirk your responsibility to your own child and expect her to do aught save resent you." 

"This will not-"

"She needs you to be her father, not her commanding officer."

"I shall think on it," he muttered.

"You should act, not think-"

"Now you are overstepping your place. L'haiya." 

Julian's warning growl froze her words on her lips and he saw the veils drop back over her eyes again, now that she had been reminded of the social chasm between them. Anger overwhelmed him for a brief moment before it conceded defeat to despair: that old lurking and most toxic of friends. 

He slumped forward in his chair and reached once more for his decanter.

"My apologies," the Miqo'te said, each of her words edged with ice. "I had thought you might like to know where matters stand. Before you lose your daughter as well as your wife."

She quit the room, and he found solace once more in the burn against his throat.

~*~

He did not speak to the girl then or any time in the weeks afterward. 

He didn't know how. 

Unwilling to offer forgiveness to his child for her harsh words, or to beg her forgiveness for his own inability to be a father to her in return, he could but watch as they drifted ever farther apart. They became as silent ships passing in the night with sails ghostly and unfurled. She continued to bring his post and his evening coffee, and he took it with a cursory word of thanks. Beyond that small interaction, they did not speak. 

You are failing your daughter, Julian, L'haiya said in the halls of his mind, and beyond his affronted anger at a servant addressing him in such an unacceptably familiar way - to his own sensibilities, at least - he knew that she was right.

He was failing her. It was easier to keep the girl at arm's length, to treat her as he would have treated one of his administrative staff. To issue discipline in the way he might have issued an order. Far easier to do that than to look upon her and think of her as she had been, only to fancy that he saw Vittora staring back. 

He had thought that time might dull the loss, but he felt it as keenly now as he had then. If only she hadn't left him behind, but she had, and a part of him had died with her. It had gone into the grave, laid alongside her in her coffin like an offering to a god, and left only the pathetic, spiritless creature that he was now. His routine was unbearably dull but bearably tedious: waking and working and eating and sleeping, day to day to day. 

The truth of the matter - one Julian rem Laskaris bitterly accepted as his lot - was simple.

He was weak. 

He had always been weak. He had been weak-willed as a boy, and as a son, and as a soldier, and he had proven no better as a father. He knew that he was weak.

But he could not feel the drive nor desire to change what he was. And in this moment, facing down the Resistance skirmishers, calling orders to protect the supply line -- losing himself in his work as he had done since the day he had put his wife in the ground, Julian rem Laskaris failed to see the sniper from atop the high and windswept crag.

Nor did he see the arrow that pierced his throat.

His last memory as his body went cold, Garlean blood spilling onto foreign sand, was of the color of his daughter's eyes.

[aion-rsa]

The 100 Season 7 Episode 16: The Last War

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This THE 100 review contains spoilers

The 100 Season 7 Episode 16

Ultimately, The 100 turned in a series finale that’s better than the back half of its final season, but not by a whole lot. The use of two fan-favorite characters (Lexa and Abby), and a last-minute twist, are responsible for much of the emotionally satisfying material. So much of the rest, including the saber-rattling and Sheidheda skulking around, feel like a waste of precious time, plot missteps from earlier in the season that long overstayed their welcome.

The most successful moments were based in the characters we’ve invested in for so long. Octavia’s jaded takes on war, culminating in her speech. Raven holding it down for absolutely everyone. Murphy and Emori grieving what they thought were one another’s deaths. Miller and Jackson’s reunion and dancing juxtaposed with Emori and Murphy’s dire goodbye was a beautiful way to let us say goodbye to those characters, because even if everybody lives, we’re still saying goodbye.

This episode spends quite a bit of time on the concept of judging Clarke’s actions as a proxy for all of humanity. While that has always come with the territory of the show, it feels like an extremely reductive way of viewing seven seasons with a strong ensemble cast and far more robust storytelling, yet it’s the one the finale imposes upon us. Clarke was right about one thing: getting Raven back in the mix should have been Plan A, not cleanup.

It’s far too easy to judge an entire show based on whether you like the main character, even moreso when that character is a woman or girl. It feels odd for The 100, the same show that quietly gave us so many accomplished women and girls as leaders, to spend so many of its final minutes on this. Even with Raven and Octavia course-correcting, the series finale of the show still comes down to a question of Clarke’s choices, and whether we think they’re justified or not. Surely after all this time, The 100 could have aimed higher than that?

Up until the reveal that Clarke’s friends returned to Earth for her, the episode has almost no emotional heft outside of Emori’s fate. Seeing Indra vanquish Sheidheda for her mother was nice, but long overdue considering we’d watched her fail to pull the trigger so many times before. Raven’s pleading on behalf of humanity had more punch because it was with Abby, but it came so late in the episode and was so brief.. 

One of the more promising opportunities was Clarke’s conversation with her judge. While it’s not actually a long-awaited reunion with Lexa, it’s recognition that Lexa was Clarke’s greatest love, and perhaps her greatest teacher. I appreciate that the higher being pushed Clarke to justify some of her choices, though she mostly let Clarke slide on her intent to murder her own child.

Continuing this season’s theme, there were a few beats we never got to unpack because The 100 preferred to go for surprise (also a problem during season 5, which has more similarities than I’d like to this final season.) Octavia stopping the war was something only she could do, but rather than seeing the faith and growth it took for Blodreina to lay down her arms, the moment was clipped. Clarke killing Cadogan was a badass moment, but shooting him at that point in his test meant we never got to see what it looked like when he had to respond to the higher consciousness, who was in the process of grilling him about giving up love when Clarke takes him down. Similarly, we learned the mystery of what Becca saw, that she was asked to take the test and declined. But there wasn’t time to consider what that actually means.

Did Emori transcend? Her body was dead but her consciousness was alive, and we saw her orb swirl around John’s and transcend. Is she in his mind? Apparently she was in the final scene, but she was hard to spot, even on re-watch. This feels like an odd loose end to leave hanging and not make more explicit, especially after spending so much time this season building up these two possible deaths. Whether she lived or said goodbye in the mindspace, both could have been satisfying, but the in-between space feels accidental or even thoughtless.

In the end, it got me to see all these characters back together on Earth and building again. While they didn’t transcend, it’s their own kind of heaven to be together and to create a life that’s (presumably) free from violence and war. It doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny of course, but when I think of the show from seasons one and two that I fell in love with, it’s the final scenes on the shore that I’ll recall, if I think of the finale at all. 

More likely, I’ll think of Octavia’s time on Sky Ring, Indra’s relationship with her daughters and how she let them teach her as much as she taught them, Gabriel’s humanity and eternal sense of curiosity, and the way Murphy and Emori changed so much, but always back to one another. How much I enjoyed meeting Hope, how Diyoza evolved beyond my wildest imagination, Raven’s strength and how she owned her mistakes, and so much more from so many seasons gone by and characters long gone. And how much this little show that people ignored or made fun of had to say about grief, trauma, colonialism, found family, and what we do to survive. 

May we meet again. 

Other notes…

The high power mind palace place looks like the galaxy version of Rainbow Road but a lot less fun. Carved into the wood are Cadogan and his daughter’s initials, plus “Ben was here,” and JR + JR in a heart, which I assume was Jason Rothenberg’s tribute to his wife Joy. Any idea what these mean, or spot any others? Let us know in the comments.

They still have not explained how Earth even exists right now. Are they back in time? Is this one magic? Are we in a multiverse? Alright, I know, I give up…It just feels relevant since a spinoff is happening on Earth at another time to know if that’s how Earth has suddenly cropped up all fine and dandy again.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how incredibly long Raven’s to do list was during this episode? Did she time travel? She must be exhausted.

War is bad and stuff, but hell yeah O in her OG Trikru war paint! Linctavia forever.

I just want it on the record that I’m bummed out that Jordan’s plan did not involve spraying algae on all the invisible Disciples.

One thing I do appreciate is that The 100 continued to reckon with the doctrine of jus drein, jus draun and various aspects of Grounder culture until the very end.

The contemporary music for The 100 has always been used sparingly and generally to great effect. Here we got a heavier hand than usual, but I think it still worked. The cover of REM’s “The One I Love” had the sort of intensity needed for the battlefield, though it seems they were using a very literal interpretation of the title. The Vance Joy song Miller/Jackson and Memori dance to felt like a lighter touch, especially when was filtered through some brain waves. Using U2 for the final scenes is the perfect Dad Rock move from Jroth, though “Bad” is somehow both surprising and on the nose. (Were they not allowed to use “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” or “Where the Streets Have No Name”?)

It is low-key hilarious that Murphy is the first person Clarke assumes might not have transcended

Clarke not getting to go to the Promised Land is very Moses of her, which sort of works because Clarke is very Old Testament.

Birth control suddenly being handled feels like a real gift but also a weird thing for the Lexified higher being to mention, since this show has very much ignored birth control for seven whole seasons.

The post The 100 Season 7 Episode 16: The Last War appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3cTd9Gk

[ahvir]

▐ ❛THE WELL. / her ancestors sometimes come & peer out the windows of her eyes.

▐ ❛QUEUE. / i am the one who will live on.

▐ ❛DALISH. / dirthara lothlenan'as bal emma mala dir.

▐ ❛POSITIVITY / a great deal of light falls on everything.

▐ ❛FREE. / behind all this‚ some great happiness is hiding

▐ ❛MAGIC. / i will not let you turn this holiness to dust.

▐ ❛MAGES. / is liberation dangerous? only when overdue.

▐ ❛TEMPLARS. / scream that he destroys all kindness in you & blackens every vision you could have shown him.

▐ ❛THE CHANTRY / burn down the system that has no place for you.

▐ ❛THE CREATORS. / the gods are empty. the gods are helpless. the gods are us.

▐ ❛MUSINGS. / like counting birds against the sun.

▐ ❛TRAUMA. / the new disease came. i learn that time does not heal.

▐ ❛REM. / my grief for the girl that i loved as a child.

▐ ❛CULLEN & AHVIR. / can we forget ourselves? can we forgive?

▐ ❛SOLAS & AHVIR. / there’s a dog in your heart & it tells you to tear me apart.

▐ ❛JOSEPHINE & AHVIR. / she smells like lemongrass & sleep.

▐ ❛BLACKWALL & AHVIR. / & a quiet place i could give you all my time.

▐ ❛BORNPARIAH. / wherever you go‚ follow my voice. i will be your home.

▐ ❛EXTRAVAGANTLIAR. / i see poetry in your eyes; you’re the only reason we rhyme.

[chrysalispen]

Prompt #25 - Wish

aurelia bas laskaris, age 16

AO3 Link HERE

=============

Sometimes it seemed as though the entire span of L'haiya dus Eyahri’s life had been defined by the Empire. It had influenced her path even before she was born. Her mother had been in the city of Rabanastre when it fell to imperial troops, and the Garlean soldier who had sired her--- well, best not to think much on him. Mother had wed a cobbler from the edge of the capitol's market district when L'haiya was four summers old. He had raised her, and to L’haiya’s mind he was her true father.

In the old days she might have attended a primary school before taking on her family's trade, but under imperial occupation such luxuries were not afforded to her or her compeers. L'haiya and her half-sister L'jhutei were sent away to a school in the capitol for "the finest education the Empire can offer" as it was phrased by the viceroy ("propaganda," her father had called it, muttering it so quietly that he must have thought her unable to hear), one which had turned out to be a military school. Both sisters had had a commission into the legions after graduation.

L’haiya had almost taken it, too. But then? Well, then she had met Vittora cen Remianus, and Vittora had met her husband, and…

Perhaps it was for the best. Her service to the Laskaris family had earned her a fast path to imperial citizenship, after all; Mama would have said one was as good as the other, were she here, and the equally practical L'haiya was not one to look too much askance at such a boon. Even if it had left her in the rather troublesome position of raising her friend's child.

She stared at that slumped posture, the bowed golden head. From the porch, she could see her charge's shoulders trembling but could not tell if she was shivering from the night air or if she was still crying.

L’haiya felt a sort of stern and helpless pity for her. Although Julian rem Laskaris’ only child had learned something of the importance of controlling herself and learning which battles to pick (particularly in a place like the Empire, where speaking one’s mind in the wrong ears could have very severe consequences indeed), children would be children. The girl was very young and very sheltered, and she had been friends with the boy since they were small. L’haiya didn’t suppose she would have taken well to the news either were their positions reversed.

Quietly she rapped on the door and stepped over the threshold into the garden. The stars overhead were a diamond spray and the air still carried the day's warmth.

“Aurelia.”

“Go away,” the Garlean girl said in a choked voice. “I don’t want to talk.”

L’haiya made her way down the steps and into the grass, her skirts swishing about her legs, and perched herself upon the edge of the Doman fountain next to her charge. Aurelia’s body went rigid, but she said nothing and remained in place. “Your father-”

“If you’ve come to tell me I was a fool, you needn’t do so. I know I shouldn’t have said what I did. I know.” The girl sniffled and wiped at her eyes, then returned her hands to her lap. “But I just- I don’t understand how Father could do this to me. I didn’t even get to tell him goodbye, or wish him well! If I could have had at least a few more days with him then-”

“I think that would have been quite unwise.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your father had nothing to do with L’sazha’s early departure, Aurelia. He left under my advisement.” The Miqo’te’s voice was steady. Calm. “And 'tis well that he did. You’ve caused trouble enough for the boy as it is.”

“Sazha is an adult by imperial law. As am I,” Aurelia said stiffly. “We’ve hardly any need for my father’s approval to do as we wish.”

“What you did,” she snapped back, her words clipped and cold, “posed a serious risk not just to you, but to L’sazha. The tribunus would have had him swinging from the nearest gibbet did he know the extent of your dalliance.”

"But he didn't know. We were careful and nothing happened until you decided to meddle in our affairs. Father barely cares enough to ask me about my studies, never mind aught else."

L’haiya wanted to shake her. She took a deep, measured breath.

“I was young once myself. And I daresay I was just as selfish and thoughtless,” she said. “I can hardly fault you for your age. But I feel the need to spare you your blushes by explaining the implications of what you did, as you don’t appear to quite understand the magnitude of it.”

“If we were adventurers, no one would have cared who I am, or what we-”

"The fact is that you are not an adventurer, Aurelia,” she snapped. “And this is not Eorzea. For better or worse we live in the Garlean Empire and under imperial jurisdiction. L'sazha is my legal ward and you are a lady of a certain social status. Better that you be angry with me for a time. It would have been not only dangerous to let the two of you continue on as you were, but it would also have been wildly irresponsible on my part.”

Aurelia looked stricken, her face pale. Relentlessly, L’haiya continued on.

“They hang our kind for far lesser offenses, Aurelia. If you care a whit about that boy, even a fraction of what you claim, you’ll go apologize to your father and put a decisive end to this romance of yours.”

“But-”

“But what?”

Aurelia’s chin quivered.

“I love him. I’ve loved him for so long.”

Seven hells, she might have known it was as simple - and as dangerous - as that. She’d assumed the girl’s interest in her Miqo'te companion to be little more than a childish infatuation, but it seemed their feelings had blossomed beneath her nose into something deeper than she had suspected. She had deluded herself it would pass, and in the meantime, they'd fallen in love with each other. Or as close as a pair of children could get to romantic love.

“I know you think you’re in love with him, Aurelia. But you’ll move on. And so will he. That's the way of things, good and bad.”

“No, I won’t,” she choked. “You don’t understand at all. He loves me, and once I’m done with school and my enlistment-”

“Let Sazha move on with his life,” L’haiya said, in a quieter, gentler tone. Better not to let the girl finish that statement. Better not to let her even entertain the notion it might be possible. “Let him find himself. He deserves better than my largesse and your shadow.”

Aurelia's stare was full of incredulous fury- and then her angry expression crumpled into one of despair, and on its heels welled a single sob of broken-hearted anguish. This time L’haiya put an arm about her shoulders and pulled her in for an embrace, and met no resistance. One of the girl's hands dropped into her lap and the other grasped at a handful of L’haiya’s linen shirtwaist as she buried her head under her governess’ chin.

“It’s all right, sunshine,” L'haiya murmured. “All will be well in the end. You'll see.”

“I’ll never love anyone again.”

“Yes, you will.”

“As long as I live,” she vowed, “never.”

She kissed the bright golden crown of hair and nestled her cheek against its softness, this child who she loved as her own, and let her spend her grief without comment. It was what it was. Years abroad on tour with the army would do one of two things to their relationship - either it would strengthen their resolve to be together (in which case, L’haiya thought, they would have little choice but to defect) or it would cool their passions. L’haiya expected the latter; sixteen was very young, and carried with it little foresight or understanding of the way love worked.

But she knew Aurelia would hear none of that. The girl might have the look of her mother but she was every bit as obstinate as Julian rem Laskaris had ever been.

“Elle?” the girl said, in a small and choked voice.

“What?”

“Can I tell you something? A secret?”

“Go on.”

The hand that had gathered in her shirtwaist clenched into a fist.

“Sometimes,” she whispered, “I wish I had never been born.”

“Oh, child, you don’t mean that.”

“I do.” The words were harshly emphatic. “Mama and Father were so happy together. But then I came along and ruined everything.”

“That’s not true at all.”

“It is. I wish I weren’t who I am.”

“Why would you even consider something so dreadful?” L’haiya felt something in her chest twist. “Aurelia, darling-”

“I mean it. Every time Father looks at me, I see it in his eyes,” she choked. “He resents me. If he had the choice between me or Mama, he’d have taken Mama without even thinking about it. Sazha made me happy. I didn’t have to feel guilty about being myself when I was with him, ever. And now he’ll be on the other side of the world and I’ll just- I’ll be here, making everyone unhappy just by existing. If I just hadn’t- I just-"

"Aurelia-"

"I just wish I could be someone else!” she wailed. "I wish I could be somewhere else, I wish I had any kind of purpose, but I don't, I'm just trapped in this cage and I can't-"

L’haiya bowed her head. There was nothing she could say and little more she could do, to speak either to her charge's frustration or her suffocating loneliness. She was a practical woman who had made a promise to a close friend to watch over her family, but nothing in that promise had prepared her for a man so bereft of his wife he could not bear to raise his own child.

Something had to be done, she thought. Or at least said. It was her fault for allowing Julian to continue as he had done for so many years, not wanting to rock the boat and tell him he needed to behave like the father he was. She decided she would speak with him tonight, as soon as she was able.

But in the meantime, she couldn't leave Aurelia alone like this. So she sat with the girl in silence, and let her weep until there were no tears left to shed.

[chrysalispen]

xxi. on us the doors are closed

GARLEMALD, 6AE 1565

The storm's fury had not lessened in severity with nightfall. Ice spattered in fits and starts like grain scattered over stone, lashing against tempered glass and reinforced steel as the wind whistled around eaves and the sharp edges of decorative iron contrivance.

To have heard her uncle tell it, this was merely the first blizzard of the season; there would be many more to come. Winters in this part of Ilsabard lingered far into the spring months.

Aurelia bas Laskaris opened her eyes to stare at the patterns imprinted into the tin-plated ceiling for what must have been the tenth time in the past quarter-hour. This guest room her aunt had set aside for her - austere by the standards of the rest of the family villa - was despite its modest status still lavish, still enormous, and it made her home in the Administrative District of Ala Mhigo seem positively rustic by comparison. The canopied four-poster bed in which she lay, with its fine weighted sheets and soft down pillows, was large enough for three people. It was the softest, most comfortable bed she’d ever laid in.

She couldn’t sleep.

She flung aside the blankets in one motion to push herself upright- and immediately had cause to regret the impulse. A bone-numbing chill, one that made the bitterest Gyr Abanian winter seem but a balmy spring breeze, prickled its way over her skin until her entire body was as one giant patch of gooseflesh.

Shivering violently, she yanked one of the heavy quilts from the massive bed and drew it around her shoulders, then paused to allow herself a glance through the large window with its decorative panes. Earlier in the day as the transport had entered the capitol’s airspace, the city had still been visible, if only just. Falling snow had shrouded the massive sprawl of steel and stone, all of it backlit dimly by the magitek lamps on every street corner and the running lights that marked the outline of the imperial palace grounds: cold and alien and forboding.

Even that had vanished once night had fallen. She could hear and see naught now save screaming wind and wicked white.

Aurelia chewed on her lip for a moment before sliding her feet out into the cold air and over the lip of the mattress, onto the stepping stool and down to the plush throw rug where a pair of hastily appropriated house-shoes sat waiting. If anyone asks, I just want some tea. Or warm milk. Something to cut this godsdamned chill.

She cast a furtive glance over one shoulder, as if L’haiya lurked in the shadows to chastise her for her unseemly language even in the relative sanctity of her own mind. But the room sat as empty as it had before. Save for the soft rhythmic ticking of the ceruleum-powered radiator’s valiant efforts to warm the room despite all odds - and the sound of falling sleet - all was silent.

The girl opened the door as quietly as she could manage and let herself into the hallway, padding along the cold floorboards on cotton-clad feet as she made her way towards the balcony that overlooked the main entrance. Black crepe draped in graceful loops over the banisters and the curtain rods: all done upon her aunt’s orders, preparations for her father’s burial tomorrow afternoon.

In the downstairs drawing-room, she knew, there sat an aged daguerreotype of her father. She hadn’t recognized him when she first laid eyes upon the picture until she had asked her uncle, for that picture was not of the aging tribunus militum of the XIVth that Aurelia recalled. The picture she’d seen boasted the grimly determined visage of a much younger man, freshly graduated from the military school both he and his brother were made to attend when they were of a suitable age.

Looking upon that face, a man who was her father but one she had never seen in her life- that had brought with it a queer sense of displacement, the nagging sensation that she stood at the intersection and within the twin shadows of two entirely separate lives that could not be reconciled. As if by will alone the family patriarch had found a way to turn back time and ensure the last epoch had never transpired, that Julian rem Laskaris had never met his wife upon the player’s stage, had never fallen in love with her, had never married, had never left Garlemald for the distant provinces of the south.

To ensure that Aurelia herself had never been born at all.

You don’t belong here, that picture said. You are a blemish upon their perfect order.  

Her fingers twitched upon the railing.

Pulling the edges of the quilt taut about her slim shoulders, she made to descend the carpeted stairs while trying to remember the layout her aunt had briefly shown her earlier that day - if the kitchen entrance was on the far side of the courtyard peristyle then she would have to go without. If her luck held then perhaps she could simply help herself to a warm drink and slip back into her room and no one would be the wiser. She’d managed it countless times over the years, after all.

Aurelia had barely taken two steps down the stairs when the sound of familiar voices caused her to freeze in place. A man and a woman, somewhere not too distant; the sound of it echoed strident and angry from the bowels of the foyer.

Arguing about something. Arguing about her.

“It’s criminal,” her aunt’s voice had lost its delicate fluted tones now that there was no need for a public show of ladylike charm, “absolutely and utterly unconscionable. I cannot imagine what your brother could have been thinking to deny his own child the fundamentals of a proper upbringing, let alone one that would befit a young lady of her station.”

“It is not within my power to gainsay His Radiance. Well do you know that.”

“You should have petitioned the courts to grant us custody of the girl years ago.”

“If my brother was already granted permission-”

“Julian has done that poor child no favors,” came the hissed response. Aurelia could imagine her aunt: pacing to and fro just out of sight, her carefully coiffed blonde hair slowly coming unfurled from its confines. “None whatsoever.”

“Keep your voice down, woman! Do you want to wake her?”

“I just can’t fathom it! All those years letting her play in the dirt and doing as she pleases? She can’t sing, she can’t draw, she can’t arrange the flowers she grows, can’t make polite conversation, her penmanship is barely passable.”

“Marcella-”

“Dare I even make mention of her speech? She sounds like one of those dreadful Ala Mhigan savages every time she opens her mouth-”

“The girl is clever enough, Marcella. She can easily be rehabilitated with proper oversight.” Her uncle’s voice was a deep and forceful rumble that reminded her of summer thunderstorms over Loch Seld, the ones that had scared her when she was small. “Lord van Baelsar confirmed that she has qualified to sit the entrance exams to the Academy’s Valetudinarium, and that is no mean feat for a lass with no formal education.”

“And if she doesn’t pass the exams?”

“Then the army will sort her out as we agreed,” Janus van Laskaris snapped, growing irritation with his wife’s questioning laid bare. “You worry far too much. Given time and training she will be as polished as any of her peers.”

“That girl is not suited for a military career, and you know it as well as I do. The one hope she has is to marry well, and that is easier said than done when-” 

The voices retreated down the long downstairs hallway, towards the master’s bedchambers. Aurelia didn’t even try to listen to the rest of their argument, the cadence of it becoming little more than background noise as she tried to breathe. 

She felt as though someone had punched her in the chest.

Welcome home, her Aunt Marcella had said. But this wasn’t home. Home was zelkova trees under an endless expanse of starlit sky, the sounds of roosting water birds on the lochs, the Althyk lavender in her little garden, the cardamom and rose-hip scent of L’haiya’s hands as they brushed out her hair until it shone like gold in the lamplight.

Home was not Garlemald; it was Ala Mhigo. L’haiya. Sazha. Even her father. She wanted to go home, wanted it so desperately the desire for comfort left her chest aching. Sixteen winters old, and Aurelia slept alone in a bed she didn't know in a house that wasn’t hers, legally the property of a family that saw naught of value in her. Only a wild animal in need of their taming touch.

Home was--

Home was an impossible dream and her father was dead.

The harsh truth of it shook her to her core, and at long last, the grief she’d so carefully set aside for later consideration found its opportunity. Anguish reached its icy fingers through the dull, cottony veil she’d drawn about her mind for protection, grasped her by the back of her neck, and seemed to squeeze until her breath would not come and her stomach turned. She slid down the wall with its flocked scarlet paper until she was sitting in the stairwell and drew her knees up to her chest, pulled her stolen blanket over her head.

In the close darkness, once she was certain her tears could not be heard, she gave voice to her grief in earnest. 

Without her uncle’s villa the storm raged on.

~*~

Gridania was long behind them.

All around the path upon which the flightless bird ran, the South Shroud was a blur of white and stark grey, the bare branches of the trees like bony fingers in the pall of the overcast afternoon sky. A handful still bore browned leaves, clinging stubbornly to the branches in the last throes of the winter before spring’s green sent them to their final resting place.

Slowly Aurelia righted herself in the saddle, realizing she’d fallen asleep: lulled into lassitude by the still, cold air and the monotony of the road’s scenery. She lay half-draped over Keveh’to’s back as though he were a giant yellow bedroll. At her stirring her companion’s ears flickered, swiveling briefly in her direction.

“Rise and shine,” he said with a note of false cheerfulness. “Did you know that you snore?”

“Mmf,” was all she could muster. She sat up a bit straighter and had to catch herself before she fell off the chocobo’s back; she’d drifted off to one side as she dozed. “Are we close?”

“Went through the Druthers and turned off the main roads not quite a half-bell past. I’d say we should be close, aye.”

With some effort Aurelia shook herself out of the remainder of her doze and craned her neck upwards. They were in a much deeper, darker part of the Twelveswood. The trees here were far taller and far older: cloistering the land beneath their boughs and largely away from the sun save for the odd patch of filtered late afternoon light that descended upon snow and bare earth.

“This place is strange,” she said softly, eyes fixed upon the interlaced branches of the canopy overhead. “It feels… I don’t know. Untouched, somehow.”

“Untouched? Well, could be you’re right. They say some of the trees in the deeper reaches of the Twelveswood were ancient back in the time of Amdapor, though who knows how true that is. Still- folk don’t venture far off the paths out here, and for good reason.” Keveh’to’s gaze followed hers upward. “You’ll find the depths and fringes of the wood very different from Gridania.”

She felt a sharp chill prickle the length of her spine, and shuddered. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his chin tilt.

“Thought you said the cold didn’t bother you?”

“It’s not the cold.”

“Are you feeling poorly?”

They were being watched, she thought. It was little more than a gut feeling, a disconcerting something on the far edge of her own perception, but she could feel the hackles raised upon the back of her neck nonetheless.

“No, it’s- … no. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

He looked as if he wanted to press her, but seemed to think better of it, and shrugged. “...Might want to see to yourself, then, if you’re awake enough to manage it. That eye of yours needs to be covered before we’re too close.”

“Would anyone in such a remote place have any idea-”

“No idea if this lot has ever seen one of your kind before if that’s what you mean, but I’d rather not take the chance. We’ve little recourse if things go poorly with the locals as it is.”

Aurelia bit her lower lip and busied herself with covering her brow. It seemed imprudent to raise the alarum over something that could be easily attributed to her own anxiety. Still, it wasn’t until the crudely fashioned curve of a watchtower spire peeked through the foliage ahead that she could allow herself to relax. Almost at once, the sensation of eyes boring into her back disappeared, and she felt a palpable sense of relief.

She had just finished raking her fingers through her tangled locks to confirm that her third eye was hidden, when the settlement came fully into view.

At first glance there was little to distinguish it from the more densely populated townships she’d seen on her jaunts through the forest with E-Sumi-Yan and the other novice conjurers. A simple wall of wood and stone framed the perimeter, meant to deter bandits and beastmen from any notions of raiding the settlement. It appeared surprisingly old, the bulk of it a mossy white marble that could not have come from anywhere local- salvaged from ruins, perhaps.

A small handful of men and women in worn gambesons and leathers stood watch atop the length of the wall with bows drawn and arrows nocked, observing the two newcomers with watchful eyes and grimly set mouths - some of them wore the ubiquitous half-masks of the Wood Wailers, but some few did not. None of them looked particularly well-fed, and the shabby state of their armor and their cloaks bespoke a similar hardship as that which had beset Gridania in the wake of the crimson moon’s fall.

“Halt,” one of the Wailers barked, the note of command unmistakable. Keveh’to hastily drew in the reins and Aurelia kept her head bowed and eyes downcast as the chocobo’s pace slowed to a stop. “What business do two outsiders have here?”

“Hardly a warm welcome,” her minder muttered, in a voice clearly meant for her ears only. “Not that I’d expected one. Stay here and let me do the talking.”

He swung one leg out of the chocobo’s saddle and dropped to the ground with a lash of his tail to correct his balance, offering a hand to Aurelia without a glance in her direction. She could see his sour mood in the flat swivel of his ears, accepted his gesture in silence and managed to slide out of the saddle with something approaching grace.

“Well met,” he said, with the selfsame note of false cheer she had heard before. “I am come on behalf of the Twin Adder, along with my companion here, at the request of your Hearer. Is he about?”

“That information is-”

“I'll take matters from here, Lieutenant.” A stooped old man in purple robes and a wide-brimmed felt hat shuffled forward, the gathering of armed villagers parting to let him pass. He leaned heavily upon the gnarled and well-worn length of his rosewood staff, the expression on his age-seamed face utterly neutral. “You and your lady friend must be Brother E-Sumi-Yan’s promised assistance.”

“Brother Ewain,” Keveh’to said, his tone almost painfully polite.

Hearer Ewain was the oldest man she had ever seen. What little she could see of his hair glistened silver and white in the diffuse daylight, like new-fallen snow upon the forest floor. He smiled, but there was a shrewd sharpness in his faded blue eyes Aurelia did not miss. “That's Hearer to you, though you have my thanks for your timely arrival. And you are called…?”

“Sergeant Keveh’to Epocan. I represent the Order of the Twin Adder, Gridania’s Grand Company.” His hand fell upon Aurelia’s shoulder and squeezed, even as he nudged her forward.” This is my charge, Miss Aurelia Laskaris, a novitiate sent to you by the Con-”

“I know who she is,” the Hearer said coolly. “We can talk at further length in private. Come with me.”

“Hearer,” the Wailer began, “you know we have to search-”

“I'll vouch for them, Lieutenant. Let them pass, if you would, pray.”

For a moment he did not seem as if he meant to respond. The wooden mask was so unbending and the man’s eyes so deep-set that Aurelia could see no reaction in them, but after a heartbeat she spied the slight relaxation of his fingers in the fletching of the arrow. His lips pursed in a sort of displeased acquiescence, and he turned towards the figures standing ready upon the wall.

“Let them in,” he shouted. “Open the gate.”

Trying to ignore the suspicious stares boring into them as they passed through the open gates, Aurelia turned her attention instead to their fortifications. She couldn’t help but notice how much of the south wall had been recently replaced: there were visible seams where char met fresh-cut yew and salvaged stone and new mortar. Burnt timbers thrust upwards through the scaffolding in places like broken bones that could not be properly set.

There was no stone set into the ground here as there was in Gridania. All of the paths that meandered through the town were dirt, long since turned to frigid slush and thick mud from ice and snowmelt. Her toes felt numb with cold even through the protection of the boots and hempen stockings she wore.

The houses were wooden, their roof mostly made of thatched river-reeds or cut cedar shingles, and it was impossible not to notice the holes in the rows of houses like missing teeth.

“Dalamud’s fall reached even in this place,” she muttered. “Your people have rebuilt quickly.”

“We were given little choice. Most fled to Quarrymill, then to Gridania when Quarrymill would not have them.” The old man coughed, turned his head, and spat into a nearby puddle. “This way.”

The house was a modest affair, large by the village’s standards, half-cloistered from the main road down a path into a small ring of trees. A large grey dog lay in a listless doze upon the rickety front porch, paws twitching. Its ears, white-tipped like snow-dusted mountains, flickered at the sound and smell of the intruders but rather than growl or move at all, it cringed away making querulous and uneasy whining sounds at the newcomers - until their host gently nudged the animal’s flank with his staff.

“Get on with you, Aubin,” he said gruffly. “They’re with me.”

Aurelia squinted. ‘Aubin’ looked rather suspiciously like-- “Is that a wolf?”

“Aye, but he’s meek as a lamb. He’s just a weary old man like his caretaker.”

“There were some animals sheltered in the Fane, but most have been released back into the woods. Can he not survive on his own?”

“Might could be, but it’s doubtful. He barely survived the fires, and with those injuries, his hunting days are past him. He’s too feeble, wouldn’t last long in the Twelveswood without someone to feed him. So I’ve been caring for him instead.”

“I thought you had-”

“An apprentice? I do. He’s making the rounds as we speak. Here, you- what was your name again?” he asked her minder, who stiffened visibly.

“Sergeant Epocan.”

“...If you want to stand on ceremony, I suppose that’s your call. Hold the door so the lady and the old man can enter, would you, there’s a lad.”

Grumbling, he caught the door as the man carelessly worked the latch and flung it open, crossing the threshold without even a cursory glance to make sure he was being followed. The interior of the cottage was a single large space, with bedrolls tucked into one corner of the cabin and cabinets of food and medicines in another. A simple wooden tub clearly meant for washing stood on the far side, half-hidden behind hemp cloth draped over rope to make a crude partition.

The corner just north of it was fully enclosed behind a partition of its own. “You’ll be in that back area over there,” Hearer Ewain said with a jerk of his chin. “It’s neither pretty nor large but it’s adequate.”

Aurelia and Keveh’to exchanged doubtful glances.

“Not you, Sergeant. I know what you sorts get up to after dark and I’ll have none of it under my roof,” the old Hearer snorted. “The lady gets the guest bed. Now go and get yourselves situated and once you’re ready we can have a talk about what to expect. There’s a pot of stew on and I’ve got tea.”

Too uncomfortable now to spare another look at her minder, she made her way towards the worn cloth and tugged it open. Ewain hadn’t exaggerated: there was enough space for her, a cot with a thin straw mattress and homespun blanket, and one small cabinet and that was all.

She opened it and tucked her field kit within, then sat down on the lumpy mattress. The enclosure made by the curtain didn’t even have a window, just an old wood-plank wall, stained with age. The arrangement made her simple room at the Canopy look like a luxury suite, and she realized just as she began to remove her muddy shoes that the floor was… well, there wasn’t one. The floor was dirt, and it was very cold.

Shivering, Aurelia changed into a fresh robe and stockings, wondering what to do with her soiled clothing before giving up and setting them on top of the cabinet next to the earthen washbasin, then stepping out into the common area once again. Her new mentor was pouring hot water into a tin cup.

Keveh’to (likewise very carefully not looking at her) was rolling out a pallet next to the other two in the opposite corner of the cottage. His yellow hat and coat both hung on two pegs near the tiny window, and his dirty boots sat by the door.

“Not used to the way we savages live, are you, Garlean?” Ewain said bluntly, watching her pick her way across the room in stocking feet. “Your imperial capitol had big houses with heated floors and such, and fancy machina that did all of the washing for you too, no doubt- oh, don’t give me that doe-in-lights look, girl. You can cover that third eye of yours all you like, I already know what you are. Heard all the talk about your kind from the lads that make their patrols. I’m old, not ignorant. Now go get that wet cloak and them muddy shoes you came in with and you put ‘em by the godsdamned door where they bloody well belong.”

Flushing and embarrassed, Aurelia stammered, “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”

“Aye, you didn’t think, that much is obvious. The floor may be dirt but that’s no call for either of us to be slovenly. I’ll not have you tracking mud about my house- such as it is.”

Quickly she did as she was told, placing her boots alongside Keveh’to’s and grimacing at the chill that fair radiated from between the gaps in the wooden door. It was the damp sort of cold that quickly sank into the skin, and she realized as she hung her cloak on an empty peg that she was shivering.

“Much better. Now come sit and have some tea, lass. The fire will keep your toes plenty warm.”

A cup was shoved into her hands almost as soon as her rear sank into the well-worn dip of the wicker seat. Chamomile, and weak at that. She sipped it anyway, thankful for the heat.

There was no conversation, not even to ask about their journey, just the old man drinking his tea and periodically hobbling over to the pot over the fire to poke and mutter at its contents. After some indeterminable amount of time had passed she felt a rough tap on her shoulder as Keveh’to pushed a wooden trencher into her hands.

“Now that’s my granddaddy’s recipe,” Ewain said. “Antelope stew. Not much other than meat in it this time of year, and I had to cook it down to get the meat tender enough. But something to fill the belly is better than nothing. You eat, I’ll talk.”

“Don’t you want to wait for-”

“He’ll be in when he’s in, girl. I told you he’s on his rounds. Won’t be back until late probably and you’ll go hungry waiting for him just to be polite. Eat.”

She looked down at the contents of the trencher in her hands. The stew didn’t look all that appetizing but it smelled wonderful after so many weeks on bare rations, and soon enough she found herself eating ravenously. Some of the broth burned her tongue but that wasn’t enough to deter her. Nor Keveh’to, if the way the man helped himself to a second bowl was any indication.

“Right,” Ewain grunted as he reached across the table to set the teapot back upon its crocheted trivet, “well, I suppose I might as well get to the point. I don’t particularly want you. Naught against you, mind. The Guildmaster talked you up but good before telling me he was sending you over, and he’s a good judge of character so I know that for a Garlean you’re like as not to be perfectly lovely. But being a conjurer’s more than just tending the needs of the forest. Being able to minister to the everyday needs of the people is just as important. For you to even start to do that part of the job properly, your flock has to know they can trust you.”

“You think she isn’t suited for the position,” Keveh’to said, his voice flat. “Say what you mean and have done with it, oldtimer.”

Unimpressed, Ewain responded with a derisive snort.

“Think you’ll shame me into softening the blow, Sergeant Epocan? Well, you’ll not. I don’t want you here and I don’t want her here, and that’s as plain as I can say it. An untested novice from the city is a poor enough choice, a foreigner who’s got little knowledge of magic and even less understanding of our people is a worse one. That may sound harsh, but it’s how I feel.”

Aurelia stared into her trencher as if she found the remnants of her stew fascinating.

“But what I feel is beside the point,” the Hearer continued. “Fact is, you’re what I have rather than what I want, girl, and that’s where matters stand. So first things first. You’re going to settle in here, and then starting tomorrow I’m sending you on rounds with the lad, and you’re going to be meeting every bloody man, woman, and child in Willowsbend, and after that I’m sending you out to the Druthers.”

“But-”

“No buts. Not the village folk nor the Wailers are going to want to work with some foreigner they’ve never met. That’s just how things are done about these parts.” Ewain coughed and spat again, this time into the fire, which flared briefly at the spittle before subsiding once more. “Strongarm knows the score and he has his way of watching out for outliers like us that the city don’t care about unless it has to, so it’s important you earn his trust too.”

Abruptly she stood, her spoon rattling in its trencher. “I think I need some air,” she said. “Will your dog-”

“Wolf. Aubin.”

“Yes, wolf, sorry. Will Aubin be all right if I step outside for a moment?”

“Should be. Though he might think you’re there to feed him- in fact, let’s make that your first task, lass.” Ewain pointed with a gnarled hand towards the cabinetry with its hanging root vegetables and preserved leaves. “I usually have my apprentice give him his meal every night. The coney’s over there, or what’s left of it. You can just give him the bowl and take the other from him, he’ll not take your hand off while he’s occupied.”

She shuffled towards the corner and picked up the bowl full of bones and offal.

“Aurelia, never you mind,” Keveh’to began, setting his own trencher aside. “That’s no work for-”

“Sit down and let her be,” Ewain snapped, startling the Miqo’te. “Under my roof she’s a conjurer first and a lady second. If she can’t make friends with an animal there’s no way she’ll be fit for this work. Leave your trencher here and bring back the bowl, novice. Your friend here can make himself useful and do the washing.”

Barely heeding her minder’s protests, she stuck her feet back into the boots and threw her cloak back on, then let herself outside. The cold struck her cheeks as she’d expected but this time the shock of it jolted her back into a sense of immediacy.

Not moving for a moment, Aurelia stared dully down at the bowl in her hands until the whine from the far corner of the porch caught her attention.

“Hello, boy,” she said awkwardly. “Hungry?”

The response was a flicker of the ears, a smack of the bottle-brush tail, a lick of the lips.

He continued to whine as she approached but didn’t run away. She set the bowl of scraps down on the wooden planks and true to her mentor’s word, the wolf’s muzzle was almost immediately buried in it. Careful not to distract him, she reached to his other side and retrieved the bowl, then took a few steps away to give him space.

On her way back to the door Aurelia decided she didn’t want to go inside just yet, and so she did what she’d have done as a child: she dawdled instead.

There was a railing built along the length of the porch steps, and rather than return inside she leaned on it and stared up at the clusters of stars in the night sky, a small stray breeze ruffling her fringe. With the house far enough removed from the road that someone would have to make their presence known before they approached, she wasn’t worried about her third eye giving her away. She could hear dogs barking and someone up on the wall singing tonelessly, see the flicker of spaced torches, but otherwise all was quiet.

She stared at the empty vessel in her hands and tried, not for the first time in the last few months, to figure out just how the twists and turns of circumstance had put her here.

A year ago she’d been ensconced comfortably in the Castrum Novum infirmary, a junior medicus, just one of the rank-and-file organizing potions and treating mild ailments and assisting in the surgery. Secretly wishing her superiors would loosen the reins and give her an opportunity to lead instead of assist, show her mettle and skill as a chirurgeon.

Anything to break the monotony of her life as an enlisted recruit in the imperial war machine. And now-

“Should have been careful what you bloody well wished for, Laskaris,” she whispered to herself, and had to fight back the angry laughter that threatened to escape her lips.

The stars overhead, distant and impersonal, held no answers. She hadn’t expected one, and this was far from the first time she had felt alone and desperately homesick. Even the formal, chilly stateliness of her uncle’s villa would have been a welcome sight, and that was now beyond her too. No use wishing for things she couldn’t have.

Suddenly she wanted to weep.

“None of that,” she muttered to herself even as her vision blurred. No crying. She refused to cry. She’d shed enough tears, wallowed in enough self-pity. Tomorrow would be better, she told herself. Morning would bring with it clarity and a sense of purpose, or at least the promise of a new routine. She was simply fatigued from travel and stung by Ewain’s open dismissal, that was all. She’d simply do what she’d done in Gridania, and forge a place for herself, and prove she had a right to be here no matter what anyone thought.

She was well accustomed to being unwanted, after all.

Resolutely she turned her back on the stars and went inside to face her new reality.

[ahvarchive]

i should be asleeeeeeep ---