#I HAVE BEEN TIED TO A WALL. I HAVE BEEN POKED PRODDED AND DRAINED

[kissmefriendly]

Am out of hospital. There are long burns down the sides of my face and my arm feels so um. Hole-y. I’ve been tied to a wall for the last 5 days, I’m sleepy.

On the plus side, didn’t have any seizures in my eeg!

[d3-iseefire]

Little Swan Lost Chapter 38

When Dis said she wanted to see how much of Thorin’s money they could spend, she wasn’t joking. Bilba had thought what she spent before leaving Shire was a lot, but quickly realized it was a mere pittance in comparison to what Dis cheerfully spent. 

She’d expected them to go to the main Erebor mall, located near the center of the city. Back in Shire she’d often enjoyed spending a lazy afternoon at the mall, window shopping, grabbing a bite to eat or watching a movie at the theater. Here, the closest she’d gotten to the mall had been a few glimpses of it, both in person and in searches online during times when she’d been feeling particularly lonely or nostalgic.

Part of her had been excited about getting a small taste of what life used to be like but, really, she should have realized that it was never going to be that way again.

The Durins, as it turned out, did not shop at the regular mall.

The mall they went to, instead, wasn’t even on the main island. It was on one of the minor ones behind the main island. There was a second mall there, several stories high and covering nearly all the landmass of the small, rocky spit of land it sat on. It was, Dis explained, where the wealthy of Erebor tended to shop along with their sizable security entourages. The public were welcome to visit the mall but did so with the understanding that there would most likely be a background check run on them the moment they stepped foot through the door.

Back in Shire, with Rosie and Bofur, Bilba would have spent her time leisurely walking through the mall. Dis, in contrast, approached shopping the way Bilba imagined a general might approach a war. She had memorized the layout of the mall and knew the most efficient way to hit every store she deemed essential.

She deemed a lot of stores essential, as it turned out.

For Bilba, it became a whirlwind she could barely keep up with. They’d enter a store and immediately be surrounded by the employees, all eager to help Erebor’s princess. Dis would start talking and then, without warning, Bilba would find herself being measured and poked and prodded and fitted for all manner of things. Shirts, pants, skirts, dresses, and lavish gowns, all in various levels of formal and informal.

“Clothing is important,” Dis explained, as she casually rejected one dress for another without any reasoning Bilba could see. “Too formal and you risk elevating someone to a station they have no business at. Too informal, and you risk offending an ally. We’re judged in everything we do, down to the shoes we choose to wear or the jewelry we don’t. It all sends a message, whether we like it or not.” She paused suddenly, eyes staring off blankly into the distance and then, to Bilba’s surprise, shot her a guilty look. “You know what? I’m sorry. I’m sitting here lecturing you like you’re a novice on her first day of training.”

“It’s all right,” Bilba said quietly as she watched a new parade of shoes being brought out from the back of the current store, they were in. Boots, heels, flats, even a few pairs of sandals. After this, Dis planned to hit the jewelry stores to ensure she had the right bracelets, rings, necklaces and hair pieces for various functions. Tiaras would be supplied by the palace. There were apparently at least fifteen of them, all to be worn for, and at, specific functions. “I didn’t actually know most of this.”

Dis and Ori stared at her.

“I’m sorry,” Dis said. “You what now?”

Bilba flushed. “Shire has a large royal family. It wasn’t seen as necessary to train everyone, when only a few ever interacted diplomatically with other families.”

There, that was a good explanation…wasn’t it? Part of her felt like just blurting out the truth. Telling them that she’d basically been a pariah because of her grandfather’s hatred toward her mother. Tell them about the dreaded visits that were more about her grandfather showing off his evil than about training her to be a princess.

Just tell them…everything.

The other part of her, however, shuddered at how her grandfather would react if he found out she’d said anything. Yes, he was in Shire and she was in Erebor but, even so, the mere thought made her blood run cold.

She wasn’t stupid. Reckless, and impulsive sometimes like when she’d allowed a two-year absence from the palace to convince her that she could stand up to her grandfather, but she wasn’t stupid. Foolishly trying to stand up to him was a far, far cry to betraying him. What he could consider a betrayal anyway.

He could reach her in Erebor, of that she had no doubt.

She ran her hands up her arms, suddenly freezing, and forced a weak smile at the two women standing over her.

“Huh,” Dis said after several long moments. She waved a hand absently. “Well, in that case, I’ll keep talking then.”

She did, but seemed distracted, while Ori kept shooting her strange glances that Bilba couldn’t read. She didn’t think she’d given anything away, or said something she shouldn’t, but couldn’t be sure. In any event, it was obvious she’d have needed to say something. She was clearly in the dark about Erebor’s etiquette and, without help, stood an exceptionally good chance of offending just about everyone.

Suddenly, the fact that she’d spent a month in her room didn’t seem like the worst decision ever. In fact, deciding to leave her room was beginning to feel more and more like a bad choice. Since she’d done so she’d almost drowned, gotten Thorin hurt, and had to deal with the Thrain and now her apparent lack of royal training.

They finished with the shoe store and then hit the jewelry ones just as Dis had said. It was only after they’d spent more money than Shire made in a year that Dis announced their next stop would be to get dinner.

At this, Bilba stumbled to a stop in shock. “How long have we been here?” Without thinking, she fumbled for her phone only to remember that, of course, she didn’t have one.

“Oh!” Cerys suddenly stepped forward from where she’d been silently guarding them along with the rest of their sizable security force. “My apologies, Your Highness. I completely forgot.” She pulled a slim phone from a pocket and held it out to Bilba.

Dis made a tsking sound. “Well, that’s boring.” Her eyes narrowed for a second. “There’s a store on the second floor that sells phone accessories. We’ll hit there and then eat.”

“But we’re supposed to eat at the palace,” Bilba stammered, stumbling forward a few steps as Dis began to march off on her newest quest. “The king said—”

Dis spun to face her and, with a sigh, pulled her phone out and dialed. “We’re going to be late,” she said shortly as soon as the call was answered. She paused for a few seconds as the person on the other end responded. “Well, that’s not my fault is it?” She listened for a few more seconds, visibly rolling her eyes and mimicking someone chattering away, before hanging the phone up with a bright smile.

“That…that wasn’t the king, was it?” Bilba asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

“He’s annoyed that Thorin is too tied up in meetings to come to dinner,” Dis said absently, focused on her phone as she texted something. She hit a button and then slid the phone back in her pocket. “And now the boys and Frerin won’t be going either.”

“Won’t he be angry?” Bilba couldn’t imagine ever treating her grandfather like that. He probably wouldn’t have killed her, but she had no doubt he’d have made her wish he had.  

“He’ll be fine,” Dis said airily. She hooked her arm through Bilba’s and tugged her in the direction of the escalators. “Eating alone occasionally won’t kill him. Maybe he’ll reflect on his own behavior and stop taking us all for granted.”

“One can hope,” Ori said dryly as she linked her arm through Bilba’s on the other side. “In the meantime, I think Thorin would definitely want Bilba to bling out her phone as much as possible.”

“Oh, definitely,” Dis said cheerfully. She pointed her arm forward as if leading a charge. “Onward, to victory and draining my brother’s bank account.”

***

Much as Bilba had wrongly envisioned what going to the mall for a royal would mean, she soon found she’d been just as wrong about what “getting something to eat” meant.

In Shire, with Rosie and Bofur, it would have meant going to the food court and finding a place, or several places, that looked fun to try. Then they’d search for a relatively clean, and empty, table that, if they were lucky enough, would have enough chairs for all three of them. Eating would be a mishmash of trying to fit all their food on the far too small surface while ignoring just how uncomfortable the chairs were. They’d laugh and talk, voices louder than normal to try and carry over the chatter of other mall goers and the loud music being piped over the speakers.

Here, it meant a high end, exclusive restaurant that took up almost an entire floor of the mall. A snotty looking man at the door held a list of guests who were allowed entry, though he immediately swept aside when he saw Dis approaching. As Bilba passed, he gave her a look that made her feel like a rat following a swan.

It was the first such look she’d gotten while being at the mall that day and served to forcefully remind her just how poorly she was viewed in Erebor. Yet another difference from Shire. There, no one cared one way or the other about her. She’d used to feel sad about it from time to time, but now understood it had been a blessing.

She suppressed a shiver and instinctively moved a step closer to Cerys. She wouldn’t say she entirely trusted the other woman yet, but she was a familiar presence and Bilba could admit to feeling at least some level of safety when around her. An unstable safety to be sure, but safety.

They were led to a dimly lit private room with a thick, maroon carpet, a mahogany table and chairs padded with black leather. The overall effect might have been oppressive were it not for the fact that the walls and ceiling were literally covered in white and green tinged crystal. Lights had somehow been strung up behind them, creating an effect that made it feel like she’d just walked into a geode.

Bilba stumbled to a stop at the sight, staring in awestruck wonder. “Oh, wow. This is gorgeous.”

Dis beamed in pride. “Isn’t it? Ereboreans know how to decorate.”

“They do indeed.” Bilba shook herself out of her stupor and went to her seat. Their guards lined up along the walls and outside the room. Having so many eyes on them felt awkward to Bilba but Dis and Ori seemed oblivious.

As she settled in, Bilba absently set her new phone on the table. It now sported a case featuring inlaid gems that formed spiraling flowers and leaves set in a gold tone background. The case came with a spot to attach a charm, so she’d bought a small cat that reminded her of her feline friend from the beach.

Dis reached over and grabbed the phone. “I’m going to put my number in it, all right?”

Bilba nodded. “Okay. Would you mind putting any other numbers you think I should have? I don’t have any right now.”

“Oh!” Ori sat up straight and clapped her hands together. “Put mine too!”

Dis nodded, eyes focused on the screen. “I’ll put all of ours, and your guards.” She frowned and looked up. “Have you gotten your bracelet yet?”

“Bracelet?” Bilba asked blankly. “What bracelet.”

“We haven’t had a chance to sit down and design it with her, Your Highness,” Cerys broke in from where she stood against the wall. “It’s next on the list.”

Dis nodded absently. She looked back to the phone but raised her other hand and jingled a charm bracelet hanging from her wrist. “We all have custom security bracelets. If you’re ever in an emergency, all you have to do is activate it and you’ll bring down pretty much the entire palace security on you.” She set the phone down and moved one of the charms, a small, linked set of hearts, to reveal an almost invisible indentation. “It’s designed so it can be activated quickly, but not accidentally.”

“Oh.” Bilba started to ask if anyone had ever had to use it, but bit back the question. If the answer were yes it would have been under extreme circumstances and it was likely Dis wouldn’t want to relieve such a thing.

“Are you on Ravenhill?” Dis asked suddenly. “I’m going to send you a request.”

She did something on the phone, and then handed it to Ori who also fiddled with it before handing it back to Bilba. “There, I sent you one too.”

“Thank you.” Bilba carefully took the phone back, unsure of what else to say. To be honest, the entire day had been overwhelming and she was still trying to process everything that had happened. “I’ll send you texts, so you’ll have my number too?” Her voice was shy even to her own ears, and she couldn’t stop the irrational thought that both women would reject her offer in spite of having given her their numbers to begin with.

“Great!” Dis said cheerfully. “Now, the next time my father tries to pull a stunt you can text me and I’ll come help him remove his head from his ass.”

Bilba focused on her phone and didn’t react. She had no intention of doing any such thing. The last thing she wanted to do was have the king see her as some sort of snitch or troublemaker. Not only that, but she didn’t yet know if Dis was the sort to take her father to task only to get angry and protective when someone else did the same.

She pulled up her contact list and was surprised to see the long list of numbers Dis had added. Her own, Thorin’s, Ori’s, Cerys and Gareth, even Frerin who she still hadn’t met and the king, who she planned to never call if she could help it. She also had no intention of ever calling Dwalin or Nori, but could see the reasoning behind having their numbers, as well as Balin. She added Rosie’s, and Arwen’s and made a mental note to find out her steward’s number to add that one as well.

She moved instinctively to add Bofur’s, only to flinch and stop. They’d agreed not to communicate, she reminded herself. Bofur needed to move on, and so did she. She wanted to move on. The sooner she did the sooner it’d stop hurting so much every time she thought about him.

She pulled up her Ravenhill account to accept Dis and Ori’s requests, and was startled to see a third one waiting for her. “Thorin sent me a request.”

“He’d better have,” Dis said. “You are his wife after all.”

Bilba chose to leave that comment alone. She accepted the requests and then, nervously, clicked on Thorin’s profile. Her mood immediately soured at the sight of the name Kyra Lundair next to the newest post at the top of Thorin’s page. It was some meme or another she’d posted, innocent enough on its own, but for the fact that the woman was literally everywhere Bilba went.

It had been posted only an hour earlier, she noted, and already had been liked by Thorin. Thorin who was too tied up in meetings to go to dinner, but not so tied up that he couldn’t like something his ex-fiancée posted on his page.

“What’s wrong?” Ori asked from where she sat next to Dis.

Bilba clicked over to Dis’ profile. “Nothing.” She studied the banner for the page, featuring a younger Dis standing next to an attractive, blonde man. “Is this your husband?” she asked, holding the phone up.

The other woman’s face softened, and she took the phone to smile fondly at the picture. “Yeah, that’s Vili. It’ll be seven years this spring.”

“I’m sorry.” Bilba flinched in guilt, regretting having brought it up.

“It’s fine.” Dis handed the phone back. “We’ll find him. I know we will.”

“I believe you,” Bilba said sincerely. She studied the picture a moment longer, wondering where the smiling young man had gone and why. He looked oddly familiar but, given who he was, it stood to reason she’d seen a picture in passing on the internet or even somewhere in the palace.

The food arrived just after that and she put the phone away as it was set out. They’d never been given menus or ordered but Dis and Ori didn’t seem to think anything of it. A man Dis identified as the owner appeared and began announcing the dishes as they were set out. All of them sounded amazing, and Bilba felt herself growing hungrier with every passing minute.

The man finally stopped talking. He started to excuse himself, before pausing as Dis gestured him forward. He leaned over and, for several long moments, the two had a hushed conversation that Bilba couldn’t hear from her side of the table. Then the man stood, bowed and left, after which they were finally allowed to eat. The food ended up being just as amazing as it looked and Bilba ate more than she probably should in an attempt to try all of it, and then a desire to go back for seconds on her favorites.

“So,” Dis said as she snapped a breadstick in half. “How are things going with you and my brother?”

Bilba froze. “Uh…it’s okay, I guess.”

Dis raised an eyebrow. “You guess?”

“We don’t know each other all that well,” Bilba said, almost under her breath.

“Is that so?” Dis asked idly. She had an odd tone in her voice and Bilba had a sinking feeling she’d given away far more than she intended.

Dis didn’t ask any further questions and the rest of dinner was spent in light chatter, mostly about favorite movies and books and the like.

Once they were finished Dis led them back out into the mall proper. Bilba was relieved to see the man at the door who’d glared at her was no longer there. He must have gone off shift while they ate.

They headed out, the only signs of their mammoth shopping trip the case and charm on Bilba’s phone and the small, carry out box Ori had gotten to bring home to her husband. Everything else would be delivered to the palace later, Dis had explained.

“I hope I have enough room for it all in my wardrobe,” Bilba mused, as they traveled down the escalator toward the first floor. “I probably should have thought about that.”

Dis laughed. “That’s cute.” At Bilba’s look of confusion, her own expression became startled. “Please tell me you didn’t think that wardrobe was all you had to store your clothes in.”

“It’s not?” Bilba said slowly. It was all she had seen, and no one had mentioned anything else. Honestly, the thing was several times larger than what she’d had in Shire and was even larger than the ones she’d seen in Beatrice’s room or any of her other relations.

Dis sighed. “It’ll be too late by the time we get back but remind me to show you where your closet is. Or better yet just keep an eye out when the maids put all your things away. The wardrobe,” she said in answer to Bilba’s unspoken question, “is for your go to, day to day items, or to store an outfit you know you’ll need in the next few days or week or so. It makes it less of a hassle if it’s right there, you know?”

Bilba didn’t but nodded dutifully.  

They exited the mall, and her steps slowed as she realized full night had fallen. They’d literally spent the entire day shopping. Bilba was certainly tired, but, if asked, would have insisted they’d only been out a few hours at most. She cast a guilty look at Cerys and Gareth, wondering if the two had been able to eat or see Wynne, but neither appeared unhappy. Perhaps they’d gone on breaks when she hadn’t been looking? She had spent a lot of time trying things on and being measured, so it was certainly possible.

They all loaded back into the limos and started the long journey back. Bilba must have dozed off because, before she knew it, they were pulling down a low ramp into an underground parking garage behind the palace.

Once they were parked, they all got out and took an elevator to the main foyer of the palace.

“This is where I must leave you,” Dis said as they made their way up the stairs toward the royal levels. “The boys will be waiting for me to tuck them in and read them a story.”

“I need to head off too,” Ori said, holding up the carry out bag. “Dwalin should be off shift by now and I texted him that I was bringing food.”

Bilba nodded. “Thank you, both, for today. I had a really good time.”

As she said the words, she was startled to realize she meant them. She had had a really good time.

“You’re welcome,” Dis said cheerfully. “I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast, all right?”

Bilba nodded and the other woman left, followed soon after by Ori who impulsively hugged her before skipping off to her own rooms. Most of the security had already dispersed, so Bilba bade Cerys and Gareth goodnight before heading to her own room. She’d hoped by doing so they’d head off to their own rooms and Wynne but they followed her until she’d walked through the doors of the suite before wishing her a goodnight and leaving.

Once the doors were closed, Bilba let out a breath and sagged forward onto the wood for a few minutes. It had been a crazy day from start to finish, but she was happy to have it end on a high note.

She pushed up and noted that, while the room was dark, a light was on in the small kitchen, casting enough of a glow for her to see by. She was pretty sure it had been off when she’d left that morning, which meant Thorin must have come back.

His door was shut and there was no light shining from under it so either he’d come back and left again, or he’d already gone to bed.

Bilba started to go to her own room, only to find herself slowing to a stop before she got there.

Did Thorin know what had happened? About the pregnancy demands, and whatever had gone on with Kyra? She chewed on her lower lip and cast a nervous glance toward Thorin’s door. If he did know, then she imagined she’d have found him waiting for her to come back to discuss it.

That or he was off, even then, comforting Kyra over whatever the king had said to her when he’d summoned her to his office.

Bilba grimaced. Think positive, she told herself firmly. You had a good day today, so don’t ruin it.

Thorin didn’t know, she decided. And if he didn’t, then she’d much rather have him hear it all from her before he heard it from someone else. Get her own side in as much as possible before he heard whatever twisted version she was sure would be making the rounds tomorrow.

She let out a short breath and wrapped her arms around her torso. Telling him herself would be best, which…meant…she’d need to go knock on his door…and wake him up to tell him.

She shuffled forward slowly, until she was standing in front of his door. She raised her hand and curled her fingers into a fist to knock…and then just stood there. Her stomach twisted, and she tried to force herself to breathe normally.

It’s fine, she told herself. It’s totally fine. Just…knock on the door. It’s fine.

She moved her hand forward, only to freeze as another, unwelcome thought came to her.

What if he wasn’t alone?

Her face flamed, and she shook her head. No. Not even Thorin was crazy enough to bring his mistress into his room at night. He’d have had to parade her past his own guards and the news would be all over the palace by the next morning. No way he was that stupid.

Hopefully.

She half lowered her hand, raised it again and then, before she could think about it any further, reached out and rapped sharply on the wood. Immediately her heart jumped into her throat and her muscles locked up.

A light snapped on under the door, and footsteps moved across the floor. A moment later, the door was pulled open and Bilba found herself face to face with Thorin…dressed in nothing but a pair of boxers.

Not…what she’d been expecting.

Not even close.

Follow on AO3: Follow on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1743620/chapters/3723188

[bunnimew]

A Friend

Rating: T  Fandom: Rise of the Guardians Characters: Jack Frost, Pitch Black Tags: Space AU, Horror, I did the spoopy!!!, Ambiguous/Open Ending Summary: For RotG Halloween 2020: Day 10 @rotg-halloween

Alone in space, Jack waits.

On AO3 here.

It was dark.

It was always dark, out here.

It had been more than a week since the station was attacked, and Jack couldn’t know if anyone had received their distress calls, or his own, since. 

It had been an act of desperation to crawl into this capsule. An act of instinct to initiate launch. The station was being torn to pieces by some unknown… thing, tendrils of deep black crawling along the walls and creeping into the crevices only to rip away whole chunks of the technology and machinery that kept them all alive. 

Jack had no idea what became of his friends. If they had been on a deck that was destroyed before they could leave it. If they had been running for a capsule like this one only to find all of them gone. If they had made it to a capsule, and were just floating out in space like he was: alone, anxious, a little crazy.

The capsules didn’t have rear viewports. Being in one now, Jack considered that a huge oversight. The first several hours after launch, Jack had desperately wanted to know what was happening behind him. He had pressed himself to every window he had, trying to see past the end of his little boat, but the angles were all wrong and Jack had no idea, then or now, whether the station was even still in one piece. 

Jack felt a small stirring of hunger and slipped the last of a stick of jerky into his mouth. The capsule had rations enough to keep him alive for at least a month, and Jack was doing his best to stretch them even further. The generator hummed constantly, filtering his air and waiting for commands, but Jack had nothing to ask of it. 

The noise had been so annoying at first, before Jack got used to it. The beeps of life supporting machines used to be so loud, but now all Jack heard was the silence. 

He floated in the middle of his capsule, drifting aimlessly in time with his tiny world around him so as to seem like he wasn’t moving at all. The stars were so distant, they didn’t look to be moving at all, and their light… it barely reached him here.

Jack left the capsule barely illuminated to preserve power. If he focused on a window and ignored the sharp shine of the barest of light reflecting off mechanical corners, he could almost imagine the capsule wasn’t even there.

That it was just him.

Alone in space. 

Except for the whispers.

When the hums and the beeps and the whirrs faded out, when the silence was total and all encompassing, when Jack was almost sure this was just a dream and he was already gone, there would come a slip of sound.

It took a long time for Jack to come to accept that he wasn’t hallucinating. Time didn’t mean anything anymore, and without the onboard clock, Jack wouldn’t know what day it was. He slept when he was tired, or when he was tired of being, and woke to more dark, endless dark, so the idea that he might be making things up just to be less alone was incredibly reasonable, all things considered. 

But he wasn’t.

It always started so quiet, barely discernible from the rest of the white noise. It took forever, or it took Jack really trying to hear it, but they would get louder. Silk on a mattress, water on a slide, there would be the slightest rustle, then a rush, then, eventually… a voice.

To say Jack flipped his shit the first time he heard it would be an understatement, and Jack still wasn’t completely comfortable with it now. Where could he run, though? A day spent pressed against the walls of his capsule, eyeing every corner and window, waiting for an attack that never came was enough to drain every self-preservation instinct right out of him.

He could only spend so long on edge before the edge crumbled beneath him.

If he was found, he was found. If he died, he died. If it was starvation, or cold, or asphyxiation, or his stowaway… It hardly mattered. 

But Jack wasn’t alone. 

It was easy to dismiss as a trick of the eye, but once he came to terms with the idea that his ears weren’t lying to him, next was to believe what he was seeing. The darkness moved. 

It wasn’t like on the station, though. It didn’t creep and spread and invade and destroy, it just… settled. In the darkest corners of Jack’s tiny world, shadows shivered and tucked themselves into an endless pitch too black for his eyes to accept. He looked away from them, because watching just made him feel crazy, or like his eyes weren’t working properly, and after days spent in this cold, quiet, darkness… It was just…

Well, it didn’t matter, anyway.

So Jack floated, still as death, in the center of his dim capsule, waiting for whatever tomorrow would bring. 

Something touched him.

Jack gasped and jerked his leg away so fast the muscle in his thigh cramped. He clamped his hand down on it, trying to ease the pain away, even as his attention darted around to every wall, every machine, every little light in his tiny little world.

Of course he didn’t see anything. Of course he didn’t hear anything. But if he had seen something, and was hearing something, then the next step, obviously, was to feel something, wasn’t it? 

Jack almost laughed at the inevitability of it all, but the pain in his leg was still too keen and his lungs didn’t have the air. His stowaway was getting bold and that just meant his time was running out, didn’t it?

Nice to know he was still alive, kind of. He hadn’t lost all of himself to the darkness if his reflexes still worked, but in Jack’s head he knew they were futile. It might have been more merciful if he could have been out of his mind for this. Being completely aware as he faded to nothing didn’t sound like the kind of end he wanted for himself. 

Jack stretched his leg out as the cramp loosened and swore to himself that he wouldn’t jump like that again. If he was going to die, it would be with courage in his heart, not flinching away like cowering could somehow stop this.

Jack stared out of the viewport ahead of him, at the stars, at the dark, at the sheer size of space, and wasn’t surprised when something touched his ankle again. 

It slid all the way around, and Jack shivered at the light, silky, nothing feel of it. He could sense the goosebumps rising in waves on his skin, up his shin, over his knee, across his thigh, all the way down his arms. His shoulders tensed, his back tensed, he clenched his hands to keep still because whatever this was, it would not get to hear him scream. 

The thing inched higher, and Jack shivered again. His spine was locked in a straight line and Jack’s teeth pressed together, jaw clenched shut against his instincts. He could feel the cold of it through the insulated fabric of his suit, poking, prodding, gripping him as it pulled itself higher and higher on Jack’s body. 

By the time it reached his waist, Jack was properly scared. He could still feel it wrapped around his feet, but now it was clamping down on his hips, which meant it was so much bigger than Jack had thought it could be. How something this big had been hiding for days in the tiny corners of his capsule, Jack didn’t know. It was alien, foreign, Jack didn’t know anything about it, except that it would kill him, and nobody was ever going to know. 

He refused to look. He wanted his last sight to be the stars, as cold and distant as they’ve ever been. He dragged stale air in through his nose and tried not to think about just how hard he was breathing, whether the air filters would be able to keep up, whether he was going to pass out and be blissfully unconscious for whatever happened next. 

Barely there ribbons of ice laced around Jack’s chest and it hurt to breathe. He gasped, then bit down on his own tongue to keep everything else inside. The darkness was all around him, strapped to his legs, tied around his arms, tightening against his torso and Jack wondered if the capsule had always been this dark or if he was already beginning to lose himself. 

The universe had never been this silent. 

Whatever sounds the technology of the capsule used to make, Jack couldn’t hear them. Everything was too far away, no longer a part of his world, the sound unable to travel through space to reach him. Jack heard the soft whisper of his own breath leaving his lips, and then everything was still. 

Jack hadn’t heard real wind in a very long time, but this was like that. 

Hello. 

He didn’t jump. His body was so tense, so tight, that there wasn’t any fluidity left for jumping. Jack held his breath, and waited.

But nothing came.

Jack was startled to realize he could hear the beeping of life support systems again. The air rushed out of his lungs in one huge, surprised breath. He was still breathing. Why was he still breathing? Suddenly the aching of his clenched hands broke through the dulled senses of his fear, and Jack stretched his fingers out, instinctively trying to relieve it.

And then he froze, because as soon as his hands were open, the chill rushed in. Soft nothingness pressed into his palms and threaded between his fingers and held. 

Jack waited.

Nothing came.

Jack stared out at space and wondered what the fuck was going on. 

The voice had said hello. It had never said anything before, but now it said hello. 

Jack sucked in a breath, hoped this wouldn’t be the last word he ever said, and whispered, “Hi?”

The thing wiggled against his skin and Jack shuddered at the feeling of it. Was it happy? Or agitated? Would Jack die before he knew?

You’re warm. 

It took Jack several seconds to realize his jaw had dropped. He quickly shut it, lest the darkness press in like it had with his hands. “You’re… cold.” He felt stupid saying it, but higher thought wasn’t available to him right now, and he had to say something, because he needed to hear what it would say back.

I know. 

Jack blinked, surprised and shocked at this turn of events. What was he… supposed to do now? He wanted to ask if it was going to kill him, but somehow that felt like giving it ideas, so Jack asked the next thought on his mind. “What are you?”

Ice wrapped more firmly around him, and Jack swallowed thickly to hold back his fear.

A friend. 

Jack stared. At the darkness. At the vacuum. At the nothing and nobody around him. 

He was lost in space, running out of power, running out of food, running out of air, running out of time. 

No one could hear him. No one could see him. No one even knew he was there. 

Except this shadow. 

Jack relaxed into its hold, accepting the inevitability of its company. It wasn’t like Jack could get away. It didn’t seem to want to kill him, for now. 

So Jack drifted, still as death, in the center of his own tiny world. 

Wanting nothing, awaiting everything.

And the darkness was his friend.

[codylabs]

The Nomads: Part 1

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Long ago, a story was recorded. It told how after many months of careful listening, a lone astronaut learned to understand the language of her rescuers. Weeks more of practicing to herself within the privacy of her escape pod, and she had grown accustomed to shaping her tongue and lips around their strange syllables. Then one evening over dinner, when one of the boys made fun of her, the astronaut finally spoke. “Well I do not think my eyes are tiny.” She replied with a smile. “Maybe yours are just enormous.”

It had been a poor comeback to a poor insult, and had been half incomprehensible to them, but it caused quite an uproar nonetheless.

“Missus Fikes!” They all cheered. This was the only phrase she’d managed to teach them of her own language, and just as well, for it was her name. “You understood our language this entire time? Did you learn? When did you learn? Who taught you?” They prodded her with questions, speaking too quickly for her to distinguish. “We’re so proud of you!”

“I have been listening many nights!” Her concentration on her own words made them come out slowly, (and even she could hear the clumsy distortion of her own accent,) but they were coming. “Practicing many nights. Was become weary of sign language. Big thanks to friend Keeleeticktick for speaking so slowly at me.”

They laughed at that, and slapped Keeleeticktick on the back and congratulated him for being a good friend. “Oh.” One of them turned to her after the uproar quieted a bit. “That was good, but the word for ‘night’, you said it wrong. It’s more like…” His beak didn’t move when he made the correct pronunciation, (since they didn’t speak with their beaks,) but the clusters of high-voltage nerves in his tentacles pulsed and chimed with electrical interference, and her helmet radio picked it up and played it into her speaker in the form of sound.

“Nights.” She repeated back to him.

“Still not quite right.” Somebody else chimed in. “It’s like you’re only saying half of it.”

“You sound like a queeteekit with weevakik syndrome!” One of them teased her. She didn’t know a few of those words, but got the gist.

“Don’t be rough on him!” One of them smacked him. “He’s doing his best!”

“Is problem with my voice-maker.” She tapped the radio on her helmet with a helpless laugh. “It cannot do the frequencies so low. Cannot hear some of word.”

“Oh! Oh! I’ve got an idea!” One of them waved a tentacle toward the dish up in the crow’s nest. “Let’s go get the ship’s radio! It can do the whole range!”

“Hey yeah!” Somebody agreed. “We can just wire it right in! And then we’ll just turn the dish back toward us, turn down the volume, and we can all hear each other! Should work well enough until we can modify his radio.”

“Very good!” She followed after with an eager laugh.

They were awake for many long hours that night, laughing and talking and doing their best to help her learn. It seemed they all adored the excitement, and they nursed her for every bit of attention and strange newness she could provide. And they seemed to be growing to like her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, Missus Fikes, what are these things for anyway?” Keeleeticktick asked, reaching a tentacle forward to poke at her.

They’d been respecting her boundaries for the entirety of her stay so far, but now that she was starting to fit in, it seemed that the taboos were finally breaking down; this was the first question one of them had ever directly asked her about her human biology.

“Those are legs.” She smiled. The word had no direct translation that she knew of. “I guess you could call them hook-limbs? Crawlers? I don’t know… They let me move around.” She wiggled her boots to show that they were living parts of her, not just some kind of stiff horns.

“They don’t look like they help you move.” He seemed skeptical.

“Not way out here, no.” Her eyes wandered over the nomad’s small convoy of ships, and none of them had any habitation rings or rotating sections, or anything at all which could be used to generate artificial gravity. Their engines weren’t even powerful enough to provide thrust gravity. “I… I suppose I don’t have a way to show how they work.”

“Maybe if you took off your armor?” He poked curiously at her space suit. “Maybe you wouldn’t burn yourself?”

“No, they’re not thrusters.” She laughed. “They… If I was stuck to something… If I were being pulled…” She remembered that they didn’t have a word for ‘down’. “If I were being pulled on to something, then they would let me move.”

“…Huh?” He didn’t quite grasp the gist.

She pondered it a moment longer. And she remembered a history lesson from long ago, from before human spacecraft were large enough to mount entire rings. In the very early colonial age, when humans were still exploring their own solar system, their ships were often designed to stay attached to their last discarded booster stage, and reel it out on the end of a long cable. Then, by spinning end-over end, they could approximate enough of a radius and rotation to provide artificial gravity. “Okay, I have a idea.” She snapped her fingers. “Do you have a strong cable, and some mass equal to my pod you would allow me to risk?”

“Ohhhh…” He had access to the first one, but was hesitant on loaning the second; there wasn’t much mass out here they could spare. “We have silk cable that’s near indestructible… But how ‘risky’ are we talking?”

“I want to swing it around quickly. If the silk breaks, it would fly away from the convoy and be hard to get back.”

“I’ve got my dingy!” Keeleeticktick’s son, Thilykto, had been listening, and now spoke up. “I could just tie that to it, and that way if I fly away, I could just fly it back!”

“Oh yeah, that would be safe.” She nodded.

“…Alright.” Keeleeticktick nodded reluctantly. “But if this gets too crazy, Missus Fikes, I’m going to put a stop to it.”

“Of course.” She spread her arms and curled her fingers, a motion which, (as far as she had been able to tell) meant about the same as a courteous bow.

An hour later, they had her escape pod tied securely to the end of a narrow silken thread, and Thilykto was up on his dingy, tied to the other. His father looked on in growing disapproval (though not growing as fast as his curiosity, apparently.) Most or all of the other nomads, both on this ship and surrounding ships, had clustered to watch as well. Beneath the gaze of many eyes, she radioed over to Thilykto. “You ready, man?”

“I was born ready!” He curled one tentacle into the shape of a thumbs-up, a gesture he’d learned from her.

“Great!” She stepped into the airlock of her pod. “I don’t know how much fuel this will use, so if you waste more than quarter, call it off!”

“Okay!” He grabbed the controls of his dingy, and waited for her signal.

As for herself, she sealed the door behind her and cycled the airlock. The pressurized stiffness of her suit lightened as the chamber flooded, and then she drifted through the inner door into what counted as her home. There wasn’t much to it, just a few seats, a control panel, and some frayed wall insulation which she’d folded into a bed; it was little wonder she spent so much time outside.

Now she grasped the control panel, twisted herself around to right-side-up, and began tapping buttons for pre-ignition checks. She wondered for a moment if the escape pod’s thrusters still worked. She had run them completely dry of fuel during the leviathan attack, and nearly overheated them in the process. The Nomads had been kind enough to offer a refuel when they found her, but the quiet drifting ever since had never given her an opportunity to give them a test fire, and she worried whether or not they’d suffered permanent damage from her initial clumsiness. She held her breath as she threw the last switch.

To her relief, the pod’s propulsion roared to life with hardly a second’s hesitation, and the readouts all leveled out to green. She grasped the RCS joysticks to begin the maneuver. “Remember.” She radioed over. “Thrust opposite direction of me.”

“Yeah, I got it!”

The escape pod’s thrusters pushed it one way, the dingy pushed the other way, the silk went taught, and they began to rotate each other. As he watched it begin, Keeleeticktick turned in a nervous circle and curled his tentacles up around his head, while his eyestalks retracted back into a fold beneath his beak. “Oh, be careful!” He cried up at them.

“I’m good, I’m good!” His son called back. “Missus Fikes, how fast do we need to get going?”

“Very fast.” As the dingy and pod spun, the centrifugal force began to weigh on her body. It was light at first, a ghostly hint of drag in an unexpected direction, but it rapidly grew stronger and stronger. Now she was no longer floating, and her boots touched the floor. A wrench hit the wall behind her and bounced to a stop. The picture of her family by her bed began to slide. And now the suit was resting on her shoulders, now she felt the blood begin to drain from her head, and now her knees and back remembered the meaning of ‘down’. And then, they exploded in pain.

She’d been weightless 4 months now. The entire time she’d been drifting with the nomads, she’d never once dedicated herself to the least exercise, and it seems her back and legs had become next to useless by her neglect. “That’s enough!” She gasped, releasing her own controls and falling to her knees. “That’s enough!”

For the next minute or so, silent anticipation hung over the tribe, as they waited for her to make good on her claim of some unique and alien spectacle. Their eyes followed her pod around and around its circular path, and some of them began to rotate themselves to match, so as to make the watching easier. As for her, she clawed with her gloves at her suit’s latches, and managed to detach them. Then she wiggled out of it, like the weak and flaccid motions of a molting insect whose new shell was yet too soft to support it.

Now she was free of her suit, was on her hands and knees, staring at the metal floor with her own two eyes, feeling it with her own bony fingers. And then, with a force of will and a mighty complaint from every one of her joints, she grasped a railing on the wall and drew herself upright.

At this rate of spin and this length of silk, the ‘gravity’ in the pod was almost nothing. A bare 20% of Earth gravity, 20% of what she’d spent her entire life surviving, and which by rights she should be indestructible to. It was surely disheartening to see herself so weak… But perhaps fully developed strength didn’t matter tonight. To merely stand and walk, to give an introduction to human behavior however brief, that was all they needed.

As she opened the shutters of the pod window, and stood before her friends for the first time, she wondered what they would think.

At first they didn’t know what to think. They either didn’t understand what they were looking at, or didn’t understand the enormity of it, or maybe they didn’t even recognize her as herself without her suit, and thought her body was a piece of abstract furniture. It wasn’t until she began to walk, and paced the width of the pod a few times, that they started to understand the design of her, and the immense force she was under, and the strength of her legs, and the coordinated balance that kept her upright. One by one she heard the shocked realizations coming over the radio.

“That’s amazing!”

“How are you doing that?”

“He must have a crane or something built into the wall.”

“You must have a powerful heart!”

“Where else would those ever be useful??”

She hesitated at that last comment, and her smile faded. For she knew that these peoples’ culture relied entirely on thrusters, and fuel, and the delicate equations of propulsion and reaction. Wasted mass, be it clutter, garbage, or any kind of inefficiency or miscalculated baggage, was counted somewhere between a dreadful sin and an embarrassing faux pas; the nomads did not suffer things without use.

It occurred to her now that by their measure, a good portion of her physical body could be counted as waste. She looked down at herself, at her arms which weren’t as strong as they could be, at the layers of fat on her belly which she’d been meaning to shed for years, and at her thick, hard-boned, vestigial legs, for which she had no use at all in the foreseeable future, and which perhaps had become too weak to ever be used again. She also thought of her kidneys, and her liver, and the lengths of intestines, which were largely obsolete thanks to her diet on the pod’s genetically-perfected algae paste. Legs, fat, a complete digestive tract… Nose and hair and breasts and bones, space-bound castaways such as herself had no use for such things. Perhaps the reason she was so foreign to the nomads was that they had never imagined a creature like her. And they had never imagined it because, out here… It really made no sense at all.

“Legs were needed on our world.” She reminisced. “We needed them to move. To walk. Anywhere we went, our legs took us… They were my thrusters.”

“…What kind of world was this?” Keeleeticktick’s voice was quiet.

“A rock planet.” She told them, and let that sink in. “A planet named Earth. It had a great pull, and we lived our lives on its surface… It was full of… Of…” She searched her vocabulary for words of theirs which could properly carry the meaning of hers. “Steam… Ice? Gas. Covered in gas. Masses of gas. We walked on rock. Creatures walked on rock. Food grew on rock. We ate ice, ate food, and ate the gas, ate oxygen, for life…” She took a deep breath in and out to show them. “Mass was all around, all pulled down, all on the same…” She spread her palms like the line of a horizon. “Same surface…”

They were silent for a few seconds.

“Missus Fikes.” Keeleeticktick broke the silence. “I think you are a very, very long way from home.”

She nodded, in solemn and wholehearted agreement.

“Hey, uh, I don’t mean to interrupt, but how long are we gonna be spinning?” His son spoke up. “Feeling a bit sick over here, ha ha.”

With a start, she looked up through the window at the kid, who was swinging around on the other end of the line. Even such a small measure of artificial gravity had mashed him to the floor of his dingy, where his body bore more resemblance to washed-up seaweed than any kind of creature. “Oh, sorry!” She cried. “I’m so sorry! Yeah, we will spin down then. The demonstration is over.”

“Don’t worry about it, I know it looks bad, but it doesn’t really hurt at all.” He laughed. “I feel all limp and squished but uhhh yeah, I think you’re gonna have to spin it down with your thrusters. I can’t reach my controls.”

“Hang on kid, I got it.”

And for the second time in her life, but more sadly this time, she bid farewell to gravity.

[rowanthestrange]

I think the intended theme of Kerblam was hugely overshadowed by the fact that the episode didn't address that Kerblam didn't even try to keep their workers safe. The main issue I found was that the scene at the end implied the murders couldn't have been prevented without the doctor's expertise. A responsible employer would have supended work until the power drains were fixed (I'm assuming that's why any security systems were down allowing charlie to escape notice)

*hides face in hands*

You’re right. You are - my expression is not…oh it’s not for you.

I mean I’m not sure there was a set intended theme, it was bothsided to hell, but yeah, definitely…there was definitely an issue there with it not actually addressing anything.

*leans back*

The power drains were - in my understanding - because of both Terrorist Boy messing around with the system, but far more importantly, was because the system itself was trying to channel a lot of energy into one place. The power-drain that occurs when the bot tries to kill him for example.

It isn’t clear. How much of it is under the system’s control is not explored.

Leading neatly to your next point - the system needs the Doctor’s expertise.

Why?

It would have succeeded in killing Terrorist Boy had it been smarter about it. Not done it around people. Sure maybe it’s trying to basically scream ‘He’s the bad guy!’ but that’s not obvious, nor apparently necessary, because kill him and there’s no backup, no deadman’s handle, you’re done. Statistically the guy has been alone at some point, and there were no ‘we cannot murder’ rules implied, so off you go chums.

Maybe the robots didn’t want to murder him - a good theme that would have tied perfectly into both the terrorism and the themes being built in this series, and does work with them knowing the Doctor would stop it.

But that didn’t happen. I just made that up. None of this stuff was explained, nothing addressed. The roots for this episode are so good and go nowhere.

Explain why they don’t care about power outages in a 90% automated factory. Use it for character development with the woman - she doesn’t care and is lighthearted about it because she’s in people, while the rest of the company is having kittens - because that is a big deal and everyone would have noticed.

And this place clearly can’t just shut down for a month, are you joking?! Unless you’re playing a Bad Wolf Satellite Whatever with this, the consequences would be absolutely huge. Space Amazon shuts down, only gives its workers half that time off as paid leave, and it’s clearly the backbone of the Kandokan economy, that’s on last legs enough that Kira’s never got a goddamn Amazon delivery in her life, but also where six year olds print metal pendants for their Daddies.

And if you still want to do all this, then make it a goddamn point that THIS IS WHY YOU NEED PEOPLE. Not in meaningless goddamn packing, but that if you had PEOPLE paying close attention, they would have been more likely to catch the flaws in the system, or notice it being abused and be able to act on it. Slade was clearly useless - cut that character, he’s only a red herring anyway, and use all that time and energy to give us context with the robots.

Warning From The Future: This fix-it got long

But if I’m allowed to make changes, just off the top of my head, I axe Kira too. Don’t kill off Lee Mack (no I’m not gonna learn the character’s name) so quickly, and then you already have a ‘human’ element in the plot and he fits it well. Kira only exists for man-pain and to humanise Terrorist Boy - which you’re already doing with Graham (Their scenes should have been much the same, but highlighting some extremist tendencies - particularly his odd choice of referring to the system as He - and clearly indicating that no-one talks to this kid enough to see them). Also fewer humans would help sell this idea of the 90-10% thing. Swap team positions - the Doctor goes down and meets Mack (because she’s already sympathetic to the robots so needs to become less so, and this leads to lots of little opportunities to dig at Amazon, capitalism, workers rights etc), and Yaz and Ryan are on packing. It gives Ryan a chance to be good at something in front of Yaz for a change, lets Yaz do some competent police work that actually goes somewhere (seriously McTighe), and Ryan we’ve seen be sceptical but sweet before with the baby situation, so therefore he takes notice of the robots (because he needs to be more sympathetic to them and is a better audience avatar). The combination of him being emotionally intelligent, and Yaz cognitively intelligent, means they work out the origin of the ‘Help Me’ which also fits the fact that Yaz was the only one to notice the message at all. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Mack are facing robot villains. Hmm that’s weird. They run to find each other, Yaz and Thirteen probably doing the grabbing each others forearms thing, and say at the same time “The robots are trying to kill us” “The robots are asking for help”, look at each other in confusion, and that’s when Graham and Terrorist Boy (foreshadowing) show up with the maps. Woman (don’t remember if she had a name, sorry) can show up again, having done some digging and phoning around (she uses a large phone, not a large tablet), and has found the people never made it back home. She’s panicking, the Doctor still gets her ‘If you are lying to me’ moment, etc. etc. things progress, plot as before, but instead of losing Kira, we lose Mack - pendant left behind. In trying to find him, the tracker lures Yaz and Ryan away from the others (Terrorist Boy’s intent was to get everyone, but that’s this Scooby-Doo team for you with the splitting up). Ryan is the one that nearly gets blown to bits by the bubble-wrap because of course he does, his defining character trait is to effing touch everything. Terrorist Boy gives himself away by legging it as Ryan moves to grab it, and Yaz saves him, cus she has good instincts and reflexes. Maybe a robot then says “Would you like me to dispose of this an an environmentally conscious way” - subtext layers, and at a safe distance, pops it - the system showing what damage it can do. This also acts as a set-up for the scene with the robots exploding it later, and makes it look less like the Doctor committing mass robo-murder (and prevents the robots from having to be deliberate murderers themselves). Doctor having got Twirly etc. hijacks a bot teleporter, and with the Woman and Graham finds the soup, etc. etc. same as before. That Terrorist Boy pegged it before, makes sense as to why Yaz didn’t catch him and restrain him, and everyone meets up again. This time though, we have some space. Have the Doctor excitedly (almost obscenely) working things out, while Graham explains the soup - clearly ruffled, and Yaz gets the Woman to bring up the details of Lee Mack’s family. If there’s thirty seconds to spend on how she’s had to call in a lot of dead bodies but never explain it to people’s families, do it now, leave her staring at the phone. Doctor comes to her excited conclusion, and the Terrorist Boy suddenly shows up threatening people with a detonator. Yaz stands (she looks extra shaken), but she’s behind, clearly looks to the Doctor who takes charge (characterisation, shows where she sees herself and her trust in the Doctor, and explains why she isn’t more active yet). Scene, scene, etc, etc, all the bullshit about millennials = bad obviously removed, Graham actually gets most of the attempted calming lines, and it nearly works. But as it fails, the Doctor gets in with him “Killing the people he was supposed to be trying to save”, that to him the people are no more real than the robots - oh no? Prove it. Grabs the phone from Yaz’s hand, which is still on, turns the volume up, and forces him to listen to the six year old asking for her Daddy and telling him to stop being silly. It’s almost on the edge of cruelty, and we see that glimmer in her eyes again. It doesn’t work. It’s his plan, his vision, he’s going to be the one to take control, he he he. But it’s not funny. It’s all about him and his power fantasy, and that becomes increasingly clear the longer you let him talk. (Him stomping on the device is more explicitly visually framed as a mirror for the Doctor doing the same for the neo-neo-nazi’s Vortex Manipulator, but it isn’t explained, just complex forshadowing for the Doctor’s monster breakdown later). Yaz never grabs for him and fails, we just go straight to him running into the bots - maybe standing on the balcony railing first to get a proper little-hitler shot above his tin soldiers, then jumping down to hide among them. But as before, the Doctor doesn’t stop him getting blown to pieces. At the end, the need for more humans to manage the system and particularly to work with each other is noticed, and that’s what the human positions should be for - what humans are good at, noticing patterns and each other. There’s no ‘lol Graham what are you like’ moment in the TARDIS, it’s just Yaz’s feeling of failure as a Police Officer shining unspoken in her eyes, and her request to go see the daughter personally being honoured, while Graham is drinking a cup of tea and watching Ryan intently (clearly been hammered by events, but taking comfort in his own odd-but-blessedly-harmless boy), while Ryan pokes and prods at Twirly, whom apparently they never actually gave back. And it ends with the Doctor once again being rebuffed as company, Yaz leaving the TARDIS, kid’s necklace in hand, and walking into a room across the camera - the Kerblam! poster with Mack’s face on the wall behind her.

I’ve only watched the episode once, and I don’t have a transcript to refer to yet, so might be missing some pieces, but broadly speaking.

And I appreciate that the Kira scene and the ‘You had a plan, but you weren’t expecting to fall in love’ is almost certainly meant to be a Direct Mirror for a future scene with The Doctor and Yaz, but without Chibnall over my shoulder and saying that has to be in there, the transition to the concept of general filial/agape love works for me.

Apologies. Bit longer than I expected. I just started writing and it kept flowing. Apparently I did have some concrete ideas about how to fix it. Sorry, wow.

[foxofthedesert]

RQ OUaT FF | OGA: Ch. 7

Chapter 7 – The Evening Song

Drained of energy yet buzzing with barely suppressed rage, Regina stalks through the cluttered hallways of the Dark Palace, skirts swirling and servants scattering in the wake of her fury.

In the immediate aftermath of the disembodied encounter with the witch who murdered so many of her people, including one of her closest friends, she accompanied Rodrigo on his inspection of the ruins of Tamerlon. To their horror, at the tail end of the looping canvass they discovered a densely packed pile of bodies, perhaps forty or fifty individuals, still smoldering in the ashes of what used to be a twelve hundred fifty square foot octagonal chapel to the goddess Ēostre, the matron deity of fertility and renewal. No lengthy investigation was required to deduce that these were civilians unable to evacuate and thus trapped inside the fort when the assault began. No doubt Robin, the garrison commander, ordered the noncombatants there for their safety, not anticipating he would be unable to defend the stronghold against a single sorceress. That error in judgment, however reasonable it would have seemed in the heat of the moment, cost so many innocents their lives.

Regina offered no comment as Rodrigo poked and prodded around the often brittle remains on the outer rim and top of the pile, in a futile search for any surviving identification. As he gingerly, and respectfully as possible, dug through the charred corpses he began verbalizing the conclusion she had already arrived at as to how these poor souls met such a grisly demise. Instead of offering her thoughts on the matter as she probably should have, all Regina could do was stand there staring, transfixed by the grotesque scene, impotent rage and indescribable grief becoming more and more unbearable by the second. Only when Rodrigo reached the inner ring amongst the slain and started uncovering the children, the first of them barely a toddler, did she manage to wrench her eyes away. Unable to tolerate anymore of the unspeakable tragedy, she fled as fast as her legs could carry her and scurried outside to where no one could see her just so she could vomit what little remained undigested of the lunch she and Red were served during a break at court. As she wiped her mouth of the sick with a handkerchief she then promptly discarded, she silently vowed justice for the atrocity perpetrated on the residents of Tamerlon, soldier and innocent civilian alike.

That abominable bitch is going to pay if it's the last thing I do, Regina thinks, the olfactory memory of ash and roasted flesh along with the sight of burnt women and children fresh in her mind as she thunders through a clogged tee intersection. She shoulders her way past a throng of bodies milling across and then emerges into the less busy Royal Wing of the castle. When at last she reaches her bedchambers, she bursts through the doors without bothering to knock and announce herself, having forgotten in her hyper-agitated state that she had left Red asleep less than three hours ago. Fortunately for Regina, Red is already awake, relieving her of any guilt at her raucous entry.

Seated upon the cushioned bench under the grand bay window that overlooks the forest stretching as far as they eye can see beyond the citadel, Red's posture telegraphs an exceedingly gloomy state of mind. She is scrunched up as tightly as possible for her lanky limbs, legs folded up against her torso, arms draped over them holding them in place, her head resting upon them with her cheek against her knees so that she can stare morosely out the window. She is no longer in the dress she wore to court, having exchanged the formal garment for a drab gray cotton shift that spills off her starkly pale shoulders and swallows up her svelte frame. Her long bangs are tied back behind her head by a butterfly clasp she borrowed from Regina's collection. With every breath she takes, her chest shivers and the muscles in her forearms constantly twitch as she incessantly worries her hands together.

Regina doesn't need to hear the mournful sniffle that disturbs the silence to have known what was going on. Red had not even flinched in acknowledgement of her dramatic arrival, which never happens because Red can hear her heartbeat from several yards away. There is practically no sneaking up on her, which means she had heard Regina coming and made a conscious choice not to greet her. That alone is cause for alarm, though Regina tempers any fretful reaction by reminding herself that Red is hurting right now and that, self-sacrificial, beautiful, wonderful idiot that she is, she probably did not want her crying to be the first thing Regina saw upon coming home.

Approaching with respectful caution, Regina steps up beside Red at the bench and risks passing her fingers through her wife's silky locks. She runs them through from temple all the way down to its end at her lower back in one long, languid stroke. Red shudders at the contact, her breath hitching over a choked sob. Rather than speak or act in any way that might pressure Red to engage with her before she's ready, Regina forces herself to remain as she is, just slowly and tenderly sifting her fingers through Red's hair as she cries without making any noise other than a few plaintive whimpers and a lot more sniffles. Eventually the tears and the shaking cease, and only when that happens does Red lift her head from her knees and crane her face up to brave looking at Regina. Bloodshot green eyes lock with hers, such indescribable sadness staining them Regina feels her own eyes well up with moisture. Tear tracks have eroded a wavy, irregular path through mascara lightly applied to Red's cheeks, which are visibly ruddy from her overwrought emotional state. Her chin trembles and creases as she gazes up, silently imploring Regina to make the hurt stop.

"Oh, sweetheart," Regina says, nearly breathless due the suddenly pervasive ache in her chest. With the same gentility she might support a newborn baby's head, she cradles Red's cheek and brushes the tears away with her thumb. "What can I do? Anything at all. Name it and I'll do it without question."

A plump lower lip disappears between pearly white teeth, Red appearing more uncertain and shy and frail than she has in years. Still, she is so distraught and needy, she scrounges up the courage to speak her desire.

"Would you hold me for a little while?"

Rather than chastise Red for doubting for even a second she would accommodate such a reasonable and welcome request, Regina gives her a gentle smile followed by a soft brush of her fingers down the length of an elegant jawline.

"Of course I will," she says, then gestures at Red. "Scoot forward a bit so I can slide in behind you."

Once Red obeys, Regina snaps her fingers to change out of her dress into a pair of tan cotton breeches she likes to garden in and a plain white blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, the top three buttons left undone. Feet left bare and now much more comfortable, she clambers up onto the bench behind Red, arranges herself against the back wall with her outstretched legs open and propped up slightly leaving an acute inverse chevron beneath her elevated knees, then pats her lap a couple times in invitation. Red does not hesitate to slide back into Regina's waiting arms, which wind low around her waist as she settles her back against Regina's front, her head resting against Regina's collar, cheeks pressed together, warmth to warmth. Regina tilts her face so she can nuzzle her nose into Red's cheek a few times, then presses a series of kisses to Red's temple before returning to their original alignment.

She chuckles when Red heaves a deep sigh of contentment and covers Regina's arms with her own, their hands automatically weaving together almost of their own accord.

"Is this okay?" she asks, starting to sway them gently side to side like a doting mother would when rocking her troubled child back to sleep after a bad dream.

Red hums confirmation, then adds with a pleading inflection, "Know what would make it even better? Das Abendlied."

Regina groans, stilling their movement. Just her luck Red would request a traditional like that, knowing she would want it sung in the seldom used tongue of her kin.

Like Regina and most nobles whose houses are expected to regularly entertain foreign dignitaries, Red is multilingual – another aspect that makes her a rarity among the class into which she was born. Although hailing from a poor backwater village to a line of peasant stock stretching back as far as her family history kept records, Red was raised speaking her native language alongside the common one used throughout the Enchanted Forest. Most of her peers spoke only the common, their kin having relinquished the old ways for the sake of gradually encroaching modernity, which not only included eschewing local linguistic flavor but religious fervor as well – worship of the many colorful deities native to that region has nearly been eradicated. Despite this prevailing abandonment of regional heritage, and a profound aversion to all religion, Red's grandmother was unwilling to cast aside five hundred years of tradition and wished to keep alive their deeply burrowed roots within their indigenous soil. Even if most of Red's generation could barely put together a sentence in their ancestral tongue, Red was made to learn it first before being introduced to common in time for her to grasp it before beginning what little schooling was afforded children of her station.

Out of respect for Regina's heritage, Red also learned the language of her father-in-law's people, so the least Regina could do was return the favor. Red proved a patient teacher, and a good one, able to confer the meaning of words phrases in a simple way that improved memory imprinting. Such was Red's knack for linguistic instruction that Regina recommended she formally teach any palace-dwellers who wished to add another language to their portfolio – Red has since hosted three such classes and has seventy new speakers of Saxon to boast of.

Admittedly, Regina has grown quite fond of Saxon. So much so that she enjoys speaking it every bit as much as her native Andalusian, if not more, as the language has a certain bite to it, a sort of intrinsic fury that rides knuckle tight upon every harsh syllable. When she gets really upset and does not want to cause too much of a scene in public, she will often resort to unleashing a string of unutterable expletives in Saxon upon her unwitting and confused victim. Strangely enough, though, Red feels the same about Andalusian, preferring it to her mother tongue, especially when they are locked in an intimate embrace. Says it is energetic and romantic and gets her tongue good and loose. Regina does not protest very much because for one she sort of agrees about Andalusian being energetic and romantic, and two she's not a moron. Naked Red can get away with saying a lot things without being contradicted, especially when she's referring to the use of her tongue. Funny thing how that works...

In any case, the problem isn't having to sing the lullaby in Saxon so much as it is having to sing at all. Regina has never considered her singing voice to be anything special. While she can carry a tune just fine, it is sounds rather plain to her if not a little huskier than most women. By no means is her voice as extraordinary as Red makes it out to be. If Red is to be believed, it is a rival to that of the angels, as if she the idea she has ever heard such a sound is not absolutely ridiculous. And when Regina tells Red she's just biased, that her voice is really not so great, Red either ignores her altogether to continue insisting otherwise or suggests she might need to pay a visit to Victor and get her ears checked out. The sassy little minx. How Red gets away with all she does is a puzzle Regina has yet to solve, nor is particularly keen to since she is either the primary beneficiary of those shenanigans or is far too amused by them to be upset.

"Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top?"

Glancing over, Regina finds Red staring at her with those huge soulful puppy eyes, lips pursed in an exaggerated pout there is no arguing against. Resistance would only be a waste of time and energy when both of them know she is going to concede no matter how much she does not want to sing right now. Looking at her that way, Red could ask her to belch the alphabet and she would probably give it a try.

"Bah. Fine." She rolls her eyes for show, then narrows them at her suddenly much perkier wife. "Just don't blame me when all the dogs start howling."

Red makes an offended noise that is more genuine than it is for the sake of obstinance, reminding Regina that she really does believe the words that follow. "Shut up. Your voice is gorgeous, and I'm not the only one who thinks that. Iris has told me more than once she agrees with me about that."

"Iris is merely concerned about her job security, as she should be," Regina points out half-heartedly. Their handmaid is a woman of intelligence who understands one never bites the hand that feeds them. That said, Red is handily winning the argument, although habit dictates Regina never give in easily. "If she were allowed the luxury of honesty, I'm sure her opinion would be very different."

"Oh, stop it," Red says with a dramatic eye roll of her own, clearly getting a little upset. "You're being ridiculous right now. Can't you do this one thing for me without making a frustrating production out of it?"

Regina tuts, then squeezes her arms around Red's waist. "No need to get snippy, even if you're right."

Deflating more quickly than an air bladder just popped, Red sighs wearily. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you."

"It's alright, mi amada." Regina rubs Red's arms, accepting the apology. "You're under a lot of stress and reeling from a loss no one could have anticipated. A little moodiness is to be expected."

"Doesn't mean I shouldn't apologize for being an ass."

"Fair enough. In that case, I accept. But only if you accept my apology for being just as much of an ass as you were." That earns Regina a smile, muted as it is.

"I can live with that compromise," Red says.

"Good." A sharp nod precedes clearing her throat and a redirect back on track. "With that settled, do you still want to hear The Evening Song?"

Red perks up instantly, eyes dancing with barely restrained excitement as she bounces up and down, her butt slamming into Regina's pelvis like a one hundred fifteen pound bony hammer. "Yes, please, please, please, pretty pleeeeease!"

"Alright, calm down before you knock us both off," Regina chuckles at Red's antics, then laughs outright when Red starts wiggling like an unruly worm just to be stubbornly amusing. She tightens her grip in response, wrestling the squirming monster until she is subdued. "Now then," she says when Red goes limp then huffs in mock surrender, "why don't you close your eyes and try to relax. And if you start to fall asleep don't fight it. When I get uncomfortable I'll use magic to get us both in bed. Deal?"

To her credit, Red does not act up again, merely yawns and nods listlessly. "'Kay. Sounds good." Her eyes slip closed for just a second before popping back open, her neck craning to catch Regina's eyes as she calls out her name. When Regina answers, she sweetly adds, "Thank you for doing this. I know it's an imposition, but I really am grateful. And I love you."

That does the trick. Regina melts, her insides turning into so much goo. The power this woman has over me ought to be illegal. And yet she loves it far more than it is bothersome.

"You're welcome, sweetheart," she replies from the bottom of her rapidly warming heart. "I love you, too. Go on now and close your eyes. I've got you." To emphasize the point, she snugs up her hold and presses another kiss to Red's temple before resting their cheeks together one last time. Then she starts humming the tune to the requested song and waits for the opportune moment.

When Red finally stills, her breathing settling in a relaxed cadence, Regina takes her cue. With a preparatory breath, she begins to sing the familiar Saxon lyrics she learned just for Red.

"Der Mond ist aufgegangen,

(The moon is risen, beaming,)

Die goldnen Sternlein prangen

(The golden stars are gleaming)

Am Himmel hell und klar;

(So brightly in the skies;)

Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,

(The hushed, black woods are dreaming,)

Und aus den Wiesen steiget

(The mists, like phantoms seeming,)

Der weiße Nebel wunderbar.

(From meadows magically rise.)

Wie ist die Welt so stille,

(How still the world reposes,)

Und in der Dämmrung Hülle,

(While twilight round it closes,)

So traulich und so hold!

(So peaceful and so fair!)

Als eine stille Kammer,

(A quiet room for sleeping,)

Wo ihr des Tages Jammer

(Into oblivion steeping)

Verschlafen und vergessen sollt.

(The day's distress and sober care.)"

As the stirring melody drifts through the room, Regina swaying their tangled bodies to the gently flowing rhythm, she feels a sense of serenity wash over her that she was in desperate need of. The horrors of the day fade away with every line of the beautiful lullaby. Robin's twisted, agonized face is no longer visible; the mounds of smoldering corpses and skeletal buildings of Tamerlon disappear into the shadows; and the sorrow she shares with Red over their mutual losses gradually secedes to the realization that they are still together and that tomorrow will bring a new day. No matter what may come, they will face the trials ahead and emerge on the other side stronger for them. Because together they can withstand any assault. Together they can weather any storm. Together they will rise from the molten ashes of grief, a mated pair of phoenixes the fires of pain and death and despair can never destroy.

Swelling with hope, she pours her heart and soul into the song, allowing it to carry her away on the wings of love for the woman in her arms.

Seht ihr den Mond dort stehen? –

(Look at the moon so lonely!)

Er ist nur halb zu sehen,

(One half is shining only)

Und ist doch rund und schön!

(Yet she is round and bright;)

So sind wohl manche Sachen,

(Thus oft we laugh unknowing)

Die wir getrost belachen,

(At things that are not showing,)

Weil unsre Augen sie nicht sehn.

(That still are hidden from our sight.)

Wir stolze Menschenkinder

(We, with our proud endeavor,)

Sind eitel arme Sünder

(Are poor vain sinners ever,)

Und wissen gar nicht viel;

(There's little that we know.)

Wir spinnen Luftgespinste,

(Frail cobwebs we are spinning,)

Und suchen viele Künste,

(Our goal we are not winning,)

Und kommen weiter von dem Ziel.

(But straying farther as we go.)

Götter, lassen uns deine Herrlichkeit sehen

(Gods let us see thine glory)

Auf nichts Vergänglichs trauen,

(Distrust things transitory,)

Nicht Eitelkeit uns freun!

(Delight in nothing vain!)

Herren uns einfältig werden,

(Lords, here on earth stand by us,)

Und vor dir hier auf Erden

(To make us glad and pious,)

Wie Kinder fromm und fröhlich sein.

(And artless children once again!)

Wollst endlich sonder Grämen

(Grant that, without much grieving,)

Aus dieser Welt uns nehmen

(This world we may be leaving )

Durch einen sanften Tod!

(In gentle death at last.)

Und, wenn du uns genommen,

(And then do not forsake us)

Lass uns in Himmel kommen,

(But into heaven take us,)

Oh Götter, bitte halte uns fest!

(O Gods, please hold us fast!)

So legt euch denn, ihr Brüder,

(So lie down, my friends,)

im Vertrauen hier auf der Erde

(In trust down here on Earth.)

Kalt ist der Abendhauch.

(How cold the night-wind blew!)

Verschon uns, Gottes! Mit Strafen,

(Oh Gods, Thine anger keeping,)

Und lass uns ruhig schlafen!

(Now grant us peaceful sleeping,)

Und unsern kranken Nachbarn auch!"

(And our sick neighbor too.)

When the last words have passed through her lips, Regina pulls back enough to chance a glance at Red. Dead still, breathing even, eyelids closed yet relaxed, lips slightly parted, she appears more a slumbering deity than a sleeping woman, like an Olympian wreathed in flesh, Artemis fair and lithe and powerful become mortal just so Regina can know the incomparable gift of her love and be given the extraordinary privilege of returning it. And that she does with an intensity that burns brighter than a thousand furnaces heated to seven times capacity until the end of time.

Nothing will ever change the way she feels about Red. There is no erasing or interrupting or dimming a love so great there are moments she can hardly contain it within her body due to the intense pressure, as if her chest is so full of love that it is going to rupture at any moment and spill out of her along with the rest of her vital organs. Nor is there any force on earth capable of sundering them forever. They are of one heart and soul, geistgebunden, as the elders of Red's people say. Soul bound. Even death will be only a temporary parting for them. Eternity is where their love will live on when this mortal coil has faded from view, and there it shall thrive in youthful vitality forevermore.

Unwilling to move or let go of Red for even one second, Regina tightens her arms around her sleeping wife, readjusts her shoulders, and settles in. Soon, her eyes also begin to grow so heavy she can no longer hold them open, as if her lids have been touched by some mercury-infused Midas. Her last thought is that if the woman who mercilessly killed Robin had a Red in her life, perhaps none of this would be happening.

The sky above Misthaven is a startling blue on the day Robin of Locksley is buried. A week and two days have come and gone since his death and with it news of Tamerlon's destruction. The blanket of sadness that rolled over the citadel as news of these events circulated has yet to dissipate. To Regina the gorgeous weather seems especially cruel in light of the bleakness that has rested over those who knew and loved Robin like a misty cloud comprised of a sticky uncertainty and a guttural anguish. It feels almost purposeful, as if nature is conspiring with their enemy to mock the grief of so many.

A sizable crowd has gathered in the courtyard before the Dark Palace for the dolorous event. Robin was almost universally admired. He was a man's man who was not above being sensitive when called for, ruggedly handsome whose enormous smile matched his generosity and amiability with kind eyes and the ferocious heart of a lion. Children flocked to him for rides upon his broad shoulders. Women, and a number of men, married and single alike swooned when he passed by them. The soldiers he lead into battle nearly worshiped him as much for his fair and considerate treatment of them as for the unerring sense of discipline he instilled within each and every one of them, all of whom he knew by name as did he the names of their spouses and children.

As to be expected, the people closest to him were the hardest hit by his sudden passing. His Merry Men left all they had ever known to follow him with blind trust into Misthaven after the Sheriff of Nottingham finally rooted them out of Sherwood Forest. That they were offered sanctuary in Misthaven would not have mattered if Robin had been in the mood to decline; it was only because he accepted that so too did they. He was more than just a leader to them but a friend and a brother who was as happy to shed his blood for them as he was to make merry amongst them. Now what once was a rowdy bunch of hard-nosed fighters, passionate lovers, and shameless revelers have been reduced to a lethargic group of discordant, drifting compatriots at the brink of utter fragmentation. Whether they survive this tragedy intact or splinter to the four winds remains to be seen. Robin was the glue that held their disparate and often at-odds personalities together; without him Regina cannot image the band surviving in any recognizable form. That said, there is no doubt in her mind that Little John will stay close to Marian and Roland, which means he is unlikely to leave any time soon since Marian has already expressed to Regina and Red her intent to stay in Misthaven rather than return to Tamerlon where the made their home while Robin was in command of the garrison there – 'Roland was born here in the citadel,' she had told them, 'it is his home, so it is mine also, therefore we shall stay.' John was set to fetch the Locksley's belongings from Tamerlon a fortnight from now. Of all the Merry Men, it is Will Scarlett, Robin's half-sibling, who is least likely to remain, his heart already being split between family and love. He stayed only out of loyalty to and affection for his older brother, but now Regina wonders whether or not he will soon disappear in search of his beloved, the long lost Red Queen Anastasia.

The many other friends Robin made during his years in Misthaven, such as Red and Victor, are faring somewhat better, though all are visibly submersed within one of the various stages of grief. In all things, Red wears her emotions on her sleeve, and wraps her grief about her like a terribly depressing shawl. She cries often and otherwise constantly appears on the verge of weeping yet again, as if inside her lies an infinite sea of tears. Regina comforts her wife as best she can, though her efforts produce only meager results. Red's normally buoyant demeanor remains subdued and her rare, hesitant smiles never come close to reaching her eyes. Meanwhile Victor is typically stoic, though when Regina glances at him there is a glimmer in his eyes that suspiciously resembles tears, which is surprising – Victor is not one to let people close. It was no small feat that Robin managed to get past the iron door erected around Doctor Frankenstein's coldly rational heart. But that's just how Robin was, every bit as stealthy with his friendship as he was in the woods, able to sneak up on a person without them hearing a sound before springing the trap, and suddenly he was there inside the walls, close to the heart, a friend whose humor, loyalty, and affection can only truly appreciated now that he's gone. Regina knows this because he snuck up on her the exact same way. Red, however, was a different story. With Red, Robin was the one who got ambushed. Turns out he'd never been drunk under the table by a girl before, or beaten fair and square at an archery contest, or lost five times in a row at a high-stakes version of hide-and-go-seek in Sherwood Forest of all places. Most men would have hated Red for showing them up that way, but not Robin. To Robin, she was to be toasted and given a rousing welcome to his happy band of misfits, the first Merry Woman amongst the Merry Men. One other female would follow in Red's footsteps to join Robin's informal crew, which turns Regina's mind to those absent due to prior engagements or the inescapable call of duty.

As the final well wishers and payers of respect filter by the stately coffin she paid for out of the Crown's coffers, she wonders how Graham and Mulan will take the news. Other than Red they were the closest to Robin outside of his family and the founding members of his Merry Men.

Speaking of Robin's family, Marian is doing her best to stay strong for little Roland, who vacillates wildly between inconsolable confusion over his Papa's disappearance, awful realization that Papa will stay gone forever, and that enviable childlike tendency to let such burdensome emotional tolls slide off their shoulders as if the loss is a mere inconvenience. He is only six years old. Far too young to be burying a parent. It pains Regina more than she can express to see him struggling so tremendously. His dimpled smile is one of her very favorites, and few other children enjoy the rare privileges within the Citadel he does simply because both of his Queens are wrapped around his little pinky finger. She makes a mental note to keep a close eye on the lad for the foreseeable future, as well as on his brave-faced mother, who is barely holding on to her composure as the bald, pudgy, lush of a friar affectionately called Tuck begins to officiate the solemn ceremony.

Marian is, without a doubt, one of the strongest women Regina has ever met. There is nothing at all about the woman she does not like or at the very least respect. While she and Marian were never as close as she was with Robin, they have enough common interests to have formed a solid camaraderie, not the least of which was their shared love of spouses who would just as soon be traipsing through in the woods on a month long camping trip, and that for leisure, as to enjoy their evenings in a house with all the furnishings one could ever wish for. Even if Regina had hated Marian, she would not envy what the woman is going to have to endure over the next several days, weeks, and months. Being a young widow in a world like theirs is a precarious situation, even for those with support systems as wide and deep as Marian's. Many reprobates and schemers lacking even a modicum of compassion or a miniscule regard for social decorum will try to take advantage of her grief. No doubt a line of heartless scoundrels a mile long will be vying to replace her dead husband in her bed within the week's end. Marian's financial stability has been shaken to the core, for while she is an industrious woman who is now sole owner and operator of one of the three taverns within the citadel, an establishment Little John has been tending since the family moved to Tamerlon due to Robin's assignment, the loss of Robin's sizable income from the army will mean she will need to make some difficult decisions – and very soon if they were beholden to any debtors. There is every possibility that barring intervention she will have to move out of their modest home near the inner ring of the citadel and into one of the rooms above the tavern's beer hall, all of which are inadequate for the mother of a rambunctious, adventurous, and impressionable little boy. An establishment where people are routinely getting insensibly inebriated and randomly break out into fisticuffs is no place to be raising any child.

Perhaps she will accept some aid from Red and I, Regina thinks. That is, if she can stow her pride long enough to see the logic in accepting it. And there isn't much chance of that.

However much Regina wants to force Marian to take the help she and Red can more than afford to give, she knows better than to try. Especially since that would make her a hypocrite. If she were in Marian's shoes, there is no way she would accept a handout. She would rather scrape by, starving so long as her baby was fed and his needs met, than to extend her hand palm up to take the monetary pity being offered by some condescending aristocrat. Pride has ever been her crowning character deficit, and it is one she has in common with Marian. Nevertheless, she determines to find a way to help the family currently under so much undue duress, even if she has to resort to underhanded tricks to do so.

Maybe a convenient tax refund? Or a heretofore undiscovered relative dying who bequeathed her a sizable inheritance? Regina shakes her head, clearing away her potential machinations as Tuck delves into what a good father and husband Robin was. The impassioned speech evokes the first visible cracks in Marian's previously resilient composure. There will be time to scheme later when a heartbroken wife isn't saying goodbye to her beloved husband. So for now, Regina focuses all of her attention upon paying respects as much to her fallen friend as to the family he left behind.

When the service is over and Robin's coffin is being carted away to his final resting place within the military sector of the Royal cemetery, Regina joins Red, both clad in black as the rest of the mourners, in escorting Marian and Roland along behind the ornate horse-drawn bier. At Regina and Red's insistence, the grief-stricken family are allowed for this somber affair the distinction, though they probably do not see it as such, of walking between the royal couple. The wide cobbled road exiting the courtyard cuts a lazily curved path through the rest of the citadel, the side streets and pavements are all lined with citizens standing outside their shopfronts or observing the passage of the procession with friends and family, all with straight backs and dour faces. Robin was not just a husband, father, friend, and beloved commander, but a hero to the people. His reputation cultivated during his days as an outlaw elevated him to somewhat mythical stature amongst Misthaven's common folk. Robin Hood, as they call him even here, will be sorely missed as one of the most outspoken champions of the disenfranchised.

Holding Roland's hand, who clings to his mother's, who is in turn clutching Red's with a white-knuckled grip, Regina strolls with a dignified pace several yards abaft of the honor carriage bearing Robin's body beneath the colors of his house. The golden lion atop an olive green background was restored to him along with his title by edict of the Queens, an order no one, however adamantly opposed, was prepared to rebel against. Behind them an impressive stream of mourners stretches beyond the curve of the main thoroughfare, a sea of people whose hearts have been stirred and whose wrath has been kindled against the enemy who so callously deprived the nation of one her very best. The witch has made more than one enemy by this deplorable act, and scores more by the destruction of the garrison at Tamerlon. There will be a reckoning, only the when, the where, and the how have yet to be decided.

At the thought of the heartless wench that has been wreaking havoc upon two realms, Regina's heart swells with defiant, acridly bitter loathing. The more she dwells on what has happened, the loftier her hatred grows until she is gritting her teeth against the urge to kill something or someone, anyone really, who has committed an evil worthy of death. How easy it would be, and how fun, to visit the dungeons afterward and carve out her acrimony upon some wretchedly filthy criminal, preferably a rapist or a murderer, to flay them head to toe and bathe in the glorious noises of flesh being shaved away from muscle and the screams of agony erupting from her hapless victims. Perhaps after she has accrued a pungent coating of blood she will feel more composed and less likely to allow the inner beast, now ranting and raving from the dark fringes of her psyche, to slip her suddenly rusty leash.

The dark turn of mood only breaks when Roland fortuitously peers up at her and sniffles loudly. His precious little face is streaked with tears, eyes enormous pools of despair, chin quivering, lips trembling, clearly on the verge of a hysterical, infantile fit of misery. With great effort, she stamps down violently upon her clamoring rage, cowing it and stuffing it back into the warped black box whose surface weeps liquid animus, the malevolent throne room wherein the Evil Queen rules upon a dais of wicked thorns and gaudy spikes of bloody iron. The door barring entrance to that place devoid of all warmth and light and goodness can never be opened again.

Taking a deep breath to master herself, she meets the young boy's eyes straight on. "Courage, Roland," she says, commending herself internally for this latest victory against her murderous, tyrannical, megalomaniac of an alter ego. Roland holds her gaze with a maturity that inconsistent with his age. "We must give your father the honor he has earned," she goes on, "and show him the respect he deserves. He was a hero and must be treated as such if we are to remain a civilized people. Later, there will be plenty of time to scream out our anguish and frustration to the seemingly disinterested heavens. Later, we can stop pretending we're not about to crumble into a million pieces. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes, ma – ma'am. I t-think so," he says, hiccuping around the words.

Not wanting to be overly harsh, she gives his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Good boy. When you are a man in your own right, you will look back on this day and be proud of how you conducted yourself in honoring your father. But for now, I can promise you that it won't hurt like this forever."

His eyes widen as if he has heard something astonishing. "You lost your Papa, t-too?"

"No. My mother," she says with practiced patience. Roland knows very well that her father is alive, having just went fishing with him little more than a moon ago. The poor thing is simply too discombobulated by emotional turmoil to recall that right now. Their arms swinging lightly between them, Regina offers him a soft smile meant to encourage rather than belittle. "Though she was not half so good a parent as your Papa, I loved her." She pauses then, brows furrowing before she continues, "My heart was sad for a very long time after she died. I missed her every single day. I wished I could talk to her again, tell her I loved her one more time, but I couldn't. All I could do was remember the good times," and there were good times, just not very many, though she does not mention that to Roland, "and try to remind myself that she did the best she could." Glancing down at the precocious little boy, she tries to impart any measure of comfort she can to him, even if it proves insignificant in the grand scheme of things. "You must do the same whenever possible. Try as best you can to remember the good times when the pain gets so bad you can't stand it anymore. Try to focus on how much your Papa loved you – and he did so very much, so more than you will ever know! Don't ever forget the things your Papa taught you. Hold on to them like they're gold. No, like they're more than gold, because there is no value that can be put on those things. And promise me that if you need me, at any time day or night, you will come to me. My door will always be open for you, Lord Roland of Locksley, and not only for your father's sake. I care deeply about you and that will not change just because this bad thing happened."

For a moment, Roland just stares up at her in awe, his tears ceased, now merely dried tracks on ruddy cheeks. There is a rapidly renewing strength in his eyes, an unquenchable fire of hope that reminds Regina so much of his father that she wants to cry, partially for sorrow but mostly for joy. Robin has not been wholly taken from them after all. Some portion of him remains in the person of his son, who Regina can already tell will grow up to be a young man of such indomitable character as to make his father beam with a pride that cannot be put into words.

"I promise. Thank you, my Queen," Roland says after a bit, blushing at having broken etiquette so badly. It is unbecoming for anyone to stare so long at a Queen without expressed invitation.

"You are most welcome, my sweet boy," Regina replies, giving his hand another squeeze as they share a smile that bodes well for the future.

Somehow, that impromptu little speech breaks the pall hanging over the day. When she looks up, Red and Marian are staring at her much like Roland was, though for differing reasons – Marian out of gratitude and Red out of that infinite fountain of love that flows from deep within her soul. The rest of the journey to the cemetery is accomplished in silence, though there is no more sniffling to be heard amongst the crowd. Marian and Roland's spirits unfurl like a banner held up into a brisk breeze, and the effect is contagious, passing from row to row, column to column, until the entire procession is a line of valiant faces are ready to pay tribute to the man whose acts of kindness and compassion have unified them all toward that one noble purpose.

The remaining portion of the ceremony at the graveside, while melancholy, is underpinned by that same surge of positive energy. In unison, they bask in the remembrance of man who would want his life to be celebrated with foaming ale and boisterous laughter, not mourned with endless tears. A man who would wish those he loved to testify to the indelible impact his life made by doing as he did: living life to the fullest, not taking a moment for granted, smiling and laughing whenever possible, and by surrounding themselves with family and friends and love – whose combined warmth can ward off the most unforgiving winter chill. So that is what they do. By unspoken agreement, not a single tear is shed save for the joyous ones that spring up while sharing stories about Robin and his many amazing adventures.

When all is said and done and Robin has at last been laid to rest, Regina and Red stay with Marian and Roland until they retire to their home with the Merry Men to feast and get rip roaring drunk in Robin's memory. Sadly, with many duties ahead on the morrow, Regina and Red must return to the palace, but not before wresting an oath from a reluctant Marian to come at once if she has any need of them whatsoever.

The next several hours are spent attending to duties that were neglected in lieu of the funeral. Regina spends several interminable hours nose deep in a quarterly report regarding the citadel's emergency supplies and once finished with that breaks open the seal of Mulan's first report from the border with Drakkenhall. The General's succinct information does nothing to improve her mood, which has waned precipitously since parting from Marian and Roland, and Red, who had kissed her farewell upon arriving at the palace so she could oversee repairs to a breach in the western wall incurred by runoff water erosion of the foundations. According to Mulan, the situation in Drakkenhall is more dire than previously suggested. Two more villages have been torched right on the other side of the border, making it clear to Regina that the witch is moving freely between the realms with zero regard for the danger such bold maneuvering poses. Only a deranged individual would do such a thing, or one absolutely confident they will not be stopped, even by force. Neither option is agreeable to Regina.

Only long after the sun has dipped down below the rim of the world is she finally free to retire from her duties. Expecting to be greeted by Red, she instead finds their chambers unoccupied. Worry niggles at the back of her brain for a while, though she dismisses it knowing Red's attention is probably still being hogged by a very serious issue. The western wall is the one most vulnerable to siege and therefore repairs must be completely not only swiftly but precisely and utilizing only the best materials and workers available. Work is ongoing around the clock, and up til now neither of them have had time to make a personal inspection. Red is no structural engineer, but she has a keener eye for detail than any human and has an eerie knack for spotting weaknesses in defenses, an ability that served her – and Snow – well while she was not in Regina's good graces. Which is why she was sent in Regina's place.

Surely, Regina reasons with herself, she is simply caught up in ensuring the work is being done correctly. That or she's pitched in herself, which isn't out of the question. It is the strangest thing how Red sometimes bemoans the lack of manual labor she gets to do since being crowned, as if she almost longs for days of an endless string of backbreaking tasks her grandmother used to assign her.

Knowing Red is likely to be late if that is the case, Regina changes into a light satin dress, ties a warm robe around it, and then settles beneath the bay window to read the book Red lent her a couple days before. She picks up where she left off in the oddly rousing and romantic tale of a snooty noblewoman who was abducted on her wedding day by a roguish do-gooder who plans to ransom her back to her husband-to-be for enough coin to feed the small community inhabited by fellow outcasts and tenderhearted miscreants. Lo and behold, the woman finds out her captor is not a man but a woman who was orphaned young, grew up poor and fell in love only to lose her lover to the violent tendencies of the husband-to-be, who it is revealed is the evil minion of an oppressive ruler whose excesses have nearly bankrupt the realm. The tale is rather trite and full of mawkish sentimentality, but there are elements that ring true and are familiar enough to make the yarn mostly enjoyable. Especially how the obtuse noblewoman slowly becomes aware of the suffering of the common people around her as she falls in love with a woman who is as afraid of loving the noblewoman back as she is angry at the world for the innumerable tragedies that have befallen her.

She is just about to the part she has been anticipating for several chapters now, where the hopelessly in love women in pointless denial are about to kiss for the first time, when Red finally slogs through the door. Coated from head to toe in a thick layer of sweat and grime, her wife is the picture of happy bone-deep fatigue. Regina sighs affectionately at Red, who shrugs and gives her a sheepish smile.

"I couldn't just stand there and watch them work," she says, and wisely does not protest when Regina promptly orders her to the shower posthaste, her nose wrinkling at the smells wafting from Red's direction.

About half an hour later, Red pads back out of the bathroom wrapped in a downy robe with her hair tied up in a fluffy towel. She ambles straight over to the bay window and sits down next to Regina, then wordlessly takes her left hand between both of her own. Idly, deep in thought, she rubs at Regina's wedding band, eyes cast down toward her lap. When she lifts them a minute or so later, there is more than just exhaustion there.

"I can't believe he's actually gone," she says, eyelids lined with the shimmering silver of tears she refuses to let fall.

"Me either," Regina says after a deep exhale. It seems surreal that one week and three days ago Robin was laughing with them about Roland's latest stunt climbing trees while chasing after the elusive – and hideously ugly – black cat the Merry Men dubbed Prince John. Now he's nothing but a cold husk, his soul having departed for lands unknown, rotting beneath six feet of earth that now seals him away from the open skies and thick grass and tall trees he so loved. "It's going to take time to get over it. For all of us. He left a gaping hole behind."

"Yeah." Red glances up at her, pensive. "I'm worried about Marian, too. Roland is tough and young, so he'll adapt. But she's just so, so sad. And vulnerable."

Regina nods in agreement. "I know. I've already had a talk with Little John. He's going to keep an eye on her. Chase off any potential unwanted suitors. Protect her interests at the tavern. Babysit whenever he can. I told him we would help however we could."

"Thanks." Red squeezes Regina's hand between her long, elegant fingers. "That was nice."

Regina shrugs as if the praise was unwarranted, which it is. Common decency needs no reward in her estimation.

"She would do the same for me were our roles reversed."

"Still," Red says, cracking a soft smile, "you didn't have to offer. I'm sure if the nobles found out they would criticize you for making yourself accessible to those, and I quote, beneath the charity of the Crown."

Most of the nobles never accepted their decision to restore Robin's title and grant him an estate in addition to his holdings within the citadel. They still hold a grudge to this day for his activities in Sherwood, some of them having been his beleaguered victims. Marian originating from humble farming stock did not aid their opinion of the Locksley's, nor did her skin color. Racists and elitists, the lot of them.

"Fuck them," Regina growls, then winces when Red's brow arches. "Pardon my language, but I really don't care what those arrogant bigots think. Marian is a friend. I'll do what I can to help her. If they object, well, then they can kiss my royal ass."

Grinning, Red bumps her shoulder and gives her a wink. "They can kiss your ring maybe. Nobody gets to kiss your tushy but me."

Feeling grateful for the reprieve from the gloomy direction of the conversation, Regina chuckles and returns the shoulder bump with one of her own. "Touché. And you're so good at it. A professional ass kisser if ever there was one."

After a mock bow, which is awkward due to her sitting down, Red chirps, "Happy to be of service at any time, milady."

Eyes catching, they both allow a quiet moment of good humor and mutual adoration to descend over them, enveloping them with the familiar incandescent glow of their love. As with all good things, however, it comes to an end when Red clears her throat.

"So," she says, fiddling with Regina's wedding ring again, a sign of nervousness if ever there was one, "any ideas how to deal with the person responsible for all of this death and destruction? I'd like to be able to tell Marian and Roland and all of those poor families in Tamerlon that we got them some much deserved justice."

Eyes sliding shut, Regina shakes her head and breathes out through her nostrils. "Sadly there isn't much we can do. I have Mulan at the border. Chances are she'll encounter the witch before anyone else. If so, I've no doubt she'll put an end to this with her typical efficiency. That said, I have a feeling in my gut that things are going to get worse before they get better."

"What do you mean?" Red asks, not bothering to hide her rising fear.

"I can't explain it aside from saying that this woman, whoever she is, is not a threat to be taken lightly. She is smart, she is ruthless, and she is powerful. If it weren't for the fact I hate her, I'd admire her. In fact, her tactics remind me a great deal of how I used operate in the Dark Days."

A shiver works through Red's slim frame. "That bad, huh?"

"I'm afraid so." Drawing her strength, Regina pats Red's hand reassuringly. "Don't worry, though, mi luna y estrellas, mein Herz und meine Seele. No matter what happens, no matter what that egotistical, pompous, brain-addled bitch has planned, I will protect you. I swear it. If I have to stand between you and all of the legions of hell, I will protect you."

"Oh, Regina, you don't understand," Red whispers, a solitary tear finally breaking free. It tracks a sinuous path down her cheek only to drip mournfully upon their joined hands. "I heard what she said through Robin that day. I know what she wants. And I know who she's really after. I love you for wanting to keep me safe, but it's not me I'm afraid for. It's you."

If only Regina had known then what she would in the near future, she would refused to allow those words to dissuade her from enacting the outrageous security measures she had been planning to institute around Red twenty-four hours a day. If only she had listened to her gut and let her paranoia do the work it was designed for, namely to safeguard the most important thing in all the world to her. If only she had not let Red's sweet kisses and tender caresses distract her from her most important job as a wife. If only she hadn't been such a damned fool.

If only...

[fancyfrey]

Castor, the Six Star Hero an OC centric BNHA fanfiction Chapter 4

Touma wants to become a pro hero. He trains every day and studies the special moves and techniques of pros and sidekicks alike at his part time job. But there’s one thing in his way: In a world were 90% of the population had some sort of super human ability known as a quirk, Touma was one of the 10% that didn’t. Touma was quirkless, but that won’t stop him from pursuing his dream of working in the hero industry like the rest of his family. This is the story of how Castor, the Six Star Hero became the first quirkless pro hero. 

'Latest age for quirk manifestation'

'quirk manifestation later in life'

'quirk manifest after puberty'

'test for psychic quirk'

'oldest age manifest quirk'

'late quirk manifest'

Touma's keyboard keys clattered with an anxious fury as he typed each question in rapid succession. Each search query presented him with less and less results that could answer his problem. His mother would know more, and through a mouthful of fruits and cereal bars at the breakfast table, he explained his predicament. Hotari took Touma's excited and confused rambling well and brought him to a quirk doctor to test if he had some dormant quirk that was only really coming out of the woodwork now.

As Touma was poked and prodded with strange measuring tools and scopes, in his eyes and his ears and even his fingers, the nurse made comments about how he was likely one of the oldest patients she was treating for a first quirk and not a quirk evolution.

When the nurse told him to sit back down in the waiting room, Touma sat by his mother who was reading a book. Touma was in such a rush that morning he forgot to bring his own book with him and was left twiddling his thumbs and tapping his feet in anticipation of more tests and eventually, the results.

"Calm down," Hotari said softly, resting a hand on Touma's knee without even lifting her eyes from the pages of her book. "Just a few more tests and then we can go out for lunch, what do you think about that?"

Touma nodded, "that sounds good."

"Oh, more waiting for test results, isn't that fun? I'm sure Alek and Xiameng are loving this." A voice sounded in his head. The airy voice of the snow boots lady brushed up against Touma's ear. He could have sworn the temperature of the room dropped when she grunted and rolled his eyes at him. Touma dropped his head in his hands and groaned.

Touma excused himself to the washroom so he and this mystery of a lady could talk in private out of his mother's earshot.

"Who's Alek? Who are you?" Touma demanded in a harsh whisper. The snowy boots lady leaned against the closed door of their stall and took off her hood, shaking snowflakes from her hair. She was wearing her parka with shades of grey and white in winter camo, snowboots, and a thick hat, as per usual. Her hair was tied in a braid that trailed over her lowered hood and shoulder. A strap of a hunting rifle hung diagonally across her chest. Snowflakes dusted the fur trim of her parka.

"Alek's that foul mouthed blond boy, the lockpicker from Germany. Not the redheaded one from England, that's Merlin. And I'm Natalya. Natalya Ozimmy." She gave a slight curtsy and smiled at Touma sweetly as if that answered his question.

Touma pinched the bridge of his nose. This was all so confusing and he didn't understand a thing. He leaned against the wall opposite Natalya and slid down until he was sitting on the floor in front of her. Their feet should have touched, but they didn't.

"You've already met Xiameng too, right? The dark haired acrobat from Hong Kong." Natalya asked. Touma thought to the girl he met on the subway. Her dizzying acrobatics, the soreness of his hands, the new pages in his notebook with a title that wasn't his handwriting. Xiameng said she was from his taekwondo class. Had she lied?

"That was probably Alek talking for her." Natalya interrupted Touma's thoughts. "If she said she was one of the voices in your head, you would have thought you were going insane, wouldn't you?"

Touma's stomach churned uneasily. "Is that what I am?" Touma dared to speak, as if voicing his fears would make them real.

"Have you ever heard of someone manifesting a quirk this late? Your test results are going to come back negative." Natalya informed him.

Touma hid his face from Natalya. "So you're saying, you're all hallucinations?" Touma asked, peeking at her face through his hair.

Natalya crouched down to his level, and sat by him, the sound of snow crunching under her weight. "That's what I thought too. But you're not crazy, trust me, you're going to be ok." Despite the cold of the air around her, Natalya's voice had a sense of warmth and comfort Touma relished in this whole confusing mess.

Touma looked at her again, she was there sitting on the floor of the stall with him, but she was also sitting against a tree in a snow covered forest. "You're not actually here, are you?"

"No. I'm in Russia, in the Ural mountains." Natalya said. Touma could see where she was clearer. In a forest blanketed with thick snow and light flurries falling from a sky that was just beginning to lighten with the sunrise. "You're in Japan, right?" Natalya asked. 

Touma nodded. "Near Tokyo.""Merlin said you were in London with him yesterday." Touma nodded again.

"How is that possible?" Touma asked."It's an effect of Serena's quirk." Natalya explained.

"Who's Serena?"

Natalya opened her mouth to answer but stopped, a sound far off on her side of the bathroom stall called for her attention. She stood up and she was in that snowy forest on a mountain again. "I'm sorry, I have to go. I'll let the others know to help you."

And just as suddenly as Natalya appeared, she was gone. Touma's phone buzzed in his pocket, his mother was texting him to come back for more tests.

A nurse greeted Touma again when he came back to the waiting room and led him down a hall to an x-ray room. Touma was given a lead coat to wear and was told to lay on the table while the nurse took the x-ray.

"Ah the infamous foot x-ray. I can tell you right now, you've got two joints in that pinky toe." A gruff voice taunted in Touma's head. Touma turned to find the blond boy who picked Ame's locker a few weeks ago standing by the table, a smirk on his face. Alek, Natalya said his name was. Touma pressed his lips together and turned his face away, not wanting to talk to him while the nurses were watching him.

"Oh, you haven't learned to just talk to us in your head yet? Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it, maybe."

Touma narrowed his eyes at the boy. "What, have people been giving you strange looks when you do? You know a trick I used to use?" Alek pointed to his ear where he wore a Bluetooth earpiece. Alek offered Touma a slight smile and waved him goodbye as the nurse called to Touma to say his tests were done. 

Lunch with his mom was mostly uneventful and none of the voices in his head came to visit him. It didn't stop Touma from turning his head in the direction of any conversation in the restaurant that were a bit too loud or were about quirks. The damned word ringing in his ear every time it was spoken, a beacon that tugged at his ears and stole his attention but faded back into the din just as he turned again and again.

"You're going to be okay," his mom called Touma back to reality. "We'll get the results in one or two days. In the meantime, don't worry about them. Focus on your work and training." Her warm eyes were crinkled by her smile. "And no matter what the results say, you can still be a hero, you know that, right?"Touma gave her a smile. "Yeah, I know." 

The next day on Touma's way home from his jiu-jitsu class, he'd visited Merlin again. As the subway left the station into the dark tunnels under Tokyo, Touma found himself up in the sky, clouds flying past the windows. He pressed his face against the glass and outside, a thousand feet below him was not Tokyo, but some unfamiliar countryside.

A smile split across Touma's face, stomach fluttering with a strange mix of anxiety and excitement, he had never been in a plane before. "Wow!" Touma exclaimed as he saw farmland, windmills, energy stations, rivers and boats pass by below him, this new view of the world was breathtaking and beyond anything he'd seen before.

"Can you please keep it down?" A voice behind Touma sighed. Merlin was looking at Touma like he'd just crawled out of a shower drain. His eyes had dark, heavy bags under them and his red hair was in disarray. His seat was alone in the row, a thin wall separating him from the other passengers, a laptop and papers on a narrow desk beside him and a blanket draped over his torso.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Touma's shoulders dropped and he apologized meekly. Merlin looked familiar. More familiar than Natalya or Xiameng felt, he couldn't quite place where he'd seen Merlin before.

"No, but I'm busy working." Merlin said quietly, his accent giving his Japanese a funny lilt.Touma looked to the laptop, portraits of heroes and villains on the screen.

"What are you working on?" Before Touma could get a closer look at the screen, his own hand shot out in front of him, slamming the screen of the laptop closed.

"Classified." Merlin said sternly. Touma stared at his hand strangely and then spotted a familiar logo on the back of the laptop. The emblem of the largest hero agencies in the world, a dragon clutching a sword. Looking back, Touma could see the same emblem on the shoulder of Merlin's sweater. Pendragon, it employed more than a thousand heroes and sidekicks in over a hundred countries, but it was most famous in Britain.

"Your accent," Touma began, "You're British, and you called Stormbringer your uncle...do you work at the Pendragon Hero Agency?" 

Instead of an answer to his questions, Merlin just scowled and with a shove, Touma was out of the plane and in a dark tunnel. Touma's legs were wobbly. Unlike Natalya and Xiameng who were nothing but kind to him and Alek who teased him but offered help, Merlin just straight up pushed him out of his head and left Touma alone, in the dark, alone. He didn't even know where he was anymore, the service lights on the tunnel walls around him doing little to reassure Touma's racing mind. 

"Haha, Merlin is a total jerk!" Alek's voice called out in the dark. A firm hand found Touma's shoulder and Alek pulled him close, a flashlight in his hand, leading the way. "He likes to keep his life private, but he's not that bad once you get to know him." Alek said as he led them down the tunnel, subway track at their feet. Alek was carrying a bag of spray paint cans that clinked and bumped against each other as they walked. "Here we are." Alek climbed up to what looked like an old subway platform that looked like its walls had already been mural-ed over and over again by different taggers for years. Alek picked out a space on the wall and slipped on an aerosol mask and started blacking out a portrait of Endeavour for his own painting. Touma chuckled to himself, seeing an iron on decal of All Might on the back of Alek's sweater. It was as if Endeavour was glaring at the blond hero.

"And you know Merlin?" Touma asked, climbing up onto the platform, looking at the graffitied walls with interest.

"Ya I know Merlin, he's been in my head for little more than a year now. If I didnt, that must mean I'm a shit twin." Alek laughed as he started spraying a large tag of letters onto the wall.

"You and him are twins?"

"Not really. But you are." Alek said. He capped the spray can he had and returned it to the bag. Then he pulled out another colour, shook it, and started applying another layer to his tag."You're turning 17 on April 24 at 3 am, right?"

Touma almost tripped over his own feet at Alek's statement. 

"That's correct, how did you know?"

"Because Merlin is also turning 17, on April 23 at 7pm. You two, you're twins." Alek said.

"We're not brothers...We're not even born on the same day though?" Touma said, skeptical.

"No, not the same day, but the very same second. Accounting for time zones of course." Alek said. "Same with Natalya and Xiameng. And me and Serena."

Touma's head was spinning. This didn't make any sense. Alek focused on his painting, picking new colours and standing back once in a while to admire his work while Touma tried counting backwards in his head, trying to calm down.

"You should get a Bluetooth like I did, if you don't know how to communicate with us without tipping anyone else off yet." Alek said after a while.

"Why?" Touma asked.

"Because Serena has only one joint in her toe. And this is all a part of her quirk," Alek waved an arm to the room around them. "But no one believes her. No one believes that she can talk to 4 other quirkless people in the world. Well, 5 now with you." Alek said slowly, a sense of grim and dread slowly creeping into his voice. "People wouldn't listen to her, thought she was crazy, that we're all made up and she's actually just quirkless."

Touma cradled head in his hands and shook himself, forcing himself to push through a breathing exercise. "I still don't understand. Is this even all real? Am I actually crazy?"

"I know, you're scared." Alek said plainly over his shoulder. "But if I say this is all real, isn't that just what a crazy person will tell himself?"

Alek tossed his spray paint can back in its bag and stepped back one last time, standing shoulder to shoulder with Touma. Engulfing Endeavour's earlier portrait was a figure's head with bandages over his eyes, a manic grin on his face and blood dripping from his tongue Angry black, red, purple and white script framed the whole thing reading 'Long Live Stendhal' in English letters. Touma recognised the words as German, but he understood it almost as well as reading Japanese.

"If you want to reassure yourself, you could search for me, Alek Grimm from Germany and Xiameng Liu Fan from Hong Kong. There might be some news articles about us." Alek shrugged. He looked around the room for a second, the abandoned subway platform melting away slowly."Go, now, don't miss your stop."

Touma was back in the subway car, a brightly lit subway platform and other commuters whizzing by him. He pushed through and got off the subway before the doors closed and walked up the stairs, leaving Alek and his dark abandoned platform behind.

"Look Touma, your test results came in!" Was the first thing he heard when he kicked off his shoes once he got home. His mother was leaning on the stairway banister, waving a large envelope for him to see. I'll let you look at it alone if you want." She handed it to him as he started up the stairs to his room with a quiet "hi mum," and "thanks."

"Wait a minute." Hotari pointed to Touma's ear as he climbed the stairs. "What's this?"

"It's a Bluetooth," Touma shrugged, "so I can do calls hands free." Touma said, blushing slightly.

"Cool," his mom said. "Dinner's in an hour, your aunt and uncle are coming ok? See you later."

When he opened his room door, Natalya was there, waiting on his bed. She was wearing a wool knit sweater, jeans and hiking boots. In her hands was an embroidery hoop and a needle with thread. "So the results are in, do you need anything like moral support?" Natalya asked.

"Depends on the results I suppose." Touma grabbed a letter opener from his desk and spilled the contents of the envelope onto his desk when he cut it open. Multiple tests, and they all came back negative for quirks. The last page was a copy of his foot x-ray. He had two joints in his pinky toe. He fell into his seat, refusing to look in Natalya's direction.

"I was right, wasn't I?" Natalya said, sounding unsure."I-- no, I don't. I'm crazy. I don't. I don't have a quirk. That means you're not real." Touma struggled to speak.

Natalya slowly approached and lay a gentle hand on Touma's shoulder. "I thought so too, once, years ago."Touma tried to focus himself, do the breathing exercises he learned from tai chi. He wouldn't allow himself to cry in front of her.

"Would you like to take a walk? Will that help you relax?" Natalya suggested. Touma looked up into her violet eyes, warm and reassuring. He shook his head and closed his eyes.

"I just want to be alone for a while, please." When Touma opened his eyes again, Natalya was gone.

Touma hardly touched his food that night. Despite his aunt and mother's questions about what he planned to do at school next week, whether he'd bought all his supplies yet, did he know anyone else who was going to UA? he gave them short, single word answers.

Back in his room, his negative test papers were still on his desk, a grim reminder that he was probably going crazy and he was going to have a hard time at hero school. Maybe he did need a walk. 

"Natalya?" Touma called tentatively.

"I'm here." A soft voice called behind him. 

Touma dragged his feet towards the door and opened it, presenting it to her like a prize. "I'm ready for a walk now."

Natalya smiled and followed him out.

The city was bustling even this late in the evening. People were waking on the streets, heading home from work or going out for the last week before school started again. All around him were people with quirks, transformation quirks that changed their appearance to that of animals or warped proportions, of emission quirks where people with hair of fire or a head of ice walked around, just existing. Touma turned on his Bluetooth just so the light would show.

"So, how does this work?" Touma asked, his feet leading him and Natalya nowhere in particular.

"We call Serena's quirk 'Twin Telepathy'. We can communicate with each other through it, share each others skills and knowledge. Visit each other, see the world through another set of eyes. But it only works for quirkless people. Quirkless people who were born on the same day." Natalya explained as they walked.

"Where are you right now?" Touma asked.

"I'm still in the mountains, I work in a rescue lodge. Rehabilitating injured animals and warding off poachers or helping lost hikers and skiers. Supervising the occasional military exercise. That sort of thing. But I'm also here with you." She replied.

"And you speak Japanese?"

"Not before I met you and Merlin. I speak Russian,  Belorussian and some Ukrainian. When I hear you speak I hear you speaking Belorussian. Do I sound like I'm speaking Japanese to you?"

Touma nodded. "Merlin can speak Japanese?" Touma asked.

"He studied in Japan a few years ago. Speaking of which, have you bought your school supplies yet?" 

Touma shook his head, so they started heading towards a mall.

While he browsed through various sized notebooks and different colored pens in a department store, Touma pulled out his phone and typed in a search query: Xiameng Liu Fan, Hong Kong. A few dozen articles came up that looked relevant, and some pictures of the girl he'd seen before came up as results. An acrobat and ballet dancer who, despite being quirkless, was a member of a world renowned circus troupe.

Touma felt a wave of relief wash over him. She was real.

"My parents were disappointed when everyone else in my class started presenting quirks in preschool and I still didn't have one by the next year." A voice spoke from the other side of the aisle. Xiameng rounded the corner, wearing a leotard, arms crossed and smiling at both Touma and Natalya. "Though everyone else gave up on me, my parents didn't. Quirk or not, I had to make something of myself. I found something I liked, trained hard. I had to be the best at what I did." She explained, Touma scrolling through articles as she spoke. He smiled at her, her accomplishments acting like proof for who she was on the screen, not just in his head.

"You want to be the best at what you do too, right?" She asked as Touma and Natalya picked school supplies and lined up at the cashier."I want to become a pro-hero." Touma said confidently, finally admitting his dreams to them even though they probably already knew. Them being in his head and all.

"An uphill battle, even with a quirk." Natalya said.

"But if I got into Cirque du Soleil, maybe you can become a hero." Xiameng said as she stretched.

Touma paid for his school supplies and then they left for another store, searching for clothes. With his bag of school supplies hanging from his elbow, Touma started typing into his phone again. Alek Grimm, from Germany. Natalya had to help him scroll down past a few articles about other 'Alek Grimms' until she got to a news report and opened the link for him.

The German text on the screen jumbled in his mind until he could somehow understand it. It was a local report on a dangerous villain gang. A quirkless member of the group had already served time in juvie and being quirkless, had his bail set lower than the others. Mugshots of the villains were displayed, the last member bearing a familiar face.

"He's...he's a villain..." Touma's breath was uneasy as he spoke.

"Thanks. Not everyone gets to have a support system. The world is cruel to those with quirks not so readily accepted by society, even more so for those who don't have a quirk at all." Alek said, his voice bitter as he pushed some clothes on a rack, looking at some faux leather jackets.

"You're a villain." Touma spoke.

"I didn't do anything wrong." Alek jeered.

"You stole a gun from a cop." Natalya scolded.

"It's not like I killed him. The other guy deserved what he got anyway." Alek shrugged and left the rack of jackets and browsed through rugby sweaters. "Besides, I've turned a new leaf. I'm not a villain anymore," Alek turned back around to face the others and struck a pose imitating All Might. 

"I am a petty criminal!" He proclaimed in a mocking tone.

Natalya crossed her arms and shook her head in disappointment. "Your tone doesn't match your pose. And your words don't inspire much confidence either."

Alek gave her a sly grin. "I'll keep working on my new image then," he said, slicking his hair back as if that would instantly make him look more professional.

"Bloody hell you're all very loud today." Merlin was sitting on a bench near the changing rooms. He was wearing a suit and tie, shiny black shoes and was clicking away at a laptop. A laptop bearing the Pendragon logo, he wore a pin on his lapel with the same emblem too.

"Ha, looks like someone's in a good mood today." Xiameng said.

"Please, my flight was very turbulent and I think the lobster was bad." Merlin brushed her off, not even lifting his eyes from the screen. "The hotel we're staying at offers fugu and my cousin and her colleagues tried it but Alek used my voice to tell one of them about a recent fatality incident. Now that sidekick won't shut up about how she might suddenly drop dead and it's much too soon because her rating isn't high enough yet."

"Alek, boundaries?" Natalya chided. Alek grinned at her and shrugged.

"I don't give a bloody damn, but I wish she'd annoy someone else about it." Merlin came to Alek's defence.

"You're not in London right now, are you?" Touma asked.

"Canberra. Australia. Hero conference." Merlin said flatly.

"So you do work for the Pendragon Hero Agency." Touma said.

Merlin looked up at Touma with narrowed eyes. He didn't say anything for a while, choosing his words carefully. "No, I'm studying hero law. I only work with heroes from the Hero Agency sometimes, acting as a liaison between the PHA and the International Committee of Damage Control."

Alek asked to see Touma's phone. Touma passed the phone over and Alek smiled at the Pear logo on the back, showing it to Merlin. Then Alek started his own search query and started typing on it. Merlin looked up at Alek with poison in his eyes.

"He's going to find out eventually." Alek reasoned and handed Touma's phone back with a picture of a group of heroes from the Pendragon Agency on the screen. Merlin was there, beside the British pro-hero Stormbringer, who had an arm around the young boy. Scrolling down, there were more pictures and an article about him, Touma's eyes widening as he read. Merlin had placed 1st at the sophomore year's U.A. High Sports Festival almost 3 years ago. The article spoke of some kind of earth and water quirk he used to beat the competition, praising the gifted boy who'd been the youngest student to attend the esteemed academy, passing the entrance exam and getting accepted into the school at a meer 13 years old and was a popular candidate for the next generation's #1 hero. The boy in the picture was very different from the young man who sat in front of him though. The Merlin from the article offered the camera a bright, toothy smile, genuine happiness on his face. The real Merlin sat at his laptop, back straight, shoulders squared, a stiff upper lip, tired eyes looking at the screen of his laptop like it had offended him. 

"I thought this quirk only works with quirkless peo--"

"It does." Merlin spoke, terse and acidic.

"Come on, let's go. He can catch up to us later." Natalya said, slowly urging Touma away from Merlin.

"Don't wait up." Merlin called after the group, his face illuminated by the blue light of the screen.

"I'm a little hungry, are you hungry?" Xiameng said after a while as the group walked towards a food court.

Touma got a health smoothie from drinks kiosk, and when he sat down, he saw Xiameng was snacking on her own protein bar and Natalya was eating a hearty stew which he somehow knew came from a pack of military rations."Ha, fitness freaks, the lot of you." Alek teased.

"You should up your game too. Or else you might get caught again." Xiameng said sweetly, teasing but not meaning any harm. Alek knew and just crossed his arms and laughed.

Touma felt someone tap his shoulder. A woman a couple years older than him with long brown hair and a lab coat smiled at him and made some hand signals at him.

'its nice to finally meet you' Touma somehow understand what the gestures meant in his head even though he didn't hear the woman speak at all.

"Rokuhoshi, this is Serena." Natalya introduced them.

"You're...you're deaf?" Touma asked, unsure if it was an inappropriate question. Serena didn't mind though and nodded, yes. She continued signing, 'I can hear you though. Or maybe feel is a better word, it's a bit hard to explain, I know. You five are the only voices I can hear, other than my dad. I'm happy you can understand me. It feels good to be listened to.' 

Touma smiled at her. "I'm still a little confused though." He admitted, though he felt better and was eager to learn more about the others and this new and interesting quirk. Serena smiled at him. Natalya, Alek, Xiameng and even Merlin was there sitting at the table.

"Join the club," they all joked.

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