#Kharence

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

Of course the things she says are never what she means them to be, even when she’s paced a tread in the shape of the exact words she ought to say, and so what she says instead is, so sharply vehement it startles herself, “You are a problem.”

Kharish blinks, mouth agape, with her great wide eyes—blue as anything, and Colette thinks with increasing despair how very much she has come to like blue, of late—and says, “Oh. That’s, ah. I’m… sorry?”

“I don’t mean—will you sit down,” she says, not in any sort of tone resembling a question, and laces her hands in front of herself to stop pulling at the loose thread on her sleeve, rigid.

“Is everything—”

“Sit.”

She sits.

“I’m doing this all wrong,” Colette begins, “so—just—know, that I know it, and don’t do—the thing, with your face, that you’re going to do.”

Some terrible slow amusement rising in the illuminated sun of her face. “A thing?”

“Yes—that one, that thing!” She points, exasperated, as Kharish puts both hands over the lower half of her mirth-reddened face. “I haven’t said anything yet!”

“You’ve said a few things,” she protests, “and I don’t know what it is I’m not supposed to be doing—”

It is exactly three strides to the chair, to collide, inelegant, with her knees (of course her legs are too damned long for the chair) (she is not thinking about—). Colette allows half a step backwards again to account for her knees. “Please. I am going to make a fool of myself, either way, I’m sure, but tell me anyway—what, or why, or…”

Kharish, lowering her hands to her lap with the kind of careful deliberate slowness of one afraid of making too sudden a move—which is perhaps fair; she is not doing an especially fine job of appearing any less on edge than she feels, and none of the things she is saying are the things she was going to say when she made up her mind to—but she looks at her, really looks, in her way. “I like your laugh,” she says, soft. “I can be a fool twice over, if you like. If it would help.”

There is nothing in the ribcage that should feel so tight and sweetly aching. And yet. And yet. “You do that regardless.”

She crooks a silly little grin. “And sometimes you laugh.” A tilt of her head. Colette has the sudden irrational impulse to take a thumb to that permanent crease between her brows. “…does that answer, or should I—?”

Yes, but now. She skates her fingertips over the lines aside her eyes, draws her thumb along the corner of her mouth, struck half-blind by the heady rush of awareness of her: every singing nerve, every erratic jolt of her pulse, every taut effortful line of tension as she freezes herself whisper-still. Hopelessly bright. Like the sun itself is sat in her chair, looking at her with—with—

“You don’t have to,” Kharish says, her voice low and strained and gentle, careful, “if it’s—if I’m… if you’d rather not. I won’t say anything; I won’t be—you won’t hurt me.”

“No,” she agrees, “I won’t.” It is not a matter, at this point, of if, but of following through. Momentum. Colette, the knuckles of her other hand white on the back of the chair, tells her, “You talk entirely too much, did you know,” which softens her whole face—under her fingertips, she knows precisely which muscles follow suit and when (sternocleidomastoid, trapezius, levator scapulae—), and, quick and decisive, she kisses the curve of her smile.

She hasn’t done this in—long enough. She can admit it is not a particularly skillful kiss, from her end, and there is the matter of working around her tusks, and she can’t bring herself to take her hand from the flat of her jaw, too alight and dizzy at the electric map of nerves under her skin, blooming, blooming—

Impossible to say how long it is before she breaks, jerking back, fingertips pressed to her own burning mouth as she inhales like she’s forgotten how. “You understand,” she hears herself croak, awful, “you understand I don’t—I haven’t—” She clears her throat. Marginally better. “Alright. Thank you. That was—not terrible.”

Which is yet again not what she ought to have said, or meant to say, but Kharish only lets out a high breathless giggle and says, giddy, “Oh, let me try again then; I can do much better than ‘not terrible’.” And then horror dawning as she lurches forward, to her feet, catching fistfuls of Colette’s robes at her hips to stop from falling into her, and she stutters, “I mean—not to presume it—if you—I—thank you, I thought it was very nice—”

Colette stares. And then she puts her hands on her shoulders to sit her down again, and she laughs—she laughs—she laughs—

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

if I can be a little embarrassing for a second here: cannot recommend enough making your favorite little guys in the Sims. I just had the privilege of witnessing Kharish enthusiastically dip-kiss Colette, who then made a beeline for the big clunky desktop computer to google "romance tips". 10/10 no notes

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

Laughter does not, in reality, sound like bells. Undeniably every laugh is different, but bells sound like bells, and while the flowery romantic language makes for pretty (if overused) metaphor, it isn’t often very true to life. Laughter is laughter; bells are bells. Given the choice, the former is most often preferable.

The laugh that she’s been chasing comes always a touch higher than she expects in brilliant surprise, clipped off quick with a cough as Kharish blinks at the ceiling from where the hefty collected works of a prolific Argonian playwright toppling from the shelf above has left her sprawled on the floor with some other chime ringing in her ears.

“Physical comedy,” she says aloud, almost offended. “Really?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Colette insists, crouching to touch her temple, fingertips light, careful. She’s holding her mouth studiously straight, belied by the laugh still lingering at the corners of her eyes.

“I’m wounded.”

“You’re perfectly fine.”

“Physical comedy is so much cheaper—”

“I didn’t say anything! I didn’t say anything!”

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

Kharish + 12 please!

12: candles

It took all they had to wedge a barrier up. Looking at it, from town, it doesn’t look nearly strong enough, flickering thin and translucent around the silent stone towers, a pale aurora across the sky behind mocking the staunch silhouette, and the faint glow of that awful sickly blue light pulsing still from the pinprick of the broken doorway, where poor Savos—

With a start, Colette blinks, her own smudgy, hollow-cheeked reflection briefly in focus in the window instead—ghoulish—she twists away from it and scrubs at her eyes with the heel of her hand. There was nothing to be done. There was nothing to be done. Even if any of them had been faster it wouldn’t have mattered, the way he crumpled easily as paper in the air, wrung out like an old rag, the snow below sizzling red.

“Mistress Marence?” She looks up. Kharish, with the split lip she wouldn’t let her touch—she’s thinking of them all in wounds, now. Mirabelle and the knee she twisted because she wouldn’t move until they’d shoved the last student out the gate. Faralda and her wrenched shoulder welding the iron shut in a grim fist. Urag with his hand and cheek studded with broken lens glass. Tolfdir’s bloody nose and violent tremors, seizing the whole damned bridge—“Yours went out,” she realizes Kharish is saying, one hand cupped around the flame of a short, stout candle.

She isn’t smiling; hasn’t, really, since she left to chase after the Synod. Something else that’s broken.

“Here. It’s better when it’s not so dark. How long are you going to be up?”

“How long are you going to be up?” It sounds an accusation. Colette rubs at her eyes again, starting to stand. She might mean it, if she isn’t careful. “I need to—”

“Everyone’s fine for now. It’s alright.” Kharish sets the candle on the round little table next to the one that’s already burnt out and lowers herself into the chair across from her. “You did a good job.”

She huffs a breath, hard enough the weak flame shudders. “Don’t. Don’t, really.” Her gaggle of adepts handled themselves better than she’d been afraid they might. Setting fractured bones and stitching shut gashes is one thing; it’s far and away another when you know the face under the blood.

“I don’t think the Hearth has seen this many people at once in an age.” The candle is almost shorter than the one that’s gone out, liquid wax pooling in the deep center well of it, threatening to drown the wick. She catches her eyeing it—puts out a hand to draw the flame a little higher. “Sorry, it’s—I know.”

Movement out the window. The uniformed silhouettes next to two more familiar shapes standing in exhausted attention at the foot of the bridge. Like a vigil. Like a wake—

Colette leaves the chair with an abrupt thmp to stand over her, takes her by the chin. Eyes darting to affix her gaze to the ceiling, Kharish goes very still, already half-braced. It doesn’t look as bad, with the blood cleaned off her mouth, but as soon as she touches her it becomes apparent she’s bitten her tongue too. Not clean through, and she’s been talking still, but it must hurt. “You should have said something.”

“What, for this? Not worth bothering anyone with. Especially with others worse off who had the wherewithal not to put their faces right in the way of flying stones.” There, just a twitch of a smile, rueful. “And I—thought I could try to fix it myself. Clearly couldn’t quite manage, though.”

“You haven’t even got a mirror,” Colette scoffs. “Stop talking a moment. —you need to be able to see what you’re doing. And of course it’s harder to do for oneself.” Flesh threaded into alignment, she pulls with one quick sharp movement, watches her lip knit back together and the startled gag she tries to stifle as her tongue does the same in her mouth. “Because you always know when to flinch.”

She lifts a hand towards her own face, running her tongue over her teeth—touches her wrist instead, fingertips light, just above the end of her sleeve. “Thank you.” She does smile, now: not as bright as it ought to be, but no less warm, a candleflame of her own. “I’ll have to see if I can find a mirror to take with me before I go.”

Of course it’s real. The woman doesn’t have a smile that isn’t real. Only—shaded differently. It would be easier if there were even one she didn’t mean, in some way or another.

“You shouldn’t,” Colette says suddenly. She lets go of her face, retreats for the chair, where her hands might burn less.

Her smile, too real, too soft, flickers with the wavering shadows. She would have already left if they hadn’t asked her to wait for morning. As if thin ribbons of daylight will make the destination forgiving. As if she’ll take the sleep. Here, instead, with her, with a candle more liquid wax than wick. “Who, then?”

No one. No one else. Is it so selfish, to want nothing changed, to want no one lost—her knuckles are white, fingers locked around each other. The dark robes of the Archmage going impossibly ever darker, sticky and staining under her useless hands. She can’t mend what isn’t there. What good is a body made whole again if it’s been left emptied?

On the teetering wooden table, silent as the dead, the light drowns.

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

cough. cut scrap from the little thing I posted this morning to end the night... it is still making me go :] so probably I will squirrel it away for potential later use. thank u everyone have a good night o7

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

KHARISH AND COLETTE 📣

(also asked by @unobtainableitem - thank you!! :'D)

o7 GLADLY 💙💙💙 under the cut for length... whoops 🫣

Which one:

chooses the decorations (and which one does most of the work putting them up)

part of being a Tall Person is cheerfully accepting responsibility for doing anything that someone who is, just for example, 5'3" can't reach. such as taking detailed direction on which garland goes where when the stepladder is in use elsewhere on the premises :')

makes up the holiday menu

we should all hope it's Kharish so that "taste" plays more of a role than "correcting the rest of the year's nutritional imbalances".

gets caught singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in the shower

laughed ALOUD at this one. I need to hear lore-friendly "Baby, It's Cold Outside" immediately. ahem. COULD GO EITHER WAY HONESTLY... I think they're both liable to sing/hum to themselves on the regular. awkwardness of this particular situation is only compounded by the practice of communal baths though because now presumably whoever's caught you loudly singing to yourself is also in the nude as you're going 8| at each other. nightmare

wants to take the perfect holiday photo

Lettie :') to keep on her desk. we can get a street artist in town for the holidays surely...

wants to go downtown, look at the decorations, and window shop

Kharish! ...is there a "downtown" in Winterhold. well definitely not like Orsinium. but she wants to see EVERYTHING and try ALL the food and learn ALL the silly little songs the town kids are shout-singing while they run door to door and throw snow at each other -

prefers to stay in and snuggle by the fireplace

...meanwhile Colette's favorite idea of a nice night off is "a stretch of time where I don't have to do anything, finally". however Kharish would agree this too is an excellent way to spend an evening (she's very good at playing the role of "pillow")

puts up the mistletoe (and which one tries to catch the other under it more)

very specific scenario in my head of Kharish putting it up in the doorway of Colette's office/the infirmary (the same room.) like :D and then going "...wait a lot of people come by here. hold on I need to move it now it's not for them ;-;" which earns a laugh 💙 she puts it over by a cabinet instead and then conveniently whenever she drops in Colette just so happens to need something from that cabinet what coincidental timing (this is not remotely convincing. but it is cute)

buys the ridiculous fluffy socks

Colette fhlskdfj. this is an environment where they are PRACTICAL. they require boots a size up or, if forgoing boots, make a person nigh completely silent on stone floors 👌

worries more about buying the perfect gift for the other [&] is better at buying gifts

putting these together because SOMEONE is always off running around going places and doing things and coming back with little "I just saw it and thought of you :)" presents, and someone ELSE has access to... Enthir's mail-order catalogue. (the worry is not necessary; the thing that makes a gift special for Kharish is the person giving it c': could literally hand her a rock and she'd be like 🥺!!!!! because of whom it's from)

is better at gift wrapping

I think they're both good at it... precision is key in both their areas of expertise! Kharish would tell you it's Colette though because "she doesn't even use a bone folder!"

holds the other’s hands to warm them up faster 

Kharish: oh your hands are so cold :) (<- fully an excuse to hold hands)

Colette: your hands are SO COLD (<- actually stopping everything else to improve circulation.)

has a particular Christmas/holiday special they insist on watching each year

I think once being a wizard doesn't get you the evil eye and turned away at the door the town kids' Old Life/New Life pageant should be a huge hit across the board. get some of the students in there on tech crew running special effects. a glittery explosion onstage has professors elbowing each other in excitement like "that's one of MINE" across the aisle from parents doing the same as little Helgi passionately delivers the speech of the sun she's been practicing all month. sorry this wasn't entirely the question was it but the answer is YES

tells the other they love them first on Christmas morning

this is exactly the kind of cheesy sweet thing Kharish is doing wholeheartedly but like... every day 😔 terrible morning person affliction of waking up first and using this to her advantage. "to start the day right!" she says. but never fear this is balanced out by every late-night return where Lettie's still up <3

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

It’s not exactly how Kharish had been planning to spend the day, but here she is, on the floor, trying to scrub the scorched imprints of a stacked set of fire and frost runes out of one of the study tables that’s been blasted apart.

Lucky: she’d been close enough to throw a ward around it to choke the resulting fire (in a lovely, if terrifying, shade of ice blue) out before it did too much damage. Not so lucky: the trio of students responsible for the experiment, shaken and singed in a few places, had fared a little worse than the books stacked on the floor by each of their chairs. (Not normally a place Urag likes to see books left, but this might be a special exception given it meant they were not on the table when it burst into flame.)

Urag had taken them to the infirmary, setting aside his lecture on why practical application of theory is better studied outside the Arcanaeum for long enough to ensure they’d be alright. She’d stayed. She’s a lot better at fixing books than fixing people.

Tables fall somewhere in the middle, which is why she now has a mouthful of nails and all four table legs lined up ready for reattachment.

The heavy scraping of the main door echoes from the front of the Arcanaeum. Kharish shifts the nails to one side of her mouth and says without looking up, “Think this is about all I can get with the sandpaper, Urag; I’ll put it back together for now, but if we can find some darker wood stain it’ll probably hide what’s left well enough—”

The shadow that falls over her is smaller than Urag and thrice as tense. She looks up, half-turned, to find Colette a full step closer than she normally stands.

“Ah—sorry, a study group got a little out of control,” Kharish says around the nails, suddenly embarrassed by the state of the table, which is silly, because she’s not the one who exploded it. There’s a smear of frost-speckled ash on her sleeve still. She brushes it off as surreptitiously as she can. “Don’t worry, I’m fixing it.”

“I know,” sniffs Colette, “because I’ve just spent half the morning fixing them.”

“Are they—”

“Perfectly fine,” she says, “and certainly not going to try that again any time soon. I left them with Faralda to relearn why explosive runes are not meant to be stacked; they’ll be writing lines for—some time yet.” She’s looking at her intently. Not a problem, by any means—she does this little head tilt when she’s thinking on something, birdlike; it’s sweet—but it does have a way of erasing whatever reasonable thought Kharish was going to have next.

There is an awkward silence as Kharish, for lack of something smarter to do with her hands, goes to pick up the hammer and instead smacks it skidding into her own knee. Which is fine. She can have meant to do that. She takes the nails out of her mouth and lines one up before trying for the hammer again (successfully this time). “Um”—truly, unparalleled eloquence at play—“do you know what they call a cod in formal robes?”

“So-fish-ticated, yes,” she deadpans, without missing a beat; “you used that one a few weeks ago already.”

Kharish blinks. “…you remembered how it goes?”

“No. Don’t change the subject. The fire—the little freckly one said you put it out,” Colette presses onward, arms folded, dark eyes flicking away from her for just a moment—she would say almost nervous if ‘nervous’ wasn’t generally her baseline state, as a rule—“and I could not help but notice you were—conspicuously absent.”

“Oh—conspicuously so?” She sits a little straighter, tilts her head in mirror, unable to stop her widening grin. “Were you worried about me, Mistress Marence?”

“I suspected, due to the nature of the incident, as it was relayed to me, that there may have been—other issues that, possibly, required my attention,” she corrects primly, the tips of her ears pinkening. “Since this is obviously not the case, I will be taking my leave. Goodbye!”

“I did hit my thumb with the hammer just a moment ago—”

“You did not! I said goodbye!”

Kharish rubs at her own cheek and finds it warm, still grinning after her as she flurries for the door again, all agitation. The fish one, she thinks, a little stupid, a little giddy. Alright. She can learn more jokes about fish.

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

Colette has just taken a bite of apple (rare treat that it is), quite absorbed in her grading, when someone over her shoulder says with an audible grin, “Do you know what’s worse than finding a worm in an apple?”

The unchewed bite is spat out, sailing inelegantly across the room to splat against the wall and then splop to the floor, before she’s fully processed the situation. A noise like a cat readying a hairball huddles in the back of her throat as she whips around with the rest of the apple bleeding juices over her hand, held aloft and prepared for violent launch at the intruder. “What did you do to the—”

“Half a worm,” says Kharish brightly.

---

“Sorry,” she goes to wipe apple juices from the bridge of her nose, “you’re right, it’s dangerous to laugh while eating. I’ll work on my timing.”

“I did not laugh!”