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coolcattime · 22 days ago

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Home and Free: Chapter Sixteen - Human Again

Characters: Captain Capsize, Sonja Firefox, Skipper Redbeard, Jordan Captainsparklez, Tucker Jericho, Tom Syndicate, Martha the Mystic, Mot Screziato, Alyssa Countybat, Waglington, Farmer Steve, Prince Andor, Jeriah, Lady Ianite, Lord Dianite

Relationship: Captain Capsize/Sonja Firefox, Captain Capsize/Jordan Captainsparklez (onesided)

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Full Story Tag

Though the memory of it had long since been forcibly removed from public consciousness, there was a time that the castle was inhabited not by a Beast and an assortment of animate furniture, but by a Princess and the staff that resided inside her castle. Normal humans with relatively normal lives, yet uncursed by a goddess.

On the morning of what would turn out to be the worst and most defining days of all of their lives, a day like any other was beginning to unfold. For Tom Syndicate, that meant he was experiencing an already mounting frustration as he was stuck in what was an increasingly recurring argument.

“Absolutely not,” He said plainly. He didn’t think it worth the effort to raise his voice. Though, why he was still having this absolutely pointless conversation was beyond him. He had made the same point every single time this happened, but Sonja appeared to have absolutely zero care that this argument was utterly repetitive. “I have plans today. I’m not staying here all day so I cook two meals for you whenever you happen to emerge from your studies in magical bullshit.”

When she had first made this demand, he’d been open to it. After all, it was meant to be a one-time favour rather than a continuous expectation. Now, though, he couldn’t even act shocked at this point. How could he be? Sonja had been acting like a stuck-up brat for years. So now he just found himself annoyed at how much of his time was wasted in this same argument.

The deep sigh from Martha who stood behind the Princess did more in pushing him towards snapping than Sonja’s audacity. He could already hear the wittering lecture she was going to give him later.

“You can’t speak to the Mistress that way. She’s a princess and the ruler of this kingdom, you need to treat her with due respect.”

He could hear it because he’d received the same lecture somehow more times than he’d had this argument with Sonja. Yet he could also hear her quick follow up point that he clearly hadn’t heard the words enough if he was still acting the way he did.

It was ridiculous though. If it was all just about titles and ‘due respect’ then his own title of Champion of Lord Dianite should surely put him on the same level as Sonja and allow him to talk to her however he wanted. But even that seemed beyond the point.

He had grown up with Sonja in this castle with the same man as their guardian. Even if he didn’t have a fancy noble title, he should be able to call her out when she was acting unreasonably.

Yet, even if Martha was the person most likely to make him actually devolve into yelling, she wasn’t the only source of his annoyance. Quite a lot of it was festering from the indignant look on Sonja’s face. When had she gone from a friend to someone who could look at him like that?

“It’s the first day I’ve asked you to do anything this week. I don’t see why you’re being so difficult about it,” She said, almost sounding proud at how much she was missing the point. She’d gotten progressively worse with just how often she commanded him around. Acting as if she wouldn’t have just replaced him with an enchantment by now if he was actually staff.

“Because you only ever demand that I cook you multiple meals when I have plans to leave. If you’d asked me yesterday, I would’ve just done it,” He would have to be an idiot to have missed the recurring pattern. He’d tell her a good week or two in advance that he was going to the town to see his friends for the day. He’d get himself ready to leave. Then suddenly she needed him to stay because she felt like having a hot meal that day.

It also hadn’t escaped his notice that whether he did cook a hot meal for her, she was never actually around to eat it while it was actually hot. Even if he started cooking exactly when she requested, she would disappear while he was doing so to do more research. Whenever she eventually descended from her private study to collect her meal, she’d complain about the temperature and that he hadn’t brought it to her earlier as if he wasn’t chased away by her any time he dared to try.

“So? I’m just asking you to do your job. Can you stop being so dramatic about it?” Sonja scoffed.

Tom bit his lip to stop himself from immediately snapping at her. However, the shaky breath he forced himself to take did nothing to actually calm him down and he snapped anyway.

“Seriously?! If it’s a job then are you actually going to pay me or should I just do it because you’re demanding it?” He pushed with far too much aggression in his tone as he took a foolhardy step forward.

Next to her, he truly did look like a peasant. He wasn’t dressed shabbily in any measure of the description. Though he was seriously dressed down as he knew better than to wear anything of importance with the route he took to town. It was far faster than using the road but riding through the tightly woven trees risked tearing apart his clothes. He wasn’t about to ruin one of his nice coats… again.

Still, the nice if practical clothes he wore were nothing compared to the finery that Sonja did. Of course, it was completely expected from a princess, but staring at it Tom couldn’t help but think it was ridiculous. It was an outfit just for studying yet she was still sparkling.

Yes, at this moment, it didn’t seem completely ridiculous that she was treating Tom like staff. But, and maybe he would regret having brought the fact up if she tried to actually take him up on it, the actual staff in the castle were paid. If she really no longer saw him as a friend, then why wasn’t he getting paid for the displeasure of her company?

“Thomas, maybe you should--” Martha had started in a careful voice. For once she sounded like she might have something actually reasonable to say. Unfortunately, Tom was not blessed with witnessing such a rare occurrence, as Sonja interrupted her tutor.

“Yes, obviously you’re meant to do the one thing I ever ask you to do,” Sonja said, taking her own step towards Tom. Where his had been a challenge, hers was a threat. She stood a head and a half shorter than him, and there was nothing particularly intimidating about her appearance. Yet she stood with a stance that spoke volumes.

This was her domain, and she knew it. She was without challenge the one in charge here. “Unless you actually want to be completely worthless.”

“Is—” Tom found his voice failing him unexpectedly. It was stupid. He was sure enough that Sonja didn’t actually mean her words. They were just arguing, she was saying things to be hurtful.

Yet he still found the question stuck in his throat. Even with his sureness that this was just a stupid, pointless argument, he didn’t want to have to ask if Sonja actually thought such a thing of him. However, what started as an anxious fear quickly began to bubble into a fierce anger.

“Is that really what you think of me?! That I’m worthless!” He found his voice. Rough and too aggressive, but he found it and that was what mattered. After all, if Sonja thought that of him, why the hell should he care about minding his tone?

“What else would I think of you?” Sonja’s words, as terrible and shattering as they already would’ve been to Tom, were made all the worse by how her tone lacked any kind of sting. This wasn’t a snapped retort, something he could write off as being said without thought. It was just a statement, the neutral tone of someone reading a fact aloud.

Sonja either didn’t notice the hurt in Tom’s eyes or didn’t care to acknowledge it. He’d never hated having indifferent eyes looking at him this much. It seemed that any warmth she’d held towards him had been long since snuffed. “You don’t know any magic. You refuse to learn anything to help with research. You constantly refuse to do the single thing that you can do to help. Frankly, it’s hard to understand why you’re even still here.”

He couldn’t even say her tone was cold. That would be so much easier for him to stomach than the callous nonchalance he was actually facing.

That was when something in Tom just snapped.

He started laughing. A terrible, bitter laugh filling the near empty hall.

“Oh, I thought the point of me being here was us being friends. No idea where I got that stupid thought from,” He said, words laced between his manic laughter. He just couldn’t believe how much of an idiot he had been.

All this time, he’d been living in this stupid dream where he and Sonja were still the friends they had been when they were kids. How could he do anything but laugh when it was laid bare just how utterly wrong he had been? “I’ll keep it in mind that I’m just unpaid help.”

He waited for her to argue back. Hoped beyond hope that she would argue back against him. To soften even the slightest bit and tell him that they were friends. For her to explain that she was just stressed about something and that’s why she was acting this way.

Sonja wrinkled her nose, and Tom knew that the soothing he hoped for wasn’t going to come.

“Obviously we’re friends Tom. Can you stop being difficult?” Sonja said, with absolutely no sincerity to her words. And Tom just didn’t want to listen to her anymore.

Before Her Majesty could talk down to him anymore, Tom spun on his heel and started to just walk away. Maybe, he thought, he should leave for good and never deal with her again.

“So you’ll be cooking then,” Sonja said with a stern tone that made it very clear that there would be consequences if she didn’t get the meals she was expecting. He couldn’t even laugh at this point.

Tom swallowed down his bite and anger, pausing in his stride for just a single moment. He looked over his shoulder, towards the teenage princess looking at him for an answer.

“Whatever you want, Mistress,” He said before turning and continuing to walk down the corridor, considering if it was worth giving her food poisoning so she wouldn’t ask him to do this again.

As he disappeared down the hall, Sonja watched him go with a frown. Deep down, there was an uncomfortable twinge within her that she lacked any explanation for. There wasn’t any reason she should feel bad. Tom acting this way wasn’t anything new, it was his own fault that she had to act like this.

Yet, as he had looked at her with disdain and called her Mistress, it had just felt so utterly wrong. But she bit the feeling down, though it was difficult and bitter to swallow, and turned around herself. She had more research to do.

🌹 🌹 🌹

Less than half an hour later, Tom was found by Steve in the kitchens. It was a shock to the man, as the kid was the last person that the gardener expected to see on this particular day. After all, Tom was never especially quiet about his plans and, for the past two weeks, had been talking non-stop about how excited he was to see his friends in town today.

So, yes, it was a bit surprising to see him in the kitchens when he should’ve left a couple of hours ago. He clearly had still planned to go to see his friends. He was dressed as he typically would to ride through the woods. So, the man found himself stuck on why the kid was still here.

However, Steve’s confusion only lasted a few moments before it became incredibly clear what had happened.

“You want lunch? I’ll make you lunch and pray to Dianite that you choke on it,” Tom muttered under his breath as he roughly cut up vegetables, more focused on working through his annoyance than actually attempting to make a meal.

Suddenly, it wasn’t difficult for Steve to understand why the kid was still here. He should’ve guessed that it would be because of the royal pain.

There were only two people in the castle that Tom would actually listen to. Mot, because the man had raised him. And Princess Sonja, because the girl was in charge of the whole place and the moment she’d realised that, she’d gotten a damn attitude about it.

However, given that Tom was so consumed by his annoyance that he still hadn’t noticed that Steve was even in the room, the gardener hazarded a guess that the royal brat had done something more than merely being demanding this time.

“You alright, Syndi?” He spoke far softer than he usually would, but he still managed to make Tom jump as the presence of another person was made known to him.

When Tom realised who had actually spoken, he straightened up, a little embarrassed at the state he had been found in. He tried, somewhat fruitlessly, to try and cover up how little he had been paying attention to the task he was doing. However, the uneven, half mashed vegetable slices were hard to cover up.

What point was there in hiding his current frustration anyway? It wasn’t as if Steve would judge him for it with the man’s own frustrations towards Sonja. But there was still a part of Tom that just felt stuck in embarrassment about the situation. A part still stuck on the idea that he’d caused this himself with his own naivety and stupidity. That was something he didn’t particularly want to admit out loud.

So, instead, he pushed it down. It wasn’t his fault. It was Sonja’s.

“Oh, I’m great,” Annoyance and sarcasm dripped from his words. The frustration that he had been allowing himself to wallow in finally getting its escape. “I’m meant to be seeing my friends for the first time in weeks, but her Majesty wants a warm lunch, so I’m stuck here!”

If Tom was being entirely honest, he knew that he could still leave. Sonja might be a magical whiz, but she didn’t have anything to physically stop him from leaving beyond regular methods. So, he could just stand his ground, leave, and have the day that he had planned. Show her that she couldn’t get what she wanted from treating him like shit.

However, that was where a certain itching fear came into play. One that Tom wanted to ignore, but just couldn’t shift out of his head. The fear that if he left right now in this head space and knowing at the end of the day he’d come back to Sonja even more pissed at him, that he just… wouldn’t come back.

It was an oddly uncomfortable thought. Sure, he was currently beyond pissed at Sonja and sometimes lent more towards this place being a prison than a home, but it was still the only home he’d known for most of his life. Leaving forever was just as much a fear as being stuck here forever was.

Steve walked up to the table where the kid was working, leaning against it.

“Doesn’t the royal brat do this every time you make plans, though?” He wasn’t actually asking the question. He knew the answer. Rather this was his attempt to prod for why Tom was so beat up about it that he seemed to actually be listening to her and ruining his own day.

“Well, yeah, but…” Tom gave a deep sigh.

He knew, obviously he knew, that this blow up had been a long time coming. It wasn’t as if Sonja had been all happy and smiles with him yesterday, but the idea that she would actually call him worthless still stung. He’d been left with an exhausted mix of emotions that he didn’t really want to deal with.

He knew in some ways that he was at fault. He could’ve pushed back against the way Sonja was acting earlier, but all the what ifs didn’t particularly matter at this point. “I just don’t want to deal with her yelling at me twice in one day, which she’ll do if she doesn’t get both the meals that she’s made very clear she’s expecting.”

He didn’t want to hear her call him worthless again.

“And I’m still expecting a lecture from Martha too. Lovely fiancée you’ve got there.”

“Just isn’t like you to give up on something cause you got yelled at,” Steve said, ignoring the comment that was clearly meant to get him off this topic. He’d known Tom long enough to know when he was trying to avoid talking about something that bothered him.

He was, admittedly, a bit worried about the kid. He never acted like this, never let the spoiled behaviour of the Princess bother him. So, whatever happened today was more serious than he was letting on, even if it was only serious to him.

But he couldn’t exactly force Tom to talk if he didn’t want to. He could try, but if he was resistant that was pretty much all he could do. So, the better thing for him to do was just comfort him and hope he’d get through to him. So, he placed a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me how I can help, Syndi.”

“I’m fine, really, I…” Tom stopped speaking as suddenly the spark hit him that there was something Steve could do for him to fix his whole day. If the man was offering, he might as well suggest. “You could cook for Sonja today.”

“What?” Steve responded flatly. He almost certainly should’ve expected the request, but he hadn’t.

The absolute last thing he wanted to deal with today was the royal brat. His goal for every day was to see her as little as possible and if he agreed to this, he was most certainly going to have to see her. But Tom was already grinning, and it was quite clear the kid already had his mind set.

“You know how to cook! It’s easy! She’s not picky. And this way, I get to see my friends and…” Tom began quickly trying to sell the idea. He tried to read Steve to figure out if he was going for it. Unfortunately, his lips remained pressed into a frown.

Still, Steve loved him. There was no way he’d actually end up saying no. Tom just needed to do a little more persuading. “And I’ll help out in the gardens for a whole week. I won’t slack off or complain or—”

“And I suppose you’ll have magic powers to help the plants grow too,” Steve cut in with a promise that Tom was just as likely to keep, causing the kid to pout.

Now, he was sure that Tom would help him out in the gardens for the week. Mostly because if he tried to wriggle out of doing so, Steve would drag him outside and force him to keep his word. However, he was just as sure that it would be a week full of the kid slacking off, complaining, and mostly not helping despite the story he was currently trying to spin.

Of course, an extra pair of hands was an extra pair of hands. Tom helping out in any way would be appreciated. Whether it was worth dealing with the Princess today was an entirely different question. Especially when he typically only had to deal with her twice a month if he got particularly lucky. “Do you know how much of an earful I’ll get if I cover for you?”

Whether the kid did or not, Steve already knew. He’d experienced it the last time Tom had done this whole song and dance to get him to do his job while he slacked off. There were very few things the man had experienced worse than being belittled and lectured by an indignant and far too powerful teenage girl.

He already hadn’t been the biggest fan of the Princess, seeing how she looked down on him for not having any sort of magical education. That incident had nearly been the straw to get him to pack up and leave. Martha had managed to talk him out of it, though it had been an incredibly close call.

And Tom, of course, knew of this incident.

He wanted to avoid a repeat, because he liked Steve. He was someone who made living in the castle still worth it. The last thing he wanted was for the man to quit his post because something he’d asked him to do had been the final nail. Especially when what he was essentially asking was for Steve to risk getting yelled at so he wouldn’t.

But Tom needed this. By the gods, he needed to get away from Sonja today. He hadn’t seen Tucker and Jordan in a couple of weeks now, which to him felt like an eternity. So, he needed to get Steve to cover for him.

“I swear I will be back before Sonja will want to eat dinner, so you won’t be caught covering for me twice in one day,” He began. He thought it was a good argument, but given how Steve snorted, he realised that he may have said the exact same thing last time.

But he could work with that. Play bigger, offer more. He would get Steve on side. He always did. “If I’m late then you can make me help out in the gardens for an extra week.”

It was at that moment that Steve realised Tom was truly desperate. And, though he was sure that he would come to regret his decision, he couldn’t really say no to him. So, with a deep sigh, he made his choice.

“I’ll be holding you to that. Go have fun with your friends,” He said with as much of a smile as he could muster. It wasn’t much as he could already feel the exhaustion coming from the attitude that the Princess was surely going to treat him with later. But seeing the smile that broke onto Tom’s face, he knew that it was absolutely worth it.

Tom threw his arms around Steve. Even though he had been sure enough that he’d be able to talk the man around, he still found himself beyond appreciative.

“I’ll bring you back something from the market,” He offered. There was rarely, if ever, anything unique on sale, but he’d be able to find something nice, he was sure.

Steve laughed quietly. He was a good kid.

“Just go have fun, Syndi,” Even if at times he was frustrating and could cause a headache, he was just a good kid trying to figure himself out. He deserved more time outside these walls than he got. Steve was happy to give him some more of that time, even if it came at a cost to himself. Being stuck in the kitchens for a day, having to deal with a far too powerful teenage girl yelling at him until she ran out of steam, well it seemed like a fair enough trade.

He'd be back in the gardens tomorrow anyway. So, he could smile as watched Tom run outside suddenly full of energy before he turned to the mess he’d been left with. If her Majesty didn’t feel like lecturing, he likely wouldn’t even remember today, but Tom clung to the days he had with his friends. He’d take the kid retelling stories of their antics while helping out in the gardens the next couple of weeks as payment.

Little did Steve know at this moment that this small decision made out of kindness would come to define years of his life.

However, had he known what was coming and the fate that would be inflicted upon him, there would only be one thing he would’ve done differently. Despite every guidance and bit of anger and resentment he held in the current day, all he would’ve done was reassure Tom to not worry about coming home late.

🌹 🌹 🌹

Tom had never been so happy that he’d learnt shortcuts to the town to cut down on the couple hour long journey as he was right now. He had made good enough time that Tucker and Jordan might not even realise he had been delayed.

Sure, he might have ridden far too fast through the off-road trail, but he knew the route well enough that he barely needed to pay attention to it. Thankfully, his horse was used to the route as well, so the only thing that had been damaged was his coat. It was, to be frank, absolutely ruined, but Tom thought he suited the ripped-up aesthetic. At least that was what he was going to use as an excuse if anyone questioned why he looked such a mess.

However, that thought remained in the back of his mind as he rode past the unoccupied farmhouse and into the town proper. Instead, he was just focused on the happiness of finally being here again.

It was not the town itself that excited Tom. It was a small place with very little going on. However, the freedom it presented him with made him crave coming back whenever he was away.

That was not to say that he particularly lacked freedoms in the castle. While Tom himself might have arguments to the contrary, he had far more freedoms than the typical teenage boy. But a place where he was near universally loved and had no authority figure keeping any sort of eye on him was always going to be a place he craved going back to.

As he rode towards the champion’s training grounds, there were already so many people talking about him, looking at him excitedly. And he was absolutely basking in the attention. Being a teenage boy, any notions of vanity or ego were lost on him as this was simply the attention and feeling of power he craved. The sort he saw Sonja receive whenever she hosted a ball or a gala or a general showing off of her enchantments.

If he considered a little deeper, Tom would not say he liked the townsfolks particularly. He, of course, liked the way that they viewed him as being great simply due to his title and the amount of praise and affection they would pile his way. However, he wouldn’t say he actually liked them as people.

Maybe it was just because he had little interest in actually living in the town, but they always seemed just a tad closed minded for his taste. As, no matter how many times he explained his want to actually explore the world once he was old enough to not be stopped, they never quite seemed to understand.

However, young as he was, he saw little point in dwelling on such facts or thinking so deeply. It wasn’t the slightly judgemental general population that he was here to see, after all. So, he could ignore their blank looks about his future and just enjoy their praise as background noise.

How could he think about anything negative when he was finally riding into the champion’s training grounds and could finally see one of the people he had actually missed. He dismounted his horse and gave an exaggerated wave.

“Tucker!” He called out, already unable to tone down the growing grin on his face. Sure, it had only been a few weeks since he had seen him last, but it felt like it had been a lifetime.

Tucker, turning on his heel to look at him, was too infected by his smile. He rushed over to his freshly arrived friend. For a moment, it appeared as though the two considered hugging. Ultimately, however, they just grasped arms and pulled each other close. Not a hug, but close enough for the two who were grinning widely at each other.

“I was starting to worry you weren’t going to show up, man,” Tucker laughed, making his concern sound less serious. It had been a worry though.

It was already noon. Normally Tom would’ve arrived an hour ago. And, though he wouldn’t admit it now that he’d arrived safe and seemingly without issue, Tucker had been close to riding out into the woods to make sure his friend hadn’t fallen off his horse or had anything worse than that befall him.

But Tom was here now, he no longer needed to dwell on such possibilities and could instead just laugh at his own worries and his friend’s lateness.

“You know I wouldn’t miss coming here for anything,” Tom said, hoping that his own laugh covered up any implication that he had in fact nearly not come.

He’d rant and ramble about it later, when he wasn’t going to be bringing the mood down. They’d likely sneak a few drinks, and he could go on about it then. When all three of them were mostly done messing around and just wanted to relax.

Though, thinking of that, he had been expecting to meet with two people not one.

“I see Jordan’s decided to be a no show, though. Has he finally gotten bored of me?” He joked, again hoping that none of his actual concerns showed through in his voice.

Tom was certainly not ready to either confront or admit his complicated and odd feelings towards the newest champion. Obviously, he considered him a friend, but he held very different emotions towards Jordan than he did towards Tucker.

He had originally written it off as Jordan being new and needing to get used to him. Like, he was a new person hanging out whenever he was with Tucker, being… passionate about his goddess in a way that Tucker never was about Lord Mianite.

Tom had gotten it, of course, he had been a young, newly appointed champion. Obviously, he was going to be attempting to prove himself to the point of extremes. However, Jordan had not stopped talking the ear off anyone who happened to stand near to him about Lady Ianite. So, Tom had, admittedly, written off the different feelings as annoyance towards the new guy.

But now it had been a couple years, and while he couldn’t exactly say that Jordan had mellowed out, he now knew his feelings held towards him were not merely annoyance. Even if Tom would not admit his feelings out loud and Jordan remained utterly oblivious to them.

Tucker, however, was neither oblivious to nor coy about Tom’s feelings.

“Don’t worry, your boyfriend hasn’t abandoned you,” He said, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

Tom squeaked, a noise several octaves higher than any Tucker had ever heard him make. The champion of Mianite started laughing.

“What the hell was that?!”

“You can’t say things like that! What if he hears?!” Tom said in complete panic, only causing Tucker to laugh more.

“Dude, relax. He’s practicing shooting. There is absolutely no way he’s paying attention to his surroundings,” Tucker said, completely fine with tempting fate because, even if Jordan had heard what he said, there was still absolutely no way that the man was going to realise that Tom was actually into him. Hell, Tom could full on make out with him and Jordan would somehow still be oblivious.

So, he felt completely fine teasing Tom about it for as long as he wanted. Call it making up for lost time given how little Tom actually got to be around.

“And, honestly, you might as well be dating. He is completely insufferable whenever you aren’t here,” Tucker did intend those words as another teasing joke. However, there was an undeniable annoyance that oozed through his tone.

“He’s still annoying you to death, then?” Tom asked as if he didn’t already know the answer. Given how much Tucker liked annoying him, he found himself grinning as he groaned in exasperation.

Maybe it was one of those ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ type of deals, but Tom had no idea how Tucker still found Jordan annoying. However, the last time he had said something vaguely to that tune, Tucker had gone into quite graphic details about why he assumed Tom didn’t find the man annoying.

Needless to say, Tom was not looking for a repeat of that conversation. So, he just allowed Tucker to groan and begin rambling.

“He has discovered that he literally can’t miss when he shoots an arrow, Tom. His ego has reached new heights,” Tucker complained. He didn’t miss, and was not a particular fan of, how Tom’s smile grew at his words. He was just thankful that he couldn’t read whatever was in his thoughts because he didn’t want to comprehend what he might be imagining Jordan doing.

However, while most of the time Tucker would be correct in assuming that Tom was thinking about how this new fact about Jordan made the man more attractive, his current thoughts were somewhere far more chaotic.

“I’m gonna make him miss,” He said with the smile of a madman.

He waited for precisely enough moments to see Tucker begin to smile, then began his dash towards the archery range.

Tucker dashed after him with an ever-growing smile. If anyone was going to disrupt Jordan’s goddess given powers, it was going to be him. By the gods, he had missed Tom so much.

Quite oblivious to the arrival of Lord Dianite’s champion, and therefore the beginnings of that day’s shenanigans, Jordan was preparing to shoot another arrow.

He had very quickly come to grips with his newly gained power. He had mostly been testing it with his bow, shooting harder and more ridiculous shots. Hitting every single one without fail, without even having to look. And he had begun to wonder if his power might extend to weapons beyond his bow.

He was admittedly a little nervous to begin testing that idea. He currently felt beyond powerful, and he wasn’t particularly into the idea of being brought back down to earth if he tried to do this with, say, a sling and missed completely. So, right now, he was happy enough to just keep using his bow. After all, it was a symbol of his Lady so it should remain his main weapon.

That and he always found archery relaxing. That was why he’d settled on waiting in the shooting range until Tom finally arrived. However, while he had originally intended it as a mild distraction, he’d been so consumed by it that he had noticed neither the lateness of his friend’s arrival nor the fact that he had actually arrived.

It was the exact blinding focus Tom thought ideal as he stuck his head around the corner. He could almost certainly walk right up to Jordan without him noticing. But he needed to pick his moment. Luckily, picking the exact right moment for maximum impact of a prank was his speciality.

Jordan took a breath, focusing on the bullseye of the target before him. This was so easy that he could do it in his sleep. He took an arrow, notched it, and prepared to shoot. He pulled the string taut. The arrow was ready to fly.

“Hey! Sparklydick!” Tom’s shout cut through the air and Jordan jolted.

The arrow released and flew wide of its intended target. Eventually it made its mark: a good ten feet back from the target stuck fast in the dirt.

Jordan stared at it, almost more perplexed than annoyed. So, clearly, he still needed some practice.

“Holy shit! He actually missed!” Tucker yelled.

Jordan groaned. He could already tell this was going to get rubbed in his face for the rest of the day.

Yet, Tom was smiling. He was absolutely intoxicated by the energy already. This was what he needed. This is what he had been craving. These were his friends.

He was going to make this day last.

🌹 🌹 🌹

The conversation outside the door was bothering Sonja more than she found justifiable. More and more she regretted that she hadn’t yet made her study soundproof to get rid of distractions like this. Here she was though, once again listening to a perfect example of people not caring if she was working or not.

“I just need a break. She doesn’t want to be taught anyway,” Martha had been rambling outside for… Well, Sonja wasn’t exactly sure how long. Since she had left the study, though that could’ve been any amount of time since the Princess had stopped paying attention to her words quite a while ago. It was certainly long enough for the constant distraction of her speaking to become an itching irritant.

How was she meant to keep working through her notes and finish this enchantment with the racket?

Frankly, Sonja didn’t understand why the woman was so insistent on being upset anyway. She’d listened to all the important bits of her lesson. The rest of it had been fluff. Fluff was nice, but she was busy and wanted to get on with her work once she’d gotten the information that she had needed. Martha got paid the same amount either way, so why did it matter if she didn’t pay attention to the full lesson?

However, she supposed that Martha liked to be overbearing and overstep the duties of her job. Like this morning when after Sonja’s conversation with Tom, she was incredibly insistent in suggesting that she go back and tell him that he was allowed to go to town. It had been maddening.

Tom lived here completely for free. All he did aside from occasionally cooking was bother her and distract everyone else from doing their jobs. How was she the one in the wrong for actually expecting him to cook for her? Because he was busy? Well, everyone else was busy too, but they didn’t try to worm out of their jobs.

It didn’t matter anyway. As always, Tom had refused to listen to her. She had seen him out of the window riding out of the grounds not even an hour after she’d told him specifically not to leave. As always, he’d shirked his responsibilities by passing them off to Steve.

Yet somehow Martha was still acting as if she was the person who had been unreasonable today.

“That’s fine, I’ll take over,” Mot spoke softer than Martha, though still loud enough to be disrupting to Sonja. He sounded as weary as ever.

There was a brief tugging guilt as she thought of how tired Mot always sounded. He always seemed to be the one that took everyone’s complaints and ended up picking up the slack when it came to the end of the day and the others decided to throw in the towel.

However, whenever that guilt began to flicker, there were always further thoughts that she piled on to smother it. After all, it wasn’t as if she asked him to do any of that. He took it all upon himself, so what did she have to feel guilty about? If everyone else did their jobs, he wouldn’t be so tired.

“I assume you heard her fight with Thomas,” Sonja rolled her eyes at it being called a fight, but as always Martha felt the need to dramatize.

Sure, Sonja would admit that she had raised her voice a little, but the whole thing had hardly been out of the norm for her and Tom. Why was the woman insistent on making a big deal about it?

“I’ve gotten the general gist,” She could almost hear Mot rubbing his temple.

She wrinkled her nose as she tried to figure out his tone. She was pretty sure he was just frustrated and tired as he typically was, but she couldn’t get away from the creeping annoyance as she could tell she was going to get more comments about being nicer to Tom.

Somehow, she was always in the wrong.

“I’ll talk to them both. Go relax, you deserve it,” Again, she could hear his expression. The same old tired attempt at a reassuring smile.

She hated how their conversation made her head swim. Why did they insist on talking right outside the door where they’d endlessly distract her?

“Thank you, I appreciate it. Don’t worry about the enchantment, she shouldn’t be onto anything dangerous yet, so I’ll try and talk to her again in the morning,” Martha started. She almost certainly said more, but Sonja was finally tired of attempting to concentrate through the noise.

She slammed her book shut.

Normally she would just storm off to her bedroom where she had different research and there would be less distractions. However, right now that would mean storming past Martha and Mot. She wouldn’t want to interrupt their oh so important conversation.

So instead, she just stormed out onto her balcony.

It was cold. The sting of winter had been gaining quite a bite recently. The gown she was wearing offered little protection. She already had goosebumps forming. She should go back inside to grab her cloak. However, her stubbornness wouldn’t allow her to do so.

She really should start enchanting her clothes. She knew from her studies that it was more than possible and there were various techniques to do so. It just depended on how far she wanted to go with it.

There were wizards, warlocks, and witches that created their own clothes that apparently allowed for the best flow of magic. From the patterns to the fabrics to the sewing technique, each was important to the end enchantment. It interested Sonja, but she wasn’t sure she was yet interested in going so far as to give up her finery for a little more efficiency.

It would be a good large project, she supposed, to figure out how to create a garment with more magical flow that was right for her station, but starting with something smaller would suffice for the winter months.

After all, it was far more common for those magically inclined to merely enchant pre-existing clothing. Common for how uncommon magic was, of course. They would embroider or paint enchantments onto their everyday clothes for all manner of protections. Surely, she would be able to use such a method to not have to bother with outerwear for the rest of the season if she so wished.

Of course, she didn’t actually have any experience in working with fabrics, so there was the very real possibility of her just ruining her clothes. But if that happened, she could just get Wag to either undo the damage or create a copy of the original piece. With creation magic, non-magical objects weren’t exactly in limited supply.

Martha, she was sure, would recommend hiring a seamstress or some other artisan with experience with fabrics to teach her techniques. An idea that Sonja would, as always, find laughable. What would a non-magical craftsperson really be able to teach her that she couldn’t learn herself through trial and error? At the very least though, it was good to know what the next thing that Martha would be annoyed about was.

Still, her thoughts were quickly consumed by thinking of what enchantments she wanted to have on her clothes. Another all-consuming project to block out the rest of her current projects, as well as any duties and responsibilities she held.

Until once again she found her thoughts rudely interrupted by a noise outside of her own control. At the very least this time it wasn’t an ongoing conversation that she couldn’t escape. Rather it was the door to her study slowly creaking open.

Here was Mot then, keeping an eye on her because Martha had decided her job was too exhausting.

“Mistress?” The exhausted voice of the man came from the entrance to her study. His entrance was as good a signal as any that she could return to her study and continue with her project. Mot, after all, was typically content to sit quietly and occupy himself while she worked so long as she didn’t do anything that looked particularly dangerous.

However, that project had already flittered out of her mind, and she didn’t care to keep working on it right now. Eventually sure, but the clothing project was now at the forefront of her mind, and she wanted to keep focus there.

So, she remained on the balcony, returning to her thoughts, caring little if Mot came out or not. Of course, he did though. He alerted her of his present by draping a fur cloak over her shoulders.

“You’ll catch a cold out here if you aren’t careful,” He said, attempting a laugh as if that would make him sound less concerned. It didn’t work.

Sonja found herself frowning. She wasn’t a child that needed reminding that her actions had consequences. Why couldn’t she be taken seriously and treated like an adult? She had the responsibilities of one.

“If you and Martha are going to have conversations when you swap over, you should have them further away from the door,” So, she ignored his concerns and went straight onto her own. She spoke shortly.

Even with her tone, her words still sent a pang of guilt through the man. He should’ve known that she could hear them. No wonder she was sitting outside.

“Martha was just—”

“I know she was,” Sonja cut him off sharply. Martha was always just concerned.

The woman’s complaints were basically just background noise at this point. After all, for as many as she made, she was still here in the castle. She was still happily enjoying all of the resources Sonja provided for her own magical studies.

If Sonja was truly as frustrating as the woman liked to make out, then surely, she would’ve already left by now. Of course she hadn’t though. She just wanted to vent about anything to someone who would actually listen.

Still, Mot’s attempt at an explanation had her wrinkling her nose. “You just disturbed my concentration.”

Mot bit back a sigh. More and more he found himself lost as to whether Sonja was truly as dismissive as she seemed or if she was just pretending to be to save her own feelings. Reality dictated that it was some grey area between the two, but it was quite hard to tell exactly what the blend was.

Perhaps he was letting the memories of her younger self cloud and soften his thoughts towards her current behaviour. Or maybe he was allowing exhaustion to exaggerate typical teenage behaviour. He wished that either one sounded like a reasonable explanation.

“We’ll talk outside the wing next time,” Still he reassured. He knew the others called it placating, but what other action was he supposed to take?

Sonja was the sole authority of the castle, and she knew as much. He held no noble title nor any power over her. If he caught the wrong side of her, he’d be out of a job and on the streets at best. Seeing that he still had Alyssa and Tom to worry about, he couldn’t afford such a situation.

Besides, even if he tried to guide her or give her advice, it was not as if the Princess listened to him these days. She’d just look at him like he was interrupting her. It was just easier and less exhausting to tell her what she wanted to hear. Even if it felt like the coward’s option.

The coward’s option saved his sanity.

However, he could not save it completely today. After all, he had told Martha he’d talk to her.

“About your conversation with Tom this morning,” He started as gently as he possibly could.

“What about it?” Sonja said flatly. She knew full well what Mot was trying to do, and she had no patience for it. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

Tom was always acting like a bother. All she ever asked him to do was either cook or leave her alone. Two incredibly simple tasks if you asked her. It wasn’t as if she expected him to cook for a gala full of guests, just for her. Yet he always fought tooth and nail to avoid cooking when asked and annoy her on the days when he wasn’t expected to do anything.

Mot could already feel the headache forming behind his eyes.

“Do you not think you were a tad harsh?” He knew he was not going to convince her that she was wrong in her demands. The same as he would not convince Tom that he was wrong for standing his ground. But maybe he could get her to admit she had been overly aggressive in her particular choice of words.

The wrinkle of her nose and her tightening grip on the balcony railing made that hope harsher to grasp.

“No. He was being unreasonable,” She said sternly, though she avoided looking at Mot as she spoke. She hated seeing his tired eyes. They made her want to agree with him even though she knew she was completely in the right. “All he ever does is mess around and interrupt my studies. What’s wrong with motivating him to actually be helpful for once?”

Mot was silence, no sighing or instant lecturing as Sonja had expected. The longer it stretched on, the more Sonja felt her resolve weakening. Still, she remained looking out from the balcony, off, out of the grounds to the endless woods beyond.

She would not turn around and allow him to win. If he was disappointed in her, he should say so she could correct him.

She was the ruler of these lands and their people. She needed to act as such a figure should. She had to be assertive. She would not be punished for finally acting as a ruler and dictating her needs.

Of course, Mot was not waiting for her to turn around. Nor was he planning on punishing her, even if he perhaps should. His mind was quite rapidly sorting through thoughts in an attempt to figure out anything that might salvage the friendship Tom and Sonja had before it shattered completely. He prayed that there was something to salvage.

“He did tell you a number of weeks ago that—” Mot stopped as Sonja tensed.

Fine, if she didn’t want to hear the truth, then he’d present something more drastic.

“Maybe I should arrange for Tom to spend a week in the town,” He said, using a regretful tone despite not feeling so. Perhaps if he made it sound like a punishment…

At the very least, the statement was finally enough to make Sonja turn around. Her eyebrows furrowed, and lips pressed together into a firm frown.

“So he completely neglects his duties and you want to give him exactly what he wants?!” She couldn’t believe what he was suggesting. Why should Tom get rewarded for being the worst?!

In quite a rarity, she did not find a sympathetic look on Mot’s face. Rather her own sternness was reflected back on his features.

“You said yourself that he keeps interrupting your research. It’ll give you some well needed time free of him. And he’ll have to fend for himself for a week, I doubt it’ll be a holiday for him,” Mot said as if he genuinely thought this would be a punishment for Tom.

Was it the best idea he’d ever had? No. Frankly he was not the biggest fan of the idea of leaving Tom to mostly his own devices for a week, but he could quite easily ask Jeriah to keep an eye on him. Even if the man would grumble to his face about it, he’d still do it if Mot asked him.

All he knew was some real time apart for the two would be good for them.

Sonja wanted to argue against the idea. She needed Tom here. If he was gone then she’d—

She’d…

She’d be fine, she decided quite firmly. Even if she still had some traitorous thoughts trying to object.

Tom was nothing but a nuisance. An annoyance that constantly and purposefully interrupted her studies and would never do anything helpful unless forced.

Any hesitancy she held towards the idea of him being gone were just illogical thoughts she needed to ignore. Silly childish thoughts she should press down and ignore. So, she looked to Mot as if there were no doubts in her mind.

“Sounds great. Arrange it for some time next month.”

Time away from the headache-inducing boy would be great for her. She’d get so much done.

And maybe an extended trip away from the castle and its magical conveniences she had created would make Tom realise just how good he had it.

He’d come crawling back… She knew he would, as she crushed the doubtful thoughts still lingering down with force.

🌹 🌹 🌹

The day, due to a combination of the clutches of winter and the amount of fun he had been having, went far too quickly for Tom’s liking. It felt as though the fun had barely started, but already the night was black as pitch. Not even the stars or the moon appeared to give respite to the darkness as the entire sky was covered in thick clouds that made the champion grimace at the idea of his long journey home.

“Why do you need to leave tonight? What difference will it make if you wait until morning?” Tucker asked what was really more a temptation than a question as Tom got his horse ready for the ride back. Given the events of the day, it was far more a tempting offer than it usually would be and leaving was never particularly easy.

The absolute last thing he wanted to do on this dark, cold night where he was quite certain it was going to storm was ride through the woods. He wanted to stay and keep having fun with his friends as everything here was far warmer than what awaited him at the castle. What waited back there was a mess caused by a Princess who cared more for magic than she did people.

Yes, he didn’t have any particular desire to go home. Unfortunately, though, he had made a stupid agreement that morning, so he was not going to risk being late.

“The difference is a full week extra of gardening chores,” He muttered. Why had he made that deal with Steve? He could’ve just left without saying anything and the man still would’ve covered for him. Instead, he’d agreed to let the man drag him outside every morning for at least the next week, the next two if he didn’t hurry.

At the very least, his misfortune entertained Tucker, who started laughing in a way that made it very clear that he was not at all sympathetic to his plight. To be fair, had their situations been reversed, Tom certainly would’ve laughed at him, but that didn’t make him pout any less being on the receiving end.

“Gods, you always used to show off about being ‘basically a prince’ but you’re stuck gardening in the winter,” Tucker’s words were choked with laughter, only egged on by Tom’s eyes rolling. He could remember so clearly the way Tom used to brag about the castle when they were kids, doing everything he could to make him jealous. How the tables had turned. “We’ll just be relaxing here, worshipped by the people.”

“Keep going. I’ve got rope. I can tie you up and bring you with me,” Tom said with a tone that Tucker only knew was a joke due to how long they had been friends. Hence, he just continued laughing.

Though the threat was a joke. Tom had often considered just bringing his friends back to the castle. They could probably be there for a good few hours before anyone noticed. But it was almost certainly not worth the amount of trouble he’d land himself in. Yet, today particularly, the idea did tempt him just as the idea of not returning did. The way that all bad ideas tempted teenagers.

“You don’t have to do the gardening if you never go back,” Jordan, who was usually not the one trying to tempt Tom into staying, spoke up. His words were a siren’s call as he gave a smile that tugged his resolve taut.

Lady Ianite’s champion moved closer to him, placing a hand atop of the one of Tom’s that was currently holding his horse’s reins loosely. Whether he knew the effect of his touch on Tom was up in the air, though Tom assumed he did not. Still, it worked to the boy’s advantage as his friend hung onto his every word. “I mean, every time you come here, you complain about that place and the way the Princess treats you. Why not stay here where everyone loves you?”

Tom would be a damn liar if he said he wasn’t tempted to listen to him. Staying in the town where his title was given the respect it deserved, and he could have all the freedom he desired sounded like a dream. If he was a less loyal kid, he might have actually stayed until Mot realised he was gone and got Jeriah to frogmarch him back to the castle.

But loyal Tom was. He wasn’t going to leave Steve with the trouble that was rightfully owed to him.

“But if everyone loves me all the time, it won’t be so sweet anymore. And if I was here all the time, they wouldn’t adore me nearly as much,” He laughed despite how Jordan’s easy smile flittering to a frown hurt his heart.

One day he’d be able to stay longer, he reassured himself. Today just wasn’t the right time. But he was getting older. Soon enough he’d be able to persuade Mot that he was reliable enough to stay the night here, he was sure. “Seriously, though, I’m gonna miss you both so much! I’ll be back as soon as I can, hopefully for more than a day next time.”

“If a month passes and you haven’t shown your face, I’ll storm the castle myself!” Tucker laughed as Tom pulled himself onto his horse.

That should’ve been the end of the temptations for Tom. As he began to ride out of town, he should’ve just been left to his own thoughts. However, rather than his own head filling with reasons that he should just stay in the town, he once again received them from an outside source.

“You know, my boy, there really wouldn’t be any harm done by staying for the night,” Tom nearly fell off his horse as Lord Dianite’s voice came unexpectedly into his head. Deep laughter echoed through his head as he just about managed to regain balance.

“My Lord!” He said with a relieved laugh.

It wasn’t the first time Tom had spoken to his god. If it had been, he certainly would’ve actually fallen. They honestly spoke quite often to the point of a relatively casual rapport.

That was apparently a rarity as neither Tucker nor Jordan had ever heard from their gods, let alone so often that conversation was casual. Nor would they ever have the guts to deny anything their god said as he was about to. “Well, I’d call being forced to do gardening chores for an extra week harm done. Maybe not on a godly scale, but I’d still prefer to avoid it.”

“Come on, let me be the devil on your shoulder. You deserve some fun, to cause some chaos. If you’re worried about getting in trouble, I’ll have a talk with Mot,” True to his aim and general nature, everything Dianite said pulled Tom into wanting to agree. If a god told them that he didn’t need to do gardening chores, then he wouldn’t have to do them. So why not stay when he’d been handed an excuse on a silver platter?

However, while Tom laughed and was tempted, he ultimately made the choice that unknowingly cemented his own fate.

“Thanks for the offer, my Lord, but I think I want to get home tonight.”

“Very well, my champion,” Lord Dianite’s voice betrayed none of what was soon to come.

Tom never found out if he knew, but the question of if his offer had just been a coincidence did linger in the many long years to come.

🌹 🌹 🌹

By the time he was dashing back into the castle via a servant’s entrance, Tom was soaked through. As he had guessed, a storm had begun to rage, and his ride back had been a bitterly cold one that he was deeply regretting as he stumbled into the kitchen.

“I’m back!” He called, sounding triumphant. He might be half frozen, and as delirious as that state implied, but he had gotten back while Steve was still cooking. So, he wasn’t going to have to do that second week of gardening work. He was absolutely winning!

Steve only looked up from the meat simmering on the stove for a brief moment. He knew immediately that the boy was in no state to take over. He just smiled and shook his head with a bemused sigh.

“Go get yourself dry,” He said, only barely managing to sound gruff. Though he had a couple of excuses lined up to chase the kid away if he tried to take over in his current state, Tom didn’t need to be told twice. He all but sprinted out of the kitchen and towards his room.

Dashing through the castle was second nature to him as growing up here had allowed him to memorize every passage – regular and secret – that the building held. He was pretty sure that he knew the place better than Sonja. That was to say that Tom made it to his room in under two minutes despite the vastness of the castle.

He had never been more appreciative of the magical enchantments the place held as when the fireplace roared into life the moment he entered. For as much as he begrudged Sonja right now, he could appreciate the enchantments around the castle. Nothing like spending a day in the town in all its mundane glory then riding home through a storm to remind him what a magical wonderland he lived in.

As he got himself dry and warm, the storm raging outside battered against his window. It was a noise that made him appreciate all the more that he was inside and out the weather. It was the noise he would use to explain, to rationalise, as to why he did not hear the banging on the door that night.

In reality, there was but a single soul who could hear the noise. This test was, despite who its consequences would affect, one only for the Princess. So, though she had no way of knowing, Sonja was the only one who could hear the banging on the doors that night. Though she did not realise anything was amiss. As such she ignored it for as long as possible.

Each one seemed somehow louder than the last, to the point that she was almost scrunching the pages of the book she was reading as she continued to try and ignore them. Why did no one in this place do their job?

She was a princess. She absolutely should not have to answer her own door. However, as the noise reached unbearable levels, she slammed her book closed. Apparently, she had to do everything.

With frustration already overwhelming her she began her way to the grand entrance with more a storm in her step than the one raging outside. Needless to say, she was not in a particularly charitable mood when she swung the door open with mounting rage and saw the soaked old crone before her. The old woman, holding nought but a rose, looked up from under her purple hood.

“Please, Miss. Some shelter from the storm.”

It was about then, when she had opened the door, that Tom left his room. Now warm and dry, his journey back towards the kitchen was not the rush that the journey out of it had been.

He walked casually through the hall, carrying a candelabra to light his way. With the distance away from the entrance hall that his room was, and his general meandering pace, it was no wonder that by the time the room was in earshot, their fates had already been sealed.

“Please! I’m sorry! I didn’t know! I—” He heard Sonja yelling. Begging. Sounding more terrified than he had ever heard her.

He took off at a sprint.

He could not fathom what was going on. All he knew was that Sonja was in danger and he needed to help her.

Their arguments seemed so petty and pointless as he was forced to hear such raw fear.

“That, my Princess, is precisely the point,” A cold woman’s voice replied to her cries.

Tom did not recognise the voice, but just hearing it shot a nerve through him. He could sense that whoever this was, she was more powerful by far than any of them. But like hell did that matter.

He was the champion of Lord Dianite. He would defeat any enemy no matter how powerful in order to power his friends. “There is no love in your heart.”

He rounded the corner onto the upstairs landing in an uncontrolled skid. He automatically reached for the banister to steady himself, only for shock to supersede his self-preservation.

Lady Ianite stood in the doorway before Sonja who was shaking on her knees. The goddess wore an expression that even years later Tom would have difficulty fully describing despite how it was burnt into his mind.

He only saw it for a second. It would be so easy to just say it was a terrible coldness. The wrath that only a scorned deity could hold. But he swore, he just swore, he saw a certain grief for what she was about to do.

But he only saw her for a second. Then he began to fall down the stairs.

Lady Ianite touched a finger to the Princess’ forehead and a dazzling purple light filled and surrounded the entire castle. Covering all the way to the edge of its grounds.

It could be seen from miles around, to the very edges of the kingdom.

The crew of a ship just off the coast swore that, for a few moments, there was a purple glow to the horizon.

Those in the town saw it unbelievably clearly. A pair of champions and an old soldier panicked for the only place it could possibly be coming from and rushed to get horses, forgetting who they were worried about in the first place before they could reach their steeds.

The rest in the castle panicked. None but Tom and the Princess had any context for what was going on as they were suddenly blinded and lost all feeling in their bodies.

Tom only knew he was still falling from the clattering of the candelabra so close to his ear. What he knew should’ve been a painful fall lacked any hurt at all. Yet he was already in such a nightmare that he could not even be scared about that fact.

The light finally faded, though the sight he was left with did nought to comfort the boy.

Everything was impossibly large. Either he had hit his head badly or he’d been shrunk. The way his body felt alien and stiff did nothing to tell him which was more likely.

Yet, somehow, whatever had happened to him was not his biggest concern.

Where Sonja had been before the goddess, there now knelt a Beast.

Tom could describe it in no other way. It was terrifyingly large. As much a bear as a fox as a cat as a wolf as a devil. No singular animal. Nothing akin to anything he had ever seen before. Just a Beast.

And it wore Sonja’s sparkling dress.

The Beast spoke no more apologies, shell shocked and terrified. Her cries half-transformed against her will into growls as her mouth and throat were no longer hers.

The goddess looked down at her, twirling a now glowing rose gently between two fingers.

“This rose will act as a timer for this curse on yourself, your home, and those that dwell within. By the time the last petal falls, you must learn to love another and earn their love in return. Only then will the spell break.”

The goddess paused, placing the flower on the ground before the Beast.

“If you don’t, then you shall remain a Beast for the rest of time.”

With those final horrifying words, the goddess turned away. She stepped back out into the storm and disappeared as if dissolved by the rain.

🌹 🌹 🌹

Sonja finally fell silent. The story was finally told. At least as much as she could tell without losing any chance of the curse breaking.

She had told every terrible thing she had done. All she had kept hidden was her own humanity and the knowledge of the curse being able to be broken. Perhaps it was wrong of her when Capsize had laid everything bare for her, but that part of the truth would do nothing but place a burden on her shoulders that already weighed down everyone else in the castle and put the others’ possibility of restoration at risk.

Could real love even form if you know the other will be doomed if you don’t love them enough?

For as much as Sonja still doubted her own deserving, her own ability to love, and even the slightest possibility of Capsize loving one as selfish and terrible as her; she still could not risk her knowing that bit of truth.

It was not of importance anyway. The point of the story was the terrible act she had done, how selfish and unsympathetic she had been. How needlessly cruel she had been to a stranger that just needed help. What a terrible fate she had inflicted on all those around her.

The point was that Capsize’s goddess had seen her as such a heartless person that the curse had been necessary to teach her.

The silence stretched, horrible and sickening. The crackling of the bonfire was no longer a warm comfort as she awaited Capsize’s reaction. As she waited for the woman who had become such a light in her life to look up at her with scorn that she rightfully deserved.

Finally, the moment came. Capsize looked at her with reddened eyes. Sonja braced herself for what was to come.

Capsize spoke with a soft, shaking voice.

“I’m so sorry.”

#mianite #mianite fanfiction #cat's fanfiction #sonja firefoxx #sonja firefoxx/captain capsize #captain capsize #mianite batb au #foxxsize #tom syndicate #martha the mystic #farmer steve #tucker iijeriichoii #jordan captainsparklez #mot screziato #lord dianite #lady ianite #the chapter that has inspired such a what if scenario in my head #also this one has a long ass author's note on ao3 if you wanna hear me ramble for a little bit about my concept and thoughts for the chapte

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coolcattime · 4 months ago

Text

Home and Free: Chapter Fourteen - New, and a Bit Alarming

Relationship: Captain Capsize/Sonja Firefox, Captain Capsize/Jordan Captainsparklez (onesided)

AO3 Link

Full Story Tag

Though winter had well and truly set in, Capsize didn’t feel the isolation that she had felt during the season for the two years previous. While she was more physically isolated from the world at large than she had ever been, it certainly didn’t feel that way to her.

For as long as she could remember, she had always been surrounded by people. Ianerea was a tightly knit community, built upon tradition and superstitions. Leaving children alone was a good way for them to get stolen away by the fae or syrens or whatever ghost story the elders wanted to tell that week. So even when their parents had been out at sea, she and Red had never been left to their own devices. Then once they had gotten old enough that they hadn’t needed a babysitter and could explore by themselves, there was always a crowd at least somewhere on Ianerea.

Then, of course, she had never been alone when she had been on ships. She and Red had arguably been taken aboard too young. Young enough that even saying ‘arguably’ felt charitable. There had certainly been people ready and willing to look after them both while their parents were sailing, but that was the type of people there were, she supposed. Preferred to have them trained on ships than risk them not wanting to sail later in life. Gods, they were probably rolling in their graves knowing that they were both landlocked. But that mattered little. The main point was that growing up she could hardly recall a moment where she had been alone.

Even in the quietest of moments there had been Ianite. Her goddess who had become her friend. She’d always been there to talk if there had been even the tiniest possibly of her being lonely.

The change when she had moved to the town had felt so stark.

It wasn’t as if the town was devoid of people. For a town of its size, it was frankly brimming with them, but that did not stop the terrible isolation from settling in. The amount of people milling around hadn’t stopped her from feeling utterly alone. No matter how many people there were, it didn’t make up for the fact that they just seemed to dislike her very way of being.

Winter in the town had been hellish. At least in the warmer months she had the option of wandering to the river to clear her mind. She knew that going off somewhere to be alone wasn’t in any way saving her from isolation, but it had been a comfort in the warmer months to be able to escape however briefly from the suffocating place. However, with the short daylight hours and icy roads of winter it just wasn’t an option. Without it, she had struggled to maintain her sanity even with Redbeard and Jeriah.

The worst part was that even Ianite had fallen silent. She would pray and even just talk to herself on the days when Redbeard was out of town, but for the first time in her life there was no reply.

So, winter had become a season that she dreaded. However, the terrible isolation she had expected hadn’t set in this year.

It felt almost odd. The castle had less people living in it than anywhere she had ever been before, but she had more friends here than she had had in years. Possibly more than she’d had at any point in her life. Those feelings of isolation and self-doubt almost felt like they were just a distant dream, though obviously she knew that they hadn’t been. It was just that the happiness of finally being able to act like herself without the judgement of those around her, without the constant whisperings and stares, was intoxicatingly wonderful.

She was, in fact, sure of herself for what felt like the first time in nearly three years now. She didn’t have any reason to hide parts of herself anymore. Despite every self-conscious thought she had carried with her in the back of her mind, she wasn’t being treated like an oddity here. And, yes, she acknowledged that said people living here were a host of living objects and a Beast. That if anyone from the outside world saw them, they would be treated far worse than oddities. But they were her friends. That was far more than she could say for any of the apparently normal people from the town.

Every time she thought of them as her friends, she felt a smile creeping onto her face. She just felt so happy now. Obviously, she’d made friends before, she wasn’t going to deny that fact. However, how the castle had originally been a place that felt so utterly cold and hollow, just made all the friends she now had here feel all the warmer. So, even though she was further from civilization than she had ever felt, and she was around fewer people than she ever had been, the sense of isolation that had been gnawing away at her mind for so long now had all but disappeared. Despite all her expectations, she was happy here.

Of course, she still had feelings of unhappiness for how she had come to be in the castle in the first place. They were quieter now though. She couldn’t resent her circumstances, not the way she had resented the town.

She did still find herself wondering why Ianite had become so quiet. It had been so long since she had heard her voice. At this point, she wasn’t even sure that it had been her goddess that she heard that night in the West Wing rather than her own imagination. But Ianite being unresponsive was not due to her being here, it just stuck out even more now.

With the self-doubt and general feeling of isolation gone, the main thing that had begun to scratch and itch at her mind was all the questions. The magic of the castle was truly beyond anything she had seen or even heard about. How could she not have questions?

She had gained some explanations on the topic. Sonja was all too happy to explain any of the enchantments that she asked about with such feverous passion that Capsize found herself listening in complete awe. Even though some of the explanations felt completely beyond her, she found more enjoyment in feeling lost by them than she did in a great many other things.

However, there were still a great many things she was still questioning. Those were the questions that everyone seemed quite reluctant to answer. Namely, what precisely were the enchantments had been done to create the sentient objects that made up the majority of the residents of this place.

She hadn’t asked these questions directly. She felt that it was a little, well, rude to ask people how they had been crafted. But she couldn’t help but keep wondering. After all, to her knowledge, there should be a way for them to exist. Not without an extremely potent source of magic continuously fuelling them and she was yet to find anything of the sort. Though obviously her own knowledge of magic was limited, so perhaps there were more advanced techniques that she was simply unaware of.

However, the longer she went without any explanation, the more questions that began to pile up. Because they were people. Their different personalities and relationships felt far too intricate to just be crafted. And considering some of the knowledge that they possessed, it was impossible for her to believe that Sonja had created them.

She wasn’t doubting that Sonja was knowledgeable about a great many things, however, her knowledge on the town seemed non-existent. She was so curious about any piece of information Capsize shared of the place, as she seemed curious about her life in general. She’d ask questions about the town in the same tone that Capsize found herself asking about magic and enchantment, lost but wanting to learn anything that she can.

So, if she didn’t know about the town herself, it wasn’t something she could have given her creations knowledge of. So, the logical answer was that she hadn’t made the other residents of the castle. Though that still left the obvious question of who had created them. That felt like an impossible question to answer as all the other enchantments in the castle had been done by Sonja, but it was impossible to deny that the enchanted objects felt so utterly different than any of the other enchantments. Which meant the most logical answer to the bigger mystery Capsize had found about this place was that a mysterious stranger had appeared and done this which didn’t really feel satisfying. But she supposed that life rarely was.

The lack of satisfying answers itched within her thoughts and annoyed her to no end. However, she did her best to put her thoughts to the back of her mind. She did want to know the answer, but if she kept thinking on it all the time, she would drive herself mad. Why let herself be consumed by such a thing when she had a whole library to explore?

The library was truly wonderful. It had enough books to last her a lifetime, enough that she had been exploring the shelves for days now and still had barely made a dent in exploring the room as a whole. In a way, the idea that the room was hers still felt somewhat wrong. It was hard to process that she could deserve such a gift. She knew that was a less than healthy thought but thought patterns were unfortunately difficult to shift. At the very least they were now quiet enough to be drowned out by her own joy as she explored the shelves.

Today, she found herself doing exactly that, exploring the shelves for anything that might catch her eye. The collection was a mix of fiction and non-fiction, with books of every genre and on every topic imaginable. And they were organised in such a way that the books were often next to each other with seemingly little regard for actual organisation. It certainly made picking up any given book more exciting.

Most of them looked as if they had only ever been touched when they were originally placed on the shelf. But there was the occasional book that was clearly well-loved. The majority of books in said state were magical tomes, the sort of thing that she could so easily picture Sonja pouring over while creating her own notes. Not the sort of thing that she was currently looking for but Capsize was sure that she’d get curious enough about the topic to work her way through one eventually.

Right now, though, she was looking for a story. That was not something she particularly needed to look for. The shelves were packed, and she had doubtless already passed by dozens of stories that she would enjoy. But she found joy in being able to explore her options and she was glad that she had done so when a book did catch her eye.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have caught her attention at all. There wasn’t technically anything special about it. Just a slightly battered book. However, she recognised the designs on the cover. It was the same as her book, the one that Jeriah had given her. How could she ignore that?

She took it from the shelf, not quite sure what she was expecting. She knew that it was not the same book, it was thinner, but the design being identical meant that they were likely a part of the same collection or had been bound at similar times. Getting to look at the cover allowed her to see that the connection was deeper than that. The same author. She smiled.

Well, there was the answer to what she was reading today. At least that was what she thought as she walked back to the chair by the fireplace that was softly becoming a nest. Why would any other thought cross her mind when there was so much excitement currently flowing within it?

However, as she opened the book, she didn’t even reach the words written by the author as the presence of a handwritten message made her freeze.

To my beloved daughter. Happy birthday. You’re growing so fast into such a talented young woman.

It was not exactly an odd message to find at the beginning of a book. Given how nearly all of them that she read were second hand copies, finding a personal message to someone else had never given her such a pause before. However, this time it did. She stared at it in complete confusion. She had seen that handwriting before.

She’d seen it many times before.

Setting the new book on her lap, she reached for her book. For the book that Jeriah had given her. She opened it to the first page that she had flicked past so many times.

There it was. The exact same handwriting.

Something to read on your travels. Return home soon.

There was no doubt in her mind that the two messages had been written by the same person. And, therefore, she did actually know who had written them, as little sense as it made. She’d asked Jeriah about the message the first time she had borrowed the book.

“Spark and his odd sense of humour,” He’d said. He’d gone further to explain that the message was from an old friend. Over time, she’d learnt more of Spark from him, and realised that she herself had briefly met the man as a young girl, a fact that seemed to quite delight Jeriah. Though none of what she had been told explained the message.

Spark, as far as she had been told, had a son and a granddaughter, but no other family. But here there was, a message written by the man that was clearly for a daughter. Perhaps it could be for his son’s wife but then the message itself made little sense. So why on earth…?

Beyond that, even if Spark did have a daughter, why on earth would a book he gifted to her be here?

The more she tried to think about it, the more her head felt fuzzy. An oddly familiar feeling since she had arrived here, though it bothered her nonetheless. All her thoughts felt wrong in a way that she was completely sure was wrong, but that she had no explanation for. All she knew at this precise moment was that her list of questions was expanding.

“I thought that you’d be in here,” Her muddled thoughts were cut through by the voice of Sonja. She looked up with questions that she felt she desperately needed to ask, only for them to disappear as she saw the nervous smile on the Beast’s face.

No, not quite disappeared. Rather, they quieted. They were still there, still lingering, but as Sonja smiled so nervously, Capsize found herself wanting to talk with her rather than be bogged down in the confusion. She could ask about the messages and the potential of Spark having come here some other time, when her head could think through it without feeling like she was wading through mud.

So, she closed the books that she had been looking in and moved both of them to the table rather than her lap. And her attention moved to Sonja.

“Am I already becoming predictable?” She asked with enough of a hint of humour, knowing that she had already spent hours in here. As it turned out, when you could do any activity without people actively judging you, you tended to do it more.

Yes, it turned out that, as much as she had often tried to say that she didn’t care what they thought and tried her best to ignore them, being forced to constantly endure people whispering about her hobbies had taken a toll on her desire to do them. It hadn’t stopped her, but it had been a near constant itch. Now she no longer had to deal with that, she was going to spend as much time with things that she enjoyed as feasibly possible.

“Maybe a little, but I’m glad that you’re enjoying the library,” Sonja said with a small laugh. It wasn’t quite what she wanted to say. She wanted to say that was just glad to see her happy, but she couldn't quite bring herself to say something that felt far too much like a line that Tom would feed her. Maybe that was silly, and she shouldn’t be embarrassed to say things that she meant. But she didn’t need to say them for them to be true. “So much of the castle is just gathering dust, it’s nice to see any part of it in real use again.”

“You clearly used this place once. Why did you stop?” Capsize asked. There were so many clearly well-loved magical tomes in here. She couldn’t imagine it had been anyone other than Sonja reading them. And that left the obvious question as to why she had stopped using the room.

Sonja, for a moment, hesitated to answer. She should’ve known that Capsize would notice such a thing. She was ever so observant. But Sonja hadn’t thought to prepare for the question, and she was completely without a suitable answer for her. Except, that was, for the truth.

“I gained my strength… rather quickly. And now, well, I’m not gentle…” She said, her voice soft and more than a little embarrassed. She felt so big and clumsy in this form. No matter how careful she tried to be, she was sure that she’d destroy any book that she tried to hold. Capsize looked at her, an eyebrow slightly raised.

“You’ve been gentle with me,” She said, simply. After all, it was just a fact. These past weeks, Sonja had been so incredibly gentle. Even with how terrible she had been in her few days, it still felt so ridiculous for her to believe that she could not be gentle at all.

“That’s only because I’ve been actively making myself think and focus on it,” Sonja said under her breath. It felt so terrible to admit. It was not something that she should have to try to do. She should be able to be careful without having to worry about and account for unnatural strength or her claws tearing anything. If she had to actively concentrate on it, then it didn’t really count, did it?

“So?” Capsize asked. “You’re still being gentle even if it requires thought. So many people wouldn’t be bothered to try in the first place.”

Her voice tensed a little at the end, and Sonja knew immediately that she must have encountered such people. And a quiet anger started building that she fought not to show.

She knew that Capsize was resistant to talking about some of the issues she’d had in the town. That there were people that she’d only allude to without ever going to detail. And it worried Sonja, though she didn’t have the guts to actually ask about it. Given her own inability to tell the truth about so many details of her own life, she didn’t think it’d be particularly fair of her to press on topics that Capsize avoided. Not to mention, it would only encourage the rage building inside her and she certainly didn’t need any intrusive desires to go and attack people living in the town.

“Oh! But I suppose you came here to discuss something particular given how you looked when you came in,” Capsize said, attempting less than gracefully to move the topic of discussion as far away from any risk of bringing up Ianite’s champion. She would much rather have whatever conversation Sonja had wanted.

The Beast could tell that her smile was slightly forced, and did feel a pang of dejection. Beyond anything she wished that Capsize would trust her enough to tell her of her troubles, but she also understood her hesitance to share something that was clearly painful. It was not as if she was sharing her worst moments either. Perhaps one day there would be enough comfort there for them both to be fully open with each other. Why linger on it currently?

Likely because it stopped nerves from the question that she actually wanted to ask from settling in.

“Yes, I was thinking, well,” She forced herself to take a breath. Why did she suddenly feel so nervous? It was as if her brain couldn’t compute that it was a perfectly normal conversation. She didn’t know what it was, but she so often found herself fumbling over her words and generally feeling like a mess when interacting with Capsize. It was beyond frustrating as she’d never felt any such difficulty talking to a person before.

She guessed it was due to the mounting pressure of the curse. The rose was wilting. The number of days between petals falling was starting to decrease. She had to fall in love soon and certainly couldn’t afford to mess this up with everyone counting on her. Though she wouldn’t exactly say that what she was feeling felt like such great pressure. Though she had no other reference for what it may be nor what other explanation for the feelings there could possibly be.

She just needed to breathe and focus. “Winter is here now, so the solstice is fast approaching. I wanted to know if there was any particular way that you celebrated so that you’d feel at home during the holiday.”

“Oh. That’s nice of you to check, but I haven’t actually celebrated it before,” Capsize said with a small smile.

“Wait. Really?” Sonja asked, moving swiftly from nervousness to confusion. While she hadn’t exactly celebrated the holiday since the curse, she had always celebrated beforehand, and she knew that there was a celebration in the town. It hadn’t occurred to her that Capsize might just simply not celebrate the holiday. She stood almost dumbfounded, knowing that said confusion was certainly showing on her face despite really hoping that it wasn’t. Gods, she had made an entirely unfounded assumption, hadn’t she?

She considered just running.

“Well, it’s a Dianitee holiday, so I didn’t exactly celebrate it growing up,” Capsize said, hoping that she didn’t sound dismissive by merely stating the truth.

Ianerea always felt quite insular, though it wasn’t completely isolated. It couldn’t be with how deeply travel and ships were ingrained into the culture. But Ianitee culture was certainly the most prevalent and given how deeply ingrained it was, only the equinoxes were celebrated with little to no acknowledgement of the solstices as holidays. She hadn’t realised that they were celebrated as such until she had left the island for the first time. Though, given how young she had been at that point, she hoped that she would’ve realised on her own had she began sailing at a more expected age.

“Doesn’t the town have a festival for it?”

“It does but I…” She hesitated on what to say on that point. She knew that she could’ve joined the celebrations, and she probably would’ve enjoyed them well enough as a break from the monotony that was life in the town. However, the first year she… she hadn’t felt up to it and the second Jordan had shown his colours enough that she was not going to risk him latching to her when she’d have no excuse to leave. So, she had avoided it, feeling all the more isolated as she heard and watched the celebrations from afar.

And she’d had regrets as she’d spent the day alone. As she’d heard Redbeard come back, having clearly had a good time. As she’d endured Jordan the next day telling her that even Jeriah attended while she hadn’t. But now, that regret had turned to appreciation that she hadn’t had the holiday tainted by a place that she disliked so much. “I never attended. But I’d be more than happy to celebrate for the first time with you.”

Capsize’s face wore a growing smile. She actually felt quite excited by the idea of experiencing the solstice here. She doubted it would be a festival, but she didn’t need that. She just needed it to be with good company… With Sonja…

Sonja noticed the tiniest hint of Capsize blushing, though she certainly did not know the cause of it. She just knew that it looked nice among her freckles and tiny scars that detailed her face.

“I think everyone here would be honoured to have you celebrate for the first time with us.”

The blush grew deeper.

“I’ll be looking forward to it. I’ll warn you, though, I’ll be expecting something impressive. Given that it’s a Dianitee holiday and you have someone here who I have to assume is an expert on such things,” Capsize said with a laugh.

To Sonja, it was a beautiful melody just how happy she sounded. Though, she did have to admit, she was slightly confused by the actual words that she had said.

“What do you mean? There’s a Dianite expert here?” She was almost certain she knew exactly who Capsize was referring to. There was only one man here that would refer to himself as anything of the sort. But with the way she was laughing, Sonja couldn’t help but worry about what precisely he had told her.

Capsize looked at her with a smirk. She didn’t quite believe what the candelabra had told her on that first night. But it would be awfully rude to not take him at his word if she was going to be celebrating this holiday with him.

“You know, Tom. Since he is the champion of Lord Dianite, after all.”

🌹 🌹 🌹

“You told her that you’re Dianite’s champion?!”

“She hasn’t celebrated the winter solstice before?!”

Sonja and Tom both exclaimed their own questions at the other in annoyance, though one was far more rightly annoyed than the other. Frankly, Sonja wanted to kill him. After everything that she had kept hidden to make sure that the curse wouldn’t be discovered, he had apparently been saying anything that he wanted to.

Tom, however, was not paying attention to the annoyance turning anger directed towards him. He was wholly focused on how utterly baffling it was that Capsize had never celebrated the winter solstice. It was such an important part of his life that it hadn’t occurred to him that anyone might not celebrate it.

Sure, it wasn’t an Ianitee holiday, but Jordan celebrated it. It just seemed logically that she would as well. Then again, Capsize didn’t like Jordan, so maybe he should’ve guessed that they didn’t celebrate the same holidays? And It wasn’t as if she particularly liked anyone else in town, so he guessed she probably wouldn’t have wanted to attend the festival.

He internally groaned. Everything had truly gone to the dogs without him.

“She wants to celebrate this year though, right?” He asked, mostly talking to himself and not looking up at the Beast looming over him. Sure, she was annoyed at something, but that wasn’t genuine. She was never really mad at him and his shenanigans, that wasn’t how this worked. So, whatever she was annoyed about he could ignore until later.

At least that’s what the candelabra had thought until he found himself grabbed by a paw. Being suddenly hoisted into the air to be face to face with a Beast that looked about ready to shatter him to pieces made him consider the slight possibility that she was actually annoyed at him. That didn’t mean he’d take said annoyance at all seriously, but he could acknowledge it as genuine, at least.

“You told her that you’re Dianite’s champion!” Sonja repeated, this time not leaving it as a question that he could pretend was rhetorical. She was growling. She wasn’t going to let him slip out of answering why the hell he had done this. Neither physically nor metaphorically. She wanted an answer from him this time.

Tom wiggled. It was about the only thing he could do. It had been a while since he had been reminded of Sonja’s strength in this form, as despite everything he still tended to picture her as she had been prior to the curse. Obviously, he knew had been physically changed, but she’d never been able to beat him in a fight before. It just didn’t strike him all that often that that was patently not true anymore. Though now that it did, and therefore he was very much stuck in this conversation, he pouted. Why did she want to focus on something that just didn’t matter?

“Yep. Told her the first night she was here,” Tom said in a far too casual tone as he rolled his eyes. Honestly, he had no idea why Sonja cared. It wasn’t as if he’d told her that he was a cursed human completely forgotten by the rest of the world. He’d essentially told her a joke for how likely it was that she had actually believed him. “She didn’t take me seriously, Sonj'. Not really, anyway.”

He had, of course, noticed the way Capsize had paused during that conversation. The way that she had at first been confident and almost flippant that Dianite didn’t have a champion, before seemingly changing her mind and being softer as she stated that she hadn’t heard of him having one. He had originally written it off as her just humouring him, but it was hard to keep thinking that way when it seemed to happen again and again.

If Tom had to guess, the way that the curse had erased their presences wasn’t completely foolproof. That someone who should know about them could vaguely tell that they had memories missing but not any specifics.

Or something like that anyway. He was mostly going on the way that Capsize looked in those moments of thought that people tried to distract her away from. Maybe it had little to do with the curse and more to do with Capsize just being intelligent. It wasn’t as if could ask her to check, then Sonja would have a reason to be annoyed at him.

Ah! Sonja. Yes, that’s what he was meant to be focusing on. Absolutely none of his thoughts had explained why she was glaring at him like he’d ruined everything.

“Why exactly do you care?” Tom asked, honestly kind of exasperated. He had been saying stupid things that he certainly shouldn’t have been this whole time. Sonja had watched him say most of them, and she certainly hadn’t had a reaction nearly as strong as this before. Of course, there was the idea that maybe she had always been annoyed the whole time and finding out that he had just blatantly said his title without even trying to be vague had finally been enough to push her into a reaction…

No. No, that was stupid. He dismissed that idea pretty much as soon as it came to him. “I can tell her I was just joking if you’re that concerned.”

“I—" Sonja nearly immediately faltered as she couldn’t think of any reasonable response. It wasn’t that her annoyance was gone. If anything, she was more annoyed than she had been previously by just how unbothered Tom seemed by this whole thing. However, it all seemed to burn away as she was confronted with the idea of having to tell the truth.

It all came down to the truth. The truth that she feared Capsize learning so much. It was only a matter of time before it was revealed she was sure. And… And she was trying to blame Tom for that.

She was being terrible again. Absolutely terrible.

In a sudden panic of her own worse tendencies, Sonja placed Tom on the floor as gently as her rattled mind would allow, which was not particularly but he was at least placed upright and not jostled onto his back. She fully intended to dash off, to hide and pretend this had not happened, because she just didn’t want to face what she felt so truly would be impossible moment for Capsize to move past.

She couldn’t tell Tom the reason why she had reacted so strongly. She couldn’t face that horrible dread that was eating away at her of how Capsize was going to react. She needed to leave, to just hide and ignore the world for a while.

“Sonja. What the hell is going on?” Tom questioned loud and clear. It cut through all her spiralling and forced her to stay in place. She turned around slowly. If one saw such a reaction, they would have assumed Tom’s tone to be aggressive, but he wasn’t.

No, Tom was worried. That was what got her to freeze. The amount of worry that was in her friend’s tone.

How could he be anything but worried with how she had completely flipped on a dime from anger to looking like she was about to flee the room? And it only grew as she turned to look at him, her entire form shaking.

“What am I supposed to do if she finds out that you’re a person?” She asked. The idea was completely overwhelming to her. It felt like a complete and utter nightmare.

Capsize was such a brilliant light. One that she certainly didn’t deserve. And she knew if she found out about the curse, about what she had caused to happen to everyone here, that she’d never look at her same again. It hurt. It was horrible for her to even think about. Deep down though, she knew that she’d deserve such a reaction.

Tom, as he looked at Sonja clearly terrified, felt lost. He knew that he had to say something. He didn’t have the option of just finding Mot or Martha and making them handle this instead, as much as he wanted to. He wasn’t the sort of person that was meant to give her advice, but if he said nothing she’d go off and hide and blame herself for everything. So, he needed to say something.

But there was only one thing he could think of saying.

“Then we’ll just have to tell her the truth,” He said. He knew it was not what he should say. He could already hear the lecture that Martha would give him if she learnt that he had. Her insisting that they could not allow Capsize to learn about the curse under any circumstances lest it mean she can’t break it, however that worked. But it wasn’t as if he was arguing that they should go right now and tell Capsize every detail of the curse. He knew the complications that telling her the truth would cause, but… But he saw the writing on the wall.

Capsize was figuring it out herself. How long could they really avoid her coming to the correct conclusion? Sure, she probably wouldn’t be able to figure out everything, but the fact that they had originally been people didn’t exactly seem to be a conclusion that she was far away from. In his opinion, they had already been way too obvious with the way they had to avoid certain topics like the plague.

It seemed likely enough to him that she may eventually ask the question close enough to asking if they had originally been people. Then she’d quickly leap to the actual question itself. And if she did, and they then denied the truth, that would be insulting to her intelligence. He knew that was the absolute last thing that Sonja would want.

“But then…” Sonja wanted to argue but she couldn’t. It was the only reasonable thing she could do in that situation, but she desperately wanted to avoid needing to do so. Which meant she needed to stop Capsize from figuring out their true selves, but that was progressively seemingly like an impossible task.

Yes, it seemed that just keeping the curse a secret would be impossible. Capsize was smart, she admired that about her. And that’s why she knew that the more she tried to hide, the more she would end up figuring out. But then she had to contemplate actually telling her what she had done to cause the curse. That was enough to make her blood run cold. “She’ll hate me, Tom.”

Her voice was quiet. She was as sure of that fact as she was utterly broken by it. What she had done was bad enough, what it had ended up causing was terrible. Far more pressing though was who had done the cursing.

How would Capsize ever forgive her for her actions with how thoroughly disgusted her goddess had been by her actions? How could anyone look at her with anything but scorn upon learning that she had pissed off the gods themselves? It being revealed would change everything. She knew it would.

Tom found himself being bore into by utterly terrified eyes. He’d only seen her look like this once, that very first night years ago. There were so many terrible sensations he remembered about that night. That terrifyingly bright light had faded, his body no longer being his body. A monster staring at him with Sonja’s petrified eyes.

It felt so much like back then, but there was a difference. Back then, he had understood her terror and been very much stuck in his own. In the current moment, though, he saw absolutely no reason that she should be scared.

“She won’t hate you,” He said with a quiet sureness. He knew that he was acting overly confident, but he also knew that Capsize wouldn’t hate Sonja. Not at the point they had now reached. Despite everything that should’ve prevented her from doing so, Capsize had managed to form a bound with Sonja. She didn’t seem the type to throw it away just because of the gods.

“How can you know that?” Sonja so desperately wanted to believe his words, but she just couldn’t. She couldn’t understand the glimmering confidence in his metallic eyes.

“Because really think,” He said. Hoping that she would go along with what he was going to say next. “If your roles were reserved, if she had been cursed like this and you were a regular person, would you have even gotten this far in your relationship with her?”

“She never would have—”

“That isn’t what I asked. Just try and picture it will you?” Tom quickly cut off any possible argument about the premise of the situation.

Sonja pouted slightly and though she still wasn’t entirely satisfied with the idea of picturing an impossible scenario, she did as Tom asked. She pictured as well as she could a world where she hadn’t been cursed, a world where she had never been a princess at all. She imagined a life that felt so comforting and simple, with Mot and Tom and Alyssa and normality. Then she reminded herself that was not the point of what Tom had asked her to do.

She imagined Tom going missing one day, the anxiety and terror that would cause. She imagined journeying through the woods to find him and coming across an abandoned castle. She imagined finding him dying and imprisoned by a horrifying Beast.

Everything about it made her squirm. Even just attempting to imagine Capsize in a form as twisted as hers felt wrong. It made it near impossible to actually picture because there couldn’t be a world where she had done anything to deserve such a curse. However, what she felt even worse about, was that she had no idea what she would’ve done at that point. She had no idea if she could’ve made the sacrifice that Capsize had made.

Could she have given up her freedom for Tom? She wanted to say that she would’ve done, that she wouldn’t have let Tom die in a cell, but it still left her throat feeling tight and herself feeling nauseous. How had Capsize made the decision? How had she agreed to be left at the mercy of a monster?

She knew that describing herself in such terms was less than ideal, but picturing that first meeting from another point of view, how could she use any other words? She was a monster.

And she understood what Tom was trying to say.

Tears threatened to spill. Tom worried that he may have gone too far. That was, until Sonja spoke again.

“You’re right. If she figures out that you’re all human, I’ll… I’ll tell her whatever parts of the truth that I can.”

It would be okay. She’d be strong enough to admit what she could about the curse. Whatever Capsize’s reaction might be, she was owed the truth if she figured out any part of it herself. Even if she couldn’t be told everything. Even if Sonja’s chest was tightening just thinking about what she would actually have to say.

“I know you will,” Tom said with a smile. Let it never be said that he’d lost faith in Sonja. If anything, he was currently gaining more as she was becoming more and more like the friend he remembered.

But frankly, this was becoming a bit too gooey and sentimental for his liking. They couldn’t focus on this all day when there was a clear injustice that needed to be set right. “But seriously, we have to make sure that Capsize celebrates the winter solstice this year. It’s a crime against Dianite that one of my friends hasn’t yet.”

🌹 🌹 🌹

A couple of days later, Capsize and Sonja sat together once again. The two often sat together like this, not quite next to each other, but far closer than either would deliberately choose to sit with anyone else. Inevitably, they would end up actually next to each other, Capsize leaning on Sonja’s arm as she relaxed or read. However, currently the Beast was sitting across from the woman. The two being just as warmed by each other’s company as they were by the lit fire in the room.

The current conversation flowing between the two was concretely about the upcoming holiday. It was such a normal thing to be discussing compared to what many of their conversations ended up being about. However, even without talking about magic or one of the other things that Sonja was clearly deeply fascinated by, Capsize still found herself as curious and invested as ever. It was still something new. How could she find it anything other than interesting?

“If I’m being fully honest, I don’t really remember the full story behind it,” Sonja admitted, knowing full well that Tom would have a fit if he got wind of that fact. She definitely had once known the full story about Dianite’s connection with the winter solstice. Even now she could hazily recall Mot telling her the story as they sat by a fire, a memory that felt warm and right, but she just couldn’t recall any of the words from it. “I think it’s about one of those old stories of Lord Dianite creating fire… Or the story of his first champion creating fire?”

She was nearly entirely guessing. She probably should’ve asked Mot, but she worried about his reaction. She was sure her memory being hazy was just from the amount of time that had passed, but she doubted that would quell his mind of the possibility that the curse had started to affect her ability to recall things. She didn’t want to put that stress on him when she had the vague idea of it all without asking.

Clearly, she didn’t need to know the full story anyway as Capsize still smiled at her. She was still just so interested.

“It being about the creation of fire feels right. The centrepiece of the town’s celebration was always a bonfire,” She said, that being one of the few things she did know about the town’s festival. It was big enough that they started building the previous day in the square, the mess of wood looking so out of place compared to well decorated tables and stalls being set up. She had been able to see it burning from her house.

“I thought you hadn’t celebrated before,” Sonja questioned, tilting her head slightly.

For the briefest moment, Capsize found herself staring at her, finding herself lost in her features. But as quickly as she had started staring, she caught herself and made herself actually concentrate on what had been asked of her.

“I haven’t. I just watched,” She admitted. She felt a hint of embarrassment about doing so.

Maybe it was silly, but she couldn’t help it. For all her complaints of loneliness, it had been her own choice to not interact with the town. Yes, the townsfolks had made her uncomfortable, and she wasn’t exactly friends with any of them, but it had been a celebration. She could have joined in.

Instead, she’d made her decision and ended up watching from the sidelines. And she didn’t exactly fully regret that decision. If she had gone to the festival, she was sure that Jordan would’ve just clung to her the whole time. She likely would’ve spent the night uncomfortable. But she would never know now.

“Really? You never struck me as the type to avoid doing… well, anything,” Sonja said. She found herself stuck wondering just how bad the town had been. Tom had always seemed fond of the place. Though maybe he had liked time away from the castle.

She had never been interested enough in the town to sneak out and go there after she had begun studying magic. Though she did remember a time when she had been. When she had been young, young enough that she hadn’t yet begun studying magic and her memories were only just clear enough to actually be remembered, she had remembered being so curious about the place that Tom always got to go to. About the festivals and the people that he told her about.

She had never actually gotten to go. She had tried sneaking there, but she had always ended up caught by Mot and returned home. There had been talks of a supervised visit, but she hadn’t been interested in that, she had wanted the freedom that Tom was allowed. It was odd to see somewhere that she had once been so curious about was the source of much of Capsize’s unhappiness.

Capsize was so curious and interested in learning and trying things. If she had been scared off trying something, then clearly the place was far worse than she was attempting to let on.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t typically. I… I had pretty much made up my mind about not having an interest by my second year in the town, but the first year I was mostly avoiding going out of cowardice,” Capsize admitted. She wasn’t entirely sure that that was the word she was actually looking for. She certainly hadn’t been scared. But she had no idea what the right word would be given how she had felt.

“Coward is the last word I’d ever use to describe you,” Sonja said, honestly perplexed that Capsize had. Sometimes she felt as if she just truly didn’t understand Capsize. She brought such a brilliant warmth to the world. She had told Sonja not to talk badly about herself, but it seemed that she didn’t take her own advice. “I definitely wouldn’t call anyone a coward for not wanting to be around people who treat them unkindly.”

“Well, I mean…” Capsize hesitated, having no real idea of what to say. She knew logically that Sonja was correct, but she still couldn’t help but feel shameful about the whole situation. She still struggled with whether those in the town had been right about her. A town full of people acting like she was strange had managed to worm its way into her head.

However, that wasn’t the reason she had avoided the celebration that first year. Sure, she hadn’t exactly been keen to spend an extended amount of time with any of them, but she knew it would’ve been a manageable experience with Red. It had just been the excuse that she used. “They were never exactly welcoming, you’re right. But they weren’t the reason that I avoided the festival. Not the first time, anyway.”

She went quiet, contemplating how much she wanted to share. The true reasons were tied with private worries. Worries that she hadn’t even shared with Red due to just how vulnerable they left her feeling. Even now just barely alluding to them, her mouth felt dry.

She began to spin her cane between her hands, trying to focus on the movement rather than the illogical thoughts threatening to overtake her. She didn’t understand why she was so scared of talking about this. It felt so stupid, she was never this scared of anything. But she’d also never had anything that made her feel quite this lost.

Sonja had no idea if she should say something. All she could focus on were her downcast eyes. She saw this look appear on her so often when talking about the town. She hated seeing it so much. But what could she really say? It wouldn’t be right of her to push her, not when there were so many secrets that she was keeping. Still, she found herself lost on how to offer comfort when she didn’t know what was causing her upset in the first place.

“I… I was trying to keep myself faithful,” Capsize admitted in such a quiet tone. She was so tired of trying to keep it all to herself. All the resentment and exhaustion, all the negative feelings she had had in the town, in the end they all lead back to Ianite. To her faith in and friendship with her goddess, and the silence they now existed between them.

She had always been trying to keep her grasp on it as if it would keep her afloat. To her faith and their relationship and the balance. Before it had been so easy and natural. Like the flow of water, it was just something she was meant to do. Then her injury and the move to the town. Suddenly she was drowning and nothing was helping her float.

It had just been hurting for so long now. She was tired of keeping it all to herself. “I’d never felt so separated from Ianite before. It felt like a test of faith so the idea of celebrating the holidays of the other gods just…”

She sighed, continuing to spin her cane as she tried so hard to just focus on the movement. Already she could feel the rising nerves and familiar internal questioning. She couldn’t bring herself to look up, dreading the expression that Sonja might be wearing. But not looking at her, meant she was instead stuck with her own thoughts, and they were less than pleasant.

She realised that she had begun to fear when she’d hear Ianite’s voice again, which felt ridiculous. She’d been carving any whisper for months. It wasn’t as if her want for answers had gone away either. But she realised she was afraid of what Ianite would say about her current situation. Because if she tried to explain it at all, she was beyond sure that her goddess would panic.

Even with her position as her messenger, she had not heard Ianite in distress all that often. She supposed there just wasn’t all that much to bother her in times of peace as the world found itself in. Though she did have two distinct memories of when Ianite had seemed truly panicked.

The first had been when she was a teenager. A winter night that otherwise had been nothing special. Ianite had been so upset about something that she had said she ‘didn’t want to burden her with the knowledge of’. In fact, even now Capsize didn’t know what had caused her to be so upset, she just remembered that she had been, how unexpected it had been. She’d ended up just talking with her until the early hours of the morning to distract the goddess per her request.

However, the other she had heard Ianite distressed, well she’d never forget it. How could Capsize forget her reaction to her injury? It was something she thought back to so often, trying to figure out if there were any answers there that she had missed. However, it was the reason now that she feared her suddenly restarting contact.

What would be her reaction if she found out she was technically a prisoner?

“That’s understandable. Lady Ianite is important to you,” Sonja said, trying to ignore the way her chest tightened as she said those words. She didn’t need to be scared. The curse wasn’t going to be revealed by merely mentioning the goddess.

She had to push through. Despite her own feelings towards the goddess, and the goddess’ feelings towards her, Sonja did want to learn about Capsize’s faith. Obviously, she was still beyond angry at Lady Ianite. Even if the curse broke at this very moment, that anger was not going to fade anytime soon, but the idea of disliking her followers for it now just left her with a sickly guilt.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Capsize said, half-sighing due to how one sided that currently felt. Ianite was so important to her, and she doubted there would ever be a time that she wasn’t. But she was just so tired. She truly wished that she could say that her tiredness was relatively new, that it was linked to her time in the town. But when such an exhaustion set in, it started to become hard to remember when exactly it had started. “I mean, it was always so important growing up. I’d never met anyone who didn’t follow her when I was a kid.”

“Suppose there wouldn’t be too many people following other gods on Ianerea,” Sonja laughed, gaining a genuine one in return from Capsize. To hear the beautiful sound was such a relief. Hearing Capsize talk of her life was always interesting to Sonja, she’d hate if the majority of it was painful memories. She doubted that was true though. After all, whenever Capsize spoke of her home prior to the town, she always seemed so alive.

Whenever she spoke of Ianerea or her travels as a merchant, there was always a joyful look in her eyes. Sonja desperately wished that Capsize could remain smiling like that forever.

“Yeah, hardly a soul doesn’t. Most of those who don’t follow her just don’t follow any gods,” Capsize said, trying to avoid getting lost reminiscing. It felt silly to do so when she could never go back. But she couldn’t actually stop herself.

Maybe she just longed for when things were simpler, when she had been a kid and had a community. Back when people hadn’t treated her as strange for wanting to see the world. Gods, she missed it so much.

But rather than going back there, she had ended up in a place where the only Ianitee present other than herself and her brother knew absolutely nothing of the culture or frankly the religion at all. It had been so impossibly alienating, somehow more so than those who acted as though Ianite needn’t exist in the first place. Was it surprising that she longed for Ianerea so much? “I miss it. Not the fact that everyone followed Ianite but having that sense of community.”

“Of course you miss it. It’s your home,” Sonja felt the rising guilt. Always that horrible guilt that she was keeping Capsize from having a normal life. Strangely enough though, Capsize didn’t look nearly as sad anymore.

“You’re definitely right. Though, strangely enough, when I think of home, Ianerea isn’t the place that I actually picture,” Capsize said with a laugh as she realised the odd juxtaposition in her thoughts. She absolutely missed Ianerea, and if actually asked for a physical location that was her home, that’s where she’d say. When she actually thought of home though, it was never what actually came to mind.

“Where then?”

“The ocean,” Capsize replied, her smile wider than ever.

Sonja found it infectious. How could it be anything but with how those brown eyes sparkled? Who could see such a smile and not want to match it? “Whenever I was sailing, that’s when I felt the most like myself. Home is the ocean, just my ship and the waves and the endless horizon.”

“You have a ship?” Sonja couldn’t quite put her finger on why she asked that question. She knew that Capsize had been the captain of a merchant ship, it didn’t seem out of the question that she had owned the ship that she sailed. In fact, it was incredibly easy to picture given how she held herself, but the question had still come to her so quickly. Maybe it was because of just how she smiled when talking about it.

“I had one. I could tell you every last detail of that old thing,” She laughed. She could close her eyes and still see it. That ship that she had worked so hard to be able to purchase and then fix up. That ship that she had absolutely loved. Though, of course, she knew it’d look different now, if it even still existed. Gods, she hoped it still existed. “It’s not mine anymore. I had to sell it when… Well, when I was first injured I… I wasn’t going to be able to keep sailing. So, I needed money to be able to settle somewhere and recover.”

“Oh, that’s—”

“Devastating. It was devastating,” Capsize said struggling to keep her voice steady as she felt entirely hollow. Having to sell the ship had just made everything about being injured worse. The only good thing was that she hadn’t had to sell to a stranger. But as much as she tried to take solace in the fact that it had ended up in the hands of Rupert and that he likely would’ve at least tried to fix the damage that had been done to it, it just didn’t take away any of the upset. Maybe if she wasn’t so far from the ocean, she’d be able to feel differently…

Either way, it wasn’t Sonja’s issue. It was in no way her fault that she could no longer see the ocean. That was a true fact long before she came to the castle. Now she just… didn’t even have the hope…

Gods, she needed to drag this conversation back to something that didn’t make her want to cry. “So, what do you normally do to celebrate the solstice? A bonfire? A feast?”

“A bonfire yes, though probably not as big as the one they have in the town. There’s so few of us here so such a private affair doesn’t need all that large a fire,” Sonja said, trying to sound a little more unsure than she actually was. Tom had told her distinctly when they were kids that the town’s bonfire was bigger always in a seeming attempt to persuade Mot that they needed a larger one for their celebration.

But of course, that wasn’t her main focus. It couldn’t be. Not when the topic switch was so utterly jarring.

And maybe, Sonja thought, it was entirely fair for Capsize to do this. She’d certainly been subjected to more than enough sudden topic changes here in the castle due to the things they couldn’t talk about without risk of revealing the curse. She was more than owed one of her own if there was a topic that she wanted to avoid.

So, she should just keep talking as if she hadn’t noticed the obvious switch. “Mot used to tell the story of how the night came to be, though I imagine Tom will insist on telling it this year with how excited he is about you celebrating for the first time.”

Capsize laughed. Sonja tried to just focus on that.

“Gift giving is a big part of it too. Handmade is traditional.”

She tried desperately to keep her thoughts on the solstice and away from the rattling question. She should just focus on how Capsize was smiling. Why go back to a topic that had clearly brought her sadness when she now seemed happy? What good would it do? Unfortunately, her mind just wouldn’t let it go.

“Why didn’t you return to Ianerea after your injury?” Sonja asked. Immediately she regretted doing so as hurt flared in Capsize’s eyes. Just for the briefest moment, but it was more than enough for the shame to blossom. “I’m sorry, I— We don’t need to talk about it if you’re not comfortable. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, I…” Capsize swallowed. She would be lying if she said she had a particular desire to talk about it. It would make everything more confusing. It always did. Nothing good had ever come from people knowing her title.

But she trusted Sonja. She trusted her enough to genuinely believe that she wouldn’t treat her differently upon learning it. Still though, it wasn’t exactly something she could just say. Not if she actually wanted to be taken seriously, anyway. “I don’t mind telling you the reason why, but it’s going to sound… Just hear me out, okay.”

“Of course, Capsize,” Sonja replied softly. She felt her chest tightening at the hint of fear present in her words. It was not the terror that she had previously seen, the terror that she had inflicted. This was something else entirely. Something that she could only describe as wrong.

Capsize looked away from Sonja’s eyes, not wanting to be able to see her emotions as she said what she was about to.

“I’m Lady Ianite’s messenger. When I was injured, she asked me to move to the town,” Her words were quietly spoken, but they were than loud enough to make Sonja freeze. She prayed that her internal reaction did not show on her face, that her jaws didn’t twist into a snarl on instinct. Every thought in her head was screaming that this confirmed her worst anxieties of her only hope just being another joke sent to her by the goddess. But she did not listen to them.

She forced her anger down. She did not allow herself to pounce with her worst assumptions as she had previously. She was not a mindless Beast. She couldn’t allow herself to act like one. That and… and she trusted Capsize. She could not believe that their friendship was all a farce. Such a thought was beyond ridiculous and more than enough to fully quash down her thoughts initially triggered by the confession. And she could actually take in the way that the woman who had confessed looked. Because she looked like hell.

Capsize said with her head bowed, both hands gripping her cane with white knuckles. Her breathing made it clear that she was attempting to hold back her own reaction, be it fear or tears. And suddenly Sonja found herself frozen for a completely different reason.

“I trusted her. I’d known her for so long that she felt more like a friend than a goddess. And she was so concerned about my injury, I really thought she was recommending what she thought was best for me. So, I moved to that town, Red coming with me, and… And I still have no idea why she sent me there of all places.”

“She never gave you a reason?” Sonja found herself asking almost without thinking. She couldn’t focus on much besides how Capsize’s voice was wavering. But still, could it be?

“She originally told me that it’d be a safe place for me to recover, but the more I thought about it, the less sense that made,” She admitted, trying her best to not sound resentful. She didn’t want to imply that she held ill will towards her goddess. That still felt wrong of her to do. However, it was more of a struggle the more that she tried. Continuing trying to reason and justify when she had been left with nothing was just so exhausting. “The last time I spoke with her, I asked for an actual answer. And she just said that the reason would become clear. That’s all I’ve got.”

Those words struck Sonja like a rock. Had Lady Ianite actually sent her to the town to come here and—?

No.

Immediately she shoved that thought away. There was no way that the goddess had intended for Capsize to come here. It wasn’t even her who found the castle, it was her brother, and he’d arrived by sheer happenstance. Capsize had only come because she was looking for him.

Was it a weird coincidence? Yes, it was one that Sonja’s worst thoughts were clinging to. Each one of them was telling her that clearly the goddess had sent her here as a terrible trap to bring up her hopes before smashing them. But such thoughts required her looking at Capsize and seeing a trick. It required her looking at her friend’s clear distress and believing that she was lying about it.

Whatever Lady Ianite’s plans had been, they clearly had nothing to do with her. And if they somehow did, then Capsize had no knowledge of that fact.

All Sonja knew was this was yet another strike against the goddess that had stolen her life from her. She had hurt someone else. Every ember of anger she felt towards her was reigniting and threatening to consume her, but she couldn’t let it. Right now, wasn’t the time for anger.

Her friend needed reassurance. That was far more important.

“Maybe I should use gentler words, lest the gods strike me, but she sounds cruel,” Sonja said, actually almost welcoming a reappearance from the goddess. There were so many things that she wanted to say to her at this moment. Even without her presence, so many viler words than the one she had used were clawing to escape her. How dare she hurt another person. How dare she hurt someone who actually trusted her.

However, saying any of them now, to even let out any of her own rage towards the goddess not born from this situation, it would just muddy the waters. Her own issues were not important currently. “If she was your friend, if she was going to send you to a town that clearly treated you awfully, the least she should have given you was an explanation.”

“That’s… That’s all I wanted,” Capsize found herself wanting to weep. All she had wanted was a real explanation. The fact that she didn’t have one had been eating away at her. Worse, the fact that she wanted one so desperately had left her feeling so selfish for doubting that Ianite had her best interests at heart. To hear someone say so plainly that she deserved one, it was like two years of build of self-doubt had shattered in an instant.

She wanted to weep, and though she didn’t quite start, tears did start to well. They were good tears, she was sure, but just as her relief was the removal of a great weight, it was also painful and overwhelming.

Sonja saw the building tears, and immediately stood. She took steps towards her on instinct, before her thoughts caught up and she suddenly felt far too large and in the way before someone who suddenly seemed so small. And there was a moment where Sonja considered stepping away.

Then there was a clatter.

Capsize’s cane fell from the iron grasp that she had had on it for nearly the whole conversation, as she instead took a hold of Sonja’s paw. She looked up at her, and didn’t need to say what her eyes were already begging.

Sonja stayed with her.

Though eventually the conversation would once again return to the far lighter topic of the upcoming holiday, the knowledge that Sonja had gained never fully left her thoughts. How, she wondered with such bitterness, had the goddess deemed fit to judge her heartless when she all but abandoned someone who called her friend.

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