#noelle staggers

[potledom]

[holidayking102]

The Princess staggers in the wind...

[relia-robot-writes]

Impressions of Detail: The dark around you rustles, crackles, splits under your exploratory hands — the inside of a cocoon?

My head felt fuzzy, like I'd just barely woken up and could drift back off to sleep at any moment. I tried to turn over, pull the blankets up around me and burrow back into bed, but something stopped me. It was like I was lying on top of the blanket I was trying to move, or trying to turn while lying on my own hair. No matter how much I tugged at it, it wouldn't come free. My arms felt weak, entrapped, like I was still dreaming and half sleep paralyzed.

I tried opening my eyes - usually that dispelled any leftover dreams I was having - but found that it was still pitch-black. My first thought was It's too early for this. My second thought was Wait, where's the power strip light?

More awake now, I tried to get up and look around, but bonked my head on something that made a soft crunching noise. I didn't hit it very hard, but now there were two spots on the top of my head that throbbed in pain. I tried to reach up to hold them, but my arms were blocked by the blankets.

I twisted and turned, trying to free myself, and felt my chest squash against that same crunchy material, way further out than my chest should have been, which prompted a whole wave of pain through my body. I cried out, but my voice sounded weird too, distorted and strange. I scrabbled at the blanket-stuff, now desperate to get out of whatever was holding me here. I felt like I was barely making any progress, weak and tired as I was, but eventually there was a sharper cracking noise, and a seam of light appeared.

I dove desperately for the light, pushing and straining against the material, and I finally pushed out and fell facefirst onto the floor. My chest still felt strange, more squashed than it should have been, but there was a new sensation coming from my back, a cold feeling that made me shiver, but also a weight, like I was still covered in a blanket. Had the thing I was in fallen on top of me?

I staggered to my feet and whipped around, nearly falling over in the process. Everything felt off balance, and parts of me wanted to keep moving after I'd stopped. A soft, silvery light filtered into what I recognized as my bedroom, but on the wall was a great, dark mass of... something. The crack on the surface of it proved that it was the thing I'd been trapped inside. I blinked, still off kilter, and shivered; I was naked. I tried to pull the blanket that was wrapped around my shoulders around me, but tugging on it hurt. I settled for wrapping my arms around myself, only to feel a strange, sort of fuzzy sensation. Armwarmers?

This was all too much. I went to pull the curtains aside so I could see better, and found the full moon looking down on me from the night sky. I was entranced. I'd never seen it this bright. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

"Mrphgl," came a soft voice from behind me. I jumped, tried to spin around, and shouted as I overbalanced and fell down in a heap.

"Babe??" came the voice from the bed. A feminine face peeked over the edge at me, full of concern. "Oh, wow! Look at you! You're beautiful!"

I tried to focus on the face, and then suddenly it popped into focus. "Allie? What's going on? What's happening to me??" She'd know. She always knew what to do.

"Oh, Noelle, you're all discombobulated, huh? Let's get you up on the bed." She helped lever me off the floor without standing on whatever was attached to my back. "Whoo, they came out big, huh? I know you were excited, but these might be a little unweidly."

I looked over my shoulder to try to see what she was talking about, but couldn't turn far enough; I only saw some kind of sparkling silver material. Allie laughed. "Those are nice, yes, but I was actually talking about these, goofus."

I followed her finger to my chest, where... wow. Those had definitely not been there before. I cupped my new breasts in my hands, enthralled by all the new sensations, but after a moment I tried to count how many fingers I saw. Four... eight... twelve... sixteen?! I looked up at Allie, who was smiling ear to ear. "Now you have enough hands to hold all your girlfriends at once!"

"I- I need a mirror!" I ran downstairs at full tilt, painfully slamming my hips into the banister as I rounded the corner. I limped into the living room and finally saw myself, for the first time.

A soft, silvery fuzz covered my arms and legs, with a larger ruff of it around my neck, like a scarf. My waist hadn't slimmed much, but my hips and chest had expanded dramatically, and I'd lost something in my nether regions that I absolutely wouldn't be missing. I'd lost a finger on each hand, but gained two whole additional arms. I reached up to feel my new antennae, nestled in amongst my newly grey hair, and shivered at the ticklish sensation. And then I spun, and my huge, silvery wings fluttered on my back, and my eyes went wide.

Then, Allie turned on the light, and I went totally blind. "Agh!"

"Oops, sorry!" She flicked the light back off, but I kept my eyes covered for a moment anyway, sparkly after-images of the living room trailing in my vision. "We'll have to get you some sunglasses, girl."

Hearing her call me girl made me feel like I would never stop smiling. "Girl. Girl! Girl girl girl!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!" I jumped up, narrowly avoiding falling over again, and clasped her hands with all four of mine. "Am girl!!!!!!"

Allie laughed and smiled with me. "ARE girl!!" She reached out to touch my antennae and I shivered again. "With some very fun side benefits! I gotta say, this is definitely the fastest I've seen anyone transition."

My stomach grumbled loudly.

"Of course, I suppose there are some detriments to not eating for two whole fucking months. Come on, let's make you some sandwiches and then we can take some pictures for our girls."

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Find Five Lines

Thanks @aziz-reads here!

Rules: find five lines that fit the prompts, then change ONE for the next people you tag!

A line with death

From The Secret Portal Part One - CW: death

Kwasiyaa squinted, trying to figure out what it was, but before she could, her sister’s body convulsed as the light was jammed into her stomach. “ATSILA!” Kwasiyaa shrieked, her voice cracking, as her sister’s body crumpled to the ground.

A line with fear

From The Secret Portal Part One (Lexi POV)

My head whipped to my right to see a patch of vines wrapped around a tree. I yelped as they detached themselves and snatched in the air toward me, jumping back and almost tripping on the uneven ground. I staggered until it appeared they couldn’t get to me. The vines seemed to notice something above them, and I followed them up until a sight caused a deep shudder to course through me. Ash hung above my head, tangled in and thrashing against the vines that twisted around her body. “Oh, my—! Ash!” Ash seemed to notice me, but from her head hung in an almost-limp fashion, as if she was losing consciousness. Panic rushed through me as I tried to form a coherent thought.

A funny line

From The Secret Portal Part Two (Noelle POV)

My comm beeped next to me, signalling a direct line. I picked it up from the desk in front of me. It was from Dr. Asghar. Confused, I answered it. “Hello?” “Finally! Where are you? I commed your room multiple times and didn’t get a single response! I even tried to have SORARA, and unless you’re the lightest sleeper except for direct commlines, you’re not in your room.” “Couldn’t sleep,” I answered, somewhat truthfully, once I could get a word in the lecture. “Doctor, if I may ask, why are you calling me at this time?” “Why are you awake at this time?” I paused, not sure how to respond a question I’d already answered. Dr. Asghar must have realized this because she went, “Nevermind. I have to run tests today, and I have to get you done and going first. Come up to the lab. Now. I want to talk to you.” She hung up.

A line with colour

From The Secret Portal Part Two (Jedi POV)

Svyatoy Andreyzamok was beautiful. We walked alongside a large river, the Novayavoda, that ran through the middle of the city. The buildings seemed rather uniform, carved by terrakinetics obviously, due to the materials, and near the tops of the buildings were more elaborate designs done in colored stone. They fit with the climate: cold, but not dry. My eyes rested on a teal building with white columns and yellow trim around the windows. I read the sign, advertising it as a health museum.

A line you've changed a lot

From The Secret Portal Part One

Kwasiyaa screamed at the explosion behind her, but the sound that escaped her throat was masked by the deafening eruption. In her state, she lost control of the cloak she covered over herself and her husband, rendering them temporarily visible. [This is the first line of the book, which I've changed a million times]

Tagging @winglesswriter @anyablackwood @winterandwords @sarandipitywrites @space-writes

+ ANYONE ELSE

Your lines: A line with movement, a line with fear, a funny line, a line with colour, and a line you've changed a lot

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@nebula--nix @literarynecromancy @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet

[dandelion-wings]

I am probably never writing out the Favonius Stables AU as a full fic, but over the past few months it's been prime rotating-at-the-barn fodder and I know at least the general shape of the plot! To which this scene is semi-related.

---

By the time Amber has Bunny ready, Collei still hasn't arrived. She frowns; Collei is sometimes a little late, but she'd been so excited for her first lesson. She checks her texts, then puts Bunny's halter back on over the bridle and clips him back into the crossties. She'll have to go looking.

As she steps into the aisle, Noelle comes around the corner, leading Blossom towards the washbays.

"Noelle! Have you seen Collei? She's running late, and she hasn't texted me yet."

"Oh, yes! Mr. Kaeya caught her in the tack room. He closed the door when I went out, so I didn't catch what for."

There's something weird about that. Probably it's nothing--Kaeya's an instructor, even if he's not giving this lesson, so it might be advice or something about her gear--but Amber feels uneasy anyway. Noelle looks faintly baffled, too. Kaeya doesn't generally keep his critiques private.

"Can you keep an eye on Bunny for a moment? I'm going to see what's taking so long," Amber says, and dashes off towards the tack room as soon as Noelle nods.

Through the door, she can hear Collei's voice, raised, though she can't make out the words. Kaeya, unusually loud, cuts across it. Amber can't tell what he's saying, either, but she flings the door open to find him right on the other side of it, blocking it, drawn up and tense while Collei glares from across the room. There's fear under the fury; the way she's shifting, it's like she's trying to figure out how to bolt.

"-just saying it's interesting that Dr. Zandik's adoptive daughter would be so interested in our barn just as we're having an Eleazar breakout," Kaeya is saying, his tone biting and cold. He glances back at Amber. "Ah, here's our little bunny at last. Tell me, Amber, has your new friend told you anything about her family?"

"I don't need to know anything about them to know you're being a jerk!" Amber kicks him solidly in the back of the knee.

From his words, Kaeya might have been expecting her, but he certainly hadn't expected that. His leg folds, and he staggers sideways, catching himself at the last minute on a saddle-rack. The moment he clears the doorway, Collei bolts for it. Amber tries to get out of her way, but Collei doesn't go past her, she turns around and plants herself in it, in front of Amber, squared up like she's expecting Kaeya to hit back.

"I haven't done anything to you! Leave me alone!"

"Nothing, huh?" Kaeya gets himself on his feet and looks at them both with that cold-eyed, unsmiling look. "You really expect me to believe that?"

"Kaeya, stop!" Amber puts a hand on Collei's arm, then winces apologetically when Collei shrugs it off. "Sorry- but listen, there's no way she could have given any of our horses Eleazar! She's not pooping in the field or anything, that's gross. I don't care if you're worried about Waltz, if you say anything else to her, I'll- I'll tell Jean and Eula. I'm telling Jean anyway."

Collei glances back at her, eyes wide in alarm. "Don't do that. I don't want to make trouble-"

"Kaeya's the one making trouble. He can't treat students like this." Amber glares at him again. "Jean's going to be so mad at you."

"Oh, I'm sure she will."

Kaeya is still looking at them with that uncanny look, and for a moment, Amber thinks he's going to- to what? He can't do anything to them without getting in a lot of trouble, and however scary that expression is and however mean he was being to Collei, it's not like he actually would. He catches her eye, though, and she still feels a chill down the back of her neck.

Then Kaeya shakes his head and smiles, conciliatory and completely fake, holding his hands up in front of him. "You're right, Amber. She certainly couldn't have given our horses anything through traditional transmission methods. I might have let my concern about Waltz get the best of me. My apologies, Miss Collei, and if you don't mind I'll go convey my regrets to Jean myself."

"I'm still telling her," Amber warns him. "Don't try and twist anything around."

"Of course not. I think I may need to take some time off work, if this is the way I'm acting around students. Go on, you two, enjoy your lesson."

"Come on," Amber hisses to Collei when she stays standing stiff and braced in the doorway, hands clenched into fists. This time she resists the urge to tug on her arm. "Bunny's all ready to ride, and Eula hates when people are late."

Turning to her, Collei nods and steps down into the aisle. She marches off towards the washbays without looking back, but her fists are still clenched, and her back doesn't relax until they're around the corner and out of Kaeya's sight. Amber glances back once as they make the turn to see him watching them from the door, still with that fake smile. He raises a hand to her in casual salute, and she glares and turns away.

Amber has to speed up a few steps to catch up with Collei. "Don't let Kaeya ruin your first ride just because he's a jerk. Bunny's the best horse there is, you'll see."

Collei's glance over at her is unexpectedly startled. For a second she freezes, wide-eyed, as if she isn't sure how to take Amber's smile. Then she smiles back, soft and relieved.

"I promise you won't regret letting me ride him."

Grinning now, Amber gives her a thumbs-up. "You're gonna do great! I just know it."

It takes only a minute to get the crossties unfastened and the halter back off, and then she holds the reins out to Collei, who takes them with a bright-eyed excitement that makes Amber all the more excited herself. She offers as much last-minute advice as she can think of as she leads Collei out to the ring where Eula is waiting, leaving Kaeya's weird looks and bad behavior behind. It doesn't matter how mean he is. Collei is going to have a great time--she'll make sure of it.

[isshua]

Messianic Aureation

Chapter 12: Final Escape

Summary: A dramatic last stand against the Madness-infected Vessels of Monstadt has Cara fighting for her life against multiple enemies. Will she manage to escape to live another day, or will she finally fall to the wrath of the hunters and the false god?

WOOHOO I AM ALIVE!!! To all who see this, thank you for sticking out the long wait. We're nearing the end of what I like to call the Monstadt Arc! After that, it's on to the nation of contracts...oh boy. Cara's own personal hell continues. Likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated! Have a great rest of your week! :D

Chapter 13 is here

Cara had her sword out in an instant, everything Albedo taught her screaming at her to go on the defensive. Rosaria’s polearm bounced off of the blade, sending the other woman falling back. She didn’t waste any time though, and went back in for the kill, charging forward and swinging viciously. Her jabs were sharp and precise. It was taking all of Cara’s concentration to deflect the attacks.

  “You have good reflexes,” Rosaria said. “You’ve been training with someone. Whoever it is taught you well.” She swung her polearm towards Cara’s head. A little shield of gold light pulsed around her arm when she brought it up to block the blow. “And it seems you do have some sort of strange power, after all. I can sense it, you know. It’s drawing me to you.”

  “Then why are you fighting me?” Cara asked. “If you feel the connection between us, you have to know I’m not your enemy!”

  “I know you aren’t. I’ve told you, I’m not doing this because I hate you. I’m doing this because I’m more afraid of what the Creator might do to Monstadt if I allow you to live than what might happen if you die.” Rosaria suddenly disappeared, moving far too quickly for Cara’s eyes to keep up with her. She reappeared behind her and swung her polearm in a wide arc. Cryo built up over it, turning the spear into a far deadlier version of itself as it prepared to cut her in half.

  A shield formed around Cara, protecting her from the attack. The Cryo clashed harmlessly against it. At first, she thought this was another manifestation of her powers. But then she saw that the forcefield had a geometric shape to it, and there was a specific type of elemental energy radiating from it that she had only ever felt from Albedo’s Vision before. This was a shield of Geo.

  “Sister Rosaria, please stand down!” Noelle begged as she brought out her claymore and charged into the battle. “I do not want to fight you!”

  “You don’t want to fight me? Then fine, don’t. This doesn’t involve you, anyway.” Rosaria dodged a swing from Noelle. With her polearm still covered in ice, she struck out and sent the warrior maid skidding away. Cara ran to offer Noelle assistance, using the shield to block Rosaria’s blows. The Geo sparked every time the weapon landed against it, little cracks forming over its transparent surface.

  “Don’t!” Noelle cried. “The shield will break if it's hit too many times! I won’t be able to create another one soon enough!”

  Rosaria continued to attack, and Cara once again found herself going on the defensive. Frustration filled her; here she was, after spending a month training, still depending on others to protect her. With a surge of strength fueled by her emotions, she pushed forward and jabbed her sword right between the tip of Rosaria’s polearm. The two of them strained, each hoping to knock the other’s weapon away, when finally, it was Cara who prevailed. Rosaria’s spear was flung back, and then Cara kicked her in the stomach, hard.

  Rosaria staggered and grunted in pain. “Wow, that was quite the display of strength. I’m impressed. You don’t look like you’d have that sort of drive in you.”

  “When you’ve been hunted by the people you know and love for weeks on end,” Cara said between heavy breaths, “that ‘sort of drive’ will develop in you whether you want it to or not.” She wavered when she saw the way Rosaria was clutching her stomach and realized that she could have seriously injured her. The other woman took advantage of her guilt and leaped forward. Her polearm struck the Geo shield, but this time, its blade cut through it easily. The cracks broke apart, and it exploded into shattering bits.

  “Rule number one of fighting the people you know and love,” Rosaria said. “Never let your guard down simply because of your feelings for them.” And then she punched Cara in the stomach, bringing forth a blossom of pain. She fell to her knees with a gasp.

  “That’s enough!” Noelle screamed. “If you wish to fight Her Grace, then you must fight me as well! I won’t let you hurt her anymore!” She swung her weapon in a wide arc. Rosaria was forced to turn her attention away from Cara to block the attack. Both of them were soon caught in a battle of blows, with Rosaria using her agility to dodge Noelle’s powerful swings. It was reminiscent of the battle Cara witnessed between Bennett and Eula. But now, she could fight too. And she wasn’t about to let Noelle take on Rosaria alone.

  She ignored the sparks of pain shooting through her abdomen as she moved, climbing onto a nearby pew and then launching herself at Rosaria with her sword raised over her head. Rosaria saw and tilted her polearm so that the blade of Cara’s sword hit its shaft. Noelle slammed her body weight into Rosaria, making her fall forward and lose her balance. Cara twirled her sword and knocked the polearm away. It clattered to the cathedral floor and skid beneath a pew.

  “You have skill,” Rosaria said, panting. She dropped to one knee; it seems that having an armored warrior maid barrel into you takes its toll on the body. “This…isn’t the outcome I anticipated when I initiated this fight. I know I can easily defeat you and Noelle at the same time.”

  “Then why don’t you?” Cara asked. “Is…is there a part of you that might be holding back?”

  Rosaria glared daggers at her. “I never hold back.”

  “There is, isn’t there? Stop lying to yourself.” Cara squatted down and looked her right in the eyes. “You know me. I’m not your god or your enemy. I’m Cara, your player, your friend.”

  Rosaria stared at her. Her eyes softened slightly, a light Cara hadn’t seen before flickering to life within them. Her hope rose. I’m getting through to her.

  “We don’t have to fight.” She stood up and offered Rosaria her hand. “Trust me. Please.”

  Before Rosaria could react, the doors to the cathedral suddenly burst open with a swirling of wind. The shards of Cryo that were keeping them closed shattered into little bits. Pouring in came the Knights of Favonius, all of them armed with swords and shields. “There she is!” one of them yelled, pointing at Cara.

  Cara stepped back, startled, and whatever emotions she had moved within Rosaria were gone. The sister swiped her foot beneath her legs and made her fall. “Your Grace!” Noelle cried, moving to run to her, but two knights stood in her path, forcing her back. “Stay silent, traitor,” they hissed at her.

  Rosaria rose over Cara and released a breath. There was no hint of sympathy in her eyes now. She looked visibly shaken though, and regarded Cara like one would observe a venomous snake. “You…are a strange little girl,” she said. “I can’t deny that there’s something divine about you. I don’t blame that god for wanting you dead.” She retrieved her polearm. “Time to put an end to this.”

  Cara scrambled up and gripped her sword. “Rosaria, it doesn’t have to be this way!”

  “You know just as well as I do that it does.” Rosaria once again leaped in to initiate an attack.

  Cara dodged and ran for Noelle. She clashed with the knights in her way and used their armor and shields to her advantage, ducking from clumsy attacks and letting them run into each other. Noelle was not fighting back. She looked far too panicked by the knights pointing their weapons right into her face. Cara knocked their swords aside, grabbed Noelle’s hand, and ran for the cathedral’s front doors.

  “Stop! Imposter!” The knights-and Rosaria-gave chase. Cara and Noelle pounded down the cathedral’s steps and ran through the courtyard. People stopped and stared when they went by, but quickly caught on to what was happening when they saw the knights close behind them. Monstadt’s citizens started to yell and cheer for Cara's capture. “Catch the imposter!” they cried. “Don’t let her escape! Do it for the Creator! Do it for Barbatos!”

  “Why don’t all of you shut the fuck up?” Cara screamed at them as they ran by.

  There was the sound of avian screeching, followed by a streak of purple that leaped through the sky and darted in their path. “This way!” Oz screamed, flapping his wings with desperate urgency. “Quickly! The escape plan is ready to initiate! We must leave, now-!”

  Another blast of Anemo slammed into the three of them. Oz was nearly knocked out of the air, black feathers falling while he squawked. Cara saw the knights and the angered citizens closing in on them. She shoved Noelle in front of her. “Go! Follow Oz! Get out of here!”

  “What?” Noelle yelled. “No! I will not leave you!”

  “They’ve seen you with me and now they’re going to target you, too! You need to get out of the city while you can!”

  “I swore I would protect you no matter what! There is no point in us separating now! We have time to escape together!”

  The wind was pulling Cara away from Noelle. She could feel its strength, and she knew if Noelle and Oz didn’t leave now, the Vision holder conjuring this power would kill them. “Please, just go! I’ll find my way to you guys! Tell Kaeya where I am! I’m going to try and hold them off!”

  “Your Grace, I strongly object to this plan!” Oz screeched. “Our mission is to ensure your safety! Teyvat will not be saved without you!”

  “You two are not expendable!” Cara argued.

  “Neither are you!”

  “I will not watch you die! Please, just go and get Kaeya! I’ll stay here and fight until you guys come back for me!”

  Noelle looked frantically at the incoming mob. “Your Grace…”

  “Go!” Cara shooed at them. She could tell they knew she was afraid. Even with her mask on, her voice was surely giving away just how terrified she was. “I promise I’ll be okay!”

  Oz grabbed Noelle’s cape with his beak and pulled on it urgently. The other girl warred with herself for a second longer, then set her jaw and nodded. “Okay. We’ll be back! Please, stay alive!”

  Cara watched her run after Oz, her heart sinking when she was left alone. She raised a quivering hand to her mask, covering the snout like it was her actual mouth. A hollow sob escaped her lips. Don’t leave me, she thought. Please, don’t leave me here alone. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to face the Madness.

  She did not say these words out loud. She would not allow Noelle or Oz to die for her. This was her war, not theirs. This was ensuring their safety, no matter how terrified she felt.

  She heard the clinking of armor and a sword being unsheathed. Cara whirled around and saw the Acting Grand Master herself walking towards her with a troop of knights following close behind. Monstadt citizens quickly surrounded them, forming a ring that promised no escape.

  “Imposter,” Jean announced forebodingly. “Your time ends here.”

  “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” Cara cursed. She drew her sword and slowly started to back up. Jean stalked towards her, slow and steady, ready to pounce at any moment. “Jean-”

  “Save your excuses. I am not here to talk. By the order of the Almother and under the jurisdiction of the Knights of Favonius, I hereby condemn you to execution.” She pointed her sword at her. “No more running. This ends now.”

  They circled each other, like two animals about to fight. Cara glanced around fleetingly, searching for a possible escape route, but could find none with the giant crowd of onlooking Monstadters surrounding them. The air was filled with the sound of cheers and yells and hisses. Most of what she could pick up on were voices of support for Jean. The citizens were pressing in on them like hungry wolves. If she were to attempt an exit, they would surely tear her apart.

  “Jean,” she desperately implored. “Please, think about this. Is this really what you want? Is this your own decision? Or is it someone else’s? What is your supposed Almother whispering into your ear?”

  Jean snarled. “You dare attempt to shake my faith in the Creator?”

  “I’m trying to make you think! Rosaria told me what she does to you guys. I know she abuses you and takes over your bodies while filling your heads with lies. What does she know about me?”

  “She knows you are a-”

  “She knows nothing!” Cara screamed out the final word with all of her frustration and hatred for the creature who had stolen her face packed into it, sending her emotions high into the heavens for even Celestia to hear. “She claims to know who I am and what my fate is meant to be! All of you do! You see me as an imposter and a heretic, and yet you never even once think to hear out the side of the one you're hunting! I am not what you think I am, I’m not what she thinks I am! I will decide what my fate is and where I’m meant to stand in this world!”

  Jean did not answer. The red in her eyes flickered and dulled. Cara could see the wheels turning in her mind and felt hope. She persisted. “Listen to me Jean. Listen to my words without having the opinion of another forced into your brain. I am not an imposter. I am not your enemy. I don’t want to be your god. I just want to be the person you know me to be deep down.”

  “And who,” Jean asked slowly, “are you supposed to be?” The question sounded like it was directed at herself as much as it was to Cara. The Madness within her was weakening due to her newfound doubt.

  Cara softened. “I’m your friend. I’m the one who fought beside you during the Stormterror incident. I’m the one you’ve confided your troubles and feelings in. I’ve been there for you and I want to keep being here for you. I’m Cara, and I-”

  The moment she said her own name, all progress in freeing Jean was lost. Red consumed her natural eye color, and her lips curled as she bared her teeth and roared. “You will not give yourself a name that doesn’t belong to you!” A blast of Anemo hit Cara and nearly knocked her off of her feet as the Acting Grand Master ran forward to attack.

  Cara rolled and bounced back, deflecting the Aquila Favonia. Jab after jab after jab. Dodge, defend, block, run. This was not the composed, proper attack style she was so used to seeing from Jean. She was being shown the true might of the Acting Grand Master.

  “You are a liar!” Jean slashed. “You are a fraud!” Cara barely had enough time to block an attack aimed for her ankles. “You wear a face that isn’t your own and now you must suffer the repercussions for it! Take it off, heretic! Take off the mask so we can see you for the imposter you really are!”

  Anemo power hit Cara and sent her stumbling back into the crowd. Instantly, what felt like a million hands started clawing at her while the angry screams of the Monstadt citizens filled her ears until it was all she could perceive. Panic set in when she felt herself being swallowed up by the mob, and she fought to break free. A final push had her running back into the circle, but there was no time to catch her breath, because Jean was upon her immediately with her sword flying for her chest.

  She blocked it and struck forward. The fight continued, both swords clashing, back and forth with neither gaining the upper hand. Cara was beginning to tire; she was honestly surprised with herself that she was managing to keep up with Jean for this long. Over and over again the Aquila Favonia flashed before her eyes, and the only thing keeping it at bay was the Prototype Rancour. Sooner or later, her strength was going to give out, and Jean would lop off her head. Kaeya, come on, where are you with that escape plan? I really need you right now!

  In the corner of her good eye, just within her mask’s line of vision, she saw red. Heat touched her skin. Fire. She threw herself out of the way before the Pyro-infused greatsword hurtling towards her could skewer her. It crashed into the ground with so much force the tip of its blade was buried in the cobblestone. Beneath her bandages, her right eye ached. Shit. Wrong brother.

  “Diluc,” Jean said. There was a sort of surprise in her tone.

  “Forgive my intrusion.” Diluc stepped out of the crowd. He retrieved his claymore with a single hand, wrenching it out of the ruined ground like it was a simple stick in the mud. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind at all. Your aid is welcomed. The imposter is quite skilled with a sword. I’m having a bit of trouble finding her weak spots.”

  “It seems she is.” Diluc regarded Cara with utter disgust. “So we meet again. I see you’ve gotten yourself a little accessory to cover your face with. Do you think it’s funny to wear a mask that resembles Caratrice’s true form? Your sense of humor sickens me.”

  Cara’s mouth felt dry at the sight of the red-haired man. Flashing fire burning away her eye seared her memory and made her wince in pain.

  “I do not trust the knights,” Diluc continued. “And I will admit, I am a little reluctant to be aiding them in your capture and execution. But I am willing to put my feelings aside if it means you are brought to justice. Now, before we kill you, do you have any last words?”

  Cara could not respond. She worked her tongue in the hopes of forming words, but nothing came out. Diluc had sparked deep fear in her, something that hadn’t existed before their fight in Dragonspine. Her heart was pounding too quickly. Her breaths were far too shallow. She couldn’t move. Get up! she screamed at herself. You need to get up! You need to fight! 

  She could see nothing but fire. She could feel nothing but fear. Her mind was a wasteland of charred skin and splattered gold blood. And then, two giant blue-gray eyes ruptured through her vision and she felt a humongous pressure of great claws grabbing her by the shoulders and enormous teeth biting straight into her very soul. “MOVE!” a mighty voice thundered. “STAND!”

  Her hands were shaking. Her fingers curled around the hilt of her sword. Spindling gold cracks lit up across her arms, and with her own voice ringing in her ears, she pushed herself up and faced Diluc and Jean. An onslaught of strength entered her weary bones. She pushed her mask over her head, revealing her face, bandages, concealed scars and all.

  “There she is,” Diluc growled. “The face of a demon in disguise.”

  “There is nowhere to run, imposter,” Jean said. “We have you surrounded.”

  She looked around. All around them were Knights of Favonius, holding off the mob of civilians and facing her with bristled shields and swords. There were familiar faces among them, too: she saw Rosaria staring at her with resigned resolve. Beside her, Barbara watched her nervously with a rosary clutched between her clasped hands. She noticed Amber perched on the top of a nearby building, a flaming arrow aimed for her and ready to be released. Eula, Mona, and Lisa were there, too. It was a standoff. Every single Vision user who was infected with the Madness-or at least influenced by it-was here to kill her. And here she was, completely alone. No Kaeya, no Bennett and Razor, no Klee and Sucrose, no Noelle, no Albedo. She could not face them all alone. She was going to die here. They were going to rip her apart and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She remembered what she had told Albedo in Dragonspine. “I won’t be reckless. I won’t throw myself into situations I can’t handle. I’m going to survive, for you and the rest of my friends.” Not even a day had gone by since she had seen him, and she was already breaking that promise to him. Sorry Albedo, she thought guiltily. I guess I’m not as sensible as you thought I was.

  Cara slowly held up her hands in surrender. And then she turned and ran.

  “After her!” Jean ordered. The knights and the hounds charged. Cara felt the heat of Diluc’s Pyro on her back as he rocketed towards her. She ducked. He sailed over her head, then did a somersault and landed in front of her. The Serpent Spine created sparks against the street as he used it to slow himself down. She made an erratic turn and pelted down an alleyway, leaving him behind.

  “Not so fast!” Amber yelled from the rooftops. Flaming arrows rained down. Cara raised a hand and let a golden shield form. The arrows bounced off of it harmlessly. The alleyway opened up into another main street. She skidded and nearly fell over when she ran left.

  Out of nowhere, Eula appeared and slammed herself into her. Cara fell and nearly lost her sword. Eula swung her claymore down towards her neck, but she blocked it. The blood in her veins flared brightly when she pushed back with an influx of strength.

  Eula recovered quickly. She blasted Cara with Cryo. Little shards of ice formed over her clothes as she raised her arms to shield her face from the elemental attack. Her legs went numb. She looked down at them and was horrified to see that they were slowly being encased in ice.

  “If you didn’t know,” a new voice said from behind her. “Hydro and Cryo create a frozen reaction.” Mona’s eyes glowed blue as she summoned the power of water and kept it swirling around Cara’s legs. “Try escaping now, imposter.”

  “Mona!” Cara cried. “The Madness is in you, too! You need to fight it!”

  “Madness? I’m not infected with any sort of madness! I think of myself as quite a sane person, thank you very much!” Mona looked offended. “You, on the other hand, are probably the craziest person in Monstadt right now. Heretics aren’t known for their high IQs, after all.”

  Cara tried to pull her legs out of the ice, but it was no use. It was slowly creeping up her torso and making its way to her chest. Soon she wouldn’t be able to move at all.

  “I think we’ll let her freeze to death,” Mona mused. “Is that too painful, Eula? I suppose it would be kind of us to give her a merciful execution.”

  “It’s not painful enough,” Eula spat. “The Creator did not tell us to be kind with her.”

  “Oh. Then I guess we should keep her alive long enough for Diluc to get here. Did you know, little imposter? Burning to death is the most painful way a human being can die. Let’s see how you’ll like it.”

  Terror filled Cara like water filling a glass: rapidly rising, higher and higher, until it hit the brim and spilled over and her panic peaked when she realized that she could not move. “Let me go!” she screamed, and with the surge of fear, a gold light erupted from her body and shattered through the ice. She took off running, not looking back, not even acknowledging Mona or Eula a second time. Both women sprang to stop her. Mona raised a hand and sent forth bursts of Hydro, while Eula jumped and practically threw her claymore at her. Cara deflected it, but did not avoid Mona’s attack: the Hydro struck her with piercing pain, and she gasped as she was nearly knocked off balance as what felt like a million tiny little needles jabbed through her clothing and into her skin.

  “Bet you didn’t think water could hurt you so badly, now, did you?” Mona cackled. Hydro swirled around her hands as she prepared to unleash another attack. “Hydrology does more than reveal the future, you know!”

  Despite the agony she was in, Cara kept running. “Don’t let her escape!” Eula shouted.

  She weaved through alleyways and pelted down streets, dodging arrows sent by Amber and barely avoiding hits from Eula and Mona. She did not see Diluc, nor did she see Jean. Monstadt was a huge city, much larger than its game counterpart. How the fuck do I get out of here? she thought frantically. And where the hell are Kaeya and the others?

  She turned a corner, and someone pummeled into her, causing her to see stars. She felt a hand wrap around her neck and another grab her mask and shove it over her head while she was lifted off of the ground. Diluc’s eyes were completely, utterly filled with Madness as he angled his claymore at her stomach. “Hold still,” he hissed. “I want to see your face as you die.”

  She grabbed his wrist and squeezed. Golden light glowed from her palm. Diluc yelped in pain and dropped her, giving her time to get back onto her feet. He examined the marking on his skin, which was already fading away. “You…burned me?”

  She pulled her mask back over her face and ran. Unfortunately, she didn’t get very far. Rosaria was there to join them, once again lunging at her from the shadows with every intent to kill. Cara fought her off and turned to run back the way she came, but a blast of purple lightning forced her to backpedal. “There’s no use in running,” Lisa said haughtily with a smile. She too had arrived to stop her. “Just give up, cutie. It’s time for this to end.”

  Cara turned in a circle. All around her, Vessels were arriving. Amber was once again on a roof. Rosaria, Diluc, and Lisa closed off any escape routes. Eula and Mona caught up and stood at the ready. And finally, there was Jean with Barbara at her side.

  “We cannot kill you just yet,” Barbara said. She did not look like she wanted to be there, and certainly didn’t have the bloodthirsty, furious expression that the rest of them wore, but she did look at Cara with an equal amount of fear and repulsion. “You have something that belongs to the church. Please, hand it over.”

  “No,” Cara insisted. “You don’t understand. I need it.”

  “What would a heretic need with the Holy Lyre der Himmel?” Barbara asked, exasperated.

  “I-I need it to get in contact with Barbatos. I-”

  Mona cut her off with sharp laughter. “Ha! The imposter wants to gain an audience with the Anemo Archon! You truly are the most mad person in Monstadt!”

  “Barbatos would never grace you with his presence,” Jean said coldly.

  “He doesn’t even grace his own followers with his presence,” Rosaria muttered, but was quickly shushed by Barbara.

  “You don’t understand!” Cara cried. “This isn’t just about him and me! It’s about something even greater!”

  “There is nothing great about stealing a sacred artifact from the church,” Amber spoke up. “And there isn’t anything great about calling yourself the Creator, either.”

  “I never did that! You all just assumed I was because of my name!”

  “Your ‘name’ is enough evidence to prove you are an imposter,” Eula said. “Do you know about the heretics who have come before you? All of them called themselves something similar to Her Grace’s name. You are just following in their footsteps. The lack of respect for the Almother sickens me! By the gods, I will have vengeance for this!”

  They were closing in on her. Cara desperately looked for somewhere to run, but a flaming arrow nicked her shoulder and caused her to hiss. “That was just a warning!” Amber called. “One more step and I’ll send one straight through your heart!”

  Blood dripped from the mild wound. She clutched it, then suddenly had an idea. With her palm covered in her own blood, she raised it into the air for all of them to see. “Look! Look at the color of my blood! Would an imposter have golden blood?”

  They all paused.

  “Her Grace told us you might try to trick us this way,” Jean said.

  “Your blood is not gold,” Eula growled. “Your blood is just as red as ours.”

  “It literally isn’t!” Cara could not hold back her frustration.

  “Heretics have used alchemy in the past to give their blood the appearance of being gold,” Lisa said. “You really thought we would fall for such a rudimentary trick? Aw, I thought you were smarter than this, darling.”

  “I have had enough of this.” Diluc marched towards Cara with flames burning across his claymore. “No more talking. You will die now, and there is no more dicussing it.”

  Cara raised her sword, preparing to fight for her life, even though she knew she was going to lose. But before such a battle could begin…she heard something.

  The whinny of a horse, followed by the sound of hooves.

  Diluc paused. All of the Vessels looked around in confusion. The clop-clop-clopping grew nearer. Cara could feel the vibration within the soles of her boots.

  And then a horse galloped into the scene, cantering straight into the circle and causing the Vision holders to seek cover from the massive animal’s arrival. Diluc stumbled back as the horse halted right between him and Cara, rearing up onto its hind legs and punching the air as it neighed. Its tack was gold and white, and emblazoned upon its head armor was the Knights of Favonius crest.

  A familiar gloved hand reached out for her. “Get on!” Kaeya yelled.

  Cara did not waste any time. She grasped his arm and let him haul her up onto the horse behind him. “Hold on tight,” he told her. “This is going to be a fast ride.” He squeezed the horse and snapped the reins. It took off into an immediate canter, flying down the street and leaving the hunters far behind them. The last thing Cara heard was Diluc scream out “KAEYA!” with enough fury to send a grown man into tears.

  They did not speak as they raced through Monstadt’s streets. Cara was pretty sure if she tried to talk, her voice would be carried away with the wind. She just held on to Kaeya with all of her might, burying her face into his shoulder and feeling the gait of the horse beneath her. A loud cawing from above made her peek up at the sky. Leading them from the air was Oz. Trails of Electro crackled off of his feathers as he flew…or perhaps it wasn’t Oz at all. There was no sign of Fischl anywhere, so it was probable she was the one guiding them to safety.

  They went through the city’s main gates and down the stone bridge, going far too fast for anyone to stop them. Waiting at the end were two more horses. On one was Bennett and Razor, and on the other was Noelle. They joined them as they cantered off, side by side, heading deeper into the wilds. Only when they were far away from the city did the horses slow to a brisk trot.

  “Cara!” Bennett called. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine!” she answered. “Where did you guys get these horses? I didn’t even know there were horses in Monstadt!”

  “Well, it would be a bit odd for me to be the cavalry captain if there were no horses around, no?” Kaeya said to her.

  “Well, yes, of course, but-” It probably wouldn’t be the best idea for her to say “Hey, Hoyoverse hasn’t added mounts to the game yet!” to the game characters, so she went for a different way of wording. “I thought Varka took all the horses with him on that big expedition!”

  “That would be impossible!” Noelle piped up. “The Grand Master did take many of the horses the Knights of Favonius own, yes, but plenty remained here for those who stayed behind! We depend on horses for many things! To leave Monstadt horseless would be a great disaster!”

  “Not to mention that the Adventurers’ Guild has a stable of their own that they let their members use for free!” Bennett added. “Plenty of regular civilians and adventurers own horses of their own!”

  “The point is, we need horses here,” Kaeya said. “It’s mandatory for all knights to know how to ride because of how important a skill it is. Horses truly are an integral part of Monstadt’s stability.”

  “Huh.” Cara didn’t know what to say to that. It seemed that there really were more differences between this world she had been forced into and the game she used to play than she thought. “Did you just take them from the stables? Isn’t that stealing?”

  “I am the cavalry captain,” Kaeya said matter-of-factly. “I can take as many of the Knights’ horses as I want, when I want.”

  “No one saw us take them, if that’s what you're worried about!” Noelle said. “We’re okay! What we’re worried about is you!”

  “What were you thinking?” Kaeya scolded. “You never should have separated from Noelle and Oz! They could have helped you fight the others off until I arrived!”

  “If they would have stayed with me, they would have been in danger!” Cara replied. “I didn’t want that to happen!”

  Kaeya sighed. “We’re all going to be in danger whether we want to or not. There’s no changing that anymore. I’m glad you're okay, but I really would have preferred it if one of us had been there for you.”

  “I…I’m sorry. I probably scared you guys, and it wasn’t smart of me to send Noelle and Oz away. I just didn’t want to see them get hurt. Everyone was there to kill me. It was better that I was alone so their attention was on me, not you guys.”

  “We don’t want their attention on you, Your Grace,” Kaeya said. “It’s extremely important that you are never cornered like that again.”

  Cara was silent. She felt guilty on more than one level. Her friends were so willing to fight for her, to stand by her, to give up everything for her. It felt wrong. It felt selfish. Their lives were disrupted because of her. Kaeya, Bennett, Razor, Noelle…even Fischl and Oz. They could never go back to how things were. Their relationships with the Madness-infected Vessels were ruined. Kaeya would be killed if he stepped foot into Monstadt right now. Bennett would lose his status in the Adventurers’ Guild and be imprisoned. Razor had been forced to deceive Lisa, his mother figure. She might never trust him again. And Noelle…poor Noelle, who worked so hard to try and win Jean’s approval so she herself might become a knight someday…because of her, that dream was gone. As for Fischl and Oz, people probably saw the large purple night raven leading the heretic and her followers to safety. Mona might have seen. The two girls were practically sisters. Had she just torn them apart?

  “Hey!” Bennett yelled, as if sensing how upset she was with herself. “What’s done is done, alright? We’re all safe, and that’s what matters. Let’s get the heck away from the city and steal that gnosis!” He spurred his horse onward, outpacing the other two and taking the lead. “I’m heading for Windrise! Last one there is hilichurl chow!”

  “Wolves not meant to ride horse!” Razor shrieked as he clung to Bennett. “Wolf meant to run alone on ground! Going too fast!” His howls got lost amidst the sound of Bennett’s laughter. Cara couldn’t help but smile as she watched them.

  They stuck to the main path, cantering past the Temple of the Falcon and heading southeast towards the tree that sat like a mighty giant in the distance. The sun was starting to set, signaling the beginning of the end for this terrifying, hectic afternoon. Cara looked back and could not see Monstadt City anymore; it was lost behind the cliffs and the hills, giving her a sense of ease as distance was put between her and the hunters. After today, she most likely wouldn't be there again for a while…at least, as long as she managed to successfully take Venti’s gnosis after summoning him with the holy lyre. If this impossible mission goes according to plan, and she actually manages to get it…she would have to leave Monstadt for a long, long time. It sent a pain through her heart. The nation of freedom was a place she was nostalgically fond of, and she was sad she hadn’t been given the chance to experience its beauty without its horrors lingering close behind.

  They were alone when they arrived at Windrise. They let the horses graze beneath Vanessa’s tree and took the time to rest on the oak’s giant roots. Noelle unpacked some food and gave specific dishes to each of them. “A Monstadt hash brown for Razor…some chicken-mushroom skewers for Kaeya…a delicious Teyvat fried egg for Bennett…a cold cut platter for Fischl and Oz…and some lighter-than-air pancakes for you and me, Your Grace! I don’t know what your favorite food is, I apologize greatly for that, but I thought you might enjoy my specialty!”

  Cara dug into the pancakes immediately, grateful to have something in her stomach after all of the running and fighting she had just done. “They’re perfect. Thank you, Noelle. Honestly, I don’t have a single favorite food. I’ll eat anything you give me…but I do enjoy seafood when I can have it. I could live off of seafood.”

  “Seafood!” Noelle clapped her hands. “Perfect! I shall remember that. Thank you for telling me, Your Grace!”

  Fischl, who had separated from Oz, suddenly gasped and nearly flung her cold cut platter into the air. Oz was knocked off of her shoulder and flopped onto the ground with a protesting caw. “Goodness gracious! Your Grace, thou hast received a wound!”

  “Huh? What?” Cara poked her bandages. “Haven’t we discussed my injured eye already?”

  “No! That’s not what I’m talking about!” Fischl grabbed her arm and touched her shoulder, where a bit of her shirt was ripped. “Who did this to you? I shall have their head for this!”

  “Oh, that? It’s nothing. Look, it's already healed.” Cara poked the thin golden scar visible through the tear. “I got that when Amber shot an arrow at me. Thank god it wasn’t on fire.”

  “Your endurance to such injuries has grown quite impressive, Your Grace,” Oz said. He cautiously hopped back onto Fischl’s shoulder and peered closely at the scar.

  “Hmph! Well, I would imagine so! Her Grace is filled with enough power to bring the Seven to their knees! Of course a little cut from a messy mortal arrow wouldst be not a problem for her!” Fischl said.

  “I think it’s so cool,” Bennett added. “I mean, being able to heal from any injury? Gods sure do have it lucky, don’t they?”

  “Please don’t call me a god,” Cara groaned. “I thought we established that we weren’t going to do that anymore. I-”

  Suddenly, the wind began to blow. Cara paused when she felt it blowing gently across them all. Something familiar stirred within her heart. The words she was about to say died on her tongue as she looked northeast. Across the Wailwind Highland, over the green fields and the tops of trees, in the direction of Starfell Valley, the tops of an ancient amphitheater were only just visible. The Thousand Wind’s Temple, where the wind was telling her to go. With it…came the gentle plucking of a lyre. The faint melody of a familiar song that brought dread.

  “Cara?” Razor said. He nudged her gently. “Alright? You smell…scared. What is scaring you?”

  Kaeya looked at her closely and seemed to recognize the distant expression in her eye. “What are you hearing?” he asked.

  “Someone is waiting for me there.” She pointed to the Thousand Wind’s Temple.

  “Who?” Oz asked.

  She knew who. She knew Kaeya knew as well, and from the dawning looks of apprehension Razor and Bennett were sharing with each other, it was clear they realized it too. Shakily, she stood. “I have to go.”

  “Go?” Fischl and Oz repeated together.

  “Your Grace, what do you mean?” Noelle asked.

  Cara swallowed hard. “Noelle, Fischl, Oz…thank you for everything you have done for me. I know I’ve messed up your lives. Things won’t be the same for you guys anymore, and I know that’s my fault. I’m sorry I roped you into this…I wish I hadn’t.”

  Noelle stood up too. “There is nothing to apologize for, Your Grace! I told you this in the church courtyard, I chose to help you! I do not care if Monstadt ostracizes me for it, I will never regret my decision to stand by your side!”

  “Oz and I agree!” Fischl got up and put her hands on her hips. “If thou believest we wouldn’t have come to thy aid, then thou must reconsider changing thy beliefs! We would do it again, and again, and again!”

  “You must not doubt us, Your Grace,” Oz agreed. “Mein Fräulein and I will always be here for you.”

  Cara looked at them, and smiled. She felt tears gathering in her good eye, and she had to lower her head and wipe them away. “You guys…I…I don’t deserve you…”

  “You deserve everything and so much more.” Fischl’s words were uncharacteristically gentle and heartfelt. “Just because you don't believe it, doesn’t mean it is not true.”

  “Have faith in us, Almother,” Oz said. “-as we have faith in you.”

  Cara stepped closer to them. She flung her arms over their shoulders and pulled them close, hugging them. “I love you guys. I love you guys so, so much.”

  “We love you, too,” Noelle murmured.

  “Our love for you knows no bounds,” Fischl said.

  She held them tight, then eventually let go. She swiped her tears away. “I wish you guys could stay with me…but you can’t. You can’t go where I’m going. So I’m going to ask you, please, to get out of here while you can. Fischl and Oz, I don’t think anyone truly saw you guys helping me. You can return to Monstadt safely. Noelle…”

  “I cannot go back.” Noelle nodded sadly. “I know.”

  “I know someone who can keep you safe, though. Go to Dragonspine and find Albedo. He’s on our side. Tell him I sent you, and I asked that he keep you safe. I know I’ve asked far too much of him already, but…I want you to be protected. I don’t want you to die.”

  “Are…are you sure we cannot come with you?”

  “No. This is something that I have to do alone.”

  Noelle sighed. “I understand.” Her eyes were glassy, but she was smiling. “Your Grace, it was my honor and privilege to serve you. I wish you nothing but success and safety on your journeys. I know that after today, we will probably won’t see each other again for a long time, but…there won’t be a single day that goes by from this moment onward that I won’t be thinking of you and praying you are safe.”

  “I, too, will be praying and wishing for your safety,” Fischl said. She was sniffling and trying to keep a strong, determined expression on, but the tears dripping down her cheeks and the sight of her bottom lip quivering gave away just how distraught she was. “Your Grace, in the name of the Immernachtreich…I beseech you to remain ever vigilant of where thy foes may appear. Though we may not follow where fate brings you…we shall always be with you. This, um, isn’t just coming from the Prinzessin der Verurteilung…it’s coming from my heart, as well.”

  Cara understood what she meant. She nodded. “I’ll be safe. I’ll get the Anemo gnosis. I’ll make sure neither of you have to fear for your life ever again.”

  Noelle helped Fischl onto one of the horses, then got on another one. Both girls gave Cara one last farewell before leaving. Noelle headed towards Dragonspine, while Fischl took the road back in the direction of the city. She watched them draw farther and farther until she couldn’t see either of them at all.

  Oz landed on her shoulder and nuzzled her cheek. “May the night protect you, Almother. Farewell.” And then he disappeared with a burst of electric light.

  There was silence. Cara sat down one on a root and stared at the ground. She did not bother to wipe her tears away.

  Razor sat down next to her. “Cara alright?” he softly asked.

  She sniffed and nodded, swallowing down a sob. “I’ll be okay.”

  “It’s hard to say goodbyes,” Bennett said. “It’s even harder when you don’t know if it’ll be the last goodbye you ever give someone.”

  “It won’t be.” Kaeya placed a steady hand on Cara’s shoulder. “You will see them again. I promise you.”

  “I just want them to be safe,” she whispered.

  “They will be,” Bennett said. “I know they will. Noelle’s going to go stay with Albedo. Nobody will mess with her if he’s around. And Fischl and Oz are two of my best friends! I know how strong they are! It’ll take more than the Knights of Favonius to bring them down!”

  “Purple girl, purple bird, and maid lady good people,” Razor added. “They won’t die. Souls are strong. Strong like wolf. No bad will happen to them. This I know.”

  Kaeya squeezed her shoulder. “You must remain strong, for them, and for yourself. They will be okay. And you will be okay, too.”

  “Yeah!” Bennett grinned. “You’ll be okay! Even if Noelle, Fischl, and Oz are gone, that doesn’t mean you aren’t alone! You have us! And we aren’t going anywhere!”

  Razor grunted in agreement. “Right!”

  “We certainly aren’t.” Kaeya sat down and ducked his head to meet Cara’s eye. He smiled gently. “We aren’t leaving you…though I have a feeling you may attempt to convince us to.”

  “You know me that well, huh?” Cara chuckled. “It’s true, though. You guys will be so much safer if you don’t come with me. You can go with Noelle and stay with Albedo-”

  “Nope! Not happening!” Bennett jumped up. “Tell us to leave all you want, but we’re not gonna listen to you! We’ve been through so much together already! You’re really gonna just tell us to leave after everything that’s happened?”

  “We are pack.” Razor pressed a hand to his heart. “You…me…Bennett…Kaeya…we are lupical now. Lupical protect each other. Lupical never abandons lupical, ever.”

  “You two certainly do speak words of wisdom,” Kaeya said. “They’re right, Cara. We aren’t leaving. No matter what you tell us, we’re with you.”

  Cara felt like she was going to burst into full-on sobbing. “You guys…fuck, your going to make me break apart if you keep saying all of this…” She sniffled and stood up. Their words ignited fresh determination. “Thank you. I don’t deserve you three. I want you to stay. I don’t want you to leave me…so please, no matter what I say…don’t leave.”

  “We won’t!”

  “Mm, promise!”

  “The four of us will carry on together.”

  She breathed in, then sighed. She felt better. Their words left her feeling invigorated. Noelle, Fischl, and Oz would be okay. Deep down, she knew Teyvat wouldn’t let any of her allies fall to danger. Everyone who had helped her in Monstadt would be alright.

  The echoes from the lyre continued to send deep tremors through her soul.

  It was time to face the music.

  “I need you guys to wait here,” she told them. “I’m going to get the gnosis.”

  They started to protest, and she held up her hand. “I know we just went through an emotional moment where we promised each other we’d stick together…but this is a battle I need to fight by myself. I-I can feel it. This won’t be a fight for mortals.” This will be a battle against gods.

  They exchanged glances, still looking uncertain. It was Kaeya who finally relented. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I am. He’s calling to me, and only me. If you guys show up, too…” She cast a glance at the temple. “He may not be happy. I don’t think he’d hurt you, but in the state he’s in, with the Madness controlling him…”

  “He’ll kill us.” Bennett’s voice was shaky.

  Kaeya stepped back. “Okay. You go. Take the horse with you. She’s loyal, and she’s fast. A quick getaway once it’s over might be necessary.”

  Cara stepped up to the remaining horse and gently petted her neck. The mare nickered softly, giving her a greeting while she stared at her with kind brown eyes. “What’s her name?” 

  “Epona,” Kaeya answered, then added, “I trained her myself. She’ll stick with you no matter what is thrown your way.”

  Cara put her foot in the stirrup and let Kaeya help her into the saddle. She looked down at her friends. They stood watching, waiting. Razor nodded once. Bennett gave her a thumbs up. Kaeya held Epona’s bridle and questioned her one last time. “You remember everything Albedo taught you?”

  “How could I forget? He spent a month drilling it all into my brain.”

  “Don’t hold it against him. You’ll get back at him for it one day.” Kaeya patted Epona’s neck, then stepped back. “We’ll follow from a distance and wait nearby. Please…stay safe, Cara. Stay alive.”

  “Fight tooth and claw!” Razor added.

  “Kick that Archon’s butt!” Bennett cried.

  She smiled at them. “I will. I’m coming back with that gnosis, no matter what.”

  She gave Epona a squeeze, and with a snort, she started off at a trot. Cara looked back and saw her friends watching. She waved, then forced herself to face forward.

  She was terrified. She did not want to face him. She did not want to do this at all.

  But she was going to have to.

  Albedo, Noelle, Sucrose, Klee. Fischl, Oz, Diona. Kaeya, Bennett, Razor…she would not let their faith in her be in vain.

  She headed for the Thousand Winds Temple, following the lyre’s song, where Venti was waiting.

[yanderes-galore]

As Noelle pulled you down the hill, you saw the town below you getting covered in ice and snow. Noelle happily dragged you around. "We have this whole place to ourselves! Nobody will ever find us! Nobody..." When Noelle mumbled the last part, she suddenly began to stare off.

"I didn't do this.. did I? I didn't.. what's happening?!" Noelle panicked at nothing, staggering into an ice covered building. Her eyes kept darting around, like someone was watching her.

.

[zmediaoutlet]

fic: all we want is more (complete)

I hope people will give it a chance! Turns out I created the word doc on March 18 of this year; a very long stagger of musing to actually get done. But it's done.

title: all we want is more pairing: Sam/always-a-girl Deanna rating: explicit length: 18k (chapter 2; full fic is ~35k)

summary: Sam and Deanna have never been good at boundaries.

(read full fic on AO3)

(link directly to chapter 2)

Dad comes back to Louisville the following Wednesday, later than the first estimate but earlier than the second. The days between are—strange. Sam expected them to be but he didn't understand the scale.

Sam does his homework. Deanna works at the bar. She brings home food and Sam does another load of laundry, not making a big deal of it, and Deanna doesn't either, picking through her clean underwear without looking at him. He and Noelle work on their Shakespeare presentation in class and they're going to get an A and Noelle smiles at him big and warm and glad and asks if he wants to go bowling with her family on Saturday, kind of a party. Sam wants to bury himself under a mile of dirt and broken bricks and salt, where no one will ever see him again. He says no. Noelle's feelings seem hurt but she just says, "Okay, maybe next time," and for the first time maybe in his life Sam thinks that there won't be a next time with relief instead of resentment.

Kentucky feels like a sinkhole, a trap. He can't breathe, it's so humid. Deanna takes a shower when she comes home from the bar and Sam's awake, he's always awake now as soon as the front door opens, and he watches through slit eyes while she comes into the bedroom in her towel, walking on silent padding feet like slinking past a skinwalker. She crouches, and rummages for her clean pajamas, and glances at where Sam's silent and curled on his side on his bed, and then—goes back into the bathroom, changing quiet and out of sight. Comes back in the thin light from the kitchen, seeping through the cracks in the bedroom door, in the DARE shirt and the boxers and her forearms and thighs and hair shining, and crawls into her bed, and she doesn't throw a beer can at him and tell him about how gross the customers were tonight and she doesn't whack him with a pillow and demand he come watch Die Hard With A Vengeance and she doesn't talk to him at all, or at least not in a way that matters. In the morning she drives him to school and there's dark smudged under eyes like she slept bad, and Sam tells her to have a good day and she smiles, brief, and says, "Back atcha, kiddo," and Sam wants to scream.

They go for a run on Sunday morning. Ten miles. Deanna doesn't bitch the whole time and Sam wants her to, very badly. He sprints ahead after the first ten minutes, not willing to have her in his peripheral vision for the next hour, and because he's in the lead he sets the pace, and he runs fast, his heart pounding in his throat and his breath sawing his chest and his whole body absolutely drenched in sweat in the muggy air, but she doesn't call a halt once, keeping up behind him so he can hear her panting. When they get back to the car they both heave for air, hands on their knees, and Sam thinks he's going to puke but he doesn't. Deanna bends at the waist, arms folded on the Impala's hood and her forehead buried against them. Her thighs trembling, her shorts damp with sweat at the back, her shoulderblades popped up high, where Sam could lay his head between them, feel the way her lungs expanded, the way her heart beat, hard and heavy. How she'd smell.

She tells him she's going out, after she gets out of the shower. "Thought the bar was closed," Sam says, and Deanna shrugs, in her towel again, picking through the clothes Sam washed and dried and folded, says, "Hey, just because Marv's a square doesn't mean the whole town shuts down," and glances at him all gross and half-dried sweat on his bed and says, "Don't wait up, huh?" and he slams into the bathroom, smelling again the vanilla and the chemical peach and tugged in this awful war between terrified and pissed.

He jerks off in the shower. Not thinking until he, of course, thinks. Boobs spilling creamy-white and full out of a black bra but no longer just porn and magazines and Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool but real, texture, the tight wrinkled feel of a nipple under his tongue and the squishy-sweet warmth under his hand, in his mouth, tiny fine hair all velvety soft, a gasp when he sucks. And the smell—not here, not in the shower with the vanilla-peach and Irish Spring but—salt, sour, tang like—like nothing else. He creams the tile, face buried in the crook of his elbow, and then grips his balls and he's still hard and so he does it again, dragging his tongue over the roof of his mouth. Moans the second time, not meaning to, but when he finally gets out of the bathroom, the shower long-cold, the house is empty and maybe he wasn't overheard. Maybe.

Deanna's not home, Monday morning. Sam takes the bus to school. Noelle doesn't talk to him in English. At lunch he sits alone at the end of the same long table where Caleb King's talking to his acolytes about how he loves sex, how he totally got Mindy Earle to give it up to him over the weekend, and Garrett Robinson (always the biggest nerd in the group, clearly kept around because he thinks Caleb's the coolest person in the universe for reasons Sam will never fathom, even if he's only been at this school a month) says, "What's it feel like?", and Caleb leans in, says, "Oh, dude, it's so hot. Her pussy was so tight, like the best jerk-off ever," and Sam mutters, "Yeah, right," not meaning to, but it makes the four guys at the other end of the table turn on him, immediate. "What do you know about it, dorkass?" Caleb says, red in his cheeks, and Sam says, holding onto his plastic fork very tightly, "It's not like jerking off at all," and then, "Was she even wet? If she was into it she'd be wet, like—dripping. Unless you don't know what you're doing." Caleb says, "Shut up," and Sam says, queasy and acid in his throat, "Poor Mindy—guess she needs someone with a real dick, huh?" and that's how Sam ends up getting in a fight at lunch and also how gives a nosebleed to a kid who didn't really do much more than lie to his friends, although he holds back from breaking Caleb's arm even though for a second he kind of wants to, just to—to feel different—but instead he lets a teacher pull him off, panting, and it's Mr. Trainor from Stats who's shocked, saying, "What the hell got into you?" He gets sent to the office and the principal gives him an in-school suspension and tells him his parent or guardian has to sign the paperwork. Fat chance. When he goes home Deanna's there, and looks at his swollen lip and cut knuckles and says, "What the hell, Sammy?" and Sam can't say. In a hundred years he couldn't say. He's got a tangled hot barbed snarl in his chest and he wants to push her to the ground and—he goes to the bedroom, slams the door behind himself. They don't talk, for the rest of that day, and the next, and then when Sam comes home from school on Wednesday the truck's parked on the street behind the Impala and he thinks, finally, like somehow this will fix it.

Only—

Deanna's cheeks are flaming red. At the table she's stripped a shotgun and she's oiling the inside of the barrels, moving quick and jerky and obviously pissed off, and she doesn't look at him but shakes her head, and when he comes around the partition he sees why: Dad, laid out on the couch, boots kicked off onto the carpet. Muddy. Mixes with the beer, maybe, Sam thinks, and then flushes because that couch and the spill and everything are just—not something that should be thought about, with Dad in the room. In the state.

A thunk, Deanna slamming the barrel down on the towel, but Dad doesn't twitch over on the couch. The TV's on, showing the news—car crash on the highway, probably no ghosts involved—and the weapon bag's on the floor next to the table and Dad's duffle next to it, sprawled open, the t-shirt on top stained dark. Sam puts his backpack on the other chair and chews the inside of his cheek. "He okay?" Sam says, quietly.

Deanna's hands slow. A deep breath. "Far as I can tell," she says, quiet too, and jerks her thumb at the bags. "Used pretty much everything. Guess it was nasty. Whatever it was."

Bitter, there. Sam's used to Dad leaving him out of the loop and doesn't know why she cares so much. A hunt's a hunt's a hunt, with the possibility of getting beheaded whether it's the dumbest old-lady ghost or a vicious pack of ghouls or anything else. Dad came back in one apparent piece; that's got to be enough, for today at least.

He opens up the weapon bag and finds Dad's preferred machete, which got a cursory cleaning at some point but is still stained black. When he sits down with the oilcloth and sharpening stone Deanna looks up at him, surprised. He doesn't know why. There's work to do. He knows how to do it, and it's better than anything else he could be doing.

*

Dad's back and it feels normal. More or less normal. Normal for—three hours, maybe. Dad sleeps like a coma through that whole first night, snoring that weird back-of-the-throat snore, and Sam and Dee clean up the weapons and Sam counts up the ammo and Dee makes a dinner, of a kind, ramen with ketchup and more green beans, which isn't half bad, but they can't sit on the couch and the table's covered with guns and so they sit out on the step in front of the house, in the muggy humid night, and it should be normal. Deanna's heel keeps bouncing on the trodden-brown grass and it can't be. Sam's food sticks in his throat kind of but he gets it down. Deanna washes the dishes and Sam goes to sit in the bedroom, with his homework that he doesn't give a shit about doing. He's holding his history textbook and hasn't even opened it when she appears in the doorway to the bedroom and when he looks up they meet each other's eyes for a weird strange second until she goes to her bed, sits and tugs her boots on with no socks, says, "Going out," and Sam sits up and says, "What?", and her cheek sucks in on one side and she shakes her head and doesn't answer, just hops up in a tank top with a gun-oil stain at the waist and short-shorts and boots, no makeup and her hair a sloppy ponytail, but by the time Sam musters the courage to ask where she's already got her keys in her hand and her wallet stuffed in her back pocket and she's out the front door, the screen banging behind her.

In the morning Sam wakes to the smell of coffee, and Deanna's bed empty. In the kitchen: Dad, in bloodstained jeans and a surprisingly clean t-shirt, testing the edge on the machete. He nods, and puts it back in its sheath, and only then looks up and says, "Morning, son," and Sam gets that weird mix dumped over his head, like always—frustration, relief. Gladder than words. Wanting to punch him, a little.

"Hey, Dad," he says. He pours a cup of coffee, and while his back's turned Dad says, "So," and Sam closes his eyes, and Dad says then, "Where's your sister?" and the thing is that that is a very, very good question.

Dad doesn't have any immediate leads on a hunt and he's clearly worn out after the last month. He goes in to take a shower after Sam fumbles a muttered fake guess about Deanna going shopping, or something, and then it's time for Sam to leave for school, more or less, but what's the point? Sitting in the library on suspension and doing homework that doesn't matter. He dresses and picks up his backpack and leaves, with a note on the table next to Dad's empty mug that says school, but he walks the opposite direction. Toward the library, and then past the library toward the river, miles with his feet aching until he can sit in the wet-thick air under the trees, the water rushing and everything around an incredible suffocating green. Quiet.

He makes it back to the rental at four o'clock and the Impala's there. Thank god. He walks into the house and an argument.

"I've been making a hundred bucks a shift," Deanna's saying—saying, not yelling, but it's a thin difference. Pink-cheeked like she was when Dad first came home. "It's the best job I could get."

"Who told you to do that?" Dad says. He's at the table, holding a beer—Deanna with her arms folded in the hallway to the bedroom. "That's what the cards are for."

"Fake credit limits don't last forever, Dad!" Raised voice, definitely, that time, and Sam holds back in the doorway, frozen. "If we were going to not starve in this dump we needed cash. I got cash! What's the big deal?"

If Sam were yelling like that Dad would be yelling right back; with Deanna he sits back in his chair, looks at her straight-on, and then turns his head, not bothering to respond. "Sam," he says, "we're heading out in the morning. Got a line on a few things in Wisconsin."

Sam nods, says, "Yessir," but Deanna interrupts with, "The school year's not over."

Dad takes a deep breath.

"It's not," Deanna says. She's gripping her upper arms very tightly, Sam sees—still in the same clothes she was wearing when she left last night, but a new bruise—why?—on her thigh. "He's got a presentation, been working on it all month. When is it?" she says, swinging her attention to Sam, who says without a better option, "Monday," and she raises her eyebrows at Dad and says, "Monday," like throwing down an ace in a game of poker. Only, the game's never worked that way, not any time Sam's ever tried that once in his whole life.

Dad stands up from the table, the chair scraping loud on the linoleum. "We're leaving in the morning," he says, not hard but just a statement of fact. "Time to pack up. You can get the laundry done tonight."

This last to Dee, whose nostrils immediately flare. "I can do it," Sam says, stepping forward. "I, uh, I've been to that laundromat a couple of times."

"Your sister will do it," Dad says, this time with an actual hard edge, and Sam shuts up and Deanna's jaw clenches and then she turns on her heel and disappears into the hallway. Dad looks after her for a second and then shakes his head, and then says, "Sam, come on," and so Sam rides with Dad in the truck to hit a pawn shop for silver and a vet clinic where Sam picks the lock and then stands guard while Dad replenishes their first aid kit and then a liquor store, and he doesn't ask Sam about school but does ask about their training, and Sam can say honestly that they ran and they practiced shooting and they sparred, and he won.

"She let you win?" Dad asks, looking straight ahead at the dark streets.

"No," Sam says, and clears his throat and says it again, more clearly. He tucks his hands between his knees so he won't bite his nails. "Maybe we shouldn't fight anymore. I'm bigger, now. It's not fair."

"No, it's not," Dad says, and it's rare enough to be agreed with that Sam looks at him. "Fair's not in the cards. Anyway, she's still faster, right?" He looks at Sam, who nods, and Dad nods back and then changes lanes, on the way back to the house. "So. Just be grateful she doesn't hit you in the balls, dude."

Dad's teeth gleam in the dark. Sam's too sick inside to laugh but he snorts.

The Impala's parked in front of the laundromat as they pass. Back at the house, Dad calls in a pizza order and then writes in his journal while Sam packs the battered tin first aid kit back together. Food arrives; Dad closes the journal and Sam musters up, "So, what's in Wisconsin?", but Dad only says, "Pattern I'm checking on," so that's a bust. He wants Dee back but then again he doesn't. They watch the news while Dad reads the local paper. Car crash killed four. Sam's biting his thumbnail again and forces himself to stop.

Deanna slams in the front door and drops Dad's duffle on the kitchen floor as she blows through to the hallway. Sam jumps up to follow and in the bedroom she practically hurls the laundry bag at the wall over her bed. There was hardly anything of theirs to wash but enough to make a thump that makes Sam wince. "Want me to fold your dainties?" she says, acid.

"Deanna," Dad says, behind Sam.

"What," Deanna says. She rips open the cord on the bag, dumps everything out onto her mattress on the ground. "I'm doing the fucking laundry."

Sam flinches, folds his arms over his stomach. What the hell.

She rolls a pair of jeans in the silence. Her ears bright red, her hands jerky. Dad steps into the doorway and Sam shifts his weight, wanting to sink below the earth's crust. "Sam can finish that," Dad says. Gravelly, low, like he gets when he's pissed. "Pack up. You're driving to Jim's place in Blue Earth."

Deanna's picking up a shirt; she stands slowly, and actually looks at Dad, frowning. Eyes bright, lips bitten red. Sam curls his toes in his sneakers so tight they hurt. "We're going to Wisconsin," Deanna says.

"Sam and I are going to Wisconsin," Dad says, flat. "You're going to get that attitude sorted out."

Her mouth parts, her eyes get big. Sam's stomach turns an entire somersault.

Dad shakes his head, and glances around the room at their piles of clothes, the mostly-made beds on the floor. "Could've kept this place in shape while I was gone," he says, and disappears again down the hallway.

They stand in silence. The TV noise trickling down the hall; the fridge door opening and then slamming closed, and the aluminum crack of another beer opening. Sam's air feels like it's coming through a straw. "Dee," he whispers. Her eyes shift from the empty doorway to meet his, and then drop to his mouth, and then her chest heaves on a deep breath and she drops down to her knees, packing her duffle again, shoving things in sloppy and haphazard. "Dee," Sam tries, again, and she says, "Shut up, Sammy," half-whispered and fierce.

Sam goes back out to the living room and Dad's writing in his journal again at the table, his back to the hall. Sam wants, again, to punch him—the heat of that rising up in his gut and in his throat and behind his eyes, so that he curls his hands into fists and has to fold them across his chest, tucking them into his armpits not to. He leans against the back of the couch and looks at the TV unseeing—no longer car crashes but weather, saying it'll storm this week—no shit, Sam thinks—and it's not long at all before Deanna comes out of the bedroom with her bag packed and slung over her shoulder.

She says, to the room, "Drive safe."

Dad nods, says, "You, too." Keeps writing.

Deanna looks at the back of his head. Then she licks her lips, and looks at Sam, and says, "Try not to turn into a total dork while I'm gone," and then before he can say anything she raises her eyebrows and says, "Crap, too late," and Sam wants to drag her in and put his nose in the curve of her neck where she smells like all things good but he can't, of course, for more reasons than he can handle, and anyway she just flicks two fingers at him in a half-assed salute and is out the front door, not slamming it, but Sam wishes she had. The Impala's engine roars on, a few seconds later, and then purrs away, and—that's it. She's gone.

Dad turns a page in his journal. "If you're going to hit the showers do it tonight," he says. "We're leaving at six tomorrow morning."

Sam showers. Deanna left her girly shampoo behind. He comes out into the bedroom and climbs into pajamas and then packs up the rest of his clothes, figuring they'll leave the sheets and crap for the landlady. Most of it's still folded in the piles he made; the rest, the fresh-washed stuff, dumped still over Deanna's bed and the floor. One of her socks still stuck in one of his shirts. His blue shirt missing. His jeans in a puddle up against the wall, and he picks them up to shove them into his duffle and—below them—the bag, with the clamshell box. That telltale pink. He picks it up immediately and rolls it into the jeans and then looks behind himself to see—but no, he's alone. A breath and he licks his lips, and unfolds the jeans and looks at it bright, obvious. Seven inches of body-safe silicone, according to the flirty pink text. A heart over the i. Kind of thing Deanna makes fun of, with other girls.

He wraps the box in in his oldest rattiest shirt, and packs it deep among the clean underwear and socks, and when he crawls into bed he stares across at the empty half of the room and doesn't sleep.

*

Dad drives almost as fast as Deanna does. Sam doesn't ride in the truck often and it's weird. Looking down at other cars, seeing out further on the highway. The radio's tuned the same, though, and even if he doesn't mean to he misses almost a whole state, curled against the passenger door, exhausted. Dad wakes him up at a gas station for a piss break and gives him twenty to get food, which ends up being jerky and coffee. If Dee were here he'd get a Payday and a Snickers and let her pretend like it was a hard decision before she snagged half of both, and be left in the backseat with his halves, watching her suck chocolate off her thumb, grinning at him. Dad doesn't eat candy. Sam gets a kind of gross looking turkey sandwich from the deli case instead and ends up regretting when Dad splits it with him. Mealy tomatoes and limp lettuce. Yuck.

Illinois out the window. At one point on I-74 Dad turns down the radio a few notches and Sam stiffens without meaning to. "Tell me about this bar," Dad says.

"Marv's?" Sam says, and then feels stupid. Like any other bar would matter. He sits up straighter, shrugs. Doesn't look around. They're passing a SWIFT truck. Dee always says, yeah, Sure Wish I Finished Training. "I don't know. It's like—a bar. Not open on Sundays."

"Safe?"

How is that measured? "They didn't have any bar fights, at least from what Dee told me." Then, because he can't help it, "Manager seemed like a jerk."

"How?" Dad says, deeper.

His dumb pudding face looking at Dee like she was Cindy Crawford. Sam thinks of the bathroom—the sink at waist height—and shakes his head, sick. "Just, I don't know. A jerk. She said he was on her ass about being late but it's not like—I mean, I don't think the place was haunted or anything. Except maybe by the pee smell in the alley."

Dad snorts. Sam's shoulders have a tire iron in them somehow, his muscles taut and tense. This isn't his secret and there's no point in him keeping it—and is there a secret, even? What does he know? This: when he was putting on his other pair of sneakers this morning there was two hundred bucks in mixed bills tucked into the toe of the right one, and he didn't put it there and neither did Dad. He hid it in the pocket of the jeans at the very bottom of his bag and didn't say anything, and he doesn't say anything now. Dad's questions seem to be over, anyway, so maybe that's it. No ghosts and the manager not apparently evil and Dee sent away to Minnesota and that's safe enough, or at least not enough trouble to think about anymore, since the rest of the ride up through Illinois is more or less quiet, miles eaten away under the truck's huge tires and Sam drifting between feeling sick and napping and waking up hungry and then feeling sick, again. Dad stops when the truck needs gas and that's all. They eat several bad sandwiches.

*

It's snowing in Wisconsin, even if it's almost May. Sam hates this part of the country this time of year and they always seem to end up here. Deanna isn't here to complain about freezing and that's literally the only benefit to her absence; with her gone, he and Dad have plenty of time to get on each other's nerves, even if Dad seems like he'd rather be anywhere else but around Sam. What else is new.

A motel, not a rental house. It has a cheesy bear theme and sticky not-cleaned-enough carpet and Sam gets the bed closer to the bathroom. Dad's gone for most of the first three days and so Sam bums around, bored. Finds out how long it takes to walk to the closest convenience store, to the Dairy Queen a few blocks over. Dad left him with forty bucks, which isn't bad, but he doesn't want to dip into what Dee left him and so he eats light, doesn't waste it. There's a library, a few blocks past the DQ, and he spends a lot of his time there, reading curled up in an armchair in the kids' area, the librarian doing him the favor of not asking too many questions beyond why aren't you in school?, and he can say more-or-less-honest my family just moved here from out of state, school's already out in Arizona. It is; he checked. She nods and leaves him alone. He crushes the first five David Eddings books, waiting. His stomach still doing an impression of a tilt-a-whirl.

There's literally no one in the world he could talk to even if he wanted to talk about it. He could say he had a crush but that's not the whole story. He could say he had a fight with his sister and doesn't know what to do, but that's not right either, and what people would say wouldn't be helpful. He reads books, he watches movies. It'd be, you should talk to her, or have you tried apologizing, or do something nice for her, show her you still care. Still caring's not the issue. Apologizing—god, no. Talking…

She has her cell phone and he has his. He could call. Although she could call, too, and she doesn't, even if Sam makes sure his battery's all charged and checks to ensure that's so, ten times a day.

*

It's an accident when Sam finds a job. He's reading the paper at the library, on the fourth day more-or-less alone beyond him and Dad arguing about pizza orders at night, and he doesn’t want it to be a hunt but he's been reading the paper with a certain kind of eye for half his life. There's a dead man a few counties over, and it turns out a dead woman the month before that, and a dead man a month before that. Sam swallows and his first instinct is to ask Dee what she thinks, but she's in Blue Earth and he's in Chippewa Falls and he's meant to be growing up, right? Grown-up Sammy, he hears, like behind his shoulder, and he spreads his hands over the newsprint and takes a deep breath and then stands up, to ask the librarian if he can use the microfiche.

Dad's kind of annoyed, kind of pleased. Sam recognizes the emotion very clearly. A ghost, though they have to put in some work to find out exactly who it is. Whatever Dad was working on gets put on hold, because the most recent dead lady has two kids, one of whom fits the pattern: oldest child, in this case a girl, who had a baby out of wedlock. The baby's name is Marie and she holds Sam's finger in her little chubby fist very tightly while Dad's asking questions, pretending to be an old friend of Marie's grandma. Sam doesn't know what to do with babies but he lets Marie keep his finger. Knows Dee would be cooing. Knows she'd say something like: "What a pretty dress," he tries, even if Marie's got what looks like sweet potato stained down her chest, and gets a weird look from Dad on the other side of the room. What, he thinks. He didn't know he was signing up for babysitting duty when he opened up the paper yesterday morning. Another reason to wish Deanna were here. He and Dad could push the baby onto her and she'd roll her eyes but be babbling babytalk in, like, point-two seconds.

Like usual, Sam's kicked to the curb for research while Dad does the majority of the canvassing. This time Sam doesn't argue, which gets him another brief frown from Dad before he says, "See what you can dig up on church," and so, well. Sam digs up what he can find on the church. If Deanna were here, she'd get crammed into what she calls her Nice Girl Outfit of sweater and skirt and the little fake-pearl earrings they got at a Claire's, bitching at Sam the whole time about how it was so lame and churchy girls are the worst, but she's got some weird superpower about talking to old guys. Sam doesn't even think they're being pervy, necessarily. She smiles at them and then—bam. Whole story of the parish from founding to today, and by the way would she be interested in attending their Sunday school? She gags, when she comes back from one of those, and plays the Black Album about as loud as the Impala's speakers can possibly go. Sam's never really gotten why. He's gone to Sunday school. In Blue Earth four or five times, but sometimes with someone he meets at school, if they're in a town long enough that he can meet someone at school, and—those people, he doesn't know if they're right about the whole thing, but they're nice. The Winchesters don't get much nice. Plus, there's cookies. He doesn't know if Deanna ever heard about that part.

The church angle turns out to be the right one. It takes practically the whole week but between them Sam and Dad figure it out. Not before they have to save Marie's mom from almost-dying, and stash her in their motel room with the baby in a circle of rock salt that Dad pours so deep it's like snow. Sam wonders how much faster would it have been if they'd had a third set of hands. Maybe it wouldn't have come to this, with the woman crying, jogging her baby in her arms, trying to keep her from being scared.

The graveyard, then—a priest, from like a hundred years ago, bitter and cruel—and Sam's got the gas-can full of salt and he's throwing it furiously whenever the ghost rears up to try to attack Dad—and when Dad finally gets the grave broken open and the gas poured he tosses Dad a lighter to get the bones to burn—and when Dad crawls over to him, exhausted and sweating, Dad says, "Okay?" in that weird way he always does even if Sam didn't even get close to getting touched, and Sam says, "Yeah, Dad, I'm okay," and Dad nods, and flops onto his back on the thick-grown grass for a minute, catching his breath and sweating—and that's when Sam realizes that it's past midnight, and that means it's his birthday.

No one notices the grave desecration or the fire—this town and sleepy go hand in hand—so they wait while the fire burns out, and then Sam helps shovel the dirt back on top of the charred bones. Marie's mom is fine. Sam's the one who calls, and she's crying and confused but relieved, too, and she says to him, choked and thick, thank you, and again, five times, thank you thank you thank… Dad grips his shoulder when Sam hangs up and he swallows, but nods, and Dad nods back and then leads the way out of the graveyard, shovel over his shoulder, the flashlight skimming the grass ahead of them and his shoulders big and black against the deeper shadows, something for Sam to follow. He sniffs hard, dashes his wrist over his cheeks.

The motel room's empty when they get back. Dad drops the key in the slot on the office door, leaving the salt and torn curtains and slashed comforters behind, and they drive to the other side of town to another motel. Not bears but moose. Dad showers, and then Sam, and when he comes out it's like three in the morning and he's that horrible combination of wired to the gills and exhausted, so tired it feels like his bones are lead, dragging weight he has to move from grimy-yellowed tub to pajamas to the bed, his eyes wide open and his muscles all begging for sleep.

Figures, that's when Dad says, "So," and Sam drops onto his back on his bed, wet hair immediately sogging the pillow, wanting to be anywhere but here. "What's going on with your sister?"

Cleaning his gun, on the other bed. Usually Dee's job but she's not here to do it. Sam looks from Dad's steadily working hands to his downturned face, frowning kind of from concentration but not like he—like he thinks—or knows—and Sam crosses his arms over his eyes, shrugs sort of, says, "Why?"

Which is a stupid thing to say. Sam bites his lip, hidden behind his forearms. The steady swishing of the rag on the gun barrel pauses for a second. "Most times when one of my kids is trying to bite my head off, it's not Deanna," Dad says, but not mad and more dry as dirt. "She really love that bar job, or something?"

"Don’t think so," Sam says. He folds his fingers around either elbow and concentrates very hard on not gripping tight, obvious. Those tells Dad always taught them to watch for when liars lie. "I guess we had a routine going okay. Long enough to get used to, you know?"

Silence. The clip slides back into the gun. "She have a boyfriend?"

"What?" Sam says, dropping his arms, and then, "No!" and then, when Dad raises his eyebrows, he screws up his face and says, "Ew."

Dad lays the gun on the bedside table, mouth curved up on one side. "I'm not going to go after some kid with a shotgun," he says, entertained. Sam's heart is pounding so sickly up his throat he feels like he's going to puke. "Trust me, I don't want details, but she's twenty, son. It's a possibility."

"I guess," Sam says, knowing his face is turning red from how his cheeks prickle, and Dad glances at him and then chuckles. "I don't think she—I don't think so."

Dad shakes his head and rolls up the cleaning kit. "Maybe not. Could always be hormones." He pauses, and gives Sam a look over his shoulder. "Word of advice, Sammy—never say that where a woman can hear it."

Whatever smile Sam dredges up must be good enough. Dad snorts, and flicks the switch by the door, and the sudden dark's a relief in which Sam can't tell if he's just damp from the shower or drenched in sweat, his pulse pounding all over. "I'll call Pastor Jim," Dad says, getting into bed. "He'll send her back our way if she's cooled off. Night, Sam."

"Night, Dad," Sam says, cracked, and listens to the way Dad flops over and punches his pillow into submission the way he always does. Hormones. God.

*

Only two hundred or so miles between Blue Earth and Chippewa Falls. Sam worked it out, on the atlas. Maybe three hours to drive, and that’s only if it's a normal person behind the wheel. Sam's sixteenth birthday falls on a Sunday and he wakes up late after fitful confused dreams to find Dad gone, and a note in his place that says out checking a lead, back soon. Soon can mean a lot of things. He checks his cell phone and has no messages. He reads his book—stolen, at this point, from the Louisville public library system, which is not the first time and probably won't be the last—and he walks to the Dairy Queen through the melted-slush snow and with a twenty pulled out of the stash Dee gave him he gets a chili-cheese dog and fries and the biggest Blizzard they've got, and he eats outside on the cold metal picnic tables meant for when it's actually summer, his breath fogging the air and his brain kind of—empty, somehow. Like everything's stuffed into the closet and under the couch cushions, pretending to be clean in case someone comes to check.

That night Dad comes back to the motel after midnight. Sam wakes up to the key sloppy in the lock and knows immediately that Dad's drunk. He turns over, back to the door, and watches the wall while the rectangle of parking-lot light slashes across the room, while Dad's shadow fills it, big and blurry. Swaying against the lintel, and then the blobby shape of his head touching the wood, before he steps in on a burst of cold air and the door closes, surprisingly quiet. His heavy thick breath, churning. His coat thumping to the floor. The boxspring squeaks when he drops to the other bed and Sam concentrates on his lungs, on his shoulders, his eyes stinging from how he's still fixedly watching the wall. There's a groan, when Dad finally drops to his back, and he sighs out after that, with some sound like a word caught in there where Sam can't understand it, and he wants his sister very badly then for no reason other than that she's his sister, and she knows what to do. When Sam just gets scared and then very angry at having been made scared. Dad starts snoring, after hardly any time at all—those thick sawing drunk-snores that have kept Sam awake half his life—and if Deanna were here she'd get up soft and careful from the bed they might be sharing if they hadn't bothered to get a rollaway cot, would step quiet around the room picking up Dad's coat and putting his keys and phone and wallet and gun all together on the table, would pour a glass of water and leave four aspirin next to it, would just—make it better. Every single thing, she makes better. Sam asked her once, after she'd unlaced Dad's boots and undid his belt and then, when he jerked awake and cussed at her, soothed him back to sleep—Sam whispered, mad and bitter and embarrassed, why do you even bother? Not like he even remembers. Dee had sighed, and said, We're family, Sammy, and then, when Sam was rolling his eyes in the dark even if she couldn't see it, she said, when you love someone, you're supposed to take care of them.

Sam's kept awake by his dad's snoring for a long time, that night. When he drifts off he dreams about putting a glass of water on a nightstand, beside a bed in which his sister sleeps, and then he sits on the edge of the bed and puts his hand on her hair, and she opens her eyes, and looks at him, and Sam doesn't know what he's forgotten but he feels like he's disappointed her, and his chest hurts so much at the thought, even if she isn't accusing him or angry or doing anything but looking at him, that when he wakes up his face is mushed against the pillow and the blanket's balled in his fists and he's crying, in this steady seeping way, and he turns over fast but the room's empty other than Dad, still snoring, his boots still on.

*

Deanna comes back on Wednesday. Dad's actually home, reading some book he got from one of his contacts, and Sam's been put to work too, checking a bunch of scattered notes someone put together on coffee-stained paper in smudged ink for any references to salt—god knows why, because Dad certainly doesn't tell him. At two o'clock there's a knock on the door, two soft raps and then a pause and then three, and Sam jerks in his chair but Dad holds out a hand for Sam to stay seated. It's Dad who opens the door, on the chain at first even though it's obviously, it has to be—and he looks through the crack for a second, two, before he closes it and undoes the chain and then swings it wide, and Deanna's there in a too-big jacket and her bag over her shoulder and her cheek sucked in on one side. Her eyes dart to Sam and then go back to Dad, and she doesn't shrug or smile or do anything but stand there, waiting, until Dad sighs and says, "Hey, sweetheart," and then her face does this terrible trembling thing. She steps forward and Dad gets an arm around her shoulders, lets her tuck her head down against his chest, and Sam's eyes get hot and he gets this nasty acid flood in his gut that he doesn't want to pick apart, and so he just turns back to the notepads, his vision swimming, a weird buzzy ringing in his ears.

To say she's cooled off is an understatement. On the first day she's quiet, and hardly speaks except when spoken to, but it's not sullen or pouting or anything. "Deanna, go pick up some fuel," Dad says, absent because he's deep in whatever research he's doing, and Deanna's standing up and grabbing her keys before Dad's turned the next page. Brings back kung pao beef, extra spicy like Dad likes it, and she watches his face when he forks in the first big bite and waits for him to grunt, pleased, before she even opens her own carton. Sam's trying to learn to use chopsticks with his lo mein, and also trying to avoid the vague gross pulse in his gut, while Dee's on the bed with her feet tucked under her, reading a girl magazine, not looking at Sam and taking up no space at all.

Dad wants them out of the room the next day. "Need to make some calls, don't need you two horsing around in the background," he says, which is the dumbest thing ever, it's not like they're five—but Sam's still too freaked to argue and Deanna, of course, just stands right back up again, finds her sneakers and coat and says yessir.

Out in the sunlight. The snow melting at least. Lunchtime. Sam kicks a driven-over grey pile of slush. Only one other car in the lot, besides the truck and the Impala. He zips up his sweater and feels his face getting red, dumb and embarrassing and stupid, but Dee's not looking at him, anyway. Her arms are folded over her chest, her face tipped up to the light. Pink at the tip of her nose and the tips of her ears and on her lips, when she stops biting them and blows out this long slow breath, like she's letting something go.

"Hungry?" she says, finally. Sam shrugs but she wasn't looking; she tips her head toward her shoulder and then her eyes slide his way, sidelong. This thought in them he doesn't understand but she seems to be—asking.

"There's a Dairy Queen," Sam says. It comes out croaky, weird, and he clears his throat. "It's okay."

"DQ, huh," she says, soft. He lifts a shoulder and she sucks her lower lip into her mouth again, and lets it go, wet, and then lifts her shoulder, too, and smiles at him in this crooked tiny way. "Could go for a dilly bar."

Warmer outside, on the picnic tables. Dee gets chili cheese fries and eats them with a fork, weirdly polite. Sam sucks at his Blizzard and doesn't know what to say. He's been talking to his sister more than anyone else in the world his whole life and he doesn't know what to say. In movies, in books, this is what happens to the awkward kid when he somehow finds himself on a date with the cutest girl in school, but—that's not—

"How was Pastor Jim?" he blurts out.

Deanna scrapes her fork around the cardboard boat, making lines in the cheese sauce. "Churchy," she says, and then gives Sam a quick look, with a little smile like it was a joke. Not very funny but Sam tries to smile back. "Okay, I guess. I cleaned up the house some. Fixed his truck. Not exactly a vacation." Her cheek sucks in on one side and she sits up straighter, folds her arms on the table, actually looks at Sam. Higher-voiced when she says, "No, it was fine. He's cool, you know? Still has that TV from like 1945 where you have to get up to twist the knobs. And get this, he had some Sunday school thing going on and he had me make cookies. Cookies, dude."

"What kind?" Sam says. Her eyes are wide and her cheeks are flushed but she's looking at him, talking. He wants to hear every single freaking detail about the cookies.

They finish lunch and Dee seems—okay, happy maybe a stretch but she seems—not like she's going to jump into traffic or run away from home, at least. The walk back to the motel's warm, easy. Sam unzips his sweater and Dee takes off her coat, ties it around her waist, and she's wearing an Iron Maiden shirt and no bra and there's a bruise on her arm, just under the sleeve of the t-shirt, purplish but starting to fade. "Cookie accident?" Sam says.

She blinks at him and follows his eyes, and then snorts. Wraps her arms around herself and covers the bruise with her hand. "Yeah, the snickerdoodles totally fought back," she says, light and easy.

Sam wants to take her hand off that spot and hold it and tell her that he'd—that she could say—whatever. Anything. "Guess you need to train more," he says, instead, and she blows a raspberry and shoves him one handed, light as light, but he staggers into the melted-slush verge, clutching his shoulder like she punched him, and she actually laughs, then, soft and short but—real. "I'm gonna have a bruise now," he says, and she says, "Earned it, bitch," looking down at the sidewalk but smiling as she steps over a puddle.

When they get back Dad announces they're moving because he's got a lead on something in Duluth, and so they pack up what little there is to pack up and then Sam stands on the sidewalk with his bags on his shoulder, between the Impala and the truck, not sure. "You and Sam can take your time but I want you at the Bay Star by nightfall," Dad says to Dee, and that decides that.

State route through the afternoon. Not much traffic. Sam sits in his spot and doesn't mess with the radio and feels every inch of the bench seat like it's some physical extension of his body, the vinyl heating under his jeans and creeping over the space between his thigh and her thigh in a completely awful way. Deanna drives slouched back with her wrist on the bottom of the steering wheel, quiet. Near Sarona the radio fuzzes and she says, "Hey, pick a tape, huh?" and Sam fishes around under the seat and finds the cardboard box plastered with all the Lisa Frank stickers she used to collect and hangs frozen for a few seconds, the engine humming and the radio crackling static of some deejay trying to be funny, because it matters, right? What he picks. It says something. "Dude," Dee says, thin, and Sam shakes his head and picks a jewel case at random. Who's he kidding.

Jethro Tull. Deanna hums while the first guitar riff fills the car. Then takes an exit, sudden, the car lurching when Sam wasn't expecting it, and he holds tight to the door handle while she aims them off the highway and past the gas station and to—oh, the turnoff for one of the million lakes. Thursday, school not even out yet, and there's a guy on a fishing boat way out but the little dock's empty and no one's around. Dee parks in the dirt and gets out quick, and Sam chews on his lip for a while before he follows, and it's humid and warm and the air smells like the gross algae lake-edge, things growing, Wisconsin caught in that weird space between spring and summer.

Dee sits on a concrete bench by the lakeshore. It has a plaque on it that says in memory of Pete S. She changed before they left, and she's in the grey henley, buttoned up higher than she'd wear it for work, and jeans, and her bootheel's drumming on the woodchips under the bench, crushing a little weed that's trying to grow up there. Sam sits on the other end, looking out at the lake instead of at her. Sweat curls his hair against his neck.

"I don't know how to say it so I'm just gonna say it." Sam's stomach feels like it's on a ferris wheel, rising up his throat and then swooping so low he wants to cry. Even if his peripheral vision he can tell Deanna isn't looking at him while she talks. "I'm—crap. Sammy, I'm really sorry."

The ferris wheel jars to a halt with his guts tangled somewhere around his heart. "Sorry," he says.

"We—I—look," she says, except she doesn't say anything for a handful of seconds after that and so Sam doesn't know what he's meant to be looking at. She leans forward over her thighs, a weird huddle, and takes a quick deep breath. "Shit. It's—weird, huh?"

"Pretty weird," Sam says, and she huffs, and puts her chin against her bicep, and actually looks at him. Rueful or maybe sad. Sam fists his hands between his knees and tries to figure out how to—talk. "Are you mad at me?"

Her eyes get big and then close, scrunched tight. She's all washed clean of makeup, not even a trace of eyeliner. Like he hasn't seen her in years.

A van pulls up, a hundred feet down from the Impala. A mom and a dad and a little kid, with a picnic basket, the little kid squealing some happy thing too high to hear. The mom waves and Sam lifts his hand back because it's important not to be a freak, and when he turns back around Dee's standing, her hands in her back pockets, looking out at the lake. Taking deep breaths, deep enough that her shoulders are lifting.

"I'm not mad," Deanna says, finally. "God. Sammy, I—" She shakes her head, and chews her lip, and when her face tips toward his—there's a shining line, from the inner corner of her eye past her nose, folded under when she bites at her mouth. "And I missed your frickin' birthday."

"It's okay," Sam says, fast. He stands up too, alarmed, because Dee doesn't—she hardly ever—"Deedee," he says, sore, and she sniffs and closes her eyes and says, "Don't call me that," and Sam touches her elbow, soft, and she shakes her head again and then turns in toward him and he hugs her, careful at first because she's stiff and miserable and then when she sags, her arms going around his middle, he hugs her harder, holding her close and letting her put snot and tears and whatever else all over the shoulder of his hoodie. Her back shudders and he runs a hand down it, and then up into the heavy fall of her hair, cupping her head, soft. Like he saw Dad do, the only time he can remember Dee crying in his arms. Dee makes a weird whimpery kind of sound and turns her face, her nose against his throat, and Sam—oh—god—

He tips his hips back but it's too late. Deanna sniffs again, wet, and her fingers are tangled into sides of his sweater, and she doesn't let him get away. "It's okay," she says, muffled, and Sam knows that it's not even remotely a little bit even one atom okay, his face flooding hot. She tilts her head back and this close he can see every clumped-wet eyelash, her eyes shocking green. A small tilted smile. "Happens."

"Sorry," Sam whispers, humiliated.

Deanna glances down and Sam could literally die. He feels like a complete tool and somehow he's just getting harder. "It happens," Deanna repeats, and then lets go of his side with one hand, dashes her fingers over her eyes. Smiles wider but not mean, just—warm. Teasing. Her cheeks pink under the freckles. "Kinda reassuring, I guess. My weirdo kid brother's a normal dude. What a relief."

"Shut up," Sam says, and Deanna laughs, watery.

She curls her fingers into one of the dangling hood strings on his sweater. Pulls it out straight, and then smooths it down his chest, flat alongside the zipper. Sniffs again, and presses her lips together, and then looks up at him, flushed and damp, but washed clean somehow. Not thinking of something he can't touch or silently going with the motions but—here with him, looking at him. "Gotta get back on the road," she says, soft and easy, and when he just stands there like an idiot and nods, she raises her eyebrows and looks down again and only then does he put together that he's got to let her go, for that to happen. He jerks, steps back. Before he can get too far she grips the pocket of his sweater, and she looks at that and not his face when she says, "You're a good guy, Sam," and Sam doesn't know what to do with that even a little. Which is okay, because her eyes sweep up to his face and then she rolls them, pushes at his stomach, says, "—even if you are an absolute dork," and turns on her heel and walks back up the dirt slope to the car.

Sam follows. Maybe more turned upside-down than he was that morning. In the car Deanna sits there with the key in the ignition, looking out the windshield, for five seconds that Sam counts off in his head before he says, "So?", and Dee blinks, and turns the engine over, and says, "Bet we can get to Duluth in an hour," and she ejects the Jethro Tull tape and slots in The Runaways instead, and Sam groans and drops his head back to the seat. Feels the way the car revs in his whole body.

*

The room at the Bay Star is various shades of not-quite-matching greens, two queens and a rollaway cot. Dad assigns Sam to the cot and to scouring the foot-deep stack of newspapers he's somehow accumulated in half a day, and then tells Dee they're hitting a bar, which means she does her makeup and does something with her hair so it's kinda screwed up but like from a magazine shoot and she does undo the last buttons on her henley, so her bra peeks when she moves, which Dad frowns at but then looks away, and she says to Sam, "Don't wait up," smiling at him while she sticks her favorite knife in her boot, and then they're gone, both in the Impala. Sam stands in the motel room with his ears ringing, almost, nerves as jangly as in the middle of a deep-forest shootout fight, even if he's completely and entirely alone.

Two hours of cross-referencing obits and mysterious circumstances don't help. Sam calls up pizza delivery and eats half of it but his stomach's still all in knots. He cuts out the articles Dad'll find relevant and tidies up the mess of the papers, thinking of the house in Louisville, and then he really thinks of the house in Louisville and that heat sinks through past his gut and he just—wishes he were a eunuch, or something. It'd be easier.

In the shower he tries not to think of it but of course he does. He keeps his eyes closed, the water pounding hot against the top of his head, and while he takes himself in hand it's the soft sweetness of her tits and her smell and the curve of her mouth, when she smiled at him, not there on the couch but at the lake that day, her fingers dragging pressure down his chest. When he comes his legs almost give out and he stands there, panting, some wobbly part of his brain still holding his arms around her waist and the rest of it draining cold, saying what are you doing, and the thing is he doesn't know but he doesn't know what else he could do, either. What other option is there?

He's curled awkward on the cot so he'll fit, not sleeping, when the Impala pulls up. Two in the morning. He closes his eyes and listens to the key in the lock and then the door opening—"Oh," Deanna says, and then Dad says behind her, "Kid needs to learn to pull late nights," but he says it quiet.

Sam's got his back to the room and the one lamp that turns on seeps only the smallest amount of gold past his eyelashes. "Got your take?" Dad says, and Dee makes a little noise, and there's then the riffle of paper and bills getting counted out onto the table. Cardboard shifting—"Oh, yuck," Dee says, and when Dad makes his own sound she says, "Mushrooms," like she's extremely disappointed, and Dad says, "Gotta let the boy make his own mistakes," and it's like any other night, when they're back from a job or from what the job requires. Sam imagines, mostly from TV, some other life, where maybe Dad's a cop, and Deanna's going to nursing school, and maybe they'd get home from late shifts and they'd worry about Sam getting good grades and they'd make sure they didn't wake him up and they weren't counting the cash they'd made from hustling idiots and maybe they—Sam doesn't know. They'd be normal. He knows what the shape of that looks like but has no idea how it would feel.

*

It's two ghosts, in Duluth. Sam and Deanna take one and Dad takes the other. They spend a long Saturday finding the right burial spots, because the murderer wasn't nice enough to leave them neat in the cemetery, and it's sunset before Sam's pushing the shovel into the ground under a tree, breaking ground on a long night.

Deanna gets off the phone with Dad. "He's got his too—about two miles north. Said to finish up and head back to the motel."

Sam grunts. The ground's soft with spring but this is going to take a while. Dee sits on a nearby stump, waiting her turn. Braiding her hair, Sam sees, when he pauses to wipe his forehead. "You've got to be kidding," he says.

"Hey, if you can't hack it, I'll take a turn anytime," she says, raising her eyebrows.

"That hasn't worked on me since I was, like, twelve," Sam says, and steps out of the shallow ditch he's made and hands her the shovel right away.

The night's actually kind of nice. Cool but no longer cold—Minnesota may have gotten the memo that it's meant to be May, unlike Wisconsin—and Dee strips off her flannel shirt and throws it in his face, makes him splutter. Leaves her in a black tank top, and her arms white in the lantern light while she works, other than that bruise. He looks at it and then away, but the only thing to look at out here other than the dark trees and the dirt between his sneakers is his sister, and—well, there's not much better view than his sister.

"Should charge for this," Deanna says, a little breathless. She punches the shovel deeper into the dirt with her bootheel and glances at him, half-smiling. "I bet it's like. Special interest stuff."

For all the dirty talk she does it still takes Sam a minute to make the leap from landscaping to—"Gross," he says, but it comes out weak.

She pauses after another shovelful. Looking at the dirt. "Hey," she says, and stops again. She tucks a loose wisp that didn't get into the braid behind her ear and then rubs her hands on her hips, rasping denim. Punch of the shovel into the ground and another heave, adding to the pile, and keeps working while she says, "You want to make like everything's cool then—that's cool with me, too. Or we can just—clean slate. Or—Pastor Jim had a bunch of ideas about how a girl ought to act. Could do that, too." She drags the back of her wrist over her forehead, gets a better grip on the shovel, doesn't look at him. "You just say the word, Sammy."

Sam's got his hands folded between his knees, so tight the bones are aching. There's what feels like an entire baseball bat lodged in his throat where the air should be. He manages to drag in a breath through his nose and he looks at his sister. A line between her eyebrows and her mouth set, her braid swinging over her shoulder. The most annoying person in the world and also the only one he can think of where if he lost her somehow—not even if one of them were dead, which is something he has lain awake and considered, but even just if they were separated—if the world split and he never saw her again—he doesn't know who he'd be. How he'd do it. What would it mean, if he couldn't pick up the phone and hit the first and only real contact, if he couldn't hear her in a second say hey, squirt, you want me to pick you up some moon pies or something?

"I want you to be my sister," Sam says, "and I don't want a clean slate, and I don't want it to be cool." Deanna's eyes big and dark in the lantern-light, shining. Sam shrugs and feels like things are bruising, his hands and his ribs and everything else besides. "Since when are you cool, anyway."

"Hey, pal, I'm the coolest person you know," Deanna says. Searching his face across the dozen feet.

"Keep telling yourself that," Sam says, and stands up, and peels off his hoodie, and walks across to her and holds out his hand for the shovel. She passes it to him, slowly. Frowning up at him. He smiles, can't help it—she looks like she's doing math problems—and her face does this thing, like—a stone had dropped in a lake and now a ripple's smoothed across the surface, leaving it clear. "How does Pastor Jim think a girl should act, anyway?"

She's just standing and looking up into his face. Sam pushes soft at the low part of her back, just barely damp with sweat, and she blinks and goes where he points her. "The cookies weren't bad enough?" she says, sitting on the stump with her arms around her knees. Watching him now, as much as he was watching her before. He sets his shoulders to digging, some warm thing flaring up in all of his muscles. "Get this—he warned me to watch out for guys." Sam snorts, and when he glances at her she's smiling. "Yeah, I guess some of them may not have totally pure intentions. You believe that?"

"Can't imagine," Sam says, and she laughs, and he thinks—he can't pin down what he thinks. That it's all layered together, like in fourth grade in Bakersfield when they learned about metamorphic rock and how the different pieces fused, irrevocably, into some new substance. Too hard to pick apart, so it got a new name. He doesn't have a name for this. He doesn't think anyone on the planet does.

*

In the morning Dad's bed is empty and his bag is gone and there's a note, propped against the coffeemaker.

"Seattle?" Deanna makes a face, leaning against the counter. "Could've taken us with."

"How long?" Sam says. Seems more relevant.

Deanna licks her lips and flips the notepad around like Sam can see it from where he's half-propped on the cot. "Week, he says. At least." She turns the pad back over, looks down at it. "Says I should look for a hunt," she says, but she doesn't sound all that enthusiastic.

A week with nothing to fill it. They're sore from gravedigging and Deanna doesn't suggest a run or sparring but—"Target practice?" she says, diffident like she'd give it up if Sam says no, but Sam doesn't know what to do either. They end up in the same woods, a crate of recycling Dee stole set up on the mossy spine of a fallen tree. Sam sights careful along the barrel and even if Deanna throws sticks at him and dumps leaves on his hair to distract he still gets eight of ten on the first shot. "Not bad, squirt," she says, while Sam scrubs mulch out of his bangs, and this weird warm golden thing slides down Sam's spine.

She has Sam throw bottles, when it's her turn. He's never been much of a football player but he can throw an empty Bud a decent distance, and Deanna doesn't miss one, even when he tries to mess her up by throwing one straight overhead. "Bitch!" she says, but tilts up smooth and pulls the trigger, and when it shatters they both throw their arms over their heads, laughing, the splinters of glass going all over.

"That was so dumb," Sam says, ears ringing, but he can't stop grinning.

"Just mad I pulled it off with my rad skills," Dee says, waggling her eyebrows. She reaches up and pulls a brown shard out of Sam's hair, flicks it away into the mulch. "Shouldn't start what you can't finish, Sammy-boy."

"I'll keep that in mind," Sam says. She tips her head back, the tip of her tongue touching the back of her teeth. While she's watching him he brushes another sliver of glass off her shoulder, and then pushes his thumb over the spot it had clung to. Making sure.

Sam moves to Dad's bed that night, since the cot's cramped and there's a better option. Deanna kind of frowns, when she comes out of the shower to see him swapping the pillows, but Sam doesn't say anything and so she doesn't either. In her pajamas she munches on a slice of cold pizza, picking the mushrooms off bite by bite and dropping the discards back into the box, and flips through the channels, and she's—his sister. She's his sister. Her thighs soft and strong and pretty enough that he's getting the strange urge to set his teeth in the bottom curve of the one nearest him, to slide his hand up and in and—"Ooh, Top Gun," she says, dropping the remote, and then, "Ooh, yes," because it's the stupid volleyball scene, and Sam groans, dropping back onto the bed, looking at the pale green ceiling, and he can feel it, almost. Between his teeth.

*

Morning swims up slow. Sam stretches out to his full length and his toes fall off the end of the bed but it feels good. Warm but not too warm, no dreams that he remembers. Fingers through his hair. He hums, sleepy, and there's a kiss against his temple, and Deanna whispers close and soft, "Back soon." Sam turns his face and gets her fingers down the back of his neck, warm, and he's soothed right back down to sleep, like being a little kid, and that's dreamless too but when he wakes up again it's with some warm certainty that feels like it's coming from his bone marrow. Deanna's unloading bags on the kitchenette counter and she looks back at him when he sits up. "Thought you were gonna sleep all day," she says, and grins. "Nice bedhead."

"Ha," he says, and takes a shower, and that feeling stays with him while he's cleaning up. Like—things aren't bad. Which is stupid because he knows they are, but. That feeling's there, anyway.

Puts a weird cast on the morning, which feels weirder when he comes out in his towel to get clean shorts and jeans and shirt and Deanna's sitting crosslegged on his bed, holding a single pink balloon that she bounces straight at him so he has to bat it away from his face. "Happy birthday, bitch," she says.

The balloon bobs confusedly across the green carpet. "Really?" Sam folds his fist around the towel, wet hair dripping down his back. Deanna's eyes skitter down his body and then back up to his face while she shrugs. "I mean, it's—"

"Better late than never," she says, firmly. "And they don't have a song for, like, happy birthday plus eight days, so. We're going with this one."

"Are you gonna sing?" Sam says, horrified and stepping back, and she rolls her eyes and then rolls up to her knees, too, says, "You wish, my tones are friggin' dulcet," but then she says, "C'mere," and Sam comes closer, grinning but wary, because even if he can't see any pranks he knows better than to put anything past her—but she just raises up high on her knees and hugs him, around the ribs where she can reach.

Sam puts his arms around her shoulders on automatic. Confused at first—and then briefly flaring hot in his stomach, because she smells like herself and her boobs squish pleasantly against him and his wires are all kinds of crossed—but it's nice. Her cheek lays against his collarbone and she sighs. "Sorry I missed it," she says, quiet, and Sam shakes his head even if she can't see, moves his hand up to the bare back of her neck, wants to say—how this is as good as anything—but then Dee's arm tightens over his ribs and she lays a slap on his ass that stings, even through the terrycloth. He yelps but she holds him close, crowing, "Law of the land, Sammy!", and so he has to squirm and grab his towel so it doesn't drop and take it, sixteen spanks while she presses up against him, fake-trapping him, laughing. "And one to grow on!" comes harder than the rest and she leaves her hand there, pressing back from his chest, grinning into his face.

"You're the worst person I know," Sam says. He knows his face is red and his ass is too, probably. It actually stings.

"Yeah, I know I am," Deanna says, and squeezes his ass-cheek—ow, but—but also—and then she lifts up and kisses him on the jaw, a big smacking muah, and bounces off the bed. Sam sits down, still barely holding the towel in place. His butt throbs and his dick's—not uninterested, put it that way. Dee doesn't seem to notice, given that she's delighted with herself, and she flits over to the kitchenette counter where coffee's made and she presents Sam with a mug, milky and sweet already, and something sharp when he takes a sip. He raises his eyebrows. "A little Irish," she says, and shrugs. "Hey, you only turn sixteen once, right?"

It's hot and his stomach blooms warm. Booze for breakfast. He wonders if it's an indication of how the rest of the day's going to go, but all she says is, "Put some clothes on, huh? Jeez, it's like a free show around here—" and so he gulps the coffee down and finds some clothes, and her back's turned, doing something else at the kitchenette, and so he—drops the towel and changes there. Daring and embarrassed all at once.

When he turns around she's leaning back against the counter, sipping her own coffee. "I should get Bailey's more often," she says. Sam feels red from his ass to his hairline, but her cheeks are flushed pink, too.

Deanna takes him to a diner for what ends up being a greasy gross brunch and then a matinee at a movie theater that looks like it last got cleaned in 1972. "Is that nacho cheese on the wall?" she whispers, and honestly Sam hopes it's that and not some kind of freaky monster blood stain, but even if his sneakers are sticking to the floor it's not going to ruin this day. She let him pick the movie, and let him stare at the poster of Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment—he's got some weirdness going on in his life, but he's not dead—and they sit in the back of the theater that's nearly empty but for some old guy, and Dee folds her legs up underneath her and pulls a flask out of her jacket, and Idle Hands is really dumb but it's much funnier with rum in Sam's Coke, and Dee snorting soda out her nose when Pnub says this ain't Dominos, you lazy bitch. They come out in the sunlight with Sam a little tipsy, just enough to keep grinning when Dee won't stop doing her Seth Green impression, and when they get back to the motel it's just—it's a good day. Sam wasn't sure how many more of those he was going to get.

From the fridge appears a six-pack of beer and a surprise little chocolate cake, one of the ones from the grocery store with generic pre-done decorations. This one was clearly designed for a little kid and has a baseball done on the top in white-and-red gel frosting. "Want me to light a candle, do the whole make a wish thing?" Deanna says, eyes crinkled at the corners.

"Just don't sing," Sam says, and Deanna flips him off, and cuts the cake with the knife she keeps in her boot—"No monster guts on there, promise," she says—and it's…

The last time Sam remembers this much fuss over his birthday was… maybe never. If it's guilt he doesn't want to know, but he doesn't think it is. What did they do when Deanna turned sixteen? "Got this," Dee says, wiping frosting off her knife with her thumb, "and I took you paintballing, remember?" Sam does, now—Dad taking them both to the pawnshop and finding the blade, silver with the pretty mother-of-pearl handle that Deanna practically cooed over when she got it in hand—and then Dad had given them fifty bucks and told them not to get the cops called on them, and they'd gone for pizza and then to paintball and completely crushed the team of college kids who they'd been paired against. "Think they thought we were freaks," Deanna says, grinning about it, and Sam hates it when she says that but—yeah, those guys definitely did. Even if he now also remembers that two of them gave her their numbers.

"Think I like this more," Sam says.

Deanna sucks her thumb clean, grin smaller. "Yeah, I bet," she says.

Sam shrugs. "No beer at paintball," he says, and holds out his bottle.

They clink and drink at the same time, finishing the round. Sam's stomach is warm but he's not drunk. Learned that lesson the hard way. Deanna takes his empty and brings back another two beers, and then reaches into the rear pocket on her shorts and slaps a card on the table in front of him. "Don't say I never did anything for you."

It's a Minnesota driver's license. His picture and not even a terrible one, although he doesn't know where Dee got it. The info's mostly real—the height says 5'11 and the weight says 175 and eye color is HZL—but the birthday's listed as May 2, 1978. "No one's going to believe I'm 21," Sam says.

"Sure they will, you're tall as hell," Deanna says. Her eyebrows pop high while she lifts the new beer to her mouth. "Maybe I can send you on the liquor runs sometimes now, huh?"

"That mean you're going to let me drive?" Sam says, and Dee blows a raspberry while still kind of taking a sip—the result is frothy—and while she's mopping up she says, "Damn, good point—okay, you can use it when you walk to the store, drunkie," and she's just—smiling at him, and she set up this whole day for him, and Sam wants—he wants. He's not dumb enough to think that just because he wants something he should get it, but.

"Got something for you too, you know," Sam says. She frowns at him. He goes to the beds, kicks the pink balloon back toward her, and hauls his duffle up onto the mattress. She follows, idly keeping the balloon in the air with one hand while keeping hold of her beer with the other, and the little thumps of her fingertips against the latex feel oddly loud while Sam digs under his clothes, and finds that rolled pair of jeans, and lets them unfurl so that the clamshell box with her dildo dumps out onto her bed.

The balloon floats down to the carpet again, uncaught. She stares. Sam can feel himself getting red—god, his stupid face—but he makes himself shrug, and sits down next to the box. "It was in the laundry," Sam says. "Figured better to take it with than leave it for old lady Franken." He swallows down beer. He expected to feel jittery and strange and doesn't know why he's not.

Deanna leans her thigh against the bed, tip of her tongue between her teeth. She looks at the box and sets her fingertips against the plastic, and then looks up at him.

"Guess it's just as well," Sam says, his face feeling hotter and hotter. "Pastor Jim's place probably isn't where you want to use it."

"Nah, that's the best spot," Deanna says. Not joking and still just watching him. "Can't exactly sneak a guy back to the house behind the church."

"Too bad," Sam says, leaning back on the bed. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. "Could've been hot."

"Sam," Deanna says, and presses her lips together. She rakes her hand back through her hair so it falls mostly to one side over her shoulder and then holds onto the back of her neck. "You know I'm not Noelle, right?"

Sam sits up straight, spills his beer a little on the bed. "What?"

"Like, I get that I got this rockin' bod," she says. Smile brief as a photo flash while Sam's guts shrivel in on themselves. "But it's not—this isn't making it with a hot chick on your birthday."

"I know." Sam's voice comes out weird. He takes a deep breath and looks at his knees. Holds the beer bottle clenched in both hands. "Duh. I'm not like—dumb."

"Sometimes," Dee says, but softer.

It's a bad idea and it's not. It's the only thing that makes sense. It's the worst thing and yet—and yet—"Why'd you shoot that bottle when I threw it above our heads?" Sam says, strained and thin, and Deanna doesn't answer, but she pushes the dildo box off to the side and sits down next to him instead, her knee folded up between them, and she takes hold of one of his wrists, her thumb carefully sliding over the knob where the bone stands out, and he says, "I'm not dumb," and Dee says, "I know, Sammy," and tips forward, leaning over her knee, and kisses him on the cheek, soft and sweet.

Sam takes a deep breath and Deanna lets her nose brush against his cheekbone. He turns his face and her lips push against him again, just accident, but then she firms them and it's another kiss, by his nose kind of, and then her hand slides over the back of his where he's still stupidly holding his beer and he lifts his chin up and then her lips are on his, plush. He sucks in air through his nose and she breathes against him and then she's—she's kissing him, the wet inside of her lip catching against his, and the world seems to stutter somehow, juddering abruptly into motion, and he turns in toward her and grabs her shoulder, his mouth opening, saying—

Nothing. She pulls back and he blinks at her. She looks back and forth between each of his eyes, and tucks his bangs back from his forehead and rolls forward, her hand cupped behind his ear, holding him, kissing him again.

For a second it's just comforting. His big sister, making him feel better. Then he drags his hand from her shoulder to her neck, keeping her close because—because the worst thing he can imagine in the universe is her pulling back—and that comforting warm wave bubbles hot and his balls lurch and—fuck, fuck. Nothing at all like kissing Jamie Lewis after math club, which was mostly nerve-wracking and wet and he got a thin spark of why people liked it before she yanked back big-eyed and squeaked that her mom was picking her up, and maybe she'd see him after school the next day, and then didn't. Deanna makes a small sound in the back of her throat and her fingers slide into Sam's hair and she kisses him again, and again, and her breath puffs hot against Sam's lips and he fumbles his beer bottle over to the bedside table and gets his hand on her cheek, can't not be touching her, and then she makes another one of those little noises, a thin whining edge of air, and Sam clutches at her, groans.

"God—" she says, bursting against his mouth, and tips her head back, breathes at the ceiling. Her throat, flushing, and Sam kisses her there too like he's seen in porn but now he gets why it seems like such a good idea. She cups his head, pets down his back through his shirt, and he kisses against her throat and then at the curve of her shoulder, pulling at the collar of her tank top, sucking there where the skin's fair, the freckles faint.

"Don't you dare give me a hickey," she says, breathy, and Sam thinks what? muzzily through the humid fog, and lifts up confused, and she looks down into his face and says, "Didn't mean you should stop," but Sam only bites his lip, feels—stupid. Deanna rubs her thumb over his mouth and looks at him, closer. "Sammy," she says, and then bites her lips between her teeth, makes this small weird sound through her nose. Her eyes are big, dark. "Okay," she says, after a second, but it's like it's to herself, and then she puts both hands firmly on his shoulders and says, "Stay," like he's a dog or something, and honestly at the moment Sam feels about that smart, his dick heavy and almost painful in his jeans, his breath coming heavy like he just went on a run.

Deanna rolls to the end of the bed and dives into her duffle bag, a gaping spill on the floor. Sam watches her ass, how her denim shorts pull across her hips—how she's craned over her shoulder in the mirror and said does my ass look fat?, and the answer is—yes—but it's so pretty, and Sam knows he's supposed to stay put but that doesn't even make sense, with her sprawled there, and he gets his hand on the back of her thigh first where it's so smooth and creamy-gold and feels so soft, and drags up over the frayed cut-off edge of the shorts up to the pocket and thinks of how she showed him, she showed him—and squeezes, a big whole-handed grip, and Deanna—perched on one elbow, rummaging—sinks down, groans, her ass lifting into it. "Sammy," she says, like scolding almost, but her ass lifted and some instinctual part of Sam knows that's a good thing, and he squeezes again and then—sure somehow—slides back and then pushes up under the edge of the frayed-white denim and finds the elastic edge of her panties and digs his fingers under that too and squeezes again on the bare hot skin and god she's so soft, giving, like sinking into the best-ever pillow, like—heaven, probably, although not the kind Pastor Jim talks about.

"Little horndog," Deanna says. She looks over her shoulder, lips parted, and lets him squeeze there again, and then lifts up and turns over all in one motion, so his hand's knocked away as she swings a knee over his thighs and crawls into his lap, and then she grips his shoulders and kisses him again and this time it's not soft, her mouth shoving against his and her chin pressing his down somehow and her tongue—god!—her tongue, slicking against his, hot and immediate, and Sam grabs her back and waist and ass, gripping, dizzy. Beer. Chocolate frosting. Pulling away, too soon, but all she does is lean back from him and tear her black tank off over her head, and then it's—her grey bra, plain but for the little pink bow on the connector between the cups—and her hands going to the button on her shorts, and then the zip, and the waist's loose then and Sam shoves his hands down the back, grips her ass, pulls her closer, his mouth on her throat, on her breastbone, taking the amulet cord between his teeth.

"Goddamn," she murmurs, both hands in his hair. She rises up on her knees, still straddling his lap. "You an ass-man, Sammy?"

Not worth answering. He wants—her skin, how close she is. Her soft parts and where she throbs. One hand leaves his head, and he's found the body-warm metal of the god-head and taken it in his mouth, sucking, wanting—but then her bra disappears somehow, shucked down her arms, and there are—oh, her tits—creamy soft and rising up and he abandons the amulet for a hard sweet nipple and sucks so hard she cries out, squirms, pressing against him. He traces the crinkled tight skin with his tongue, drags his teeth against the squishy soft, pressing hard enough against her he has to gasp for air when he gets light-headed, and even as he does his lips brush that rigid point. He wants to crush his dick against it, feel how soft, wet from his mouth, how he'd look so dark-red and thick against where she's smooth—

She pulls him back by the hair, her chest heaving. Her hands between them then and—his belt, open, and he jerks hard at any amount of pressure over his crotch but—oh, then it makes sense, yes yes yes and he takes over, leaning back and undoing belt and zip and pushing, getting the tangle of jeans and shorts down, and she backs off, shoving her own shorts down, her panties—oh, those purple bikini briefs, Sam's mouth waters and he wants to fucking bite—but then Sam's dick has sprung free and he's so blindingly terribly hard and she kicks out of her clothes and presses him back on the bed, kissing him, her tongue shoved against his and her body soft-hot-immediate, so much of her there that his head goes completely blank other than wanting her. He rolls her onto her back and something plastic crinkles and she says—wait, wait—but Sam doesn't want to wait, only her hand's on his face, gripping his jaw, forcing him to look at her. Her cheeks flushed dark. She fishes over to the side and—oh—foil packet. Condom.

Sam's brain comes slightly closer to this solar system. Deanna tears at the foil with her teeth and there's the rubbery weird edge, the circle. She glances at his face and takes it out herself, and Sam re-arrives in his body, mind actually here and not just the shocked tense impulse of what his balls want, in time to have his sister reach down between them, and for Sam to kneel up, dizzy, and for her to touch his dick bare for the first time, fingertips brushing him from base to tip and making this fine strange shudder take hold of his bones while she sets the rubber on the head and slicks it down in a smooth practiced move, jerking up in one pull. Sam's hips fuck into it, helpless, and he wants to—god. Cry. Fuck her. God, he wants to fuck her, and she shifts on her back, spreads her thighs wide, and for the first time he sees—the trimmed-short reddish-brown of her pubes but then shaved smooth below, and flushed-pink lips, and this—this shine, between, and he drags his thumb over the crackly hair and then the split and gets her to shudder, gripping his arms, her hips squirming. "Yeah," Deanna says, breathless, and Sam—he's seen porn, he knows what to do, but he's frozen there for a few seconds, rubbing stupid with his thumb, up and down the plush seam of her lips, spreading wet.

Deanna slides one hand down his chest and stomach and then up again, this soothing sweet pet, and then she gets his dick in her hand. Sam jerks. "Shh," she says, and draws him closer—he props himself on both hands on either side of her shoulders, not sure—not wanting to lean into her, or hurt her—and then he's closer and she glances up into his face, and smiles at him, and leans up and kisses him, smoochy-soft right on his lips, and below—his cockhead touches her, right up at the top part of her pussy. Warm. Then she drags him down between the lips, hot-wet—and then she sets him at the center and lifts and he pushes forward and—oh, that's—what every good thing should be, hot and gripping and slick and he grinds in deep, shocked, his whole hindbrain and bones and gut-instinct telling him—go there, go now, shove in as deep as he possibly can.

Dee makes this sharp thin high sound. Sam hangs there, his hair falling in his face, hips pushing on a dumb instinct, staring down between them. Like he could get deeper. "God," Dee says, half-bitten—her face turning away, her bottom lip going white from how hard it's pulled between her teeth. Clutching inside. Sam's elbow goes out and then he's laying down over her practically, his dick pulling out a few inches but that's not—he crams back in and Dee's breath shudders out, and her hands go down to his ass, pulling him close, and so he—he does it again, and grips her tit with one hand, barely propped up, their stomachs hot together and sweat starting, his face down by the curve of her throat and breathing his own puffed-back air, gasping. Feels like nothing else. This gripping fist but better and softer and hotter and wet, letting him in, and more than that the smell of her, and her hair thick over her shoulder for him to tangle his fingers into, bracing better with his elbow by her head. Her hips curving up, her thighs around him and then lifting and dragging him in and this little hiccupped sound she makes and how she whispers there and Sam doesn't—he doesn't know what that means but—she clutches his back, and her nails dig in on either side of his spine, and it's so much, so—too much—and he knows he's making this dumb sound but he doesn't know how to stop making it because every time his hips jerk up into her it's like he's dying until he can get in there again, and—and that's—he goes faster, chasing, his knees scrabbling for grip on the slick coverlet and abandoning her tit to force her hips to stay still, where he wants them, his brain going to some other hot tense place and she groans and says yeah, yeah—you got it—c'mon—and out of nowhere his balls clutch and it punches out of him like a rocket, unloading, pushing deep and deeper and leaning his whole weight there, pouring the marrow out of his bones, his lips open and shocked against her throat.

"Fuck," Deanna says, rich and breathy. Sam's gonna suffocate. He lifts his head and keeps his eyes closed and there's—his nose against her jaw, her cheek. Her hands dragging up and down the muscles in his back. His balls pulse and he pushes in again, can't not, and Dee makes a choked little sound and then reaches between them, her knuckles skimming down Sam's belly and then—oh—"Don't," he says, oversensitive instinct, her fingers at the base of his dick, but she whispers, "Shh," again, like he's a little kid, and then, "Gotta keep the rubber from spilling," and his brain flows slowly back from whatever distant cave it had fled to and he thinks, right, and manages to lift off of her a few inches—her body rosy-flushed, gleaming, and he grips himself and keeps the condom in place and pulls slowly out even if out is not at all where he ever wants to be for the rest of his life—and Dee makes another weird noise when he's free, her knees closing tight around his hips for a hot second—and then Sam's got this—gross—"Like this," Deanna says, closing her hand around and pulling it down—ripple from the base of Sam's spine to his fingertips, his dick's so—but then she's got the wrinkled limp shiny thing full of—he shudders again, a crash of embarrassment over his head like an avalanche—his jizz—but she only ties it up like a nasty balloon and then tosses it somewhere off the bed like that's a universe they won't have to deal with, entirely separate from what's happening on this mattress, and then she says, "Sammy," and he sucks in gaspy air, and she says, "Sam," and he looks up and meets her eyes and she's…

She kisses him, soft, pulling him back down. Knuckles against his cheekbone and one hand on the back of his neck, pulling at the sweaty hair there. He learns how to push his tongue against hers and how it makes the most incredible little noises burst in her chest, like she wishes she weren't making them and yet can't help it. Her nipples hard points against his skin, and still so fascinating to play with, and to lick when he ducks down to do that, and to set his teeth against careful and drag and to see her eyes heavy and her lips wet and her hand in his hair, tucking it back so she can see him better.

"Good?" she says, when she's pulled him back up. He nods. Can't really manage more than that. She smiles at him, kisses the corner of his mouth. "Feels kinda—weird, right?"

"Understatement," Sam says, and Deanna snorts. So close, still. Eyes totally clear, really watching him, listening and not making fun, not at all. "Didn't realize…"

What? He can't articulate it. The total wild craziness in the moment and then how it's gone the next. How he doesn't feel any different and yet feels like he could climb K2 and yet he wants to nap and yet wants—wants—

He lays a hand on her hip, where she's curved in against him. Her eyelids dip. "Was it—okay?" he says. Tries not to feel entirely embarrassed for asking and fails, but.

She touches his chin with her thumb, eyes crinkling. "You know, just asking that puts you in the, like, top one percent of guys? Like, worldwide." He rolls his eyes and she leans forward for another plush wet kiss. "Yeah, it was good."

"So, you—" Sam swallows. Trails his fingers over her belly, to her navel, down. She twists, hips flattening on the bed, and he touches the soft patch of hair, damply curling. "Did you—"

Deanna's lips part and she takes a breath and then doesn't say anything. Sam feels the shape of bone there, the ridge. How it swells into the lips. "Nah," Deanna says.

Oh, no. He looks up, sorry, but then finds her looking back kind of—surprised. "What?"

She drags her hair back from her face, sweeping it all over to one side so it spills over her shoulder, the pillow. "Usually I'd lie," she says, and gives this one-sided smile, her eyes shifting away.

Sam sits up, an abrupt certainty clutching his gut. "Show me," he says, and Dee blinks, looks back at him. They're weirdly slanted at a diagonal on the bed and it's hot and gross and uncomfortable and he doesn't want it to end. "C'mon, that's not—fair, right? That I can—but you—" His cheeks start to prickle and he shakes his head. Turns, and—at the foot of the bed, a few inches from tumbling off to that other universe—

He cracks the clamshell box. Deanna laughs, in this high breathy way. "Dude," she says, and Sam pulls the dildo out. Weirdly velvety-smooth, fake, not at all like a real dick but this smooth curving pole, fatter at where the head ought to be, with a circle base. Just really stupidly pink. Sam knows his face is darker but so what. He rubs his thumb over the tip and Deanna groans, says, "Dude, seriously, give it here."

Sam puts it in her reaching hand but closes his fist over hers. She raises her eyebrows at him and he shrugs, riding what confidence he's got. "You should feel good," he says, and she says, "I do," and Sam leans forward and kisses her while she's protesting, and her tongue pushes soft against his, and he lowers their joined hands down low to her belly, and when she's making those little noises again he lifts up just enough so he can meet her eyes without his crossing and says, really meaning it, "I want you to," and she's pink across her cheekbones to her ears and she nods, look at his eyes and then his lips, and then tips her head back against the bed, and she says, "Can't believe," but what exactly she doesn't say.

Tucked in close against her side. "Don't look," she says, which—is there any way in the world his sister could be shy?—and of course Sam's going to but he says, "Okay," soft, and kisses her cheek and her jaw, and cups her tits one at a time, playing like she showed him. She wets the dildo by sucking it into her mouth down to the base, quick, leaving the weird silicone skin gleaming, and Sam squeezes his eyes shut and pulses, it's so hot. Imagines—if they'd— But then—she makes this punched little noise and oh—Sam puts his forehead against her temple, looking down her body, and she's already pushed it in, her forearm flexing. "Jeez," she whispers, and Sam says what puffed against her shoulder, and she laughs kinda thin and says, "It's not as big as you," and a hot strange flare opens up in Sam's chest, fills him from breastbone to throat.

Sam kisses the upper curve of one boob, tweaking the nipple back and forth, watching fascinated. Her one knee pulls up and out, making room. Shallow in-and-out he can hardly see but he can see her wrist working, her chest rising heavy. "What about—" he says, and reaches down—not totally sure what he's looking for but in porn and stuff they always talk about it—and Deanna makes a hitched sound and says, "No, just—just this is—" and Sam reaches down further, feeling, and there's—oh, the silicone's warmed right up, slick from her, punching in and in and in, and when he pushes his fingers down past he can feel the thin warm wet skin, opening up, letting the thing in—letting him in—

He's hard again, his toes freezing and his lips almost numb. He kneels up and Deanna grips one of his thighs, breathing heavy. Her arm piston-steady. Below he touches the insides of her thighs where they're wet, slick from what's getting shoved out of her, and then the spot just below where it's shoving in, creamed up almost, and then the hard ridge of—his whole body flushes hot—her asshole, which he might've found gross any other time but he's seen those videos too, and—her thighs clench and her breath stops and the thin stretch of skin he's touching flexes and clenches and she crams the dildo in deep, knuckles white around the base. Her breath coming then so hard that her belly's sucking in with the effort. His mouth's dry. She lets the dildo push out of her and it comes with wet stringing to it, and her pussy's red, slick, and Sam touches there and his fingers just—slide in—open, and the muscle strange inside, smooth-but-not, flexing—and he goes up to his knuckles and then pulls them out gleaming and then he sticks them in his mouth and it's—sour almost, tangy, but this little sweet edge that has him sucking his fingers clean—and Deanna grabs his wrist and he opens his eyes and she's staring at him with her pupils huge and black, her chest still heaving, and she pulls him down to her and lifts her knees high and it's easy, easy, to push his dick into that warm slick open, enveloped immediate and shocking-hot and wild. She pulls her knees up almost by her shoulders and he braces there on the back of her thighs and goes all the way deep so she makes this wounded grunt, her eyes wide-startled, but it must not hurt because she nods helpless and fast and so Sam does it again, and again, and that second time lasts longer, the edge sated, their foreheads together, lips brushing, his heart thudding up thick in his guts.

Takes longer to peel apart, that second time. She's shuddering, tense and fine, and Sam can't face pulling out. Her amulet's crushed between them, hard points digging into Sam's chest, but it just feels right in the same way that the lack of solidity in his bones does. Metasomatism, he remembers, the detail floating in from some distant world. The change irrevocable.

*

The bed's wrecked. Sweat and—and fluids, and beer where it turns out it did spill after all. Sam stands in his boxers, biting his thumbnail, eyes on it but really not in this room at all. The shower's running, the bathroom door closed, and he should do something. Something.

They lay against each other in bed for a while. The right way around, finally, heads on pillows side by side. When did you, she whispered, like someone could hear, and he honestly didn't know. When it was something that breathed through his whole life. Like asking when he decided to have brown hair. When did you, he asked back, and she turned her head and looked at him with her eyes heavy, and said, still don't, stank-ass, and then she turned onto her side and pressed her lips against his shoulder, and he tucked her hair back from her ear and watched how she watched some other thing in the distance. The way she sighed but stayed close, her skin against his.

When she comes out of the shower Sam's had the wherewithal to wash his face in the sink and put on a t-shirt and set things a little bit to rights. The old pizza box and the trashed grocery bag and the condom wrapper and rubber and the balloon and the empty beers all gone to the motel's dumpster. The leftover cake in the mini-fridge. He's stripped the gross blanket off the bed and bundled it into the corner—some hazy idea that maybe he can bust into the laundry room and get a fresh one in the morning—and he's putting the blanket from his cot onto her bed when he looks up, and she's standing there in her towel, hair curving a wet darkened ribbon down her shoulder, her teeth in her lip.

"Butler baby bro," she says. Arms wrapped around her middle.

"Ha," he says, but she didn't smile and neither does he.

She cupped between her legs when she sat up and took a deep breath. What, he said, and then realized. It's okay, she said, only Sam wasn't sure that it was. He sat up too and put his fingertips on her waist, and she said, dude, relax, like—like who cared—but then she swallowed and took his hand and squeezed it, her fingers small in his, and she said, it's okay, really, soft, and Sam didn't know how she managed it. How she managed to make everything fine when it absolutely wasn't.

Her bag's still at the bottom of the bed. He washed the stickiness off the dildo and snapped it back into its plastic case and stowed it there among her socks and bras. She crouches there and picks out—the DARE shirt—and doesn't glance at Sam when she stands back up, and drops the towel—her body cream-and-pink-and-pretty—and then drops the shirt over her head, and lifts the weight of her hair out from under the neck and shakes it out to dry.

She sits on the end of the bed, on the fuzzy weird beige blanket, one leg tucked in under the other. No panties, Sam can't help but notice, and he swallows and sits on Dad's bed. His. Then she gets up in a huff and says, "This is freakin' stupid," and goes to the fridge and gets two beers, and cracks the caps off on the edge of the counter, and comes back and hands him one and sits right next to him, leaning back and sticking her bare legs across the gap between the beds, her toes on the edge of the other mattress. No longer blue but a deep glimmery emerald. He doesn't know when that changed.

"You know this makes us like, grade A USDA-certified freaks, right?" Deanna sips her beer, wriggles her toes. Sounds unconcerned. "Like. People would like, study us. In a lab, probably."

Sam picks at the beer label with one thumbnail. Dee's watching her toes, a line between her eyebrows. "I think they'd arrest me first," he says.

She lets her feet drop, her heels thudding into the carpet, and she leans forward so she's a sharp right angle, beer bottle held between her knees. "Me first," she says, quieter.

Orangey slices of light across the back of the DARE shirt; the sun hasn't even gone down, although sunset's starting to split through the blinds. Her wet hair's soaked part of the shirt to see-through and he lays a hand there, between her shoulderblades, covering up the hint of pink. Her head droops lower, her back lifting under his hand.

She put on the shirt in front of him, after she came out of the bathroom almost-naked, after she stood up from the bed and flinched at the wet that rolled down her thigh, after she leaned over his chest and didn't meet his eyes but kissed him anyway, soft and lingering and tender enough that his eyes smarted, overwhelmed, his fingertips against her breastbone where the amulet horns had sunk in a divot that hadn't yet gone away. It might bruise.

He touches his own chest where there's a matching, tiny ache. "What are we going to do," he says.

Deanna sniffs, and her fingers go up to her eyes. When she turns at looks at him her eyelashes are damp but she's steady. "I'm gonna look for a hunt," she says. He frowns at her and she shrugs. "Tomorrow. That's what we do. I'm gonna look for a hunt, and you're gonna—I don't know, read a whole book and then do algebra problems, because that's the kind of crap you do—and if I find a job I'm gonna call Dad and tell him and he's gonna say whether we go for it or if we wait for him to get back, and we're gonna—be Sam and Deanna Winchester. Who we've always been."

"Like it's that simple," Sam says.

"It is that simple," Deanna says, firm. She swivels on the bed, tucking her leg up, looking him in the face. "I don't know if it's easy. That part—I don't know, Sammy. But it's simple. It's just us."

"Us," Sam echoes. All the science metaphors and Shakespearian language and math can't solve that. Us. Whatever that means.

Deanna touches his wrist, on the hand that's holding his beer. Soft, careful. Her thumb sliding over the back of his hand. He meets her eyes and she's watching him, and after a few seconds her mouth lifts into that crooked little smile. The one that's his.

His stupid heart lifts like it's been filled with helium. "Do I still have to do your laundry?" Sam says.

"Once a week," Deanna says, and pulls him in closer. When their lips meet their beer bottles clink together, like they’re promising something, too.

[chaptersonetoinfinity]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Asta/Noelle Silva, Mimosa Vermillion/Yuno, Charlotte Roselei/Yami Sukehiro, Asta & Mereoleona Vermillion & Yuno, Charlotte Roselei & Noelle Silva, Zora Ideale & Mimosa Vermillion, Asta & Leopold Vermillion, Minor or Background Relationship(s) Series: Part 1 of Scarlet Cross AU: Girl!Asta and Other Divergences

Chapter 3: December, 1621

Liebe gets his name. Yuno surpasses his limits.

Talia breaks into a run and drags Yuno along, never letting go of his hand. He staggers and limps as his knees throb and his thigh twitch from Wolfram’s earlier hit. His snow-soaked sweater is plastered painfully to his back, chafing the gashes along his skin. 

Leave me, Yuno wants to say. You need to run. 

But all he can do is cry.

Yuno’s not the only one slowing them down. The wind has picked up after sunset, and the current is pushing them back as Wolfram’s footsteps echo behind them. Even when each step feels heavier than the last, they press on, zipping past one street, then the next, until the windmill is just ahead. 

Where can they go? They can’t use the path by the windmill anymore—Wolfram will catch up in no time, but they’ll… they’ll find another path, or they’ll go back to Mayor Reino, or, or—

Something hooks to the back of Talia’s clothes and pulls. 

Talia tightens her grip on Yuno, but another forceful tug rips her away. She yells out as a steel chain reels her back, and Yuno turns and catches the fear in her eyes for one desperate moment before she vanishes into one of the cylinders on Wolfram’s belt. Her voice cuts off mid-scream.

[reindeer-dad]

❤️: A drabble involving love, but with Noelle and/or Dess? Challenge: No angst! Not even a teeny bit!

Send me a character name & a heart and I’ll write a drabble between my muse and that character centered around the heart’s theme. (Yes, I am still accepting these!)

Clop-clop clop-clop...

Young hooves tapped on the wooden floor of the apartment living room littered with moving boxes. “Got my stuff, Daddy!” December announced, toys piled in her arms up to her little red snout. It was so much, she couldn’t see the floor in front of her...!

“Whoa!” Rudy pulled away from wrapping dishes in bubble wrap after hearing an uncomfortable thump from Dess’s direction. The poor little girl was face-down! The plastic dinosaurs, mini bear plushies, and long-haired ponies once in her hands were scattered everywhere.

It was just a little trip-and-fall, she was okay. Her toys were fine, too. No tears. Dess is a tough girl, after all!

“Careful now, sport,” Rudy helped her up. “No need to haul all your toys into here. Go grab a box and load it up in the room.”

The little doe sprung up as if the fall was nothing but a small inconvenience. “Okay!” The clopping of her hooves staggered as she peered at the tops of the boxes. So many were labeled “MOM.” A couple had “DAD” in giant letters. Naturally, her parents had far more stuff than their daughter had, and spent the evening before packing up the office room.

“Where are all the ‘DESS’ boxes...?”

“You gotta write that yourself. There are some boxes without any names---”

“OOH! CAN I USE THIS ONE?” she chirped as she found just that.

Rudy looked at where Dess was pointing. Sure, there were no names on it. It did, however, have a large heart on top drawn with thick red lines.

“You're right. BUT, that’s a special box.”

“Why’s it special?”

“You put your most priceless items in it. That way, when Asgore helps us carry it into our new home, he’ll be extra-careful, so nothing inside gets damaged.”

“What’s ‘priceless’ mean?”

“Something very, very important. You can’t replace it for a million bucks!" Rudy replied. "Like... that silver watch Mom got from Great-Grandpapa Jolly.”

“Oh...” Dess nodded understandingly. She remembered Mom showing her, and how delicately she placed it in its jewelry box. How she sternly told her daughter to never, ever play with it.

“So, put whatever's precious in there, ‘kay? Your toys can take a beating, they don’t need to be in there!” He chuckled.

Right next to the heart-box was an unlabeled, empty box. “Well, lookie here!” Rudy beamed. “A box, just waitin’ for you to write your name on it!” He placed it in front of Dess.

The doe jumped to the task and brought it into the room. She filled her share of boxes, proudly doing it on her own. She even wrote her name, all by herself... no help needed!

Moving day went off without a hitch! Unpacking took some time, but it was almost done. All but one box remained untouched until the end.

Rudy, Carol, and December decided to sit in their new spacious living room to sort through the special box with the large heart drawn on top of it. They carefully cut open the box. On top of the baby blanket, the photo albums, and the jewelry cases... was a simple white paper.

Curiously, Carol pulled it out of the box. On the opposite side was a colorfully childish drawing of Mommy, Daddy, and Dess. Smiles lifted the Holiday parents’ cheeks as they pulled their daughter close.

“Oh... that’s beautiful, sweetheart.”

“Now THAT’S what I call 'priceless'!”

[songofsilentechoes]

Her recent trip back home has Noelle stewing about some things. Her former obligations, her areas of study, her history with enchanting, her feelings on angels, her house, and other mysteries.

It felt like a lifetime ago when she last thought of these things. Why now, of all times? Was she feeling nostalgic? Perhaps her recent purchase of Calm was padded with some nostalgia....

Regardless, it was maddening. There felt like a million things she should be doing, but had no idea where to begin or what to do about most of them. Like the magic in her blood got a taste of her home and was clinging there, unable to let go.

Her breathing is quick. The tomes and texts feel like an ever-growing pile of work. Unresolved things that have only grown problematic over time. She needed fresh air! Standing up, she knocks her chair over. It falls silently to the ground and she staggers outside, not even bothering to get her cloak on.

The bricks in the alley are nice and cool, and the air, while not the freshest, was better than the stuffiness of her apartment’s atmosphere at the moment. She rests against the wall for a bit before she walks off.

She needed a drink...badly.

[eightfoldjourney]

Agnea was glad to see that she wasn't too rough on her new friend, though once again, the dancer couldn't help but notice the curious lack of sound. There should have at least been a thud when Noelle hit the floor, right?

Such thoughts distracted Agnea, making her slow to react when Noelle got up and lunged again. Her baton suddenly extended, striking Agnea in the ribs and causing her to stagger back.

"Oof!" She briefly clutched her right side, but quickly recovered. "That was pretty clever, but don't count me out yet!" Agnea took up a stance once again, ready to go another round.

Noelle's eyes open wide as her arm is grabbed and she's thrown to the ground. The short woman was oddly light, and she hit the ground silently.

"Ugh..." She rolls up onto her feet and tries to shake off her disorientation. "Okay, I guess I'm a little rusty." She admits as she turns back around to face her opponent.

Not wanting to surrender just yet, she begins a swing with her baton, but she's a bit too far to make it connect. However, as she swing, the baton's length reaches that of a quarter staff and the woman's stance seamlessly shifts for the change of weapon as she aims a strike at Agnea's side. Hopefully not too hard, but enough to tag her.

[luxmaeastra]

//For Sarai and Silba!!//

Orsus waited till they were 14, taking 13 year old Aleksander and Azriel with them. Noelle and Cyrus weren't hard to track down. The rundown house they stayed in was far from civilization.

Noelle was away, Orsus ordered Azriel and Aleksander to wait outside.

Cyrus's magic hurt icicles cut into their wrists and shoulders. Still they moved, pushing Cyrus back and back into a corner.

They striked, their blade slamming into his stomach. They could hear the music, faint but like a siren song.

They had locks on their magic, on what they could do. They'd given Sebastian and his family and Natalia access to their journal. They'd been given free reign to slow their access to magic.

They'd never gradually grown with their magic.

Cyrus slammed to his knees, Orsus looked to see Noelle. Her shadows rushed toward them. They smiled as Cyrus screamed making her hesitate.

Orsus stepped toward her, Cyrus staggering to his feet, dying. He was dying. A puppet on strings.

"What have - what are you? I told Natalia you were a strange thing."

Orsus smiled, silver flashing in their eyes.

"I am the one who is going to kill you."

Cyrus groaned, ordering Noelle away. Orsus didn't wait, flicking their fingers to set Cyrus on fire.

Orsus stepped closer, their blade humming. They wanted more, more death, more violence.

"I'm going to hunt you down till you're nothing."

Their magic filled the air. Sarai knew better than to enter without announcing herself, especially with Orsus in the state they were. They did not need to be intelligent to see the signs, to know the warning. The smell of blood was thick, the warning stench of death lingered in a way that reminded them both of war.

Silba remained outside with Aleksander and Azriel, attending to them and ensure they were okay. Both had agreed that neither needed to see what was going on inside, no one needed to see the carnage and destruction.

Sarai didn't pause and recoil at the sight, instead, she just moved through the rundown place with her normal grace not even batting an eyelid of what she was seeing.

Why would she? She'd seen worse.

"Natalia is well aware of who they are, so your warning was wasted." Sarai stated as she moved towards them, her hand reached out and rested upon Orsus's shoulder - she didn't fear them, she respected them. "And you have done enough, I will take it from here."

[queercoded-disney-villain]

kris deltarune?

Headcanon A:  realistic

People wonder why Kris created the Dark Fountain after Snowgrave. It makes sense in the normal ending, they just want to keep having fun adventures with their friends. But why would they up the stakes after watching the Player make Noelle a murderer? Some use this as evidence that there's a third entity inside Kris. I don't believe that. I think Kris, in those cutscenes, really does get to act of their free will. And I think they do it because of their free will. No matter what the Player does, they will make that Dark Fountain. Not because they're evil. Not because they're malicious. But because they want the chance to take away your agency. They want you to know what it feels like when your choices don't matter.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

I think Kris pierced their own ears and got immediately infected. I think they also tried to pierce Noelle's ears and also Berdly's which was a challenge for everyone because he. Doesn't have ears.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

I think that Kris didn't just eat the pie to be funny, or because They Like Pie. I think that being without the Soul really hurts them. We see them slumped and staggering and limping without Us. The Soul does contain their HP. I think that whatever they did, the time they were in control nearly killed them. They needed the food to heal and stay alive. I'm not sure if Kris would've been able to Reset if they'd died there. And I like thinking about this hypothetical hypothetical because sweet sweet angst.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

I WILL NEVER STOP DRAWING KRIS WITH AN AFRO RAAAA

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Find the word

Thanks to @winterandwords here, @frostedlemonwriter here, and @paeliae-occasionally here!

My words: wild, free, escape, away, wind, deep, guitar, shame, time, ball, intense, fast

Your words: real, offer, shallow, hour

Tagging @mundanemoongirl @atelierwriting @she-who-fights-and-writes @riveriafalll @theeccentricraven

+ ANYONE ELSE

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@nebula--nix @literarynecromancy @honeybewrites

SOTL intro

SOTL tag list (ask to be +/-): @illarian-rambling @katwritesshit @wyked-ao3

Keep reading for:

Lexi knows everyone's schedule

Kwasiyaa and Dylan are running

Lexi is upset

Lexi is still upset

Rose has found something

Lexi finds Ash

Jack's poetry assignment

Science fiction bullshit

Tyler's powers

Akash was staring (:

Lexi doesn't have a partner

Wild - from The Secret Portal Part Two (Lexi POV)

“Our orchestra concert is next Friday,” I added on. “Maddie’s choir concert is next Saturday, the twenty-first. So we’ll show up in Alium that Sunday morning. That weekend is going to be wild. Jazlyn and Wade both have a football game on Friday, and Ewan and Hye-Jin have concerts Saturday. I think Parker may be going to Wade’s game and Ewan and Jazlyn to each other’s activities. And Robbie has a winter play next week Thursday through Saturday. So next weekend will be vacant until Sunday.” “How do you know what everyone’s doing?” Ash asked, finally saying something and looking up from her largely untouched food. I blinked. “I dunno. I just remembered everyone talking about it.” “What else do you know, their birthdays?” “Yeah,” I said.

Free - from The Secret Portal Part One

In what could only be a temporary hesitation, Kwasiyaa ensured her cloak concealed them as she adjusted the bag on her shoulder with her free hand. She gave Dylan’s hand a squeeze with the other, and they were off again.

Escape - from The Secret Portal Part One (Lexi POV)

I threw up my arms to pull my hair, trying to hold back the tears that were pushing their way to the world outside of their ducts, which made me angrier. I get upset or frustrated or stressed and immediately start crying. It was frustrating, and no one understood. No one except Ash. I could tell she saw the tears, and she gave me a look of sympathy. To escape last year’s memories, I stormed out of the room.

Away - from The Secret Portal Part One (Lexi POV)

I opened my eyes and saw a small purple flower dancing in the breeze. Bright petals swirled around the middle. It was beautiful, but I wasn’t in the mood. I glared at it. It had to go away. I hated it was happier than me, and it was a plant.

Wind - from The Secret Portal Part One (Maddie POV)

“Wait,” Rose said, putting her hand up again. “Do you hear that?” Everyone fell silent. Everything else was silent. No wind rustled the grass, no trees swayed. No birds chirped. Nothing. Noelle sighed, “I don’t he—” “Shh,” Rose hushed. She slowly moved forward, then sat on the ground on her heels. “Guys, come here.”

Deep - from The Secret Portal Part One (Lexi POV)

My head whipped to my right to see a patch of vines wrapped around a tree. I yelped as they detached themselves and snatched in the air toward me, jumping back and almost tripping on the uneven ground. I staggered until it appeared they couldn’t get to me. The vines seemed to notice something above them, and I followed them up until a sight caused a deep shudder to course through me. Ash hung above my head, tangled in and thrashing against the vines that twisted around her body. “Oh, my—! Ash!”

Guitar - N/A

Shame - from School of the Legends Year One

She handed him his completed rubric, signaling it was time to go back to his desk. Despite the classmates who whispered to him that they had his back, it felt like the walk of shame. Jack slunk into his desk and read through the rubric. He mentally added the points in his head and found himself at a C. One of the notes Mrs. McGuire had was, “Your poem is fine—it just didn’t meet the entire requirements.”

Time - from The Secret Portal Part One

William put down his tablet and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. He’d been working so late that it was now early. It was so quiet he could hear the snakefly behind him violently flapping its wings. He sighed, then reread the last paragraph he’d written: Replicating the negative energy density found in a chronokinetic’s rifts is no easy task. The level needed to connect one time to another is far greater than a Level-7 teleporter, but nowhere near the level in the portal that connects our reality to Ceteri, nor even a dimensiokinetic. If chronokinetics were less seldom, perhaps this task would be accessible.

Ball - from The Secret Portal Part One (Gwen POV)

“Oh, Tyler, what’re your powers?” I asked when I sensed something might escalate into an argument I didn’t want to be a part of. “Oh, photokinesis,” he answered. “Light.” He outstretched his palm, a soft ball of light appearing in it. He closed his hand. “Nice,” I said, smiling. Now that I was seeing more of this, I was starting to like it despite myself.

Intense - from The Secret Portal Part One (Akash POV)

Gwen sank into the workout bench a minute ago. She said she needed some space to think up a game plan. Her brow was now furrowed in intense concentration, and she rapidly smacked one of her drumsticks on her knee. “You good, Akash?” Robbie asked, pulling me out of a trance that I didn’t know I was in. I was staring! At Gwen! Shit shit shit shit shit!

Fast - from The Secret Portal Part One (Lexi POV)

“Lexi?” Mrs. Korrin asked. “Don’t you have a partner?” I looked around the room. “No, everyone else is taken.” “Hm, I know we have an even number of kids—” The door slammed open, and a kid with messy dark hair was panting in the doorway. “Greyson,” Mrs. Korrin sighed, “is it going to be like this every day?” “Sorry, Mrs. Korrin,” said Greyson, moving to his seat. “Not so fast, we’re partnering up, and Lexi doesn’t have a partner. Get your worksheet, and come sit next to her.”

[patchwork-crow-writes]

Wait, actually! I've just had an epiphany about this point - leitmotifs are musical devices that help to convey a character's identity. Think about the three leitmotifs of Susie, Noelle and Berdly. Susie's is slow, tense, electric guitar that growls at the listener; Noelle's is cheery and jingly, appropriate for a cheery, christmassy girl; and Berdly's is confident and waltz-like, played on synthesised instruments to showcase his swagger and intellect. Listen to these pieces and they'll give you a fairly good idea of the type of character associated with them - bully, girl-next-door, nerd. With me so far?

So then, I already established that both Noelle and Berdly get sad reprises of their themes - for Noelle we have "Lost Girl", and for Berdly we have "Bluebird of Misfortune", both slower, low-key versions of their respective melodies. But when do these play? For Berdly, it's when Susie's goading finally forces him to admit that his intellegence is just a facade, and in Noelle's case it's when she's all alone, in a room that showcases her deepest insecurities. In other words - these more sorrowful renditions of their leitmotifs play when the characters' established identities are called into question, forcing us to consider them in a new light, revealing new aspects to them that we did not know or appreciate before.

Now, what's telling about Susie? She doesn't have a reprise of her leitmotif, and that's because for her, the moment her identity is in doubt hasn't yet occurred. Even at the point where she was literally about to kill Lancer in cold blood, her sense of self hasn't wavered. She's let her guard down a little bit, but she hasn't yet hit crisis point the same way that Berdly and Noelle have, however briefly.

And that leads us to Kris and Ralsei, two sides of the same coin. We discussed that Ralsei's leitmotif could be the Legend, and in the same way that Kris's leitmotif could be considered Don't Forget. But this is wrong, because those melodies are not about them. The Legend is literally about the Prophecy, this big, nebulous and grand idea that Ralsei has slavishly devoted himself to above seemingly all other concerns. And Don't Forget is the main theme of Deltarune, the video game where you play as Kris... or rather, where you puppeteer their body - potentially against their will - through the events of a game that are entirely predetermined and have no alternate outcome (big asterisk there, but that's for another time).

So! The themes you would mostly associate with these character's aren't even their themes to begin with, but rather represent the forces that are controlling them. Thus, looping this idea back to the idea of a character's leitmotif helping to showcase their identity, we come to our answer: Kris and Ralsei do not have leitmotifs, because for all intents and purposes neither of them actually have an identity to call their own. Whatever identity they might possess is overshadowed, almost subsumed, by the greater powers that they find themselves in thrall to. And this makes sense, because we know next to nothing about either of them.

The implications of this are staggering, because it suggests that the two of them will have to essentially reforge their own identities, compose their own leitmotifs, take control of their own destinies from the vast, unknowable forces of both the Narrative and the Player. And when they do... hoo boy.

I think we might be in trouble.

Ralsei is the only major character without a definitive theme

I was thinking about it and yup that’s kind of true. Which is a little odd, right? Every single UTDR NPC has a character theme, and his is noticeably absent.

You might argue he has the Legend/Castle Town theme, but that’s not directly tied to him like the other character themes often are. So it seems he doesn’t have a theme…or it’s currently being hidden from us.