#postscripts

[streetlights-was-taken]

[postscript] re:flect. re/fract.

← read on AO3 (available on 230411).

postscript was originally posted on 230317; re-posted (and edited) today to fix some tagging issues on the blog.

for venlumiweek2023.

day 2: corruption au.

i. conceptualizing the fic

I first conceived the idea of venti impersonating lumine back in 2021. I was struck with the image of aether, who just woke up, seeing lumine soothe dvalin in the woods. except that’s not actually lumine — that’s venti in disguise. I loved this scene so much that I wanted to write it, but at that time I felt that I didn't have enough material to make a fic out of.

I’m glad I postponed writing it until now. the fic has a stronger voice to it now, since venti’s reason for impersonating lumine is tied to irminsul’s ability to wipe memories. my initial idea was for him to just miss lumine a lot and to impersonate her to soothe aether’s loneliness. while this can hold on its own, the irminsul twist makes the story more interesting and gives it depth.

this fic has turned into more than just venti impersonating lumine. we also see lumine copying aether, and venti seeing lumine in aether. there is a running theme of becoming the one you love, and seeing the one you love in someone else. how different sides of you can be perceived by different people.

the title, of course, is a play on those themes. venti, wanting to preserve the memory of lumine, aims to be her reflection, a perfect mimicry of who she was. but as he learns about lumine outside of herself, he is confronted with how differently other people see her.

how aether is similar, but is not quite the same; a refraction of her image.

ii. unreliable narration, and the folly of being clever

while I was writing this fic, I was also reading emma by jane austen. emma is the story of a girl who’s very clever and smart, but her confidence in her cleverness blinds her from seeing situations clearly sometimes. I highly recommend watching the 2020 adaptation starring anya taylor-joy. it is such a delight to watch.

while reading the book, I thought to myself, “wow, I’d love to write a character like that one day.”

I was maybe half a scene away from finishing this fic when I realized I was already writing this kind of character subconsciously through venti and lumine. I was very surprised, but pleasantly so, since I wasn’t consciously thinking to “write emma” while writing this fic.

much of the fic is centered on this line: we like to think of ourselves as clever, but all our clever tricks have been nothing but folly.

one thing I wanted to explore with abyss lumine and venti is how they both have the tendency to keep secrets and think they have all the answers. this trait gives abyss lumine the confidence to save teyvat. this trait makes barbatos mysterious, and he doesn’t really reveal much to the player despite hinting that he knows way too much than we give him credit for.

this shared trait is also what makes lumine and venti intrigued by one another. in this way, they are the same. they are clever people with long-term plans for the future. I wanted to explore how that cleverness could work against them.

(I mentioned in the end notes that I’ll leave the fic up to reader interpretation. so if you want to keep your interpretations, please ignore the rest of this section and skip to the next.)

venti practices becoming lumine to prepare for the day irminsul wipes her from collective memory. since irminsul can’t change the physical realm, venti turns this practice into habit so that just seeing his reflection as lumine will trigger his true memories and keep irminsul’s fake memories out of the way.

and he’s not wrong! he really does remember the version of lumine that irminsul tried to erase. it’s a very clever trick of overcoming irminsul. but venti did not have the foresight to realize how much this will hurt himself. how much it will cause him to ache for her more, how he allows lumine to curse him to be there for aether in a way he wasn’t planning to. the cruelty of becoming, instead of being with, the one you love.

this is why venti commends dainsleif, because he saw this side of her much more clearly than venti did.

similarly, lumine had her own clever tricks as well. seeing venti try to become her, she trains venti to become the big sister that aether needs when lumine is not there. she was not doing this out of malice to venti, but we cannot deny that this is manipulation on her part. yet, even so, lumine was kind. she asked venti to wear cecilias, so that a part of venti will stay in that form. she didn’t want venti to completely lose himself in his impersonation.

and she’s not wrong! venti did become the perfect companion to aether, the big sister that knew all the ways to soothe and take care of aether’s loneliness. what lumine (and venti) did not account for was the cecilia. lumine asked venti to wear cecilias out of kindness to him. and yet, after the irminsul wipe, after she becomes the abyss princess, she is filled with turmoil. whenever she wears cecilias and looks at her own reflection, the flower triggers feelings of confusion and anger that she doesn’t understand. she doesn’t have her memories, but her body knows that this reflection is not her.

the cecilia is a clever trick. it makes her seek out venti to figure out why she’s confused, why her reflection is lying to her. it is also a source of turmoil for the abyss princess, a source of shame for making her seek out the gods of teyvat.

we don’t see this side of lumine since this is a very venti-centric fic, and I think that’s fine. some of it is implied. but at the end of the day, venti himself is an unreliable narrator, so there are many things that the fic doesn’t confirm.

he doesn’t call out lumine for manipulating him to be her replacement when he’s with aether. he states that dainsleif and aether knew the real lumine, that they figured her out and venti hasn’t. protecting aether is a duty blurred between lumine’s wish for her brother to be safe, and venti’s desire to carry out lumine’s wishes.

it’s up in the air if venti was deceiving himself about not figuring lumine out, and if he knew he was being manipulated by her. maybe he allowed it to happen, or maybe he didn’t.

a clever person wouldn’t have been fooled. and venti and lumine, in this fic, like to think of themselves as clever people.

again, it’s up to the reader to decide how unreliable venti is as a narrator.

iii. canon compliance

I wrote this before caribert came out, so there are inconsistencies with the timeline. caribert asserts that lumine traveled with dainsleif after the catclysm and created the abyss order afterwards.

of course, that is not what happens in the fic.

to insert venti into the timeline, I made lumine and dainsleif travel before the cataclysm. I quite like this decision. this gives lumine depth because her decision to leave aether stems from her love for him, for him to wake up to a better world. this ties into her desire to save teyvat, which is a desire that is easy to twist and gives irminsul some material to base off of when rewriting memories. this desire might also be something exploitable by The Voice in the caribert quest.

this also contrasts with how aether saw her. the lumine he knew wouldn’t have wanted to stay for good. but lumine did. lumine, changed by this world and moved by venti, wanted to make teyvat their home.

I also enjoyed writing dainsleif here. I think he and venti would have an interesting dynamic. since they traveled before the cataclysm, dainsleif is more flexible in his beliefs and is able to befriend venti despite being an archon, since he knows venti is not exactly a fan of celestia. they don’t begrudge each other, and they are both aware of how much they both love lumine. perhaps this is why dainsleif looks out for venti. it’s a shame he wasn’t able to turn venti into a proper atheist and free him from his chains to celestia.

[flagellant]

yeah we might be brothers in christ but so were cain and abel so shut the fuck up before i decide to find a rock about it

[dykeyaoi]

got curious how many people make their own icons, and how much is fanart versus original.

AUs & redesigns count as fanart!

[sugusoko]

ONE. THE MAGICIAN / THE MAGICIAN REVERSED

[bonus-links]

MY TIME HAS COME please discuss in great detail the GrooZeLink dynamics in prologue part 5. I am so intrigued by the stark differences between this shot:

And this shot:

The scar on triforce. The hiding. Please tell me everything there is to know

this is 4 u groozelinkers

why did i do text bubbles this way. how did anyone read this comic. god bless.

this is essentially Loft Monologues His Feelings The Update. It was very important to me that the audience understands where Loft's head is at from the get-go. and like listen, sometimes u have to have a bestie debrief even if ur bestie is a dormant sword spirit who can't talk to u. if bonus links was a musical this would be Loft's I want song lol

jokes aside I think Loft comes here to talk to Fi a lot. it makes him feel both better and worse

LOFTS FI IMPRESSION i feel like he used to do this a lot and thought it was so funny and every time Fi would be like. objectively that is not what i sound like. also, peep the textbox pattern!

even though Loft has trouble acclimating to life on the surface, it was important to me to show that it's not all like. angst and doom and gloom. But that's kind of the problem right? things are good, and he feels like this anyway. also I did my best to include most of the young adult skyloft npcs, I feel like the older one have mostly stayed up on Skyloft for now. LAKE TRIP!!

this is a direct reference to this shot from the game. this line of dialogue is an important thing to keep in mind. tbh the entire reason this comic exists is bc i thought too hard about the implications of skyward sword— what if you found out your girlfriend was really your god, who had orchestrated your entire life? wouldn't that make everything feel a little strange, even if you love her more than anything? much to think about

I like the scar through the triforce mark as a kind of symbolic gesture, but there's not really any intended meaning behind the two pieces of the triforce is goes through. feel free to interpret it however u like tho lol

AND THIS SHOT my headcanon is that Loft doesn't actually help much with the early building in Faron. It's partially because he can't- he pushes his body to the limit during his quest, and then completely crashes when it's over, and it takes a loooong time to even start recovering. He spends most of the time sleeping.

But it's also partially because he doesn't actually want to move to the surface. He wants to stay on Skyloft. In my mind it's like. he fought really hard to return to a state of normalcy that doesn't exist anymore, and that's hard to come to terms with. This is Zelda and Groose's project, and while he'll go along with it, he's not that enthusiastic about it. It's a source of tension in their relationship. Combined with Zelda often acting as a mouthpiece for the gods, it starts to grate on Loft that this aspect of his future has also apparently been decided.

tldr groozelink love each other a lot but things are definitely not perfect, and especially not right now

this is actually something I intended to get a little bit more into in ch2, but the chapter kind of. wrote itself away from it. every time I tried to include a scene with it, it felt too much like I was forcing characters to have too many heart-to-hearts too early. we'll get there eventually

this is an important update in the grand scheme of things :-) mystery mouseketool etc etc

[justanotherignot]

Letter from Isobel (AND AYLIN!)

[3liza]

this is less of a complaint and more of an educational lecture: when you write "PS" to leave a little addendum to the end of a note, that's short for "post script", eg, "after the text". postscripts became customary in the days of handwriting and then typewriters because it was really hard to go back up into a finished letter and insert more text before computers, so if you had any additional thoughts or corrections, you had to add them at the bottom.

ok i told you that so i can tell you this: when you have a second post script, the acronym is PPS, not PSS. PPS stands for post-post-script. post-script-script doesn't really make any sense in this context. you can just keep adding Ps to make each additional thought even more post, if you want. and plenty of antique letter writers with ADHD certainly did.

[andrumedus]

Let me bite you a little, just tender enough to leave a small bruise, easily hidden, that goes away in time.

Sam Cheuk, Postscripts from a City Burning; “11/06/19”

[salemoleander]

I don't know how it felt when Third Life started, but I like to imagine Secret Life feels a little like those first few sessions.

Not that we can ever get back to that naiveté! BUT. Idk if it's the silliness of the tasks or the generous game-ified rewards or Gem & Mumbo & Lizzie but it all just feels so new.

This is the first Life Series where they could actually defeat the Ender Dragon. Beat the game. Leaving aside any meta or lore or whatever- consider how special is it that they can win the original battle, the core goal of Minecraft, together.

This world is gentle - I know it lacks regen, but is it so terrible to be cautious? To have time and reason to go slow?

Food is abundant. Plentiful passive mobs, and a way via spawn eggs to get more. There are berries and pumpkins, and cherry and dark oak and mangrove trees, not generated but kindly placed. A mesa and a jungle and a savannah and a plains and a jungle - so many biomes to choose from.

The tasks so far are silly, kind - puns, pranks, nicknames. Building homes near each other. Poetry. Trust falls. What does it say that the worst task is simply to dig a hole?

They can gift hearts for free! And 30 hearts a person! A creeper blew up right behind Scar, and this time he lived. They are all so strong here.

With a way of getting more health, and the barrier to death so high... I'm sure the CCs have their plans, but per the world we know right now: no one has to die. There's an impossible, wonderful sense that this time could be different.

[kusanagihaku]

and i will hold onto you

⭢ haku x mc, 9.6k

n is for new year's day. ˖⁺‧₊⟡ alphabet series | ao3 thinking always about this headcanon; also i know graduation is usually in march but like, artistic license, haha…?

The cheers in Tokyo Dome are deafening. 

You watch as families stream down from the corners of the dome to the field, swarming their loved ones in congratulations as graduation caps are knocked to the floor with the force of their hugs. 

There is a vague current of wistfulness in the air, amidst the celebratory cheers, as is common in most graduation ceremonies. As you stand alone looking around at all the families, you wonder how much of that wistfulness is your own. 

It’s been a little over three years, after all, since you’ve entered Darkwick. Three years since the curse was placed on you and consequently broken, three years since you’ve last seen any of your family. Three years since you’ve found a new one, strange as they are, and two years since they’ve left you, one by one, to take on the world outside Darkwick. 

And now it is your turn to leave. 

“Honour roll,” comes a familiar voice, from behind you, and you turn, hand on your cap, to see Leo’s smirk and the camera in his hand. 

Despite yourself, you laugh. “Leo.”

His smirk melts into something gentle, genuine. “Congratulations. Really. You’re free from this hellhole, once and for all.” 

You dip your head at the Vagastrom captain, “Can’t wait for it to be your turn.”  

“One year to go, then,” Sho says, appearing behind Leo. He grins, waving a sunflower stalk at you. “One year without our precious senpai coming to bother Vagastrom.” 

“You better appreciate that one year.” 

“You bet we will,” Leo says, without any real heat, and you share a laugh as Sho presses the sunflower into your hands. 

Its stem is wrapped with a stiff yellow ribbon printed with the name of their house. You rub it between your fingers. “Which poor first year did you torture into doing this for you?”

Leo shrugs. “Bunch of ‘em. Said it was for the seniors, and they jumped at the chance.”

“Uh-huh,” you say, unconvinced, but before you can probe further Sho’s eyes flicker somewhere behind you. 

A smile unfurls across his face, large and mischievous, and he bobs his chin to your left. “Someone’s waiting for you.”  

You turn around, eyebrows furrowed – who is there left in this school who would look for you, Ritsu, Ren? – but then you see him. 

He’s holding a small bouquet of sunflowers and white roses, laced with baby’s breath and bells of Ireland. There are whispers from some of the students around you, a gasp of recognition from a Hotarubi student or two as he steps forward. The purple Darkwick tie, never once worn when he was still a student, is loosely tied around his collar, slanting slightly to the right like he has tugged on it more than once under the dark grey suit he has chosen for the occasion. 

You don’t notice the pinpricks in the corner of your eyes until he blurs into a mess of green and white and grey. “Oh,” you gasp, and he is there instantly, fingers brushing traitorous tears from your cheeks. 

He laughs, palm still cradling your cheek, and even though you knew he was coming, the aw-shucks grin he gives you still puts an all-familiar lump in your throat. 

“Congratulations, princess,” Haku says, soft and warm. “Well done.” 

-

December 29 - Darkwick Academy  Distance left to destination: 464km 

It is eight thirty-four in the morning. 

Haku stands, hands on his hips, in the middle of your dorm room. There are two duffle bags by his feet.

For what amounts to two years of living in the cathedral, you have fairly little belongings. 

You’ve given most of your items away, of course, in preparation for your move cross-country. All that are left are your clothes, stuffed neatly into a nearly-bursting medium-sized suitcase waiting by the door, and the gifts from various ghouls you’ve accumulated over the years. 

“Ready?” Haku asks. He gathers both duffle bags in one hand. In one of them is a notebook, given to you by Zenji before he, too, left. 

You turn to survey the bare room. You wonder, for a moment, who the next person to inhabit the room will be like - what they will be cursed with - before you turn back to face Haku. 

He is glowing, almost, in the morning light. His grey Hotarubi sweatshirt is rumpled, sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms and creased slightly where his overnight backpack is hung on his left shoulder. He looks at you, head cocked to one side, fond, sleep lines from where he slept on your pull-out sofa the night before etched into the soft of his cheek. 

If you haven’t already been planning this road trip for the past two months over text you’d think he came straight out of a dream. 

“Ready,” you say. You pick up your winter coat and his, and sling your backpack over your shoulder. The bouquet he gave you the previous day peeks out from the top. 

Haku nods. He holds the door open for you as you wheel your suitcase over the threshold of the room. The door clicks closed behind the both of you. 

He takes the suitcase from you, then, carrying it easily in one hand down the rickety old staircase. The third step from the bottom creaks beneath his weight like you knew it would. 

It creaks beneath your weight, too. You fish the key to the cathedral door out of your pocket as you reach the first floor. You leave it on the side table leading into the kitchen – the worker cats will retrieve it later today – and head towards the front door. 

You expect something to change, then, some shift in the air that tells you your time in Darkwick is over, but nothing happens as you emerge out into the watery grey sunlight. You wonder why you expected it to. 

Haku’s car is parked, slanted, on the driveway outside the cathedral. The bright yellow permission slip you obtained from Professor Hyde the week before for Haku flaps flimsily in the wind, held back by the wiper on his windshield. 

He unlocks the car, loads your belongings into the trunk. The wind brushes his bangs away from his face. 

It is eight forty-three in the morning. He looks at you, again, patient, understanding, like he always does. 

You exhale. You look back at the cathedral, one last time. 

Then you walk over to where Haku whisks you away from Darkwick, as swiftly and as kindly as he did whisking you in. 

-

December 29 - Hakone, Kanagawa  Distance left to destination: 365km 

It starts snowing a little before Haku pulls into the parking lot. 

Being in Darkwick for most of the year means you’ve forgotten what the weather outside is like, sometimes. The powdery snowfall encases the both of you in silence as you shake out your winter coats and trudge up the stone steps, bowing your heads as you pass under the red torii. 

The shrine is deserted. Whether it is because of the snow or the time of year you’re not really sure; after all, why come out to a shrine a few days before the end of the year when you’re going to visit again on the first day of the new year? 

But it is peaceful and quiet, something you have no complaints about, and before long you’ve made your way up the long stairs and are standing in front of the main hall, heads bowed in respect. 

This is the reason why Haku suggested a road trip instead of taking the Shinkansen down to Kyoto – to bring you to all his favourite shrines around the country on the way down. Your stops, carefully mapped out over Wickchat and Google Maps, are few but meaningful to him, planned out so that you’ll move into your new apartment before Subaru’s first performance of the year at Minamiza Theatre. 

Haku hasn’t told you the reason for any of the stops, but you can more or less guess his reason for this one; as you descend a different set of stone steps, a tall red torii comes into view, half-submerged in water. Snow drifts into the darkness swirling around the feet of the gates, blurring into the red paint before disappearing on contact with the lake. What lies beyond the gate has been shrouded in mist, a white haze obscured by the oncoming snow. 

It looks like some path to the afterlife, almost. Maybe some sort of adventure into the unknown. God knows you’ve had enough adventures to last a lifetime, though. 

You hear Haku exhale. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

You nod. Perhaps it looks like something out of a myth. 

He points, off to the side, at a strangely shaped rock a distance away from the main path. “Remember when you asked about the scar on my knee? Scraped it right there, running away from my grandfather.” 

You huff a laugh at the image of a little Haku, eyes alight with mischief, dancing out of the grasp of adults. “Didn’t manage to run too far, I guess?”

Haku laughs. He retracts his pointer to rub at his ear. “Not at all. Cried all the way back to the shrine before they bandaged me up.” 

You stuff your hands deeper into the pockets of your coat so you will not reach for where his fingertips are turning red with the cold. 

“I haven’t been back here in a while,” Haku continues, softer. His eyes are fixed on somewhere beyond the gates. “Not since he passed away.” 

You watch as his breath clouds in the cold air. You stay silent. 

He glances at you, eventually, small smile tugging on his lips and blinking the snowflakes out of his eyes. “Let’s go?”

After a second of thought you take your hand out of your pocket to loop your arm through his. You feel him shift in surprise, before he presses himself against your warmth. “Yeah.” 

-

December 29 - Shimizu, Shizuoka Distance left to destination: 295km 

It stops snowing a little after Haku pulls out of the parking lot. 

The rest of the car ride to your next stop is filled with idle chatter and green grape gummies that you picked up from the general store on your way out of Darkwick. Haku keeps his eyes on the lightly frosted road as you feed him, lips barely brushing your pointer and your thumb. You keep your eyes on him. 

You just finish telling him about a mission you did with Ritsu before he slows down, turning off the highway into Shimizu. 

“We stopping for lunch?” You seal the pack of gummies. 

He hums. “Sort of. There’s someone I want you to meet.” 

You wince, and finger-comb through your hair. “I’m dressed for a car ride, not for meeting people.” 

Haku sneaks a glance at you. “You’re beautiful, princess, don’t worry.” 

You flush. “That- you-“ 

He laughs, light and warm, as he makes a right turn. “Just as easy to tease, after all this time.” 

“Shut up,” you say, but his offhand compliment has already burrowed its way under your cheeks and heated them up the same way they always did back at Darkwick. Damn him and his smooth tongue. 

You watch as the train stations flash by – Sakurabashi, Kitsunegasaki, Mikadodai – before he slows down next to Kusanagi Station. You glance at him in surprise. Are you heading to the Kusanagi shrine?

Before you can ask, however, he stops next to a nondescript beige building, throwing the car into park. 

“We’re here,” he announces, and laughs again when you peek doubtfully at your reflection in the side-view mirror. “You look fine.” 

He reaches over to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. 

If his fingers linger longer than they should on the shell of your ear, you pretend you do not notice. You pretend your ears do not blush, pretend your breath does not catch. 

You exit the car. 

There is an old, stooped lady by the restaurant counter when Haku slides the rickety wooden door open, back turned to you as she mops down a wooden table with a bright yellow cloth. All you can see is the checkered bandana resting atop a mop of curly white hair, and a faded red apron sash around her waist, wrapped tight around a stout figure. 

“Miyami-san?” Haku calls out. His voice is soft, reverent. 

“Ah?” There is obvious shock as she turns around. A startled delight washes over her face the moment her eyes alight on Haku, and she hobbles over immediately, hands outstretched and eyes waned into teary crescents. 

“Haku, my dear boy,” she cries. She reaches forward to clasp his hands in her own, wrinkled and gentle. “My, my, you’ve grown taller, haven’t you?”

Haku half-laughs. “I haven’t grown since I last came back.” 

The old lady laughs, too. “Perhaps it’s me who has grown smaller. And who’s this?”

“A friend, from Darkwick. I told you about her over the phone, remember?” Haku’s hand is warm on your elbow through your coat. 

The old lady turns to you, peering kindly. “Yes, I do remember…”

You wonder briefly what Haku has said about you, but under the scrutiny of the old lady you hurriedly introduce yourself, bowing. 

She claps, delightedly. “You both must be hungry, coming down from your school. I’ll whip something up for you real quick, shall I?”

“Anything you make will be delicious,” Haku intones, and he shoots her a charming smile that would have turned half of Hotarubi silly. 

It works on her as well, evidently, as she pats his cheek and makes her way to the back of the room. 

“I used to come here all the time to hang out with her grandkids,” Haku says, removing his coat. His eyes follow her as she disappears into the kitchen, humming brightly. “They moved away when I was fifteen, though, but I just… kept coming. She’s more like a grandmother to me than my own grandma.” 

He sweeps his fringe behind his ear, and rolls up the sleeves of his sweatshirt. His earrings brush the line of his jaw. “I stay here, sometimes, when I don’t want to go back to my family.” 

You blink, looking around the restaurant. There are wooden panels lining the room, black ink on rectangle blocks to indicate the menu, but little else by way of decoration. “Here?” 

Haku chuckles. He points to an entrance hidden by an egg-white curtain, tucked quietly into a corner by the back. “She has guest rooms, upstairs. She usually lets them out, but there tends to be no guests, at this time of year.” 

You both agree on taking your overnight bags out from the car while Miyami-san is cooking, if only to save time. Haku stands, as if to help you, but you swat his hand. “Stay here. If she comes out and finds us both missing, how will that look?”

Haku just laughs, sitting back down in acquiescence, and looks up at you, chin in hand. He looks adorable, like this, adoring, and you are suddenly filled with a desperate wish that you could capture this image, forever. “Like we ran off like a couple of hormonal teenagers?”

You flush, and leave him without a response. 

It doesn’t take long for you to gather his backpack and your duffel bag from the car, and as you slide the wooden door closed and toe off your shoes you hear murmuring voices low enough to make you still before the entrance curtain. 

“Are you going to show her the shrine, then?” 

A pause. “They’re going to be too busy preparing things for the New Year’s ceremony.” 

She hums. “That’s true.” 

“Miyami-san–” Haku starts, but she hushes him. 

“I know, I know,” she says. “I won’t tell them you stopped by.” 

Haku laughs, then, something soft and young and grateful. “Thank you. As always.” 

There is a beat of silence, and you prepare to move, but her voice sounds again. “Who is she, to you?”

You hear the grin in Haku’s voice. “Why?”

“You know… you’re of age… it’s about time you bring someone home for me to meet.”

There is a rustle as Haku shifts around in his chair. “She’s one of the strongest people I know,” he says, slowly, “but she hasn’t had much control over her past few years. Now that she’s free of all that, I’d like to leave as much up to her as possible.” 

You tense. Your heart hammers in your chest, tight and painful, as his words trip over themselves, over and over in your brain. Does he mean–

“–she’s also listening around the corner, so I refuse to say anymore.”

You don’t think your cheeks have experienced this much blood-rush in a while. You poke your head out from behind the curtain. “How did you know!” 

“The door isn’t exactly silent,” Haku points out, and the three of you dissolve into laughter. 

There is something light and warm, there, born in the small of the room. It expands, a golden sort of feeling that stretches beyond the four wooden walls and settles, stardust-like, in the space between Haku’s hands and yours; it collapses, cools under your tongue into a memory bright and sweet and precious. 

If you don’t give it a name, you think, perhaps you can continue pretending that being by Haku’s side does not feel like home. 

-

December 30 - Shimizu, Shizuoka Distance left to destination: 295km 

There is a saying – what is a handspan away feels most like a world apart. 

Haku sits, two handspans away. He is looking up at the ceiling, squinting against a lightbulb he changed prior to breakfast. It’s a different colour from the rest, a cool white against the warmth of the other, older bulbs in the restaurant, and it washes him in a faint crisp light. 

“Well, at least it’s not blinking anymore,” Haku says. His elbows rest against the table. 

Miyami-san sighs, forlorn. “I’ll have to write down the model number so I can buy the correct bulb next time. What time are you planning to head out?” 

Haku leans over to you, taps the screen of your new phone you both spent an hour setting up last night. It lights up, displaying a blurry photo of Haku trying to take a selfie with you, overlaid by the time in white. 

“In about twenty minutes? I’ll wash up before we go,” Haku insists, getting to his feet. “You’ve been more than lovely making us breakfast.” 

He sweeps everything up into a pile before she can protest, and disappears, whistling, into the kitchen. 

“Haku’s a good boy,” she sighs, as you watch him go. She stretches, and leans backwards. “Before he left for school he always helped me with all the odd jobs around the house. Changed all my lightbulbs for me, too.” 

You laugh. “Sounds like Haku.” 

She adjusts the strap of her apron. “He’s so smart, too. Made the top of his class whenever he put his mind to it.” 

You suppress a smile. If you didn’t know better you’d think she was a grandmother eager to market her bachelor grandson off to the next available singleton.

“And responsible, too,” she continues. “Good thing he is, what with the shrine business.” 

She peeks at you, and you quickly school your widening smile into something more presentable. “Has he told you about the shrine?” 

You nod. You can hear Haku, more than a few handspans away, soft humming barely audible over the sound of running water in the kitchen. “The Kusanagi shrine.” 

She hums. “He’s going to take over from his family one day. He’s going to be a better leader than his father is.” 

A silence lapses over the both of you. They’re both true statements, you know, and yet there is something nagging at you about the mention of his father. 

“Miyami-san,” you start, carefully. “If I may ask… what’s his family like?” 

“His family?” She turns her head thoughtfully to the curtain that hides the kitchen from the restaurant, and is silent for so long you wonder if you’ve overstepped. 

You are about to mumble a hasty apology when she turns back to you. 

“They expect a lot from him,” she says, softly. “There’s a great many responsibilities that fall your way when you inherit a shrine. His father had to shoulder it, and his father before that, and so on. He may be running away from it now, but eventually it’ll have to be his turn, and I think in the back of their minds they all know it.” 

You want to nod, but it feels like the wrong thing to do. Running away… except he isn’t, not really. Everything Haku did at Darkwick, every skill you’ve seen him practise and every responsibility you’ve seen him manage in Hotarubi, felt like he was building himself to take over the shrine – from his artifact to the research for his missions to all the summer festivals he helped manage. Even now, from what you understand of his work, it seems like what he has chosen to do is in preparation for him to take over. 

“He’s more prepared than they think,” you say. “He works hard, even though he acts like he doesn’t.” 

She looks at you a little more sharply, then. There is a cool appraisal behind her squint, before it melts into something like approval. “He does, doesn’t he.” 

Before you can respond, though, Haku emerges from the kitchen, running a hand through his hair. “Talking about me?”

“You wish,” you say, and are rewarded immediately with the sparkle of his laugh. 

He pauses next to your seat before picking up his backpack. His hand nearly brushes yours. “Ready to head out?” 

You stand. Your hand nearly brushes his, a world apart. “Ready.” 

-

December 30 - Nagakute, Aichi Distance left to destination: 175km 

“Hard disagree – we turn left here – you’re only saying that because my name is Haku.” 

You squint at the alleyway in front of you dubiously. It’s bathed in the last rays of evening, a dying honey from the setting sun that does nothing to ward off the winter chill, and it seems to lead to yet another street that looks oddly similar to the one you’re about to leave. “Are you sure?” 

But Haku is already stepping forward, Google Maps winking into sleep on his phone screen, and so you follow behind. The thrift shop he is searching for is supposed to be a mere ten minute walk from where you left the warmth of the Ghibli Park, but you swear you’ve been wandering around for at least twenty minutes. 

“Anyway, no, it’s because he’s a river spirit–“

Haku glances at you, eyebrow raised. “I’m not a river spirit.” 

“-and he’s supposed to know a lot about the spirit world.” You huff at him, and he laughs in acquiescence. You reach the end of the alleyway; Haku squints against the reflection of sun on his phone and directs you to turn right. 

“And he spent a lot of the movie using that knowledge to protect and save Chihiro, didn’t he?” you continue. You look down at your feet even though the evening light is no longer shining directly into your eyes. The worn grey of the road winks at you as you cross residential street. “Like you did with me.” 

Haku is silent for a beat, before he says, lightly, “I think I’m much more like Howl.” 

You cannot hold back your snort. “Because how he gets all the girls?” 

His responding laugh is startled and bright. “C’mon now, princess. Howl only ever loved Sophie, in the end.” 

He looks at you, brows raised, like there is something you are supposed to understand, but after a moment of expectant silence too laden for you to consider you swallow the whiskey-burn of his eyes and turn away. 

“Is it nearby?” you ask, instead. You push the ice blocks you used to call hands deeper into your coat pockets, and push your gaze back down to the grey asphalt under your feet. 

Haku unlocks his phone in response. “One more block to go. Sorry, you must be tired.” 

You shake your head. 

“We’ll get dinner after this, then crash out,” he decides, anyway. “We had an early start today, and we’ve done a lot.” 

(You stopped earlier in the day at Atsuta Shrine to pay your respects before heading down to Ghibli Park, and briefly heard a guide explain about the great Kusanagi sword supposedly stored in the halls.

“Oh, my Kusanagi sword is great, alright,” Haku snorted under his breath; you smacked him on the shoulder and dragged him, holding back giggles, towards the exit before you got struck down for blasphemy.)

After two more minutes of sleepy residential buildings, you spot the orange signboard of the thrift store, hanging from a black rod above a shuttered flower shop. There is a chalkboard leaned against the side of the flower shop with carefully scrawled yellow letters and arrows directing you to a staircase around the back. Going up the concrete steps leads you to a wooden door with a heavy handle. 

Haku tugs the door open, and gestures for you to go inside. 

The store is swathed in yellow and orange, thanks to the narrow spot-light beams installed on the ceiling. The wooden shelving look old but well-cared for under carefully stacked clothes, a small contrast to the adjacent metal frames sagging with hangers of coats and jackets. There are mirrors gently leaned on the walls at strategic places throughout the store, reflecting the warm light from the ceiling and making the space look bigger than it actually is. 

A man in a beanie looks up from where he is slouched over the cashier, and waves a silent welcome that you both acknowledge. 

“One of my seniors told me this place has a good curation of sweaters,” Haku says, turning to study the racks. He picks up a bomber jacket in olive green, inspects it, then sets it down. “You’ll probably need more winter wear too, now that we don’t get climate control. But we’ll also stop at another place when we get to Kyoto, just so you can get some new clothes to wear around Subaru.” 

You nod, and dutifully turn your attention to the racks, fingers running across the soft fabrics draped neatly on dark metallic hangers. 

You’re looking at a cardigan the colour and texture of dawn clouds when Haku appears again at your elbow. “Look at this one.” 

He holds up a sweater in washed out sage. It’s slightly fluffy, sleeves softly melting into a cream. When you reach out to touch it it’s impossibly softer than it looks. 

“It’s cute,” you say. Its sloped shoulders are wide; you hold the pale green fabric up to his shoulders. “It looks your size, too.” 

Haku hums in agreement. He takes the sweater, gently, from your fingers, and turns it around, lining the edge of its shoulders up with yours. 

“I think it looks cuter on you,” he says. The honey of his eyes sparkle with mirth as he nudges you to face the mirror. “Like you’re stealing your boyfriend’s clothes.” 

You feel a fire climbing up your cheeks immediately, and you glare at Haku, heatless and helpless, as he bites back a laugh. He shifts away, grinning brightly, and leaves you staring in the mirror with the sweater folded between your hands. 

There is barely any evening light left over from golden hour, the last of the sun’s rays having died shortly before you stepped indoors, but the green of Haku’s hair is still dyed a soft copper by the warm lights of the store. He stands, turning glasses frames over in his hands, under a spotlight beam and the drifting strains of jazz, blurred only slightly by the fingerprints in the mirror and the irregular bump of your heart. 

The scene is so mundane it feels almost unreal – this Haku, suspended in glass and glow. His long fingers are not wrapped around his flute or dusty research tomes, but between folded jeans; his movements are slow and languorous, no longer bound by the urgency of missions or threat of curfew. 

You could stare at him like this forever. 

It is suddenly easy, so easy to imagine him elsewhere, you think – sorting through vegetables at a supermarket, folding laundry on the floor of his bedroom, doing anything and everything far and away from the drizzle of Hotarubi. 

This Haku has all the time in the world. 

So do you. So do you. 

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. 

“How does this look?” 

The heat of his vowels slide across the shell of your ear, and you jump slightly, eyes flying open. 

You are vaguely aware of a chunky grey frame, translucent acrylic that slips low on his nose bridge and blobs shadows on his cheeks, but his eyes have locked onto yours in the mirror as he leans down over your shoulder to peer at his reflection, cheek dangerously close to yours, so close that if you just turned, if you just—

It sends your heart crashing, thundering painfully, cruelly, through your throat, a weight and an untethering from the hypnosis of the moment all at once— 

“You look stupid,” you say. Or think you do, anyway. You can barely hear yourself over the thunderous rushing in your ears. “Try– try this one.”

Your fingers scrabble for the closest frame on the shelf next to you, and hold them up to the mirror. 

Haku laughs, a gentle huff that blows by your cheek as he lifts the frame out of your hand, and straightens back up to slip them on. 

It’s gold-rimmed, this time, a thin wire frame that catches the warm spot-lighting of the store and soaks a glow into his skin. The rounded rectangular shape sits well on his cheekbones, faded gold temples disappearing into his messy green hair. 

You blink, and there is a fleeting glimpse of sun-spots and crow’s feet, of salt-and-pepper hair melting into green, of laughter creasing itself into deep-set wrinkles in the corners of his smile. He is looking at you, still, in the way he always has, this old-man-mirror-Haku, and something blooms, choking and sweet, in the hollow of your ribs. 

Something shifts, then.

Eddies of a future you’ve never thought possible sing like the wind through the holes in your heart; they crash into you, a merciless tangle of relief and frustration and hope that steals the breath from your lungs you didn’t realise you were holding since leaving Darkwick. 

The tremble of it’s over and your curse is well and truly over courses through the map of your veins, and winds its way across where your eyes meet Haku’s through the mirror. The words crack themselves in half, split to show you a future so wide and open and yet so certain it threatens to swallow you whole – of you, alive and un-cursed and getting to grow old. Of you-and-Haku, hand-in-hand, getting to growing old together, looking up at the same sky. 

“-what do you think?” Haku is saying. His eyes are crinkled up in something you think might be fondness or affection, or something equally hopeful and terrifying. 

It looks good on you, your mouth moves on its own accord, you should get it, but that is as far as you get before he blurs together in a sear of tears. 

Haku moves immediately, hand on your elbow spinning you around to face him. His eyes search yours in alarm and concern and confusion, but to both your surprise a laugh bubbles out of you, quiet and free. 

You raise a hand to brush his bangs away from his forehead, and he leans into your touch, in spite of his bewilderment. 

“It looks good,” you say again, and you mean it. 

(He buys the glasses, of course, and three sweaters you said you liked. You leave the thrift shop with paper bags in hand, yet somehow feel a lot lighter than you did going in.) 

-

December 31 - Kuwana, Mie Distance left to destination: 99km

The numbers on the dashboard read a glowing ten thirty-eight. 

The highway stretches before the windshield, a wide belt that melts into the distance. It is empty, save for the occasional cargo truck Haku passes, and the glare of the noon sun reflecting off its smooth grey surface is enough to turn every travelling vehicle into a mini-oven despite the season. 

Haku adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. He reaches, slightly, to wind his window down to let some of the cool winter air in, but his fingers pause before they reach the switch. 

He peeks at where you are asleep, head resting on the passenger window and eyelashes brushing the soft of your cheek. He retracts his hand. 

He reaches, instead, with his other hand to the air-conditioning controls, and turns the dial towards “COOL”.

The numbers on the dashboard wink into ten thirty-nine. 

The packet of strawberry gummies on top of the winter coats folded in your lap crinkles slightly, then slides from where your grip has slackened. It has long since been emptied, with you taking turns to tuck the candies between your lips and his, and its lack of weight slips it neatly between your seat and the centre console. 

Ren recommended them, you said, an hour back, holding one up to his lips. They’re good, aren’t they?

Haku smiled, tamped down the familiar knot that swelled with any reminder of the years you spent at Darkwick without him by your side, and nodded. They’re pretty sweet. 

You grinned and tapped the large yellow zero printed atop ruby-red strawberries. No sugar, too! 

No, he thinks, now – perhaps the sugar had been in the brush of your fingertips against his lips. Perhaps it had been in the glitter of your laugh as you listened to him tell you some work story or another, or in the way the sun had bounced off the dashboard and lit you up all over, all soft glow and contentment as you slipped another gummy between the pink of your lips. 

For a moment, he wonders if you will taste like strawberry, if the curve of your smile will be just as sweet as it looks when pressed against his own–

He shakes his head, to clear it. 

Haku is a patient man. Ceremony is in his bones; he is good at waiting his turn, good at calculating consequences, good at following the rules. 

Except for when he isn’t. Except for when he texted you, midway through your last semester, to ask which branches of the Institute has offered you a job in hopes that he can persuade you to take up some position near his own. When he asked you, two months before graduation, to drive down to Kyoto with him instead of taking the train, just so he gets three days with you by his side after so many days apart. 

When he took one look at you, that night on the train from Kisaragi Station, and took your hand and held it all the way to Darkwick. 

Maybe it is selfishness, maybe it is impulsivity. Maybe it is irresponsibility, and maybe it is the reason why, try as he may, they will never deem him ready to take over the shrine, but oh, when he looks at you–

He is a patient man. He will be a patient man. He has waited two long, excruciating years without you, and he will continue to wait, for as long as it’ll take until you’re ready. 

The numbers on the dashboard wink into ten forty-three. 

Haku reaches over, again, to turn the air-conditioning dial further down. 

His gaze brushes against the new air freshener you bought him the day before at the gift shop. It smells of “clean” and “fresh”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and he can barely catch its scent, but you unwrapped it the moment you got into the car and hung it neatly on the rearview mirror, and he cannot help but feel some fondness for something that brings you joy. Even if it’s just a small piece of cardboard with a white dragon and a girl printed on it. 

He would have chosen a different one, himself. He would have picked the one with Howl and Sophie - someone who learns how strong she really is, and someone who has waited a lifetime to love her. 

You stir in your sleep, shifting slightly so your head is no longer pressed against the passenger window. The numbers on the dashboard wink into ten forty-four. 

Haku takes the next exit off the highway, and wonders if you remember that in the movies, Chihiro saves Haku, too. 

-

December 31 - Uji, Kyoto

Distance left to destination: 21km 

“Haku!” 

The guy that emerges from the shrine’s prayer hall has a smile only one shade dimmer than the sun. He waves energetically at Haku and you, hands padded in red gloves a stark contrast with his navy blue haori, and bounds over to you. 

“Thought you weren’t coming back for another two days!” the man says, beaming. “We’re prepping the omikuji right now, like you told us to.” 

Haku chuckles, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “That’s good. I’m not back for work, though, I’m just here to show my friend around.“

The man looks at you curiously, and he looks so oddly familiar you could have sworn you’ve seen him somewhere before. He tilts his head to one side, like he’s working through the same puzzle you are, before it clicks–

“Honour student!” he exclaims, and claps his hands. “Didn’t expect to see you here!” 

Haku laughs, and shifts closer to you. “Darkwick just had their commencement ceremony, so I’m helping her settle into her new apartment soon.” 

Koji – the name comes to you in a flash, a vague impression of a Hotarubi general student floating to the top of your mind from when he helped Haku on a mission once – wiggles his eyebrows. “Will it be near to us?” 

Haku looks at you, thoughtfully. “The Institute put her in Kyoto, near Subaru, but I suppose…” 

Before he can finish the thought, however, a soft holler comes from an open window in the back of the sales hut. “Oi, heartbreaker!” 

A man sticks his head out of a back door. He looks pleased to see Haku, and disappears for a few seconds before emerging from the wooden doors, wrapping himself in a warmer coat. 

He waves a sheath of papers at Haku as he walks over. “We’re more or less ready for tomorrow, but I need you to sign a couple things–“

Haku moves over immediately, head bent over the documents, and leaves you in company of Koji. 

“Heartbreaker?” You murmur, and Koji beams. 

He nods his head, fluffy hair bouncing in his enthusiasm. “That’s Haku! Didn’t he tell you? When he first joined, half the local girls who came up to pray during Lunar New Year instantly fell in love and we had to barricade the shrine and defend ourselves with swords so our Haku wouldn’t get overrun–“ 

“Koji,” the other man says, severely, “stop making things up.” 

Koji pouts, and you have to bite your lip to keep from smiling. “Anyway, he’s built up quite a following among the locals. It’s good for business, though.” 

“I can imagine,” you say, and you can–

Haku, looking out the sales window next to the shrine, chin in hand and head slightly tilted as people come up to buy omamoris. The way the honey of his eyes will crease, slightly, as he smiles at their approach. The soft of his hands as he counts out their change, and wishes them a good day. 

Haku, head bent over a candle box before he reaches in to select an appropriate one. The curl of his long fingers over theirs as he presses the candles into their palm, a blessing, a benediction, conferred with intent. The soothe of his voice as he comforts them, wishes them well, after. 

Haku, this Haku that belongs to the people, whose heart swells with their aches and whose words are carefully chosen to quell them. This Haku, who works for the people by day, and works for them still by night. 

Haku looks up from where he is flipping through documents, pen in hand, and grins as he meets your eyes. “Maybe we should spread word that my heart already belongs to someone else.” 

Your cheeks burn immediately, and you open your mouth to stutter out a reply, but Haku’s senior beats you to the punch. 

“Disgusting,” he mutters fondly, barely louder than Koji’s awww, then flips a page for Haku. “Sign here, then get out of my sight. Word from HQ is that you’re on four concurrent missions in January, so make the best of your break.” 

Haku groans. “Best go pray for my own damn safety, then.” 

His senior rolls up the freshly signed document, then raps him smartly on the head. “No cursing on shrine grounds. Come on, Koji, you’re still not done with the omikujis.” 

Haku grins, rubbing his head where he got tapped, then turns to face you as Koji is dragged, mumbling in protest, back to the hidden back doors. “Shall we?” 

The rest of the shrine is fairly quiet. Sunlight dances through the bare branches as you cross the courtyard and duck around some gates to the main shrine. There are rabbits printed on cream-coloured lanterns attached to the gates, faded slightly by the elements and swaying in the wind. They look like they are dancing in greeting as you pass them. 

The main shrine Haku comes to a stop at is up a set of steep stone stairs. It is covered with wooden slats, painted warm by the noon light. If you didn’t look too closely you’d think the structures inside were glowing by themselves. 

Haku fishes out coins from his pocket, and hands one to you. He leans forward to shake the thick rope after you toss your coin into the wooden offering box, then you both bow and clap twice. 

You have so many things to wish for that you almost don’t know where to start, but the words flow out of your heart faster than you can think, afloat with intent and hope – for Haku to be safe. For Haku to be happy. For all the ghouls you’ve helped and been helped by to be happy and healthy. For all the anomalies they’ll run into to be a little less fatal, for the anomalies themselves to be safely captured and treated well. For all their futures to be a little less perilous, a little more secure. 

For your future to be a little less dangerous, too. For your future to hold warm soup and cosy evenings, for your days to hold laughter and ease and familiarity, for your nights to hold home and sighs and moonlit dances across the kitchen floor with Haku–

Your eyes flutter open, and you bow, quickly. 

Best to not hope for too much. 

You sneak a glance at Haku. His head is still bowed, hands still pressed together. He is washed in the bright of sunlight unshaded by winter’s branches, and in the silent sun-stirred dance of dust motes around him he looks almost like a painting. 

His bracelets shine a radiant translucence as they catch and absorb the sunlight, nearly covering most of a scar underneath. Your heart twinges slightly – you were there when he got injured. 

It was to save you, really, some tiny anomaly or another changing directions and hurtling towards you with a vengeance. If Haku didn’t knock it off its trajectory with the back of his hand… you can’t imagine what would have happened. 

Instead, you’d brought him home to Hotarubi and carefully cleaned his cuts and wounds, and stayed with the soft glow of his smile and the even softer glow of his words, well into the night. He’d murmured gentle reassurances into the quiet of the night, thigh pressed up against yours as you sat side by side and looked out onto the still Hotarubi gardens; yet the feeling of guilt has never gone away, cementing itself into the cracks of all that you owe him. 

I’m sorry, you said, again, for the fiftieth time that night. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have gotten injured. 

He had laughed before a ghost of pressure landed against your temple, so soft you think to this day you’d imagined it. Anything for you, princess. Stop worrying about it. 

It sent your heart racing, back then, his words wild fireworks popping in your throat. 

The same way his words send your heart racing, now. 

Maybe we should spread word that my heart already belongs to someone else. 

You exhale. Haku has never hidden his affection for you, not really – whether it was proclaimed in front of a beaming Zenji or murmured into the drizzle of Hotarubi, the flirtatious comments you once believed were just part of his personality or simply lavished onto everyone you eventually realised were only ever directed to you. 

And you understood it, back then, the same way you understand it now. Haku has never been shy about you. How much of it was guilt over bringing you to Darkwick and a burgeoning sense of responsibility for your curse, you will perhaps never know, but this is what you know now, after two years of turning the thought of Haku over and over in your mind: 

That you never agreed to start because you were always afraid of the end. That you perhaps wished he would forget about you after his time at Darkwick, if only to make things easier for him after your transformation into the Kyklos; that you wished to forget about him, too, after his time at Darkwick, if only to avoid the real possibility of Haku finding someone else.   

But now your last page has been ripped out, a future of a curse torn out by your very own hands and shredded into the wind… now that you’re out and free (albeit still working for the Institute) and ready to rewrite your own ending… 

Haku looks up from his hands, and bows. He turns to you, smile fond and sweet, and extends a hand to help you down the steps. “Ready?” 

You take his hand, lace his fingers into your own. The word on your tongue turns into a candle turns into a lantern turns into the sun. “Ready.”

-

December 31 - Uji, Kyoto Distance left to destination: 19km 

You cradle your hot cup of tea in your palms. 

The cold of the bridge railing beneath your elbows seep past your coat and into your bones. The last of the sun’s rays cast a glow on the trees on the opposing shore, turning them into a sea of reddish-gold, but they do little to warm you as you watch the sun sink below the horizon. 

Haku rests, one handspan away, identical cup nestled between his hands. 

“This is my favourite place to watch the sunset,” he says. “You can see the train tracks and the Uji Bridge from here.”

A train rumbles by in the distance as he says it, slicing the scene in half. It takes a few seconds before the sky meets the river again.  

“I think about bringing you here, all the time,” he says, quietly. He shifts the cup to his other hand. “I come here after work sometimes, and stay until the sky is dark and I can see the stars. Then I wonder about whether you’re looking at the same stars, too, in Darkwick.”

You both watch the sun creep steadily downwards, meeting its wavering counterpart in the water. 

Haku exhales. He does not look at you. “I’m glad you’re here.”

His words wrap around you, hushed and gossamer. How much you’ve thought about him, too, looking up at the night skies as you dragged yourself back to the cathedral. 

Whenever you walked out from Hotarubi, shutting your one-person umbrella and looking up at the moon, you’d think of him. 

The way he’d walk you back, shoulder to shoulder as if you were still sharing an umbrella. The way he’d look at you, moonlight tangled into his eyelashes and the arc of his hands, the way he’d smile like the night was a secret only the two of you shared. The way he’d sit you down on the campus stone benches to talk about your missions with other houses, the way he’d reassure you, again and again, that whatever you were doing was enough. That you were enough. 

The memories twist themselves onto your tongue. You do not look at him, either, when you say, “Me too.” 

The last sliver of sun slips away, and then it is gone. 

The conversation turns to seeing Subaru on stage in two days and what flowers you plan to get him, then to your new Institute-funded apartment, a small place buried near a Galaxy Express station, and the furniture you plan to get. 

You wonder out loud how long the Galaxy Express would take to get to Uji if you and Subaru were to come visit, as compared to taking the regular train from Kyoto Station. It’s already a very short distance, you think, but maybe it’d take half the time. 

“It takes sixteen minutes from Kyoto’s HQ,” Haku says. He taps the top of his now-empty cup with a long finger. “Or twenty-two, if you count the time it takes to walk back to my apartment.” 

“Damn, these cats really know how to run a railway line.” 

Haku laughs, quiet and breathless, before he says, “Move in with me, instead.” 

You pause, cup halfway lifted to your lips. You lower your hand. 

“It’s only a slightly longer commute,” he murmurs, “and you won’t have to buy new furniture.” 

He looks at you, eyes full of morning sun. You read in them something that feels a lot like a future. 

You won’t have to spend your nights alone in a drafty old room anymore. We will not have to untangle ourselves at the end of the day, and pretend we do not want to stay. Now that I’ve spent three whole days with you I don’t know how I’ve ever managed without; it feels like I’m never going to be able to go back. 

You exhale. 

This is how it has always been - this is how the two of you are - him building a bridge between you both and reminding you that if you ever want to cross it, if you ever need to cross it, he will always be on the other side, waiting. 

He waits, now. 

For a moment, you think you are brave. 

Ready?

But the moment passes, and the words that have swelled up on your tongue are familiar and terrifying and comforting and too heavy and mean too little and too much, all at once, and you swallow the waves that rise up in your lungs, and you close your eyes, and you pretend you are not in love with him, have not been in love with him since he held your hand in the dark of a train carriage three-odd years ago. 

“Imagine the paperwork,” you say, instead, and Haku leaves it at that. 

-

December 31 - Uji, Kyoto Distance left to destination: 16km 

Haku’s apartment is small, but homey. 

It is much more modern that you expect it to be, and feels infinitely more Haku than any Hotarubi dorm could. The kitchen you step into is tiny but sleek, with just enough space to fit a boiler, a tea set and an induction cooker before ending at a large fridge. The green glow on the microwave tucked onto a shelf a bit higher than eye-level reads eleven forty-two.

He lucked out on the Institute lottery, he tells you, setting his keys in a bowl on the kitchen island and flicking on the kitchen lights – where others only get a studio apartment he at least gets a bedroom attached to the living and dining area. Ghoul perks, perhaps. 

Where you expect a kitchen island is instead a mountain of books, shuffled neatly into piles not unlike what you used to be greeted with in his old dorm, bookmarked full with post-its covered in his chicken-scratch writing. 

You pick out a barely-used blue post-it pad from a pile of neon-yellow ones, and run your thumb over the winking tanuki in the background. “Is this the one I bought for you, back on that shrine mission?”

Haku peeks over your shoulder. His laugh brushes your ear, soft and warm, before moving away to roll your luggage into the living room. “Yeah. I can’t bear to use it much, though. It feels as though I should treasure it.” 

You snort, looking up at him. “I can always buy you another one.”

“I’m not opposed to that.” 

(You’d buy him one set everyday for the rest of his days, if he’d let you.)

Haku tucks your suitcase next to a soft grey sofa set opposite a plain white wall, and sets your duffle bag on a small wooden coffee table in between that looks like it hasn’t been dusted in years. “There are fireworks bound to start in about fifteen minutes. Wanna watch those on the balcony?”

You blink – you’ve almost forgotten that today is New Year’s Eve, what with all the sightseeing you’ve packed in today around Uji. 

Haku tugs the pale blue curtains apart, revealing glass doors to a small balcony overlooking residential neighbourhood. The night is quiet, still, buzz of the city conspicuously absent from the streets despite the celebratory date and even though most households have their lights on and curtains pulled open in anticipation of the fireworks, you don’t hear much beyond the whistling of the wind when you step outside. 

You settle against the railing on his balcony. “It’s so nice, here.” 

Haku joins you. “When everyone’s lights are off, at night, you can see the stars.” 

You tilt your head up. Haku’s apartment is high up enough the street lamps that you do not have to shield your eyes from their orange glow, and as you peer up at the heavens you see constellations slowly starting to take shape. “Wow.” 

Haku shifts, closer. His shoulder is pressed up against yours. “Any New Year’s resolutions yet?” 

You laugh. “Other than learning how to survive outside Darkwick?” 

“That’s enough,” Haku says, softly. “Sometimes surviving is tough enough, on its own.” 

You bite your lip, and look down at the street below. A stray cat dips in and out of the shadows. 

“I’m going to be brave this year,” you tell him. 

I’m going to be brave enough to face what’s coming. I’m going to be brave enough to decide what I’m going to do with my life, instead of obeying missives from a corrupted Academy and existing at their beck and call. I’m going to be brave enough to tell you what I really want to say, to build my own side of the bridge, to finally meet you on the other side. 

Haku tilts his head to look at you, then. He raises a hand from where his arms have been crossed on the railing, long fingers tenderly tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

It sends daylight swirling down your spine, leaves you breathless and August-warm when you catch his gaze. 

“I think you’re already plenty brave,” he says, quietly. 

Before you can respond, however, the street explodes with noise. Windows are pulled open and chanting spills out onto the street, a clamour of three, two, one– 

Tiny lights hang themselves across the sky, a mere flash before tightly packed colours dazzling as the sun explode across its inky canvas. Brilliant reds and blues and yellows and greens burst into bloom over and over again; they paint everything on the street with their glow. The distant booms and whistles of their journey travel through the neighbourhood, wind their way through the festivities and laughter and cheer. 

It is at once so extraordinary and normal, this celebration of the Earth making its way around the sun yet again, that you find yourself giddy, smiling, joyful. You turn to look at Haku, tinted a faint red from the vivid glows in the sky, only to find he is already looking at you, gaze warm, fond. 

You learnt once, on a mission with Jabberwock, that firecrackers and fireworks set off during New Year were as much meant to scare away the bad things as they were to celebrate the good. 

I think you’re already plenty brave. 

In the bright of the night his words soak into your skin. 

Perhaps you are. 

You lean up, and press a small kiss to the corner of his lips. This is me, building my side of the bridge. This is me, ready. “Happy New Year, Haku.” 

His palm catches your cheek as you pull away. The spread of his smile, wide and bright and delighted, sends stardust settling into the hollow of your throat, sets its own fireworks off within the hollow of your ribs, pulls a smile onto your own cheeks. The gold of his eyes shine with something more than the pyrotechnics, something full of devotion, full of beginnings. 

“Happy New Year,” Haku says, and leans in to kiss you again. 

[thirdity]

The fundamental question of philosophy (like that of psychoanalysis) is the same as the question of the detective novel: who is guilty?

Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose

[streetlights-was-taken]

[postscript] the gardener who only collects seeds

← read on AO3 (available on 230415)

for venlumiweek2023.

day 6: time loop au / "say you'll remember me"

i. conceptualizing the fic

oh god. I'll be honest, I wasn't planning to do this fic at all. but I think time loop and memory are very cool concepts and I would be remiss not to write anything for the day 6 prompts when I have a series dedicated to exploring these very concepts (caesura).

I shuffled through a bunch of ideas. I already had a "time loop"-ish idea back in february, but it was too ambitious to finish before this year’s venlumi week starts. it's like a choose your own adventure fic. if you're interested, I have a demo of how it works here (archive-locked, so you need an AO3 account to access).

unfortunately, writing that fic is the equivalent to writing 9+ fics and becoming an indie game designer. I know my limits. (I might still try writing it one day. but it will definitely take some time.)

the second idea I had for a time loop fic was to write about a storyteller (venti) rewriting their story over and over because it’s never perfect. and each rewrite of the story manifests as a time loop for the characters within it. he does this until he can create a beautiful story, but also because he deeply cares for the characters in it (lumine) and wants the best for them.

but I decided I couldn’t write it exactly that way because I don’t think venti is that much of a perfectionist. he observes and he records, but he's pretty chill about how events unfold. I think that would be more believable for lumine to be the perfectionist, given the hints of her having a martyr/hero complex. however, I do think venti is a great spectator-type of character, and I don’t want his affinity for memories/wind/time to go to waste.

I ended up with the semi-final idea for this fic after taking inspiration from this tumblr post about self-inflicted time loops:

a self-inflicted time loop where lumine keeps rewinding time until she can save everyone in teyvat. venti, who records everything through the winds, is aware of each time loop. lumine, who loses her own humanity as she becomes obsessed with doing a perfect run, rewinding at the slightest inconvenience and failing to connect with the people she wants to save with every loop. and finally venti, who takes pity on her and erases her memory, because he knows lumine will always save teyvat, just as she has 167 times. but she cannot save herself.

it's a little tragic and bittersweet… but I guess I really like writing this kind of fic. I developed the lore around this a bit more as I wrote (more in the next section).

other ideas I considered were:

looping just one event (but genshin doesn't have one that compels me)

doing something similar to link click and life is strange where the character visits the past through photographs (but genshin also didn't compel me here; I like the idea, but I'll probably just write a link click fic if that's the case).

finally, I actually planned for this to only be a 4000-word oneshot because I wanted to finish the fic in one weekend. for some reason, I ended up with 8000 words in three days. uh. yeah.

due to the deadline I set for myself, I did not have the time to polish this fic. I did give this a rough SPAG-edit, but the fic you're reading now is pretty much the first draft with hardly any revisions. there are some concepts that I probably could have executed more elegantly (such as when istaroth breaks the fourth wall). but I didn't really have the time develop this story more, unfortunately.

(there's something quite meta about this too, now that I think about it. we have a fic about a storyteller learning to be satisfied with their story, and what do I — the author of the fic — do? I post the first draft as it is, without revisions 😆)

ii. lore™ and other inspirations

this fic is actually a cool case of plantsing for me. I had a rough outline of the fic for lumine's chapter through the idea I explored above (plotting). but as I was writing venti's chapter, I ended up creating all this lore in the background purely through discovery writing (pantsing).

I was actually going to scrap the idea of venti being a storyteller and teyvat being his story. but then I was thinking of another fic idea (separate from venlumi week) and one of my inspirations for it was the parable of the tree in the in-game book before sun and moon. there is a line there that says:

for it is the god of moments who is able to take "seeds" from this "moment" into the past and the future.

this is where I got the idea of turning each time loop into a seed! this also ties neatly into the phrase, "seeds of stories, brought by the wind, cultivated by time."

the idea of storyteller venti soon evolved into him not just writing a story to be told, but composing a world/story to be "planted" into the fabric of reality. in a way, all the time loops are simulations of a reality that is yet to be created. (this is also an idea I played with in the cyoa demo too, though I wasn't really sure if I was going to use that idea in this fic until I started writing venti's chapter).

the title is also a play on this concept. the gardener is, of course, venti, who collected 256 seeds over the course of composing the world of teyvat.

composing is a neat word because it refers to the act of creating through artistic labor, and it is specifically tied to the idea of producing works of music and literature. which is exactly what a bard does! so I used composer as the title of... whatever it is venti and istaroth does.

with all of these elements in place, I can't help but take inspiration from other works as well. specifically:

svsss: my favorite thing about this novel is shen yuan and shang qinghua’s relationship with the narrative, so I was also inspired by that as well. particularly, how shen yuan’s kindness literally changed the narrative. and the overall readership/authorship commentary we have from shang qinghua. (cumplane also happens to be my favorite ship from this novel, which is fun to think about some meta subtext fuckery going on there where all the other characters falling for sqq just further legitimizes cumplane because those characters are all figments of sqh's imagination and— okay I'll stop here now because this is not the point of this post. but yeah basically the idea of the author falling for someone in the story and the world reflecting those intentions.)

twewy: I wrote a lot of twewy fics back in the day so you can't expect me to write about composers and not think about twewy. twewy doesn't really tie into the fic too much besides the whole composer thing, but when you're really into twewy it just makes the fic extra fun I think. like I said in the end notes, I was this 🤏 close to write seed:168 where venti knowingly calls lumine by name before asking for it, just like how joshua does it with neku in week two.

finally, I decided on 168 loops for lumine as a reference to the number of materials you need to ascend a character (this is also the same number of loops in the dream-battle samsara with scaramouche).

I decided on 88 loops for venti because 256 was the number of dots I can use for the hourglass art lol. it was just a happy coincidence that 256-168=88, and that 88 is a neat number to end a time loop with.

iii. a time loop is a puzzle

it really is! often, the character is already stuck in some way before the time loop starts, and the time loop breaks when they either achieve character development or break the puzzle that is trapping them.

I think lumine and venti approach the time loop puzzle from opposite ends. lumine regresses through her time loop. she becomes less connected to the world through it, and she aims for perfection that she can't achieve. she starts seeing her friends as more like characters in an unskippable cutscene than as people.

meanwhile, venti actually grows through his time loop. he began as a composer, but only through going through several lifetimes does he start to understand what it actually means to live and to love. he connects more with the world around him as he goes through the loops. he sees his characters more as people, as friends, and he is delighted that lumine can bring out the complexities that they offer instead of letting them stay as tropey stereotypes.

for both characters, the time loops are self-inflicted. they can stop at any time. venti lets go of his control over the time loops to lumine because that was his ultimate expression of love at that time. this was proof that he grew through the loops.

lumine was actually already in her best form in venti's 87th loop. she was in a world that was designed to love her, and she in turn was a loving person. however, venti advised her to focus on the destination instead of the journey. then he gave her the hourglass. this changes lumine's character and enables her regression in the time loops.

only by breaking the time loop and resetting her back to how she was in the beginning does she go back to her loving self. she was already happy before. venti didn't need to change her.

it is with both time loops that venti learns all his lessons in life and creates the most optimally designed world for lumine to love.

iv. narrative arrangement and the emotional journey

although the story started with lumine's chapter, this is very much a venti-centric story. lumine's chapter, for me, served more as a prologue to what was really going on in the background.

I quite like how I arranged the narrative. it is not chronological, but I think it most effectively delivers the emotional journey I want the reader to experience. lumine's chapter serves as an introduction to the time loop, the kind of world she lives in, and the kind of effects a self-inflicted loop can bring about. lumine knows less about the mechanics of this world, and she is the protagonist of venti's story, so she serves her role well as the one to introduce us this world. it also makes her into an unreliable narrator sometimes.

then she tips the hourglass at the end of her chapter. the reader is then transported to venti's chapter and his time loop. it's a bit of twist later on that his time loop actually happens before lumine's, so we actually get two time loops in one chapter. one is venti's loop, and the other is his pov during lumine's loop.

inserting venti's loop in between two povs of lumine's loop (first chapter, lumine pov; second half of second chapter, venti pov) also shows the contrast of the two loops more. where lumine regresses, venti grows. where venti becomes hopeful, lumine becomes hopeless. and so on, and so forth.

his pov in lumine's time loop is also important to show how much impact lumine leaves in his world. when she loves, the world loves her back. when she is detached, the story breaks apart in different ways. tighnari doesn't trust her, albedo becomes obsessive, festivals become gloomy (and come on. genshin is festival impact. when there are no archon quests, festivals are the bread and butter of this game).

the second chapter has two loops to follow, like an hourglass. the structure of the second chapter is very reminiscent of one imo. though I didn't really plan that out as I was writing; it's just something I noticed during my own read through of the draft. pretty neat how things can end up like that. I think this is what people call serendipity.

v. planting seeds and breaking walls

this part is, admittedly, probably something I could have executed better. I debated over just not doing it, but I wanted to try anyway and see if it works. I love meta bullshit in my stories.

yes, the seed istaroth plants is not really about teyvat: venti's world, but about venti and lumine themselves. about their story through the loops. in other words, the fic you read, the story you witnessed, is exactly the story istaroth planted into reality.

there's some funky implications about this. are we, the readers/author, also observers and composers? hm, yeah, we are. venti even mentions that his composition are just words on a screen.

without its protagonist and without its creator, it is nothing more than words on a screen. a story to be read, but not one that can come to life.

and when istaroth addresses the reader, she also looks beyond the screen.

she looks up, beyond the screen, and smiles. "and that will be a story worth observing."

there are other hints too. the higher dimension is also called the "fourth plane" (aka, the fourth wall). it's even a little cheeky that istaroth says, "we will bear witness to whatever story you choose." because that's exactly what is already happening. every time someone opens this fic and reads it, it is already being observed. we are already bearing witness to the story venti and lumine composed.

well, that was my intention with all of those lines anyway. I'm not sure if it was too subtle or too obvious, or if it fell flat and didn't quite land like I wanted to.

either way, I tried. I'll let the reader decide on that.

vi. ascii art?

honestly, I've thought about looking up if I can do ASCII art on AO3. but I only gave myself three days to finish this whole thing, so I decided against it.

I still ended up coding hourglasses in HTML while procrastinating on this fic lol.

fun fact: the lower half of the hourglass in the first chapter (the triangle, excluding the falling dots) add up to 256 dots. the hourglass in venti's chapter (including the neck) add up to 88 dots.

[stjohnstarling]

A gentleman doesn’t kiss death and tell. 😘

[kusogitsune]

Hijacking Fly-by-Wire is a prank, don't get your arse in a knot. It's not like I was spoofing locktones again.

It's only natural for a pixie to get into Hacking Pranks right?

[revoevokukil]

Reflecting on Andrzej Sapkowski's Thoughts on Le Guin & the Healing of the Waste Land

In re-reading Pirog, or There’s No Gold in the Gray Mountains (1993) by A. Sapkowski—perhaps one of his more well-known essays on the state of fantasy, and the genre’s reception in Poland in particular—I cannot help but get stuck on how he analyses Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. It resonates with one very particular strand that Sapkowski plucked on at the heart of his own books: the duality of human nature. Good and Evil, yes, but also: male and female. As psychological and symbolic polarities balancing the psyche.

‘Already the Archipelago of Earthsea itself is a deep allegory - islands scattered across the sea are like lonely, alienated people. The inhabitants of Earthsea are isolated, lonely, closed in on themselves. Their state is such, and not otherwise, because they have lost something—for full happiness and peace of mind…’

The loneliness and alienation, the Waste Land of the human heart, is a recurrent motif in The Witcher. Its influence is felt not only in the plot threads of our protagonists, but also in those of such characters as Emhyr var Emreis, Vilgefortz, the Rats, the Alder King, Avallac’h, anonymous elf who burned down Birka, and humanity and elves in toto. It is just that antagonists rarely reveal their hearts to the protagonists (and to the reader)—if only to have a blade struck it through.

‘Ged’s quest is an allegory, it’s eternal goodbyes and partings, eternal loneliness. Ged strives for perfection in constant struggle with himself and fights the final, symbolic battle with himself, winning by uniting with the element of Evil, accepting, as it were, the duality of human nature.’

Le Guin broke out of the Tolkienian mould, in Sapkowski’s words, by focusing on symbolism and allegory; on the inner journey, as a reflection of, and as affecting, the external world. It is in the recognition and healing of the Waste Land that Evil, or potential Evil, could ever possibly be undone.

In The Tombs of Atuan, the allegory takes us into the Labyrinth of the Psyche, which Sapkowski compares with the Labyrinth of Crete. The Minotaur within is not a monstrous beast, it is ‘pure and concentrated Evil, Evil destroying a psyche that is incomplete, imperfect, not prepared for such an encounter.’ Evil gets close to a psyche in conditions of imbalance, loss, alienation, abandonment, incompleteness.

And then Sapkowski gives the entire thing a gendered spin, bringing Le Guin’s writing closer to the archetype he himself uses.

‘And into such a Labyrinth boldly steps Ged, the hero, Theseus. And like Theseus, Ged depends on Ariadne. Tenar is his Ariadne. Because Tenar is what the hero lacks, without which he is incomplete, helpless, lost in the symbolic tangle of corridors, dying of thirst. Ged thirsts allegorically - he's not after H2O, but after the anima - the feminine element, without which the psyche is imperfect and unfinished, helpless in the face of Evil. … he is saved by the touch of Tenar’s hand. Ged follows his anima—because he must. Because he has just found the lost rune of Erreth Akbe. A symbol. The Grail. A woman.’

Be it the loss of the Alder King (Shiadhal) or Avallac’h (Lara), or Emhyr’s (sacrificing his wife Pavetta, and having been sacrificed by his own father), or Vilgefortz’s (abandoned by his mother, falling in love with a sorceress and coming to hate her for the power she held over him via his feelings for her), or the wartime children of contempt (written off and abused by everyone and everything), the wound remains archetypal and notably alike.

(Not to speak of The Witcher’s protagonists into whose hearts we do see, and in whom we witness the transformation of the Waste Land of the heart in ways which eludes—or only with the very first fleeting steps is beginning in—the rest.)

Love is the essence. Love and lovelessness walk hand in hand at the heart of everything in The Witcher, and with them the good and the evil. What matters in the end, as in all good fantasy, is heart—knowing it, seeking it, letting the spirit flourish in its presence. To gentle the heart. To remain human.

As Tenar to Ged, in Sapkowski’s reading of Le Guin, so Ciri to oh, so many characters, in my reading of Sapkowski.

‘Now Tenar grows into a powerful symbol, into a very contemporary and very feminist allegory. An allegory of femininity. … Tenar leads Ged out of the Labyrinth—for herself, exactly as Ariadne did with Theseus. And Ged—like Theseus—can’t appreciate it. … he gives up, although he likes to enjoy the thought that someone is waiting for him, thinking of him and longing on the island of Gont. It pleases him. How ugly male!’ […] ‘After an eighteen-year break, Ms Ursula writes “Tehanu,” … the broken and destroyed Ged crawls to his anima on his knees, and this time she already knows how to keep him, in what role to place him, to become everything for him, the most important meaning and purpose of life, so that the former Archmage and Dragonlord stays by her side until the end of his days…’

---

Marginalia

This motif is universal in how it explores the psyche, but it is also very particular, because Mr Sapkowski’s influences include Bettelheim, Freud, and Jung, as well as Campbell, the Wicca movement, and the feminist current in fantasy. It is evident then, I think, how the balancing between the male and the female is seen as essential for the flourishing in either’s soul.

As seen in ”The World of King Arthur” (1995):

‘The wound of the Fisher King has a symbolic meaning and refers to the beliefs of the Celts - the mutilated king is unable to perform a sexual act, and the Earth he rules cannot be fertilized. If the king is not healed, the Earth will die and turn into La Terre Gaste, the Waste Land. The wounding spear is a phallic symbol, and the healing Grail is the vulva.’

Or as in Joseph Campbell (1988):

'The big moment in the medieval myth is the awakening of the heart to compassion, the transformation of passion into compassion. That is the whole problem of the Grail stories, compassion for the wounded king. ...the awakening of [the] heart to love and the opening of the way.' [...] '...when the center of the heart is touched, and a sense of compassion awakened with another person or creature, and you realize that you and that other are in some sense creatures of the one life in being, a whole new stage of life in the spirit opens out.'

The word "compassion" means literally "suffering with." Nobody ought to remain alone in suffering. Evil happens so very often as a consequence.

In Excalibur (1981), sick Nature comes alive again when Arthur touches the Grail and wakes from apathy. Of the Grail stories, however, it is Wolfram von Eschenbach’s which speaks to the Witcher’s author’s own sensibilities the most.

‘Let's look for the Grail within ourselves. Because the Grail is nobility, love of neighbor, and the ability to have compassion. True chivalric ideals, towards which it is worth and necessary to look for the right path, break through the wild forest, where, and I quote, "there is neither road nor path." Everyone must find their own path. But it is not true that there is only one path. There are many of them. Infinitely many.’ - Andrzej Sapkowski, The World of King Arthur

Only then does the land bloom again in snow-white blossoming apple trees.

[bonus-links]

dog days part 1 or 2!

por qué no los dos. I kinda consider it one big update anyway lol. this one might get long, I'll stick a readmore somewhere

i was insane for this. the comic will probably never be this decorated again but I had to do it at least once 😂 I try to give each era it's own subtle stylistic flair, though this is definitely the most overt one. I'm still really proud of this update!! sometimes I think I burnt myself out with this so bad tho that the first half of ch2 is pretty low on ornamentation bc of it. it takes like. a lot of extra mental energy ngl

it's slight but this whole interlude has a paper texture the rest of the updates don't :-)

there's lots of patterns to talk about here. twili patterns for the panel where wolf is zoning out.

the pattern on the sides is kind of an abstract depiction of Ordona, although her light orb is in her hands instead of the horns. I was also riffing off the patterns on a lot of the Ordonian's clothes. The green parts are pumpkin vines! those generally represent wolf himself

this is the dinner I reference at grandma's party in pt. 8

the pumpkin vines change into these kind of gold-leafed vines I often use to refer to zelda. They do this a few times throughout the update.

small detail I should include more often- wolf fidgets with his earring when he's bothered by something or thinking hard.

Lots of people have translated this in the reblogs so I won't do it here, but it's essentially a summons from Zelda to the castle. It's intentionally a little difficult to parse- Wolf is not from Hyrule. I like to imagine a difference between written Ordonian and Formal Hylian. Wolf can read it, but it doesn't come naturally. Also, Wolf is referred to as "Sir Link Goatherd of Ordon" where "Goatherd" could be both an occupation and a surname (that's actually the origins of surnames like Gothard, which I considered using)

Zelda's full name in the letter is Queen Zelda Celestia Nohansen Hyrule (though I think I write it as "Of Hyrule"). Idk if this makes sense actually, but it was meant to be a nod to the fact that TP is a parallel timeline to WW. WW had King Nohansen, so I imagine that as part of TP Zelda's lineage.

Wolf agreed to be a Royal Knight on the basis that it was only a formality, but then Zelda started actually summoning him to things anyway. He basically ignores them all, but they've been coming with increasing frequency. In Zelda's defense, the political situation she's dealing with trying to rebuild the kingdom is pretty tense. She could really use his help.

my favorite part of this update!! I feel like there should be no easy way to use the shadow crystal. if you want that power, you've gotta shove it in your forehead yourself! and yes, it does hurt. His ears flatten a little in anticipation. also sidenote I think this is the best I've ever drawn him lol

I like to think Yeto and Wolf are still buds.

I think whenever Wolf wanders like this, he frequently finds himself in the desert. He's given up on looking for shards of the mirror of twilight, though.

The vines get yellow as they reach the bottom of the page- Wolf's time to hide in wolfmode is running out.

little baby spirits of light hidden in this page, except ordona

who's hiding on this page instead! while Link the Cat reminds Wolf it's probably time to go back to his family in Ordon.

Wolf can't turn back into a human on his own, so he has to return to the sacred grove to reach the master sword. And yes, Skull Kid makes him play hide and seek every time 😂

those are midna's hands on either side.

this pattern has the organic shapes of the world of light, rather than the geometric twili patterns, showing that Wolf has immediately clocked that it's not a portal to the twilight realm. but alas, it's too late to turn back.

In terms of the timeline, while Loft and Slate trek across Hyrule to Hateno, Wolf is lost in the Lost Woods.

I wanted to put Ilia in this update more but this ended up being the only time she showed up lol

and that's all I've got! if you read all of this i love u