#the time is now my perfume is eau wow and i am here TO END ALL OF YOU

[fireemblems24]

Golden Wildfire Ch 13

I am slowly making my way through these.

STORY

Guys, not going to lie. This backtracking is boring as fuck. But at least Claude keeps taking Ls.

I also can't fathom why you wouldn't just send some of your army. Like why all of them? Claude is an idiot for this.

But we all knew he was after his oh so potent counter argument vs Sylvain lamo.

Yeah, it's the same TWSITD stuff Edelgard backtracked for. How dull.

Haha, Shez can say she thinks it's the Knights of Serios and Claude's like "they're not that low." So then why are you so desperate to murder all of them?

They're nicer to Shez than the Black Eagles were though, where he practically got treated like a guilty enemy and threatened and interrogated. Still think AG is by far the best route for Shez, but I'm not biased at all lamo.

MAP/SIDE BATTLES

I don't think Linhardt wants to be here lol.

I liked Holst better when he was a meme mystery character. What they did with him is so dreadfully dull.

It's pretty rich to hear them judge people for attacking villages when they just did the exact same thing.

Cool to see Lysithea's past be relevant again.

This is the exact same thing as SB. I swear Claude always just gets railroaded into someone else's plot.

At least Claude realizes this happened because of the war instead of dodo bird Edelgard who thinks TWSITD doesn't want the Empire to unify everyone (which, they do so . . .)

SHEZ & HOLST A

Holst goofed up. Shez lecture him. They split up and head back.

Holst falls asleep waiting for Shez to get back.

Nothing interesting happens.

MARIANNE & LEONIE B

Leonie failed to catch something and runs into Marianne heading into the stables.

Guys, Leonie also eats the weeds.

They talk about a flower they both like that Leonie also picked just because she liked it. Marianne gets poetic about it.

Leonie gives it to Marianne, who wants to share it with everyone.

Leonie doesn't take Marianne literally when she claims the birds told her something.

LEONIE & HILDA B

Leonie tried perfume and Hilda's happy. It's one Hilda made herself.

If I hear "Eau de Leonie" one more time, I'll have heard it twice more than I want too.

Leonie rejects it. It's not for her. Hilda's not offended. Hilda just wanted Leonie to have something special.

Leonie compromises and says she'll just wear it on special occasions.

Hilda wants them to wear different scents that smell better when mixed together. They both talk about how weird that sounds, but Leonie's still game to try because she's a trooper.

HILDA & MARIANNE A

Really weird to see a support talk about how religious Marianne is in GW. Where she doesn't blink twice at the idea that Rhea is all that's wrong in the world and must die.

Marianne asks why Hilda's always so nice and brings up the first support. Which mentions Judith so ... awkward. My bad playing skills strike lamo.

Hilda thinks having Marianne around makes her life easier andis just "the best." Marihilda fans eating good.

Marianne always emotionally supports Hilda without even knowing it and makes Hilda feel warm inside.

It's a pretty sweet support all things told.

FINAL BATTLE

Okaaay, so this starts with them wanting to go see an opera. That's . . . . not how I thought this would start. Well, they're fighting the bandits. And their fans are playing soldier to fight bandits.

Is this . . . really what the main battle is about this chapter? Golden Wildfire really doesn't have anything to do, does it?

I spent hours fighting side battles and preparing units to basically have Dorothea's and Manuela's paralogue joke story end up the main battle. Wow.

They were really like, oh shit, GW has one less chapter. Oh, I know, let's have them fight bandits to protect opera singers and their delulu fans. Like, why.

Well, at the end it has some semblance of relevance by having TWSITD show up. But yeah . . .

No one got any answers (Shez and Lysithea, specifically)

Now Arval and Shez are in that weird space dimension.

Edelgard is requesting reinforcements at the school. Rhea might be there.

xxx

[tobns]

                              𝒮𝐸𝒱𝐸𝒩 𝑀𝐼𝐿𝐸 𝒟𝐸𝒞𝐸𝑀𝐵𝐸𝑅

Jen disappears as quickly as she’d entered, my head falling back against the top of the couch and a sigh leaving my lips. I’ve been dreading this very moment for the last five and a half months, and it’s finally here.

The moment when the loneliness either ends, or really and truly begins.

                           "December days, with my heart like the weather:                                       Cold and unpredictable to me                                            Unpredictable to you..." 

                                                             . . .

                                                   ALEXANDER

“Now that the tour is finished, what’s next for you?”

The interviewer in front of me ever so slightly cocks an eyebrow as she smiles, thrusting her phone back in my direction to capture my answer. I find the gesture intrusive and relatively unprofessional; usually, regardless of the end result’s format, interviews are filmed, not treated as though they’re legal statements being gathered on the steps of a courthouse. Whatever qualm I have with how she does her job doesn’t slip through my façade. I simply rest my hand on top of my ankle, leaning back into the couch.

“Well, I’m headed back home,” I reply after I pretend to ponder her question, my response coming right off the pages of approved statements my publicist has provided me with for interviews. “Spend some time with my family, enjoy being on break.”

She beams, lowering the phone. “You certainly have earned yourself a break, Mr. Ludwig.”

My reminder is gentle in a last-ditch effort to make this whole encounter feel a little more casual than it has been. “It’s Alexander.”

“Right, Alexander,” she corrects. The phone is retracted, and she slides it open to stop the voice memo she’s been recording for the last three minutes. “Thank you so much for sitting down with me, and after your set at that. I know you’re probably eager to get going.”

Not really, I think. Try the exact opposite of that. Who schedules an interview after their concert is over, other than someone who’s trying desperately to delay the inevitable?

Her hand is outstretched, and it takes me a second to realize she’s waiting on me to take it. The handshake I give her is loose and noncommittal, but she doesn’t seem to make any note of it. Probably writing it off as fatigue now that I’m through with the biggest tour of my career, something that she’d deem understandable despite not understanding a single thing about it.

As she leaves my dressing room, escorted by security, I feel myself unravel a little as I slump back into the couch. Touring is not a lonely job, but it evokes a lot of lonely feelings, feelings that I’ve been treading in. As my tour manager, Jen, would tell me, I only do it to myself – I don’t actively try to remedy the loneliness, I just wallow around in it. She’d also tell me that I do a shit job picking my company when I decide that I need it, but I didn’t hire her to point out all of my flaws.

So much as think of the devil and she shall appear, as Jen’s head pops in the door the interviewer has just exited moments ago. “We’re rolling out in fifteen,” she informs me bluntly, her eyes only bothering to meet mine in one short glance. Maybe I’m hallucinating, but it seems like the bags underneath her eyes have grown darker in the last few hours. We’re paces away from reaching the light at the end of the tunnel that has been this tour, which for my team is an uninterrupted twelve-hour sleep in an actual bed.

Jen disappears as quickly as she’d entered, my head falling back against the top of the couch and a sigh leaving my lips. I’ve been dreading this very moment for the last five and a half months, and it’s finally here.

The moment when the loneliness either ends, or really and truly begins.

My dressing room is in total disarray, despite it only serving a purpose for a handful of hours. Water bottles, guitar picks, and spare backstage access lanyards (Jen picked up the habit of simply throwing them at me before each show since she wanted no part in what I’d do with them) are strewn about, three different pairs of shoes scattered across the room and my personal guitar resting up against the wall. I do my best to take my time cleaning up the mess I’ve apparently made – if they’d wanted faster results, Jen should have hired someone to pick up behind me – an anvil sinking lower and lower into my stomach with every step I take.

As I go to put my guitar back in its case, something glints up at me from the velvet lining. The immediate instinct is to slam my guitar down on top of it, close the case, and hand it off to Dayo so I don’t have that blood on my hands. I instead find myself frozen, staring down at a reminder and a death sentence all in one for what feels like an eternity.

The door opens from behind me, Dayo’s voice breaking me from whatever dark reverie I’d fallen prey to. “Dude, you ready to go or what? Jen’s about two minutes away from leaving your ass to hitchhike.”

I turn my head, somewhat startled by the interruption. “Yeah,” I reply, blinking a few times as I come back to. “Yeah, I’m ready.” Before I’ve got time to regret it, I grab the ring out of the guitar case and shove it in the back pocket of my jeans. My guitar goes back into the case, and I slam the lid shut, flipping the locks on it before passing it to Dayo.

“I’m your security,” he laments with an eye roll. “Not a bag lady.”

“Coulda fooled me,” I tease him, lips curling back into a toothy grin as I pass through the doorway in front of him.

Everything has thinned out, very few people left to bump into on my way out to the venue’s garage. True to Dayo’s word, Jen is waiting impatiently by the bus door, arms folded over her chest as she glares at me. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you were late to your own damn funeral,” she tells me, voice scathing. I roll my eyes as I brush past her, pulling the handle on the door open.

“Lucky for you, you’re rid of me the minute we get back to New York.”

I board the bus with Jen and Dayo right on my heels. I’ve accidentally left the television on in the living area, the low sounds of the The Hurt Locker menu screen humming throughout the room. It goes ignored as I beeline to the backroom, not in the mood to deal with Jen now that she’s clearly on the downhill slope or to attempt to conjure small talk with Dayo. Neither of them follow me either, leaving me be. The two of them know, I’m sure, what my own mood’s decline is attributed to.

I sit from the couch opposite my bed, forehead pressed against the glass as the bus stirs to life and I watch Nashville grow farther and farther out of my sight. The lights outside are dimmed by the dark tint of the window, white line dividers rolling underneath the bus in a film reel that stretches for miles and miles and has only one ending in sight – not the happily ever after kind either, I’m sure. Jen and Dayo’s voices are nothing but murmurs, background noise as they discuss god only knows what without me and pierce the bubble of silence surrounding me. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Jen’s more than ready to be relieved of her Alexander duties. Dayo, unfortunately, never gets a break.

On the windowsill, I spot my phone lighting up with a new notification. Picking it up and tilting it in my direction, I can see it’s an email notification from Mark, more than likely a group email with thanks he forgot to hand out and a few post-tour reminders. Post-tour. It’s a chalky pill to try and swallow down as is; add in the dry mouth the thought of tour’s ending continually gives me and my body’s rejection can’t get much more black and white.

The background of my phone strikes a chord of pain down through my heartstrings, and I instantly feel bad for having dreaded this moment for days, weeks, even months. I keep trying to force the pill down my throat that it is back to reality for me as I unlock my phone, tapping on the message app.

It takes a few moments to formulate words, and it takes a few more moments after that to pick and choose which of those words will give me the least amount of grief.

ME: I’ll be home tomorrow.

There’s no response, but I’d only be setting myself up to be severely disappointed if I expected otherwise.

                                                        ISABELLE

I genuinely do not know which is more taxing, chasing after a six-year-old or chasing after Jack Quaid, both of whom are hopped up on a sugar high.

“Jackie, can you please come collect your fiancé?” I beg, leaning up against the kitchen counter as the heels of my hands drag down the side of my face. “I can barely handle my own child, much less when yours decides to join in and encourage bad behavior.”

Red hair slices through the air as my best friend tears her sight away from the laptop where her recipe is pulled up to shoot me a look riddled in exasperation. “Honey, don’t you think if there was a way to control him, I would have figured it out before I let him put a ring on my finger?”

I’ve known Jackie since my freshman year of college – we were roommates at Columbia, product of the one good stroke of luck I’ve ever had in my life. I’d been a bit apprehensive about letting the randomizer pick for me after I’d gotten my building assignment in Furnald (there are no two-in-a-row miracles, I have since learned) and discovered I’d gotten a double, but it worked out better than I ever could have hoped. We were each other’s lifelines at school, both not knowing a single soul in the city. Jackie and I were thick as thieves by the time the second week of classes had ended, and we were going home with one another once fall break rolled around. She’s been my best friend ever since; roommates every single year until I got married, a bridesmaid at my wedding, the godmother to my child, and the source of all my sanity, Jackie is the person I cannot imagine my life without.

Jack, her fiancé, is an entirely different story. We didn’t meet him until we were sophomores and he was a junior, living four doors down from us. He was also the only person on our hall who understood statistics, meaning that we practically lived in his room so he could keep us from falling prey to mental breakdowns and try to make sense of what may as well have been another language. He’d seen us at our breaking points, and that sort of bonding pretty much solidified our friendship with him. He and Jackie didn’t start dating until she was a senior, despite me telling her over Christmas break sophomore year that they were meant for one another. While I consider him something like an older brother, Jack I’m sure I could live without, especially on the days when he does nothing but exacerbate my child when she’s hyper.

“It’s not too late to take it back,” I offer up hopefully. “I can retract my blessing.” Jack had been very diligent before proposing, making sure he had both Jackie’s dad and my blessing before he got down on one knee. The gesture was sweet, but it’s moments like these that plant tiny seeds of regret.

Jackie snorts, rolling her eyes. “Over his dead body.”

“That can be arranged too.”

She goes back to the mixing bowl, index finger trailing down the screen of the laptop to figure out what ingredient goes next in her fourth batch of cookies. “Just take a breath, Iz, you aren’t gonna have to deal with either of them for much longer. I’m the one who’s gonna have to put up with the sugar high and the subsequent crash.”

“And I get the alternative,” I mutter, glancing down at my fingernails.

The mood around us quickly shifts, Jackie's voice dropping a little as she speaks. “What time is that arriving?”

I shrug. “Dunno. Sometime this afternoon, I didn’t get a specific time of when the plane landed.” Looking past Jackie, my eyes flit over the digital clock on top of the oven before falling back down towards the floor. “Any minute now, I guess.”  

Jackie sets down the measuring cup with a dull thud, both hands flat on the surface of the counter as she turns to look at me. “Are you sure you don’t want me or Jack to stay with you?” she asks solemnly. “Or you can just leave with us; I can dump this in the trash, we’ll get out of here before he even hits the city limits, won’t be the wiser.”

I shake my head, still avoiding her gaze and focused intently on the hardwood's pattern. “No, it’s okay. There’s not much more avoiding to be done at this point.”

One of her hands leaves the counter, resting on my shoulder lightly. “It’s gonna be okay, Belly,” she tries to reassure me, a hopeful glimmer of a smile on her face when I dare to look up.

Forcing my lips up into a grin, the only optimism that I can conjure up to appease Jackie cheap and plastic. “Yeah, it’ll be alright.” I don’t know if I’m trying to convince either her or myself with this statement, but I do a terrible job of selling it regardless.

“It will be,” Jackie repeats. “But, we said we weren’t gonna dwell on it until it literally lands on the doorstep. Now hop in here and help me resume your stress baking.”  

I’d known that this day was lurking on the horizon for weeks now, the anxiety building with every passing mark on the calendar. Me trying to be proactive, I had put Jackie and Jack on reserve for today, knowing that their company would be the only thing preventing me from flying off the handle – Jack could entertain my kid (logic that I’m now starting to question) and Jackie could keep me occupied until there was no more avoiding the inevitable. The stress baking, however, had started somewhere around four am when I concluded that sleep was simply not a possibility and a person could only stare at the ceiling for so long before driving themselves out of their mind. I needed to keep myself busy. If I was busy, then I wasn’t thinking, and not thinking is a lot safer when it comes to certain things in my world.  

Jackie had been all too happy to team up with me in the kitchen, and Jack had been all too thrilled to start taste-testing.

Taking over for Jackie at the mixing bowl, I feel a little bit better once I put my hands back to work. Jackie goes back over to oven where our most recent batch of brownies is baking, pulling them out to stab a toothpick through the center. We’ve really outdone Betty Crocker, clearing through several batches of cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and anything else that I have the ingredients for. The only thing we didn’t make was lunch, putting Jack to work and sending him to go pick up our takeout order.

For the most part, the kitchen is quiet, save for the occasional noise coming from the other room every so often. Jackie and I just orbit around one another wordlessly as we work. There’s never been much need for words when the two of us are around one another, seeing as how we’re usually on the same wavelength. Entire conversations have been had before just in our locked eyes alone.

I’m scooping out vanilla chai sugar cookie dough from the bowl with a tablespoon and transferring it over to the same cookie sheet I’ve been using for the last few hours when our kitchen’s bubble of silence is pierced. The sounds of laughter grow louder, footsteps heavy and rapid as they approach.

“Momma, momma!” Like a stray bullet, my six-year-old daughter comes careening through the kitchen with Jack hot on her heels, dark hair fanning out behind her and the ribbons I’d tied in her French braid pigtails already unfurling down her back. She bulldozes straight into my legs, giggling as she positions herself so I’m now standing between her and Jack. Jack has absolutely no interest in going through me to get to her; if anything, he’s only chased her in here so he can swipe another one of the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that haven’t been out of the oven for twenty minutes yet.

“What, baby?” I ask, giving Jack a look. He simply shrugs, wicked grin snapping onto his face when he spots a small head peeking around my waist. She erupts into another fit of laughs. “Have you not worn Uncle Jack out yet?”

“Of course not,” Jack finishes for her. “There are no quitters; I just came in here to get a little recharge.” As though he’s trying to prove his point, he takes a large bite out of the cookie. His eyebrows raise in question. “What about you, Noelle? Tired yet?” he sings.

I swivel my head around so I can get a glimpse of her, still hiding behind me. “Nuh-uh,” she replies, both rows of teeth bared as she grins. Just looking at the smile on her face is enough to ease my nerves a little, a wave of serenity brushing over me for a split second. Noelle has always been the eye of any storm I find myself trudging through – all I need is one look at the little girl with freckles splattered across her cheeks, minty eyes and a straggled grin that calls me Momma and there’s nothing in this world that can get under my skin.

“I thought you still had a nap time,” Jack muses teasingly, giving Noelle a look as he continues finishing off his cookie. A shrill noise of outrage comes from behind me, and when I look down, I see that she’s got her tongue stuck out.

“Nuh-uh!” she repeats, much more insistently this time. “I’m a big girl now, Uncle Jack.”

He nods slowly. “Right, ‘course you are.”

“Uncle Jack’s just jealous that he doesn’t get cookie dough,” Jackie interjects, moving closer to me and Noelle with her hand extended, a ball of cookie dough that she swiped most likely for herself out of my mixing bowl while I wasn’t looking pinched between her thumb and index finger.

Noelle’s eyes light up as she quickly looks at me for approval, and my lips inch into a smile as I give her the slight nod of my head. The only thing that could possibly make me happier than seeing my own child happy is seeing Jack sulk in the corner at the traitorous actions of his fiancé.

Naming Jackie and Jack as Noelle’s godparents was one of the decisions I've had to make that required no second thought. They’ve always adored her like she was their own flesh and blood, and ever since Jackie found out a few years ago that children of her own will never be a possibility, they pour all the love (and money) they have right into Noelle. It's certainly a reciprocated feeling; Noelle simply cannot get enough of her godparents, and having them around more frequently over the past couple of months has been like celebrating Christmas every single day for her.

“That good?” I ask her, and she nods eagerly. “I bet Aunt Jackie could use your help putting the rest of them in the oven if you asked her.” Jackie beams at the sound of her name, her eyebrows lifting in invitation.

There’s suddenly a knock at the door, an unfortunate interruption to a happy moment that echoes out into the silence that suddenly floods the room. Jackie, Jack, and I all exchange similar glances – it’s a death omen if we’ve ever heard one, and we’re all about to face our executioner.

Noelle untangles herself from my legs faster than I have time to comprehend and catch her. The words to call her back die in the back of my throat, because I know that she knows who’s standing on the other side of the door, and stopping her is futile. All Jackie can do is squeeze my wrist in a show of succor.

My eyes are already burning, heartbeat taking off like a helicopter inside of my chest. I hear the door open, the sound of bags dropping on the ground as Noelle’s delighted shriek rings out through my apartment.

“Hi daddy!”