Hi, hello and happy Wednesday, friends! I hope you’re all having a lovely week so far and that if its been less than ideal, it turns around and gets real shiny for you! I’m pumped to be back at the Three Great Things list this week because I truly love sharing the amazing things I come across - and the thoughts they make me think - with you all! No theme this week, simply three things I read and then said to myself “wow, that was great!” Please make sure you go check out these writers and their stories and tell them how frickin’ phenomenal they are!!
*as always these stories are listed by order of length.
OKAY. You truly don’t know how happy I - a 5′8″ woman who is taller than her husband - was to see this! So many stories, whether they are fic or novels or shows/movies portray romantic couples as a big strong guy and his super tiny girl that he can pick up and put in his pocket. (and there is nothingwrong with that, but it’s nice to see something so different!) It’s always “he dwarfed you with his height” this, and “his size and strength made you feel safe” that but not this time! This time reader is tall. This time reader is strong. This time reader is independent and unshakable and… Din is a fan. Usually people are intimidated by his imposing form, and the fact that this woman isn’t makes him take notice of the way every other person acts around him in comparison. I LOVE that he’s drawn to her bravery. I LOVE that he appreciates how protective she is of Grogu. (and I love that that little gremlin ran rightto her. what a little matchmaker.) I really and truly just loved this, and I’m going to be daydreaming of Din and his tall girlfriend kid’s babysitter for many moons.
THIS IS SUCH A FUN IDEA FOR AN AU! … and the fact that its a soulmates AU to boot only makes it more fun! I love the title and how it ties in with Dieter’s tattoo (And how I’m *thinking* it will tie in with this Reader - Dieter - Kate situation) I love the way you characterized each resident and chose little things to keep consistent (yes, i’m looking at you, Carol x soccer player!) I lost my mind over the description of Dieter’s voice as a canyon carved by water (!!!!!) I think its so interesting the way that writers all find ways to make their soulmate/soulmark stories different - the detail here that its only a small percentage of people who have them and that there are online groups dedicated to linking soulmates to their matches is great! and the nicknames for these two - Tramp and Pigeon (Lady)?! that’s PERFECT. he is a tramp. but we do love him. GOSH i am stoked to see how this one plays out and as soon as I’m done here I’m gonna RUN to read part 2. (i need to know about Dieter’s OTHER tattoo like pronto *big eyes emoji*)
I’m going to start this off by saying that though I chose to highlight the above portion (because it is so very swoon worthy *heart eyes emoji*) this story - and this part and the one before it specifically - is FAR more than what this snippet makes it out to be. If you’re looking for a Dieter Bravo story that makes you feel like you hallucinated yourself right into the screen a-la the infamous mirror scene, than look no further because this story IS Dieter. it IS being in that hotel and dealing with all the absurdity that comes with it. It IS, however, also a story about coming to terms with reality. Its about hat happens when things go too far. Its about learning who the people you can trust, who the people that really matter to you, who the people that love you are. Its about an actor and a filmmaker flirting a bunch and sleeping together, yeah, but its also about finding out that what you thought you wanted might not actually be the same as what you do want, what you do need, what’s important to you. This story is an all out ride in that it really does have everything - I have run the full range of emotions reading this from snorting with laughter to my cheeks getting hot because Mr. Bravo is a smooth criminal to crying my eyes out. It doesn’t shy away from Dieter’s drug use or his accidental OD. It doesn’t just skip ahead to three days later when everyone’s complaining about stunt work or costumes. It actually digs into Dieter’s mindset and it does so beautifully. These ramblings thoughts here really don’t do this story justice, but I’m not sure there is anything I could say or type that would. Please, PLEASE just… everyone go read this one. Part 13 just came out and as soon as I find out about Love Triangles Dieter, I’m sprintingdirectly over to catch up with Locked Down Dieter.
Omg omg omg thank you so so so so much for this incredibly sweet rec darling!!! AND YES YOU’RE THE FIRST TO MENTION THE TITLE BEING A DOUBLE MEANING I LOVE IT And 100% yes Dieter is such a tramp
I was tagged by @earlgreytea68 (waves from way over here)
Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5(ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!
When I first read this, I thought, oh well, I haven’t written 5 things this year, because I have been very consumed with 2 long fics, but then I checked, and it turns out I have posted 7 things this year.
1. I think my favourite – for just how fizzy it made me feel, and because it was this gorgeous chain reaction sparked by a comment by @amysnotdeadyet on a tumblr post and resulting in the gift of some lovely art – is Red in which Eames gives Arthur a fabulous Alexander McQueen suit to wear to their wedding.
He had known from the moment he saw the name on the box, that it would be spectacular. But he hadn’t known exactly how.
He has some astonishing suits from Alexander McQueen, but this one is beyond his imagining.
Suitp*rn ™ is my absolute favourite thing to write for Arthur and Eames, and I think clothes can tell a lot about a person, not just the one wearing them, and a lot about a relationship.
2. I posted two longish instalments in my Good Omens series: Now we both together I think has some lovely moments during the time when Crowley and Aziraphale have to try to imagine what their lives can be like now that they are out of their old jobs, and also have to rethink (Crowley especially) their understanding of their places in the grand scheme of things.
And of course, the taking off of many layers of clothes features too (it’s a pretty bulletproof thingof mine):
Crowley pushes Aziraphale — gently, firmly, relentlessly — back into the mound of them and leans down over him and kisses him intently. And then he straightens up and undoes Aziraphale’s many buttons: his waistcoat and his shirt and his old-fashioned trouser flies. “So many buttons,” he grumbles, but Aziraphale just smiles, he knows Crowley likes the fact that the many buttons draw this part out and out and out, filling them both with delicious shivery anticipation.
3. Inception’s many challenges are a great way to write things you might not of thought of yourself, and for Eames Stupid Cupid I was lucky enough to get a prompt from @oceaxe-ifdawn, giver of the very best prompts, that really make me think. This one was no exception: “distemper” – an illness and an old-fashioned kind of paint. I imagined Eames (in particular) growing sick of dreamshare and wanting A new life, which I pictured in the sort of sleepy French village that I have dreamed of living in. I am not nearly good enough at investing to afford such a thing, but Arthur is.
“What are we doing, Eames?” says Arthur as he drives back down the track, concentrating on the ruts.
“Thinking of buying a farm?”
Arthur laughs. “Well, we are retired.”
“You’d consider it? It’s not just the sort of holiday dream you allow yourself after a bit too much wine?”
“Not bad wine, either,” says Arthur.
Eames looks over at him and Arthur takes his eyes off the track long enough to meet his smile.
4. I wrote a little thing on New Year’s day, partly because few years ago I spent Christmas day writing a really good Christmas for Bob, who hadn’t until then had many really good Christmases. Rainy day isn’t a seasonal fic at all, just a bit of quiet reflection on how things change and get better.
Much later, after they’ve been and done the shopping and they’re on the sofa watching football, Bob lying with his head in Dave’s lap, not really watching, he was never that interested in football, really, he says: “When I woke up early this morning, the rain was hitting the window and it reminded me of the first time I stayed here. I was so bloody scared, when you asked me to stay, did you know how scared I was?”
Dave says, his hands on Bob, in his hair, on his shoulder, keeping his eyes on the screen like Bob is: “I think I guessed a bit.”
“I’m glad you made me stay, imagine if you hadn’t?”
“We’d still have worked it out, I think.”
“Yeah, probably. But I’m glad I took the second chance then.” He turns his face up to look at Dave, and Dave’s looking down at him. “We know each other so well now, I know what you like, and you know me. I love that. I love it.”
5.Which brings me to the fic that has consumed me for the last six months to the exclusion of everything else. I have never posted a WIP and god, the stress! I don’t think I’ll do it again in a hurry.
Nocturnal Creatures sprung out of the mood that Bastille’s album Doom Days gave me, listening to it in the car driving home form the office (when we still went to offices) late at night. It’s got nothing to do with the story that the album is telling, but the idea of Eames as a vampire who hates being one, meeting Arthur, who is in dreamshare, and daring to hope he could escape his dark existence took hold and wouldn’t let go. So when the Big Bang came around I proposed it. But I hadn’t actually outlined much of it at the time, and it grew a mind of its own and the posting date came and the story was (I thought) not finished but maybe nearly done? Haha, I’m still writing it. I promise it really is nearly finished, anyone who is still interested (but I have said that several times before, I admit). Anyway, here’s a bit from the last chapter I’ve written, which is not posted yet, but will be soon. I’ll put it under a cut.
Arthur sits up, placing a hand on Eames’ chest, keeping him on his back. A frown flits across his face, as if he is debating something with himself. Eames relaxes his hands at his sides, palms up, quiescent, and Arthur smiles, bending down and kissing him. “I’m in your hands,” Eames says.
Arthur nods, and positions Eames’ arms above his head, spanning both wrists with one strong hand as he leans in again, biting softly at Eames’ mouth, and then harder, pushing in as his other hand moves down, pressing at his throat just hard enough to make Eames swallow, feeling the resistance. And then Arthur’s hand has moved on, down his chest, brushing across his nipples, tweaking one, and when Eames arches into the touch, pinching the other harder. He chases Arthur’s mouth when he ends the kiss, sitting up.
He leans over to the nightstand and Eames lifts his head, trying to see if he is retrieving the lubricant, but in Arthur’s hand is his dark red tie, the tie he gave to Eames.
“May I?” he asks.
So there we have it, for anyone who is still reading. A year of writing in a very weird time. The pandemic doesn’t feature at all.
Handsome Bob and Dave for @deinvatiwrites , who prompted: “You need to go”. Neither of us wanted any angst between Bob and Dave, so that’s not that this story is about.
The first part is here, but it got longer than a tumblr fic, so the rest is on AO3
Dave is looking at the text Bob got while he was at work, that he’s been thinking about all day.
When he got his new mobile, he gave the number to very few people from before. But he did give it to One Two’s mum. He didn’t think she’d give it to One Two, but he didn’t really care, he wanted her to have it. He rings her now and then, just to chat. He hasn’t told her specifically about Dave, but she knows he’s not hanging around with One Two anymore. And he’s told her he’s happy.
He last rang her about three weeks ago, and she was fine then.
The text is from her phone, but it isn’t from her. It’s from a nurse.
“Barbara is very ill. She wanted you to know. She is in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.”
“She was a like a mum to me,” Bob says. “You know, when One Two was away and I used to go round and take her things.”
“She taught you to make scones.” Dave smiles at him. He’s remembered how Bob told him that, so long ago.
“Yeah.”
“You need to go.” Dave hands him back his phone. “If she asked the nurse to text you, it must be serious. You should go.”
rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and interests you and i’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!
Late to the party, but thank you (I think!) @ktlsyrtis for the tag! Here they are:
* The Valiant Taste of Death * Auror HP AU * Napping (should be shagging) *Sleepover/ the menagerie * A Certain Slant of Light (HP) * Prequel ACSoL (HP) * And so it is (just like you said it would be) (you’re shit at titles, but you have this song on repeat, you’ll click on this every time confused, it’s not what you think)(J/7) *No need to say goodbye * They can’t leave it like that (they can’t leave it at all) * Michael * the shower *idek just pwp? *The festival (Berena and the Fletchlings) *Ice cream (Fletchlings Evie) *the angsty AF marcus sex baby one *just words and feelings and stumbled explanations *Holiday nanny etc (DWP) *Dating MP style (DWP) *The crap drawer *Chess
In an attempt (yet again!) to keep up with all of my ideas and actually finish something, I will be sharing snippets of fics, WsIP every Saturday, until I manage to finish at least one. bloody. Thing!! I’ll be sharing raw, unedited bits for the most part, and though I mostly have an outline planned for everything I write, I very much welcome comments and discussions about the what/ why/ where/ how/ whatthefuckery of it all, because it’s the bits in between that tie me up in knots. Thank you!
So… Here we go, Snippet Saturday No. 1:
“Well that settles it,” Serena mutters as she finally sits down with her last glass of wine.
“Settles what?” Bernie asks, as the screen wobbles. “That’s not your usual wine, is it?”.
“No, why? And where the hell are you?” Serena responds, almost irritably, as Bernie wobbling around the screen starts to give her nausea.
“I’m on the stairs. It’s the only place the signal is any good. You’re pulling faces every time you drink.”
“I’m pulling faces every time you move, you’re like a minecraft model!” Serena shoots back, nevertheless pulling a face as she drains her glass.
“What on earth is minecraft?” Bernie asks, her fringe bobbing and breaking up the screen.
“I’d tell you to google it, but we’d lose the connection and you’d still be buffering by the time there’s a COVID vaccine,” Serena quips, lost into the ether.
It cements it, in Serena’s mind - once it’s caught up with her thoughts, of course - when she has to finally give up on the video call and phone Bernie in what she’s now labelled “the old fashioned way”.
“There you are!”
Her irritability melts somewhat at the sheer relief and warmth in Bernie’s voice.
“Here I am,” Serena affirms. She puts the phone on speaker on the table as she opens a tidy bottle of wine. “And I assume there you are, still sat on the stairs?”
She suddenly feels bad at Bernie’s confirmation; sees her perched uncomfortably on bare wooden stairs whilst she’s sat in the kitchen, ensconced in her second - first nice - bottle of wine. “Actually, Bernie, don’t worry, this can wait, it’s not-”
She’s cut off by Bernie’s protestations. “Honestly, Serena, at least I’m getting a nice draught. It’s quite refreshing, actually, after being folded in the airing cupboard surrounded by duvets with the headphones on for most of the day.”
Serena blinks.
“Is that where you’ve been the whole time we have team meetings?” she asks, flabbergasted. She can almost see Bernie’s shrug, more clearly than if they were talking in person.
“Outside the flat is very busy. And everywhere inside echoes. The sound techs suggested it for a walk-in wardrobe. I don’t have a walk-in wardrobe, and the spare room, as small as it is, is still too big to soundproof with duvets, so the airing cupboard it was. Honestly, the audio finish is quite professional, you might have noticed - they know their stuff!”
Serena’s glad for the ‘old fashioned’ call; glad that Bernie can’t see her fishing for words; knows that she’d find pity and bristle at it. Doesn’t know what to do with all the sympathy and empathy that she’d normally channel into a hug or at least an arm rub, so she clears her throat, and returns to her original trail of thought.
The timing of this whole thing with the campaign is pretty amazing, as it turns out. In the middle of absolute work hell and attempts to sort out my general apartment/living situation, a little while ago I entered a fic into the /r/CurseOfStrahd second annual fanfic contest. It was one of my attempts to kind of write out and process the way our own run through the module went, stretch out some poor, suffering, unused writing muscles, and it was also super duper self-indulgent. So I’m very, very proud to say it won first place amidst some really great competition, and super happy to rep my best girl Ez.
Summary: In the aftermath of Strahd’s destruction and the not-quite-loss of her mentor, Ezmerelda d'Avenir sets out to tie up loose ends and lay some ghosts to rest, and continues carving out a path for herself in the Domains of Dread.
Word count: 9999, as there was a 10k limit. I had fun.
Rating/Warnings:T, with canon-typical violence, and dealing with death and loss in a general gothic horror setting. Spoilers for the Curse of Strahd module.
—
The d’Avenir Treatise on the Essentials of Monster Hunting (Vol I) - Preface and Introduction
Being a compendium of successes, failures, tricks, and warnings relating to detecting, tracking, fighting, and ultimately destroying undead, fiends, lycanthropes, and assorted monstrosities.
-
1.1. Introductory remarks
Their ride back to town is a quiet one. The silence is broken only once they are sitting, their hunting and travelling gear half-unpacked and strewn about, in the library just above van Richten’s herbalist shop.
“Were we in any other profession, this would be a cause for celebration,” van Richten’s lips twist into a bittersweet wisp of a smile, and he pushes a warm cup of tea into her hands. “A demonstration of pride in an apprentice’s first job well done, for all to see and revel in.”
Ezmerelda tries to look up at him and meet his gaze properly, but her shoulders, her head, her eyes all feel too heavy. A leaden weight seems to have settled on every bit of her. She is tired, bone-deep, but the very thought of lying down and closing her eyes to attempt to sleep fills her with disgust and no small amount of dread. She knows exactly what she will see. The man, just on the cusp of middle age, entirely unremarkable at first… features quickly twisting into a mask of monstrous hunger, then to wide-eyed horror, and, finally, resorting to desperate pleas for mercy as the stake hits home and his screeching form dissolves to ash.
It feels like the ash still coats the back of her mouth. The tea smells of strong herbs, with just a whiff of something even stronger that van Richten must have snuck in from the liquor cabinet. Her hands clench around the cup, and a burning need to justify and defend herself drives her to finally speak up.
“I was ready,” she insists. “I amready.”
“I know,” van Richten replies, softly, sadly.
The tea scalds her tongue, but she drinks it anyway.
—
Getting up from the damp, cold floor of the tomb again feels like an impossibility. She can barely keep her head above the ground, eyes stinging with a mixture of blood and sweat and the glare of pure, magical sunlight. The clawed gashes on her ribcage burn with every weak, hard-won breath, and a metallic taste coats the back of her tongue.
But she is not done yet. She has one last lightning bolt left in her, and Strahd and his dusk elf lackey are so beautifully, perfectly aligned. Ezmerelda can’t keep her lips from curling up into a smirk as she raises an arm and mutters her incantation, feeling that familiar tickle of static rising all around her.
She holds on, builds it up as much as she can, teeth grinding together, ears buzzing - until she can hold on no longer, and the energy flies from her, the flash near-blinding, the roar of accompanying thunder ringing in her ears.
She sees it hit home, the first traces of foggy vapour swirling around Strahd’s convulsing form, and a beautiful satisfaction fills her.
Then, she lets herself go.
An instant or an eternity later someone is shaking her into jarring and painful wakefulness, jostling her head against the rough floor. Her mouth is filled with the bitter aftertaste of a potion, and she grimaces as she feels the familiar residue on her lips and chin.
“Fine, fine, old man, relax, I’m up,” she manages, slurring the words, struggling to blink her eyes open and into focus. “I’m awake. Stop it.”
But it’s not him.
It is Ireena, wide-eyed gaze somehow growing wider still at her words. The reason for this becomes abundantly and agonisingly clear as she points to somewhere behind Ezmerelda… to where Rudolph van Richten lies, very pale and very still, a greater and more profound calm upon him than she has ever witnessed.
“No.”
She didn’t even see him fall.
“Why didn’t you help him?” Ezmerelda knocks the empty potion bottle away, and it clatters loudly against the stone, finally finding rest near a streak of dark ashes. “What are you waiting for, what–”
“I tried. It was… it’s too late,” Ireena whispers, “I’m sorry."
Ezmerelda feels shame flood her immediately at the misaimed anger. "No. No, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry. I just– wait.” Awareness of just where they are and what they were in the middle of doing suddenly overwhelms her, and she feels panic crawl up her spine. “Is it over? Did you stake that bastard once and for all?”
Ireena nods, mouth curling in visible distaste. “I did, just like you said to. Your last hit - it was enough to force him to turn into mist, and then, when… when he reformed in the coffin, I did it.”
The relief Ezmerelda feels at that is so bitter it burns. “I missed it, then,” she murmurs, and feels ridiculous immediately afterwards. Ireena shakes her head, and helps her sit up.
She allows herself a few precious moments of rest against the cold, damp wall of the crypt, eyes painfully locked on van Richten’s still, still form. As soon as she feels half-capable of moving, she all but drags herself to his side. Feeling for a pulse, a breath, anything at all to help her disbelieve what is plainly before her eyes.
She finds no such thing. He’s dead, and it feels like a stake through her own heart. After all her efforts, after getting into Barovia just to get the damned foolish old man off his self-destructive warpath and out, only to lose him now, to fail right at the end…
A pale shimmer falls over the scene before her, like a curtain right before her eyes. Ezmerelda blinks and shakes her head, but can’t make it go away. She reaches up, and–
Erasmus all but swoops down to be face to face with her.
It takes her a moment to properly grasp what she is seeing. Erasmus. Somehow still there, his ghostly form hovering over his father’s body. Gesturing at her wildly, pointing down at something, and, finally, using his ectoplasmic paint to draw… a circle within a circle, hanging in mid-air.
She follows his wordless instructions to the best of her current ability and, with some painfully suppressed reluctance, looks down at van Richten. And there on his finger is a ring that was certainly not there before.
Erasmus seems insistent and quite unusually agitated, so Ezmerelda takes the ring, trying not to register the coldness of the hand it was on, and puts it on numbly, feeling utterly beyond thought.
Suddenly, cutting through the fog that seems to have descended upon her mind, bubbling up like an idea from her own consciousness, a thought - a voice. A familiar voice.
‘Ezmerelda? Ah. I see. Well, that could have gone decidedly better.’
She feels tears welling up in her eyes, an unstoppable burning in her chest. She wants to laugh until she can’t breathe, or sob her lungs raw.
Instead, she sits back against the cool stone wall. As the adrenaline wears off, she becomes more aware of the extent of her injuries: the sting where foul claws raked across her midsection and upwards; the burns of magical fire on her palms. She fishes out the last potion from her pocket, and downs it in one greedy gulp. The relief is near-instant.
Her faculties at least somewhat returned to her, she opts for a laugh as she recognises the ring for what it is. Ireena looks at her with some concern, but Ezmerelda waves it away.
“A ring of mind shielding. Protect the mind, and store the soul, should the worst happen. Of course you of all people would come so prepared.”
Ezmerelda twists the ring on her finger, marvels at the detailed engraving.
“Should I… we could… there’s ways. To get you back. I mean…"
She trails off, and there is a brief pause before the voice in her mind pipes up again. 'No. No, I think, at long last, it is time for me to stop. And rest.'
Even though her entire being wishes to rail against this, to insist on the need for Rudolph van Richten to exist, and protest the injustice (just when she’d gotten him back!), Ezmerelda manages, barely, a soft, "I understand."
'There is still some work to do before that, though, no? Loose ends for us to take care of before, well…'
That, she feels far more comfortable with. It almost comes as a relief. "Yes, of course. First order of business, we will sit down, and we will work out a plan. And we will stick to that plan."
There is a soft chuckle in her mind.
"What’s so funny? You loveplans."
She imagines, in better, happier days, the old man - only slightly less old - shaking his head at her with a long-suffering smile.
'Thank you for humoring me, is all I’ll say. Now, go handle things here properly and finish up, while I think of a list of priorities for us. Miss Kolyana is waiting for you.'
-
1.2. A brief reflection on personal experience
Ezmerelda is pulled into a room, hand clamped over her mouth. The door slams shut, and she almost stumbles as she is suddenly released.
"What in all the realms are you doing here?” The colourful half-elf carnival master hisses at her in a voice decidedly unlike the one he was just using in the downstairs taproom. Now that they are close, she can see the magical disguise of the Great Rictavio is utterly impeccable, but the eyes… the eyes are unmistakable.
They are also flooded with the closest thing to panic Ezmerelda has ever seen in them.
“I’m here to help you. You don’t stand a chance on your own.”
“How did you find me?”
Ezmerelda shrugs noncommittally, and doesn’t look behind him. “I have my ways.”
He shakes his head. “That isn’t good enough. If his agents - and there are many, I assure you! - catch even a whiff–”
She finally glances at the ghostly form of Erasmus, just barely visible over Rictavio’s shoulder, unable to be perceived by the one man he wishes he could reach out to and reassure. He meets her eyes and holds his finger up to his lips.
“I recognised your horse,” she says, at long last.
“Dear Drusilla? Oh…” Rictavio seems to almost deflate at that, though his nervous pacing doesn’t slow.
Erasmus’ visage shows what has to be gratitude, or relief, or both. Then he closes his eyes, seemingly tired, and the shimmering remnants of him disappear from view.
“Damned stubborn, foolish girl…” Rictavio moves deftly around the small room, securing the shutters on its single window, locking the door from the inside, gaze darting around wildly. Then he reaches up and removes his hat, and Rudolph van Richten, looking more old and more worn than Ezmerelda was perhaps ever prepared to see, stands in his place.
“I had a plan, you know,” he sighs, tossing the hat onto the bed. “One that I can now no doubt forget about entirely.”
“There’s no time for your endless preparation and planning. Any waiting game we try to play is a losing one. There’s a young woman who desperately needs our help, a legendary weapon to be found, and there’s a monster to hunt, feeding on an entire land. I’ve been to the castle, scouted out–"
"You’ve done what?"
Ezmerelda doesn’t look at him and chooses to pace a small circle around the room herself. "The castle. Ravenloft. Getting in was a breeze - getting out was the hard part.” She suppresses a brief shudder at the memory of her invisibility spell running out and Strahd’s eyes boring directly into hers, as if he’d known she was there all along. “But, well, I managed. And more importantly, I found a way into his crypt.”
Van Richten sits down on the bed, rubbing circles into his forehead.
“Ezmerelda, you can’t be here.” His voice sounds pained, almost. “You know you are not safe near me. My curse–"
"Sincerely, fuck your curse,” Ezmerelda spits. “After all these years, it can wait a few days before striking. Can’t be worse than what will happen to both of us and anyone involved if we can’t manage to work together on this. We have to. I tried, by myself, but…"
She tries not to dwell on the terribly brief confrontation, the bite of the cold, cold grasp that seemed to steal the very life out of her, and her rather desperate escape.
"Ezmerelda,” van Richten starts again, then pauses, and just looks at her - a long, heavy look. “Why?”
“There are still people who care about your well-being,” she replies simply and softly, “no matter what you may believe."
Then she straightens her shoulders and allows the steel back into her voice. "So listen to me. We are going to stake that devil in his lair, and we are going to get out of this cursed land. Together.”
For once, he doesn’t argue.
—
Their lord and master may be gone, but there are plenty of foul things still crawling around Castle Ravenloft - and occasionally crawling out of it as well.
How lucky for the Village of Barovia, then, to have a monster hunter visiting.
“…so I think that should do it for that particular area of the barracks,” Ezmerelda flicks a stray bit of zombie gunk off of her bracer, then casts an apologetic look at Ireena. “But who knows what else he has buried under there.”
Ireena Kolyana, the girl haunted, hunted, and tormented by the vampire, deciding she’s had enough of running, turning on him and wielding a sword of pure sunlight against him. Poetic justice, if Ezmerelda fancied herself a poet.
Ireena Kolyana, looking exhausted in a very different way, now caught up in burgomaster duties, barely finding time in her overstuffed schedule to hear about the results of Ezmerelda’s latest expedition to the castle.
“You know,” Ezmerelda begins, eyeing the stacks of papers and growing chaos on the desk between them, “if you ever get really tired of this, and miss life on the road…” she nods towards the window, and the wagon just outside it. “I have room for one more. And could always use a deft hand with a sword."
Ireena smiles, but the sadness underpinning it is palpable. "I can’t, not now at least. There is too much to take care of here. And without Ismark…” a shadow falls briefly over her face, then she visibly forces it back. “Some day, maybe. I would honestly love to."
Ezmerelda nods, then moves to stand up, and holds out a hand expectantly. "Come on, you have time for a walk. A minute to escort me out and say goodbye, at least.”
Ireena chuckles quietly and shakes her head, but pushes away from the desk and takes the proffered arm.
The sunlight is bright, tempered only by a wisp of white cloud here and there. Ezmerelda feels a light pull on her arm as Ireena stops on the threshold of the house for just a fraction of a moment. The hesitation is brief, barely noticeable, but the pause as if needing to catch her breath and the subsequent dawning joy - pure, almost radiant by itself - as the sunlight hits her skin–
Ezmerelda realises she’s staring, blinks, and makes herself look away.
Their stroll is indeed brief, and as soon as they turn the corner and reach the parked wagon, Ireena sighs and stands half-ready to hurry back to her office and her duties.
“Hey,” Ezmerelda puts what she hopes is a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I know you can handle all of this. Never doubt that."
This wins her a sincere smile. "Thank you.”
Knowing there’s no more point in delaying, Ezmerelda pulls away, moves to arrange her things around the wagon and prepare to leave.
“The offer stands,” she says as she climbs into the driver’s seat. “Keep it in mind.”
“Maybe next time,” Ireena replies with another sad smile. But then she pauses for a moment, almost as if thinking something over. Then she darts in quickly, and kisses Ezmerelda’s cheek.
“Don’t stay away too long,” she says, quietly, then draws away again. Ezmerelda nods her agreement, and takes up the reins of her conjured horses.
Ireena waves her goodbye, and stands, looking on, bathed in sunlight.
And then the road turns, and she disappears from Ezmerelda’s view.
'Well.’
“Shut up.” Ezmerelda can feel her face burning. “Absolutely no need to read into things."
'You know I mean no offense. I only want the best for you.'
"I am perfectly fine,” Ezmerelda grumbles. “Besides, this is the last thing she needs right now."
'You don’t know that. Ask her sometime, perhaps, to tell you herself. Too many people have assumed too much about that young lady, I think. Myself included.'
"Oh, what do youknow…”
There is a distinct sensation of stinging grief, never quite healed, as the voice comes again. 'You seem to forget I was young once. In love once. More… than once. And though it never ended well, like few things in my life did, the only thing I have ever regretted was not acting sooner. And regret is…'
“… the enemy of progress. I know.” Ezmerelda sighs, the old man’s oft-repeated saying rattling around in her mind as she snaps the reins and takes them down the road westward. “Maybe next time.”
-
1.3. Materials and methods, an overview
Her balance is off still, but the past few weeks have brought incredible improvement. She flicks her rapier upwards, then lunges - back, forth, back, forth, fully and properly bearing weight on her right side in the training yard for the first time in months. The new prosthetic is truly a work of art and a masterful display of craftsmanship. Ezmerelda feels almost giddy at the sensation of ducking and weaving under the wooden limbs of the training dummy, feinting deftly, ignoring the burn in her arm and shoulder. The maneuvers are not yet close to her peak speed and fluidity and elegance, not after the long, arduous recovery she is only now reaching the end of. But it is all so very, very promising.
It also brings to mind - because how could it not, when for the better part of the past half-year she has had more time to think, and remember, and reflect than in her entire life? - van Richten’s drills. He was always far more of a theoretician than practitioner of swordfighting, but he was certainly no slouch with a blade. The precision and perfection of form he insisted on instilling in her initially seemed to clash with her more free, improvisational, off-the-cuff approach, but ended up blending with it to great effect in ways that occasionally surprised them both.
She goes through attack patterns he’s drilled into her and realises she misses him, the cantankerous old man and all his frustrating ways, and suddenly finds herself fervently wishing she wasn’t doing this alone. She spares a moment to imagine the amount of fussing over her he would likely have insisted on, with his overprotective bedside manner that she used to chafe and scoff at whenever one of their hunts went badly for her. She thinks of all the lovely, fleeting drawings Erasmus would have made for her.
Her next step is careless, thoughtless, distracted, and as a result only a little off. The lunge is misaimed, unbalanced, and her knee twists unpleasantly. For the briefest flash of a moment she could swear she can feel the teeth sinking in again, and the horrible tearing.
Ezmerelda winces, fingers clenched around the rapier’s handle, knuckles white. Her teeth grit as the wave of pain subsides so very, very slowly, but doesn’t quite go away. She remembers, belatedly, that she has an audience.
“Ah, almost there,” she calls back to the artisan eagerly awaiting her feedback, voice forcefully kept steady, without turning to face them, and taps her rapier on the metal plating running up from the heel. “We’ll need to make another slight adjustment to the ankle joint, I think. But this is definitely and by far the best one yet. Let me get some more practice first, and we can go over the details in the afternoon.”
Ezmerelda doesn’t wait to see if her words are acknowledged. She hefts the rapier back up.
—
Before she reaches the first crossroads west of Vallaki, she turns the wagon south and into the woods.
“I have some unfinished business of my own to settle first,” Ezmerelda states very matter-of-factly, preempting any interrogation from the ring’s general direction.
The wagon trail to the top of the hill is easier to navigate than ever, and the camp is abuzz with activity, as it usually is. But this time the feel of it all is a bit different.
Ezmerelda knows it well; the air of a caravan packing up to leave.
Arabelle sees her weaving through the horses, strolling towards the large central tent, and darts towards her immediately, then freezes not three feet away. Ezmerelda can tell plain as the new Barovian day that she is torn between looking dignified and throwing herself at her in a hug.
So she crouches down and opens her arms first, and is almost knocked over when Arabelle rushes in.
“I want to show you something I’ve been practicing,” Arabelle whispers conspiratorially, “but you’ll need to lend me a dagger.”
Ezmerelda’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, but she obliges the girl after only a moment’s contemplation, still crouched down and one arm around her narrow shoulders.
The dagger is one of the smaller ones she usually keeps concealed, but even so it seems far too large in Arabelle’s hands. Nevertheless, in a few surprisingly dextrous motions with only a couple of moments of hesitation, she seems to make it disappear - then produces it again as if out of thin air.
“Huh. Impressive. Did your uncle teach you that little trick?”
Arabelle nods, but her pride is palpable. “Papa was so mad! He says that both him and you are a bad influence and I am far too young to be handling blades.”
“There’s no such thing,” Ezmerelda scoffs, but motions for her dagger back and tucks it away safely. “Where is your father? I wanted to speak with him.”
“Luvash is busy,” another voice cuts in cooly, and Arrigal steps out of the fading, scarce shadows, somehow slipping under her notice even with the bright streams of sunlight all around. “But you can speak with me.”
Ezmerelda stands up slowly, and can see him sizing her up.
“Run along now, Arabelle,” Arrigal says in a much warmer tone of voice, but without taking his eyes off Ezmerelda for even a moment.
Arabelle gives her one last look as she turns to leave, and Ezmerelda tries to give her a reassuring smile - but then she realises Arabelle doesn’t seem concerned or reluctant or… anything at all. She seems supremely calm, and not seven years old at all.
Arrigal steps forward and, even as uncannily quiet as he always is, it startles her back into the moment. Then, he reaches out a hand.
Ezmerelda meets his gaze, steps forward, and takes it. The handshake is firm, and she smirks. “Looks like you backed the losing side, cousin.”
The term of address rolls off her tongue with some bite of irony in it. Arrigal inclines his head in acknowledgement. “You can’t say it wasn’t a fairly sure bet. A matter of survival, of course. We do what we must to keep our people safe. But,” and he draws a bit closer, as if letting her in on a secret. “I’m glad he didn’t send me after you.”
Ezmerelda nods, and decides she isn’t in the mood for a debate. “You know, so am I. I would have hated having to kill you. Instead, here you are, in an excellent position for a little introspection, changing your ways… much better this way, isn’t it?”
He shakes his head with a grin, and finally lets go of her hand. “You are a menace. But we follow the traditions, and you have a place here. Where are you going?”
“Borca,” she says, and pointedly doesn’t elaborate further.
Arrigal laughs. “Off to more of your grim business right away! Well, one has to admire your tenacity. You can stay, of course, and leave with us tomorrow. We will share the road at least part of the way.”
So Ezmerelda stays, and exchanges news of recent caravan routes and planned Mist-traversal with Luvash. The fire roars to life as the sun sets. Tales are told, and she contributes some of her own.
“Regale us, cousin,” Arrigal says, grinning wolf-sharp, arms open wide as if to encompass the entire camp, “with the story of the fall of the devil Strahd."
Arabelle is a delight, as always. The truce with Arrigal, if it can be called that, is uneasy, but holds. The ring is quiet.
Arabelle insists on riding with her in the morning ("You did fish her out of that lake… brought her back to us,” Luvash grumbles. “I suppose there’s no harm… I’ll have none of that monster-hunting nonsense, though!”). Her delight at the summoned magical horses is palpable, even as she tries to hide it. Ezmerelda gives her the reins until they need to enter the Mists, and is only slightly surprised to see her managing well, with just a few pointers here and there.
The whole way, Arabelle demands stories of her and van Richten’s exploits very matter-of-factly - interrogates, almost, at times. Her eyes are large, intent, focused, as Ezmerelda obliges, for hours.
“I knew you would win,” Arabelle says at one point, breaking a rare longer stretch of silence between them. “Uncle didn’t want to listen to me, but I knew.”
Ezmerelda looks at her, matches her seriousness. “I hope he will learn to listen, one day soon.”
-
1.4. Common pitfalls
Ezmerelda inches back to consciousness more than wakes, and hisses as she almost reflexively tries and fails to sit up. She recognises her own bed in the former guest room above the herbalist shop, but the details of how she got there are fuzzy at best, completely absent at worst. She is, however, very aware of a merciless pounding in her head and that she has most certainly just pulled some fresh stitches.
A swirl of colourful ectoplasm greets her when she next opens her eyes, Erasmus’ fleeting but always lovely and cheerful greetings hovering above her.
Well. Ezmerelda forces a pained smile at him, knowing that if he is here, his father cannot be far, and–
Ah. Familiar footsteps on the stairs, and the distinct creak of the second one from the top, as Rudolph van Richten enters the room with uncanny timing.
He doesn’t seem to be surprised to see her awake as he gives her a quick look-over, even as concern and frustration clearly war on his face.
“I thought we had reached an agreement,” he begins at last, very deliberately calmly.
Ezmerelda doesn’t reply.
“I thought,” he continues with that same calm tone, “that we had made a plan. That was my distinct impression of our last conversation.”
Ezmerelda clenches her teeth, then grinds out, “I couldn’t just stand by and let that beast–”
“Youcouldhave voiced your disagreements with the plan and brought your concerns to me, instead of running off on your own in the middle of the night,” van Richten is clearly struggling to keep his voice level. “You almost died.”
“Fine, I am voicing my disagreements. We know it’s a wereboar. Just go at it with our silvered weapons, set up an ambush where we found its lair… why wait? Why give it more chances to hurt people?”
“To be absolutely certain we have all the information. That we have looked at it from every angle, that we have not overlooked a crucial detail. Minimise its chances to hurt us.”
“But by then it might have mauled half the village to death, or worse!”
Van Richten’s gaze on her is sharp. “And if we get ourselves pointlessly killed, are the villagers any safer for our hasty, brash, ill-thought sacrifice?”
“Hasty, brash, and ill-thought. Fine, if that’s how it is, how you think of me,” Ezmerelda throws her hands up, and wishes she could march off, slamming a door shut behind her for good measure, as childish as the thought makes her feel.
Van Richten sighs deeply, and pulls up a chair to sit next to her bed. Ezmerelda recognises it as one from downstairs, and feels a small stab of guilt at the thought of him setting up a vigil at her bedside.
“We can’t go rushing in on half-checked information,” van Richten begins, after a brief silence, looking down at his hands. “We can’t, because… because I have done that, in the past. And people - good, brave, dedicated people who chose to stand against evil, people who trusted me - died as a result.”
“I have been wrong,” he continues, still not looking up. “I have followed faulty sources without the due diligence of thorough enough vetting. I have overlooked things, and I have lost many. I will not and cannot allow that to happen again. We have to be careful, patient, and vigilant, always.”
“I’m not advocating for blindly rushing in,” Ezmerelda protests, “I’m merely–”
“I won’t have you on my soul as well. I have far too many already.”
“And I won’t have any more innocents on mine! We had all the relevant information two days ago. Four people could have been alive today if we had acted on time. We were right.”
“And what about when you aren’t, Ezmerelda? What about when you aren’t?”
Ezmerelda looks him right in the eyes, steely. “Then I will make sure I am the one who pays the price for my own mistakes.”
“Oh,” van Richten smiles sadly, “If only that were possible.”
—
The letter arrives just as she is preparing, to her great relief, to leave Port-à-Lucine for good. It is hand-delivered by an ostentatiously dressed man in a stylised fox mask, entirely - and Ezmerelda feels her lips curl in annoyance - unassuming and usual for the land of outrageous pretense that is Dementlieu. The way he seems to disappear in the moment it takes for her to glance down at what he has thrust into her hands is also something Ezmerelda finds hard to marvel at anymore.
Overjoyed to be able to return to the relative privacy and safety of her wagon, she tosses away her old harlequin mask in the sincere hopes of never having to put the damn thing on again. Then she throws herself on the bed and focuses on tearing into the sealed envelope, absorbing its mysterious contents.
After she reaches the end of the letter’s brief text, she stays very still for a long while.
'Not a name I thought I would see again, if I am to be honest,’ van Richten’s voice comes slowly, sounding very wary.
Ezmerelda breathes out a frustrated sigh, an unidentifiable jumble of feelings warring in her chest and burning up her throat. She tries to reply several times, then stops, and closes her eyes. Collects herself, at least somewhat, and decides to focus on the practical. “How do we even know this isn’t a forgery, or some sort of trap?”
'We don’t. But it is a loose end I, for one, am not prepared to simply overlook.’
“She’s tried before, but I never… I don’t have time for this right now, I–,” she throws the letter and the shredded envelope onto the chest at her bedside, and runs an annoyed hand through her hair, again, and again, and again. Thinking, or at least trying to.
'We have time. You and I both know it’s not time that is the problem.’
They are nearing the end of their planned journey, finishing up their business with Alanik Ray and Arthur Sedgwick’s latest investigations and bidding farewell to Dementlieu. And then it was supposed to be on to Mordent, to call in at the Mordentshire shop briefly, and afterwards to Darkon - to Rivalis, and the villages surrounding the old Richten estate. Some ghouls to fight off, wraiths to purge, ghosts to lay to rest, to help the villagers out, before… well. They’ll come to that when they do.
Ezmerelda can’t deny the detour would only be a brief one.
“A 'loose end’,” she huffs. “Really.”
'I am just trying to help you. Don’t waste years of your life like I have, either bitter or wondering or fleeing. Confront your - our - past, at least this part. Lay it to rest, if you can.’
“The past does not lie behind us. It is part of what we are, and part of what we always will be,” Ezmerelda recites, then sighs again. “Old Vistani saying.”
A moment of silence. 'Make sure it is a good part, then.’
-
Ezmerelda’s memory of her mother feels… not fuzzy, but perhaps a bit tweaked and twisted over the years, more by feelings overtaking it than by any fault of recall. The images of what she remembers and what now stands before her don’t match, but have a strange, dissonant overlap, leaving visible in the centre a woman Ezmerelda could almost, almost imagine seeing in the mirror. One she hoped to never see again after that night of wordless parting, many years ago.
Years of imprisonment seem to have been surprisingly kind to Madame Irena Radanavich. She has wormed her way into some kind of favour with someone powerful here, no doubt, as has always been her utterly unscrupulous way. The cell is clearly a formality, more of an office than anything, a parlour for receiving agents and lackeys, as well as bosses. There is even a chair - a worn, old wooden frame with faded red upholstery - placed a little ways away from the bars, facing them. Ezmerelda also gets a distinct impression that the guard standing in the corner is not there for any visitor’s safety or protection.
The woman in the cell seems to light up the moment she sets eyes on Ezmerelda strolling into the cell space with a pretense of casualness.
“My, how you’ve grown! My, and yet– oh, darling,” concern seems to flood her face and voice, and - there, a subtle, wry twist - Ezmerelda thinks she catches a false, even mocking undertone to it. A flash, and it’s gone, and perhaps she merely imagined it, or even wanted it to be there, an ache for some semblance of simplicity to box this woman in. “There’s both more and less of you than last time I saw you."
"Really?” Ezmerelda scoffs, and almost wants to laugh. “All those tales I’ve heard of your vicious, clever, insidious scheming, and that’s the best you can come up with?” She crosses her arms, and clicks her metal heel against the floor loudly. “Not an angle you can use against me, I’m afraid. Try again."
"You wound me!” A dramatic hand placed over her chest. “Treating your own mother like that, who has never had anything but your best interests at heart. Who you’ve never even come to visit.”
Ezmerelda slips the opened letter through the bars, letting it land on the hewn stone on the other side. Then she moves to sit down on the solitary chair.
“I’m only here because I got your letter.”
“Oh! Good. My dearest Ezmerelda, I was–”
“I am here to tell you I want you to leave me alone,” Ezmerelda continues, acting as if she hasn’t heard a word. “For good. Forget I exist, preferably. I want nothing to do with you, and I never will. And the only thing I might want to do with your plotting and scheming is foiling it, so it is in your best interest to leave me out of it all. And van Richten…"
The saccharine smile dips down, almost into a scowl. "And here I’d heard you’d finally seen sense and parted ways with that old fool."
"You hear much, I see,” Ezmerelda replies, cooly.
“I have my ways. My sources. People loyal to me, who have yet to abandon me.”
Ezmerelda feels the swipe like an airy almost-cut of a dagger that just barely misses. “Well, here’s something new for you, then. Something your little web-weaving spiders seem to have missed. You’ll be happy to hear he’s dead."
"And right away you come back to me! Time to end your silly games, eh, Ezme? Good, good. A start–"
"You have no right to call me that,” Ezmerelda cuts her off, rapidly losing her will to restrain herself.
“Come now, dear. That’s no way to talk to your mother, your own flesh and blood. It’s about time we set all this nonsense aside, don’t you think? Your family–"
"You’re no family of mine."
"Please,” she scoffs loudly. “You sound like an angry child. And… oh, really, what kind of name is ’d'Avenir’ even?”
“My name,” Ezmerelda replies, perfectly matter-of-fact, and refuses to even entertain further discussion of the matter.
“I wonder how you’ll do,” Madame Radanavich smiles, but this time the threatening edge is obvious, pretense briefly abandoned, “all alone. Playing your little games of pretend with your make-believe name. You’ll come crawling back to me yet."
Ezmerelda finds herself thinking of Erasmus, and almost believes she can see him, out of the corner of her eye. Tries not to think of what this confrontation might be bringing back for him. Thinks of the Martikovs welcoming her with open arms and offering shelter even in the darkest and dourest and most dangerous of days; thinks of Ireena with the sunsword and an entire wealth of feeling tangled in a tired, relieved smile somehow brighter than the blazing sunlight itself. Of nights around the fire in the camp outside Vallaki, and little Arabelle pulling on her coat, extorting promises of lessons in both swordfighting and divining. Of Arthur Sedgwick and his honest, caring eyes, and his patient instruction in properly using a flintlock, as his husband gleefully offers detailed scientific explanations of the weapon’s workings from the side. She twists the ring on her finger.
"I’m not alone,” Ezmerelda says simply, and feels resolute steel pouring back. She stops to consider her next words more carefully.
“I watched your actions and your curse destroy a good man’s life. But I want you to know that you wanted to take from him, and in the end you took from me, the daughter you profess to care about so much. And now you crow at me about flesh and blood and expect me to, what? Beg you to let me come back? Back to what? A mouldy cell and as short a leash as the current master feels like giving you?”
“Bold words for one given to following an old wretch around like a sad pup, even as he keeps trying to kick you away,” Radanavich sneers, then shifts back to sad pity in the blink of an eye. “Oh, yes, my dear, it’s so very tragic… I’ve heard it all. Look at you - you’re wasted on him.”
“Oh?” Ezmerelda raises an eyebrow cooly, clamps down on the sting to her pride and the deliberate scrape against old wounds, and almost wanting to scream youare the reason he feared that daring to care about someone would be a death sentence for them. “And what would you prefer to be using me for?”
“How dare you! After all I’ve done for our family, while you throw your lot in with the man who killed your brother and imprisoned your mother!”
Ezmerelda feels suddenly tired, more than anything. “You know he did no such thing. And I’ve done very well for myself, despite you."
"Have you, now? What price have you paid for your… profession? What has it cost you already?"
"Nothing I wouldn’t be ready to pay ten times over if it meant ensuring the safety of an innocent, or beating back those such as you. You still don’t understand,” Ezmerelda just smiles sadly, allowing only the slightest undercurrent of danger. “I’m neither lost, nor settling for anything, nor desperately grasping at a chance, nor tragically misguided. This is what I want. This– this cause, this fight, this is exactly what I was meant to do. And I am very, very good at it.”
“Oh, Ezmerelda, if excitement and adventure and glory is what you are after, I know of much that you could do! So many causes that your… talents… would be an excellent match for. You do have a certain reputation, and I know several highly influential actors who’d know exactly where to put your skills to use, no matter how they were acquired. You could do so well for yourself! Rise right to the top of the ranks in the blink of an eye, become truly great.”
Ezmerelda shakes her head, and sighs, and moves to get up from the sad, solitary seat.
“Ezmerelda–”
She quickly turns towards the bars and leans in, baring her teeth and grinning widely. “I killed the devil Strahd,” Ezmerelda smirks at the look of shock she gets in response. “I think your petty schemes are a little below me, don’t you?"
She turns to leave, not waiting for a response. The guard leans back in his corner as she moves away from the bars, waving him off.
"Oh, do feel free to let your masters know,” she tosses over her shoulder nonchalantly as she makes her way out. “Though I have to say I haven’t really looked into whose lapdog you are nowadays."
Ezmerelda hears a frustrated growl behind her as the sickeningly sweet, pleasant mask falls for good. As the door slams shut behind her, she doesn’t look back.
She lets the noise of the city drown out her thoughts as she slowly makes her way back to her wagon, more than ready to be on her way elsewhere. Until, after a while, a familiar voice comes swimming up through her mind.
'How do you feel?'
"I don’t know,” Ezmerelda murmurs, after a long silence. “Ask me tomorrow.”
-
1.5. Notes on useful classification and categorisation
As she finishes rattling off the information she’s gathered on a series of apparent annis hag encounters that van Richten asked her for, he looks– well, 'impressed’ is the only word Ezmerelda can think of to describe it.
In the ensuing moment of quiet, he takes off his spectacles, fidgets with them briefly, polishes off a smudge with his handkerchief. Then, he looks her right in the eye. “You, girl, are a veritable sponge.”
Ezmerelda flashes him a smug smile, then remembers the other matter she wanted to bring to his attention. She clears her throat, and begins, with uncharacteristic hesitance. “I’ve also been looking into some… other things. Another way I can contribute, I think."
The only reply is a raised eyebrow, so Ezmerelda steels herself and decides to go forward with her planned demonstration. She quells the nervous fluttering in her stomach, and instead focuses on the points of her own fingers as they trace well-practiced patterns in the air. With a final flick and a quick mutter of the incantation she’s quietly recited so, so many nights in her room when she was supposed to be asleep, the very air around her right hand shimmers with heat. A few tense moments later, a small mote of flame appears in her palm.
Ezmerelda bites back an exclamation of joy at the success, tries to keep her expression fairly neutral, and looks to van Richten expectantly.
His eyebrows are, very amusingly, trying to climb into his hairline. "Where in the world did you learn to do that?”
She lets the little flame dance between her hands, casually skip from one to the other, flickering giddily, and feels an odd sense of relief wash over her.
“I saw it in one of your books. Almost by accident, and it… it just made a lot of sense to me, even just skimming over it. So I thought, why not? If I could get a handle on a few of the spells, I could complement your arsenal quite well. Bring more to the fight.”
Van Richten nods, but there is a wary undertone to his words. “As long as you aren’t making any ill-advised deals and pacts - which, I’ll remind you–”
“– are all of them. I know. Don’t worry. I’m only interested in things I can glean by myself.”
“Well, I’m not much of an arcane practitioner, though I am quite familiar with a lot of theory. I’m afraid I won’t be able to provide any elaborate training or instruction–”
“That’s fine,” Ezmerelda rushes to say. “I can continue like this. The research, the books - it’s…"
She trails off, not quite knowing how and what to explain. Arcane magic is fascinating, surprisingly enjoyable, and strikes a deeply satisfying balance between being hard-won and feeling like it comes naturally to her.
It also feels… hers.
"It’s very engaging material,” she finishes after a little while. She moves to close her fist and extinguish the tiny fire, but something stops her at the very last moment.
“Indeed,” van Richten replies simply, and gets up from his seat. “Well, I do need to go tend to the shop, but rest assured we will discuss the tactical applications of this later today."
Just as he is out the study door and about to start down the stairs, he pauses, and turns back to look at her, a bright and sincere smile on his face. "Very well done, Ezmerelda.”
The flame flickers, ready to fly from her fingers, bursting with potential.
“Thank you,” she murmurs long after he is gone.
—
It is deep nighttime when Ezmerelda shakes off the last tendrils of the Mists and sets eyes on the cliffs of Mordentshire. The wagon’s wheels clatter over rain-slick cobblestones as she navigates the still-familiar streets of the seemingly unchanging harbour town. The cold sea wind makes her tighten her coat around herself, to very little avail.
She can’t say she’s missed the weather.
By the time she spies the sign neatly painted with the words Herbalist - Dr. Rudolph van Richten, she feels soaked through and entirely miserable, and spends only a moment giving the place a quick look-over.
The shop is in fine shape - if she didn’t know better, Ezmerelda could easily believe its owner closed it up for the night and left just yesterday. The wolfsbane and garlic in the planters underneath each window are flourishing. She makes a mental note to make her first order of business in the morning calling in on the neighbors and discussing further arrangements with Mrs. Polk, in whose capable hands van Richten has been leaving things for years.
In the meantime, she fervently hopes for dry clothes and a workable fireplace.
A quick rummage between two bushy wolfsbane plants - the second and third one on the right - produces a spare key, and Ezmerelda remembers with mild amusement her shock at this mundane weakness in van Richten’s usually impeccable and overthought defenses, years ago.
“Keys,” he’d looked at her over the rim of his spectacles, “are hardly a problem for things that truly want to harm me.”
The little bell chimes as she opens the door. Catching a glimpse of herself in the very precisely placed full-length mirror just opposite the entrance, she wastes no time before going upstairs. The second stair from the top creaks its old, familiar reassurance.
Ezmerelda enters the room that used to be hers, in between harrowing hunting trips and trying adventures, during her years training with van Richten. It doesn’t seem to have changed much - nor does it seem to be in use as anything but spare storage space.
She does her best not to think about how empty and quiet the house is, or how she’s never truly been alone in it. Instead, she hangs up her coat, rolls up her shirt sleeves, unpacks some of her things, and, by the time she gets a proper fire going, realises sleep is the very last thing she feels like doing. Her eyes alight on the small desk in the corner, and she instead decides to do something she hasn’t in a while.
She sits down to write.
First, Ezmerelda takes off the ring and sets it aside, muttering a quick good night, Doctor under her breath. Then she takes out some of her collection, observations accumulated over the years - jotted down on everything from thick parchment to old wrapping paper. Combining it with the wealth of van Richten’s remaining material and into something eventually coherent will no doubt be a challenge, but a challenge is not something Ezmerelda d'Avenir has ever shied away from.
It is just haphazard, quick notes on anything of consequence that comes to mind at first, carried by an odd nervous energy. A more systematic approach will have to come at some later point.
While knowledge is a key weapon in any hunter’s arsenal, honing one’s body as well as mind is absolutely necessary, she writes, tapping her foot on the wooden floor in a way that often drove van Richten to distraction. Many of the creatures of the night become, in their cursed states, inhumanly strong, and in such instances one must be particularly careful of engaging them in close quarters, for even the greatest strongman would be at a disadvantage.
However, not all of these encounters need be solved by violence. Many ghosts
She pauses, pen slowly dripping ink onto the half-filled page before her, and sees Erasmus out of the corner of her eye. She turns her head to face him, and for once in their long and unusual life-and-afterlife-spanning acquaintance, she finds she can’t quite read him.
Many ghosts are held in their in-between existence due to unfinished business. Tethered to some regret or incomplete task from their mortal lives, they seek resolution and closure. Many hauntings can thus be resolved by investigation, and what I must term a primarily sympathetic approach. Of course, one must also always be wary and on the lookout for deliberately misguiding spectres who seek to play upon one’s pity.
The first signs of dawn creep into the room by the time she has moved on from ghosts to wraiths to trying to sort out her notes about creatures that lurk underwater - old notes that have been, to her chagrin, very appropriately and unsalvageably waterlogged.
Ezmerelda manages to light another candle just before her current one sputters out, and rubs at her tired eyes. Then she pauses, gazing idly at the ink stains on her fingers.
She reaches over for a new page, setting her current work aside. There is something else she wants and needs to write, something other than dry facts or hopefully helpful guidelines. The first few sentences come in fits and starts, but soon enough she finds them flowing out of her pen almost of their own accord.
What I would like to make clear is that this is not an inherently bad place. The lands themselves can be beautiful - wondrous, even. Worth living in, and worth fighting for. And the people who live in them do not deserve to live in fear. I, and many others, could simply leave for some better, tamer prospects, yes - but then what? Nothing is gained if we merely surrender an entire world, a collection of lands so fantastically varied and so full of promise, to a cruel, merciless, hungry night. It can’t all be abandoned as collateral damage in a great punishment intended for a horrible few. I can’t, and won’t, allow this to happen.
Maybe the foes are overwhelming, and the fight endless. But a life saved is a life saved. A victory is a victory. One innocent snatched away from a grim fate, one tendril of darkness beaten back - that is enough. But only if we persist at it, day after day after day. And evil may be impossible to ever completely destroy, but it is far weaker and less widespread than it could and doubtlessly wants to be, in at least some small part thanks to our continued efforts.
A dour prospect? Perhaps, for some. Ezmerelda smirks to herself, and gazes down at her veritable manifesto, and thinks back to that cell in Il Aluk.
What better life is there to lead? None, for her.
I, for one, don’t intend to give up anytime soon. I hope that in you, dear reader, I can find one of like mind. And perhaps one day we shall find ourselves standing together.
She lights another candle, and continues.
-
1.6. Conclusions and remarks on future work
She clenches her hands as she steps into the sitting room that morning, decisions made after a long, sleepless night of contemplation. As if fate is conspiring against her, the first thing she sees is Erasmus, hovering over his father’s shoulder. He turns to face her as soon as he notices her, a bright smile he saves just for her on his pale, ghostly face. She knows what a struggle it is for him to manifest this way, how much it takes out of him. The thought of his precious few minutes today being this…
It takes immense effort to speak up, interrupting van Richten’s apparent focus on the post strewn about the table in front of him.
“I think… I think it’s time for me to go.”
“Go? Where?” He blinks, looking up from his papers.
Ezmerelda swallows, but hesitates only for a moment. “I don’t know,” she answers, chin tilted up, almost proud. “But I know we can’t go on like this. I don’t want to go on like this.”
They butt heads and scrape against each other constantly. Chafe and grate and, and, and. She can’t remember the last time they agreed on even the most cursory thing. It has reached a level where she fears his presence will become intolerable, and anything binding the two of them together become irreparably soured and tainted.
She refuses to allow this to happen.
Erasmus has drawn a coin. Two sides. He indulges in a small, semi-teasing pantomime, pointing at the two of them as his shimmering, ectoplasmic drawings hover briefly before vanishing like so much smoke, and Ezmerelda shakes her head sadly.
“I don’t want to come to resent you, that is all. I don’t think I could bear it if I did.”
“If you think it for the best, by all means,” van Richten says simply, and leaves it at that. He never turns to fully look at her. There is an undercurrent to his voice Ezmerelda can’t quite place - something deeply tired, and far more complicated than plain sadness.
It rains heavily that morning as she sets off, as if the world itself wants her to rethink this. The muddy road squelches almost threateningly under her horse’s hooves as she leads him forward.
Van Richten doesn’t come out to see her off.
“I’ll miss you,” she breathes to herself, and half-hopes it somehow reaches both of the companions she is leaving behind. But she has only the rain and her horse’s steady trot on the trail for company.
It is quiet.
—
Finally, the familiar mists of Darkon, and the countryside of Rivalis, lie before them. The inevitable, at a familiar estate fallen into quite a state of disrepair.
'No, leave it be,’ van Richten said, at her hesitantly presented idea of including returning Richten House to at least some of its former glory on their list of unfinished business and loose ends.
Still, this is where he wanted to come. At the end.
Ezmerelda never saw it in its prime. She was a mere child then, kept well away from her family’s machinations. Until she was (inevitably, irrevocably) drawn in, her fate forever entangled with that of the van Richten family. But even now, in all its disrepair, rich traces of what the gardens, the orchard, and the house itself used to be permeate the atmosphere, like ghosts themselves.
She walks across the hills of the grounds, all the way around the mansion to the family cemetery. She slows as she moves up to the two most recent graves, so easy to find, and thinks, briefly, of the body van Richten insisted on being burned before they left Barovia, just in case.
Just in case, she agreed, knowing all he knew about what foul magic and foul intentions could do to physical remains in the wrong hands, and built him a pyre.
The headstones before her are simple but elegant, as is the tidily engraved lettering on them.
Ingrid van Richten
Erasmus van Richten
'Well, here we are.’ For a disembodied voice softly projecting into her mind, almost as through a mild haze or over some great distance, it is one of the heaviest things Ezmerelda has ever heard.
'A few words, if I may,’ van Richten’s request comes, gentle, and she nods, finding herself oddly wordless.
'I am so proud of you,’ he begins, and the ferocity of it almost startles her. 'I hope you know this, always. If I have ever made you doubt this, as I pushed you away - I am sorry. I regret many things in my life, as one does, no matter what I like to say - but most of all I regret that I didn’t tell you this sooner.
You are the best of my life. But more than that, you have grown far beyond me, into a finer person than most could dream of being. And I am sorry I wasn’t there for you, that you had to do so much of it on your own. But know that when I see you… I couldn’t be happier, or more in awe.'
There is a very brief pause, and then the voice softens again.
'I love you as my own, and am deeply honoured you would consider me, and that I get to consider you, family.'
Ezmerelda swallows once, twice, struggles, then finally lets her tears fall freely.
'Look at you. You don’t need me anymore. And I can only hope your legend will far surpass anything I have ever done - there is so much ahead of you! Your light stands so very bright against the darkness. But I am glad, so very glad - selfishly, perhaps - that we were there together, at the end.'
“So am I,” she manages a whisper. “Love you too, old man."
'Now I suppose it is time for me to go.'
Erasmus looks at her, bittersweet pouring from him in waves, and he gives a small nod. His form flickers, and then disappears, and Ezmerelda knows she will never see him again.
She knows how the ring works, too. The soul within it can choose to depart whenever it wants to. She knows she doesn’t need to do anything - that she couldn’t, even if she wanted to. It brings with it a strange sort of peace.
Ezmerelda inclines her head. "I hope you see them soon.” Tell Erasmus I’ll miss him, she wishes she could say.
She spins the now-inert ring around on her finger, a habit she will need to break. She wants to tear it off, and throw it as far away from herself as she can. She wants to never take it off as long as she lives.
A soft rain starts up, and Ezmerelda feels oddly grateful for the feel of it on her face, even as she knows there is no one here but her.
It is quiet.
—
With gratitude to the notes and tutelage of the esteemed Dr. Rudolph van Richten, whose guidance and wealth of knowledge have proved invaluable on countless occasions, and whose friendship changed the course of my life more than once.
As Era 3 rolls on, two pairs of Pearls find themselves finding their way on Earth. They also find themselves with a bit of unusual homework assigned during the first lecture of Little Homeworld’s Pearl School, Which Is For Pearls. Includes such themes as picking names, breaking rules, dealing with inevitable Homeworld baggage, fun beach times, and generally, as I’ve seen in a beautiful, beautiful AO3 tag by @pearldefiance, “Pearls embracing their own interests & identities (and each other)”. ~3000 words.
The fic features Pearl OCs Wine and Blush created by @huecy and Sandy and Lavender by @outerspace-iiinnerspace. Huecy was my art partner for the zine and drew a lovely illustration for the fic which can be found here. Enjoy!
There is no scrambling for purchase, or a trace of fumbling as the stack of holopads is thrust at her. No, she’s a well-made pearl, and well-practiced in this. The pads are surprisingly cool to the touch, smooth, perfect, and new, and they stay perfectly balanced, screen-up, in her hold.
“Deliver to Iolite Facet 2 Cut 4B2.”
Ah, no new corner of Homeworld to be discovered this time - just the well-trod path up to the laboratories. She knows these hallways and these walls. Waves a small, quick greeting to one, in passing - a frequent conversation partner with a fascinatingly textured relief decorating her front.
It is her twenty third errand that cycle. The Iolite will probably have her wait until she drafts a reply and send her right back, but maybe, just maybe, she’ll be sent off to collect sample lists from one of the new research stations. She’s yet to see them.
She’d like that, she thinks.
-
Sandy it says on her name tag, in blue ink over grooves where she first pressed in with a sharp pencil. Smudged some, from where she ran her fingers over it just a bit too soon in her eagerness, as always, to touch.
When she leaves her little bowl alone and lets the liquid settle, an odd sediment gathers, and when she swirls it around, this way, then that–
Fascinating. Soothing, maybe. And the miniature spheres it’s made from - grapes. The humans showed her, laughed when she took one of the little things between her fingers and popped it, making a mess.
One thing turning into another. Strange processes that her Lavender had known the explanation and the chemical formulae for somehow, and had offered it all gladly, because Sandy knew better than to ask.
Her other hand she runs through the little wisps of pale hair on Lavender’s neck, soothing and soft. One of her favourite sensations - the other, not having to hide. Not having to steal moments and wait and wonder, endlessly: will I ever see you again?
She lets go of the little wine bowl, setting it down next to the water cup and the mug of coffee and the odd conical container she’s forgotten the name of, bearing marks of melted ‘ice cream’ (not a very good container, honestly). Instead, she idly plays with the bits of gravel on the path she’s sitting on, and observes the gathering crowd.
So many Pearls here - most of them eager, all of them excited, aflutter in ways ranging from what only a fellow Pearl could recognise (tiny flickers of movement, fingers tangling in a dance) to loud, open displays. Most of them nervous, too.
And all of them very, very early.
Her grasp of Earth time is still somewhat tenuous, but she knows enough to tell that there’s quite a while to go until the scheduled start of class. The sun needs to be far lower in the sky, for one.
But the warp pad nearby activates all of a sudden, and, ah– their instructor for the day, the infamous Renegade Pearl, is early as well. Of course she’d know to be– she’s just as much a Pearl as all of them. Sandy smiles at the odd thought, and moves to get up and gather her things.
She has time enough to get her little containers into her satchel and is picking up the wine bowl, left for last, when her vision is promptly filled with dark purple. Not even a “Look out–!” makes it out fully before one of the other Pearls crashes into her, and they both tumble to the ground.
-
A large hand comes down around her, adjusts her limbs into position, smooths her hair, arranges the billowy ends of her appearance modifiers.
“I have made you in my image with the greatest care. After all, it wouldn’t do for a master to be accompanied by anything less than a perfect representation of her craft, and I will not be overshadowed.”
Pearl says nothing. Stands, perfectly poised, unmoving. There is another pearl there, but she doesn’t turn to look at her. The colours on her don’t match the Gem before them both. So she is not relevant, at the moment.
“I have given you my voice. My perfect spokesgem. An extension of me. How… useful, indeed.”
She remains quiet, and does not put this statement to the test.
“Good. You will know when I want you to speak.”
-
Spilled traces of a strange-smelling liquid, blending with her own dark red colouring, are the first things she makes sense of after her rather ungracious tumble. The second is another Pearl trying to drag them both back to their feet, all aflutter with apology.
“Oh no! I am so sorry, how clumsy of me! Here, let me just–”
She wants to shout that it’s fine, get away – as the other Pearl dabs at her front with a handkerchief produced not from her gem but from the little bag at her side. Instead she blurts out a very undignified “What is this?” in a voice that has never been meant for anything but perfect dignity.
This makes the other Pearl - Sandy, her tag proclaims her - stop, almost frozen, until she launches into a ramble. “The humans call it wine! They make it themselves. It’s a fascinating process, really, and the stages and byproducts are wildlydiverse–”
She tunes out the rest fairly quickly when her gaze drops down to the blank nametag on her own front.
Unlike her, dear Blush got a nickname fairly quickly upon coming to Earth - a sweet disposition coupled with appealing colouration seems to have made it easy, somehow. But she herself has no idea how to approach this, not after centuries of self-effacement and obliteration of any sign of anything outside of what She wanted, what She needed. Her voice coming out of Pearl’s throat because that is how She made her…
Pearl shudders, and very deliberately pushes the thoughts aside.
Her nametag is glaringly empty, deep purple-red stains aside, a strange bother even with all the assurances that there’s no rush whatsoever, that it’s fine to wait and put something meaningful there, that there is no pressure and, oh, should she want to change whatever she picked, that is of course perfectly normal and fine–
She glances down at her arm, the now barely discernible stain the colour of the gem at the small of her back, then at all the Pearls milling about - not a blank nametag to be seen.
Colour-based names are a very popular choice–
Earth phenomena you will become familiar with during your stay–
It doesn’t have to mean anything, whatever strikes your fancy–
She grabs the pen she was given together with the tag and scrawls– well, being a fine Pearl, even her scrawl is elegant cursive:
Wine
A small bubble of some giddy feeling rises in her, and the thought: I need to show Blush. She pushes forward with all the others, the entire group suddenly moving towards the classroom, noticing their teacher has arrived. And as if on cue, Blush is at her side. Quiet but warm. A familiar, comforting presence as they navigate yet another new Earth experience together, and move to find a seat in the auditorium.
The crowd is nothing if not spontaneously organised, Pearls lining up in a very orderly fashion. Wine, with Blush in tow, ends up next to the two from outside - Sandy, still bearing some traces of spilled wine on her skirt, and - Wine squints - Lavender. But before she can say a word and bring up the oddly significant incident from moments before, Blush takes her hand, and turns her attention to the improvised podium, where a very recognisable Pearl stands ready to speak.
“Welcome, everyone, to this year’s Pearl Orientation class!” The Renegade is not terrifying at all, except perhaps in subtle, mere suggestions of things. The look of her entire, unique and somehow untouchable, bearing a strange sort of promise. It’s not the first time they’ve all seen her - she was there, handing out the nametags and offering helpful and not-so-helpful advice, and a chaotic selection of earthly writing implements.
She waves her hands around happily as she talks, then clasps them in front of herself. “Now, I do not intend for this to be an ex-cathedra type of class. Past experience has led to some, in my opinion, excellent methodology… very collaborative and horizontal! So while I am more than happy to provide advice and pointers and guidance, I in no way wish to present any kind of strict authority. How ever…”
The pause is brief but the excitement oddly real, and Wine feels herself want to lean forward in anticipation.
“I do have homework for you to start us off! That is, a small task for you to try to complete - not for anyone’s benefit but your own. Your task is to go forth…” the Renegade’s voice lowers dramatically, “…and deliberately break a rule! Tomorrow evening I would like to hear each of you give a report on your experiences doing this: consider your motivations and reasoning, and why you picked whatever you end up picking.”
A lavender hand shoots up next to Wine’s head with almost frightening speed. “Excuse me!”
“Yes, uh,” the Renegade’s eyes flick down to the nametag quickly, “Lavender?”
“I am completing the task. By refusing to do the home work.” Lavender states very matter-of-factly, unblinking gaze fixed on their instructor.
“I… that is– well, quite creative, to be sure! Of course something like this crops up every so often - Pearls and the creative misinterpretation of orders, name a more iconic duo, ahaha!” She pauses at the blank stares. “It’s, oh, just something Steven showed me. Never you mind. I think Lavender here has quite a grasp of things already, and I am excited to hear her contributions to the discussion tomorrow. Now, off you all go! Feel free to consult with myself or my assistant Volleyball here,” a pale pink Pearl turns to wave at them all from the front row, “if you have any concerns or questions at all.”
They file out - and Wine is certain it isn’t just her imagination - a little less orderly than before.
-
Layer by layer, carefully applied. Perfectly aligned for perfect refraction, the exact hue and saturation at the exact angle. Not one light mote out of place.
One final touch, that in some other, kinder universe might even be termed loving. An indelible mark of her creator, a signature. Proof of artistry. Guarantee of quality. A proclamation of superb craftsmanship for all to see and admire.
And envy.
-
It’s when they’ve, still hand in hand, split away from the other Pearls, some way away from the classroom down the path towards the nearby cliffside, that Blush makes her move.
“I need your help. With the homework.”
“Oh?” Wine slows down, looking mildly curious.
“I need you to dissipate my form,” Blush states matter-of-factly.
“I…What?” The shock is perhaps a bit more severe than she’s anticipated.
“I want… I want the mark… gone.” Blush’s voice is as soft as always, but with an underlining of something new and rather… steely. Determined. Like…
Come away with me–
Like the last time she took a… calculated risk with Wine ( what a darling name, her mind supplies, I was starting to worry she’d never– for herself– ).
“I won’t be long,” Blush insists, “you know I won’t. Nobody will even realise–”
“I will.”
It stops her cold, the passionate feeling in Wine’s voice, still straining to stay somewhat quiet, and the immense fear and concern in her eyes.
Wine reaches over to take her hand back in hers - the hand Blush hasn’t even realised she’s pressed to her neck. Hiding that precise, elegant little engraving, the burning reminder of her origin as a pretty little thing to be exhibited and gazed upon.
Despite the beautiful relief of the fact she doesn’t have to anymore, Wine looks around them quickly, before pressing a gentle kiss where the hand had been.
“If… if it bothers you so much…” She’s never heard Wine so hesitant before, so small. “A– a scarf, maybe? No one will be able to see it! No one will know it’s there–”
“I will,” Blush echoes quietly. Deliberately. Her words hit some mark, but she doesn’t get to know what it is.
“Oh! Excuse me, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” It’s Sandy, walking up to them, quite unrepentant. “I just wanted to let you know I had an idea for our assignment - a place Lavender and I found… running around the area. You’re welcome to come with me if you want! I’m sure she’ll be coming as well, even though she’s done with the homework.”
It sounds like pride, and it gives Blush a bit of pause.
“I’d love to go,” Blush acquiesces, very politely and sweetly. “Wouldn’t you, Wine?”
-
It’s been three cycles since she’s last moved. A long lull in the endless sequence of Gems passing by the little desk pearl is stationed behind, still, unblinking, ready with whatever factoid they require for continued functioning and/or fulfilment of their duties.
If someone was to ask her, if someone needed the information for some strange, unfathomable reason - she would say she far prefers the uneventful to the busy days. Just her, the flow of information at her fingertips, the incredible things she knows and that no one ever thinks to ask, and the quiet.
-
Lavender found the place, and many others, after taking off near-immediately upon exiting the ship and taking her first steps on Earth - she has no desire to be particularly still anymore. No more sitting around, waiting for another one of the endless, inane questions, and waiting her entire existence away.
It’s a beach, not unlike the one near the Crystal Gems’ Temple, and not far from it either. This one, however, is surrounded by a tall wire fence, plastered with a variety of fairly threatening-looking signs.
She knows the sign above says “No Trespassing - Private Property” and the one right below “No Loitering” in the human script she absorbed with the lightning speed she absorbs any other tidbit of information with. She shared as much with Sandy immediately upon taking her to see it, just like she shares it with the two somewhat more lost-seeming Pearls now - and why not, especially after Sandy’s quite literal run-in with one of them earlier? All in all it seems ideal for this ‘home work’ business, in addition to being quite a lovely place.
Lavender doesn’t know how many grains of sand there are on this beach, but she knows Sandy would gladly bury her hands and run her fingers through all of them, and she knows it’d be a delight to watch.
She doesn’t know a lot of things, now. She’s the one asking, sometimes. But it’s never really been about knowing. And Sandy, oh, Sandy always listens and never asks anything except, perhaps, a gentle is this alright?
It makes her feel like boasting, just a bit. And they’ve all been so awkwardly quiet on the way here, with barely a word as the four of them climbed to sit atop the highly forbidden fence.
“Sandy here–” she places a pale lavender hand on her shoulder, as Wine and Blush look over, “holds a record of both number of steps travelled and distance as the Lapis Lazuli flies covered during her deliveries.”
“That sounds like an exaggeration, but if you say it, then I’m sure it’s a fact! That’s right, I’ve been all over Homeworld!” Sandy exclaims, rolling the Ls around her mouth. “Doing all my, hm, little errands. But I’ve never seen either of you around, you know– before.”
Ah, the before. Lavender can see, in all her little tells like the quirk of her lips and the tilt of her chin, that Sandy regrets bringing it up almost immediately.
Wine clears her throat somewhat uncomfortably. “The Gem we… who made us… she wasn’t much of an entertainer.”
“That’s a shame.” There’s a soft, almost pitying look on Sandy’s face. But there’s a knowing note to it, too. “But at least… at least you had each other. And that’s rather the key, isn’t it?”
“It was for me,” Lavender agrees softly, and holds Sandy just a bit closer. There is a moment of quiet calm, as they listen to the waves lap at the shore.
“If you all don’t mind,” Sandy pipes up, giving Lavender’s hand a quick squeeze before hopping down, “I’m going to gift whichever human is in charge of monitoring this very off-limits area a sand castle. To highlight the rule-breaking and all, you understand.”
Lavender nods sagely. “Of course. You go on ahead, I’ll be right there.”
She lingers a little ways down the beach, however, as she catches the snippets of a heartfelt conversation on the breeze.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier… I like your name.” Blush whispers.
“I like you,” Wine insists back. “And I just think…” She hesitates, putting the words together carefully and deliberately, like Sandy aligning meticulously chosen pebbles on the path around her little sand moat, just up ahead.
“You were made with great care, and your creation was a point of pride– maybe it doesn’t have to matter who it was by, or why. Not anymore. And I just think maybe you should be the one who gets to enjoy it, now. Am I making any sense?”
“Maybe,” Blush echoes quietly.
“We may have all the time in the world, but I don’t want to miss a moment with you. But more importantly, I… I don’t think you should have to miss a moment of it, either.”
Lavender can’t help a smile as she turns to leave the two to their discussion. There is a deep current of feeling and meaning and figuring so much out running there, and it’s not her place - or anybody’s - to interfere. And besides, what for? They’re all of them doing an excellent job of breaking every rule imposed on Pearls from the moment of that first nacreous layer taking form.
The Earth sun is orange-red on the ocean, hanging low and dipping ever lower, as they perch on the fence, right above the signs.
Hello, hello! I am indeed still around, and sometimes even do non-work-related stuff. About, oh, 2 years ago, this got sent in as a prompt, so have a little 4 times + 1 thing, for the occasion of me processing my recent DS9 comfort-rewatch (by which I of course mean “mostly spending a lot of time gazing adoringly at Kira Nerys and crying”). As far as I recall, I’ve never actually posted anything from my giant decade plus WIP pile of Trek stuff, so this is a first - I hope it doesn’t disappoint.
The prompt was “five different sunlights”. So here are five snapshots of Kira Nerys from joining the resistance to DS9 and beyond, ~4400 words. Veers into Kira/Jadzia because I’m hilariously predictable. Also includes brief appearances by (in order): Lupaza, Furel, Shakaar, Damar, Garak, Kaksidy, and Jake. Mentions of several others.
Contains discussion of the occupation of Bajor and canon character deaths, but nothing explicit I can think of to warn about.
—
After The Dawn
1. 2356
The raid was long over but her fingers still shook – cold, always because of the cold, never from fear. Every so often they would twitch more decisively, as if recalling the sensation of the phaser rifle she was just barely big enough to hold jerking to life in her grip. But then they’d travel to her right ear of their own accord, tracing the lines of her new earring. A proper d’ja pagh all of her own, with the symbol of the Kira family emblazoned in the metal – echoing the beautiful engraving she’d always admired on her father’s.
Lupaza had worked through the night to make it for her, by the feeble light of one of their few still-working heaters, with skill that seemed otherworldly to Kira (who, though by far the youngest among them, knew better than to ask about anyone’s life before joining a resistance cell). Lupaza, who had looked at the scrawny thirteen-year-old hanging around their camp, and who’d chosen to believe in her, and speak up for her. Who’d presented her handiwork to ‘their newest member’ at sunrise, during the change of guard at the mouth of their current cavern hideout, letting the winter light glimmer on its silvery surface for all to see. And Kira had beamed at her, not caring about who’d been around to witness it or how young it may have made her look.
I’m in the Resistance, she wanted to shout over and over again until the reality truly set in, flooded and near-overwhelmed by the newfound sense of belonging and pride and brightly burning defiance mixing in her chest.
Again and again her fingers went – over the cuff hugging the shell of her ear snugly, down the single deceptively delicate chain, to the simple but beautiful main piece. She could almost believe it was still warm to the touch, heated by the orange-glow burn of Bajor’s atmosphere on Cardassian hull metal – made from stolen Bajoran ore, mined with stolen Bajoran labour. It was only right and just that it be returned this way. The rest of the beritium hull salvage they’d stripped from the ship would be used for lining the walls of their hideout, shielding them from sensor sweeps and the bite of the winter cold alike. But this small bit of it was a shield all Kira’s own.
It was a comforting presence, a slight but grounding weight with a depth of meaning that its size belied. Lupaza smiled at her fascination and distraction every time she happened to pass by, promising she’d get used to it. Furel agreed, for once without a trace of a joke in his voice, and slapped a hand on her bony shoulder with a gruff: “You’ve more than earned it, kid.”
Shakaar himself, in between whatever it was his leaderly duties entailed, took a moment to consider her. “It suits you,” was all he said on the matter, though if he meant the earring or the phaser Kira had for the first time stuck in her own belt instead of giving it back after cleaning was anyone’s guess. Then, turning to leave, he added, “Good job out there.”
There was something like sadness behind all of their eyes. Kira chose not to see it, or dwell on it.
She was in the Resistance.
She didn’t even know if any of her (many) shots during the ambush had found their mark, but it didn’t seem to matter. She could, she would help protect her father and his little garden, scrounged up, cobbled together, but growing. Protect her remaining brother, for the one she had failed to. She would honour her mother, the bravest woman I’ve ever known, Nerys. She saved us all, at great cost to herself.
Whenever her fingers floated back down and twitched for want of a rifle trigger again, she told herself to be patient. There would be more work for her, more chances to be useful, more chances to prove herself. No more sitting idly by, and no more fear.
-
2. 2369
Even after weeks on the station Kira had yet to manage to sleep through an entire night, but she sincerely doubted it was the bed’s fault. Sure, the Cardassian-designed beds in the Cardassian-designed quarters on the Cardassian-designed station left much to be desired, but they certainly beat the ground of a half-frozen cave. And yet here she was, with endless damn bunking arrangements as one of the most frequently brought-up complaints among the crew body. Why and how those PADDs always seemed to end up on her desk was anyone’s guess. She’d been prepared for a more administrative role, yes, but…
“The time is oh-six-hundred hours,” the computer helpfully informed her.
Kira huffed, and tossed aside another PADD with a blinking Request denied, then shrugged on her uniform jacket and made to leave her quarters for a quick breakfast.
It was still an odd thought that took getting used to: her quarters – hers alone; a viewport in the bulkhead, allowing her to see the stars and, when the rotation was right, Bajor’s own familiar sun from a very new perspective. Regular meals thanks to Federation engineers patching up Cardassian replicators and whipping them into shape. Shops and eateries opening on the Promenade. The ruinous mess the Cardassians left behind them slowly coming together again into something functional. Kira permitted herself a wry twist of the mouth at the thought – hopefully the planet the station had formerly orbited could manage to do the same.
The discovery of the wormhole brought fascinating, colourful crowds to the station so quickly and in such volumes, she didn’t envy Odo at all. Even the small segment of the Promenade she saw on her way from her quarters to the replimat was enough to reinforce, every morning, that this was no longer Terok Nor: grey in every way imaginable, filled with throngs of terrified, beaten-down Bajoran workers and their Cardassian overseers, delighting in the former’s disposability.
The small but lively, chattering crowd in the replimat seemed to underscore all of her thoughts – no more waiting in line for gruel with the exhausted shift that had just left ore processing.
“Good morning!”
Instead, a friendly Federation face. The pattern of spots that ran down the sides of Lieutenant Dax’s face and down her neck was fascinating to Kira still – not Bajoran, and certainly not the grey, flared bony Cardassian necks that had made up most of Kira’s world up until not so very long ago. She had to stop herself from staring often, even though, judging by that smirk, the Lieutenant did not seem to mind. She appeared to relish attention in general, of all kinds. Kira ducked her head, and tried to focus on the replicator instead.
“Something wrong? Quark interfering with the menus again?” Dax was right behind her, peeking over her shoulder, eyebrow raised, and smiling. Somehow she always seemed to be doing that.
“Oh, no, nothing like that, thankfully. Still not quite used to this, is all.” She shuffled her feet and made no real move to complete an order.
“Hm. Well, if I may, Major, I’d recommend the raktajino for early morning starts like this.”
“Raktajino?” Kira repeated oafishly, biting back the Early!?her mind had immediately supplied.
“Klingon coffee. Try it – I think you’ll like it.”
Kira was sceptical, but Dax seemed to be very sincere – so after a few button presses she found herself holding a large mug of something hot, dark, and quite thick. She wrinkled her nose and took a sip.
“It’s, uh… strong.”
“Hits the spot, right?”
The crooked, almost sly smile on the Lieutenant’s face was contagious. Kira didn’t even feel like bringing up growing up under an occupation-enforced famine as an excuse for her own lack of a developed or sophisticated palate or culinary taste in general.
The drink did have a real kick to it, and Kira took another sip. “Yeah, it does.”
“Just don’t go overboard with them – let me tell you, I made some grave mistakes there right after I became a host. Curzon,” Dax smirked, shaking her head, then waved at the table they’d found themselves next to. “Mind if I join you?”
Kira thought about it, but only for a moment.
“Not at all, Lieutenant.”
And ah, there it was then, as soon as they sat down: the small, incessant, bitter sting of you knew what they were doing to us and you sat by and did nothing that insisted on making itself known at very inopportune times. It was, however, becoming more bearable by the day and with every individual met, every new reassurance that they were here now, despite everything, to make a good start. Together.
When the Cardassians came they were helpful and charming too, nagged the little voice at the back of her mind. But this couldn’t be like that, and just looking at Dax was enough to… well, perhaps Kira was being a naive fool, but there seemed to be ground to build here, and she found herself willing to try. And after all, she knew she herself was ready to do anything, to lay her life down for Bajor. She just needed to be pointed the right way – or, rather, she needed to be able to point herself the right way. Now that knowing who the enemy was and who the enemy could turn out to be had gotten more complicated. Still, if nothing else: she wouldn’t let it be a repeat of anything, and she was prepared to be a thorn in anyone’s side, Federation or provisional government or otherwise, for as long as was necessary.
“You seem to be mulling over something grim already. Everything alright?”
The concern was genuine enough, but Kira had no idea how to even begin to explain all of it, even if she’d wanted to.
“Just thinking about some complaints about quarters I need to handle,” she lied smoothly – or what she hoped was smooth, anyway.
Dax caught on, and backed off. Lifetimes of experience to thank – or perhaps Kira was just that easy to read. A transcript of Trakor’s annotated ninth prophecy just waiting on a lectern, as Lupaza would say.
“Sure. Let me know if I can help.”
“With station admin? Aren’t you a science officer?”
“Absolutely. But it’s in all our best interests to get this place running as smoothly as possible as fast as possible, right?”
Kira narrowed her eyes at her, entirely unconvinced. “Right.”
“Fine,” Dax threw her hands up in the air in a very silly, exaggerated gesture, “I admit it, I’m after juicy gossip. There’s bound to be quarter reassignment requests in there! What could be juicier?”
Kira couldn’t help but bark out a laugh, then. “You are ridiculous.”
Dax grinned right back. “Glad to be of help. Let’s get to Ops, you can tell me all about it on the way.”
When Kira got to her feet, both she herself and the entire day – if it could truly be called that on a space station – felt somehow lighter already.
-
3. 2372
It was swelteringly hot under the sun of some new, as of yet unnamed planet, in the midst of a survey mission that had already gone on longer than scheduled. Hardly Kira’s idea of a good – or productive – time.
The place was an unpleasant dustbowl broken up by stray glass-encrusted rock here and there, and Kira was surrounded by a bunch of bustling, tricorder-armed Starfleet explorer types she would have sneered at, not so long ago – but many of whom she’d now consider fast friends. She’d hardly consider herself an ideal choice for helming this particular mission, but Sisko had been insistent, and so here she was. It would appear that, if nothing else, it gave her time to indulge in reverie – a truly rare occurrence.
The unfamiliar stars of the Gamma Quadrant, unimaginably far from everything she’d ever known, could now be reached within seconds, thanks to the wormhole – more proof of how the Prophets kept looking out for Bajor in sometimes quite unexpected ways. And Kira, as Bajor’s official representative on the mission, was determined to do her best to facilitate and build upon their efforts.
“Take a look at this, Major!” It was Dax calling her over, her tricorder beeping over some bizarre green-magenta form of plant life she found beneath a rocky outcrop a little off the not-so-alien dirt path Kira was stomping down.
“What’ve you got for me, Lieutenant?”
“Some kind of elaborate root system stretches on for more than a kilometer underground, running beneath the very acidic soil, with an impressive – and perfectly symmetrical – array of large tubers.”
Kira shot the sensor readings a look. “Huh, could’ve fed a whole resistance cell for an entire winter on nothing but a few of those.”
She frowned as soon as the words left her mouth – Jadzia Dax, decorated Starfleet science officer and dedicated, studious initiate who’d earned the approval of the strict Trill Symbiosis Commission, certainly hadn’t had such prosaic, practical implications of her findings in mind. For a very, very brief moment, Kira felt a sting of embarrassment – but then her mind snapped decisively back into its standard guarded, resolute position: she had nothing to be embarrassed about.
Dax, as had somehow become a somewhat frustrating habit of hers, seemed to be able to encompass Kira’s entire internal dialogue with a glance. But somehow she did it… gently, without making Kira feel small or inadequate in any way. No smug Starfleet superiority here, even with all the accumulated bragging rights of all the lifetimes under her belt. And – perhaps most importantly – no trace of pity to be found. Instead, a wellspring of enthusiasm.
“Their composition is interesting, I agree. Starchy, and rich in several key proteins – this has potential for significant contributions to agriculture. I bet Keiko will love to get her hands on this – see what she can set up in one of the hydroponics bays.”
Her smile was as bright as the orange-tinted light of the unfamiliar sun, but Kira took up the challenge of matching it.
Jadzia leaned in, almost conspiratorially, “Help me catalogue it?”
“I, uh, don’t really know what the procedure–”
“No worries, I’ll walk you right through it. It’s fun!” Kira’s scepticism must have been written all over her face. “I swear it is! I’m not just saying that, you’ll see.”
“Not to mention,” Jadzia winked, “it’ll get us under some nice shade and right next to a cooling unit.”
“You are incorrigible.”
“And you love it.”
Kira couldn’t disagree.
-
4. 2375
The weak, grey light of Cardassia Prime’s sun filtered through the slits in the cellar windows – if they could even be called that.
Another very literally bleak dawn. No contact with the Federation. No hope of reinforcements, or extraction, or help of any kind. Negligible chances of news from Deep Space 9, of the fleet, of Odo’s health, of anything at all. And here, far behind enemy lines, Kira and her unlikely comrades presumed dead, their network of allies and carefully-hidden carefully-built-up resources destroyed, all three (three) survivors hidden away in the capital of a people she’d once have termed her worst enemies, relying on the goodwill of an old woman.
Kira, a veteran of hopeless causes, had been in worse spots – but not many.
Whatever Damar’s less… pleasant compatriots had thought, she found no joy in any of it. Not even a flutter of satisfaction at all the irony the situation was positively dripping with. It was enough that it meant that twice now she’d been witness to oppression and destruction on an immense scale – civilisation-ending, one might term it. It was wearing, and wearying, no matter who it happened to.
Would she have cheered for the destruction of Cardassia as little as a handful of years ago? Perhaps, if it would have meant Bajor being left alone. The moral quandary aspect certainly wasn’t something she wanted to be thinking about at the moment.
While the others seemed to still be asleep, Kira lay on her back on one of the thin blankets Mila had provided them, and thumbed almost idly through a list of signals intercepted nearby, identifying potential sabotage targets. There were still things three people with extremely limited resources could do to make themselves useful - or disruptive, depending on your perspective.
Two Jem’Hadar barracks complexes (a hatchery would be better, and far less dangerous). A comms central (they might not have the proper tools available to make it truly worth the risk). Long-term storage warehouses (they needed to maximise short-term effects on the Dominion occupiers, not minimise the chances of Cardassia’s eventual recovery). Weapons manufacturing plants (tempting security gaps during shift changes, but still far too well-guarded for the three of them to take on alone). A power distribution junction (…remote, potentially high-impact, and definitely worth looking into). Kira made a note to ask Garak for any further details he could muster about it.
She should have, perhaps, been saving her strength, getting what rest she could while she could. Restless, that was what she was, even with all her experience and her awareness that so, so much of a resistance fight was simply spent waiting, biding time. With another brief glance around the murky room, she gave up even the pretense of repose, and got up to stretch her legs and pace out her nerves.
Garak was asleep in his corner, or at least pretending to be. Whatever suited his purposes best.
“Commander,” came a low murmur from the other side of the room: Damar, sitting up on his own improvised bed, very much awake. The Starfleet rank still sounded strange to her, but Kira could appreciate the way Damar made sure to respect it from the start, and never allowed himself a slip. “There’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about. If you have a moment.”
“Somehow I have both far too much and far too little time these days. What is it?” She asked quietly, stepping closer, though the chances of Garak actually sleeping through whatever their conversation was going to be were negligibly low – as were the chances of him ‘waking up’ before they were done.
“I know it might not make much difference. And I do not ask for your forgiveness, or understanding. But I wanted – no, needed to tell you this. I’m sorry – for what I did to Ziyal.”
Her mood miraculously sank even lower. “For murdering her, you mean,” Kira didn’t even try to hold back the bite, nor had she ever been one for softening any blows.
Damar’s lips twisted. “You are right to call it what it was. Hiding from the truth won’t accomplish anything anymore. I killed her, and I deeply regret it.”
Kira said nothing, and Damar continued. “I’m not asking you for anything, believe me. But I hope… she can become a herald, of sorts. Her presence can live on in our alliance, a spirit of cooperation, and a new dawn for both our peoples.”
It was hardly the first time Damar made her think there could be a future for Cardassia after everything, one of reinvention and coexistence. Even Kira, with her underdeveloped imagination (Jadzia’s efforts notwithstanding – ah, there was the stab of that hastily half-handled grief), could let herself imagine it.
Kira nodded, and pursed her mouth. Forgiveness wasn’t something she felt was hers to give, even if she wanted to. Maybe it wasn’t anyone’s.
“Nice speech, Damar,” she said, flatly. Ground out, almost. “It’ll be good for you, to’ve had the practice.” Then, after a moment of consideration of what she was prepared to give: “I hope I’ll get to hear you make more of those someday soon. And I hope Cardassia will get to hear them, too.”
It only took another tragically small circle paced before the weight in the room became unbearable. Kira decided to make for their somewhat improvised refresher and what little privacy could be scrounged up – and caught Garak watching her, lying motionless but as alert as ever.
She silently met his eyes, then turned away.
-
5. 2376
The first day of her long-awaited leave dawned beautiful and clear. It seemed a small thing, to be sure – but perhaps the Prophets, prompted by their Emissary, had had a hand in making it so. No matter the reason, the sun shone on a Bajor that was growing prosperous and whole in ways Kira had feared it wouldn’t ever be again.
The document that had just brought peace to two quadrants of the galaxy was called the Treaty of Bajor. There was talk, increasingly common and growing louder, of reactivating Bajor’s suspended Federation membership application, and Kira had been made aware of the validity of her Starfleet field commission and the implications on her future career. The Vedek Assembly would be announcing their choice of the new Kai within the week. The soil beneath her feet was healthy, fertile, fully reclamated and ready for planting. There were now schoolchildren on Bajor who had never lived under the occupation.
And there was Kira, who had helped liberate it, and hadn’t lived on it since.
This was the first time she’d returned to her home planet after the formal end of hostilities with the Dominion, and all that that had entailed. The light of B’hava’el was strong but not harsh – the same sun Kira had spent most of her life under, but that had never hit her more differently than it felt now. B’hava’el, that she had now seen from so much closer and so much further away – had, in a horrifying, memorable incident, helped prevent the destruction of, even. Her! Not just scrappy little Nerys from the Shakaar resistance cell anymore, small enough to slip through narrow passages in the labyrinthine caves of the Dahkur province and gaps in the Cardassian sensor nets alike.
She was Colonel Kira Nerys, commander of Deep Space 9, and, as a dear lost friend had made sure she was aware a while ago, a public figure in her own right. Ah– her own importance was something she would need to confront some other time, perhaps, right after she somehow went head to head with her grief. Ezri had been dropping some suggestions, in her capacity as a counselor, for all of the senior staff and beyond. It would be foolish not to consider her recommendations, both as the commanding officer and as a friend.
Kira was well aware she had lost so much and so many. And she could sit down and catalogue the losses on a PADD, like freighter cargo inventory, but what for? She had gained, too, and lost again, and gained yet more. Like waves and eddies, pulling along a lightship on its way through the stars.
“Prophets help me if I try being a poet, too,” Kira mumbled to herself. Maybe she would take up writing tortured metaphors about the Prophets watching over and guiding ancient Bajoran star sailors on their journey all the way to Cardassia, for better or worse.
A stray breeze toyed with the chain of her earring, carrying the scent of ripening moba fruit, and as she crested the hill, the outline of a house well under construction came into view.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Kasidy asked from just behind her, Jake right at her side, holding her arm.
“Just thinking aloud. Nothing important. Anyway… where did you want to start?”
Her two companions caught up to her quickly enough. The gasps of surprised joy at the sight of all the progress that had been made on the house were by themselves more than worth the trip planetside.
“Well,” Kasidy began, “we have all the plumbing specifications and details all worked out thanks to the local architect you recommended – thanks again, by the way. I think… the kitchen should be first.”
It was an obvious tribute. A longing and anticipation there, too. Kira’s heart ached just a bit stronger then, for a beat or two. She nodded, scrolling down a PADD loaded with floor plans and interior concepts. “I know some people who can help with that, too. Ceramics and pottery artisans, and a few others. I’ve got some favours to call in.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Kasidy started, but didn’t get too far.
“Yes I do, Kas. We’re going to see this through, and we’re going to see it done properly.”
“Only the best for the Emissary?” Jake asked, pointedly. There wasn’t bitterness there, though Kira would have understood it, and perhaps expected it, from a young man longing for the return of his father.
“For a dear friend and his family,” Kira corrected. “But – yes, I’m sure they’ll be happy and honoured to contribute. Now, Julian and Ezri will be down with the next transport, just in time to meet us for dinner in the village. We have a few hours to handle things here, check on the progress so far, make notes – any complaints or requests you might have. Remember, I’m here to make sure they listen to you.”
They started down the path into the almost startlingly green valley, Kira catching herself marvelling along the way at the visibility of all the growth and healing made possible by the hard, dedicated work of so many. Who knew what could be in store for an old civilisation of artists, architects, and philosophers, forced to reinvent itself, and the sometimes tenuous connections to vast stretches of heritage that Kira herself had grasped at in various ways for most of her life, born into struggle and desperate, determined rebellion, like so many others.
Well. Nothing to stop her from trying her hand at poetry, after all.
She felt her lips twist wryly at the private joke – she knew her place and her strengths. And she thought she could say she knew herself, too – precious knowledge, by any accounting. She knew there’d be no rest for her, not really, as long as there was something to be done for Bajor, and for her station, and for her unlikely family, wherever they might end up, scattered among and beyond the stars.
But Kira allowed herself a moment, gazing up in what she imagined might be the direction of the wormhole’s entrance.
Since the lovely project that is the @hundredsofpearls-zine is reaching completion and has opened preorders (get it before the end of July!), it’s time to preview the work I did for it.
My fic features two pairs of Pearl OCs finding their way on Earth: Wine and Blush created by @huecy and Sandy and Lavender by @outerspace-iiinnerspace. Here’s a little excerpt, featuring a Pearl picking a name, and Little Homeworld’s Pearl School, Which Is For Pearls.
-
“Oh no! I am so sorry, how clumsy of me! Here, let me just–”
She wants to shout that it’s fine, get away– as the other Pearl dabs at her front with a handkerchief produced not from her gem but from the little bag at her side. Instead she blurts out a very undignified “What is this?” in a voice that has never been meant for anything but perfect dignity.
This makes the other Pearl - Sandy, her tag proclaims her - stop, almost frozen, until she launches into a ramble. “The humans call it wine! They make it themselves. It’s a fascinating process, really, and the stages and byproducts are wildlydiverse–”
She tunes out the rest fairly quickly when her gaze drops down to the blank nametag on her own front.
Unlike her, dear Blush got a nickname fairly quickly upon coming to Earth - a sweet disposition coupled with appealing colouration seems to have made it easy, somehow. But she herself has no idea how to approach this, not after centuries of self-effacement and obliteration of any sign of anything outside of what She wanted, what She needed. Her voice coming out of Pearl’s throat because that is how She made her…
Pearl shudders, and very deliberately pushes the thoughts aside.
Her nametag is glaringly empty, deep purple-red stains aside, a strange bother even with all the assurances that there’s no rush whatsoever, that it’s fine to wait and put something meaningful there, that there is no pressure and, oh, should she want to change whatever she picked, that is of course perfectly normal and fine–
She glances down at her arm, the now barely discernible stain the colour of the gem at the small of her back, then at all the Pearls milling about - not a blank nametag to be seen.
Colour-based names are a very popular choice–
Earth phenomena you will become familiar with during your stay–
It doesn’t have to mean anything, whatever strikes your fancy–
She grabs the pen she was given together with the tag and scrawls– well, being a fine Pearl, even her scrawl is elegant cursive:
Wine
A small bubble of some giddy feeling rises in her, and the thought: I need to show Blush. She pushes forward with all the others, the entire group suddenly moving towards the classroom, noticing their teacher has arrived. And as if on cue, Blush is at her side. Quiet but warm. A familiar, comforting presence as they navigate yet another new Earth experience together, and move to find a seat in the auditorium.
The crowd is nothing if not spontaneously organised, Pearls lining up in a very orderly fashion. Wine, with Blush in tow, ends up next to the two from outside - Sandy, still bearing some traces of spilled wine on her skirt, and - Wine squints - Lavender. But before she can say a word and bring up the oddly significant incident from moments before, Blush takes her hand, and turns her attention to the improvised podium, where a very recognisable Pearl stands ready to speak.
“Welcome, everyone, to this year’s Pearl Orientation class!” The Renegade is not terrifying at all, except perhaps in subtle, mere suggestions of things. The look of her entire, unique and somehow untouchable, bearing a strange sort of promise. It’s not the first time they’ve all seen her - she was there, handing out the nametags and offering helpful and not-so-helpful advice, and a chaotic selection of earthly writing implements.
She waves her hands around happily as she talks, then clasps them in front of herself. “Now, I do not intend for this to be an ex-cathedra type of class. Past experience has led to some, in my opinion, excellent methodology… very collaborative and horizontal! So while I am more than happy to provide advice and pointers and guidance, I in no way wish to present any kind of strict authority. However…”
The pause is brief but the excitement oddly real, and Wine feels herself want to lean forward in anticipation.
“I do have homework for you to start us off! That is, a small task for you to try to complete - not for anyone’s benefit but your own. Your task is to go forth…” the Renegade’s voice lowers dramatically, “…and deliberately break a rule! Tomorrow evening I would like to hear each of you give a report on your experiences doing this: consider your motivations and reasoning, and why you picked whatever you end up picking.”
A lavender hand shoots up next to Wine’s head with almost frightening speed. “Excuse me!”
“Yes, uh,” the Renegade’s eyes flick down to the nametag quickly, “Lavender?”
“I am completing the task. By refusing to do the home work.” Lavender states very matter-of-factly, unblinking gaze fixed on their instructor.
“I… that is– well, quite creative, to be sure! Of course something like this crops up every so often - Pearls and the creative misinterpretation of orders, name a more iconic duo, ahaha!” She pauses at the blank stares. “It’s, oh, just something Steven showed me. Never you mind. I think Lavender here has quite a grasp of things already, and I am excited to hear her contributions to the discussion tomorrow. Now, off you all go! Feel free to consult with myself or my assistant Volleyball here,” a pale pink Pearl turns to wave at them all from the front row, “if you have any concerns or questions at all.”
They file out - and Wine is certain it isn’t just her imagination - a little less orderly than before.
It’s here!!!!! It’s so beautiful, @a-gay-old-time!!!! I had to place it in a stack with my very favorite books by authors I admire so so much, just to see it there. My God.
Emma, you have given me such a gift. I can’t tell you what this means to me. Thank you is not enough. I get to read my own words in print.
Forgive me because I can’t hold a phone still to take a photo to save my own life but—the different fonts for their names at section breaks!
And the different HANDWRITING for their Owls to one another:
I have died and I am Tumbling from heaven.
And now I’m going to reblog it from you @bluebutter-art because I’ve reread it myself today and cried a good bit at it and it just wouldn’t be the same without the crowning touch which is your gorgeous, incomparable art.
@jonmartinweek day 8, Free/AU day. This is a sequel to the AU I wrote for last year’s day 8, where Martin is a local god, and Jon is the scholar sent to investigate a mysterious fog in the valley where he resides. I recommend reading that first, as this won’t make much sense otherwise.
Thanks to the organizers of @jonmartinweek for such a fun event, and to everyone who’s read my fics this week! :)
*
The people of the valley tell a story about their god. Once, the story goes, their god sank into a deep sadness, and with his sorrow the valley sank into fog. For months they never saw the sun, never felt a cool breeze on their faces, only gray and clinging mist. The crops died in the ground, and the people despaired, for nothing they did could bring joy back to their god’s heart.
But then (the story continues) the scholar from the city came, with his books and his notebooks and his sharp, assessing eyes. He came to study the valley in fog, and the god in his grief, but then he and the god fell in love, and the power of their love swept the gloom away—
(“That is certainly not what happened,” Jon grumbles whenever he hears the story. “As if love were some magical cure-all for sorrow.”
“Poetic license, love,” Martin always tells him. “It’s a story, not an encyclopedia entry.”)
—and the sun shone down on the valley once again. And that is why the scholar from the city remained among them, rather than returning to his temple of knowledge. And why, every once in a while, their god leaves them for a time. For he has given so much to his people for so many long years, it’s only just that he should take time to follow his own desires—as the scholar informed them at great length and quite crossly.
(“I wasn’t cross,” Jon protests, “I was simply explaining—”
“I know, love,” Martin smiles. “But you can be a bit intimidating when you explain.”)
But their god is never gone for long, and he always returns to bring blessings to the valley again, the scholar from the city by his side. Their god has even chosen a name for himself, and while the people of the valley don’t quite see the need for him to have a name (“the god” has always been good enough for them), they respect his choice. Even if “Martin Blackwood” is a rather odd name for a god.
(“What’s so odd about Martin Blackwood?” Martin demands. “It’s a perfectly good name—it came from a book!”
“It’s a wonderful name,” Jon assures him. “Some people just lack imagination.”)
The story of the god and his scholar have spread far beyond the valley over the years, and from time to time another scholar will come from another city to investigate the truth of the tale. Martin always greets them kindly, though Jon is less welcoming. They remind him of how he first came here, treating the valley in fog as a curiosity—a mystery to be solved, with no care for the grief that lay behind it. Coming to the valley was the best choice he ever made; it brought him his love, and a new, more peaceful life. But still he sees his old self in those scholars with their relentless pursuit of knowledge, and it is not a resemblance he’s proud of.
The scholars always ask him the same questions: are you a priest of the god, does his divinity bestow any special favor upon you, why did he choose Martin Blackwood of all names? Jon scowls and answers the questions shortly. Martin is far more tolerant, speaking long and warmly of how Jon came to the valley, how they fell in love, how Jon encouraged him to travel to new places and learn new things.
“He changed my life,” Martin tells the latest scholar, his hand resting over Jon’s, the tingling buzz of his divinity dancing over Jon’s skin. “And for a life as long as mine has been, that’s saying a lot.”
“Isn’t it difficult, though?” the scholar asks, pen poised over her notebook. “To love a human—a mortal, knowing someday he will die.”
Martin shakes his head. “I don’t think about that,” he says.
Jon does, though. He has thought of it a lot, in the years since he first came to the valley. He has always been starkly aware of his own mortality, ever since his parents died in his childhood; it’s part of why he spent his youth in the pursuit of knowledge. The world was infinite, and his time here finite, and he wanted to understand as much as he could in the time he had.
(He’s found something more important than knowledge now, and infinitely more precious. Not that he isn’t still curious—he delights in journeying with Martin to new and interesting places, and he has taken up a congenial correspondance with his old temple, sharing what he learns on his travels and learning from them in return. But it is no longer the driving force of his life.)
Of course Jon’s death is many years away, barring an unfortunate accident. But in the existence of a god, the life of a human might as well be that of a mayfly, blinking in and out of being in an instant. And when he is gone, Martin will be alone again. Will he still travel, when Jon is dead? Will he go to new places and experience new things, take time for his own joys? Or will he fall back into his old life of endless servitude to the people who rely on him, the people he loves, never thinking of anything for himself?
Jon doesn’t know the answer, but he fears it.
*
It is late afternoon in the dead of winter. Snow blankets the ground outside the cottage that serves as the god’s shrine as well as their home, but inside there is warmth and light, a stew pot bubbling over the fire and easy conversation, brimming with laughter and affection.
A knock on the door brings a worried frown to Martin’s face. The harvest is long since in storage, and the animals have been taken in from the fields; there’s no reason for any of his people to come to him today, unless something has gone amiss. He opens the door with Jon standing at his shoulder, and sees two of the women from a nearby farmstead, with a huddled shape between them.
“Please,” says one of them. “We found her wandering on the edges of the valley two days ago, injured and cold. We brought her to the farm and tended her wounds, gave her food, but she will not speak of what happened.”
“She hasn’t said a single word,” adds the other.
“We thought perhaps…you could speak with her? Find out what happened to her, where she came from—if she has kin waiting for her.”
“Come inside,” Martin says, standing back from the door. The local women step inside, bowing their heads reverently, hustling their charge in with them. For her part, the stranger seems to have little care of where she is, walking wherever she is directed. Martin guides her to a seat near the fire, then turns to the farmers, his expression creased with worry.
“I’m not sure if there’s much I can do,” he admits. “But I’ll try to speak with her. Oh—would you like some stew?”
The women seem overwhelmed at being offered stew by their god, and graciously accept. Jon ladles stew into bowls and sits at the table with the locals, while Martin crouches beside the woman, speaking quietly to her. Jon can’t make out the words, but he recognizes the warm, gentle tone, the kindness and caring Martin shows his people extending easily to this stranger. He does not hear the woman reply, and after several minutes, Martin gets up and joins them at the table with a sigh.
“She will not speak to me,” he says. “I’m not sure she hears me at all—something has hurt her heart deeply, and she has retreated from the world. I’m sorry.”
Jon glances over at the huddled, silent figure, and suddenly, inexplicably, he is certain that he needs to speak with her.
“Let me try,” he says, getting to his feet. The two farmers give him doubtful looks, and even Martin seems hesitant, but Jon is already crossing the room and crouching in front of the woman. He does not know why, but he knows without question what he must do.
“Will you look at me?” he asks. Slowly, the woman raises her head. There is a healing cut on her cheek, and her eyes are shadowed and fearful, but she meets his gaze, something like recognition there. Jon smiles, and offers her his hands, palms turned up.
“You can tell me what happened to you, if you’d like,” he says gently. “I think you’ll feel better if you do.”
The woman stares at him, long and hard, and then she nods minutely and places her hands in his. In a voice that starts hesitant, whispering, yet becomes more sure by the moment, she tells of how her traveling party were caught unawares by bandits in the mountains. All of her companions—her family and friends—were slain brutally, and she barely escaped in the cover of a snowstorm. She speaks of her fear, her grief, and Jon feels those things as she does, his heart aching with them. There is a feeling of absolute rightnessto it; he was meant to share in her burden, to offer her this catharsis.
There are tears running down her wounded face as she comes to the end of the story, and Jon can feel the tracks of tears on his own cheeks. She grips his hands tight, and whispers: “Thank you. I—I do feel better. Or at least, I think I will.”
A while later she leaves with the women from the farm, who promise she has a place in their home for as long as she wants it. She smiles gratefully at Jon as she leaves, and the locals give him questioning looks, and then Martin closes the door and turns to look at him. Jon doesn’t know what to say. He can still feel the woman’s grief and pain, a deep ache in the heart of him, yet along with it there is a bone deep satisfaction and a feeling like lightning running under his skin; he feels like he might scream or shudder apart or burst into flames, but it feels good. It feels like what he was always meant for.
“Martin,” he starts hesitantly, “I—”
“Your eyes,” says Martin, his voice full of wonder. “Look!” He rushes into their bedroom and returns with the little hand mirror they keep there, holding it up for Jon to see. Instead of their usual dark brown, Jon’s eyes are shining green, as brightly as Martin’s eyes shine blue.
As brightly as a god’s eyes.
Martin makes jasmine tea while Jon sits by the fire, waiting for his hands to stop trembling. At last the frantic energy abates, the lightning beneath his skin settling down into a warm glow at his core. Martin presses the teacup into his hands and sits beside him, his shoulder pressed to Jon’s.
“Tell me what it felt like,” he asks, so Jon does; the certainty that he could help, the way he had felt the woman’s pain as she spoke, had taken it into himself. The lightning beneath his skin, a feeling like the spark of Martin’s divinity when they touch, but running straight through Jon’s veins and nerves, right down to his bones. Martin listens quietly, sipping his tea.
“What does it mean?” Jon asks plaintively, at the end. Martin thinks for a moment.
“I’m not sure,” he says. “But you helped her, in a way nobody else could. You felt her grief, shared her burden. Gave her strength to continue on. To me, that sounds a lot like something a god would do.”
Jon feels his face go hot, his stomach flipping over. “I—I’m not a god,that’s not—that’s impossible! You don’t just…become a god.”
“Don’t you?” Martin asks mildly. “Where do gods come from, then?”
“That’s a, uh, a matter of a lot of debate in academic circles,” Jon says. “It seems there are…several different paths to divinity. Some gods simply arise from the inherent mystic power of the universe, some are born of other immortal beings, or lifted to godhood through great acts that touch the divine—”
“Perhaps like a man who once cared for a god in his grief, helped to shoulder his burden when he was deep in despair? Who acted as a lantern in the fog for him, until he could find his way out? Who’s to say that the universe wouldn’t want such a man to act as a guiding light for others—a lantern in the fog for all the world?”
Jon says nothing, overwhelmed. His chest feels tight with the enormity of emotion, and there’s something welling up beneath it that might be hope.
I could stay, he thinks. I could stay with you always, I’d never have to leave you alone.
“I don’t know the truth of it, Jon,” Martin says. “For all I’m a god myself, I have no insight; all I can do is speculate. But I know that were I the great authority of the universe, I couldn’t imagine a kinder gift to the world than you.”
“Martin…” is all Jon can say, turning to him. Martin—his god, his beloved—pulls him close, and holds him there for a long time.
After a few hours Jon’s eyes do return to their usual brown, though if he looks closely in the mirror he thinks he can still see the sparks of green in their depths. Beyond that, it seems nothing else has changed, and for days he tries not to think about it. The implications are so vast, so overwhelming, that not thinking about it seems the most sensible course; there’s no way to test his potential godhood, so there’s little to be gained by mulling over it.
It’s maybe a week later when they go down to the village. Jon teasingly refers to it as Martin walking among his worshippers, and Martin rolls his eyes and says that Jon can go to fetch the supplies by himself if he prefers. They walk together in the end, boots splashing in the mud where the snowmelt has turned the ground soft. In the village market the people are always glad to see their god, and press their finest goods upon him while Martin protests that he and Jon only have four hands between them, and there’s only so much they can carry. Jon is engrossed in examining some pretty wooden carvings that a young woman is selling, and he doesn’t notice the man coming up alongside him until there’s a tap on his shoulder.
“Excuse me,” says the man, and Jon smiles expectantly, sure he’s about to be asked to request a favor from Martin: some blessing on a field or remedy for a sick animal. Instead, the man says: “I heard that you listen to people’s stories. Bad things that have happened, I mean. I heard that it helps?”
“Oh,” says Jon. “I, uh…”
“It’s just, my wife passed away, recently. She was ill for a long time, but losing her was still—” The man’s voice breaks, and Jon can see the tears clouding his eyes. “I was hoping, if there’s anything you can do?”
He leaves the request hanging, and how can Jon say no to that? Even if he feels like a fraud, how could he possibly say no? He tells Martin what he’s doing, and then he goes and sits in the man’s house, with the mementoes of his wife all around, and he takes the man’s hands in his and asks for his story. The man tells of his wife’s long illness, the weight of it on them both, and the far greater weight of her loss. The feeling that there is nothing beyond this, that he might as well be dead alongside her. Jon feels that pain in his own heart, takes that burden onto his own shoulders, enough to let this man see that there is a future. That there will be something after his grief.
“Thank you,” the man sobs at the end, gripping Jon’s hands like a plank in the ocean. “Thank you.”
When they return to the village square, Martin gives him a smile full of sheer adoration, and takes Jon’s hand in his. “Your eyes are green again,” he says.
Jon sighs. “I’m going to have to tell the Temple about this, aren’t I?”
“They’ll likely hear about it one way or another—it might as well be from you.” Martin’s smile turns mischievous. “Does this mean we’ll finally get a visit from your esteemed mentor?”
“Oh hell,” Jon groans. Of course Elias won’t pass up a chance to see this for himself, one of his own students, becoming a god—or something like one, at least? He’s not sure they’ll ever be rid of the man.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” says Martin. “And I very much look forward to meeting him, after all you’ve told me.”
“All right,” says Jon, “I’ll let Elias know. But don’t say I didn’t warn you—and he is not staying with us.”
“Whatever you say, love,” says Martin, and kisses his cheek.
*
The people of the valley tell a story about their gods. One god, they explain, cares for the life of the valley. He makes sure the soft rains fall in spring, and in summer the sun shines on the growing crops; in the winter he gentles the freezing winds, and protects the valley from the worst of the frost. Their other god cares for the hearts of the people. Where there is grief and pain he brings comfort and support, a healing of the soul and a promise that there will be life beyond sorrow.
Their gods are not always in the valley, they tell the visitors who come from far and wide. At times they travel into the world beyond, to share their gifts with those who are not fortunate enough to live in the most blessed of valleys.
(“And because they are their own people who they don’t belong to us, and they deserve a holiday once in a while,” the people of the valley add, with a reverence that implies this was explained to them at length and with considerablefervor.)
If visitors are lucky enough to arrive when the gods are in residence, the people of the valley point them towards the little cottage on the hillside that acts as a shrine. There is always a fire in the hearth, when the gods are there, usually with a tea kettle or a pot of stew bubbling over it. Those who visit the shrine are welcomed warmly (though anyone wearing scholar’s robes gets a cool, skeptical eye from one of the residents) and if they need help, the gods of the valley give it freely.
And if anyone thinks that Martin Blackwood and Jonathan Sims are rather unusual names for gods, well, they keep that to themselves.
Martin notices it first in front of the bathroom mirror, one morning while he’s brushing his teeth. He frowns at his reflection, leans in and squints to make sure it’s not just a trick of the light, grasping at the offending lock of hair.
“What are you looking at?” asks Jon, who’s pottering around in the cabinet behind him.
“I’m going gray,” Martin says. It’s unmistakable now he looks at it, silvery strands scattered among the red-blond of his hair. Not as stark a contrast as the gray in Jon’s black hair, which is probably why he didn’t notice it until now, but definitely apparent. Jon pops into the frame of his reflection, peering at the crown of Martin’s head.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, as if it’s a mildly interesting fact. He kisses Martin on the cheek. “Welcome to the club, love.”
He doesn’t sound at all sympathetic.
The gray hair is just the start of it. After that, Martin starts to notice all sorts of other things; the way his knees creak, the twinge in his lower back if he’s slept on it funny the night before, the involuntary grunt of exertion that escapes him when he gets up from a low-riding chair. Hangovers are the worst part. Not that he’s ever been a wild party animal, but these days if he so much as looks at a glass of Sauvignon Blanc the wrong way he gets an all day headache.
There’s no two ways about it: he’s getting old.
“I’m getting old,” he complains while searching for the glasses he’s recently started wearing to read. Jon, who’s worn glasses since he was a kid, snorts.
“Yes, well, that’s linear time for you.”
“I’m getting old,” he despairs when his joints ache the day after they went hill walking; it wasn’t even that steep of a climb. Jon gives him a sympathetic look and pats his shoulder.
“I’ll get you a hot water bottle.”
“I’m getting old,” he mutters groggily when he’s shaken awake from where he fell asleep in front of the telly. Jon just smiles and kisses the crown of his head.
“Time for bed, old man.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?” he demands, while they’re having lunch in their local pub one Sunday afternoon.
“What’s that?” asks Jon, eating some Yorkshire pudding.
“Gettingold. It’s one of those things, you know? You never think it’ll actually happen to you.”
Jon pauses for a moment, considering seriously. He always considers his answers seriously, no matter how frivolous the question; it’s one of the many things Martin loves about him. Finally, he shakes his head.
“No, it doesn’t bother me.” Then he frowns. “It bothers youthough.”
“I mean…a bit? I know that probably makes me sound shallow or something. It’s just—I spent my whole twenties working at the Institute and worrying about being found out, and then years being actively terrorized by our evil boss, and I dunno, it just kind of feels like I missed out on being young? Like that was something the Eye…took from me. From us.”
“Oh,” says Jon, his expression going soft and sad.
“It’s stupid, I know.”
“It’snot,” Jon insists, reaching across the table to lay his hand on top of Martin’s. “You’re right—the Eye took all that from us. I spent my thirtieth birthday in a coma.” He gives a sardonic little laugh, and Martin’s heart hurts for him; it always does, even after all this time, when he thinks of Jon lying in that hospital bed.
“Jon…”
Jon shakes his head. “I’m not trying to make this about me, I just mean…all that—what we lost—it bothers me, of course, but getting older doesn’t.” He smiles. “Did you know that we’ve now officially been here longer than we worked together at the Institute—and…all the rest?”
“We have?” Martin frowns, calculating in his head, and wow…Jon is right. How did he not notice the time passing by like that? Their life here, in this world that’s so like their own—though not exactly—has become comfortable. Well worn and familiar, like a favorite jumper that you scarcely even notice you’re wearing, it fits so perfectly.
“Almost six years now,” Jon confirms. “We’ve been here together for longer than we even knew each other back there. Getting older doesn’t bother me, because every ache and pain and gray hair is a reminder that the Institute, Jonah Magnus—all of it is in our past. This is our life, and I want to live it together until we’re properly old—absolutely ancient—until the time we’ve been together is mostof our lives. That sounds pretty wonderful to me.”
“That…sounds pretty wonderful to me, too,” says Martin. There’s a lump rising in his throat and a suspicious wetness in his eyes that he has to blink away. He grips Jon’s hand tighter across the table, and smiles at him. Jon smiles back, and Martin sees the precise moment it turns into a mischievous smirk.
“Of course, if you want to dye your hair and go clubbing, I’ll fully support you,” says Jon, and a helpless huff of laughter escapes Martin’s lips.
“Oh shut up,” he says affectionately.
“No, really,” Jon continues, grinning like a Cheshire cat now. “Maybe you should look into getting a sports car? I hear that’s a classic move when you’re having a midlife crisis.”
“So is trading in your partner for someone younger,” says Martin with a mock glare, but the effect is ruined when Jon bursts out laughing, and then Martin’s laughing properly too, tears of mirth running down his cheeks.
“Seriously though,” says Jon when they’ve both recovered. “The way you’re feeling—it’s normal. People worry about getting older. If you want to talk about it any time, I promise I’ll listen.”
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Martin says; honestly, he feels better already. Jon smiles.
“Of course, love,” he says, and then: “It’s the least I can do for a venerated elder of the community.”
“Oi!” Martin grins, and then they’re laughing again, and everything’s good. The past is in the past, and the future is theirs to live, and everything’s good.
Feels like time to take my leave of Tumblr, but I’ll still be writing fic when the mood takes me. Here’s a post with links to the fic I’ve written over the past year or so.
Berena
What Happens Next? - my first ever fic, an imaginatively titled follow-on from The Kill List aka Bernie and Serena’s first time(s). Basically a clumsy first go at a bit of smut.
Candy Floss - a fluffy one-shot where Bernie takes Serena to a theme park. Wrote this before everything Went To Shit after Christmas.
Keeping Watch - 701 words of misery aka Bernie takes Serena home from the hospital after Elinor dies. I have no idea why I wrote it.
A CampWolfe Christmas Tale - my take on Bernie and Serena’s first Christmas together. Includes a very, very sappy final chapter.
Synonyms - a second attempt at smut, and rather better than the first, I think.
Ships in the Night - sickly sweet domestic fluff written for the Holby Fic Contest way back when. Needless to say, it did not feature among the winners.
Sharper Than A Thousand Swords - another ficlet that I wrote for the contest. Basically Bernie being all stoic while Serena grieves. Deservedly ignored by voters.
Black And Grey - tiny ficlet in which Bernie has a tattoo that Serena likes. Have so far resisted the strong temptation to delete it.
Per Angusta Ad Augusta - multichapter AU featuring Serena as the Head of Science at St Winifred’s School for Girls, and Bernie as the newly appointed Pastoral Care Officer. Slow burn.
Here - smutty epilogue to Per Angusta Ad Augusta, featuring Serena Campbell pressed against a leather-topped desk. Because.
Make My Wish Come True - a third instalment from the world of Per Angusta: their first Christmas together. I am completely in love with this version of Bernie and at this point writing for my own benefit.
Time And Again - time-travel AU. I think it’s a bit better than that makes it sound.
The Way Home - written for the reunion prompt during Berena Appreciation Week. At this point we knew that Bernie would be gone before Serena came back to Holby. I have no idea how good or bad this is objectively, but I like it.
Sometimes When We Touch - a few snapshots of touches between our gals. Just little moments that plagued my imagination and needed a home.
A Call And A Response - more smut, hurrah! Wrote this in a cafe, surrounded by old ladies, woohahahaha.
Very Much Confined To Theatre - crack!fic in which Frederik turns up with his gun on the same day as Brave New World takes place.
Kate Stewart
It’s Friday I’m In Love - ages ago I complained to @ana-khouri that I couldn’t write a Kate Stewart fic because I was obsessed with her coming home from work to her wife and a dog, and then Kate Stewart Appreciation Week came along and I thought, why not.
The Coincidence - some people wanted to know how Kate met her wife, and this happened.
He drops to his knees too fast and he can feel his joints protesting. He’s too old for this shit, the marble hard and cold and unforgiving in a way he’s gonna pay for later. But that’s an irrelevant problem for future Tony. A Tony that is not consumed by the feel of powerful, muscular thighs under his hands. Thighs he wants wrapped around his hips while they rut against each other until both of them forget their names, forget their history, forget all the good reasons why they shouldn’t be doing this.
OR
Bucky gets hurt during a mission. Tony is grudgingly worried. Angry sex ensues.
I just did something I have never done before, and commissioned an illustration for one of my fics! This gorgeous image was created for me by the awesomely talented @hollow-head, based on my WIP, The Allure of Fungi. I’m so delighted with it!A million thanks for crafting such a spot of sweetness and light for me during this bizarre trainwreck of a year.
Here is my iwaoi Vinculum zine fic, into the deep night, that I finally uploaded onto ao3! I had a blast working this & being part of the zine w/ so many other talented people! Thank you @vinculumiwaoifanzine for making it such a pleasant experience for me! I hope y’all enjoy!~
