Summer Break – 13.3
Author: Wildbow

Summer Break – 13.3 | Pale

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In the time she’d spent alone, between starting high school and the start of spring when she’d been introduced to Lucy and Verona by Miss, Avery had gone off on her own a lot.  She’d sometimes get dropped off to practice for soccer or hockey, then walk or bike home, or she’d walk or bike and then get driven home.  It all depended on what the plans were for dinner, if Grumble was struggling, if Kerry had a birthday party or the availability of the cars with Rowan taking Laurie out.  Sometimes getting picked up and driven home meant getting picked up, dragged along for last-minute grocery shopping or picking up takeout with Sheridan, Declan, or Kerry whining, or Grumble slowing everything down, and it was easier to just walk.

If she ignored the fact that it left her alone with thoughts, she’d liked the walking.

Sometimes she’d escape the noise of the house and bike, go for a jog, or pick up basics like milk and bread, and she’d hope to see Pam, maybe smile and wave, and be too chicken to approach her.

She was glad she’d left Pam on a bit of a high note, after the Maricica thing.

It had trained her wrong, though.  Every time she was out with Lucy and Verona, if she let herself get caught up in her own thoughts, she’d accidentally go one-and-a-half times as fast as they did, and after realizing the people she was talking to were falling behind, would end up turning and waiting, or she’d walk backwards, or move to a higher-difficulty venue for walking, like balancing on the band at the edge of the sidewalk, or atop short stone walls bordering gardens.

Except doing that sorta required there be talking; right now only Zed and Brie were really talking quietly between themselves, which she hadn’t wanted to intrude on, and her own thoughts were occupied with the upcoming dinner and ritual.  She reached the intersection at the end of the block, Snowdrop walking beside her, and turned around to see they were trailing a ways behind, lost in their own thoughts.

The sound of a motorcycle made her head turn, and made everyone stop in their tracks.

Witch Hunter?

Nope.  The sound swelled, and it was too loud.  A sweaty balding guy roared down the street at way too high a speed, popping a one-inch wheelie while his motorcycle roared, too loud.  He’d done something to it.

Just a dickweed.

They’d all been lost in thought or private conversation and then they’d been snapped to battle-readiness, and now as they got to grips with things again, they realized the distance between them, where they stood.

Avery, a bit ahead of them in getting a sense of all that asked, “How are you guys doing?  Lucy?”

“I’m- I asked myself a lot of questions in the middle part, and asked a fake version of John some of those questions.  I’m not sure what the answers are.”

“What questions?” Avery asked.

“I felt like a god, I could make Others, I could see everything related to my domain, I could make the big decisions and change the course of events, decide on forswearing… and I couldn’t do anything about what mattered.  Not without… bad consequences, I guess.”

“Does get you thinking about what they might be trying to do, dealing with those consequences,” Verona said.  “A statement?  A longer term plan?”

“You okay, Ronnie?  It’s been a little bit since you did the thing, you ended early,” Avery observed.

“Digs into you, y’know?” Verona asked.  “You see the big picture and you see yourself in that big picture.  Takes that thing that’s been niggling at the back of your head for the last long while and drops a version of it onto your head that’s the size of the Carmine Territory.  Most of Ontario, that really populated southeastern corner excepted, and some of Manitoba.”

“There is no justice in the world?” Lucy asked.  “You’ve been betraying yourself and your ideals, maybe now you’re broken and there’s no fixing it?”

“Or maybe you’re stuck on a path you knew goes to bad places and hey, it goes to a bad place,” Verona said.

“Uhhhhhhh,” Avery replied.  She was drawing a complete mental blank in the face of that.

“Hmm, not uh,” Lucy said.

“Hmmmmm!” Avery forced the sound, which got a smile out of Lucy.  “Are you guys okay?  Am I going to be okay?”

“Hope so and hope so,” Verona replied.  “Hey, Zed!”

“What’s up?” Zed asked.

“I wanted to zero in on the bit where you guys aren’t necessarily okay,” Avery said.

“We can get to that, um, Zed, yeah, is every Alcazar like that?”

“I only had some snapshots through my computer, so I don’t know the whole picture of what it was like.  My ability to answer that depends on what you mean and the details required.”

“Becoming the Carmine, in a way?”

“Oh.  No.”

“So… why?”

“It could be it’s powerful enough it presses in on you, gets past the skin?”

“Or the pattern?” Verona asked.  “The furs are meant to be worn?  There’s a whole thing about stealing an Alabaster’s skin, and Musser talked about wearing the furs potentially, for the power.”

“Yeah.  That’s definitely a thing.  Yeah,” Zed said, nodding.  “This is educational.  Spooky, but educational.”

“Spooky is right,” Avery replied.  “But you’re okay?  Ish?  Mostly?”

“It’s stuff to sit on and think about for a while,” Lucy said.  “I’m not going to shatter into pieces or have a breakdown.”

“Yeah,” Verona said.  “Maybe… I was definitely worried about Lucy going in, and I worry about you, and I even thought about calling it off, but…  if you’re not feeling strong, maybe bail?”

“It’s not that,” Avery said.  “And we need this, right?  I committed?”

“Sure,” Verona said.

“On your arm,” Jessica said.

Avery turned around a hundred and eighty degrees to look at Jessica.  She lifted her left arm, with the collection of the white ribbon she’d added to remind herself of the trail, black rope, two friendship bracelets, the charm bracelet, and the wooden bead bracelet for detecting if they were being watched.  They had a way of bunching up around the wrist, but she’d adjusted their lengths a bit while bored in her room, and they mostly sat where they should.  Her barometer, the treated friendship bracelet for checking her current status was okay, at a glance.  “Yeah?”

“Mementos?”

“Sure.  Uh, tools, mostly.  Some mementos.  Some are both.”

“I don’t know much about Alcazars, only what I learned at the school, which is mostly what Zed knows.”

“Different angle, background.  Can matter,” Zed said.

“Yeah,” Jessica said, shrugging.  “Um, but for going through something tough for the sake of something important to you?  I know about that.  Hold onto those mementos.  Touchstones are important.”

Avery nodded.

“When you get into trouble, I’ll ditch you, I’ll be free of you forever,” Snowdrop said.

The kid smiled at her, toothy, and Avery messed up Snowdrop’s hair.  Snowdrop was wearing the headphones, and a top with black sequins on white and a front pocket, the sequins spelling out ‘Mar-super-ial’.

They walked, Snowdrop fixing her hair with fingernails, before Avery messed them up, prompting another hair-combing.  On the third muss-up of Snowdrop’s hair, Snow mock-bit her.

“Could Charles take the throne?  Would he get consumed?” Lucy asked.

“That depends on a lot, I think,” Zed said.  “Getting into Brie’s situation, we’ve looked into the worst case scenarios and stuff.  You know, if she couldn’t keep the Choir bound.  Durocher was a big help.”

“A lot of it went over my head and she doesn’t really hold back, you know?” Brie asked.

“Got that impression,” Lucy said.

“I wonder how she drives,” Verona mused.

“Um, but there are people who try to host things bigger than they can manage and it just kind of explodes out of them and for the rest of their lives they’re a bit of a constant explosion.  You can even manage that as a practitioner, channeling the explosion, divine power pouring into your surroundings-”

“Or any sufficiently major power,” Zed clarified.

“Yeah,” Brie said.  “Sometimes lesser gods will push those things out on purpose, creating harbingers to pave the way for the god’s influence, or an especially bad cursed item goes that way.  The Choir could’ve done that, or it might’ve been something I had to do.  It’d be like… the music and the kids are always around, unless I expend power to hold it back for a while.”

“That sounds miserable,” Avery said.

“If that’s the way things had to go, to keep the Choir from hurting people, I could’ve put up with it,” Brie replied.  “I’m glad I didn’t.”

“Same,” Avery said, flashing a smile as Brie glanced at her.

“There are ways to use the power you get to manage your power, but I think to do that you need to be like… Durocher.”

“You need precedent,” Zed clarified.

“Which Charles doesn’t have,” Lucy pointed out.

“Right.”

“We were debating Jabber being a power source,” Verona mused.  “Could he use that to juice himself?”

“He’d have to be here,” Avery pointed out.  “And Ray’s got him?”

“Ray’s got him,” Zed confirmed.

“One option,” Brie said.  “There are other ways the power can overwhelm you.  I talked about worst case scenarios with Durocher.  There are cases where the power is managed, you seal it in, the bindings hold, but you’re there, you’re caught in there with the power.”

“Consumes you?”

“That’s one option,” Brie said.  “We figured there was a chance if the bindings were strong but the Choir got weak or weird enough the benefit it granted me started getting shaky, the choir could take my mind and Self.  Which would leave me stark raving mad, possibly trying to mess up the bindings, cutting or clawing them out of my skin or something.”

“Bleaugrhgh,” Avery made a sound, shuddering whole-body.

“Yeah.  I would’ve been less cool with that,” Brie said.

“Me too, as it happens,” Zed said, rubbing her arm with the back of his hand.  She smiled sadly at him.

Brie turned to Avery.  “We decided it was best to have an emergency vent.  I’d rather have kids start spilling out, singing, and causing a fuss than… that.”

“Sensible,” Verona said.

Brie went on, “There was another scenario, sort of related, it’s not a binding in a person, but sometimes when there’s something really awful, you get someone who drags the scary Other or the practice that’s gone out of control into an area and they lock themselves in with it.  Shut out Death itself, make themselves custodians and long-term wardens of this seal they need to keep shut.  They’ll stay there so long, cut off from the rest of humanity, so tied into the upkeep of the wards and stuff, that you get people who become one with the area.  A guy turned partially to stone, melded into the chair he’s sitting in and the floor, watching over the hole in the ground with some demon or something in it.  They’ll do it on purpose, because it’s that important, or the practitioner family will pick someone to handle it and shove them in there before locking the door.  Or something.”

“Okay… so, sorry, where were we going with this?” Lucy asked.

“That… sometimes you gotta plan for the worst case.  Sometimes you have to account for the fact you’re going to get consumed.  You aim to do one thing, like keep someone or something safe, or keep the thing that’s inevitably going to destroy you from escaping.”

“Or make one big move on the way out?” Avery asked.

“Seems like Miss has longer-term goals in mind, and these guys are doing something shorter-term,” Lucy said.  “Maybe super short term?”

“Red tape and messing up the assholes and the losers,” Verona murmured.

“Let’s not give them the chance,” Lucy said.  “We’ll have to check on Ken.”

“And-” Avery started.

Her bracelet shifted.

She, Lucy, and Verona looked around.  Avery spotted the culprits.

Melissa, in the company of Jeremy and Wallace.  Jeremy and Wallace were carrying bags of stuff.  Jeremy shuffled bags around and then raised a hand in a wave.

“Oh damn it,” Verona muttered under her breath.

“It’s good, it’s nice,” Lucy said.  She raised her voice.  “Heya!”

“Who?” Jessica murmured, to Avery.

“Melissa with the crimped hair is the girl Nicolette kinda crippled on her visit this spring, Wallace with the bleached blond hair is the boy Lucy went on a date with, and the black haired gawky kid is Jeremy, who Verona is decidedly… not dating?  Is that fair?”

“Fair,” Verona said.  “We’re friends.”

Zed frowned.  “All together, in times like this?  Is it a scheme, or-”

“It’s a small town, Zed,” Lucy told him.  “I don’t think it’s anything nefarious.”

Their groups sorta kept walking forward until they came together.

“Hey,” Lucy said.  “What’s up?”

“Cat stuff,” Jeremy said.  “Melissa enlisted me for help.  I carry cat food and litter, I get time with Sir.  I dragged Wallace along.”

“Nice deal,” Verona said.

“For them,” Wallace said.  “I wanted to play video games, but Jeremy brought it up and my mom thought we should get exercise before dinner.”

Jeremy looked at Verona.  “I texted, actually.”

“Oh, we were- Lucy and I have wet hair, so, you can guess.”

“Right, right.”

“Turned our phones off, stretching out battery life and stuff,” Verona said.  “I’ve got a bunch of messages to catch up on.  My head’s been somewhere else.”

Technically, we were avoiding interference with the ritual.

“I thought you were grounded,” Wallace said.

“Snuck out,” Lucy replied.

“Daring.”

“Needed to,” Lucy said.  “How are you?  Melissa’s not abusing you?”

“Abuse?  Making me out to be the bad guy here?” Melissa groused.

“Melissa’s an upstanding person who never stole cigarettes from my friend Louise,” Snowdrop said.

Melissa gave Snowdrop a funny look.

“I’m carrying the lighter stuff, with my shoulders and elbows being weird.  Empty kennel and some toys,” Wallace lifted the bag.

“Melissa,” Avery admonished.  “I know it’s been a while since soccer…”

“Huh?”

“You’re still strong enough to carry some of the stuff for your own cat,” Avery said.  “C’mon, poor Jeremy and Wallace.”

“I’m a cripple,” Melissa said, lifting up the cane.  “And I’m a girl.  It’s my prerogative to have boys lift for me.”

“I might be a scrawny boi, but I can show off sometimes,” Jeremy said, pronouncing ‘boy’ a bit funny.

“Bicep check,” Verona said, prompting Jeremy to move the big sagging bags around again and then flex with the one arm.  She felt up his arm and made a cooing sound, which made him flush.  Verona laughed.

The fact Wallace had his issues with his joints sorta went unspoken, it seemed.

“So you’re escaping, going swimming…?” Wallace asked.

“Drenching ourselves in river water on a hot day,” Lucy clarified.

“Who are these guys?”

“Friends, from the summer thing I told you about.  They’re in town.  Zed, Jessica, Brie, Snowdrop.  Meet Melissa, Wallace, Jeremy.”

“I’ve met the little rat,” Melissa said.

Snowdrop hissed.

“The summer thing with swordfighting?” Wallace asked.

“I was more about the geekery and guiding troubled kids,” Zed said, surreptitiously jerking a thumb toward them.

“Hey,” Avery said, pushing the thumb down and away.

“Ahh.  We like geekery,” Wallace said.

“Speak for yourself,” Melissa said.

“I’ll rephrase.  Jeremy and I like geekery.”

“Zed is into some pretty cool stuff,” Verona said.  “Would blow your mind.  Um, Jessica  was sort of an attendee more than a counselor, but she did a cool ghost ritual thing one day.  Ended badly, though.”

“Maybe don’t dive into that,” Avery said.

“A ghost thing that ends badly is the best way isn’t it?  Exciting?” Jeremy asked.

“Someone spoiled it all at the end,” Lucy said.

“Oh, damn.”

“I’m mostly over it,” Jessica said.  The tone of her voice changed.  “The person who was behind the scenes of that particular spoiling met an unfortunate end.”

“Wait, what?” Jeremy asked.

Jessica only smiled a bit.

“Bit of quid-pro-quo?” Verona asked Jessica.  “Since I was the one who drove him to that end?”

Jessica smiled at her too.

“Oh, haha,” he said, a little nervous now.  “Playing up the ghost story for me too, now?”

“I didn’t mean to bring up a sore point, I was mostly autopiloting through descriptions, sorry,” Verona said.

“Maybe don’t autopilot so much with this stuff?” Lucy asked.

“Anyway!  There’s also Brie, Zed’s-”

“Girl?” Zed asked, looking at Brie.  “Is that possessive?”

“I can put up with it,” Brie said, putting an arm around his waist.

“I like the tattoos.”

“Reminds me, I need to stop somewhere before dinner,” Brie told Zed.

“For sure,” Zed replied.

“Anyway, they came into town, they’re coming over for dinner,” Verona said.

“So we can’t hang out?” Jeremy asked.

“I’d love to see Sir, but nah.  We should do another art session-”

“You have art sessions?” Melissa asked.  “That sounds so dull.”

“You are so wrong, Melissa,” Verona said.  “So wrong.”

Jeremy flushed noticeably.  Either other people didn’t notice what Avery had spotted, or they were gracefully looking away.

“Are we still on for after… after?  After grounding?  Summer?” Wallace asked Lucy.

“I hope so!” Lucy said, her tone and expression a bit brighter.

“Amadeus invited me over for a hang-out, I don’t think that would’ve happened if we hadn’t gone with them,” Wallace said.  “So that’s cool.”

“Mia texted me, too,” Lucy said.  “I think they’re slightly older, so they want to hang out with people who are teenagers, and not kids, kind of?”

“Don’t get me started on Mia,” Melissa grumbled.

“Wasn’t going to,” Lucy said.

“Didn’t think of myself as ever being part of the in-group,” Wallace said.  “Group part of the group date was awkward- hope you don’t mind that verdict.”

“Nope.”

“But paid off in other ways, I guess?  Social promotion?”

“They’ll drop you as fast as they raise you up.  They literally dropped me,” Melissa said.

“Something to watch for, but social promotion, yeah, looks like,” Lucy replied.  “I guess we’ll see when the new semester starts.”

“Uggh, don’t remind me,” Melissa groaned.

“Amen,” Jeremy said.  “Don’t remind me.”

“Anyway, poor Jeremy is carrying the heavy stuff,” Wallace said, “We’re making him stand around while we blather.”

“I’m disproportionately strong for how scrawny I am,” Jeremy said.

Wallace turned to Lucy, “I will awkwardly say I look forward to hanging out again, how’s that?  Lunch at school, at the very least?”

“At the very least, but let’s definitely aim for more than that, a date or something” Lucy said.  “I know last time was a bust, but maybe some other time?  Jeremy?”

Verona turned to Lucy.

“What, a group date?” Jeremy asked.

“Or sit and hang at lunchtime?”

“Maybe, yeah, that’d be nice,” Jeremy said, eyebrows knitting together for a second.  “A date would be awkward, we’re not really…”

He looked to Verona, as if hoping for a cue.  Verona was staring at Lucy, and gave him nothing as a result.

“…We’re friends,” Jeremy said.

“Art hang out?” Verona took her eyes off Lucy only midway through the first question, glancing at him.  “Sometime later?”

“For sure.”

“And you,” Verona told Melissa.  “Give me Sir time.  Let’s pretend I’m going to do horrible things to you if you don’t.”

“Or you can tell me secret stuff in exchange for time with the cat, hm?” Melissa asked.  “You three can’t keep using me and throwing me away.”

“We’ll talk, if we can,” Verona said.  “Anyhoo, we’ll let you go before Jeremy stops being able to hold up those bags.”

“Give me credit!”

“Later,” Wallace said.

The groups parted ways.  Wallace leaned in to ask Jeremy something.  Jeremy shook his head.

Verona gave Lucy another long look.

“That wasn’t cool,” Avery said.

“In general, or-?” Lucy asked.

“What you did with Jer,” Avery said.

“Thank you for saying that,” Verona said, terse.  “So I don’t have to.”

“I thought maybe I could sound him out-”

“I talked to him, I laid out boundaries.  I did it again when he had questions and needed clarification,” Verona told Lucy, still terse, every word controlled.  “You gave me a reminder the other day.  I used it, he and I chatted.  He said, general quote, he doesn’t want to mess with the working formula we’ve got.”

“That’s great,” Lucy said.

“What you did wasn’t.”

“Okay, it’s- it’s been a long day, I pushed too hard, I didn’t know you’d talked to him, I screwed up.  How’s that?”

“It’s a start,” Verona told Lucy.  “We’re going to have a conversation, okay?  When Zed, Brie, and Jessica aren’t having to stand around and feel awkward about it.  Ave, you and Snow can be part of that convo if you want.  Referee, tell me I’m being an ass, get yelled at by me, whatever.”

“So it’s not a conversation, exactly?” Lucy asked.  “You want to yell at me and you’re bottling it up?”

“Whatever it ends up being, it can wait.  I can sort out my thoughts in the meantime, figure out what to say.”

“Simmering,” Lucy replied.

“Sorting out,” Verona said, pointedly.

This didn’t feel good.  Avery smoothed down Snowdrop’s hair as Verona started walking, and walked past her.  Avery joined Verona, glancing back to make sure the others were following.  Lucy in the middle of the pack, frowning, Zed was murmuring in Brie’s ear, figuring out what had just happened.  Jessica trailed behind a bit.

“Gotta stop by the car,” Zed said.  “Brie’s going to clean up, I’ll change.”

“We need to sneak into the house,” Lucy said, indicating her and Verona.  “So that works.”

With that brief exchange on the subject of strategy and getting organized, things didn’t really pick up.  Conversation had halted.

Didn’t feel good.

“Your dad pulled up,” Verona informed Avery.

“I know,” Avery replied.  Snowdrop was up in a tree with Cherrypop, watching.  “Please tell me he didn’t bring my siblings.”

“I can’t tell.”

“Zed?” Jasmine asked.  “You okay helping to chop?”

“Don’t make guests do work.”

“I’d love to chop,” Zed said.  “I like helping.  What am I chopping, and how small?”

“Carrots, into coins, quarter-inch.”

“You got it.”

“And you are into computers?”

“I am apprenticed to a person who is very into computers, and I’ve been really fortunate to be pseudo-adopted by him and I’ve been taught a ton.”

“And what sort of things does he do, then?”

“One of the big ones is an online portal for certain texts, papers, and resources.  International.”

“If things haven’t changed much since the days of my nursing education, we’re in dire need of a better system for academic papers.  Organic chem stands out in my memory.”

“From what I hear organic chemistry stands out in the memory of anyone who takes it.”

“Doing the research portion of one of those papers could’ve been the low point of my nursing education, but I wasn’t that lucky.”

“Oh no.  Tougher class?  Or teacher?”

“I shouldn’t have said that.  No, just life, compounded by having two young kids.  But you persevere.”

There was a knock at the door.  Jasmine had grimy hands, and elbowed the lever of the sink to start the water and quickly rinse.

“I think that’s my dad,” Avery said, dashing to the door to answer it.  “I got it!”

She opened the door.  Her dad was dressed nice.

“Hey you.”

“You didn’t bring my siblings, did you?”

“First words out of your mouth?  I did you one better.  I brought three Declans and Kerry.  They’re fighting in the car, give them a minute, they’ll come tearing their way in when they’re hungry.”

Avery’s eyes went wide.  No, no, no…

“I’m kidding.  Wow, you believed that.”

She punched him lightly in the stomach as he stepped in close to her.

“Oof.”  He kissed the top of her head.  She was glad enough he hadn’t actually brought her brother and sister that she allowed it.

“Red or white, Connor?” Jasmine asked.

“One white, and I’m going to be nursing that through dinner, I want to be okay to drive back with the car.  I’ll be driving my dad around to appointments first thing.”

“Water too, then?”

“Please, and I may have extra.  Dinner smells great.”

“Still in progress.  Zed was telling me his… if you’re an apprentice, what’s the title?  Master?”

“Mentor,” Brie said, stealing bits of carrots Zed was chopping.  She’d put something on to cover up the tattoos, which made her bindings more fragile, but not in a way that couldn’t be dealt with.  They’d just have to make sure she didn’t fall down the stairs or whatever.

“…He built a portal for academic papers,” Jasmine explained.

“Actually texts and papers, more like… translations and niche works.  Not in widespread use, actually.”

“Ah ha,” Avery’s dad said.  “Very interesting.”

“He’s doing pretty well with it,” Zed replied.

“And you, Brie?  University?” Jasmine asked.  For Avery’s dad’s benefit, she said, “Zed’s girlfriend.”

“I’m between… everything.  Had a bit of a crisis earlier this year, I’m still trying to find my balance.  I had health issues leading up to that, or the crisis was because of that… it’s complicated.”

“I’m sorry,” Jasmine said.

“I’ve been lucky, considering.  Zed introduced me to someone, a friend of his mentor, I guess.  I’m not confident in explaining all this stuff.”

“You’re doing fine,” Zed said.

“Computer stuff?” Avery’s dad asked.

“No.  Um… not sure how to describe it?”

“Management of large-scale power systems,” Zed said.

“That works.  She doesn’t like a lot of people, but she took a special interest in me, I’m not sure if that’s because of the recommend from Ray, Zed’s mentor-”

“Mrs. Durocher is selective,” Avery said.

“She was at the camp?” Jasmine asked.

“Summer thing, yeah,” Avery said.

“Yeah,” Zed agreed.

“I don’t know if that’s going to carry forward,” Brie said.  “But it’d be nice if it did.  I think.  Some of the stuff she works with is pretty intimidating, and I think not being too scared of it is a big prerequisite for working under her.”

“Does this lead into a career?” Avery’s dad asked.

“I don’t know, really, I think being able to say I know her gets me an in with certain people.”

Avery’s dad whistled, low and long

“We’ll see,” Brie said.  “It might be just that I’m a charity project.”

“And you two have known each other for…?”

“Since spring,” Zed said.  He used a carrot-end to knock all the stuck carrots off the knife, then popped it into his mouth.  He passed the bowl to Jasmine, who passed him freshly washed celery.  “We met, stayed together for a bit, then we ended up at the school – the summer thing.  Then shortly after, we shared a room.  You could say we’re proving the U-haul stereotype isn’t lesbians only.  Doing our part to make it a more general queer thing.”

Avery glanced at her dad, who’d only raised his eyebrows.

“Not just queer,” Jasmine said.  “Barbie and Ran, that’s Lucy’s dad’s parents, they go by those names because they didn’t want to be called grandma and grandpa-”

“What’s this about Barbie and Ran?” Lucy asked, as she came down the stairs.  Jessica followed.

“They knew each other three days, then got married.  Different times.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Very cool,” Zed said, smiling, elbowing Brie.  “Wow, right to being married.”

Brie elbowed him back.

“Had to get married.  Moving in together without getting married first would have been scandalous,” Jasmine pointed out.

“Of course,” Zed said.

“I think it was two weeks for my wife’s parents,” Avery’s dad said.  “Wow, three days.”

“What about you, Jess?  You and your girlfriend?”

“We knew each other from we were young.  Moving in together made sense.”

Avery, looking at her dad’s face, could see him doing a bit of calculus.

Jasmine was cooler but- but she was looking at her dad too, watching that calculus.

Even the idea that he might say something sorta made her regret coming and having him get invited because she’d come.

“What were you looking at upstairs?” Jasmine asked Lucy.

“I showed her what I had on my walls,” Lucy said.  “She had comments.  There was one album cover she noticed, right?  You’re taking that?”

“The CD, yeah,” Jessica said.  “My girlfriend really likes the group.  She’s been looking for a remix album by them.  I don’t know if this is that, and she’s not answering the phone, she’s bad about that, but Lucy’s letting me take it, in case it’s what she wanted.”

“I don’t really listen to it, so I’m super happy it’s finding a home,” Lucy said.

“The monthly subscription that keeps on giving,” Jasmine said.  She explained to Avery’s dad, “Booker, my eldest, subscribed to it, Lucy kept it after he left, as a bit of an excuse to stay in touch?”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.

“I love that they have that,” Jasmine said.

“I can’t imagine Rowan doing that,” Avery’s dad said.  “I’m just glad he didn’t turn eighteen, leave, and disappear entirely.”

“He kinda disappeared.”

“It’s a good disappear, and he’s still in touch.  It’s good,” her dad replied.  “A healthy and much-needed move.  I hope.  Time will tell.”

“Are they gone, move settled, or…?”

“They’re coming back later this week, or most of them are, but I don’t think it’ll be anything too major.  Touching base, picking up stuff, then leaving.”

Verona stepped out of the bathroom, noticed Avery’s dad, and glanced around.  She gave Avery a surreptitious thumbs-up.

Yeah, probably the best case scenario other than maybe her dad not showing up at all.

How bad was that, thinking that way?

“Fielding the barrage of questions okay?” Verona asked Zed.

“Doing okay.  If I keep doing things like meeting Brie’s parents and this, I’ll be an experienced hand at this sort of thing.”

“I was going to ask how you all connected- I use the word connected because it’s not just meeting,” Avery’s dad said.  He glanced at Avery.

Avery wanted to die a bit.

She could read his mind, she could imagine him thinking that because Zed was trans and Jessica was a lesbian that there was something there, tying them together and that hadn’t been it at all.

“Trickier question than the usual stuff, honestly,” Zed said, glancing at Brie.

“I don’t know what I should say or, if it’s okay to get into the more complicated stuff,” Brie said.  “I don’t want to step on toes or…”

She faltered and gave up.

“Well now I’m curious,” Jasmine said, frowning.  She stirred the pot.  “I have a guess, but so long as you’re healthy and taking care of yourself now…”

“I-” Brie hesitated.  She glanced at them.  “I owe them for that.”

“How so?” Jasmine asked.  She turned down the oven and stopped stirring.

“I might be putting my foot in my mouth.  They saved me.  I think…” Brie’s words were halting, as she had to choose every word with care.  “…If I hadn’t met them I wouldn’t be standing here today.  I wouldn’t have met Zed.  I wouldn’t be alive.”

“Do you want me to tackle this?” Zed asked.

“I kind of wanted to say it, because even if I word it badly I really am grateful,” Brie said.

All eyes were on her and it looked like that was difficult.  Avery gave Brie an encouraging smile.

“After a bunch of people turned their backs on me, leaving me on the street downtown, it was Avery who got me something to eat.  Verona crouched down and talked to me, Lucy kept some… problematic people away from us, and made sure everything was okay.  And if it weren’t for that, I’d have died that night.”

Jasmine looked at Lucy, who was frowning a little.  “What have you been doing?”

“I didn’t mean, I really didn’t want to get them in trouble.  I meant it when I said I’m so grateful-”

“Not in trouble,” Jasmine said.  “But the wild, implausible story I heard the night I grounded these two-”

“I’d be willing to bet it’s more true than you think,” Jessica said.  “Knowing them.”

Lucy’s mom had a very Lucy look on her face, frustrated and frown-y, on hearing that.  “If you can’t tell me what led to you being in that situation, Brie, could you at least give me some confidence I don’t need to worry about my daughter and the girl in my care being exposed to…?”

“Drugs?” Avery’s dad asked.

“Dad!” Avery exclaimed.

“Jasmine is dancing around the subject, but-” he said.

“You’re being rude.”

“I’m being concerned.”

More diplomatically, Lucy’s mom said,  “I’m just wondering how you ended up so close to the brink of dying, apparently, where my daughter and her friends could find you.”

“It wasn’t drugs,” Brie said.  “It was… mental health, leading to physical health.  I tried to take shortcuts, I just did more damage to myself, around the subject of food.  Pica, out of anxiety, I think.  Sorry, I meant this to be a positive thing, I didn’t mean to bother anyone, or make it out to be…”

“It’s okay,” Jasmine said.  “Pica?  I haven’t heard about that since nursing school.”

Brie shrugged.

“Pica?” Avery’s dad asked, quiet.

“Eating non-food things, I think without realizing you’re doing it,” Avery whispered to him.  “Staples, pins, bits of pen.”

He looked bewildered.

“I’m in the best place I’ve been in my life, mentally, physically,” Brie said, quiet.  Zed put a hand over hers.  “But I had to get through that night and a few nights like it to get there.  Zed’s helped me the most but they helped me in the moment it most counted.”

“You’re not a superhero,” Lucy’s mom said.  “What are you doing, getting involved with this?  This, when was it?  During the summer event?”

“Before.  Spring,” Brie said, as Lucy said, “Spring.  Then she happened to be at the summer thing.”

“The first event, with Brie here, and then getting mad at someone for… hurting a dog?”

Zed made a small amused sound.

“Did I get something wrong?” Jasmine asked.

“No, no.  That’s just… them,” he said.

Jasmine gave him a long, hard look, as if looking for a hint of something, a crack in the story.

She turned to look at Lucy.  “What on earth have you been up to?  Two incidents?”

“Three,” Jessica said.  “Mine’s minor.  But when I needed help looking for my cousin, while I was at the… what are we calling it?”

“It’s hard to label,” Verona replied.  “Summer thing.”

“At the summer thing, Avery helped more than a lot of the students and faculty did.  The others… weren’t totally useless either.”

Zed made another amused sound.

“I don’t intend to say more about that here, but there you go,” Jessica said.

Avery startled a bit at a hand on her back.  Her dad kissed the top of her head, hand rubbing her back, for a long few seconds.

“I guess we need to chat about things,” Jasmine said to Lucy.

“I didn’t really want to put them in the crosshairs,” Brie said, again.

“The sentiment’s appreciated,” Lucy said, even if she looked a bit frustrated, but she always looked a bit frustrated.

Avery’s dad stepped away from her, with only a pat on the back.  When she looked up at him he looked a bit misty-eyed.  She didn’t know what to do with that.

The conversation had stopped with that.

Jasmine looked down at Lucy, giving her a long look, before saying, “Would you set the table?”

“If I remember, lots of water, aspirin, and consider marking the outline of it with a dotted line in pen, mark the date and time,” Jasmine said.  “See if you can track the growth rate.  If it’s growing at all, go see a doctor.”

“That’s the problem, though.”

“If it’s growing, again, this is unofficial advice, I’d say your aunt should see a doctor.”

“I think her personality… if she were white as driven snow, she’d hate going to the doctor,” Jessica said.  “But then we hear the stories, people going and being treated awfully, mocked by nurses in earshot, not being believed about symptoms-”

“My wife ran into that,” Avery’s dad said.  “And she’s white.”

“That doesn’t diminish what she’s describing,” Lucy said.

“I know, I recognize that, but-”

“But?” Lucy asked.

Jasmine put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder.  Avery put her face in her hands.  Snowdrop sent Avery another nagging signal that she wanted some of the pasta Jasmine was putting into tupperware.  Avery glanced over and saw the opossum splayed against the window.  Cherrypop was at her feet, mostly hidden by greenery, miming her posture, cube-shaped rock at her feet.

“It compounds it, on top of the kind of treatment a woman might get,” Jessica said.

“Absolutely,” Avery’s dad said, seeming to decide to not stumble through the conversation.

“Sometimes even they assume alcoholism,” Jessica said.  “It takes time and money to travel in, going somewhere unfamiliar and unfriendly, and then if you expect a brick wall, on top of being someone who doesn’t like doctors to begin with…”

“I’d like to think the hospital I work at is better, but… I wouldn’t want to tell you to come for caring treatment and be wrong.”

“It’s a long way to get here from Pic River,” Jessica said.  “Sorry for the gross topic.  I thought I’d ask, since you said you were a nurse.”

“Gross?  I’m not sure I even know what a goiter is,” Verona declared.

Jasmine stopped putting the seafood pasta into tupperware, and opened a book Lucy had brought over from a desk in the living room.  Jasmine checked and recited aloud,  “Lots of water, aspirin for the inflammation, aha!  Iodine, either sushi, seaweed, or supplements…”

“Maybe I’ll bring something back,” Jessica said.  “She’s not a fan of pills.”

“Making sure it isn’t growing is critical, I think.  It could be diet, but if it’s anything else, I’d have to imagine you really want to get her to a doctor.”

“You know those stories about cats yowling the entire way to the vet?” Jessica asked.  “Imagine that, but a two hundred pound, sixty year old woman with a goiter the size of your fist sticking out the side of her neck, for a five hour car ride.”

“Ohh, that’s a goiter,” Verona said.  “Right.”

Lucy elbowed Verona, and Verona pushed Lucy, a little harder than she otherwise might.

“Better to have her complaining than never complaining again,” Jasmine said.

“Okay,” Jessica said, eyebrows going up.  “Solid argument.”

“And better a single doctor’s visit than a long stay in the hospital.  Try that one on her.”

“She has a sharp nose for the B.S.”

“It’s true,” Lucy’s mom said.  “What if we said… darn, this only works for my hospital.”

“What’s the argument?” Jessica asked.

“We have some cute doctors.”

“Ooh,” Verona cooed.  “Any prospects?”

“If there are, I’m going to wait and see before introducing Lucy to them.  Maybe a prospect.”

“Oh wow,” Lucy said.  “A new dad?”

“I didn’t ask you to call Paul dad, and I won’t make you call anyone else dad.  I think it’s okay for your bio dad to hold that title.”

Avery looked outside, and saw Zed standing on his own.

“Is he okay?” she whispered.

Brie made a so-so gesture.

“Do I need to say or do anything?”

“Stay in touch, is all.  He got the same way when we said goodbye to my parents, and when he fought with Ray.”

“Okay.”

“For you,” Jasmine said, handing tupperware to Brie, startling Avery somewhat.

“Thank you.  We’ll have to figure out how to heat it while camping.”

“And refrigerate.  It’s seafood.”

“Of course.  I have to remember that as tough as my stomach is, Zed’s not so fortunate.”

“And Jessica?”

“No thank you.  But thank you for the advice.”

“It’s my educated guess on what to do, it’s no substitute for a real doctor.”

“Of course.”

“It was very nice to know who my daughter has been interacting with,” Avery’s dad said.  “You seem like a great group, it sounds like you’re each seizing opportunities.”

“Hope so!” Brie said, a bit awkwardly.

“Is Zed okay?” Lucy’s mom asked.

“He’s okay, I think, I think he was going to text Ray,” Brie said.  “He’s not meaning to be rude, he’s just preoccupied.”

“It’s cool,” Avery said.

“We’ll catch you later?” Brie asked, pointedly.

Avery nodded.

Emphasis on later.  One more ritual to do.

“I suppose I should rescue the babysitter,” Avery’s dad said.  “Do you want a ride, Ave?”

“Can I hang out?  I want to talk with Lucy and Verona.”  Avery pressed her hands together in a pleading gesture.

“Can she?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah, if that’s okay with Connor.”

“Sure.  A word, Avery?  Since you might get back after Kerry and Grumble are asleep?” her dad asked.

“Ummm-”

“Hmm, not um,” Lucy nudged.

“Oh my gods, get off her case,” Verona said.

“Easy, easy,” Jasmine said, frowning.  “Separate, please.  I’ll talk to you two in a second.”

Verona stomped off, Lucy looked like she was going to follow to say something, but Jasmine stopped her, hand on her shoulder.

“Is this a bad convo, or a good one, or…?” she asked, wary.

“I don’t know, but it’s not entirely bad.”

She sort of had a feeling.  “No eavesdropping, Lucy.”

“I’ll be inside,” Lucy said.

Avery gave her a look, and saw Lucy was surreptitiously pulling the earring off, pretending to scratch the side of her head.

The vibe from Lucy felt a touch contrarian, and that spelled bad things when mixed with Verona.  It wasn’t a huge surprise that things were set to go off the moment Zed and Jessica and Brie were out of earshot, but… damn.  Didn’t feel good.

Avery followed her dad across the lawn, away from the house.  She waved at Zed, Brie, and Jessica, who were walking down the block.  They stood on the side of the dark street.  It was gloomy out.

“I’m proud of you.  I’m amazed and I’m proud.”

“Thank you for not being fussy about Zed being trans or Jessica, or me.”

“Do you think I’m fussy?”

Avery swallowed, shrugged.

“I just don’t have a lot of experience with any of this.  Before you came out I never really interacted with anyone that was a lesbian, or gay, or trans, or anything.  Maybe some guys in University or something, but we didn’t really talk.  Different times.”

“I think you probably met a lot more than you realized but you didn’t know,” Avery said.

“Maybe.”

“Is this what you wanted to talk about?” she asked.

“No.  But I’m glad- I do want to be positive.  I’m glad they’re positive role models for you.  Maybe a bit odd, I don’t understand the… metal eating?”

Avery shrugged.

He shook his head.  “But I’m glad they seem to be really straightforward, good people with goals.”

“Would it make them problems if they weren’t?”

He sighed.  “I’m someone who takes a lot of time to digest ideas.  I don’t know.  I think if you were straight and you had straight, regular older teens you looked up to-”

“Regular?”

“-I’d still wonder and I’d hope they were good role models.  And I’ve been thinking, I’ve been digesting- changing the topic, don’t be mad.  I told myself I’d watch out for you doing what you did last fall and winter.”

“Being lonely?  Quiet?”

“Pulling away.  Being distant.”

Avery turned her head, looking off in the direction Jessica, Brie, and Zed had gone.

“Are you okay?  I thought maybe if I was here, not distracted by the others, more time on my hands to pay attention and listen to you, maybe I’d be able to figure it out without asking you like this.  But then you didn’t talk much during dinner.  Even surrounded by people you -I presume- like and care about.”

“Thinking a lot,” she said.

“About?” he asked.

She looked up at him.  In the gloom of the early evening, sun recently set, sky dark blue but bright in its way, it was hard to make out the little details.

She’d have to say it sometime.

“I was thinking, maybe I’d go.  To, uh, Thunder Bay.”

She made the mistake of looking up at his face and she saw that he was trying to hide the hurt.

She swallowed hard.

“Your friends are here.”

“That’s why it’s hard.”

“Have you talked to them about it?”

She shook her head.

“How come?”

“Because Verona’s dealing with her dad situation, and I wanted to stay and keep things okay while she does that.  Um, other stuff.”

“Are you uncomfortable at home?”

“I’m…” she couldn’t say no.  “Yeah.”

“Because of me?”

“Because of Grumble and the TV he watches, um, because Declan’s… I don’t like the direction Declan’s going.  It gives me a pit in my stomach because he was shitty to Amber and I don’t think you’re taking it seriously.”

“I just think- I was a lot like that, and I turned out okay.”

Avery shrugged.  “I think I’ve run into a few people who were a lot like that who didn’t.  Kerry’s six, I love her but she’s six and you don’t bond with her as much as you try to keep her entertained, then you hope she won’t bite you and get glitter all over you.”

Her dad gave her a half-smile in response to that.

“And I get it, yeah, you need to digest stuff and figure it out, but… while you’re digesting me, or while you’re taking your time figuring out the Declan thing, I’m pretty… far from great.”

She watched her dad nod, blinking, and watched him look around.

“Is this something we could work on?  Try it out for a semester?” he asked.

She didn’t have a response to that.

“Okay, sorry,” he said.  “Your mom and I talked about this, and we agreed in advance, no hurt feelings.  You and Sheridan and Rowan are doing what you need to do.  I think, knowing how hard it is to leave your friends, it has to be pretty major.”

“I just think Thunder Bay should be better.”

“With the short notice, uh, you know, we should let your mom know the plan.  If you’re sure.  So she can make room and make the necessary adjustments, plus planning for school.”

“I have to decide now?”

“It sounds like you already decided.”

She paused, hesitating.  She looked back at Jasmine’s house.

She saw he was dropping to his knees, kneeling on lawn and the gravel by the side of the road, bringing himself to her eye level.  He reached for her hands and she gave him them.

“I am immensely proud of you.  I love you.  In the past few months you’ve stood straighter, you’ve put your eyes forward, and from what your friends were saying it sounds like you’ve been an outstanding person.  I don’t know how that came out of the same household as Sheridan, but…”

“Sheridan backed me up,” Avery said.  “That counted for a lot.”

“Yeah,” he said, voice soft.  “I’m just joking.  Sheridan makes me proud in her own way.  Not saving a life proud, but she’s on her way to becoming someone special.”

Avery nodded.

“I know I stumble, I know I mess up, but I have always, always rooted for you, and I would give anything for your happiness.  If that means parting ways for a couple years while you try out a new place that’s big enough for the size of your heart, then I send you off with all my love-”

He knocked his knuckles against her heart.

“-and zero regrets,” he said, looking her in the eyes.  “I’ll see what I can do about Grumble.  I’ll work on Declan.  For Kerry, we’ll see if we can get her to stop with the glitter or the biting, but uh, no promises on both.”

“I love you,” she told him.

“I love you.  Hug?”

She hugged him, tight.

They stayed like that for a bit.

He stood, and she loaned him a shoulder to lean on as he wrangled long arms and legs and got to his feet.  He brushed off his knees.  “I’ll talk to your mom about plans.”

“I need to stay until the end of summer.  For Verona, at least.”

“Even if that means missing the start of classes?”

“It’s super important.”

“Okay,” he said.  He thought for a second, then nodded and said, “We’ll figure it out.”

She hugged him again, then let him go.  He got into the car and drove off.

Jasmine touched her shoulder as she stepped inside.  Avery’s mind was awhirl with things she wished she’d said.  Things she regretted saying.  Why had she pointed out her dad not digesting stuff?  That had to have hurt him.

“It’s coming from a good place, okay? Please get that?  I love you and I want good things for you and same goes for Avery.  So when I’m urging you like, try this, do that, and it’s something Avery’s said she wants to do, to be a better her-”

“It’s condescending as frig, Luce!”

The voices were audible even though they came from upstairs.

Avery looked up at Jasmine.

“Sorry, hon,” Jasmine said, as she shut the front door.  “They’ve been grounded together for a while, I think this was inevitable.”

Avery nodded.  “Other tensions.”

“Verona’s dad?  Yeah.  Definitely.”

“Jeremy is my business!  Mine!  And it’s arrogant if you think that you know better than I do despite the fact I’ve had the conversations with him, I laid out the boundaries, he laid out his-”

“Did he?  Because I worry about the power imbalance, here.”

“I said it’s cool-”

“The guy is so in love with you it hurts to watch!  If this goes wrong I can imagine that guy being annihilated, emotionally!”

“I said it’s cool and it would be really frigging great if you could actually take me at my word when I say that!  We talked about it, super frank, no nonsense, where are we at?  And he said he doesn’t know if he loves me or has a crush on me, but he’s profoundly fond of me-”

“Oh my god.”

“But he can deal!  And I don’t know how you and Wallace are, but if a dude says he can deal, I’m going to take him at his word because I respect him!”

“I worry because I think you’re setting ninety percent of the boundaries, you’re tugging him along by his heartstrings, that’s not fair!”

“I’m cute, I have a pretty nice chest if I may say so myself-”

“What does that have to do with-”

“And that’s going to be a power imbalance a lot of the time!  I got lucky with that stuff and I know it, and I know who I am and what I need and want-”

“Do you?  For absolute sure?”

“Fuck off!  Fuck all the implications of that!”

“I’m surprised they haven’t been at each other’s throats sooner than this, being grounded, spending all day in a room together,” Jasmine said.  She paused, then said, “I should break this up.”

Avery sighed.

“I could drive you home after, keep one of them in the back seat so they don’t murder each other while I’m not looking,” Jasmine said.  “Or um, if you wait until I split them up and stick Lucy in Booker’s room, I can break out the ice cream.”

“Maybe,” Avery said.  “I’m going to, um, I’ll be in the backyard?”

“Want company, after?”

“Just gotta think.”

“Okay.  I’ll be either cleaning up or dealing with them, so you know where to find me.”

Avery nodded.  “Can I grab a little thing of pasta?”

“Absolutely.  Still hungry?”

Avery shrugged.

She grabbed the pasta and a fork, and she headed into the backyard.  She sat on the steps that led from porch to lawn, and let Snowdrop waddle over to her, Cherrypop tripping over grass as she followed.

A bit of cuddling, the sound of shouting faint in the background.  She took turns between giving the two bites until they were satisfied, which got her about two thirds of the way through the container.

Then she just sat, closing her eyes, listening to Snowdrop smack, licking pasta, salmon and scallop free of teeth and the roof of her mouth, while Cherrypop bashed her rock tunelessly against another rock.  Perfectly non-meditative.

Avery opened her eyes.

There was no warmth, no light, nothing pleasant in the air.  The world was harsh, stark, and lonely.

Teeth sank into her.  It wasn’t Kerry.  The bite was small, like being swarmed by insects, tiny biting flies that each took out what would be a pencil-eraser sized piece of her human, Avery-sized body.

For a day, she’d been bitten and chewed on.  She’d shaken, but she existed simultaneously in Ruin, in Spirit, in Abyss, in Pit.  She existed in the celestial and the mundane, the astral and the roiling chaos.  She, by her nature, needed to extend into every realm and they came at her from all of those realms.

They were of the incarnate.  They came from a principle, ideas largely unique to the framing mankind gave them, and the fact it was so defined by man was a crude and cruel insult, drawing on her background.  They were of Hunger, and they were eating her.

They were touched by the Abyss, and that made them a little meaner.  It wasn’t a lot, but it gave their bites a little more of a twist and a tear.

For a day, she’d traveled, over hill, forest, river, lake.  She’d fought to avoid making a sound.  Yes, she could have called out for help, she could have called out to the Aurum, or the Sable, she could have reached out to the Alabaster in particular.  The Alabaster Doe stood for mercy, when other forces didn’t already have claim over the idea and the area.

She’d heard the other judges plan for her replacement.  If she were to clearly signal that she couldn’t handle her business, then that replacement might be sent her way.  If they stood with him against her, her claim and proximity to the Carmine throne wouldn’t matter as much as the forces aligned behind him.

Besides, she would be wounded.  She could shake these offending pests off, but they could swarm her by the hundreds.  She could force herself into the realm of man and Earth, but they came after her there.  Having legs in multiple realms at once, at least, she had some more stability, more purchase under her feet that wasn’t stained with her own blood.

She reached the hills of Kennet.

She’d howled as she come within earshot, and she howled now.  She pitched it to reach the desperate.  Those with little to lose.  She could make deals with them, offer them strength, passion, fury, and fuel to inner fires.  She howled to nudge them from comfort zones and innocence, to stir them to the bounds of seeing her and this world.  She pushed power out and into them, to give them the strength to stand taller, for the starving to fight to their feet, for the sick to push their illnesses down and back.  Whatever it took, so they could flock to her.

The loneliness hurt worse than being devoured alive by small bites.

She loped over hills, the town beneath her chin.  Houses with large lots, in a town otherwise constrained, pinched by two mountains on either side, pinched further by the press of wood and cliffside at the south, a solitary highway leading down, another road taking the town’s denizens and the people driving off of the highway to the great lake.

She hated that she knew how this worked.  She hated that so much of her attention had been given over to understanding drugs and conflict over drugs, to crime, to the urban, to police, to hospitals and the fights against immaterial forces that happened there.  Against Death and Pestilence.

She came because she knew it was the last place they’d expect.  She hated the sprawl of Man and any who knew anything about her knew that.  They knew she favored Others of nature and the wild.  This wouldn’t serve their plans.  This would make it less convenient to devour her by way of the hundreds of waifs that swarmed her like ticks on a deer.  On a prey animal.  It would force others to show themselves to hurry the errand along, because someone would see.

The culprits had come from here, but those here weren’t fully united against her.  If she was to survive, maybe she could find them and deal with them.  The thorns in her eyes made it hard to see, but if she was closer-  If she was to die, then maybe the fact she died here would make it easier for others to lay the blame for that at the right feet.

She howled her pain to the sky.  She wanted to pitch the howl to reach other ears.  To reach locals, both human and Other.  She found herself struggling to do so.

A woman’s eyes bled from the intensity of the howl and the power pushed into her.

A man in his hospital bed tried to rise, and was pushed down.

A child in a dark place got up from bed and thought about helping, but was too scared to venture out.

She was restrained, she realized.  Held back from reaching the ones who mattered.

One or two followed her.  They left home and they tracked her movements.  She quickly lost sight of them in the midst of the town.  The thorns in her eyes, cast out by the Faerie.

Lonely, Avery thought.

Lonely.  If she was to survive, she’d need allies, finally.  Maybe that was the Fae trap, pushing her to pick the wrong ones.  But if she was to die…

She wanted so badly to not die alone.  It had been too many lonely years.  Too many years of events replaying themselves.  Two fighting practitioners who were a scourge and a upstanding man, a summoner and an augur.  A trapper, a giant Fae.  Same things, same moments.

She wanted company as she passed, and the way the waifs bit at her and ate at her, they denied her even the ability to look them straight in the eye.  She existed in the material because to exist anywhere was to adopt a body that was already half-devoured, a bloody cur of bone and ragged meat, barely able to move.  And in this world, they didn’t bite her.  The damage to this body was spiritual, psychosomatic, from echo and Ruin, Abyss and other spaces.

The damage to this body wouldn’t kill her.  It would only push her to the point of wanting to die.

She couldn’t find the allies she needed, those she’d called.  The senses granted to her by the throne were blinded, somehow.  She was blinded to the ways she might fight off this horde of singing children, that came at her from angles unearthly.

The others, Aurum, Alabaster, Sable, they didn’t look for her or look after her.  They hadn’t for a long time.  She’d actively pushed them away, across centuries of her insisting on her own territory, insisting they leave her to handle her quarter of affairs.  A desire for territory driven by her instincts as a canine, her instincts as a loner.

She walked over the town, head roving periodically, trying to see any of her would-be champions.  Her leg stopped working as well, nerves pinching, the limb seizing.  Damage to her Self on planes other than this one.

She reached the Arena.  A wonderful name for a place where a being like her, devoted to conflict, might focus her energy.  A place for champions, perhaps.

She could look within, and she could not see what she sought.

But she knew the rules of the game being played inside.  She knew the number of players there were meant to be.

She knew then that this blinding had taken something out of her eyes.  She saw the world in darkness, and she saw the world in a lack of darkness, but there was no light.

The hope had been struck from her eyes by this small curse, and because she was what she was, because she’d lived the life she’d lived, she didn’t know how to summon it.  She didn’t know what to draw on, emotionally, to push out those thorns.

She slumped, sitting at first, then lying down, leaning into the massive mound of snow that had been scraped from the lot and the skating rink.

With a great eye, she peered inside.

Inside, the Lost without a face was sitting in the stands.  The woman seemed surprised to notice the Carmine.

Her focus was on the game.  A solitary player, who skated across ice, fighting a losing battle.

The Carmine moaned, low and long.

The Lost Woman looked at her, and it seemed she realized what was happening.

The Carmine’s senses were blinded to hope, to anything that might give her succor.  She couldn’t see a way out, and to escape, she needed a gentle hand and a clear vision, and the Lost Woman could see inside of people and inside of constructions.  The Lost Woman was here and that was why she’d come here.  Not out of hope- for if that were her prerequisite, she would’ve been blinded, but out of compromise, of other things.

This woman, at least, would serve her needs.  A set of eyes to replace her partially blinded ones, from a woman with no face, let alone eyes.  A set of hands to guide, from a woman without hands.

Blinded though her senses were, she could still sense other things.  She could sense conflict, frustration, desperation.  Things of War and Rage, of Victory and ignoble defeat.

She could sense a battle deep in a heart of a Lost Woman who was sitting in the stands, trying to figure out the moves she would make in the future.

She could sense that battle won.  The resolve set, to not interfere.

She didn’t side with the culprits.  Already, she was thinking about ways to deal with them, who it might be.

The Lost Woman had come to a conclusion that the things she wanted would come about more easily if the Beast wasn’t the one atop the Carmine Throne.

The children would take days more to eat her.  If anyone came to help, she wouldn’t be able to see them to grant them power or turn the tables.  Solutions to this plague of bites were set out of sight.

Days of bleeding here, children drinking the blood, eating her, until no trace was left except that which they hoped to save or vomit up.  No evidence, no trace of her.  She’d have no legacy.  Everything neat and tidy for the spirit who now watched with burning eyes, the forsworn, the needling Fae.

The Carmine roared, fierce, angry.  Perhaps it was a fierceness and an anger that could have pushed that hopelessness out of her eyes, but the moment came and went so soon that there was no exploring of the alternatives.  Mid-roar, growling into her own flesh, neck cracking, she bit into the base of her own throat.  She bit deep, and she tore, then bit again, tearing at the other side.  She ate of herself before the children could finish the slow, methodical task of eating her in entirety.

She would bleed on this place, whatever they were hoping to do.  The forsaken exile, the spirit, the faerie who’d killed her, the one who had decided not to reach out.  She would bleed here, and she’d let what resulted be messy.

On the ice, a lonely young girl who’d just had her photo taken watched her best friend leave, her own heart broken, her spirits low.  She heard the roar, or felt something of that tearing, and her head turned toward the exit, toward the Carmine.

The Lost Woman saw and decided something.

The turn of a head, a faint memory.  A bloody mess.  It would have to do for her legacy.

She hoped.  As she tied that hope to the last thoughts she had, they were dashed from her mind’s eye by the curse, leaving only a yearning, lonely darkness, and then nothing at all.

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