inside my head

athena falconer-quinn | she/her | auror corporal | central squad cases: talking animals in alabama the curse of the sea wraith points: 730 800

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

Seeing Emerson positively enamored with what Athena’s shown her is something pretty special. It does make him consider how many other moments like this there might’ve been already if he had been more open with magic around her before now, but it also makes him glad, in a way, that it’s all happening now at once, that the decision to try to be more honest with Emerson has coincided with this new thing that he’s been lucky enough to find with Athena. It feels right, somehow. It wouldn’t be the same, if Athena wasn’t here, if she wasn’t showing Emerson a spell she had created herself, showing Emmy not only that magic can be fun, not just for a practical purpose, but making a connection through it, a bridge between two worlds, but also with each other. 

And it’s pretty bloody adorable, too, seeing the way Athena smiles at Emerson, how easy it all feels, despite the nerves that he had had when she had first arrived. It’s the sort of thing he thinks he could get used to watching, the two of them together. 

“Sounds like he and Emmy have that in common,” he says with a laugh, unable to keep the fond smile from his lips as he looked back at Athena. And that’s a nice thought, too, that this expanded just beyond everyone sat at the table with Athena; that once they were both ready, Emerson might also have someone else to look up to. He hadn’t really considered that he and Emerson would ever be more than their little bubble, with only a few people who could step in, but he likes the thought of that bubble growing, it makes the world feel a little kinder, for the first time in a long time.

He reaches over across the table, lets his hand find Athena’s for a second, giving her hand a little squeeze, silently trying to convey all of the feelings that he can’t put into words just now in the gesture. How easy this all feels, and how nice, how normal, when nothing’s been normal for a long time. Ignatius is grateful that this is where they all are, and he’s hopeful about where it all might go from here, if this is any indication. Athena, and Emmy, and Kisky sitting at the table with him; for now, that’s enough.

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

Oddly enough, after making it to America with a newborn Emerson, and starting to figure out the way that life here would go for them, Ignatius hadn’t actually considered wholly what the future would look like, or what he wanted the future to look like, and he’s only just now realizing that. He’s thought about Emerson’s future, is constantly preoccupied with it, trying to figure out how to give her the best future she can have, something that’s happy, and bright, and without any pain. Just like his focus is always on giving her the best present that he can, something wholly unlike his own childhood. It’s always been easier to focus on her, after all, to worry about how things are for her, put all of his energy into that. And maybe part of it is because he’s always subconsciously been afraid to hope for things, after finding something so unexpected, and having it taken from him.

Looking across the table, Athena smiling back at him as she pulls out her wand, gets ready to show Emerson a little spell, though, it feels safe to consider the future, though. Or maybe not safe, but worth the risk, in a way nothing’s really made him feel since they had arrived here. All at once, there seems to be possibility, and he never would have guessed he would find that in Athena, but he’s glad that it’s her sitting here at the table with them, eating pizza together, showing Emerson magic she’s never seen before. He’s glad that it’s possible his future could include her.

He’s well aware how sentimental he’s been since getting back from Scotland, too many different emotions warring with each other, making it hard to process them all, fluctuating wildly between anger, and hopeful optimism back and forth, but tonight feels a little like a turning point. It especially feels like one as he watches Athena explain why she made the spell to Emmy, as she takes the pile of sugar, and waves her wand, a beautiful, rock candy rose growing from it.

The awe on Emerson’s face makes him wish he had started being more open earlier, but he’s glad that he gets to see it now, gets to see Athena cause it. Emerson’s focused so wholly on the flower, and Athena, and it’s adorable to witness.

“Can I, daddy, please?” she asks, finally glancing back at him with those big eyes.

“Of course, Emmy, finish up your pizza, then you can try Athena’s flower candy. Pretty cool, right?” Ignatius asks, and Emerson nods still very clearly in awe, as she keeps looking at the flower, even as she goes back to her pizza. He looks back at Athena, giving her a smile. “That was a good one. You’re gonna have to teach me, she’ll be begging to see it again.”

.

The excitement and awe on Emerson’s face as she watches, the eagerness with which she goes back to eating her pizza so that she can have some of the candy flower—these are the kinds of things that always made Athena want to make magic, to create new spells that did amazing things. Of course, the puzzle of it was what had drawn her to it, the intricacies of complex spell theory and the fitting together of how it all worked, of what made magic possible, made certain spells work the way they did and stopped other spells from working they way they were supposed to. But it was the awe of realizing what magic could do that had kept her there, watching people be amazed to see a new spell. The way Hades had looked, the first time she made a spell just for him; the way Abel had looked when they realized just what the cuff she’d been working on could do for them; the way Emerson looked now.

She’d never been great at connecting to people with words, never been great at talking to people. But magic—it was the grand connecting force of her life, the thing that let her reach out and help people, reach out and see them and have them see her, too. 

     “Of course,” she replies, smiling at Ignatius, though she’s still half watching Emerson, letting herself enjoy the spark of a warm, hopeful feeling in her chest, even stronger than the peaceful contentedness she’d been feeling ever since her nerves started to soothe and disappear. “It’s a pretty easy one. But the only thing Hades likes more than pretty things is sweet things.” 

She’s still amazed, at every moment, how easy it is to just ease into this, how entirely her nerves have slipped away and been replaced with the same kind of easy warmth she is coming to enjoy so much about spending time with Ignatius. She isn’t one to imagine she knows what the future holds, is a person with too much going on in her head to think about how things might chance, more focused on the present moment than anything else, but it feels like it would be easier than anything to keep doing this, to follow her heart and let herself settle into this. 

[athenafq]

hadrixn​:

Hadrian isn’t sure, but it seems like Athena has something to say before they’re interrupted by the sound of quick footsteps, a child running up to greet the little cat that they’re talking to. Hadrian is enjoying this, strangely. This case, and working with Athena, somehow feeling safe despite the shaky nature of their existence these days. They’ve felt at odds with themself, so scared it hurts, but being here with Athena and working a case that puts them face to face with delightful talking animals makes them feel a little brighter, a little better, a little more excited to see what the day will hold for them.

The little girl that runs up, Verity, seems excited by everything as well. Clearly adoring of Mittens. And its clear that the cat enjoys her company as well. She seems like a bright girl, sweet, so full of energy that she might shake out of her own skin, and she clearly loves animals. She sits on the ground, not too far away from Hadrian, but much closer than they had gotten to the cat. Mittens seems to enjoy the attention, the careful way that Verity scratches under his chin. It reminds him of Marie, the way that she moves into their touch sometimes, content and happy with the attention they have decided to shower on top of her. 

Hadrian glances up and rises back to their feet, when the woman that must be Verity’s mother arrives on the scene. They give her a smile, something warm and less fragile than the one they’ve been able to manage before. They feel soothed by this, by this town and these people and the case that they have to solve while they’re here. Their smile widens even more, when the woman expresses her confusion, and they huff out a breath that could almost be a laugh.

“I’m afraid Mittens here is a special case, along with a few others in this town.” They explain, patiently. This is clearly someone new to magic, and if Hadrian had to guess, Verity was a wix who had just come in to her powers, leaving her family a little lost in the wake of all this new information, all of these new things they had to learn. “Though I believe the world would be a better place if it were true. We believe something must have happened recently that caused them to start speaking. It is our job to figure out what that is.” 

“It wasn’t me, I promise!” The little girl chimes in, bright. “Pinky swear. I didn’t do a thing.” 

“I really wish I could back her up on that, but she does have an interesting track record with animals.” The woman says, slightly wary, and shaking her head. Hadrian smiles at her rather more brightly still, and feels a growing fondness for the family, for this town in general. 

“Don’t worry,” They say, “We don’t believe it was your daughter, or anyone else her age. And no one is in trouble over it regardless. It is just important that these animals don’t slip away from town, and risk exposing magic to those unsuited to know about it.”

“Hmm,” Mittens says, still contentedly letting Verity scratch at him. “I am quite happy here. No adventures planned on my part. If you’d like me to watch Verity while you go inside Maria, I am able. My claws are very sharp and I can protect her.” 

The mother, Maria, smiles a little at that, clearly still baffled by everything going on here. Verity looks up at the woman with wide eyes, already begging. “Please, mommy? Can I stay with Mittens and the aurors?”

Athena watches the exchange, amused, happy to sit back and listen to all of it, to listen to Hadrian and to the back and forth between Mittens and Verity as they seem to gang up on Maria to convince her to let Verity stay outside while she goes into the store, though it doesn’t seem like it’s a terribly difficult feat, because it’s only a moment before Maria finally gives in.

      “Fine, but stay right here, Verity, okay? No wandering off, no talking to strangers—except, I suppose these two aurors, if they have any questions for you,” she adds, glancing between Athena and Hadrian, and for a moment Athena’s glad it’s them and not someone like Marleigh or Nomi here who, wonderful as they both are, might be more likely to raise a parent’s worried instincts. Because there are a few questions she’d like to ask the young girl, who seems to have quite a fondness for animals, and is likely to know more about everything else that’s going on around town, even if she’s new. 

Verity makes a happy little noise as she focuses her attention back on Mittens, pulling a cat treat out of the pocket of her jacket and passing it to the cat before going back to scratching behind his ears, while Maria gives the two of them a little I’m sorry look, half a grimace, before slipping through the door and into the store. 

     “So, Verity,” she starts, from her seat on the bench, looking down at the little girl who seems thoroughly absorbed in the task of lavishing Mittens with attention, a situation the cat very clearly couldn’t be happier about. “Is Mittens the only animal you have met in town who can talk? Or have you come across anyone else?”

       “Oh, only Mittens so far!” Verity answers, without looking up, and then continues to chatter on happily. “There’s a very nice dog who lives next door to us but I don’t think he can talk because otherwise he wouldn’t bark every time somebody walked by the yard, he’d just say hello and they’d all have a better time understanding that just because he’s big doesn’t mean he’s scary. And I tried to say hello to a raccoon the other night, but he didn’t say anything back, just ran away, so unless he was just too scared to talk I don’t think he can do it either. Cooper said that next time he comes to visit he’s going to bring me a fish so that I have an animal friend inside instead of just having animal friends outside, but I don’t know if fish could talk even if they could talk, because they’re underwater and so they’d probably sound all slow and bubbly, right?” 

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

Seeing Athena interact with Emerson feels more right than he could’ve imagined. He’s trying not to put too much weight on this first meeting––Emerson’s not always in such a good mood, there are hard days, hard nights, for both of them, and there are so many bridges they’ve yet to cross––but it still means a lot. Athena seems to know intuitively how to talk to her, what she’ll be interested in, and she seems to be enjoying it, too.

He watches Emerson closely as Athena explains things, too, curious to see how she’s going to react to that idea. Everything here is new territory, after all. Emerson has always known that he has magic, and she’s known that other adults do, too, although maybe not the extent of it. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious choice that he had made to keep her exposure to a minimum, at least not because he had assumed she might not have it herself. No, at first it had been for their safety, to keep both of them better hidden and protected, preferring to live in a muggle neighborhood, do most of their shopping in muggle stores, preferring not to be out in the open in Port Steward with her, in case the wrong person noticed them. But in the past year, it had become more of a choice, worried about her future, what her world would be like.

It had been his fear, though, not one that she even knew she should have, which was evidenced by how well she had taken all of their talks, and her talk with Abel, too. The worry hasn’t left, and it probably never will, because she’s his daughter, but he’s realized that he can’t let his own fears hold her back from the world. He’s grateful, though, that this realization happened now, when she’s still so young, so hopeful and full of awe, in a situation where seeing someone else’s magic can feel, well, magical, instead of something that leaves her out.

And he appreciates Athena’s silent question. He thinks it could do her good, to see some casual, but different than what she sees him do around the house, start to understand that magic isn’t just a useful thing. 

“Yeah, of course. Maybe one day when you’re older, Em, you can come up with some ideas, and Athena can help you make them,” Ignatius nods, and Emerson looks positively thrilled at the idea. He looks back at Athena, shrugging slightly, a smile on his lips, a little proud as he goes on. “She’s already reading at a third grade level, watch out, she might be doing your research for you one day.”

.

She waits for Ignatius’ confirmation before pulling out her wand, smiles back at him as he goes on about how smart Emerson is, the pride so obvious and visible in his voice and on his face. Pride, what a thing, the way it’s unrestrained and unconditional coming from him, the way his pride in Emerson’s reading skills isn’t dependent on her meeting all kinds of other ridiculous expectations. Her own parents had rarely been proud of her, no matter how good her magic had been; they’d been too busy being disappointed by her other faults and flaws to ever talk about her with that kind of sincerity, only ever complimenting her when it could be a boast to impress their friends.

And Merlin, it makes her feel so warm, to see it on Ignatius’ face, to realize how much different Emerson’s life is than what she had experienced, what she’s sure Ignatius also experienced with his own endless expectations and disappointments. It fills her with a fondness for him even stronger than what she’d felt on their case when she’d realized that he was intentionally trying to alter the way he was talking so he wouldn’t overwhelm her, or the way she’d felt recently every time he came and sat on Jack’s desk and joked around with the two of them.

     “Okay, this one’s very special,” she says, reaching out towards the center of the table and picking up a sugar bowl that’s sitting here, looking at Emerson as she does it. “I made this one up a long time ago, for my brother. To cheer him up when he was sad.” 

She carefully takes a pinch of sugar, sets it down on the empty portion of her plate in a small pile, and then waves her wand over it, and from the pile of sugar, as it it was soil, a small crystalline flower sprouts, begins to grow, and then blooms, a rock candy rose with spun sugar petals and leaves, pink and purple and green. Once it’s fully bloomed, she glances back at Emerson, who is watching the flower with wide eyes, speechless for the first time since Athena walked in the door.

     “It’s so pretty,” she says, after a long moment, and Athena lets out a little laugh, picking the flower and taking a petal off of it, popping it into her own mouth and letting the sugar dissolve on her tongue, sweet and flavorless, like cotton candy. 

     “Maybe if you eat all your pizza, your dad will let you have some for dessert.” 

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

There’s a deeper conversation to have here, one that he’s only hinting at with the words meant to try to keep Emerson from fully overwhelming Athena with too much all at once, but he knows it’s a full conversation for later. There’s time, after all, no need to rush for anything. They can talk about it after dinner, when Emerson is distracted drawing or making a bracelet, or they can talk tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever Athena is ready. But he thinks already that they might be thinking the same way. He wouldn’t have her over here now, if he wasn’t already thinking that way, if he wasn’t already convinced this was going to be something to last.

There’s no need to rush, but he really does want to be able to let the world know how lucky he is at some point soon. Even if going out with other people as a couple feels a little further off––the zoo can wait until spring is in full force, he thinks––there are plenty of other things he’d like to do with Athena. Like having her over again with Emmy, but also taking her out, on their own, being able to go over to her desk during the day, and laugh, be open, maybe reach over and hold her hand for a second. 

But Athena smiles at Emerson, and smiles at him, and genuinely seems interested in the idea of it, which makes him smile. Not just because of the thought of going to the zoo all together, but also because of how well this is all going, how easy it seems to be with Emerson and Athena together. He likes to think he’s gotten pretty good at reading Athena’s mood, now, trying harder to be in tune to what she’s feeling, and she seems at ease, too.

“I love Abel!” Emerson says, bouncing a little in her seat. “Daddy said maybe I could come to work one day and talk to him again. He’s so nice! He showed me the bracelet you made him. It’s sooooo pretty!”

“It’s pretty, and it’s powerful, too,” Ignatius nods, and Emerson nods along. “Athena is very good at magic that helps a lot of people. She makes up new things all on her own, like that bracelet of Abel’s. And she does it while also helping people as an auror, like me, and Tide, and Abel.”

.

Emerson’s energy is almost infectious, and she imagines it isn’t always that way, that sometimes the six year old’s bubbling enthusiasm can be just as tiring as it is buoying right now, especially the longer it goes on, but she right now she isn’t letting herself thing about that: instead, she lets Emerson’s boundless excitement bring a little enthusiasm into her own energy, smiles along as Emerson bounces up and down as she goes on about how much she loves Abel. And who can blame her: Abel is easy, and kind, and soft of effortlessly generous, seems like the type who would be good around kids.

She finds herself blushing, again, a little bit, as Ignatius goes on and on about her to Emerson. That’s been happening an awful lot lately, the blushing thing, not something she was used to doing, but she feels warm and happy with it, with the compliment, and with the way he makes something a six year old would probably have no interest in sound so simple and so easy for her. 

     “I think it’s really fun,” she adds, to Emerson. “Making things that help people, like spells and special bracelets. Just like you like making bracelets, I like making spells for things that don’t have spells.”

Emerson’s eyes go a little wide with excitement and amazement, when she mentions making spells, an interest in the idea that is... honestly kind of remarkable, when most people’s eyes glaze over the second she brings this up in conversation, says anything about the principles of spell theory or anything like that. 

     “Can I see one of your spells?” she asks, and Athena pauses for a moment, looking over at Ignatius, looking for some kind of permission, waiting for him to shake his head no or nod it yes so she knows whether or not this is okay. She isn’t sure, entirely, how he wants to handle exposing Emerson to more magic, given everything he was worried about, and her conversation with Abel. She’s really not sure at all how much exposure to magic Emerson has, aside from her dad, and there are plenty of harmless, fun little spells she could show her, but she doesn’t want to cross and lines, push any boundaries, unless it’s okay with Ignatius for her to do it. 

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

Every part of this just feels so easy. Now that he’s past some of the worry that he’s had, even if some of it will linger for a long, long time, it feels easier to just enjoy this, appreciate how much he’s being given, despite everything that happened. And there’s a part of him that thinks maybe it’s only fair that the world would give him and Emerson something nice like this, after everything. He still feels less himself, like he’s been changed in some way by what he was forced into doing over in Scotland, but maybe not as much as he had been convinced. But then, he’s not sure he could have had this before. He had been in too much denial, had been too afraid of being open and honest.

Now, though, he wants to be honest and open, he wants to keep seeing that little smile of Athena’s, light and warm. Somehow it feels easier, after everything, after having to learn to rely so heavily on Cassandra over there, after realizing that honesty and trust were life and death sometimes. Athena smiling, teasing a little bit back, it makes him feel good, happy. It makes him really, really want to kiss her.

And it’s adorable, seeing the way Emerson looks at Athena when they’re all sitting back down, getting ready to eat. He’s lucky that Emerson has had so many people to look up to, besides him, and he feels even luckier that she’ll be able to have Athena as another role model, too. Likes the sound of Athena coming over anytime, pizza or not

“Next time we have Athena over, we can make dinner for her. Emerson’s a very good helper,” he says, with a smile.

“Daddy showed me how to measure very, very carefully,” she says proudly, before taking a bite of her pizza, also very carefully, leaning over her plate, intent on not getting anything on her costume. “Will you come to the zoo with us? Daddy have you asked her about the zoo?”

“Not yet, sweetheart, I don’t wanna overwhelm anyone. Abel mentioned taking Em to the zoo, when they came over to talk about magic. We were thinking you might want to come to, and Cass. When we’re ready for that sort of thing,” he says, hoping the implication behind the words is clear, not wanting to get into too much detail about the intricacies of dating, and what double dates mean with Emmy at the table.

.

She can see how easy it would be, to be overwhelmed by this; Emerson’s attention span isn’t much longer than her father’s, the conversation already bouncing back and forth from topic to topic in much the same way that Ignatius’ mind always seems to be working. She can imagine a world in which she needs to step back, from this, to get her bearings, try to slow things down. 

But it isn’t overwhelming at all, somehow, at least in part because there is a part of her that knows she doesn’t need to respond to every single thing, doesn’t need to formulate an answer. Can see, on Emerson’s face, the thing she’s most excited about, and can focus on that without having to worry about the rest. Dinner sounds nice, but it’s the zoo that Emerson is really thinking about, from the way her eyes light up and she bounces in her seat a little between bites of pizza—and it’s the zoo Ignatius is thinking about, too, in a different sort of way, almost nervous, in the most endearing way she can imagine, like he’s worried that suggesting it might be too much.

     “The zoo,” she repeats, with a warm smile in Emerson’s direction, a glance in Ignatius’. It’s a sweet idea, even if their last double date had ended on such a bad note. “I’ve never been to a zoo. That sounds like an awful lot of fun.” 

She likes the idea of it, a lot more than she expects to. Ignatius and Emerson and Cassandra and Abel. So many of her favorite people all in one place, spending time together somewhere easy and fun. She thinks Hades might be terribly jealous at missing out, but that just means maybe she’ll have to drag Ignatius on a double date with him and Cypress, one day, too, to make it up to him. 

     “Did you like getting to meet Abel, Emerson?” she asks, curious—she hadn’t heard much about their meeting except that she’d come up, briefly, because of the cuff she had made for Abel, but she’s interested to know. She’s been meaning to check up with him, now that everything is settled again, from Scotland, meaning to get back to work on a new version of the cuff that will hopefully be even better than the one he’s wearing now. “He’s very nice, isn’t he?”

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

He can’t help the cackle of laughter that escaped his lips at her joke, so light and teasing and a little unexpected that it’s forced out of him. Merlin, he likes this. He likes how easy it is to laugh, but also to be honest; he likes the way he knows that there’s truth behind the joke, that there’s very little that could happen here tonight that would make her change her mind. And he feels so lucky for it, that she took the time thinking of him, considered all of it, and came to this conclusion so certainly that she’s not going to be the one to change her mind, here. All the better that his mind’s been made up on the matter long before he even fully realized what his feelings for Athena actually were.

Her hand on his cheek, soft, just a barely there touch, sends a pleasant chill through him. It’s a nice touch, something he’s not really used to, but something he’d like to get used to. She makes it easy to breathe, to slow down and relax, in what feels like the first time in bloody years, really. Ignatius smiles softly, thinks about what it would be like to kiss her here, in his home. “You’re right, you’ve got a secret stubborn side, and I think it’s pretty bloody attractive, to be honest,” he says, light, teasing, but with more underneath. But she’s right, six year olds wait for no one. 

“Ah, you already get it. You should’ve seen the night I told her she couldn’t have ice cream for dinner, even though she had caught me eating it in the middle of the afternoon,” he laughs, shaking his head. Drinks in tow, he leads them back into the dining room, where Emerson is all but bouncing up and down in her seat, waiting.

“Alright, you’ve been so patient, Emmy, I’m proud of you. I’ve brought Athena back now, though so we can get down to business. Pizza,” he says, mock conspiratorial whisper as he sits next to Kisky, passing out the drinks. He doesn’t waste any time, though, before giving Emerson a slice of pizza first. “Pretty great night, right, Em? What do you say?”

“Thank you, Athena! Thank you for the pizza and for coming over and sitting next to me!”

He laughs, that distinctive and familiar laugh, a laugh she’s heard around the office for years, a laugh that has always made her smile to hear it, something so bright and contagious about it, and she finds herself so relieved, that he’s laughing, when just says ago he had seemed to worried that his life had changed irrevocably and he would never deserve anything to be light or easy ever again. 

      “Is it a secret?” she replies, still smiling, just as light. “I didn’t realize I’d been hiding it.” And she thinks she’ll feel embarrassed and weird about him saying it out loud, that he thinks she’s attractive, the way she usually feels when people flirt with her unsolicited, feel awkward and uncomfortable, but she doesn’t at all. Instead, she wants to kiss him again, wants to tell him she thinks he’s pretty bloody attractive too, if only they were not running down the clock of a six year old’s rather remarkable patience. 

They head back out to the dining room, and she takes her seat next to Emerson, smiles back at her as she recites her list of thank yous. She’s so polite, and clearly her father has taught her well, but the excitement behind it sounds so genuine, so earnest, nothing like the stilted polite pleasantries Athena had been taught to recite at that age. Seeing her is like looking into another world, a universe of what childhood can be like when parents love their children instead of just loving the children they want them to be.

      “You’re welcome, Emerson,” she answers, as Ignatius passes her own pizza across the table. “I will come over and sit next to you any time, though unfortunately, I think the pizza will be your dad’s call, not mine.” 

[athenafq]

astor-reyes​:

There’s part of her that wonders if she should have said anything at all, if she should have quietened herself and let Athena spread the information out when she was ready. But she watches as Athena smiles, blushes, laughs, tries to hide her face for a second. It’s endearing, utterly so, in the way that only Athena can really pull off in Cassandra’s eyes. She’s always loved Athena, always thought so highly and so fondly of her, this person who’s been wrapped up in her life for so long now. This person who people pushed at her, not realising that they would become something so much more important than married.

So Cassandra laughs as well, a bright and happy thing, as she watches Athena. She nods her head, pleased and bright with it all, beaming a little bit in Athena’s direction. That’s a look that Athena gets more than anybody else does, probably. She always inspires brightness at the end of the day, she always makes Cassandra feel relaxed and ready to smile. No one can quite win that over in her as easily as Athena does.

Because Athena is special.

Athena has always been special, and Cassandra feels full up with love for her and pride in her, the way she lives her life and the fact that she took the leap to tell Ignatius that she wanted to try this, that she wanted to give the two of them a go together. 

“Oh yeah,” She agrees. “I’m sorry to say it, Athena, but your new boyfriend is a blabber mouth. I gave him one look and he spilled the whole story faster than if I’d dosed him with a truth potion. Which was great for me, honestly, as someone who takes a very large interest in your life. It’s much easier to know what’s going on now that I’ve added a whole new spy to my arsenal.” 

She nudges Athena’s foot with her own under the table, a fond smile, bright and happy. “Hey, maybe if Abel and Iggy are very very good, we can all do embarrassing stuff together one night.” Her eyes brighten even more. “Game night.”

She shakes her head fondly. In all honesty, she doesn’t have any problem with the idea of not being able to keep secrets from Cassandra. She’s never once had a secret she’d wanted to keep, and it still feels like something easy and right that Cassandra and Ignatius get along so well, even without her bringing them together. 

     “Game night,” she repeats with a laugh. “Oh, that will go well. You and Abel will be competitive and bicker back and forth about how each of you is better than the other until you decide to make out about it while Ignatius and I can’t do anything except leave you to it because neither of us cared about winning in the first place. Are you sure about that one? That’s how you want our double date to go?”

There’s nothing but fondness in her voice, as she says it; she’s always admired Cassandra’s competitive streak, her ambition, in the exact same way she had never had one herself. Because while her own parents had expected her to be ambitious, to be determined, to be ruthless, and she’d fought for her own right to be utterly content with life and trade the drive to move higher with a general yearning to learn more for the sake of knowing it, Cassandra had never been allowed be ambitious or competitive, to have higher sights for herself than just settling down and being beautiful. That Cassandra’s found someone who sparks her competitive side is just another good tally mark in Abel’s column, as far as Athena is concerned. 

     “Maybe we can...” she starts, prepared to make an alternate suggestion, but she comes up empty. Where did people go on double dates? What did they do? 

She needs to figure it out soon, she realizes, all at once—between Cassandra and Abel and Hades and Cypress, she imagines she’ll be going on quite a few of them once she and Ignatius have settled into some kind of rhythm, have actually gone on enough single dates to let everyone in Athena’s life pressure them into it. Though, while she doesn’t hold any of it against him, she thinks it will likely be a while before they go on any more double dates involving Jack Monday.

     “I don’t know, see a no-maj movie or something. A game night just isn’t fair, you two would absolutely destroy us.” 

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

He can only imagine how overwhelming it might be to have all of this happening so last minute, and to be meeting Emerson when they’d only had their conversation. Emerson alone is a lot, he’s well aware of that fact, having to take care of her every day, she wears him out constantly, it’s probably a miracle that he can function at work, but it’s all he’s known for the past six years. Athena, though, this is all new for her, and he wants to make sure that it’s all okay, that it’s not too much, wants to make sure that she doesn’t feel the pressure to make it work, if it’s not, especially when it’s all so new to all of them. But Athena looks relaxed, and it’s been going so well, he doesn’t think he has anything to worry about, but he wants to make sure.

A soft smile spreads across his lips when she answers, and he knows that she’s telling the truth, that it really is going well for her, too, and that means more than he can really say, that they’re both doing well with this, that maybe he can slot these two parts of his life together, into something even more fantastic than he really thought he could have again.

Ignatius is well aware he’s getting ahead of himself, but he’s already thinking about what they could all do next. How nice it might be to take Emerson to the park with Athena, to go to the zoo like Abel had suggested, to have more nights like this, simple, at home, maybe cook for her and Emmy and Kisky. It’s been a long time since he’s imagined a future like that, not since Sawyer, but he likes the idea of it, and he thinks that she would, too, the idea that he and Emerson don’t have to be alone. He thinks she’d probably like Athena, too.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to flatter me,” he smiles back at her, giving her hand a squeeze. “I’m glad you’re here. It, uh, well, it means a lot, for you to meet Emerson. For you guys to like each other. I know it’s only our first real date, but I wanna keep doing this, keeping having you around, if we haven’t made you change your mind by the end of the night.”

.

She had always assumed that dating, romance and all of that, was something life changing, some kind of upheaval that changed everything around you, something all-consuming and ground-shaking. That’s how Hades had always talked about it; his crushes, as quickly as they sometimes came and went, each sounded like they made his little world shift entirely on its axis. And it’s a part of why she had been resistant to it, for so long: she liked her world, the one she’d built for herself when she had finally let herself come to realize that she could choose what she wanted, be who she wanted to be instead of who her parents had wanted her to be. She didn’t want something to come along and change it, take it all away from her, sweep her up and leave her somewhere else, on shaky and uncertain grown if and when it finally faded away. 

But... this isn’t like that, she thinks, not at all. Nothing has changed, except that she is here. Nothing she had is gone, and she doesn’t feel unsteady at all. She doesn’t even feel scared, anymore. It has only been a few minutes, really, since she walked through the door, but a part of her feels at home here, with him, and with Emerson and Kisky, and she may not know exactly what she’s doing but she feels a lot like it won’t be all that hard to learn. 

     “Bold of you to assume you could make me change my mind,” she says, voice light, a joke, and she can’t stop herself from smiling through it. He looks happy, looks more relaxed than he had when he answered the door, a relief on his face she hasn’t seen there since before Valentine’s day. Almost a month. She reaches her free hand up, to his face, lets her fingers trace over his cheek for just a moment.

     “If we make her wait much longer for pizza, though, Emerson might not be so inclined to want to keep me around,” she adds, with a little laugh. She’d like to kiss him again, maybe, but it feels like it isn’t the time. Maybe later, maybe after dinner, maybe after she lets Emerson show her all of her drawings, all of her bracelets. 

[athenafq]

hadrixn​:

Hadrian can’t help but be delighted when they cat, Mittens, gazes up at them and begins to speak. It’s wonderful. This should be what magic is always like –– something undeniably amazing, something that blows you mind and makes you believe that the universe is a wonderful place. Hadrian is crouching there, looking at an adorable cat, and the adorable cat is talking to them. They have to hold themself back from reacing forward and petting a hand over Mittens’ head, the motion seeming a little rude when Mittens is a witness that they’re questioning on this case. 

They reign in any delighted sounds that threaten to slip away from them. But they’re smiling brightly, the warmest and widest smile that they’ve managed to form all week. They feel delighted by this, they feel like it has washed some of the darkness that they have been dealing with lately away. 

“Ah, Merci beaucoup, petit chat.” They say, falling back into the old pattern of speech they would pick up for Marie. Hadrian always found it hard to speak to animals in English, unless they definitely wanted whoever was around to hear what they were saying and understand it. “As my partner said, we’re here to investigate what is letting you talk. Have you encountered anything strange in your little town, lately? Perhaps a new person hanging around, or something you’ve never seen before suddenly appearing?”

Mittens stretches just a little bit, “Mmm,” They let out again, slow and languid and only half interested it seems, pausing to consider the words before they speak. “There’s a new little girl who always tries to sit with me while her mother goes inside. But she does not stay for long. She is no stranger than any other human in this town.” 

“Have you touched or eaten anything out of the ordinary?” They ask, a follow up to their previous question. 

“Nothing new.” The cat muses, slow. “My humans feed me the same old things, day in and out. And the one inside the store brings me water and offerings to win my favor. But it is all the same as before. Though perhaps the water in my dish tasted a little strange, once or twice.” 

Hadrian seems so delighted to be speaking with Mittens, their expression bright and excited, so Athena, smiling, sits back to listen, taking notes on Mittens’ answers, what has been the same and what is new. A new family in town, the water tasting strange... It would be an easy way, to do something like this, she thinks, to mix a small concentration of some kind of potion into the cat’s water, but they don’t yet have anything to connect the four animals they know of. If they were all pets, maybe, or if one person had access to them all, but one of them is a squirrel, and it seems unlikely anyone is putting out water for wild animals, not to mention the two pets that are speaking are from completely different households... 

She’s getting ready to say as much, to Hadrian, when a small voice calls out from behind them, distracting both her and Mittens.

      “Mittens!” the voice calls, and Athena watches as Mittens’ ears perk up a little at what is clearly a familiar voice, a little telltale twitch of the cat’s face revealing a fondness for the owner of the voice, and Athena turns around and sees a young girl, maybe eight years old, abandoning her mother and racing towards them—towards Mittens, as her bespectacled mother lets out a fond but exasperated sigh and speeds to catch up. “Good morning, Mittens!” she says, barely paying Athena or Hadrian any mind as she drops to sit, criss cross, on the sidewalk, gently scratching the cat’s chin.

     “Good morning, Verity,” Mittens purrs, eyes closing contentedly, and at the same time, the girl’s mother finally catches up, a little out of breath, pushing her glasses back up at her nose and casting a brief, wary glance over Athena and Hadrian.

      “I’m so sorry, is she interrupting something?” the woman asks, her eyes finally settling on Athena, tone apologetic and a little guarded. “We’ll be quick, I just need to run inside and get milk, but she insisted on coming with me. We’re brand new, to town, and I think Mittens here is the only friend she’s made so far.”

So this must be the new girl Mittens had mentioned, and that’s curious, Athena thinks. Another variable, another new factor. She wonders how long it’s been since Verity and her family moved to town, whether Verity had contact with the other animals that have begun to talk... Mittens seems thoroughly preoccupied now, with Verity’s gentle attention, unlikely to want to go back to answering questions, so she lets her attention drift to the woman.

      “It’s not a problem at all,” she says, and holds her hand out for the woman to shake. “I’m Corporal Athena Falconer-Quinn, with the MACUSA Central Squad. We’re actually here trying to determine why Mittens has been able to start speaking.”

     “Oh!” the woman says, looking a little confused. “Has he not... always been able to speak? I’m sorry, this is all so new to us. I just assumed that... magical animals could all talk, I guess.”

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

Emerson, content with the deal, immediately starts trying to drag him towards said pizza, and he lets out a loud laugh, looking at Athena with a grin, and a shrug, as he lets Emerson lead him out of the room. If it all wasn’t already enough to make it feel a little overwhelming, in the best way, even as Emerson is pulling him towards the coveted pizza, he glances back and sees Athena pausing at the door to Emerson’s room, making sure Kisky knows she’s welcome to join them, too. And, Merlin, if he doesn’t feel more lucky than he thought he’d ever be allowed again after so much. He doesn’t know how Athena manages to do it, but maybe beyond that he doesn’t how it took him so long to see.

For so many years he’s been so wrapped up in the worry, and paranoia that something could go wrong at a moment’s notice, that everyone would always be against him, no matter what he did, so he had kept himself, and Emerson, at a distance from most others. It’s ironic that in a way it had taken so, so much going wrong to break him out of that. And there’s still worry––he’s fairly certain it’ll never fully go away, after everything––but it feels like something he can learn to handle, and the first part of that is all of this, being open, being ready to look around and accept something good, and to offer back the same.

In the kitchen, he starts bringing things over to the dining room table, letting Emerson very carefully bring the plates over to the table, Kisky helping her lift them up without breaking any of them. As they’re all getting situated, he can’t help but think vaguely just now good this is, getting ready to have dinner with Emerson, Athena, and Kisky all together, three very distinct bright spots in his life, from three very different times, all together. He can’t help the soft smile he gives Athena.

“I wanna sit next to Athena!” Emerson says excitedly, as she climbs into the chair, and pats the other next to her for Athena to sit in.

“Wow, I see how it is. That’s okay, I wanted to sit next to Kisky tonight, anyway. You two sit, Athena and I will get drinks, alright?” he says with a laugh, before heading back to the kitchen. He looks at Athena, a little more seriously once they’re alone, wanting to make sure this is all okay, not just the seating arrangements, but all of it. “She’s a little ball of energy, I know. I was the same way, according to daddy dearest… How are you doing… with all of it?”

.

A little ball of energy is a pretty good description for Emerson, and his comment makes her smile. However awful his own father might have been, the glimpse into what he’d been like as a child is a nice one. She can imagine it: little Ignatius, at that age, that size, so full of energy. Emerson’s a bit of a whirlwind, just like her dad, every thought out loud, jumping quickly from one thing to the next, but there’s an easiness to it, somehow: she’s so caught up in her own energy that she doesn’t seem to ask much of Athena except to sort of be there and bear witness to it all, to laugh at the right times, to smile when she looks over, and all of that’s easy enough for Athena to do. 

She’s thought talking to a child for an extended period of time would be hard, that she wouldn’t know what to do or say, and granted, she hasn’t said all that much yet herself, but that seems to be okay. Emerson seems to be content with what she’s offered, and it makes the whole thing feel easy. The same way Ignatius makes it feel easy. She’s reminded, all of a sudden, of Valentine’s day, the way things had been before everything had gone wrong, the way she’d been able to just sit and listen and chime in occasionally while Baron and Ignatius and Jack all talked, the way she’d been allowed to just sit and listen, perfectly content. She’d thought it would be much, much harder than this, but somehow it feels like it’s been the easiest thing in the world. 

     “I’m fine,” she says, and then, “I’m... better than fine, really. I’m having a really good time, I promise.” 

    “She’s really, really lovely, Ignatius,” she adds, giving him a warm smile to make sure he knows she means it, lets herself take his hand for a moment. “Much like her dad.” 

[athenafq]

astor-reyes​:

She lets herself smile just slightly, a small quirk of her lip at the admission that Athena had been talking to Ignatius. She’d meant it when she told herself she wouldn’t push, but bringing up Ignatius, she had hoped that Athena would tell her the story, fill her in on what Ignatius had said the other night. He’d looked so damned pleased when he talked about Athena. He’d looked happy, like he couldn’t believe he was getting this chance. It made her feel warm to think about it, it made her feel happy to picture the two of them being happy together. 

So she’s glad that Athena has decided to mention him, to mention the fact that they’ve been talking. And she feels a little bolt of excitement at the fondness that creeps in to Athena’s voice near the end there. 

She gets the idea that Athena would have liked to say more, but Athena has never been the kind of person who found it easy. Sometimes she didn’t know what to say. Sometimes she counted on the others to understand it for her, to know her well enough to listen, to push a little bit further, to take some of the reigns from her and prompt her into talking a little bit more. Cassandra looks at her for a moment, and weighs the options.

If Athena doesn’t want to talk about it, Cassandra figures she’ll just shut it down. They’re good enough friends that Athena can just tell her to drop it, can just tell her to move on to some other topic of conversation. Cassandra can switch back to Abel at the drop of a hat if it comes down to it, can double back and talk about how nice and warm and excited they make her feel. But she’d like if Athena didn’t shut it down. She’d like if Athena felt comfortable enough to share it all with her, the way they normally did. 

“Yeah, he mentioned that to me too.” She says, with a slow little smile, a small prompt in her voice. “I think he seems pretty excited by all the other things on his mind.”

.

She knows, without having to say it, that Cassandra knows. That Ignatius must have said something. And she doesn’t mind, not at all, because Cassandra is smiling at her, smiling like she knows and like she agrees, like she thinks it’s great. Ignatius had been so worried, when they’d spoken, about Cassandra, about what his father had tried to make him do, and here was Cassandra caring about him, and smiling about him, and smiling about them, and it makes her feel like she made the right choice.

And it makes her blush, lift a hand to cover her face, laughing lightly as she feels her cheeks heat up with it under Cassandra’s knowing little look.

     “Oh no,” she half groans through the laugh. “He told you everything, didn’t he? Here I am trying to be discreet while I figure all of this out and he’s told you already.” 

It’s clear from her voice, though, that she doesn’t mind at all. It isn’t like she doesn’t know how Ignatius talks, isn’t like she expected him not to tell anyone, and if it had to be anyone she’s glad it was Cassandra. She can almost trace his twirling thought pattern, assuming that if she’d told anyone beside Hades it would have been Cassandra anyway. And she would have, already, if they hadn’t both been so busy until tonight.

She’d thought this would all be strange, that it would be weird adjusting to having something she’d never wanted before with anyone else. And they hadn’t really done anything, yet, haven’t even had their first actual date. But she feels better about it than she thought she would; it feels natural, it feels nice.

    “Did he tell you the part about how I kissed him in a coffee shop? Almost as embarrassing as a barn surrounded by all of my coworkers.”

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

He tries not to worry, tries not to put too much on this moment, because that’s not fair to any of them, especially when it’s so early with him and Athena, and this was a last minute plan for the evening. But he wants it to go well, wants Emerson to like Athena as much as he does, and vice versa. He doesn’t think that could happen, but there are so many unknown factors that it feels impossible to rule out the possibility He hasn’t actually considered until just this moment, how horrible it would be if for one reason or another they didn’t click, too wrapped up in everything else to let him mind take up another worry apparently. He’s not sure what he would do if that happened, and there’s a split second of panic when he considers it.

But it’s an unnecessary worry, he realizes as soon as Emerson smiles even wider at Athena, and bounces over to the two of them, taking his hand and looking up at her, immediately outing him for all that he’s said about Athena over the past week. Athena lets out a little laugh, and so does he, full of relief already, because it’s a big step, enormous actually. 

It makes him strangely emotional to watch Athena kneel down to get on Emerson’s level, talking to her perfectly, everything just feeling right. He hadn’t really let himself consider what this would mean, just in the way he had only halfway let himself think about what it meant to feel the way he does for Athena, when he hadn’t felt this way in six years. And sure, Emmy’s met more of his coworkers in the past week than in the past six years, but this is different, because Athena’s someone who he thinks might be around for a long, long time, if he’s given the option. That thought in an of itself is a little surprising, but not in a bad way.

“Pizza!” Emerson says excitedly, pulling his hand around, taking him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, she brought pizza, she’s pretty great, right?” he smiles, looking at the two of them fondly. “You think you can be very, very careful and not get any on your outfit? Or do you need to change into something a little less formal?”

“I can be very, very careful, daddy, don’t worry,” she says proudly, before immediately turning back to Athena. “I can show you my drawings! Oh, oh, I wanna make you a bracelet! What’s your favorite color? Mine is purple. Daddy likes green.”

“One thing at a time, Emmy. Let’s have dinner first, then after that you can ask Athena if she wants to see your pictures, and we can get started on a bracelet, sound good?”

.

Emerson’s eyes go a little wide as she patiently listens to her dad’s instructions, internalizing them, and then she nods enthusiastically up at him, and the whole scene draws another smile to Athena’s lips just to watch, the two of them so effortless, so comfortable. It’s a far sight from her own childhood, and she imagines from Ignatius’ as well. She tries to imagine having come to the dinner table at Emerson’s age dressed in anything but the outfit her mother had picked out for her and she can’t do it, certainly can’t imagine anything as imaginative and out there as a costume like this. 

But it’s so, so clear that Emerson has her dad wrapped around her little finger. So clear that Ignatius cares so deeply about her happiness above anything else. It makes her happy, to see it, to see them; she thought it might make her sad, make her wish her childhood had been more like that, but instead she just feels lucky to be here, to get to see it, see Ignatius in such a different light as in the office.

And it isn’t that different. It’s the same care, the care he’d shown on their case, going out of his way to accommodate her needs, the same care he’d shown when she asked him for space, the same care he showed whenever it mattered. Just more. Bigger, more obvious, the way things sometimes need to be to stand out the way they have to to a child for whom everything is bigger, already. 

     “Do you want some pizza too, Kisky?” she asks, ducking her head back into the messy room for a quick second before she starts after the two of them back towards the kitchen. “There’s enough for everyone, if you want to join us.” 

Kisky smiles, through the doorway, and then hesitates for a moment, looking around the messy room reluctantly before seeming to remember herself, remember where she was, that she didn’t have to stay here and clean while they all ate.

     “Kisky would like that very much,” she says, with a smile and a big nod, setting a few carefully folded costume items down on Emerson’s bed before coming out to join Athena for the short walk back to the kitchen. 

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

He’s not exactly sure what to expect. It’s a lot to throw on Athena, he knows, especially since this is their first real date, when she hadn’t even been planning to meet Emerson tonight, but it’s such a big part of their lives right now that they want her to know, they want her to be prepared, just in case Emerson, with all the tact of a six year old, brings it up.

“I didn’t realize,” he says, and only after saying those words does he realize just how much he doesn’t actually know about Athena’s life outside of the office. He had had no idea about Hades, that there had ever been a point that there was a question of his magic. But Ignatius can infer some things just from what he knows, because Athena and Hades are pureblood, and maybe their family wasn’t Astor-Reyes level of awful American purebloods, he doesn’t know, but he knows what pureblood families are like, knows that sort of thing isn’t something a pureblood would accept easily; he’s been fighting so hard against that himself, with Emerson, after all. 

He appreciates the little glimpse into Athena’s life, want to take all she wants to share, and he appreciates that she understands, that she gets is, better than a lot of people could. And knowing that she thinks he’s doing the right thing, that she thinks it’ll help, having seen firsthand what happened when the opposite was the case, makes him feel better.

“Thank you, Athena,” he says, reaching over and taking Athena’s hand for a second, giving it a squeeze. He lingers there for a second, for once, not feeling like he needs to put everything in to words, the feeling enough. He doesn’t get to say anything, though, before a shout of daddy comes from down the hall, and he gives Athena a smile.

“I think that’s our cue. The rest of the place isn’t nearly as interesting as Emerson’s room, anyway,” he smiles, before starting down the hall towards Emerson’s room. Sure enough, when they get there, Kisky is trying to put all the dozens of costumes away, Emerson standing proudly in the middle of the room, with her Cruella de Vil coat on over her Cinderella dress. “Great outfit, Em, you look fantastic. Look, Athena’s here! Athena, this is Emerson, she’s been dying to meet you.”

.

She squeezes his hand back, gives him a smile too, warm and supportive. She’s sure it isn’t easy, to be worried about your child’s future—there were as many good reasons to worry as there were bad ones, and there was no question life was more difficult for a wixen-born child who didn’t have magic, a whole way of feeling like they didn’t belong that could come from all sides at once. And she can tell that Ignatius’ concerns are the good ones. And that’s—Merlin, there’s something about that that makes her feel so soft towards him. How could he possibly think he wasn’t a good man, when cared so much for his daughter and for all the right reasons? 

But then a voice that must be Emerson’s interrupts them, and she feels her heart pick up speed, a little, nervous as she starts to follow him in the direction it had come from. She has no idea what to expect, really. She’s sure Emerson will be perfectly lovely, but she’s worried that Emerson will expect more of her than she’s able to be, especially if she and Ignatius have been talking about her. What if Ignatius had made Emerson expect too much? What if he’d made her out to be someone more exciting than she really was, especially to a six year old who was unlikely to be interested in things like magical theory, where Athena actually could be considered interesting. 

When they get to the room, Emerson is certainly a sight to see. Dressed to the nines in a very dramatic costume, beaming with pride about the outfit she’d clearly been picking out all this time. Athena takes a moment to give Kisky a smile and a wave—she’ll have to make sure she gets a chance to sit down and talk with her later, see how she’s doing, once all of the introductions are out of the way—while Ignatius and Emerson talk for a moment, and then turns her attention back as Ignatius introduces her.

     “Hi, Emerson,” she says. “I love your outfit.”

Emerson makes an excited noise, her smile growing somehow even wider than it had been a moment ago, and she rushes over to the two of them, taking her dad’s hand while she looks up at Athena.

      “Athena! Daddy’s been talking about you all week. He said that you’re very nice and very smart and very funny, but he didn’t tell me that you were so pretty!” 

She’s completely caught off guard by it, all of it, finds herself letting out a surprised and bashful laugh, feels her cheeks go a little red, and she feels weird looking down at the little girl so she crouches down a little bit so she can get on eye level with her.

     “Well thank you,” she replies. “He told me all about you too. He said you’re very smart, and a very talented artist, and the best at picking out costumes. He also told me that you love pizza, so I brought some with me for dinner.”

[athenafq]

astor-reyes​:

Something settles in Cassandra that she didn’t know had been bothering her until just that moment. A little itch of worry, a little itch of uncertainty. She doesn’t think she could ever actually love someone that Athena didn’t approve of, that Athena didn’t like. If Athena thought something was a bad idea, Cassandra would have to cut and run. But Athena is smiling at her, and Athena is happy for her, and it makes something finally sink in. She wants to be with Abel. She wants to be with them for a very, very long time, so they and Athena are going to have to become the very best of friends. She smiles a little wider, feels herself swell a little bit with happiness, feels so earnestly excited about the prospect. That isn’t something that she usually allows herself, this kind of genuine softness and genuine vulnerability. 

It’s something that scares her, but right now she isn’t scared. At least, she isn’t scared of this. She isn’t scared of falling in love, or baring her soul for Abel to see. Those things feel safe, suddenly. She’ll have people there to catch her when she falls, if she stumbles, people she can go to if she makes mistakes. Athena with her always surprisingly good advice, HQ there with all of his vast experience. She thinks they’ll be okay. 

“It’s been good.” She says, gentle, looking Athena in the eye. “We’ve been good.” Cassandra stops to take a long sip of her drink, to let it smooth through her and unwind the other tensions that have crept in throughout the day, issues of work and cases and trials on the horizon. “Abel’s pretty sweet, you know? Still a bastard, but sweet. I think that’s how I like them, anyway. And it makes it easier to deal with everything else going on, which still feels like the biggest mess I’ve ever gotten myself in to.” 

She smiles at Cassandra, sweet, running a finger over the rim of her glass. “I mostly feel bad for Ignatius, you know? As hard as it all is for me, it must be ten times worse for him.” 

She smiles, listening to Cassandra talk about them. Sounding so happy, and so at ease. Abel is sweet, in exactly the way Cassandra would want somebody to be: not for want of sharp edges, but ones that fit neatly against her own instead of scraping up against one another. They’ve all been through hell, Cassandra and Ignatius more than most of them, but it feels like they all deserve these new little pieces of happiness they’ve found. Not just Abel and Cass, not just her and Ignatius, but her and Abel, too, and their new friendship, and the new bond between Cassandra and Ignatius as well. 

     “I talked to him the other day, about it,” she says, and she wonders if Cassandra will be surprised by that—the last time she and Cassandra had talked, the day they got back when she’d come over, briefly, to see her and Hades in between her newly busy schedule with Abel, Athena still hadn’t had a chance to talk to him. And for the few days before the two of them left for Scotland, they hadn’t been speaking at all, Ignatius respecting the request for space that she almost regrets having given him, looking back. “It sounds like it was terrible, for him. I can’t even imagine what either of you went through.”

Here’s where she should tell Cassandra, she thinks. A better opportunity than she’s going to get, trying to bring it up organically at any other point. But she doesn’t know how to come out and say it, not exactly. It isn’t something she knows how to talk about, with respect to herself, even if she’s had this conversation about Cassandra, or Hades, any number of times before. 

     “But... well, you’ve got a nice distraction now, with Abel. And Ignatius may also have... other things on his mind.” She can’t help the fondness in her voices, as she says it, can’t help the small smile that comes to her lips as she thinks about their talk in the coffee shop, and she knows Cassandra will see right through her. It could never fix what he’d been through, but it had seemed to lift his spirts, at the very least. She hopes it’ll be something good, for both of them, the same way Abel and Cassandra seem to be for one another. 

[athenafq]

ignatiusyaxley​:

He takes the box from her, still grinning like an idiot as she comes inside. Inside his home, to meet Emerson, to have dinner with them both, with his daughter. It feels a little like a really good dream, the sort of thing he doesn’t know if he quite deserves, but he’s going to take it, and hold it close, no matter what. He’s going to do everything he can to savor it, and to keep it this way. Closing the door behind her, he can’t help but just grin at her, at how lucky he feels that she not only wanted to try with him, but had wanted to come over, had been willing to take Emerson into consideration and not just accept that, but do something for her, too. But then, he shouldn’t be so surprised. He knows Athena. He knows how kind, and smart, and thoughtful she is, knows that when she’s decided on something, she’ll put in all the work she can to do it right, and this isn’t any different.

“Well, I can’t let that happen, that would be a really shite first date for both of us,” he says with a little laugh himself. 

He nods in the direction of the kitchen so that they can put the pizza down before he shows her the rest of the place.“Kitchen, dining room. Emmy’s art on the fridge. I’m a pretty good cook, actually, next time I’m down a sitter, I’ll cook for us, but I haven’t been to the store since we got back from Scotland, to be honest. It’s not been this clean since weeks before, but Kisky helped me out before you got here,” he explains as he puts the pizza on the kitchen counter. 

He’s not nervous, exactly, but introducing her to Emerson is a big deal, having her here is a big deal, when only two weeks ago only Tide and Jack had ever seen his place. It’s several big steps at once, and he wants to ease her in, so he doesn’t rush to show her the rest yet, doesn’t rush to take her to Emerson’s room to introduce them.

“Nearly set the place on fire with that microwave once, haven’t used it since. Sometimes I wonder if a muggle neighborhood was the right choice, but feels a little safer for Em, and better, just in case…” he trails off, realizing that he hasn’t told Athena about that part of things. “Oh, um, you should know in case she says anything, well, Emerson doesn’t have any magic, not yet anyway, but I’m not sure she ever will, especially since her mum is a muggle. Abel’s been talking to her about it, helping me ease her into the idea of being around magic without her own being the same. But it’s a new topic for us, so she might mention it, especially because she knows you made them their cuff.”

.

She follows after him, listening with a patient interest, smiling as he shows her the kitchen. She takes a second to linger, near the fridge, looking over all of the careful, childish artwork stuck to it, colorful little stick figures, rainbows and trees, a remarkable proliferation of fairly well-drawn cows for a six year old. She hadn’t liked drawing very much when she was that age, her fine motor control a little slower to develop, and she’d picked up reading early enough that she much preferred looking through books; Hades had been quite the little artist, though, always drawing, pictures of the two of them, or whatever he was interested in at the time, giving them all to her as gifts. She’d kept all of them, in a little box of little treasures. Emerson seems to be similarly inclined, if the number of pictures on the fridge is anything to go by. 

Ignatius mentions Emerson’s magic, then, mentions that she doesn’t have any, that she’s been talking with Abel, mentions the cuff, and her face softens even more than it had been before, at the thought. She knew what it was like, for purebloods like them, the fear that a late-blooming child would turn out a squib, the stress that came with the crucial few years of any child’s live, from around age five until as late as ten or so if their magic hadn’t manifest by then. Her own magic had come to her young, silly wordless things like making books float from the bookshelf over to her, making little flowers bloom to give to Hades. 

But their parents had made quite a fuss about how long it took for Hades to show magic, how they had been convinced he was a squib, a disappointment, a failure, just because he didn’t take to it as quickly as she did, while all the while he was using his legilimency to help her get through her own trouble with speaking. She would have loved her brother even if he’d never had any magic at all, but she also knew, quite clearly, that their parents were unlikely to have ever felt the same.

     “Okay,” she says, turning her attention away from the pictures on the fridge and back to him as he speaks. “I’ll keep that in mind, if she brings it up.”

And then, because he looks almost nervous about it, she adds:

     “I’m glad Abel can help her with that. I’m sure it’ll make it easier for her, if she ends up not having any. My parents weren’t as good, about that kind of thing, but I think a lot of things would have been easier for Hades, if they’d done something like that, or even just had a better attitude about it.” 

[theaurorfileshq]

CASE UPDATES:

Invisible Thief in Iowa City

Current Status: CLOSED

Lead Auror: Athena Falconer-Quinn

Assisting Auror: June Norwood

Conclusion: After investigating the victims of the “Invisible Thief”, aurors Athena Falconer-Quinn and June Norwood discovered that an infant demiguise had recently escaped a local wixen zoo. The demiguise had been entering properties at random, and stealing simply what attracted it. The Body for the Protection of Magical Species was later able to capture the runaway demiguise, and shortly afterward returned it back to its home. The case is now considered closed. 

Point Rewards:

Officer Corporal Athena Falconer-Quinn (Lead)

+75 points for solving as lead, level one +20 for training a recruit auror

Resulting point rewards: +95

Recruit Cadet June Norwood (Assisting)

+70 points for solving as assisting, level one +20 for having the newspaper with the vital clue on the demiguise

Resulting point rewards: +90