The Dead Season: Chapter 60
Chapter 60: Pioneers
Fire and Window. Pride and Sorrow. Earth and Storm.
Excerpt:
Girls like presents, Solas told him once. They like the little things. They’d been drinking whiskey in some old bar casino called the Pale Dreaming on Winter Street. It had never closed, not even after the city went to shit, and they sat there, as they so often did, looking at the candles in the shapes of trees on the walls, wearing their matching vallaslin of the woman who loved them. Solas was always on about gifts with Abelas. Gifts, gifts. It was no secret, but it was a secret weapon.
Little things. Like your butterflies? said Abelas. He was eighteen and in some ways, wise to the world and its shitty disposition. In others, he was very green and very eager. Solas was twenty-four. I’ve seen you make butterflies for Mythal.
Yes, you have, said Solas. He snapped his fingers. A butterfly came to life in the air. It was small and pink but translucent, like the blue light from a candle. The serving girl, she stopped to regard its cool and crystalline grace. Like the city itself.
That’s lovely, she said.
Solas smiled. She passed.
The butterflies are just an example, said Solas as the butterfly slipped away into the ether. It can be anything. It can be a piece of paper. It’s just a symbol. What matters is that it is from you.
What matters is that it is from you. Abelas had always liked paper.
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What if Solas had changed his heart? What if he never left? Find out at AO3.