Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ariadnewhitlock

Aug 17, 2024

TIMING: current. PARTIES: @ariadnewhitlock, @vanoincidence, @muertarte & @magmahearts LOCATION: the magmacave. SUMMARY: as cass prepares to leave town for good, ariadne, van, and metzli show up to speak to her. when makaio finds them, things go south. CONTENT: parental death, child death, emotional manipulation, domestic abuse

Something had shifted with Metzli’s last visit. Cass had always known, on some level, that her father was capable of being dangerous in the same way she was, but she hadn’t thought much of it. Most of the people she loved were capable of being dangerous, and it never made her love them any less. Even now, she wouldn’t pretend she loved Makaio less than she had before. He was her father. She still loved him, would always love him. But… she didn’t think it was safe for him to be around her friends anymore. Not after he’d tried to have her hurt Metzli, not after he’d made it clear that there was only room in her life for him. She loved her father, but she didn’t think he belonged here.

Which probably meant she didn’t, either.

She’d already started planting the idea in his head. The two of them would be better suited for somewhere far from Wicked’s Rest. Alaska had a lot of volcanoes, and would put a whole country between them and the people she loved. It had a lower population, too, which meant less risk of… accidents like what had happened with the security guard. (Or things that weren’t accidents, like what had happened with the hunter. Cass tried not to think about that one.) Makaio actually seemed excited about it, and that was a good thing. The two of them could start over somewhere fresh, where no one she loved was in danger and she could have the family she told herself she wanted.

So, she was deep within the Magmacave, scribbling letters in a notebook. She knew she couldn’t say goodbye to her friends in person; they’d all ask her to stay, and Cass wasn’t sure she was strong enough to say no. The notebook would be a better option. She’d leave it in the woods near the cave, someplace where one of them could find it. They’d be sad, but they’d be okay. They’d move on. Everyone always did.

If she were less busy with the writing, she might have known someone was coming before the footsteps echoed off the walls. She might have registered that those butterflies in her stomach that signaled the presence of another fae, of her father, were absent with the approach. But knowing probably wouldn’t have changed anything, anyway, and so it didn’t matter that Cass didn’t hear them coming ahead of time. Her pencil paused in its scribbling as the footsteps finally echoed close by, head snapping up. “You shouldn’t be here.”

—

Van remembered the last time that she’d seen Cass and how tense it had been, of how she re-ran the conversation over and over in an attempt to figure out how to have it better next time. She wanted so badly for things go right that she didn’t heed the warnings. So what if Cass’s dad was dangerous? So what if Cass thought she was dangerous? Van was dangerous, too. She could do things, too. Unimaginable things. For the first time in a long time, Van wasn’t afraid as she walked towards Cass’s cave.

It almost felt foreign in a way, a forgotten kind of memory that was only linked to the dreams she used to have about all of them beneath the cavern’s edge. She thought about the times that she’d been there to visit Cass, with or without the others– of the comics spread out on the floor, of the movies they’d watch on their phones. Van wondered very briefly if she should’ve brought pizza like before.

It was just as difficult as before, navigating her way through the cave’s entrance to the opening that would lead her straight to Cass. Before she turned the corner, she could hear her friend’s voice ring out. “You like, said that before.” She didn’t have to do much to dodge the overhanging parts of the cave, as she was already on the shorter side. Instead, she walked right through, feigning authority and confidence. The moment she finally saw Cass, however, it shattered. She was wearing the necklace. It burned itself like a plate against the magma, but she was wearing it. Van stuttered as she spoke, “I just really wanted to see you. I’ve been– it’s– I missed you. A lot.”

—

Ariadne had missed Cass more than she could put into words. Except that she’d decided that she had to go by the cave now. There wasn’t any other option at this point. Cass could yell at her, ignore her, do anything, but she needed to see Cass. Cass was her best friend and she’d been the person to make Ariadne really understand what it was like to have a best friend who wasn’t part of your family. She also needed to make sure that Cass was okay. Even if Cass never wanted to talk to her again, Ariadne needed to see for herself that her friend was at least okay.

She should’ve brought cookies – M&M, or something like that. Chocolate-caramel-chip. All sorts. Lifesavers gummies too. Except she’d shown up, with only a embroidered piece of fabric that was another volcano. A volcano with stars shining above it.

“I’m sorry.” She nearly walked into Van as she arrived at the cave. “I – uh. I missed you. Also. I’m sorry. I know you said – but you’re my best friend in the whole world and I really, really miss you and I needed to see you because –” Ariande cut herself off. “Please, let me – us – let us in, just for a little while?”

There was something finite about visiting the cave again, feeling the stone beneath their fingertips as they trailed behind the two girls ahead of them. More than ever, Metzli felt like death was permeating around them. Whether it was from a separate source or from within, they weren’t sure, but they saw the way Cass’s father kept himself gripped to her. Quite literally.

From what they’ve seen and what they’ve experienced, Metzli knew all too well that it would take violence to get Cass away from that man instead of sacrificing the life she made for herself. They couldn’t let her give up the home she had worked hard to make, not for anyone. Especially not a man who abused his position as a father. The very thought of that made Metzli’s stomach sink, gagging them into silence while they listened to Van and Ariadne speak until there was a pause.

They swallowed, wringing their fingers together several times until the ball in their throat released their voice. “We love you.” Metzli breathed, “It has been too long since we are able to be with you. Just for a little bit, we will like to see you.” Their body stiffened, and they added, “Please.”

It was overwhelming, having three of her closest friends show up at once. For weeks now, Cass had felt as though she was drowning just dealing with them one at a time, trying to keep both her families intact while knowing they needed to be kept separate. Seeing Metzli, Van, and Ariadne all here, all telling her the same things they’d been telling her for weeks… It was hard. More than that, it was scary. Cass glanced towards the back of the cave, where Makaio was resting. Hadn’t he said he’d kill Metzli if they returned? Wouldn’t he do the same to Ariadne and Van? This was why she had to go. None of them could ever be safe so long as she was here.

Half panicked, she looked back to them, getting to her feet. Hesitantly, she put up her glamour, stone and magma giving way to skin and hair. It was the first time she’d bothered with it for weeks now, the first time she’d worn it in her cave since Makaio first introduced himself to her. She took a step towards them, gently pushing the notebook towards Van.

“I love you, too,” she said quietly. “All of you. But you can’t be here, okay? Just — Look, I’m not… We can’t do this right now.” Or ever, really. But if she told them her plans, would they let her go? The best case scenario was for them to leave, and for Van to open the notebook after. By then, Cass and Makaio would be gone, and it would be better. Wouldn’t it be better? “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been — weird lately. But you guys really need to leave.”

—

Van hadn’t anticipated the others, but they were welcomed additions. What better way to prove to their friend that she was loved than to all show up? It might’ve been overwhelming, too. There was no sense in facing the back and forth of what it could mean for Cass, because it was clear that they all thought they needed to be here for their own reasons. She figured from her’s and Cass’s last meeting that there’d be no such appreciation for the sudden visit, but hadn’t anticipated panic. She remembered what it looked like on Cass’s features from the time in the grocery store, Debbie’s blood spilt between them.

“What is this?” Van didn’t open the notebook that Cass pushed into her hands. Instead, she held onto it tightly at her side, fingers denting the flimsy cover. It was a little odd, seeing Cass in the way that she remembered her most easily, and while Cass might’ve argued that the former was more in tune with who she was, Van thought that they both were. She didn’t really know how fae glamor worked, but it was clear it was different across the board, given Regan only had to hide wings. Well, not anymore, but still.

“What’s going on, Cass?” This was different than the last time, too, Van realized. “Are you okay?” Her voice trembled slightly as she took a small step forward, catching Cass’s hand with her own. “You can come with us, right? You can come with us, and you can tell us.” Her eyes swept behind Cass where she anticipated Makaio’s arrival, but all she saw was darkness. “You can come with us.” It wasn’t a question this time, instead it was spoken with finality– a plea dressed in the most basic of emotion.

—

A part of her had wanted to be the only one here, but it made sense that Van and Metzli had shown up too. If Ariadne were honest, it was also a welcome addition, because it meant she didn’t have to convince Cass of her value all alone. Van and Metzli were perfect additions because she knew Cass loved them deeply too. So maybe this would work. Maybe she could get her best friend back. To show Cass just how desperately loved she was.

Cass’s panic was unsettling. Ariadne would’ve preferred anger, preferred being yelled at to go and being told she was annoying, no matter how much that hurt her. Cass’s glamor shifted, and Ariadne opened her mouth to say that Cass didn’t have to do that, that she was so incredibly beautiful in her true form, but maybe now wasn’t the time for that.

“Please come with us.” She echoed Van, taking a step forward and grabbing Cass’s other hand with her own, gaze falling to the notebook, wondering what was in there, if Van knew more, and what that more might have been. She hadn’t met Cass’s dad yet, but figured he had to be somewhere in here. “Just come on, we can – we can do whatever you want to do. Anything at all.” Because even on the most normal of days Ariadne would have done anything on earth for her friend. But now it seemed especially important to highlight that, to make sure that her best friend knew how much she’d do anything on earth for her.

“I missed you. I love you.” A mantra, almost. The way it flowed off her tongue was nearly like a prayer. “We love you. We love you.” She changed, not wanting to ignore the others who were there, even if a part of her wanted to wrap Cass up in their own little world. “What’s the matter?”

The reciprocated love, although quiet, meant everything after the months of pushback. It helped further prove to Metzli that it was never truly Cass who spoke so cruelly. Maybe she once believed the words as they flew off her tongue, but that didn’t seem the case anymore. They recalled the last time they were there, and looked to Cass’s shoulder. Metzli could still see the jagged grip on it, detested the idea that she was left with a bruise and an ache that they couldn’t soothe after they left.

Quickly, the thoughts were shaken away before more could be conjured in a panic. Their focus was better set on getting Cass somewhere away from her father, somewhere safe. By the looks of it though, with Metzli’s trained eye and propensity for analysis, the notebook Cass was shoving into Van’s hands looked a lot like a goodbye. Their shoulders fell and their posture stiffened at the realization, and it was all they could do to keep their composure. If Cass left, she would be sacrificing everything for a man that did not deserve it. Metzli couldn’t let that happen, and they were glad to have the unexpected help to convince her of that.

“You should not go with him.” It was a quiet plea, much too quiet for anyone to actually hear, so they said it again. “You should not go with him. He hurts you. Love is not supposed to be painful.” Metzli paused with a swallow. “Not like this. Will you please listen? We can help you.” They took a step forward, taking a breath. “We can. Let us help you.”

Van didn’t open the notebook, and that was good. Cass wasn’t ready for her to do that yet, wasn’t ready for the goodbyes to be acknowledged. If they knew she was leaving, they’d argue, and… Cass didn’t want to fight with her friends. She’d done enough of that already. She would be leaving them with this terrible impression, this quiet doubt of who she was and how she felt about them thanks to the last few months of distance she’d forced between them all. The last thing she wanted to do was widen that gap at the end, make any of them think she loved them less than she did. She was sick of fighting with them, but she didn’t know how to stop. This thing with Makaio was a boulder rolling down a hill; the momentum was too intense to keep it from rolling to the bottom.

“I’m okay,” she said to Van, a quiet mantra she’d been repeating for a while now. She was fine, she was loved. It wasn’t Makaio’s fault that no one else understood him; how could it be? They didn’t know him the way Cass did, didn’t know his history. Even if they did, they couldn’t understand. No one understood her father the way Cass did, and maybe that meant that all of this was okay. She could go with him, and she could understand. She could go with him, and she could be understood. It didn’t have to be a bad thing. So, she repeated it, trying to make it feel right. “I’m okay.” It didn’t burn her tongue the way a lie would have, but there was an uncomfortable feeling in her chest all the same.

She swallowed around the lump in her throat, shaking her head. “I can’t go with you. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m — My dad needs me. He’s alone. He’s been alone for such a long time. I can’t… I have to stay with him. I’m sorry. But that doesn’t mean I don’t —”

“What’s this?”

A jolt of panic rose to her throat at the cool, familiar voice behind her. Her guts had been so twisted up in all the things she was feeling that she’d neglected to recognize the fluttering in her stomach that had signified her father’s approach, had missed the tug of the cave around her as his feet padded along its floor. Cass whirled to face him, fear and guilt spreading over her face. “I — They were just leaving. They came to get some things, that’s all. Right?” She looked back at her friends, hoping they’d take the hint and go.

—

Van had done a lot of running. She’d shied away from danger time and time again, favoring ignorance as a means to keep things normal. But the reaction Cass had to her’s, Metzli’s, and Ariadne’s pleas was anything but. She knew that Cass didn’t believe herself to be the girl from the grocery store, but there was another edge to it. Van listened to Ariadne’s voice, soft and delicate, and then to Metzli’s– still soft, but with an edge of knowing. What did they know that she didn’t? She cast a glance in their direction before it realigned on Cass’s face.

Before she could echo Metzli’s sentiment about having Cass leave with them, the sound of footsteps and a minor vibration beneath her feet had her snapping her mouth shut. She looked past Cass to see her father– not traced in any kind of glamor, but more akin to the way that she’d seen Cass the last few times now; molten and blistering. She swallowed the plea she had tucked at the back of her throat, and instead held onto the notebook tightly.

It occurred to her then, what it meant. It was a goodbye. Cass planned to leave with him. Metzli figured it out quickly enough, and maybe she should have, too.

At Cass’s insistence that they agree with her, Van felt the weight of her’s and Cass’s friendship slip over her shoulders– a heavy weighted thing. The idea that if she didn’t fight back against the ill fated reassurances, she’d lose her forever. “We weren’t.” The words came out, never mind how minor, and they surprised her. Before, she would have relented– found her way through the cave’s mouth and escape only to message Cass later. But this had a certain finality to it, that if she turned her back, she might never see Cass again.

“We’re here to see her.” Her tongue felt heavy and iron pulled from the back of her throat.

—

Life was dangerous. Ariadne hadn’t been quite so aware of that when she was growing up (and she had a guess that being human then was a good part of it – and then there was how her parents didn’t have a clue about anything, and if they did have a clue, they kept all of that well away from her). But in the past year, and even more particularly in the last half year, and even more recently than that, she’d been terrified for Cass. Because her best friend wasn’t someone to shy away from friends. If anything, Cass was – or had been – ever-present in a way that provided unending comfort.

So her sudden drawing back was weird, especially when it came with confusing reasoning that Ariadne couldn’t find a way to make sense of. Wynne and Van had agreed about that, and now it seemed Metzli had, too. Even though she didn’t know them too well yet, they were Leila’s partner, and if there was someone whose opinion she knew would always be right, Leila was top of the list. Leila was scared for Cass too, she recalled.

Except before she could say anything else someone else appeared behind Cass. Non-glamoured, and beautiful in some ways (though not as beautiful as Cass), and she wrapped her arms around her torso, fingertips digging into each opposite upper-arm.

“Yeah.” She nodded, bolstered by Van’s words. “We’re – we’re here to see her. She’s my – my b-best friend and I just – I miss her. We all miss her.” Ariadne focused on Cass, not wanting to look her father in the eye, feeling incredibly tiny despite her height. “I can’t – can’t go, not yet.” The words burned in her mouth, and she found herself grateful that being dead meant she couldn’t blush anymore. Maybe it gave her an edge. Maybe it would allow her to help Cass.

—

Panic and fear were powerful feelings, sometimes unstoppable, but they brought out a violent honesty that was near impossible to suppress for most people. Metzli could recall countless moments they looked just as Cass did, and their mind went back to a painting still displayed at the gallery. A looming shadow in the background and a being unable to escape its touch. It was a sight Metzli had every instinct to protect Cass from, but they weren’t sure she’d allow for it.

The truth was far too terrifying to witness, so what would make the illusion fall right then? Metzli wasn’t sure, but they knew they had to try. Even if it meant getting burned. Stepping forward, they placed themself between Cass’s father and the two younger women, becoming a shield.

“Her friends miss her. I miss her too.” They stated firmly, keeping their eyes low and avoiding any gaze, but focused. Fear didn’t drive them to look away, not exactly. Looking at the man would only drive Metzli to violence, and they didn’t want to find out how Cass would react if that happened. “If you want to be good father, then you will be happy that she has so much…” Taking a breath, Metzli’s nape bristled, uncertain whether or not they were choosing the right words. “Family. She deserves every love. All of it. We will not leave her, and it will be w-wrong to make us leave. Wrong. Wrong.”

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

They felt the emotion begin to run their mind in circles, and before they could trip over it, Metzli wrung their fingers against themselves and counted softly to themself until the episode passed.

For a moment, it felt as though the world stood still. Cass was beyond hoping that her father would have a positive reaction to something like this. Maybe months ago, in the very beginning of their companionship, she would have longed for it. She would have imagined a world in which he cracked the smile that, until now, had existed for her and her alone, would have crafted a universe where he invited her friends to stay for dinner and listened to stories of Cass as she had been before he knew her. But naivety wasn’t the kind of thing she’d ever been able to afford, and she knew better than to hope for the impossible. The world stood still, not in anticipation of something decent springing it back into action, but to ask the question of just how bad things would be.

Van was insisting that they were here to see her, not leaving as she’d suggested. Ariadne was saying, again, that she missed her, and Cass ached with the words. Metzli was standing in front of a man they knew wanted to see them turned to dust with their fists clenched and their jaw set. Makaio glared at the lot of them, fire burning behind his eyes. And Cass loved them all. She loved Van’s stubbornness and Ariadne’s bravery, loved Metzli’s careful words, but she loved Makaio, too. She loved his protectiveness, loved the way he said her name like it was a precious thing. And she wondered if she was supposed to.

Her friends looked at him like he was a monster, and Cass loved him. She loved him even now, with her hands trembling and fear crawling up her throat. Could you be terrified of someone and love them still? Could you adore a person and still have nightmares about the things they were capable of?

Makaio turned to look at her, and she shrank beneath his gaze. She felt smaller than she’d ever felt before, felt like an insect at the foot of a giant. “I told you,” he said coldly, “that they didn’t respect you enough to understand your decision to be apart from them. I told you this.”

“It’s not — It isn’t like that,” she insisted, unable to meet his eye. “They’re just worried. And I was — I was going to tell them to go. Before you got here, that’s what I was doing. They just — They don’t understand.”

“You’re right,” he agreed. “They don’t.” For a moment, she thought that might be the end. She thought, maybe, he would let her handle it. But Makaio sucked a breath, and Cass stilled. She knew, in a way, what he would say before he said it. Loving someone meant being able to predict what they might do next, after all. “So it’s time that you make them. You say you want us to be equals, Cassidy. This is how you can achieve it. Get rid of them, and you and I can carry on in peace. It’s the last thing I’ll ask of you, keiki. Kill them, and it can be just the two of us. The way it was meant to be from the beginning.”

—

Van could understand to a degree where Cass was coming from. The idea of having somebody that loved you enough to stick around was something that drew her forward, too. But this was not right. The way that Makaio looked at the three of them, and then at Cass… there was something deeply sinister about it, and it made her stomach twist. She listened to Ariadne trip over her words, but the strength was still there. Metzli’s steeled voice sounded authoritative, and it had hope blooming through her.

Cass, however, seemed frightened. She was being split in multiple directions. Between their begging words and the stern look from Makaio, she knew what kind of weight must be pressed onto her right now, and Van felt bad that she was making it worse. That there might be repercussions once they did leave. But if she, Metzli, and Ariadne had it their way, the repercussions would come later, after they managed to get Cass out of the cave and talk some sense into her away from Makaio.

Defiant words crawled up and over Van’s tongue, pressed against the back of her teeth as she clenched her jaw. This was gaslighting 101, right? Like, how could Cass not see that? But she knew it wasn’t fair to impart that thinking on her friend, especially given the fact that when on the side of things where you thought this was love, it was hard to see it wasn’t. Maybe Makaio did love Cass, but not in the way that she deserved. Not in the way that everyone else in Wicked’s Rest did.

Their prior conversation rattled around in Van’s head like a bell calling the livestock home, but home looked different now that she was in front of Makaio who was telling Cass that her friends didn’t understand, and that–

“Whoa, whoaaaa–” That had to be what turned Cass over, right? Van’s gaze slipped over Makaio, then back to Cass, her hand still locked around her friend’s wrist. If Cass really wanted her to let go, she could pull back. Van wouldn’t stop her. “Are you serious– Cass, are you listening to him?” A nervous sweat licked at the back of her neck, and her throat suddenly grew dry. “Cass,” Van tugged on her hand, begging her to take a step away from Makaio. “She’s our friend! Why are you doing– why are you asking her to do this? She would never do that, not to us. She wouldn’t.” For once in Van’s life, there were no tears. Her magic was absent, held back by the ring wound around her finger. She could feel it bubble, but there was no spilling.

—

It wasn’t that Ariadne wasn’t happy for Cass to have family in town. Ariadne knew that she was lucky to have the parents she had. Ridiculously lucky, and shouldn’t she want that for her best friend too? She did want it, but with everything that had happened recently, she wasn’t sure just how much joy she could feel. She didn’t like how Cass’s dad was looking at them. It kept making her feel small, feel like she could just shrink into herself.

Her friend’s voice wavered and it made Ariadne feel sick. Cass was so often giddy and excitable and sure-footed. There was no judgment about her not being this way all of the time – and there never would be – but it was so much unlike the Cass that Ariadne knew that she had to do a double take. She didn’t want Cass to be afraid. She wanted to devour every hint of possible fear that her friend could have, keep them away from her. To never let her be hurt, not even one bit.

– so why couldn’t she move? She took another step toward Cass, on the opposite side from where Van was. Trying to keep her friend safe, as best as she was able. Which might have not been so very much, but something was better than nothing. Looking for any free space, she hooked her pinkie finger around Cass’s. Treasured the warmth from her friend.

Even if her dad did care about her, why would he want her friends to go away? Ariadne’s parents had practically literally jumped for joy when she’d admitted to finally having a few real friends. They’d wanted to meet them, for her to have them around for as long as it was possible. So it didn’t add up that Cass’s dad seemed to want them to go away.

Then he was saying to kill them and Ariadne shook her head right away. “Hey, uh, no. No thanks – there’s, uh, there’s no reason to do that! You know?” She was squeaking again, and she was maybe weak, but she could be better than that. She could be anything but weak. “Cass?” She echoed Van’s words. “Hey, Cass. I love you. Come on, you can – you don’t want to hurt us.” Didn’t say kill, because she couldn’t get the words out. “She won’t hurt us.” She narrowed her eyebrows, the hand whose pinkie was not around Cass’s clenched into a fist. “She’s not that sort of – friend.” Person, she almost said, but maybe Cass’s dad wouldn’t like that. Maybe Cass wouldn’t like that. Friend, however, was indisputable. “We can all hang out. We all love Cass so much.”

—

There was a sensation coursing through the vampire that they hadn’t felt since Chuy broke the news of his string of betrayals. It was an anger that had gone long past a simmer and a boil. Silently and with a bit of hyperventilation, Metzli wondered if that was what it felt like for Cass. The heat of her own body mixing with the anger. Her devil was dancing with her father’s demon, and the fiddler’s tune was only just beginning. Each pizzicato from the bow sent another rippling burn in Metzli’s belly, and before they could stop themself from speaking without thinking, they snapped.

“You make her work to be equal?” Parents weren’t supposed to do things like that. Being alive, just existing was supposed to be enough. Every moment was precious, and Cass had such little self worth from her life of abandonment that she couldn’t tell what her father was doing. “You make her do things for you so you can love her? How…how dare you?” The words came out in a growl, acid dripping from their tone. Looking up, Metzli’s eyes were already red and their fangs were sharp. They had to unbury Cass’s eyes to the truth, expose the man’s secrets to the glare and reflect it out like a grotesque carnival mirror.

“What-what is wrong with you?!” Their voice shook, but their spine was made of steel. Taking a step toward the two fae and van, Metzli swallowed, shaking with an anger akin to a volcano ready to erupt. With every plea that came from Van and Ariadne, the tremors grew, and when the man spoke of what was meant to be, Metzli vehemently shook their head.

“If she does not want to kill us, you will be a bad father if you make her. What kind of father does not want their child to be loved? Why does this family threaten you?!” They took another step forward, staring daggers into the bigger fae with their lungs filled with a mixture of courage and anger. “You are not good father. A good daughter like mijita deserves a good father.” Metzli’s fist was balled tightly while they kept the last shred of composure they had. “Be one. Be better. Maybe I leave one time, but I choose better and listen to Cass. Listen to what she wants!”

Makaio’s eyes slid to Van and Ariadne, and Cass was fairly unfamiliar with the feeling of being cold — volcanoes seldom froze, after all — but a chill ran through her all the same. She wanted to tell him to stop, but the words were caught in her throat. She could feel them stick to the inside of her mouth, feel them cling to her tongue and refuse to leave it. The world seemed to be closing in on her, two universes colliding in a way she’d always imagined would be joyous but was anything but.

“She’s killed for me before,” Makaio said, and Cass flinched. “More than once now. It’s asking very little for her to do it again. Things like you die so easily.”

They’re not things, she wanted to say. They’re my friends. I love them, just like I love you. Why can’t I have both? I want to have both. Please. Was it a selfish thing to want? She’d spent all her life longing for one family, and now she was throwing a fit over her inability to have two. Would she spend every waking moment wanting more? She wondered, with a sharp pain in her chest, if it would ever be enough. If her father had wanted to merge with the family she’d found in Wicked’s Rest, would Cass be happy? Or would she still long to add to it, still want in the way she always had? Maybe nothing would ever be enough for her. The thought was a stifling one, a thing that ached.

People were taught not to want, weren’t they? People were taught to be happy with what they had. Maybe Cass’s life would have been easier had she ever learned that lesson. But she didn’t. She wanted, even now. She wanted this moment to be different, to be better. Ariadne was scared, Van was confused, Metzli was angry, Makaio was close to eruption. Cass closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, taking a moment to steel herself.

He wasn’t expecting her to pull her wrist from his grip. She’d never done it before. So when she yanked, her hand came free fairly easily, and Makaio’s expression shifted to one of surprise. Cass planted herself firmly between her father and her friends, trying not to look as nervous as she felt. “Stop it,” she demanded. “I’m not — I’m not going to hurt them. They’re my friends. I’m sorry I’m not what I wanted you to be. I’m not — not what anyone wanted me to be. I know that. But I’m not going to hurt my friends.”

The surprise was still present on Makaio’s face. It rippled, a rockslide that shifted his features from shock into rage with a quiet rumble. His hands, now free without her wrist in his grip, clenched into fists at his side. Cass had seen her father angry, but never at her. In spite of everything, it hurt. She chewed her lip, standing firm despite her nerves.

“Stupid girl,” he said lowly. She flinched as if it were a physical blow. “I thought, with time, you could be shaped into something worthy. Perhaps it isn’t too late. If you won’t do what needs to be done here, I will. Let the slowness of their deaths be a lesson to you.”

He took a step forward; around them, the cave rumbled.

—-

Ariadne echoed her sentiments about not wanting to be killed, and Metzli conveyed the anger that stirred inside of her, displaying it for both Cass and Makaio to see. Van stayed still– silent in her disbelief that somebody could request this of somebody they claimed to love. The idea that Cass had killed for him before didn’t bother her, not in the way she thought it might at the confirmation. Instead, she thought of Debbie. Of the branding she and the others shared on their stomachs after being slashed with what Van knew now to be iron. She considered telling him, but what did it matter if she did?

Instead, she made eye contact with Cass. She hoped that her expression conveyed a certain neutrality, but the kind that was loudly on Cass’s side. Even if Cass had killed before, it was clear that it wasn’t in the vein of cruelty, but in something else– the hope for a connection, maybe. It was clear that Makaio had made their relationship all about what she could do for him, not what they could be together. Van hated him in place of Cass. Hated him enough to envision him dead, crushed beneath the weight of his choices. But now wasn’t the time. Her magic was stagnant, a boat out to sea with no power to move forward.

She listened to the way Cass fought back, insistence laced with longing. Van couldn’t completely understand the way that Cass felt, but she knew what it was like to love somebody who had the wrong idea. Would Jade ask her to kill a friend for the sake of her duty? Was it wrong to impart that idea onto her? Her chest tightened as Makaio began to speak, calling Cass stupid of all things.

Cass was the opposite. She was kind, compassionate– loving, fierce, loyal. She was everything Van had hoped for in a friend, so when Makaio began to shake the walls of the cave around them, Van enveloped herself in the love she had for her friend and she stepped forward, grabbing onto Cass’s arm. “She’s better than you’ll ever be, and she’s– she’s everything, and if you don’t see that, then you’re…” Van shook her head, fear beginning to worm its way through the adrenaline as the walls around them continued to rumble, “I don’t know what you are, but you’re not a father. You’re somebody who wanted something, and Cass is more than anything you could’ve hoped or dreamed for, and–” She held onto Cass’s arm tightly, partially forgetting that the other two were there as well, “she’s killed for me, too– protected me, and that’s what it should be about, love and protection, and maybe she did that for you, but I did that for her, too, and I helped her, and we share something, and I don’t think you’ll ever share it with her because you don’t know her and you never will.” The words came tumbling out laced with something that was hard to identify. She turned to Cass, “we can leave, we can go– he can’t hurt you when you have us.”

—-

Cass was one of the bravest people she knew, full stop. It was something Ariadne had believed forever, and right now was only further proof of that. She just wished that her friend didn’t have to be so brave. She deserved a break from things, and she deserved to have support from people closest to her. From her father, of all people.

“I don’t care if she’s killed. She’s still my best friend!” Ariadne shout-squeaked, wishing she had the ability to seem just a bit more frightening in this moment. She’d never really wished to be scary, but if it could get Cass’s father to back off, she’d wish for it a thousand times over. Wish for it until she couldn’t wish any more.

Van looked over to Cass and Ariadne did too. “She’s my best friend for-ever and always, and I love her no matter what.” That much was true. Her stomach turned as she thought back to the hunter who’d almost killed them both, and how that seemed to be when Cass had stopped talking to her in the same way. Ariadne should’ve followed after her. She knew that. She should’ve reassured her – or maybe not even stopped her. Even though she didn’t like the idea of that, and she didn’t know if she could go back and let Cass kill someone (even though maybe they did deserve to die, if they tried to kill her. Maybe, maybe.). What she did know was that she wished she’d never let go of her friend’s hand, literally or metaphorically.

Cass spoke, but her words wavered and Ariadne’s heart hurt. She shouldn’t be feeling that way. She was a volcano. She was bright and powerful and sometimes pretty loud and excitable and it felt wrong to see her looking small. It felt even worse when her father called her stupid. That wasn’t what parents were supposed to do. Van seemed to think along the same lines, and Metzli would too, Ariadne knew. They’d talked about protecting family. Cass was family.

You didn’t let go of family. Cass was family. She moved closer to Cass. “She’s not stupid. She’s one of the most brilliantest,” okay, not her finest word choice, “amazing people I know. She’s anything but stupid. She’s clever and caring and so so smart.” The cave’s walls were rumbling, but Ariadne didn’t move. “We’ll keep you safe.” She echoed Van again. “We’ll keep you safe and I’ll make sure he never hurts you. Make sure you’re happy.” It was all she wanted. She wanted to wrap Cass up in her arms and protect her, to tell her what familial love should feel like. Her parents could adopt a grown up, right? She could give Cass a family who wouldn’t force her to do what she didn’t want to do, right? “I love you. I love you forever.”

—-

“You do not scare me with your threats.” Metzli growled, unwavering in their place as Cass’s father attempted to strike fear in them by weaponizing the truth. Cass had killed someone, but that didn’t shape her into anything different in the vampire’s eyes. They were more worried for her mental well-being, knowing the guilt that riddled her heart for smaller things than murder. Taking a life was never easy, even when it was right, and Metzli wasn’t going to let a strange man perpetuate an idea he had no ground to uphold.

“Cass, it is okay. I still love you. It does not scare me that you have killed. I have too. It is scary and heavy when it is new, but we can be okay again. Come with us,” Metzli breathed shakily, eyes glistening with hope when she talked back to her father. “I love you, okay? You are not stupid.”

Family loved, unconditionally, and Cass dreamt of having her father fill his role the way he was supposed to. She fell prey to her own wishes, making excuses and rearranging the image of a family in hopes of the pieces fitting together seamlessly. You couldn’t force them to fit, and despite the pain, Metzli could see that Cass was beginning to accept that, in her own way. Even if she was still telling herself she was the cause of the puzzle not being cut correctly. They could work on that later, help her see that she was always perfect the way she was. When her father was out of the way and they were all safe, Metzli and Van and Ariadne would help her, and others too.

It looked like it was time to leave, anyway. Cass’s father was throwing a tantrum violent enough to shake the cave, endangering everyone who wasn’t stone. They had to act quickly.

“Come with us, mijita.” Rubble began to bounce off Metzli’s shoulder, and they looked up to see the integrity of the cave diminishing. They stepped closer to be a shield, watching Van pull Cass toward the group. She came to her senses, so she was going to leave with them. She had to. Right?

“We will take care of you. Come with us.”

She was wavering. She knew her father could feel it, knew he saw the way her body language screamed of her uncertainty. Where she’d previously leaned towards her father, she leaned back towards her friends now, making no move to shrug their hands off of her or step away from their comforting words. Makaio’s eyes flickered between them, glowing faintly with his rage as he scoffed.

“They rally behind you because they know you don’t want them,” he told her bluntly. “They’ll leave the moment you’re more accessible to them. They’ll walk away freely, as everyone always has. Who has stayed with you, Cassidy? Who besides me?”

Cass swallowed. Those old fears were swirling in her gut, reminding her of all the times she’d felt alone. But — but Van’s hand was on her shoulder and Ariadne’s words echoed in her ear and Metzli stood beside her the way she’d always imagined a parent would, in a way that spoke of the pair of them as equals. Makaio had never done any of this for her.

“They love me,” she said quietly. “They love me, too. Why can’t — Why can’t you be okay with that? They love me, like you do. They —”

“How could anyone love you?” Makaio snapped, and Cass’s mouth shut with such force that her teeth gnashed together painfully. “You are a disappointment. You are a failure. I thought you could be made useful, thought something good could come from you, but I was wrong. I spent months playing pretend for a sad little girl, and now I see it was for nothing. If I can’t make use of you, Cassidy, I’ll be sure you pay for wasting my time.”

It was jarring, this shift. For months, she’d been so sure that, if nothing else, her father loved her. Whatever else he was, he was still her father. He still cared for her, still wanted what was best for her. That thought had driven her all the while, had inspired her to push everyone else away and to defend him to the bitterest of ends. And now, standing here with the cave rumbling around her, she realized it was a lie. Makaio wasn’t someone who loved her. The people who loved her were the ones standing behind her now.

Cass turned back towards her friends, her heart in her throat. They wanted her to go with them. She wanted to go with them. But…

“I won’t leave you. I promise, I won’t.” Her words, the ones she’d spoken to him months ago, echoed in her mind now. She glanced towards him, saw it in his eyes. He remembered, too. He was probably tugging the bind now, causing that anchored feeling in her chest. There was only one way for her to go with her friends, only one way for her to leave.

Her father had to die.

In spite of everything, the thought made her stomach twist in violent discomfort. He didn’t love her, and maybe he never had, but Cass loved him. Even now, even standing in this trembling cave. She loved him, and she wanted to go, and the only way for her to do that was to force the bind to shatter.

The cave rumbled violently, the two oreads’ control warring with each other. Rocks fell on Metzli’s head, and they were small enough not to do any real damage, but a few feet away a much larger chunk of cave ceiling came loose and shattered against the ground. She glanced back to her father, and he was stepping forward. He burned dimly — never as bright as Cass herself, which might have been why he’d sought her out the way he had — but it was a dangerous glow all the same. A hand snaked out, trying to grab Van behind her, and Cass shoved him back.

“You think you can protect them?” Makaio sneered. “They’re going to die here, Cassidy. And when they’re gone, you’ll have only yourself to blame. And only me to fall back on.”

Cass whirled around, panic in her eyes as she faced her friends. “Go!” She yelled over the sound of the rumbling cave. “Go outside! I — I’ll meet you up there, I promise! But you need to go, now!”

—

Both Ariadne and Metzli continued to echo her own sentiments. If it were just her and Cass alone with Makaio, would they have gotten this far? Would Van so clearly be able to see the shift in her friend’s demeanor? The stark realization that she’d been manipulated? It wasn’t Cass’s fault, and Van didn’t blame her. Despite the hurt she felt due to the growing distance between herself and her friend, Van wasn’t angry at anyone other than Makaio. This was his fault. He preyed on the fact that Cass wanted nothing other than to be loved and he twisted it like a knife until it was too late to pull back without any blood loss.

But now, Cass was hemorrhaging. They all were.

Small rocks from above began to rain down, hitting the ground with enough force to make snapping noises. Van’s anxiety had begun to show its head in the way that iron coated her tongue, slipping down through her throat. She pushed it away. There was no room to be afraid, especially when Cass needed her. What good would it do, anyway?

Makaio’s words lit a fire beneath Van and she clenched her jaw, her magic still stagnant, but glaringly obvious now that she’d become more aware of it. It was there, and she would allow it to help if needed. She would trust her magic to protect them all if it came to that, but she knew she also needed to trust Cass, too. Van had learned that fae could not lie, not without some level of discomfort, and so the vitriol that Makaio spewed told her that he believed she was nothing. “Cass is the greatest thing to ever happen to you, the greatest thing to ever happen to me, and the fact that–” She looked towards Cass, recalling the night with Debbie– of their blood spilled, of dumping her into the pit, of everything else. The late night talks, the sweets shared between them, the jokes, the reassurances. How it had all come to an end because of him.

Makaio reached out for her and Cass put herself in between them. Van’s hand was still on her shoulder, grip loosening only due to the constant rock fall. The sound of the cave groaning made her skin crawl. This would likely be all of their ends if they didn’t leave, but Van couldn’t leave without Cass. “Not unless you come with us– you can’t– we can’t leave you, Cass.” Her grip tightened almost instantaneously, a hopeful thing laced with an edge that reached her tone as she dared Makaio to challenge the three of them. “Please, come with us. Don’t stay here. Just leave. Please!” Worry spun circles around her as her vision became hazy from the dust as it bloomed around them, larger chunks of rocks beginning to fall at their feet. She could see the look in Cass’s eye– had seen it a dozen times. There was a promise there, and she knew it to be binding, but what if she didn’t make it? Van enveloped Cass into a tight hug from behind, attempting to drag her backwards. “Come on, help me!” It was said to the other two behind her as she tried to bring Cass towards safety.

—

Her best friend’s father wasn’t really much like a father at all. Fathers weren’t supposed to act like this, to do things that made their children scared or uneasy or even significantly uncertain. Ariadne knew that she’d won when it came to parents, but she also knew that right now, Cass’s dad wasn’t meeting even the bare minimum requirement. Cass deserved so much more. Van and Metzli were echoing the same sentiment, and she knew that Nora and Wynne would think the same. Cass had so many people on her side, Ariadne just wished she could make sure that she knew that. Because Cass doubted the love people had for her, and she’d been given love, but the love she’d been given hadn’t been real, and yet she’d been convinced that it was.

And now she was realizing just how much it wasn’t and Ariadne wanted to take away every bit of sorrow and fear that Cass must have been experiencing now. She was grateful that she wasn’t alone with Cass and her father, but in the same thought, there was a certain part of her that wished it was just the three of them. Because then maybe, somehow, she could deal with this. She could prove to Cass that she could be strong, that she could do anything for her friend. For her forever friend. Or at least as close to forever as she was going to get. Hundreds and hundreds of years sounded pretty neat.

“Cass is the best thing in the world. I didn’t know anything really about friends – best friends – until I met her.” Ariadne didn’t look right at Van, mostly because she didn’t want to hurt her other friend. She and Van had been friends, but Van had been closer with Chance, and the two of them had grown apart until just over a year ago. Besides right now was all about Cass, and Ariadne was intent on keeping it that way.

The cave made a sound that was unsettling. One it had never made when it was just Cass around. Because Cass loved the cave, and the cave loved her, and things were balanced, then. With her father around, things were darker and cloudy and Ariadne opened her mouth to speak as Cass stood between them and her father. She wanted to scream that she couldn’t die, that she was already dead, that it didn’t matter, so long as Cass lived. Not in any form of a ‘want to die again’ way, but Cass mattered more than anything right now. She grabbed Van, reached out to touch Cass’s arms, to pull her as tightly as she could. “Just come now. Please, Cass. Please.” She had to listen, didn’t she? “You’re still my favorite superhero. My favorite friend. I – Cass, please.”

—

The structures around them all groaned and cracked, but nothing sounded louder than the way Cass urged them to leave. Van and Ariadne protested, and Metzli kept their hand out for just a little longer until a larger piece of stone crashed into their shoulder. Their arm went numb momentarily from the sudden impact, and it suddenly became very clear that they might have to do as Cass says instead of convincing her to join them.

She was promising, becoming an anchor to two tethers in separate directions, if the look in her father’s eye was any indication. It looked a lot like the look in both Eloy and Chuy’s eyes when an opportunity to exploit a weakness presented itself. The smug smile on his face was taunting and arrogant, making a pit in Metzli’s stomach as they pondered on the possibilities. He had something to use against Cass, but they just didn’t know what and time wasn’t on their side to figure it out.

“Van. Ariadne.” They swallowed, placing a hand on the young mare’s shoulder, but it fell quickly when another rock landed on them. With a hiss, Metzli tried again and tugged her gently toward them. They didn’t want to force them to follow, but if Cass was promising she’d meet them outside as the cave around them collapsed, Metzli didn’t really have an argument. No matter how badly that they wished they did, unsure if an oread could prevent themself from being crushed by their own nature. They loved her, so they had to listen.

With a little reluctance, the vampire tugged again, ignoring the way panic marched up and down their skin. “We have to trust her.” Metzli’s voice shook, but they did their best to not waver as more and more rubble began to surround them. “We have to go. She is promising!”

She couldn’t concentrate. It was taking all she had to keep herself together, to keep her father from getting too close to her friends, to make sure he didn’t hurt them. She knew she needed to take a more offensive stance, needed to fight him off directly, but with Van’s arms around her and Ariadne trying to help their friend pull her from the cave, Cass couldn’t focus on any of that. With the rocks falling around them, she couldn’t focus on any thought beyond the desire for her friends to be safe, for them to get out and get free. She could deal with Makaio, she knew she could. She recognized now that her strength had always surpassed his, that he hadn’t offered to help her destroy tourist sites or hurt hunters not because he wanted her to learn, but because he wasn’t sure he could. Cass was the stronger oread. She knew that now.

She just needed to prove it.

Maybe there was something selfish in the desire for her friends to leave the cave. She wanted them safe, of course she wanted them safe. But, at the same time… she didn’t want them to see what she was going to have to do here. She loved them all, and she knew now that they loved her, too, that they always had, but some dark voice in her mind still whispered that if they saw her cross a line — if they saw her do what needed to be done to separate her from her father — that love would falter. They would look at her differently, they would flinch away. Cass didn’t think she could handle it, not after everything. She wanted them to be safe. That was the main drive behind the insistence that they go. But it wasn’t the only one.

Makaio took another step, his face twisted into something terrible. For months now, Cass had thought the rocky features of his expression an immovable thing. His face was like that of one of the sprawling cliffs near the Magmacave — constant and smooth. Seeing it now, she realized she’d been wrong. Rage was capable of causing an earthquake that could shift that cliff into a crater, could make it into a terrifying thing. She thought of the Allgood pit, with the steep edges and the stench of death. Her father was much the same.

Pulling her arms free from Van’s grip, she moved to shove her father back, a resulting crash echoing through the cave as stone met stone. Her expression was one of desperation as she looked to her friends, locking eyes with Metzli. Of all of them, she thought, Metzli understood the most. Hadn’t she helped them take out Chuy in that crypt, when they were still mostly under his control? Hadn’t they said nothing when she’d let her magma seep into his skin? Her expression turned to one of pleading as the vampire called out.

“I promise!” She repeated desperately. She looked at Metzli, begging with her eyes. “Metzli, I can’t — I can’t do this with all of you here. I can’t keep them safe. Please. Please help me keep them safe.”

—

Van could barely hear Metzli or Ariadne over the sound of the cave splitting at the seams. Its groaning was a mournful thing– the acknowledgment of what was to come if they all left this place without Cass. Van’s fears were becoming a reality; that she would lose Cass forever. She tried her best to keep her arms around her friend, dodging the litter from above them by burying her face into Cass’s shoulder. She committed the feeling of Cass’s frame to memory, because it was the only thing that eased her into pulling away.

That, and Metzli’s arm snaking around her waist. Van let out a yelp as she was torn away from Cass. “Please, please– we have to take her with us!” She knew the ending of this story. She knew Cass may never come back from beneath the rubble, and who would she be if she left without acknowledging that? “Cass, please!” She shouted again, struggling against Metzli’s grip, but it was no use, they were far too strong for her to remove herself from. She tried to twist the ring from around her finger, to let the explosion of magic take them all down– to at least sacrifice herself in favor of the others, but Cass was becoming harder to discern from the dust and rubble.

Ariadne hadn’t followed them out, and thus another wave of panic washed over Van as she tried to peel herself away from Metzli. She gulped in the fresh air as soon as they broke free from the cave, and just as she managed to wiggle free, she watched as a large chunk of the cave came crashing down into the entrance, sealing them off from those left inside. “Ariadne is still in there! Cass!” Van threw herself at the rubble and immediately began trying to clear it away. “Cass! Ariadne!” She screamed as she scooped away the debris. The larger chunks were unmoving, and so she turned towards Metzli. “Help me,” Van pleaded.

There was a look in Cass’s eyes that Metzli had seen only months ago. Suddenly, the fiddler’s tune began to ravage the strings with fervor, and the devil began its dance, though to the blind eye, one would only see Cass’s father. She needed to join in, and everyone else needed to let her, trust that she could out-tempo his tune. They just needed to get the others safe, but they only had one arm.

For a few beats, the vampire looked around, trying to figure out a way to get both of Cass’s friends out in their arm. Then it clicked. Ariadne would be fine.

“I love you.” They said shakily, “I am proud of you.” Squeezing their eyes shut, Metzli nodded their head and tears rolled down their cheeks. They wanted to stay and fight for the girl they saw as their own, but the world had other plans. It always did, and before Metzli knew it, they were dragging Van out of the cave, only looking back to see Cass disappear in the clouds of dust. “Ariadne will be okay. It is night time. We have to trust.”

When they made it out, they were welcomed with fresh air, still warm from the day. Metzli looked back to the mouth of the cave and finally set Van down, arm ready in case she tried to run back in. “We will wait.” Their voice was shaky yet firm in its command. “Too dangerous to be inside with flesh.” Taking a breath, Metzli added, “I want to stay inside too, but no one ever listen to Cass when she was child. Loving is listening. I am sorry.”

Cass was telling them all to leave and Ariadne was five again, refusing to leave the ice cream store. Except this was much more important than that. This was about her best friend. Her best friend who was desperate and afraid and it made Ariadne shake with anxiety, because Cass wasn’t listening and her stubbornness was one of Aria’s favorite things about her, but right now she just wished that her best friend would listen. Except she wasn’t, and now Metzli was dragging Van out and Ariadne ducked out of the way.

She’d help Cass. She’d get her out. Everything was dusty, and it was becoming harder to see. She was grateful that she didn’t have to breathe. Except Cass did. But maybe because she was part rock and volcano and maybe that meant that it would be okay for her?

“I’m not leaving, Cass!” She screamed as loud as she could manage. Doing something that made her lungs hurt like she’d run for too long in the cold. “I’m not. Not until you leave. We’re best friends, and I love you, and come on, please!” She ran forward, grabbing onto Cass’s arm. “Collapse it or whatever you’ve gotta do and then hold my hand and we’ll run and you can — it’ll be okay, right? Please.” She wasn’t going to cry. Ariadne was going to be brave, for her and Cass’s sake. And also for Van and Metzli who were outside, and safe – because they had to be, because she could only worry about so much right now.

“I’m staying and then we’re going together.”

—

Metzli pulled Van out, and Cass hoped they understood the flood of gratefulness that flowed from deep within her chest even if there was too much chaos to properly voice it. With two less people to worry about in the cave, the oread could focus more of her attention on holding her father at bay and a little less on where the stones were falling around her. Van and Metzli were safe; Makaio couldn’t use them against her so long as they were outside the cave, and Cass could focus more of herself on defeating him and joining them at the surface. Van and Metzli were safe.

But Ariadne wasn’t.

It struck her all at once, her friend’s voice echoing through the cave. Metzli couldn’t drag the pair of them out, not with only one arm, but she’d hoped Ariadne would go with them all the same. Instead, the mare was gripping her arm and begging her to leave, and Cass wanted to shout her frustrations into the collapsing structure around them. I can’t, she wanted to yell. You don’t understand. I can’t leave him, I promised. But saying it aloud felt like saying too much, and there was always a risk that Aria wouldn’t understand the weight of it, anyway. She’d explained promise binds to her friend, but wasn’t it the kind of thing that was impossible to understand from the outside?

She couldn’t leave her father, and she couldn’t do what she needed to do with Ariadne watching. She wanted — She wanted an after, a place where all of them could exist unchanged. She wanted a world where her friends wouldn’t see her differently, a place where she could exist outside of this moment. It was already a slippery concept to hold, already like trying to grip a stream of water between her fingers. But if Ariadne stayed, if she bore witness to what Cass knew needed to be done here —

Even if she got out physically unscathed, the bond between them wouldn’t be the same. Cass knew it as surely as she knew her name, as surely as she knew what she had to do here to free herself from her father. She needed Aria to go. She needed the cave empty for this next part, needed it to be only herself and her father the way it had been for months now, even if she needed it for different reasons than she had then.

She set her jaw in a stubborn line, stomach churning with the knowledge of what she had to do next. There was only one way to get Ariadne to leave the cave quickly, only one way to contain the damage. “You thanked me,” she breathed, the sound of her voice rumbling along with the cave. “Back — months ago. You thanked me and I didn’t — I never cashed it in. I’m cashing it in now. Go outside, Ariadne. Get out of here. Now.” She made the bind with practiced ease, even if doing so made her feel a little sick. This was what needed to be done for all of them. Cass knew that.

—

Cass seemed mad. Which didn’t make sense – she couldn’t actually be mad, could she? She was stressed and maybe Ariadne had overdone it with the staying, but she couldn’t help herself. She also couldn’t not stay. That wasn’t an option. Friends didn’t let friends stay down in a cave that was falling apart alone, or something. Some modified version of the actual phrasing.

You thanked me.

Ariadne’s stomach turned and she wanted to refute that fact, but it wasn’t really possible to, because Cass couldn’t lie and Ariadne was sure she’d messed up more than once with her expressions of gratitude, even though Cass had told her not to do that. But she was forgetful and she loved her friend so much, so messing up was something she was bound to have done.

She just wished Cass wasn’t so keen to use it. Cass hadn’t really ever cashed in on thanks or promises before, and Ariadne didn’t like the implications of what Cass was doing right now. “I – no!” She shook her head. Except, of course, that did nothing. It was nighttime, and with her friend’s words, she found herself suddenly outside, cursing herself that she actually was good at astral projection. That wasn’t how things should have worked, and she collapsed onto the ground, in front of Metzli and Van and shook her head.

“She – she made – I – she made me go. She’s still there!” Turning towards the entrance, Ariadne screamed again, “Cass!” Turned back to the other two. “I – she’s – I – why did she do that? She – I – Cass!”

Dust and rubble collected at the entrance of the cave, and Metzli watched in horror as it covered it completely. Their heart begged their legs to move, but they wouldn’t comply. Cass wanted them to trust her, believe that she could do the impossible when her father so clearly did not. Metzli gritted their teeth at the thought, keeping an eye on Van. “Please,” They whispered, watching and waiting. Their entire body continued to tense, and it wasn't until Ariadne appeared out of thin air that Metzli allowed themself to relax. Slightly.

“You are out!” The vampire blurted, still keeping an eye on Van as they embraced Ariadne tightly Leila surely would have somehow had a heart attack if anything happened to either of them, and it was a relief to Metzli that they would have no bad news to share once Cass was out. They swallowed, “She wanted us safe. We have to trust her. We have to. She is strong. Her father is not. He is a weak coward.” Squeezing a little harder, Metzli planted their cheek atop Ariadne’s head in a soothing manner, shifting their eyes back to the cave entrance in hopes of seeing Cass crash through soon.

Van was not gentle with the rocks she pulled from the small mound blocking her entrance to the cave. Instead, she threw them behind her. Some were too large to throw, so they rolled at her side. She could hear voices behind her– Ariadne’s, but she made no move to turn and see if her friend had escaped, because the question of Cass and why she’d forced Ariadne out had come to light.

She focused on the rocks, pulling each one back, hopeful to see Cass’s face on the other end. “Help me! We can– we can dig her out!” She knew that realistically, Cass would be able to get herself out, but what would happen if she didn’t? Would she think that her friends ran away? Cass had spent so much of her time worrying she wasn’t loved that Van needed to show her she was. “Please, help me.” Exasperated, Van could feel the sweat begin to bead at the back of her neck, and her eyes burned from both the tears and the salt. “We can get her– we can get her out! We have to try!”

Ariadne disappeared from the cave, into the astral and off to safety. Relief was a palpable thing, a pressure pushing down on her chest hard enough to force all the air from her lungs at once. Ariadne was safe. Van was safe. Metzli was safe. She hadn’t doomed them with her stubbornness, hadn’t been too late to save them from her downward spiral.

She hoped she wouldn’t be too late to save herself, either.

Rocks still fell from the ceiling, from the walls. The safe haven she’d built for herself felt anything but safe now, and she felt a piece of herself crumble with it. She thought of a story she’d read once, years ago, when the public library was her safe haven and she’d picked books off shelves with a desperation built from bricks of wanting to understand and be understood in return. It hadn’t been one of her favorites or anything, but it wasn’t a bad story.

It was about a chicken, because most children’s stories seemed to star animals in the place of people. He’d gone outside one morning and been so sure that the sky was falling. He’d run through town, warned everyone he saw with a desperate plea: the sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. And everyone took shelter, everyone hid away in their homes trembling and afraid because the sky was falling, and no one knew what to do with that.

And then came morning, and the sky was still there. It hung above the Earth the same as it always had, and that silly chicken realized that the piece of the sky he’d been so sure had fallen on his head was a tiny acorn. It must have felt so much bigger in the moment, Cass thought. It must have felt like the world was ending.

It was the kind of thing she realized she could relate to now. All her life, the smallest acorns had convinced her that the world was at its end. The people she loved never loved her back the way she wanted them to, they left when she needed them to stay. Every time she stood staring at someone’s retreating back, she was that stupid chicken running through town, screaming for all to hear. The sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. And the next morning, the sky was still there.

There was another fable, wasn’t there? About the boy who cried wolf. It taught that if you made enough false claims, no one would believe you when the claims were true. If you screamed about a wolf in the bushes over and over again, if you convinced the shepherds to come with their guns and their staffs only to find the bushes empty time and time again, they’d eventually stop coming at all. There would be no one left to save you from the wolf, no one left to keep it from devouring you.

For years now, Cass had felt as if every acorn that fell on her head was an apocalypse. The sky fell, but only for her. She warned everyone around her, and maybe it meant something the first few times. Maybe it scared them, too. But there had never really been a wolf hiding in the bushes and, sooner or later, the shepherds had stopped coming to save her.

So what was left for her, now that the sky really was falling? What would Chicken Little have done, had his piece of sky wound up being larger than an acorn?

Hands grabbed her, slamming her against the wall. The cave shook harder, her own fear crumbling the walls the same as her father’s anger. His eyes were glowing a faint orange as he glared at her, rocky face twisted into something rageful. Cass wondered if she looked the same. The thought that she might no longer felt like a comfort.

“Stupid girl,” Makaio snapped. He sounded different than he ever had before; it took Cass a moment to realize that he was afraid. “Do you understand what you’ve done? You ruined everything. For the both of us. Do you truly believe that those… insects you drove from this cave are capable of loving you? Of staying with you? I am the only one who could have done that. I am the only one who could have made you great.”

She thought of all the things she wanted to say, all the things she could tell him. She thought of Metzli, who took her to the zoo and asked her to help them name a baby giraffe. She thought of Van, who ordered takeout while she sat upside down on the couch and played Go Fish. She thought of Ariadne, who saw every movie Cass dragged her to even when she probably had no interest in them. And she thought of other people, too, of people not outside her cave waiting for her. She thought of Kaden, who let her call him her sidekick with only a faint roll of his eyes. She thought of Leila, who had always been willing to fight for her even when Cass wasn’t sure she was willing to fight for herself. She thought of Wynne, who asked for her opinion on things. She thought of Mack, who liked her even after she accidentally threw her down the stairs, or of Thea, who talked about comics with her even after Cass accidentally shaved her head. She thought of Elias and Nora and Regan and Jonas, of Alex and Ren and Luci and Milo.

She thought of all the people she loved and the ones who loved her back, and she couldn’t find the words to name them all to tell Makaio that he was wrong, but she knew he was, anyway. He held her against the wall, and she stared at him for a moment before her mouth fell open, words tumbling out: “Would you believe me if I said the sky was falling?” Makaio’s expression flickered — rage turned to confusion, but only briefly. Cass decided not to let it stop her. “Everyone believed Chicken Little. I never understood why. He said the sky was falling, and everyone believed him. Would you — Would you believe me?”

Makaio pulled her forward, went to slam her back into the wall again. Cass let her arms shoot out, let them land hot against his chest and shove him back with all her strength, magma surging forward. He grunted, stumbling back. She was stronger than he was; it was the only reason he’d ever wanted her around.

“Because I think… I think that’s what love is. You know? Believing someone when they say the sky is falling, even when it’s right outside the window. And they —” She gestured towards where the mouth of the cave had stood before. It was gone now, buried by rocks and rubble. “They would believe me. If I told them the sky was falling, they’d go into their houses and they’d lock the doors and they’d be afraid, but they’d believe me. I could tell them there was a wolf in the bushes a thousand times, and they’d still come to look.”

Makaio stared at her for a moment, but he made no move to step closer. His face was still twisted in that strange, unfamiliar expression that she now knew to be fear. It wasn’t the rocks he was afraid of anymore, she thought; it was her. She didn’t know if it felt good or not.

“I won’t release you from your promise,” he told her in a low, gravely tone. Cass closed her eyes, nodding her head.

“I know,” she admitted, barely a whisper. She opened her eyes, saw larger pieces of the cave falling now. A chunk came down to Makaio’s left, close enough to shake the ground beneath his feet. He didn’t move. Another landed just behind Cass, so close that she felt the sharp pain of it brushing against her spine. She didn’t move, either.

Rocks fell between them until she couldn’t see her father anymore. They fell beside her until she couldn’t see the walls of the cave, either. She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes.

The sky was falling.

—

Metzli held tightly onto Ariadne, careful not to crush her, but enough that it might've been uncomfortable. They didn't let go until the rumbling stopped, only a few smaller rocks tumbling down here and there from the disturbance. Silence surrounded the trio and it was as if an symphony had died, unable to swell into a crescendo and keep rhythm with the pace Metzli's heart would've set if it could leap.

“Please,” They whispered beneath their breath, as if some higher being above could hear their petition over the billions of others. Closing their eyes, they counted, over and over again, only opening their eyes when something in the wind changed. Their eyes widened with a mixture of surprise and relief at the sight of Cass outside the cave, and without another moment of hesitation, Metzli let go of Ariadne to run to her. They stopped short, restraining themself in case she needed a moment to not be overwhelmed.

“Y-you did it!” They grinned and blinked, squeezing their fist tightly shut to keep their excitement from bubbling over. “You-I…I am so proud.”

She fought against Metzli’s hold on her as the cave seemed to collapse into itself. She screamed as it did so, falling to the ground the moment that their grip on her loosened even just by a fraction of anything. Ariadne didn’t bother to look down and see if her knees were scraped, if glitter was on them, because she was fine and Cass was the only real priority now. The only priority, full stop.

Then she was outside of the cave and Ariadne ran toward her, with little regard for the concept of personal space. If Cass didn’t want a hug, she’d deal with apologies after. She needed to hug her best friend, she needed to pull her away from the falling rock and hold her and never ever let her go again.

Except as she went to grab Cass, she found that her best friend was intangible and Ariadne screamed again, completely collapsing on the group as she let out a loud sob. “She – she’s not – she’s not here! You – Cass!” She gulped for air, feeling suffocated even though she didn’t need to breathe. “Where are you? You’re there but you’re – where are you? Please – just come over here. Hold my hand. I’ll make sure things are okay.”

—

Pain was sudden and intense and everywhere. It was an all-consuming kind of thing, and Cass couldn’t bite back the scream that came on its heels but she didn’t think it mattered, anyway. The sound, ripped from her throat against her will, was lost to the deafening boom of falling rocks. The sound of stone hitting stone swallowed up everything else; she couldn’t hear her own thoughts bouncing in her head, couldn’t hear if her father was still trying to speak to her, couldn’t hear anything outside the cave at all. It was is if nothing existed except for her and the rocks falling around her; they were the same. They were a part of her just as much as she was a part of them.

It was overwhelming, how much it all was. The pain, swallowing her up with gnashing teeth and an acidic burn, knew every part of her. Her head, her shoulders, her legs, her stomach. There was nothing that didn’t hurt. Even the tips of her ears ached in a way she’d never known possible. Her eardrums, too, hurt with the noise of it. The rocks falling, her own hoarse yells, the rumbling and the pounding. Light was swallowed up, until only the faint glow of her own magmic veins remained. And then those, too, disappeared, falling beneath stone that cracked everything open with its weight. She thought of Atlas in the myths and wondered if his shoulders had hurt as much as hers did now.

It went on forever, somehow. The pain, the sound, the darkness. And then, abruptly, it all stopped. Nothing hurt anymore; silence surrounded her. She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes, but there was the barest hint of light visible from behind her lids. She opened them slowly, afraid of what she might find.

The sky was still there. Hanging above her head, just as blue and endless as it always was. She stared up at it for a moment, heart in her throat as she wondered if, once again, she’d built an apocalypse from an acorn. Something felt strange, felt wrong; she felt different in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

But then, a voice called out her name, and the worry and fear that came with that strangeness seemed to melt away. Metzli was running towards her, Ariadne was calling out. She’d saved them and, impossibly, she’d saved herself, too. Ariadne went to wrap her up in a hug, but she — she missed, somehow. Cass didn’t quite register it as strange, adrenaline making it difficult to focus as she scanned the surrounding area. Ariadne and Metzli were here, were in front of her, but she couldn’t fully relax until she saw —

“Van!” She stepped towards her friend, still crouched by the stones that had once been the cave’s entrance. She was out. Didn’t Van see? She’d promised to meet them outside the cave and, somehow, that fae magic had pulled her out to let her keep it. “Van! I’m here! It’s…” But Van didn’t look up. She was still at the rocks, still looking distraught as if Cass hadn’t spoken at all. “Van…?”

Dread built up in her stomach, gripped her by the throat. No…

—

Van only dared a look over her shoulder as Metzli spoke. Their gaze was trained on the nothingness in front of them, and then Ariadne followed suit. She twisted around, watching them, hopeful to see what they could. Cass was out? Cass was–

But Ariadne was stumbling forward, desperation whistling from her open mouth. Van couldn’t stand. She couldn’t move. She remembered what it was like watching Erin speak to somebody that wasn’t there. She remembered the absent feeling, of being on the outside of something that she couldn’t put together. It was uncomfortable, and it revealed everything that Van needed to know.

“No, no– no!” She turned back towards the rocks. The majority of what was left were too heavy for Van to lift, so she started to kneel against the ground, arms hugging them as she tried to wedge them from the spots they’d landed in. “Cass!” Van screamed, but not behind her towards the others– of where Cass was presumably at, but to where she’d been left in the wreckage of her father’s doing. “Cass, I’m– I’m going to get you, I’m going to figure it out, I’m going to– we have to–” She turned towards the others, eyes glossy. “We have to get her out of there. She’s not out. She’s not out.”

Van had lost, and she had lost again, and she would continue losing those she cared deeply about and she knew that she would. It would consume her, twist her insides until she couldn’t breathe, and then over time, she would heal. But at the moment, she wasn’t sure she’d ever heal from the loss of Cass. Of one of the truest friends she ever had. “The necklace,” Van choked out, turning back towards the rocks, “the necklace is in there, too.” But the notebook was there, on the ground a few feet behind her, dropped from when she beelined for the cave’s entrance. She scrambled towards it, still on hands and knees and gathered it to her chest. It was the last thing any of them had of her. She had to keep it safe.

“She’s– Cass?” Van knew from Erin that the others on this plane of existence could hear her– could see her in a way that she could not see them, and so she hoped Cass was listening. “I’m– I’m sorry.”

—

“N-no. No!” Metzli shook their head vehemently in disbelief, rejecting the sight of Ariadne passing through Cass. “We-I-I can fix this!” The march of ants became frenzied, each step accompanied with a fierce bite full of venom. It was overwhelming and Metzli feared it would eat away at the beautiful music that Cass had brought into their life. They met that silence with a sorrowful noise, choking on sobs as they leapt into action.

“I know first aid.” The vampire used their strength to toss aside the larger stones, urgently trying to make an opening. With each reach, their nails dug against the rubble, tearing off when Metzli’s movements became too erratic.

“Can-does-does my bite–Cass!” They pleaded, building an opening and trying to crawl inside only to find there were more rocks. “No!” Metzli's voice became a scream, the crunch of their knuckles slamming against the wall of stone joining in the noise. There was nothing but a crack left behind with a smear of black ooze, and Metzli quickly turned to Cass and ran back to her. It was no use to panic. Being a ghost couldn't have been easy to realize, and as someone who loved her, Metzli knew they had to set everything aside to provide a safe space for the one they called theirs.

“You should not be dead. You-you…Mija?” Parents weren't supposed to outlive their young, they weren't supposed to put them in a position that led to their death, so maybe, Metzli thought, they were just as bad as Makaio. They had outlived everyone in their bloodline, and now, they had outlived another.

“I…am sorry.” They sniffled, nearly hovering their damaged hand over Cass's cheek before thinking better of it. “You saved us. You-you…are hero. Our hero.”

Cass was her first real best friend. She’d had friends before but none were quite like Cass. Van couldn’t see her and Van was the only one of the three of them who Cass had forced outside of the cave who was alive, and that had to mean – no. She didn’t want to say it out loud Didn’t want to think it, either, but thoughts had minds of their own (which wasn’t like, physically possible but still, it seemed right, and somebody smart had probably said that before) and so Ariadne couldn’t stop her thoughts from racing – from going ghost ghost ghost.

Which meant Cass was dead and another sob escaped from Ariadne’s mouth, loud and eerie enough that she wasn’t sure if she even recognized it herself. “No!” She looked around, desperate, “Cass, please, please come back. I’ll do anything!” She shook her head, and she kept shaking her head, “we were supposed to be friends for hundreds of years!! Not just – not this short of a time.”

Cass couldn’t be dead. Her best friend, who was so full of life and light and fire (quite literally, as a matter of fact) couldn’t be gone. She’d touched Cass not even ten minutes ago, and now she couldn’t. It seemed impossible. “Please!” She scream again, and she felt like she was going to be sick and she couldn’t think and Cass was dead and she’d known Cass might die before her, but that wasn’t supposed to be a problem she had for like, almost a thousand years. Cass wasn’t supposed to be dead yet.

“There’s so many movies I wanna watch with you, and places we’ve gotta go! You need to take me to the best volcanoes – Cass! I love you. Je t’aime beaucoup, pour toujours.” I love you so much, for always. “You’re the bravest and best person I’ve ever known. You are my superhero. I love you. I love you so much. I’ll never stop.”

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

It felt different hearing it this time. She’s dead, they’re dead, he’s dead– they’re all dead. We killed her, it killed him, the fire killed them and others– how many different ways could something be said that made her feel this lost? Suspended in something she couldn’t quite identify. Her muscles felt like jelly as she watched Ariadne plead with the space in front of her. She forced herself to memorize the way Cass felt beneath her arms just moments ago, of how she smelt of ember and pine. Metzli called Cass her their hero and the word echoed, morphing itself into the word dead and can’t. Heroes can’t die. Hadn’t that been what her father had told her time and time again as he lifted his dvd’s up for her to see, X-Men on the cover?

But that wasn’t true, right? Heroes died all the time. Cass was dead. Behind the rocks, submerged in them– probably an unrecognizable thing. Was it cruel to imagine her in that way? Van imagined her father, Makaio in that way– of his eyes opened and unseeing, of blood trickling from his mouth. Something akin to relief rose in her. It made her feel sick, too.

Ariadne continued to plead with the ghost of her friend she could no longer see, and Van was left on the ground with the notebook pressed to her chest. Her mouth felt dry. “Have to tell– have to tell Thea, tell Nora.” She needed to tell others before she could completely fall apart. How would she be able to get in contact with Ren? Would Ren care? Her mind raced as she stared at the ground, memorizing the way the rocks she’d managed to carve away from the entrance had gathered at her feet.

“She’s dead,” Van croaked. It was a confirmation for nobody but herself, because she already knew that. She already knew that Cass was dead and she wouldn’t be coming back. She knew that life would be forever changed. Whatever was in the notebook she held would be her final goodbyes, and that in itself made Van bite the hand of grief, drawing its blood until there was nothing left but skin and sinew. She couldn’t fall apart now, not when others would need to know. When Cass deserved a burial. When– She looked at Ariadne and Metzli, both grief stricken. Van wasn’t sure what to do for either of them, but she would figure it out.

“I’m sorry, Cass,” Van said again, a small half-sob building in her throat as she got to her feet, legs wobbly.

—

Van finally looked up and, for the briefest moment, hope was a living thing in her chest. It fluttered and rose and sang until the moment her friend’s eyes looked past her, looked off into the middle distance and then back to the rocks. Van couldn’t see her, even with Metzli and Ariadne looking at her, speaking to her directly. Ariadne’s hands had gone through her, not past her. The rocks had been falling from every direction, the pain had been everywhere. And Cass knew. Cass knew what it meant, what it all added up to. The pieces came together like a puzzle no one wanted solved. Cass knew the answer, and everyone else did, too.

The chaos that came after the realization was an immediate thing. Everyone was yelling, stones were being tossed aside. If there was ever a physical embodiment of love, it was in the way Metzli’s hands gripped at those rocks, the way Van dug at the dirt, the way Ariadne screamed and sobbed. She’d been right, down in that cave when the sky was falling. The people here loved her enough to come to her aid every time she called for them. She’d been stupid not to realize it all along.

There was a certain tragedy that came with a certainness that arrived too late. If she’d known weeks ago what had been proven to her now, she wouldn’t have slipped as far as she had. But what had been proven to her now couldn’t have been made certain without what had preceded it. It was like one of those stupid riddles, the ones with no right answer. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you can only be saved by knowing you’re loved, and you can only believe in the love your friends have for you when they’re mourning your loss, did you ever stand a chance?

They were all apologizing, and Cass wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to shake the Earth with all that she felt. But already, her form was flickering; she’d had a promise to keep, and she’d kept it. She’d met them at the top when it was over. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t finished; she wasn’t meant to stay.

“I’m sorry,” she choked on a sob, though there was no wetness on her face. Maybe ghosts didn’t cry; maybe they weren’t capable of it. “I’m — Tell Van. Tell her, too. Make sure she knows. I’m sorry. I love you — I love all of you.” She looked to Ariadne and Metzli in turn, looked to Van who was trying to look at where she stood but couldn’t quite find the right position. The ache in her chest wasn’t a physical thing; on some level, she knew it.

That didn’t make it hurt any less.

The world flickered around her, going from black to golden white before resetting back outside the cave. “It wasn’t your fault. Okay? I need you to know that. It wasn’t any of your faults. It was — It was me. Or it was him. Or — Or maybe it was both of us. I don’t know. But it wasn’t your fault. You were — You were everything to me.”

She looked to Aria, forcing a smile. “You’re — I think you’re the best best friend I could have asked for. When I was a kid, I never could have imagined that I’d find someone like you. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good friend to you in the end. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you deserved, what I — what I wanted to be. I’ll still love you for a hundred years, even if I’m not here to do it.”

Turning to Metzli, she swallowed. “And you… You were my family. Not him. I should have seen it sooner, I should have —” She could fill an ocean with should haves now, couldn’t she? She closed her eyes, willing herself to remain a little while longer. “Please don’t… Please don’t hate yourself for this. It wasn’t your fault. You deserve a family. And you have one. With Leila, with Aria, with so many people who love you. Please don’t… Please don’t let me be the thing that ruins that.”

Van still couldn’t see her. Cass choked on a sob at the realization, looking back to her friend still standing by the ruined mouth of that empty cave. “Tell Van… Tell her I’m glad we were both in the supermarket that night. Tell her that everything that happened, all of it, was worth it just to get to know her. Tell her I wouldn’t change any of it, not for a second. And… and tell her she was right. We would have been friends either way. All of us. The Allgoods were written in the stars, I think.”

She smiled, looking back to Metzli and Ariadne. The world flickered again. “I’m okay,” she told them. “I need you to know I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt. I’m going to be okay. Whatever’s next… I think we’ll see each other again someday. Just not too soon, okay? I don’t mind waiting.”

Another flicker, and it was over. The space she’d occupied was empty, without so much as an echo left behind. The final rumblings of the cave silenced as the ground came to settle beneath the remaining three pairs of feet. There was no more cave; there was no more oread.

And the sky was still there, in the end, still hanging above the Earth as it always had. There was just one less person to see it.

#ariadnewhitlock #vanoincidence #muertarte #ariadne: sky is falling #van: sky is falling #metzli: sky is falling #wickedswriting #:D

magmahearts