Bricini Lightwing followed Thanidiel into battle and she would kill herself before admitting how attracted she was to the Phoenix Guard as she ordered the charge forward. The other woman’s head was big enough as it was. She did not need to know that her lover actually found her appealing when she was strong.
But there was no time for something as frivolous as that. Thanidiel was fine.
Faervell Bael’nar was not. She heard the call for archers. She saw the arrows fly. She saw the felmancer’s demonologists fall. She knew he would not be able to take another hit.
“Move forward, I’m going to Bael’nar! He needs help more than you do!”
She turned and sprinted through the battlefield. People made jokes about her laziness - and all were true - but she was still a soldier, still a healer, and she had been in more battles than she let on. An arrow flung down in front of her and missed her by an inch. She swerved to the side and rushed to the gates. To Faervell Bael’nar.
“Bael’Nar! Get your men back--”
Another arrow whizzed through the air.
The words were ripped from her mouth.
She looked down.
She was a doctor. She knew anatomy well enough to know that her heart had been pierced.
“Fuck--”
She dropped to her knees and the world went black.
Bricini Lightwing stands, naked and dripping in the shower. She does not know when the water stopped running. She does not remember turning it off. But she is suddenly aware of the coolness of the air against her dark skin, and so she grabs a towel.
She steps out of the shower and her skin is dry. Her hair is dry. She does not remember drying herself off, but she must have, because she is. She tucks the towel around herself and opens the bathroom door.
She has been here before.
An empty room. A large, empty room. A long, rectangular room, lined by nearly made beds. White and black robes are folded on the foot of each with boots lined up against the bases. Everything is identical. Everything is familiar.
She has been here before. A dream? No, more than that. She cannot place where or how, but she has been here before. Still, she reaches up to touch the golden ring in her nose, as though that is some sort of totem that reminds her of what is reality and what is dream. It is not, of course, but she touches it anyway.
She is dressed now in white cotton pants that hug at her generous hips and hang loose elsewhere. A white blouse is tucked in at the front, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her feet remain bare, her hands remain bare, and her thick, hark hair remains loose over her shoulders. Loose and dry. She does not know when she dressed herself, but she knows that she is dressed, and that is all that seems to matter.
She looks to the lines and lines of boots. Why are there so many boots? Why are there so many beds? Why does she resent the cleanliness or them all? Why does she resent the smooth sheets, the uniformed folding, the shine of each leather boot? She resents them so much that she cannot look at them any longer and her gaze flicks to the door at the other end of the room.
She has tried to reach for that door before, but she was not successful then.
She walks towards it. It is unassuming. Wooden. No carvings. A brass knob. It is plain, yet annoyingly familiar. She has been here before. She has seen this door, these beds, these boots.
But where?
Her mind should be running with hypothesis after hypothesis. She should be deducing where she is by the smell of the dust on the bed frames, by the stitching on the annoyingly prim sheets, by the type of silk of the black and white gowns. She should be using her mind, but any time she tries to think of anything but the door, her mind is nothing but white light.
But why?
She is at the door now. She looks at the brass knob, shiny from use after use after use. She has been one of the uses. She knows it. She does not know how, but she does.
She opens the door.
But there is no startle awake. This is no dream. The door opens and she is in a small, cramped hall. To the right is a thin window that has long since frosted over from age and dust. To the left is an equally small and cramped staircase that spirals down and out of view. There is a light and warmth radiating from those stairs, from somewhere below. She hears something like a hum.
Voices, whispers, running together.
Before she knows it, she is spiraling down the stairs, dragging her hand along the cold stone wall. She has been here before. She has been on these stairs before. She has touched these walls. So why does she not know where she is?
She is no longer on the stairs. Her bare feet no longer touch cold stone. She is standing on a rug that once was plush. But it is sun-bleached and time-worn. It is pressed thin from years and years of use. She is one of the people that has walked over this rug. She does not know how, why, or when. But she knows it is true.
Light shines to her left and she turns. Women are gathered outside of a door. They are the ones talking, humming, whispering. She cannot see their faces. They do not have faces. But they are dressed in robes of black and white and she knows them. She does not know how she knows them, but she does. She cannot think of a single name, but she knows them.
What are they looking at?
She is urged forward. She feels a pull. Whatever they are looking at, she must look at to. She moves forward and gently urges her way through the crowd. The women are pressed and blocking a room with double doors that are open wide. There is a light and warmth that radiates from that room. She wants it. She knows it.
But how?
The women do not push back when she slips through them. She wades through the sea of women she knows and yet does not know. It is when the women part and when she stands in front of them that she is struck with realization.
Light. Warmth. That is all that it is made of. It glistens as it hangs in the air, its angular shape like runes. Its voice is the ringing of bells. It is not of this world and yet it is here. It inspires her to breathe faster, but she is not scared. She is not afraid. She is in awe.
She is in a church. She is in the orphanage. She is in the cathedral. She walks down the isle, through the pews. She walks towards the Naaru. She walks towards the body of Light.
But when she gets to the front of the cathedral, when she arrives to the steps, it is not a Naaru that stands before her. It is a man.
He has tanned skin and a kind, distracted smile. His right eye cannot open as much as his left, but it was always like that. His dark, thick hair is in loose waves like hers. His gait is casual and loose like hers.
She falls to her knees, overcome. Hot tears spill over her cheeks. His hands rest on her shoulders and for the first time in her long life, she prays and she means it.
This is not a dream.
This is not real.
He is dead.
So is she.
The Light and warmth is within her. It shines. It shines for him. It spills from her.
She gasps. Her eyes open in death.
Her eyes open in the dream.
Bricini eyes opened. And she took in a deep, shuddering breath. She had died. But was dead no longer.
Not since she vacated the field with the remnants of Goldenshade doubled on the horses of Crows and Fury Company. They had rode into the campground of what was once a symbiosis of armies, gathering what was quickly transportable: the medical personnel, the sacks of hard-rations prepared weeks ago in Autumnvale, the reserve horses.
The Honourguard were all in the ground like Emberheart.
The Crows didn’t ask questions.
Bricini, as the only member of Fury Company (as barely official as her presence was) with enough courage to approach the Phoenix Guard in the midst of her storm of action, questioned:
“What happened?”
Thanidiel had used this moment to drum up what was left of her thunder, and the last of her words. She did not look at the other, then; a primordial terror nestled in her breast that sensed that she would not see black hair and dark skin, but instead, red, that would awash into blood and more blood.
“The stars burned out. Didn’t you see?”
After that, she concluded the matter to be finished. And she has not spoken a word to Bricini. Such a thing is too much. The conventions and necessities of the World around her; a gong drumming in a room with too much echo.
There’s enough in her ears and in her head.
The other will understand, or tolerate.
She had performed what duties she could. Taken care of every man and woman that she could (less than two-fucking-hundred out of a host that numbered two-thousand). Written the reports. Sent the rider. Accepted the Crows to her fire. The Goldenshades would stay with her to be united with Thelryn later (there would be no logic in slaying the Grand Arcanist).
Now.. she was here. At home. Or what was once their home? Or… perhaps, their home once again, with Autumnvale’s occupation. Would this one be temporary as well? Where would they go after that? Where would the other abide?
...questions for another time, perhaps.
For now, Thanidiel is unabashedly a ghost.
She has always been a ghost.
Sometimes, there was moments of light that brought her closer to world; more corporal.
The halo of snow that once bracketed Bricini and all of her laughter.
The orange of sunset blanketing Ithanar and her, when their backs lay on the forest floor.
The light that seeped in through the ruined tower as she and Elleynah broke bread.
The sun bearing down on her at the edges of the Fel-and-Light-scarred pavillion.
The glow of arcane lights in the sprawling darkness of the garden she and Renalays once tread within.
The dawns she once-experienced with her, in the mountains Southernmost.
The gold of a Wheel; in the moments between waking and not-waking.
Other times, she grew less present in this world, with every death of the light.
The dusk that fell upon their heads after Arthas cleaved through Quel’Thalas, the city; dying.
The shadow of Varric encompassing her, blocking out the sun of Hellfire; dying.
The ebb of flames that devoured Stratholme, pushing the city into true dormancy; dying.
The black of the ink painting the once-bright parchment, signing off Venelas; dying.
The gloom that replaced the day, weighed onto her shoulders, with every step she took below the Hall of Blood, another assignment awaiting her in chains; dying.
The darkness that consumed the forest, as she had called out to her; dying.
The swathing twilight that overcame Fury Company last night as they fled, the stars; dead.
For now, she was something only half-corporal. Visible, but transparent to the touch. Or, wishing to be transparent.
They had been at home for a while now. Dawn had breached. Neither had slept. They had unpacked. They had bathed. They had eaten. They had retired, or made a show of it. This time, incongruent with usual night rituals, Thanidiel had not made the motion to drive apart the other’s knees, nor pull her close (or allow herself the other’s embrace). The only signifier made of their bond distinguishes itself in the soldier’s insistent curl of her hand around the other’s adjacent one.
A huff pushes into the air. Not from her. The other.
“Ready to share what happened?”
She doesn’t want to answer. So she is silent. For the time-being. A minute ticks by, and the Dawnmender can be seen grimacing in the dark as she twists away, moves to pull her hand out of the fighter’s.
Her grip tightens. Stop.
“I told you what happened.”
“You said the stars burned out. That makes little-to-no-fucking sense.”
“They did.”
“So, what, night fell? Why is that so significant? How did you lose?”
“Because they died.”
“These stars?”
“Aye.”
"Stars don't just die, and if they do, they become black holes. If this is literal, you're crazy; if this is an analogy, it might be fitting. And we both already knew you’re crazy."
“Mhm.”
“These stars were that important?”
“Aye.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t win any of this by myself. You told me that. I’m just listening.”
Laid on the Oracle’s desk at first light, the waiver bore the delicate, swirling script Caeliri had trained into her in Northrend. Attached were two notes; one for the Oracle, regarding the Mysterious Infection, another a copy of a letter sent to the High Confessor herself.
I, Caeliri Dawnsworn, hereby accept the outcome of involvement with the Mysterious Infection sweeping soldiers of the Kirin Tor. Whatever fate befalls me, Light bless, I will take to it readily, with no hate in my heart and no blame on the Kirin Tor, or those who I contracted the illness from. If quarantine is required, I request that my phoenix, Grace, be placed in the care of Lirelle Dawnbrook until I am well - if Lirelle Dawnbrook is joining me in quarantine, then Grace’s care should be passed on to Lord Vaelrin Firestorm, Ranger-Captain of the Sunguard.
Should I fall ill, and no other treatment has been devised, I request no fel-based treatment be used on my person until I teeter on the brink of death. Then, and only then, with loud, clear consent may these treatments be used - if I am unconscious or otherwise unable to speak for myself, I default the choice of my treatment to the aforementioned Ranger-Captain; his word is as binding as my own, and where I am unable to speak for myself, I wish his word to be heeded.
Elsewise, should I contract this disease, I consent to testing other, experimental treatments for the illness - as above, should the worst befall me as result, I accept the consequences. I would ask that all testing of new methodologies be defaulted to me, to save our patients the potential suffering involved in experimentation.
Caeliri Dawnsworn, Dawnward of the Sunguard
The second letter, penned with passion, was lengthier and laced through with a rage that was rare for the bright young mender;
High Confessor, Oracle
No doubt your desks are filled with letters about the occurrence last night; Oracle, you saw, first hand, the calamity which occurred towards the end of the evening, but for the High Confessor, who was not there, I need to make my feelings and fears known.
When one of the patients that we oversaw, a draenei woman, deteriorated towards the terrifying point of perishing, not only did Lightward Lightwing happily stand by and allow her to suffer, and content with letting her die altogether, in favor of pressing her for more questions and answers to further her own desire for prestige, when at last the conclusion was made that fel magic might alleviate the symptoms when introduced to a patient’s system, Lightward Lightwing wished to proceed without consent of the patient, who was still conscious. I will mention, again, the patient was draenei - while I am sure you are well aware of the history of their people, to make my point in this known, explicitly, I will detail what I learned while we were stationed on Draenor.
The Fel is the sole, driving force behind the exodus and subsequent genocide of the draenei. The introduction of fel magic to their people created the eredar, who chased them, along with the Burning Legion, across the stars for eons before our world was even settled, or our people even born. When they at last settled on Draenor, it was the fel that turned the orcs to brutal savages and set them upon the draenei. The draenei were captured, experimented on, brutalized, assaulted physically, mentally, and sexually, and executed in mass numbers, all because of the Fel’s introduction to the Orcish people. The Daenei are people of the Light - they exist with an innate connection to the Naaru, ethereal beings of the Light. For them, their fear and disgust of the Fel, and their belief in the Light, is paramount to their very existence; it is not our place to choose to infect them, to save their lives.
The common consensus among the menders - save Initiate Dewmorning, who deserves his own letter both of commendation and chastisement - was to get consent before treatment was administered, but as soon as Lightward Lightwing decided that her theory was the best one, she wished to proceed even without the consent of the still conscious patient.
Not only is this problematic for all the cultural and religious reasons I listed above, ethically, it is insane. We can not treat patients against their will; as much as I am for the continued livelihood of all patients who come under our care, as much as I would have wept if she perished, if a patient’s wish is for purity in death, it is our duty to respect that. To assume we have the authority to make that choice for people, to strip them of their autonomy, is disgusting. Furthermore, the patient was not oathsworn; she did not bind herself or consent to the practices we preach and act upon to assure the continued livelihood of our brothers and sisters in arms. The situation, when plied against those bound to the Sunguard, is different - the situation would have been different, too, if we were removing a limb to keep a patient healthy.
The situation called for more consideration, more care, more thought than what was being shown - for all we know, we have made an enemy of this patient, now. When she wakes from her delirium, she may be livid with this choice - we may have added another member to the Legion’s armies, or otherwise empowered someone to stand against us. Imagine, if we had acted without her consent at all. In the end, the patient did offer consent for the treatment, but the suggestion that we should have acted at all without it is... damning.
Given Lightward Lightwing’s propensity for showing up to the infirmary and slogging off her duties on to others and napping on the job, and her alighted interest in the events of last night only when it became clear her name may be penned in the history books and glory placed upon her, it may be wise for you to make a general address and remind the Dawnmenders not only of their duties, their expectations and their oaths, but what we do and do not do as Dawnmenders, and where the limit of our power lies. I can excuse dismissal of my words, even if it was insulting to be sworn at and disregarded because I was put into the quarantine, but the callous treatment of our patients is not something I can abide.
“...My intention is to do what I usually do when the time comes.”
“I have no faith in any of them.”
"What about your faith here?"
"What do you mean by that? What about my faith? My faith in what?"
“You have no faith in most of them. What about the commanders here? Or I?”
"Are you trying to get me to stroke your ego? To tell you that I have faith in only you?"
"I'm not that romantic. If you have doubts, I ought to know them. For the sole fact you're working with us if nothing else.”
"I have my doubts about everyone in this war. Everyone.”
"Ah?"
"Others are not used to this sort of war. They'll act stupid and emotionally. They'll be naive. They'll panic. You and the others have too much faith in yourselves. I don't think you will doubt yourself enough."
"I doubt what I'm doing. I just don't tell them. If I tell them, it breaks everything. They need to see that I'm a callous asshole that pulls victories out of my ass like a magic trick. Because that's the type of figure they're going to fall into line behind… you think I didn't have my doubts about this? We're planning to kill thousands like diseased cattle.”
"I think you doubt that. I don't think you doubt your plans and calls."
"... I trust others to put me into line when it's a tad too suicidal."
“They won't if you make them think you never doubt yourself. They won't if you scare them.”
“I don't scare them. They hate me, rather.”
"They hate you. Why?"
“They think I don't care about protecting our own.”
“And do you? Moreso than winning the overall war?”
“I do. I don't throw myself into the thick of everything, where no one else dares to tread, because I'm interested in seeing other people die or throw their lives away. I'm not supposed to make the choice that values the lives of one region over another. I can only make the choice that means more people overall walk away from it all. People are short-sighted. I strike how I do because it removes others from the situation entirely. It means they aren't in the situation in the first place, where I need to throw myself in front of them.”
"Does it bother you if they think that you are dishonorable from your decisions so far? Your duel, for instance?"
“No. If I didn't do that, then we'd have had to fight our way through. People would die, and then die some more, because we wouldn't have enough strength to conquer the rest of their forces afterwards. I panicked the Alliance by breaking the rules for the first time, and now we're nestled in their most vulnerable of positions. What bothers me is when they think I'm doing it because I don’t care if everyone else burns. It's either we fight Stormwind now, or Stormwind pours south and kills more, on top of situations like the Dawnspire. I'm minimising casualties.”
"Others will be bothered. So bothered that they won't do what needs to be done."
“Then they can reinforce the least threatened positions, like Dawnspire and the Southwest. And I'll do what I usually do. And break the rules. And win it.
"But you can't win this war singlehandedly either."
The other is asleep.
She always falls asleep first, and wakes up after.
Most of the time, it stirred a little marble of irritation within Thanidiel, that traveled down pathways. from her head to her feet, to roll across the floorboards and disappear off into the night to be found in the morning. If only because she had a way of trapping in the Sunspear with her unconscious weight.
This time, she found a solace of sorts in it. It allows the soldier her thoughts. The ones to be kept away from the wind, and remain seated within the realm of secrecy. She had not expressed the whole of it to the other, and thus, it has to be mulled over now or there will be no peace to her night.
When she shared those words: that she would tread where no one else will - beyond the bounds of everyone else’s footsteps, where everyone else’s sanities, and everyone else’s mortalities, cowered at the edges of the darkness and refused to push on - that was not the implied suicidal bravery that she had forged her name upon, to strike and take victory before those behind her would come to true harm.
It was, it is, her fear, her terror.
That, she would not so-easily admit to the woman at her side. That she isn’t a soldier; more a coward with a victory streak.
Yes, it is something protective, and endurant, in her soul that yawns its great maw and tosses its great head when threat, for what is her’s, scents on the horizon.
No, it is not quite as assertive and blisteringly forthright as the biography reads.
She doesn’t…
She…
I—…
Her hand reaches out to fill the silence, with the loss her mind wanders within. Both looking, and unlooking, her blind touch still follows (be gentle) the outline of the other from shoulder, along flank and belly to rest upon the highest point of the hip’s crest, as precisely perfect as her training in this has built.
Sluggish, her sight reorients and focuses back to matters of reality, even through the misty, heavy, pangs rolling through the muscles of her stomache.
“I want to make some sort of peace before Battle. Please bring yourself and the Cards. Bread and drink to be offered.”
[A Dream settles upon Sunstrider Isle the very night before Battle. A Dream of Witches and Cards and Fate that clutches those who had beseeched to its breast.]
Plainfaced and without fantasy; just like Thanidiel. In the dreamscapes of this bred soldier is no wistfulness for places beyond what is beneath her feet, and before her eyes.
It is the same Isle that her corporal self sleeps upon. Albeit; in place of the sprawling campgrounds of the Alliance that her cavalry had penetrated with the Sunguard behind them, there is existential nothingness, with the faintest tendrils of foreboding seeping into this plane. It is like water breaking, slow and steady, through a home just abandoned. So encapsulating this scenario is of the warrior's perception of her waking world, the Duskward does not even seem to come to a realisation (yet) of where she treads.
Within her camp, Elleynah stands, almost real— she is in winter garb, solid, and soft by parts. She waits; she is still. Around her, there is more shadows than light— an early twilight to shiver within the everstill-strangeness of the Dream.
In her strained somber, the soldier brightens (somewhat) at the familiar form of Elleynah with the slightest widening of her eyes and relaxation of her jaw. Steady and resolute like always, she makes right for her in her heavy, panther-like, stride.
"I didn't think you'd actually come."
"I come when called." The voice that emerges is flat, the hands shifting to reveal; the deck of Cards, stolen from nowhere, existing for the sake of existence.
"You have need; you have the thought. I speak for fate. Ask what you will, and I shall answer."
The Oracle shifts; there is a shudder in the Dreamscape, as the creature beneath the friend-face seemed to reveal itself. Hunger is there, but not predation; the shimmering fades and the girl is once more, her eyes shining, two lights within the hood.
Thanidiel, though familiar with the Cards, has yet to witness them truly until this moment. Thus, what is earned, at first, is the predatory prick-back of her ears in what is instinctive offensive... then she processes... and thinks... and the tense cartilage begins to perk back up and relax where it will.
She approaches, but not as confident as before, when she thought herself approaching friend than eldritch entity. Still, she is not hesitant; merely adjusting her amiableness. She looks around, however, though there is truly nothing for her dreameye to focus on. Willing as her approach is, her words do not come quite so easily.
But, eventually, it all flows out with uncharacteristic honesty, and expansiveness.
"I have experienced a lifetime of what is Mine dying before my eyes, because I failed to protect such things proper.
Now, calamity consumes my life again.
I tried to part ways from Mine, but it would not sever from me so easily. Now I fear a turn of the wheel more than anything else, and the consequences that would echo in the lives of thousands beyond me and Mine should... grief take me again.
I want to know what the Cards see in the health of Bricini Lightwing in the coming weeks. Is she safer with me, or has she placed herself in danger, as I feared, by remaining at my side?"
"Worthy."
Even as the verdict is given, the Dream twists; darkness falls and rises around them, color sapped away and replaced with greyness and wither. Without moving— or, perhaps, with everything moving— the Cards and her hands quickening. They arc in strange and alien shapes, impossible for living hands to craft, and yet— they seem to whirl in both hands and all around at once, flooding the sky, wrapping around the pair like walls closing in, and yet they remain within the woman's grasp.
"Tell me when to stop."
Thanidiel, ever animal-like, and perhaps moreso within the safety of her own dreams, curls her lips in another snarl as the atmosphere shifts and twists around them.
But there is still security there, and knowledge to trust.
"Stop."
Elleynah seems to shatter as the word was uttered; the Dream was ripped asunder and torn to its base parts as the Cards grew, contorted, exploded, and became.
And as it became her reaction to this Dream, and these Cards, and that Vision no longer rung with guarded and cautious spirit.
Used to the sloughing of her own skin like an unwanted coat to take on others — She leaps into it in the way that a panther leaps across a stream that has so suddenly bubbled into her vision.
Five faces; five striking signs, that filled the world, that stretched and reached and consumed, crashing upon witch and soldier, until the world was not as it was before but instead…
Thanidiel is again a child; she is in her leathers, her face and hair threaded with dirt and leaves. She runs through a camp; it is not her camp. She races to the center, where a bonfire blazes, its smoke rising a pillar against the blue and bald sky. Yes, she is that child of past times. Yes, she is running through yet another camp, to her enemy, the brightest-of-all-things.
It is not her home; these are not her kin. Yet it is familiar. Around her, a thousand soldiers; a thousand arms and armor. She has killed some in their colours; others have been her allies. Each of soldiers elder, and wise. And... she pauses. Ever observational, ever perceptive, her dream-child-eye locks onto the masses of soldiers to catch every detail and allow her tuned memory to flare over, and over a...
...the Wheel, however, draws her in.
Within the flames, a Wheel is burning, turning, rising— broken.
Enemy.
Brightest-Of-All-Things.
Sustenance of Life; the Beginning of Consciousness and its End.
“Each turn came through great effort and skill, you were trained to be as you are. Broken to fit. Apprenticed to the forms of shattering that make strong. You struggle to let it stay dead. You have broken the wheel, but see-- it yet moves. It is more than just the remains of what was. You fuel it.”
Elleynah is nowhere to be seen, but there is black ash on the ground, and the woodland beyond the tents echoes with laughter.
Familiar, intimate laughter.
Thanidiel’s ears flick with the ache of wanting to grasp onto every beat of laughter that begins to drum through the woods, and she shifts here, and there. Animal. Not wishing to speak, failing to see its usefulness in her ancient ways of beyond-civilisation, her senses attempt to hone on something, anything, that shifts within this Dreamscape for the answer to continue its unfurling.
The laughter, that laughter.
The laughter pulls and twists the flame, and the fires roar, leaping forth to grasp and twist. From hand, to hand, Thanidiel passes. From one role to another. So easily she traverses where, and how, and who, this Vision rips her to.
It surges around, through, and into. It is explosive; it rings through her, and draws her in and suddenly she is again in the Blood and Black, and the wheel is at her back.
Unknowing of whether she would receive an answer, or be skinned yet again, and brought to a new life, her hand reaches out to the shadow of her and the cursed Wheel.
Its shadow, their shadow, shows her a body pinned to its spokes; it shows a world turned to flame. A world she knows. The shattered Silvermoon, the forest aflame. Screams and weeping.
From wildness to contained civilisation, and with it, came a sliver of the Character she had forged with the Blood Phoenix. Here, she is not content in primordial ways. The ways of Society and Government and Knights and Puppeteers have staked a new nature for this one.
Not calm, not resolved. Her hand reaches out, unsure of whether it ought to commit to its taloned curl of a fist, or open up its palm. In the meantime, it caresses the ever-present flames.
“The wheel was broken; it can be remade. Will you remake it, by choosing that was?”
The screams grow.
“War has come, and you have the chance to change what is, and was, and will be.”
The cries die down and the wheel shifts; its edge broken and the sky appears once more.
"I don't know what the world needs from me," plucked quiet from her lips right before the Wheel begins its roar yet again.
It begins to lean back, and with it, draws Thanidiel down with it.
Elleynah is drawn forth; she moves so well between these Cards, between the portends. She is swept into sunlit sheets. Her body is bare, as is that of the tawny woman next to her, whose dark hair spills over white linen. And Thanidiel is cursory to this nudity that unravels before her — so at home with the machinations of the world at itself than she is in the day-to-day of having to don skins, and masks, and clothing, and etiquette, and language — none of that was home.
Bricini smiles.
The Light returns.
Everything is warm.
“You chose this. This was what you picked, when all else was ash. When you know your history.”
It is not Bricini speaking; it is the sunlight that fills the room.
“And it chose you in return, even when you doubted. Even when you could not trust, you were given it.”
Like rain, the light drops down and showers them in white and glowing brilliance, and even Thanidiel can find laughter. And yes, she does, indeed, allow a laugh to flow with the energy rolling through her; how else could she not? All of her laughter had always been for that one, and everyone else would find the door to such a domain of Thanidiel's slammed in their face with nose broken and bleeding.
The walls fade and become pillars. The world outside written in light and sunstorm as well. The forest is gilded. The Dreamscape is quieter, now — Gods be blessed — and she is home with the forest, its weather, and the solitude of companionship.
Here, she is primordial in a different way — where there is no box of living kind's woes, and complexity, emptied into the world. Thus, her speech dies as quickly as it was drummed up.
Did she need to speak?
At all?
No, no she didn't.
This is home, afterall.
Everything meaningless, useless, and not truly her, had been left outside where the light did not shine upon them. Everything, thus far, had been a prolonged business trip that had never ended, and had never stopped consuming, and had never stopped demanding.
Now, everything is good.
It remains as Bricini pulls her closer, lips over cheeks and jaw, whispering terrible things that lend to laughter and grimaces.
“You get this. You don’t lose it,” Bricini says in her own voice, “Because, fuck you, that’s why.”
The sheets fall and they are dancing then, barefoot in a kitchen. Night swims in through a window, and there is song outside; something scratchy, from a radio. It’s terrible: raucous and goblin.
Thanidiel’s feet will not work; she keeps tripping, and pulling Bricini down with her to the floor. The mender groans, and hauls the fighter to her feet.
“Not so fast.”
It replays. It replays. It replays. Each time, she is pulled back to her feet. And, true, she trips and clumsies over, and over, and over, and over, again. Of course she would. She couldn’t calm entirely, yet. The answer isn't finished yet; she isn't assured of the safety the other would find in her.
There is no dull complacency and necessity to this new scenario around her. She is not habitually slinging on one new coat after another and acting as though she were in her element. No, there is something more natural now in the guidance that has curled its fingers around the spirit of her. This is nothing forced or obligated of her to perform and strike a role for.
The final scene is simple; the training field, where once bread was broken. Where once they spoke of simple things and domesticity, the quiet of forgotten places encompassing. Thanidiel sits, and Elleynah is there.
She was with her companion of all companions, and now she is with another. And there is no begrudging of this difference between Elleynah and Bricini; this is what she chose. Simplicity, and comfort, and home.
The girl is young and small; her hands freshly bloody, palms a basin of cuts. She looks up with two green eyes, and they are no longer young, and the two women with two ‘lost’ eyes between them meet gazes.
The soldier’s eyes, when met, is at the half-lid of ease, and its resolve is no longer fraught with fear and threat odoring the air. It is something more thunderously her and keen.
“You are not as lost as you think.
You are growing things in the cracks, where the wheel was broken. When you broke it, so too did the foundations of your inability to cope shatter. You are going to get better. You may not be better yet, but you will. Your will is strong, but your stubbornness is even more yet.
You cannot fear going forward — you cannot fear that you might lean on those who offer you their strength, while you rebuild. That’s what they are there for. Right now, the rawness is so deep you can still see where the blood oozes from the wound, but it’s scabbing. You do not wish to follow the patterns that are laid behind you, a legacy of such.
And so, you won’t.”
She listens, and she listens intently to the summation of the Cards' reading
The earth shimmers and grows with weeds and grasses; they sit for aeons as the world ages around them. And she does not blink as the world rapidly twists and shifts around her like an ever-spinning Wheel. She didn't want to shut her eyes or ignore it all as she once did, where the world was a vast sea of candles flaring in and snuffing out of existence.
Elleynah’s hands slid out, and this time… it was the young woman’s voice.
“You broke one wheel. You did it. Now, you have to make the new one.”
She smiles, and squeezes Thanidiel’s hands. In response, still knowing this was not entirely her friend, the Phoenix Guard could not help herself but to stroke her thumb down the length of the smaller girl's palm in a rarely expressed fondness.
It is enough — the Dream seems to shatter as the golden light did, save…
...in the moments between waking and not, there are the first lights of false dawn, and they make the shape of a circle across the floor; whole, and bright, and new. And that Light, and the light beyond that, calls to her...
[The first Dreamwalker wakes sweet and radiant.
Another Dreamwalker is ripped from a bleeding place in fear.
One Dreamwalker is shattered into the next life.
The last Dreamwalker is adjourned for his own good.]
First of all, huge shout-out for @jessipalooza as my roleplaying partner and as the owner of the character that has spurred my recent writings for Thanidiel as of late. I’m very glad to have the consistence of your presence and I hope there is only more opportunity to write together in the next year.
Secondly, proclaiming my love here for @stormandozone as one of the fabulous people I’ve had the joy of writing with in my time here with the Sunguard, who honored not only me, but @retributionpriest and @thepilgrimofwar, of tarot readings for our (horrible) characters. Like Jess, her character has been here for a magnificent swath of my own development with Thanidiel here in TSG. In fact, taking a couple of weeks, it’s been an entire year since my character’s last vision-reading with Elleynah and the drastic change between what was supposed to be my unredeemable hero failure and now someone with a decent fucking chance is breathtaking to absorb in its entirety. This collaborative was absolutely amazing to participate in.
Similarly, the aforementioned Lirelle and Sederis have blessed me with a whirlwind storm of not only friendship, but so much creative energy as ourselves and between each other; that I am at a lost if all of the writing we have done and will do for @thesunguardmg ‘s Phoenix Wars will suffice for all that should see light.
Thank you all.
Lirelle’s Vision: Hidden.
Sederis’ Vision: The Hanged Man
[Consider a reading of Look Around, Revival, and Around and Around for context to this story from most to least recent relevance.]
With the recent defeat (and the consequences that echoed beyond this defeat), a forgetful spirit has settled into Thanidiel’s breast. Once again, she has shifted into a conflictful creature, one that has disregarded the warmth of hearth, for the chill beyond it.
She had slept, finally, after settling all that had still required attention, had been demanded of her, for the time-being. And, upon waking, the wordless Duskward had clothed herself in warm civilian-wear, and made her exit from the apartment without a care if Bricini was there, would follow, was speaking to her, or whatever-have-you of the other's presence.
Now, she treads through the eerie quiet of Silvermoon, through the backstreets of the Royal Exchange's sprawling district where stone and marble gives way to soil and snow underneath the feet. All of it: empty, bare. Sometimes, there is someone present - a child, an elder. Most of everyone risen to arms, and the refugee masses regulated to other districts of the City. For now.
Cigar smoke follows her like a thunderstorm.
(“Not so fast.”)
An over exaggerated "BRRRRRR”, cuts through the ambient sound of snow compressed underneath boot, and the steady inhale-and-exhale of smoke. And with this, Thanidiel’s ears do not perk with her common thrill, they stiffen, rather, at the sound of the other.
Her brow had already been bitten with Burden's axetooth, and at this, the gash only grows more severe. As though it were a strike of happenstance than purpose, the forgotten-other seemingly materialises from an alleyway beats after the Phoenix Guard’s passing. In an instant, she is walking beside Thanidiel, chokes on the acrid cloud billowing from the fighter, and then Bricini switches to the other side of Thanidiel.
Her partner glances to the side, then the other side, and then over their shoulders. Still, the pad of her feet slows from its heavy trod to something light, then to a pause entirely. Obligingly, she offers the Dawnmender her adjacent hand.
"You're walking like you're trying to get away from someone. Who's following you?"
"You, for one," comes out easily in riposte. Its tone snares on a growl, a hostility, unheard since the younger months of their relationship. Her next words assert a dismissal in their nature, incongruent with the tender manifest of them, “I thought you'd want to rest now that we're in a city.”
Bricini shakes her head, puffing out a visible bit of air. "I don't rest," she half-lies. "Besides, did you really think I wouldn't want to follow you to see what your quiet ass has been up to?"
(“You get this. You don’t lose it.”)
Thanidiel looks around them, cutting the hot bitter of her cigar with sharp air. Eventually, she envelops Bricini's hand entirely in her's to drag them both to the City's wall nearby, and press her own shoulders against the frigid stone. "Walking. Is there something special about that?”
Behaving as though she had always had a choice (she didn’t) in the matter, the other follows right along with a raised eyebrow accenting her features. "When you're acting the way you are, yes. You haven't talked to me since you got back."
“I did, didn't I?”
"No."
“No?”
"You haven't. You've said words. You haven't talked."
“I wasn't aware there was a difference 'tween those two. Did I not nail it right where you wanted it?” Thanidiel drawls that sarcastically off of her tongue.
Unimpressed, Bricini stares squarely into the soldier’s face. "Telling me shit about stars doesn't count. Usually you like boasting about yourself after a battle, win or lose. You crush skulls, and want to talk about it. You haven't said shit, Thanidiel."
The Commander’s impulse is to meet Bricini’s gaze ounce-for-ounce. Her hand releases from her partner’s to grasp, and tug, onto one side of her belt. The other takes its time from where it had perched the arched heel of its palm against her own hip, to raise up her cigar and take a ‘luxurious’ drag, "I don't need to say shit. You can do math. Less than two-hundred walked away with me. We went in with over two-thousand.”
"What else."
“What else do you want?” An explosion of smoke fills in the space between their faces.
(“Not so fast.”)
The Dawnmender reaches out to grab Thanidiel's shoulders, pressing her weight into it and locking the fighter against the wall. Bricini is uncaring to the reaction it spurs within the Commander: her deadened muscles twisting and quivering in a want to snarl back to the other.
The City around them remains frozen and silent, all the while, and, somehow, it is unclear on whether this is due to the winter that falls over their heads, or the Winter raging here.
"Talk to me. What the fuck happened?"
At this, Thanidiel is slow in her response once more. She tosses her head to the side, directing her gaze away from Bricini's eyes and into the bright streets. In spite of this, this is no marker of her hesitation to conflict against her partner. Her voice is unwavering, and still harsh in its flashing bite. Still— she looks away, as red (blood) blooms, and pricks, and splotches, at her vision from the rolling tresses of black hair.
"Nothing happened when we needed it to, no matter how many lives we threw at it. So they all died. And I pulled out what was left of the armies.”
Bricini remains focused entirely upon Thanidiel, and squints hard; listening, and listening strong. She tilts her head to the side. "They all died. Your armies or everyone?" She glances to the side and around, as though the answers would suddenly appear within the fog and smoke around them, "....where are the other commanders?"
“Dead. Gone. Surrounded.”
"All of them?"
“They all went down before I vacated the field.”
The Doctor’s grip on Thanidiel's shoulders loosen slightly. And in spite of this little ‘mercy’, it only serves to fix an aspect of suspicion, and guardedness, onto the Phoenix Guard’s features - even when it is merely jaw and tattoo presented to the other.
Bricini’s brows furrow, and she slowly offers one nod. "That makes sense, then. You were close to some of them up there, weren't you?" And instead of answering the question posed by her, the soldier eventually pushes out: "I can't do it without them," in an echo of last night's sentiment.
This garners genuine surprise. The medic’s brows raise and she pulls back an inch or so. "You're admitting that out loud?"
(“You get this. You don’t lose it.”)
“I'm admitting it to you.”
"Names. Who specifically died? Who were the others on the field with you?"
“Why are you playing so fucking ignorant, Bri? You know who's been with me this whole ass time, since before the Archon even called us to arms. Just get off of me.”
"I'm not playing ignorant, Thanidiel. You don't fucking talk to me. I know you've been bothered, but I don't know who's been traveling completely in packs. I've been focusing on my fucking work.”
(“Not so fast.”)
Bricini 's grip tightens into Thanidiel’s body where it had been pushing forward, expecting the other to accept her demand, and she slams her back against the wall. Snapping, “Now get your head out of your ass and talk to me. I'm asking you a legitimate question, because I give a fucking shit. What were their names?"
Reflective to the ways of anger and violence like water and oil, the fighter surges right back, like quickfire, to loom breast-to-breast over the Dawnmender. Where she had been cold (so cold), suddenly, rage gouts out from between the furnace hatches in a scalding lash,
"Lirelle, and Sederis, are fucking dead."
In response, the Doctor does not hesitate to push, yet again, and thrash the ex-Knight hard against the stone behind them. It becomes apparent, then, that Bricini was very, keenly, honest when she spoke about having served before. And Thanidiel 's face flushes with heat, the frustration that has welled up apparent, even through the gold of her skin. The cigar rolls into the snow underneath their feet.
“So you lost two of your friends? Your comrades? And you decide to shut down and be a brat? Don't you dare shove me in any way, you are going to deal with this."
The soldier's hands go to curl deep into belt and woolen coat, gripping and rolling the material harshly between her fingers, while there is nothing to do with her energy. For, truly, Thanidiel’s anger never came without retribution towards its source-matter. Or, almost never. There is something sacred, and instinctive, here, that prevents the slightest consideration of acting towards Bricini from flaring within her mind. And that is paradoxical to the soldier’s rhythm.
"It's not that they died. You don't know what I'm feeling.”
“Then. Talk. To. Me. Explain what you're feeling. Fucking scream it, I don't give a shit.”
“Why does this matter to you? I can't have a few days to my own fucking feelings? I'm fucking upset, Bri. I'm grieving, for them, and everyone else before them. I walked away from everyone and let them die. Again. Like I always do when shit goes south. I always do. This isn't the first massacre I've been something of a sole survivour from, and it's not the first time I've let people who were supposed to be my friends, or more than that, die as I did it. I'm pissed at myself, and I'm pissed that I'm not in the ground and the others in my place right now. And to top it all off: there's no one else to lean on besides you and Ithanar. And you two aren't enough for us to win this.”
"You're not grieving, you're shutting down. If you were grieving, you'd be hitting something, screaming. I'm not asking you to go to the church on your knees and cry to the Light, but I know you, and I know you're not grieving. Not really. Deal with it and talk. Don't just bottle it up inside. You're not a fucking Blood Knight anymore. It won't fly."
(“You get this. You don’t lose it.”)
Thanidiel squints at Bricini and lets a crisp, "Fuck you," roll out of her mouth. "I am talking. I am fucking talking, and I'm explaining how I'm feeling. Don't street-diagnose what this is."
"Fuck me? Fuck you. You're talking after I'm making you talk."
“I wasn't ready to talk to you. I told you— I'm telling you, this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened to me. You can't expect me to digest it all so easily and sit down with you over it. I'm so pissed I've done this again, Bri.
This is my legacy; all of my merit.
The going gets tough, and I walk away so everyone else can be speared like pigs. You want to know what I'm thinking about and feeling? I'm thinking that I watched my father die like one of your shitty goblin 'movie' projections, then I turned around and I walked away. And that I did the same thing with someone who should, by all means, be my fucking spouse today. I'm thinking about all of the other instances of this.
I'm thinking that everyone's looking up to me and expecting better of me now and here, and all I did was watch Lirelle die, watch Sederis march off to die, and then I turned right around - and walked away.”
(“Not so fast.”)
The action is spontaneous, and sudden, and prickling with all of the Doctor’s own frustrations: Bricini slaps Thanidiel across the face and it lands soundly with impact.
"You're being fucking stupid. You retreated. That is also a strategy. You didn't 'walk away', you retreated because there was no other option. Stop with the pity and start with the grieving. You did what you had to do. And so did they."
Here, there would normally be an instantaneous reaction; an escalation of aggression. Instead, stunned and startled, the warrior pauses. Then, as the other finishes, a growl rips from Thanidiel's throat and the soldier's hand swings out. Grasping, no, wrenching onto Bricini's wrist, the motion is made to reverse their positions with a swing of the other’s body into the wall. With so little activity in the wind, the impact rings so much more severe than it was through the quiet.
"Don't hit me, you fucking cunt. You don't know, and you don't understand. I know I did the strategic thing. I don't care; I just don't care. Let me be stupid, okay? Let me be fucking stupid. You know I can't allow myself that anywhere else but here, and you're not even giving me that.
Bricini takes the grapple, as though expecting this roughness with no indicator of pain delivered, and raises her chin. She doesn't look bothered. She looks just as annoyed as she had been before. Leaning forward, getting in Thanidiel's face, she snorts. "I'm getting you to act instead of walking quietly around Silvermoon, thinking about Light knows what. You wanna hit me? Hit me. Do it. Yell. Let it out. But don't shut down. We can't afford that. Not now."
(“You get this. You don’t lose it.”)
Thanidiel doesn't hit Bricini. She doesn't yell— in fact, her voice has not risen in a true shout this entire time, yes, it had been loud in her way, but it had not boomed, nor split, or strained her voice in volume nor energy— either. She rises to the occasion, however; and lets it out. As she had been ever since the Dawnmender had begun her insistent prodding.
Butting into Bricini's face, just as brazen, and annoyed, and frustrated: "This. Doesn't. Help. Bri." A moment, for that to seep in, then: "You yelling at me doesn't make me any better at my job, when we need to get back to it. It doesn't make any of this go away. You're such a bitch. You can't fucking deal with me not fucking you for a single gods damned day, and so you follow me to scold me like some waycast whore.”
"I can't deal with you being a limp fucking noodle. You bottle yourself up, shut down, explode? Is that it? I don't care about you fucking me, so stop trying to claim it's about that. You know me better by this point. You're deflecting. I may be a bitch, but at least I'm not a cold bitch.
“It's been one whole day, Bri— less than a day, even. You're fucking impossible.”
"We don't have longer than a day, Thanidiel. Not for you to have your breakthrough. Fucking deal with what happened. Grieve. And do so quickly."
Thanidiel just... breathes. After that. A harsh, distinct, noise pushed out from her chest. She looks exhausted. Truly worn of body and spirit. Normally, such strain is ever-present on the ex-Knight, but it is carried well in her primal form of regality; the way queens carry crow’s feet and jaguars carry scarmarks. Now— she looks wounded, in a way.
"What the fuck do you want to me do after you supposedly help me get my fucking act together, Bri? What are you expecting from me? That I'll march us all out and be back under Archon's Command by the next dawn? We're going to be here for awhile. It takes time to rebuild an army. And I have three.”
(“Not so fast.”)
In the midst of these words, she can feel the way that the other’s hands unclench from her shoulders. Bricini grabs hold of Thanidiel's face, her hands surprisingly soft as she cradles the Phoenix Guard's face, bringing her close and dear. There is urgency in her motions, an irritation, but an affection. It could, perhaps, be explained as a sort of love; this willingness to engage with the closing-off fighter, and rip her out of the rabbit’s hole.
It is not something misunderstood or breezed over by her partner. Thanidiel pauses at this; this softness expressed from the other at the end of it all. Her brows furrow. The rigidity to her ears die. She listens closer than she had done in the moments before. Even in the midst of her emotions, she had always been listening. After this touch given to her, however, she listens better; less obstinate for the sake of obstinance.
"I expect you to get your shit together, understand that retreats happen, that death happens, and move on, so that you can truly grieve however you want to after we win this fucking war, or leave."
The soldier breathes out a bit of the weight on her shoulders once again. "I asked Elleynah about you," she begins— or, tries to.
There's an awkward silence that fills in the crevices after that, like ice trickling into, and breaking through, rock.
Then she wills herself to push on.
"I was worried about you getting hurt by being with me, and her magicks said the exact opposite. You were the only person I was worried about going in.
So I let down my guard. And I trusted them. And I didn't sound for the retreat when I knew it was unwinnable, because I figured it'd all turn out fine and we'd figure it out as we go. Because me and them have always beat the odds. And that didn't happen, and they died. So I'm blindsided and I feel like a fucking idiot, because I wasn't strategic. Not like usual.
And I need you to give me a fucking break because I know everything you're telling me.”
The other's hands slide down from Thanidiel's face, running them to her shoulders. Leaning forward, Bricini brings her lips to the woman's cheek. And with that, the Phoenix Guard relinquishes the tense grip around the medic’s wrist.
"Then listen to it." With another kiss, she releases her. "Finish your walk if you want. Think. I'm heading back for now. I won't follow you, if you want the time."
In return, Thanidiel raises that same hand, bracketing the side of Bricini's jaw. A muted exhale pushes out from her at the feeling of the Dawnmender’s own placed over her palm.
"You think I don't listen to you just because you piss me off? You're mine." She doesn't finish the sentiment, but she doesn’t have to, either. It was there, in the choice.
"I think you don't listen to me because you're a stubborn bitch."
“...I want to finish my walk.”
"Go. Walk. You know where I'll be."
(“You get this. You don’t lose it.”)
(“You chose this.”)
It takes time for the Commander to wear out herself - to where her insides no longer twist and she no longer fears the etch of old memories, over the present stonework. She doesn’t return to the building of Bricini’s their apartment until the hours have cut through the tenacity of her mountainblood, and the chill finally gnaws at her bones through wool and blood as the sun dies. But, still, she returns.
The hallway echoes in its setting darkness.
(“This was what you picked, when all else was ash.”)
There is a comfort, beyond comfort, that settles onto her shoulders and relaxes the tension in her breath. This is home, afterall. Or sanctuary. Somewhere in which to perch. She didn’t realise how weary of a miasma had been suffused in her with recent days. Ready to rest, she picks up her stride.
(“When you know your history.”)
Every step is a proclamation. Of choice, and return. A reminder of what is circular. Where walks purpose; there is a dearth - or, once, was a dearth. She no longer feels that familiar, old, Eye. There is only the new wheat, here. Like so many times, and so many walks, before - she grasps onto the knob.
(“And it chose you in return.”)
The door is unlocked and, seemingly, has been for some time. Of course. The other had always done so when she expected Thanidiel - trusting in the eventual presence. Uncaring of the possibility of otherwise. Answering this faith, she twists.
(“Even when you doubted.”)
The way is opened. From this World to something isolated from it. Already, what they had left months ago, ‘cleaned’ and delegated to a lesser home, contains flurried evidence of the pair. There is no need to confirm Bricini’s presence, nor permission. So she steps through; through this barrier.
(“Even when you could not trust.”)
She knows where to find her, like a limb. All it takes, always, is a sweep of her eyes to the right; where the streetlight of the Exchange filters in from the windows. And, ah, there is the other. The blanket had been pulled from the bed, wrapped around her. There’s another text in her hand and splayed over herself, with a pen and notepaper sprawling in formulas in the other. There is no need to mince words, so she doesn’t.
“Hey.”
(“You were given it.”)
“Hey,” echoes right back.
Bricini doesn’t turn her chin up; she only gives the ex-Knight a cursory glance from under her brow, in a flashing glint of her glow. Then it’s right back to her work. Comfortable, and plainly so. Thanidiel observes the way her legs shift underneath fabric, making space to be occupied. She glances over her shoulder.
(“You do not wish to follow the patterns that are laid behind you, a legacy of such.”)
She’s done this too many times. Bottle up. Shut down. Explode. Walk it out. Swing right back down this hallway. It’s… oh-so fucking old, and boring. How many times had she wished to run away from her history, and fall into the same, ancient, rhythm; a dull rodent that didn’t want to think outside of the Wheel.
Prompt 11: World Building, First Person What if World of Warcraft took a different turn with its inspiration? What if the game was actually based entirely around science fantasy, particularly cyberpunk? I was a cheesy bitch and did The Modern AU(™). For a long piece, use what skills you’ve learned and practiced to narrate AS your character in this different world.
What would their occupation be? What is the world like? Factions? Races? Conflicts? Try to write about a normal or abnormal day for your character in this world—is their name different too? Write in your character’s perspective, and take on a very in-depth look of a different personality and worldview.
[I was very cheesy and went balls deep into a Modern AU story to exercise a more modern narrative style. Lots of references to others and events from World of Warcraft roleplay or Thanidiel’s background, try to catch them all. alsoimsorrythiswassolong.
“Alright, alright. Just, shut the fuck up for, like, I don’t know, an hour. Ethan, cradle your beer, you’re good at that. Elena… I don’t gotta tell you shit.
Let’s start with… the beginning.
So, let’s just get this shit out of the way. Auberry, up in Fresno County, California. Small-time fucking town. My dad was a new recruit to the police department, there. First-generation son to some Lithuanians that couldn’t read shit for English. My mom is a Mono Indian, from the Big Sandy Rancheria next door.
1990, Dad knocked her up when she was in town. I was the result, that she passed right back to Dad. Grew up happy without her, ran around just fine with myself, my Staffordshire, Ted, and all of the neighborhood backdoors left open. Grandparents were out of the picture by then, and Dad had shit hours, so it was up to the Abuelas and Grandma Sallys. Suited all of us just fine.
One day, Dad gets shot up breaking up a domestic dispute. I was six. And as much as we all want to think about those crazy stories up on Reddit and Facebook, no one fucking walks away from a hunting rifle. His coworkers stopped by, took me to the tribe headquarters in town to figure out what to do with me. Off to Big Sandy they sent my ass. I hear the Grandma next to us took Ted.
As much as I want to say things got more chill from there, it didn’t. See, my mom was half-white, already. Mix that with some straight-out-of-Europe dude, and you get a blue-eyed blonde haired kid running around with the Mono. Mom didn’t want me either, and she made that damned clear to the elders, so I was back to being a community effort on a new Grandma’s sofa.
Bless Grandma, she tried. Fed me. Taught me a handful of Monachi. Taught me how to fucking read and write English. Driving, eventually. Hooked me up with a new dog too when I got there, Tamuapaya, albino-assed thing. All of the good parental shit you’re supposed to do, with everything she had.
I ended up as black of a sheep as it gets, though. Scraped with the other kids whenever we crossed each other, dogs got in on it too. Adults couldn’t fucking stand me outside of Grandma ‘cause I didn’t think they deserved anything but lip. And, let me just say, it’s fucking awkward when you realize you’re a fag, hours out from a real city. I was never really accepted with them outside of cook-outs, but that was when you had to take everyone registered in the tribe.
Eventually, I get old enough to start itching to work. So I start the uphill battle of doing the most shit possible small-jobs for the most shit payout for these folk, and as you two know, I am stubborn as fucking shit about my work. So I did every bit of work they pissed at me, with fucking excellence.
Then that got too small when I was like, fifteen, and wanted some real fucking cash. The other black sheep got me then, and let me know it was easy money running drugs between us, peeps at the Casino, Auberry, and Fresno. Next thing I know, I’m sitting in a truck bed heading to Fres’ at 1 A.M. in the morning to pick up with them.
Didn’t take long for Grandma to figure out I wasn’t running off to catch friends at Auberry. She switched me more times than I can remember to try to beat it out of me. Didn’t work, and she didn’t have any full-on proof to get others in it, either - hid the FUCK out of the cash and what we were distributing.
So, eventually, I’m like… seventeen? And I’m passing crack to this military guy visiting relatives in Auberry and wanted some fun up by the Casino. And when he puts the cash in my hand and I put the bag in his, he doesn’t tell me to fuck off. He gives me a good look, asks how old I am, I tell him, and he asks me what the fuck am I going to do out here for another seventy years. I don’t even get to answer when he tells me I should get the fuck out of here, go talk to a recruiter at Fres’.
That got me thinking, so a year later, I’ve found all of my documents and shit in Grandma’s house. I have a pile of cash. And I want to get the fuck out of this shithole. I stuff it all into my backpack, I go with the boys to Fres’. I dump off all of my shit into Christian’s bag; free myself of it. I take a bus to get my ass right to the opposite end of the city. Spend my night in a homeless shelter with my backpack underneath my shirt and sweater, my arms wrapped around it, sleeping on my stomache, and a switch under the extra jacket I was using a pillow.
Next day, I get a free gym trial. I shower and make myself look as respectable as I need. After that, I open up a Bank of America and drop the eight-k. I had into my first savings. I keep three-hundred on me, I grab some Burger King, and I make my way to the Army recruiter.
Guy helps me get set up because it’s like the third time in my life I’ve done paperwork excluding the bank, which did like… everything, for me. After that, it’s floating between the shelter, gym, and getting odd jobs helping at taquerias and panaderias, with their dishes or pushing garbage and carts around for a month. Taking all of those damned test and then waiting for them to process. Grabbed an iPhone 3G during the wait, that was pretty cool.
Fort Jackson for a year, as it goes. Nothing significant in the grand scheme of things; shit was fresh hell, but nothing I couldn’t handle. For the most part. Met Casey there. My age. Actually graduated H.S., attending community nearby for sports medicine. It would still be another two years before fags could be open in the military, but we… got together. When we could. You could—… it was dating. We started dating when I was in B.C.T. And made it work after that.
After basic, I get hauled off all over the place. Okinawa, Hawaii, Ansbach. Mid-2011, they let us be out and loud in the U.S. military. Bad move for my career, but, first thing I did when I took my leave is fuck Casey and ask her to marry me. No ring or any big romantic gesture, we didn’t work like that. She said, yeah, sure. The process went underway, it’s all done by the time I’m heading back to like, Fort Irwin.
We’re separated for a while, then, like, she graduated, because she was a lot fucking smarter than me. And she started living with me on base. Which is fucking awesome. It’s not what I asked for, because she had all of this potential to work with back at home. But, hey, she wanted to travel too. We had our years, we were fucking twenty-years old. I let her come.
So we fucked around in South Korea, Alaska, Italy, it’s almost a blur after everything. Eventually, I get put out in Camp K.A.I.A. in Afghanistan. She’s back in Kansas, ‘cause, naturally, they’re hesitant on letting me drag a U.S. civy out there of all bases. It’s seven months into my deployment, she wants to visit and I let her.
April 28th, 2014. I took her out, a bit south of the airport in city proper for a meal, in the early morning. We were eating lamb korma with turnips— I still can’t fucking handle smelling and eating lamb. Or any soft fucking food: deuces to mashed potatoes and bolognese. God.
So we were eating—… we were eating that. And there was an airplane with a fucked engine that had been making its way towards the airport. It didn’t get close to the runaway. It veered and dropped, right into the city. The wing went right through our building.
I was sitting northward. She was sitting southward. My mind slowed down time, and I watched the way all of this debris and broken cable and a fucking airplane slammed into her back. She hits the table and it’s shooting off. All I see is blood and curry everywhere, then it hits me, too.
I wake up in the hospital two days later. My head feels like shit because my brain got ping-ponged. A sheet of metal opened up my torso from collar to hip, and a piece of flying drywall smashed my right cheek and orbital socket. They couldn’t save the eye. The ceiling falling after meant some heavy shit landed onto my left hand. They couldn’t save that either. And they couldn’t save Casey. She died on contact.
—I’m fine, by the way. Just pass over the whiskey. I’m not finished.
Cutting that long story of recovery short, I stabilize. They get to Landstuhl in Germany. Eventually, I end up back in the States. Sans eye and hand. A little ugly, now, too. Medical discharge. Sucks, but I’m hooked up with a nice prosthetic, at the least. That all takes about eight months to wrap up - not a lot of interest in keeping an uneducated, handless, soldier around.
And, you know, that’s where you come in, Ethan. I don’t think Elena knows this part about us, so bear with me. Ethan, here, was my Sergeant for a damned while. His ass phased out in ‘13. We always got along great, he kept up with us babies even when he was out. Group texts were a great invention; Snapchat groups even better. Now we both get to see all of the stupid shit the rest of those idiots are doing on deployment.
Ethan is basically like my fucking dad. So when fates aligned and I was in the Brooklyn military hospital, he started driving down from his apartment in the city, seeing me about once a week on his weekends. Then, when I was out, he offered me a place to stay, no costs. Naturally, I fucking took it. The last thing I was going to do now that I was out, was gonna walk my ass back to the Mono in that Cali shithole. Not fucking smart to be alone after the shit that had happened.
And, honestly? It worked really well. I used the time he’d be gone with his job at the nearby library to do… basically all of the adult shit I didn’t do in the military. Got my license, borrowing the car from his coworker and our close friend, Esther (nice girl, did volleyball and track for high-school and college, then decided she liked things quiet). Took the bus to therapy with a guy through the V.A., ‘till I grabbed a beat up 2009 Chevy truck from Craigslist. Eventually, started classes for a G.E.D. too. Collected my military checks, saved it all and got pocket-money with a part-time at some flower hippy’s cafe—and, you know, I never realized how fucking hard it is to make legit money in the ‘real world’ until then. Ethan, you’re a fucking saint. Like, three-hundred or whatever a week? Chump ass change compared to when I bounced with the kids in Fres’.
All of that good shit. Plus, it was nice that we both had a drinking buddy. And we both had a way of navigating each other’s bullshit well. Like, Elena, you just heard my wife-story. And you’ve heard about the fire, too. It’s not the fucking same, but it worked out that we had about an inkling of what to do when the other dude’s fucked up.
Eventually, it’s the day for appointment hell. Check up, physical therapy, actual therapy, then likely, a stop by the pharmacist. It’s like, early ‘16, at this point. And before we even get started, the doctor sits me down. Starts talking about this experimental stem-cell research, for organ implantation. Taylor says it’s not at a complex enough stage to restore my hand, but my eye and facial scars would be within the window of possibility. Gives me a card for a Brianna Lalwani-Jindal if I’m interested in volunteering for it.
I get through the day. I finally catch a meal at Jersey Mike’s, and after me and Ethan talk about it over some Coors, like if I wanna do it and how it feels fucking weird, to like, erase what happened to Casey through this, I say, sure, I’ll call. It’s like, eight P.M. She answers like four seconds before it just shoots to her voicemail. The bitch fucking slurs out like she snorted too much Vico, “—yeah, I know I’m fucking late, I’ll be there, I prooomise.”
So me and Ethan pick our jaws off the floor hearing this shit and I’m like, “Nah, Tony Dawson. Doctor Taylor Woodson at the Brooklyn V.A. Hospital referred me to you, about your research trials with the organ implantation. Lalwani?”
There’s a gasp, a lot of shuffling, and a lot of me and Ethan passing around another beer can between us. Then she really starts spilling and it becomes a game of my fucking brain trying to comprehend this Indian accent mixed with that lightspeed fucking way people from those big cities talk, like “Oh shit, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, you’ve got me. Where do you live? What are you missing? When can I meet you? Tomorrow?”
So I tell her about my fucked-up face, but really, I want to know what the fuck I just got myself into with this chick. I don’t get the chance, she blurts out over me, “Sounds great! EYE will see you later, Tony. Tomorrow. Four P.M., Just… show back at the Hospital. We’ll find a vacant office. Ciao.” Then the fucker hangs up. Eventually, we decide that I should probably text the number back, at least. My ‘See you then.’ gets back a kissy-face and ‘I like coffee.’ Subtle.
A vanilla latte and unsweetened black tea, fifteen minutes of us wandering the Hospital, thirty minutes of her talking my ear off about a bunch of medical-scientific garbage, then five minutes of us filling out all of the paperwork, and I was Bri’s new, shiny, case study.
Skipping over all of the shit she ran my face through, we’ll sum it up as: I need contacts and I fucking hate it, but she did what she set out to do. The meetings themselves, were more interesting. I don’t know if she like, fucking sensed that I’d let her get away with her shit. But I’m going to assume that, since she still has her fucking job.
It got unprofessional, pretty fast. Like, beyond what she already hit me with. I’m not sure what got into me, honestly. I hadn’t even considered another girl since the crash. But I spent our introductions looking at her like a piece of meat whenever her back was turned. First real meeting, she’s prodding me about all of my personal interests and shit in some fucked small talk, starting to get into my dating life. I take a risk and just drop straight out that I dig chicks.
She gets a bit quiet, which doesn’t make much of a difference because it’s clear already that she’s a fucking loudmouth. But she gets curious, and keeps looking at me after that the whole time I’m there. Then the meeting after that, we ended up on some fucking talk about blindfolds for some reason, and let me just say that she got a little too into that before we started talking about how, like, I needed to turn down my drinking.
So the whole time I’m letting her and the other doctors Frankenstein my face, there is sexual tension to cut with at every goddamned interaction to be had. It never gets anywhere, because neither of us are fucking stupid. But, just, Jesus Christ.
Cut to a year later at the end of 2016. My face is put back together. Getting used to fucking contacts, getting used to checking my emails for interview requests out of the wazoo for five-hundred documentaries and news sites, after her team’s paper on me came out. By all accounts, I’m looking good and so is the implant. She’s onto new volunteers, my appointments are getting passed to another doctor on her team and stretched out to semi-annuals. That should be the end of the story.
But, uh, couldn’t get her out of my head, frankly. Not for a lack of trying, either. By now, I was really amping the weights at gym to try to get my energy out. Quit the hippy cafe and lined up a new job in armed security. Did my registration for online classes at the community, for a Statistics program. Eventually, it’s like, I don’t know, two months, after the last time I saw her. Ethan drags me out to a bar. Ethan fucks off. I meet a girl, some rich one, named Valencia. We get to talking, for like, fifteen minutes. Next thing I know, I’m texting Ethan I’ll show up later and I spent the night at her place.
It’s fucking great, Valencia’s fucking great. But I’m texting Bri the next afternoon at Starbucks that I want to see her that goddamned night. She shoots me the address of another bar, says to bring friends. Naturally, that means I tag in Ethan and Esther. We show up, she has good ol’ Elena here.
Everyone clicks just like that. And that’s fucking great. Lots of material to work through, especially when Bri started going on about how she and Elena met; some wild case when she was a med. student and the Roma communities in the whole state were having outbreaks. Apparently Elena helped with her outreach a lot, a sort of guide between worlds. Then the two quiet girls started going on about their herb gardens, not to even mention all of the stupid military stories me and Ethan had. We hung out for a long ass while. Eventually, we’re all back at Bri’s place. And our BOI Ethan, here, finally communicates what’s up to you and Esther. So Esther ‘takes you two out to for fast food’ and out of our hairs.
Shit takes even shorter than Valencia. Bri locks the door, we fuck. Then I wake up in the morning, wake her up for another fuck. We sleep around, get some take-out for a late… brunch… hang out, I end up taking her with me to that huge football party Tim was hosting and meeting up with the whole friend group. Then it’s just straight back to her place for a repeat performance.
So, basically, it went from zero to like we had always been fucking dating. I practically moved in with her after the first two weeks. I know all of my stuff ended up in there by the fourth month. Then we put me on the lease entirely sometime during the seventh month when she was renewing it. It all flowed natural as shit too, I didn’t even know how ‘fast’ we were going ‘till about the third time I was throwing shit I needed into boxes to toss at Bri’s and Ethan called me the fuck out when he asked: I just said it’s convenient with how much closer to work she is.
And I know a lot of people were, and still do, giving me shit about it, or just about the whole relationship in general. Apparently we talk too hard at each other and act too casual for it to be serious. Looks like some sorta fling, especially considering our ‘differences’ as people put it. You know, racist people, or people who think I’m fucking stupid ‘cause I got a gun in the drawer.
But lemme just say that I think it takes some real fucking balls in a person, where the first time she ever woke up to me having a PTSD episode, is to slide her ass out of bed, rummage through my coat for my medication, and slap my benzos in front of me with leftover tea and a Crunch bar. All without a single word. It takes real balls, any other person, after getting that from her, is just a discount bitch.
It’s not all her pampering me, either. I realized quick she’s a ‘talker’ with her research. If she isn’t with one of us, she’s locked in the bedroom with a stack of journal articles and a Macbook talking off Luke’s ears like he can fucking bark back. So I started reading everything she had and really going over her team’s paper on me, plus whatever the fuck else her scholar databases had, and a lot of Dictionary.com. And, one weekend, she’s complaining to me over coffee and tea about her shit, I pop that shit right back at her, her jaw drops, she probably shits herself a little. And, from then on, I’m her new interactive rubber duck. And people think I’m fucking dumb.
I mean, not to mention all of the random shit I pay for that bitch, with all of the money I’ve been getting lately between disability, financial aid, and work.
So, we’re basically to the present now. There isn’t much detail to fill in after that besides that life is pretty fucking great and Bri is pretty fucking great, from then to now, the middle of Year of Our Lord, 2018. Which takes us to the crux of this whole ass speech I’ve been going on.
Now you two know my life-story. What I wanna know, now that we’re all open and drunk here, is your fucking thoughts on if I’d be making the best, or the worst, decision of my life if I asked her to hitch with me. I’ll be fucking real; I don’t fucking know what it’s like to make a good choice besides like, I don’t know, where to buy my graphics cards.”
I watch the two shitfaces in front of me process what the fuck I just said. Elena brightens like the Irish daisy she is, pressing her hands together, abso-fucking-lutely wiggling in her seat. Her purple scarf slides off the back of the chair in the process. Ethan is still stretched out across the whole damned table like he’s gonna pass out, with the dopiest smile stretching across his face, but as usual, he’s the ‘loud’ one of the two and starts to talk over Elena’s vague ‘Oh… oh…!’
“Dude? That’s… that’s great. That’s really fucking great. I… Man. Fucking, just fucking go for—”
“So are we just a homeless shelter now, or like, is this a reverse Alcoholics Anonymous?” The door slams shut, Luke is rushing off of the couch, and all four of us are just JEERING (barking) Bri’s name back at her, like it makes it fucking better that these idiots are still in the apartment.
“I was thinking homeless shelter and giving them the living room.”
“Cool. Maybe the floor’ll delay Ethan breaking his back another day.”
“Hey… hey, man. I ain’t that old.”
“Oh! Don’t say that - what if it does happen?”
Twiddle Gray and Twiddle Orange are both looking at me funny right now, considering what was cut into, and Bri is starting to pick that up as she’s putting her keys and shit away.
“So! What were you all talking about? Are you finally leaving me?”
“Food, actually. We were thinking that Himalayan place you like. They can eat the basic bitch shit, I was gonna grab us fried okra and tandoori.”
“I hope you aren’t expecting me to pick my ass up from the couch, now. That shit, ain’t happening. Long day working with by-the-book dunderfucks.”
The Twiddles give each a look, then, and then Ethan launches in.
“Nah… naaaaah. You know what? You sit there. You hang out. The three of us will walk down, sober up.”
“With how you made my fucking apartment smell, not sure if that’s gonna happen. But ‘kay. Have fun, leave me all alone. After I just came back from work. A l o n e.”
The three of us are already draining our waters and grabbing our jackets and wallets. I push Elena towards the door and Ethan is right after her as I shoot back at her,
“Shut the fuck up, you whiny bitch. Thirty minutes. You’d be spending it ignoring us and doing your shitty Buzzfeed quizzes anyway.”
“I mean - you’re right. But you’re still leaving me alone. Shit friends. Shit girlfriend,” she sighs, “What a shit life.”
Elena is the one pushing me through the door now by my arm, forcing me and Ethan’s fat asses into the hallway as she tries to assure Bri.
