#head librarian's note

[whatliesbeneath-ao3]

“It ain’t your fault. Tell me you know that, dude.” 

And his world comes to a screeching halt as Leander hears Chrys’ words again, “If it’s not my fault, it doesn’t get to be your fault, either.”, and a lightning bolt of realization flashes across Mari’s face, and her lips move, but no words come out. 

Leander hears his own voice say, in a whisper that Mari strains her ears to hear, “If it wasn’t my fault… then why did she…?”

[whatliesbeneath-ao3]

Tomorrow's Deciduous Yesterday - Arc 1 "Faith" Assorted Art

[whatliesbeneath-ao3]

Ivy glares at Narcissus, “You know, having a spine doesn’t equate laying down for your insults. The contrary, actually.”

“You’re such a nerd.” She says, rolling her eyes. 

“At least I bother reading something other than fashion magazines and stupid tabloids.”

Narcissus cocks an eyebrow, “Hey, maybe you should read a fashion magazine or two. It might end up being to your benefit!” 

“First of all,” Ivy starts, her eyebrow twitching, “We wear uniforms. Second of all,” she punctuates her words with a pointed finger, “I can show you where to put that magazine, if you’d like.”

[whatliesbeneath-ao3]

It, admittedly, takes Hastur about five minutes to notice that they aren’t moving at all, despite how much more than ten seconds had passed. She looks up, and sees that other passengers look equally as confused. When she strains her ears, she can hear variations of “Is there a delay?” and “Did something happen?”, although it doesn’t seem like anyone has an answer.

She looks at the two passengers in the seats next to her. One of them was the dejected individual she’d seen earlier, asleep with their arms crossed. Hastur stares at the design on their shirt, and glances to her left at the girl beside her, swinging her legs and humming. 

“Hey,” Hastur says, getting her attention with a hand wave, “Do you know what’s going on?”

[whatliesbeneath-ao3]

“I’m not going anywhere, Zi. I’m—I’m sorry. You’re right. I can say all I damn well like, prattle on and on that it was for you—but, no, you’re right. It was—for me. I was a coward, and I—didn’t trust you enough. I didn’t trust us enough,” she squeezes her sister’s hand. “I’m sorry.” 

Zinnia’s expression changes, and she says, in a voice just above a whisper, “You always saved me when I needed it most. But you didn’t listen to me when it was the most important. I wouldn’t have cared about fights, or disagreements. I wouldn’t have cared if you yelled at me, because I know you would’ve apologized. I just—I just thought we were strong enough,” she squeezes back—once, twice, thrice—an unspoken I love you —”We aren’t like our parents. We’re different. We’d change. We could’ve—we could’ve changed,” 

“I know,” Mari says, “I know.” She laughs, “You’ve got better advice—better reassurance than me. You’ve gotta stop that, you know? I’ve… only got a few minutes to make up for lost time, right?”

[whatliesbeneath-ao3]

[whatliesbeneath-ao3]

As for Incarnata...

There's no way to know where she might be now.

[whatliesbeneath-ao3]

“You,” Chrys’ chest heaves, like she’s underwater, like she can’t catch her breath, like she can’t breathe at all, “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me. If you did, you would understand, you would agree! Don’t act like you understand—none of you could possibly understand—none of you could possibly know how I felt when I—when they—”

She falls to her knees, hands in her hair, screaming.