tfw you run into your ex situationship on the red carpet and end up on the cover of a tabloid. and your mutual friend is saying she wants violate an nda so she can spill your messy relationship drama to the press (version w/o text under cut)
at the end of the series tam kisses keefe then keefe kisses dex then dex kisses biana then biana kissed maruca then maruca kissed linh then linh kissed marella..
futures and dreams (and other non-fading scars): Bianuca
A/N: Hi @uni-seahorse-572, I'm your secret santa! Thanks @song-tam for hosting!
Summary: Biana looks at her again, and her eyes are tinted red from exhaustion and pain but still they carry with them the Vacker power. The one she's craved and hated for far too many years.
Biana's lips part as she sleeps, in soft contrast to the rest of her twisted face. Maruca wants to trace a finger down her skin, soothe the wrinkle between her brows, let her eyes rest easy instead of pressed tight.
At least she's finally asleep.
The bandages wrapped across most bare skin make the idea of rest impossible: three hours ago, she was pinned down to keep from writhing, with teeth clenched so hard they ground audibly as Elwin and Livvy plucked shards of glass from her skin, then poured a disinfectant elixir over the jagged wounds. The numbing elixir barely eased the pain for her. Elwin said some of the glass had gone too deep.
Maruca wants to hold her hand, but even if she could do that without causing her pain, she isn't sure what it would mean. Years before, there wouldn't have been any sort of hesitation, only relief, comfort, familiarity.
The thing is, she knows the feeling of her hand so well that seeing those fingers twitch in her sleep is a phantom pain, an absence so familiar that feeling it is easier than it would be to feel the real thing.
Biana's mouth purses and her face screws up on itself for a moment before fading back into worried sleep.
(god, that mouth.)
Livvy had taken her aside, an hour ago, when the bandages had just been wrapped and the color had still been gone from her skin. "Elwin will tell them that the scars might fade. He will give her a possibility, maybe a hope."
"And you?" Maruca asked.
Livvy looked at her. "Maybe in a hundred years, there will be nothing remaining from this day on her skin. But the scars will still be there."
Maruca scrubs at her face with her hands.
She can hear Fitz in the next room talking to his parents, swoops of anger filling the area before he remembers to keep his voice down. Della's sobs punctuate the conversation. Alden's voice is lower than usual, pieces of his crisp accent lost in raspy worry.
Sometimes, it's like it only took a day for their family to fall apart. But then Maruca remembers it really took two, even though she wasn't around for either of them.
One: Alden's mind break. Two: Alvar's betrayal.
She wonders if this day will be the third. She knows it would have been if Fitz and Dex had taken any longer, or if Livvy hadn't been in Atlantis, or if they hadn't found her in time.
Still, all she knows is that there was the last day she was there: when Della was smiling, when Alvar was making his stupid jokes, when Alden could tease his children without worrying about the consequences, when Fitz still had that laugh that didn't turn dark halfway through. When Biana's breaths were even and balanced and calm.
And then there was every day after. When she'd see them in public, or in meetings, or in school, and suddenly the memory of the planting scattered its leaves through every long-lasting look, or there was a missing piece from their unified front.
If they hadn't found her in time.
The thought is more than a prickle or a pang. It's an explosion, a road to a future without her. A future she never imagined, never wanted to imagine.
All the future she'd imagined consisted of kisses in the dark and smiles across a bright room and fingers tracing arms and thumbs scraping across cheekbones and dark hair twisted carelessly around a knuckle and limbs slung over stomachs—
Goodbye does not have to go both ways.
It doesn't even have to go one way. Biana never said goodbye, but neither did she. They never made a promise not to grow apart, but Maruca doesn't think it would have mattered.
In the end, it wasn't a clean break.
It was a drawn-out pull, like a strand of yarn from a threadbare sweater. It unraveled so quickly and so suddenly that all of a sudden Maruca was left with threads the size of hairs and no way to weave them back together. It took several months of wondering when it would happen and then all of a sudden she was gone.
Gone.
"I'm scared of losing you," Biana had told her once upon a time. Back before the first time falling apart. Not the Vackers, but them.
Well, great job, Bee. 'Cause now she's fucking terrified.
Biana stirs.
Fitz is there immediately, thanks to his sixth sense that tells him whenever a sibling is either dying or betraying him. He leans over the bed, hand hovering an inch above her cheek, her hair, the closest he can be.
Maruca was scared for him, of him when she'd arrived. Eyes bloodshot, voice breaking every other word. He'd let go of her hand and then his nails had almost gone through his skin from clenching his fist too hard. He'd tried to smile at her and she caught a glimpse of a wild animal prowling, barely hidden anymore.
Dex had rested a hand on his shoulder, and it calmed and provoked him, sending him pacing and tearing his hands through his hair and eventually, sitting by her bed with his mouth moving, whispering to her what she'd never be able to hear. Dex sat beside him for hours, even if he's gone now, mixing elixirs for the scars that will never truly fade.
Maruca sits on her other side, staring at the bandages and thinking that maybe she should go into healing if only so she'd have some idea of how to be useful.
"Biana," Fitz whispers. Her eyes crack open.
Maruca almost retreats, but she's never hidden before and she refuses to now. She crosses her arms over her knees and twists her fingers together.
"Did we win?" Biana asks, her voice gravelly from sleep and screaming.
Fitz hesitates.
"They saved the city," Maruca says. Biana's eyes widen, flicker over. Then they drink her in like there's no one else she'd rather see and there it is. The reason she fell for her in the first place. That power, that makes her feel like no one else in the world matters, like no one else could make her complete. Maruca clears her throat and refuses to look away. "Linh did. And Sophie, Keefe. They saved Atlantis. Gisela tried to flood it, but they blocked up the barrier, held back the ocean."
Biana tries to sit up, mouth pressing into a fine line as she feels all the bandages over her neck, cheek, arm, and side. Fitz helps her, eyebrows pressed into a worried line. Still, relief eases the tension in his neck, the stiffness in his shoulders.
"So, did we win?" Biana repeats.
"Some will say yes. The Council will say yes." Maruca shrugs. She sees the gray in Biana's skin and can't imagine how it can fit together with victory. "I don't know."
"Sophie's parents," Fitz says. "They're safe. Everyone is safe."
Something eases in Biana's face. "Some losses. Important wins."
"You could say that," Maruca says. Biana looks at her again, and her eyes are tinted red from exhaustion and pain but still they carry with them the Vacker power. The one she's craved and hated for far too many years.
She's absorbed, as everyone ends up some way or another where Biana Vacker is concerned. It's not that she thinks of nothing else, but it is that along with all those other things she's still there, lingering just behind as an echo. Maruca considers a question on her Universe worksheet and finds the stars reflected in teal eyes.
This is the Vacker effect. The pull, the gravity of it enough to harness the moon into orbit. The power leaks from them like tea drips from a teabag once it's turned the boiling water dark. You can sense it when they walk into a room. Any of them, but especially her.
At least, this is what Maruca assumes everyone else sees.
For a moment, the feeling disappears and a weight takes its place in a band around Maruca's throat. The feeling is missing her, and it's not that it abates but that it's overwhelmed by hating her.
This one's a fun one! Warnings for character death and violence I think, though it's far from clear cut in this one. I tried out a new style with giving unique voices to the narration - I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me your thoughts on whether I pulled it off and whether it adds anything! @gay-otlc @rainbow-frog-earrings
~
You know the story, I am sure.
Orpheus—the greatest singer—falls in love with Eurydice, but they have little time to spend in matrimonial bliss before the serpent strikes and she falls still.
He chases after her. He always does. He has no fear even as he faces the underworld, as he demands his love back from Hades. In the end, his win is temporary, because who can best death? He’s given a task, and calls it easy. What a fool he is. What a fool we’d all be.
Orpheus looks back. Of course he does.
That’s how it ends. That’s how it must end.
That’s not true.
It’s always been true.
You’re telling it all wrong.
Well then, why don’t you tell it?
Gladly.
First of all, their names were never Orpheus and Eurydice, not if you tell it right. It’s Maruca and Biana—the two lovers whose constellations rest in the night sky.
Maruca can sing sweet as a bird, like you say, but she never does in front of others. It’s hers, and no one else’s. Until it’s Biana’s too, one day, before she’s lost. Maybe forever.
And in her grief, Maruca makes the trek down below. She sings to Hades—her voice so pure with the world above—and he weeps, lets her go leading her lover hand in hand. Biana’s flesh is dead, cold and clammy, but Maruca holds on tight nonetheless.
They step into the daylight. Maruca’s throat aches—it will never feel right again—but they are here again and they are happy. So happy.
Stop making all your endings that perfect. Real life doesn’t work that way.
But I prefer them. They’re comforting, aren’t they?
The truth is worth discomfort.
They get back, yes, and they are happy for a time. But Biana has not lost the underworld’s touch, and at night she slips out to sit by the paths that lead down and down. She forgets to breathe so often. She cannot even make her own heart beat in her chest, and sometimes she’ll go still and silent as a corpse for hours or days, unaware of her surroundings and of her wife.
Maruca tries to love her through it. She cannot.
She can. Of course she can. She endured Tarturus for Biana, didn’t she?
You know as well as I that death changes a person. Besides, you didn’t even let me finish.
Let you finish making something up?
Fine. I’ll tell it again. I’ll tell it right.
Biana and Maruca are close since childhood, and then both of them fall in love without ever speaking it aloud. It’s so dangerous, what they feel. How could they dare to voice it?
It’s too late, finally, when Biana is lost to war. But Maruca isn’t willing to accept that she never got to tell her the truth, and so she makes the journey as she always does.
She stands before Hades, the great and terrible. She cannot sing. She has no gift for music, not even Persephone’s kinder presence at Hades’s side to help sway him.
Instead, she speaks, pours out what she feels. She speaks of unrequited love and fear of changing things, of the pain of never having a chance. She speaks of what she’d have done for Biana, how much it hurt to pine for her in secret, watching her shine and convinced that they could never be together. All she wants, she says, is a second chance for them.
But cold-hearted Hades is unmoved. He refuses her any mercy.
So Maruca stays in the underworld by choice. She won’t leave Biana’s side, no matter what, until she withers to a ghost as well and they haunt the depths of—
That’s not how it goes.
Let me guess, Hades listens? He looks upon Maruca favorably? You can’t seriously believe he’d be so kind.
Of course he is. He sympathizes, after his time spent loving Persephone from below, convinced a goddess of spring could never return his feelings. Hades wants to give these lovers the same chance they had, as Maruca’s story strikes a chord in him.
He sends them up to the surface without caveat. They emerge into the sunlight. And, there, they finally confess.
You really can’t stop twisting it, can you?
I could say the same to you.
Sometimes I wonder if we’re even talking about the same story.
Alright. How about a compromise?
I can’t say there’s anything we agree on, but I suppose I’m willing to try if you are. What’s the compromise?
Who says we have to present the story with an ending? So many of the best things are left undone.
That might just work out. Do you want to wrap it up, or should I?
Oh, go ahead. You know you want to.
I suppose I do. You can’t complain this time, by the way.
You don’t know this story, I’m sure. You’ve heard it but you don’t know it—do any of us, in the end?
We can do stories justice in our tellings, in the way we weave them into being with words, but they can never belong to us fully. I will renounce the truth this once. It is our own truth that matters here through its reflection in a story told every way but ours.
From the time they’re young onwards, Maruca and Biana are inseparable. They click like two souls sliding into place. They haunt the halls of Everglen and consecrate Maruca’s home with their ringing laughter.
Maruca has no true gift for singing, though she can well enough. The true glory of her voice is its cadence—rumbling and low, a steady comfort in the darkest of times. It’s sweet as the pattering rain yet deep as the beating thunder yet warm as the orange-glowing fireplace inside. It’s the siren’s lure that carries Biana through. She could listen to Maruca speak forever.
Together, they make plans for Foxfire, for their future. It doesn’t scare them, not yet. Right now, its’ theirs, after all. They were born into these luxuries. They have been cradled in the lap of privilege for as long as they’ve been alive, parents and prominence carefully shielding the real world from leaking into their gilded cages. Whatever comes next, they cup the whole of the world in their palms.
It doesn’t last. It never does. Reality comes crashing through in the form of rebellion, Moonlarks.
They don’t last. They’re not made to.
Girls born into soft silks and given only safety scissors shatter so easily. It never takes much strain. Maruca and Biana love each other, but they love so selfishly—each hoarding the other close to themself, used to having everything of each other and sent whirling when that’s gone, gone, gone. The dream is over.
Maruca leaves Biana behind. She looks back, once or twice or a million times, and is never sure what she regrets. Biana’s happy now. It’s not her fault Maruca isn’t.
War descends upon the cities they call home, the school they imagined into a haven in their heads, and they grow up. There isn’t any other choice. They tears loose pieces of their softness and sharpen their own edges until they’re bleeding, raw. They live. They learn.
And then they love.
It’s a funny thing, how they never could before, when they were so deeply bound. They don’t voice it this time. It’s no longer a love built around receiving. But nevertheless they dream and dream of each other, aching for that old familiarity without ever choosing to take that next plunge.
After all, they’re happy now, aren’t they?
They are fools. When aren’t they?
Biana falls. She descends into mirrors and shadows, into the sharp cheekbones of a madwoman. Glass shards slice up her skin until she is remade entirely—a cruel combination of flesh and bone. She lies with her own blood her blanket.
She closes her eyes.
She doesn’t know herself anymore. She’s scattered with scars. And every night when she dares to dream it’s only to wake up screaming.
Biana’s fallen. She’s gone past any’s ability to reach.
In the night, if she’s wise, Maruca might approach her bedside. She might take Biana’s uninjured hand gently in her own, and she might speak. She might tell all the truths she knows until her throat is raw and her voice failing.
