blah blah rhaenyra to alicent: I want to fly with you on dragonback, see the great wonders across the Narrow Sea, and eat only cake blah blah mina to lucy: i am longing to be with you and by the sea where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.
"I was sorry to notice that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her... When I apologised and was concerned about it, she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it."
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
“It's funny,” Lucy says, sitting in the window of their room at the Crescent. “It's hard to imagine that we should ever be apart again.”
Mina laughs. She can't quite bring herself to agree. It's hard for her to imagine they are together again in the first place. She stares at Lucy, glowing in the sunlight streaming through the window, and the air has a dreamlike quality to it.
It’s too much. She makes hasty excuses and hurries into the adjacent room. The ephemeral nature of the moment, the threat of time wheeling on, seems to suffocate her. She holds Lucy’s image in her mind, even as her physical presence proves too intense, too bright.
Slowly, she comes to her senses. She is wasting precious time. She must go back to Lucy.
She creeps out into the light.
Lucy is sprawled on the bed, already grinning as Mina emerges from her hiding place.
“There you are,” she says, and beckons Mina toward the empty expanse of mattress beside her. Mina steps forward and sinks down.
Lucy smiles, throws an arm over Mina and buries her face in Mina's shoulder. She falls easily into sleep. She is not likely to sleep soundly for long, but at least here Mina will feel her stir before she can stray too far.
For most of the night Mina lies awake, listening to Lucy's gentle, stutterous breathing beside her, calming her when she begins to stir. She finally drifts off only as the blush of dawn paints Lucy's cheeks.
They awaken to the news of Mr. Swales’ passing. Mina can’t shake the thought that her insistent questioning about the ship might have played into it. The Demeter hangs heavy in her mind. For all her carefully considered logic, the whole thing strikes her as one large tangle of bad omens. She’ll have to examine the article pasted in her journal under different circumstances, when she is more rational.
Lucy takes her hand as they walk toward the sea-captain’s funeral. There is something brewing under Mina's skin. She takes deep breaths and lets the summer air turn thick around her. Nothing feels real. She is finally here with Lucy and it already seems as distant as a memory. When they’re parted once more will she even have anything left to hold onto?
She’s wasting time again.
She returns to the present moment. They’ve reached their seat. Lucy is holding her arm and a dog barks behind them. Mina sits and cranes her neck to look.
The dog is black and wiry, standing on high alert a few feet back from the crowd, nearly trembling. Mina has seen it before, but never in such a state. The man beside Lucy beckons it forward, first entreatingly, then sternly. It snaps and bares its teeth.
The two argue like this for a while as Mina and Lucy watch. Lucy’s frown ever deepens. When the man seizes the dog with unwarranted force, Lucy gasps and squeezes Mina’s elbow. They both turn their attention forward but the unsettlement lingers in Lucy’s eyes.
The funeral proceeds. The coffin is lowered into the dark earth. It’s an oddly meditative spectacle. Mina thinks of Jonathan, somewhere out in the wild world. She thinks of Lucy laying beside her in the night, drifting through dreams, her breath uneven.
She leads Lucy back to the house.
They get dressed and head out for a walk. Lucy’s spirits seem to have risen upon leaving the funeral and she is determined to produce some cheer between them. She has changed from her funeral wear into an emerald green dress that makes her hair sparkle like a gem, and Mina thinks her prettiness is quite enough cheer already, but Lucy persists.
“I discovered such a wonderful, dreadful story last week, Mina! It’s terrible and frightening in a horribly real sort of way, but there’s something so strange and lovely about it, too. I haven’t stopped thinking about it. It’s called ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper.’ When we get home I’ll find the magazine. I simply must read it to you—no, better, you read it to me! That way I can watch your face and see all your reactions. Oh, please would you read it one of these nights?”
“I will,” Mina says. She resists the urge to pin down an exact date, to square off a space in their terribly limited schedule. It would likely be futile; Lucy’s energy waxes and wanes in the evenings. Besides, it might stress her.
They walk through the woods. Lucy’s chatter mingles with the birdsong. Mina trails slightly behind so she can stare at Lucy's back framed by the pale, swaying trees. She watches her shoulder blades drift apart and together with her uneven breath, parting like butterfly wings.
Here in this quiet green space, following Lucy is all Mina can foresee. It's hard to imagine that they should ever be apart again.
They come upon a herd of cows and all their other worries are forgotten. Lucy shrieks and clings fast to Mina's arm as a bull raises his great horned head toward her curiously. Mina stares into a cow’s shining brown eyes and the animal’s great form hanging over her dizzies her, makes her feel like a child in a dream world, much the way Lucy’s burning touch makes her feel as she grips her elbow. She supposes she can learn to live with this feeling. Or rather, to live inside of it.
They have tea at Robin Hood’s Bay and then start back toward the Crescent. Once they reach home, they spend an hour and a half contending with the clueless curate who will not let them rest. By the end, Mina is in a daze, and steals away just once more to the adjacent room. She wastes precious time. Lucy readies herself for bed alone. Mina steadies herself and makes her way upstairs.
Lucy is already asleep, snoring softly. Her cheeks are rosy and her eyes flutter prettily as she dreams. Mina wonders whether crawling in beside her would wake her. She hovers there for a moment, wrings her hands, steps forward, then reroutes entirely to the writing desk and opens her diary.
Once she finishes writing, she closes the book and returns to stand between the two beds. She stares, burning. If only they’d gone to bed at the same time. Now, Lucy looks so warm and peaceful that Mina cannot bear to break the spell. She lays down on the other bed, across the ocean of space, and hopes that if Lucy stirs she will at least hear it. They sleep.
Lucy, I cry with you. Harker isn't the worst but he is certainly a doof and Mina is adorbs. Renfield is a glorious bear and I love him. I care about this show way more than I should.
