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As Long As The River Flows
An almost nice night and a meltdown on main street. . .
Characters | Crowley and Aziraphale
Fic Type/Genre | Freeform, Historic Setting (Victorian Era), Heavy Angst
Words | 3,665
Rated | Mature
Additional Tags | Not Beta Read, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Drinking, Crowley is a mess, Aziraphale is trying, Aziraphale loves Crowley, Crowley is a sweetheart, Crowley is bad at communicating, Crowley has a bad day, Heavier than angst, Crowley's situation is dark, Momentary break up (implied they will resolve it), Poem: The Bridge (Henry Wadsworth Longefellow), Dialogue not period typical, Author is sleep deprived
Forgotten Guardians
None have worked in centuries, still I find their gaze disquieting.
"Monomyth"
The metro is loud. Full of loud people, yes, sometimes, but that’s not what I mean; even when it’s empty, the metro is loud. The trains rumble like there has never been silence—like all of Turku has always just been engine noise, the shriek of metal on metal, the rush of air outside the windows that never quite shut properly.
A young girl sits alone, the entire car empty but for her. No bodies fill the battered seats, no markers scrawl graffitied runes on the plastic seat backs, no hands grip rails that were once painted yellow and have since worn down to the silver metal underneath.
Yes, I know you’ve been on the metro, muru. I know it’s different now. This was a long time ago. Let me tell the story.
The girl leans her head against the window, ignores the way it jostles her skull. Her breath fogs the glass until she isn’t really looking out at the world anymore, and her gaze remains fixed on some distant point purely out of a desire to stay still. She has a coat draped over her shoulders; it’s a large, thick, patchwork thing, all mended elbows and mismatched buttons, too big for her. She clutches it tightly around herself. She isn’t going anywhere specific. She just needs to be somewhere else, somewhere that isn’t where she was.
The lights in the car are off, the illumination glyphs that normally cast the space in a bright white light all either damaged or drained of power. This is not so out of the ordinary, the girl knows. The metro system is in a constant state of disrepair, and it’s not dark in the train car, not by any means: The cool light of a winter sunset filters in through the misty glass. Even so, without the familiar bright glow, the space feels eerie. The girl clutches her coat closer around her.
Don’t be ridiculous, of course this story isn’t about me. I was never a young girl. I came into this world your mumma, old and witchy, and I haven’t changed a bit in the many years since then. No, I don’t have more wrinkles than the last time you were here. Stop interrupting with silly questions. Let me tell the story.
The train reaches a tunnel and the window, until that moment fogged and white and glowing, suddenly drops to a deep black. The girl sits up in surprise, looks around the darkened car, but there is nothing to see. She leans back against the window, waits. The tunnel seems to go on forever, and then just as suddenly as the space had gone dark, the train rushes out the other side, plunging back into light, and the girl has to squint against the sudden brilliance. When her eyes finish adjusting, she is no longer alone. There is someone sitting in the seat next to her.
The girl frowns at the stranger—all these empty seats to choose from, and she had to sit right next to her. She doesn’t try to hide her annoyance, and the stranger smiles apologetically from under the wide brim of her hat.
“The other seats were taken,” she says, and when the girl furrows her brow in confusion, she adds “The haamut—the ghosts? Can you not see them?”
The girl blinks, looks the stranger up and down, her frustration slipping away. Though the stranger is not much older than her, she is dressed as though she stepped out of a history book: a dark cloak and capelet, the material thick and warm looking—maybe wool, the girl thinks. Brightly colored birds and delicate flowers embroidered in careful stitches decorate the stranger’s garb, and an intricate knot of golden cord clasps it shut. She wears an old-fashioned witch’s hat, adorned with orange and green feathers that match her cloak. The girl isn’t certain, but the feathers look fake: maybe conjured, maybe crafted. They lack some subtle detail of life; no living birds gave these feathers, nor did any die for them. I like her, the girl finds herself thinking.
The stranger leans towards her, squints, and the girl cannot help but notice the freckles that dust the stranger’s cheekbones, the small mole under her left eye. The jagged edge of her bob, as though she cut her hair herself. Her lips.
“I’ll take that as a no,” the stranger says and the girl jumps slightly, and then the stranger asks “Would you like to be able to?”
“What?” the girl asks, trying to brush her distraction aside.
“See the ghosts.”
“The ghosts?”
The stranger laughs, a bright, joyful sound.
“Aren’t you quick?” she teases, and then more gently, “I asked if you wanted to be able to see the ghosts.” After a pause, she adds “It doesn’t much matter if you can’t—they don’t mind sharing space—but they do love it when someone stops and notices them.”
“Yes,” the girl says, and she thinks she might have said yes to anything the stranger asked—but no, she chides herself, she’s smarter than that. She’s not so reckless.
The stranger reaches out and cups the girl’s face in her hands, presses her thumbs gently into the bones beneath her eyes, and the girl forgets how to breathe.
“What–,” she starts, but the stranger says “Shh,” and then she says something in a language that feels like the sound of buzzing flies, that makes the girl’s bones ache—and then everything is too bright, everything is pitch dark, everything is hot and cold and sharp, and the girl has to squeeze her eyes shut. She jerks away from the stranger’s touch, presses a hand to her temple.
“Shit–,” she manages, “what did you do? Why– jumalat, why does it hurt so much??” She fights to keep the rising edge of panic out of her voice.
“Open your eyes,” is all the stranger says.
People fill the metro car, bodies of all shapes and sizes packed together. Tiny keiju perch on the rails that run along the ceiling, and a pair of looming peikko stand in the aisle. All of them are translucent, wispy. The girl cannot make out the features of their faces. An unseen breeze tears at the edges of their forms as though they might dissolve, might be pulled apart at any moment. The faint, distorted sound of laughter and conversation reaches the girl’s ears.
She sees too, though, other things. Some of the messily drawn charms and glyphs that graffiti the seat backs glimmer faintly. Outside, the conduit lines glow. The stranger’s cloak shines faintly. An ethereal form, feline—a house cat, the girl realises—lifts itself from its place on the stranger’s shoulders, and leaps gracefully into the girl’s lap, and when it rubs up against her she can almost feel it.
She looks back to the stranger. “That was Väinämöisen kieli, wasn’t it?” she demands, and when the stranger, startled, manages a nod, the girl grabs her hands, leans in, eyes shining with excitement.
“Teach me,” she says.
———
It is pouring rain, and the girl stands out in it with someone who is no longer a stranger—someone who is now a friend. They have shared their names with each other, now.
What their names are isn’t important. Now, hush– Well of course I know their names, but that’s not the point of the story. What did I tell you about silly questions? Just listen.
As I was saying. The girl’s friend looks up into the rain, and she says something in a language that feels like the sound of cracking bones, that makes the girl’s eyes sting—and then the rain that falls towards her friend slopes away, as though rolling off some invisible surface. She grins at the girl, and the girl smiles back, tries to mimic the sounds, piece together the words she’s learned.
It takes a couple tries, and then there is fire rushing in her veins and her skin feels tight, and the rain above her does not reach her. It pools above her, though, doesn’t run off properly, and then after a minute the girl looks over at her friend and her concentration slips and the puddle of rainwater falls all at once, drenching her to the bone.
There is silence for a moment as she stands there, her dripping hair hanging over her face, and then her friend starts laughing and she is laughing too, and they both stand there in the downpour, laughing until they run out of breath.
———
They are on the metro again. They aren’t going anywhere specific, but they’re going there together, the girl and her friend. They sit next to each other, and the girl plays with a cat named Fish that has used up each of its lives but lingers still to knock crystals and bottles and books off of shelves in her cramped apartment every time her friend visits.
When the doors of the train car rattle open with the tinny ding of the many small bells that hang from them, the girl and her friend leave together on a whim. The girl catches her friend’s hand in her own as they walk, and her friend says nothing, just smiles and bumps her shoulder lightly into the girl’s.
When they pass a vendor on the street with a stall full of fresh fruit, the girl says something in a language that feels like the sound of stone grinding against stone, that makes her spine crawl—and then the vendor’s eyes pass over them without seeing, and she grabs a handful of fruit, a luumu and a fistful of mustikoita, as much as she can hold, and she and her friend run off, giggling, hearts pounding with the fear of being caught until they are safely around a corner, leaning against an alley wall, breathless and grinning.
When the light begins fading from the sky and the streets of the market are crowded with people and lit by hundreds of lanterns, glyphs scrawled on their paper shells, the girl and her friend explore another layer of it all. Fish leads them to it when he darts away to chase a ghostly rat: a spectral market superimposed over the corporeal one. They wander among ethereal stalls, watch haamut of every shape and size bustle about, so full of life even in death.
When the night is dark and the stars burn far above and they are walking back through the crowded streets and the market towards the train station, still hand in hand, the girl’s friend slows her steps. She stops to look at every stall and then ignores the wares, looks only at the girl.
When they stand at the edge of the platform, lit by the moon and stars and the glowing runes scribed into posts that illuminate the station, the girl’s friend reaches out and touches her chin, and then they are looking at each other like no one else exists and the world fades away around them.
When they kiss, it tastes like stolen fruit.
———
Another day, another time, the girl stays in the small building on the outskirts of the city that is full of translucent animals and drying herbs and pieces of half-used parchment, covered in symbols. The girl recognises most of them. She has been teaching her lover her city’s magic, symbolic and written and strict, just as her lover has been teaching her Väinämöisen’s tongue with all its ill defined phrases and shifting meanings.
When night falls, the girl learns that her lover’s body, too, is covered with symbols—glyphs and sigils, charms and runes and characters. They weave in complex patterns over her skin, twist into delicate shapes. The girl runs her fingers over them, traces every line of ink.
———
Years have passed, and the woman who was once a girl stands next to someone who was once a stranger, long long ago—someone who is now her wife.
———
And that’s it. That’s the story. No, it doesn’t end there, not quite, but the rest hasn’t happened yet. Yes, I will tell you once it has. No, I won’t tell you another story tonight. One is plenty. Now go to bed, muru, or I’ll turn your pillows to stone.
Dear Higgs Monaghan, that isn't love... Its dangerous, misplaced, obsession. 💔
Higgs, being obsessed with Amelie, the Extinction Entity 🖤❤️
'You're playing your best role, but the mask shatters...
The more I forgive you, the more it backfires
Now you're dancing through the smoke like nothing else matters
Where are you going, boy?
When did you get so lost?
How could you be so blind?... '
('Goliath' - Woodkid)
🖤💛🖤
Who is it? 📻
