It's really hard for him to comprehend all the things that have happened in the last couple weeks, no months. It's just a lot and so he finds himself deeply burrowed into his thoughts sometimes and wanders aimlessly over the school-yard during nights he can't seem to find any sleep. His head is just so full and yet so damn empty.
He doesn't even know what exactly he's thinking about. What-ifs and what-abouts but never really the things that really happened to him and yet it keeps him awake. Every single night. What exactly does ne need to make peace with to move on?
He's tired but closing his eyes will make him see those things again. See them. He doesn't wanan see them anymore. It's over but he can't figure out how to stop it.
Sandringham had been decorated in all of its Christmas splendour with lights in the trees around the front door, inside were cascades of pine garlands, grand ribbons with lights and another tree around every corner. Albert was helping his grandson put a bauble on one of the trees in a sitting room when he spotted Edward being shown around by a member of staff. “-Doctor Price?” He called to him as he carefully put the boy back on the floor to pick another bauble.
“-Come in, -come in.” He instructed merrily and gestured with his hand while the staff member disappeared around a corner. “We -could use your -advice.” Nothing medical it seemed as he gestured to the bare looking tree, “I say this -tree should be mainly -red but -Charles seems -to believe it should be -every -colour there is, what do you -say?” He asked, though it was all playfully he did make sure to steal a wink at his grandson to reassure him he was not in trouble.
“You never gave me a straight answer about why you got involved,” Brunnie said after taking a sip. The spiced drink trailed a pleasant burn down her throat while the lake caressed the bottoms of her bare feet.
“Waging a war was more preferable than weathering it.” Ilagan’s tone carried a dismissive mildness which hinted that her decision wasn’t a particularly difficult one to make. “That aside...I’m not completely certain of the reason myself. I was more than experienced at dispelling skirmishes between the fae; perhaps I wanted to quell the Great War just to see if I could. Does that count as morbid curiosity?”
Brunnie looked away to turn the words over in her thoughts and lean back to admire the sunset. Those dying, fiery rays streaked pink and gold through the clouds and across the lake’s glassy surface and illuminated the sky in a darker, richer blue. If she craned her neck up just a bit, she could spot the first stars of the evening.
She thinned her lips and took another drink before answering. “It wouldn’t be the worst reason I’ve heard.”
“It’s easy to see why you fought.”
“You talked me into it, so I really hope it is.”
“I hardly ‘talked you into it,’” Ilagan rolled her eyes in mock indignation at Brunnie’s smirk. “What I did was merely hold the door open. If you’re looking to blame who stepped through the threshold, we can find you a mirror.”
Brunnie made a snorting laugh and tilted her glass of whiskey in consideration. “Got me there.”
Silence floated between them as they savored the whiskey, the lake, and each other’s company. Laughter in the distance drew Brunnie to look over her shoulder. More people had flocked to the back porch as the day eased into the soothing hum of the evening; from the edge of the pier, Araceli, Romilde, and Cupcake could be seen with the newcomer Zrimat, along with residents both new and old. Many had come desperate for refuge from the War, and many stayed when it finally ended. Brunnie drank in the scene lit by the pale golden light streaming out of every window which no two were alike.
“I would have gone to war either way,” she said to Ilagan, “even if you hadn’t attacked Prague. I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to stay and protect my home...but I think a part of me knew even then it wouldn’t last. It just happened sooner when you came.”
The silence was filled with the leaves swaying in the breeze and the waves lapping under their feet.
“Is it something you regret?” Ilagan asked.
Brunnie rested a look on the snifter in her lap. The amber-hued liquid twirled between the glass and the ice cubes, and her shoulders sunk under a faded sigh. “It’s selfish, but when I feel like I might - when I feel like I could be tempted - I take a look around. I look at what I’ve robbed so many of having...and I don’t.” She lifted her head. “I don’t regret following you out that door.”
“...Ever the unrepentant.” Ilagan’s dark eyes glimmered and her lips turned up in a teasing, fond smirk, but Brunnie’s eyes fell on her left collarbone. Just beneath it sat a circle-shaped patch of white, pearly skin. Just one of many.
“I don’t regret how it ended, either,” Brunnie said, glancing away not quickly enough to miss Ilagan’s smirk falling. “I wish some things had gone different, but we made it back here -”
“Because you brought us back here.” Ilagan's tone was quiet but insistent, and Brunnie couldn’t help the smile it placed on her lips.
“But we’re alive, and we’re here now.” She met Ilagan’s eyes then; met eyes deep as night and framed by red wavy curls and freckles many and scattered over her skin like stars. “I can’t ask for more than this.”
Some unseen veil lifted from her eyes, and they were all at once gentle and content even before she donned a soft smile. Brunnie admired her companion’s visage until she turned away, taking a long sip of her drink until her glass was near empty.
“I can appreciate that sentiment,” Ilagan said before staring at the horizon, now a myriad of pink, violet, and indigo, “and if I am honest myself, I think I could really be happy here.”
A beat passed before Brunnie gaze her with a questioning look, her brows pinched. “‘Here?’” Her tone invited hopeful elaboration. “What about your plan?”
“I’ve given it thought. I’ve suffered my losses from the war; losses that were worse than what I had foreseen. There was more than a moment during my recovery when I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I thought it would take wandering the world’s miles to find what might be left for me.” Ilagan studied Brunnie’s face frankly, before she reached out to comb back some hair that had fallen against her cheek, thick and dark and decorated with a few silvery strands. Her fingertips traced her scars as if they were delicate patterns in a tapestry. “I think I see new possibilities here.”
“...There’s not a lot to do with an old boarding house.” The light in Brunnie eyes became too keen to be dismissed. Ilagan didn’t pull her hand away but instead perched it neatly against her neck.
“Who says there isn’t? We could run this place, make it better than what Kalare’s already created. If that doesn’t appeal to us, we could try our hand at dispelling the warlord tribes like we did last summer. We could even settle for a normal life here. Imagine how that would spite everyone who wanted us dead!” She laughed at it like it was a private joke, her thumb burning a trail along Brunnie’s jaw. “We can do whatever we want, Brunnie. Haven’t we shown that there’s nothing we can’t accomplish together?”
“Ilagan, why're you saying all this?” There was a slight, desperate furrow to her eyebrows. In the dusk’s weak light, her brown eyes seemed brighter as they searched black eyes.
The redhead shifted closer. “I think you already know.”
No golden-red sparks were ignited by that dry brush of soft lips, but a stillness that stained the sky and glazed the lake rippled through Brunnie. Every doubting and anxious thought was lulled away, and she answered, traced, studied, felt, committed that fond, warm touch to memory with her lips until her breathing shook and her heart drummed a quiet, echoing beat. While gentle lips caressed and seared hers in return, a freckled hand sought her scarred one in her lap and wove their fingers together into an intimate knot.
Send “▶▶️” to get a glimpse at a scene from my muse’s future.
RUE House. 2047. A few miles outside of Prague.
“Intriguing choice of words to say to a creature who sups on bonesAh, Ms. Brunnie!” Radcliffe exclaimed from his perch by the door when Brunnie stepped in the foyer, wearing jeans and a button-up shirt. “This, eh, gentleman insists that he is an acquaintance of yours. Shall I alert the hounds?”
“At ease, Radcliffe. This here’s no stranger,” Brunnie said before putting on a closed-lip smile for the newcomer.
“Hm. Pity.”
Brunnie granted Radcliffe the mercy of pretending she didn’t hear him and held her hands out in welcome.
“It’s good seein’ you, Pitch.”
“Likewise, my old friend.” Pitch grinned and grasped Brunnie’s hands with equal strength and spider-long fingers that seemed healthier than she remembered. “Tell me, is this glorified parrot your pet? If he isn’t, I feel I’d be doing a great public service if I were to make him into a taxidermy project.”
Brunnie was hard-pressed not to snicker when a muffled cluck came from the bird perch. “He belongs with the House, so, sorry. You’ll have to find another model, Gramps.”
“Ah…what a ‘pity.’ Now, what was such a pressing issue that you had to send me a messenger while I was on holiday in Transylvania? Poor bloke could barely get a word out when I approached him.”
“I’ll have to tell you while we walk. C’mon in, it’s through here.”
Brunnie had ushered Pitch towards the left hallway when Radcliffe had the good sense to give the Nightmare King a well-meant sendoff:
“Do be sure to return Edward Scissorhands his nightgown!”
Pitch rounded on his heel, sharp as lightning. Brunnie pinched the bridge of her nose, absolved herself of any responsibility of what was about to happen, and watched while the two were locked in a intense, unblinking stare-down before Radcliffe launched himself from his perch and jetted down the nearest hallway in the opposite direction.
When Brunnie quirked a brow at Pitch, he merely grinned at her. “IIIIII just showed the old bird some of the, uh, creative uses one might have for cotton stuffing!”
Send “▶▶️” to get a glimpse at a scene from my muse’s future.
{MY TUMBLR INBOX IS TURNING AGAINST ME.}
RUE House. 2041.
“‘And the lake-horse, free from the hunter’s net, dove back into the water. She swam all across the pond until she was safely - finally - back home.’”
Brunnie flipped the book closed and smiled down at the head of dark, damp hair nestled against her side. “The end.”
“Read it again, Aunt Bru!” the girl chirped.
“I can’t, Sorcha” Brunnie got off the bed and tugged the waterproof covers up to Sorcha’s chin. “Your mom and I got an early day tomorrow, and if we stay up all night reading bedtime stories without her, she won’t be happy.” She shared a conspiratorial smile with her niece and pecked her forehead. “‘Night, Kiddo.’”
She switched on the waterlily nightlight, and had her hand on the main light switch when Sorcha asked,
“Why was the hunter after the lake-horse?”
A dozen real-life reasons sprang to mind, and only a handful were appropriate to share with a six-year-old. Brunnie huffed on a breath, fingers drumming against the door frame until she found an answer that wouldn’t leave Sorcha racked with nightmares but would make a likely impression.
“Well, there’re a lot of reasons why he could have done it - maybe someone he knew was sick, and something from her would have made them better, but why he did it doesn’t count,” she strolled back to the bed and sat on the edge, “Because he was willing to hunt her for it, and he didn’t have to.”
"Could someone like the hunter come here?” Sorcha looked her straight in the eye as she spoke, and Brunnie stared back before she shook her head and thumbed a strand of black hair behind Sorcha’s ear.
“They can try, but you have your mom, Zara, Zrimat, and everyone else in the House to keep them out. But before they can get that far, they have to first get through me.”
Send “▶▶️” to get a glimpse at a scene from my muse’s future.
{I don’t know how it happened, but the ask was accidentally published before I could...write anything...-Clears throat- Anyway. I hope you enjoy reading this!}
2047. Army Museum Prague-Žižkov.
“Ah, here they are!”
Radcliffe gestured a grand wing to a glass case set against the far wall of the storage room. Inside the case and set on black cloth were blades. Long, thin daggers. Short, thick swords. Blades set with tightly-woven, leather hilts, and blades fashioned to fit around the assailants’ forearms. All were forged from the same non-reflective, dark gray metal that shined like new in the lights.
An effect, Brunnie suspected with a grimace, that took no small amount of time honing and polishing.
Radcliffe hopped off of Brunnie’s shoulder and onto the wooden frame of the case. “Feast your eyes, children! These were the weapons of the Harvesters - the weapons that won the war! The tools that forged the New Era!”
“I wonder if that would comfort the soldiers and civilians these ‘tools’ were used on,” Brunnie spoke up, drawing Romilde and Sasha’s attention.
“Nobody ever said that war was a tidy business,” Radcliffe rebuked with a prim turn of his beak. It was Brunnie’s turn to scoff.
“Says the vulture who didn’t even see combat.”
“How dare you! I was a messenger bird!”
“You flew in stationary supplies from the post office!”
(Date: Some months after the end of the Reaper War)
Dear Mason,
Today's your birthday. Happy birthday, kiddo.
I want you to know something right off the bat: I am terrified of you. You're tiny, and soft, and you're going to have your mother's eyes. You've got my lungs, that's for sure – any time you're more than five feet away from Renee – that's your mom – you start squalling. I'm terrified that I'll break you, or drop you, or do something wrong and you'll hate me for it. I'm not used to holding anything other than a shotgun. So if I do something stupid, I'm sorry.
Being a new father is terrifying. But I'm going to do my best, okay? I'm sorry I wasn't there for your mother for so long, I'm sorry you didn't learn the sound of my voice until you were almost ready to be born. I hope you don't hate me for that later. Maybe that's silly, but it seems important right now for you to know that if I had known, I would have dropped everything to be there for her. You. Both of you.
I want to be better than my parents were to me, and my brother and sister. David left the colony we grew up on to get away from them and they hated him for it. I left the colony because I wanted to protect it – and they hated me for it. They hated Hannah because they figured she would leave them too eventually. When you're old enough, I'll tell you their stories. Maybe Hannah will tell you herself. I don't know if David will want to. He's still angry with me. I don't know what happened to my parents after I left, I never went back and I haven't looked into the colony since.
You've been born at an interesting time, that's for sure. You missed the worst of it, and I've been thanking the gods for that every single day I've known about your existence. There was a war, a really bad one, and we could have lost everything. A lot of people did. I thought I had too.
When the war was nearing its end, I went on a mission. A really important one. I didn't want her to know I fully believed I wasn't going to survive it, so I told her I would find her after it was all over. I guess none of us were expecting all the relays to short out. Traveling between the stars got pretty dicey, and sending a message was nearly impossible, and I couldn't even get confirmation that she was still where I'd left her. So I stayed on Earth, helping with the rebuild and saving up money to go out looking for her. She found me first.
Your mom's a tough cookie. She's not a fighter and she's hardly ever shot a gun, but when she makes up her mind not even a decree by the Citadel Council can stop her. Trust me, kid, she'll love you to death but she won't give you an inch. She sure doesn't with me.
Anyway, I wanted to write you a letter to say hi. To let you know I love you, in case something happens to me and I can't tell you when you're old enough to understand it.
