TIMING: Current LOCATION: Arden's grave; cemetary PARTIES: Nova (@punchalot) & Teagan (@closingwaters) SUMMARY: Nova dusts a spawn while Teagan mourns. A mistake spirals into a fight. CONTENT WARNING: Child death tw (mentioned, discussed)
The stake went through with some effort, Buffy definitely made it look easier to wedge sharp wood between the ribs of a vampire. Nova, on her back, turned her head and spat as dust rained down on her. “Gross,” she groaned. Her body ached. The ugly, bald vampires were fast—Nova had dealt with enough to get a relative feel for how to fight one. They were stupid. Unfortunately, so was Nova. She wasn’t very good at dealing with them. Rolling over, she pulled off her ski mask and spat the dust out of her mouth, rubbing her face clean. “Gross, gross, gross–” As usual, she hadn’t encountered anyone during her patrol. Not anyone living at least.
Nova scooped some of the dust into a vial–it was probably a useful potion component. Granny’s notes were in seven layers of code, and Nova had cracked one and a half layers with any confidence. Even Granny’s decryption key was in a code. At least she’d left one behind for her. At least she could hold pieces of Granny, even if she couldn’t hold her (not that Granny had been much of a hugger in her life). Nova rose, brushing herself off; grief wasn’t something she liked to linger on. She needed a clear mind for her alchemy, anyway. And anyway, thinking about how much you missed someone never brought them back. Not Granny, not Rachel, not all the names carved into the gravestones around her.
She kicked the pile of dust. That had been someone too, hadn’t it? That was the thing about the undead; that they’d been living once. Okay, sorta an obvious point. Nova turned and froze. In the distance, there was the vague-shape of someone. She lifted her hand into the air and waved, smiling as bright as a bulb. “Hey! It’s not safe here!” No matter how many times Wicked’s Rest threw her around, there was an inevitable beat of trust inside of her before every encounter. Naivety? No, something dumber. Hope.
“Hey! Can you hear me? Are you a vampire?” she asked, raising her stake.
—
Teagan sniffled, clearing her throat and rubbing her eyes. Arden's plot still didn't hold a stone to mark her place, but finding it was no issue. There wasn't a day that passed that Teagan didn't stop to pay Arden a visit. Not being “mowing season,” the flowers she left were untouched, painting the area with a multitude of colors from each bouquet she left.
“All right, cariad. The air has a bite and I've got to get home to our babes.” Her words wobbled, “Hobbes has really settled in and–” A chill swiped across Teagan's cheek and she shivered, wiping away the tears there as she stood up. “Right. I've, uh…yeah.” She blinked, stuck in place for a few moments. Then, to her surprise, she heard the hiss of something large and turned to face its source. Her eyes widened with surprise, narrowing quickly into anger and disgust as she came to realize she had just watched a slayer make a kill.
Had she been smarter or even in a better headspace, Teagan would've humanized the very thing a good friend of hers had once been. But Arden was dead, and with her, so was any compassion the nix once had for hunters. The grey area she was once willing to acknowledge. “Hey…!” It came out as a hushed yell, her voice still dull from the edge of her sorrow.
Are you a vampire?
That was enough. That was enough.
“And if I was?” Teagan growled, fingers flexing around the ebb of water inside the slayer. “Can't vampires mourn too?” She latched onto something and squeezed.
—
Nova’s sentence was choked into nothing. Her body seized, as if her blood froze over. “Gerk—” She croaked, useless sounds twitching out of her throat. She’d been caught mid-stride, making her way over to the woman. Who was—Wow! Who would have thought?—not fucking normal. The stake fell from her contorted hand, rolling away. Another spellcaster? Nova didn’t know of any spells that could do this weird blood-bending shit—and that was what was happening to her, wasn’t? Her body was tight all over, locked into place and tethered to the woman’s hand. It felt like every single muscle in her body was tensed at once.
Fear gave way quickly to anger. Anger was easier to hold on to; the fast-food of emotions. Nova didn’t give up on trying to move, forcing her body against the woman’s spell. For a moment, it dropped. All Nova needed was a moment. She lunged, foot down, arm swinging back. She whipped her fist across the woman’s face. “How about you ask before you take over my fuckin’ body, huh?” Nova heaved.
Slipping into stance was as easy as blinking to Nova, her body—even throbbing with the leftover pain of being frozen—was a machine of survival. Her heart beat to keep her alive, her lungs burned to push oxygen—she, like every other creature, was an evolution only possible on Earth. And Earth was a scrappy place. “Are cheap tricks all you got?” she asked, her mouth twisted into a rictus. Every atom sang; this was home.
—
Maybe it wasn't the best idea to pick a fight with a hunter who would likely have strength over her. Maybe it wasn't right to do it right next to the person who'd begged her countless times to give up her pursuit for vengeance. Maybe, just maybe though, none of it mattered anymore.
Teagan didn't speak, didn't feel the need to respond to the catty question presented to her. When her hold dropped and she couldn't hold her concentration again, she reached for her knife as she charged forward. She threw it forward, knowing the other would have to block it somehow, and leapt with all her might.
Her legs hiked forward, knees drawing to her chest one by one with practiced precision. It only took Teagan a shift in her weight once her legs wrapped around the woman's head to swing the two of them in a circle. The nix smiled, releasing her legs to allow her opponent to complete her part and fall to the ground while she landed safely on her feet.
Smiling, Teagan took a step back to assess. Surely the other wouldn't underestimate her now. Her death was going to be sweet.
—
The best thing to do against a flying pointy object was to evade, that’s the first thing they teach you in don’t-die school. Nova tucked her body in and slipped to the side of the knife’s path, earning her a seat directly into the arc of the woman. Nova, like a lot of people, enjoyed being between a woman’s thighs. But also like a lot of people, definitely not like this. Nova collided with the ground, back hitting the frozen ground with enough force to jerk the air out of her lungs. She heaved. The sky spun.
Nova wasn’t afraid of death. Not her own, at least. She’d faced it too many times to be afraid of it now. But still, there was the human instinct in her body: survival. Always that, pumping through her. Nova got up and looked into the face of her assailant. She was smiling; what kind of a freak smiled after hurting someone like that? To pluck pleasure like flowers from soil out of another’s pain—roots of humanity dangling loose—took a certain kind of person. Nova turned her head and spat. Evil was a word she reserved exclusively for Wicked’s Rest itself. Nova couldn’t believe that a living soul could be evil. But to smile like that? There had to be a word for it.
“What did I do to you?” she asked, pulling a vial from her belt. Inside the glass was pitch black, not dark like the night but as though light had never once touched the contents inside. Nova always brewed her potions a little too dark. She smashed it on the ground and from the concentrated darkness a cloud of soot and smoke rose up, dark as coal. With her shirt tucked up over her nose and mouth, Nova charged in.
Erupting from the smoke cloud was her fist first, connecting with the woman’s gut. Then, the rest of her, barrelling forward for the follow up: her body twisting to deliver another punch.
—
“Not me.” Teagan spat, anger bubbling over and twisting her throat. “The undead.” Vampires may have killed Arden, but there was no controlling their hunger. She saw the way remorse and confusion contorted their features after their bearings were gathered. But this woman in front of her? She was different. She wanted to decide who lived and died, with not a damn care about it.
“What in–” The smoke bellowed outwards and up, stinging the nix's eyes. She took a few unsteady steps back to prepare, but leveled out just in time for a fist to knock the wind out of her. Teagan gasped, barely able to register the next attack. She raised both hands and latched her arms around the other's as it propelled forward, flinging herself up and twisting harshly around.
The momentum and air time was enough to flip the woman around and over, crashing her onto her back while Teagan landed on her stomach. Rolling over to pin the woman down, she shifted her hands into claws and barked. “What did they do to you, huh?” She threatened to slice the skin at the throat, claws dragging. “They killed my love, and you don't see me going after ‘em. Beasties, sure, but vampires? Bugger off. You hunters just take. You take and what does it matter to you that you leave a child crying in the puddle of their family's blood?”
—
The words were more reeling than than the attack was. “Hunter?” she asked. “I’m not a—Jesus!” She swallowed, her throat scraping the edge of this woman’s claws. What the fuck was she? Nova officially knocked spellcaster off the list, unless there was some spellcaster system upgrade they totally left her out of. “I’m not a hunter,” she said softly, despite the situation. “Hey, I’m not a hunter, okay? I have nothing against vampires. The one that attacked me was, uh, attacking me. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have…” Nova didn’t want to finish her sentence, she didn't want to say the word.
She heard the rest of it, and the plain grief coating the woman. Her family, her love. “I’m sorry,” Nova said. She started to cry; not for herself, but for the woman who was currently a sneeze away from murdering her. “I’m so sorry.” Nova didn’t know hunters all that well, but she’d heard enough stories to know that was the reality of what they did. Hot tears rolled down the side of her face, soaking into the grass. “I’ve never killed anyone before,” Nova sniffled. “I don’t want to. I don’t even like doing the… y’know. The stake thing. To those weird bald vampires. I hate it. I just—is there another way to make them stop? I get attacked by them a lot.” Nova laughed, the sound far more like a sob.
“Fuck.” She tried to laugh again, this time it was just a sob. Her mind couldn’t shake the visual the woman had put forth: the child covered in the blood of her family. She was talking about herself, wasn’t she? The example was too specific to be anything else, wasn’t it? But real or not, it didn’t matter. Nova could see it: a small, trembling body bathed in red; smell it: the thick taste of iron clinging to the air; hear it: the way air settled after trauma, the ringing inside the ears, the tiny prayers. “I’m so sorry. I’m so… Fuck.” She wept. “I hate it. I hate death. I-I hate it.” Her vision was too blurry for her to see the woman’s expression, and her skin burned red under the hiccuping force of her tears, such that she couldn’t feel much of anything but the way blood ran to her face. The fight curled inside her chest and slept.
“Was that you? The child? I’m so sorry. And-and your love. They—“ Nova wasn’t sure why she was still trying to talk, everything she said came out in a blubber. There was a snot bubble poised to burst at one nostril.
—
No.
Not a hunter?
It had to be a lie. It had to be. Hunters would do whatever it took to finish a job, and the woman blubbering beneath Teagan was no different…wasn't she? The tears were fake, and the moment she let her guard down, there would be another attack. Nicking the skin slightly as the tears continued though, Teagan came to the conclusion that she was wrong.
“What?” Her own tears stung the corners of her eyes and she shut them tightly to prevent them from falling. It was no use. Even through the watery blur, Teagan felt the tears fall and she didn’t throw herself back fast enough. Crawling backwards and away from the woman, she let out a wail until it broke somewhere within her chest. She was so tired of fighting, but there was little else she was good at.
Teagan shifted completely for a moment, struggling in her sorrow to ground herself. After a few deep breaths, her pinkish, translucent skin faded back to normal human flesh. She coughed, “Why are you out here anyway?” Teagan glanced over to Arden's grave, letting out a trembled sigh. “You're no slayer.”
—
Nova scrubbed her face with her hands, front and back, up and down, trying to wipe away the tears and snot. She felt like a kid, swiping indiscriminately at her emotions because she didn’t know what else to do with them. When were you supposed to learn how to gracefully wipe tears away? She sat up, aching. Her back was going to be one big bruise tomorrow, she could feel it. The woman wailed, and Nova sobbed along with her—struck by the current of sorrow in the air.
And then, a beautiful pink fish thing was in front of her. She hiccuped, forgetting to cry. “Mer…mermaid?” Nova blinked. Pink skin was replaced by pale skin. She sniffled. “Nope, not a slayer. Zero slayage going on here.” Nova laughed, following the woman’s eyes to the grave. Had it been someone she knew? The love that was killed by vampires? “I’m Nova,” she said, extending her hand. Then, remembering what she had just used her hands for, she drew it back and wiped it on her pants. Not every greeting needed a handshake.
“I, uh…” She swallowed and exhaled with a trembling breath. “Um.” She chewed her bottom lip. “It. Uh…” It wasn’t like what she was doing was illegal, or wrong—it was completely right and totally necessary. Nova simply wasn’t in the habit of telling people. She’d made that mistake just once, and she’d never been able to scrub the wide-eyed looks from her dad and brother out of her mind. Or the words that followed. She’d gone from speaking to them everyday, to complete silence for four years. It was her choice, but it didn’t change how much it stung. All of the people she’d have to carve out of her life to get here: on the ground in a graveyard, bruised and useless. She was sure her heart couldn’t hold one more rejection, even if it was a stranger’s, but that wasn’t true. Her body was built for survival, and heartbreak never really killed anyone.
“I try to, uh, save lives,” Nova explained with a grimace. “I go around town, looking for people that might be in danger, and I try to help. That’s it.” She shrugged. “I was born here and raised here. I know exactly the kind of place Wicked’s Rest is and I just…” Nova pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. I just need to do something. “Look, I’m not a murderer.” Nova brought her hand up to her neck, pulling it back to see her fingers painted with a layer of her own red blood. She wasn’t a murderer, but she wondered if she might be talking to one.
—
“Fuck no. Shite! Mermaids are the worst. I detest them. Everyone should. They're ugly and-and…whatever.” Teagan scoffed, shaking her head and sniffling. Now wasn’t the time to be offended, but she definitely would be later. “Axolotl.” She corrected, finally. For the time being, Teagan couldn't reveal exactly what she was. She already made the mistake of not keeping her glamour together. “That's all I'll say. Don't exactly trust you.”
At the answer, the nix's shoulders dropped, knowing all too well the desperate desire to protect. Her hands were bloody because of it, and she'd never be able to wash away that fact. “I do the same, only I have more of a focus on the supernatural, though…” She thought back to Luc. “I have taken care of a few hunters that would kill a human to get to the object of their hunt.”
Teagan's lips pulled down in a disgusted frown. “If you've killed a person, supernatural or not, you're a murderer, but at least it's for a just cause.” That's what she believed, at least. Killing wasn't so black and white, and those who were willing to mix into a gray knew that all too well. Their hearts were painted in that color and it spread.
After some pause, Nova was finally given a reply to her name. “I'm Teagan.” She didn't understand why she offered that information so freely, but the more she spoke to Nova, the less in danger she felt. “I go looking for trouble too, you know.” Dragging her feet into a criss-cross, Teagan clasped her hands together, letting out a heavy sigh that bloomed into a cloud in the icy air.
“That little girl I told you about is me, and ever since then, I decided I wanted to stop hunters as much as I could.” She chuckled dryly, tensing a hand through her hair. “Those who survived in my family don't get it, but they don't need to. I protect. You and I are the same in that.” Slowly, her flesh changed again, and Teagan's full form took over. She didn't bother changing back. “I'm sorry I attacked you.”
—
“Axo…” Nova nodded. “Yep. I totally know what that is.” She didn’t. If she remembered, she’d have to look it up later. “It’s pretty,” she added. “And that’s okay. You don’t have to trust me.” She was grateful for what she was getting and at least the woman wasn’t flipping her on her back again. Her curiosity chewed the edge of her mind, though. The blood-bending shit, the claws; what else could this woman do?
Nova opened her mouth and it hung there, her question dead inside her throat. “‘Taken care of’…” she repeated. She shook her head. “If you mean what I think you mean, then no.” Nova’s voice was ice. “Teagan, I don’t think we’re the same at all.” Her gaze, like a lance, settled on Teagan’s two-toned eyes. “I don’t want anyone to die. Even if I disagree with them.” She gestured around them; the countless gravestones, the names both fading and freshly carved. “Hasn’t this town taken enough? Why the fuck would I want to add to that?”
She squeezed her knee. “I… The only things I’ve… ‘taken care of’”—She wouldn’t use the k-word, she couldn’t use it—“are the ones that can’t answer back, and won’t stop attacking me. Like the… weird, fuckin’ vampire things.” Nova scoffed. “‘Just cause’? I thought you hated hunters? Why do you sound like them?” She shook her head again. “There’s no cause in the world that justifies murder, and anyone who thinks there is one is an idiot.” Nova glanced at where the vampire had been, her stomach churning. No, no, that was like killing a wild animal, right? Fucked up, sure, but not murder. She swallowed back bile. Not murder.
Murder, by definition, the killing of one human being perpetrated by another. Fuck, but what counted as a human? If Teagan—decidedly not human—cut her throat out right now, what was that? Nova stood up, brushing herself off. “It’s okay. Given your history, I would have attacked me too.” She smiled at Teagan, though she felt half-sick from their conversation. “You would have killed me, right? And you would have enjoyed it?”
—
“You already have.” Looking over at the area she first saw Nova in, the fae jutted her chin in that direction. “That beastie over there was a person once, too.” She locked eyes with Nova, narrowing her gaze. “Could even be a person again if given the chance, but you did what you needed. Whether you like it or not, you killed a person. That collection of memories is now gone.”
Teagan rose along with the other, and stepped closer. There was no malice or purposeful malice like before, only hardened and pained eyes that she felt saw clearly. “Maybe I am just like them.” Arden's musings plagued at the back of Teagan's mind, a chill crawling harshly up her spine.
“There's no ending hunters but you can stop enough to settle the score.” Anger balled up Teagan's fists, the coil so wound that small crescents were left in her palms when she relaxed slightly. “They kill us even as babies, you know. If me thinking vengeance is justified after that makes me a hunter, then so be it.” How awful it felt to accept what Arden had once spat at her, but it was unfortunately true.
“I would have, yes. That smile would've lasted me at least a few hours.” The answer would surely upset Nova, but lying held very little use. Not because it would twist in the nix's gut, but because she wanted Nova to know. “Cutting out rot in the world is what I do. It never ends, but neither does the grief people like me understand.” Teagan pocketed her hands, shifting her weight from her heels to the balls of her feet idly. “But that's why it's important to listen, even in the middle of a fight. I've befriended hunters. I've loved them. Gotta watch for the gray, Nova. I'm a bad person, but I'm not evil, and one day, I'm going to die doing the only thing I'm useful for. I'll deserve it, too.”
—
“No,” Nova interjected. “No. Not—not the bald ones. They’re not—it’s not like a normal vampire. I know that. It’s not…” She swallowed, acid raining down her esophagus. Hadn’t she wondered that exact thing? Her hands shook, balled into weak fists at her sides. Had she just robbed someone of their personhood, or had the change to feral undead already done that? Who was to blame? Her? Or the infected town, which churned indiscriminately, grinding life into gristle? Nova lowered her head. “The memories were gone long before I did anything,” she mumbled, but she wasn’t too sure. She didn’t know enough about the supernatural; she didn’t even know what those damn vampire-things were called. Could she say she knew enough to tell what she’d dusted apart from a vampire that just wanted a little blood?
She crouched and yanked her spray can off her belt, rattling it. “When does it end? In alchemy, there’s the ouroboros: the snake eating its own tail.” She grabbed her stencil cap and snapped it into place. Nova sprayed a small circle on the grass. “You think you’re justified, the hunters think they’re justified. It all perpetuates itself. And then when does it stop? Who stops it? Not you. You’re feeding the cycle. You’ll die and your impact will go on: that creatures like you are something to fear. And, yeah, then wouldn’t it be best to kill them as babies? Cut that rot out early. You’re fulfilling your own destiny.” Nova looked up at Teagan. She tried to keep her expression neutral, to disguise the pity she felt bubbling in her chest. “No one deserves to die.” She looked at her circle. “The world isn’t that simple.”
With a steady hand, she craved her lines into the circle—the transformation matrix perfectly drawn, completing her transmutation circle. Nova pressed her palm to the center and sparks snapped through the circle. The grass underneath jerked and shriveled as the soil pulled up from between the blades. There was a violence to the sight, as if Nova were forcing the soil to perform a convulsing dance. In the end, she had a small mud-spun lily, hardened with the trace minerals in the soil: delicate, useless, a sculpture from mud. She picked it up and held it in her arms like a baby, carrying it to the grave that Teagan had been eyeing. Arden Han.
She set her mud-lily down, knowing it wouldn’t last the night. “I think you’re selfish if you think you’re the only one who could possibly understand this grief.” Nova stood, facing Teagan once more. “How many do you have to kill before your score is settled? Do you have a number in your head or are you just making it up on vibes?”
—
“No.” Teagan shook her head. “I've seen it. The rebirth where a beast returns to a more human form. They're not dead. Just buried.” She took a deep breath and tried to listen, but that did very little good.
Kill them as babies?
“No!” That time around, when Teagan latched onto the water she felt for some iota of comfort, she didn't mean for Nova to get hit in the crossfire. Tamping her foot down, her fists followed angrily. Nova was tugged harshly, but Teagan let go as soon as she realized what had happened. Because Nova wasn't a hunter, and she wasn't a bad person. She was just naive.
“That…that wasn't–we shouldn't talk about this.” Tears ran hot down the blonde's cheeks, body going rigid at the magic Nova was producing from the earth. She wasn't fae and she wasn't a hunter, so with some logic, Teagan could only assume she was a witch. In other words, human. A kind one with a flair of naivety. “What are you…”
Teagan watched with relief at Nova's compassion, stuck in between confusion and regret. She settled to take on both. “She told me the same.” Her eyes landed on Arden's grave. “Asked me the same, too.” A humorless chuckle tumbled out of her, eyes softening at the mud-lily. “Maybe you're right and this world deserves better, but I just…I can't seem to let it go. Every day, I know those hunters got away and maybe I just hope that they'll end up here so I can finally end them. Maybe I just kill them over and over again in everyone I've hurt. It isn't fair. It isn't right. But…” Teagan swallowed, “I'm the rot.” Always.
Aeron called her a beautiful monster once, and now, she figured that was all she could ever be. No amount of water could cleanse her, even if her home was made of it. Because what good was that place if it lacked sustenance? If it remained empty? “I don't…” Teagan's breath trembled and she knelt next to Arden's array of flowers. “I don't know who I am anymore. Not without her.”
—
Nova stumbled from Teagan’s magic again—could she call it magic? What other word for it was there? For all her life, Nova’s body had been her own, obeying her every impulse. When she did ballet, her body followed through on pirouettes and maintained croisé. Doing martial arts, her body and her mind were conjoined. There was never an action that didn’t have her whole approval. Nova was starting to realize she really hated not being in control of her body. Part of it was making her resent Teagan, another part whispered with words of daggers that it understood exactly why someone like Teagan would be hunted down. Nova pushed the thought aside guiltily. “Please don’t do that again…” she groaned, clutching her chest.
What Teagan was saying about the rebirth, she’d also have to look up later. Along with… the thing. The thing that Teagan was. Which she had already forgotten. Fuck. Maybe she should ask again? Nova looked up. Teagan was crying. Maybe not. She crouched beside Teagan. The dates on Arden’s grave painted enough of a picture for Nova. Fresh grief was the worst, not that it ever got much better. Nothing she could say would matter. A thousand people could have told Nova the secrets of the universe after Rachel’s death, and she wouldn’t have listened.
She reached over and softly held Teagan’s tear-soaked cheek in her finger and thumb. Then, she pinched as hard as she could. “You know what? For beating me up, I deserve repayment,” she said, grinning at Teagan. “And you know what I want? A sundae. Giant. I’m talking, if someone with lactose intolerance looks at it, they’d die. So big. Huge.” Nova pulled on Teagan’s cheek. “And you’re paying! And you’re gonna eat it with me, because I probably won’t be able to finish it, though I’m definitely going to pretend like I can.” She released Teagan and looked at Arden’s resting place. Then up, at the sky.
“You’re billions and billions. More than seven octillions of atoms. Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon—you’re made up of the same stuff everything else is made up of. The stuff of stars, planets, blackholes, rot, life, Arden.” Nova sighed, her breath taking to the air in a flight of white smoke-wings. “To put it into perspective, the observable galaxy has… what? Two trillion galaxies? You’ve got more than that inside of you. If you think about it, you’re cosmically unfathomable.” She looked up at the moon, that beautiful coin in the sky, which bathed them in reflected light from the star called Sun. “How can you know anything, anyway? Except that the air is nice today, and I’m happy it didn’t snow.”
—
“Hey! Ow!” Teagan sucked in a breath, wincing at how hard Nova pinched. She let it happen though. After the damage she'd done, it was deserved. Getting out of that fight and debate on morality with a simple sundae purchase was the best possible outcome. Unforeseen, but the best.
Rubbing the pain off from her cheek, the nix let Nova’s words settle into her chest. The icy grief she'd been grappling with began to melt, if only slightly. For the first time in days, Teagan felt a sense of ease wash over her, and she latched onto it greedily.
If she was made up of galaxies, if everyone was, then she was fortunate enough to have every single one collide with Arden's. And now, despite losing her just a little bit every day, she would never leave Teagan completely. To the stars, she thought, giving Arden's grave one last look. “Let's go,” She said, blearily, taking an unsteady step away from the one person she actually wanted to eat ice cream with. Arden didn’t like the snow either. “One sundae, coming up.”
—
Nova wasn’t thinking about how she was about to eat a sundae with a murderer; plenty of time to tug on Teagan’s ear and scold her later. She glanced back at Arden. How was she supposed to argue with Teagan when the grief was so fresh? How could she even want to? As far as she knew, no one really hunted spellcasters. Not anymore, at least; Granny had told her enough tales of witch hunts to put a healthy reluctance over being too open about her shitty alchemy. She hooked her arm around Teagan’s and tugged the woman along. She’d think about it later, she promised herself. She wasn’t forgiving Teagan, and she definitely wasn’t going to be her friend. But for now…
“Ice cream! Ice cream!” she chanted. “And then an ice bath, Advil and atheist prayer.” She groaned, rubbing her back—it was already sore to the touch. “Do you think they’ll let us take one scoop of every flavor? I want an abomination. If my tongue isn’t confused, it doesn’t count. Hey, maybe we could…” Nova’s voice traveled with the wind as the two walked, embraced by moonlight.
