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yesimwriting · 3 years

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The Promise of Rain, blurb 2

The Promise of Rain (part 2?? technically)

A/n I was not originally planning a second part for this but some people wanted it and this idea came to me and it works better with the context of ‘The Promise of Rain’ but it can technically be read as a stand alone :))

Anyways this might turn into a small series of kinda connected blurbs that are all kind of canon with each other but aren’t necessarily connected except for the reader’s background (the reader is a very sunshine-y person and knows Kaz bc she’s a runaway princess that he was hired to bring back home but she managed to convince him to let her work for him instead)

The night air had left me with a chill that made me want nothing more than to have my covers draped over me as I read. I’m normally more sociable after a job, especially after such a simple and safe ending, but a lot of tonight had left me wanting to be alone.

Well, not truly alone. The company of my books is always welcomed, but tonight I can’t seem to find much comfort within the pages. After almost every paragraph, I find myself distracted by gusts of wind and thoughts of the heavy, silver clouds that seem to make up tonight. A part of me longs for the rain. I know it’s ridiculous to expect rain each time I desire some sense of comfort, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it. Especially when the sky so clearly implies it.

“This must be the fifth time I’ve come here and you’ve been reading.” Kaz’s sudden appearance is almost enough to shake away my lingering somberness.

I roll my eyes slightly, turning my attention back to the page in front of me. “That observation is just a testament to how often you come in here.”

His glare is half hearted, a look I’d find endearing if I was less annoyed. “Where else am I going to find a reminder that good people exist in Ketterdam?”

I think he may have a sixth sense that warns him when I’m treading the line between being annoyed and displeased. Everytime I find myself mad at him in a way that makes me want to avoid him instead of yell at him, Kaz makes some ridiculously heart-melting comment. He steps further into the room. I don’t miss the way he eyes my stretched out legs. Ever since the conversation we had after he woke up after an injury, we’ve fallen into the unmentioned habit of silently inviting the other to stay by moving to make room for them.

It had started the day after the conversation in which Kaz had admitted that he wanted me to stay with him. He had been sitting on the small couch while discussing the details of a job. Shortly after I walked in he made a point of shifting so that he was clearly on one side of the couch. I didn’t think much about sitting down, but Inej and Jesper exchanged a look.

Now, though, I keep my legs stretched out on the bed. He eyes my position on the bed, something grim crossing his features.

“It might rain tonight.”

He knows me so damn well. I hate it. “I hope so.”

I turn my head, analyzing the way the world seems to be on the cusp of something. I stare at the silver clouds until I feel something hard tap my leg. The tap is firm but not painful. I’m quick to look at Kaz as he lowers his cane. The mention of rain had been a distraction.

“You distracted me on purpose.”

“The first rule of the Barrel is to always be prepared.” There’s a slight uptilt to his lips, something I’ve learned to interpret as a sign of teasing.

How is he so easy to be around one second and so cold the next? I resist a smile. “I’ll take notes.”

Kaz ignores my passive aggressive tone. His focus seems to be on my legs that have still not moved to offer him a place next to me. “You wear your emotions too openly.” Great, he’s going to make us talk about it. “What reason could you possibly have to be mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you.” It’s a partial truth.

His expression harshens. “Don’t lie.”

“I’m not thrilled with you, but I don’t think that’s the same as being mad.”

Kaz lets out a partial sigh. “No, they’re not the same.” Such an early concession feels like a trap. “With you, the first option is worse.” I don’t have anything to say to that. “Is this because of what I said to Jesper?”

My posture straightens on instinct. “He wants your validation more than he’d ever admit and I understand that expressing praise isn’t exactly something you do, but would it kill you to not actively insult him?”

“I didn’t say anything that was wrong. He thinks he’s a gambler but he’s just someone born for losses.” The look I give him must mean something to him, because Kaz is quick to tact on, “That doesn’t make him less valuable of an asset or less relatively dependable.”

I eye him cautiously, the slightest bit of vulnerability playing at his features. “Don’t look at me like that--and don’t tell me that. Jesper’s the one who could use the occasional reminder from you that you hold him to any regard with positive connotations.” His lips press together like he’s thinking about scolding me for scolding him. “It’s only because I know you care more about Jesper than you’d ever let on.”

“Jesper’s esteem can handle the blow.” The curtness of his voice is a blow in its own sense. “And he didn’t exactly deserve to be in my good graces after what he did tonight.”

My sigh is not weighted enough to match Kaz’s newfound fountain of emotion. “We were successful--”

“He left you.” I didn’t know Kaz’s voice was capable of such harshness. “I paired him with you, and he left you--and you almost didn’t make it.” I let the weight of his words take up all the available space in the room, keeping the silence that follows them until some of the heaviness has dissipated. “He could have cost me one of my best people.”

Oh. His harshness, his unwarranted coldness, had been a manifestation of his concern. For me. Guilt knots my stomach. Potential words that may offer Kaz some sort of support raise and die back down in my throat. Kaz turns towards the door.

“Kaz.” He pauses. There’s a long moment in which I think he won’t turn around, but finally, he does. I tuck my legs beneath me, forcing myself to sit up a little straighter. “I told Jesper to leave because I knew the job would have failed if he had been trapped in that room with me.” I drop my gaze towards the window. “I was right, the job was successful, and I got out in time so it was worth it.”

“You risked your safety?” The harsh facet of his being is making its return in full force.

“For the job,” I’m careful to keep my words factual, “It’s what we’re supposed to do.”

Kaz’s jaw locks. “When I said that keeping you near me would ruin you this is what I meant.”

Is it really this big of a deal? I made it out. “Kaz.”

“This wasn’t my best idea.” His words are leached of anything. “You’re going back home. Tomorrow I’ll arrange the voyage myse--”

“Kaz Brekker you may get to live your life doing anything you want but you don’t get to control mine.” My chin raises an inch, an instinctual act of subtle rebellion. “I am not going back there, even if I’m technically indebted to you because you didn’t return me to my father but that does not mean I’ll--”

“I’m not trying to control you.” His words are sharp, boarding on a yell. “A job like that one wasn’t worth you.”

From Kaz, I know those words are heavy. There’s a lot of things I could say to that. I could tell him that I wanted to do something for him. I could say that I appreciate him telling me that. I could even say that in his own way, Kaz giving Jesper a hard time because he left me, is kind of cute in a misguided way. The thing is I think all of these responses will make things worse.

“Kaz,” I keep my voice as steady as possible, “I’m fine, you’re fine, it all worked out.” Scratching the back of my arm, I exhale gently. “I’ll be more careful next time, I promise.”

I watch him carefully, there’s a slight slump to his shoulders as he exhales. Is the fight leaving him so easily? He walks further into the room. “You better.” He sits down in the space I provided for him slowly. “If you’re not you’ll have worse things to worry about than anything that can happen to you on a job.” He moves his cane forward easily, tapping my knee in a swift motion.

I roll my eyes at the mock threat. “They do say that there’s nothing to fear in the Barrel like the Dirtyhands.”

“Remember that.” Any edge in his voice is forced. I fight against a smile that seems to always want to break across my face whenever I think I see something resembling lightness in Kaz.

“I don’t think I could forget anything about you.”

He turns his head slightly. “You should.”

“Too bad.”

Kaz leans his back against the wall, untensing slightly. “I think you just like disagreeing with me.”

There’s no point in lying about it. “Only because when you argue with me you give me this really particular look.”

“A look?”

Adding insult to injury, I smile. “Sometimes you look like you’re too focused on being angry, like you’re compensating for something.”

Kaz lets out a bitter sigh. “Maybe if you were less of a puppy I wouldn’t have to--”

The laugh that escapes is most definitely a mistake. “Did you just call me a puppy?” I don’t give him a chance to reply, laughter taking over again. “I mean this in the least argumentative way possible--but you’re so weird sometimes.”

He rolls his eyes, tensing. “I’m leaving.”

I stifle the rest of my laughter. “No. I was--I was kidding!” I keep my eyes on Kaz, expecting some type of annoyed glare, but his expression is a lot more weighted than that. Odd. “Kaz?”

“You need to be more careful.” I understand Kaz’s pause as something he does before saying something outside of his nature. “I’m not asking you this as a Crow or a Dreg.”

On instinct, my posture straightens. “I promised and I meant it.”

“Sometimes I wish I could believe in Saints,” his voice has taken off a distant quality, almost fragile, “That way I could believe something existed to help what matters.”

Oh. “You never fail, even if I didn’t believe in Saints I’d believe in you.”

“You’re wasting your faith.” The sound of lightning cracking is almost enough to make me jump. The rain finally came.

I know I’ll never convince him that that’s not true. “I don’t think so, but that’s why it’s called faith.”

“I have faith in some things.” His expression is far off.

“Like what?”

Kaz’s eyes find the window. “People that find meaning in the rain.”

Something in my chest swells. “You’re like the rain.”

We sit there in silence, watching raindrops glide down the window. “What were you reading?”

The question has me dropping my gaze to the forgotten book on my lap. “I stole this book from the palace before I left. It was my mom’s favorite, she’s read it so much the spine’s completely cracked and the cover is practically falling off.”

“Hm…” He mumbles. “Read some, the books read in a palace must be worthwhile.”

A part of me wants to tell him that elitism has no place in literature, but his request leaves me frozen. I nod once, turning to the first page of the book. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife--”

“Your upbringing makes sense--”

“You can’t judge it off the first sentence,” he’s insufferable, “It’s setting up irony, and if you’re going to complain--”

He lets out a conceding sigh. “I’m listening, I’m not interrupting.”

I keep my eyes on him for a second longer than I should. “Okay.” Dropping my gaze back to the book, I adjust my grip on the worn paperback, “Good.”

And then I keep reading.

@theincredibledeadlyviper @grishaverse7 @lonelystarship @mentally-in-northern-italy @uhanddreag

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coruscorp-blog · 6 years

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DEAR, MS. ( SATOMI INOUE )

We are pleased to have you back for another year as an UPPER SECOND YEAR STUDENT at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We sincerely hope your classmates in SLYTHERIN treat you well.

ACT I: you were meant for greater things.

so your mother tells you in a strangled voice, the nights she can remember your name. they come few and far between by the time you turn seven, her mind too often trapped in a labyrinth of her own design. trapped inside fractured memories, clinging onto thoughts that slip too often in between her fingers—some days she doesn’t even know who she is, much less her only daughter.

your father is to blame for the mess her mind is. you watch him through the crack in your bedroom door, striding into the house once every year to reinforce the spell that robs your mother of her memories. obliviate. you whisper the world to yourself in your bed at night, rolling the unfamiliar syllables around your tongue. obliviate; to forget. what is he forcing her to forget? him? you? everything?

it isn’t till later that you uncover the answer: magic.

ACT II: your father enrolls you in mahoutokoro’s day school at eight; he believes you need some understanding of who and what you are. the answer has eluded your grasp for years, dancing just beyond reach. at mahoutokoro, you learn about witches and wizards, about the world hiding just underneath your mundane life. but the one thing you don’t learn is why your father erases your mother’s memories every year, or why your mother looks glassy eyed at you as if you are a stranger when you try to recount your day to her.

you grow up in a garden of neglect. your small home in outside kyoto feels large and lonely. your mother stays inside, a former beauty caged and wasting away in a comfortable prison. when she can no longer perform even the simplest of tasks, your father sends a nurse to take care of her, a stern-faced woman with no sympathy for children like you.

ignored, forgotten, in the way, you learn to take care of yourself when you’re at home—cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, things you’re probably too young to be burdened with, but you have no choice but to be independent. you know the only person who cares about you is yourself.

sometimes you think about your mother’s hands cupping your face, the fierce conviction in her eyes as she says, you were meant for greater things than this. i should have given you better.

you wonder what she meant.

ACT III: by eleven you begin boarding at mahoutokoro year round. your father pays for your expenses and keeps track of your grades, but is otherwise silent and uninvolved in your life. you know this isn’t a normal family structure; you see friends with loving parents, being doted on, being spoiled, and you look at your own life: no letters, no care packages, no presents, just a cold and lonely house to return to for the summers.

it burns in you, the hatred, the jealousy, the anger—your mother said you were meant for greater things than this, but you can see your future self consigned to the shadows: always ignored, forgotten, and in the way. you refuse to let that be your fate. you don’t know if your mother is right, or whether her words were simply a delusion of her own mind, but—you will fulfill her prophecy. you’re tired of living without a presence.

at mahoutokoro, you flourish. it’s a hard climb, and falls here are punishing, but you work twice as hard as anyone else to make sure people know your name. always near the top of your class, always involved in a million different clubs and extracurriculars. you are smart, you are engaged, you are beautiful like your mother once was. you are not kind and no one assumes as such. after all, they recognize your ambition, your game, and even if they do not love you, they give you the respect you deserve.

it should be exhausting, maybe, but the result outweighs the trouble is causes you to get here. you clawed your way to the top, unrelenting and unflinching, so that people would remember your name. you did this so that no one would forget who you are. you forced yourself into existence and made your presence known, and god, if that isn’t the most exhilarating feeling in your life—

you can’t go back.

ACT IV: you piece together the truth slowly over the years. this kind of knowledge is true power, the secrets people try to hide, the dirty parts of their past they work hard to bury. but when you finally look at the full picture, you realize that so much of it was not hidden well after all. all it took was observation, dedication, and a few carefully arranged bribes, some skillful maneuvering of your chess pieces.

the story is about your father: the scion of an old and powerful pureblood family, he was poised for a promising career within the minister of magic’s office when he met your mother. beautiful and smart, her only failing was her muggle blood, but he couldn’t resist her. their affair lasted over a year before you happened, an unwelcome surprise binding your father to your mother in a way he could not afford to be. panicking, he erased her memories of him, of magic, of everything between them, and moved on—

but charms are tricky, and memory trickled back into your mother as the years passed. not content to live, as she had at the time, like a struggling single mother, she tracked down your father and demanded payment—for you, yes, and for her silence. the affair was minor compared to what she was prepared to reveal to the muggle media. balking under her threats, he obliviated her once more. except this time the spell wasn’t as clean as before.

the easiest way to clean up a mess is to hide it. your father set your mother up in a house and checked on her every so often to make sure she was quiet. every time her memories returned and she began to pose a threat, he would obliviate them. when your mother couldn’t take care of you any longer, he stepped in to make arrangements, either out of obligation, misguided pity, or an urge to contain his mess in every way possible. you don’t know and you don’t want to guess.

the truth is: you’re a manifestation of his mistakes, and your mother is a victim of his arrogance and hubris, his ambition. the man the people of japan call the future minister for magic is a monster behind his carefully crafted, family friendly persona, and you are perhaps the only person who knows.

but you’re sixteen years old: hurt, angry, afraid, and think you’re smarter than you are. you play your cards too early, writing to your father and asking to meet him just once. when he arrives at your home over the summer, you lay out the facts along with the evidence you’ve collected to back your story up. the shock on his face quickly gives away to a cold, grudging acknowledgement, but your triumph at your perceived victory is short lived. liabilities are removed, dear child, he tells you, not sounding nearly as scared or worried as you wanted him to.

the next day, your father arranges your transfer to hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. you scarcely have room to protest—he is your guardian and the source of all your funds. without him, you are nothing, and he knows this. defiance is not an option; you have to comply. so you pack up your things, say farewell to your mother, and take a portkey to a different continent while cursing yourself for being so stupid.

a liability to his perfect reputation, now removed.

ACT V: at hogwarts, for the first time in your life, you don’t feel clever.

english is clumsy on your tongue. you can’t express yourself the way you want to. the academics are easier; the standards of mahoutokoro were much higher, in your opinion. but grades mean little in this new country, this new school culture. you never wanted to come here, ripped away from your old life and everything that gave you even a sliver of happiness. here you are in the shadows again, a strange foreign girl without a voice. ignored, forgotten, in the way.

you learn. you adapt. a snake sheds its skin twice a year; you can do it once. this is the house they put you in, after all.

the language is hardest to grasp, so you work on that first: fix your accent and minimize your japanese qualities. you study, you learn the names of everyone in your house. you join a club, you attend the parties, you smile until your cheeks hurt. you speak up, you flirt, you shake hands, you kiss metaphorical babies. you force people to learn your name, to acknowledge you as a person to watch, as a force to be reckoned: sá-tó-mí, say it right.

managing a social life is like running a political campaign, you think, and you’re good at it—but you hate politicians, and even equating yourself to one makes your skin crawl. you’re not as fake, as cold, or as ruthless. or maybe you are and these traits are hereditary—you just haven’t discovered how far you can sink. sometimes your capacity for things alarms you.

once you tame hogwarts, you begin to look ahead. you’re an opportunist, turning a punishment into an opportunity for growth. but just because you’ve adapted doesn’t mean you’ve forgiven. here you find your capacity for something: revenge. you can safely say you hate your father and the control he has over your life even now. you want to break free, but you want him to suffer too. you want him to feel powerless and afraid, and when you have him on his knees, you want to bleed him dry.

secrets are your greatest weapon, so—

you plan.

FINALE: on your eighteenth birthday, your father calls you back to japan. instead of answering his summons, you write to him and ask for money.

a set amount transferred to your gringotts bank account on your birthday every year, you inform him, along with a promise to never contact you for anything else. and he’s to pay for your mother’s stay in the long term care ward at the magical hospital in kyoto. he’ll do this or you’ll hang his dirty laundry out to dry for the entire fucking nation to see. not a new play, but you've learned from your past mistakes. you send him a copy of the expose you’ve spent months—no, years—putting together, one crime after another, what could be a truly horrific stain on his minister for magic campaign.

call it extortion or blackmail or the act of an avenging erinye—you’re simply tired and fed up of your father exerting control over your life. you want to cut him loose. you’re tired of everything he’s done to you and your mother, and you’re tired, simply, of japan, of seeing his face and hearing his name wherever you go.

but underneath the exhaustion is a savage kind of glee. you don’t know if justice matters as much as much as the thought of him trembling—in outrage? in fear? both? you want him to know you can destroy his life at your whim.

(maybe there’s something to be said about family resemblances). he writes back, agreeing to your terms.

the last contact you have with him is a message scribbled on a hotel napkin and delivered via post owl. do not think you’re safe for a second, father dearest. if you stop paying or try to interfere with my life again, i will fuck you up. xoxo, your loving daughter

freedom should taste like something sweet, but yours is laced with some bitterness. you don’t really have a home or a family—maybe you never did to begin with. in that way, not much has changed, but you don’t really need it to.

you decide to continue to attend hogwarts, though you ignore the career advisor’s suggestions about a future with the ministry. instead, you dream about become a reporter, with a large byline under your name. travelling, exposing dirty secrets, becoming a household name while pretending to be an avenger of justice—you wouldn’t mind taking down powerful and corrupt men, you think. people could stand to be humbled every now and then.

you don’t know if that’ll be enough for you in the long run, but right now, it’s the option you chose, and that is powerful and significant in itself. you know you’ll make the best of it—you always do.

your mother was right. you were meant for greater things than a life caged in the shadows.

#CR!Follow #CR!Slytherin

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