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#lucky missing the thrum of magic and also being not nearly as stupid lucky as she was before (but she’s good enough at improvising out of
toomuchdickfort · 3 years
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Hey shoutout to the void ending for giving the characters who came from earth even more issues Bc they get chunked back to right before they were introduced to anything Elysur but they remember the all of it
#lucky missing the thrum of magic and also being not nearly as stupid lucky as she was before (but she’s good enough at improvising out of#messes so it works out most of the time) and also hi hello limbs back and also now shes a Child again#rei going from a literal goddess to a little kid.#they run into each other eventually again but that’s years down the line#Lawrence and Geryon? are on their way to a graduation party. and THEYRE back alive again. and they’ve both committed a great number of very#terrible deeds and also have killed each other and hate each other to some degree and now they’ve gotta act like they’re like. just a couple#of teen best friends who totally haven’t experienced death multiple times. and definitely aren’t very jaded from their years of bloodshed.#and they’ve gotta take a little bit of bitter comfort in each other despite it all for the same reason they always have: they were there w#with each other. they went through it together and nobody else will understand nearly as well. and they end up getting matching tattoos and#they leave their home town as soon as they can#and they intend to never talk again and that lasts about two and a half months because Geryon has nightmares and Lawrence can’t get to sleep#in the first place and-#Derrek in theory would get thrown back to his original reality. which. I’ve not thought out near as in depth but really should sometime Bc.#might be interesting#character rambles#elysur#don't mind me#this whole ramble happened Bc. I got thinking about lucky and how her timeline is fucky especially down this ending#and then like. Larry and Gery are just interesting to think about. the more time they spend together the harder it is to let go of each#other when they try because they’ve had a rough path and. if they never went through that portal at all Lawrence would’ve moved to a#different part of the state in a year and they’d have fallen out of touch within the next two and they mean to get back in touch but never#really get around to it#and when canon g visits that reality he surprises himself with how tempting it is to hit the man in front of him.#anyway these two don’t live in my brain full time but they do make regular visits and I can’t kick them out
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writeblrfantasy · 3 years
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here it is!
my pride and joy, the piece that has completely hijacked my brain and my life for the past 24 hours. this is the prologue, some might say, to TDOSA, featuring the vibes of an endless, sunny summer, the sense of floating through time and space, and a lot of lesbian yearning and projection, i present: the summer of seret ashling.
cw implied sex, blood
word count around 6300
one time tags of interest @ashen-crest @ettawritesnstudies
tdosa taglist (lmk to be added/removed) magic-is-something-we-create @hysteriwah @imjustalonesomewriteblr @a-forgotten-dusk @bronwennjames @metanoiamorii
Lysandra Fleming’s summer begins like this: a lonely night in Briar Bar, sipping a warm mug of cherry syrup. Not because she is cold—the heat in Vashiri Valley does not begin with summer, nor does it end there. Cherry syrup is vile and bitter and sweet at the same time, made worse warm, but the smooth way it goes down reminds her of childhood, the strange days when she actually liked this stuff.
Not home. She has not had a home since she was a child, when the supposed charm of the palace still worked on her. What were once silky ribbons in her hair became the invisible chains and rules of her parents, tying her down.
Lysandra, you can’t do this, it will reflect badly on us, or Lysandra, you can’t speak to that person, can’t smile at them, can’t see them, don’t you know what they did ten years ago? Don’t you know who their parents are? Vashiri Valley is struggling for power enough without you mucking it up.
Lysandra stopped smiling altogether.
Now, she comes to Briar Bar to be left alone with her cherry syrup, to melt into the crowd, to be normal, for once. Instead, others smile at her the way her parents always encouraged she smile, fake, polite enough, with an ulterior gleam in their eye. So many eyes watch her in want, but she does not feel seen at all by any of them.
The room’s quiet conversation dims and dissolves into whispers, prompting Lysandra to glance over at the reason. The reason is facing away from Lysandra, wearing a tall black hat and a black suit that nearly blends into the darkness of the walls, if not for the white shirt the woman is wearing underneath.
Lysandra didn’t see her come in, and all eyes turn to the tall, dark stranger, wondering the same thing. Her companions across the room point her in Lysandra’s direction, who braces for another meaningless smile, another delighted to meet you, Highness.
The woman turns, and Lysandra sees brown skin, black hair falling in long, loose curls, a subtle, close mouthed smile that draws her attention instantly. Brown eyes meet Lysandra’s green.
“Seret Ashling, my princess.” Seret Ashling leans down, never breaking eye contact, and kisses the top of Lysandra’s hand, holding her fingers delicately, but not like she’s glass. She treats Lysandra like she knows, instantly, her boundaries, how far she can safely push, what Lysandra can take—which is a lot more than most people guess.
Already, Lysandra likes her.
Lysandra is not her princess. She knows the name of every person in this valley, and she knows she’s never even seen Seret before. Even the name is foreign to her. Seh-reht.
That makes it all the better.
She moves her stool a little farther from the empty one beside her, raising an eyebrow in an invitation Seret accepts, removing her hat and tucking it under her arm to smoothly mount the stool. Seret sits with a straight back but ankles curled around the legs of the stool, adding enough humanity to her presence to make Lysandra smile.
She does not prop her elbow on the table, she does not order anything, but she does stare at Lysandra like she’s the most interesting person in the room. Lysandra can tell, somehow, that this gaze is genuine, not hastily crafted and practiced to impress her.
She offers to buy Lysandra another mug of cherry syrup, and Lysandra lets her.
***
Everywhere Lysandra goes, Seret seems to find her. She’s the talk of the valley, enrapturing them with her tall, dark, handsome aura, her small smile, the way the sun shines off her hair.
Finally Seret takes the leap and asks her out to places in Vashiri City Lysandra has been a thousand times, but somehow Seret’s presence paints color to her world again instead of the dull greens and golds the valley has become.
Their connection is instant, from Briar Bar to the lane of potion shops to the muffled awe in Seret’s face when she sees the Academy. At some point, Seret takes Lysandra’s hand, and they stroll through the town like they are not a princess and the new obsession of Vashiri Valley.
Everyone has been asking Seret about herself, where she’s from, what family she has, but she slips out of answering like a snake from a trap. Her smile is quite persuasive. Lysandra doesn’t even try to pry the answer out of her, though she might be the one person to succeed. Seret still looks at her every time like she’s the sun and the moon and the stars.
Lysandra’s heart thrums with nerves every hour before their dates, afraid of messing things up and driving Seret away, but the moment Seret enters the room, her heart calms. Seret gives her a warm hug that envelopes her whole soul, tells her she missed her dearly, and Lysandra wonders why she was ever worried. Seret seems impossible to offend.
“I am going to buy you a gift,” Seret announces on one of their dates in town, in a tone which makes it clear this is non-negotiable. Lysandra only nods. Seret pauses between two shops, one being the most popular jewelry store in the city with a line out the door, the one across the street being an adorable but little known competitor.
Lysandra waits for Seret to get in line for the popular jewelry store, but instead the woman lingers in front of the door of the other shop before opening it. “Don’t peek,” she says with a little smile, shutting the door and triggering the little bell. Lysandra stands there gawking like a fool until Seret emerges ten minutes later holding a little square box.
When Lysandra opens it with trembling hands, she finds a little heart shaped necklace, gold with a silver center on a golden chain. The gold probably isn’t real, probably just paint, but the pink paper wrapping the necklace and the little thank you card inside the box make her smile when the shop across the street wouldn’t.
The plain red and blue shelves in the windows of the other shop, where her family’s jeweler gets his jewels, have nothing on the soft pinks, greens, and browns of the cheap shop owned by twins. They keep flowers in their windows, pink carnations, and prices written in loopy court script.
“Do you like it?” Seret asks nervously, and Lysandra realizes she hasn’t said a word.
“I love it. Thank you.” She offers it up to Seret to clasp around her neck. Seret’s warm fingertips brush the back of her neck, and shivers run down Lysandra’s spine. This is special, her heart keeps telling her, like she doesn’t already know. This is different.
“How did you know?” Lysandra asks.
“Know what?”
“That I’d like this better than the shop across the street.”
“You’re a princess, you’re used to expensive jewelry, and you’ve publicly and loudly denounced royal life. Also, I’d rather give my money to them, seems like they actually need it. Don’t you agree?”
Lysandra has to take a deep breath to keep from blurting out something stupid. “Yes. I agree.”
Their first kiss a day later is a ray of light and a shadow of darkness, colliding and exploding in a glorious show of white and black, settling as ashes and debris into serene, calm gray. They are not the sun and moon. Lysandra is too sharp to be the sun, Seret too dim to be the moon.
It is the death of something. The birth. Lysandra can’t define what.
***
When Lysandra asks, Seret says she came to Vashiri Valley to visit and experience its delights, after which she meets Lysandra’s eyes and kisses her hands.
Lysandra hangs around the city apartment Seret rents. It’s close to Wynn’s cabin where she sleeps. She hasn’t slept in the palace in months. The layers of security and scrutiny she has to pass to enter are not worth the temporary comfort of a soft bed and her favorite meals.
She’s sleeping beside Seret before long, unable to bear being apart from her for that long, wondering how she behaves during such a precious time. Seret’s arms are even warmer around her under cool sheets, and in the morning, Seret brings her coffee before disappearing behind a white door.
She reappears in a cloud of steam, smelling like sweet flowers and honeysuckle. Lysandra gets to kiss her good morning and wonder how she got so lucky.
They’re invited to plays, the nights at the bars for amateur bards, the travelling witches who perform at the amphitheater. Lysandra has been to every event in this valley at least once, usually at the request of her family, but Seret loves going. Like the city and the shops and the Academy, experiencing Seret’s joy secondhand is intoxicating.
Everywhere they go, every table they sit at, whether it’s the theater or the bar or a café for a simple breakfast, people are fawning over Seret. The entire valley is enamored with Lysandra’s new lover.
Seret seems to find it amusing, the way they pat her arm and show a comical amount of interest in everything she has to say, just waiting for an opportunity to ask questions that they must know will go unanswered.
Lysandra sits quietly, burning from the way Seret entertains them, smiles at them in her private way. She wants Seret all to herself. She’s used to sharing things with the public, she’s had to share herself her whole life, but Seret is different. Lysandra doesn’t care if it’s selfish, Seret is hers.
When everyone finally seems like they’ve gotten their fill of Vashiri’s new inhabitant, Lysandra takes her to the edge of the forest and the dead tall grass fields beside it. She gets to watch the exact moment Seret falls in love.
Seret has never grinned, never raised her voice louder than a murmur, but her hitch of breath and the way she reaches for Lysandra’s hand is all she needs. Pride blooms in Lysandra’s chest at the realization she’s learned Seret’s little tells like that.
“It’s just a field,” she laughs. She’s laughing more, now, thanks to Seret. Stoic, cynical, unpleasant Princess Lysandra, laughing. This is why she hasn’t let Arlin near Seret yet, she’d never hear the end of it.
“No, it’s not,” Seret breathes, radiating darkness and mystery in a way that is curious, enticing, instead of harmful. Lysandra just wants to follow her into the shadows where no others can see them, hurt them, touch them. “Can’t you see?”
Lysandra strains her neck, but it’s not the fact that Seret is taller than her that’s the problem. “No.”
Seret pulls her along and begins running instead of answering. Lysandra yelps in surprise and stumbles along, staring enviously at Seret’s long legs—long legs, long arms, long face, long fingers, everything about Seret is long. She sweeps Lysandra up in her arms and spins her around, feet in the air, Seret’s strong arms keeping her up.
Seret is grinning for the first time, showing perfect white teeth, her joy the only reason Lysandra doesn’t scream in shock. She trusts Seret utterly, she realizes in a paralyzing moment of clarity, the sun warming her back, the wind blowing through her hair. Seret has never given her a reason not to.
“What’s the matter with you?” Lysandra asks, though she can’t keep the joy out of her own voice. Seret is infectious. Anything she feels reflects on Lysandra.
“We had fields exactly like this in the city where I grew up. I can’t believe I haven’t seen these yet.” She finally sets Lysandra down and immediately kisses her, as has become a habit the last week. Lysandra gives in, gives over entirely.
She has twisted and forced a key into the lock of her heart, but now, she hands the broken key to Seret and wishes her lucky trying to fit it in the rusty, damaged old lock. Lysandra knows she’ll unlock it fast, her eyebrows pinched and frowning in concentration, long fingers working quickly.
She doesn’t tell her that, of course.
Even then, Lysandra knew.
***
They find a cabin at the edge of the fields and the forest which they quickly move into, abandoning Arlin and the boys and Lysandra's family and Vashiri Valley for themselves. Lysandra has no remorse.
Seret shows her how to live in darkness, in quiet, in peace. They prepare coffee in the mornings before the sun floods the fields with light, arms brushing and using only using their sleepy voices when they need to, not wanting to disturb the holy peace of the morning.
They bathe in the evenings indoors where the fading sun doesn’t reach, sitting close in a tub of river water that Lysandra heats.
They spend all day laying on their backs in the fields, one of them lying on the other while someone’s hair is stroked and someone speaks over the wind.
When the afternoon heat turns the sunlight from pleasantly warm to scorching, they move to the shade of the big oak tree near their cabin to eat.
The shadows are their friends in this haven, where no one and nothing else exists but them. Seret trusts them like they trust each other, content to close her eyes and lay her head back against the trunk when she’s done eating.
Lysandra loves the warmth of the sun, but she hates the harsh white spotlight of her family, the prickly rules tying her down, the sense that she can’t ever escape their restraining eyes. She can hide in the darkness from Seret. They’ll never catch her.
Lysandra has never been so invincible, light enough to be picked up on a cloud every time the wind blows. Seret is the only magical thing she’s met that doesn’t have a drop of magic within her.
Seret is ineffable. Unknowable. Larger than life. Lysandra can never hope to understand her fully, but she can try, she can watch and observe, attempt to learn the inner workings of Seret’s mind.
“Seret?” Lysandra asks one afternoon just like every other, where the peace and warmth of their retreat cannot be broken. “Where are you from?”
It is the first time she has asked. She holds her breath, waiting for Seret’s answer, which takes a long time to come. Seret chews on her lip, her expression as guarded as always, until she finally smiles. “Wherever you want me to be from. North, south, east, west, I’ve visited them all. Pick one and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Lysandra’s chest opens to swallow an ache of emptiness. “Maybe later.” It’s not what she wanted, and they both know it. Lysandra inches mere breaths away from Seret’s side, but it won’t go unnoticed. She thought Seret might actually tell her. She rubs the small gold heart between her fingers and sighs.
“Hey,” Seret says, turning Lysandra’s chin towards her. “It’s not because I don’t trust you, because I do. I trust you more than I’ve trusted anyone, more than you know.”
“Then why won’t you tell me?” Need, embarrassing and whiny, sneaks into Lysandra’s voice, but she ignores it. She’s entitled to this answer, at least.
“I don’t want to shatter your world.” Seret sighs and shifts to take Lysandra’s hands in both of hers. “I am from the south. I ran away from home at a young age to travel because my upbringing was hell, and I’ve never stopped since.”
Lysandra breathes out.
“None of that changes how I feel about you,” Seret continues, pleading, the most passionate Lysandra has ever heard her. “I have never met anyone like you, even with everywhere I’ve been. I do not want anyone but you.”
No one has ever said anything like that to Lysandra, and hearing it now gives her pause. The way Seret’s eyes burn on her skin with their dark intensity is exquisite. Lysandra will never get used to it. She does not want to.
“I would not want this with anyone else.” It does not mean the same thing, but Seret smiles, close mouthed, anyway. At times like this, Seret’s secretive nature makes Lysandra’s blood boil, unvoiced screams rise in her throat. She has given so much of herself already, why can Lysandra not know of her past, her family, her ugliest emotions?
She never wants Seret to treat her like glass. The first day they met, Seret got it right. Lysandra can’t bear the thought that Seret is any less perfect than she thinks, that would shatter her, not knowledge of the world beyond the valley.
Lysandra has gotten all she will today. She is content to sigh deeply and lay her head on Seret’s arm. Seret will stroke Lysandra’s hair, and the wind will ruffle her own, and Lysandra’s urge to push it back will fight the warmth settling into her bones. They are fine. They will be fine. Nothing more.
***
On lucky occasions, Seret shares stories of her travels from who knows when, who knows where. She has been everywhere, she said, and Lysandra believes her. She asks about the north, the far east, the west, and Seret’s homeland, the south.
The south could mean any number of things. Lysandra has never been out of Vashiri Valley, and her family have always been vague about what lies beyond their mountains, but Seret describes an actual ocean, the cold water wrapping around her ankles, the hot sand burning her feet.
She takes Lysandra to a desert in her mind, great, sprawling cities, icy lakes and snowy mountains to the north. To the east, she says, more ocean with great brown ships. Lysandra doesn’t care if she’s lying.
She lays in the grass on her side and lets the wind blow her skirts while she travels the world in her mind. Seret closes her eyes and traces mountains, rivers, canyons on her spine, unconsciously pointing in those directions. Lysandra’s breath catches in her throat.
Seret opens her eyes briefly to ask, “Am I boring you?”
Never. You couldn’t if you tried.
Lysandra shakes her head. Seret’s slow, easy smile returns, and the warm fingers on the skin revealed by her backless dress whisk her away to a thousand new worlds so big she can’t even imagine them.
***
“Does it ever bother you that I’m a princess?”
Seret smiles. “That isn’t something that would bother most people in my position.”
“I’d disagree. As the lover of a princess, you have no privacy, there’s expectations, rules you have to follow, harassment…I suppose a better word would be faze. You met and introduced yourself and spoke to me as if I were normal.”
“I called you my princess. the day we met.”
At Lysandra’s withering look, Seret chuckles. “Who said you aren’t normal? You didn’t have any control over what family you were born into. I would still feel the same if you hadn’t rejected your family and your role, if you were princess first and person second. It would be a bit harder to get to you, though, in that stronghold. To me, in that bar, you were just the prettiest girl in the nicest dress with the most captivating eyes. They told me you were a princess—so what? I love you anyway.”
Lysandra’s cheeks burn hot, and she chokes on saliva. The wind picks up, and she feels like she’s falling. How can Seret just say things like that and expect Lysandra not to explode and melt into the sun? “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
Seret smiles again. “I’m not looking to get anywhere. I’m not like those people at the bar when we met. I’m not trying to be like anyone. I’m not not trying to be like anyone. I’m not looking to impress you, honestly. I’m just being honest.”
Lysandra’s breath catches in her throat like a branch stuck in a river, unfazed by the powerful oncoming waves.
Seret is clearly not looking to hear it back, but Lysandra gathers all her courage and quietly says, “I love you, too. I--”
She shies away from Seret’s intense gaze, burning on the back of her neck. “I’m not good at, uh. Saying things like this. Like you. But I want you to know that you’ve changed my life. I don’t know how to thank you for all that you’ve done for me, given me. This place is nothing short of perfect. Every minute we’ve spent together has been nothing short of perfect. I’m sorry I haven’t given you anything back.”
“My dear, you are quite mistaken. You’ve given me the ultimate gift: yourself. The opportunity to know your heart, your mind. You’ve let me in when I can tell you have trouble doing so.”
She kisses the back of Lysandra’s hand, looking up at her through her eyelashes, as she often does. It still makes Lysandra’s entire being heat like the sun itself came down to lay its rays gently onto her, powerful but careful with her.
“You are my entire world,” says Seret, the sun. “The most precious creature in all the places I’ve visited, all the creatures in this valley alone.”
Lysandra smiles. “You haven’t met Wynn Scylla’s dragonlings.”
Deflect. Defend. Dismiss. Seret sees through it.
Lysandra lays their lips together, hoping to convey without the painful process of words said aloud just how much Seret makes her hurt. Seret makes her burn and ache in the best of ways, like a satisfying stretch after waking up from a stiff nap.
Seret challenges her to face things she loves shying away from, things like the swelling of her heart which she hasn’t felt in years. Seret is terrifying, all consuming, but Lysandra can’t imagine a world without her. Much of her allure comes from her mystery, however infuriating her secrecy is.
Hours later, when they’re full and sated from dinner, after they wash the dishes side by side at the river and after they’ve bathed in the tub in the house, Lysandra hears a faint hum, high and low, continuous, lulling and soft. She turns her head and discovers it’s Seret, humming to herself as she drapes the wet towels out to dry. “What’s that you’re humming?”
Seret pauses her sweet melody. “Hm? Oh, just some music from the east. If I had the proper instruments, I would play the tune.”
Lysandra chokes on air. “You can play music, too?”
Seret smiles. “I can do many things.”
“Oh?” Lysandra doesn’t know where her sudden burst of courage comes from. Perhaps she’s the one looking to get somewhere. She raises an eyebrow and crooks a finger, hoping a low tone will convey her point. “Come here and show me.”
Seret is quiet, face blank. Lysandra wonders, belatedly, if she does in fact have unknown boundaries.
When Seret desperately searches her eyes for consent, Lysandra realizes it was shock and not disgust that rendered her speechless. “You mean—” Seret asks, hoarse, never breaking eye contact. Lysandra shivers. She had that effect on her?
“Yes.”
They stare at each other for a long, silent moment, Seret’s hungry gaze fixed on Lysandra’s pale shoulders, the towel wrapped around her middle. Then they’re both moving at once, mouths moving in the same pattern of Seret’s melody, a symphony of hearts beating in time.
If Lysandra is Seret’s world, Seret is the center of Lysandra’s.
***
At long last, Lysandra’s family gets wind of Seret. Lysandra doesn’t want to know how. Maybe Wynn and Petrus spread it around by accident—she loves those boys, but they couldn’t keep a secret if they tried. Maybe it was Arlin, who Lysandra finally let meet Seret.
All she does know is that her family is demanding to meet their middle princess’s lover, which means they’ll clarify if they’re allowed to be together or not.
“I’m sorry,” Lysandra whimpers, on the edge of tears in Seret’s arms. “I don’t want them to touch us with a ten foot stick, but if we don’t go, they’ll send someone out here to find us and disrupt our world. I’m so sorry.” Something about her family interfering in her and Seret’s affairs makes Lysandra boil like nothing else.
“It’s okay, my princess,” Seret murmurs into her hair, cupping the back of her head, rocking them back and forth. “We’ll go, I’ll tell them what they want to know, we’ll come right back here. It will only be a few hours. Their opinion won’t change how I feel about you, but I’ll do whatever you feel is best.” The sorrow in Seret’s tone implies too much.
Lysandra pulls back. “Don’t you ever think I’d leave you for my family. Right now, I’m thinking much the opposite.”
Seret purses her lips. “What objection would they have to me? The whole valley seems to like me, why wouldn’t they?”
“You’re not a noble, you don’t have a title, you have nothing to offer them, you won’t even tell anyone where you’re from, and you’re the lover of their middle child.”
Her voice is bitter, matching her heart. Seret’s arms tighten protectively around her. Lysandra switches from bitterness to anger to guilt in a second. How dare her family do this to them? What makes them think they have this right?
They control Vashiri Valley, but Lysandra can’t remember the last time they appeared in public, and their power is distant at best.
They control Vashiri Valley, but they can’t control her.
“No matter what they say,” Lysandra says into Seret’s chest, “I am never leaving you. You’ll have to pry me away. Whatever polite, diplomatic accusations or insults they throw at you, ignore them. You don’t have to tell anyone, especially them, about yourself. You’re with me because I love you, and that’s all we care about. Okay?”
“I’m not sure I’m the one who needs reassuring, Lysandra.”
“Shut up. I’ll be fine.” She pulls back from warmth to wipe her eyes, hot shame from crying coating her face, but Seret pulls her back in.
“There’s no shame here,” she whispers, kissing Lysandra’s temple. “Comforting you is my pleasure, though I wish you didn’t have a reason to cry. Everything’s going to be okay, my princess.”
Lysandra breathes.
She wears the gown she wore when she and Seret met, soft pink with a low neckline, tiered ruffles reaching down to her ankles, frilly short sleeves. Maybe familiarity will give her some comfort, whether that’s Seret’s hand on her thigh or this dress pinching her arm.
Seret wears the same black slacks, white shirt, and black jacket she always wears, thoroughly combs her hair, but leaves the hat at home.
At the dinner, she is perfect. she speaks only when spoken to, sits with that straight, enviable posture, praises the food like it’s the substance of heaven itself, the best she’s ever had.
She’s gracious, thankful, answers every question they ask. If she had a title, Lysandra knows her family would be simply begging them to marry.
Things start out pleasant, her family treating Seret with the polite, arm’s length attitude Lysandra expected. Finally, the dreaded question comes.
“So, Seret,” Lysandra’s mother asks, folding her hands, “where are you from?”
Lysandra clutches her necklace, the one Seret gave her, and prays. Please don’t let them be the first ones you tell. They don’t deserve that.
Seret smiles. “This soup is delicious, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, thank you, you’ve said so already.” Her mother is reaching the end of her patience—Lysandra has been on the other end of that short patience dozens of times. Her blue feathered hat and perfect red lips cover up a much nastier woman. “Please tell us about where you live.”
“Well, Lysandra and I have been living next to the forest all summer. The fields there are positively peaceful, you should visit them sometime.” She pauses to let horror sink into the hearts of luxury groomed royals. Lysandra bites down on a smile. “But I am technically still renting an apartment in the city.”
“Where you came from,” Lysandra’s father adds, sharp, on the end of his patience as well. Lysandra wonders how much Seret prepared for this. Seret is smart, she must’ve known she couldn’t wiggle her way out of the question with her usual tricks. “Maybe who your parents are.”
Seret appears to consider the question. “I’d rather not say,” she says, stirring her drink with her spoon. Silence falls onto the room. Lysandra holds her breath.
Her mother nods her head tightly. “Very well. In that case, we’re going to have to insist you stop seeing our daughter.”
Seret bows her head in humble acceptance, but Lysandra stands up, every fiber of her being filling with inexplicable rage. She told herself she wouldn’t display a reaction, she would just accept the denial and then ignore it, like Seret will, but hearing it so frankly from her mother’s lips is different from imagining it.
“You don’t have the right to tell me who I can and can’t see just because you feel like it,” she spits. “I’m an adult. I haven’t lived here full time or done the duties you ask of me for years. You should disown me. Save yourselves the trouble of dealing with me any longer.”
Seret’s hand lands firmly on her knee as if to say no, don’t. Lysandra captures her hand and holds it above the table for the whole family to see.
“You’re the one who chose to come here,” Lysandra’s mother says.
“Yes, because I knew you’d hound us if we didn’t.” Lysandra can feel her chest being ripped open from the top down. Seret’s fingers squeezing hers is the only thing tethering her to herself. She pulls tightly on Seret’s fingers, who takes the hint and stands. They walk out without another word, without a glance back.
When they get back to the cabin, Lysandra sinks onto the couch in their living room face first, and immediately begins to cry. The seconds it takes for the door to click and Seret’s boots to march across the wood are far too long, until warm arms wrap around Lysandra’s back and Seret buries her nose in the back of her hair. “I’m so sorry,” she murmurs, which only makes Lysandra sob harder.
“I don’t know why it still matters. I knew this was exactly what they’d say. I didn’t want it to affect me. I want to move on from them.”
Seret stays quiet, just letting Lysandra exist and holding her through it. They don’t speak about it again.
Things are different after that. The fields and the cabin have been tainted with mere mention of the royal family’s presence. The spell has been broken.
The wind comes less, the sun seems to burn in a way it didn’t before. Lysandra doesn’t treasure dawn and dusk the way she used to, and baths are just baths. The only thing that hasn’t lost its magic is Seret, as kind and loving as always.
A week later, Seret begins taking trips into the city to gather everything from her apartment and bring it to the cabin, everything of Lysandra’s from Wynn’s cottage.
No matter how many times Lysandra offers to help, Seret insists she’s fine, she doesn’t want Lysandra to come into the city and get hounded and harassed by the usual people dying to meet the princess.
Arlin and the others come to visit a few times to keep her company while Seret’s gone, to speak about the upcoming Academy year, their last year, to learn the place Lysandra disappeared to the entire summer.
She’s happy to see them, happy for the company, but her heart never stops aching for Seret, wondering what she’s doing. Arlin and the boys stay for dinner well after Seret’s back, so she’s never given a moment alone to think.
This continues for a month.
Arlin and the boys become as intimately familiar with the cabin, the fields, the river, and the forest as Lysandra was with Wynn’s cottage on the forest’s other side.
Lysandra flies toward the end of summer in a haze, perpetually afraid to break the peace, shatter the dream, feel the cold seep into her bones once more. She has grown so used to the wind in her hair, the sun on her skin, the safety of Seret’s arms and her soothing voice.
Seret is never too loud, never jarring. Seret seems to float on the wind; sometimes her mind is lost to Lysandra as she stares into the sky at nothing.
Seret is—
Seret is many things. Nothing at all. Everything all at once.
Ineffable.
On what Seret says will be her last day of moving, she kisses Lysandra’s cheek and says, “I’ll be back,” like always. Lysandra thinks that’s rather silly—of course she’ll be back, that’s a given—but it’s sweet.
Arlin and the boys won’t be over since they have to collect their books for school in two weeks and otherwise prepare. Lysandra spends the day in the river, letting the water suck all the thoughts from her head.
By the evening, as Lysandra waits on the porch with dinner ready, Seret is still not back.
She probably got held up with the loading carts she’s been using, Lysandra tells herself as she gathers her shawl, puts on a dress fit for the town’s eyes, and begins the long walk there. She stopped to have dinner, or something. Maybe she met Wynn’s dragonlings at last.
Seret would’ve run back here herself to tell Lysandra she wouldn’t be back until later because of the dragonlings, or she would’ve sent a magical letter, or something. Seret has told her over and over how much she hates to see Lysandra in pain, and how she’ll never, ever be the cause of even the slightest worry.
Dread sits heavily in Lysandra’s chest.
The area near the school is in chaos, looking for her. No one she meets will tell her what’s going on, why they refuse to meet her eyes, why they offer faint smiles in place of explanations.
When Lysandra is shown the rooms in the Academy Seret broke into, the bizarre circles drawn on the floor in chalk, the thick books lying open, the blood splattered all over the floor, and finally, Seret’s body lying on the floor with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes closed, Lysandra falls to her knees and doesn’t get up.
Her entire being is shattered with a force she didn’t know existed, with waves of invisible pain too strong for this realm. Everything feels empty and quiet, but not quiet in the serene way of Seret’s.
She screams, and it rips her open. It rips every part of good out of her and replaces her with numb, muffled, faint feeling. Later the waves of pain will come back, the longing for Seret’s warm arms to wrap around her and make everything all better, but now, she’s able to look at the body with only thin trails of tears streaming down her face.
Seret’s white shirt is soaked through with a circle of bright red blood. The whole scene is almost unreal. If not for the blood and the cold feel of her hand, Lysandra’s Seret Ashling looks the same. Her hair is neatly arranged, her face free of the splattered blood.
Death is too simple a word for what happens to Seret.
She is gone, says a voice, Seret’s voice, her smiling face haunting Lysandra behind her closed eyes. The ghost of Seret’s fingers cup her jaw, stroke her cheekbones, brush soft lips over her forehead, push her spectacles up.
I love you, my princess, Lysandra hears when she touches her ear to the floor, soaking the front of her dress with her blood, such a cruel reminder of Seret’s humanity. She was brutally, unfortunately, unbelievably human. She may have reached beyond this realm to grab a fist of love for Lysandra, a greater capacity than any human could hold, but that couldn’t save her from her own humanity.
I’ll be back. Seret’s last words to her.
She wasn’t just going into town to move.
Lysandra clutches the necklace Seret gave her and squeezes until it hurts. It fits easily in her palm, hangs right over her heart. The death of Seret Ashling is going to hit Vashiri Valley like the rare storms, unforgiving and violent, bringing destruction that takes years to recover from.
Lysandra squeezes the necklace, closes her eyes, and breathes slowly, steadily. The storm will wipe her out faster and harder than anyone else, but she’s the one who has to control it singlehandedly, and that will be about as easy as trying to capture an actual storm from the ground.
She won’t survive this, but she’s known for months that if anything ever happened to Seret, she never would. She can only submit to the darkness—the bad kind, this time—awaiting her, return to reality behind this door.
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