[ The dreams always start harmlessly enough. Mundane. Uneventful. Humdrum. And in all those ways both boring and ineffectual, indistinguishable from the fabric of everyday life. But somewhere buried between the warp and the weft there lies an insidiousness — a particularly dark-spun thread that, over time, begins to bleed through.
David is in his kitchen, going about putting the kettle on for tea, hoping to entertain Charlene's attention for the afternoon. She frowns faintly at the prospect and, as a result, the dream frowns with her. Around them the ambient temperature of the drops suddenly and sharply — so low, in fact, that when Charlene speaks, her words are accompanied by a plume of steamy breath. ] You always say that.
[ Daniel hums lightly. The kettle doesn't take too long (it never does, you see) so he's taken to clipping another little tree over the sink. It's getting dark out; symptoms of Charlene's magic, he thinks, and the sky is red-orange ochre. It paints the turn of his wrist red when he snips a singular spindly branch. The scrap of wood turns to ash and seemingly disintegrates before it even reaches the steel bottom and in the same breath the kettle whistles sharply, clicking itself off from red to green. ]
Because it never seems to change, [ he points out. Daniel sets two mugs; the unchipped one he turns towards Charlene handle-first. Today, it's a mix of white peach tea and jasmine-green — at least, that's what he was thinking about when the thread of her magic trickled into his sleeping. ] I do have eyes.
[ Charlene looks at the mug in front of her accusingly, the surface of its contents shivering slightly as Daniel drags out the chair across to sit down. Steam evaporates from it in whip-quick curls, so quick as to be unnatural. (In dreams even her tea seems combative and aggressive, despite Daniel's best efforts.) She gives the same look to Daniel as he settles in, the corners of her mouth still tense and disapproving. While others took easily to his nurturing personality, it remained something of anathema to Charlene; I'm not some tree, Daniel, she's said on more than one occasion, the bad mojo coming off her in waves and swirling around in her feet in quite literal eddies. ]
If it never seems to change, maybe that means you've never actually seen me better. [ It's a stubborn, adolescent sort of naysaying, one that brings Charlene no sense of satisfaction. ]
Edited (M U G not B U G doofus orz) 2012-09-06 12:28 (UTC)
[ No. Daniel agrees; Charlene isn't a tree because people aren't as simple as that. When nature falls sick it curbs the infection and dies off quickly, but things either survive or wither and die. Clean-cut. Most people, when they get ill, never seem to notice until it's heavy and thick and suffocating — until they evolve and adapt around it. It's a messy buisness, people. Turnips are much easier to take care of. ]
I'm beginning to second guess your definition of better, [ he says, swallowing his tea. His hand reaches to brush away a streak of soil (when did that get there?) off the table, the back of his hand following the grain of the wood.
Satisfied, Daniel fixes her a look and smiles crookedly. ]
I thought gallivanting around with the extended family was supposed to fit the definition of better?
[ Her phone buzzes lightly on her thigh. Loren looks up from the lodestone in her lap (the sea, this time she sees sea) and his reply makes her mouth quirk. She has sharper eyes than a cat has teeth and Eamonn's always had sense of humor she can appreciate. ]
hoot hoot, ceangail everyone likes an audience & i like your shirt. is it new?
[ He's not particularly vain, though his power has certainly given him a sense of entitlement. As the statement stands, however, it's more fact than preening. There are times, during those stretches when he's stepped out, that not even Loren and her lodestone can find him. Nothing but magical static on his end of the line. ]
flatterys fine and all but ditch the crystal ball and come say hello
[ And it's those times that irk her. (You don't just run off without leaving a note: Dear Ma and Da, today I've gone to play with the boy down the lane—) Blindspots have never been in her blood and it makes her antsy and cruel, the calm bedrock of being able to see giving way to something harsher underneath. It's a nice thing, though, to visit family when you can. ]
& your lucky numbers are 8 12 16 29 and 82. couple hours out. where do you want to meet
[ A coven takes all types, and just as the world at large has its recluses and its social butterflies, so does Amyranth span the width and breadth of all humanity. The itchy-soled and wanderlusted pass through town from time to time, but Cora — being young and lazy in that specifically teenage sort of way — prefers it better when the world comes to her instead.
On summer afternoons like this one, she can be found on the porch of her parents' place, pushing herself idly back and forth on its swing seat — the old hinges complaining gently with the back and forth, back and forth, most of the real squeak having been worn out of its joints long ago. At her feet sit a cat, a dog and — oddly enough — a tiny baby goat. It bleats anxiously whenever someone approaches, the tiny bell tied round its neck twinkling as it flops its head about in protest. ]
That's a bit harsh. [ Daniel isn't a traveller by nature, though that doesn't mean he's capable of that same kind of stillness something ancient and wise and green is. (He just likes setting down roots, is all. Soil or stone, he isn't really picky about which.) The thickly knitted jumper he's wearing has patches at the elbows and is flecked with soil at the sleeves despite them being bunched up to his elbows; tucked under his arm is a basket of carrots (purple, not orange) and what might be a potato or two.
He sets the wicker basket down and bends at the knees, making motions to pat whichever animal of Cora's mini-menagerie is most willing to humor him. ]
You could ask him politely, you know. Hasn't anyone taught you how to speak goat?
[ The cat is catlike, the dog is doglike and the goat is a fidgety combination of both. A flick of disinterested tail from the feline companion and nothing but eager panting and offered ears from the old hound. And as for the goat it seems undecided whether attention is wanted or not and so it gets to its wobbly little goat feet and begins to trot fretfully up and down the length of the porch. Behind the heart-shaped frames of her sunglasses she rolls her eyes and laughs (even her petulance is appealing, in a summertime sort of way). ]
Now look what you've gone and done. [ She doesn't seem annoyed in the least. ] Aren't you supposed to be delivering zen, not uppity baby farm animals? [ Before Daniel can answer Cora gives demonstrative wiggle of her fingers through the air, fingertips tracing ancient lines that leave a rose-colored haze in their wake. She then blows the vaguely sigil-shaped cloud in the goat's direction and it slows its trot down to a sheepish pace. Instead of complaining, it seems to apologize with its next bleet before finally coming to sit back down at her feet, closer than before. ] And FYI, I do speak goat.
[ He laughs, though it fades quicker than it would when a gossamer-pink something flashes at his peripheral. Daniel is good at hiding it, the kind-of sharp burn that comes with the way Amyranth treats magic, casually but also staggeringly powerful when twisted at the right angles. At the end of the day it's disappointment, not disdain, that makes his smile strange. ]
Who says I can't do both? [ Eventually, Daniel decides to chance it with the dog, giving it a quick rub behind its ears. He's sure that it's the same mangy beast who ruined his tomatoes the year before. To the spirit of new beginnings and all that, then. ]
Do you think you could wrangle my caterpillars into behaving now, while we're playing animal tamers?
[ Amyranth is everywhere. That's the first thing they learn.
It bodes poorly for them, if they ever think of backtracking, of renegging on the oaths they'd sworn (not written in blood nor spoken on a day of solstice but made in the shadow of their parents' names). The Amyranth are scattered to the four winds, they are clustered dense and thick in all the major cities. Even here, at the supposed edge of the world, they exist — a meager caravan of trailers and mobile homes dotting a field at the base of a salt-stained mountain.
In the end, they're given a choice: the cities, the country or here. In the end, Cem chooses here. (She's willful and beautiful and Cal loves her, and so — in the end — he says yes.)
He wakes to find her already out of bed, sitting on the porch of the trailer, respooling a length of thread she's plied with strands of her own hair. The sun is still tucked down below the horizon and so the swan-length of her pale neck is painted shades of blue and lilac, her slender fingers working nimbly. (She's offered to do the mending for the caravan's wife and, with any luck, Cem will sew her way into their home and under their skin, like some sweet-smiling leech.) ]
[ (He says yes because in the beginning they were trapped either way, and Cal — Cal didn't know how to blunt the sharpness of his anger or magic. He knows now, though. Time heals almost everything.)
It's still cold out. Cal sits down wordlessly, fingers rifling through his bowl full of dry cereal. The threadbare shirt he slept in ripples in the wake of a breeze that carries the smallest thimbleful of magic; he can see it, the olive haze that means someone's tried to tie the north wind into a knot to keep. Cal's brows furrow as it passes, the turn of his head following it until it disappears out of sight. Achadh lived by a simple but good creed and everything Amyranth does is a slick-tar perversion; one day it will turn inwards and eat away regardless of rot or hunger. Then, maybe, he'll feel full.
But that comes later. Later, but still inevitable: he's sure of it. Until then— ]
Slept well? [ He asks eventually, cornflakes rattling against the ceramic sides. That spool of thread makes something in Cal's veins itch. He's still not sure what that means. ] Who's our lucky neighbor?
Mm, [ she says with a nod, pausing just long enough to tuck a stray tendril of bright red hair back behind her ear. The end of it carries out on the wind in protest, as if looking to chase that waft of magic out across the dew-wet grass and over the foothills. It's a very Amyranthian thing to, to go running after magic that doesn't belong to her and maybe that, at the end of the day, is what sets Cal's veins to itching. (What would father and mother say if they saw us like this? What would anyone in Achadh say, if they knew how quickly and how insipidly little Cem had had a change of heart? That's Amyranth, through and through. Maybe.
Maybe.)
She doesn't bother to look up from her work though Cem does lean to one side as soon as the step sags slightly beneath her brother's weight. She leans and then leans some more, leans until her shoulder bumps against his, elbow nudging at his side like she's trying to tease out a secret. Cem smells of sap and crushed sage. Magical things, bright and fresh, though underneath it all there's that tannic cloy — musky and bitter, like a terrible aftertaste. (She didn't always used to smell like that.) ]
They'll all be lucky in the end, [ she says, somewhat obviously. (Children can afford to be obvious, but neither of them are children anymore. They haven't been for a long time now.) ] But for now, it's Marie and Charlie. [ Cem smiles to herself. It's still pretty, even if the thought that inspires it isn't. ] They seem nice.
[ It is a difficult process, maintaining a tether for any prolonged amount of time. In truth, the practiced had never been meant to sustain itself but Eamonn is practiced enough in the needed rites to know how to stretch out his dollar's worth (juniper ash rubbed into a freshly cut rune; betel nut chewed and then used to thin the needle's ink). There comes a point, however, of diminishing returns — a moment either quick or slow when the amount of effort given in can no longer justify the magic wrung out. He isn't there with Grace yet, but he worries they'll get there soon enough. No magical exchange is 100% clean; there's always burn off — fog and smoke — that dissipates into nothingness. The cost of selfishness, he supposes, but that's the way all transactions work; magic isn't so special in that regard.
It's been a bad week and it shows in the circles under Grace's eyes, the way she sometimes struggles when he puts her to bed, like she's afraid sleep is some gaping hole she'll fall down and never come back from. He takes her to the beach in the hopes that it'll cheer her up — three weeks in a cottage that overlooks the western sea without barely another soul in sight. (It rains he entire time.)
On the third day there isn't so much a break in the clouds as a let-up in the spattering downpour. Eamonn's loathe to wake Grace as she naps on the couch, but he also knows she wants to see the water and now's as good a time as any.
A soft hand touches her shoulder. (He can be gentle with her when he wants to be.) ] Gracie.
[ The word bubbles up through her own thoughts, almost as if she'd thought it herself. ]
[ Grace is no longer red-lipped nor bright-eyed and she doesn't have to look into the mirror anymore to know that she won't last all that much longer by the rules of typical magic.
It's like falling down a hole. You can stall, but there's no stopping the inevitable. (It's terrifying.)
Sooner or later, wringing magic out of her is going to become more effort than it's worth. Sooner or later, that trade-off will trump whatever love Eamonn has for her (he'll get bored, or any myriad of other possibilities, she knows it's happened before, has seen the evidence on his skin, and this isn't love — is it?) and that'll be the end of the line. Point zero. Ground floor. There's no real fooling herself as to the nature of the sort of magic that binds the two of them together. She's replaceable. A notch on a bedpost, a spare battery, not an end in and of herself. Whatever she'd been when they'd started out (lovely, bright, full of a magic that seemed to buzz at his fingertips) is irrelevant. Her job can just as easily be done by someone else. It doesn't take much: just a rune, and a little ink. Voila. Back in business.
(She hears his voice when things go quiet and sees his face when she sleeps and she knows the same doesn't hold in reverse. He'd have gone crazy a long time ago if it did.)
The cottage is nice, she'll give it that much. It doesn't, however, seem to put her any more at ease. Maybe it's a last goodbye, she thinks. His way of saying it's been fun, thanks for the ride before she goes to sleep never to wake up again. The last time (the second time) she'd tried to run away had been six months ago, long enough that they don’t talk about it anymore but short enough, too, that it remains in the memory. (She'd wept, then, to a degree that she hadn't before. Who could blame her? Family dead, tethered to a shortening rope, no true way of discerning — anymore, at least — which thoughts were hers and which had been planted, unremarkable, undistinguished, kept alive for a single purpose. Wept, and said, just once: you don't love me, as if it were a weight she'd been crumbling under for as long as they'd been traveling together, or a realization she’d been trying to put off, or even a staccato, a part of a longer phrase.
If you loved me you'd just let me die. A drastic measure, maybe, but the only one in her estimation. Running away, after all, was an impossibility. You can't run from something written in your blood.)
It's been a bad week, but she wakes soon enough, looking more exhausted than she had when she'd gone to sleep. Her frame seems to close in on itself for a single instant, knees drawing up to her chest as her eyes open, brow knit against the new light as well as in the shadow of confusion. ]
[ Maybe I t'at's what t'is is, Gracie, he'd said then as he pulled her up onto her feet and dragged her back to the car. Maybe I don't love you 't all. Fingertips had pressed bruises into her skin after, bruises that would last her a better part of a month and that he would be loathe to see again. Eamonn hadn't meant what he'd said of course, not really, not in any sense that he could get is arms around, but it always chafed whenever someone tried to run from him. (—you'd be dead, if it weren't f'r me. The ot'ers'd be suckin' th'marrow from y'r bones—)
And from Grace it outright stung. (T'ere's no way I'm lettin' y'die, girl.)
She hadn't spoken to him for a week after and he, in turn, hadn't spoken to her either. It had been, effectively, their darkest time together and though Eamonn has an appreciation for certain inevitabilities, he has no intention of hurrying them along back to that place any time soon.
When Grace squints against the light, Eamonn lifts his hand instinctively to cast the distorted shadow of his fingers over her eyes. Again, it's a kindness, an inane sort of thoughtfulness — the kind of thing that somehow denies so much of his usual cloy, if only in how understated (and perhaps earnest) it is. The corner of his mouth crooks but he doesn't smile, not quite. His gaze runs a circuit over her features but he doesn't ask if she'd had bad dreams (he knows they're bad because he's seen them, because he's been in them, because they are him). Still, his tone skirts regretful, flirts with it but never actually arrives there. (Regret isn't a sentiment he has much use for. Perhaps it'd mean something to Grace if he gave it to her, but men don't acquire the things they dont' deserve through regret. And Eamonn came to terms with the fact that he doesn't deserve Grace a long time ago.) ]
Stopped rainin'. Sun ain't shinin', but— T'ought you'd want t'know.
[ Daniel comes in from the water, slacks rolled up to his ankles. The bottom of his sweater is damp and cold; it'll start to smell in a beat from all the salt and sea, but well worth it for a few extra clams. (You never know when you'll have visitors.) Sand sticks to the soles of his feet as he walks in to the shore, two plastic buckets (one red, one green) clutched in hand.
He's tidying everything up for the drive back when he sees her there. In his peripheral the line of the ocean blurs and she's a lone figure of cream and teal; he smiles as he approaches, head bowed and hands in his pockets. ]
Without the boyfriend? [ Teasing without the malice and jovial without the jaunt; there's an implication there if anyone looks hard enough. But that's how Amyranth works, isn't it? ] Grace, was it?
[ Magical autonomy is something Grace hasn't had for a long time, and it's always with envy (envy, and something that toes the line between dislike and hate) that she regards the witches of Amyranth. How nice must it be still to be able to cast your own magic?
(She remembers crafting flames with her bare hands, and she remembers shards of ice. It seems like a lifetime ago.)
Daniel, given the nature of his gift, is the exception. It doesn't make them much closer — he isn't being tapped for his magic — but it's something. When he calls, she turns, one hand raised to shield her eyes, a makeshift guard against the whip of her auburn hair. (Where once her beauty had been bright and unfettered, it has faded into something a little harder to catch; apt for the grey that colors the sky and the cold that nips at one's heels with the roll of the tide.) ]
Yeah, Grace. [ Then, almost absently: ] He's busy. [ Both answers seem more like asides than anything else, though the second bears the same sort of odd on-off teasing quality. (Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, either way it bears asking what she's doing alone.) It's a little while before she says anything else. Sorry, she thinks, maybe. It's been a long week. Something like that.
Ah. [ He hums as if her explanation is perfectly satisfactory — a quiet acceptance more than brush-off. Daniel's seen them come and go, Ceangail's girls, though he's only been tangently, distantly aware of it. It's a crude thought, how a dog with a mangled leg is better put to sleep; its bones are broken and it'll never trust again, will it, and it's certainly not happy. (Well— maybe.)
But, he thinks, eyes quiet and easy in the way they take in the planes of Grace's face, the set of her mouth and the darkness under her eyes — that might happen sooner rather than later. ]
And together we're Grace and Daniel. How about that, hm? [ He flashes her a smile, rubbing a hand along the stubble of his jaw as he turns. The sea is starting to wake; he sees waves that are white-capped peaks in the horizon. The tide's coming in.]
You might catch something, waiting out here like that.
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You've looked better.
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David is in his kitchen, going about putting the kettle on for tea, hoping to entertain Charlene's attention for the afternoon. She frowns faintly at the prospect and, as a result, the dream frowns with her. Around them the ambient temperature of the drops suddenly and sharply — so low, in fact, that when Charlene speaks, her words are accompanied by a plume of steamy breath. ] You always say that.
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Because it never seems to change, [ he points out. Daniel sets two mugs; the unchipped one he turns towards Charlene handle-first. Today, it's a mix of white peach tea and jasmine-green — at least, that's what he was thinking about when the thread of her magic trickled into his sleeping. ] I do have eyes.
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If it never seems to change, maybe that means you've never actually seen me better. [ It's a stubborn, adolescent sort of naysaying, one that brings Charlene no sense of satisfaction. ]
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I'm beginning to second guess your definition of better, [ he says, swallowing his tea. His hand reaches to brush away a streak of soil (when did that get there?) off the table, the back of his hand following the grain of the wood.
Satisfied, Daniel fixes her a look and smiles crookedly. ]
I thought gallivanting around with the extended family was supposed to fit the definition of better?
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well that was sloppy of you, wasn't it
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no peeking
curiosity, cats
etc etc
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hoot hoot, ceangail
everyone likes an audience & i like your shirt.
is it new?
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hadnt you heard
[ He's not particularly vain, though his power has certainly given him a sense of entitlement. As the statement stands, however, it's more fact than preening. There are times, during those stretches when he's stepped out, that not even Loren and her lodestone can find him. Nothing but magical static on his end of the line. ]
flatterys fine and all
but ditch the crystal ball
and come say hello
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& your lucky numbers are 8 12 16 29 and 82.
couple hours out. where do you want to meet
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On summer afternoons like this one, she can be found on the porch of her parents' place, pushing herself idly back and forth on its swing seat — the old hinges complaining gently with the back and forth, back and forth, most of the real squeak having been worn out of its joints long ago. At her feet sit a cat, a dog and — oddly enough — a tiny baby goat. It bleats anxiously whenever someone approaches, the tiny bell tied round its neck twinkling as it flops its head about in protest. ]
Oh shush.
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He sets the wicker basket down and bends at the knees, making motions to pat whichever animal of Cora's mini-menagerie is most willing to humor him. ]
You could ask him politely, you know. Hasn't anyone taught you how to speak goat?
[ Ha ha. ]
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Now look what you've gone and done. [ She doesn't seem annoyed in the least. ] Aren't you supposed to be delivering zen, not uppity baby farm animals? [ Before Daniel can answer Cora gives demonstrative wiggle of her fingers through the air, fingertips tracing ancient lines that leave a rose-colored haze in their wake. She then blows the vaguely sigil-shaped cloud in the goat's direction and it slows its trot down to a sheepish pace. Instead of complaining, it seems to apologize with its next bleet before finally coming to sit back down at her feet, closer than before. ] And FYI, I do speak goat.
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Who says I can't do both? [ Eventually, Daniel decides to chance it with the dog, giving it a quick rub behind its ears. He's sure that it's the same mangy beast who ruined his tomatoes the year before. To the spirit of new beginnings and all that, then. ]
Do you think you could wrangle my caterpillars into behaving now, while we're playing animal tamers?
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Home sweet home.
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It bodes poorly for them, if they ever think of backtracking, of renegging on the oaths they'd sworn (not written in blood nor spoken on a day of solstice but made in the shadow of their parents' names). The Amyranth are scattered to the four winds, they are clustered dense and thick in all the major cities. Even here, at the supposed edge of the world, they exist — a meager caravan of trailers and mobile homes dotting a field at the base of a salt-stained mountain.
In the end, they're given a choice: the cities, the country or here. In the end, Cem chooses here. (She's willful and beautiful and Cal loves her, and so — in the end — he says yes.)
He wakes to find her already out of bed, sitting on the porch of the trailer, respooling a length of thread she's plied with strands of her own hair. The sun is still tucked down below the horizon and so the swan-length of her pale neck is painted shades of blue and lilac, her slender fingers working nimbly. (She's offered to do the mending for the caravan's wife and, with any luck, Cem will sew her way into their home and under their skin, like some sweet-smiling leech.) ]
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It's still cold out. Cal sits down wordlessly, fingers rifling through his bowl full of dry cereal. The threadbare shirt he slept in ripples in the wake of a breeze that carries the smallest thimbleful of magic; he can see it, the olive haze that means someone's tried to tie the north wind into a knot to keep. Cal's brows furrow as it passes, the turn of his head following it until it disappears out of sight. Achadh lived by a simple but good creed and everything Amyranth does is a slick-tar perversion; one day it will turn inwards and eat away regardless of rot or hunger. Then, maybe, he'll feel full.
But that comes later. Later, but still inevitable: he's sure of it. Until then— ]
Slept well? [ He asks eventually, cornflakes rattling against the ceramic sides. That spool of thread makes something in Cal's veins itch. He's still not sure what that means. ] Who's our lucky neighbor?
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Maybe.)
She doesn't bother to look up from her work though Cem does lean to one side as soon as the step sags slightly beneath her brother's weight. She leans and then leans some more, leans until her shoulder bumps against his, elbow nudging at his side like she's trying to tease out a secret. Cem smells of sap and crushed sage. Magical things, bright and fresh, though underneath it all there's that tannic cloy — musky and bitter, like a terrible aftertaste. (She didn't always used to smell like that.) ]
They'll all be lucky in the end, [ she says, somewhat obviously. (Children can afford to be obvious, but neither of them are children anymore. They haven't been for a long time now.) ] But for now, it's Marie and Charlie. [ Cem smiles to herself. It's still pretty, even if the thought that inspires it isn't. ] They seem nice.
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It's been a bad week and it shows in the circles under Grace's eyes, the way she sometimes struggles when he puts her to bed, like she's afraid sleep is some gaping hole she'll fall down and never come back from. He takes her to the beach in the hopes that it'll cheer her up — three weeks in a cottage that overlooks the western sea without barely another soul in sight. (It rains he entire time.)
On the third day there isn't so much a break in the clouds as a let-up in the spattering downpour. Eamonn's loathe to wake Grace as she naps on the couch, but he also knows she wants to see the water and now's as good a time as any.
A soft hand touches her shoulder. (He can be gentle with her when he wants to be.) ] Gracie.
[ The word bubbles up through her own thoughts, almost as if she'd thought it herself. ]
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It's like falling down a hole. You can stall, but there's no stopping the inevitable. (It's terrifying.)
Sooner or later, wringing magic out of her is going to become more effort than it's worth. Sooner or later, that trade-off will trump whatever love Eamonn has for her (he'll get bored, or any myriad of other possibilities, she knows it's happened before, has seen the evidence on his skin, and this isn't love — is it?) and that'll be the end of the line. Point zero. Ground floor. There's no real fooling herself as to the nature of the sort of magic that binds the two of them together. She's replaceable. A notch on a bedpost, a spare battery, not an end in and of herself. Whatever she'd been when they'd started out (lovely, bright, full of a magic that seemed to buzz at his fingertips) is irrelevant. Her job can just as easily be done by someone else. It doesn't take much: just a rune, and a little ink. Voila. Back in business.
(She hears his voice when things go quiet and sees his face when she sleeps and she knows the same doesn't hold in reverse. He'd have gone crazy a long time ago if it did.)
The cottage is nice, she'll give it that much. It doesn't, however, seem to put her any more at ease. Maybe it's a last goodbye, she thinks. His way of saying it's been fun, thanks for the ride before she goes to sleep never to wake up again. The last time (the second time) she'd tried to run away had been six months ago, long enough that they don’t talk about it anymore but short enough, too, that it remains in the memory. (She'd wept, then, to a degree that she hadn't before. Who could blame her? Family dead, tethered to a shortening rope, no true way of discerning — anymore, at least — which thoughts were hers and which had been planted, unremarkable, undistinguished, kept alive for a single purpose. Wept, and said, just once: you don't love me, as if it were a weight she'd been crumbling under for as long as they'd been traveling together, or a realization she’d been trying to put off, or even a staccato, a part of a longer phrase.
If you loved me you'd just let me die. A drastic measure, maybe, but the only one in her estimation. Running away, after all, was an impossibility. You can't run from something written in your blood.)
It's been a bad week, but she wakes soon enough, looking more exhausted than she had when she'd gone to sleep. Her frame seems to close in on itself for a single instant, knees drawing up to her chest as her eyes open, brow knit against the new light as well as in the shadow of confusion. ]
I'm— I'm awake.
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And from Grace it outright stung. (T'ere's no way I'm lettin' y'die, girl.)
She hadn't spoken to him for a week after and he, in turn, hadn't spoken to her either. It had been, effectively, their darkest time together and though Eamonn has an appreciation for certain inevitabilities, he has no intention of hurrying them along back to that place any time soon.
When Grace squints against the light, Eamonn lifts his hand instinctively to cast the distorted shadow of his fingers over her eyes. Again, it's a kindness, an inane sort of thoughtfulness — the kind of thing that somehow denies so much of his usual cloy, if only in how understated (and perhaps earnest) it is. The corner of his mouth crooks but he doesn't smile, not quite. His gaze runs a circuit over her features but he doesn't ask if she'd had bad dreams (he knows they're bad because he's seen them, because he's been in them, because they are him). Still, his tone skirts regretful, flirts with it but never actually arrives there. (Regret isn't a sentiment he has much use for. Perhaps it'd mean something to Grace if he gave it to her, but men don't acquire the things they dont' deserve through regret. And Eamonn came to terms with the fact that he doesn't deserve Grace a long time ago.) ]
Stopped rainin'. Sun ain't shinin', but— T'ought you'd want t'know.
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He's tidying everything up for the drive back when he sees her there. In his peripheral the line of the ocean blurs and she's a lone figure of cream and teal; he smiles as he approaches, head bowed and hands in his pockets. ]
Without the boyfriend? [ Teasing without the malice and jovial without the jaunt; there's an implication there if anyone looks hard enough. But that's how Amyranth works, isn't it? ] Grace, was it?
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(She remembers crafting flames with her bare hands, and she remembers shards of ice. It seems like a lifetime ago.)
Daniel, given the nature of his gift, is the exception. It doesn't make them much closer — he isn't being tapped for his magic — but it's something. When he calls, she turns, one hand raised to shield her eyes, a makeshift guard against the whip of her auburn hair. (Where once her beauty had been bright and unfettered, it has faded into something a little harder to catch; apt for the grey that colors the sky and the cold that nips at one's heels with the roll of the tide.) ]
Yeah, Grace. [ Then, almost absently: ] He's busy. [ Both answers seem more like asides than anything else, though the second bears the same sort of odd on-off teasing quality. (Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, either way it bears asking what she's doing alone.) It's a little while before she says anything else. Sorry, she thinks, maybe. It's been a long week. Something like that.
Or maybe not. ]
You're Daniel.
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But, he thinks, eyes quiet and easy in the way they take in the planes of Grace's face, the set of her mouth and the darkness under her eyes — that might happen sooner rather than later. ]
And together we're Grace and Daniel. How about that, hm? [ He flashes her a smile, rubbing a hand along the stubble of his jaw as he turns. The sea is starting to wake; he sees waves that are white-capped peaks in the horizon. The tide's coming in.]
You might catch something, waiting out here like that.
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