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your-enby-antihero · 23 days

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Aelwyn Abernant Might Go Blue Dragon(born) Hunting

———————————————————————— Summary: What if The Rat Grinders got revivified and Oisin had a crush on Adaine. Well more so what if Aelwyn knew all the shit he put Adaine through and she wanted to send a message.

Also available on Ao3

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Aelwyn Abernant, a woman reformed, hadn’t thought of murder in like two weeks. Which honestly was a super big deal for her, had she done a shit ton of extorting and taken like six people’s bones to try and find the one pirate in Leviathan that dies if you pull out their bones, well maybe. But who can blame her? It's how she was raised. But now she was starting to slip back into old habits.

The whole world was saved once again by her beautiful baby sister and the rest of The Bad Kids. Aguefort had come back and fixed all the weird shit that had happened, though the school was closed for the rest of the year so everyone just had to take the Last Stand to try to pass the year. But one of the many unfortunate things that happened, in Aelwyn’s opinion, was that those stupid Rat Grinders were revived. Adaine had said something about second chances and manipulation and corrupt adults and blah blah blah whatever. Something about them failing the year and doing remedial classes monitored by the Bad Kids to make it up or you know. Aelwyn knew all about villain reformation, being a reformed villain herself, but something about the Rat Grinders set her teeth on edge. Especially that waifish nerdy-looking Dragonborn, he was giving Adaine a look that Aelwyn found disturbing. Aelwyn was well aware of Adaine’s fleeting crush on the boy, though, after the whole Porter-Ankarna debacle, she was so very sure that the crush had faded. Even when Aelwyn tried to tease her about it Adaine looked absolutely disgusted.

“Why the fuck would I fancy some old money turncoat? He literally was just using any affection I had for him to end the fucking world. I’d punch that spoiled bitch in the face again just like I did with the dragons he sent to ruin Fabian’s birthday,” she spat.

It started over that summer, Adaine and some of the Bad Kids had taken to “tutoring” the Rat Grinders on how to adventure properly. Adaine had brought Oisin over to the tower in Mordred to discuss some sort of thing to do with Adaine’s mephits, the ‘Dry Guys’ if Aelwyn recalled correctly. Before she had left for work Aelwyn had made sure to bolster the Nemesis ward in Adaine’s room before she left. She would not be having that boy mess with her baby sister, not in a millenia. Aelwyn spent the next hours of her shift at the Compass Points feeling the arcana of the ward for anything amiss. Though she felt nothing that didn’t stop her from texting Zayn to peek in on Adaine and Oisin to see if he was pulling any funny business. She received a photo back from the ghostly fellow of Adaine looking down at a piece of parchment on the floor of their shared room, quill tip set between her teeth in concentration. Next to her was Oisin, who sat cross-legged with his face leaning up against his clawed hand gazing doe-eyed at her sister. God, Aelwyn could see that look that now followed Fabian whenever he talked about Mazey. She looked at the clock and decided that the library would just close early that day because she had a pest to scare.

As she walked through the door back into Mordred she was greeted by Sandra-Lynn and Jawbone before she stormed up to the tower, rocketing past Fig and Kristen who coincidentally were also spying on Adaine. As she walked through the door she did so calmly, years of repressing any feelings other than jealousy and pettiness really did give her a good resting bitch face.

“Adaine, I see you have a guest over,” she smiled, though the glare she was giving Oisin was anything but subtle.

Adaine of course shot her a dirty look as Oisin’s scaled face blushed purple, “Aelwyn I thought you were working late tonight. I didn’t expect you to be back so early with Ayda not being there to run it today?”

“Adaine you’re so funny, dear sister. Now let me have a look at this spellcraft, you know I’ve always been so good with these things.”

Aelwyn sat down with the two, purposely placing herself in between the teens. Adaine had taken it in stride, literally nothing about the interaction changed for her. Aelwyn truly just joined in on their spell crafting, she could tell Adaine was grateful for the extra set of eyes. However, Oisin was notably more shut off. He really kind of just ignored Aelwyn, trying to lean in toward Adaine when he was asking questions about Adaine’s rune work. The night went well otherwise, she had successfully defended her sister from the boy clearly all moony eyed over her.

As Adaine sees Oisin out the door Fig and Kristen both leap at Aelwyn in the halls.

“So what happened in there Aelwyn, why did you come home early? What. Did. He. Do.”

She is bombarded with all the possible questions and observations that Fig and Kristen had made and in return dishes out all that she noticed back. She hadn’t remembered the last time someone had fancied Adaine but Kristen and Fig did. Apparently, the last person was that freak Biz Gilitterdew. Aelwyn shuttered in disgust and mentally noted to take a trip down to Hell to kill the tiny little pipsqueak basement scum for trying to put the moves in her sister even when they hated each other and she was evil at the time. She also got the download about all the history with Oisin that Adaine had conveniently left out when Aelwyn had pressed to know about the boy her sister fancied. So to say that Aelwyn was contemplating hunting Dragonborn for fun wasn’t a lie. From what she got from Fig and Kristen was that Oisin had used the cover of being a love-struck idiot (or maybe he was a love-struck idiot) to lead Adaine on so that he could plan a bunch of arcane whatever to make Seacaster Manor go airborne. Then after he had supposedly tried to cover for his friend for being assholes and then killed one of his party members he had said that she ‘must not be a very good oracle’ because she didn’t forecast that there was going to be a storm at Fabian’s birthday. Now that was something that Aelwyn could not forgive, not only was she the only one who was allowed to tease her sister about oracle things but he wasn’t allowed to say those exact words to Adaine, especially about storms and oceans. Aelwyn knew what Adaine saw in the Nightmare King’s forest and she knew that anything about the previous oracle and storms haunted her sister.

Adaine soon made her way back up to where the little cabal of the girls of Mordred Manor had been gossiping. She yelled indignantly and threw a book at Fig when she started teasing. Aelwyn could tell from the look on her sister’s face and her voice, no hot flush or any enamoured quiver in her voice, that she really had gotten over Oisin completely and that this was all just in the name of sister bonding.

“Kristen was the one who said we should try to fix the Rat Grinders, I’m just doing this so that they won’t join another teacher’s weird cult,” Adaine shouted indignantly.

â€” â€” â€” â€” â€” â€” â€” â€” â€” â€” â€” â€”

It had been many weeks since Oisin had started to come over for tutoring, of course, the ever patient Adaine Abernant was gracious to the fool even while he was literally (to Aelwyn) staring at her like a lost puppy. Aelwyn made a habit of always crashing their little study sessions. Sometimes it was a text to Adaine telling her to get away so that she could gossip and other times it was Aelwyn straight up just coming home early.

Every time Oisin gave her a smile that she could tell was laced with the ‘you ruined my life’ vibes, not that he’ll ever be able to pull off that smile like Penelope Everpetal. He was always polite but always insisted that he and Adaine were fine on their own.

“I’m sure you have so much stuff to do, me and Adaine have got this one.”

“Oh I’m sure my sister has everything under control but you seem to be lacking- I mean look at your rune for conjure elementals. This linework- here let me.”

Most of their interactions were passive-aggressive at best and outright venomous at best, Aelwyn had offered to see Oisin out one night, and Adaine had to take care of business relating to Gilear and some cursed object he had found at a yard sale.

“Sorry Oisin, good work today! By next time I’m sure your party is going to be fine during the Last Stand,” Adaine shouted as Fig was literally pulling her out the door.

The room was silent, just Aelwyn perched on her bottom bunk holding Boggy in her hands. Oisin got up and started to pack his things, heading for the door. As he did, clawed hand on the doorknob to leave. With a click, Aelywn pushed the door closed with a mage hand.

“Hakinvar, you and I have something to discuss.”

Aelwyn didn’t look up, her eyes glowed as did the runes she had lovingly, carefully painted onto the floor. Oisin didn’t move, frozen in fear as he let out slow fearful breaths.

Aelwyn set Boggy down, scritching under what she assumed was the frog orb’s chin, and motioned for Oisin to move away from the door. He did. Stiff as only a body once caught by rigour mortis could. He faced Aelwyn, just slightly taller than her due to his ancestry.

“I can see you getting all ensorcelled by our dear oracle but as her older evil sister, I will have to intervene. You know the last guy who messed with her had his fingers shot off by her little rouge friend. I heard that Gorgug cleaved your ass into two. They brought you back because they are good moral people. Had it been up to me, well I’m sure you know I worked with Kalvaxus and The Nightmare King so I’m sure such a capable wizard like you could figure it out. I know what you’ve said to her, what you’ve done to her, and I’ll have you know that I can be very tricky if you cross me.”

She draws her fingers along the ground tracing the nemesis ward with a manicured hand.

“You are aware of what this ward means, yes?”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” Oisin finally replied.

Aelwyn smiled, “Good then I’m sure you’ll be far more careful in future when it comes to that blabbering mouth,” she allowed the glow to cease, picking up Boggy as she rose.

Oisin practically bolted out of the room, nodding as he collected his gear. Aelwyn nuzzled the perfect familiar as she followed. Good, always good for people to know their place.

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #fantasy high junior year #written before e20 #adaine abernant #oisin hakinvar #aelwyn abernant

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jq37 · 4 months

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Oisin is the scariest rat grinder simply because Brennan is using his own voice for him I trust kippermilly cuttermetal more than him

Listen

LISTEN

I KNOW that it's that it's an adage on here that Brennan uses his own voice when he's going for a beloved traitor character (see [redacted] from [you know what season]) and I GET that the Bad Kids have a history with dragons and I CLOCKED that KVX turned their logo blue but counterpoint: Adaine deserves a cute nerd boyfriend if she wants one and we deserve to watch Fig and Co tease her as bad as she did when Fig was crushing on Ayda (not to mention whatever batshit insane sisterly advice she'd probably get from Aelwyn).

Anyway, narratively, it would be kinda unbalanced to have Adaine's first viable love interest be straight up evil when everyone else who's wanted one (shoutout to Riz "Why Are All of You Maniacs So Horny" Gukgak) has gotten a properly viable love interest (Tracker, Zelda, Ayda, and Mazey--though Fabian seems more into Ivy who I trust less lol). Not that things are fair IRL (or even in the game) but given Brennan's "I'm here to tell a satisfying story and have fun with my friends" approach to DM-ing, I would be a bit surprised if he was a total lost cause. Even if he is heavily in the mix of whatever shady stuff the Rat Grinders are probably doing I can see him defecting.

But of course I'm biased because I want this for Adaine, haha. We'll see what happens!

#asks #anon #fantasy high #dimension 20 #as I said in my recap my favorite npc is aelwyn #and she murdered a ship full of ppl #so like I can forgive the crime of being a ratgrinder lol #and he TACTFULLY offered her diamonds #he wasn't even a spoiled rich boy about it #oisin please be goodhearted I want to keep liking you #and if you betray adaine I have to put you at the top of my shitlist

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adaineabernantsfrog · 2 years

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Thinking about post-forest Aelwyn.

Aelwyn doing her best to make up for all the years she has missed being Adaine's big sister, taking her shopping and searching up what big sisters are supposed to do because Adaine was her little sister and she shouldn't have had to save her and it was meant to be the other way around. She takes care of her little sister tenfold, because she missed out on sixteen years of it and she wouldn't again.

But at the same time, the torture broke her beyond repair. She cannot walk for a while without a cane, and if they're going out for the day she has to have a wheelchair. There are days when she can't get out of bed, so she has to have the bottom one and she hates those days, but Adaine and Fig and Kristen and Ayda take her in and brush her hair when she can't. They take care of each other.

Aelwyn gets a job, just a small one she can do from her room if she can't move, modelling and being a brand endorser. She has her own channel where she speaks about Parental Favouritism and the Neglect it brings, and physical and mental health. She's an advocate, and an activist, and she's on talk shows. She apologises to the Maiden's with Jawbone's help and is in therapy. She is besties with Ragh and Zayne and she is living her best life. She loves her new family and they love her. Jawbone formally adopts her at the end of the year, and she also attends a part-time uni course in business and marketing. She is good.

They are good.

#aelwyn abernant #the Abernant sisters #fantasy high sophomore year #dimension 20 #fantasy high #adaine abernant #jawbone o'shaughnessey #fig feath #tracker o'shaughnessey #kristen applebees

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everywishway · 6 months

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Headcanons for Junior Year

Cassandra still has Kalina as a familiar. I have two ideas for this

Number one is Kalina was hurting the whole time due to being a literal plague and she was also under the influence of the Nightmare King's power so she's better now. Still standoffish and a trickster but in more of a "tired, goth older sister" way

Number two is that she's a grouchy house cat and is stuck in this tiny body that has a love/hate relationship with the Bad Kids (especially Riz). Like one day she's wrapped around his neck till she claws his nose and runs off. She can't talk either so all that pent-up anger is in a tiny body

I just want more Riz and Kalina pls! They were so good together SY

Garthy Obrien and Aguefort have a nice, long "chat" behind closed doors… It ends up with the both of them deciding how they are going to Co-parent Ayda but Aguefort does end up with a scar in his abdomen.

Ayda substitute teaches a Magical Theory class Adaine and Fig have to take when the teacher leaves for maternity. Hijinx ensue.

Fabian and Aelwyn break up or have already broken up by the time JY starts (i love how most of the fandom doesn't like these two together, lol)

Kristen and Tracker go on break while Tracker is away and Kristen is suffering in silence while Tracker is partying and having a lot of fun (same vibes as Priya and Pete)

All of Fig's Dads (Jawbone, Gilear, and Gorthalax) go get drinks every other month, one-month Sandra-Lynn and Garthy come and drink them all under the table (Sandra-Lynn was banned after that. Garthy still occasionally comes around)

When those nights happen all of the Bad Kids have a giant sleepover and completely take over the first floor of Mordred Manor (Jawbone proceeding to play hopscotch around them to not wake up his spare children)

Nobody actually addresses the Night Yorb during Junior Year and if somebody does Brennan goes in his true New York accent "what Night Yorb?????"

Fabian and Zelda go to both dance classes and kickboxing together, becoming friends around the winter of Sophmore Year

Fabian and Sam do not get along well. Mostly due to the fact, they are both dramatic rich bitches who are fighting over Zelda but also over the fact Sam is mean to Gorgug and Fabian goes "only I am allowed to be a bitch with my friends? Fuck off, Nightingale."

Antiope and Riz shared some sort of stealth elective class and accidentally became good friends? Like, they both watch their gangs of idiots tiredly and corral them up and take them to get ice cream.

On the other hand, Kristen kinda dreads her religious studies course due to Ostentasia being loud and snarky but also kinda appreciates it? Like, you know those class clowns that get on your nerves but they state the obvious when everyone is done with the teacher's shit? Yeah, that's their relationship

She does chill with Yelle tho, like they both smoke weed then go to pet stores and animal shelters and play with animals until they pass out on the floor.

Penny and Adaine are both nerds and Penny is Adaine's tutor when it comes to the history of spells, who made them and why (because Adaine is a practical caster <3)

I have way too many ideas, some of them are on the bingo board :)

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deconstructthesoup · 10 days

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First thoughts on a Fantasy High Dead Boy Detectives AU:

Ayda is in Edwin's role as the brains of the agency and the ghost from 1916 who escaped Hell. Her father was wealthy enough that she was able to go to a private all-girl's boarding school, but as the only Black girl at the school---who was also visibly queer and neurodivergent to boot---she was treated as an outcast, right up until she got sacrificed in a prank gone wrong. Now that she's escaped, Ayda uses the skills she's picked up and her love of mysteries to help out her fellow ghosts, though she's... not exactly the best at processing her feelings. Especially when those feelings involve her partner in solving crime.

Fig is in Charles's role, because there's no better fit for our lovely, heart-on-her-sleeve punk than the lovely, heart-on-his-sleeve punk---and let's be real, Fig is the most 80's Bad Kid. She attended the same boarding school as Ayda (just, y'know, seventy decades in the future), and while she fell in with the popular girls easily, it didn't take long for them to turn on her once she stood up for someone they were bullying... and, well, that led to her death. While Fig acts carefree and wisecracking, she carries a lot of guilt with her over the fact that she'd written off her family once she found out that Gilear wasn't her real dad, and not only did she never get to reconnect with them, but the experience was jarring enough that she made a lot of bad decisions, which led to equally bad relationships.

Adaine is in Crystal's role as our favorite psychic that is full of rage and anxiety. Her "David" is Penelope, who posed as a cool, older girl who gave Adaine the attention that she was lacking at home---and eventually became her first girlfriend, though that relationship was... not great. Now without a lot of her memories, Adaine's stuck with the Dead Girl Detectives, much to Fig's delight---and Ayda's, eventually. She gets over her jealousy way quicker than Edwin did. While Adaine wasn't a "make someone walk into traffic" kind of person pre-amnesia, she did carry over a lot of bitterness that curdled into something worse when she got swept up into the popular crowd, so... yeah, Fig and Ayda are kind of a blessing for her.

Figuring out the Niko equivalent was a bit harder, but I eventually settled on making her Lucy. She kind of fits the bill of someone who has a lot of sadness but is still unflinchingly kind, and between the pale hair and being dead-but-not-really-dead... yeah, Lucy's wonderful, and it means if I ever write this, I get to figure out who she is as I write her. Also, her dandelion sprites are Kipperlilly and Ruben, because I thought that'd be hilarious.

Thinking more into that, I decided that Sam would be a pretty good Jenny, seeing as she's got the bitchy-yet-loving energy that we all need. She's tired yet protective, closed off yet oddly kind... it works. Even though her style's more of a, uh "mermaid academia" type than goth, I think she'd make a really good Jenny.

And here's where you're gonna have to hear me out... Kristen is the Cat King, or rather, the Cat Queen. As tempting as it is to make her the church girl lesbian who's just come out and is struggling in a small town, I really wanted to hone in on her energy in Junior Year---a confident, easygoing, and hella flirtatious butch who's still a total mess underneath her swagger. I like to think that she was a human girl living in a religious family once (say, when settlers first arrived in Port Townsend), but she got really into witchcraft and wound up devoting herself to the cats, becoming an otherworldly being with nine lives as a result. As it stands, Kristen is hella fun, even if most of what she does is cause trouble.

With that in mind, Kalina was really the only character who I felt matched up with Ester's energy---except for Aelwyn, of course, but seeing as she's Adaine's sister and all, it didn't feel quite right. It could also tie in with Kristen's backstory---say, maybe Kalina was the person who taught Kristen about witchcraft, Kristen wound up getting the better end of the deal, and Kalina's still burnt out about two hundred years later. And in an irony of ironies, that resentment led Kalina to have a wolf familiar instead of a cat... who is, of course, our lovely girl Tracker. (Yes, Tracker has been turned into a girl before, and yes, she and Kristen are exes.)

I'm not quite sure who I want the Night Nurse to be, and you can tell that I'm saving roles for Gorgug, Fabian, Riz, and Ragh in case we meet characters like them in season 2---though, I have been fiddling around with the idea of Riz being an angel and a former agent of Heaven who Ayda and Fig have basically adopted into the agency. This is a first draft, so... yep!

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #dead boy detectives #ayda aguefort #fig faeth #adaine abernant #lucy frostblade #sam nightingale #kristen applebees #kalina #tracker o'shaughnessey

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midnightfox450 · 6 months

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Fantasy High Junior Year Pre-Trailer Predictions for archival purposes

(In order of most likely to least likely)

They retcon Fabian and Aelwyn's whole thing. I love Fabian and think he is at his best when his development is focused on other things.

Official in-universe confirmation of Riz being ace &/or aro.

A nice, happy, normal prom scene in the epilogue.

Trackerbees breakup. It's definitely likely that they're going to have a falling out given the hints we got in Boys Night but I'm rooting for a full breakup. They don't get back together again. Don't get me wrong I love lesbians (I am lesbian!!!) but we all know this is the best course of action.

More Aelwyn please!! Aelwyn hireling maybe (if that's even a thing we're doing this season)? She's pretty powerful and her and Adaine have made up so it'd be nice to see her use her powers for good.

The old librarian at Aguefort dies and Ayda starts working at the school library in her place. I am pretty anti-Ayda-reconciling-with-her-dad-&-associating-with-his-school, so I wouldn't love this turn of events. But I have to admit it'd be a very plausible way of keeping her in Elmville and I'll take any excuse for her to show up more. Also I think she should have a crystal. She would have loved the internet.

Fig, newly an archdevil, becomes a warlock patron with her fans as her followers. Has to grapple with the consequences of fame and idolization. Maybe even Gilear takes her up as a patron and gets one level of warlock so he isn't completely useless. + second puberty allegory where Fig starts developing more archdevilish features like longer horns and a tail.

More information about Ayda's previous lives, as Brennan seems to at least have a vague notion of what they were like. Maybe a flashback scene with the previous Ayda and kid Garthy. Also i wanna know what was up with the relationship with Garthy and Jawbone. Maybe when Jawbone hooked up with Garthy he had met Ayda as a baby or even the previous Ayda? I think that'd be cool.

An "And Now For Something Completely Different"-type segment where the Bad Kids need The Seven Maidens' help for whatever reason so the cast switches to T7 for an episode. I want to see the girls again and I want to see their new personalities/developments reflected in the main canon. But it'd be kind of weird for them to go back to being npcs.

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #d20 #fhjy #fantasy high junior year #the bad kids #ayda aguefort #figueroth faeth #fig faeth #really only gonna tag those two because this post is the most focused on them

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unsleepingtales · 3 months

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Cursed out! What an ep!

Thinking about the Lucy/Gorgug parallels post and rotating them. In my head

Bakur art????

Aelwynnnnn

Ah they have leveled up!

Cottoncandy bitchfuck <3

Kipperlilly is independently wealthy ok

If Adaine could charge for her oracle duties that would be great

Adaine hates her SO much

I love the close up shot of Siobhan’s hand

I love Brennan glancing over at Ally to let them know that they need to pay attention to this next part before mentioning the divine stuff

The Abernant Sisters are everything to me <3

Even when you were being evil you were at least interesting and cool!

Aelwyn you gotta take care of yourself pls

HECTOR

And people are dying or something?

Loam Farm. Ok so the issue wasn’t with the faire, it was with the former venue?

Were they framed to get the faire to change venues?

Summoning a demon. Just another thing.

Riz is SO done

“You’re getting a+s and you’re killing all your extracurriculars so where is the stress coming from”???? Sklonda. Sklonda! Cmon. You had to have heard yourself say that.

Keep my name out of your mouth 💀💀💀 they are MARRIED

Sorry what

It’s called the moonar yulenear? That’s what the midwinter holiday in solace is called?

Ally ASCENDING

November (if that’s what month it is)

Brennan SO meant for Riz to be running

Lolaaaaa

Of course Riz is going to Loam Farm.

Maximum legend!

Ratgrinders group art!!

FIG HAS OFFICIALLY TAKEN TWO LEVELS OF PALADIN

Hallariel!!

Ally continues to be great at blending rp and mechanics

Hmmmm Kristen going to fallinel. Thoughts.

That’s so sad actually

Zac is SO smart

Your drama’s beautiful and I think it’s really gorgeous but I do think that Fig is fully cursed

God they’re insane I love them so much

Mazey!!

It’s just an orifice

I love that little hands moment with the friends <3 I could pick your hands out of a lineup they are calloused and freckled and I love you

I’m wearing a sports bra and a g string and I want to be closer to all of you!!

He really tried to figure out a way to politely decline a bardic and he couldn’t

Mazey are you okay??

Oh god

The vice principal can’t leave a certain distance from the school??

There’s gotta be a way to get Ayda in on this

Awwwww

Wild that student government only has one elected position?? How are all the other positions chosen??? I was on student gov for six years and I had to run every time?

Brennan is thrilled with them

Shoutout to Zac for using proper over-under cable coiling technique while miming

Tragic this is devastating

She doesn’t need to die she’s gonna pass on the position at the end of the year??

Jealousy surrounds me. (The most serious she’s been all day)

FABIANNNNN

Stop bringing him UP

“When you think about me why do you always bring up the ball?” Onesided fabriz truthers are having a field day rn

Mazeyyyyyy you care so so much

He wanted to live with his family I’m gonna cry

Hmm. Convincing.

From the man who dabbed at a school assembly we now bring you the revival of pwned

Bro she likes you

Paperweight boggy!

It’s a whole thing

Oh god

Summer god domain changed to more fire stuff regarding rage?

Not my circus not my monkeys 😭😭

Five from 2d10 😭

Whyyyyyy are you giving a speech to the middle schoolers. WHY

Sandra Lynn and Jawbone’s art makes me so happy

This little bitch ass cat >:(

Lydia Barkrock I love you forever and ever

D&D is so cool D&D IS SO COOL

Also science :)

Paladin Fig!

No that’s the curse babes

Yeah

Fig is super fucking cursed

They literally tagged their notebooks with the ratgrinder sticker !

It’s not his place to feel wrathful. Oh my god he’s. Something.

Oh GOD

Yolanda WAS neutral though that was the whole POINT she gave up any relationship to a deity in order to better teach clerics!! The token she gave Kristen was all about divine power and relationships despite lack of a god!!

Stay the fuck away from her brother

(Ally mumbling threateningly)

Step off buddy. Step Away.

Oooh why is that dc that way

Oh yeah but that has nothing to do with Fig

FUCK YEAH OATH OF ANCESTORS I love paladin mechanics so fucking much guys

Ey?? Zara and Porter?

Fig how many fucking parents are you gonna get

THANK YOUUUUUUU I love paladin mechanics I love devotion to a friend I love getting literal magic from love and devotion and a promise

This is sooooo leading towards Fig becoming a paladin of Bakur’s deity.

Ally and Lou’s reactions 😭

GIRLYPOP WHATTTT

Murph face

Ruben seems genuinely upset about Lucy

Why is that your email address

Do you want me to get you a phone????????

A card that says thinking of you but fig signs it from gorgug 😭 I’m gonna cry

ITS SHAPED LIKE A LITTLE METAL BRIEFCASE 😭😭😭

You absolute sweetie 🥰

What a choice!

Ohhh Fabian. Fabian misses his dad. Ouch.

Wild art imitating life moment bc we were just talking about getting hit in the tattoo

Oh goddddddd rage tokens

They would do anything for each other

The gleam in Brennan’s eye……..

Oh nooooo

(Emily laughing sadistically)

You made that so terrible for yourself and you did not have to.

Oh my GOD

Ok chill out man

Ok next week looks fun. The return of Baron. That’s chill.

#fantasy high junior year #reactions #verbal component

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remidyal · 8 months

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Remi's D20 Fic Masterpost (October 2023 version) and also a link to the D20 fanfic discord

The D20 fanfic discord server invite is available here

So I didn't update this for like ten months and it fell something like forty fics behind. Let's ignore that and redo it, huh? I'm going to try to limit how much I say about these (other than the long works) because there's a ton of them, and I'm grouping them roughly into categories.

Also, I'm putting it behind a read more because it's a long list.

Long Works:

These are multi-chapter stories, aiming for a longer narrative that is not necessarily fully satisfying on a chapter to chapter read.

Lunacy is probably the work most people know me for; this is a novel-length AU working off of Adaine failing her con save at the Black Pit and becoming a werewolf. It hews a lot closer to canon than most anything else here, with the divergences by and large being as logical as I can manage them. This one's going to be fully complete Before Junior Year, because otherwise half the assumptions I made (particularly about character ages, which get whiplashed wildly around from season to season anyway) will get blown up. It's basically as long as everything else on this list combined. Adaine centric, though Aelwyn is most definitely the second most important character and takes over protagonist duties at points where Adaine is indisposed.

Missing is a much more off the cuff piece, starting a little over two years pre-canon with Aelwyn, being a little braver, deciding to run away from her shitty parents and taking Adaine with her. She still has lousy judgement, so they get into a whole bunch of adventures and both of them end up in interesting multi-classes. Aelwyn's the main character in this one, with about one in four chapters being from Adaine's PoV instead and then some chapters being one-off interludes from others' PoVs.

Reversal of Fortune is a role swap AU, where Penny Luckstone is investigating the disappearance of her friend and babysit-ee Riz Gukgak and a series of other freshmen-to-be at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy. Most chapters are Penny's PoV; the interludes feature other characters, generally characters about to have a really bad day.

Short Fic Series

These are series of related oneshots, often a sequence of stories set within the same canon-divergent AU. Links are to the first story in each series.

Poison follows a sequence of events from Penelope Everpetal's PoV at first and then Aelwyn's in which Penelope blackmails Aelwyn into a relationship and also kidnaps Adaine. Malignancy, the last of my stories in this AU, features a choice between two endings; stories in the less bad version of that ending have been written by Tangerine Blast and are incredible in their own right.

Pact follows an AU in which Fig is raised in hell by Gorthalax the Insatiable, and one Adaine Abernant accidentally summons her and sells her her soul at the age of eight. The series as a whole runs over the course of decades, with the characters being eight at the start and the last work in it set after Fig and Ayda are married. This one's largely comedic except for a lot of Aelwyn's bits which are quite sincere, and if you've read something of mine other than Lunacy already there's a really good chance it's this.

Care is the first of MY works in an AU of Tangerine's, following a Rogue Adaine. Tangerine wrote the AU originally off a prompt I gave of Riz going along with Biz's request to kidnap Adaine for some reason; in this case, the reason was to trick Biz into revealing enough to find everyone else. I have three pieces in this one, and Tangerine has another four; full links and suggested reading order are in the fic. (I am particularly fond of Camp, the Calethriel Tower fic in this AU, which I poured a lot of my soul into.)

Dominate is almost certainly my angstiest AU, in which Fabian gets mind controlled by Aelwyn who gives an order that he interprets in a way she wouldn't have entirely anticipated. Major temporary character death warning, here.

Foster is a two-shot of an AU in which Adaine and Aelwyn grew up in a series of foster homes after their parents got pursued for fiscal crimes and Solace wasn't quite willing to send children there to be punished for their parents' crimes. It's based on the premise that Aelwyn would be a very protective sister in most circumstances, even bad ones, so long as she wasn't being specifically turned against that.

What's In a Name? is a series of three fics focused on the premise that after Sophomore Year, Arianwen worked a bit of elven magic that wiped out her wayward children's names and much of their identities. Tangerine did a version of this based on a horror prompt I wrote of the idea that become Only Oracle; this version is much more fluffy.

Chill is an AU in which Angwyn is not biologically either Adaine or Aelwyn's father, which he knew and did not mind but which becomes too obvious for him to allow when it turns out that Aelwyn's father was a silver dragon in disguise and she starts showing draconic traits. He passes her off to a local family in a 'culteral exchange' and thus Aelwyn is adopted by Gilear.

As a fun treat, Adaine's father in this is Telemaine, making her Fabian's aunt.

Fantasy High Canon Compatible-ish One-shots

These are all either post-Sophomore year or are 'missing scenes' from within or pre-canon. Many of these are strictly comedic.

Waiting features the Bad Kids, plus Ayda and Aelwyn, getting a summer job at a waffle house equivalent the summer after FHSY. Combat skills ARE required.

Minutes from the July Mordred Manor Wizards' Council Meeting is a one-shot presented as minutes from a meeting of that esteemed council of wizards in Mordred Manor the summer after FHSY.

Childhood's End is a somewhat more serious piece, a missing scene of sorts of the first time Aelwyn snuck out of home and disobeyed her parents.

Cuddles is a post-FHSY piece focused on Ragh supporting Aelwyn after she and Fabian break up.

Bunk is technically a missing scene from the finale of Jawbone talking to this new elf wizard in his house who he watched on livestream watch her sister die.

Five Times Assassination Attempts were made on the Traitor Elven Oracle without a Death, and One Time With. is exactly what its title suggests, taking place during a Junior Year to come.

Locate Creatures is a cute little Riz-And-Penny summer investigation fic, featuring them looking for lost pets.

Past Performance does not Guarantee Future Results is an Arianwen-PoV fic from when she was pregnant with Adaine. She's a great person in it, really.

Coup takes place after Ayda sees Fig's grades for the year and decides it is a clear sign that her father is too senile to be in charge of her paramour's education.

Fantasy High AU Oneshots

Dreams is set in a world where Kalina and her master are much more morally grey, and follows a Riz being taught to be a cleric of the "Sleeping God".

Twelve Hours takes place during the Sisterly Showdown, except Adaine makes the choice to attack Aguefort's pocketwatch, trapping the Bad Kids + Aelwyn in a pocket of frozen time...

The Princess in a Tower is a class swap AU in which Adaine is a bard; she is captured and brought to Calethriel Tower not because she's the Oracle but rather because she's persuasively been telling the world how much her parents and Fallinel suck. Somewhat fairy tale inspired, the meat of this story is Adaine trying to bring her sister to some sort of sense which she waits to either lose her own mind or be rescued.

The Ghost of Me features a Fallinel that's a lot quicker to put Adaine on trial and have her executed, and the Bad Kids being just a bit slower to get to her... But she keeps her promises. Probably my own favorite one-shot of mine.

Dig Out takes place about a year after a tragic death among the bad kids, and features an accidental undead...

Flames of Passion is my infamous Gilear/Kalvaxus fic. I'm sure they're very happy together.

Thorns is a Never After fusion, featuring Adaine waking up the first day of High School with thorns and brambles growing under her skin...

Watcher features an Adaine who was lost in the Ethereal Plane as a child, and has grown up as a Paladin of the Oath of Watchers. I'll be following this one up sometime but it weirdly isn't very well liked from what I can tell.

Blueberry Pie is an Aelwyn PoV inspired by a tumblr prompt about an older sibling not particularly liking their younger sibling but going through hell to protect them anyway. It features both of them venturing forth unto the Faewild...

Blood is my infamous "accidental parody of a sold to one direction" fic, in which Adaine ends up a vampire.

Grape Escape is technically a two chapter fic but I'm counting it as a oneshot, in which Aelwyn got CAUGHT sneaking out and sent to Kei Lumenara, and then most of a year later when Adaine flunks the entrance exam she is sent to follow only to find that her sister has lost her mind in this place.

The Phoenix or the Egg features Ayda accidentally travelling back through time, and meeting a very interesting young wizard who could use some guidance...

Non-Fantasy High Dimension 20 Works

For now, all of these are oneshots.

Unending Summer features Iga's kids a few years after TUC2, with Nick about to start college soon.

Gallivant's End is a post-canon fic focused on Riva's choice in the finale and just what it is that they might be thinking about.

Sisters is similarly a post-canon fic, focused on Ruby handling certain intelligence work on behalf of her half sister, whether her half sister knows it or not.

Duty is a RueHob as a tragedy piece, set thirty years after the Bloom. Andhera, BINX, and Chirp all make important appearances, and are all rather happier than our PoV Hob...

Futures is a pre-canon Ruby and Jet piece I did for @wrenrix that definitely isn't at all a tragedy in disguise.

True Love is my post-canon aro Rosamund manifesto, done as a one-hour writing challenge.

Last, but certainly not least, Salsa Sacerdote was my piece for A Catalogue of Candy zine focused on a priest of the Bulb in a remote border village, with definite Wicker Man vibes.

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #fanfic

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creacherkeeper · 3 years

Note

i just thought about adaine&aelwyn pacific rim au so take that as well (if not those two, i'll take any of the others fh babes for pacific rim too :D)

the thing is, they don't get along

they've never gotten along

and why would they? their parents pitted them against each other since childhood. it made aelwyn study harder, strive more, accomplish, overcome, win, and all it ever did for adaine was make her rebel. while aelwyn was getting her phd in engineering and applied sciences, adaine was training. sometimes she felt like she'd been born for war. as a small child, she couldn't have guessed what it would be war with. but she knew who she was. she knew why her parents hated her. why they always favored the science-minded and, in their eyes, delicate aelwyn. she wasn't the one staging battles with her stuffed animals

adaine was the youngest to ever be accepted as a pilot. she was sure her parents saw it on the news, but they didn't bother congratulating her. she hadn't heard from her family since emancipating herself at 16, and that was fine. she had a new family now. and she had a jaeger

she gets sent to hong kong, because they all get sent to hong kong. everyone who's left. adaine wonders if she found her place right as the floor started collapsing beneath her. but it's fine. she'll fight until she's the last one standing

well, that is, if she can find a co-pilot

she's not as strong as a lot of the others. but they aren't as smart as her. they don't have her eye for strategy, for tactics, for precise strikes executed to perfection. they assign her the most light and nimble jaeger they have. and she waits. and she tests. and she spars.

no one seems to be a match

she has a good night of getting wasted with her friends, and then a good night of crying in her bunk, because she knows she's done. the whole program is falling apart anyway. it's not like they'll find anyone in time for her to ever see the inside of the machine

the next morning, hungover to hell and back, eyes puffy and exhausted, she makes eye contact with her sister over a tray of dry cereal and toast

it's awkward. it's not like they talked about being stationed together. adaine hadn't even heard from her sister in years. she wonders if this is aguefort's doing, bringing them both to base like this. she wouldn't put it past him. on the other hand, they needed new jaegers. and aelwyn knew how to build them

they avoid each other, at first. what else are they supposed to do? they did nothing but torment each other as children, and now here they are. all grown up. mostly. as much as they maybe ever will be, if the world is coming to an end

it lasts for a few weeks. things are tense. then aelwyn is assigned to make upgrades to adaine's jaeger, since, you know, she's being pulled from the project to be replaced with someone who's actually drift compatible. adaine won't leave the cockpit. they scream, a little. or a lot, to anyone else you asked. but it feels like it needed to happen. they've barely done more than nod in the hallways. it's a release of tension. they can be in the same room now, at least

adaine has one last chance to say goodbye to the machine she never got to pilot. aelwyn comes to offer some consolation, though it's with the utmost hesitation, something adaine doesn't remember her ever showing before. she snagged the last dessert from the cafeteria. they split it on the cockpit floor

"i spend all my time designing these machines. but i don't even know what they feel like"

"can i show you?"

so, adaine might be drift compatible, it turns out. with one person in particular. it's incredibly unfortunate that it's with a scientist, not a pilot. it's even more unfortunate that it's her sister

they fight about that, too, after they come out of the drift, while their minds are no longer melded and everything doesn't feel quite so achingly close. aelwyn was pulling away from her the second they linked. hiding something. adaine wanted to know what. so, they fight. they yell. they storm away

aguefort calls them to his office the next morning saying they have to drift again. just as a test. he reminds them about security cameras and computers and all the other shit that they had forgotten about over a split tiramisu

aelwyn refuses. she's not a pilot. she never wanted to be. and what would their parents say? like, okay, yes, of course she knows how they work. she knows everything about jaegers. she could pilot it, theoretically. but she won't. and especially not with her sister

two kaiju come through the breach

riz and fabian nearly go down. their jaeger literally crawls home. electrical scars run over the skin and muscles of their arms.

fig nearly destroys the base in frustration when their medic, kristen, says they can't pilot again. not so soon. maybe not ever. jawbone is getting older, no matter how much tracker would deny it in front of him. and gorgug and zelda can't handle multiple kaiju by themselves. no one could

ayda goes to aelwyn the next morning, scientist to scientist, pilot to ... something. and says she has to try. she has to drift again. she has to fight. there may not be a world left to save if she doesn't

they stand across from each other in the cockpit. they know there's no holding back, this time. no secrets. nothing left unsaid. and they drift

adaine sees shame, she sees self-hatred, she sees fear - such absolute, overwhelming fear. aelwyn sees anger, and in the face of it, resolve. she feels, then pulls away from, then lets herself feel, again, just for a moment, love in spite of that. it's hard to hide from, the enormity of adaine's love

they drift. and they know they can do it, if they need to. they can fight. they can win

the next day, the storm oracle is released into the ocean. they have a kaiju to fight, and even more to prove. and they do

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #adaine abernant #aelwyn abernant #the post: list 5 headcanons #me: okay but what if-#pacific rim au

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nerdybirdy6602 · 3 years

Note

for the angsty prompts, could you do “Hey, it’s me. You’re safe.” with adaine and any of the bad kids?

Hey Anon! I really liked this prompt, since I don't think I've ever written an Adaine-centric fic! This one's a little short, but I think it's the right amount of sad and sweet. Now, on with number 6 for Adaine!

Old habits die hard, and Adaine knew that. The rational side of her knew that she couldn’t expect Aelwyn to change entirely in a month after a lifetime of trauma and suffering. Change was gradual, and she knew that. Of course she knew that.

Still, that knowledge did nothing to assuage the sting of her sister’s barbs, something she thought they had both gotten past. It didn’t stop Adaine from retreating inward as Aelwyn insulted her as if they’d been through nothing at all, as if they were back in the Abernant home and not Mordred Manor. It didn’t stop her from asking herself the very same question the older, Nightmare Forest version of herself once asked her.

“Why am I so easy to discard?”

She didn’t realize that the words were said aloud, or that Aelwyn had finally stopped berating her. Adaine didn’t notice her sister run out of the room, mumbling worried apologies as she went to find one of her friends. It was hard to notice much of anything through the haze of a panic attack. The feeling crashed over her like a wave, something so horrifyingly familiar and yet distant. How long had it been since she had a panic attack? The Nightmare Forest?

She felt a familiar hand on her forearm, and when she looked up blearily, she realized it belonged to Fig. Vaguely, she noticed Ayda off in a distant part of the room, probably trying to give her space. She made a note to thank her later. Adaine’s eyes also rested on Aelwyn’s face, and realized that she looked more remorseful than she’d ever seen her.

“Hey, it’s me,” Fig whispered, forcing Adaine’s attention back to her. “You’re safe. I’m right here, Adaine.”

It was a simple assurance, but perhaps the only one she truly needed. Within seconds, Adaine found herself weeping into Fig’s leather jacket, clinging on to her best friend like she was a lifeline. For Fig’s credit, she didn’t wince or react at all to her desperation. She simply held her tight, and whispered kind words of assurance.

“I thought you were still out with Ayda,” were the first words Adaine was able to say, muffled by Fig’s jacket.

“Just got back,” she explained. “Aelwyn couldn’t find Jawbone, so she grabbed me. Hope that’s okay.”

“It’s perfect,” the young wizard replied, glancing behind Fig to get a glimpse at Aelwyn. Their eyes met for just a moment before Aelwyn looked away.

Ayda must have seen the wordless exchange, because she asked, “My friend, do you wish for me to escort your sister out?”

“No,” she answered, almost too quickly. She watched Aelwyn raise her head, and noticed the tears that came to her blue eyes. “She’s okay here. She didn’t mean it.”

Are you sure?

The Message cantrip came from Fig, who made no motion to show that the cantrip was cast at all. Adaine appreciated the discretion, but she answered aloud, “I’m sure, Fig. Thanks.”

“I’m sorry,” Aelwyn whispered, so soft that Adaine wasn’t sure anyone else could hear it. “Sister…”

“I know,” she answered in kind, a soft smile on her lips. “I know.”

Nothing was perfect. They worked at things with baby steps, working through their trauma at a slow and steady pace. Hiccups would happen, but they would be overcome like all other things. As Adaine looked at her sister and then at her friends, she knew that she’d have an incredible support system to help her every step of the way. She’d never be alone, or discarded, again.

You can find more prompts from the list here!

#anonymous #thank you for the request!#d20 #fantasy high #fantasy high: sophmore year #adaine abernant #aelwyn abernant #figueroth faeth #ayda aguefort

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pricemarshfield · 3 years

Text

moments like these

A Figayda angst/hurt/comfort fic. Requested by @sapphic-tuesday even though they only requested it because I love Figayda. (ily bestie) Read on AO3 here.

Prompt: Figayda, angst, hurt/comfort, “You don’t need to stay.” “I don’t need to. But I want to.”

The forest is dark and damp and the worst fucking place Fig has ever been, and she's running as fast as she can to get away from herself. She'd point out how it's way too on the nose if she had any breath left, but as it stands, it's all she can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, slower and slower.

Eventually she has to just collapse into the nearest bush, hope somehow that's enough stealth even as the crack of the branches seems to echo out for miles and miles. There's a long, long beat, where she thinks, just for a second, that maybe she's done it. Maybe the other her isn't too perceptive, either.

She hears an oddly pitched laugh from right behind her ear, as though she isn't lying on the ground, and when did the branches tangle around her leg? Where'd her bass go? Why did none of her friends even seem to care that someone else took her place--

Fig wakes up with a start, sits up, hits her head against her ceiling which is, of course, the living room floor. Her horns scratch it a bit, but thankfully, her mom won't ever see it. Her crystal says it's 3 in the morning when she checks it, and fuck, she's gonna be stuck in here for awhile if she can't pass back out.

She could send a quick text to the Mordred group chat (the manorlings, despite Ragh vying for 'OWLBEAR HYPE HOUSE') and ask if anyone's up to let her out, but then there'll be questions about why she's up, so she just concentrates on mage hand until she nails the chord and the ceiling opens.

The house feels too empty with everyone asleep, too stifling when she can't make any noise, but there's not exactly anywhere else she can go. Her days of sneaking out in the middle of the night to go to concerts aren't nearly as fun now that she misses her friends the whole time. Also, now people recognize her for being one of Solace's biggest stars or whatever, and that's just kind of a hassle when she's not in the mood for attention.

The living room couch is an old, cracked leather thing, moved from Jawbone's apartment. It's not comfortable in any traditional sense, but there's a groove in it that fits her perfectly, and that's nice, in its own way. Sometimes she misses the couch in the old house. It got burned to hell in the attack on prom night, though, so. The whole house did, honestly; when she went home after everything, the window in her bedroom was shattered, glass all over her bed so that she had to pick up each piece, vacuum up what small pieces she couldn't see. She still woke up with a couple cuts on her legs that she didn't have before, but it was home, even if the posters and the pink wallpaper were both singed, even if the purple comforter she'd had since she was a kid didn't smell like it used to.

The old Faeth house never really felt like home after her horns, sure, but Mordred...

She does like it here. Loves it, when everyone's crowded around the table, Adaine arguing with Kristen about some minute difference in casting, Jawbone telling a wildly off-color story to a confused-but-interested Aelwyn, Sandra Lynn making sure Ayda has enough food on her plate while she blinks back fiery tears.

But it doesn't change the fact that she lived here for all of a day before spring break, and right now the hallways and secret passages and tall ceilings all feel ominous, not exciting anymore.

She turns on the light before her mage hand dissipates, scrolls through the games she has on her crystal. Most of them are things she's had on here back when she liked unicorns and glitter and all those girly things that she never got around to deleting.

It's something to do, at least.

The bright colors are nostalgic in just the wrong way, and she makes it through two minutes of matching pop rocks and cake slices before she's scrolling through the games again, on-edge for no goddamn reason.

"Fig?"

Part of her relaxes against the couch before she's even finished processing the voice as Ayda. "Hey! I didn't think you were staying here tonight."

"I wasn't," Ayda says, looking at her with an expression she can't read at all. She's in a deep blue chemise, like she'd been sleeping before she walked through the enchanted door into Mordred. "I--may I sit?"

"Yeah, of course," Fig says, patting the spot next to her. "Always, babe."

Ayda cries a little as she sits, and Fig wipes the tears away. The first time she tried, when she was a normal tiefling and didn't wear the title of Archdevil, it stung a little, like stepping into a too-warm bath. Now, it feels just like the hint of warmth against her hand, uniquely Ayda and not at all painful. (Which is also uniquely Ayda, to never freak Fig out even when she's in this shitty mood.)

"So," Ayda says. "I was in Leviathan, as I needed to--well, still need to, I've merely decided the task isn't as important--I'm getting sidetracked."

"Yeah," Fig says, and when Ayda stiffens, says, "Not bad! Not a bad thing! It's cute."

"Oh," Ayda says. "I--sorry," and bursts into tears again. Fig wipes them away, kisses her cheek just 'cause she can, kisses the other one because she can feel Ayda's face get even warmer.

"No worries," Fig says, too late, because she's not--this is still new to her. "So what's going on?"

"As you know, I am a divination wizard, though not an Oracle like Adaine, our best friend." Fig nods. "But sometimes my dreams have--not prophecies, but looks into the present, or even occasionally the past."

"Okay," Fig says. "Is there, like, a slumbering demon lord underneath Mordred?"

"No," Ayda says. "I asked a ranger I know in Leviathan to check before he left on a journey to Sylvaire. Unrelated to the Nightmare King. I checked, just to be sure, because I am sure none of us want to deal with that again."

"Mmhm," Fig says, willing herself to keep breathing slow and easy and not tense up like she wants to. It's just Ayda talking about preventing further Nightmare King stuff. The Nightmare King doesn't even exist anymore, they're Cassandra, they're cool. "So, uh, what'd you see in your dream?"

"You," Ayda says. "That isn't uncommon. I dream of you often. You're in more of my dreams than not. Is that strange? Should I not have said that?"

"Not strange," Fig says, sure her cheeks are red rather than pink. "Just--I'm flustered, okay, give me a second."

Ayda nods at her, not smiling but face relaxed in a way that suggests the same feeling. Fig grabs her hand just to ground herself, squeezes it once. There's a moment before Ayda squeezes it back, like she's thinking about whether it's the right thing to do.

"Totally normal," Fig says, just in case.

"Good," Ayda says with one long exhale. "I was worried."

"You know, it doesn't matter to me if what you do is 'normal'," Fig says. "I like you whether what you do is normal or not!"

Ayda nods. "I want to finish my thought, but after that I want to kiss you. That was the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

"You could kiss me and then finish the thought?"

"I would forget," Ayda says, like she doesn't remember everything, like Fig is enough to distract her. Fig can't quite meet her gaze, then, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. She squeezes her hand again. Ayda squeezes back immediately. "Um. I'm distracting myself. What was I talking about?"

"Your dream."

"Right. Thank you, Fig. I dreamed about you, and I think it may have been--it was as though I was standing at your bedside. I know it was a dream and not sleepwalking, because I can't actually stand in your room--it's too short and I don't want to set your house on fire. But you seemed upset, and while I don't know if that was real or a dream or not, I couldn't--I couldn't just sit in my room and Leviathan without checking."

"Oh," Fig says. "Um. I'm fine."

"Hm," Ayda says. "You know, you were the one who told me that if people say they're fine, it very rarely means they're fine. I don't understand the logic of it at all, but I trust your insight."

"It's stupid," Fig says, and then, in a twist, bursts into tears herself. "God. It's stupid, I don't even know why I'm upset? Like, it's literally nothing, nothing is going on, I'm just dumb--"

"You are not dumb," Ayda says, and Fig hates herself all the more for the panic she can hear in her voice. "You have taught me so much, and if it matters to you, then it's not stupid. Fig?"

"Yeah," Fig says, voice embarrassingly choked up. She clears her throat as best she can, which isn't very well, since she's still actively crying. "Yeah, I know."

"I don't know what you know," Ayda says. "But I know that when I cry, you wipe my tears away, and I'm going to do the same for you, unless you want to stop me, in which case I won't."

Fig doesn't move, lets Ayda wipe away her tears even though it makes her want to cry more, someone being nice to her right now. "Thanks."

"Any time," Ayda says with the weight of a promise and not at all like the platitude most people would mean. "Do you want to talk about it? It's okay if you don't. I often don't want to talk about the things I'm going through when I'm still going through them."

"I don't," Fig says, because the idea of explaining the nightmare and Mordred and her old house being destroyed and feeling so, so unmoored and stuck all at once makes her want to tear her own hair out. "I don't--you don't need to stay. I'll be okay. If I'm not--if I can't talk about it, you don't need to stay."

"I don't need to stay," Ayda says, carefully, and Fig grips her hand tighter without consciously meaning to. "But I'd like to. If I can."

"I meant it when I said always," Fig says, still not looking at Ayda because she can't.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yeah," Fig says. "I always want you to stay."

Jawbone walks into the room on his way into the kitchen, sees two teenagers holding hands and crying and slightly-burning his couch, and decides he can just get water from the bathroom instead of the kitchen. He's not one to interrupt a moment.

#figayda #fig faeth the insatiable #ayda aguefort #fantasy high #dimension 20 #sapphic-tuesday #request #my fics

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grumpyhedgehogs · 4 years

Text

tangled up in your old bedsheets

Summary: Fabian wraps Riz in his sheet a lot, The Hangman is strangely jealous all of a sudden, and Riz figures some things out on his own.

It takes maybe a lot longer than it should for Fabian to understand exactly what’s happening with the whole “wrapping Riz up in his sheet all the time” thing. In his defense, there’s a lot of shit going down when it first happens. Riz has just been revivified only to be kicked off a fucking cliff by Kalina and the world is in peril and Fabian is stretching, stretching, stretching, to reach Riz before he’s lost to him forever. So when the fire elemental snags the goblin out of the air and kisses his cheek and Fabian curls his best friend into himself, swaddling him like a newborn, the half-elf doesn’t think much of it other than thank the gods you’re alright.

But then it happens again. And again. And again. And no matter what, even when Fabian doles out gifts and aggressively supports all his friends, Riz is the only one who ever seems to end up wrapped in Fabian’s sheet.

Fabian realizes this the summer after sophomore year and then aggressively stops thinking about what it could mean.

When the Night Yorb is defeated, Riz dies again. Thankfully Kristen is standing right next to him when he goes down so their rogue isn’t out for long but Fabian feels it deep in his bones. He sees the light go out of Riz’s eyes, watches, like he had just last spring, as his best friend falls, limp, to the ground. He sees him die and is unable to do anything about it. Again.

That evening, they have a bonfire. The final showdown had happened on the beach, where the Night Yorb had been ready to extend its power from the shores of Solace to Leviathan to Fallinel and beyond until the Bad Kids stopped it.

Now, Kristen and Fig are teaching Ayda how to shotgun a beer with mixed results. Adaine and Aelwyn are curled together, Aelwyn already trancing after using every ounce of her abjuration magic to keep her sister from being completely obliterated in the last ten minutes of the battle. Gorgug had almost immediately been mobbed with invasive, uncomfortable relationship advice from the Seven Maidens, who had come to help in the last fight after Riz had cracked the code which revealed the location of the Night Yorb’s power source with Zelda’s help. The half-orc seems fine, if a little overwhelmed by their chattering--Zelda is at least acting as something of a buffer.

Fabian and Riz had been side by side to strike the finishing blow to the Night Yorb when it went down. He’d turned and looked at Riz and had seen the bruises and the blood and the lines of pain in his face and had pulled out his sheet without hesitation. Riz hadn’t even pretended to protest.

Now, as they sit in the shadows, the fire’s light flickering over the bags under Riz’s eyes and the hollows of his cheeks, Fabian doesn’t pretend to resist the urge he has to pull the fabric tighter around Riz, tucking it between his arms and chest so it can’t pull free when the goblin shifts. He’s pressed up against Fabian’s side, half on top of him as Fabian drapes his arms around him and pulls one knee up against his back. His other leg extends out towards the fire and they’d both kicked off their shoes like everyone else had a long time ago. He digs his toes into the cold sand and lets it remind him he’s alive. They have survived.

“You know, I’m not actually that cold,” Riz mutters. His ears are drooping with exhaustion. Fabian hums and leans his chin on the crown of his head. Riz’s hair smells like seasalt. “You could take your blanket back now.”

“Battle sheet,” Fabian corrects absentmindedly. “You uncomfortable?”

“No.” His voice is so soft. He wriggles one hand out of the sheet--Fabian feels an unhappy rumble begin in his chest--and curls his clawed fingers around Fabian's hand, splayed in the sand beside Riz’s sheet-encased hip for balance. Fabian tightened his grip immediately. The rumble dies in his throat. “No, I’m not.”

“Good.” Fabian tugs the sheet just a little more, secures it, and rests.

It happens when they’re not in mortal danger or coming down from a battle high, too. The first time Fabian notices it--and when he notices Riz noticing it--is movie night. All the Bad Kids as well as Ragh, Tracker, Ayda and Aelwyn are gathered at Mordred Manor, sprawled over couches and armchairs and across the floor. Fabian is cuddled up to Aelwyn on the couch, Adaine on her other side, when he is chosen to be the first sacrifice in the name of snack refills. Naturally, he tells everyone goodnaturedly that he hates them, and goes.

Fabian isn’t even really thinking about it when he does it.

He comes back and sets the popcorn in Tracker’s lap and hands the sodas out and then he realizes that his spot next to Aelwyn has been filled by Fig, who is sitting with Ayda in her lap and very much not paying attention to the crystal screen. Both Abernant sisters do not look like they appreciate this development, but neither are very likely to say anything in the name of keeping the peace.

So Fabian shrugs and begrudgingly lopes over to the cushy armchair with the winged back where Riz is curled up with his knees to his chest. The Ball looks up, startled, but doesn’t make a sound when Fabian picks him right up, plops down in the armchair and then sets The Ball down beside him. Without even really looking away from the movie, the half-elf digs out his sheet and unfolds it, letting the sparks settle before he spreads it over both of them. Riz is wedged between his left thigh and the armrest, small enough that he doesn’t have to fully sit in Fabian’s lap to share the space. He does have to lean into Fabian’s side to see the screen around him though; Fabian feels more than sees The Ball glance at him out of the corner of his eye. His tail slaps once, twice against Fabian’s side, and Fabian drops his arm onto The Ball’s back in response, quelling the detective’s squirming. The Ball leans harder into his side and mutters to himself.

“What?” Fabian asks, defensive and not really understanding why.

“You know you could’ve just asked to sit down,” Riz says. What he means is, what the fuck, Fabian?

“Can we just watch the movie in peace, please?” Fabian replies. What he means is, please don’t call attention to this.

Riz shuts up. They watch the movie in peace.

Fabian catches Aelwyn looking at him that night, a strange gleam in her eye; it’s the one she gets when she’s mastered an overly complicated piece of magic that’s been elusive for a long time. Fabian shifts, but doesn’t let go of Riz, who is tucked even more tightly into his side as the night wears on, his head on Fabian’s chest and the sheet tangled up between them.

He shakes it off; there’s nothing here for Aelwyn to understand.

Nothing.

After that, it’s just an easy way of keeping track of Riz. The rogue has such high sleight of hand and stealth; he’s really a menace to society. Fabian is doing the authorities a favor, honestly. It also helps him get used to how to whip the sheet in a non-lethal capacity, teaches him how hard to snap the fabric around someone’s ankle to send them careening back to their spot on the couch, or how to flick it around their waist to pull them back to his side without leaving bruises. He even gets good enough to snag Riz’s tail and yank him back from the curb when he went to step into the road without looking up from his clues, which is probably the coolest thing Fabian does that week.

Riz complains and pouts and never tells him directly to stop, which he would if it were a real issue. But since he is a gentleman first Fabian asks, just to make sure.

“I don’t--really mind, actually,” Riz says haltingly. The tips of his ears are slowly turning turquoise. Fabian is extremely interested in this development. For science, of course. “It’s nice, knowing--uh, knowing you’re there to, like, catch me. If I fall. Or something. And the elemental keeps the sheet really warm, so. It’s nice. I don’t mind.”

Fabian grins, and something strange and pleasant settles in his chest.

The first time he really has to confront the idea that maybe it’s not just Fabian being paranoid about the amount of time he spends wrapping Riz in a sheet is when Aelwyn breaks up with him. It’s been coming for a long time, so obvious it’s like staring down an oncoming train. Aelwyn is trying to be kinder now, has been working on being gentler with people, and so of course she comes to their meeting at the ice cream shop with a delicately worded bullet point list on why they can’t be together anymore.

“And really, we did both acknowledge exactly how unhealthy for each other we are when we got into this,” she finishes, looking up at him over the rims of her new catlike glasses. She and Adaine match now. “I mean, I very explicitly stated how bad an idea this was and you agreed.”

“Yeah,” Fabian says, because he did. It still doesn’t mean it hurts any less.

“Honestly Fabian, sometimes I--I wonder why you even said yes in the first place. It’s not like you don’t have another, probably better, option hanging around all the time.”

He has no fucking idea what that’s supposed to mean. “I have no fucking idea what that’s supposed to mean.”

Aelwyn looks at him, shrewd and calculating, and then sighs. “Men. You’re all so useless.”

“Hey,” Fabian says, halfhearted. She just broke up with him; it’d be nice of her to display a little consideration.

Her mouth presses into a thin line, and even though he knows she’s not happy about this either, Fabian gets the distinct feeling she’s laughing at him. Just a little. “How come you never wrap me in your sheet?”

“Wh-what?”

“You always wrap Riz in your battle sheet. Constantly. I’ve counted three times this week, Fabian, and it’s only Thursday. How come you never wrap me in your precious battle sheet? I was your girlfriend up until this moment, wasn’t I?”

“I have no idea what The Ball has to do with you breaking up with me,” Fabian tells her honestly.

“Everything, my dear.” Aelwyn says as she stands and tosses a five dollar bill on their table in Basrar’s. “Absolutely everything. Think about it.”

The Ball has nothing to do with this.

“You have nothing to do with this.” Fabian tells him when Riz rushes into his room in Seacaster Manor, armed with dvds and ice cream and a grim expression Fabian recognizes from the moment before he ate Kalvaxus’s face off.

“Well if you didn’t want me here why did you call me?” Riz asks, looking affronted. He takes a step towards the door but wavers, looking back and forth between the hallway beyond and Fabian’s teary, red face. “Look, I wanna help, but if you need some time alone--”

“No! That’s not what I meant.” Fabian flaps one arm at him frantically. “I just-- it’s just stupid, never mind, just get over here, The Ball.”

Riz dumps the items in his arms and bounds over, sympathy leaking over his expression. He stops by the foot of the bed which is too far away and Fabian would roll his eyes and whip the sheet out for him if he weren’t already wrapped up in it and trying not to look like he’s been crying for the past hour and a half. He has not. He has only been crying for an hour and twenty minutes, thank you very much.

“I’m really sorry, Fabian,” Riz says, soft and kind and what Fabian needs to hear and what he wants none of at the same time. “I know you really like Aelwyn.”

Something in The Ball’s expression shifts, a little, drops down and gets even more serious and Fabian feels that instinctive, commonplace need to know more about him. Fabian fails an insight roll though, and shakes his head. He reaches out again. “Just, just come here, The Ball, gods--”

“I’m standing right next to you--” is all The Ball can get out before he lets out a high little yelp and gets lifted into the air. He’s so light Fabian can manhandle him onto the mattress and into the sheet with one arm. Fabian wonders if he’s getting enough to eat, if he’s spiraling in his office too much, if he hasn’t been sleeping lately. After the Night Yorb incident, he and The Ball had slept in the same bed on and off, on the promise to wake each other up when they had nightmares. It was a terrible few weeks.

The only thing Fabian misses, he admits to himself as he sets The Ball down on the mattress next to him and drapes half of the sheet across his shoulders, is the warmth he woke up to every morning. Riz is a familiar, reassuring weight against Fabian’s side; he didn’t realize after the nightmares went away and The Ball started sleeping over on the weekends rather than every night how much he would miss this.

Riz is, as always, game once he realizes what the plan is. He curls up under the sheet with a familiarity that makes the pressure in Fabian’s cracked chest ease just a little. He wraps his arms around Fabian’s middle and his tail flicks up to curl loosely around Fabian’s wrist where his arm is hooked around The Ball’s shoulders. The sheet is soft as cream and silvery in the low light as it folds around them both; it is on autopilot that Fabian takes the edges of the sheet and tucks them around his friend, until they are nothing more than a weirdly shaped lump of fabric.

“I’m supposed to comfort you right now, not the other way around,” The Ball points out, humor coloring his tone even as he keeps his voice low. Fabian leans harder against him and Riz grunts.

“You are,” Fabian says. “You are.”

He’s not okay, but he will be.

Fabian gets over Aelwyn relatively quickly, which should probably be a sign of how serious he actually was about her. But there’s still something strange in not looking forward to meeting her now, after a year of striving to get information on her, a year of striving to get her out of prison, a year of striving to come off as anything besides an awkward teenage boy when she kisses him. It leaves Fabian at a bit of a loose end.

So, naturally, he makes it The Ball’s problem. Or not-problem. It’s more like a solution. He is the solution to The Ball’s depressing self-care mystery. The Ball, it is unsurprising to note, is terrible at taking care of himself. Fabian, on the other hand, has literally trained all his life to protect and fight for others; he’s gotten very good at turning this innate urge into making sure The Ball eats enough and sleeps enough and takes a goddamn break every once in a while.

Case in point.

“Come on, The Ball,” Fabian whines. “This place is honestly so depressing, you reek, and I know for a fact you haven’t slept in three days. It is time to go home.”

“My mom asked me to help her, Fabian,” Riz says. He doesn’t turn to look at Fabian when he speaks, nimble fingers spidering across a map of Elmville he has set up on the wall. There are strings of different colors connecting seemingly random locations together, but Fabian does not doubt they make sense to The Ball. It must be a serious case, anyway; The Ball only loses his hat and tie when it’s serious business. “I can’t give up now.”

“It’s not giving up. Why do you always have to assume that stopping for a little while makes everything worse?”

“Sure feels like it.”

Okay. Time to pull out the big guns. Fabian takes a deep breath and prays Riz won’t hate him for this tomorrow. “Your mom is worried about you. Again.”

Riz’s head jerks around sharply enough that Fabian winces. There’s a sharp crack and Fabian watches as the ink from the broken pen in Riz’s clawed hand drips to the hardwood. Ah, well. That’s the least horrible thing that’s stained this floor. When the detective turns to him Fabian takes a hasty step back. The slits of his eyes dilate wildly, shrinking and growing in size rapidly.

“Did you,” Riz asks deliberately slowly, “just try to use my mom against me?”

“It’s true,” Fabian protests weakly. “She sent me here when I asked where you were. She thought you were with me anyway and she got really mad when she figured out you were still working. You gotta learn to take breaks, man.”

Just like that, Riz deflates. His shoulders relax from where they’ve been hunched around his ears since Fabian walked in and his hackles lower. He scrubs a hand through his hair, leaving trails of blue ink through the strands; Fig would probably call it a look . “I hate when I make her worry.”

“You make everyone worry,” Fabian says without thinking, before backpedaling like a champ at Riz’s scandalized look. “Wait! No! I didn’t--it’s just that you make her-- and me-- but you don’t mean to so it’s fine. Is it hot in here? I feel like it’s hot in here. We should go. Let’s go.”

“You worry about me?”

It’s the quiet way The Ball says it, quiet in the way he hasn’t heard often since the Nightmare King’s Forest, that makes Fabian square his shoulders and set his jaw in determination. He rolls initiative on a surprise round and succeeds. Nat twenty.

“Right.” Fabian declares, and reaches into his jacket. “We’re doing this.”

“What?” Riz’s eyes widen a second later, though, because his insight is crazy high and even his passive rolls are ridiculous. “Aw, no, Fabian, you don’t need to get the sheet out. I don’t need the sheet!”

“It’s too late. It’s already over.”

“Oh come on man, I didn’t mean it like that!”

“It's inescapable,” Fabian flourishes as the sheet unwinds and dances before him, obscuring The Ball’s view of him. “You’ve brought this on yourself.”

Between one blink and the next, Fabian has thrown the sheet about his best friend, movements fluid and expert from so much practice. He’s sure to leave Riz’s inky hand free, but he takes care to bundle his legs into the sheet. Fabian wraps one end of the sheet around the unoccupied arm before pulling it across his body gently and tucks the other end over his chest in the opposite direction before securing the free edge between Riz’s back and his own chest.

Riz is still so light in his arms as Fabian hoists him right off the ground and into a princess carry. Riz squawks and waves his one free hand in Fabian’s face, which makes Fabian grimace and lean back. Ink splatter across the desk.

“Spring break,” Fabian says. He meets Riz’s dark eyes, something in his gut sparking and fluttering and warming him all the way to his toes. “I believe in you.”

“Spring break, I believe in you,” Riz repeats, laughing and accepting the bardic inspiration before rolling his eyes. “It’s nearly winter, you dolt.” It makes something soft in Fabian curl up tight in his chest to hear his best friend laugh, to feel it reverberate in his own arms, in his own bones, and Fabian grins right back.

“The sentiment still stands. Just because you mess up every now and then doesn’t mean that you’re a bad son, The Ball. You’re just so passionate and conscientious and you want to make sure you do your work right the first time so no one gets hurt on your watch. That’s a noble thing to do. Your mom and me worrying about your well-being doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person; it’s just a sign of how much we love you.”

Fabian takes the stairs down to the parking lot as he speaks, focusing more on his feet than Riz’s face, because if he does focus on Riz and his wide eyes and the way his pupils are really fucking dilated right now and how his dumb hair is slicked back with ink and the way his ears are twitching and how he smells like coffee beans and old newspapers, the something in his gut will come up to his chest and constrict around his heart and then he’ll do something really stupid like lean in and--

Nope! Not dealing! Fabian gets his kisses in-- got his kisses in--enough already. No need to deal with all-- this.

But then Fabian finishes his speech and The Ball makes a strange squeaking noise, and his hand comes to ball up under his own chin, and his eyes are still very wide and his face is so soft and he’s biting his lip, fuck.

Fabian’s hands are sweaty and he nearly fumbles his handful as he comes down hard off the last step, rolling a natural two on his athletics. He curses.

Sire! Are you alright? I will destroy the very stones which mock your footing until they are nothing but dust!

I’m fine, Hangman. Just tripped.

Shall we be escorting The Ball home, then?

“You can let me down now,” Riz says at that exact moment, just as Fabian goes to confirm with his bike. Whatever his expression meant before, the jolt seems to have knocked some sense into him before Fabian could roll insight, and the goblin shifts in his arms. Fabian tightens his grip reflexively, and Riz settles. “You don’t have to take me home.”

“Don’t have to?” Fabian repeats dumbly. Of course he has to! The Ball is his--his--The Ball is capable and brilliant, yes, but he is small and a rogue and Fabian is a martial class. He should be here, to make sure that The Ball is safe.

What do you mean we’re not taking The Ball home? The Hangman howls in the back of his mind. Fabian one hundred percent agrees with the bewildered sentiment.

“I have a bus pass now, I was going to take it home tonight anyway. You’re on the other side of town from me, so you'd just be going out of your way.”

Master! The Hangman exclaims, engines revving. The Ball must not stoop so low as to take the bus!

This is another development that Fabian didn’t really realize was happening until after the fact; The Hangman, for whatever reason, has gotten weirdly possessive of Riz. They’ve given more rides to the detective than the rest of the Bad Kids combined. The Hangvan has been the subject of more than a few arguments.

We are much more capable of protecting The Ball than this bus, Sire. With your battle sheet and my infernal soul, we will be an impenetrable defense!

Fabian isn’t sure what they’re defending Riz against, but he’s not going to disagree with The Hangman. They can protect Riz much better if he comes with them.

“The Hangman is right here, The Ball,” Fabian scoffs. “Don’t be silly. Just get on the bike.”

The Ball opens his mouth like he’s thinking of protesting but he’s also forgetting two very important facts: Fabian has eight points of Strength on him and has him wrapped in his battle sheet, effectively grappled. He hasn't got a chance unless he wants to take the fall damage from wrenching himself away from Fabian, which he would never do. Riz trusts Fabian.

A soft, golden glow starts up in Fabian’s chest at the thought. The Ball should trust Fabian. Fabian--Fabian wants to keep The Ball safe and warm and cared for, and like this, wrapped snugly in Fabian’s regard, The Ball is all of those things. It means a lot--so, so much--that The Ball trusts Fabian to provide this for him.

Okay, Fabian is getting off track again.

“You’re getting on the bike,” Fabian declares imperiously, and plops The Ball down on the seat before sliding on in front of him. He waits, The Hangman revving below them, until he feels The Ball curl up against his back. His arms worm their way around Fabian’s waist and his sharp chin digs into his shoulder; something in the half-elf loosens and expands and the warm glow gets brighter.

They’re silent on the drive home; he can feel Riz curl up tighter against the wind and the sheet flutters around the two of them. Sparks flicker across the fabric, retaining warmth against the night’s coming chill. Fabian purposefully drives slowly, lets the time tick by as Riz presses warm up against his back, safe and sound and wrapped in Fabian’s protection, with Fabian’s bardic inspiration flowing through him. He also purposefully does not consider why this is so very important to him.

It is only when they stop outside Riz’s apartment and he disembarks--The Hangman lets out a low rev of his engine, almost like a purr-- that they break the soft silence that’s descended.

“Back at my office,” Riz starts, faltering, as he hands the sheet back. “You said--you love me?”

Panic bursts like fireworks in Fabian’s chest. “Wh-uh?” He says. “Uh. Uh. You have ink in your hair.”

Then Fabian makes a tactical decision and runs the fuck away. It is not his best moment. (However, since Chungle-Down Bim isn’t there, it’s also not his worst.)

He is not avoiding The Ball. He is regrouping, coming up with a strategic return and possibly a retaliation for whatever weird, confusing, warm feelings Riz keeps setting fire to in his chest. This is strategy. This is war.

This, frankly, sucks. So much.

The Ball has called four times in the past week before giving up abruptly on Wednesday. It is Sunday afternoon. They usually spend Saturday night watching movies or going to Basrar’s together and then take Sunday to spar (for Fabian) and go over the latest town mystery (for Riz). They have done neither of these things; they also have not texted, spoken or passed each other on the street. Riz is supposed to come over for homework and hot chocolate on weekdays in the winter. He’s supposed to give The Ball rides home every day, to make sure he doesn’t have to walk home in the rain or snow. They’re supposed to be together--

And Fabian has no one to blame for their separation but himself. It twists his gut, seeing The Ball light up his phone so much before the calls stop and he’s left with nothing but unending silence. He can’t seem to stop trying to catch a glimpse of him in the halls at Aguefort, looking for a briefcase or a flat cap, anything, anything. But In the end, he’s the one avoiding The Ball. He’s the one not answering his phone.

He’s the one with weird feelings in his chest.

This cannot, Fabian realizes, possibly go on. He’s having trouble sleeping, and when he does he’s gone back to having nightmares about Riz falling during the Night Yorb debacle. He needs to sort this out, fast.

But Riz is a rogue and so his stealth rolls win out every damn time against Fabian’s perception, and throughout the next week there’s no time between classes to catch him and he’s nowhere to be found at lunch.

Adaine doesn’t seem too happy with Fabian either, and hasn’t since this weekend. Riz must have said something to her about him, but she relents easily enough when she sees his frantic expression.

“He’s been skipping class to work on that case with his mom for a couple days,” she says. “He--doesn’t really want to see you that much, Fabian.”

It feels like his heart breaks at that, but Fabian smiles winningly anyway. “Who wouldn’t want to see me? I’m Fabian Aramais Seacaster.”

“Son of Bill Seacaster, yeah I know,” Adaine finishes, and at least she’s got that fond exasperation back. “Look, I don’t know what happened between you two, Fabian, but you’ve got to fix it. I can’t take Riz moping around much longer. He’s been insufferable.”

“Leave it to me,” Fabian says with more confidence than he’s feeling, and peels out of the parking lot with a roar from The Hangman.

He thinks maybe things are going to be okay, somehow; he’ll make a suitably dramatic entrance, and he’ll say all the right things to get Riz to forget that Fabian had some kind of crisis for a week and change and didn’t bother to let his best friend in on it and they’ll go back to Seacaster Manor and watch dumb B-movies and everything will be fine and Fabian won’t have to confront this weird thing growing perilously close to his heart.

And then he steps into Riz’s office and faces reality.

“What do you want?” Fabian winces at the flat tone of Riz’s voice, the way his eyes won’t meet Fabian’s, the way he’s crossed his arms over his chest and hunched in on himself.

“I--well--uh, that is--” Fabian pauses, breathes. “I just thought I’d check up on you, since last time I was here you were about to fall asleep on your feet. I heard you were working too late again.”

Riz’s mouth is a flat, thin line. “That’s what you want to talk about? My work habits?”

“Well--I--work-life balance is a very real, serious thing, The Ball. Not everyone can be as healthy and committed to self-care as I am. I thought I would help you out, like always.” This is the part where the movie hero would puff out his chest and the girl would fawn all over him and they’d live happily ever after. Fabian doesn’t really feel up to puffing out his chest when Riz’s eyes go hard and flinty like that.

“It didn’t really seem like you cared about my self-care when you were refusing to acknowledge you loved me.”

Oh. Oh.

And that’s just it, isn’t it? The last piece of the puzzle slots into place, and Fabian is absurdly glad Aelwyn isn’t here to cast Detect Thoughts and laugh at his misery as he realizes what she knew practically from the start. Because he’d said it before--toxic masculinity is over. He’s in touch with his emotions now, and he loves his friends and he’d had a hard time showing it or saying it in the beginning but these days his affirmations roll off his tongue like so much honey so why has he had such a hard time with The Ball?

Of course. Of course he loves Riz. It’s--it’s not even that much of a revelation somehow; it’s like he always knew somewhere deep in his soul that they’d end up like this, with Riz being brilliant and brave and kind and Fabian loving him and loving him and loving him. Admitting it to himself, for how hard it has been to see it clearly in the first place, is easy. It’s like saying the sky is blue or Arthur Aguefort is insane. It’s just a fact. Fabian Aramais Seacaster loves Riz Gukgak.

He’s in love with this strange little goblin man and he’s been so dumb about it.

“Okay, okay,” Fabian says, more to himself than The Ball. What happens now? What is he supposed to do? Should he just come out and say it? Or, no, Riz might think he’s joking, or trying to smooth things over. He'd hate it if Riz thought Fabian didn’t mean it the very first time Fabian says those words. Besides, they’re having an argument--a real one, which he doesn’t think they’ve ever had--and this is so not the time. No, he'll tell him after this is over, when they’ve made up and Fabian has taken care of Riz because he does really look like hell, all bags under his eyes and stiff limbs. He needs to apologize, probably, and then get The Ball somewhere safe and warm and comfortable and then he needs to do something grand and dramatic and then he can tell Riz Gukgak he’s in love with him.

“Look, I’m sorry, alright?” It comes out sharper than he intends, but he’s dealing with wave after wave of astonishment and fear and love and he could use a bit of a break, to be honest. “Can we just forget it?” He has to get this over with to get to the next step of his foolproof, ten second plan to woo The Ball in which nothing can possibly go wrong.

“Forget it?” Riz repeats, incredulous. This is not at all going the way Fabian needs it to go. “You want me to forget the time you took back saying you loved me--when you haven’t even called me your best friend, yet--and drove off and then didn’t talk to me for a week? That’s something you think can just be forgotten? You left Fabian!”

“The Ball--Riz--”

“I’m not just going to let this go, Fabian. No. But if you think that I’m just something to be so easily swept to the side and then picked up again when you feel like it, then--then--great! Great. I see clearly now where I stand with you.”

“Okay,” Fabian declares, because enough really is enough, “it’s sheet time.”

“No, Fabian!”

Riz has never raised his voice outside of crazy group antics before. Not to Fabian, at least. The sheet flutters out of his fingers as Fabian stares, open-mouthed. His chest is cracking again, like it did after Aelwyn broke up with him, but this is worse now; this crack is not just a hairline or a fissure, but a damn canyon. It feels like someone reached inside his ribcage and scooped his heart out.

Riz’s mouth twists and he hugs himself tighter, looking as miserable as Fabian feels. “I don’t want your goddamn sheet, okay? I don’t--I don’t need you to act like I’m some kind of burden or--or--”

“A burden--The Ball--”

“Or calling me The Ball all the time!” Riz’s voice rises again. His fists are clenched now. “I’m--I’m sick of you wrapping me up like a little kid. I’m not a baby, okay? I can take care of myself. I'm fine on my own.”

“Riz,” Fabian tries again, weakly. This can’t happen. Not now. Not to them.

“I think it’s best if you leave now,” Riz says grimly, and turns his back. He doesn’t look around when Fabian closes the door softly behind him.

“I’m sorry.”

Fabian blinks.

He and The Ball only had their fight two hours ago; he’d got on The Hangman and ignored the bike's probing questions, and gone home and cried and then he’d gotten up and done what he’d thought Riz would do in his place. He made a clue board.

First on the board is the picture of himself and Riz taken the night the Night Yorb was defeated; Fig had snapped a shot without them knowing, of the two of them talking in the firelight, Fabian craning his neck to look down at a swaddled, comfortable looking Riz who was looking up at him, mouth open seemingly in mid-sentence. His hair is in his face and Fabian always looks at it and remembers how seconds afterward he’d reached up and pushed the curls out of Riz’s eyes gently. That was the end of the summer--it’s the middle of winter now. He’s been in love with his best friend at least since then, maybe before.

Next on the board is his half of the best friend necklace; he’d actually stolen it out of Riz’s briefcase on their way to fight the Nightmare King. It was after Fallinel, when he was getting back to himself, reinventing how he saw the world. He’d wanted to know--to have something, just a small thing, that reminded Fabian who really loved him. And Riz had been there.

So. Maybe he was a little in love with Riz back then, too.

The third clue was actually absent from the board, but Fabian writes it on a post-it note and sticks that there in its place; my old letter jacket. He’d gotten a new one when he’d been on the team in the beginning of sophomore year; he’d filled out too much, built up enough muscle from practice that he hadn’t been able to keep using the one his father gave him freshman year. He’d given it to The Ball because he was complaining of the cold one day and then just. Never bothered to take it back.

Riz wears it to his games sometimes. It makes Fabian--feel. Certain things. It’s fine.

The final clue is, of course, the sheet. He almost doesn’t bother pinning that one up either, since it’s pretty fucking obvious. Aelwyn could see it all just from the way he wrapped Riz up in his sheet, after all; he really doesn't need to rest of his clues to figure this out. But there’s something soothing in this, in looking at the world the way he knows Riz looks at it.

He’s just working himself up to maybe crying again when Cathilda knocks on his door and lets Riz quietly into the room.

“What?” Fabian says, because what?

Riz is biting his lip, which is entirely too distracting, when he speaks again. “I was--unfair. And a dick. And I've been--going through some stuff and I put all that on you, and I’m sorry, man. You didn’t deserve that.”

“No, I--I mean, I’m sorry too. I mean--you don’t need to be sorry, because I should be sorry. I just left you hanging and then spaced on you and I didn’t even tell you why, I just wanted to go back to normal. So I’m the one who’s sorry and you can’t take that from me. I’ll fight you if you try, just so you know. Stop being sorry.”

And just like that, the corners of Riz’s mouth turn up which is a relief because Fabian love him and just figured out that he’s maybe been in love with him for over a year, but he also knows that even before he knew he was in love he’d have done just about anything to make sure Riz never looked as sad as he does right now. He’d kill to put a smile on Riz’s face.

“I don’t think you can just have a monopoly on apologizing, Fabian,” Riz says and the way his name sounds out of The Ball’s mouth, gods, how did Fabian not realize this sooner? “I’ve just been--I’ve been dealing with a lot and you’re my best friend, man, and I just...It sucks not talking to you.”

“Yeah,” Fabian agrees. “It really fucking does.”

And then, opening his arms tentatively, “Can I?”

Riz’s face twists horribly then, and Fabian’s heart has just enough time to sink to his stomach before Riz throws himself into Fabian’s arms. Fabian holds him and holds him and doesn’t ever want to let go now, he’s got Riz and he’s pressing his face into Riz’s hair and lifting him up and holding him close to his chest and Riz is wrapping his arms around Fabian’s shoulders, claws scratching at the back of Fabian’s neck, he’s whispering into that twitching ear, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you, it’s okay, I’ve got you,” and he loves and loves and loves and he doesn’t know if it’s supposed to hurt so sweetly but it does.

“I’m sorry, gods, I’m sorry,” Riz babbles into his shoulder and Fabian wants to tell him to stop but he’d have to interrupt to do that and he can’t, not when he knows Riz has such a hard time with the idea that his friends don’t listen to him. He folds at the knees instead, takes Riz with him to the ground and cradles him like something precious because that’s what The Ball is and has always been, precious and so important and, if he has his way, Fabian’s. “I’m sorry I acted like you didn’t care, I know you do, I just don’t want to ever make you feel like you have to do everything for me, like I’m weak or less than or like I don't get that you have other things, other people to take care of--”

And then Fabian does interrupt because like hell is he letting this slide. “Stop it, stop, I know you’re strong and you’re brave and you’re so smart, Riz, gods, you’re brilliant. I just-- I wanna take care of you, I know I don’t have to but I want to, I love to, I love you, I'm in love with you and I want to take care of you, please.”

It’s only when Riz rears his head back that Fabian realizes what just came tumbling out of his mouth.

“Oh, shit. Uh--I wasn’t supposed to say that yet.”

“Yet?” Riz squeaks and fuck it, Fabian decides. Fuck it all. In for a penny, in for a dime.

“Yeah, yet,” Fabian rushes. His fingers clench and release the fabric over Riz’s spine rhythmically and he can feel the goblin shivering against his chest and without thinking Fabian pulls down his sheet and wraps them both in it. Riz’s skin stands out dark and forest green against the silvery material and he hopes he likes it, hopes it is soft and warm against the thin, fragile surface of Riz’s cheek because Riz is so good and Fabian loves him and he deserves nice things. “I--I was gonna make a plan and strategize and not tell you until I’ve done at least three heroic deeds in your name, dude. I had so many ideas.”

“Ideas?” Riz’s voice is faint.

Fabian nods solemnly. “There were also schematics for a dramatic duel on the clifftops, but we’ve already done that a couple times, so I scrapped it.”

“Too much of a Nightmare King-Night Yorb repeat.”

“Yeah,” Fabian nods. “Exactly. So uh. Just. If you could pretend I haven’t said that yet, I can get on the heroic deeds and we can revisit this. Conversation. Uh, later.”

“Right,” Riz says, nodding slowly too. “Or we could, like, do it right now. Since I'm in love with you too and everything.”

Fabian’s brain stops working.

“Oh.”

“'Oh?' That’s it?”

“I, uh, didn’t plan for this.”

“You didn’t plan for me maybe liking you back? Dude, everybody knows already.”

Fabian draws further away at that, blinking wildly. (His hands stay on Riz’s hip and back because he’s got him now, he’s got him, Riz is in his home and his arms and his heart and wrapped in Fabian’s protection and he’s never leaving if Fabian has anything to say about it.) “Everyone?”

Riz scuffs the back of his neck and his ears are turning turquoise again. “Uh, yeah, man. Adaine told me if I complain about how much I like your eyes to her one more time she’s gonna get Fig to hex me. I um, I thought maybe you were doing the whole sheet thing to, like, let me down easy. Make me see you didn’t think of me as more than like, a kid or someone who needs your help or something.”

“Oh my gods. That is so dumb,” Fabian blurts, because what the fuck, The Ball, seriously. “That is so dumb The Ball. You’re so dumb.”

“Gee, thanks. I really feel like you love me right now, just so you know. Just overwhelming amounts of love pouring out right now.”

“Oh shut up.” Fabian says, laughing. “I wrap you in my sheet because I love you, The Ball. Like, more than I think I’ve ever liked anyone. It’s how Aelwyn knew we were over.”

“Huh?”

“She broke up with me and told me I never wrapped her in my sheet because I was always doing that to you.” Fabian explains, not even bothering to be embarrassed. “Because I've been in love with you for like, forever, man. She just realized it first because I always wanted to use the sheet on you and not my own girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Riz replies, sounding breathless. All things considered, Fabian’s going to take that as a good sign. He leans in now, presses his forehead to the crook of Riz’s neck, and breathes. Riz smells like newspaper and ink and old coffee and Fabian loves him so much. He tilts his head, nosing at the detective’s collar, and slides his lips over warm skin. He lets his teeth catch there, just a hint. “Oh.”

And then, before Fabian can even move, Riz’s hand is in his hair, tangled up in the strands, and he says, very fast, “By the way I’m demisexual, it’s on the asexuality spectrum and I was also being weird because I didn’t know how to deal with how attracted I am to you!”

“Okay,” Fabian says easily, drawing back. “Do you want to have a conversation about it? Because I don’t think I’m your guy for that, but we could go to the LGBT group meeting with Kristen next week and see if they have any resources. Jawbone could probably help too.”

Riz’s pupils are dilating slowly and his mouth hangs open before he snaps out of it. He looks less miserable now but still unsure and it’s not a good look on him. Fabian desperately wants to erase it. “That’s it? You’re not--you don’t think I’m weird?”

“Of course you’re weird, The Ball, but not for that. Besides, I think starting a relationship--we are starting a relationship, right--” Riz nods frantically, the beginnings of a grin forming, and Fabian pauses to lean in and press his mouth to the corner of Riz’s, “with the only problem being you don’t know what to do with all the insanely hot attraction you have for me is, like, the opposite of a hardship, dude.”

He stops then, considers, and then something terrible occurs to Fabian. He pulls even farther back and splays his fingers across Riz’s chest, feels his heart rabbiting there under his fingertips, and says quickly, “Not that I need you to have any kind of--any of that kind of attraction to me, Riz. I’d be okay, you know, with just this. Although you may have to tell me how hot I am from time to time. For, you know, moral support.”

Tension seems to drain out of Riz, has been since Fabian first started speaking, and this time it’s his turn to lean in and brush his lips across Fabian’s mouth. Fabian lets out a breath, takes in the scent of old newsprint and coffee and realizes he could die happy here. “You are, in fact, very hot, Fabian. And--thank you. For understanding. I might--I’m not super interested in sex, but. It’s a maybe. If you’d like it to be, for the future.”

“Of course I would, you’re incredibly attractive. But it’s not that big a deal,” Fabian says, and he picks them both up off the floor.

The sheet comes with them, sparks playing along the skin of his forearms but never burning him as he sets Riz down on the mattress because Riz is good and perfect and loves Fabian and deserves better than to sit on the floor. He doesn’t hesitate like he usually would now, and curls up around Riz, pulls the sheet over them both, encases them and pulls Riz close, closer, closest. “I love you. I’m probably not going to stop saying it now, just so you know. I’m going to be very annoying about it.”

Riz reaches up and brushes his claws lightly over Fabian’s brow and his smile is so soft something in Fabian melts. “It’s a good thing I love you then, or I’d never be able to put up with it.”

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seafleece · 4 years

Text

“I have feelings for Figueroth— Fig. Your friend. Your best friend. Mine too, transitively. Romantic ones. What do you think about that?”

It takes a second. It always does, when she gets like this. Garthy says that she always says the things she needs to, that’s not the problem, just that they end up in a different order than people are expecting.

(A different order, like being the mother of your friend, and then being looked after by them. She wonders how that Ayda managed, how she’s supposed to ever navigate the feelings that the version of her that came before felt for this person, how they’re the same and how they aren’t. Then, she remembers writing the contract.

She started writing it on Leviathan, is the part she won’t tell Fig. The no inferences part— that had been the first thing. She wasn’t sure what exactly it was she would be telling Fig, just that it was something that needed to exist outside of herself.

There was a girl who used to come to the library— she had long hair, dark and silky, and she kept needing the books Ayda was reading. We can read them together, she’d said, and that wasn’t how Ayda understood books to be, but something about the funny color in that girl’s eyes made her want to say yes.

She’d felt this roaring thing in her chest all at once when they’d both reached to turn the page at once and their fingers had brushed. Her hand was so cold it hurt to touch, but she found herself wanting to feel it again. She’d never felt that before, wanting to lean towards pain. It was strange, anomalous, she knew; she drew her hand back and let the girl turn the page. Her eyes tracked all over the next words, and didn’t take in a single one.

It occurred later that she might have hurt that girl, as well. That it might have been the reason she didn’t come back to the library again, or perhaps that she found another girl to read with, maybe one who understood the idea of reading together— she still doesn’t, you see. Or maybe she died. It was a pirate island.

(She’d had to read the whole book again— nothing had permeated beyond that feeling. A previous Ayda would have called the venture a waste.)

She’d never gotten to ask about the roaring. The sound it made, in her ears— blood, probably, or fire, or both, a previous Ayda said her body didn’t much differentiate between the two— is just like the feedback of Fig’s bass when she casts something. That's how she decides that she’ll tell her, because the thrum of the note Fig plays passes through her like the chill of another’s cold hand, and when it’s over she realizes it’s the same sound as in her head. It means something, she’s sure. She wants it so badly to mean something. She needs it to exist so badly she wishes she was a conjurer, just for a moment.)

It takes a moment. She waits.

“Well,” Adaine says, and schools her eyebrows back to a more reasonable level above her eyes, “at least you’re not a middle-aged man.”

“No, I am not,” she says. “Should I be? I do not want to be. Is that what she wants?”

“No, no,” Adaine waves her hand through the air almost desperately. “It was a joke.” Adaine Abernant is a kind soul— she looks at her after a moment, earnest and open, not like the Elven Oracle or even the Oracle for all of Spyre, but like a friend. “I don’t think she’s really thought about what she wants, but I hope when she does she finds out it’s you. You’re a good person to want.”

“Oh.”

She bursts into tears, of course.

“And you’re made of fire, too! Fig likes fire.”

“Yes.” She presses the back of her hand to her cheek. “That is very fortunate.”

(Fig’s hand slips into hers and squeezes, and she starts crying again. There's something to be said for reveling in a difference of temperature, but Fig isn’t cold, in the lattice of their fingers, and the relief she feels at it surprises her, both in presence and intensity.

“Huh,” Fig says. She’s close to unconsciousness— Fig hasn’t said anything about it, but she thinks they are entering the phase of the sleepover where the actual sleep is done.

“What is it?”

“I’ve never— your hand isn’t colder than mine. People’s always are.”

Her heart beats a rising tattoo against her ribs. “Is that bad?”

Fig smiles. Her head falls further against the pillow. “No, it’s— really nice, actually. One of those things you don’t even know you like, or want, until you have it, you know?”

“Yes,” she whispers, and feels hope building in her in this quiet sort of frenzy. “I do know.”)

—

“Do you know about the double bass?”

“Like, the instrument?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, yeah— I think they have a few at Aguefort, in the music department.”

Ayda rolls over to look at her. “I’m sorry.”

Their conversations are like this a lot— Ayda starts from the outside, sometimes. The things she says seem to exist entirely apart from another, and it’s not until Fig responds a few times that she starts to see where they spiral inward, towards something of more singular intention. In her mind’s eye, she starts to wind a thread between them. “For what?”

“You apologized for scrying on me, in the forest.”

There are too many things to envision, in that moment. Ayda, seeing the moment the marilith split from her. Confusing them. Ayda reaching out, in her mind, and finding Fig reaching back, and being afraid. Like looking into a mirror, and finding another reflected in its surface, over and over again, an unending volley of fear and confusion. She tries— she refuses, in that moment, to be lost to it. They’d wished for the same thing, believed the same thing. She chooses to believe it now, to trust.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Did you know there is copper? In your earrings?”

She blinks. Another point to wind the thread around. “No.”

“There were a lot of spells I tried to cast, while I was in the gallery. Divination spells are— well, they’re easier for me. And for detect thoughts, all you need is—”

“Copper.”

“Yes. I did not think it would work, but maybe it’s that you were reaching out to me, and that it was the last thing I tried to cast before you freed me.”

“So, you, uh—” She reaches up, suddenly shy, to scratch at her neck. Tries not to avert her eyes, and fails. “What’d you hear?”

“It’s—” Ayda’s hair flares a bit brighter, in the way she’s learned to read as embarrassment. “Fig, I believe you when you say you want to kiss me. Especially because, you know, you usually do after you say it. I just— I had never heard it like that. People think different things than they say, and it’s terrifying to think about, because I cannot— it’s already so hard to tell, when people talk to me. I don’t particularly like that spell, I don’t think I will use it again unless I have to, especially because Adaine gave me a much better one, but knowing you were thinking the same things that you say, the same things that you do, it is. Hard to explain, how it made me feel.”

She hazards a guess. “Incredible?”

“Yes,” Ayda says, immediately. “Incredible. Cool. Tight.”

She leans forward to kiss her— never sparing in intensity. Fig was never a religious kid— watching Kristen go through her whole thing sort of gave her the experience in miniature, and she hasn’t even begun to broach the idea that an archdevil is something people could believe in, that Hell is a metaphysical thing as much as a place. But, she thinks, as best as she knows, that Ayda kisses like prayer. Fervent, quiet, focused. All the things she believes, and hopes, brought to the forefront.

Her hands curl in Fig’s shirt and loosen again, and Fig wraps her fingers lazily along the curve of Ayda’s neck.

“What about the double bass?”

“Oh,” Ayda says, “Yes. I think it was something from earlier, from when you were— in the forest, but you said something about bass, and solos.”

Her throat closes a bit. The thread winds. “Right.”

“Every time you play at a concert venue, there are more people in the room than I have ever met in my life. All in the same place, for you. I do not know how much help it is— to hear it from me, that is, even if we are paramours— but I think the bass is a very good solo instrument.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know how to describe it— it sounds like, like something inside of me. it sounds like how I feel.”

It’s hard to keep hold of the thread, when Ayda says things like that. “God, uh, okay. Cool.”

“Yes.” Ayda nods, head shifting along the pillow. “Cool. Tight.”

“So,” and she reminds herself that a spiral circles itself, to reach the center. “The double bass.”

“The double bass,” Ayda says, voice shifting into the flat, confident tone of Research Ayda, conveying information diligently collected. “Is like another version of the bass guitar— the predecessor, actually. It's used in orchestral settings, and sometimes jazz. It’s much larger, and has a different tone, but is tuned the same way. It would not be so difficult, to switch between them, though it seems that bow technique can take a long time to learn, and there are different styles of even holding it— the Fallinel bow style is the more widely accepted version, though I suppose that is reason enough not to use it—”

“You think I should play the double bass instead?”

“Oh,” Ayda says. “I see. I have led you to a misconception. I think you should do exactly what you want, Fig. I just— I wanted to find solos, for the bass, for you. Or, at least, proof that people want to hear them, enough to write them. People that aren’t just me.”

And just like that, the thread reaches the center. Fig smiles, and ties it off, crowds a little further into Ayda’s space so her wing reflexively curls out and across her. “You know what’s funny?”

“What is funny?”

“The thing that got me to leave the van so Aelwyn could escape, it was hearing you were upset. Because those stupid Kei Lumennura kids told you I, uh, I got around, because I was a rock star, or whatever.”

“Oh,” Ayda blinks. “That seems plausible, actually, I did not fully understand what it meant. If I heard that you were with other people, a lot, before I finished drafting up the contract, I think it would have upset me quite a bit.”

“It’s not a tour,” Fig says, “things need to settle down, but if you want to watch me practice, when we get home or even today, I think that would be cool.”

“This is not something you would normally do?”

“No, I always— I learned how to play by myself, in my room, because I didn’t want to see anyone and things were getting— bad, all around me. Even when I practice with Gorgug and everyone, it’s after I finish writing the songs, after I know I can play them.”

“I see.”

“Practicing takes a long time, it’s not as fun, and it kinda hurts, sometimes. But it’s real. Most of music is learning how to do it, performing is just— like a celebration, of all the work. I never really wanted someone to see that part, before, but if you want to, I think I want that.”

Then, they have to take a minute to smother the pillow where it’s caught fire— or rather, Fig does, and Ayda stands and tries to stop her tears from falling on anything else flammable.

“I think—“ Ayda says, thumbing under her eyes and coming away with only sparks. “I think I would like that. I think it would be incredible.”

“Great,” and Fig pulls her down onto the mattress, now pillow-less and covered only with those fancy Kei Lumennura sheets Fabian swears can’t catch fire. Really, they should’ve only had those the whole time. “Cool.”

“Tight,” Ayda supplies, and kisses her again.

#what's up gamers #my writing #fantasy high #dimension 20 #dimension 20 live #fantasy high sophomore year #figayda #figueroth faeth #ayda aguefort #we're ayda stans FIRST and NOTHING ELSE

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