suffocate me with fluff

Well I see that, and I raise you this:

An anime boy whose appearance is, by absolutely anyone’s account, completely and utterly average. Mundane hair. Mundane eyes. Not even glasses to set him the tiniest bit apart. A simple, unmemorable, unrecognizable civilian among a backdrop of millions.

And he has a lot of passions, and a lot of ambitions, which he hones every chance he gets. He’s dabbled in sports and archery and cooking and just about anything you could wrap a competition around. And he’s competed in many of these. Every chance he gets. With all of his passion and all of his might.

He’s crushed by the competition every single time.

Until one day–one day something clicks for him. Something that should have seemed obvious from the start and yet never was–as though everyone, including himself, was unwittingly blind to it. It clicks, when he realizes every kid who’s beaten him in competition, every kid who’s gone on to fame and glory and acclaim, has been some candy-haired gel-spiked ridiculously-dressed fucker. 

There’s some trend there that this Main Character boy can’t explain and can’t understand but he decides, this one time, fuck it. He’ll play along too. He’s got a model train competition in four days, and he’s got nothing more to lose. He hits up the department store, buys the pinkest, noxious-est, fruitiest hair dye he can find, the spikiest hair gel available, and the gaudiest clothes on the thrift rack. He enters the model train competition looking like a bubble gum gijinka.

And he wins.

Suddenly, the other candy-haired contestants notice him. They talk to him. They pledge rivalries. Girls notice him. Judges applaud him. Acclaimed model train aficionados offer him internships across the world. He’s hit on something. 

The main cast expands to cover just about every candy-hair cliche in the book: from the mostly-normal-looking demure school girl with the blue hair to the Naruto-est, yelling-est boy with the red-and-green spiked hair. The cool megane senpais, the purple haired tsunderes, suddenly everyone is interested in him. They’re prodigies and upstarts and underdogs and they truly believe that this main character boy is one of them.

So the main character boy maintains his ruse. He touches up his roots at dawn every morning and carefully attends to his gelled spikes and tells absolutely no one about this great, uncanny, unfathomable secret he’s stumbled upon. He wins his competitions left and right. He racks up the acclaim. He’s hailed as a prodigy of all trades, just now bursting onto the scene, and boils to the top of all his candy-haired peers.

The night before the competition, some ungodly scream sounds from the Naruto-kid’s room. The rest of the cast rush in, flick on the lights, and find Naruto-kid sitting up in bed, his hair completely flat and utterly black, a pair of DIY salon gloves discarded next to his bed. He races to the mirror across the room, hands hovering in shock around his straightened hair, as though unable to recognize the boy staring back at him.

It’s… an unsettling act of personal vandalism, but Naruto-kid seems unhurt. After verifying he’s okay and reporting it to hotel security, most of the kids are content to go back to their own rooms and just double-check their own locks.

Most seem content…. Not all…

The next day, Naruto-kid is eliminated from the competition nigh-instantly. He’s given no chance to monologue about his ambitions, his friends, his hometown.  Not even a second spared for a flashback to the bullying that became the formative motivator of his childhood.  

No. He’s summarily eliminated by another candy-haired contestant. Naruto-kid, with his suddenly unassuming black hair, is dismissed from the arena. And Main Character-kun is distressed. 

There’s a murderer on the loose. Just in no traditional sense. Another kid is shaved bald in the middle of the night, and eliminated from the competition the next day. Colored contact lenses go missing, and suddenly the red-eyed yandere girl doesn’t have a leg to stand on. She’s sent home without the slightest bit of fanfare. Someone funnels bleach into the sprinkler line, and a triggering of the fire alarm leaves a whole arena of contestants doused in the ruinous fluid. Their candy colors melt into brittle, tacky, bleachy off-orange. Not a single one survives that night’s round of eliminations.

Main Character-kun is still pink. He’s still gelled. He’s still dressed in fiery robes and platform sandals with a bandana cinched around his forehead. He hoards hair dye in his room and sleeps with one eye open. He can only watch in silence as this gruesome assassination plot unravels, without a doubt in his mind that he is the real target.

One night, there’s a knock on his door. And the twisting of a key. And the squeak of hinges swinging open. Main Character-boy’s breathing halts.  His time has come.

He looks. It’s the blue-haired girl, the quiet one with self-confidence issues. Her hair is tied into twin pigtails. She’s carrying something in her right hand.  Main Character boy braces for impact.

She flicks on the lights. He looks. They’re wigs, in her hand. Three of them. Purple Green and Orange, each primmed and poofed and curled to extravagant degrees.

“Here,” she offers, hand extended. “Take whichever you like. They’re extra.”

“Wait. Why…? What’s this–what’s happening?”

She takes a step forward, and she shuts the door behind her. With her free hand, she grips the blue hairline at her scalp, and she pulls back gently, revealing netting. She drops the blue hair to the ground, and pulls the netting free from her forehead, and a loose, unassuming bob of perfectly black, perfectly normal hair falls around her shoulders.

She’s unassuming in every possible regard, mundane in every sense, a girl to blend into the backdrop of millions.

MC-chan explains that she had lived a very normal and unassuming life. She did Stage Crew in middle school for the drama club, always the unnoticed extra in the background, sweeping in silently, covertly, under darkness to handle the scene changes and wardrobe transformations.  She honed her skills making props and costumes for the drama kids, til she was a master of needle and thread, dyes and combs, and props built from paper and plastic.

She thinks it was that attention-to-detail she cultivated in prop-design that let her finally See what MC-kun had seen—the Candy Haired world around her that constantly overshadowed whatever she did.

One day, she put on the wig. And she never looked back.

But she doesn’t know who the hair assassin is either, any more than MC-kun. There’s still strength in numbers. And she figures if they work together, their odds of survival are greater.

MC-kun agrees.

…

The next day is a free day for the kids competing in this International Competition. The morning passes with most of the contestants montaging through a romp in the city, tasting local cuisine and window-shopping around the market area and getting into Kodak-moment worthy shenanigans.

MC-kun and MC-chan steal away to a quiet park, sitting at a picnic table, putting pink- and blue-heads together to talk through all the info they have, and what options are open to them. They don’t get very far. A glasses-wearing girl appears from behind the bushes and stops them cold.

Glasses Girl is small and wiry, mousy in her frame. She has orange hair that poofs around her head, cropped at chin level, in a way that reminds MC-kun vaguely of a roosting chicken. Her glasses are enormous on her freckled face, and they capture the light, obscuring her eyes behind their glare.

“You two… you’re fakes, aren’t you? Both of you.”

MC-kun stops cold. MC-chan spins around in her seat, wide-eyed. “I don’t… I don’t even know what that means! Go away before we—”

Glasses Girl pulls an immaculate, highly stylized laptop from her bag. She flips it open with one hand, propping it on the table and typing furiously, too fast to even see her fingers. Audio begins to play from the laptop speakers.

“We’re not going home yet. Not you, and not me.”

“I hacked into your phone last night,” GG-chan states simply, head tilted toward MC-kun. “I’ve heard the whole conversation.”

“How?!” MC-kun asks. He holds his phone at a distance, like it’s suddenly venomous.

GG-chan shifts. Suddenly the glare of her glasses is no longer obstructing her eyes. Behind the coke-bottle look is an expression of pure brow-knitted confusion. “I don’t…. I don’t actually know. I just could.”

GG-chan was an art student. A not-very-good-at-all art student. And a very-much-below-average competitor in sculpting competitions. She was plain, and unassuming, and inconspicuous, and jealous of the better-established art students around her with their own flashy styles. Her peers wore giant non-prescription glasses; they dyed their hair bright colors and cropped it short to perfect hipster chique.

GG-chan tried to imitate that. But as a truly-not-fantastic artist, she couldn’t even pull that off. She dyed her hair, picked out glasses, overshot “hipster”, and landed firmly in “geek”.

She landed so firmly in “geek” that internationally-acclaimed hacker abilities spawned with her makeover. Suddenly she could break into anything, override anything, hack or fix or erase anything over a permanent wifi connection that followed her as its hotspot.

Her laptop never loses charge. Her bash scripts never fail. Her glasses always glint in the slightest bit of light and slide down her nose so that she has to keep her middle finger pressed firmly to the bridge at all times.

She’s afraid of being sent home in ruin, sent back to her life as a mediocre art student.

GG-chan wants to join the effort to not be eliminated.

…

A day passes. GG-chan has hacked all the email accounts of the registered contestants and has found nothing suspicious. MC-chan has spent her time crafting shorter-cut wigs to give to MC-kun and GG-chan as backups. MC-kun has been trying his best to understand what he’s gotten into. He bought a few extra obnoxious bandanas to bolster his obnoxious outfit, as if that might help.

They’re sitting quietly at lunch, eating in silence, with no new information to share and no desire to attract unwanted attention from the contestants around them.

“Ohhhhh my what is this? Has this pathetic posse of plebeians formed a little club oh how quaint!”

MC-chan chokes on her noodles. GG-chan startles. MC-kun groans.

The voice belongs to a platinum-blond boy, dressed to the nines, who’s sidled up to the table unannounced. He reeks of ambition and money and arrogance and a very particular high-end cologne, and he laughs heartily at his own joke. He flicks a lock of blond hair from his face, which all but sparkles.

MC-kun recognizes this kid. He was one of the first Candy Haired kids to declare an eternal rivalry with him.

“What’s it to you?” MC-kun challenges, already ticked off.

And the Rich Blond Rival Boy deflates. Comically. Pale and hollow-cheeked and exhausted, suddenly leaning against their lunch table, speaking in a rasp. “Please let me join you. I’ve been wearing this Gucci suit for two weeks straight I don’t have any others.”

No one answers immediately. No one has anything resembling an answer.

“Then buy another suit!” MC-kun says.

“Do I look like I’m made of m o n e y to you?!”

“YES.”

“Ah ha! Yes that is the point, well you see–” and RBR-kun pulls out a soggy PB&J from his bag, slumps into an open seat at the table, his eyes dull and matte, solemnly chewing his lunch. “Can one of you spot me like $1.50 for the bus ride to the competition arena tomorrow? I spent the last of my money on this bread.”

MC-kun: “What?”

RBR-kun: “I don’t have money!”

MC-kun: “Why are you ACTING like a rich boy if you DONT HAVE MONEY”

RBR-kun: “LOOK IT JUST KIND OF HAPPENED OKAY.”

MC-kun: “WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT JUST KIND OF HAPPENED.”

And well, it just kind of happened. Rich Blond Rival Boy is as fake as they come. He grew up in a modest household, making money over the summer by doing yard work for neighbors. He was fairly frugal and quiet and unassuming, until his grandma bought him a nice tux for the school dance, and he dyed his hair platinum blond on a dare, and suddenly the world was in his pocket.

Suddenly he had connections in high places. Suddenly he could have wait staff doting on him at a moment’s notice. Suddenly he could summon helicopters at the snap of his fingers, and have any product imaginable, legal or not, air-lifted to him on a whim. Everyone was his pawn. Everything bent to his will. Ever since then he’s been unstoppable in his ambitions.

He just doesn’t have any of the actual money to maintain this. All his cards are overdrafted. His credit is in the toilet. Several different loan sharks technically own the rights to his immortal soul.

Rich Blond Rival Boy wants in on the League Of Background Characters, because he is utterly afraid of the ruin he faces if he is exposed. If the others get assassinated, they get sent home. If RBR-kun gets assassinated, the debtors will drag him out by his toes.

A scuffle erupts over by the lunch line before anyone can give RBR-kun an answer. It’s over in an instant. A shriek, a clatter, a tray and knife hitting the ground. The biker ruffian boy with the blue mohawk lies on the floor. His shorn-off mohawk spikes lie on the platter, as if being served to the cafeteria at large.

Worried murmurs break out in the crowd.

No one had seen the knife-yielder. 

No one had seen anything.

MORE KIDS MORE KIDS MORE KIDS

And the one thing worth noting: MC-chan is now MG-chan, as in Main Girl-chan, to avoid mixing up her name with MC-kun. 

Enjoy.

There’s a sustained hush, like a breath held too long. It’s a blooming, crawling, clawing wave of realization that takes the cafeteria captive. Heads turn. Voices falls silent. Clueless candy-hair after clueless candy-hair takes in the murder scene, mohawk spikes presented so curiously, so esoterically plattered, as if part of the lunch selection.

The dish itself is a warning; MG-chan understands that much. She feels the bloodlust in the air. And it’s closer now. She edges her chair away from the table. Her nerves are alight.

“Run,” MG-chan says.

“Sorry?” MC-kun replies.

MG-chan kicks her chair back, lighting to her feet.

“Run!”

And at that moment, a sound like a cannon ball fires, the silence breaking. People startle at the noise, but it’s the boy sitting one table over – directly across from MC-kun – who jolts entirely sideways in his seat. He’s the contestant whose hair has been quaffed perfectly into a cartoon whale, pallid blue and deep ocean undertones brimming through his hairline. He stares forward, as if stunned. The girl next to him asks if he’s okay.

He turns to her slowly, and reveals the entire right half of his face has been consumed in a wad of bubblegum. He raises one shaking hand to his whale-tail, now webbed in gum, and he collapses.

And all hell breaks loose.

MG-chan has MC-kun by the shoulder before he can process it. They’re running. Them and GG-chan and RBR-kun. Them and almost everyone else, a breathing screaming mass of panic as people shove and knee and elbow their way through the crowd.

“Where are we going?” MC-kun asks. He’s stumbling to keep pace with MG-chan, one hand pressed protectively to the bandana on his forehead in danger of slipping off.

“Away from here. Outside.”  MG-chan throws her weight against the cafeteria door. It slams open. “Wherever we’re not sitting targets.”

Their feet beat against the linoleum below, into the hotel foyer, but it’s no good. The bloodlust presence doesn’t fade. It does not grow weaker. Instead it gains on them, like heat, like a house fire that lashes out at their heels and trips them with each step. Another two kids go down with the sound of razor blades and a puff of shorn hair, like dandelion fluff blown in the wind.

MG-chan, MC-kun, GG-chan, and RBR-kun all burst out the hotel front doors – RBR-kun with a shriek and a graceful leap over a half-shaved unconscious student on the floor.

“How did he go down?! I didn’t even see him go down?!” RBR-kun shouts, pointing to the kid he vaulted. “Invisibility? Is the murderer invisible?!”

“Maybe super-speed. Really any superpower is possible among these people. We can’t rule anything out.” GG-chan has her laptop out, balanced precariously on the crook of her arm. She types one-handed while she runs. “If I can hack into the security cameras maybe I can activate the infra-red sensors and get a reading on—”

There’s a crack. A gasp. MG, MC, and RBR all look back to find GG-chan frozen in place. Her glasses are shattered, pinned to the wall beside her by a single needle-thin arrow.

“My glasses…” GG-chan blinks, and stares at her laptop like it’s something entirely foreign to her. “What is this? What was I–?”

MG-chan grabs her arm too. “Never mind. Run. Just run.”

A year ago, the idea existed as nothing more than a metaphor. Now, it’s our reality.

No one knows why this is happening. No scientist can explain why high stress encounters are suddenly causing humans to manifest unbelievable powers. It’s like something out of a bad science fiction story.

The worst part is - it’s not even consistent.

Stella’s second grade classmate fell off a balcony last week and manifested the power of flight. That same day, a businessman tried the same stunt on a skyscraper and didn’t manifest anything at all.

They’re still talking about it on the news. My parents have the television in the living room blaring, and I’m trying not to listen as I get a glass of water before bed. By the time I have the chilled glass in hand, the audio has changed. And as I trudge back upstairs, I glimpse a man in a suit speaking into a microphone.

“I’m confident Alivir Industries will crack the mystery when it comes to manufacturing controlled stressors. Soon you’ll be able to pick your very own superpower.”

That’s bullshit. And if it’s not bullshit, then we’ve all got bigger problems than we had before. Distracted by thoughts of a world in which children are traumatized until their X-Men powers manifest, I don’t see Jeremy coming down the stairs.

Our shoulders collide and water sluices out of the glass. Jeremy’s eyes go wide and he actually leaps up several stairs to avoid the falling water.

Jeremy drowned. I mean, he survived. But barely.

It was two months ago, and as a result, Jeremy won the superpower lottery. He has wicked cool water manipulation powers. Which would be awesome…if he weren’t so entirely traumatized by the experience to the point that water of any kind practically sends him into fits. He sucks on ice when he’s thirsty and he uses deodorant until he smells like a walking Axe body spray factory before he gives in and takes a light sponge bath.

“Sorry, Jeremy,” I say, because I am. It’s not his fault he’s traumatized. I make a point of stepping on the wet spot on the stairs and hold the glass so that it’s a little behind me, just out of his sight.

He smiles, but it’s a wan look. Jeremy is two years older than me, and a closed book in every way that I am an open one. I know the only thing he dislikes more than water is talking about how much he dislikes water, so I clap him once on the shoulder and continue up the stairs.

I’ve only just passed the first door in the hallway when a soft, pleading voice calls out from the dark.

“Emma?”

Clutching my water, I stop and breathe a sigh. I’m tired, but it’s Stella, and so I take a fortifying sip of water and press through the door. Eight year old Stella is a tiny lump in a bright pink unicorn comforter.

“What’s up, Stell?”

“There’s a monster under my bed.”

I set my glass on the nearby bookshelf and pad across the room. It’s a pain in the ass, but it’ll save me in the long run if I just suck it up and check.

Giving her a flat look, I drop to my knees and peer under the bed.

“Oh my god.”

“What? What is it?”

Rising to my knees, I wave a dirty sock in the air. “How many dank ass socks do you have down here?”

I toss the sock on her bed and Stella cracks a reluctant smile.

It’s not until I’m nearly to the door that I hear her softly insist, “There is a monster, though. It has long hands and a shadow face.”

I don’t know what that means, but picking my glass off the shelf, I say, “Luckily shadows are weak to light.” I switch on the night light by the door. “I’m right down the hall, Stell. I’ll hear if you call.”

She nods, accepting my promise, and sinks back into her pink pillow.

I leave her with the nightlight, hoping to hell she doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night.

It’s when I’m sitting down on my bed that it happens. I’ve got the glass of water in one hand when I look down and realize my phone charger has come partially unplugged. It’s late, and like I said - I’m tired. When I bend over, I don’t think about the glass in my hands.

When I feel the water starting to spill, my hand jerks - only it’s the wrong hand. The hand which had been reaching for the plug knocks forward, and my knuckles bump the partially exposed prongs of the plug as the water spills over everything.

The next thing I know, I’m waking up on the floor.

There is a scorch mark up the wall and my body feels strangely heavy.

“Aw man,” I say, sitting up enough to press a palm to my aching head. I can’t help but think, I really don’t want to be the freak with lightning powers.

I’d been so good in my attempts to avoid anything traumatic or potentially scarring. Everyone keeps focusing on how cool powers are, but I’ve seen first hand how messed up they can be. They’re inconvenient at best, and a danger at worst. Mostly because no one knows how to use them. Just yesterday the kids at my high school were talking about how a teenager had accidentally set his house on fire and nearly killed his whole family.

I can barely remember to do my homework. I do not need lightning powers that could kill people. I’m not ready for that kind of responsibility.

Mary was a beautiful baby, sweet and affectionate, but by the time she’s three she’s turned difficult and strange, with fey moods and a stubborn mouth that screams and bites but never says mama. But her mother’s well-used to hard work with little thanks, and when the village gossips wag their tongues she just shrugs, and pulls her difficult child away from their precious, perfect blossoms, before the bites draw blood. Mary’s mother doesn’t drown her in a bucket of saltwater, and she doesn’t take up the silver knife the wife of the village priest leaves out for her one Sunday brunch. 

She gives her daughter yarn, instead, and instead of a rowan stake through her inhuman heart she gives her a child’s first loom, oak and ash. She lets her vicious, uncooperative fairy daughter entertain herself with games of her own devising, in as much peace and comfort as either of them can manage.

Mary grows up strangely, as a strange child would, learning everything in all the wrong order, and biting a great deal more than she should. But she also learns to weave, and takes to it with a grand passion. Soon enough she knows more than her mother–which isn’t all that much–and is striking out into unknown territory, turning out odd new knots and weaves, patterns as complex as spiderwebs and spellrings. 

“Aren’t you clever,” her mother says, of her work, and leaves her to her wool and flax and whatnot. Mary’s not biting anymore, and she smiles more than she frowns, and that’s about as much, her mother figures, as anyone should hope for from their child. 

Mary still cries sometimes, when the other girls reject her for her strange graces, her odd slow way of talking, her restless reaching fluttering hands that have learned to spin but never to settle. The other girls call her freak, witchblood, hobgoblin.

“I don’t remember girls being quite so stupid when I was that age,” her mother says, brushing Mary’s hair smooth and steady like they’ve both learned to enjoy, smooth as a skein of silk. “Time was, you knew not to insult anyone you might need to flatter later. ‘Specially when you don’t know if they’re going to grow wings or horns or whatnot. Serve ‘em all right if you ever figure out curses.”

“I want to go back,” Mary says. “I want to go home, to where I came from, where there’s people like me. If I’m a fairy’s child I should be in fairyland, and no one would call me a freak.”

“Aye, well, I’d miss you though,” her mother says. “And I expect there’s stupid folk everywhere, even in fairyland. Cruel folk, too. You just have to make the best of things where you are, being my child instead.”

Mary learns to read well enough, in between the weaving, especially when her mother tracks down the traveling booktraders and comes home with slim, precious manuals on dyes and stains and mordants, on pigments and patterns, diagrams too arcane for her own eyes but which make her daughter’s eyes shine.

“We need an herb garden,” her daughter says, hands busy, flipping from page to page, pulling on her hair, twisting in her skirt, itching for a project. “Yarrow, and madder, and woad and weld…”

“Well, start digging,” her mother says. “Won’t do you a harm to get out of the house now’n then.”

Mary doesn’t like dirt but she’s learned determination well enough from her mother. She digs and digs, and plants what she’s given, and the first year doesn’t turn out so well but the second’s better, and by the third a cauldron’s always simmering something over the fire, and Mary’s taking in orders from girls five years older or more, turning out vivid bolts and spools and skeins of red and gold and blue, restless fingers dancing like they’ve summoned down the rainbow. Her mother figures she probably has.

“Just as well you never got the hang of curses,” she says, admiring her bright new skirts. “I like this sort of trick a lot better.”

Mary smiles, rocking back and forth on her heels, fingers already fluttering to find the next project.

She finally grows up tall and fair, if a bit stooped and squinty, and time and age seem to calm her unhappy mouth about as well as it does for human children. Word gets around she never lies or breaks a bargain, and if the first seems odd for a fairy’s child then the second one seems fit enough. The undyed stacks of taken orders grow taller, the dyed lots of filled orders grow brighter, the loom in the corner for Mary’s own creations grows stranger and more complex. Mary’s hands callus just like her mother’s, become as strong and tough and smooth as the oak and ash of her needles and frames, though they never fall still.

“Do you ever wonder what your real daughter would be like?” the priest’s wife asks, once.

Mary’s mother snorts. “She wouldn’t be worth a damn at weaving,” she says. “Lord knows I never was. No, I’ll keep what I’ve been given and thank the givers kindly. It was a fair enough trade for me. Good day, ma’am.”

Mary brings her mother sweet chamomile tea, that night, and a warm shawl in all the colors of a garden, and a hairbrush. In the morning, the priest’s son comes round, with payment for his mother’s pretty new dress and a shy smile just for Mary. He thinks her hair is nice, and her hands are even nicer, vibrant in their strength and skill and endless motion.  

They all live happily ever after.

*

Here’s another story: 

She makes the poppet on the anniversary of her brother’s death. She’s not much for sewing so she makes it out of paper, two gingerbread men cut out and their edges harshly, cruelty stapled together. She writes the murderer’s vices on its arms, his name on the head, and her hatred like arrows over the heart. She gives it googly eyes so he can see inside what’s happening even if he doesn’t know it for true. 

 She stuffs her creation with yarrow and rue, red pepper and rusted metal, dragon’s blood and small chips of garnet so filled with her hatred that they feel even colder to the touch. Then she seals it with another snap of the stapler. 

Thinks for a moment and drags a needle through witch’s salt and crushed red pepper and drives it straight through the poppet’s stomach. 

 Think of me, she curses, twisting the needle. Think of me and be afraid.

 ————————————————————

Mistrial. That’s what happens when a case is too clear cut. The good people who want to help move too quickly and forget the little things. Warrants. Miranda Rights. A licensed attorney.

Little things.

She wasn’t willing to wait another year for justice. Each day of this one has inflamed her roots, brought magic flaming to her fingertips, has put death in her eyes.

She won’t live until the next jury is selected if she doesn’t get this out of her and into him.

——————————————————————-

There are potions of invisibility, creams that encourage eyes to slide from physical form, chants that, when hissed, make the chanter seem like air.

Jails are a magicless place for witches like her. Too much stagnation, pain and fear. She’s not built for it so she buttons her aura down, locks her senses to her bones, and asks to visit Henry Stevens. 

“Alright,” the guard says, eyeing her bloodless face and the small package in her hands. “But he may not agree to see you. That been through security?” He nods to her paper parcel.

“Yes,” she says. There’s a secrecy rune on the inside of the wrapping paper, encouraging sensors to overlook the metal. “But it’s not staying.”

The guard nods and disappears, speaking softly into the phone. She doesn’t try to catch the words, just lets her eyes skip from ghost to ghost that litter this place.

All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes.

Original Works

Terrors When They Grow Up by MuffinLance

The pup was stealing rope, and Lada was watching him do it, and he was staring her in the eyes as he did. This was the first sign that something was wrong.

"Why," she asked. Not a question so much as a… why. Just why.

"For the prisoner," the pup answered, his chin raised. "It's a dangerous prisoner."

Or: As the adults scour the woods for the hunter's missing mage, the puppies take a prisoner. A baby-Jaime-kidnapped-by-other-babies AU. Teenage Lada is DONE.

All series parts are independent AUs, and can be read in any order. Mine is the Everyone Is BABIES edition.

The Witcher

hope it's nice where you are by K9_DFTBA

“It’s been such a long time, Julian. When will you be over him?”

Jaskier’s laugh, muffled and humorless, followed the question. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

“I don’t enjoy seeing you hurting.”

“I’m fine. Most of the time.”

“Most of the time,”  Valdo echoed, and then, “oh, fuck.”

The progress bar stopped. Error loading. Tap to retry? Geralt tapped. This video is unavailable.

(After Jaskier goes viral for being a pining mess during a livestream, Geralt’s family tries to figure out exactly why the couple broke up, given that Jaskier is clearly still in love with Geralt. Meanwhile, Geralt is in denial, Jaskier is absolutely fine, thanks, and the internet is having a bit of a breakdown.)

Always on My Mind by didoandis

The bard doesn’t seem to notice Geralt lurking behind him until Geralt clears his throat, a low rumble, which makes him turn.

“Goodness,” he says. “Hello. You’re very… loomy.”

Now she’s closer, Ciri can see his face properly. His hair hangs lank around his face; stubble covers his chin, a little too long to be stylish; his eyes above are a bright shining blue. And yet there’s something faded about him, his clothes just slightly worse for wear, his cheeks hollow.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, almost desperately.

After the mountain, a reunion. It doesn’t go that well, to begin with.

DC (Batman)

Distress Signal by sElkieNight60

Pages and pages of distress calls, each one recorded, dated, and filed away. With a few efficient taps Jason narrows the search. The screen goes from lists of white, answered signals, to a flood of red.

03/02 - 10:21 RED ROBIN - RESPOND: DISTRESS SIGNAL REROUTED. 03/02 - 10:22 RED ROBIN - RESPOND: DISTRESS SIGNAL REROUTED. 03/02 - 10:24 RED ROBIN - RESPOND: DISTRESS SIGNAL REROUTED.

Petals for Armor by SilverSkiesAtMidnight

There’s a small half-moon of blood under the white of Tim’s nail where he bent it. He studies the red of it, feeling foggy and dreamlike. “Can I ask you a question?”

His brother’s eyes flick to him and away again, surprised and wary. “What?”

His nail doesn’t hurt much, just the dullest of aches when he presses down against it. “When you were homeless, you slept with people for money, didn’t you?”

Jason jerks like he’s been slapped. His knuckles are so pale where they grip the steering wheel they suddenly look more bone than flesh. “Did I -”

“Was it worth it?” Tim asks, drifting like a cloud over whatever furious reaction Jason was about to give him. “The money, I mean.”

His sternum slams into the seatbelt with bruising force. Unbraced for it, his head whips forward and back against his seat as they swerve off the road again and skid to a halt with a screech of rubber.

hit me like a shooting star (so i can make a wish) by Ms_Trickster

“He broke my camera!” Tim wails, incensed. “Not a crack, not a dent; it’s nothing but a pile of glass because he broke it!”

“And his ankle,” Robin adds.

“And my ankle!”

“...I accidentally hit him with my car,” Batman reluctantly offers when Dr. Thompkins raises her eyebrow at him, causing her to choke on her next breath.

(Or: One evening while birdwatching, a ten year old Tim Drake gets run over by the Batmobile.)

Clone Wars

The Prime Override by YukiPri

When Jango Fett overrides Order 66, he single-handedly ruins Sidious's Empire before it can rise. Now, the reinstated Mand'alor is at the top of the Sith Lord's shit list--but conveniently enough, Jango happens to have several million perfectly identical body doubles, who will all do whatever it takes to keep Sidious's plans from coming to fruition.

Which, is how Cody finds himself with the dubious honor of sitting on Mandalore's throne--a position made all the more difficult because he has to maintain his act in front of none other than his former General.

lift your head, child (the story has only just begun) by hoebiwan

“You’re sad,” Anakin says.

Obi-Wan winces.

“It’s okay, Master,” Anakin says seriously. He reaches up with his other hand and pats Obi-Wan’s heart. “Mom says when everything hurts right here, we hafta hold it close ‘til we find the space to cry.”

Unsure of how to respond, Obi-Wan squeezes Anakin’s hand.

(Anakin doesn’t know he’s not a slave. Obi-Wan doesn’t know Anakin doesn’t know. The Jedi Order has work to be done, inside and outside its walls.)

Platonic Saber Touch-Test by inimitability

No one entertains the idea that the new tax is for the purpose they claim. The king lies, the streets remain potted with holes, and we all knew this would happen.

Dukes and Duchesses and princes? Do you trust their words more?

No.

So why do you trust hers?

Is it because she's a merchant's daughter, and not a highborn girl of status and power?

Tell me, do you really trust the wealthy shopkeeper to give you the most of your money's worth?

I thought not.

You trust her story because you want to. I get that, it is quite the tale. I know my words will fall on deaf ears, but I cannot go forever without telling it. Princess who's love would have me executed or not.

We never called her Cinderella.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ella. Ella was the name of my new sister. She was younger than Anastasia, but older than me. I was excited to meet her. She was not excited to meet us.

The first night in the new house (It was an extravagant place, then before we'd gotten used to it, it had stairs!), Ella shut herself in her rooms for dinner, then breakfast, then was coaxed out by her father for lunch. Her eyes were puffy but she still leveled us with a glare that felt like a drafty window.

Ella did not want us here.

"Give her time," Mother had told us, "Her mother passed away recently, this is a big change."

So we gave her time. Two years should've been enough to dull the hostility, but when I'm pranked so viscously, I retaliate. I regret it a bit now, it was childish, but I don't think I would've ever done anything differently. See, Ella's father, the man I should call my papa like she did, didn't believe Ella could do wrong. I could tell him that she'd put rotten egg in my shoe, but Ella wouldn't do that, it must've been Anastasia, if I wasn't lying. So I fought back in my own way, and got punished for it more often than not.

Two years later, and we were just as much enemies as Ella had expected of us.

Then Ella's doting father died.

Here's the beginning of her story, she "Became a servant in her own house," right? Honestly, I think she actually thinks that's how it happened.

Context, Ella, is important.

Mother didn't appear to grieve (She did, of course, but Ella never learned to read my mother's face.) Mother couldn't afford to waist time lounging with her tears, we were living in a house we couldn't afford. So Anastasia sat at the table and started embroidering for hours, Mother and I ripped the useless flowers from the garden and planted the dye plants we knew so well. We secured an income to keep the warm, draft-less building. Mother tried to remarry (yet again), but some nasty rumors of poison kept the husbands away. I still wonder if Ella, the charismatic socialite, had something to do with them.

We couldn't afford to keep servants, but we knew how to clean and cook, and do all the things we did before. Ella did not.

I do wonder if our work all went unnoticed. Did she really not care that I made dinner, because of how horrendous it was to was dishes? She says now, that we all lounged around and did nothing. Well, Ella, maybe its because I stuck my hand in the laundry water and scrubbed instead of swishing it around hoping the dirt wouldn't get on me!

It does not take that long to do simple chores if you dig in and do them!

(And before you try to say it, we did teach her how. But the washboard chipped a nail and was then onward unusable.)

Mere months of this, oh, that's right, Ella doesn't use the correct dates in her tale, No.

This didn't go on for six years, like she'd have you believe. Her father hadn't been in the ground for a year when the ball's invitation came.

I wish it had been longer.

She would've figured chores out and had a bit of free time. Then, maybe she would be content to not ruin us.

I think you can figure the rest of the story out. I dyed fabric, Anastasia embroidered, and Mother stitched dresses together for all three of us. Ella's didn't meet her standards and she wore something from an old chest of her mother's. It had been a beautiful gown, I could imagine a fairy stitching it.

The party came and went, we had fun and Ella had a hook in the prince. The envoy came to collect her a week later, and she'd had soot on her fingers from scrubbing the fireplace.

“even though your suffering feels eternal, unrelenting, the new year is full of promise, and it is coming fast.” - Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“Any fear, any memory will do; and if you’ve got a heart at all, someday it will kill you.” - Rita Dove, Primer for the Nuclear Age

“I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to come home.” - Katie Maria, I wanted to ask

“You can put your strength down. I’m sitting here with you at your kitchen table. You don’t need to say anything.” - Eden Robinson, Writing Prompts for the Broken-hearted

“(The body always betrays itself—it blushes, it trembles…)” - Richard Siken, love from a distance

“Your god comes and he is ordinary and terrible.” - Leila Chatti, Portrait of the Illness as Nightmare

“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“This is the ending where you finally find your way home and the ancient terror inside of you is stomped out for good.” - Jonny Bolduc, Ending

“I walk into the fire always, and come out more alive.” - Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume IV

“For a while it was love, wasn’t it? For me it was love.” - Sue Zhao

“Will you weep and wail forever? What will be enough for you? To melt in tears?” - Sophocles, trans. Peter Meineck & Paul Woodruff, Electra

“I wish I wasn’t such a dreamer. I’ve ruined this life for myself.” - N.M. Sanchez

“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined.” - Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“From the base of her neck to the arch of her eyelids, her beauty made a slave of me.” - Adonis

“Everyone I know is in some kind of pain.” - Richard Siken

“If I get through this year, no matter how badly, it will be the biggest victory I’ve ever done.” - Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“…but the truth is I am terribly weak, and I crave the balm of beautiful and soft things.” - Anais Nin, Linotte: The Early Diary of Anais Nin

“Stay longer in me, take roots.” - Vera Pavlova, If There Is Something To Desire

“Tell me every terrible thing you ever did, and let me love you anyway.” - Edgar Allan Poe

“The universe did not breathe star fire into your bones just so you could burn yourself out.” - Nikita Gill, Your Soul is a River; You Are the Sun

“to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it” - Ellen Bass, The Thing Is

“In my heart I love her all the time.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“You have to learn to get up from the table when love is longer being served.” - Nina Simone

“even though your suffering feels eternal, unrelenting, the new year is full of promise, and it is coming fast.” - Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“Any fear, any memory will do; and if you’ve got a heart at all, someday it will kill you.” - Rita Dove, Primer for the Nuclear Age

“I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to come home.” - Katie Maria, I wanted to ask

“You can put your strength down. I’m sitting here with you at your kitchen table. You don’t need to say anything.” - Eden Robinson, Writing Prompts for the Broken-hearted

“(The body always betrays itself—it blushes, it trembles…)” - Richard Siken, love from a distance

“Your god comes and he is ordinary and terrible.” - Leila Chatti, Portrait of the Illness as Nightmare

“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“This is the ending where you finally find your way home and the ancient terror inside of you is stomped out for good.” - Jonny Bolduc, Ending

“I walk into the fire always, and come out more alive.” - Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume IV

“For a while it was love, wasn’t it? For me it was love.” - Sue Zhao

“Will you weep and wail forever? What will be enough for you? To melt in tears?” - Sophocles, trans. Peter Meineck & Paul Woodruff, Electra

“I wish I wasn’t such a dreamer. I’ve ruined this life for myself.” - N.M. Sanchez

“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined.” - Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“From the base of her neck to the arch of her eyelids, her beauty made a slave of me.” - Adonis

“Everyone I know is in some kind of pain.” - Richard Siken

“If I get through this year, no matter how badly, it will be the biggest victory I’ve ever done.” - Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“…but the truth is I am terribly weak, and I crave the balm of beautiful and soft things.” - Anais Nin, Linotte: The Early Diary of Anais Nin

“Stay longer in me, take roots.” - Vera Pavlova, If There Is Something To Desire

“Tell me every terrible thing you ever did, and let me love you anyway.” - Edgar Allan Poe

“The universe did not breathe star fire into your bones just so you could burn yourself out.” - Nikita Gill, Your Soul is a River; You Are the Sun

“to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it” - Ellen Bass, The Thing Is

“In my heart I love her all the time.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“You have to learn to get up from the table when love is longer being served.” - Nina Simone

Cameron’s hands twitch at her sides. She doesn’t say anything else, just continues to look at this man, this friend, who she’s beginning to not recognize at all. 

He looks like a little boy, hands stuffed into jeans’ pockets, graphic tee and earnest smile. His hair is thinning early, something he covers up with gel and spikes, and despite the hard line of his jaw, there’s something soft and childish in his expression. She’d known him as a child, but he hadn’t been like this then or, if he was, she doesn’t remember.

The silence has gone on too long for John. His smile begins to fade and he stills. “Come on, you aren’t mad are you? Just I was really making progress with this chick–the one in the red top? And I thought you were doing fine, really, you’re like a superhero, your control is amazing–”

“I don’t have control,” Cameron says, arms folded over her chest. She can feel the closed door at her back and she wants nothing more to go inside and curl up in her tub. “I asked you for help and you left me. Alone.”

She wonders if she just keeps repeating it if he’ll get it.

“Hey,” John says, “don’t be so hard on yourself. I knew you weren’t going to drink, I trusted your recovery. And I was right to trust, right? Because nothing happened!”

He’s not getting it.

“I’m an alcoholic,” Cameron says. The words feel stale in her mouth, but familiar. It makes her angry, angry like she’s been since waking up in the hospital and being told she’s been signed up for a program she didn’t think she needed. “Damn it, John, I asked you to support me and you left me in a bar with four dozen strangers–”

The two - rather long - legs jut out under it's torso. It used it's new - ew - five fingers to feel along it's skin, feeling the bumps of a ribcage underneath. A heartbeat too.

In front of it was a mirror, and staring back at itself was a human. Well, an illusion of one.

Time and time again, the newly star bound aliens, humans, had infiltrated it's species ranks through elaborate disguises. They got better at it every time.

Not only were humans great with what they call "make up" but they had a way of mimicking their behaviors. It's species tried to replicate this. Failed to. In the end, they had something better.

A team of highly immoral scientists who were given boundless permission to try whatever the hell they wanted. And they went with genetic mutation.

It was a painful change, and slow. Agonizingly slow. But now, it was a super solider with one superpower. A shape-shifter.

And it was time to test it out.

It strolled out of the bathroom and into the eating area where various alien species were seated. Only one human - the unwitting test subject - was present.

If this could pass for normal conversation, this could pass for war.

It strolled right up to the other creature - a man who had not yet seen him - and sat down.

"I'm glad to see one other human on this station," it said.

The human non-committedly looked up. Only to jump with a start after taking it in.

"What are you?" he said.

"A human?" it said. If it's species could sweat, it would do so by now.

The man stared at it a moment. He turned to the alien on his right and pointed to his left.

"Forgive me if this question is batshit insane, but what do you see?"

"Two humans?" The alien had three eyes.

Her species' third eye was famous for detecting the most miniscule details and then committing it to subconscious memory. The rise and fall of a chest. The careful rythem of a human heart. How often - or little - a human blinks. Even human's make-up tricks couldn't bypass her species' extra form of security.

"So it is," said the man. She turned away and it found itself blinking quickly in relief. It cut that out when the human turned to it. "Sorry, I guess you're just real ugly."

"Ugh, rude." All humans are ugly.

He scooted in closer on the bench and leaned in towards it. It found itself leaning away, but couldn't help but notice the bead of sweat on the human's forehead and how the pupils were shrunken as far as they could.

"Wanna hear an old Earth tale?"

"I'm sure I know it." Was this a test?

"I doubt you know this one. My grandfather experienced it himself." He leaned away. It had stop itself from blinking too rapidly again. "This is about an Earth cryptid."

"Bigfoot?" it said, but nodded as if it already knew.

"Everyone knows Bigfoot," he laughed. "No, he was driving down a dark country road unlit by street lights. He didn't have his brights on - that's important to the story, you see - but heaven knows why."

Brights??? What are brights???

"Down the road an animal was crossing. A simple male deer with antlers. He couldn't see its body yet, but he was familiar with the eyes. They glowed as his car sped closer."

"He slowed as the deer became more apparent, and eventually came to a stop when the creature wouldn't move. By now, he could see the antlers, the four legs, the neck. Not in detail, mind you, but he could see it "

Other aliens in the room- not hearing this conversation - were trickling out of the room. There was no dramatic reason for this, they simply finished their lunch. The human, not paying any attention to his own lunch, continued the story.

"It's not uncommon for deer to freeze, especially when lights flood their eyes. So my grandfather gave it a moment to realize it should run. When seconds ticked by, he honked at it."

"There was something... off... about the deer. It looked every way like a deer, but the longer he stared, the longer that just didn't seem right."

"Was it a deer?" it said.

"It was not."

"What was it?"

"Not a deer."

The alien found itself frown at this in a perfectly human way.

"Time went on, and my grandfather decided to turn on the brights to try and see the creature better. And it was still... a deer... but not..."

It found its frown deepening.

"What's worse was it began to move. Similar to a deer, but all wrong. Like maybe its legs bent the wrong way. Or perhaps the legs were too long. It was every way like a deer, but it just was not."

"He drove home as soon as that not deer was out of his path. And yes, he found himself alive the next morning. But that encounter disturbed him, so he recounted it to everyone. And many people - especially in that town - could tell him their own stories."

"...okay?"

"Well, that story is funny. Probably a figment of his imagination, but it does reflect a very real human instinct."

This was another test. "Would this be something I know of?"

"It's called uncanny valley. It occurs to us when something looks human... but is not."

"Why?"

"Well, rumor has it that it was a instinct formed from a predator. Something that looked human but was not. A not human."

"A not human? Is this true?"

"No," he said. He laughed. "No, we most likely developed it for something a lot more practical. Corpses, you see. They carry a lot of bacteria, so we have a fear of them."

"...interesting."

"I have that very same feeling of you," he said. The room was empty besides the two. He reached for his bottle above his lunch tray.

"But I'm not a corpse?"

"You're about to be."

The human tossed down the bottle, effectively cracking off the bottom half and forming his weapon.

The villain jolted upright, tears still falling down their cheeks. Two splattered in their bloodstained lap, one after the other, and rolled slowly down the waterproof material. They’d probably end up pooling in their socks with the rest of the blood. Gross. 

Their eyes widened, black pupils swallowing their irises. Blue? Green? The hero had never seen them without their mask before. The villain had freckles too, a deep coppery-brown against the sudden pallour of their skin. They weren’t usually that pale–oh god, were they sick? Dying? Maybe that’s why they were crying, maybe the Surgeon had told them-

“Hero?” they whispered. 

“That’s me! No need to look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I think I am seeing a ghost.”

The hero twisted to look over their shoulder. Nothing but fluorescent lights and bright white corridors now dotted with blood. Definitely no ghosts. “No, just me. Am I missing…something?” Oh. Ohhhhhhh. “Wait, am I a ghost?” They bunched their hands into fists, their nails biting crescents into their palms and their bruised knuckles threatening to split. They seemed pretty solid, but weirder things had happened. 

“Well, you might be. I did kill you.”

---

“Hey,” Dick says, his voice soft, the single word floating as if he’s far away. He’s not—he’s sitting right beside Damian, though how long he’s been there, Damian couldn’t say. He hasn’t exactly been able to pay attention to anything the past few days, even his older brother. “Dami. C’mon, kid. Damian.”

“What,” he snips—or tries to, anyway. His voice comes out weak, tellingly weak. Clearing his throat, he tries again: “What do you want.”

He doesn’t have it within him to be nice right now. Maybe he’ll feel bad about that later, if- if—

Dick doesn’t react to his tone. He bumps their shoulders together, jostling Damian. It takes everything left in him not to hiss at Dick for messing around so closely to an IV line. “Why don’t we take a walk, huh?”

“No.”

“Damian.”

“No.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35967814

She blinks at me. “No?”

“Not for a silk dress and a night at a party. Only a fool would commit regicide for so low a price.” 

The old woman hesitates, and her eyes narrow. “Well. True. Though it would only be regicide if I asked you to kill the king.”

“His heir is close enough, to my mind.” 

The old woman rubs her chin thoughtfully. “Aye, that’s fair. But… if the price were better?” 

I shrug. “I’ve contemplated murdering my stepmother and her daughters often enough. The only reason I don’t do it is that I’d surely be the first and only suspect. If a murder would truly free me from this misery… I’d certainly be willing to consider it. After careful planning, of course.” 

“Indeed. Indeed.” She smiles grimly. “All right, my dear. Shall we plan a murder, then?” 

Mary was a beautiful baby, sweet and affectionate, but by the time she’s three she’s turned difficult and strange, with fey moods and a stubborn mouth that screams and bites but never says mama. But her mother’s well-used to hard work with little thanks, and when the village gossips wag their tongues she just shrugs, and pulls her difficult child away from their precious, perfect blossoms, before the bites draw blood. Mary’s mother doesn’t drown her in a bucket of saltwater, and she doesn’t take up the silver knife the wife of the village priest leaves out for her one Sunday brunch. 

She gives her daughter yarn, instead, and instead of a rowan stake through her inhuman heart she gives her a child’s first loom, oak and ash. She lets her vicious, uncooperative fairy daughter entertain herself with games of her own devising, in as much peace and comfort as either of them can manage.

Mary grows up strangely, as a strange child would, learning everything in all the wrong order, and biting a great deal more than she should. But she also learns to weave, and takes to it with a grand passion. Soon enough she knows more than her mother–which isn’t all that much–and is striking out into unknown territory, turning out odd new knots and weaves, patterns as complex as spiderwebs and spellrings. 

“Aren’t you clever,” her mother says, of her work, and leaves her to her wool and flax and whatnot. Mary’s not biting anymore, and she smiles more than she frowns, and that’s about as much, her mother figures, as anyone should hope for from their child. 

Mary still cries sometimes, when the other girls reject her for her strange graces, her odd slow way of talking, her restless reaching fluttering hands that have learned to spin but never to settle. The other girls call her freak, witchblood, hobgoblin.

“I don’t remember girls being quite so stupid when I was that age,” her mother says, brushing Mary’s hair smooth and steady like they’ve both learned to enjoy, smooth as a skein of silk. “Time was, you knew not to insult anyone you might need to flatter later. ‘Specially when you don’t know if they’re going to grow wings or horns or whatnot. Serve ‘em all right if you ever figure out curses.”

“I want to go back,” Mary says. “I want to go home, to where I came from, where there’s people like me. If I’m a fairy’s child I should be in fairyland, and no one would call me a freak.”

“Aye, well, I’d miss you though,” her mother says. “And I expect there’s stupid folk everywhere, even in fairyland. Cruel folk, too. You just have to make the best of things where you are, being my child instead.”

Mary learns to read well enough, in between the weaving, especially when her mother tracks down the traveling booktraders and comes home with slim, precious manuals on dyes and stains and mordants, on pigments and patterns, diagrams too arcane for her own eyes but which make her daughter’s eyes shine.

“We need an herb garden,” her daughter says, hands busy, flipping from page to page, pulling on her hair, twisting in her skirt, itching for a project. “Yarrow, and madder, and woad and weld…”

“Well, start digging,” her mother says. “Won’t do you a harm to get out of the house now’n then.”

Mary doesn’t like dirt but she’s learned determination well enough from her mother. She digs and digs, and plants what she’s given, and the first year doesn’t turn out so well but the second’s better, and by the third a cauldron’s always simmering something over the fire, and Mary’s taking in orders from girls five years older or more, turning out vivid bolts and spools and skeins of red and gold and blue, restless fingers dancing like they’ve summoned down the rainbow. Her mother figures she probably has.

“Just as well you never got the hang of curses,” she says, admiring her bright new skirts. “I like this sort of trick a lot better.”

Mary smiles, rocking back and forth on her heels, fingers already fluttering to find the next project.

She finally grows up tall and fair, if a bit stooped and squinty, and time and age seem to calm her unhappy mouth about as well as it does for human children. Word gets around she never lies or breaks a bargain, and if the first seems odd for a fairy’s child then the second one seems fit enough. The undyed stacks of taken orders grow taller, the dyed lots of filled orders grow brighter, the loom in the corner for Mary’s own creations grows stranger and more complex. Mary’s hands callus just like her mother’s, become as strong and tough and smooth as the oak and ash of her needles and frames, though they never fall still.

“Do you ever wonder what your real daughter would be like?” the priest’s wife asks, once.

Mary’s mother snorts. “She wouldn’t be worth a damn at weaving,” she says. “Lord knows I never was. No, I’ll keep what I’ve been given and thank the givers kindly. It was a fair enough trade for me. Good day, ma’am.”

Mary brings her mother sweet chamomile tea, that night, and a warm shawl in all the colors of a garden, and a hairbrush. In the morning, the priest’s son comes round, with payment for his mother’s pretty new dress and a shy smile just for Mary. He thinks her hair is nice, and her hands are even nicer, vibrant in their strength and skill and endless motion.  

They all live happily ever after.

*

Here’s another story: 

You wonder if she knows his name.

The pint in your hand is cold and exactly what you need right now. You can’t get the image of your husband’s body lying broken on the ground out of your head. You think you should be angry or scared or sad, at the least, about his death, but all you can drudge up is a mild sense of relief.

You drink half the pint in one go and the bartender looks a little more approving of you. You’ve proven that you’re not just a well-dressed woman in her mid-thirties who’s out of her depth in this dive bar. You’re a well-dress woman in her mid-thirties who’s out of her depth in this dive bar who can drink. That makes all the difference.

You actually don’t remember when you and he became friends. You didn’t know him in high school which is where you met your husband. Ex-husband. You didn’t meet him in college either, you would remember if anyone had died then. Surely you would have?

You are no longer sure. You don’t even know his name.

You see him on the other side of the bar, talking lowly to a rough looking group in the corner. They all seem friendly, nearly worshipful, of your friend. He’s clearly asking them for something, a favor maybe, and no one seems to be denying him.  They look happy, glowing under his regard. 

You know the feeling. 

When he comes back, he’s smiling comfortingly. “My friends will take care of the body. I know that you can’t afford the police involvement right now, not with Senator Hudson’s reelection so close.”

Somehow my boss’ seat at the table is the last thing on my mind, you almost say. But you don’t because, as usual, he’s right. Police involvement right now would be disastrous and would make it so that you never worked on the Hill again.

“You’re always looking out for me,” you say, looking down into your almost empty pint. You are actually no longer sure that that’s true.  In fact, the more you think about it, the more sure you are that it’s not true.

He pauses for a moment, head cocking. “I want to look out for you. I’m happy to do it. I think there’s something else on your mind, though. Wanna talk about it?”

There is a chill working its way up your spine. it tells you that your…friend must not know that you have doubts about his ‘looking out for you.’