Raven Reads

Honey-Dill Carrots

Untitled

Sadie hesitated before the large, ornate door. She hefted the flowers in her arms and looked at Anubis. Walt. Whatever.

He raised a dark brow at her. “Well?”

She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. She knocked three times, perhaps too firmly.

The door swung open almost at once. “Sadie!” Fran cooed.

Sadie grimaced. “Happy Christmas, Gran.” She handed the flowers to her grandmother.

Gran smiled in a manner that was almost as strained as Sadie’s own. “And who is your friend, dearest?”

“This is … Uhm …”

Anubis/Walt stepped forward. “My name is Walt, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Sadie has spoken so highly of you.”

Oh, okay. They were going with Walt, then. Sadie guessed that was easier to explain than whatever was going on with Anubis.

Gran led the way into the large house, calling after them to come in out of the cold. They did so, and Walt helped Sadie out of her coat and scarf, hanging them neatly on the coat tree in the foyer.

Sadie looked at Walt and was suddenly so grateful for his presence here that her knees wobbled. Things had been strained between her and her grandparents, to say the least, since she and Carter had moved permanently to Brooklyn. Sadie had not been herself at all. She had been trying so hard to be what was expected of her - she had lost the fire that had burned inside her for so long. Some days it was an effort just to get out of bed. Convincing herself to come on this trip had been nothing short of a miracle. She blamed herself for everything that had happened - not just to Gran and Gramps, but to everyone. Sadie couldn’t see how any of it wasn’t her fault, and she was fully aware that Gran was somewhat traumatized following Nekhbet’s possession of her. She could barely stand to meet her grandmothers eyes, knowing what had happened to her - all because of Sadie. Even so, they had invited Sadie and Carter for Christmas dinner, even going so far as to allow them to bring Walt. Sadie supposed she could take one end of an olive branch.

As they entered the sitting room, Sadie looked around hopefully for her brother. Normally she didn’t want him hanging around her too much, especially when she wanted to spend time with Walt, but in this instance she would have been grateful for the buffer. Her grandparents got on even worse with him than they did with her. Unfortunately for Sadie, Carter was nowhere to be seen. She hadn’t seen him since they had arrived at the hotel and he had left to do something that he may or may not have explained and Sadie didn’t listen.

“Your brother hasn’t arrived yet, dearest,” said Gran, reading Sadie’s glance around the room. “But please, help yourself to finger foods while we wait for him.” She waved a hand to the low table in the center of the room, which held platters of appetizers. Crudités, charcuterie, and, in what Sadie only assumed to be a nod to her perceived new allegiance to America, piggies in a blanket. That was a good sign.

Gran bustled off into the kitchen to continue preparations for dinner. Gramps sauntered out of the hallway and into the sitting room, unceremoniously crushing Sadie in a massive bear hug.

“My Sadie!” He exclaimed. “But my, how you have grown! The American air agrees with you, eh?” He held her at arms’ length so as to get a better look at her. His eyes softened. “You’re becoming a woman, my love.”

Sadie blushed and did not respond. “Gramps, this is Walt, my … friend. Walt, this is Gramps.” She and her grandfather, unlike Gran, did not stand much in ceremony and she was content for Walt to refer to Gramps as such.

Gramps eyed Walt warily as they shook hands. “You look after my Sadie in America, yes?”

“Certainly, sir,” Walt said gravely. “It is my responsibility and my pleasure to care for your granddaughter.”

Sadie rolled her eyes. “Men,” she complained. “I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself, you know. I am a trained magician.”

Gramps stiffened at the mention of this aspect of her life, but did not press. “Your Gran is just finishing up those carrots you like, Sadie, and then we should be able to sit down to dinner.”

Sadie cocked her head to the side. “Won’t we wait for Carter?”

Gramps’ jaw tightened. He glanced at the door as he murmured, “Your Gran is not entirely pleased with Carter right now. He informed us that he would be bringing someone at the last minute. You know how Gran is with surprises.”

Ah, so that’s where Carter must have gone. To find Zia. Sadie wondered if Zia had been in England to begin with, or if Carter had retrieved her from wherever she had been. Either way, they were both late.

“Let’s sit in, dears!” called Gran from the kitchen. “I’ll just bring in the carrots and then we can eat!”

Sadie looked to Walt, who took her hand and squeezed. She drew strength from him as they entered the dining room, hand in hand. They took their seats along one side of the table, as Gran and Gramps took the ends. Two empty seats and place settings were across from them, waiting for Carter and Zia.

“Well, happy Christmas, all,” said Gramps. “Shall we?”

Gramps had just reached for the carving knife to cut the massive and decidedly delicious looking turkey when the bell rang.

Gran nearly leapt out of her seat - really quite impressive for a lady of her age - and rushed for the door. A few minutes later, Carter and Zia were ushered into the room. From the look on Carter’s face, this dinner was on the bottom of his priority list. Zia looked more like she was attending her own execution than like she was sitting down to a family dinner. Sadie barley kept from wincing as they sat down without a word.

Silence reigned for a few tense moments before Gramps cleared his throat. “Well!” he exclaimed with false joviality. “Let’s eat, then, shall we?” He picked up the carving knife once again and quiet fell again as he carved the turkey and served each of them.

They are without speaking for a while, the only sound their forks and knives scraping against the good china. Walt, gods bless him, broke the silence. “This is a wonderful meal, Mrs. Faust. How have the carrots been prepared? I’ve never had them like this.”

Gran perked up a wee bit at the praise. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a little honey and dill.”

Sadie was wondering if she could sink into her chair and disappear when Gran said, “So, young Walt, how is it that you know my Sadie?”

Walt set down his cutlery. “We are both magicians, Mrs. Faust. We trained at the Brooklyn house, and we were both hosts -“

Gran slammed down her own cutlery, the table jarring with the movement. Zia, who had not yet touched her plate, widened her eyes at Sadie and glanced sidelong at Carter, who, gods curse him, was looking vaguely amused.

“We will not allow talk of - of - of that part of your lives here, boy!” she nearly roared.

Carter, still looking like he was hiding a smile, simply looked at Sadie. Your move, sister, he seemed to say. He always deferred to her when their grandparents were involved.

Sadie took a deep breath, trying to calm her temper. “Gran, I know you don’t like to talk about -“

“I do not wish to ever hear anything about this subject ever again!” Gran shrieked. “That part of the world is dead to us!”

This was enough for Sadie. She shot to her feet, temper writhing beneath her skin. “Then I am dead to you, Gran. This is my life now. This is what I am and what I do. I will not allow you to take it away from me because it makes you uncomfortable. If you wish to continue having me in your life, you will accept it and you will move on.”

Gran looked on in open-mouthed silence.

Gramps, on the other hand, started laughing. “Oh, my Sadie,” he said through giggles. “How I have waited for you to return to us. You have been so meek these past months. I scarcely recognized you.”

Carter was no longer succeeding in hiding his grin, and even Zia’s mouth and quirked up at the corners.

As Sadie struggled for something to say, Walt spoke up. “There she is, indeed,” he mused, looking thoughtfully at Sadie, his eyes somehow brighter than they had been moments before.

Sadie turned to look at Gran. Tears streamed down her face. Sadie instantly regretted her outburst - but not the words. The words needed to be said. She just wished she hadn’t yelled them across the dinner table.

“Oh, Gran, I’m so sorry -“

Gran lifted a hand, and with her other, wiped the tears away from her eyes. “My dear, fiery Sadie,” she whispered. “Oh, I have missed you so.”

Sadie was completely flummoxed.

She looked to Carter for explanation. He smiled again (she made a mental note to punch him for that later), and said, “You’ve been walking on eggshells ever since everything happened, Sadie. We needed to bring you out of the funk. This was the best thing we could think of.”

Sadie looked to Gran. “This - this was all faked?”

“Well, not all of it, dear,” said Gran. “I’m still rather furious about being possessed by a vulture goddess. How crude,” Gran sniffed, as if the actual possession were not a big deal but the fact that Nekhbet was a vulture goddess was simply unacceptable. “And I do not particularly wish to have such a thing happen to me again any time soon. In fact, I’d like to not think about ancient gods for several years. Perhaps for the rest of whatever is left of my life. But for you, my Sadie, I will endure.”

Sadie read the words in Gran’s eyes. I do not blame you, dearest, she communicated, but nor am I healed. Neither are you, my sweet. Let us heal together, in our own ways.

Sadie nodded, holding back her own tears.

Zia cleared her throat, making the first sound she had made all night. “This is what you wished me to attend, Carter? A poorly planned intervention over dinner?”

Carter shrugged. “I needed moral support.” Sadie highly doubted this. Carter had needed an excuse to see Zia more like.

Zia sighed heavily. “I wish there had been more gravy throwing. That would have been entertaining.”

Everyone laughed, though Gran looked slightly affronted that anyone would waste gravy.

The rest of the meal was spent talking about nothing and everything, pleasant, simple conversation. Ancient baboon or vulture deities did not figure into their conversation, nor did Sadie’s partially-death-god boyfriend mention how, exactly, he was alive - but Gran did not balk at tales of Felix’s penguin related exploits, nor explanations of Alyssa’s (failed) attempts to use her earth magic to create pottery masterpieces.

When Walt and Sadie finally left, late into the night, Sadie let out a massive, shaky breath as the door closed behind them. Walt put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her temple. “Welcome back, Sadie. I have missed your fire.”

@kaijuusandkryptids

Here is the fic I wrote for @kaijuusandkryptids for the @pjo-equinox-solstice-exchange ! I haven’t come up with a good title yet, do let me know if you have an idea. I also had a request from a friend to continue this one, so if people like it I’ll post on AO3 and keep going :)

Untitled

Will had come to the library at this time for the fourth day this week. He normally studied in the morning; he felt most awake when the sun was strong, beaming down onto his golden head as he walked to the library from his dorm in campus. But this week, he hadn’t had the time during the day to study, busy with his clinical placement at the university hospital, so he’d been here after dark. You should sleep, said the logical part of his brain. Shut up, I’ll sleep when I’m dead, he told it, and took another sip of his shaken iced espresso with six ristretto shots. Really, he could have gone home and slept. He didn’t particularly need to study this much for this particular class; it was a mandatory elective, a Classics class on Ancient Greek mythology. He’d grown up with tales of the Olympians and their exploits told to him by his father - whenever he bothered to stop by long enough to tell stories, that was. But he was drawn back to this corner of the library night after night, not by the need to study, but rather by the dark-haired, alabaster-skinned young man who had been there every night at the same time, seemingly browsing the Classics stacks.

Seemingly.

Not that Will was watching all that closely, but the glances he kept stealing at the boy showed that he just stared at the same spot on the shelf, occasionally taking down the same volume to stare at it.

Not that Will was paying attention.

Much.

Okay, who was he kidding. He was so, so far gone for this boy.

He’d been trying to work up the nerve to go speak to him for the past 3 nights. Will had noticed him the first night - been ensnared by him, really. He’d been attempting to write his paper on homosexuality in Ancient Greek epic poetry - not ground breaking, but he enjoyed researching it - when movement in the corner of his vision had caught his attention. He’d glanced idly up and done an actual, honest-to-gods double take.

The man was thin - too thin, really - a fact accentuated by his black skinny jeans and oversized aviator jacket. His hair was raven black, mussed as if with sleep, but in an artful kind of way, brushing down his forehead and framing a thin face with endless brown eyes and thick lashes. He was cute, no doubt about that - but what really drew Will in was the seemingly bottomless melancholy in his eyes.

Tonight was the night, he told himself. He would talk to him tonight. Normally, Will had no problem approaching cute guys. He was confident in himself, and he knew he wasn’t bad looking, and he had never had a shortage of partners; but there was something about this guy…

Will was pretending to work on his paper - in reality, he’d written about two sentences in the last hour, glancing up every two minutes to see if the boy had arrived yet - when he finally did. Will watched as the boy prowled towards the same shelf he always visited and tried not to look like he was watching.

After waiting what he thought was a respectable amount of time (17 minutes, he thought, was good. 7 was a good number, but too few. So 17 it was), he rose from his seat and stretched his arms, letting out an involuntary yawn that, nonetheless, accomplished what he had been attempting to do - it caught the attention of the stranger. Depthless brown eyes met sky blue ones - and locked. Will attempted a suave smile, but from the way the boy’s lips quirked up slightly on one side, it was more like a grimace. Well, you’re in it now, William Andrew Solace, said a voice in his head that sounded an awful lot like his mother’s. Now what are you going to do?

Will did the only thing possible at this point - he approached. He stuffed his hands in his pockets to hide their shaking. “Hey,” he said as smoothly as possible, given the situation. “I’m Will.”

The stranger stared at him, looking at once bewildered and yet slightly amused. “Hey. I’m Nico.”

*******

Nico stuck out his hand to Will, who shook it firmly. “I’ve seen you around here the last couple of nights,” Will said. Nico’s stomach tied itself into a complicated knot at Will’s gentle Southern accent. “What are you studying?”

“Philosophy,” Nico replied, which was not strictly incorrect. “You?”

“Medicine,” Will replied. Impressive.

Nico often haunted this section of the library. It had very little to do with what he was studying, although it was not completely unrelated. He always came in the middle of the night, when the nightmares were most likely to strike. The last few nights, though, he’d come back to this spot to see the frazzled blonde boy sitting in the corner, puzzling over a copy of the Iliad and guzzling enough espresso to give a horse a heart attack. Now that Nico knew Will was studying medicine, the espresso made a lot more sense.

After the first night, Nico had known the blonde - Will - had been watching him. At first it kind of creeped him out, but after a little while he found he didn’t particularly mind being watched. Normally he avoided contact with living beings, but something about Will made him feel…comfortable. It was a strange sensation; he hadn’t felt comfortable around anyone since his sister had died 4 years ago. He had been contemplating what he should do; he had three options. Option A was to leave as fast as possible and never see or think about this boy again; Nico immediately discarded this thought. Though flight was tempting, something in Nico’s gut told him his mind would not as easily walk away from this situation. Option B: he could approach and try to talk to the boy. Absolutely out of the question. Or, finally, C: he could keep coming back and hope that something would happen. So he kept coming back; and tonight, whatever gods were listening had answered.

Nico hadn’t realized he’d been staring in silence until Will smiled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. “So…come here often?”

This was so unexpected from someone who looked so put together that Nico barked out a laugh. Will turned red and covered his face. “That - that was so cheesy. I’m so sorry! Let me try again.” Will took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and seemed to collect himself. “Soooooooo…” His shoulders slumped again as he shook his head.

Nico burst out laughing. He couldn’t remember laughing since before Bianca’s death. He laughed and laughed and laughed. And though Will initially looked absolutely mortified, as Nico cackled (honest to gods cackled), Will’s face slowly cracked into a grin and he began laughing as well.

“Well,” said Will, wiping away tears of mirth, “I think that’s the first time I’ve embarrassed myself quite that quickly when introducing myself to a cute guy.”

Now it was Nico’s turn to blush. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his aviator jacket. “Umm…thanks?”

Will smiled, truly smiled, and it shone as bright as the sun. “So. What are you looking for in here anyway?”

******

Three hours later, Will and Nico emerged from the classics stacks looking considerably worse for wear. A flushed and (even more) disheveled Nico was clutching several volumes of epic Greek poetry to his chest, while Will lugged his shoulder bag with his laptop stuffed into it, along with his notes for his very much not completed Classics paper. Nico placed his books on the checkout desk in front of the reedy, pale librarian who was always here late at night.

Hello, Nico signed. Through four years of his undergrad and now three years into his Master’s, Nico had developed a friendly relation with Hearthstone, the University’s night librarian. He had learned sign language as a way to occupy his time after Bianca’s death, and it seemed easier to speak to someone with gestures rather than to summon words.

Hearth smiled in that small way of his. Hello, Nico, he signed. Who is your new friend?

Will looked on in seeming amazement as Nico signed back, This is Will. He is a medical student here.

As Nico was showing Will how to sign Hello and the letters of his name, Hearthstone’s tiny husband, Blitzen, marched out from behind the counter.

“Di Angelo!” he practically bellowed, adjusting his cream silk cravat. Nico nearly winced at the loud sound after spending so much time in the quiet library and in company of Hearthstone. “It’s nearly three in the morning! Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

Nico smiled down at Blitzen. “Hi, Blitz. You know me. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Blitz looked back at him with something like concern, then shrugged and turned to look at the titles Nico was checking out. “The Odyssey, the Iliad, Orpheus and Eurydice, Collected Works of Pindar…what are you working on now, kid?”

“Oh, this and that,” Nico hedged. He wasn’t about to explain his researches into the Underworld to an undersized male fashionista at three in the morning, especially when he had plans for Will.

Hearth handed back the books to Nico. As Nico took them, Hearth signed, Good night, Nico. Try to get some sleep. Hearth eyed Will. Eventually.

SPOILERS FOR ACOSF.

The theory that Tamlin was Amarantha’s mate has been around for a while. I’ve also seen some people make observations about how much less powerful Tamlin is than other High Lords - one example being when Tarquin was able to winnow an ENTIRE ARMY in ACOWAR while Tamlin was unable to winnow 11 people to the hole in the wall earlier in the same book. However, when Rhys tells Feyre his story in Chapter 54 of ACOMAF, he says that Tamlin was more powerful than his (Tamlin’s) father, so Tamlin must be as powerful as other High Lords. Right?

Assuming Amarantha was indeed Tamlin’s mate, what if the act of killing her, of severing that bond so violently and permanently, depleted or affected his powers in some way? Such an intrinsic part of his soul was ripped away, and not only that, but he himself was the one who did the ripping. Maybe that’s why Tamlin is simply not as powerful as he was before, possibly contributing to his paranoia about Feyre leaving the manor because he couldn’t protect her - no, he couldn’t protect her, because his powers were so depleted - in a different way than they were before Amarantha’s downfall, perhaps - and he was supposed to have them all back.

Percy: let me guess. Monster?

Grover: yup.

Percy: extremely dangerous?

Grover: yup.

Percy: certainty of death?

Grover: most likely.

Percy: bring it on.

Nyktos just said (I’m listening to the audiobook) something like “the fates can see the love between two or more souls.”

TWO.

OR MORE.

MOOORRREEEEEEEE

Sera, staring up at a large diamond in her cage: Gee, I wonder where that Star diamond is.

SPOILERS FOR A SOUL OF ASH AND BLOOD and A LIGHT IN THE FLAME.

TURN BACK.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Casteel and Malik are descended from Attes.

Supporting evidence:

1. Dimples.