#fff364

***

“Why do you have a problem with Greg’s name, love?”

“Who?”

“Sherlock!”

“What is it, John?”

“God, I can’t believe this. You are the most stubborn and mad person I have ever met.”

“Nothing new about that statement, John.”

“Okay. Honest question: Can you delete information completely?”

“Of course, I can.”

“And what criteria is required for deletion to be possible?”

“Oh, it depends, but mostly it has to do with dull and unimportant things that take up precious space in my Mind Palace. It is not an infinite storage room, mind you. I have explained this to you earlier.”

“Alright. But you said that you never delete any conversation I participate in.”

“True. The relevance being?”

“Well, how flattering that may be, my darling, I don’t believe that each of those conversations are worth preserving.”

“Bite your tongue, John!”

“You are adorable when you get affronted on my behalf, you know.”

“I’m warning you, John!”

***

“Can you just say my name like a normal person, Sherlock?”

“Since when do you consider me normal, George?”

“God Almighty, you are hopeless!”

“Yes, you have mention that. For the seventy-eighth time, in fact.”

“You keep count?”

“Of course.”

“But learning my name is too difficult for you? I thought you were a genius.”

“I am. Hence why you call me so often.”

“Right. Well, at least you know my surname. I guess that will have to suffice.”

“I knew you would get there eventually, Greg.”

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"You only ever call me 'miss' or 'ma'am', but never my name. Why is that?"

Anna went back to scrubbing the floor. "You're my boss. I'm meant to regard you with respect, am I not?"

She heard a snort of laughter above her. "You're usually the first in line to be a pain in my ass." Lilith scoffed, though Anna felt a tingle of warmth at the fondness in her tone. "So, seriously, you don't need to be so formal. Or would it be better if I said you can't so you can be a little rebel about it?"

She just rolled her eyes and kept scrubbing. "Why does it matter?" she muttered. "You're my superior. It's just a name, anyway."

In truth, she'd already almost slipped up more than once. If Lilith hadn't noticed how much she had, especially recently, maybe that was why she was pestering her. But the idea of Deitra or him finding out… She'd rather not break that rule if she could help it.

At least Lilith didn't keep going. Anna listened to her shift away from the door-frame and into the bathroom. She kept out of the way. Then felt her face heat as the shower turned on. Did she really have no-

She yelped as she was tugged up off the floor.

"What are you- hey!"

Anna spluttered and struggled as Lilith pulled and pushed her into the shower, both of them still fully clothed. Once they were under the stream of water, Lilith pinned her against the wall.

"Say my name." Lilith said, her eyes intense on Anna's.

Her gaze dropped so she didn't have to look at Lilith while she continued to struggle. "What- no! This is so stupid, why- it doesn't even matter! You're my boss, why do you even care?" Anna felt her heart pounding. She shook as her clothing became soaked, despite the water being warm.

Lilith stepped closer to her, one hand tight on Anna's shirt, the other pushing her chin up. "Say it." she said, softer. "No one can hear you under the water."

Anna froze, her brows furrowed. Her hands stayed over Lilith's on her shirt as she'd been trying to get it off. She met her eyes, her breathing shaky.

She'd never really noticed that Lilith's eyes weren't actually black. Just a very dark brown. And she’d never seen them so soft before. So… vulnerable.

But she couldn't do it. She couldn't even speak, let alone get the word to form out of her mouth.

They stood there for some time. Both were fully soaked. Lilith's hair and make-up were beyond ruined. No doubt her own shirt had become see-through. She couldn't stop shaking, but still couldn’t tell if it was from the water or not.

After a while, disappointment flooded into Lilith's expression. Her eyes darkened, like a door beginning to shut behind them. She sighed, letting go of Anna's shirt and chin, her arms falling to her sides.

She looked so… defeated.

Just as she turned away, Anna found her voice.

"Lilith."

It was just a croak. Just a weak breath out. But she’d said it.

The woman before her froze. Then turned, her eyes still dark, but intent. "Again." she said, her gaze fixed on Anna's face.

"Lilith." It came out a bit easier now, though she couldn't stop shaking.

Her heart nearly beat its way out of her chest when Lilith smiled. Not a smirk, not a sneer, just her genuine and contented smile. And with her ruined make-up, her hair a drenched rat's nest, her sopping clothes hanging heavy on her body… she'd never looked more beautiful.

"See? Wasn't so hard, now was it?"

Then she left.

Anna felt her legs go weak and she slid down onto the shower floor, dimly aware she should probably turn off the water, but currently lacking the strength to do it.

What just happened?!

Owning Her Future taglist:

@galactic-worm, @koleopteros

He called it Karma, to himself mostly. He told Steve once, a heavily redacted version of the truth. Steve, in an attempt to reassure him, promised it wasn’t his fault, just residual trauma. But Bucky knew this wasn’t something that could be fixed, something that had blame placed elsewhere. It was his, personally curated over the course of decades. One doesn’t get to just hang it up and walk away.

He tries his best not to sleep, refuses to if Steve isn’t home. Once, he went eight days without sleep when a mission went bad and Steve got stuck in Europe. One day longer and he was going to catch a flight, the ticket window opened on his phone when Steve called and said he was coming home.

They were never the same when they called, the nightmares. For you see that would create routine, routine allowing preparation. He had the pleasure of being dropped, unannounced, into the very depths of hell without so much as a hint.

They were always bad.

Tonight was worse.

Cold. Snow crunching on his boots as he steadies himself, attempts to stand. It’s loud, echoing in his ears against the otherworldly silence.

He attempts to gain his bearings, the only light is in the distance, something smouldering, embers scattered across what seems to be a clearing.

Was he in the forest? 

There were no trees he could see, only black above him, white below, the red embers snaking their way across what he assumes is the horizon.

Were they moving?

A blink, another, and it confirms that the embers were indeed moving, racing in fact towards him with a supernatural speed. The snow remains untouched in their wake, unexplainably virgin white.

He moves to run, but finds himself stuck, unable to as much as turn to look behind him.

There’s no need, too focused on what lies ahead. He stills, a low hum now seems to accompany the glow.

It grows upon approach, still at a good distance, but he gets chills at the recognition, understanding filling him with white hot dread.

It wasn’t a hum.

It’s screams.

Another attempt to flee does nothing, condemned yet again to await his fate.

The embers have turned to flames now, blue violet in intensity, lapping at the ground, racing towards him with a hunger like they hadn’t been fed in ages.

Heat licks at his neck, the screams growing with the flames, deafening him as they approach. 

Instinctively he moves to cover his ears, but they're glued to his sides. 

His ability to blink goes next, and he’s left to face the full version of fury.

Finally encompassed, the flames refuse to take him, set him free to what awaits, instead holding him there for their next play of hand.

The once constant drone of scream becomes distinguishable, transgression laid out one by one.

 He recognizes every single voice.

“Please, I have a daughter!”

“He killed my family!”

“He’s not worth saving.”

“I don’t want to die.”

It’s hours, or years, seconds or decades, but Bucky’s voice is hoarse, raspy and broken from repenting.

The fire still refuses to burn, penance denied.

“I’m sorry it wasn’t me, I never had a choice! It wasn’t me… It wasn’t meeeee”

Release.

A gasp, a swing, two arms holding him against a warm chest.

“It wasn't me…” he murmurs still, unwilling to open his eyes, afraid it’s a cruel trick.

“Baby, you’re safe, you’re in bed, I’m here.”

“I… it, fire, fuck.” 

Steve runs his hands through damp hair before placing a gentle kiss on the top of his head.

“You’re home now, look at me, come back to me.”

A shake comes, face still buried, afraid to tempt the fates.

“It’s ok, I’ve got you. Where are you?

“Home.” It’s weak, a tremble threatens to end him.

“That’s right, and who am I?”

Bucky shifts, just enough to look up and meet the familiar eyes awaiting him.

“Say my name.”

“Steve.”

It’s said like a man who’s drowning, the name a lifeline, a rescue. He manages to sit up, a weak smile on his face at the worried look Steve wears.

“I got you Buck.”

“No Steve, we’ve got each other.”

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　𓏲𝄢　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

In the unspoken war of dehumanization, Frances didn’t anticipate the non-human breaking first.

It had been about a month since the two of them had settled into their fragile routine. Every day, in the late hours of morning, she would show up at the cottage like clockwork. Her arms would be laden with a basket of leftover goods from the morning’s baking and the weight of her mother’s disapproving stare as she slipped out and left her to mind the bakery again. Every day, the White Lady—‘Eirys,’ she called herself, like the flowers with which she shared an aspect of strange beauty—would meet her at the door without Frances announcing herself.

She would be led inside, welcomed into a space furnished so normally yet decorated with such alien paraphernalia that her heart fluttered at the thought of bumping against the wrong shelf and setting off a chain reaction beyond fathom. The basket would end up in the corner of the cottage holding the kitchen, and the two of them would end up at the round and rough-hewn table a few feet over that served as sole demarcation of ‘dining and study area’.

The White Lady would skim through tomes and scrolls at record speed, fiddling with arcane artifacts with such carelessness that Frances’ abdominal muscles were nearly back to their knightly prime purely from clenching with anxiety. She would move through texts at a much slower speed and take notes of what she thought was relevant, citing sources as best she could. It was hard to know what was relevant—even now, the White Lady hadn’t let her in on what exactly her schemes were, and Frances hadn’t asked.

(Truly, she hadn’t expected her actions to lead to this. She had only meant to take a look at the White Lady’s work to scan for nefarious plots, and had expected to be barred from it with a shout, or a shove, or a spell. But none of that happened, and Frances kept reading, intrigued by the subject matter, and she started to write things down honestly to just wrap her own head around it, but its not like they were going to do her any good, and now… Now she supposed she was a research assistant. Paid in knowledge, complimentary lunch, and the opportunity to keep an eye on… whatever was happening here. She only knew it had to do with finding… something. And she wasn’t sure how much more than that she wanted to know.)

They were just starting to reach the point of a routine morning where the White Lady would remember that humans had needs involving food and drink when Frances realized the woman was no longer sitting across from her as she had been a moment ago. At that same time a thoughtful, “Hmm,” came right by her ear, and it took all of her willpower to not startle violently.

The White Lady was standing right over her shoulder, peering down at her chicken-scratch for notes. Standing so close that Frances could smell her—sweet and dark, the nectar of a poisonous blossom.

“Why, Frances, I believe you’ve found something,” the woman murmured, and that time she did jolt in her seat.

Frances.

She’d said her name—Frances hadn’t thought she’d known it. In their clockwork dance, they tended to find little reason to refer to eachother. It wasn’t like there was anyone else around to get confused with. And sure, she’d introduced herself that first day, but…

Whatever moment Frances was having over this, the White Lady wasn’t in on it—she had taken her notes along to the kitchen, humming and murmuring to herself as she absentmindedly pulled out the makings of lunch.

Frances watched her. She had her notes, for one. And for the other… well. She said she wanted to keep an eye on things.

Eirys hadn’t heard her name on another’s lips in… well. Quite a long time.

It was the cost of her Connection, an innate ability that fit her neatly into a role every place she visited. Sometimes she was the hero, sometimes the villain, the soldier, the dragon. Every place she went, she was a title. And even in the places she stayed long enough to share her name, it fell silently from the lips of others, a cruel reminder of her otherness.

The sleepy plane of Thornsweet where she’d set up camp had seemed different, sure. For one, not one of her abilities were barred from her, the way they were on other planes. (It was a weird feeling, for instance, to know you should survive a fall from any height, except for when you couldn’t). And it didn’t seem like she’d had a ‘role’ here, if how long it had taken for someone to go out of their way to interact with her was any indication: that was typically a matter of weeks, not months—nevermind just under a decade. But that lack of interaction was also lack of reassurance, and even now Eirys wondered if Frances was only here because she was supposed to be—

“Eirys.”

Eirys froze, nearly dropping the kettle she’d been setting up to brew, actually dropping Frances’ page of notes. She snatched it from the air before it could meander its way into illegibility by water, praying she wouldn’t poke holes anywhere important as her clawed fingers found purchase. She turned to where Frances still sat at the table, ears perked.

“Um. Thanks,” Frances was muttering. Her cheeks had gone rose-colored, and her initially-firm eye-contact had shattered in favor of the table before her. “For, well—”

“Say it again,” Eirys breathed. Her heart thrummed in her ears, heat singing from horns to hooves to the tip of her tail.

Frances’ expression went deadpan. “Is this about your god-complex? If you want me to thank you again—”

Eirys shook her head, hard enough for wisps of vapor to break off in an arc around her. “Not that. My name.” She was whispering, like Frances would say it again and she wouldn’t hear it over her own stupid voice.

The other woman’s frown, rarely absent, did soften slightly, as if she could sense that this meant more than she understood. “Eirys,” she said again, and suddenly it didn’t matter if the surly ex-knight was frowning or not, because Eirys had no hope of seeing her past the tears welling hot in her eyes.

Eirys.

          She was a goddess. The most revered, the most powerful of the deities. Gone was the illusion of the simple life of a teenage girl, not with wisdom beyond the infinite horizon of humanity. 

          She was also exhausted. It had taken all of her divine energy to seal herself away for the thousands of years she had to lay dormant. Anything to keep Demise at bay. Anything to buy her people more time. 

          Her name was Hylia; the name that punctuates prayers all across Skyloft and below, the name that commands a choice between devotion and fear. 

          No longer suspended in the crystal of her own volition, she stumbled on mortal feet. 

          Tears in his eyes, Link caught her. He was here. After everything, he’d made it. He’d made it for her. “Zelda,” he said as she was snug in his embrace, his soft voice reaching her ears alone. “It’s so good to see you.” 

          Zelda. She’d been that girl once, yesterday and a thousand years ago. A simple life in the clouds, surrounded by those she loved without a shred of divinity. A life of classrooms, Loftwing flights on lazy afternoons, and hearty meals at the Lumpy Pumpkin. All the things her mortal mind had come to love now behind her. 

          Wrapping her arms around him, at least she could pretend to be Zelda again, if only for a while. 

          Her voice raspy but smile genuine, “Good morning… Link…” she said.