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Hello! For the disability oc ask game, I'm curious about #13 and #19! How does your oc feel talking about their disability or symptoms to other characters? Do they keep to themself or are they open about it? For any of your characters! And what disabilities or mental conditions do you wish there was more representation of?
13. Wheel picked Jue so:
Jue does not like talking about any of hir disabilities. Hir whole life, ze has been made to feel ashamed of them, and ze tries really hard to fit into the abled norm and expectations of hir- generally unsuccessfully, because hir intellectual disability (and all hir disabilities, but especially this) is not something ze can pretend isnât there, and itâs apparent to everyone before ze even speaks because Down Syndrome impacts the appearance of oneâs face, and everyone in the empire knows and (it feels like) has a problem with it, and hir intellectual disability makes it harder to mask and/or manage hir other less-immediately-obvious disabilities. Ze has literally been shot at and the prospect of telling people what ze struggles with or canât do (or of them finding out without hir telling them) is even more terrifying than that (which is, itself, a symptom of hir various mostly-trauma-induced mental illnesses). Ze gets really frustrated with hirself for the way ze is, and eventually starts getting rightly frustrated with other people for not accommodating hir in ways they *know* ze needs or would benefit from (and is also frustrated with hirself for being unable to ask for help, especially later on once it becomes genuinely safe for hir to ask for help and ze would definitely actually get that help if people knew ze needed it and ze still canât do it because of how bad hir anxiety is). FiitsĂŁn and eventually TalĂ are the only people ze feels safe talking to about it, and even with them it is incredibly stressful and scary and hard and ze canât always manage to do it and ze still keeps certain things to hirself out of shame and fear.
19. All of them tbh. There is so little actually *good* (mainstream) disability representation, especially as main characters. I think we just need so much more of everything. (Especially in fantasy and other speculative fiction, but thatâs just because thatâs my favourite genre and genre umbrella, and people like to claim itâs unrealistic to have disabled characters in fantasy and sci fi (for different reasons depending on the genre but always âunrealisticâ).)
I am occasionally pretty bummed that TalĂ is not a POV character anymore because in this iteration of the story they are not a pivotal character nor in the position to become one but I miss them and writing from their POV
Roo's full name is Kiureik-awn RĂnogh Naroosi-Yaacoinwra. She is about thirteen at the start of Empires Always Fall and is Halek's (and TalĂ's) little sister. She is frequently knitting, often clothes for her dolls. She is- like most of her family- multiply disabled: she is autistic and nonverbal, has ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety, depression, and PTSD, and uses a wheelchair full-time because she has no lower legs (there are a few other things as well but they are related to some things I've changed since the first draft but I haven't revised the character sheet properly yet which I'm going to be doing before the upcoming third). Her PTSD and depression originate from Halek's very violent arrest, during which she was also injured, five years ago. She goes to the Bridge Public School like TalĂ, but would likely be a lot happier and more successful if she could go to a dedicated alternative school for disabled people, which unfortunately Moghrlai Gurodstadit does not have any public or low-cost ones and her family is not wealthy enough to send her to a private school. Growing into her adolescence, she has developed a fairly snarky personality. She has a couple cousins close to her age, KĂkam and Saurikasi; she and KĂkam often do not get along well, because Halek (a "bad influence") has in the past few years become a new focal point for KĂkam's mother's decades-long rift with the rest of the family and KĂkam parrots her views to Roo and that makes Roo really mad, and she and Saurikasi usually get along but are also currently going through a bad spot in their relationship (I don't think there was a major Thing that started it but they are both sort of struggling through being thirteen in ways that rub against each other badly). She has a crush on Daanah, TalĂ's best friend (and one of the main characters), which is probably not her first crush but maybe the longest-lasting or strongest so far, and is not good at hiding it or any emotion (I think Daanah is aware of this and feels awkward about it because to her- at fifteen- Roo is a lot younger than her and sort of feels like her own little sister). Like her mother and grandkether but unlike her siblings, she is Jumalusk-na, a follower of the Beri Three-Faced God. She is jealous that both of her older siblings are mages and (at least as far is as currently apparent, and she is well into puberty by now, which is when it usually appears) she is not.
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Empires Always Fall Chapter Sixty-six: Halek: Plans
content notices: familial and platonic relationships, discussion of suicide, romance mention, implied abuse, imperialism mention, war discussion
"Halek." TalĂ woke him up frantically in the middle of the night.
Halek sat up with a start, nearly smashing his head into TalĂ's. "What's the emergency?"
TalĂ wouldn't wake him up unless there was an emergency. TalĂ probably wouldn't even be awake themself unless there was an emergency.
TalĂ put a finger to their mouth. "Don't wake up Roo," they said. "Or-" They nodded towards Juraji, who had apparently fallen asleep reading in the thin line of light that circumvented Halek's curtains. "I need your help. Come talk to me in my room."
"Okay." Not a fire, but that didn't calm his nerves much. He slipped on his glasses and quietly followed them next door.
"I think something's happened to Jue," TalĂ said, hugging their knees on the bed. They sounded like they were on the verge of tears.
"Okay." Halek sat next to them gently. "Why do you think that?"
"We were talking." Talà swallowed visibly. "And ze was sort of- making sure we'd follow through on some things, keep a promise ze'd made to help someone, which is- That could be normal, right, but also it could be getting your affairs in order because you don't think you'll be around to make sure of it later⊠Then ze said ze was sorry and 'there was nothing more I could have done' and goodbye. And then that was it."
"OhâŠ" said Halek. It was frighteningly similar to a note he'd once drafted in his head and never written.
"Yeah," said TalĂ. "That sounds like someone who thinks ze's about to die, to me. Like⊠I woke you up because-"
"I know," said Halek.
"I don't know what to do," said TalĂ. "Ze's half the empire away. I can't find hir again with the dream bead and I haven't been able to reach FiitsĂŁn, maybe he's not asleep, I left a message on the phone but no one picked up and by the time anyone checks it might be too late. Maybe I'm already too late. Maybe I just watched hir die. I don't know what to do."
"I'm sure it will be okay," Halek said, not at all sure it would be okay.
"Don't lie to me!"
"Okay," said Halek. "Okay! I don't know what happened. I don't know if ze'll be okay. You might be wrong but you also might be right and there isn't really anything you can do either way because ze's so far away and we don't have any way to get in touch with anyone who could change things. I'm sorry. All you can do is wait and hope that you're wrong or that FiitsĂŁn gets your message or that whatever ze might have done doesn't work. It's awful." TalĂ relied on him, but he didn't have a solution for them.
"No one will know we were friends if ze dies," said TalĂ. "Except FiitsĂŁn. No one else knows both of us. No one else in hir life knows about me, and most of the people in mine don't know about hir, and I'll have to keep it that way so no one finds out about what we were doing. I might hear it through the news if I don't hear it from FiitsĂŁn first and I'll have to pretend I don't care."
"I'll know," said Halek, but he didn't think TalĂ was really listening anymore. It wasn't enough, anyway.
"A few more tendays, maybe a cycle, just a little longer and we'd win and ze would be free and ze wouldn't have to kill hirself for it," said TalĂ. "I'm afraid- What if ze did try, and ze lives, and they hurt hir for it? They might. They're that kind of people. Like your friend Neesa's parents."
"I don't know," Halek said. Sometimes he didn't want to be the adult. Sometimes it hurt. Maybe this was a bit too personal to him. He kind of wished they'd woken someone else up instead. "Like you said. A few more tendays and we can help hir, right?"
"If ze survives that long," said TalĂ darkly.
TalĂ tried again to reach FiitsĂŁn in the morning and got no answer.
"If something happened, that probably means he's dealing with it somehow," said Halek. "Or if it didn't, he might just be busy. He'll get back to you as soon as he can."
According to TalĂ, FiitsĂŁn was now 'sort of' their boyfriend and had been for a while. He'd call back.
"Call Daanah," Halek said. "We have some things to talk about. You and me and her and Juraji and Isohi."
They were working out the details of the plan now. They couldn't get every person remotely associated with the revolution together to talk, which meant there were a lot of pauses for everyone to loop everyone else in. Ideally they could also get FiitsĂŁn and Jue into this conversation through TalĂ, but⊠not right now. They had other TLF contacts.
A few tendays. Then, if they were successful, they would have the palace, and ideally a lot of the most powerful people in the empire, and it wouldn't necessarily be over but it would be a major victory.
They spread the building plans out across Halek's floor. He practically had them memorized by now with how much he and Juraji had gone over them.
"Jue told meâŠ" TalĂ said, and trailed off for a moment before shaking themself back. "Jue told me what ze could find out about what happens if the palace is attacked." They set down a stack of their coded notes. "And some other things."
"A lot of other things," said Juraji.
"Ze didn't seem to think any of it was enough, but it adds up," said TalĂ. "And, it's not in there, but ze said that Beri military support is expected soon."
"We should strike as soon as possible, then," said Juni. "It will be best if we can get there before their reinforcements do." Ze leaned closer to the phone. "Daanah, how many people do you think will follow you?"
There was the scratch of a pencil on paper, then Daanah said, sounding a bit in awe at her own power: "With us and Ausse and Elyd⊠About sixty thousand committed supporters in Zioshue? More, depending on timing, or if we can transport people⊠We have over a million across the empire."
Everyone sat in silence for a minute. This was Daanah, their neighbour, TalĂ's best friend, whom Halek had basically grown up with. Who was now a very powerful religious figure.
"The palace isn't all that big," said Juraji.
"The Temple of Corysecli has lost all of its Initiates," Halek added. "They have, what, three Divine Soldiers plus the Vessel in Zioshue? They're stretched pretty thin."
"How many soldiers have defected to our side, Isohi?" said TalĂ.
Before ze could answer, Daanah said, "âŠWe have some of those, too. Secretly."
"We will need a diversion so there are fewer soldiers available to defend the palace," said Juni. "Daanah, use your soldiers. Lend them your magic. Have them attackâŠ"
Ze smoothed out the big map of the empire with all its military sites marked.
TalĂ put a finger somewhere in Elisat, along both the east coast and the border with Wend-Ki (well, Qalidesh- the map was from before it had joined the Collective earlier in the year). "Here," they said.
"I can't see that," Daanah said mildly.
"It's where they're deploying to Kelos from," said TalĂ. "I don't know if they're directly deploying to Qalidesh from there too, but they definitely are from the base they've built on Kelos. See about sinking some imperial ships off the coast of Kelos too. Maybe lure some troops back from Kelos and the border, give the Nsole and the Qalideshi in border towns some relief. It's across the empire from the palace and it's strategically important so they'll defend it."
Halek, through the worry about the plan and the future and Jue and the world, felt pride. He stood by his decision not to involve TalĂ sooner, but there was a reason they topped most of their classes at school and had half a dozen tutoring clients in both lower levels and their own. If he could keep them safe, they could probably get into just about any university they wanted to study any subject they wanted and win enough scholarships that it would practically be free. They were good at just about anything they put their mind to, and they were good at this.
"Good," said Juni. "Daanah can send her soldiers there. But not enough. We should coordinate uprisings in every major city and everywhere with a military base. That way even if we don't win the palace we will still have some victories, and no one will be able to come when the palace calls for aid. We have people everywhere."
"I don't want to send people to their deaths who haven't signed up for that," said Daanah.
"Not as many people died here as I expected," Juni said. "On neither our side nor theirs. A lot of the soldiers were scared young conscripts who either switched sides to some extent or just ran away at the first sign of real resistance." Ze snorted, voice dripping with derision. "The military always talks about what an honour it is and how loyal and brave their soldiers are, but that's a load of manure. There's indoctrination and power trips and then there's mortal fear and moral principle, and indoctrination and power trips don't always win out when faced with the first real fight."
"If you give your support to the rebels and dress it up in fancy religious language, Daanah, I think even more of them than you expect will follow you," said Halek. He wondered, too, how many there were who had been draft dodgers like Fiyavu Ozast, who'd been caught and were just waiting for their moment. "You're a good speaker. People listen to you. Especially if they see you."
"I've been developing some ideas, magic-wise, after what happened here," Juraji said. "It's a lot of somewhat advanced theory, but I think people who have skill with magic will be able to handle it even if they haven't had a university-level education in it. Obviously not everyone can be me, but the thing I did with the barrier gave me some ideas. It will need a lot of people cooperating but I think it can work. Should minimize casualties on both sides. Block access points, remove or trap soldiers, shield your- our- people, stuff like that, long-term. It's not that complicated if you understand how it works."
Halek didn't understand half the notes and calculations Juraji had shown him and tried to consult on, so he hoped xe really would be able to translate it into language a layperson could understand and not just a lower-level university student than xem.
Juraji had to cover them with an illusion to get into Moghrlai Gurodstadit.
Halek looked down at the uniform xe'd conjured up. "I'm going to puke."
"You've become the thing you hate most," said the voice.
Can you actually just shut up, Halek thought.
"It's just until we get to your house," said Juraji. "I changed your face, too. Just in case."
Halek examined his empty hand. It very much did not look like it belonged to him. The brown of his skin was way too light, the fingers too long and slender, the nails too unbitten. Morbidly curious, he extended his other arm slightly and found that he appeared to have a right hand, something that had never been the case before and that felt entirely disconnected from him. "Hmph."
"Is it okay?" said Juraji. "I've only been here once, when you brought me to meet your family last year. I'm not very familiar with-"
"It's fine." Halek closed his (real) fist and let his other arm drop. "Hurts to walk without my cane. Even with the brace. We'll have to go slowly so I don't pop my hip and fall."
RÄmian soldiers did not use wheelchairs or walking sticks, and changing their appearances was enough work for Juraji to maintain without having to alter Halek's gait too.
"I need you to look at me and tell me if I've gotten anything wrong," said Juraji. "Nicely."
Halek grimaced and looked up.
Looking back at him was- someone else. Nothing like Juraji at all, apart from the height. A fully-uniformed RÄmian soldier.
Without meaning to, he took a half-step back.
"Convincing?"
"Yeah." A little too convincing, maybe.
"Good."
"Wait," said Halek. He cautiously touched the name patch on xir chest. "That can't be your name. That's just Juraji in RÄmiloq characters. Well- As close as you can get. JarajÄ. It's not a RÄmiloq name."
He'd shown xem how to write their names in all the languages he knew once, and xe'd shown him how to write them in all the languages xe knew.
"Oh."
Halek braced himself and looked back down at his own chest. "Everything else is basically perfect, but HalÄq is also not a RÄmiloq name."
"Oh." Juraji's shoulders slumped.
"It's okay, we can fix it," said Halek. "It's not a big deal, and you don't speak the language. There's, um- The Younger Empress when we were born was HaishionÄ. Or maybe she was the Elder Empress by then⊠I don't remember, she didn't last very long. And- Jaision is a pretty common name with most age groups, I think. The examples in word problems at school were always called stuff like Jaision. They do stuff with prophecies, too, but I'm not Senci and I don't really know how it works, and there are still trends. RÄmiloq names are gender-neutral so we can just grab whatever and it shouldn't be questioned."
Juraji cleared off a patch of dirt on the forest floor with xir foot. "Can you write those for me?"
"Yeah. We'll need family names too so-" Halek took a stick and scratched out two names. "I just got these from books so I hope they don't have connotations that will cause problems."
RÄmiloq had a lot of class stuff baked into it. He wasn't sure how much was connected to family names. They needed to be unremarkable.
Juraji did xir best to copy the names onto the illusory uniforms.
"Good," said Halek, although if one looked too close the characters might look a little wrong. It was good enough for a casual observer, and a very good impression for someone who didn't actually know that alphabet and had to just copy the words as pictures.
The ghost of a smile flitted across Juraji's face.
"I'll have to do the talking," Halek said grimly. Hopefully very little talking, to avoid both his panic and his local accent showing through.
Juraji nodded.
"If we can get into the city without being seen, no one should question us as we move through it," said Halek nervously. "Patrols around the perimeter are groups of six but inside the city a pair shouldn't be noticeable. If we get the timing right we should be fine."
Halek hadn't expected to be so scared coming home. What if they blamed him for what had happened at Ykseis? They should, but he didn't want his family to hate him.
They stood in the back yard of his house. Their front door was being watched, but their back neighbours weren't, as far as Halek and Juraji had been able to tell.
"Drop the illusion before we go in," said Halek. He didn't want to scare anyone.
Juraji flexed xir hands and the illusion disintegrated in a shower of blue sparks.
Halek scratched at the back of his neck and tried to reassure himself that there was nothing really there. Just- his mind playing tricks on him again. No cause for concern.
"Come on," he said, lowering his hand to find his key. He'd had it in his pocket when- when he'd left. The blood hadn't washed out of the coat, but he still had the key. "They'll remember you, except my aunt Saujei because she doesn't remember anyone and maybe Aedrii-NĂș because she's little and it's been a year and maybe my grandfather because he's losing his memory. Well, and, you met one of my dads, and the others might not know you-" Rambling again. Delaying.
"Halek." Juraji put a hand on his arm. "I'm not worried. You can just introduce me again. I've been working on my ĂĂĂșharlaesoghk. Maybe I'll be able to talk to them directly this time."
"Okay."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Halek said rotely. He wiggled his key in the lock. This door always stuck.
Halek's room was the same. It felt so dissonant, alien, to have everything identical to how he'd left it before the party.
It felt dangerous.
His neck itched.
"Juraji." He took a step back out the door, pushing xem with him. "I think the room's bugged."
"âŠAre you sure?" Juraji asked gently. "It would be pretty hard to get in past all your family to plant anything."
Halek was jittering all over. "I think I'm bugged."
"Halek."
"They could have," said Halek. "They could have put something under my skin when-"
"I can check," said Juraji. "It's okay. I can use my magic and I check you and I can check your room and I can get rid of anything I find. Okay?"
"Okay." That was good. That would tell him if his instincts were right or if it was really a delusion. "Thank you. For doing that. And for taking me seriously."
Juraji nodded and squeezed past him into his bedroom. "Give me a few minutes and I'll have this sorted out."
Xe spun in a slow circle, examining Halek's room, then after a long moment, xe spread xir arms and an electric blue film settled like dust over everything.
The hairs on Halek's arms stood on end with the static. He chewed his lip in silence.
The blue slowly faded away. "Nothing," said Juraji.
"Okay." Halek tried to believe Juraji. He stepped back in and closed the door. "Can you check me now?"
Juraji sat down on Halek's bed. "Yep. C'mere."
Halek sat next to xem. He couldn't enjoy being back on his own bed until he knew. "You can do my head first. It would have been easy to put something in with- the tattoo."
Juraji raised xir eyebrows. "The tattoo?"
"On my neck," Halek said uncomfortably. "It's, um. My number. From- I didn't put it there myself. Anyway. And I have a little one behind my ear, actually, for stability, I don't know if it really helps but that was the idea. There shouldn't be anything in my head and neck except the ink and my earring."
"Okay."
Halek took off his glasses so they wouldn't interfere.
"Is it okay if I touch you?" Juraji asked. "The contact will make it easier to look precisely."
Halek closed his eyes and nodded.
"Okay. Stop me if you need to." Juraji's hands settled on Halek's face.
He shivered.
"All good?"
"Your hands are cold," Halek answered honestly.
"Bad circulation," said Juraji. "It's genetic. My mother's hands were never warm."
"I'm good. Keep going."
"You might feel a bit of a shock," said Juraji, and Halek's skin flooded with static electricity.
It's okay. It's just Juraji.
"Hmm."
"What is it?" Halek asked anxiously. "Did you find something?"
"None of what you were thinking," said Juraji. "But you have cataracts developing."
"What?" Halek said, thrown off balance.
"You know. In your eyes. You should see someone about that."
Things had been blurrier, lately. He'd thought he just needed new glasses.
That was an extra complication he really didn't need right now. Eyes were delicate. Juraji couldn't fix them, or xe'd have said so.
"Fuck," he said.
"Mhm. I'm going to put my hands in your hair now to get a better look at your scalp, if that's okay, love."
"Okay." Nonetheless, he felt himself get tenser when Juraji's fingers wove into his roots, and stay tense until xir hands moved down to his neck.
"I can probably get rid of this, you know, if you don't like it," xe said as xir fingers traced the ink.
He wanted to say yes. Oh, how he wanted to say yes. But- "You can't," he said. It hurt to say. "Not yet. Until things change⊠If I'm caught and they see I've gotten rid of it, it will count against me, even if they can't prove anything elseâŠ"
"Okay," said Juraji. "Right. That part's done."
Halek opened his eyes and settled his glasses back on. He tugged off his shirt, then, feeling a little nauseous, started unbuttoning his pants. "Do the rest now."
"Hey." Juraji held out a hand. "You don't have to take all your clothes off at once. If it's more comfortable for you to do it in sections-"
"Oh." Halek dropped his hand, embarrassed he hadn't thought of that. Of course he didn't have to strip down completely. Of course Juraji wouldn't require that of him to do a search. "Right. Yeah."
He had a creeping suspicion that Juraji knew, even though Halek didn't remember telling xem, even though he'd never told anyone. Maybe it was just his paranoia, or maybe he'd said something during the gaps in his memory in Meelasugaado, or maybe Juraji had just figured it out on xir own.
"I've got some more tattoos," he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. "Obviously. And then my pump and I have a copper IUD. That's all that should be there."
"Okay. Gonna touch you now. Same thing with the mild shock."
Halek nodded.
Juraji was very gentle. Almost too gentle, fingertips ghosting across Halek's skin.
"I don't want you to have to compromise your principles for me," Halek blurted, partly because it had been weighing on him and partly because he couldn't bear to sit in silence during this.
"What do you mean?" Juraji asked, thumb slowing slightly as it skimmed over one of Halek's forearm tattoos.
"The pacifism stuff. I know it's important to you. I don't want you to have to sacrifice all that work for the rebellion, or to protect me." He didn't want Juraji to be contaminated by his violent nature.
"Yeah?" said Juraji. "I'm not worried about that. I'm really good with my magic. I don't expect to need to actually hurt anyone, and I don't have any qualms about property damage." Xe paused. "And, if it comes down to it, in a self-defence situation, or if you were in danger, I would protect you however I could. I can protect you better than anybody else in the world, and probably even without really hurting anyone, but I would if I really had to."
"Okay."
Xe grinned. "I'm your 'secret weapon', remember?"
"Yeah," said Halek. His voice felt small. "I just- care about you a lot more now than when I asked you to be that."
"I know, love," said Juraji. "I like it, anyway. Makes me feel important."
"You're important anyway," said Halek. He didn't want Juraji to think he only valued xem for what xe could do.
"It's okay," said Juraji. "Really."
"Okay."
Two of xir fingers settled on a pair of little bumps on Halek's side. "This scar is an odd-"
"It'sfromataser," Halek said, all very fast. It wasn't an unknown. They weren't surgical marks he hadn't been aware of that could be an insertion point for a tracker. "Don't want to talk about it."
"Oh," said Juraji. Then, darker, angrier: "Oh. I see. Does the electricity from my magic bother you?"
"It's just pins and needles."
"Okay." Juraji's hands moved further down his back. "Are you sure about the rest of this?"
"I need proof that I'm wrong."
He lay face-down and cried for a bit after that. Juraji hadn't found anything. He was still scared, still half-convinced there had to be something, but xe hadn't found anything.
The dying fire alarm wasn't real, which unfortunately meant Halek couldn't cover his ears to escape the beeping. He had to admit that that did make him cry harder because it just would not stop.
There was a knock on the door. Probably Juraji.
"Come in," he called, not lifting his face off the pillow. They needed to sort out the floor bed.
"Hey," MĂĂșren said.
Halek jumped, trying to hide that he'd been crying.
"I just wanted to check on you," she said. "We haven't had a chance to talk in private since you got home."
"Oh." Halek sat up and hoped his eyes weren't too red.
"Do you want to talk? We've been able to talk to your siblings and Aedrii-NĂș about what happened at Ykseis and how they're doing with everything going on right now, but not you yet."
He hugged himself. "I don't want to worry you."
"Halek." MĂĂșren sighed. "I'm always worried about you. That's how it is when you're a parent, especially now."
Especially me, Halek thought. He was such a mess. He was trying so hard not to be, and he was still such a mess.
"But you might get sick again if you worry about me too much," he mumbled. Cancer feeds on stress, he'd heard his uncle Jirit say to Juni once when they hadn't known he was listening. With all this stuff with Halek, I'm worried for her health. The voice liked to repeat it back to him whenever he was going through something.
"Oh," MĂĂșren said softly. "Have you been carrying that around for a long time?"
Halek nodded and crumpled back into tears.
"I'm-" He hiccuped- "I'm sorryâŠ"
She moved from her wheelchair to sit next to him on the bed, rubbing his back. "Halek, Halek, it's okay. I'm okay. I won't tell you the cancer won't come back, because no one can promise that, and I won't tell you that I'm not afraid it might, but the chances are low. I've been cancer-free for years, and the surgery removed everything and then some, and the medications keep the chances of a resurgence down to almost nothing, and if it does come back it will not be your fault. I didn't get sick from worrying about you, I got sick from my genetics and sheer bad luck."
"I know," Halek sobbed. "In- In my brain, intellectually, I know. B-But I'm scared⊠in my feelings it's my fault and I'm going to make it come back if I upset you out too much⊠I made you sick just by being pregnant with me, I made you sick by stressing you outâŠ"
"Listen." MĂĂșren squeezed his shoulders. "You are not responsible for my health. You never have been, and you never will be. My health is up to me, it's up to my doctors, it's up to my genes and the environment, it's up to the Kether-"
"I don't believe in-"
"Chance, then," said MĂĂșren. "But it's not up to you, okay? I'm responsible for looking after you, not the other way around, because I am your mother and you are a teenager."
"I'm basically an adult," Halek said. "I should be able to look after myself."
"Nevertheless." MĂĂșren gave him a be serious look. "Have you ever met any adult who can actually look after themself entirely on their own? Because I haven't."
"I know," said Halek, suddenly full of an entirely different shame. "Sorry. I know."
"I want to look after you," said MĂĂșren. "I want to help you look after yourself. Adult or not. I love you, and I want to see you succeed, whatever success means for you. I don't want you to feel like you can't talk to me when you're having trouble because it might worry me. Of course it will worry me, but I'm okay with that and I can manage the stress it might cause me." She smiled at him. "I've been managing my stress more than twice as long as you've been alive. I promise I can take it."
"Do you really want to know how I'm doing?" Halek asked, looking at his knees. "It's not good."
"I do."
"I watched Yainogh-aer die, and the others, and I thought I was going to die too, and I killed someone." He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I don't remember all the details, but I remember how scared I was. I thought we all might die."
MĂĂșren nodded. "TalĂ told me how brave you were. They also thought you might not make it out, but you took that risk so that they would."
"Maybe," Halek said. Maybe he'd been brave. Or maybe more people would have survived if he hadn't fought back, given in to his violence. He would never know. "Things were really bad for a while in Meelasugaado. I would've let myself die if Juraji hadn't been really vigilant about me eating and taking my insulin. It's not an emergency anymore, but things are still⊠bad. Even though Juraji checked with xir magic I'm still convinced that there's a bug- like, a tracking device, a listening device, a mind-reading device, something- in my room or in me, and every time I close my eyes I see Yainogh-aer lying there in a puddle of blood with a hole in his head, and I'm so scared that's going to happen to everyone else I love too because I can't protect them, and- and the beeping won't fucking stop!" He gasped in a deep breath. "And it's just so lonely to live like this, to have so many different things I can't tell so many different people, because it's not safe or because they won't understand, to not be able to relate to normal teenagers who go to school and don't have to keep it secret or they have normal jobs and who have fun and who don't wake up panicked in the middle of the night and who aren't psychotic or bipolar or traumatized or scared all the time and who don't have to worry about being locked away again and who get to just liveâŠ"
"I know," said MĂĂșren. "I'm so sorry you didn't get to have a good adolescence. I wish we could have protected you better."
"I wish I'd protected Yainogh-aer."
"Why should they care?" Halek said. "All we're doing is standing. They don't care that we're displeased."
"No," said Juni. "They don't. It's a twenty-four-hour warning that all the people standing today will be turning them out of the city tomorrow if they don't leave on their own."
"They won't," Halek said.
"No," said Juni. "I don't think so. But on the chance they do withdraw, or even a few individual soldiers desert and run away, we think it's worth it, because although we outnumber them by orders of magnitude and I believe we will win tomorrow, they have a lot more guns and a lot of us are probably going to die in the process."
So many people had died at Ykseis and they'd been no threat at all. "I just-"
"Then don't come, Haleksari." Ze gave him a stern look. "Our work alone has not been enough to drive them away. We have been organizing this for most of the time you've been gone. Twenty-one of the twenty-three units in the city agreed to be present as the closest thing they will have to actual security and emergency medics, and you were not her to vote on it, but by all means, stay home. I will be taking Juraji regardless."
"Obviously I'm coming," Halek said irritably. It was unfair of hir to judge him for fleeing, as if he hadn't- (a desperate urge to hide flooded him). Juni had been on the run for years while MĂĂșren had been growing up. Halek had been gone for what, half a cycle?
"I'm coming too," TalĂ said.
Halek flinched.
He hated that he couldn't hear people coming up behind him.
"You didn't even tell me this was happening," TalĂ said accusa, swearingtorily. "I thought you agreed to trust me."
"I wasn't here until yesterday," Halek said. "I didn't know. How would I have told you?"
And, no, he hadn't told them after Juni had told him, because he'd watched Yainogh-aer die, because he had nightmares about watching TalĂ die, because their deal had explicitly not involved TalĂ being in the field.
Juni sighed and pinched the bridge of hir nose.
"I would go anyway," TalĂ said. "Everyone is. I want to be there as one of you."
"It's-" Halek began. Too dangerous.
Juni shushed him. "TalĂ. Do you understand what that means? If you are dressed like us, there as one of us, people will be relying on you, and you will be more of a target, and your life might become very difficult if they identify you later, and if anyone asks you must deny it."
"Yes," said TalĂ. "I was there at Ykseis. I was responsible for Roo and Aedrii-NĂș." They swallowed visibly. "I watched him die too."
"Okay," said Juni.
Halek must have looked sour, because Juni turned to him and said, "Halek, you were hardly sixteen when I invited you to join us. TalĂ is able to understand what they are committing to, just as you were."
TalĂ gaped at him. "It's been that long? You're such a fucking hypocrite!"
"It was different," said Halek. "I wasn't a kid anymore." He hadn't been a kid for a long time by then.
"Nonsense," said Juni. "Yes, you were. You are. You were a kid who needed a way to fight back, and TalĂ already knows far more than they should."
That was his fault. TalĂ shouldn't know anything about QD.
"They deserve the same chance you got."
It was hot to be dressed like this, all in black and as covered up as possible.
He didn't complain. Juni was annoyed with him already, and there were more important problems, and he didn't actually need to be wearing a scarf for this to work because he was wearing a mask already and his hair was long enough to cover the tattoo on his neck but he was wearing one anyway so it was kind of his fault.
"Where's the baby?" he asked AilĂt.
"With eir grandmother," AilĂt signed, probably meaning Maidallis, since Saafeera was here. They wouldn't use names.
"Doing well?"
She nodded. "Ey's still a harsh eater. I've started pumping instead. Ey's cooing and moving eir limbs around more now."
"And you?"
AilĂt laughed. It was a good sound to hear. He hadn't heard her laugh in a long time.
"Tired," she signed. "I hardly know what day it is. I'd love to sleep through the night. Eir grandmothers have taken eir overnight a few times, but I'm too anxious then to sleep well."
"Are you doing things for yourself?" Halek signed.
"I've taken up RÄmiq paper-folding," signed AilĂt. "There's no room in my brain for reading anymore, but the baby's asleep a lot, so we have a lot of little colourful paper birds now. I thought I might put them up on a string."
Beside him, TalĂ tapped his elbow. "She's here."
"Okay." He gave Juraji a nod, and xe dropped the cover.
Dozens of clusters of people now converged around the mayor. Little islands became a big crowd behind her, with Halek and the others along the edge and scattered strategically throughout. There were more real press here than Halek had expected, with big cameras and vests proclaiming their affiliations that he hoped they didn't think were certain to protect them.
She set down a small stepladder in front of the garrison's outer wall and climbed up with a megaphone in her hand.
"I WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS THE GENERAL," she said.
More polite in her language than Halek would be, but that was the kind of language a politician used.
It was only when she said it again in RÄmiloq that he caught up to the fact that she was prioritizing ĂĂĂșharlaesoghk. She was the first ĂĂĂșharlaes mayor of Moghrlai Gurodstadit in Halek's lifetime, but in official public addresses RÄmiloq was always the first language used, because it had to be.
"AS, DESPITE OUR MEETING EARLIER THIS CYCLE, THERE HAS BEEN NO INDICATION OF THE RESTRICTIONS ON THIS CITY'S CITIZENS BEING LIFTED OR OF THE MILITARY PRESENCE BEING LESSENED-"
Juraji gasped.
"Hm?" said Halek.
"Nothing," xe said quickly. "Don't worry about it."
Halek craned his neck to try to get a better view. Unlike Juraji, he wasn't really tall enough to see much below her head from here, with all the people in front of him.
AilĂt, a little closer than him since they'd spread out, found his gaze and tapped her chest, then signed "Laser."
"Does she know?" said TalĂ.
Halek began to respond when the speakers on the outer wall interrupted him.
"RSWAIT-DHĂ BĂNĂMĂĂ," the speakers blared. "PER SECTION THREE OF THE WARTIME POWERS ACT 4073, YOU ARE COMMITTING TREASON. CEASE AND TURN YOURSELF IN AT ONCE OR YOU WILL BE EXECUTED WITHOUT TRIAL. THIS CROWD HAS FIVE MINUTES TO DISPERSE BEFORE THE FULL FORCE OF THE LAW IS BROUGHT AGAINST YOU. CONSIDER THIS YOUR ONLY WARNING."
"She knows," said Juni.
Mayor Rwsait-dhĂ was undeterred. "YOU HAVE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS TO WITHDRAW FROM THE MUNICIPALITY OF GREATER MOGHRLAI GURODSTADIT. RETREAT WITH GRACE OR SUFFER THE HUMILIATION OF BEING KICKED OUT BY THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS WHO HATE YOU AND WANT YOU GONE."
Halek laughed nervously at the abrupt drop in professionalism.
"They would," said Halek. He was trying to brace himself. If that happened, he didn't want to lose it. People would need him functional. "They'll do it later anyway, probably."
Juni raised hir eyebrows at TalĂ's words.
"You called her a corporate sellout last year for giving up on the noise pollution thing," they explained.
"She knows how popular she is," said Juni. "If they make an example of her, they make her a martyr, and that will be a mistake, and she knows that."
For a woman who knew she was probably about to die, Mayor Rwsait-dhĂ looked very sure of herself. Warnings given and recieved, she did not move from her stepladder.
Halek looked at his watch and tried to focus on the tick of the second hand to the exclusion of his mounting panic. The five minutes were nearly up.
There was nothing he would be able to do to stop it. He would never get through the crowd in time, and he had to stay with the inexperienced TalĂ and Juraji, and if this was the fate Mayor Rwsait-dhĂ had chosen and accepted for herself then that was how it had to be.
"She's so brave," said TalĂ.
Halek was tired of everyone having to be so brave.
He wasn't brave. He didn't want to see it happen.
The shot rang out exactly at the five-minute mark.
Halek felt his racing heart skip a beat as he flinched. Having expected it, he just barely managed not to throw himself and TalĂ to the ground and into other people's feet.
There was screaming. Not his.
It was happening again.
He should have pushed back harder on TalĂ coming. Why hadn't they listened to him? He'd known this was a bad idea, that the army wouldn't withdraw, that they shouldn't have given warning.
Juni pulled him close with one hand and TalĂ with the other.
"Wait, wait," Juraji said. "I've got it. I wasn't-" A choked sound- "I wasn't fast enough, I'm always slow, but I've got it now. Halek, can you hear me? Do you see? I've got it."
"Oh," said Juni. "Oh, good work."
"Halek?" Juraji asked again.
TalĂ tucked themself against Halek's side, forcing their way into his field of vision. "Look up," they said.
He didn't want to. He didn't want to see. He was hardly hanging onto the edge of keeping it together, and if he saw he would go over that edge entirely. There were going to be more people who needed help, and he wouldn't be able to help them, and he would become another person who needed help and it would divert attention from other people who needed it more.
"You can't see her from here," Juni said. "Your partner has created some sort of barrier between us and the garrison. There will be no more casualties. Juraji, how long can you hold that for?"
"As long as you need me to."
Halek glanced up towards xem. Everyone else would believe xem. He was the only one who ever knew xem well enough to tell that xe wasn't sure.
They needed to move.
He said as much.
"Hm," said Juraji. "I think I need to stay here to keep this up. Like- right here. I can't move."
Xir extended hands were rigid, harsh blue tracery on xir dark skin matching the colour of the translucent barrier. It occurred to Halek that this was probably the most magic xe had ever done at one time, and that maybe xe had just about found the limit of xir supposedly unlimited power.
"Okay," said Juni. "Well, as long as that's up, we're safe, so everyone else can escape and we'll be fine until you can drop it."
That was when the gas hit.
TalĂ started coughing first, and most violently.
Halek's eyes stung as he dropped his cane and caught them.
"Juraji-" he began, then cut himself off as he realized that Juraji would not be able to both maintain the barrier- gas-permeable as it apparently was- and pull the gas out of TalĂ's lungs.
"I'm sorry," Juraji choked. "I was thinking about-" Xe coughed- "bullets and soldiers. Solid things."
TalĂ's hacking wracked their whole body.
"I've got you," Halek said. "I've got you, TalĂ-" cough- "it's going to be okay-" He was trying to convince himself as much as them.
"Your scarf." Juni pulled it off his neck and poured water on it.
"H-Halek-k-kchhhh." TalĂ gripped his wrist. "Oxygen."
Right. Right. He didn't have Juraji's scope, but his own magic wasn't useless here. He should have thought of that.
Juni wrapped Halek's damp scarf around TalĂ's face, over their mask, as Halek gathered his magic.
It was hard to focus. Usually he used his own breathing to help find it, channel it, but it felt like he too was suffocating.
Slowly, desperately, he managed to bring a cloud of his own violet magic over TalĂ's mouth and nose. Crowding out the tear gas with oxygen, pushing it into TalĂ's lungs.
He was getting really dizzy now. His eyes burned and his throat burned and his lungs burned and pushing more oxygen into TalĂ's vicinity was probably removing some from his own and he was quite possibly going to die but at least TalĂ might make it.
How many other people in the crowd had Long PNIV, or asthma, or some other lung problem? It was so common here. Pretty much everyone had been infected at some point in the past two decades of pandemic. The gas was going to kill people too.
TalĂ was still coughing, but not as incessantly, not as violently.
Halek tried to stand up with them and had to sit back down as he almost passed out.
He hoped someone was helping Juraji so xe could keep the barrier up. He'd lost track of Juni. Maybe they were together. He'd lost track of everyone but TalĂ.
"Hey." Someone tilted his face up and pulled down his mask.
He tried to tell them to stop, but he was coughing too hard and he couldn't see through the burning and watering of his eyes.
They put the metal rim of a water bottle against his lips. "Drink."
Their voice was muffled, like it was coming through several layers of fabric.
He drank. Lukewarm metallic water had never felt so good.
They pulled it away and pushed his mask back into place before he was ready. "Don't panic. I'm going to rinse your eyes."
This began to feel like a very familiar script.
Halek nodded and pulled off his glasses.
It stung even worse for a moment, but then, as he blinked the droplets out of his eyes and slid his glasses back on, he could just about see again.
"Thank you," he said hoarsely.
"Thank you," they said. "You taught me how to do that."
They tipped TalĂ's head up, either not noticing or not mentioning the purple of Halek's magic around their mouth. "Stay still, dear, I'm going to help you with your eyes."
TalĂ nodded.
"I did?" He squinted and tried to come up with a name for the masked person before him. They weren't with QD, or at least they weren't dressed like it.
"At a workshop last year," they said. "Don't worry, I'm just really good with faces. I remember, I thought, if someone as young as you could get involved, could teach others to get involved too, why couldn't I?"
TalĂ was still coughing.
"I need to take my sibling home," said Halek.
"No, stay," TalĂ croaked.
He ignored them. "Can you do something for me? There's a library a couple blocks away. They should have a first aid kit behind the desk with some proper respirators."
"It's been closed for a while," said his helper. "Ever since-"
"Break the window on the door," Halek said. "Cover your hand when you reach in- don't make yourself into another patient or leave more evidence than you have to."
They nodded and left.
Now that he could see again and the gas was settling, he was able to locate Juraji and AilĂt together.
"I need to take them home!" he shouted.
AilĂt gave him a thumbs up.
Juraji nodded, electricity arcing across xir skin, just as bright red blood began to pour out of one of xir nostrils.
Halek hesitated, torn between calling out Juraji's dangerously self-sacrificing attitude and getting TalĂ somewhere safer. In the end he picked TalĂ.
Once they were further away, in a place where the air was clear enough for TalĂ to take off the scarf and mask for a minute, they were able to use their rescue inhaler. The effect was even more immediate and noticeable than Halek's oxygen had been.
As their coughing calmed down, TalĂ burst into tears.
"You're safe now," Halek said. "It's okay."
"I'm so useless," TalĂ said angrily. "You were right. I shouldn't have come."
"No," Halek said awkwardly. He wished he could feel vindicated. "You're not useless, TalĂ. What you've been doing with Jue has been invaluable."
"All I did was make you leave instead of helping Juraji!" they cried.
Halek patted their back stiffly. "It's okay. Let's go home."
if you donât have any I will also accept: favourite multigender canon characters, favourite multigender âother peopleâs OCâs, and multigender headcanons
(can be but *does not have to be* man + woman bigender, can include genderfluid identities if you want, can be anything you might broadly consider to fall under the multigender umbrella in any way whatsoever)
