[ME] save forever for me

NOAH

Late, stepping into a party already well within its highlighting moments, he arrived. He smiled and greeted those he knew and loved with a wave— Deimos and Evie, Hotaru, and others like Liam and Maea.

Noah, knowing the ties of the season for his friends, kept a respectful distance as he greeted the couple of the hour. Remi and Ronin deserved to be celebrated. Laughter and joy rippled through the sea breeze, and Noah raised his glass with a quiet smile.

He was happy for them—genuinely. The years had been unkind, but their love was still steady, still growing. But beneath the warmth, grief curled sharp beneath his ribs. He could see Cordelia’s face in the flicker of lights. He’d known that kind of love once. He’d buried it with her. There would be no anniversaries, no future to build. Just him, standing in the glow of someone else’s joy, carrying the echo of his own.

Even as others from Mort’s halls came in, Noah knew she wouldn’t be here. This wasn’t for them. It was for the steadfast Bastion and Knight.

Noah took a drink, swallowing the lump down with it, before moving slowly towards Liam. He smiled at him, and Maea, ”How’s it going?”

I'll follow you down through the eye of the storm

Don't worry I'll keep you warm

Mateo

Should'a seen what I wore
I had a cane and a party hat

Mimicking Edrei whether he intends to or not, Mateo's hand also finds his hip, and it's only fair that if she's looking him up and down that he gets to do the same. (He's not disappointed, and whatever prejudices, if any, the Launceleyn might attach to height, he'll be happy to dispel them in any way she likes). A bright and vibrant laugh spills from his lips at her remarks, the botanist's eyes flicking up to the invisible line she draws above his head. "I am notoriously bad at keeping secrets, but even better at breaking rules," he purrs, his accent hugging the words.

"All of that is to say I am sure I can keep my lips sealed, providing you can find something else to do with my mouth to keep it busy." Winking and resisting the urge to reach out and run a hand across the tight leather wrapped around her body - all in good time, though his patience is just as shoddy as his secret-keeping - Mateo nods past the rows of tents and the flickering torches to somewhere with a fraction of privacy. Not much, of course, and still very out in the open, but he trusts the noise of the party will work in their favour.

"But I do have to ask," he trills, bouncing his eyebrows over her shoulder towards the two demigods canoodling, "how is it that you know my fathers?"

I was the king of this hologram
where there's no such thing as getting out of hand

test

It was the demands of perfection that had delayed Hadama. An artist to the end, he had laboured long and with quiet joy over the gifts he had prepared for the occasion of his friends’ anniversary. A decade of love and life and loss shared, strengthening bonds as deep as any ocean. Each man was a legend in his own right, but their romance was itself a tale told over firelight from Torchline to the Greatwood. Nothing he could make would come close to encapsulating that saga, but he had never known Ronin or Remi to turn down good food, and the tray of cupcakes he had baked in a range of flavors and decorated with motifs of both men’s shifts and magic were his own quiet contribution to the festivities.

He had offered his murmured congratulations to the happy couple without interrupting the many friends and family who had come to wish them well and share their joy and set the tray aside with a wink – up to them whether they would save the treats for themselves or share them . But as he stepped back to find his usual quiet spot to the side of such gatherings, content to drink and people-watch the night away, a familiar float of black hair caught his eye and stole his breath.

” Seren ,” he breathed, her name a whispered prayer to Safrin high above as he stood, still and frozen in surprise at the young demigoddess’s presence.

A machine where your heart once was
Slowly takes the place of you

With Remi and Ronin greeted, Liam retreated with Maea, happy to let the couple mingle with their other patrons - especially after Ronin's lackluster greeting. Ah well. He'd been warned that the man might be testy, so he'd try not to take any tension to heart. After all, Liam hadn't been on the original guest list, so perhaps it was for the best that he simply fade into the background.

Fortunately, a familiar face appeared in the form of Noah, who approached the couple with a smile. "Hey, Noah," Liam said. "It's going well." He couldn't help but glance at his partner as he said it, his smile softening a touch with the gesture. Then, turning his attention back to Noah, he asked, "How about you?"

Only hold the memories now
Of a love I thought I knew

Liam

Maea

And from the dark

Remi hadnt exaggerated the effect seasons had on his husband. But despite the potentially fraught introduction, all went well, and Maea smiled warmly when both of them accepted the well wishes. Failing to realize that there was more to Ronin's terse response than the hormonal influence she had been cautioned about, she was merely pleased to find that they were all acquainted already, however briefly.

Leaving the celebratory couple to their family, Maea slipped her arm behind Liam's back and followed him off among the guests, until they were approached by Noah. It pained her to see the man alone on a night like this. While ghosts roamed the tent alongside the living on this night, the place by his side remained empty. Maea could only suppose that Cordelia had chosen not to take the opportunity of the open door - perhaps knowing that her appearance might cause the Foresaken more pain.
"Hi, Noah. It's good to see you," she greeted him, setting aside speculation of ghosts to pay attention to the man instead. "Have you eaten anything yet? The food look incredible, as expected of those two..." Casting a questioning glance up at her parter with an unvoiced question, she asked, "Would you like to join us?"

Something new will come on through
and rise again

Vanya

HALI

even the sky and sea cannot contain me

There’s nothing but comfort to be found in Mort’s Halls: light and freedom and everything I ever needed. Yet somehow hearing it from Ronin—I missed you too—is such a deep comfort that I feel everything in me wants to overflow with it, catching in my throat, pressing behind my eyes.

“The Northaven,” I smile. I think of it so often. It’s the last place I saw my siblings. It’s where we all met—where Aiofe had been conceived. ”I could never have picked a better name." I pause. "Unless it was a really good sandwich.”

My head tilts toward Remi and Aoife with a fond smile, and my hand brushes the back of her hair. “I’m so damn glad to see you. So damn glad you've had each other all this time. I’m—” I bite my lip. I knew I would feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time. I would feel quite mortal, quite alive feelings, and right now, it’s the overwhelming want to cry. "Thank you for this.”

I look at Ronin and give him a stern look as I wipe under my eye. “You cried first, this is your fault.” I sniff.

for i am endlessly free

THE FLOOD

// take my heart and make it feel,
take my soul and make it real

Parting from Hotaru the second that Rex leaves her lips, the Flood squeezes her arm gently as if to tell her that he’d be around for whenever she was done indulging in greeting those long since passed. It’s precisely the time that he nods back to Remi and Ronin when suddenly a presence is at his side he somehow hadn’t expected to see. A presence, whom when she speaks, he isn’t ready to hear.

Lightning sparks in his scars when she stands in his sights, handing him something strong like he’d always preferred, and he can’t help the shock that vibrates in his chest. He reaches out for the glass at first, hand a touch shaky, eyes already rimmed with silver. His hand shakes where he holds the drink, already sweeping in to give her a hug that says everything he can’t right now. How much he missed her, how sorry he was that he didn’t know what had happened. “Vai.” He breathes as he pulls away, laughing a touch awkwardly and wetly.

He goes to say something else, too, when he spots Ashetta arriving, and what he does know about Vervain, he parts from her just enough to squeeze her arm and dip his head toward her. “Find me later, please?” He asks quietly, sure that there are others she should go and see before he steals her away for a time.

'cause i was bright, yeah I was pale and blue,
starry eyed by every thought of you //

daughters made claw first

The sudden influx of more ghosts made her drop her food for one moment, jaw unhinged and mouth open, before placing everything back on a plate and pretending like it didn’t happen. She caught sight of Enzo and Flora, of Aoife, of Seren, and others she might not have known as well.

But, figuring everyone might need one, she snagged at a few drinks, making her way over to Sunjata and Hotaru, for when they both weren't busy tending to the wraiths of the world, portions of liquor saved. “Hey,” she grinned, holding out a flute for each. “Quite a party.” She’d take her time and say her congratulations to the happy couple of many years later. Face etched with something like concern, or just a slight wrinkle to her nose, she smiled at both. “You guys all right?”

Melita

tiger roar and wolf bad

Evie

In your arms I understand all at once

That my life has been building me up to us

There is more room to breathe now, to celebrate without fear, and Evie glows with it. The shroud of tentative optimism has fully settled around her shoulders, dispelling the long-held chill the Family had thrust upon them. With so many loved ones gathering at once it's hard to stop beaming at everything and everyone around her. Micah bounds between passing legs, fluorescent spots gleaming in the sinking sunlight, and Evie laughs as he unceremoniously flops onto his side and begins rubbing his face into the sand. Snow would never be half as good as sand for the tide jaguar, and Evie can't blame him for indulging while he can. 

Turning her sunny, dimpled grin toward her husband when he gets her attention, the Evergreen leans in to better hear him over the din. "Absolutely, though we'll have to be fast to fight the crowd." Remi and Ronin will, of course, be quite the hot commodity - and they don't have Erebos as cuteness leverage to swindle their way to the front of the line this time. Though they're not left waiting as long as she might have expected, laughing yet again (she's fearful she'll never stop at this rate) as Remi brings her into a firm hug. "Happy anniversary," she wishes him warmly while her arms remain around him. "You both deserve it." After everything - everyone - they had gained, lost, and suffered. Winking at Ronin as she pulls away from his husband, noting they're already being torn in different directions, the Evergreen returns her hand to Deimos arm and begins to look around.

As if on cue, that's when Evie notices the miracle Remi has pulled off. She gives faint returns of hello to Noah and only manages to pull her eyes away from the sudden appearances of the long departed when Kiada comes to their side next. Her smile returns, though it's shaken with uncertain, powerful emotion. Sam is not among the crowd - but Amalia is, and Evie's heart lurches even as she looks into Kiada's grinning face, automatically reaching to hug the young woman in greeting. "Of course, you have plenty time to loiter with no snow around," she teases. "And I think Deimos and I will be trading off to talk with a few people shortly, so you can babysit us between if you're feeling charitable." Evie hasn't been much of a social butterfly since her pregnancy - gods, she's been a shut in for a while then - so she'll surely be rusty for a few hours more.

In your hands I am mine, you take me to myself
The tenses I knew now they bring me to you

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

"That's new," Vai remarks with a kind smile and a surprised tilt of her head as she spots the lightning erupt across Sunjata's skin, illuminating them both against the sunset backdrop. It's okay, she might have said, or don't cry, or any number of other things, her arms finding their way around him in a hug that ends far too soon. Puzzled, it's only as the witch follows Sunjata's gaze over her shoulder that she realises why, and it feels like the bottom has fallen off the world entirely. 

Ashetta.

"I'll find you," she promises the Flood with a quick nod, blue eyes already shining with tears, before she lets her attention move at last, fully, to the daughter she'd never expected to see again on this side of life and death. For a moment Vai can only stare, taking in the scars, the trembling in body and voice, the way Ashe seems so brittle compared to the fierce young woman she'd come to know. 

"Gods, you're really here, aren't you?" she whispers at last, crossing the barely-there distance between them to seize her daughter in a tight embrace, arms encircling her as if she might hold her and keep her against her beating heart, if only for this one impossible night. "Tell me everything." Because Vai knows - knows how much there must be to tell, and she'll shoulder every burden that Ashe needs her to carry.

and the sun
will rise

They could take about half a second before others engulfed Remi and Ronin alike; so he took care in giving them a wave, a rumbling “Congratulations,” before making space for others, taking breaths and granting a nod towards Noah as some persisted and continued.

More and more flickered and floated in, on waves of wraiths or living, breathing entities, and for a few moments he did nothing more than survey – gaze roaming, before they landed upon Kiada, greeting them alongside. “I suppose,” he winked in return, maneuvering one arm and leaving room for her to come into his chest for a hug should she feel inclined after Evie’s. “How was the honeymoon?” She could spare him multitudes of details, but hopefully it’d been quiet and peaceful enough for her and Fox to have their time together.

But then another approached, and it took more than a few moments of his mind to conjure the weight of the motions. Of the ghost standing before them.

In stunned silence, he backed away, permitted the space between the Harpy and the once-Shield, taking @Evie’ s hand and gently pulling her with him. If he’d gone rigid and unyielding, he didn’t notice, his features losing all their brandished joy; brain working through the strands of time and space and distance, of love wholly and entirely lost. “I did not know-,” he whispered into crimson strands of hair, working through the confusion, the turmoil, the pieces left dragged across stones and years. He didn’t finish the statement, uncertain whether to say ‘she was dead’ or ‘she was gone’ or anything of the sort. Maybe he’d once justified the space and absence as something natural; Amalia tossing the world aside as she’d done with so many, and venturing out towards missions for Vi. For life and defenses and everything else.

Trying to find something other than consternation, bewilderment, and echoes of scars rattling across his lungs, he glanced at the Evergreen, for the stability of her roots and boughs. Realizing that was unfair, and that he also didn’t know how to fix this, he merely tilted his head, steadied his own gaze.  “Do you want to catch up or-,” because at the moment he’d take any excuse to give himself a moment amidst the revelation, and he had a feeling Evie might’ve been just as confused to see her sister unfurled from Mort’s realm.

deimos

Never let them drain the river of your soul

Hotaru

Sunjata must know immediately what her heart desires - when doesn't he? - because his arm loosens from hers. Hotaru is torn between faces as she stands in uncertain stillness beside him. Vervain is just as familiar a soul, though she'd had a strange few years with the woman that don't warrant a request for privacy the way Sunjata surely will. Still, she touches her fiance's elbow and makes sure to meet his eyes with a faint smile as she asks, "Tell her hello for me?"

She'll never forget - nor be able to thank enough - the woman who had helped her deliver her twins. Helped her raise them, too, when she had been alone and lost in the Greatwood.

Rexanna has many people to hold her attention, and Hotaru's heart chafes against her ribs, uncertain when and how to steal her away with so many who love her already reaching for the light she's always carried. Enzo is a foregone conclusion with how Flora sweeps him away; Ru will get her claws in them both by the end of the night though, as she always does when her son visits. It leaves her with little more to do than stand there sinking in the tangle of her wanting. Melita eases the tension of that impatience with her presence alone and is awarded a warm, grateful smile for it. The Valkyrie has seen little of her recently given the fiasco of hers and Sunjata's infections and subsequent cleansings. It seems tonight is a reunion opportunity for more than just the dead.

Taking the offered flute with a hum of pleasure, the Valkyrie tips it neatly to her lips and swallows half in one go. "You're a darling with the foresight of an oracle my dear," she praises on the sigh that comes thereafter, reaching to hug the Honeybee with one arm. "We're alright. Though there's going to be a lot of emotions I fear - we'll have to keep you away from the masses, I know you're allergic to those." The Valkyrie's grin is devilish as she indulges in the playful ribbing to contend with the lack of patience she's never managed to correct in herself over a few different lifetimes.

Over the wild girl's shoulder she sees Deimos and, beyond his arm, Amalia - though Hotaru had hardly known her in life. She just barely prevents her hand from tightening around Melita's bicep where she hugs her, alarm and protectiveness encroaching in her chest. Shit. It's hard to resist sweeping so many of these people away where she might hoard and protect them in draconic measures, but she's learned her lesson from doing so with Flora. Evie is at his side, and Kiada too (gods, she has so many people to speak with tonight). She isn't needed right now; Deimos has more people to take care of him these days than just the Valkyrie, though her self-importance wars with the idea, fueled by long-gone years of ironclad partnership beneath aurora banners. Ripping her gaze away she looks to Melita and grimaces dramatically to distract herself from tense what-ifs. "I'm glad for the chances we're getting, but I hope there's extra tissues for all the tears coming our way."

through her, in a rush of musk and saffron
beauty falls into disarray

Evie

In your arms I understand all at once

That my life has been building me up to us

There's no resistance as Deimos pulls her, lax and almost doll-like in her acquiescence. Where his face is tense and unreadable, the Evergreen's is stuck in a vapid rictus, half-forgotten Wordsworth propriety clinging to bones that have slowly outgrown those principles. A temporary shield to hide the turmoil within - though right now, it's less turmoil and more static-snow-grief-anger.

Part of her had never stopped wondering. Another had already mourned. Yet another - stronger than both - had told her it wasn't worth finding out. But here it is, the knowledge of the end, cruelly presented without her consent or preparation. She is truly alone at the end of the genetic line that had once been her entire world. 

Deimos' voice whispered in strain against her crown pulls her from that spiral. No, she's not alone. Not anymore. And even though she'd never burden or tie their son to the Wordsworth name, what few grains of worth there had been in the lineage have been passed on as well. Still, it shakes her to feel how easy it had been to slip away from the present and into a darker time and headspace the moment her past reemerges. A past they share - and Evie can hardly breathe for the lump in her throat as she looks up from where she huddles close to her husband, finding his eyes in search of the stability it always brings her. What she finds is the expression he wears when he's looking to her for the same. Her hand tightens around his as her stomach twists and knots. Neither of them can save the other, not from this. Not when this part of each of their pasts is a shared, tangled wound that had never been granted the opportunity to heal right. 

"It's inevitable," she tells them both, tongue wooden and dry. Her knuckles slowly go paler and paler, hand trembling against his. "We never - I didn't know either." It chokes its way out of her and, habitually, she smiles against the tide of confused tears that try to take the sight of him away from her. To get any good that awaits her - as she can't assume the same for him - she must also prepare herself for the bad. The hurt. The plain and bitter truth that Evie really did lose her sister for good.

In your hands I am mine, you take me to myself
The tenses I knew now they bring me to you