i wish you didn't have to miss the lights

Theea

see the city and the ocean mist

I sit on the porch with the last of my warm cider cupped between my hands, smiling to myself as the first stars wink through the twilight. The breeze off the water is cool enough to raise goosebumps along my bare arms, a clean sort of chill that feels earned. I took a bath in my own tub, made dinner in my own kitchen, and now I’m wrapped in a sweater dress that doesn’t make me feel exposed—soft against skin still damp from the steam, hair brushed out and dark, chilled by the Leafchange air in a way that wakes me up.

Out in the sandy yard, where I cleared a pocket free of seagrass, the firepit is burning low—more ember than flame now—casting a small, steady glow across the pale sand. Its light doesn’t reach far, but it’s enough to mark the end of the day, a last warm heartbeat in the dark. The windchimes sing in little fits and starts—driftwood, shells, seaglass, hagstones—then hush again, as if listening with me.

My friends and family have gone. The quiet they leave behind is the good kind, the deep breath after a long run. Mom will come tomorrow and we’ll start painting inside, one room at a time. I’ll take the outside after Deepfrost. There’s a little soldierly line of paint buckets waiting by the steps, patient as anything. The stained glass went in today—a small milestone I keep turning over in my head—and I can feel that fact in the bones of the house even if I can’t see it from here.

I glance along the siding where the old paintings fade into shadow, just the suggestion of color now. I wanted to live with the original for a season anyway, to let the past breathe while I settle in. The ocean hushes beyond the dunes; all the torches along the coast blink and breathe with the tide. I sip the last of the cider, warmth pooling low in my chest, and lean back against the post. I’m glad to be alone tonight. Still, maybe I’ll invite Flora over for lunch this week. I can already hear the windchimes laughing with her.

i wish you could be here for this

Kalt

let the rain wash away

It’s surreal to be back here. Everything is so different, but somehow so overwhelmingly familiar.

This was home, once upon a time, and seeing life breathed into it again—even in the cover of darkness—kindles something almost painful in my chest.

The ending song of a fire plays in the near distance, a dying light against the dusk, and I walk along the beach beside Kysma, my cane attached to her saddle. I never liked using a saddle with her, but it’s become necessary for her to help me carry what few belongings I’ve kept with me.

She stops in her tracks, her head lifting, the dimming light glinting off of her silver horn. She recognizes home. “Go ahead,” I tell her, silently conveying permission to go ahead of me, and she looks back before picking up her pace slightly to greet them.

Drawing slightly closer, I see Ashe sitting out on the porch, and a nearly overwhelming ache settles in my gut… It rips open the poorly done stitches that have kept me moving for three fucking years…that have made it impossible to rest properly, to slow down, to so much as think of the possibility that they could ever be gone.

But part of me didn’t even really think about the passage of time…

That reality is suddenly shoved in my face when I realize that it isn’t Ashe. Her features are stronger, sharper, but gods, she’s her spitting image. I know that Caido sometimes chooses children to age faster than others… I know that it has to have happened now… But she was a child last I saw her, and she’s all grown up now.

I approach slowly, wearing a slight smile with my traveler’s attire, a bag slung over my shoulder and silver lining my eyes. “Hi, Star.”

all the pain of yesterday

Theea

see the city and the ocean mist

I hear something in the sand—hooves?

Squinting into the gathering gloom, I see the silhouette of a horse trotting its way toward my house. My brows knit, and I set down my cup as it comes into the dim light cast by the dying fire and... that's a unicorn, not a horse. A familiar one—

"Kysma," I gasp, and I abandon my mug and the porch, trying not to rush too much, I can't scare her off, not if it's really her.

My eyes are wide as I stare at her, exactly as I remember her. The firelight catches on her horn, on her coat, and I step toward her. I reach for her velvet nose, run a hand along her jaw. Closer I step and I can run my hand down her powerful neck, through her silken mane. I whisper her name again and wrap my arms around her neck, laughing a little, but it comes out like a sob.

"Where have you been?"

I let her go and step back so I can look at her properly, then run my hands along her shoulder, and I first go to start checking her hooves when I spot someone approaching. I step back from Kysma. Too tall for Remi or Ronin. Did Damien forget something?

But he comes into the light, and everything. stops.

Just stops. My heart, my breath, everything but the sound of my pulse in my ears.

He's wearing travel-worn clothes, a bag not unlike mine hanging off one shoulder. He smiles a little bit at me. I can see tears gathering in his eyes—in my eyes.

"Hi, Star."

All the air leaves my lungs at once, "Dad?" I wonder for a moment if this is even real. I'm afraid to reach out to him, like he'll go up in smoke or just... not be there.

i wish you could be here for this

Kalt

let the rain wash away

She looks as if she’s frozen in place, and I can’t blame her. I’ve thought about this moment so many times in so many different ways, but now that it’s here? There’s nothing in the world that could have prepared me for what it feels like to be face-to-face again with my daughter.

“Dad?” She says, almost as if she’s unsure. Once again…how can I blame her?

I know what they must have thought. I know what it had to have taken to move on with their lives because I know what it took for me to keep going, even with refusing to believe them gone. So to show up on their doorstep like this…

My smile grows slightly, and I continue my pace toward her. My leg aches against the long trek over the long stretches of sand, but I practically can’t even feel it anymore, seeing her standing in stunned silence finally within arm’s reach.

Actually within arm’s reach…

I stop in front of her, carefully reaching out and brushing her hair behind her ear, my thumb lingering just below her cheekbone. “You’re so beautiful,” I just barely manage. I don't know how I’ll ever get over the years I missed—both the three years of absence and the others that must have been such a rapid growth experience—but it doesn’t matter…not when she’s in front of me.

I want to hug her, to crush her in those tight, trapping hugs that used to make her cackle in her escape attempts, but she’s…she’s not eleven anymore…and as much as it pains me, I know I can’t just scoop her up like I used to.

all the pain of yesterday

Theea

see the city and the ocean mist

I can't breathe.

I can't fucking breathe.

He's walking toward me, and I should be running up to him, shouldn't I? He's... right in front of me. He reaches out, and tucks a stubborn lock of hair behind my ear, and his touch lingers. I can feel it.

My eyes are darting all over him, and suddenly my ears are ringing. Hadn't I just been inside not an hour ago, hugging his clothes that I'd found in the closet? His jacket was hanging inside, torn in the sleeve, waiting to be stitched. It smells more like me than him now, but sometimes my hand comes out of the pocket smelling like peppermint leaves.

That jacket hasn't held him in so long.

I felt his hand slip from my fingers.

I watched him vanish, as if he were never there at all. Heard my mother screaming and screaming for him. Looking for a way down. We never found one. Never found his body.

"Did Mort... he let you..."

I'm can't get the words out - I'm dizzy. My hands are cold, as cold as when he fell. Heart racing. My vision narrows to pin pricks, to his face— —

And then my legs buckle entirely, and the world disappears.

i wish you could be here for this

Kalt

let the rain wash away

“Did Mort…” she starts, only confirming what I already know, “he let you…”

Even in the rapidly fading light, I can see her already fair skin quickly pale, and I instinctively shift forward a moment before she drops.

My arm curves underneath hers around her back, the other scooping under her knees, cradling her against me almost effortlessly. Her head rests against my shoulder, as I bring her back up the porch with Kysma walking by my side, nosing at her long hair.

Stepping into the house is like a dream, seeing remnants of so long ago. Images of the new paints flash through my mind from room to room, and I can’t help but linger every so often, seeing the flaking and dulled paints as if they were brand new. It’s clear that Ashe isn’t here—I would have caught her fresh scent as soon as the door opened, but there’s nothing—so I focus solely on Theea for the time being.

I carry her in from outside, the action so sentimental to the numerous times I would carry her in for bed when she would fall asleep outside as a child. It hurts in its familiarity, just another reminder of everything I missed, but also just little throwaway memories that I treasure more than anything.

Carefully setting her down on her bed, I cover her with the blankets and lean down to touch a gentle, lingering kiss to her forehead. My bag drops to the ground, and I shrug off my worn jacket, sitting on the edge of the bed. An illusion of the Northwind sky appears overhead in the darkness, filled with stars and the edge of the galaxy spread across the sky—a common illusion I would give her when she would have trouble sleeping.

My fingers brush through her hair, and I don’t pay any attention to the display above us. How can I? My focus is entirely on her…on trying to really take in the sight of my daughter, beautiful, fully grown, a brand new person I want more than anything to get to know.

all the pain of yesterday

Theea

see the city and the ocean mist

I'm not sure what happened. I know that as I fall, I'm caught, cradled, carried. It's a dizzying blur, but it's so soft. My head falls against a shoulder that smells so familiar it aches, and it's like I'm weightless.

One moment I'm standing in the sand, and then I'm sinking into the soft old mattress. For a moment, just a moment, I'm ten years old. I'm being tucked in after I've fallen asleep on the sofa again, listening to one of mom's stories.

Fingers start combing through my hair, and I take heavy breaths, turning my head as I try to blink through the splotchy haze in my eyes, the fading flowers of black covering the stars.

Stars, inside.

My brows furrow as things clear. I stare at a sky that it's Caido's sky. My breath catches, I turn—

"Dad!"

The blankets fall back when I sit up and throw my arms around him, bury my face into him even as the room spins again. It's real, it's real. The tears are hot down my face - I don't even know when they started, hands fisting into his shirt like if I don't hold on as tight as I can, he'll be gone too soon.

"I'm sorry," I say, muffled, voice thick as my shoulders shake. "I'm so sorry. I tried, I tried—"

i wish you could be here for this

Kalt

let the rain wash away

It isn’t long before she starts to stir. I knew it wouldn’t be, but it was so second nature to bring her inside that I didn’t even think about it.

Theea blinks up at the ceiling, her eyes unfocused and searching, and I stay quiet, letting her gather her surroundings as she comes back to consciousness. It takes a moment before she lands on me, and I give her a crooked smile when she finally does.

“Dad!” She says, surging upward. I wrap her in a tight hug, shifting to the side slightly so the position isn’t quite as awkward for either of us.

“I’m here,” I whisper, one hand gently strumming up and down her spine. I force myself to look up at the feeling of her tears against me, of the tremors through her body, threaten to bring my own again. I wonder when the shock of the passage of time will wear off—if it ever will…

“I’m sorry,” she weeps. My brow furrows, but I don’t let go of her for as long as she needs it. “I’m so sorry. I tried, I tried—”

Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I push a slow breath through my lips. “Deep breaths, Theea,” I tell her, slowing the way I move my hand over her back to a pace that she can follow. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

all the pain of yesterday

Theea

see the city and the ocean mist

Deep breaths, Theea. I count them like beads on a thread, slow and shaking, trying not to drop any.

It’s like when I cut myself on a knife I wasn’t supposed to handle as a kid—the thin shock of it, the bright sting, the way I cried. The way I was always calmed when I got hurt. Fuck, do I hurt now; my whole chest is so full it hurts, like my ribcage is a door jammed by too much furniture. It’s hard to breathe around it, and it’s something euphoric and horrible all at once, sunrise over wreckage. The guilt I’ve never let myself look at has roared to the surface like a riptide, grabbing ankles I thought were steady.

His hand is moving soothingly up and down my back, slowly, tide smoothing sand. I try to breathe and suppress the weeping I’d broken into, but I still hold on tight. He smells like travel and wind and pine and peppermint. Always the pine and peppermint—he hates spiders—and the scent anchors me to the moment like a knot I can trust.

"I couldn’t hold on," I say into his shoulder. "I couldn’t pull you up."

And then it’s hard not to burst into tears again, because I know how temporary this is, and there’s so much I need to say, so much that it can’t all be said in a single night. The night is a shallow cup and my words are a storm; the hourglass is bleeding fast, and all I can do is press closer and try to pour as much of me as I can into what little time we have.

i wish you could be here for this

Kalt

let the rain wash away

Her tears gradually slow with her breathing, but she doesn’t let go, so neither do I. I keep holding her, keep gently rubbing her back, whatever she needs from me.

“I couldn’t hold on,” she starts, her voice still muffled against my shoulder. Hold on to what? “I couldn’t pull you up.” My jaw clenches, my eyes roll shut.

I vividly remember what happened. It was all so blindingly fast, but every detail of every moment is painfully ingrained in my memory. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget Ashe’s and Theea’s cries, physically feeling the ground weakening underneath my grip, the agonizing crack of two bones.

“Hey…look at me…”

I want to keep her against me, but this is important.

I wipe the tears from her cheeks, pushing her hair away from her face with a small smile. “You were a child. It would’ve been impossible for your mother to pull me up. It would’ve been almost impossible even for someone my size to do it. Nothing that happened that day is at all your fault.”

My gut is twisted in knots, knowing that she’s been carrying this since it happened. I don’t know if it’s something she shared with Ashe or not, but it doesn’t matter because it’s clearly a weight she’s still holding onto.

“I promise I’m not going anywhere. You’ll be entirely sick of me before I ever leave you again, yeah?” I smirk, gently flicking the upturn of her nose.

all the pain of yesterday

Theea

see the city and the ocean mist

I do as he asks, and I finally loosen my hold on him to lean back. I meet his eye as he brushes streaks of tears from beneath my eyes, tucks my hair back.

Some part of me knows he was too heavy for me, too heavy for us both, but somehow it feels like an excuse. My lip still trembling as fresh tears fall. I can't seem to shake the feeling of his hand slipping from mine like sand through open fingers. I bite my lip and still hold onto him, moving my gaze all over his face, refreshing my memory, realizing all the details I had started to lose.

I sniffle again, and my brow furrows at his promise. I stare at him like I'm trying to comprehend what he means.

"But Mort will call you back," I whisper, and shake my head. "I've never heard of more than a night." 

It's hard to breathe again. My eyes fill, but I force myself to smile as best I can for him. "It's really good to see you Dad," I whisper, and sniffle again, and sudden;y my eyes widen. "We have to get to Mom before you go!"

i wish you could be here for this

Kalt

let the rain wash away

The confusion is written all over her face, and I wonder for a moment where I lost her.

“But Mort will call you back,” she says, her voice hushed and small, making my smirk grow slightly. Right… that hasn’t actually been clarified just yet… “I’ve never heard of more than a night.”

“It’s not a concern,” I start, “I can guarantee that much.”

She smiles up at me, and though I can tell how much of it is genuine versus how much is forced by the unsteadiness of her breath, by the way her eyes are raw all over again, I still love the sight of her smiling.

“It’s really good to see you Dad.”

“Theea—”

“We have to get to Mom before you go!” She blurts, her eyes wide.

“Theea,” I say more insistently that time, stopping her from running with that thought.

I shake my head with a breathed chuckle, the heel of my hand rubbing once over my eye. “I’m not going anywhere.” I take her hand with a gentle squeeze. “That fall might’ve cost me three years with you and your mother, but it didn’t cost me my life. I broke my leg—” I gesture to the metal brace starting near the top of my thigh and reaching midway down my calf, “—so I couldn’t come after you immediately. By the time I finally made it home, you two were gone, so I’ve been looking for you both for years…just unfortunately slowed down a bit by the accident.”

all the pain of yesterday

Theea

see the city and the ocean mist

He insists on my attention, and I pause before I rise—before I go and find my boots and run to Haulani on Kysma with him; no one would get there as fast, save for Percy. My heart is racing like a spooked bird in a small cage, because if we only have a night, Mom has to see him—

I’m not going anywhere.

He takes my hand, squeezes it, and I immediately squeeze it back—like checking a lifeline is really there.

I listen to his steady, soft explanation, brows knitting at the brace down his leg—he’d never had that before. So he wouldn’t have come from Mort’s realm with that. It’s proof of mortality, weight and metal instead of mist and miracle.

We were always moving, always vanishing at the first sign of danger; the Family—the Void—had been everywhere. We ghosted the map. Who could have possibly found us? Not even he could.

"You survived," I breathe, the word catching. I look at his leg again, then back at his face. "You survived?"

A real grin splits across my face, and I laugh, the sound bright as sun on the ocean, glimmering with every wave. My arms swing around him again, nearly crushing myself to him.

"If we’d known," I say, crying again, this time with joy so vast it can’t be contained. "If we’d had any hope… How? How did you survive?" I lean back enough to look at him again, marveling. "It took us two days to find our way down, and when we did and saw it went further…"

My head shakes. "This doesn’t feel real."

i wish you could be here for this

Kalt

let the rain wash away

Reality slowly seems to start sinking in as she listens to what I have to say, as she looks at my handiwork on my leg. Mort might be generous when allowing the dead to come back for a visit, but I haven’t heard of any additions to their persons. Certainly not a random new injury that carries through to the land of living.

“You survived,” she starts tentatively

“I survived,” I answer rhetorically.

“You survived?”

I smile, chuckling lightly when she breaks out in a wide smile and throws herself into another hug. My burning eyes screw shut, and I squeeze her tightly, hating that I know I have to eventually let go. There’s just so much time to make up for…

“If we’d known,” she starts. I can hear the tears in her voice, but I have a feeling they’ll be coming intermittently from all of us—Ashe included—for some time. “If we’d had any hope…” I shake my head; they couldn’t have known. “How? How did you survive?” She leans back, and I reluctantly loosen my hold on her until I meet her eyes. “It took us two days to find our way down, and when we did and saw it went further…” I give her a half smile despite the tension in my jaw. “This doesn’t feel real.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I agree quietly, absently touching her arm, pretending like I’m handling this as well internally as the face I’m putting on for her. But the truth is that this is going to be an adjustment. The best adjustment I could ask for—being able to reunite our family—but still an adjustment, and I don’t know how all of our pieces will fit together after three years apart.

Honestly, I’m utterly terrified of the possibility that they won’t.

“I think it was knowing how to fall correctly combined with dumb luck,” I say, flashing a crooked smile. “Hit my head and blacked out at some point, so I don’t know exactly how far directly the fall was, but woke up with a pretty bad concussion. Had to deal with my leg after that, and then figure out how the fuck to get out of the tunnels that opened up.”

She knows all of my tricks—how to not get completely turned around when you’re lost, how to optimize everything in your surroundings, how to track people when they don’t want to be found... She doesn’t need to know the rest of what it took, though… She doesn’t need to know the gory and agonizing details of what it took to get out and back to them.

Ashe, sure. She had the same upbringing as I did, had her stomach steeled in the same ways…ways we sheltered Theea from.

My gaze flits all over her face, still taking in every detail. She looks so much like her mother. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come back,” I whisper, leaning forward to kiss the side of her head. I don’t need her forgiveness—gods know I’ll never forgive myself for it—but I need to say it.

all the pain of yesterday