Agrippa
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Wordsworth – Chapter 22
🕑 Added 2022-10-05 15:13:13 +0000 UTC“Her name is Wordsworth,” she says.
And my world blurs.
Inky words blotted out, letters turned into indistinct shapes, meaning lost to—
“Tay. It’s OK, Tay, I promise. Stay with me,” a clever fox says.
But foxes are like faeries, and you can never trust what they say even when they speak the truth, especiallywhen they speak the truth, because true blades cut deeper than fake ones, and I just saw…
Emma.
Emma claiming I’m a hero.
And then she was taken down, shot by her own ally, her colors rent asunder until no emotions remained to sustain her, to keep her on her feet, and so she fell and she…
Smiled.
I know that smile.
“Tay, breathe. Just… Just breathe, please. For me?” the clever fox asks.
I don’t smile.
I remain unmoving, staring at a screen showing a ‘Technical Difficulties’ sign. A streaming video Lisa insisted I sat down before I watched.
She warned me.
She said I still had to know, that it would be better if I learned by myself what happened, what was going on, how things would change.
She wasn’t lying.
Faeries rarely need to.
And so I was swept away by the enchantment, watching with distaste as Director Piggot talked up Emma’s rescue of Lisa without ever mentioning Lisa, just speaking about the battle against the dragon that Emma won despite not being a hero worthy of the feat.
But Lung was a fake dragon, and Emma a fake hero, and so it fit in a way that soothed my stories before my ink lashed out and I spoke words of rage.
I held still, letting the video go on, knowing that Lisa is too protective of me to make me watch without any reason, knowing that something else would come up soon.
Something…
I was reassured.
Because I had spent the night in Lisa’s arms, drifting in the half-dreamed stories I see when my mind is tired, and I kept opening my eyes to see her in front of me, to murmur about hair made of spun gold that would make any king demand her hand, about cheeks pale enough that any witch queen would envy, about dreaming lips soft enough that no prince would be worthy of claiming.
I spent the night in the arms of my lover, and she in mine, and so I faced the day like no other before, drifting in a cloud of happiness I had never known even before joy was taken from me.
I fancied myself someone new. Not Taylor Hebert. Not the Black Sister.
Wordsworth.
Wordsworth, truly and finally.
We had breakfast, kidded around, cuddled on her sofa.
Spoke of many things we never had before, even if it felt like all of them were repeating the same unspoken lines:
‘I love you.’
‘I know. But keep telling me.’
I… I was happy. Truly happy.
I should’ve known.
“It doesn’t change anything. You’re still you, Tay,” the fox says, maybe lying, maybe not.
And I…
I stare at her laptop, at the thread in the PHO forums momentarily displaying the video that the PRT is doing their best to expunge from the web claiming a Master attack, that Gallant reacted as quickly as he could when he was made aware of Iridescent being compromised, that investigations are ongoing.
I don’t even process the comments below, the scrawled words made of harsh light somehow alien to my power.
I just…
I know that smile.
“Tay… Tay, please…” the fox says, something like desperation in her tone.
But I don’t listen. Not when—
“There once was a Lost Girl,” she says.
And my words quieten.
“She didn’t know where she was, where she had been, or where she was going. She was lost in a way very few ever are,” she says, grasping my right hand between her two, warming me as her voice steadies.
“The Lost Girl met some others in her journey through the Dark Forest. Some wanted to help her, others to hurt her, and it was hard to know one from another while she remained lost.
“But, one day, she found something. It was a silver locket, and in it there was a picture of who the girl had once been. And so the Lost Girl learned where she had been.
“Some would’ve ended the story there. A somewhat happy ending in which she could steadily regain all that she had lost. A hint of happiness to come.
“But the Lost Girl was braver than that,” she says as her tone pushes past the roughness in her throat and her hands squeeze against the unyielding paper of mine. “She wasn’t satisfied with such an ending, even if it would’ve been a good one.
“She didn’t want just to know, just to regain.
“She wanted to move forward.
“And so, knowing where she had been, but not quite where she was or would be, the Lost Girl looked not at the Dark Forest, but at the one place she could never lose, the one place that was safe from the ones who wanted to hurt her.
“She looked within herself.
“And there, the Lost Girl found not where she would be or where she was.
“She found… where she wanted to be.”
Her words stop for a moment, and I find my eyes drifting away from the screen and toward green eyes that should glow in the dark and show a slitted shadow in their midst. Eyes that should always smile and be merry with a joke only known to her. Eyes that should never be this sad or concerned.
She smiles.
It’s a sad yet warm thing. Like a candle in the dark or an ember buried among ashes.
I… I don’t quite know this smile.
But I want to.
“You see, the Lost Girl was… She was special. Had always been. She had held a dream within her that she never woke up from, and so she chose to be guided by it. She chose the dream of heroism over an easy ending. She chose to fight rather than rest. The Lost Girl was brave, and strong, and… And she was a hero.
“Because she had always been. Because that was what was inside of her, what she found.
“What she would always be, no matter what others claimed, one way or the other. The truth she had found that would never bend in front of anything that didn’t come from the safe place within.
“And so, the Lost Girl stopped being the Lost girl.
“And she became Wordsworth.”
She hugs me as soon as the last words leave her lips, her arms tightening around me with desperate strength that demands I answer in kind, that I return her embrace.
The Lost Girl can’t. She’s still reeling, still remembering the smile from her dead sister.
So Wordsworth does.
“Stop scaring me like this,” Lisa says, her face buried in my chest so I can’t see the pain in her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Liz, I just…”
“I know. I know, and I understand, and I’m sorry, because I thought I was doing the right thing, but I should’ve prepared you better, even if I thought this was best for the long-term, but I didn’t really understand, and I messed up, and you are hurt, and I didn’t want to hurt you, I never want to hurt you—”
I lift her face from my chest.
I take in the red splotches on her cheeks, the desperation in her eyes at a loved one hurting that I know means more for her than it does for others, the panic crouching behind them…
And I kiss her.
It’s a light meeting of lips, a greeting caress, a…
A kiss. Just a kiss.
Filled with all the love I can give her.
Her hands go from my shoulders to my back as she relaxes against me, even if not entirely, and I hold her up, her weight feeling even lighter than usual.
“It’s all right,” I mutter between threads of spun gold and into an elfin ear. “I’m all right.”
“You’re a liar,” she says, her tone slightly lighter.
“You’re one to talk,” I answer, mine almost laughing.
And I fall back on her sofa, sprawling her on top of me, the pastel lemon sleeping shirt that reaches just above her knees leaving the rest of her legs bare to share their heat with my own legs despite the tracery of lines of words arranged in a net pattern that never was a barrier when it came to her touch.
Her head is beneath my mouth, so I keep kissing her hair as I admire the glinting sunlight coming in from her tall windows to play with its landbound cousin.
“I can feel the purple prose, Tay,” she almost giggles even as her fingers tighten against my sides possessively.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say with the most sincere deadpan I can manage.
And we both laugh.
It’s not a sincere laugh. It’s still laden with my earlier loss of composure and with Lisa’s fears that she has yet to share with me. It’s a frail sound, like spun glass aware of its endangered beauty.
But we still laugh together, and, right now, that’s all that matters to me.
Because I know Emma’s smile.
I know that rictus she made even as she was void of all emotion and nothing remained to sustain her but the will to show the world that she still could go on.
I know it far too well.
After all, for years, that was my only smile.
Comments
Agrippa
Worsworth keeps tempting me to do an interlude from the side characters POV, but I think I'll only do it when the climax comes. For... reasons.
Evilreadermaximum
Yeah, she's kinda cursed. And damn Gallant's not gonna have a fun time is he? I wonder what the other wards will think of this.
Agrippa
Poor Piggot is on damage control mode after Gallant went off with no apparent reason. I swear I don't particularly hate her, but she keeps ending up in these situations...
Evilreadermaximum
Damn this a loaded chapter, the interaction between Taylor and Lisa were are awesome and the prose was excellent. And at the same time it makes my blood boil, damn piggy you just had to acuse someone of mastering didn't ya? Lets see how many bridges did that burn I wonder? Lisa and Taylor obviously, Danny for sure, probably Emma possibly Dauntless,maybe even Amy. Tho that one's a bit of a stretch. Really hope this blows up in her face. Overall another excellent chapter!
Agrippa
Thank you very much! I'm just glad they are strong enough that I can't mess their characterization up.
Somedude8057
Again beautifully done, the characters and the emotion in every sentence are just Mwahh, so damn good.
