Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

[From the Undying Poems of Tommyinnit: a Father’s Day Gift]

Father, what can I hold against you?
Other than the obvious? The oblivious?

Father, what have you done wrong to me other than bleed?
This grudge of blood I cannot hold against you.
This sin spread in semen I cannot claim to be your design, nor your fault

(Although you cringed in that metaphor, which is why I used it. (You read all my poems, so I have to make you laugh. I have to make the reading worth it))

You named me twice. You held me a thousand times. You will hold me a million more.
I’m your bitter bitch son. Raised on formula and heart blood
I’m bleeding. You’re bleeding. I’m born.
Hello, father. Welcome.
I’m welcome. You’re bleeding. I’m borne

—

When Sam was a kid, they screened him twice for autism because it felt archaic to call him a changeling. His parents tried but alas, they failed. Nothing stuck other than odd rumors of fae blood.

Sam’s teeth where too sharp. His eyes too keen and pupils too unnervingly square. Sam didn’t need friends. He had the ants, the moss, the silver pocketknife in his hands.
(Mom always was afraid of his metal allergy. Iron made his skin green. She chalked it up to sensory issues.)

Their small town didn’t stand a chance.
When he reached middle school they tried to bully it out of him. The joke wasn’t funny anymore, the bit was over. All the bullies managed to do was take him on the anvil face of relentless teasing and straighten him out.
They just refined him. Made him sharper. He learned how to hold iron then.

By high school, Sam was a ladies’ man. A playboy. A heart of gold who never could tell a convincing lie, but stole cars from people’s backyards. Cruising through the back roads leaving a trail of rust in his wake.

“They’re junk anyway,” he said once, to the women who became Hannah’s mother a week before, “No one is going to miss something with no side doors,”

They smiled then. They stopped smiling soon.

Baby number one, Hannah, survived all three attempted abortions. Came out completely silent too, which was the worst part. The poor teenage mother took what was left of her reputation and skipped town. Was head cheerleader at the next school over, far from the kid she never wanted to talk about.

Little Hannah forced Sam to take in the fact that when he throws a rock in the river, the water moves. His actions have tangible effects on the world around him. Nothing like that ever happened before.
He held her in a baby carrier during his treks through the forests. She became just as wild as he was. Bare foot and bare babe.

Then, some bookworm girl got it in her head that she was going to fix Sam and tame Hannah before she got too out of hand. Baby Clementine was born just before Hannah turned two.
(Fun fact: Tommy bit a doctor on his way out. He did scream, though. Where his sister did not.)

Clementine was the turning point for Sam. Realizing that, holy shit, he’s seventeen and a father of two. His parents stopped giving a shit years ago. Both the moms are out of the picture.
Two tiny souls swaddled in blankets donated by their neighbors are counting on him. He refused to let them down.

So he started paying attention at school. And, well, actually attending. Welding class became his only A. Something about Mr. Bad’s promise that if he took welding seriously he could make good money was too good to ignore.
This was his ticket to securing a middle class life for him and his babies. He was taking it.

That metal allergy and/or sensory issue with iron ever really went away. He just wore gloves and thus no one could see it. Under that helm he became something worth trying to teach. Worth trying to even just talk to.

For quite a bit of time, Mr. Bad was Sam’s only friend.

He proved such by being the first person to get Sam and his kids christmas gifts one year. Sam got a new pair of shoes, the little brats a crate full of toys. Additionally, advice on how to teach a kid how to talk was handed down, one father to another.

Eventually Sam wasn’t seventeen anymore. He became twenty five.
When Clementine turned eight he asked Sam to rename him something better. Something more fitting. A name that made since for a little boy, not a little girl.

Together they picked out Tommy, because that’s what they call British soldiers, and clementines are flowers that can go on a soldiers grave. Real morbid naming system, yeah, but it fit well enough.

In a sign of the changing times, whatever society deemed wrong with his kids actually showed up on the DSM.
Hannah got her anxiety diagnosis at eleven when a teacher gave her a panic attack so severe Sam challenged, and beat, him in an afterhours bar fight. Tommy got his adhd diagnosis almost directly after they cut his hair, because what else happens to hyperactive white boys who can’t sit down in class?

They still never pinned Sam down with anything other than being a bit of a bastard. They only called him one because they knew they could never get away with calling either of the kids that.

Mr. Bad was correct in his statement that welding was more than just a stable career option. The three moved away from the prying eyes of that small town into to their white picket fence house in no time, a massive upgrade from the living room of his parent's house.
It was good. It’s been good for a while now. Sam’s doing something he never thought he’d be able to do before, fit in.

Yeah, their yard always has an unseasonable amount of dandelions. What of it? Obviously Tommy has some built in ability to pick up sidewalk pidgins. They are esteemed household guests! Hannah might be followed around by butterflies whenever she walks to the gas station to get candy, but what little girl isn’t? Maybe your kid just isn’t special enough.

Sam fought tooth and nail to make sure that his wild kids would never get caught in the barb wire fence of civilization. That they’d never learn to grip the iron that makes their skin pink and red, respectively.
They’d play in flowers, climb in trees for afternoon naps, and hang out with the possums that trust them with their babies. No one will ever have the chance to call them all the things Sam got called. To grow up alienated and alone like he did. Hannah and Tommy actually have friends! Real ones! What a major upgrade from what their father had.

Sam’s parents may of eventually stopped giving a shit, but he is never going to stop caring. With a weight that clogs his chest, he’ll care long after he’s dead.

Now, Sam is a thirty three year old man with two teenage kids. Hannah is eighteen, about to graduate high school with a full scholarship to her preferred collage. Biochemical engineering isn’t going to know what hit it. Tommy is sixteen and already putting every other kid in the school’s art department to shame. Been working on that poetry book for years.

Sam is so proud of them.
He’ll will always be infinitely proud of them. Already ten times further along to greatest then Sam ever was. Already ripping things apart and smiling with a learned arrogance, not an ignorant one.
Secretly, he’s proud of himself too. It took so much hard work and turmoil to get them to where they are now. They’re a strange family, sure, but they’re ok.

Sam sacrificed everything to make sure they were ok. He’s content with that.

There is still an ache felt in never being allowed to grow up at a pace that was enjoyable. Sam was punched through the keyhole and had to recollect his bones once he got to the other side.
However there’s no fixing it. No use trying. No real use crying. He puts his kids through therapy and that’s enough.

Sam looks through the kitchen doorway to spot Hannah and Tommy bickering over the switch, elbowing viciously. Someone is obviously losing smash bros.

He takes a swig of tea, grown from the garden with pride, and thinks everything’s going to be ok.

Chapter Text

[From the Indivisible Poems of Tommyinnit: Gore Growth]

Green-wrought hate gone haywire,
Luminescent lime fiend,
Come out of the mycelium!
You do not grow there.
Take the gamy, fleshy red of my heart instead.
Grow fungus gardens between my intercostal cartilage,
And the place I keep unwanted memories.
Memories of mothers and bitches,
And the coastal plane between such things.

—

The issue with living a life constantly talking yourself down from a ledge is that eventually you fall. You fall more than once. You crash a thousand times.

Hannah’s falling again.

The panic attack came with a sudden, flinching pain. Like ripping the soft stretch of skin between the thumb and the pointer finger. It squeezes her lungs to the point she cannot breathe. It floods her throat with bile and her eyes with white hot tears.
Her body is betraying her because one of her teachers emailed her. That’s it.

Nothing horrible occurred. Nothing is holding a knife to her neck. Nothing is causing this severe reaction but a dumb email that’s probably just a reminder of practice times.
She should be safe but she’s not. She never feels like she is. So Hannah grips her hair tightly and tries to swallow down any air she can get. Rocking, shaking. Biting her lip so she doesn’t sob too loud. All to protect herself from the assailant that is one lone email from a pretty ok teacher.

The door to her bedroom opens and she just about throws up right then and there. Curling further into herself.

“Woah! Hey, Rosebud. Shh,” Dad quickly shuts the door behind him.

He sits on the edge of the bed, hovering his hands in front of Hannah. Reaching but not quite there.

“Are you verbal?” Sam says while keeping his tone steady.

A quick stutter of syllable-less sobbing answers his question.

“Can I touch you?” he asks.

Hannah furiously shakes her head yes. Letting her arms fall limp in her lap. Weeping out the rest of this panic attack into the tight embrace of her dad’s hug.
He pats her hair in a way that lets her learn how to breathe again.

“Shh. I got you,” he comforts.

Hannah melts into her father completely. Her face damp and sticky with tears. Slowly inhaling and exhaling like it’s a new discovery. Something she’ll find, lose, and then rediscover again, and again.
They sit like that until she masters the usage of her lungs once more. Finally calming down enough to speak.

“Did something happen?” Dad asks calmly.

Hannah cringes internally, “I literally just got an email. I-. I don’t even know why it happened,”

“It’s not always a rational thing. Have you been feeling more anxious then normal lately?” Sam swiftly adjusts his arms.

Well, nothing. Nothing happened.
Ok. Maybe not nothing. Astelic had a bad day so she was quiet at lunch, and then she had to take a different route to second period because of a fight blocking the hallway. Then Tommy made a joke about being the better sibling on the bus, which wouldn’t be an issue if she didn’t actually believe it.
Then the email came. It could’ve held some sort of hammer cracking down onto her skull, for all she knows!

“I think today was just an irrational day,” she says, defeatedly.

He rubs her arm comfortingly, “Alright. Do you want me to read you the email?”

Too afraid to read it herself, and too petrified of how embarrassing it would be to fully say no, she shakes her head.
Dad takes the laptop into his lap and reads over the devilish form of electronic message.

“It’s a reminder about that field trip you opted out of. Nothing to worry about,” he informs her.

Shit. She got so worked up over nothing?
She’s eighteen years old, goddamnit! She’s supposed to be moving out soon! With a job, and a car, and attending a collage. Hannah’s supposed to be growing up by now. Instead she’s sobbing over a stupid fucking email and relying on her dad to make sure she doesn’t trick herself into being too afraid to eat breakfast.

She’s never going to grow out of standing next to that fucking ledge, is she? Hannah will live and die on that cliff face. Tumbling off into the abyss, screaming all the way.

Dad gets up and eventually comes back with a water bottle. Hannah accepts the hunk of plastic. Cradling it between her hands, not bothering to push the hair out of her face.
It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to be so disheveled, so often. She knows it shouldn’t be and settles into some bland, net zero of emotion. Too irritated to feel irritated.

“I’m going to go make dinner, ok? Do you need anything else?” Dad asks.

“What is it?”
“Just stir fry,”

Hannah then just nods, “Then, I’m good,”

Dad smiles, that smile that glows green, and kisses her forehead. Gently shutting the door behind him.
She stands in the valley below the cliff. Water bottle held between her knees.

Hannah hears a frog outside.

Which is a strange noise to be able to pick out between the muffled white noise of Tommy’s inspiration playlist through the wall, (she can tell apart every playlist of his, and list them all by heart), the cicadas chirping from the trees, and her own receding panic. Their neighborhood has a couple frogs, especially this late into the spring.
But Hannah only hears a single frog. Hears a single, beckoning croak above all others.

She slips off of her bed clad in pajama pants and a hoodie, absent of its strings. Water bottle in one hand and clenched fist in the other.
Down the stairs. Through the sliding glass door. Barefoot into their almost wild backyard, illuminated by string lights.

The Fran family has always prided themselves on this backyard. Seemingly always blooming no matter the weather. Raspberries and honeysuckle climb their white picket fence and theirs alone. The warm air makes the remaining tear streaks on Hannah’s face warmer.

There’s that frog. Sitting dead center in their backyard. Bright, lime green, throat bobbing up and down.

Hannah sits crisscross into the soil beneath her. Slouching her back. Staring at the strangely colored frog. It doesn’t move although it definitely has noticed her.

A moment of peace, starkly contrasting the moments leading up to it, washes over her. Relief pops inside her veins like a ballon filled with flour. All that is, is just a gentle wind rolling through their neighborhood, the stars bright enough to be seen so close to town.
And this frog. An almost toxic bright green. Almost unnatural. Hannah isn’t going to question it, it’s not like she spends enough time on frogtok to make such calls.

Within the blink of and eye the frog is gone. Disappearing into thin air. Leaving nought but a gentle breeze and drying tear stains. The peace refusing to reside.

Hannah sits in the backyard alone. Without any trace of the mysterious lime frog that got away.

Chapter Text

[From the Mistaken poems of Tommyinnit: Say it Twice]

You didn’t have to tell me twice.

My name slips from your tongue like you already forgot it.
Good.

Go away is written on the walls here.
I enter anyway.

It’s hard to turn me away. Nothing can turn me away.
The wind whistles. I’m safe here.
Clover hides in my rotten teeth. I choose to let it stay.

You never say the same thing twice.
Nothing can keep me away.

Except maybe a river and probably salt.
But a needle made of iron is one I thread anyway.

Your eye cannot see me. Good.
The thread goes through. I breathe easy here.
I breathe clover here.

I choose to stay. You don’t tell me no.
You already forgot my name.
-
Tommy quickly taps his thumb on the send button and switches back to his notes app. The banner message at the top informing him that Tubbo reacts to the “talking to queer people about gender vs talking to cis people about gender” meme with a laughing emoji.

He ignores it. Not his friend, heavens forbid, but the text. There’s a pretty good sting of words floating in his mind right now, and Tommy will be damned if he forgets it. It's thick. Something made with all the syllables that tastes like sawdust and liquid cold medicine. He quickly types it out, spelling errors and all. Quickly reading it over once.

Cufflinks. Hands. Ice water. Yeah, that’s pretty damn good.
Content, Tommy shoves his phone into the pocket of his hoodie and flops off the bed.

Tommy was writing sonnets before he could walk. Was bridging one sentence to another since the very start. He’s been writing as long as he’s been breathing.
The jury will be indefinitely out on whether or not any of it is good. The jury will never make their damn mind about that.

Still, he would sheepishly admit he is proud. He can say that, right?
That poetry book with the ever changing name keeps getting longer, and longer. He doesn’t know if it could ever be finished. If he could ever stop adding onto it.

Certain poems have teeth, and they dig into the flesh of his ankle. He loves those the most. The ones that scream. Poems covered in shit and grime, but glow. He hopes to write them. He hopes to be them.

Tommy casually goes downstairs and into the kitchen. Riffling through the cabinets for that one brand of cracker he likes the most. Searching. Searching. There! White cheddar crackers, here he comes.
He takes a massive handful and pops them into his mouth.

“Hey ticktack, what’s up?” Dad says.

Tommy jumps at the sudden noise. Turning around with a mouthful of cracker, which makes Sam laugh.

The problem with having Sam Fran as a father is that Hannah got the nice, pretty nickname Rosebud. Tommy gets literally every word that starts with T. He’s been called toenail clipping several times. Once it was tabard, Tobias, tipsy. The list goes on.

“I’m obviously doing heroin in back alleys,” he says, sarcastically.

“Ah,” Dad nods, “With Tubbo?”

Tommy shakes his head, “No, Tubbo would do crack,”

They share a giggle as Tommy puts the snacks back into place.

“By the way, when’s that next contest?” Sam opens the fridge to grab the microwaveable broccoli.

“Wednesday,”
“So soon?”

Tommy shakes his head excitedly.
The next poetry contest he’ll be entering is actually hosted by the school! It was supposed to be a normal talent show but the English club hijacked it, so now it’s a poetry meet. The choir teacher is outraged and has made their opinion known.

If he was going to be completely honest?
He isn't sure which poem he's going to bring. Even this close to the competition, Tommy hasn't picked one from the lot.

There is a certain resistance one must have to take a poem, a living confessional, and take it to stand before a crowd of people that have never loved him. He's strange Sam's son, there's folks in that crowd who'd like to debate if he is even a 'son' to begin with. Tommy's family had to dent a hole into the metallic sheen of this city to earn the right to live in the foot-shaped crater.
He's loud, and brash. He doesn't follow the school dress code, or any code for that matter. Tommy only needs to structure a stanza incorrectly to be shot down. A bird flung to earth by a bullet.

"Which one are you using?" Sam asks.

"It's a secret," he replies, technically not lying. It is a secret that he doesn't have one picked out.

There are a couple choices! But damn! It's either he picks the best of the best or the one hardest to make fun of. It's not an easy choice. It also isn't too late to back out, but he's not about to pretend like that's an option. Because then this senior girl, Sally, will probably win the contest and Tommy thinks she's a bit annoying. Not enough to hate her but enough to be like, no. You aren't going to win this poetry competition without a fight. Fuck you with a neutral tone indicator.

"Oh, that's exciting. Is this one I haven't read yet?" Dad starts throwing rice and veggies into the pan.

"Maybe," Tommy pulls the syllables out.

Sam smiles but otherwise returns to the cooking. Tommy wordlessly slinks back out of the kitchen, noticing Hannah's silhouette outside.

There is something special about having a sister. Maybe that's a poem no one can snap back at him with. Words that sing of the sibling that rose from the deep dark dirt to eat the sun. The girl that's the undergrowth and the canopy.

Tommy lets the budding poem spin around in his head as he jumps up the steps two at a time. Thinking about all the things that rhyme with roses. Purpose? No. Poses. That was a dumb thought.

Chapter Text

[From the Dastardly Poems of Tommyinnit: Rosebud, Bite their Heads off!!!!]

Gutters, sewage slime, chlorophyll,
Listen up!!
There’s this girl named Rosebud and, oh ho oh!
She’s going to rip your sorry ass to pieces!!

I’ve seen here do it, too!
Jaw unhinged, nails filed pink, hair pinned up in space buns,
Nothing ever stood a fucking chance!!!

Asphalt, concrete, stems rising from that too-tough ground,
You have no idea, fool!!!
Blood splatters! Bap, drip, dollop!!
It does nothing to change the color of her stylish top,
It does nothing to change the fact that I love her,
I love her always.

That is my sister and she is no coward, alright!!!
She snaps spines at their bases, she sprouts in the snow,
She is no fool and no fiend and not “ruled by fear”,
Or whatever your sorry asses have to say!!

Rosebud cracks heads. Bites down hard!
That is my sister and I love her.
She shoves the dirt around to make way for the things that grow.
Bap, drip, dollop.

—

Dinner was fine. Her bedwars plays were ok.

Hannah turns her pc off for the night. Climbing into bed after her pulls the cord on her fairy lights.
Sleep doesn’t arrive for what feels, and probably is, literal hours. The shadows of leaves rustle against her window. She watches in complete silence, and in boundless heartache.

Hannah is trained in the art of recovering from panic attacks. Almost like some ninja. A kick and a chop then bam! She’s ready to go back into class and take that quiz she was so nervous about.
Whenever Hannah feels like shit, there are things to make her feel less so. Food, the outdoors, her friends, her favorite shows or video games. Her therapist has taught her that emotions are not the most intelligent little chemicals, and they can be manipulated. Hannah is getting pretty good at manipulating them over half the time.

But this sadness feels supernatural.

This empty longing took root where there should’ve been a bit of tiredness, some enjoyment, and a shred of fear. This hollowness is not a want, or a craving, or a wish for something not there.
A piece of Hannah’s very fucking soul got ripped away leaving a single thread behind it.

Some bird flies by her window too quick to truly register. Her chest rises and falls as she watches it.

It is a haunting, sinking feeling being able to sense that the labyrinth is there. Aching just beyond her reach. She just has to follow the thread. Learn what went missing, what she desires more than anything, and why it’s on the other side of a hedge maze and a rope.

She just has to find the thing compelling her so strongly, so late at night, to find it. To wipe the mystery off it’s shell and uncover it.
She doesn’t say no. She won’t say no.

The bedroom door always opens silently. Her breath hitches as she walks on the side of the stairs that don’t creak. Following the thread back to it’s spindle. Winding back the wound. The wound she didn’t have yesterday. Or, rather, didn’t feel until now.

The warm spring air hits her skin as she silently cracks open the front door. Clad in her docs, in that one vintage nightgown she thrifted forever ago she was wearing to try and make herself feel better, with her hair loose around her shoulders.
Hannah looks something out of a fairytale, just like something Tommy would write.

She’s going back to the source of things. Of longing. Maybe her little brother wrote this story.

Hannah feel’s charmed. Fairy-led. If she ever payed attention to the stories she’d turn her socks inside out. She isn’t wearing any to turn out. Maybe that’s why there’s no avoiding this fate.
Briefly she gets anxious about what her neighbors would think watching her trek down the dark like this. It gets washed away by the missing piece.

The soles of her boots hit the concrete. Begs jiggle to her left. She turns her head toward the sound, somewhere in the woods behind the houses.

Is she Wendy Darling? She probably looks like her. Probably sounds just as dumb. This isn’t dumb. This is like inhaling sorcery. It makes her twice as high.

Hannah’s mind his emptied out by the mission. Her brain still, anxiety silent, heart racing. Somethings happening. Something is calling her out, calling her back.
The deep set longing lodged in the missing section of her soul forces her to follow. She’d walk to the ends of the earth if she had to.

Bells chime. She follows them through the forest. Weaving between the trees until the streetlights dim to nothingness. The litter lessens amount until there is nothing but wild.
These woods don’t go this deep. There’s a highway back here, she knows that. She forgets that.

Hannah almost giggles as the bells get louder. Almost chiding at the sound, “I’m getting closer! I almost caught you!”

When she turns another corner the throbbing heartache becomes a crescendo of emotion. Barely resisting the urge to fall to her knees, get grass stains on her nightgown.
She takes in the sight of a clearing in the woods. Lit only by moonlight. Glowing with it’s own innate power. The thread is so close to being spun back again.

There’s that frog. The one from earlier. With the neon green skin and the enchanting presence. The one that made her feel so calm.
It sits in the center of a mushroom circle. Dotted with all kinds, several colors. Reds and whites, browns and pale yellows. Hannah wouldn’t know the specific species.

Hannah doesn’t even know not to step in a fairy circle. As one foot gets placed in front of the other, multiple steps are taken. Right foot. Left foot.

Until she crosses that boarder and the longing rises higher in it’s roaring symphony.
And that frog is not a frog anymore.

Chapter Text

[From the Unconditional Poems of Tommyinnit: Not-Bird]

Our weirdness settles in certain things.
The morning light. Uno cards. The voices we lost yelling about the uno cards.

The screaming was fun for a while but we’ve settled now.
Father Not-Bird comes in and holds us.
We are strange. The strangeness dissolves when I stand next you you.

Sunrises. Dawns. Standing next to you.
Debating who is taller. Who goes home.

We go home. We are strange. I’m standing next to you.
That not-nest bares no absences.

—

Sam is always a grump in the mornings. And, can one really blame him for not wanting to rise to meet the Monday? Who actually enjoys waking up?

Either way. It’s up at 7 on the dot to get the kids to school, and himself to work before 8. No way around it.

Sam yawns, stretches his arms, and slowly flops out of the bed and onto his feet.
He goes to wake Tommy up first. Knocking on his door, then opening it to see if that was enough to wake him up.

Tommy groans like the world itself is trying to test his patience when the hall light hits his face. Same.

Sam closes the door and then goes to wake up Hannah. The only one who isn’t a wreck in the morning.
The door opens and Sam notices how the very air seems to change. She isn’t there.

The bed is unmade. So, Sam assumes she woke up early. Hannah’s probably in the bathroom or something. Whatever.

He returns to his room, gets dressed, and doesn’t think twice about it.
Same selection of green fire-resistant button downs, jeans, and silly socks his kids get him every year. This time he picked the ones with armadillos on them.

Once he actually gets downstairs to eat is when he actually gets that sinking feeling in his stomach.

Tommy’s already at the table. Eating cereal and checking something on his phone. For whatever reason, Hannah still isn’t there.

“Where’s your sister?” Sam asks.

Tommy shrugs. Then realizes he shrugged, then gets worried.

Without hesitation Sam marches right back up those stairs and looks in her room again. Empty. He knocks on the bathroom to receive nothing but silence. Empty.

Garage? Backyard? Guest bedroom/storage room? All empty.

“Hannah?” he yells. Only silence responds.

Hannah Fran is not the kind of kid to run away. She always texts him before going out with friends. She never gets home later than when she said she would. She never lies to Sam.
Some would say this entire family can’t, but he’s seen her do it before. Where the hell could she have gone?

Tommy timidly turns the corner to find his dad panicking. Which causes him to panic.

“What’s going on?” Tommy asks, shrinking in on himself.

Sam tries to keep his voice as level as possible, “I don’t know where Hannah is,”

For a third time, Sam opens her bedroom door again. Searching for any kind of clue to where his eldest could of disappeared to.
Seemingly no signs of forced entry, that’s a plus. He doesn’t think anyone would’ve kidnapped her. Her phone is plugged in on her nightstand. Her shoes are missing. The lights are off.

Did she just up and leave without even taking her phone?

“Dad?” Tommy calls from downstairs.

Sam goes to him as fast as he can without sprinting. Heart pumping in his chest hard enough to snap in two. Barely able to regulate his breathing. Sam is attempting to look as calm as possible for Tommy, but his son isn’t dumb. He knows just how bad Sam is freaking out right now.

He looks at what Tommy brought him over to see. A wave of stark, consuming dread washing over him.

The front door is slightly ajar. It looks like Hannah left it open behind her.
Sam swallows his fear and keeps his voice steady.

“I’m taking off work to deal with this. Let’s just get you to school, ok?” he gauges Tommy’s reaction carefully.

He just sort of nods. Probably to queasy to do anything else.
Tommy doesn’t finish his breakfast and Sam didn’t have a chance to start. They finish getting ready in complete silence. Looking behind every corner, trying to see if Hannah is just really good at hide and seek.

The car ride to the high school is tense. Like static flooding their lungs and ears so neither of them can think. Can breathe. Worried for the absolute worst.

Tommy walks into the building with his head hanging low and Sam wonders if it was the best idea to let him go today. If he wants to go home, Tommy will just skip. He’ll be fine.

Is Hannah, though?

He speeds home. Narrowly avoiding a ticket for the amount of red lights run and wrong lanes entered. Booking it back to the scene of the crime.
Shit. This better not be a crime. Sam doesn’t know if he’ll survive this being a crime.

Criminals don’t just go into random houses looking for people to kidnap, do they? When you kidnap someone you typically want ransom. There’s no kind of note.

Sam locks the doors at night. Since the door was found open, someone must’ve opened it from the inside. Hannah took her shoes.
He knows she goes on walks sometimes, but without telling anyone? Without considering the time?

This isn’t like her. This isn’t his careful, safe, trustworthy daughter. She wouldn’t run off in the night.
Unless someone convinced her.

Think, Sam wills himself. Pulling into the driveway.

Has she had some sort of crush she went to see? Has she mentioned anyone with more fondness than normal? Is she keeping secrets?
If this is some stupid boy thing Sam thinks he’ll be able to reach the other side of his panic. Hannah’s 18 now, she can do what she wants. As long as she isn’t being stupid it’s none of his concern.
This feels pretty damn stupid though.

Maybe her and the mysterious person slept through their alarm? Or they took her to school and if he calls them, she’ll be there.

Sam was a stupid kid. He gets it. Yet, Hannah’s never been one to do shit like that. Who is he kidding? She’s too smart to leave the goddamn door unlocked if she was sneaking out.

Sam steps into the entry way, shutting the front door behind him. Purposefully leaving it unlocked just in case.

In a sudden, overdue shattering, Sam collapses onto the floor and cries.

Chapter Text

[From the Poems of Tommyinnit: ]

(A simple sheet of notebook paper scribbled so viciously with black ballpoint pen it ripped through. All the words beneath the ink are covered up, except a single, lone sentence at the very bottom)

-and my tongue will speak the truth

—

The romantic meter of the longing crashes like a drunk driver’s face into their steering wheel. Startling Hannah like she’s been forced awake.

“Motherfucker!” she yelps, swinging her arms around to not fall backwards.

“Woah, woah! Calm down, jackass,” a voice condemns her.

Hannah falls flat on her ass and whips her head up. Meeting eye to eye with the thing at the end of the thread. As ugly and stupid as the minotaur.

Or, not ugly. They’re actually unnervingly beautiful. Not in an attraction way, but in an oil painting way. The artist who made the boy grimacing back at her really knows how to shade skin with green undertones. White hair, lime green eyes with black corneas. A stupid look on their face.

“Where the hell am I? What-? You tricked me!” Hannah jumps up. Higher, then higher.

Why hasn’t gravity pulled her back to the ground yet?

“Are you stupid or something? I found you lost as hell in the human world, and the only way I could convince you to come home was by glamouring you-. Oh, also. It was embarrassingly easy to glamour you. I’m embarrassed for you,” he tilts his head up to her.

Which makes her realize she still isn’t on the ground. When she looks down at her feet, they are hovering inches over the grass.
She screams, pulling her feet to her chest and falling back into the dirt again. Smothering some wildflowers.

Hannah has gone into an anxiety level so far beyond a panic attack there is only room for a piece of dread the size of a bullet to sit in her stomach. Heavy as lead.

“Bro, chill the fuck out!” the not-frog yells.

“Where the fuck am I!” Hannah yells back, louder.

Not-Frog squints their eyes at her. Confused.

“You’re really shit at being a fairy dude,” they say.

Hannah blinks, “Because. I’m, not?”

They snort at her. ‘Cause apparently something in that sentence was supposedly funny.
She grumpily flutters her wings. Wings? Fuck.

Hannah turns her head behind her, only to have her breath completely and utterly taken away. Every oxygen atom in her body forcibly removed by one of the most beautiful sights she’s ever seen. A sight that is miraculously apart of her.
Wings. True, real, dazzling wings. As bright crystal blue as a dragonfly’s. She wills them to move left, and the obey. Her jaw drops in disbelief.

Could something so elegant truly be attached to her body?

“Did you really not know?” Not-Frog says, softly.

Hannah gets up to stand, making sure to not take off from the floor this time. Shaking her head no, still to stunned to speak.
Everything sort of falls into place all at once.

Hannah’s been followed by winged insects her whole life. When she sits outside at lunch, lady bugs sit on her knees. Butterflies follow her when she walks home. Dragonflies would circle her hair like a halo whenever they go to the lake in the summer. Mosquito dragons always hang out in her room at all hours, and never seem to die.
When Hannah was getting her anxiety diagnosis, they screened her for autism. Double checking, as if they couldn’t believe that it didn’t run in their family. The doctor had assumed she had a special interest in insects, as she didn’t shut up about them the whole time.

How ableist for these doctors to assume her family was autistic because they’re fairies! Wait. What is she saying. That’s like, 4th dimensional neurodivergency chess. A whole new level of bullshit.

“Shit,” the guy mutters under his breath.

“So can I like, fly?” Hannah asks.

“Just did,” he replies plainly.

She just nods again. Watching herself move her wings back and forth. Delicate as a Prince Rupert’s drop, incapable of shattering. Catching the odd inner glow of the world around her, making the material glimmer all shades of the rainbow.

If Hannah is a fairy, and she just walked into a fairy circle, then she’s in fairyland. Maybe she really is Wendy Darling.

“Ok, um. Are you done freaking out?” he asks.

“Probably,”
“Ok. Well-“

“You still haven’t told me where I am,” she complains.

“Elfheim,” he answers, “The kingdom ‘neath the hill,”

Not-Frog extends their hand, sculpted to impossible perfection, and slightly bows. A display of welcoming and elegance.

“My name is Eryops, but I insist you call me Boomer,” he says, gently grabbing her fingers as they complete the bow.

Something about that name sends her reeling. Blown away like a sudden gust of wind tore through her mind. Imprinting the knowledge on whichever breeze the name was carried. Eryops.

“I’m Hannah,” she says, trying to curtsy.

Boomer jolts his head back up to her. Making intense eye contact with those fucked it eyes he has. Pitch black, the most saturated neon green. They glare at Hannah through their eyebrows.

“You’re lying,” Boomer frowns.

“No? That’s my name,” she says defensively, pulling her hand away.

Boomer continues frowning, “It’s not your true name,”

That’s dumb. Hannah has only ever been called Hannah. Her dad named her himself. There’s no other name out there.

“And you can lie,” Boomer’s posture visibly shrinks, voice trailing off into a whisper, “And I gave you my name,”

Hannah shakes her head, rising to defend herself.

“No! I won’t misuse it, I promise,” she says quickly.

Boomer rolls his eyes. Right. He has no reason to believe her.

“Um, shit. What if, when I find my true name, I’ll give it to you? Equal it out a bit,” Hannah nods.

“You’re one weird son of a bitch,” Boomer starts.
“Didn’t even know you were one of the folk, can lie, don’t know your true name, doesn’t even know how to get to Elfheim. You walked into a fairy circle under the charm of a glamour meant for squirrels. How have you lasted this long?”

“I don’t know,” she answers, honestly.

Boomer laughs. At her or with her, Hannah doesn’t know.

“I’ll be back to visit you very, very soon. Hannah,” he puts air quotes around her name.

Then Hannah gets yanked out of Elfheim by the scruff of her neck. Pulled back into the human world. Her back noticeably lighter than before, absent of its limbs.

Hannah left the house a bit after 11, and it is clearly noon. Dad’s going to be pissed.

“FUCK,”

Chapter Text

[From the Free-Flowing Poems of Tommyinnit: Straightened Spinal Cavities]

When he gets that look on his face,
My spine stands erect, my back stands straight.
For I know someone,
Something,
Has made a mistake.
One with a heavy price to pay.
That expression corrects my posture,
And boy, do I begin to pray.

He is the warden of this world.
I think.
Me and her are the things he keeps free,
And the world at the other side of we,
Something out there is squaring it’s shoulders,
Flatting out it’s back.
It takes a mean spirited spit and a too narrow glare,
For the prisoner to attempt to get the fuck out of there.
Running from the warden with the knife in his teeth.
Sister and I am the things he keeps free.

From the pivot of my axis to my atlas,
I thank him for glaring at the prisoner behind me.
Superior to my clavicle, posterior to my scapular bone.

—

Police arrive at Sam’s front doorstep at 11:36. Listening to his frantic explanations half heartedly. One of them yawns.
Then they start knocking on doors, asking the neighbors. This is the most activity this picket fence community has seen since the fateful underage drinking incident of last Christmas Eve.

Sam has basically been having one, long, continuous meltdown since he realized shit hit the fan. Dreading the absolute worst.
What do you do when your daughter just, disappears into the dead of night? The rest of the house in perfect order? Everything remains the same within the organism of their lives, but something made away with a necessary organ? Impeding their survival?
He’s panicking. He’s babbling to the police about it. They’re sort of just staring at him.

At 12:03 Hannah stumbles onto the front porch with leaves in her hair and pollen coated on her cheeks so heavily, it works like yellow blush. Eyes wide, pupils dilated.
Sam’s knees gets weak as he trips over himself running toward her. Ready to shower her in hugs and questions before he screams at her for so clearly having done drugs. Like, holy shit. No one can look like that much of some mystical trainwreck without the help of illegal substances. If this was a Disney movie she’d be high on pixie dust.

Yet as Hannah grips the back of his shirt with the amount of force she’s using to hug him back, he remembers that she’s way too smart for that. (And doesn’t get invited to the places drugs are.)

“Holy shit. Holy shit, you’re safe. I might not make it if you ever do this again, holy shit. Please don’t do this again-“ Sam sputters. Barely able to breathe.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry! I-. I think I was sleep walking?” she says.

Sam breaks their hug to step back, raising both his hands to cup her cheeks.

“Hannah, don’t lie to me,” he says, as sternly as he can muster.

“I’m not! O-one minute, I was in my bed, then I wake up in the woods. I truly don’t get what happened,” Hannah inhales sharply, tears pricking the corners of her eyes, “I don’t know what happened,”

Sam closes his eyes before he brings her back into another hug.
He never could force his tongue to form a lie. Tommy, ever a wordsmith, simply refuses to. Even when it’s gotten his ass in serious trouble. Hannah has sat before him multiple times and lied to his face. So convincingly that Sam only ever learned it wasn’t true by her confessing to it anywhere from months to years later.

Sam also knows she is a responsible young woman. He knows that she is far more intelligent than he ever was. This girl before him, in a dirt stained nightgown, is one of the greatest things Sam has ever had the honor of being close to.
He still doesn’t trust a single word she just said. Nor does he have any reason to.

“Mr. Fran?” one of the officers calls out.

“Yeah?” he replies.

“Your neighbor over here has security footage from last night. Might want to take a look,”

Hannah doesn’t seem shaken up further by this news. She’s shaking, yes, but she doesn’t seem afraid that there were cameras.
Sam takes her by the elbow and follows the officer to where their neighbor has the video pulled up on his phone.

Their neighbor is some old man with a hearty laugh. His husband makes good stew. Just akin to how he has no reason to trust Hannah’s story, he has no reason to remember their names.
Low and behold, when Sam is handed over the phone to have Hannah watch the footage over his shoulder, there she is. A bit after midnight. Awkwardly placing one foot in front of the other.
Her eyes, visible for only a couple frames, are zoned so far out she clearly isn’t seeing the things she’s look’ing at.

Hannah almost trips over a crack in the sidewalk, recovers, and steps out of frame.

“Typical for sleep walkers. That expression,” the officer chimes.

“That’s no weird,” Hannah grimaces, “I don’t remember doing this before,”

“Never?” they press.

“Never,” Sam confirms.

He hands the phone back. Everyone nods and goes back to their respective places. The neighbors go back inside. The officers drive away.
Hannah and Sam shuffle into the front room and shut the door behind them, with a clink that sounds like complete and utter finality.

“Are you alright?” Sam asks, flatly.

Hannah takes her shoes off at the door, “I need a shower. And food. And shit, I missed school,”

“I called them earlier. I’ll make another call, it’ll be excused,” he comforts.

She picks a leaf out of her hair as she bounds up the steps to their bathroom.

The past 24 hours were a knife point pressed against his throat. Now, it’s the blunt handle of the knife against his adam’s apple. Something isn’t working how it should. Something is happening here.

That’s heavy. Too heavy. He willingly sets it aside. Sam is going to call Tommy, then the school, then sit on the couch and feel very, very weird. Sounds like a decent enough plan for the rest of the day.

Chapter Text

[From the Transcendent poems of Tommyinnit: a letter to a friend]

If you wanted you could call me Clementine.

Because the way the syllables dance on your tongue,
Doesn't feel like getting jammed down the ball return at the bowling alley,
In a too tight knot of limbs and too long hair,
Crammed through and then spit back out again for further use.

Your voice makes the greatest insult seem so frivolous.

I would trust you with this stained white flag,
This artifact of a war you didn’t fight,
I would plant this sacred,
nasty bitch of a word into your palm
And you'd still call me Tom.

My name is Tom.
But, if you wanted,
You could call me Clementine.

Mainly because I’m pretty fucking sure you hung all the stars in the sky,
And who am I to day no to you?
(Am I Tommy or am I Clementine?)
(Can I say no to you?)

—

Tommy is at lunch, one inconvenience away from a breakdown, when “sole parental figure” framed by several heart emojis causes his phone to ring.

“Dad?” he answers nervously.

Tubbo and Ranboo sit silently next to him. Anxiously picking at their trashy school supplied hamburgers. Trying to see if they need to comfort Tommy or go raise hell for him.

“Hannah’s ok. Apparently she was sleepwalking? Or something? She’s home now, and everything’s going to be fine,” Dad’s own stress leaks through the phone like sludge.

“Thank fuck!” Tommy shouts, too loudly.

The shoulders of his friends stop tensing. Sensing that the call brought good news.
Also, how much a dick would Sam have to be to share bad news through the phone? Definitely doesn’t check out with the same guy who bought Tubbo and Ranboo’s favorite snacks just to have them on hand. Too good of a dad.

“How you doing, Tibia?” Dad asks.

Tommy rolls his eyes at the nickname, “Awful, obviously. Hannah’s whole deal, upcoming contest, I started today,”

“Oh no,” Dad clicks his teeth through the receiver, “You don’t have pads, do you?”

“Borrowed from Beau,” he replies, “But yeah, everything sucks. Tell Hannah she owes me 5$ in emotional damages,”

Dad lets out a curt laugh, “I’ll tell her. Love you,”

“Love you too,” Tommy presses his thumb on the red button, then lets his head fall onto the lunch table.

“Shit, man. That’s rough,” Tubbo comments.

Tommy blindly extend his hand toward his voice, receiving a single dorito in exchange. He lifts his head up to eat it.
If sulking had a poster child, the title would currently belong to Tommy. He’d defeat the reigning champion and everything.

“At least your sister isn’t dead, or something. That’d suck,” Ranboo trips over the sentence so hard he might bruise.

“Really?” Tommy says sarcastically.

Ranboo elbows him and returns to his meal. The one completely absent of flavor.

He still hasn’t picked out his poem for the contest in two days.
Not only is there a whole novel’s worth of them sitting around in notebooks, but Tommy could write 50 of them within that timeframe. It’s also not like they’re all dirt shit awful, either! Some of them are good. Very good.

He just doesn’t have something show stopping. He doesn’t have anything worth shouting about.

Whenever Tommy reads a poem, even his own, the poet reads it aloud to him in a very specific voice. Some with tear-strained voices. Others calming reading from their notes. Others are presenting at a slam meet.
Tommy wants to write a poem that is screaming. He’s said that before. Those are his favorite to both write and read.

Tommy remembers first poem he read that shouted at him with the brute force of twin lungs giving their all, in tandem, desperately crying “hear me!”.
Desolate Star, by Robin Hyde. She was lonely, she was screaming. Out shining but not out lasting the blazing winds of the void around her.

Ever since, he’s been trying to shout back. To cry, “I hear you!” over the howling void.
So far he doesn’t think he’s done it yet. Then again, maybe his standards are a bit too high for a mere high school poetry meet that was supposed to be a talent show.

“Would you guys rather sit outside? The trash can stinks,” Tubbo frowns.

“How can you smell it?” he asks, head resting on his palm.

“Unlike you fucks, I bathe,” he snaps back.

In silent unison all three friends grab their bags and their trays and head into the courtyard.
They sit in the last empty table beneath the, uh. Metal roof thing? Tommy is very pissed that he forgot the word for that.

Eventually, Ranboo and Tubbo find a really stupid topic of conversation to argue about. He thinks it’s the worst overwatch hero? The issue there is if you’re still playing overwatch in 2022 therapy can’t fix you.
He opens his mouth to joke about that when something catches his attention from the corner of his eye.

A crow. As sleek black as obsidian.
The bird swoops down onto the chain link fence dividing school property and the short line of streets before a highway.
Just beyond that fence lands a hawk. Massive fucker. Bright brown and angry looking.

And the hawk is currently losing a fight against a rabbit.

“Guys, look!” Tommy points at the ordeal.

Just as the other two turn their heads, the rabbit deals a heavy kick to the hawk’s face. Kung fu style.
The defeated hawk frantically gets onto of the fence next to the crow, who seems to throw its head back laughing.

“What?” Ranboo asks.

“That rabbit just kicked that hawk’s ass!” Tommy informs him.

Tubbo laughs, “how does that work?”

The hawk sulks just as much as Tommy was just a few minutes ago. Squawking at the rabbit below. The white rabbit, of which, is taunting the fucker. Daring him to swoop again.

“I don’t remember that in Alice in Wonderland,” he jokes.

“Certainly isn’t late to a fight,” Ranboo completes the bit.

They all laugh, taking the last bites of their hamburgers. Tommy watches, with a interest that seems to be physically tugging at him, the trio of animals disappear back into the tree line.
His biology teacher won’t believe this.

Chapter Text

[From the Floral Poems of Tommyinnit: Green Girl]

Green girl does not spit when she talks.

Green girl only spits when the blood builds up.

Green girl nods her head and flutters her eyes.

Girl grow green and wake us all up at night.

Silence the self. Not that one, the other one.

—

When Hannah sinks into her gaming chair, freshly cleaned and slightly damp, she goes over the events of the past like footnotes. Reading then rereading.

Some spell was cast on her, lowering her inhibitions, and drawing her to Elfheim. There she met Er-. Boomer. She meet Boomer.
Hannah learned that she’s a fairy. She has wings. Not only her, but the rest of her family too. Her brother and father.
Then when she came back, Hannah learned that time doesn’t work the same within and without the two worlds. She scared everyone about where she had gone.

And then she didn’t tell Dad where she had been.

Two questions are raised from this sequence of events. Was her mom a fairy too? Why did she lie to dad?

Those questions split into even more questions like cells splitting into atoms. Did that have anything to do with her mother’s death? Is she even dead or did she disappear to Elfheim? Does dad know? Does Tommy? How did Boomer recognize her when no one else did? How come she can lie but other fairies apparently can’t?

Why wasn’t her name her supposed “true one”?

It’s so much information to process. Too much. She hasn’t even gotten to the “hello world!” part of learning this entire separate piece of herself, how is she supposed to compute these more complicated questions?

The beauty of Elfheim sticks to the back of her eyes like syrup. There is a section of skin between her shoulder blades that is supposed to connect to the iridescent tissue of her wings. There is a name that doesn’t form on her tongue despite how strongly she wills it to appear.

Hannah boots up lunar client and discord at the same time, on autopilot.

Astelic finally picks up on the third ring. Something Hannah needs but couldn’t possibly be ready for.

“Hey! Where the hell have you been? Rachel has been blowing up your phone all day,” she audibly frowns through the headset.

“Promise not to laugh?” Hannah asks.

“Promise,” Astelic confirms.

Hannah takes a deep breath, preparing to get laughed at regardless of any promises.

“I stepped in a fairy ring,” she announces.

The discord call goes silent. If it wasn’t 3 o’clock in the afternoon, there’d be crickets.

“What, like those things in skyrim?” Astelic asks incredulously.

She rolls her eyes, “That’s such a niche reference. You could’ve said like, from the Cruel Prince. Or something,”

“How is that more niche that a video game?” Astelic presses.

“One is an unmarked location and one is-,” she realizes what she’s saying a pauses, “Wait. You know what? This is stupid. I mean a real actual fairy ring. A mushroom circle teleportation thing. In real life,”

Astelic /party’s her in hypixel as she continues her streak of disbelief.

“You mean to tell me you teleported to the fairy world?” she asks.

“Yes,” Hannah says very seriously.

“I know you have a custom elytra texture pack-“
“It’s not that-!”
“And you liked tinkerbell as a kid-“

“Astelic!” Hannah scolds, “I’m not kidding!”

The call goes silent again as the bedwars game begins. Their minecraft characters sit in the gen, staring at the other. Menacingly. This is very serious business.

“Are you on drugs?” Astelic awkwardly laughs.

Hannah huffs angrily while she buys wool.

“No! I’m being dead serious,” Hannah begins her confessional.
“Ok. Here’s the full story. I had a panic attack over something super stupid, and went to go sit outside for a bit. Collect my head. Then there was this unnaturally neon frog out there in the backyard, and he disappeared. Right? So that night I couldn’t sleep, and I found myself getting lead into the woods. Ok, I know that sounds scary. It was like getting hypnotized, not drugged. And then, um. I stepped into the mushroom ring. Then the frog was there! Turns out he’s a fairy named Boomer who wanted to scold me about being a bad fairy when he figured out I didn’t know. And in Elfheim I have wings? Like, dragonfly wings. Apparently my entire family are fairies and I don’t know if they know,”

Each word in that rant made Hannah feel more and more insane. But she knows every syllable was true. She knows it.
Doesn’t stop her ears from turning red as she waits for Astelic’s response.

“So, if you’re right, then that portal is still there. Correct?” Astelic says as she breaks green’s bed.

“Yeah. It should be,” she answers.

“Then prove it. Take me to Elfheim, or whatever the fuck you said it was called,”

Hannah thinks long and hard about this as she performs, and then has to clutch as she misses, a fireball jump.

She doesn’t know how dangerous Elfheim is to humans. Stories seem to say it isn’t that easy of a place to get out of once you go into. She has no guarantee of Astelic’s safety other than the fact that Hannah, a fairy, will be her escort.
And Boomer will be there! He’d vouch for Astelic, right? He trusted Hannah with his true name, he’d make sure no one ate her friend.

“Deal. I’ll show you. It has to be this weekend though, as time moves differently and shit,” Hannah confirms, grabbing a final kill.

“Gg!” Astelic cheers at the victory screen, “This weekend, then. You, me, and Elfheim,”

“You, me, and Elfheim,” Hannah echoes back.

She hears the front door swing open from downstairs.

“I gotta go, my brother just got back from school,” she says, logging out.

“Poor boy must’ve been so worried about you,” Astelic sighs.

“I hope not too much,” Hannah replies.

She shuts everything off and makes her way downstairs. To find a very pissed off Tommy sitting in the kitchen. Arms crossed, glaring daggers.

“Sleepwalking, eh?” he shakes his head.

“I didn’t mean to scare everybody-“ she attempts to defend herself.

“Whatever,” Tommy pouts, “You owe me 5$ in compensation for the severe emotional toll this took on me. I am the victim here,”

Hannah rolls her eyes and ruffles his hair, bringing her hand away too quickly for him to swat at it.

“You aren’t getting shit,”

Chapter Text

[From the Altas-Held Poems of Tommyinnit: Lean Forward]

Lean forward as he falls back,
It is not your mother that feels your foot on the pavement crack.

No. It is the only set of hands that held you as a baby without medical gloves.
Only a single person ever did that.

As you lean in, toward him, always toward him,
You hear spinal discs slide from their places and he does not let it show.

Your hug is the only thing keeping him upright,
And your presence the only thing shoving his bones out of place.

But you keep hugging him, you keep hurting him,
You write your way into a hospital room, slip love into IV cords.

You love him, and you hold him, and you keep him upright,
And you lean forward, ever forward.

This death grip is the process of aging, of growing up.
This love is the passage of time.

—

Things feel slightly heavier than they did a week before. Whatever. Whatever!

Sam is going to shoulder it. He will have a single whiteclaw, two pieces of that chocolate he likes, and however many episodes of that show him and the kids are watching as they can squeeze in before 10am.

Tomorrow, Tommy has his talent show. That’s good news!
He still won’t tel him what poem he picked out to show to his class. Sam has a sneaky suspicion that Tommy’s pulled quite the wildcard on this one. That’s exciting. That’s something to look forward to.
So, despite how his heart rate has felt abnormally higher since Hannah freaked everyone the fuck out, there is good news. He can relax in that certainty.

The Fran family takes 15 minutes to sit still on the couch. The proper preparations must be made.
Popcorn had to be popped, missing heating pad found to both prevent and ease bloodshed between the siblings, stim toys had to be chunked across rooms and Tubbo’s had to be hung up on.

Sam finally reaches for the remote and presses play. Theme song rolling in.

They’re three seasons into this true crime show that only does solved cases. And, for whatever reason, it’s told via this narrator named Micheal talking through a radio station in the apocalypse? He has his own side plots and everything.
In between one of the two part’er episodes the narrator adopted a cat. It was quite the plot twist.

Just as the potential killers are identified, Sam’s phone makes a noise.

He shrugs it off. Kicking his phone further away on the coffee table with his foot. Sam takes a few seconds to notice how both his kids are looking at him in complete and utter horror.

“Is that Grindr?” Tommy stage whispers, jaw dropped.

Hannah covers her mouth to prevent from laughing.

Sam scrunches up his face in annoyance, “How do you know what notification sound Grindr makes?”

“It’s a meme!” he defends.

“I can vouch!” Hannah adds on, “It’s a meme!”

“Neither of you should know that! I failed. You’re both freaks,” Sam rolls his eyes.

Their shocked, humorous faces don’t fade.

“Besides, I don’t even have it installed,” he says.

Sam grabs his phone. Face falling as he checks the notification bar.
Hannah and Tommy stare at him in anticipation.

“You know what? I’m really invested in how this Jason guy got killed-“ Sam says as he unpauses the show.

Twin gasps erupt from the opposite, apparently evil, side of the couch.
Hannah and Tommy clutch their stomachs laughing. Laughing! At their poor father!

“No fucking way-“
“Our dad gets bitches-?”

The two little freaks lose their goddamn minds. Tommy even hurts himself falling off the couch in his laughing fit. Sam works too goddamn hard for this sort of treatment. Tsk tsk.

“Shut the hell up,” he giggles, despite himself.

“What’s your profile say? Single father, freshly thirty?” Hannah starts the bit.

“Looking for a good time not a long time?” Tommy finishes it.

Sam throws a pillow at his son’s head with malicious intent. Tommy dodges, so it hits Hannah instead.

“Hey!” she shouts.

Look, maybe he did download a couple dating apps. Just to try them out! He got all the big names, not just Grindr. Sam never had any real luck in the dating department anyways. Never had any real, long lasting relationships.

Which is fine. Whatever. Somewhere along the way he got the two little bastards who haven’t finished making fun of him. That’s a trade off Sam is willing to accept.
He’d take Hannah and Tommy over anyone else in this whole wide world.
But it doesn’t hurt to try now, does it?
Sam is a romantic person, who wants those aspects of his life fulfilled. Plus, he could probably score these assholes an extra parent. Of any gender!

That’s why Sam is going to cling on to these apps he isn’t even logged into. These apps that half of them were never opened, and the rest haven’t borne a single fruit. The last date Sam went on was with Tommy’s mom. Tinder isn’t going to override that legendary, sort of pathetic, 16 year streak.

“It was a notif telling me I haven’t opened the app in a while, you little gremlins,” Sam says.

“Even worse!” she scoffs.

“Our dad gets no bitches,” Tommy says, with a tone of genuine sadness.

Ok, even Sam can admit that was funny. Devilishly funny. All three of them bark out laughing until they realize they have to rewind their show because they missed out on important evidence.

He loves them. Over popcorn and true crime and infectious, teasing laughter. He loves them so fucking much.
Sam just needs to find a way to maybe, hopefully, grab a little bit of that love for himself.

The tv redirects his attention as the girl Sam knew was the fucking killer all along is revealed.

“I knew it! I knew it was Susan!” he says, rubbing it in Hannah’s face.

“I assumed it was the neighbor-!” she protests.

“Why would it be the neighbor and not his ex-wife out for revenge?” Sam points at the screen like it can hear him.

”Whatever. I still think it was the neighbor,” Hannah sinks into the throw pillows.

Sam’s jaw drops in disbelief, “She confessed to it!”

The babbling goes on that like for several, ceaseless minutes. Up until Hannah finally admits she guessed wrong.

Chapter Text

With the final period placed at the end of his stanza, it is finished. He finally has it! He has the poem!

Stitched together from some sentences scribbled in the margins of homework, pieces from journals, and the necessary linguistic threads to tie them all together, Tommy finally got the poem done. With only an hour to spare before the contest.

“You getting ready?” Dad shouts from downstairs.

“Yeah!” Tommy shouts back.

His heart races as he realizes just how ready for this event he is. Sally doesn’t stand a fucking chance.

—

The car ride felt far too long for how much power is thrumming under his skin. The line into the auditorium too still for this much excitement.
The teenager-scented backstage is also far too dark for the propulsion of heat that creates this very light. This heavy light. This poem tucked onto this sheet of notebook paper is burning, and the steel chair he is sitting in does not reflect it’s wordiness. It’s worthiness. He hopes he can project that to the crowd.

Not like it’s that exciting of a crowd. It’s just his peers and their parents. Doesn’t take away the fun of it all, not really. Ok maybe it sort of does.

“You’re up,” the choir teacher, a bit bitterly, whispers to him.

Everything is happening too fast. Too slow. He got too caught up in waiting to go on stage to actually prepare for it.
This might be sensory overload, might be Olympic glory. He just has to squint past the stage lights to find out.

“Uh,” Tommy announces into the microphone, wincing at the feedback, “My name is Tommy Fran. This is my poem Arguing the Only Side,”

He catches a glimpse of Hannah in the front row. Tapping her foot impatiently, waiting to cheer him on. He clears his throat.
Tommy takes a breath in an effort to reach, fingers pealing, across the void. His lips pull close to the mic. It’s starting.

“I will not give god any room to argue with me!”

It’s starting. He’s screaming.

“Let me tell you that Jacob did not breathe before God stepped on his feet,
Putting livelihood in that body by breaking it.
It was the wrestling, the fighting,
That made the living work again. “

He points his finger to his sternum with enough force to make a bruise.
Tommy’s throat already hurts. Somewhere back stage there is the stage crew fumbling with the speakers to turn him down. Stop him from deafening the entire school.

What has been made here was made hours ago. This newborn poem, fresh like mourning dew, rises against the previous silence in a contrast more blazingly obvious than black and white. Then blood on snow.

Tommy Fran is screaming. Screaming regardless of whether or not anyone else will find this an appropriate volume.

“Let me tell you that if I am wrong,
Then god put a flaw within me greater than he is,
Greater than godliness.”

An energy builds up in the room. Louder than the bomb blast. Potent enough to test positive on a drug test. Electric enough to be funneled into a chair. Almost awkward, almost orgasmic. All of Tommy’s hair stands on end.

“I am not a Christian, but this Jesus bloke?
He flies on the wings of my poetry,
Made real by my knuckles against his mirage.”

Tommy’s eyes lid shut as something great and terrible rises from his throat. With lethal intent and poetic expression. He didn’t know he had this in him

“God has no space on the debate floor against me!”

He finds tears in his eyes, although when he wrote this poem he wasn’t crying. This is what screaming feels like. This is what being heard can do to somebody.
His voice cracks as he continues. Choking on the words as he projects them down the block, through the void. Shouting over every urge to quiet down. Screaming over every urge to destroy the art piece, to be embarrassed at his volume.

“His syllogism shatters despite his omniscience.
His appeals are weak, evidence faulty,
God was wrong in both his major and minor premise,
And the rhetor may laugh at his own conclusion.
If I am incorrect let the wave of revelation wipe the earth,
Cleanse the stars of their intellectual wrongness,
And let god break my feet!”

A shaky breath pulls into his mouth. His vision too blurry to check where is family is in the crowd. Where the crowd stands on a metaphor this vividly provocative. His skin is crawling with an emotion he cannot name.

“May my stance be the last one left!”

The crowd leans forward in expectation, in revolted stares. Tommy pulls closer to the microphone to mirror them. Desperate beyond all desperations.

“Whatever is divinity call out to me,
Allow me to make my case!
Whatever is divinity I challenge you to say no to me!
I am daring whatever might be greater to step on my feet!
Grant me the privilege of being on your inhumanly holy debate team!”

The tone shifts, a grief sets in. Tommy dives into it, turning his head to the metal rafters above him.

“And may Jacob, dead and gone,
Describe to me what it felt like to make the angel’s arms tremble,
What it was like, silken and sweat slick, to draw a cloak of humanity over the rest of it.”

The poem almost becomes gross underneath his shear volume. The spittle flying, the redness in his face. The trembling in his arms.
Nothing did this before. Nothing screamed before. Tommy is screaming now.

“If heaven is right than it will breathe beneath my fabric noose I spent this poem tying!
If not, let me stand in the glory of being the last correct opinion!
Let me cry out to the gallows when the rightness takes hold!”

Tommy takes a split second to wipe his eyes. Briefly taking in the house of people beyond him.
Jaws are open in very seat. Stomachs are turning by the dozens, his own among them. Catholic grandmothers are praying. Every last one of their ears are ringing. Visions wobbling with water.

“If god has any critique on my thesis speak now or forever hold your faults, as I have held mine!”

The poem finishes in it’s pleading, violent, despairing crescendo. Entire body aching with the excursion.

“I am right,” he adds, totally off script. Spitting out the words like a swear, like a slur.

He takes one step back from the mic as he notices how hard he is trembling.
Tommy did not plan for this. He knew he would shout, but he did not know that god would actually be invited to the debate floor. That through the heaving in his lungs that god would shout back.

Somewhere, beyond the lonely edge of the poem, someone overheard all the racket he was making.
Especially since everyone on earth can hear the thunderous clapping barely contained by the structure of this high school theater.

Sam and Hannah clap the loudest. They always have.

If Tommy was a preforming artist he’d be kneeling on the floor, ripping at his clothes like some greek maiden from a long winded epic. That’s dramatic as shit. So, he takes his leave through stage left and doesn’t look his English teacher in the eye.

“Holy shit, man!” Tubbo excitedly whispers as he hands him a water bottle.

Tommy awkwardly laughs before he gulps over half of it down. Surprised at himself. Surprised at how loud he could be. Perhaps he got a bit too artsy. Or, terrifyingly, perhaps he didn’t scream loud enough.

He clutches the plastic bottle tighter as he hopes the things that heard him include everything.

Chapter Text

[From the Binary Breaking Poems of Tommyinnit: uP]

Half the time the hardest part is making the word count go

0 —> 1

Then the rest of it tends to click
Click clack of keyboards
Scritch scratch of pens

Word count be going uP -in the world!
(Hello, world!)
uP in the word document
0 to 1, 0 to 1

Count it. Read it. Weep it. Hello! it.

0 —> 59

—

The emotion that swept the crowd was uniform, thick, and laid heavy on their hearts. Cotton shoved down arteries. Brain stems pulled on like puppet strings. Music played on the inner wetness of their lungs. Hannah sits on the edge of her seat, listening to her little brother being god onto the debate floor. Kicking and screaming. Her attention grabbed like a fish to a lure, bobbing in a sea of shouting.

This isn’t new, she realizes. Blinking a fraction of the amazement away.

Hannah has only ever felt that very specific emotion in one other place. Elfheim. Or, rather, Boomer leading her there.

Her hands sting and fade to pink as she roars her applause the loudest. Tommy, upstage, gives an awkward little smile and escapes as fast as he can.
Her ceaseless pride is laced with the sneakiest inkling of suspicion brewing behind the yet to fade, all encompassing noise. Her question rises as she takes her seat.

Did Tommy just cast a glamour over this entire auditorium?

Hannah sits with that question poem after poem. Bouncing it back and forth in her head.
If he did cast a glamour, does that mean he knows about them being fairies? Can a glamour be cast without the caster’s knowledge? She knows there are different levels of strength to these things, so was it a powerful spell or a wide net thrown over people who would have no resistance to it?

The thoughts bully her relentlessly. Forcing her to pick her nails down to the lowest they can be without bleeding.

How hard did Hannah fuck up not telling Dad where she went that night? If neither of them know, why? What is missing here?
How has this fraction of their identities been stolen? Why whom? When?

Some red haired girl finishes her spoken word. Signaling the end of the performances.
She’ll get to the bottom of this in a minute. Right now, Hannah and Sam charge ahead of the flood of parents to get to the lobby first. To find Tommy there, still having something left to rant about to Tubbo.

Poor boy. Tubbo isn’t even looking off into space. He is zoned out beyond zoned out.

“Tommy! You fucking killed it, man!” Sam pulls him into a big hug.

He chuckles self consciously. Patting his dad on the back.

“I dunno about that-“ he tries to dismiss.

“Bro,” Hannah inserts, “The lady next to me was crying,”

Tubbo lean’s into Tommy’s shoulder as he throws in his own encouragement.

“You did great, boss man,” he reassures.

Great is possibly two ways, even! Magic and preforming poetry!
Hannah just needs to get him alone. Interrogate him who-stole-the-last-pink-Lego style. That’ll hoist the truth up from it’s depths. Chain link by chain link.

“Excuse me?” a voice cuts into the conversation.

Everyone turns their heads.
A sharply dressed person smiles, too exquisitely to be comfortable, but politely. Burnt orange suit. Blood red tie. Orange medical mask on their chin.

“You’re Tommy, right? The one who preformed Arguing the Only side?” they ask.

“Uh. Yes. That’s me,” Tommy says, in that tone of voice he uses when he’s really trying to be polite to an adult stranger.

“You can call me Ponk, I run a local poetry guild. I was hoping to invite you to our next meeting,” Ponk deftly slips a business card into Tommy’s hand, “There is also many other opportunities that come with membership,”

Hannah might be a bit lower than a novice when it comes to the supernatural, but something is up with Ponk.
They are just as off putting and perfect as Boomer was. Like someone made marble come to life.

Tommy laughs in disbelief, “What, like scholarships?”

Ponk seems to find that question hilarious, for whatever reason.

“I’m giving you a chance. I hope you go out to find it,” they turn from Tommy to Sam, “Questions?”

“What is the name of your group?” Dad asks, brow raised.

“The place twixt the soil and the stars,” Ponk deadpans.

Sam stares at him, blankly.

“I’m kidding. We’re called the Forth Court,” the words exiting her mouth make a phantom wind Hannah isn’t sure anyone else caught.

“Why haven’t I heard of you before?” Tommy asks.

He’s holding that piece of paper like it’s the golden ticket that’s going to win him the chocolate factory.

“We’re very, how do you say it, insider. My three sons attend,”

He gestures to his left, and suddenly three new faces join the conversation. They weren’t there three seconds ago, where did they come from?
Two boys with black hair, one clearly bored and one in a beanie equally as bored. The other sends a chill down her spine.

It’s Boomer. Smirking at her, like she’s in on their secret.

“All the information is on your card. I hope to see you there,” Ponk then very obviously eyes Sam up and down, “You too,”

Ponk grins, pulls the mask over their face, and turns into the crowd. Disappearing like vapor into air. Despite how loud their clothing was, she completely faded into the crowd of far duller colors.

Tubbo and Tommy make eye contact for one second before they die laughing.

“My father actually does get bitches!” Tommy jokes.

Hannah slaps her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from laughing. Sam looks like he’s going to throw Tommy over his shoulder and abandon him in the dumpster.

“You’re grounded,”
“Did you see the way he looked at you?”

Dad shakes his head, disappointed.

“Nope. All I see is how you’re grounded,” he says.

The noise fades into the background. As from over the heads of everyone else, Hannah watches Boomer turn down the hallway where the bathrooms are.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom. See you in the car?” Hannah turns to Dad.

“We’ll be sticking around to talk to teachers, but sure,” he confirms.

Hannah makes her way to that hallway as fast as she can without being suspicious.
She fucking knew it. The veil on the mystical has been yanked back, and now Hannah can see evidence of it’s workings everywhere. Taste the thin air of Elfheim.

She just needs to figure out how far this conspiracy stretches. How deep this shit goes.
Boomer taps her shoulder. Spooking her. How’d he get behind her?

“He’s good, ya know. A performance that large is hard to pull off,” he shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“I didn’t know he knew,” she narrows her eyes.

Paranoid, Hannah looks over her shoulder. No one seems to be around.

“He doesn’t,”

She doesn’t miss a beat before she asks, “Why?”

Boomer just shrugs again.

“We both have to go,” he warns.

“Right. I’ll be back soon,” Hannah promises.

Boomer cracks another knowing smile, “I know,”

Hannah watches him walk down the hall. Hearing the faint jingling of bells in the distance.

Chapter Text

[From the Ever-Resurrecting Poems of Tommyinnit: Fuck you, man!]

Spent, rot, graveyard.
Let me out of here, man,
It’s too cold in here!

Man, when the reality sets in,
Section off that part of me.
Remove all evidence of my tangibly.

When I exist in spectral fractions,
Be a good friend, my man, and,
Promise this geometric memory.

When I do not fulfill that sacred debt I will not pay,
Say that something will remember me.
Me, the shouting song of my poetry.

When I die, I will remember:
-friends,
-And openness,
-And the feeble opulence of all things.

And you, man.
-And how fucking cold it is in here.

—
Tubbo has not stopped blasting up his phone all night.

At first, it was with compliments and general excitement about his performance. Which Tommy has some very mixed feelings about! Then Tubbo started infodumping about cloudfare protection. It's actually incredibly interesting.

You: hey im barely awake pls tell me more in the morning
You: bc thats rad as hell

tubs >;3c : no prob
tubs >;3c : gg gn whatever tf it is

Tommy turns his phone off, but the next notification brings it back to life again.

tubs >;3c : gfg?

You: it's gn

With that, he lets it slip out of his hands and onto his pillow. Turning around to stare at the wall, barely awake but unable to truly sleep.

That poem allowed him to scream at something Tommy didn't know he was actually that mad at. Allowed him to purge a sickness inside of him he forgot was there, that he learned to live with. Something outside of that auditorium heard all his racket and something responded.

The Fourth Court is a name that sits on his frontal bone and stays there. Three words, three syllables, and infinity he can tug at when he grasps it.

Apparently, whoever the Fourth Court is, they loved it. Which is exciting! Don't get him wrong. It's just, Arguing the Only Side is still in that phase where Tommy is certain it's awful and horrible. Every piece of art has that stage! The problem is that phase started the literal second he got on stage to preform it. That sucks.
Yet, the poem itself doesn't. The response he was calling for called back, stepped on his feet.

The Fourth Court is appealing beyond all metaphors for appealing. Tommy sits up all night thinking about it. Enveloped in it. Shivering in his pajamas about it.

Some mysterious, insider band of poets have come and knocked once at his door. Gone before he could crack it open to welcome his guests.
A fever has befallen him. Tommy wants to leave a bowl of milk at the doorstep, collect acorns by the oak tree.
There’s a bird behind him! He has to follow it. Trace the thin line of feathers up to their source.

There is some wild, shifting world inviting Tommy to tamper with it. Who wouldn’t go?

He slides out of bed. He slips on his shoes. He points his finger out and follows it.

Who wouldn’t be beckoned by this call? Who wouldn’t get out of bed, and submit to being summoned? Tommy slinks down the stairs, enchanted but too stiff to be a drunkard. Opening the sliding door to the backyard silently, with the arm that isn’t outstretched.

Tommy doesn’t close it behind him. Instead, he makes two big strides into the grass.

The night is warm and pregnant as spring. Alive and bustling and purple. Ripe like baby teeth for the picking. The wind folds around his raised arm and makes him sway. Peaceful like the long green stretch of the willow tree. Tommy at once is overcome with love for this world and its rotation beneath the balls of his feet.

And, at the end of his finger, Tommy spots one black bird. Shining like an oil spill, staring at him dead on.

Tommy’s head feels warm. His skin is soaked with sweat. He remembers this crow like he remembers how to spell his own name. He saw it at school! Watching the rabbit beat the hawk!
Then it stops. Everything stops. Like powder being blown from his cheeks in large, blooming puffs. A spell snapping apart like a toy soldier crushed by footfalls.

“You’re the one Ponk invited to the Court?” a voice mocks, with a tone of disbelief.

Tommy, in total surprise, falls flat on his ass. Turning his head wilding trying to look for the source of that sound.
Something laughs at him.

“Do I have the wrong address?” the voice chuckles.

He stumbles back onto his feet. Tommy finds himself aided by a stronger, feathered hand as he starts to stand. Immediating recoiling from the touch. Stepping back from the intruder in his backyard.

“What the fuck?” Tommy exclaims, flailing his arms so he doesn’t fall backwards.

All this disorientation shatters like glass when Tommy spots the visitor.
A blonde man stands before him. With a wide bucket hat, green striped and with two charms dangling from it, an emerald and a puffy brown feather. Dressed in deep green robes the color of ancient moss.
A blonde man with a wingspan longer than Tommy is tall. Just as petroleum black as the crow that stood there before. The abyssal colored feathers stretch onto his face, his hands, his temples.

The stranger frowns sharply at Tommy’s look of horror, “It’s really you?”

“What do you mean it’s really me?” Tommy screams.

"Ponk wouldn't of invited a human. Thus, you can't be human. Curious," the man eyes Tommy up and down, searching for evidence to prove his thesis.

His terrifying, implication filled thesis.
With that, Tommy screams. Tripping over himself as he makes like hell back into the house. Locking the door behind him. Stomping and screaming all the way up the stairs, to his Dad's room.

"Dad!" Tommy squeals, "There's a weird fucking bird man outside!"

Tommy flings open the door and makes the distance from the doorway to the end of the bed in on jump. Shaking Sam awake.

"Chill the fuck out-!" Dad mutters, rubbing his eyes.

"There's a man in the backyard! He has giant wings, and, and-!" he tries to explain, coming up short.

"Tommy!" Dad grabs his wrists, making forceful eye contact.

He sputters until he stops. Heaving hurried breaths in and out.

"Tommy, I can see it in your eyes. You were sleepwalking," he says, inserted and firm.

That, uh. That makes more sense.

Chapter Text

[From the Word Vomit Poems of Tommyinnit: (Too you?)

A send off/a sundering of flesh.
The rioting of flesh,
The rendering of one thing down to another.

Might I not be the one to take it from you.
Never to take you,
Take from you,
From you?

A sundering of flesh/a send off.
The leaving of this place,
The sent spent skin of the messenger.

Might I be the one to hand it to you.
Always toward you,
Forever to you,
To you?

(Too you?)

Too you.
Are you, you?
Too much of you?

Could I be the one to ink that letter?
And exchange it,
One palm to another?
(And accept the excess that is you? Too much of you?)

—

Sam wishes this was the first time Tommy had burst into his room in the dead of night, screaming about some creature he found in the backyard. It certainly is not.

First time it happened he was 5, and had found a family of stray kittens in the shed. Which the Fran family then fostered and adopted out to a lovely old lady next door. The kittens were cute, though.
This time? This time is not cute. Sam unfortunately thinks he knows exactly what is going on here.

Tommy has the same blown out eyes Hannah had when she came back home. Spooked like they’ve seen a ghost, or an angel, or “some fucking bird man”.

Carefully he lets one hand loose around Tommy’s wrist. Trying his best to keep him from shaking.

“Tommy, listen to me dear. You were sleep walking. I can tell from your eyes. Alright? You okay?” Sam runs a soothing hand through his son’s hair.

Tommy looks confused for a second, then seems to connect the dots.

“Oh,” he visibly deflates.

“Shh, it’s fine,” Sam comforts, pulling Tommy into a hug, “I need to get these vents checked for mold, or something,”

Tommy melts into his touch. Sam can tell he came in here ready to match side by side to ear against, again, “some bird man”, but won’t turn down a free hug.

“But I saw it! He fucking, spoke to me. Helped me off the ground a shit. At least come downstairs to look! I-, I-“ he stutters.

“I’ll go look. And I promise you, Tiptoe, nothing is going to be there,” Sam says, guiding them both off the bed.

“Stop playing the good dad card on me, bitch. I might be right,” Tommy swears.

For all the malice in his tone, Tommy sure is walking not even one step behind Sam. Grabbing the hem of his shirt like a scared little kid.
Teenagers, am I right? Talk such big game but at the end of the day, they’re just really tall children.

They get to the sliding glass door. Tommy unsure whether or not he wants to be the big brave one and take a look.
Hannah grumpily glares down at them from the top of the stairs, upset at being waken up at this odd hour.

“What the hell are you two doin’?” She mumbles, just loud enough to hear.

“Whatever made you go bump in the night, it’s gotten to Tommy,” Sam points at him with his thumb, using the other to open the door.

Hannah files down the stairs to stand next to them. All at once, as a family, they examine the backyard for strange bird men.

It’s empty. The exact same as always. Yet, credit where credit is due. There is a very large crow sitting on the fence.

“I fucking told you! There he is! Sick bastard,” Tommy rolls up his sleeves and charges at the bird.

It flutters away from Tommy’s feeble attempts to swat it out of the sky. Cawing in a manner that sounds suspiciously like a laugh.
Sam tries very hard not to laugh, for Tommy’s sake. He is also watching this kid fail to fight a bird the size of his chest.

“See! I’m not-“ he manages to swipe against it’s tail feathers, “-Lying!”

“Get inside before it attacks you,” Sam smiles.

“Piece of shit. Stupid, stupid fucking bird,” Tommy mumbles as he retreats back into the house.

The bird makes dead eye contact with Sam, winks, and flies off. Blending into the sky as it leaves.

“To be fair, it was a weird bird,” Sam chides.

“Oh fuck off-“
“But it’s not a man,”

Tommy crosses his arms and turns back to his room, not looking Sam in the eye. Hannah wordlessly follows him.

Sam giggles to himself, quietly. The kid is probably going to find a way to turn this moment into a gut wrenching poem later on. Speaking of poetry!

What the actual fuck is the Fourth Court?

Nothing turned up when Sam punched the letters into duckduckgo. He checked facebook, he emailed Tommy’s English teacher. No one has ever heard of them. The business card itself only has an address, and nothing else.
Poets can be a weird bunch, yeah, but Sam isn’t about to sacrifice his only son to some weird cult!

What about Ponk, though?

It’s a selfish thought for Sam to have, sure. Despite how selfish it may be, nobody can sit there and say that Ponk wasn’t hot as hell.
Plus that was the first time Sam has gotten flirted by someone, that by his knowledge was completely sober, since Tommy’s mother! 60 year old women in Walmart and drunk guys at friend’s bachelor parties don’t count. They super-duper don’t fucking count!
That interaction counted, though. Which has set Sam’s head on fire since it happened.

It’s selfish. It’s totally and completely selfish. Sam crawls back into bed as he laments about it.

The egoistic desire to be the object of someone’s attraction isn’t worth letting Tommy fuck around at some address that, when searched up, reveals nothing but an outdated realtor listing. No thanks. No fucking thanks.

Unless he gets some verification that the Fourth Court even exists, that ship isn’t going to sail. It just won’t.

Chapter Text

Here’s the thing about being Tommy Fran, a haircut will not change the fact that his teachers still call him Clementine. A new wardrobe isn’t going gloss over the fact that he will have to go through a girl puberty and go into a girl’s bathroom. Tommy isn’t a girl! None of that makes any since!
It feels like being trapped sometimes, when it gets to him. Tommy’s dad isn’t about to fucking have it.

Sam is on a one man mission to eliminate transphobia like the barbarians toppling the empire of Rome.

Every time Dad says to turn the TV up loud, it means he’s shouting down the phone. The victim varies. Sometimes it’s shouting at teachers and principals, or screaming at doctors trying to say that Tommy’s too young to know that he’s trans.
Sword in one hand, cell phone in the other, Sam is going to take on this whole wide world for the sake of his son.

Sam will take on the same doctors who tried to examine Hannah’s birth certificate for forgery, as their was no way in their mind that a 26yr old would be the biological father of an 11yr old, to get Tommy puberty blockers. He’ll break his fingers breaking the nose of the transphobic piece of shit trying to call themselves a teacher.

He’ll take his kids into GameStop and tell them to go fucking nuts. Because he fought very, very hard to have the money to do that.

Hannah is egregiously kind (or super selfish) for getting two copies of minecraft. Seeing as she can’t use Tommy as a dress up doll anymore, she had to buy a game they could both play.
Tommy gets Animal Crossing. Looking back, Sam thanks the fucking stars that he did.

“Look! Dad! Look, look, look!” Tommy squeals. Holding his 3DS in one hand and happy stimming with the other.

“What it is, Tomfoolery?” Sam kneels down to see the screen.

“This guy!” he points to a raccoon character, “His name is Tommy! Just like me!”

“Well, look at that,” Sam smiles.

It’s very sweet seeing Tommy this happy.
They sit on the couch for a while. Sam watching Tommy play, constantly kicking his little legs in excitement.

“And see, Dad? He’s got a Tubbo too!” Tommy gestures to the other, similar looking raccoon.

That just about made Sam burst into tears right then and there. Absolute cutest shit he’s ever seen.

Tubbo has been Tommy’s best friend since kindergarten. Such, they first met when he was still Clementine. Maybe Sam should’ve realized he had a son when those two were giving each other ‘boy haircuts’ and got the scissors taken away for the rest of the year.
Anyways. Poor Tubbo, bless his heart, has struggled slightly with the social transition. Sam worried that was going to hurt their friendship. It kept him up at night! Tommy is so stringent on correcting people, and definitely lost friends because of it. The last thing he needs is to lose his best friend.

Yet here’s Tommy and Timmy. And, of course, one of them is a trans raccoon. They’re still best friends anyways. (Except in the game they’re brothers. This fact is irrelevant.)

“Look, it’s you!” Tommy grins, punctuating his sentence with a happy vocal stim.

Tom Nook does his adorable little animation at the screen as Sam gets a nickname he is going to treasure well beyond death.

“You’re Sam Nook! And Hannah is Isabelle. I’m the mayor of our town, so you better listen to me! I’m the boss ‘round here, dad!” he sticks up his chin.

“Sure you are, Thingamajig,” Sam ruffles his hair.

Now, Tommy isn’t the most athletic little thing. Sam has watched him fall off monkey bars enough times to know that.
One day Tubbo asked Tommy to join the elementary school’s soccer team. Sam sort of just shrugged when he asked about it. What could go wrong? Is the ball going to fucking kill him?

Sam shows up to the interest meeting/try outs with low expectations. His son isn’t about to be a world famous athlete, but sports are supposed to be fun! Tommy is going to love getting exercise and hanging out with his friends.
Who knows? Maybe he’ll be surprised. Perhaps Tommy has some hidden talent yet to be revealed.

“Sorry,” the coach says, clearly not sorry, “The girls team had their try outs yesterday,”

That was not the surprise Sam was looking for.

“I beg your pardon?” Sam lowers his eyes.

He can feel Tommy lean closer to his leg. Sam crosses his arms. Making himself bigger.

“Sir, this is the boys soccer team. You missed the girl’s one,” the coach doesn’t back down.

“My daughter isn’t trying out for the team. My son is,” Sam doesn’t either.

Tommy doesn’t need to see this. He doesn’t need to go through all this bullshit, especially not from adults he’s supposed to be able to trust.
Sam flexes his wrist purposefully to make the golden knuckle dusters glint in the sun. The old ass coach starts to swear.

“It’s just-“
“What?”

The coach visibly freezes. Sam takes great pleasure in this man’s cowardice.

“Nothing. Go get your kid in line with the others,” he crumbles.

Tommy scrambles from Sam’s pant leg over to Tubbo in a heartbeat. Trying, and failing, to kick the ball through the plastic cones.
As expected, neither Tommy nor Tubbo make the team. Tubbo could’ve if he wanted to, but he much rather would join Tommy in the sidelines picking at the grass. Sam wouldn’t have it any other way.

He takes the kids to target afterward to celebrate. Losing, in this case, deserves its own award. Because fuck that coach! Fuck every adult like that!
Fuck every single person who is going to try to make his kids feel like outcasts. They’ll get a big bin of target popcorn for each asshole that tries. Not a single piece of shit on this planet is going to win this argument with him.

“Dad!” Tommy shouts.

He drags Sam over by his thumb, heart melting as they get closer and closer.
It’s a section of the toy isle dedicated to animal crossing. Tommy gets tunnel vision, narrowing in on only one thing.

Tommy raises the Tom Nook plushie high into the air, smiling like a dumbass, “It’s you! It’s Sam Nook!”

Sam’s heart swells to dangerous sizes watching Tommy smile at him like that.

“Would you look at that! It sure is,” he grins back.

That night, when Sam peeks into Tommy’s room to make sure he actually went to sleep, he finds that plushie being strangled to death in his arms. Fast asleep.

Chapter Text

[From the Labyrinthine Poems of Tommyinnit: and my Tongue will Speak the Truth]

The candle dims, the light dies,
Someone raps their knuckles on my life.
I answer it, like a door,
Like a question.

My mouth only says questions,
Only says correct answers.

The door comes down with a crashing,
Enough to split the wood in two,
Enough to splinter me completely through.
The candle collapses into it’s chilly absence.

The fire lives too! The flame dies as well!
My shoulders shake with their inaptitude,
The shiver of the air once the fire is snuffed.
A shadow extends from the caved-in doorframe.

Someone will take their fist to the entry way of my life.
Bust down the gate and storm the building.
Calling me out, dragging me out.
I will answer, I always do.

And my tongue will speak the truth

—

Hannah turned her back on the lantern she left in the window, and when she looked again someone had taken the care to light it.
She stands in the metaphorical orange glow of understanding, of realization.

Tommy sees them too.

She has to confront him about it. She has to get over this deep seeded, rotten pit in her stomach that turns her away from the truth. Hannah tiptoes into Tommy’s room, refusing to be afraid.
Is there a breathing exercise for telling your brother that both of you aren’t human? Whatever. She cracks open the door.

"Tommy?" Hannah whispers into the dark.

Her eyes adjust to the dark, allowing her to see shadowed outline of her brother sitting upright on his bed.

"Yeah?" he responds, just as quietly.

Something silent is shared between them. Something serious. Something only seen in this dark, the warmth of this night. She moves over to sit on the floor, back to the bedframe post. Staring at the shadows on the wall.

"Can I say something crazy?" she asks.

Tommy climbs off the bed to sit next to her on the carpet, shoulder to shoulder.

"Always," he says earnestly, like a promise.

Hannah takes a deep breath as she challenges always.

"I think we're both fairies," she admits, "I think the man you saw in the backyard was one too,"

She can't see him but Hannah can vividly see the look of confusion on his face. She cringes slightly, but that is the only dent in Hannah's resolve.

"I was sle-"
"I see them too,"

That shuts him up.

"The man who invited you to the poetry thing? I know they have to be a fairy. Their, uh. Son? Enchanted me? Took me to Elfheim? Toms, I know it's crazy but I know it's true. I know it's true," She finds herself stimming by running her fingers through her hair too fast, and purposefully slows them down.

"How do you know?" Tommy asks.

The inflection of his voice gives her a validation, and a greater sense of urgency. He sounds like he's asking for advice. Not for evidence, or judgment, or calling her crazy. He wants to know how to know this too. How to make the dominos fall right so he can believe this as well.

"Tommy I flew," she starts. She doesn't stop.
"I had wings. They were so beautiful I thought you wrote them. And-. And his name was Boomer and I saw him at the contest. And meeting him was when I supposedly was sleepwalking. And I think the fairies have found us because we didn't know we were one of them,"

Tommy latches onto every word before continuing the chain with his own.

"I saw that bird at school. When you went missing. I saw him before," he admits.

Hannah presses for more information, "Do you know what a glamour is?"

A tension rises then sinks in the seconds he takes to respond.

"No,"

"I think you casted one. That's why Ponk came up to you, maybe? Because hearing that poem left like getting taken to Elfheim," Hannah winces as she accidently pulls her hair too hard.

"Hannah, I can't lie," Tommy admits, "Is that proof? This all, it all makes too much sense,"

It does make sense. That's because it's true.
Hannah can lie, but she won't about this. Not to Tommy. Not to her brother. Her little brother, who she's fought with and clapped for. Who she's loved for eternity.
And, if he has wings too? Hannah wants to be the one to give them to him.

"This weekend I'm going to try to get back to Elfheim," she says very seriously, "You need to find out what the Fourth Court is. That's how we'll confirm this, alright?"

"I'm a fairy," Tommy whispers.

They both feel the energy in the room fall upon them like pollen. They both feel the magic rise, opening it's newborn eye. They sit on Tommy's floor and feel as the truth comes down like snow, like rainfall, like glitter.

"Me too," Hannah repeats.

She can see the shadows on his face turn into a smile.

There has always been a shared alliance between them. Of course there is! Who wouldn’t form an unbreakable bond with the only other person in this entire world, plus a couple others, who understands them?
Whether it’s sending each other stimboards, or memes, or purposefully gathering extra diamonds for the other in minecraft. Whether it’s the more serious things, like knowing the signs to if the other is overstimulated and knowing exactly what to do in case of a panic attack.

They’ve been the weird bastard kids their whole lives. Something has always been off, and this is it. This is the thing everyone has pointed out all this time.

They’re fairies. Fair Folk. The People under the Hill. The Good Neighbors. The Fae. And when she confessed to this, he believed her.
That is worth a thousand poems to her.

“I have the business card with the address on it. I’ll go this weekend, cover up my story by going to Tubbo’s first,” Tommy says.

“I can go to Astelic’s. I know Boomer’s true name. So, I can ask him to take me to Elfheim again,” she steadies her mind to bare the thought, “I’ll bring back some answers,”

“How does true names work?” he asks.

“I dunno. Apparently mine isn’t Hannah,” she scowls.

Tommy takes a deep breath, “Is mine Clementine?”

The magic of the conversation stirs again, in it’s unbearable magnetism. Kicking up dust in the wake of that deadname, and, apparently, true name.

It would be equally terrible hilarious if the true name system was transphobic, but no one is supposed to go by it anyway. Only supposed to share it with a selected few trustworthy people.

Two siblings sit in the pitch black darkness as they bask in the truth. A light so blinding they cannot see. Something so inevitable, so unbelievable, that it consumes them. Piece, by piece, by darkling shred of peace.

Chapter Text

[From the Undefinable Poems of Tommyinnit: hey! it’s a start!]

Everyday when the sun rises,
It’s a start.

A start to a-
Poem? Brand new cop TV show that simultaneously everyone and nobody watches?

I am unaware of what’s beginning here.
Well, besides the day.
I am oblivious to so much. I know so little.

What I do understand is every day the sun rises,
Whether or not I am here to see it.
I am not the focal point of the universe,
Nor am I selfish enough to claim so.

I am selfish enough to use the pronoun I.
First person flavored heresies flood my lines,
I, me, and my.
The focal point of the universe is within my eyes.
I. Eye. I.
I know this. Even if I know nothing else.

Since everyday, when the sun rises,
I begin to start.

—

Hannah goes to bed that night with the militaristic ease of a sleeper agent. She is a women on a mission.

She is out the bed, fully washed, clothed, and packed for adventure, before 9:30. Something she never does on weekends.

“Dad!” she yells through the wall, “Can I go to Astelic’s house?”

“Yeah! Text me when you get there,” he yells back.

Score!
Hannah bounds out the door as she distantly hears Tommy yell at dad, asking to go to Tubbo’s. Their plan is all falling together.

Now it’s just time for Hannah “Rosebud” Fran to get her and a human into Elfheim, get answers about her heritage, and get answers about her true name. That all can fit within a Saturday, right?
She texts her dad that she’s made the journey and didn’t die to wolves in their neighborhood as she climbs up the steps to Astelic’s front porch.

“-I know! We’ll be fine!” her friend yells at her parents, then turns to Hannah, “What’s up?”

“Nothing much. Just going to attempt to uncover all my family secrets. No big deal,” she says sarcastically.

With that same air of familiar, friendly sarcasm, Hannah leads Astelic to the mushroom circle that goes too deep into the woods to actually be there.

Now that she is fully conscious and aware, Hannah can feel the energy radiating off of the mushroom circle. How the grass within it sways in a different direction than the grass outside of it. How it glows with an innate power that is both delicate and impossibly sharp, like needle teeth.
It’s dangerous. It’s beautiful. She desperately wants to dive in headfirst.

“Ready?” she turns to her friend.

Astelic nods her head firmly. A serious look on her face.

She cracks her knuckles, steps to the very edge of the circle, and shouts.

“Eryops!”

With the magic of the bargain made, the entire world shifts to the side as that name is spoken. The wind whistles as suddenly, in the center of the circle, is a bright lime green frog.

“There he is! Hey, Boomer,” Hannah sighs, relieved that it worked.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Boomer snaps, also snapping upward into a humanoid.

Astelic, seeing all of this, yelps. Falling flat on her ass into the grass.

“It’s real? Hannah, I thought you were kidding!” she squeaks.

Boomer talks over her, “A human, really? Is your mind empty? Do you have a ball of lint for brains?”

“Oh, sorry!” Hannah rolls her eyes, “Sorry that I didn’t want to go dimension hopping all by myself! Big fucking woop, asshole,”

Astelic gets off the ground. Shaking grass off her pants.

“Oh my god, is this your fairy brother or some shit? You two bicker like siblings” she says, in awe and bitterness.

“No we’re not!” the two retort at the same time, with the same tone and inflection.

Astelic stares at them, annoyed, a bit in shock, and slightly shaking. Damn, Hannah thinks. Did she really think she was lying that much?

“She needs to leave,” Boomer frowns.

“I can’t go back to Elfheim alone,” Hannah insists.

“Elfheim isn’t for humans, dipshit!” he says.

Stubbornly, Hannah grabs Astelic’s hand, “Prove it,”

The two then leap past the line of mushrooms into a whirlwind of color. Falling then flying as they land, albeit a bit awkwardly, on their feet.

Excitedly, Hannah turns her head and tries to feel for her wings. Tears swelling in her eyes as she touches them.

“Yes! Astelic, look! Told you I wasn’t lying!” she cheers.

With a shudder and a slight tilt, Hannah lifts off the ground about two feet. Kicking her legs and happy stimming the whole time, then coming back to the floor. Landing without a single ounce of grace.

“You can fly!” Astelic gasps.

“I can fly!” she chimes back.

She can fly!

“You’re an idiot!” Boomer screams.

She’s an idiot! Wait.

Hannah finally takes the time to look around. Fully absorbing her surroundings.
Elfheim looks like the entire world made a deal to get more vibrant colors in exchange for darker shadows. Everything looks dreamy, yet crisp. Every object a ghost and every ghost very much alive. Risen to tippy toes in steel toed ballerina slippers, breathing heavily in her ear.

They stand in the same clearing she stood in last time. Oak trees casting shadows all around her. Wildflowers poking out of the ground in clumps, all too saturated to look real. It’s seasonally warm but all her hair stands on end.

The view is ruined by a very pissed off Boomer, shaking their head at her.

“You are so lucky my dad wants to recruit your brother, by the unseen,” he mumbles.

“So you admit the Fourth Court is some fairy bullshit!” Hannah exclaims.

“What’s the Fourth Court? Where are we? Is this what a panic attack feels like?” Astelic asks, clearly getting dizzy.

Hannah rushes over to her, “Hey, hey. We’re safe,”

“No you aren’t,”

Hannah talks over him, “We’re fine,”

“You are in terrible danger,”

She picks up a sweet gum off the ground and throws it at him.

“Shut up!” they both scold each other in the same time.

Hannah opens her mouth to make another retort. To claim that they’re fine, that she knows what she’s doing, that even with her impulsivity (that’s the thing! They ever tell people that anxiety disorders can make you impulsive) that she wouldn’t put her best friend in danger.

Then Hannah hears the sound off hoof beats and bells chiming together in perfect time.

Chapter Text

[From the Virtuous Poems of Tommyinnit: It is Starting, am I Ready?]

It is starting like the sound of a piano never played.

I am punching the keys out of tune and off beat,
Trying to rearrange,
The sound in the air,
to a beginning bright and fair,

It is starting.
Am I ready?

Shoulders tense like the song’s about to blow,
Billowing arches of songs I don’t know,
Fingers hitting too hard,
Moving too fast,
This beginning, bright and fair,
My challenge is to let it last.

It is starting,
Am I ready?

The certain opens and I know,
it shall not close or pause for rest,
It is starting,
I may not be ready,
Yet I shall attempt this clunk-key test.

It is starting,
Ready is a useless adjective.

—

Technically, when Tommy told Dad he was going to Tubbo’s, he wasn’t lying! Tubbo’s house is on the same street as the bus stop.

The bus that will take him to the Fourth Court’s doorstep. That will direct him to this newfound aspect of himself he didn’t know was there. That aspect that he is still currently figuring out that when he presses his hand against it, it is solid.

Tommy spends some time on the bus ride looking up fairies. He doesn’t learn too much. It mainly brings up DnD or new age Wicca websites and he doesn’t know how much information on either of them is true.
A true name can control who it belongs to, apparently. There might be a seelie or unseelie court. May or may not be friendly, might just steal babies out of cradles. Perhaps he’s welsh. Who knows! Probably the pagans!

The bus eventually lets him off, and he walks down the street and almost misses the building. It is an unassuming place. Nestled between a tourist trap t-shirt place and a starbucks lays a red brick artist studio. With an elegantly hand painted sign simply saying, “the Fourth Court”, with some sort of sigil behind the letters.

Tommy spends and embarrassingly long time just staring at it. Too uneasy to even tear his eyes from the sign.

“You alright, over there?” someone calls out.

He turns to see a tall, brown haired guy walking towards him. Clad in a yellow sweater, brown trench coat, and wire frame glasses. He must be sweating. It’s 85 degrees out here!

“Uh. Just about to head inside,” Tommy explains.

The man smiles, “You new around here?”

It’s a Cheshire Cat sort of smile. One that sits on this man’s face with an sense of ease that seems unnatural. Supernatural.
Tommy just looks at him with a stupid expression. He has no idea what’s come over him, but he simply can’t find the words to say.

“Ponk said something about a new invite. Is that you?” he asks, still smiling.

“Yes!” he answers too quick, “Uh, yeah. Ponk invited me,”

The man sticks his hand out for a handshake, “Call me Wilbur,”

“I’m Tommy,” he says, accepting the handshake.

So, if Wilbur is a fairy, like Tommy suspects, that’s obviously not his true name. Worst comes to worst and someone finds out Tommy’s, if they use it against him maliciously they’re instantly transphobic! Another win for the alphabet mafia. Probably.

Wilbur opens the tinted glass door and gestures for Tommy to go in first.

“Thank you,” he makes sure to say before his jaw drops on the floor.

From the outside this is a boring red brick nothing of a building. If it didn’t have the sign, he’d assume it abandoned. On the inside? It is an entire stone castle. Complete with an inner courtyard teeming with life and flooding everything in sunlight, intricate stonework of mushrooms and tiny winged people, and corridors that can barely be seen they expand so far. Like a church, like a fortress, like a palace fit for a table round.

It’s like entering the tardis and finding yourself in hogwarts, but actually real and won’t get you bullied on deviant art.

“What the fuck,” Tommy gasps.

Wilbur just chuckles. Walking away towards one of the big, heavy wooden doors lining the hallways.
With nothing else to do but look awestruck, he follows.

He follows the echoing noise of Wilbur’s boots against the polished to a mirror like shine stone of the floor. Staring at the carvings etched into the walls, by a hand far too masterful to be human.
It depicts wars fought on the backs of frogs. Humans losing bargains. Fights for thrones and artisanal deceptions of the seasons.

Again and again, even within the maybe 10 ft of wall he passes, Tommy spots two figures. A lady and a man, always larger than the others. Sometimes they are fighting, other times they toast together at the table. Something runs down his spine whenever he looks at them.

Wilbur pretends to cough to get his attention. Beckoning him through another door.

“Right. Sorry,” Tommy apologizes, quickly entering and keeping his head down.

“Here is a piece of advice,” a voice says, startling him.

Tommy whips his head up. Coming eye to eye with Ponk as adrenaline kicks in.

“An apology is an acknowledgment of a debt owed. We are not the kind to give them freely,” they inform him.

“Right, so-,” he catches himself, “Right,”

Ponk has the same thing his dad has, Tommy notices. Underneath the curly bleached hair, and the red orange camouflage scarf being worn like a loose veil, are two square pupils framed by lemon yellow irises.
Ponk smiles with teeth both too sharp and too many to be human.

“From everything I’ve gathered here, Tommy, it’s that your family doesn’t even know you guys are one of us,” Ponk tilts her head, “Is that correct?”

“We had no idea. My sister was the first to find out,” he finds himself looking down at the floor.

Tommy doesn’t fully understand why he is filled with such shame, but it is a potent emotion. Perhaps it has something to do with not even knowing who the Fair Folk would etch into their stonework.
This is such a big part of him, and it went unnoticed. He thinks that is a fair source of shame.

“And what’s her name?” Ponk asks.

He bites his tongue.

“Not her true name, my boy. Just what you refer to her as,” he laughs lightly.

Tommy swallows dryly, “Hannah,”

“Hannah,” Ponk repeats, letting both the syllables simmer on their tongue.

They move to sit on one of the pews set before the sort wooden stage and it’s lectern. Wilbur falling in line in a separate row.

Ponk claps her hands, “Welp! Tommy, can you preform a poem for me?”

Chapter Text

[From the Cage-Fighting Poems of Tommyinnit: Terror Be, Herald Sing]

When the fear sets in we call the brave the virtuous.
I come to claim the heroism of the terrified.

The stillborns into the womb of terror,
The biters of the hand that creeps,
The doe eyed who the headlights slam into,
The swift footed who are the first to leave.
It is these vices I come to please.

It is hard to claim cowardice when it is:
-born rooted
-bone rotted
Sunken to flesh like rna teeth.

Fear stained heroes, I drink for thee.
For your blades are dull and your hearts are weak,
And you are many, many are legion.
It is the terrified for which my horror-heart sings!

Legions of cowards, raise a glass, for I honor thee!

—

From where there was beauty, bickering, and friendship, arises a deep dark cold. An ice that climbs up her spine and freezes her wings where they casually flutter.

The sound of horseshoes clanging against the air, dogs baying, whips cracking, an entire host of warriors flying overhead. Their arms clanking together like a choir of bells.

Astelic and Hannah submit when they are shoved to the ground, and obey when they are hushed.

Together, all three lay flat against the forest floor, looking between the leaves with wide eyes and heartbeats that know to stay silent. Ladybugs crawl through her scalp, but she dare not move to shoo them away.
Imagine if every constellation of a warrior came to life and rode across the sky. The less starry of their host baring torches.

Some are on horses, brooms, running on air, there’s even a canoe for a split second. A marching army of spirits and fae carving a line against the sky. Following a leader too terrible to spot from the crowd.

Hannah cannot turn her eyes away. Anxiety welling up in her like an overflowing kettle.
They’re like a flock of birds, a legion of soldiers, a midnight mass against the atmosphere. High above.

When they finally pass the three let their chest empty of the air they were too afraid to let go of.

“What did we do?” Hannah whispers, horrified.

She senses an anger boil, and hears it in Boomer’s tone.

“Are you truly selfish enough to assume that was for you?” he spits, like venom.

“That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” Astelic breathes out finally.

Boomer leaps from the ground and begins to walk away. Shoulders tense, jaw clenched.

“Boomer! Wait! You can’t just leave us here,” Hannah reaches out to grab him, stumbling upward off the flowerbed she was stuck in.

He continues walking away. She has no choice.

“Eryops!”

They come to a sudden stop. Falling his fist to perfect, knuckle white circles.

“I’m sorry-“

“No you aren’t! At first, I assumed sharing my name would win me yours. I thought we’d be friends, because at first your ignorance was, I don’t even know! Endearing? Funny? Well, it’s not. You don’t even know what you just saw and it fucking shows,” he yells, all at once.

Hannah wastes no time arguing back, even over her anxiety, “Of course I don’t know what I saw! I don’t know anything! I don’t even know my true name!”

“Your ignorance really runs that deep?” Boomer questions, then rolls his eyes, “Who am I kidding, you brought a human into Elfheim,”

“Eryops,” she says, sternly, “What did we just see?”

“The wild hunt,” he grimaces.

“Who are they?” Astelic asks, curious.

“Who knows? The mighty dead, the Under Queen’s legion, lost human souls. No one outside of their host knows. We aren’t supposed do,” Boomer stays locked in place.

“What do they do?” Astelic continues.

“They’re an omen. And a bad one at that. One to bad to be caused by some dumb fairy and her silly human friend,” he says, flipping Hannah off.

“Erypos,” she twists the word.

“Don’t wear it out,” he says sarcastically.

“Go back,” Astelic talks over their bickering, “Who’s the Under Queen?”

He rolls his eyes, “Queen of the Under Court,”

“Which is?” she continues to press for more information.

“One of three official Courts of Elfheim. There’s the Under Court, the Over Court, and the Mid Court. There’s only the Under Queen and the Over King as the sole rulers of Elfheim,” they explain.

“And the Fourth Court?” Hannah asks.

Everything, including the stray ladybugs in her hair, grows very still.

“Don’t say that name here unless you want to be beheaded before a crowd. Ask someone else,” Boomer says, silently.

If the Fourth Court is something that dire, she doesn’t want Tommy joining. Dear god, did she just shove him into the line of fire in the name of getting answers?

Hannah didn’t even get the answers! Astelic’s the smart one who actually asked half the damn questions!

“Alright,” Astelic confirms, “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful, Boomer. How do we get home?”

“Why, thank you! Nice to know someone-,” he glares at Hannah, “-appreciates me. Just jump back through the circle. Easy,”

The two girls step closer to grab each other’s hands. Spotting the much smaller mushroom circle.

Hannah got a bunch of answers this outing. Who rules Elfheim, the fact that Courts exist, the fact that the wild hunt exists, and how to use a true name. Admittedly she learned how to use it to extract information, but Boomer’s kind of a bitch anyways.

They stand at the edge of the circle. About to leap through worlds.

“Hey, Boomer?” Hannah turns back.

“What?” he says, making a point to show that now he can move from his little spot she stuck him in.

“I’m sorry,” Hannah confesses as genuine as she can be.

Boomer just shakes his head like a disappointed dad. What a cunt.

She watches his face sit on its frown, and then leaps back through the portal. Returning home through a wild whirlwind of color.

Once in the human world, she rolls onto her back. Wincing as her wing gets caught on a rock.

“H-Hannah?” Astelic stutters.

Shit. Hannah’s eyes pop wide open as she realizes she certainly not supposed to have wings in the human world. That is a very bad place to have them.

Chapter Text

“Excuse me, what?” Tommy stutters, surprised.

“Preform a poem for me. The one I saw at that school was impeccable, preform it,” Ponk insists.

He nervously shakes his head, “I don’t have it memorized-“

“Tommy” she interrupts, as firm as a cane forced down to catch the ends of a cloak, “Do you want to join our ranks?”

The urgency of this question overtakes him.

“More than anything,” he confesses.

Ponk’s lips curl into a smile, “Then preform,”

That’s certainly not an easy thing to ask. Then again, joining a magical fairy poetry group-thing is not a small ask either.
What bled greatness into the original Arguing the Only side was the excitement he held for it. An excitement that allowed him to scream his heart out before the entire school with only minimal embarrassment. It was that excitement that led him here, into the strange stone castle of the Fourth Court.

Now he must get the same effect on desperation alone. Filter that emotion through the strainer of words, again and again, until it turns into greatness.

“I give god no room on the debate floor against me,” Tommy says, too quietly.

No. No! He must be heard. He has to scream until he is heard. He has to scream until the very bones of magic itself are swayed! Tommy stands on his word alone!

“I give god no room on the debate floor against me!” he repeats, this time with proper volume.

Ponk gives a short cheer in approval, then quiets down to simply watch.

“Let me be the one to tell you that Jacob did not learn to breathe,
Until after the Angel had knocked him to his knees,
Breathing started then and only then!”

The words are wrong, but there is no time to correct them. The poem is hurtling forward, a train cart having to trust abandoned tracks to not have rusted away to ruin.

“It was the wrestling, the fighting,
That made the living work again!” he sweeps his arms broadly, then adds.

“That made the living work at all!”

A different electricity is here. A separate poem is in order, a separate Tommy is in order. He cannot be who he was when he preformed Arguing the Only Side. There is now another side, and he has to crush them.

Now, he is the affirmative. Standing alone. Debating until his lungs rot within his chest. A debate that he has no other choice than to win. He has an invisible enemy that must be defeated at all costs, the dissenting voice to his sole truth.

“May my stance be the last one left!”

He must win this. Even, especially even, if he has to win by default.

“If I am wrong then god but a flaw in me greater than he,
Greater than godhood.
I’m not a Christian, but this Jesus bloke?
He flies solely on the wings of my poetry,
Made true by nothing more than my knuckles against his mirage,”

He goes too hard too fast, having to take too many seconds to gasp in air. Heaving before his crowd of two.

Shit. Never mind. Others have come to sit in the pews since he started. Tommy refuses to let that burrow a fear into him. He has a debate to win!

“I-I am right or god is dead!” Tommy stutters.

His crowd seems to pick up on it. Like circling crows. His eyes all of a sudden feel so vulnerable, ripe for plucking.

“Collapsing the major premise,
Being utterly incorrect in the minor premise and,
The rhetor can laugh at his own conclusion!” he narrows his eyes at the floor for reasons unrelated to the previous crow metaphor.

This is the part of the poem he remembers the least. Now he has to come up with the words on the fly. Is this a debate? A slam poem? A test? Or is this a fist fight Tommy is struggling against defeat within. It feels the most like the latter.

“The debate team falls apart because god couldn’t get to class on time,
God couldn’t study hard enough,
God couldn’t pull his weight!
How easy it is, to argue with god,
And hand him a medal that says second place!”

Tommy holds up an imaginary medal like Medusa’s head. Sneering like a bully. Shoving god into a locker, demanding their lunch money. His observing murder of crows unite in one collective evil grin.

“May Jacob, dead and gone, tell me what it was like
To make the angel’s arms tremble,
To make the mighty take a step back!
To take, silken and sweat slick, a cloak of humanity over the rest of it!” he says, an air of victory overcoming him.

The original held these lines in grief. A mourning for the loss against the divine. In this poem? Tommy can do anything. He can declare a defeated Jacob victorious. He’s right! Nothing can argue against him! God cannot argue with him!

“If I am wrong then come argue with me!” he the. challenges said dissenting voice, said defeated god.

“Come step on my feet!
If heaven is correct then it will breathe beneath my fabric noose I spent this poem tying!”

The crescendo comes. Tommy is smiling wider than he’s ever smiled. A terrible, sickening, poisonous victory leeches off his body. Becoming one and solely one on the first place podium.

“May heaven itself have to defend its arguments and hold its faults! As I have held mine!” Tommy bellows out, loud as he can.

His chest heaves with empty air. His body shaking with an unimaginable tension.

“What are you!” Ponk joyously screams.

Tommy knows the answer to that question like he knows his own name. More than he knows his name, he knows this fact alone.

“I am right!”

With that declaration, that perfect period ending the stanza, something pops. Audibly so.

Tommy gasps in seizing pain as something rips at the skin of his back. Forcing its way out within milliseconds. Bloodless and starkly painful.
He doubles over, crouching on the little stage, holding his arms around his chest. Deep breath in, raggedy breath out. His cheeks hurt like he’s been smiling too hard for too long.

Everyone claps. Hooting and hollering like mad men.

Ponk. Wilbur. A man that looks suspiciously like the bird man he saw in the backyard. A pink haired fellow. Those two kids he swore he saw at the talent show. Every one of them loosing their minds, leaping for joy.

Tommy’s wings shudder in relief. Wait.

He turns his head only to greet a set of bright, bright red wings. Brighter than blood. Fluffy as any teenage bird’s wings would be.
He then reaches a shaking set of fingers to his face. Finding a similar plume there.

Hannah said she had wings, right? So Tommy does too? Holy shit. Holy shit! He might pass out right here and now. Holy shit.

Over the colossal clapping the verdict is given. He won.

Chapter Text

[From the Fledgling Poems of Tommyinnit: Orange Peel Coat]

Vibrantly unsprung spindle, woah!
You’re a little too classy in that orange peel coat.
So out of place, so alone.
I’ll share it with you,
Hand me your coat.
Vividly springing spool, go!

—

There are few situations more anxiety inducing then having to figure out how to get home without your neighbors seeing your fairy wings.

“Uh,” Astelic stammers, “Take my coat!”

Hannah accepts the offer but complains anyway, shaking ladybugs from her hair.

“They‘re too long, it won’t work,” she frowns.

Her phone buzzes. Afraid that it might be dad, Hannah checks it immediately.
Tommy is blowing up her phone. Texting a million miles per minute, mainly keyboard smashes.

Tomaye- pls for the lov of godd wat the fuc do i do about thesee wings

Tomaye- he jdifhrbkejsbd

That causes her heart to stop in her chest. He got them too. Whatever magic grants them these newfound appendages, they are shared from sibling to sibling.

Tomaye- PLS PICK ME UP WIBUR IS LAUGHING AT MEHTHFUFBB

She assumes meeting the Fourth Court went well, then.

“Bad news,” Hannah says.

Astelic helps her up, clearly dreading the next words about to come out of Hannah’s mouth.

“My brother is stuck on the other side of town with wings too,” she gingerly places the words in front of her best friend.

She just drags her hand across her face.

“First you drag me to the weird magical fairy land. We see some terrible omen of a dark future. Now we have to go rescue Tommy? You owe me so much free lunch, Han-“

Hannah anxiously flaps her wings, causing the jean jacket thrown over them to collapse to the ground. Great! Another let of limbs to nervously stim with! What’s a neurodivergent kid got to do to get some good news around here?

“Ok. I’ll get you whatever lunar cloak you want! Just help me go get Tommy,” she begs.

“Alright,” Astelic confirms, “Let’s stop by my house to grab a jacket, or a blanket, or something. How big are his wings?”

Hannah quickly shoots him a text baring that same question.

Tomaye- HUGE. BIG MAN HUGE WINGS

Tomaye- PLS FOME WUICK. FUCKIN FEATHERS EVEURWHERE. HFVEVWIAOBFHR

With a needy determination, the two power walk down the street to Astelic’s house. The very tips of Hannah’s wings poking out the entire time. It just takes one good eye to reveal her whole hidden identity she wasn’t even aware she had!

Now, with a wide quilt in hand, they make their way to the bus stop. Tommy is going to look so stupid with a massive quilt draped over his shoulders in the middle of a very warm spring season, but it’s whatever. It’d be scarier to have him scattering feathers all over the ground.

Hannah has had anxiety over public transportation since she was sentient enough to feel fear, however, this takes the cake.
She presses her back against the window, trying to hide her wings as well as not crush them.

With some trial and error, Hannah and Astelic manage to find the building Tommy texted them about. Accidentally passing it over several times.

Unsure of what to do, Hannah knocks.

One second. Two.
Gingerly, a familiar blue eye stares at her from the slight crack in the door.

“How the fuck do I get home when I look like this?” Tommy whispers manically.

“We brought you a blanket to cover it!” Astelic says.

He sticks his hand out to receive his offering. Making a grabby hand gesture, then yanking the quilt through the gap with enough force to sort of trip Astelic.

He emerges with the blanket worn like a cape. A medical mask pulled over his face.

“What’s with the-?”
“It’s on my face. And my hands,”

Hannah nods solemnly.

The trio suspiciously eyes every passing stranger down this stupid little shopping street. Making sure not a single speck of insect wing or bright red feather is poking out.

On the walk to the bus stop, Hannah spots something out of the corner of her eye.
In the local new age spiritualism shop, they have a deck of fairy oracle cards in the window.

“Tommy,” she elbows him to grab his attention, “Look!”

He glares at her, spots the cards, and makes a little noise of agreement.

“You think they’ll work?” Astelic asks.

“Remember what we saw? I suspect if that’s real, this is too,” Hannah gestures for them to go inside.

Desperate to get out of his layered, sweat filled nightmare and into some air conditioning, Tommy squeezes past both the girls without care for things like their safety.

“Stupid baby bird,” Astelic scolds.

Tommy blows a raspberry at her, ducking into the building.

Once actually inside the store, Hannah realizes she knows nothing about oracle cards. Or the difference between an oracle deck and a tarot deck.
They don’t seem to have any fairy themed tarots, but does that matter? Do they have to have scrawny high fantasy style fairies on the front to be magical?

Hannah grabs the cheapest tarot deck, labeled Ryder-Waite, and the aforementioned fairy oracle cards.

“Hi! Looking for anything else?” an employee, who’s name tag reads Karl, asks politely.

“No thanks,” Hannah shakes her head, “Just these,”

She scoots the two decks of cards across the table. Tommy adding a piece of amethyst shaped like a mushroom at the last minute.

“Suit yourself,” he smiles, checking them up.

The bus ride back home felt like a thousand years. Astelic was nervous to leave them, but Hannah insisted that she go home. They don’t need to worry her parents as well as Sam.

Hannah grips the plastic bag containing their future telling materials in one hand, and Tommy’s pinky finger with her own. Staring down their front door.

“Ready?” she asks him, clearly not ready herself.

“Nope,” he answers honestly, “Still have to do it though,”

A sliver of fear coils around her brain as Hannah enters the passcode and unlocks their door.

Chapter Text

[From the Really Confused Poems of Tommyinnit: the Blank Fills In]

Suddenly I know you.

One moment, I’ve never seen your face before.

The next? The blank fills in.

You are everything I never thought I’d be in love with.

Added with everything I never thought I’d be.

Thin, then thick. Run the lines right back to me.

Say everything I never thought I’d say aloud,

Right back to me.

—

On weekends like this, when the kids are at their friend’s house, Sam can probably be seen drinking with his friends or stalking the local dog shelter’s social media.

This weekend the relaxing activity of choice is finally getting around to those Lego sets he bought a while ago, but never found the time to build. It’s coming along pretty well! He’s got some Queen in the background, bopping his head to the songs.

Sam’s pretty sure he’s misplaced more than just several yellow bricks when the front door jingles open.

“Back early?” he asks blindly to the wall.

He listens to his kids whisper, knock something in the entryway over, and scold the other for the noise. Then, they both step into view at the exact same time.

Sam clicks the music off.

Hannah, clearly on the brink of a panic attack of tsunami-like proportions, is sporting massive dragonfly wings that look real enough to make his stomach drop. She sets a shopping bag down on a side table.
Tommy, equally as anxious, is covered in red feathers. On the back of his hands, the sides of his face, on the two giant wings sticking out his back. With a quilt folded over his arm.

Sam slowly nods, confused, “Sup?”

His kids share a terrified glimpse at the other. The fear in this room is so potent that it might kill one of them Russian roulette style.
Hannah clears her throat. Preparing in the way one might before an important speech.

“Why didn’t you tell us we were fairies?” she inserts.

Sam quirks a brow, “What?”

“We’re fairies. How did you not know?” Tommy asks.

At first, he wonders what sort of prank these two are trying to pull off. Sam looks a bit too closely at the membranous and feathery wings of his children, then a lot of things start to make sense very quickly. That metaphorical gun goes off, his brain short circuiting.

“Shit,” he breathes out.

“Yeah,”
“Yep,”

“Shit!” he repeats, beginning to cry.

All of a sudden, everything in Sam’s life that never quite fit finally does. Every rumor comes to life, every suspicion confirmed, every quirk becomes a sign. How did he not know?
How did a childhood spent half feral in the forest not warn him! The never lying, the way with words, the strange ability to dodge the brunt of most consequences, the way he even got such a high position in his field so fast.

The way Sam always hated iron but felt like he had to learn to bend it. The way he did.

Additionally, Hannah always had a thing for any bug that flew! Had an affinity for roses! Holy shit, is their whole backyard a sign that they’re otherworldly? With it’s evergreen growth?
Tommy literally can manipulate pretty much anyone with his fucked off poetry and loud mouth. He’s never lied to Sam before.

Fuck. This is not a relaxing part of his relaxing weekend!

“This is bullshit. Everything is bullshit. I’m probably going to have a breakdown and lay down for a couple years. What the fuck,” Sam stammers, running his hands through his hair anxiously.

“In your defense, it’s not like we knew until someone told us,” Hannah says.

Oh. Alright. Who the hell told his kids they were fairies? And why did they forget to inform him as well?

He nearly steps on one of those lost yellow legos, and almost loses his mind, “Can you guys put those, wings, away? This is stressing me out,”

“We don’t know how to put them back!” Hannah cries out, the damn things gesturing along with her.

“What do you mean you don’t know how to put them back?” Sam shouts.

“When I went to Elfheim and came back they sort of just went away-“ she shouts back.

“Where the fuck is Elfheim?”
“Stop yelling!”
“I can’t!”

Tommy walks over to the couch. Which he collapses into, looking like a ball of fluffy feathers with legs sticking out the back.

“I’d call Boomer but he’d kill me,” Hannah tries to say calmly, it doesn’t work.

“Who the fuck is Boomer-?” Sam exclaims.

Tommy groans very loudly from the couch, “Ponk said everyone has a unique way to glamour their appearance from most mortal to least mortal. We just have to figure out what it is,”

For the last few remaining shreds of sanity Sam has left, Ponk getting namedropped does not help. Not one bit.

“What the fuck does Ponk have to do with this?” he crosses his arms, shoulders tense.

“Well, when I went to the Fourth Court-“ he starts.

“You went to the Fourth Court!” Sam interrupts.

Tommy continues, “-I got the wings. Ponk explained that we’re fairies and the Fourth Court is a political poetry rebellion thing. I met Wilbur and he’s a prick-“

Sam, in something akin to a blind rage and a flight response strong enough to make him hijack a plane, grabs his keys by the door.

“You’re both grounded!” he turns back, pointing a stern fatherly finger at the two.
“You are not to leave this house, or even think about it. I can’t believe you’re both going places without telling me, especially when it’s a matter of whether or not we’re fucking humans or not! I’m sorry I’m yelling but, for fucks sake!”

“Where are you going?” Hannah yells, catching the door before it closes.

“To go make sure this isn’t some cult shit, and to probably yell at someone!” Sam gets to his car then opens the door, “I’ll pick up food on the way home!”

He slams the gas before Hannah can ask from where.

Sam really, really thought he was raising smart kids. Now? When they’re both talking about supernatural escapades he didn’t know about?
He would’ve taken it better if one of them killed someone or got pregnant. A life going in or out of this world would be an easier pill to swallow than perhaps not being human.

His emotional state right now can be summed up as ‘really buff deer decides to fight the car and win’. Currently? Ponk is about to be that fucking car.

None of his metaphors may make since, but shut up! They don’t have to! If he can be a fairy, he can also be a really fucking buff deer!

Chapter Text

[From the Palmistry Poems of Tommyinnit: Look Forward]

Darling, look forward.
Eyes faced directly toward the evermore.
Glaring down the future is a skill, a dare.

The skillful find the future in the bottom of tea cups,
In the shape of clouds,
The swirling of smoke,
The sound bones make when they clank against the floor,
The skillful fight the future just as hard as it fights back,
Never flinching even though they get hit first.

Darling, look forward.
There is a timeline brewing before us,
with the same elegance as mold growing in a watercolor wash cup.

—

In all honesty, Dad is overdue for a crisis. If he needs to go break traffic laws and chase down Ponk or something, then godspeed. God-fucking-speed.

As Tommy and Hannah wait for their dad to return from said crisis, they might as well try out these damn cards.
Divination is something Tommy has taken a passing interest in. Poets use tarot symbolism all the time. Minor and major arcanas, pentacles, swords, cups and wands. He knows the basic gist of the whole thing, but nothing deeper than the idea of the basis.

Never did he think he’d find himself at the feet of the fool, asking the deck for answers. It’s like he bought a budget Delphi and stuck it in the living room.
Ok, Hannah bought them. It’s time to see if she wasted her money or not.

Tommy pulls up a website on his phone with the list of meanings. It’s quite the lengthy list of keywords. Confused on how to start, they both decide to pull a card each. The thin, sturdy papers held between their pointers and their thumbs.

“Flip yours over first,” he says

Hannah obeys. The moon reveals it’s glowing side profile.

There’s the moon, duh. Then there’s what appears to be two dogs (one of them looks a bit fucked up), a scorpion, and a river.
He scrolls through the website until he finds the meaning for the moon. Shit. It changes whether or not it’s upright?

“Uh,” he bites the inside of his cheek, “It says intuition, anxiety, mystery, and illusion. Is that good?”

Hannah gently places the card on the ground.

“We are definitely anxious and this is definitely a mystery. What about yours?” she asks.

Tommy nervously flips his own. The Page of Swords sticks out his head.
His sword his held high, the sky wide behind him. There’s a distant flock of birds in the background.

Hannah yoinks his phone to read the meaning herself. Having to click away a pop up before the words find themselves before her.

“New ideas, curiosity, and a thirst for knowledge,” Hannah frowns, “Why’d you get the good one?”

“Big man takes no L’s,” Tommy deadpans.

He reaches over to put the moon and the page away, and shuffle them back into the deck. As he does, a single card slips out. Dramatically skidding across the floor.
Both their stomachs drop. Tommy scoots to back over.

The Hierophant stares back at him from her throne. Glaring down the pair of siblings with the elegance of something called the major arcana.

“Hey, what’s the Hierophant mean?” Tommy asks.

Hannah scrolls through the website, “Um. Religious institutions, tradition, and spiritual wisdom,”

He thinks really hard about it, throwing the thought of that around in his brain. Wings gathering closer to him.

Oh, right! The wings! These things are actually super rad.

He’d think that suddenly growing two new limbs would be disastrously painful, or would at least feel strange. But it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Tommy feels so used to them and he’s only had them for a couple hours.
He hasn’t been able to fly, though. The idea makes him shiver. Partly in envy, because Hannah already has.

“Ok, so. A mysterious new adventure that explores tradition? That makes sense, probably,” Hannah stims with her hair, braiding and unbraiding a small strand in record speed.

“It does,” he nods, “I wonder if how they got out of the deck means anything,”

Hannah shrugs, “It’s magic. I assume it’s somewhat intentional,”

Somewhat intentional seems like an interesting phrase.
Hannah’s seen much more magic than he has. Or, knows what she saw more than he has. Tommy is so wildly new to all of this, he wouldn’t know if magic works with any sort of logic or not.
Hannah would, so he trusts her. Then again she added the word ‘assume’.

“Now what,” Hannah frowns, “That took up less time than I thought,”

They pause. Considering the next way they were going to kill time whilst Dad is out fighting the world, or something.

“Animal crossing?” Tommy offers, slowly.

“Bedwars,” she rebuts.

They snicker, laughing at how predictable they are.

Hannah offers another game, “Valorant,”

“I’ll kill you,” he vetos.

Her wings flutter bitterly, “Fine! Monopoly,”

“Ugh,” he rolls his eyes, “Not monopoly,”

From where Tommy put the tarot deck down on the floor, it spills over. Spreading the cards all over in a wide semicircle.
If the deck had a mouth, it’d be yelling “Pay attention to me!”.

Tommy picks them up off the floor. Carefully setting every card back in line and beginning to shuffle again.

“Alright, alright, I hear you,” Tommy grumbles, then offers the deck to Hannah, “Another go?”

He watches his sister carefully select and reveal her card. Presenting the Chariot when overturned.

Tommy holds the deck with one hand and scrolls through the website with another. Nodding when he finds the one he’s looking for.

“Willpower, action, and determination,” he states firmly.

Hannah smiles, “Sounds good enough,”

They slip the card back where it belongs. Tommy drops the cards into their box and puts them on the side table.

Whatever mysterious journey will be taken in fairyland, they will have the strength to take it. At least, that’s what Tommy got out of this reading.
They return back to bickering three seconds later.

“Fortnite,”
“You’re insane,”

Chapter Text

[From the Paper-Weight Poems of Tommyinnit: Problem Bearer]

The problem bearer adds another load.
He sets the weight high upon the others,
A glimmering pyramid, an altar to Sisyphus,
The problem bearer cranes his camel like neck up to the source,
Backs are gonna snap, spines are gonna crack.

There are little ones waiting to be crushed too,
Holding up tarps, saying “We’ll catch you!”
Yet you cannot spot for a weight you keep adding to,
As when the problems fall, they’ll pierce right through.
There is nothing someone so small could do.
Except for snapping, and except for cracking.

—

There is a small town miles and miles away from here with more dirt roads then they know what to do with. They had the ones that connected house to house, pond in the woods to creek that feed into it, but the rest where made by a single boy.

Sam traced his labyrinthine paths through the woods so often he became a literal trail blazer.

One day someone set out to map the damn things. Sam was the one, at twelve years old, to have to fish him out in the dead of night. The man got lost in the winding patterns and the nonsense dead ends. No one attempted to quantify the trails again.
He wonders if the grass has grown over them now.

Sam parallel parks his car with a jolt. Throwing open the door and stepping out.
The tourists have abandoned this street for the next one over, where all the pubs and bars are located. It’s just him and the late night Starbucks crawlers.

He stares down the red brick building that claims to be the Fourth Court. Breathing too heavily to just be standing still.

He lets himself in. Pulling open the glass door. Fairies be damned, he needs to make sure his kids are ok. That this isn’t dangerous, or a cult, or a nightmare.

Sam jerks back when he hears shattered glass crackle beneath his feet.
He kicks it around. Peering upward to see the broken skylight it came from, and the newly sighted stars beyond that. Seeing the empty, carved out shell of a building he's stepped into.

The roof is missing in the middle. The floor is grown over, grass and wildflowers sprouting up. Any rooms or any second floors have been hollowed out, only shown to exist at all through remnants of metal rebar hanging off the walls.
At the center of the abandoned lot is a lemon tree.

The short, bush like tree is sprouting lemons by the dozen. Almost weighted down to snapping off its woody limbs. The yellow immaculate. The air thinner when near it.
Sam huffs.

To be fair, this does seem like the sort of place a strange band of magical poets would hang out. At least he hasn’t found any abandoned beer bottles. In fact, there’s no litter here at all. The broken sections of the building itself doesn’t count.

Lost, confused, and strangely bitter, Sam pulls closer to the lemon tree.

Sam didn’t have a lot of time to have things close to his chest that weren’t his children. Fifteen years of memories isn’t that many, in hindsight. Not many compared to the eighteen years spent as a father.

He used to sleep under the stars but then his parents got in trouble with CPS, so he had to use a bed. He used to spend every second he could in the forest but then girls started catching his eye. He never played video games and he didn’t have the attention span for books. He didn’t have friends, he didn’t have parents that cared about him more than they were afraid of him.
The issue is Sam’s life both started and ended when Hannah’s began. He wasn’t a person before she was.

So being faced with this fact of who he is, truly is, so late into the life he tunnel visioned on? It’s terrifying.

Sam’s barely considered who he was before. He was a dad! He had his mantra, “not my kids, not my problem”. Now his children are shoving this unknown piece of himself into his face. How did he not know? How did nobody point this out to him?

He feels so stupid. That guilty feeling of dumbassary overrides the sense of magic here.
Sam paces back and forth. Gripping at the roots of his hair.

“Ugh, goddamn it!” he shouts, careless if the Starbucks next door can hear him.

See, if fairies exist, does god? Fuck! These theological questions are ones he never had time for! Who needs religion when he has to get Hannah to the UIL meet and Tommy to his poetry slam? Balancing hormone therapies, therapists, and prescriptions was hard enough. Now he has to add a supernatural element to the mix?

What care do iridescent wings need? How does he preen feathers? Is the universe going to continue whacking him upside the head and grant him his own extra limbs?

Sam looks at the stubby little lemon tree, attempts to kick it, misses, gets super mad that he missed it, and turns tail back toward the door. Abandoning the empty lot and the potential poetry group inside of it.

He reaches for the door. Two hands stretch out to the handle.

Sam startles. Snapping his head backward to see who is behind him. When he swings, and extra set of arms do too.
Ah, there it is. The final piece of his mental breakdown.

He tries to just make a break toward the car. Tries to block everything out. Yet, when he looks in the reflective material of the blacked out glass, he gets confirmation that shit has hit the fan and will not stop hitting the fan for the foreseeable future.

Four arms. That’s nice. It’s also nice of his anatomy to update his body to support the new arms, as evidenced by the next set of pecs. Lovely. Just, just lovely.
The jutting, golden, crooked set of six horns is a nice touch! Almost like a little crown! Sam is going to swerve his car into a power line.

He goes a stupid little sprint back into his car. Struggling to get the seatbelt into a comfortable position.
Sam can barely see because of how hard he is crying, is getting the combined head rush of unimaginable stress and the surge of blood coming from his new body parts, and might pass out.
He decides to pick up McDonald’s on the way home. Yeah, that sounds nice.

Sam catches a glimpse of himself in the rear view mirror and almost faints. His hair is now green. McDonald’s sounds nice. Too nice, almost.

Chapter Text

[From the Home-Grown Poems of Tommyinnit: the Affirmative Holds this Love]

The son of Isaac had his father’s smile.

That was all the Angel could think about,
When the noise snuffed out and all the being afraid laid silent.
Jacob looked exactly like the man who looked at him,
a bleeding babe,
And said “I will not sacrifice you,”

The debate floor shrinks to the exact square footage of my feet against the ground.
This ground is your house,
My stance is your love.
Nothing else besides the dripping of humanity remains,
Because you raised the affirmative.
I am your love and I am right,
There is no room in my body for anything else.
There is no room in the light for anything more.

The affirmative stands alone,
in the wake of correctness,
And boundless ocean of your love.
Pulled and tugged on like the tide.

—

There is a point in which anxiety becomes something to be solved by stress eating, and hiding in his room until he has to go to work. Sam is pretty sure every adult does that. Like, all of them.

He dashed into the house. Hoping none of the neighbors saw that he spontaneously returned with new limbs. Sam places the bag of fast food on the table and starts dividing up who got what amount of chicken nuggets.

Sam is shoving a fistful of fries into his face with one hand, gripping the countertop with another, and wrapping across his own chest tightly with the other two. Barely able to breathe or think.

If he can just get through this meal, he can go have a breakdown in peace. Hannah and Tommy shouldn’t have to see him like this. Never like this.

Speak of the devil, Hannah glides into the kitchen. Gentle wings giving the illusion that she’s levitating.

“You alright?” she asks, concerned at the state of him.

Oh, so the fact that he’s upset overrides the fact that he was never actually a person. That’s fine. Totally, totally fine. Ignore the arms and the horns and the fact that his fucking hair is bright green.

“Yep,” he lies through his teeth.

Hannah tilts her head.

“Do you need anything?” she says softly.

Fuck. She’s doing the same thing he does when they’re upset. That is absolutely not making his already heavy heart melt, what implies that? Sam is perfectly fine.

“I fucking hate McDonald’s, why did I buy this?” Sam croaks out, half laughing half sobbing.

Tommy enters the kitchen, his wings somehow already messy. Poor boy has had those for hours and they already match completely.

“Oh! You got horns!” he chimes.

Sam nods. Tears blurring his vision. He does, in fact, have horns.
Horns he can’t explain to his employer. Or his neighbors. Or his friends. Or the kid’s therapists or doctors. Or even the fucking cashier at the McDonald’s.

“How am I going to fit into a helmet with these things,” Sam mutters, dunking a chicken nugget into some ranch.

“I mean, this is a good thing. Now we all know our powers, and stuff,” Hannah grabs her soda from the drink carrier, “Now all that figuring out whoever we are stuff is out of the way,”

“Yeah!” Tommy agrees.

Figuring out who he is? Great. Good. Should’ve been done before he had full responsibility for the lives of two people. Sam should’ve already known.
Sam should’ve had this shit all figured out before either of them were born. He could’ve raised them to fly, and that thought runs through his body like a nail in a coffin.

If Sam was any smarter when he was any younger, they would of been touching the sky as toddlers. Or whatever age birds start flying.
But then that analogy does work, because Hannah has dragonfly wings.

Holy shit Hannah has dragonfly wings and only learned that once she turned 18.

“I should’ve known,” he confesses weakly.

Sam slinks to the floor, his back against the kitchen cabinets. Fully unable to stop himself from crying. Which, is awful. Because children should never have to comfort adults.

If Sam knew they were fairies he would’ve been a better father. If he knew, neither of his kids would he abandoning their meals to come sit next to him on the cold tile floor. The floor in which he should’ve cleaned by now, and holy fuck.
Sam is sobbing. Absolute nonsensical babbling. Two arms covering his face where it lays on his knees, two gripping his ankles with a knuckle white chokehold.

Hannah lays her head on his left shoulder, Tommy scrunches up against his right. Silently standing guard as their father falls apart.

Sam knows that he shouldn’t even be falling apart in the first place. But, he could either rise into this love or sink into this guilt. Sam knows which one he’s already running toward.
He wraps an arm around both his kids. Who they themselves have already started sniffling.

“We’re ok. I know it. We’re all ok,” Hannah comforts.

So now the kid with the anxiety disorder is going to be the comforter now? Oh by the stars, Sam is so proud of her. So, so proud of everything she has become. She is the one that started piecing this whole supernatural genetics thing together, and that also is another reason why he is crying as hard as he is.

Tommy’s wing maneuvers to envelop Sam. Nodding along to Hannah’s words.

“I know we are,” Tommy sniffles.

Sam shakily takes in a breath, “You’re both so good. I’m so lucky to have you,”

He somehow brings them in closer. Somehow cries harder.
Somehow, probably by the magic that granted them their bodies, a family crying session is exactly what they needed. Something about letting the tears fall freely is deeply, touchingly healing.

Sam loves them. He loves them so much there is nothing worth more in this entire world. Nothing can possibly outweigh the great duty he has been given, raising two kids as great as these.

They’re all cry laughing now. Repeating “we’re ok, we’re ok,” like a mantra. Over, and over. Confirming with every utterance that it is true.

They’re ok. They got this. Sam has this too.

Chapter Text

[From the Sky High Poems of Tommyinnit: I Plucked one of my Own Feathers Today]

I plucked one of my own feathers today.
Just to see how it felt.
Grabbed the soft velvety piece,
From the middle of my wing.
And then I pulled,
Trying to coerce it loose.
But I lost the nerve it took to take my time.
So I yanked the feather free.
Blood, red as the rest of it,
Trickled down the pin prick wound.
Lacing it’s way from its point to the end of the meaty muscle there,
Down, down, down.

I plucked one of my own feathers today.
Just to see how it felt.
In my hand, my sacred identity,
Loose like wind on the surface of my palm.
The pain was contained to its shallow dot.
And I held my whole sky like it was just a red thing,
Impossibly soft.

I won’t lie to you, it hurts.
I think everyone should pluck one of their own feathers someday.
Just to see how it feels.

—

It has been two days since they had their little crying session on the kitchen floor. They’ve each been coping in their own ways.

Hannah’s attempting to become a makeup influencer, for some reason. Sam is frantically cleaning the house as if he’s been huffing the windex.
Tommy? He’s been researching tarot.

In such an uncertain time, it is comforting to have the promise of some basis of certainty. No tarot reading is infallible because the future is never certain, obviously. But something about the rise and fall of pentacles and swords is exceedingly comforting to Tommy.
It’s just a very old poem. One that when read, can reveal the unseen.

He’s done as instructed by pagan blogs and secular articles alike. He’s slept with the deck under his pillow, he’s stolen Hannah’s old jewelry and pried free the stones to cleanse the cards. Tommy calculated his birth cards, whatever that means. It’s the Wheel of Fortune and the Magician.
All of this information has been kept in one of those fancy notebooks he’s hoarded but ever used. It has a purple dragon eye on the cover. Seemed fitting enough. He decided to make a quill, however leaky and shitty it might be, out of one of his feathers.

Tommy’s bedroom may or may not be covered in feathers. Goes to show he got the short end of the stick when it came to wings, because Hannah’s room is still spotless! Tommy can’t even move his arm without a couple of the pricks floating away from him!

Ugh. This sucks. Tarot cards can’t teach him how to preen himself. The bird keeping videos on youtube are helping, but he can’t help but feel like he isn’t doing it right.

Whatever. Tommy kicks off the bed and shuffles out of the room. Jumping down the stairs and using his wings to land comfortably at the bottom. Scattering sticks of red fuzz everywhere.
Sam visibly sighs when he sees the mess on the freshly vacuumed stairs.

“Hungry?” Dad yawns.

Tommy wordlessly opens the fridge. He’ll make himself cereal, that’s easy enough.
He checks the date, finding himself one day past the expiration. So Tommy will be having cereal, but Hannah’s anxiety will not.

A knocking noise comes from the back door.

Sam furrows his brow, “What the hell-?”

When Tommy goes to check the source of the noise, he lets out a happy little gasp. Wings puffing out in excitement.

A large hawk sits on a tupperware full of soap. It’s Wilbur!

Tommy bounces up and opens the sliding door. Gracefully, in the blink of an eye, a man extends from the animal. Smiling as he brings his gift into the kitchen.

“Sorry to come in this way, couldn’t go through the front door as easily,” he sets the soup on the island before extending a hand out to Sam, “I’m Wilbur,”

“Sam?” he says, cautiously accepting the handshake.

“Dad! Wilbur’s from the Fourth Court, so he’s just like us. Remember that big black bird I was screaming to you about? Wilbur’s his son,” Tommy explains.

It is good news, this is, good news indeed. Briefly the cards did mention a visitor! When they weren’t foreboding about mysterious and uncovering them.

“You meet my father?” Will asks.

Sam crosses all his arms, “I’ve only spoken to Ponk, if words that vague count,”

Wilbur presses his lips tightly. Guessing that this won’t go as well as he thought it would.

“Well, I brought you soup. I didn’t make it, because I thought you lot would prefer human food. So I bought a bunch of it. Um, I also didn’t know how to cook it?” he nervously taps his fingers over the plastic lid.

Tommy decides to save the poor bastard before he dies from Sam’s deathly stare alone.

“It goes in the microwave. Elephant in the room though, where does one go to learn how to fly?” Tommy asks.

Flying is at the top of his priority list. It’s certainly something he’s looking forward too. Because, duh. Tommy can fucking fly! Is he supposed to give more of a shit about the next animal crossing update? Clearly the hell not.

“Next Court meeting Phil can introduce you to the basics. We’ll take you to the training meadow in Elfheim, everything. Best flight education there is,” Wilbur says with an anxious wringing of his fingers.

“And do I get to attend this?” Sam inserts.

Wilbur shakes his head yes, “Sure! Just, not through the Court’s portal. You’d have to get in another way,”

“So you’re just going to take my child somewhere I can’t follow? And expect me to be ok with it, just, off the bat?” he glares.

“The only way to even access the Court is by joining. We are very stringent about membership,” Wilbur glares back.

Tommy leans across the counter to attempt to get in between them.

“Hannah can take you from whatever portal she uses! Simple! It’s fine, dad. We just have to use separate doors,” he successfully mediates.

Sam seems to relax after hearing that. Exhaling a bit.

“Wilbur?” he asks.

Will swallows, “Yes?”

Sam slowly rises and falls on the balls of his feet, his telltale nervous stim. Tommy gets worried after spotting it.

“How do I take care of Tommy’s wings? And Hannah’s, but I don’t know if you know about insect wings,”

Both Wilbur and Tommy release the tension in their shoulders.

“I’d be happy to show you!” Wilbur offers up his left wing for example.

Sam starts to listen. Nodding as Wilbur explains how it’s just a tad bit different from regular birds because they are fairies.

“So first, you want to start with-“

Tommy smiles. The microwave beeps.

Chapter Text

[From the Overwatered Poems of Tommyinnit: Silt Pot]

Alright, chilllllllll
You need that sunlight, huh?
Alright. I get that.
Let’s build you a set of silts.
(Big pot too, btw. You’ll have so much room)
Stick you wayyyy up there and watch you grow.
Grow allllll the way down where your leaves grace my forehead.
Love you, bro.
I’m going to set you as close to the light as I can,
Shove the sun into your hands.
I am going to watch you grow.
Alllll the way from the top down.

—

Hannah’s first impression of Wilbur is one of comfort. It is nice to see an adult who actually knows what’s going on. Granted, she is biased toward thinking twenty somethings are responsible adults despite how false that generalization proves to be. So maybe Wilbur doesn’t know anything?
Eh. She’ll find out. If she could even fucking think right now.

Hannah’s scalp is really itchy. Not in a dandruff way, but in a holy-shit-something-inside-my-skin-really-wants-out way. Not a very good feeling to experience with company. Especially company she’s supposed to be listening to.

She filters her fingers through her hair repeatedly. Gently rocking back and forth on the couch, listening to Tommy, Dad, and Wilbur talk.

Wilbur scoots forward in his chair, again. While he is unable to comfortably sit in human chairs with his massive wings, Tommy has no such problem with that dramatic of a slouch. Hannah’s seem fine with folding up, so no problem to her either.
It’s strange seeing the grown up version of what Tommy’s going to be. Big bird and baby bird in the same room. Or, she’s delirious from the awful feeling in her head that’s not quite a headache not quite an itch.

He’s running her family through the motions of what Elfheim is and who runs it. Stuff she learned from Boomer, when she sort of manipulated him into giving her much needed exposition.

“Our Lady Deep Below, blessed as she may be, is not a very good PR manager,” Wilbur comments, “But a goddess of her caliber really doesn’t need to be,”

That familiar title snaps her back into focus. Enough to where she finally starts paying attention to the conversation.

“The Under Queen?” she asks. It feels as awkward as raising your hand in class.

Wilbur tilts his head inquisitively, “Yes. What do you know about her?”

“She rules the Under Court,” Hannah explains, slowly, “And she goes against the Over King,”

“Right! And that’s what the Fourth Court is trying to prevent! See, Wil, I do pay attention when Techno talks,” Tommy says. Extremely proud of himself.

“You’d be the first,” Wilbur inserts sarcastically, “But yes. That is the political goal of the Fourth Court,”

Sam, arms folded in residual confused anger, gets a weird look.

“Political?”

Right. Hannah assumed it was that after hearing Boomer get so defensive about it.

“Court politics have always been a focal point of Elfheim, for better or worse. Gods demanding more and more from each other. We’re hoping to solve that issue one poem at a time,” Wilbur readjusts how he’s sitting for a millionth time.

“It’s essentially the democrat’s club,” Tommy translates.

Sam nods in firm agreement. Letting the idea loose.

“Between the recent sighting of the Wild Hunt, and the claims of espionage between the courts, things are getting hectic. No wonder everyone is flocking to the middle court,” Will rants.

He mindlessly attacks the cuticle on his thumb, pretending like he didn’t scare the shit out of Hannah with the mention of the Wild Hunt.
Look, she barely had time to process seeing a deadly, gossamer omen of terror and doom. Now he’s getting brought up with the same annoyed causality of gas prices?

“Truly can’t escape politics anywhere, can’t you?” Sam rolls his eyes.

“That’s for sure,” Wilbur agrees.

Her headache goes from a constant spike to a paralyzing, all consuming pain. Doubling her over in her seat with a gasp.

“Hannah!” Dad exclaims, rushing to her side within seconds.

She’s already crying when she tries to grab her head. First feeling the wet warmth of blood, then the soft crunch of plant matter. Reacting to her touch, reaching for her.

“Shit. Shit,” Wilbur swears.

Everyone has already sprung to action.
Tommy’s darted off to grab a rag. Sam is holding her wrists and trying to ask several questions, all of which she doesn’t hear.

After all, who could listen to one man’s voice over the all connected song of the root system? One that floods into her veins. Bringing oxygen, chlorophyll, music.
As Hannah stares wide eyed at her own forearms clogging up her vision, she watches the tint of her skin grow more vibrant. Feels small, dainty, almost nervous little vine creep out from her shoulder.

Hannah pushes Sam away. Electing to gawk at the plant life bursting from her skin. A tiny line of green curling down her bicep.

Roses. Roses. Her entire body is filled with the silent crescendo of the roses. Head spinning.

“-No one else’s transformation was this violent!” she overhears dad shout.

She doesn’t hear him. She doesn’t care.
This is what was at the end of that labyrinth. Something as divine and gorgeous as her wings. How could something this exquisite be apart of her? How could something so raw be incompatible to something incomplete?

“-Phil will know what to do. We have to go to Phil-“

“Who the actual fuck is Phil-?”

“-Dad!”

It all blurs out. All the light turns green.

“-Elfheim!”

“Elfheim?”

Roses bloom quicker there. She trusts the choir enough to follow. All the way down to the unique shape of a plant cell.
It’s so beautiful. Her head is all of a sudden an organic, fast firing machine. Wait, she thinks that’s dumb. For that metaphor to work it needs to detail how it’s green instead of pinkish red this time.

Whatever. She can barely think over the gorgeous melody of newborn thorns. Hannah finds herself drifting off to sleep. Uncharacteristically careless as to if she gets blood on the couch.

Chapter Text

[From the Long Losing Poems of Tommyinnit: the Hermit]

The endless wandering of me,
It slips, it stumbles,
Sea to sea.

This countless travel beckoning,
It sits, it waits,
Fidgety and fiddling.

By this lantern going dim I see,
Following, finding,
Walking through the weave.

—

Sam has always had a selfish fear, hooked between the last few spaces between his ribs, that his daughter would always have a weak heart. Shuddering, fluttering, and bringing her to her knees.
The Hannah that couldn’t bare to participate in nap time in kindergarten in fear of sleeping without her father nearby to protect her is a Hannah that Sam was worried he wasn’t going to protect. That he couldn’t crack through her fear and find the bravery that had to be somewhere beneath.

She was seven when she found that butterfly.

It’s wing was sawed in half by the obvious bite marks. When she discovered it, the poor thing was sitting on a rock in their flowerbed. Waiting to die.
Sam saw that same, teary look in her eye she got before a panic attack. He almost told her to go back inside the house.

Hannah scooped it up into her tiny little hands and swore that she wouldn’t let it die. The intensity of the oath forced Sam to take it seriously.

So he walked with her. Door to door. Following the little girl as she stormed through the neighborhood, looking for someone who knew how to do the surgery. How to fix the broken thing wilting in her palm.

Eventually, with a bit of strong eye contact and the locating of a donor butterfly, a local veterinarian student agreed to help. Within two hours, the butterfly was back on its feet.

The three of them watched it flutter away, with a mismatched wing and a renewed vigor for life. Hannah had this look on her face. One of awe, of strength, of persistence. That’s how he knew his fear was and continues to be selfish.

Because Hannah now pushes her way out of his arms. Climbing out of his grip to stand up. Long before Sam gets oriented enough to notice.
She stands. Extending her wings to full, tilting her head to the pos orange Elfheim sky.

The wreath around her temples blooms. Plump, deep pink roses revealing themselves to the world. She’s blooming. With the same exact look on her face.

Sam let’s his worry fade away. Then, it forces itself to renew. Because holy shit. They just entered another world through the frog pond in their backyard. Holy fucking shit.

“Where are we?” Sam’s jaw drops. Taking in the watercolor sharp scenery.

“My father’s courtyard,” Wilbur shrugs, “This isn’t where your portal leads normally. I pulled us further along,”

Tommy gasps as he rubs dust off his pants. Feeling the same detox of gunk exiting his body as Sam is, comforted by the raw magic of this place.
This is someone’s house, but the land is a home Sam didn’t know he had.

He nervously stands up. Watching a man enter through one of several ornate archways. Damn, was everything this beautiful beneath the hill?

“No one told me we’d have guests,” the man, with a ink black wing span three times the size of Wilbur’s, sighs.

Tommy bounces up to him excitedly, “Phil!”

The three bird folk gather in a circle, explaining the circumstances with little accuracy. Sam grabs Hannah’s hand with one of his own.

“You alright? That looked painful,” he asks with concern.

She shakes her head, “It was. Not here though. I can think clearly now,”

“What happened?” Sam says.

“Essentially, magic puberty. That’s what happened,” Phil inserts.

He, in an effort to be kind to his guests, shows them to a table in the spacious courtyard. It’s made of a large redcap mushroom, and the seats are carefully shaped bonsai trees.
Sam doesn’t know what he expected. That’s classic fairy shit.

They all take their seats. Except Wilbur, who hovers over his dad’s shoulder.

“From what I’m understanding, none of you remained close enough to a source of magic for it to extend any of its power to you. Leading these transformations, that should’ve happened in conjunction to thinks like learning how to walk and normal puberty, to happen extremely suddenly. I can’t imagine how stressed you lot must be right now,” Phil looks at the family empathetically.

“Incredibly stressed,” Sam admits, “Shockingly so,”

Sam has learned in the course of a couple hours that he has failed as a father, is nothing of what he thought he was, and has been living a lie as a being that cannot lie. In addition to new limbs, new horns, and a new hair color.
If he had the choice, he’d prefer to be sedated.

“I suggest you stay here for a little bit, let the magic finish whatever else it’ll do to you, and learn a bit more about the whole situation. I have an entire guest wing for you to sleep in,” Phil offers.

Sam frowns, “But what about my job? The kids school?”

“Dad, there’s no way you’re thinking about school right now,” Hannah chides.

“Fuck school,” Tommy deadpans.

He waves two hands at them. Annoyed.

“Time flows differently. Perhaps your stay won’t even get in the way of those things,” he reassures Sam.

After a couple seconds of reasoning that it’s significantly better for them to gain magically powers here than in math class, Sam agrees.

“Will, please lead these two to the guest wing. I want to talk to Sam for a minute,” Phil dismisses the kids.

The three fall in line. Smacking the other with their wings like children.
Sam smiles at the sight, then turns to Phil. The serious set in that man’s jaw rips his smile off his face.

“I hope you understand that the Fourth Court is nothing to mention in front of anyone outside of it, correct?” he narrows his eyes.

Sam tenses, “I don’t even fully understand what it is. Something about politics? Why is my son involved?”

“Your son has a gift that, if utilized, could save the very foundations of our world. A gift that could stop the eternal infighting of the Under and Over courts, and could permanently stabilize the Middle court. Secrecy is the smallest price he could pay,” Phil raps his fingers against the tabletop.

“What gift could that be?” Sam’s face contorts with the urgency of that question.

Phil looks at him like he’s stupid. Sam frowns sharply.

He shifts his wings with the weight of his words, “He’s a poet, Sam,”

Chapter Text

[From the Wayward Poems of Tommyinnit: Lost-ish?]

Well, uh, how’d we get here?
And, if you mind me asking,

How much further are we gonna go?

—

Elfheim feels like getting caught as much as it feels like coming home. It’s half taking an advil, half popping a chip bag in a cafeteria. A sliver of Tommy’s permanent, poetic heartache as been stomped out for good and every blade of grass has its eyes on him.

The fraction of home that only exists in fantasy novels is here. Here! In this place that can only be described as something out of a fantasy novel.

Phil’s house is actually bigger than the Fourth Court’s fortress. Very similar architecture, though. Down to the shape of the courtyard and how the building is centered around it. But, where the Fourth Court was a stone cathedral decked out for war, Phil’s place is warm. All tilted roofs and clean reds, and whites.

“Our house is located within the deep woods of the Middle Court. To get you situated geographically,” Wilbur says, turning a sharp corner.

“How wealthy are you people?” Hannah asks, admiring the crowd carved at the top of every pillar.

Wilbur chuckles, “This isn’t fairy wealth. Not by a long shot,”

Fairy wealth has to be diamonds for floors and emeralds for walls, then. Tommy’s dominate hand twitches with inspiration.
He has to write about this later.

“Techno!” Wilbur calls out.

Both Tommy and Wilbur crack a similar smile at the same time. He didn’t know Techno was here!
The grumpy, rabbit eared warrior stops dead in his tracks upon realizing Wilbur’s newest, most annoying sidekick is here.

“Hullo,” he says. Clearly confused as to who the hell Hannah is.

“Hey, Techno! So, uh, this is my sister Hannah. My dad’s here as well. We’ll be saying until the magic stuff blows over,” Tommy catches him up to speed.

Hannah awkwardly speaks up, “I like your hair,”

Well, duh. It’s floor length long and pale pink. Techno’s just the fucking coolest, Tommy thinks.

“Would you like to know why it’s like this?” Techno offers. Wilbur rolls his eyes.

Hannah gestures yes.

“I’m a red cap. The color comes from me ritualistically dying my hair in the blood of who I defeated,” Techno says plainly, with a mock polite smile, “You guys have fun!”

He turns to walk away. Wilbur hoisting the two shell shocked baby fairies in the opposite direction, annoyed with his brother’s antics.
Uh. Tommy didn’t know, well, that. Still cool though. Techno still is the absolute coolest. He’s probably even cooler for that amount of bloodshed, actually.

“I promise the rest of our court isn’t like that. Not all the time, at least,” Wilbur trudges on.

Tommy flutters forward to get ahead of him, walking backwards.

“Please can Hannah meet them? Please, please, please?” Tommy begs.

He watches as Wilbur considers it. As he starts getting mad at himself for considering it. Then, begrudgingly, gives in.

“Ugh, fine. Boomer and his brothers should be home. They’re our neighbors,” Will leads them off to a side exit.

“You said you knew Boomer, right?” Tommy turns to his sister.

She turns up her noise at the name, “Wish I didn’t. He got us into this mess,”

“Sounds eventful,” Wilbur shrugs off.

The side door pops open with a click. Flooding the shaded corridor with pastel sunlight.
They continue forward. Tommy and Hannah follow Wilbur like a set of ducks. Three in a row. Over a brief field of all to vibrant grass, pockmarked with wildflowers. Following then over a sturdy wooden bridge connecting the two houses. Decorated with lanterns fun with the day.

He flies up a couple inches to look over the side. Seeing a deep, craggy gorge lined with a tiny stream at the bottom. It’s like someone dragged a sword through the earth.

Tommy repeats that aloud. Wilbur only smiles the same polite, twisted way all fairies do.

“That’s because someone did,” he says.

Tommy gasps. He doesn’t know enough about this world to refute that claim.
As they near Ponk’s house, Tommy gets increasingly frustrated with the fact that all his writing utensils were left at home.

Ponk’s house looks like the ruins of king Arthur’s castle. Sitting in a flat clearing, at the edge of a oak forest twisting itself into unprecedented heights.
The house, or much more appropriately the enclave, caves in on itself in several spots. Held up by massive mushrooms and gigantic lemon trees. Making even the crumbling stone an impassible fortress.

To think, when Tommy was a toddler he thought his family was fancy for having two stories. Ponk must have eight.

“Piss off, loser!” A familiar voice calls.

Tommy tilts his head up against the sun to spot George, hanging out a window carved out of a towering weeping cap mushroom.

“I bring friends!” Wilbur shouts back, flipping him off.

“Oh!” George shouts louder. He ducks out of sight.

“He seems nice,” Hannah says, sarcastically.

If Tommy was confident enough and had the welcome to do so, he’d fly right up to that window.
George is a clever little wordsmith. The way he writes feels old, likely due to his connection to the spore colony. All his mindless scribbles read like classics. Such, Tommy respects the shit out of him. Like? Hello? He’s Gogy. Who doesn’t like Gogy?

Wilbur beckons them to continue following behind. Leading them around the building to a lowering drawbridge.
There, becoming more visible by the second just beyond the gate, are four members of the Fourth Court.

Ponk, with his lemon tree arm on full display. George, in full mycelial garb. Boomer, with their webbed hands. And Quackity, sporting his yellow wings.

Boomer makes an undignified noise upon seeing Hannah.

“Why’s she here!” he mopes, turning to his dad.

“I dunno,” Ponk chides, “It’s almost like you inadvertently invited her,”

Hannah gets a sick grin seeing Boomer’s mopey expression. Tommy is already sick of this duo.

Chapter Text

[From the Guarded Garden Poems of Tommyinnit: Vast Connectedness]

The exception meets expectations,
In the matter of that there is none at all.

This vast web of interconnectedness,
I lower and raise my life to it.

A pulley system and a push door,
Marking the way to you.

(There is always a way to you,
There is always a path to other.)

I am stumbling toward the expected thing,
An experience rarely met.

Yanking the rope, tugging the line,
Making my way to the other side.

(You.)
(Connected. Forever so.)

—

The only reason Hannah is not dying from a splitting headache, sources of the ache ranging from little brothers to people named Boomer, is that her head isn’t just held within her skull anymore.

The roses bursted from her skin and plugged her in to the wide ranging floral network. Connecting her to the roofed knowledge of plants. Of the greenery’s unique optimisms and nihilisms.
It’s beautiful, deep, and other similar fancy shit.

Instead of getting time to chill out next to a rose bush and see what her new, strange power can do, Hannah has to go talk to this dude that’s been an asshole to her and she has been an asshat to in return.
Ok, maybe she forgot who was a dick first. Does it really matter?

“What do I owe this visit to?” Ponk asks, beckoning them to cross the draw bridge.

“Tommy wanted to formally introduce you all to his sister, Hannah,” Wilbur answers.

She cranes her neck up to look at the towering, overgrown archways. As they continue walking into the circular courtyard, (damn it seems like everyone has one of these), Hannah watches the stonework give way to a waterfall.
This entire courtyard is practically a swamp. Mushrooms, water, lemon trees. Seems like the place a dryad, duck, mushroom, and frog would live.

She feels someone tap her on the shoulder. When she turns her head, it’s the guy who was in the window. George, she thinks.

“So, just roses?” George asks.

Hannah listens for the answer, then responds, “Other flowers too. The roses just got here first,”

“Yeah, same for me and red ones,” he says, pointing to the big hat on his head.

“Fly amantia,” she correctly identifies.

“Or red caps. Not like Techno, though. He’s named after me, no matter how much he tries to say it’s the other way around,” George says.

With that brief conversation, Hannah decides that George is pretty ok.

Hannah steps into the muddy outdoor area, watching her shoes sink into the stuff. This is nice! She could get used to this.

“What’s your name?” the duck, Quackity, asks her.

Hannah answers honestly. Too busy listening in to the probably-literal-grapevine in her head to get what he’s really asking.

“Hannah,”

“Hm. Hannah,” Quackity repeats. Then, frowns.

“I told you!” Boomer says, “She swindled me out of her name,”

That sends red flags all throughout her system. Hands clenching into fists, back still turned to the rest of the party.

“I didn’t lie to you, Boomer. That is my name,” Hannah tries to level her tone.

“Boomer-“ Ponk warns, scolding her child.

“No! Because I don’t think allowing some, fucking, liar! Some liar into the inner workings of the Fourth Court is the best way to go, actually. Especially not when the moment she steps foot in Elfheim the fucking Wild Hunt appears!” he crosses his arms.

The roses tell her to remain very, very still. Not moving a single muscle as Ponk clicks their teeth. Processing what he’s heard.

“The Wild Hunt? What’s Hannah have to do with that? She’s just one person-“ Wilbur speaks up, coming to her defense.

Hannah takes it upon herself to turn around. Seeing just how uncomfortable everyone is.
Fuck. She caused this. Now the roses and her anxious intrusive thoughts are arguing, and it’s getting harder to breathe.

Tommy notices her breath quicken.

“Look,” he steps between Hannah and Boomer, “That’s my sister, alright? You can stay mad that you got tricked by no one but yourself. She isn’t lying to you,”

“She can lie?” Quackity asks, getting a weird look on his face.

Tommy gives a weird look right back, “I don’t see how that matters when your brother is being a huge dick right now-“

“Clementine,” Boomer spits the word.

At that combination of sounds, magic courses through the air like a live wire. As if by silent demand, Tommy’s body extends to full attention. Stiffening, like a soldier listening to their commander.
Hannah’s blood rises to a firm boil.

“Eryops!” she screams, almost snarling.

Against his will, Boomer takes a step back. Fuming from his locked stationary position.

“Woah, woah, woah!”
“Hey!”

She ignores all other voices that are not the echo of her rage.
How dare he? How dare he try and both deadname and magically manipulate Tommy like that? Hannah rushes toward them with her arm raised to slap the shit out of him, but Ponk grabs her shoulder with just enough force to pull her away.

“Wilbur, take her back. The Court present will meet at your return,” Ponk says.

She pushes Hannah toward Wilbur, and the gateway out.

Hannah looks over her shoulder as Will leads her out like a noisy child getting removed from a classroom, meeting Tommy’s eye. Receiving his silent “thank you”, and her extending one in return.

Once beyond the draw bridge, she watches it snap shut. Closing her brother inside.
Her unwilling chaperone/warden awkwardly clears his throat.

“What happened in there?” Wilbur rubs the back of his head.

“Boomer thought he’d get my name if he gave his, but I don’t have one,” Hannah says.

She anxiously stims with her hair. Painfully aware of the mud on her shoes. Really wishing she was at home right now, where she could have a relaxing shower and a bedwars winstreak.
Instead, she’s stranded in fairyland waiting for the rest of the bizarre magic transformations to get themselves over with. With her brother locked in a fortress she can’t enter.

“Well,” Wilbur scoffs, “Shit,”

He could say that again. Shit.

Chapter Text

[From the Temporary Poems of Tommyinnit: Something old, Something New]

Something old, something new.
Moss in the antlers and spines in the grass.
Sunken ships and trains off their tracks.

Hit me! Slice me through!
I swear my soul will fly to you,
Slide a coin to force my way through.

Caressing the metal as the old ones do,
And all these years reach back to you.
Something old, something new.

—

“He’s a poet, Sam,”

His first thought is this: And?

And? So, yes. Tommy is a poet. A damn good one too! Of course Sam is proud of him. Of course Sam wants his kid to go as far as he can, be as special as he can be, but fuck. Political intrigue in a strange fairy land? Is that really the thing he wants for his kid?

Phil looks at the claws of his hands, awaiting Sam’s response.

“So what, Tommy’s just supposed to save the world? As a parent, you must understand my hesitation,” Sam says, sighing.

Phil stares blankly, “No. It’s my lack of it that worries me,”

“Pardon?” he asks.

“Sam,” he says, wing gesturing where his hand does, “You weren’t supposed to know about us. You and your daughter have entirely too much information about something you lack severe knowledge of. The gravity of my court was meant to be a secret. Yet, here you are. You are a wrench in the cogs, and one that is preventing good work from being done,”

Sam consumes those words slowly, and with great diligence.
There are red flags wherever he looks. Yet, there is no other path. If Sam wants to figure out being a fairy, he needs the Fourth Court. The Fourth Court claims to need his son.

It feels so bright here. Sam tenses against it, that too bright sunlight.

“Then what! What am I supposed to be doing here?” he frowns.

Phil takes the time to plan out his next phrase.

“I want to make a deal,” he decides.

“A deal?” Sam frowns.

Phil mindlessly adjusts the feathers on his face, “I want total secrecy for my court, and you want the comfort of guaranteed safety of your son. We can, and will, have both of these,”

Another massive, vibrant red flag. Was Tommy’s safety not guaranteed from the get-go?

“What do you have in mind?” Sam says, slowly.

“An oath of silence in exchange for an oath of death,” Phil raps his claws against the table, “You physically cannot speak of our court, and should it come to it, I will die in defense of your son,”

Sam should’ve read more fairytales as a kid. Fuck, even if he just paid attention when he watched Tinkerbell with Hannah, then they wouldn’t be in this mess!
He doesn’t find any immediate flaws in Phil’s logic. Besides the obvious what-the-fuck-would-Phil-need-to-fight-to-the-death-to-protect-Tommy-from. He’d really like to know what’s the worst that could happen.

“Is that fair?” he prods, trying to figure out the tiniest details of the deal.

“I have been a warrior for many centuries. I’ve seen battles none others have escaped from. Tommy couldn’t be safer anywhere else but under my wing,” Phil says.

Fuck, sure doesn’t look like it. Phil’s hands are not calloused, skin absent of scars, his plume in perfect condition.
Yet, he also physically cannot lie. The battles must’ve been long ago, or were so easy for him that Phil left the field unmarked.

“Deal?” he asks, brow upturned.

“Deal,” Sam finalizes. Against his better judgement.

A faint sound can be heard on the wind. The solid, delicate note of magic clicking into place. Sam’s tongue feels heavy.

Something tight in Sam’s chest has popped. A piece of something that he’s been clutching onto for decades has finally, finally, been let go of. Perhaps it’s because he knows who he is now. Perhaps it’s the magic in his body that he wound too tightly, like thread, being released.

It also might have something to do with the entire anatomy of his body shifting to make room for the new arms. But that is slightly less poetic.

“Serious stuff out of the way, how are you doin’?” Phil switches tone, now much cheerier.

“Not well!” Sam confesses. Using to hands to hold his head.

Lowkey, this has been miserable. Sam would really love to go home and finish his lego build. That seems absolutely perfect.
But no! He has to come to terms with his ancestry and culture! Fuck that. Where’s animal crossing when you need it.

“Sorry to interrupt,” a new voice chimes in, “But I have to call a meeting between the court,”

Sam turns his head. Watching Ponk, who looks very good with the twigs interlocking between his hair, step out from behind a lemon tree.

“A meeting?” Phil furrows his brow.

“Unfortunately,” they sigh.

This is the newest red flag in the red flag parade. Even more secrets! Fantastic.

“Do I go?” he asks.

Phil shakes his head, “No. You physically cannot,”

Ah. Fourth Court shit. Sam did just bow to never speak of it again, so showing up to a meeting is not on the agenda.
Phil gets out of his chair, steps behind the lemon tree, and his gone. Ponk hesitates to follow.

“I’ll need to talk to you later, ok Sammy?” Ponk smiles, leaning on the tree.

“Sammy?” he laughs, wondering where the new nickname came from.

Ponk continues to grin as she slips past the trunk and off to wherever the fuck that portal leads. Leaving Sam alone, in a stranger’s garden.

Birds chirp. The sunlight continues to remain impossibly bright. There is a soft wind spinning the cobwebs into sculptures. And, Sam is alone.
Until he predictably is no longer.

Hannah stumbles into the grass of the courtyard. Visibly anxious, mud covering her shoes. Wings drooping down, scraping the floor.

“What’s up, Rosebud?” Sam worriedly asks.

She doesn’t answer. Instead, Hannah takes a seat next to a flowering bush. Seemingly using it to detox.

He doesn’t even think to ask if she’s nonverbal. Sam just closes his eyes, and lets the sun turn the back of his eyelids red.

Chapter Text

[From the Hand Heavy Poems of Tommyinnit: is that the WORST of it?

We start here:
Circumstance, happen-chance,
Fuck. I’m getting ahead of myself.

It really goes like:
Trust-again, Ritalin,
God. Is this how it ends?

Truth runs like saliva on our tongues,
(Brother, is that the WORST of it?)
Sending out like grade-A war grenades,
(Is it supposed to be like this?)

It’s actually kind of like:
More divides power, shrapnel shower,
I set my sights to aim ahead.

I await for several commands. Such as:
Where to fire, where to go,
Where to flood the language fro.
(God. Is it always supposed to be like this?)
(Brother, is that the WORST of it?)

—

Tommy gave the rest of the Fourth Court that one word, a name with many names. Dead, and true, and old. A power with many powers. He gifted it, like a precious stone, and received the others in return.
It was a special thing to give. It is a special thing to be betrayed with.

He is alone in someone else’s castle, with a name meant to be unsaid on someone else’s tongue. Someone he was supposed to trust’s tongue.

What’s worse is their normally chill when Hannah isn’t around. But, dear fuck. No wonder Hannah bullies Boomer so much. Something about her presence turns him into a nightmare. A nightmare that wielded Tommy’s name against him.

Quackity rushes Tommy to Ponk’s personal portal to the Fourth Court’s fortress. Hidden by a fake backed closet.

The imposing grey formality that is the fortress does nothing to make him feel safe. Because Quackity had also tried to get Hannah’s name.

“Big Q, what the fuck was that about!” Tommy yells, turning on his heels to face him.

He looks confused, “I don’t know why Boomer-“

“No,” Tommy interrupts him, “What the fuck were you doing? Trying to get her true name? What did you think you were going to do with it?”

Quackity’s wings tense. Eyes narrowing.

“You can’t deny that it keeps people quiet. Tommy, if she can lie, than she is immensely dangerous. Especially for the court,” he says, in a low voice.

“No! Because almost every aspect of my life has fallen apart for this shitty poetry slam! Now you all keep telling me my sister is dangerous? What next? What fucking next. I know no one knew I didn’t know who I was before I joined, but this is ridiculous. I want to go home!”

His shoulders shake. Fists clenched tight enough to draw white crescent marks with his nails.

Someone clears their throat behind him.

Tommy angrily turns around. All that fury quickly dropping through his stomach as he sees the faces of every other member of the Fourth Court standing behind him. Tapping their feet nervously.

“Tommy,” Phil says, stepping in front of the crowd, “Where is home?”

“What is this? A pop quiz?” he spits.

Phil doesn’t flinch. His silence begs Tommy to answer is question.

“Isn’t it obvious!” Tommy shouts.
“Home! My house! In the human world! Where my friends are, where all my stuff is, where I grew up. What, is this supposed to be home? I barely even know where I am!”

The man remains stalwart. Not a single muscle on his face reacting to Tommy’s raw throat screaming. He calmly takes one more step forward.

“May I show you?” he asks.

Tommy gets confused, “What?”

“May I show you? Where you are, I mean,” Phil explains. Cool, calm, and collected.

Slightly, Tommy nods his head yes.

Phil begins walking over to a specific engraving in the wall, and Tommy bitterly follows.
He’s glad that he turned around to see what the others were doing just in time to watch Ponk slap Boomer on the back of the head, continuing to scold them as the court makes its way to the meeting room.

Phil grazes a single finger over the edge of a map. Made of stone, imprinted in the wall with impossible detail for just a chisel.
The map itself is huge. Depicting the wide, curling form of the three courts of Elfheim. Their geography magically slipping under and over the other. Although, that’s kind of in the names.

The Under Court is held up by a pillar tall engraving of the Under Queen. Her own raven black feathers supporting the weight of her world, in all its icy, mountainous valleys and darkling oceans. Tommy watches as Phil subconsciously creeps closer.

The Over Court is hoisted high in the hands of the Over King. Glittering even in the slate grey material. Lit up by its long stretches of plains, deserts, and forests. Circling around it’s other half like a yin and yang one can walk upon.

At the center of the two is the middle court. Tempered by whatever region it is closest to, whatever season fits its fancy. Tommy can see where this land normally would sink, without a god holding it up. When he looks closer, he finds the tiny hands of the mortal fairies living there. The only thing keeping the ground Tommy is standing on afloat is the collective will of fairy. His hands twitch.

“We are in the Middle Court. I am from the Under Court, and I presume your family has ties to the Over. Just from acclamation to plants,” Phil explains, “Tommy, I cannot picture being torn between two worlds the way you are. I can still promise that this land can be home too, and that you are called to defend it,”

Tommy stares into the bejeweled eyes of the Over King. Smiling with a mouthful of shark teeth.

“I still am human, though. Just as much as I am fairy,” he softly whispers, all the air leaving his lungs.

“I do not doubt that,” he comforts.

“I can have both, right?” Tommy pleads, utterly distraught, “There’s room for both worlds?”

Phil places a hand on his shoulder. Smiling with a sadness far older than Tommy can comprehend.

“That is what we must discuss. Come, they’re waiting,” he begins to walk away to the meeting room.

Tommy continues staring up at all of Elfheim, before ripping his eyes away so he can follow.

Chapter Text

[From the Fie-Fi-Foe Poems of Tommyinnit: the Good Word]

The good word gets out.
Sputtering and sprawling,
A spinster’s call, a spider’s crawling.
Good words careening from the prophet’s snout,
Tumbling stones thrown like tombs across the redoubt.

Hey, Hey, Hey! Don’t let me stop you!
This paleness in my knuckles means nothing,
These bruises on your throat mean nothing,
I am not ((currently) ever) choking you!
(For something called the good word, you’d think your words would be true)

Tsk. The good word stays put.
No secret meetings or silent greetings,
Grand rebellions stay in stories, ink smearing,
The game trips, falls, and is no longer afoot.
Probably over a carpet or an upturned root.

When my hands release the good word lies cold.
I meant this. Planned it, skinned it,
Married the chilly guarantee of it,
For something called the good word, it does as told.
Dying to the desperate grip of my very own chokehold.

—

Tommy looks to the ceiling, trying to calm himself. Inscribed on the entryway to the meeting room is three words, Speak Only Truth.
Isn’t that all they can do? Tommy briefly wonders when the last time it was when a liar stepped foot in here. Hannah hasn’t, yet. He settles on it probably being a religious thing.

The door cracks open and he can already hear arguing. Becoming only louder as the muffle through the wall gets removed.

“-He’s being upsetting about it, but Boomer’s right. We’ve all been uncharacteristically lenient on this!” Quackity stands, with the same passionate composure of an attorney.

“Infighting within this court is disgraceful! No matter the reason!” Ponk points out.

The arguing comes to a halt when they spot Phil and Tommy enter. He awkwardly, with a crawling heat in his throat, sits down in the empty spot next to Wilbur. At the end of the table.

Boomer addresses him before anyone else has a chance to.

“Tommy, I will fill your house with honey if I means I can make it up to you. But bless all the fucking gods, we cannot be lax about your family’s involvement,” he says.

Phil speaks up, “I have sworn his father to silence. I just need to make a deal with his sister,”

A wash of relief sweeps over the rest of the group. Leaving Tommy alone in his confusion.

“Progress!” Boomer exclaims, dropping back down in his seat.

“Wait, what silence?” Tommy asks.

“Sam can no longer speak of the Fourth Court in any capacity. In exchange, I guard you with my life,” he explains.

“Smart of him to accept that,” Ponk distantly comments.

He wonders what the terms of Phil and Hannah’s oath could be. Silence in exchange for what? Safety? Riches? Answers? He doesn’t have a guess for what Hannah would want.
And Tommy doesn’t have a guess on how bound she even is to oaths. Or, if that’s one of the things about her the Fourth Court is so afraid of.

“I’d like to propose a plan,” Techno drawls out, giant rabbit feet thrown up onto the table.

Everyone turns their heads. Listening to whatever he has to say.

“I think Tommy has yet to give back for all the efforts it’s taken to recruit him. Hannah needs to be swore to silence, and then Tommy needs to prove himself,” Techno says.

Tommy’s stomach drops out of his body. Chest burning with shame.

“I gave you my name then had it wielded against me,” he states, matter of factually.

“You risk all we stand for,” Techno rebuts.

Hearing that from the mouth of someone he looked up to just moments ago hurts. A sizable portion of the pain is that it’s true, the rest aches in the fact that Tommy cannot deny it.
If they are to thwart the very basis of what this world stands on they cannot he thwarted in turn by some half human and his family.

“What do I have to do?” Tommy tries to ask, but breaks into whisper.

His wings sag. Head hanging down, gazing at his hands clenched into white fists in his lap. His clothes are too human compared to the damn near ethereal threads making up everyone else’s outfits. He stands too far out to feel comfortable here anymore.
His family’s confusion could keep the world on the same axis it’s always been. The Fourth Court does have the right to demand more of him. He still cannot shut out the pain of it.

“Setting up another hoop to jump through is reasonable,” Quackity pipes up, “But what if he fails?”

“We have his true name. There are magics to make them all forget,” Phil slowly says, understanding the scary delicacy of such a statement.

“Those are too harsh!” George crosses his arms.

“Which is why they weren’t used on his family. This is nothing new, to you lot,” Phil says.

Tommy takes very good care to notice how the forces that prevent fairies from lying forced Phil to tack on an extra couple words to that sentence. “To you lot” just so happens to exclude Tommy, who this is very new information to.
How harsh could it be for them to risk Hannah’s potential ability of being able to undermine an oath? Tommy doesn’t know. He doesn’t think anyone does, but his mouth might make that a lie.

Ponk stands up. Lips pressed into a thin line, face in stony contemplation.

“Tommy preformed two poems to gain our attention, then our trust. Arguing the Only Side, and the Affirmative Stands Alone. Both very human poems. With human theologies and metaphors strewn into them,” she states clearly before the court.

Ponk turns to Tommy. Face softening.

“Tommy, you are no longer in a human debate room. You are in an Elfheim court. Prove it, and yourself,” Ponk makes eye contact with Tommy.

“Just a poem?” he asks, cautiously.

“A poem to make all of Elfheim shake,” they clarify, “To ruin tradition and make a better world in it’s wake,”

Chapter Text

[From the Hush-Hush Poems of Tommyinnit: Still/Silent

Stillwater bloom and do not move.
Rioting in atoms in zero.
Absolutely nothing/Absolutely zero.
I’m practically begging for it.

Everyone soundless/Nothing soundless.
Be still-
Be quiet-
Be zero-

Get gone/Go away.
There is nothing here, zero here,
And not a sound I make.

—

The murmur of the roses quiets as the sun goes down. If it’s the sun. Hannah wouldn’t know.

She’s been getting enveloped by the rose bush in Phil’s yard for hours now. Shoots of thorny growth wrapping around her arms, her chin.
She’s been here so long she’s watched Tommy shudder off to his assigned guest room with a determination that quite frankly scared her. She’s watched Sam disappear somewhere with Ponk. She’s overheard the hushed whispers of Wilbur, Techno, and Phil arguing. All from the simple solitude of the connected root.

There are stars. She doesn’t know if they are made of explosions like they are back home. She gazes at them all the same.

She wonders what her brother talked about in that meeting. Or if it was about her at all, or if it was about something unknowable to an outsider. Tommy isn’t an outsider.
Her arms tremble.

Hannah has mentioned this anxiety once before. This deep, selfish fear of hers. Secretly, she dreads that her little brother outshines her.
He’s the one to scream the poem and make the Fourth Court shake. He’s the one with the magic name, and bountiful creativity. He’s the one that wins awards and competitions. In short, Tommy is brave. The only virtue that cannot be replicated nor replaced. The only thing Hannah will never be.

Bravery isn’t shaking alone, in a stranger’s flower bed. Bravery isn’t crying every time something goes wrong. Bravery isn’t the constant ache in her shoulders or the chill in her hands.
Anxiety has marked her. Stained her. Hannah will never be like Tommy. Even with a host of roses to support her brain like stilts.

Which, is stupid. She knows this is stupid. People are unique and she knows comparisons kill joy. That just makes the fact that she’s crying harder about this worse.

Hannah wonders when the bravery kicks in, and if it does. The roses remain quiet.

A rustle in the grass. Hannah sinks deeper into the thorny brush.

“Hey,” someone whispers, “You there?”

Rose petals wipe her teary eyes like supportive hypemen just before Boomer’s face can be spotted through the leaves.
She frowns. Stupid fucking frog.

“Fuck off,” she whispers back. Considering wielding his name again to get him to go away.

“I want to make a deal,” he says.

“I want you to fuck off,” Hannah replies.

Boomer kneels in the grass, scowling.

“I’ll fuck off, after you make a deal with me,” he insists.

Hannah gets a vine to whip at his knees. Making him back up a bit. He frowns.

“What is it going to take to get it? You aren’t going to fucking trick me,” she curses.

Silence. The creaking of what sounds like a cricket. They might not be called crickets here, though.

“You want answers. Your name, the court, everything. I can’t induct you in, but I can help. I just need something in exchange,” Boomer says.

He tries to make eye contact through the bush, but the roses just move in front of his face to protect her. They’re just as stubborn as her.

“This is impressive, you know. The plant stuff,” they say genuinely.

The flowers make a middle finger. He does a little exhale instead of laughing. How dare he. Fuck this guy.
There’s a beat of silence. One filled by wind through trees and the maybe-not crickets.

“So-?” he draws out.

Hannah rolls her eyes, “If I do have a name I’m not giving you it. I wish Tommy never did,”

“I apologized to him. I owe him, and stuff,” Boomer absently rubs the shallow scratch on their knee.

“I want nothing more than I hate you. No deal. Fuck off,” Hannah sticks her feet down stubbornly.

Boomer shakes his head, “You want answers,”

“I want you to leave,” she states again.

“What if I helped you find your name? And I taught you how to protect yourself and your brother?” a small beat of silence, “Hannah, what if I taught you how to be brave?”

Hannah recoils into herself. Mad at herself for even considering this. Just because he used a good buzzword.

“In exchange for what?” Hannah cautiously asks, tilting her head.

“Complete silence about the Fourth Court. Never mentioning it, never talking about it. Essentially, I want your silence,” they explain.

It sucks. This sucks. It could not suck, though. If he follows through. Which, magic makes him sort of have to.
But why would she agree! Hannah might even be advantaged by not knowing her true name! Why does it matter? What strange, fairy instinct is within her to hold close the weapon that can ruin her?

Boomer hurt Tommy. But, Tommy apparently forgave Boomer. Which is supposed to even things out. But Hannah is Tommy’s big sister, it's her job to hold these grudges.

If she wants to know her name this bad, there has to be some benefit to it. This deal seems like a bad idea, Hannah knows that. She might as well try. She thinks she has to.

“Deal,” Hannah lies.

The magic surges anyways. Popping her ears, whipping around like a particularly harsh wind. Alive. Alive. Hannah has made a deal and the magic is alive. Flooding all her senses until it subsides like a wave. Boomer gets a stupid smirk on his face, like he did something.

A quick thorn whip puts him in his place.

“Gah!” they exclaim, recoiling.

She laughs at him. Sinking back into the rose bush.

The deal mightPerhaps it won’t work anyways, because she’s a liar. Perhaps she’s bound to it regardless. Who knows? Doesn’t change the fact that she’s surrounded by people who definitely care.
It serves her family to keep quiet. She’ll obey for now, even if she doesn’t have to.

The roses yawn and even though she’s awake, Hannah feels like she’s gotten a good night’s sleep.

Chapter Text

[From the Sweet Tea Poems of Tommyinnit: Lover-Dover]

Lover-dover, do come to pass,
Taste and tongue and whiplash,
All the things that red stained fingers do.

(All those things lead back to you.)

I remember summer green reds,
Tainted and tightened to sunniness,
Blooder-lover, please come through.

(All these days lead back to you.)

—

It feels like Sam is shattered and been put back together again every time he inhales the air of Elfheim. On an atomic level, he has come home. That doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t home, though. Home has significantly more electricity and concrete.

Still. The land beneath the hill lingers beyond his heavy eyes. As he wearily, like a lamb to slaughter, goes on to the next hard conversation.
In the moonlight, Ponk had slipped into the guest room assigned to Sam.

“Can we talk?” ze asked, “Elsewhere?”

He agreed. Then getting whisked away to the bridge between two “houses”, but they’re more like castles in both their size and splendor.
Sam gazes down over a craggy ravine, that can only be described like the wound left by dragging a blade against the ground. Absolutely gorgeous.

There’s the sound of running water far beneath them. An endless sky of stars. Crickets and the ever distant sound of someone singing way off in the woods. There’s a party somewhere far out there, with satyrs and nymphs and heavy wine.

It’s be almost romantic, this night lit bridge, if Ponk wasn’t here to be the bearer of bad news. Hearing everything about the conflict between Boomer and Tommy really stressed Sam out.

“I’m sorry my son has been an adversary to yours. I hope to make it up to you,” Ponk says, staring at their shoes.

Sam doesn’t comment, “Hmhm,”

Ponk picks at his fingers. Clearly nervous beyond nervous. Sam would provide comfort, but then again. Not his kids, not his problem.

“Hey, Sam?” they ask.

He turns to make eye contact. Commitment to his anger failing.
Shit, she looks good. Awash in brown, yellow, and watercolor shadows. Everything in Elfheim looks so pretty and refined. It seems that if Sam hit the ground too hard, it’d shatter like porcelain. He’s smart enough to know that Elfheim would just hit him right back.

Ponk’s posture shrinks, “Would it be a bad time to mention that I’m interested in, well. Getting to know you better?”

Sam’s face goes red.

“Yeah Ponk, it’s a bad time! Boomer’s attacking Tommy, or some shit. I can’t remember the last time I knew what was going on. You’re cute and all but, damn. Damn,” he crosses all his arms.

He watches Ponk get a giddy smirk from his peripheral vision. Making his face go redder.

“Aww. Sammie, you think I’m cute?” Ponk croons.

Sam scoffs, shaking his head. Failing to ignore how his stomach gets butterflies when Ponk laughs.
He hasn’t flirted with anyone in over a decade, he’s rusty. Sam feels like a teenager again. Everything about romance is brand new. Shiny, scary, overwhelmingly new.

“I dunno, my kids still need to learn to fly and all-“ he tries to change the topic.

Ponk laughs at him again. The air feels light and warm. Sam’s heart is contorting like an acrobat.

“You cant do that!” They counter, “Answer my question,”

“Well-“
“No changing the topic,”

The two lean on the bannister of the bridge. Snickering together like they have a secret to share.
The mischief that was in his smile all those years ago, in a stolen car with Tommy’s mom, has returned. It’s just now that mischief is older, and knows it has no where to run. It knows it isn’t clever anymore.

“Yeah,” Sam confesses, “I think you’re cute,”

Ponk grins and it looks like everything right in all of the worlds. Everything that is good, and beautiful.

“I think you’re the handsomest fool I’ve ever met,” Ponk’s wooden arm reacts to the words, flowering.

For whatever reason, it completely breezes over Sam’s head that he just had the words handsome and fool branded to his forehead. The little white flowers budding on Ponk’s arm are too captivating. Too mesmerizing.

“I didn’t know lemon trees had flowers,” he says, distractedly.

Ponk rolls his eyes. Clearly finding the twist in conversation sweet.

“Some types. I like every type of lemon tree,” she continues grinning.

Sam still stares at the tiny little things, “Same,”

Maybe he could do this. Maybe, Sam could get out of his own head and love someone. He could even be loved himself, if he tries.
Is this the right time to try, though? Out of every time he could make a romantic attempt, now?

Ponk’s hand creeps toward one of his own.

It’s selfish. It’s greedy and selfish. He knows this. The pattern in his heartbeat knows this. Sam should focus on being there for Hannah and Tommy. Sam should always, always, focus on them.
Still, their fingers intertwine. Sam’s hand is on Ponk’s elbow, Ponk’s hand gentle against his cheek. Their breaths hitch and -

“Drops,” they say.

The world spins. The tug of magic yanks something up and out of Sam’s soul, forcing it out his throat.

“Awes,” he replies, surprising himself.

“Awes,” Ponk chuckles, “Awesam,”

Sam just rolls his eyes, “Hush,”

Then their lips meet. Hearts racing.
It’s a bit awkward, but twice as exciting. Twice as glorious as every victory. They’re both single fathers who haven’t done this in quite a long time. Running solely on muscle memory and love. Gentle, confusing, contagious love. One as reckless and selfish as they’re willing to let it be.

Sam is in heaven. Absolute heaven.

Eventually, Ponk comes up for air. Still grinning with the audacity of someone who just won something.

“See you later?” Ponk asks.

Breathlessly, Sam nods, “Yeah. See you later,”

Slowly they spread apart. Nervous to no longer be touching.
As Sam, delirious with joy, watches Ponk retreat back to their castle, he realizes that he doesn’t know the exact room he’s supposed to be sleeping in.

Chapter Text

[From the Puss-Filled Poems of Tommyinnit: Let Me Create]

I want the illness to come.
The good sickness. The one that raises the bones, not fells them.

I want:
-cravings
and
-fevers
and
-sweaty palms.

Here’s to hoping this does everything short of killing me, but it can kill me if the word count’s good.

Inspire me!! I’m begging you!!Drag the knife between my teeth.
When the disease pours in let the virus be beautiful.

*Let it make ME beautiful!*

So I, diseased and disgusting, can make something pure.
Pure, outrageous. Wonderfully made from my own vomit, my own blood.
(Bap. Drip. Dollop.)

Let the decay be nothing short of wonderful.
Nothing short of great.

When I die let the fever that felled me be great.

-Make me great
and
-Make me good
and
-Let me create.

Sickly and ravenous and all!
Sickly, and ravenous, and all.

—

Poking at his eggs with a pure silver fork, Tommy ponders his toxic relationship with deadlines. It’s an adhd thing, apparently.

Arguing the Only Side was the result of him scribbling down what he could moments before he was supposed to get in the car and go to the show. It was still worthy enough to land him in the good fight against the godly order of Elfheim. So, is it really a problem when he can only operate minutes before the deadline? Yes, but no.

It isn’t the problem right now. There isn’t a deadline. Not a single due date for this poem that’s supposed to finalize his place within the court. Tommy’s fucked.

Tommy now has to figure out a poem with no human metaphors or symbolism without a deadline to put a fire under his ass. These eggs don’t even taste like normal eggs! They probably come from some magic animal he never has heard of, but definitely should’ve!

The door cracks open, making him tilt his head to the sound.

Hannah comes in, her wings drooping low. The crown of roses on her brow and circling her arm droop too. Their little buds wrapped up tight.

“You didn’t come eat with us, are you alright?” she asks.

Tommy ruffles his feathers, frowning, “Just stressed. Need to write this poem for Ponk,”

Which he could do very easily. Of course, if he had all his journals and his phone with him.
The Frans came into Elfheim with nothing but the clothes on their backs in less than preferred circumstances. None of them got shit! Especially not years and years worth of heavy notebooks!

His frown gets sharper as Hannah’s expression grows more worried.

“Don’t burn yourself out. Remember to take a break or two,” Hannah reminds him softly.

“Did I ever tell you what the Fourth Court is meant for?” Tommy asks.

Magic tightens her lips and silences her voice. Hannah can only shake her head no.

“The Over King and the Under Queen hold up the Courts, correct? And the middle court is held up by the fairies that live there, right? The Over King and Under Queen fight all the time. They drop their worlds to ball their fists, leaving everyone living there to fall. Right to the bottom of the void.
“This has been the cycle for fuckin’ eons. Societies collapsing every time someone says a mean word a bit too loudly. The Fourth Court is meant to give the gods the ultimatum of leaving the fighting to us, or the holding to us. We gotta hold our own. We have to hold our own,” Tommy explains, his posture tensing up with every passionate string of words, “I need to hold my own,”

“Hey,” Hannah interrupts, “Stim break?”

He suddenly feels the way he’s contracting every muscle in his body. So, yeah. He definitely needs a stim break.

Tommy takes a deep breath. Closing his eyes and cracking his knuckles.
Both siblings begin to rock. Tommy in his chair, Hannah on her toes. Fiddling with their hands.

“If you’re trying to distract me-“ he pauses, voice trailing off.

Hannah continues to do flappy hands as she rolls her eyes.

“You look like you’re on the verge of burnout, Toms. Chill out. We both need it,” she softly scolds.

With a groan, Tommy gets off the chair to sit on the floor. Because everyone knows neurodivergent floor time is a must. Hannah plops down in front of him.

What sucks is that she isn’t wrong. Tommy might just run himself into the ground at this rate. He isn’t going to get any ideas stressing out over a half eaten breakfast.
It’s also very sweet of her to burst into his room and demand he take a stim break. Especially when she is very anxious about doing more obvious stims around other people.
But, as Hannah explained to him once, Tommy is not a person. He’s her brother. There is supposedly a difference.

Tommy hums the tune to fairy fountain. Taking a second to appreciate the foreshadowing of that being one of his favorite songs.
Nintendo has been one of Tommy’s life long fixations. His most intense hyperfixations have been Animal Crossing, Pokemon, and Zelda. Suddenly he’s thinking happy thoughts, and not stressed over writing shit.

Hannah viably relaxes watching him calm down. She zips her wings around really fast. Making the same speedy sound any insect does when it zooms past someone’s ear. Hannah surprises herself with the volume of the sound.

“Oh!” she grins, trying to make her wings clap together even faster, “That’s a nice noise!”

Tommy attempts to mimic her. Taking his wings and snapping them closed around him really hard. Blowing both stray feathers and Hannah away with the resulting gust of wind.

“Shit!” Tommy laughs, trying to flap them less intensely.

Hannah giggles. Picking a fluffy red feather out of her hair.

A happy, giddy laugh escapes Tommy’s chest seeing Hannah bloom. It’s a sound she echos back to him.

He continues hitting the meat of his wrists together rhythmically. All stimmy, relaxed, and confident that they’re both going to be ok. Poems and worlds in their hands be damned! It’ll be alright.

Tommy starts humming fairy fountain again.

Chapter Text

[From the Opalescent Poems of Tommyinnit: When the Wind Gave Way]

It was there when the wind gave way,
When that big blue sky ran gray,
With the same opulence as blood on snow,
These weathers are the things we know.

Great grace may sink beneath my feet,
The gale may unhinge gravity’s deceit.
As my body raises wide to sweep,
Fading all fear as the thought runs deep.

And there! Where my body fell into the air!
Up into the good graces of the slyphs’ lair!
The very ground rejected me,
Unburdened by gravel or grass or sea.

This the sky has given me,
This the flight promised to me,
This ether mine to grip and grasp,
This eternity mine to last.

It was there when the wind gave way,
Limb to limb, to that opaque palace I sway,
For this the sky given to me,
Thus, I flew into infinity

—

Hannah stands at the edge of the craggy outcropping between Ponk and Phil’s properties. The very tips of her toes poking out over the steep drop. A single pebble falls

“So!” Phil starts, clapping his hands together, “I’m proud to say neither of you are going to die,”

Tommy snorts, because that was funny. Sam crosses his second set of arms because it is not. It is, however, funny that Sam can do multiple dad poses at once! Arms crossed and both hands on his hips. Multitasking king.

Hannah’s train of thought is escaping her. Back to the matter at hand, flying lessons.

Phil continues explaining, “Wilbur is at the bottom of the creak. He’ll be there to catch you two if anything goes wrong. But, nothing will. You’re already both very attuned to your wings and shouldn’t have too much trouble,”

Tommy bounces in place. More than just stoked to finally get up in the air. Hannah holds her anxiety in her palm and tries to squeeze it lifeless.

“When you feel prepared, just jump!” he says, “The rest will come easy!”

Predictably, Tommy takes a running leap off the ground. Unaware to how Sam wobbles like he might faint. Sinking below the cut off like a bright yellow-red streak, disappearing.

One second. Two seconds. Five. Nine. Twelve.

Hannah recoils backwards at the thought of her brother collapsed at the bottom of the stream, Wilbur not being able to catch him. Or Wilbur did catch him and the weight was too much. Or he hit the rocks going down. Or-

With a great, triumphant scream, Tommy jolts up from the crack. Rising higher and higher into the air. Wilbur and Phil taking off to follow him, his shoutings of instructions muffled by the wind.

He looks so unshakably happy, having found a freedom grander than all else on earth or otherwise. Tommy zooms around as if he’s the happiest man in Elfheim. The only visible detail on his distant face being the widest she’s ever seen him smile.
Hannah clenches her fists again. Her feet firmly planted into the ground.

She was afraid of this. Hannah had stayed up at night fretting about this exact scenario. The braver sibling would take flight and the lesser one would stay grounded.
Yet Hannah knows that’s just insecurity. She knows that’s unfair to her and unfair to Tommy. That doesn’t stop her ears from growing red, and her arms stiffening, nor does it stop the heat crawling up her throat. She’ll never live it down if she cries right now. She’ll never fly, either.

Sam knows that stillness like he knows his own name.

“Hannah-“ he begins, trying to get over to her.

“No,” Wilbur interrupts, landing in front of dad, “Let me,”

Wilbur steps beside her. The sun too bright, the grass too green. All of Hannah’s senses riot against the overwhelming presence of fear, and her failure to rise to the occasion.

“Listen to me, alright? This is your birthright. You wouldn’t have those wings if something within you didn’t know how to use them. I promise that if you just take the leap, you’re going to fly,” he nods his head into the words.

Somewhere above them Tommy is learning, and failing, all sorts of various spins. Freer than any basic freedom.

“Can I hold your hand?” Wilbur asks.

Since she’s currently nonverbal, Hannah shakes her head yes. Extending her hand to his.

“Do you want to jump? I’m going to. I think you should too,” he extends his wings in preparation to do so.

The wind picks up. The soft, green rooted voices of the roses urge her forward, upward.
Hannah grips Wilbur’s hand a bit tighter, putting one foot forward.

“Ready?” he double checks.

Hannah takes a deep breath, “Sure?”

“Then jump,” Wilbur takes the plunge, forcing Hannah to as well.

Her stomach drops as there is no ground beneath her feet. A pang of dull pain in her ears from the overbearing sound of moving air.
Then suddenly her wings start beating with enough force to raise her weight. Like magic, she isn’t moving downwards anymore. She’s flying!

Up and out of the crack, following Wilbur into the open air. Once they’re clear off any rocks, he lets go of her hand. Falling back to let Hannah soar.

Soar she does. Her wings move quicker than theirs do. She can fly faster than they can. Similar to light Hannah jets upward with the barely visible grace of a dragonfly.

All she can do is laugh. Kicking her feet in exclamation when she spots the world below.
How was she ever afraid? How is she supposed to love anything that isn’t the world viewed from the top down? Is there anything in any world more beautiful than flight?

“Fuck yeah!” Tommy screams, barely audible.

All at once Hannah is surrounded by open air. Endless sky at all angles other than down. The roses rising open to the sun, now so tangibly close.

All at once, impossibly warm and weightlessly light, Hannah is not afraid.

Chapter Text

[From the Unphilosophical Poems of Tommyinnit: 2 U I shAre a MEmorY]

It begins likE SO

—

“I apologize again on Boomer’s behalf,” Ponk sighs.

They stand before a fairy ring. The little red mushrooms seemingly noting down everything happening in the conversation.

“Apology accepted. Again,” Sam affirms.

They’ve stayed long enough to where everyone is sure they will have no more sudden surprises when exposed to magic. Hannah randomly, painfully, sprouting flowers is a thing that will not be repeated.
Phil taught them all how to hide the more obvious bits of their heritage in the human world, too. It’s time to go back home.

—

U muRDER the thoUGHT of it be4 iT starTs

Lik mEDicine, aGAIn & AGain,

U reSISt the urGE 2 remember

—

“See you soon, Sammie,” she says.

Sam rolls his eyes, ushering Hannah and Tommy through the portal first. Watching them dissipate into air. Dissipate through worlds.

His heart gets warm as Sam says, “You too, Ponkie,”

“That one sucks!” Ponk laughs, “What a bad nickname!”

“Whatever you say, Ponkie,”

—

tHere Is a WOmEn OuT tHeRE WitH mY SmilE

If AnYone aSKS, nEithEr of Us KnOW Her Name

BuT I KnoW heR NAme

IT rhyMEs w/MINe

—

The world shimmers until it fades to black, then fades back to color. Back to the little clearing a brisk walk away from the house. The grass smells different here than it does in Elfheim.

“That’s so unfair!” Tommy whines, stomping his foot.

“Stay mad,” Hannah says.

A rosebush rises where she shoves a finger into the dirt. Thorny and pale green. Filling the air with the delicate scent of magic.

“Dad!” he yells, “How come she gets to do that!”

Sam shrugs, “I dunno,”

Tommy continues pouting as Hannah picks a flower from her new rose bush. Maybe she’s why their garden always blooms.

—

sOmeTimes i wiSH we CouLd sCoup HeR oUT

oF OUR heAds, My fAce, thE maGic in mY dEadName

DAD! DAD! i waNt Her GoNe

MOreSO, I WanT HeR 2 sTAY gOne

—

They walk home as fast as possible. Speeding down the sidewalk. Barreling through the door to check phones, and thus calendars. Sam needs to know how much time passed here in comparison to there.

One day. On earth it has been a single day. They all sigh with relief.

“Just tell everyone we had a sick day. Not a big deal,” Sam tells them both.

Both the kids nod, then shuffle off to their rooms. Sam thinks they all need a bit of alone time. Everyone needs to sit back and digest the past few fairy days. After all, a lot of shit just happened. Like, a lot of shit. Strenuous amounts of shit.

Sam goes to check the mail.

—

thEre Is a Pain DRENCHed in mY SouRCEcoDe

in ThE wAY my ChiN is ShaPED

(im sorry, dad. i saw your old yearbook)

IN thE wAY ouR nAmes RhymE

if YoU coUld SCoUP iT ouT you wOULD

—

The mailbox has the usual assortment of papers. Bills, bills, a college recruitment page that hasn’t gotten the memo, junk mail, bills.

Then a letter. Addressed to a name that sends shivers down Sam’s spine.

—

tHe MEmOry GoES on AnYWay

WhETheR or NoT YOu ProTEST aGainSt it

whEthEr or NoT i cOnseNT TO knowiNG IT

—

It is a plain white envelope. Addressed to Clementine Fran, from Cassidy Buford. Tommy’s mom.

Already he can mentally picture her strawberry blonde curls and scrunched up face. Those coke bottle glasses and the chin Tommy inherited.
Everyone in this family has a reason not to like her. Still, she was Sam’s last love and the mother of one of his kids. So he should go hand this letter off, right?

—

It’D Be EaSIER to NevER knOw

sofTER, gEntler, bettER ON my SouRCE CoDE

—

But the name Clementine has power over Tommy. In ways Sam wishes he could rip apart.

Poor boy already had to have his name used against him. Does Tommy need to know this now? Or, if Sam keeps it away from him, is that what he would want.

Sam stares down at the slim white letter as he goes back inside.

—

i AlwAYS hAd yOu

IT wAs EnOUGh 4 Me

YOu. ALl oF YoU

WhEtheR it HurT Or NoT

We BoTh RelIEd on YOU AlOne

—

A million worries hit Sam’s chest like tiny bullets.

How’d she get their address? Why is she suddenly rearing her head up, making an appearance after sixteen years of total silence?

When Tommy was born, Cassidy thought Sam would marry her.
She had that special type of Christian upbringing that promised her a white picket fence and two and a half kids. She thought she’d have a fancy degree, two daughters, and a wedding.

Obviously, Sam did not marry her. He was still a teenager, and honestly just didn’t like her that much. Nether of them ever spoke to her again after that argument they had in the hospital room. The screaming, the fighting, the nurse that had to hold him back.
He took Tommy, with Hannah in his other arm, and they all left. Cassidy never followed.

Until now. Why?

—

wAs It UnFAIR? SUre

WAs iT whaT u SigNeD uP 4? YEAh

maYbE thAts WhY i rEsenT hEr

shE nEveR hElD me So YoU diDnT hAve 2

NEveR hEld me At AlL

—

Sam shuts the door behind him and sighs. Wishing he didn’t have to deal with this dilemma after all the other dilemmas that just occurred.

If Sam ever has to look Cassidy in the eyes and explain that all of them are fairies, he’d fucking die.

“What’s wrong?” Tommy asks.

Sam jolts as he spots Tommy leaning on the open refrigerator door. Eyebrows knitted in concern.

—

IT mIght Be ShAllOw

IT mIGHT be QuiCK

BUt tbH? fuCk ThaT biTCH

I WiSh yoU mADe Me PIcK ThoMAs InstEAD

—

“Nothing,” Sam shakes his head, “Just forgot that we don’t live in a magical world without bills,”

Tommy snorts. Grabbing a coke and officially going upstairs to hide in his room.

Everyone needs to relax, even if just for a moment. This letter can be dealt with later.

—

sO oUr NamES woUlNdnT rhyME

ANd I cOulD foRgEt HeR

aNd RemOve MY RESentMenT 2 mAke MorE rooM,

4 LovInG You

Chapter Text

[From the Wield-Weld Poems of Tommyinnit: the Entire Fucking Time]

There are the days that come light and like bullet wounds.
Where I wonder what would happen if I started screaming bloody murder right here,
At this busy bus stop, in front of everybody.

Those are the days, brightened Friend,
Where you shut me the fuck up and get me to where I need to go.
Pushing me through revolving doors and the velocity of time.

Brightened Friend, with the sun burning within you.
With the full force of a million words within you.
I love you and am thankful, but I also place next to you an anvil,
So the creation can begin to take place.

With the fever diluted, and the day since past,
I hand you everything I’ve ever forged in your brilliance and splendor.
You roll your eyes, grinning, and then throw it back to me,
Not unlike like a Molotov cocktail.
And we laugh, oh we laugh, the entire fucking time.

—

His coke can remains empty on his bedside as Tommy counts the revolutions of his ceiling fan.
Tommy has to write a poem to make all of Elfheim shake. To make worlds tremble. To upset tradition and make gods choose between stepping up or stepping down. It’s just now he’s worrying about it in his actual bedroom. Just an arms length away from all his notebooks.

He gets a notification on his phone. Briefly brightening the blacked room.

Tubbo sent a meme about adding Walugi to smash. It breaks through the opaline layer of stress and allows Tommy to smile.

You: it’s bc they hate his transmasc swag

Tubs >:3c : lol

Tubs >:3c: btw, where were you today? Suck

Tubs >:3c : **dick

Tubs >:3c : FUCK!!! typos >:((

Tommy snickers quietly at his friend. Something impulsive sneaking into his brain.

You: Ill tell u in a minute

He throws his phone down and flops off the bed. Walking over to his window. Pulling it open to greet the warm night breeze. Barely having even the thought to hesitate to the stupid shit he’s about to be doing.
By the orange glow of the street lamp situated directly in front of his window, Tommy climbs out. Wings catching him as he falls from the second story. Gliding upwards on the wind.

There’s a certain, giddy rebellion that comes with having his wings out on earth. It makes his fingers wiggle, his toes curl.

Below him lies the neighborhood he’s lived in for ages. Street lamps, and parked cars, and birds nervous at the new intruder on their aerial territory. If flying in Elfheim was freedom, this is liberation. In the brown lighting of the deep spring night.

Tommy darts down toward Tubbo’s house. His bare feet silent against the grass of their backyard.

Is this stupid? Eh, doesn’t matter.
With the help of his wings, Tommy manages to scramble up the side of Tubbo’s house. Knocking on his window and scolding himself for not bringing shoes as the brick digs in to his skin.

“Hey, dipshit. Open up!” Tommy knocks again.

Tubbo’s shadow turns over in bed, seems to loose it’s shit, and comes over to the window. Opening it with some struggle as his jaw struggles to raise itself off the floor.

“What the shit? Tommy! Pinch me, I’m asleep,” he blinks rapidly.

Tommy flicks his forearm, “You aren’t. Turns out my whole family are fairies. Hannah’s got wings too, Dad has a bunch of arms. It’s a whole thing,”

Tubbo’s facial expression still does not change. Gingerly reaching out to run a finger against the feathers on Tommy’s face. He scrunches his nose, but doesn’t resist.

“That tickles,” he says.

Tubbo gasps, “This is real?”

“Yep,” Tommy nods, trying to situate himself better as he hangs out the window, “Definitely a fairy,”

“And you can fly?” he asks.

Tommy grins boldly. Very proud of his answer.

“Absolutely I can!” he gleams.

“Then can you make me fly?” Tubbo asks excitedly, “Like, lift me up and shit? Wouldn’t matter if this was a dream or not, be sick either way,”

Tommy makes a face, “Not a dream. Also, I didn’t get any stronger. What if I drop you?”

He just shrugs, “Good enough way to go out as any,”

It’s a stupid plan.

It remains stupid as Tommy helps Tubbo lean out the window. Leading them both to the ground safely with minor fumbling. Awkwardly electing for what seems like the safest way to hold him, both arms tucked under his arm pits. Not very glamorous, but it’ll get the job done.

“Ready?” Tommy asks.

Tubbo makes a small noise, “Still don’t know if this is a dream-“

Lift off. Nothing but the roaring wind in their ears and the gruesome jittering of a less than graceful shot towards the sky.

Then comes the glorious weightlessness of rising. Ten feet off the ground. Twenty. High above the houses and so tantalizingly close to the stars. Little white pinpricks of lights, draped across a muddy sky.

Tubbo makes a sound torn between a scream and a laugh. Feet dangling over their familiar homes.

“Holy fuck,” he gasps, smiling ear to ear.

Tommy laughs, “This is some studio ghibli shit, man!”

“We’re flying?” he says in disbelief, “We’re actually flying!”

Tommy realizes how sore his arms are and realizes how dangerous this little escapade really is.

“Yep! And, uh. You’re heavy, so-“ he groans, panic flooding his veins as he realizes Tubbo’s slipping in his grip.

Tubbo doesn’t seem to give a shit. Staring wide eyed at the jaw dropping view.

“Alright landing now,” Tommy insists, “Now we land,”

“Why are you being the careful one? Shut the fuck up,” Tubbo complains.

Bickering midair is funny when both parties have wings. Tubbo will just die. Splat like a pancake. Tommy decides to come to his senses and begin the descent down.

“No!” he gripes, wriggling in Tommy’s arms, “I wanna fly!”

They both yelp when Tubbo‘s wriggling causes him to essentially ‘unhook’ himself from the method of transportation. As in, he falls out of Tommy’s arms and starts the descent downward. Rapidly.

Tommy darts down. Grabbing Tubbo before he can even fall a full five feet. Spiraling in a terrible hug/barrel roll towards the ground.

His wings need to take them up. He’s trying, it’s not working. They are not going up but they do seem to be slowing down, so that’s a plus.

Tommy can hardly think before, splash. They’re in Tubbo’s pool. His wings recoiling back into his body with the dull pain of hitting the water backside first. Fuck, that hurt.
Eventually the two come up for air, choking up water and coughing. Struggling to breathe.

Then they get a good look at the other. Both scared shitless, high off their magical escapade, and drenched like sad wet cats. Tommy snickers. Tubbo giggles.

Then they both start laughing. A true, relentless laughing fit. A riotous, uncontrollable belly laugh that makes their ribs sore. That makes the whole breathing thing a bit harder.

“-See! See! I told you! They were flying!”

Tommy treads water as he spots Tubbo’s little sister, Crumb. Pointing to them judgmentally with her head obscured by a blanket.
She tilts her face expectedly up toward Schlatt. Tubbo’s sort-of-brother-father-figure-guy Tommy isn’t sure how he’s related to.

Schlatt rolls his eyes, “Crumb. They’re just doing drugs,”

“Drugs?” Tubbo questions.

“Drugs!” Crumb yells, appalled.

At that, Tommy can’t help but snort. The laughter setting in again.

Chapter Text

[From the Short Sword Poems of Tommyinnit: Force the World Anew]

Layer all that lying up until it makes a sword.
When the heat forms the blade,
Quince it in fairytale endings,
Then slice through the world to make a new beginning.

Again, then once again.
Cut through.
Or, if its easier, take a fist or maybe a hammer.
And force the world anew.

—

Hannah groans as she flops onto her bed, not bothering to take her shoes off. Astelic sits next to her and sighs.

It was a bad Monday. Mondays suck, but trying to survive the final few days before the ap chem test while knowing you can just fly out the window is a true challenge. The last days of senior year are terrible, terrifying, and dreadfully slow.
Hannah’s nervous about college but she’s proud to say it’s the normal nervousness now! Especially since she can just fly away from her problems.

Astelic gently pokes her, “Now can I get a recap of your magical fairy adventure?”

With a newfound grin, Hannah makes herself sit up. Allowing her roses and wings to pop back into place. The sensation is both like popping her knuckles and stepping into a magical sauna. Definitely what she needs after a tough Monday.

“Woah! The flowers are new,” she quirks her head.

“Yep,” Hannah presents her friend with a pale purple rose, grown freshly from her elbow, “I can speak to roses now, and stuff. It’s come in handy so far,”

Astelic accepts the rose eagerly. Marveling at the legitimate display of pure, raw magic.

“Ok, so,” Hannah begins.

Astelic kicks off her shoes with her feet and pays steady attention. It’s not everyday your friend is revealed to have superpowers.

“I don’t know how much of the story I can tell. First, this guy named-“ she feels hesitation rather than acts hesitated, “Wilbur came over. He’s from the Fourth Court,”

Hannah bites her tongue.
The air feels like a rubber band pulled taut. There is a tangible, ethereal aura surrounding her that is very pissed that she is able to break her oath bound silence.

It’s extremely worrying to know she has no clue what her true name is, and seemingly cannot be bound to oaths. Which, is weird. Humans definitely get tricked by the fair folk with oaths all the time.

What makes Hannah different?

“And. Uh,” she shakes her head, resuming her story, “Exposure to magic made the roses burst out my skin. Then we all had to leave for Elfheim, stay at this guy named Phil’s place for a couple days. Even though it was only a day here! It was like, three days to us. Wilbur and Phil taught me and Tommy how to fly. It was wild,”

Astelic nods. Getting a funny look on her face.

“Did you ever find out what the wild hunt was doing?” she asks, visibly worried.

The tense feeling just brushing above Hannah’s skin tightens.

“No,” she answers honestly.

Damn. It seems like she has the same amount of answers as before, zero.

“Hannah!” Tommy yells through the door.

“What!” Hannah yells back.

“There’s a rabbit and a frog outside who want to speak to you!” he explains.

Astelic looks confused again.

“That’ll be Techno and Boomer,” Hannah gripes, “Let’s go see what they want,”

Together, the two make their way downstairs. Or, Astelic takes the stairs. Hannah glides down with her feet inches off the floor.
When she gets to the sliding door she frowns. Sure enough, a white rabbit and a neon green frog sit smack dab in the middle of the garden.

In a surge of inspiration, Hannah quickly relays a warning to Astelic.

“Don’t give them your actual name!” she reminds her.

The door juts open. The two animals being replaced by the thorn in Hannah’s side and Wilbur’s cooler counterpart.

“Hullo,” Techno greets them.

“Hannah,” Boomer says, “I’m here to uphold my end of the bargain. About those bravery, uh, lessons? I think it’ll be satisfactory if Techno teaches us both how to fight,”

Then the two fairies twist their eyes upon the only human in the house. Like trickster aiming down prey. Astelic doesn’t even blink.

“I’m Stardust,” she says plainly.

Techno gets a smirk, revealing two adorable buck teeth, “You taught this human well,”

“Not all of us are like Boomer,” Hannah shrugs.

Boomer rolls his eyes. Techno barks out a laugh, and Astelic snickers.
She’s going to get a good grade in making her friends laugh via bullying. Which is both normal to want and possible to achieve.

Techno swishes his cape. Unsheathing a gleaming, deep black sword. Catching purple in the sunlight. Hannah cannot help but stare, it’s the sort of weapon that just feels dangerous to look at.

“When it was time for me to draw my first blood, my father gave me this sword,” he explains, tilting it to the light.

“Oh here he goes-“ Boomer complains.

Techno talks over him, “I hadn’t even grown out my hair yet. I had to dip my entire face into the resulting puddling of blood,”

“Every fucking time-!“ he moans.

“I killed ninety men that day,” Techno says, with a twitch of his ears.

Hannah replies with a stern nod of respect, “Sick,”

As if Techno couldn’t get any cooler. Absolutely terrifying, but still cool.
Astelic sits in the grass and watches the class commence. Boomer begrudgingly going to stand right next to Hannah, adjusting his hat.

Techno’s ears twitch as he glares at Hannah’s feet. Eyes narrowing.

The sudden chill of the flat end of a blade smacks against Hannah’s heel.

“Hey!” she cries.

“Stand correctly. Footing is everything,” he deadpans.

Boomer tries to take the correct stance faster than Techno can hit at their shin. They recoil backwards too.

Hit by hit, tiny nick in their skin by tiny nick, eventually the two are forced to get their footing right. Glaring up at Techno, fists clenched, pissed as all shit. But most importantly, with their feet at the correct angles.

Techno smiles in satisfaction.

“Now,” he drawls, “We can begin,”

Chapter Text

[From the Devout Poems of Tommyinnit: Trusting..]

Trusting the scent of the new born day
Even if the similarities between the new born day and the rusting key in which I play
Are too intertwined to comprehend
I’m trusting you. I’m trusting it.

Sweet scents bedew the music beneath my fingernails
Black key, white key, rust
Dawn to night to promises I believe in
A faith too deep to sink one’s teeth in
I’m trusting it. I’m trusting you.

—

When Sam went to wake Tommy up that day and found him half asleep, exhausted, with damp hair, he knew where he went.

It’s fine, Sam thinks. Thrumming his hand around the steering wheel. Sam trusts Tubbo. Tommy trusts Tubbo. There’s no one on earth Sam would rather Tommy break the rules with. Except maybe Ranboo, but that's beside the point.

He half listens as Hannah and Tommy bicker. Hannah having to swat annoying, little brother shaped fingers away from her seatbelt.
To think they won’t have these car rides to school for much longer.
Hannah’s graduating at the end of this semester, for fucks sake! His little girl, about to earn her high school diploma and get shipped off to college. All while learning, for whatever reason, swordsmanship from a real fairy warrior.

It’s intimidating. Sam never had time to learn who he was when he wasn’t busy being a father. The axe currently hanging over his head is all the upcoming free time he’ll have to figure that out.

That thought is one of many guilty, selfish thoughts he’s been having recently.

Another one has been that damn letter. Sam decided to wait until the weekend to hand it to Tommy. He doesn’t want to stress the kid out and then make him go pay attention in class or do final exams. Ponk already put enough on his plate with that one poem for that one thing Sam can’t talk about anymore.
Another one of those selfish thoughts is Ponk.

“Bye dad! Love you!” both kids say at once, scrabbling out of the vehicle.

“Love you too,” Sam responds, still lost in thought.

Lost in thoughts of lemon flowers and moonlit sweet kisses and the terror of having to be loved back in order to love first. Sam shrinks as he turns away from the student drop off section and back onto the road.

Part of him wishes he never followed Ponk that night so he could pay pay full attention to spending these precious moments with Hannah, and focus on encouraging Tommy. Sam wishes he was still isolated enough to have nothing to do but shove his feelings down and take care of the few people around him.
But Sam learned that sometimes, lemon trees flower. That’s all he can think about.

It's all Sam thinks about as he clocks into work. He slugs through a few t-joints and helping train the latest hire. Citrus climbs between his nerves as he fills out paperwork and answers calls and emails.

Something lovely has grown here. Sam is reluctant to even be afraid.

It’s whatever. He pushes through. Sam makes it through the boring work day, and the boring ride home. Thinking about whether or not Ponk could grow a lime.
He needs to look that up, actually.

Sam is still in his own head about everything when he sets his keys down on the table. Sighing. Leaving his work shoes at the door.

“Hey, dad!” Tommy calls, gliding down the stairs.

Sam really needs to create some sort of landing pad if these two are just going to keep throwing themselves off the staircase.

“What’s up, Turnip?” he asks.

Tommy points out the back door, “Ponk came by a few minutes ago. Planted a lemon tree in the backyard. It’s supposed to be a portal,”

Sure enough, a brand new sapling can be spotted in an empty corner of their yard. Only large enough to sport one, pale yellow fruit. Heavy on the branch sprouting it.

Sam wonders if this is the type of tree to flower.

“Nice. Tell her I said thank you,” Sam smiles.

Tommy chirps as he slinks away back to his room. Which, Sam doesn’t know when he started doing that. It’s alright though. He just has a bird for a son now. Things happen.

He lets a tension in his shoulders fade out with an exhale. Sam’s extra arms and horns returning back to tangibility with a feeling like popping all his joints at once.
Heaven, that feels nice.

Sam goes outside to examine their new tree. Curled between the frog/bee pond and the spot on the fence where the morning glories climb.
It’s a lovely, tiny thing. It makes Sam’s heart swell like he has some silly, school boy crush. It’s almost embarrassing.

“I hope you don’t mind my intrusion-“

Oh, now it is embarrassing.

He turns around to see Ponk nervously appearing from behind the tree. It isn’t even big enough to fully hide his knees, how is this sapling a functioning portal?

“-But I wanted to present you this myself,” they say, avoiding eye contact.

Ponk’s head scarf is wrapped around her face too, like a mask. Sam subconsciously straightens his posture before he speaks.

“Tommy told me about this. Thank you, it’s a nice gift,” Sam smiles, also finding himself nervously staring at the ground.

Ponk giggles. He wonders briefly if he said something wrong.

“You’re such a silly human, Sammie,” They chide, affirming Sam’s suspicion.

He tilts his head, “Am I now?”

“It’s not a gift. I don’t want you in my debt, I want us on equal footing. There is something you can give me in exchange,” Ponk twirls the end seam of his scarf, “I do have a specific thing in mind,”

“No one’s ever given a rule book on this stuff,” Sam complains, then raises an eyebrow, “What do you want in exchange?”

“A date. Anywhere you want, but, uh. A date,” they anxiously rock on the balls of their feet.

Sam’s face betrays him as it turns red. Hearst fluttering.

“That sounds good. I’d-, I’d like to go on a date,” he stutters.

They both giggle at their complete inability to say that with an straight face. Laughing through the slight embarrassment and the tense nerves. It’s a nice sound, Sam thinks. One he could listen to forever.

“Alright then, Sammie,” Ponk’s eyes smile, “It’s a date,”

Chapter Text

[From the Poems of Tommyinnit: Dump it Page]

(A series of short almost poems, doodles, scribbles, and a sticky note reminding him to not use markers in this notebook as it’ll bleed through the pages)

The rattle as the sword falls down,
Raise my body and lower my crown,

Beautiful beggar, slice and slay

Fuck, I’m getting ahead of myself

Ash wrought, flame bought, Chemical warfare kinda solution. The type to take a tooth or two.

I promise I never knew
I promise that I cannot lie you you

I swear this earth was green one day

--

Tommy has dug through his own skin looking for inhumanity. Searching for the parts of himself that aren't bound to earth. He's looking for the words from Elfheim. The words from the Good Neighbors. The roots upturned from the pulling of his own hair.

He's curled into a sunny alcove of the Fourth Court's fortress. Pen and paper in hand, about to rip apart said paper. Tommy groans, sinking into a ball of wings and unwashed hair. About to scream from writer's block and just, general upsetting emotions.
Tommy has to make this world tremble with nothing but his words. He's a flimsy human and a terrible fairy. Attempting to not just bridge the gap, but merge both halves into a whole. He's supposed to be whole. It's all very daunting and downright annoying. Tommy doesn't think he has it in him, those words. Those good words.

"Hey, Toms?" Wilbur asks. Gliding into the hall.

Tommy answers him with an angry, muffled grunt. Face buried in his arms, cradled by his wings.

"Me and George are doing a writing session together. Wanna come?" Will offers.

He nudges Tommy with his elbow. Tommy sighs, emerging from his own feathery cocoon. Wearily following Wilbur toward that central courtyard in the center of the stalwart stone halls.
George sits, in a pile of toadstools and chicken of the woods. Slouched over a mossy typewriter that looks fucking ancient.

Tommy leans over his shoulder. Peaking at the scattered words on the paper.

On that summer morning,
When the sky moans,
Know it is not in pleasure,
But the rattling of bones.

"Oo!" Tommy gleans, "I like that!"

George ignores him, "Thanks,"

He turns his head up to Wilbur as he plops next to George on the ground. The grass inviting and much better then the stony windowsill he was in previously.

"What're you writing, then?" Tommy asks.

Wilbur gets a big grin. With a dramatic swish of his coat, he reveals a neat little notebook. Will clears his throat.

"Don't get him started-" George tries to say, before Wilbur gets started.

"Arise! Lapis entombed brother!"

Tommy's breath hitches in his throat. Sitting upright, at full attention. Listening to every last inflection of every word.

"Invoke the intricacies of time long passing. The rushing of a sand blown river, everlasting," Wilbur swings his hand, firm and commanding.

Tommy's heard this poem before. Strikingly, he's heard this poem in every atrium of his bloodline.

"Arise! My only brother! Beloved by many and hated by few. Outlasted, yet unbested by grass fires that grow and grow," he tilts his head into the poem's heartbeat.

It might just be idolization, or the slight unavoidable pretentiousness of art, or the familiarity of this poem, but Tommy is damn sure this miniature performance is dense enough to form it's own gravity. He can feel himself being directly pulled toward Wilbur.

"Dearest brother, arise," Wilbur's eyes lid shut.

A grief sets into the tone. This piece known so dearly to his heart that the next lines are perfectly memorized.

"Despite the coldness of dying and the sickness of age. Come back, be better, oh brother, awake," he says.

That grief intensifies with the final stanza. Tommy feels the edge of the poem as it draws to an end.

"Oh, brother I cry. We’ve arrived at the edge of the cedar forest, and there is nothing left to say. None to be heard but the pitter patter of heart and rain," Wilbur finishes, then takes a sweeping bow.

Tommy's the only one who claps. George is still clanking away at the spore covered keys.

"That's fucking sick!" Tommy cheers, almost knocking himself over with his excitement.

"Aw, thank you. You know how Ponk told you to write without using human metaphors? I did the opposite. Apparently humanity’s oldest poem was the Epic of Gligamesh,” he explains, sitting on the grass in front of Tommy.

“It was Enheduanna,” Tommy corrects, “But yeah, that’s cool,”

They just sit there, for a moment. The sun warms his back, his eyes close to the white noise of George’s typing and occasional frustrated mumble.
He need not dig within to finds words strewn without.

The realization comes in tandem with a bead of sweat between his shoulder blades. Tommy has to find the words within fairy, not within himself. A piece of writers block falls away.

“Do you lot have a library? Feel dumb asking, but I wouldn’t know where it is,” Tommy asks.

Wilbur’s face, again, lights up. Extending his arm to help them both get off the grass.

“Right this way!” he beckons, beginning to leave the courtyard.

“Bye George!” Tommy says.

He feels proud that he actually got George, mid writing session, to wave goodbye back.

Tommy follows Wilbur through a long, intricately carved corridor. Past the familiar engravings of the Under Queen and Over King.
A door stands taller than the rest, like a wooden beacon amongst the slate gray. The carvings all around the grandiose doorway are all different species of bird flocking toward the entrance.

Massive birds of prey swoop alongside the smallest of burrowers. Plumage wide and elegant, every feather carved with the upmost delicacy.

When they approach, the hinges swing open by themselves. Luring Tommy inside what seems to be an endless sea of books and reading nooks.

Wilbur is amused by Tommy’s awestruck expression.

“Ready?” he asks.

A poem builds beneath his eyelids. Something beautiful and fiery rising within him.

“Fuck yeah,” he replies.

Chapter Text

[From the Haint Tree Poems of Tommyinnit: a Certain Number of Suns]

Dear Bridgemaker,
You got that river water, piss-in-a-jar-kinda sorcery.

I’m thinking that it only gets worse from here.
Still, I’m hoping this train takes me to fairer shores.

Gilded briar, stinging nettle, railroad spike.
Telling me to stick a nail underneath my tongue.

I swear that good work is being done,
Therefore I hold to the promise of a second sun.

Bridgemaker, promise maker, named a thousand names,
Cut cleanly, keenly, and with a steady blade.

Shove my soul out of the way,
As the third of the suns arrives to mark the day.

—

Sword fighting is something Hannah is actually enjoying. It’s not a very easy thing to pick up. She’s still clumsy, weak, and easily tired.

Techno tells her that she could treat fighting like an exact science if she wanted to, but there will always still be chaos. The funny thing about chaos is that when it enters the scene, all reasoning goes out the window. Predicting your opponents moves twelve steps out can only save you in safety. Only in routine, regulated battles. There is no regulations regarding death.

That’s what’s coming so naturally to her thus far. Hannah is very, very good in operating under illogical conditions. She has to live in her own head everyday.

What’s so great about swordsmanship is that it forces her to be afraid, but fight. Techno could kill her without trying! Boomer would laugh if he did! Hannah is forced to manage the nonsensical heat of holy-shit-a-maniac-with-a-sword-is-trying-to-kill-me, and it works.

Her therapist agrees this is a good confidence builder. Hannah beamed with the praise. Excited by the piece of the promise that is going to make her brave.
She can still talk about the Fourth Court, though. Which means for whatever reason she isn’t bound to promises. She keeps her silence anyways.

Even the roses seem pretty confused about it, that dodging of magic responsibility. Murmuring whenever she thinks about it too hard. So, she’s stopped thinking about it.

“Come on, I could do better than that as a frog!” Boomer taunts.

Hannah grimaces, swinging her next hit harder. Barely just enough to force them into making a mistake. Boomer falls back ever so slightly.

“It’s like you aren’t trying!” he jabs her stomach with his hilt.

Grunting, Hannah catches herself with her foot. Whipping at Boomer’s ankles with thorny rose vines. She quickly yanks his balance out from under him, scratching his skin.

Their eyes go wide as he tumbles to the ground, “Oh shit!”

Hannah basks in her temporary glory. She’s got too many cuts and bruises to do any true dragging. Techno applauds her obnoxiously loud as Sam goes inside to get bandaids for Boomer’s miscellaneous cuts.

“Was that good enough for you, smartass?” Hannah jeers, proud of herself.

“No. L. L for loser,” Boomer says.

She extends a land to help them up. Letting Boomer lean on her, supporting their bad ankle.
Hm. Wonder who did that.

“You’re in my thoughts and prayers,” Hannah laughs.

Boomer scrunches his nose, “Prayers my ass,”

The roses tilt her forward. Almost like it’s time for some exposition.

“Are you not supposed to pray to the fairy gods?” Hannah asks.

Techno shrugs, “I guess you can. They won’t answer, though,”

“Then what is fairy religion? Who are our gods?” she runs her thumb over her palm comfortingly.

Hannah watches him close his eyes. Ears bending over as he attempts to find the words. Techno lifts his sword.

“A prayer you put in your hands,” he says.

Hannah listens. Her own weapon very much a weight at her side, but not as heavy as Boomer.

“A prayer is an offering you haven’t given yet. In the heat of the moment, you barter with the world. Like, hey. If you let me live, I’ll leave a grander gift at the shrine. Or, something along those lines. A prayer is an action you must pay forward. For us, it’s not communication. We have gods we can lay our hands on, we don’t need telepathy to speak to them. Motion is god, motion makes good. That is prayer,” Techno explains.

Hannah lets out a small gasp.
She finds that so meaningful. In her world, that’s a spell. Trading one thing for another with the powers that be. In fairy, that’s just prayer. Silence, action, truth. Something beautiful plants inside of her chest.

“You stole that speech from my dad,” Boomer complains.

“Ponk is a talented poet,” Techno’s ears quirk.

They roll their eyes as Sam arrives with the bandages, “Plagiarizing ass,”

“You’re salty you lost,” Hannah says while helping Boomer hop over to a lawn chair.

As Hannah stares at the range of tint to fairly deep cuts her thorns made, a sick pride builds in her throat. But! That is her frienemy/sparring partner she injured! All is fair in love and war, or, something.

She’s too busy thinking about placing a prayer in her hands. Pushing something bigger, grander, more powerful forward. In silent oaths and holy candlelight.

No wonder the political machine to take down all other political machines in Elfheim is a band of poets. The land ‘neath the hill makes it seem easy.

Sam carefully applies the last of the tiny, circular bandaids to Boomer’s roughed up ankle. Giving Boomer a quick smile before standing up.

“There you go. Sorry that I can’t ground her from doing that,” Sam quips.

Boomer nods, “Ground her anyways,”

So ends the sparring lesson.
Techno and Boomer take their leave through the new lemon tree in the backyard. Hannah and Sam go inside to eat dinner.

“Hey! Hannah, I got a new villager on my island,” Tommy cheers, pulling up to the table.

She sits down with her bowl of chicken spaghetti, “Tell me about it,”

“It’s Diva, one of the frog villagers. To be honest? Her eyes are creepy as shit but it’s chill-“ Tommy merrily infodumps.

She doesn’t mean to tune her brother out. She loves listening to him infodump. It’s just that right now her hands are heavy with the prayer she wishes she could speak.

I will be brave and find my name, she thinks, just help me know how to start.

She tunes back in right in time to hear Tommy make a joke. Hannah sinks into the safety of her family gathered around the table, snickering, as something moves forward.

Chapter Text

[From the Aching Poems of Tommyinnit: Text Me When You Get Home]

The excessive necessity of love drives your body to the ground,
And it will pluck you right back out of it.

The letter gleams in soft, baby pink ink,
And wax the shade of tempest brown.

You’d be running for the hills if it wasn’t so sweet,
And your feet move softly toward your lovers cheek.

In a separate statement you are fleeing,
And in the righted truth of currently, you are blushing.

It’s love! It’s gorgeous!
You’d be afraid if you thought you had to.

You’re love will push you through the dirt and toward an eternal home.
Text me when you get home.

—

Sam nervously adjusts his collar in the mirror for the millionth time. Trying to swallow down the dryness in his throat.

“Dad,” Tommy encourages, “You got this,”

Sam distantly wonders if it’s sweet or embarrassing to have his teenage son hype him up for a date.

“I mean, I guess-“ he says.

“No! No, dad. You’re the smoothest motherfucker alive. You got this in the bag,” Tommy kicks his feet from ontop of the dresser.

“Wait, why do you know I’m going on a date? I didn’t tell you that,” Sam asks, turning toward him.

Tommy shrugs nonchalantly.

“Dunno. Just sort of guessed. You’re dressing nice and you look super nervous,” he explains.

Sam turns back to the mirror. Unsure if his outfit is the best considering he’s matching it to his human blonde hair, and he might spend some time in fairy form with green hair.
Heavens, he’s overthinking this.

Tommy makes a face, “Wait. Who are you going on a date with?”

Sam is too busy thinking about how to accommodate his extra arms while wearing a button up to register that question immediately.

“Oh,” he stutters, “Uh, Ponk,”

“Ponk,” Tommy repeats.

He looks like he doesn’t believe Sam. Like the idea that his dad would date the magical equivalent to his english teacher is a hard concept to grasp.

“Ponk? As in, Fourth Court Ponk?” he asks for clarification.

Sam nods, “Yeah. It’s not like there’s a bunch of people named Ponk,”

A gasp of terror escapes Tommy’s throat. If he wasn’t looking at the kid, he’d think Tommy just got stabbed. It’s that dramatic.

“You’re trying to give me step siblings!” Tommy yelps, pointing a judgmental finger.

“Tommy-“ Sam laughs.

It’s too late. He bounces off the dresser and onto the floor. Wings expediting his escape.

“Hannah!” he yells down the hall.

It’s embarrassing how deep his stomach drops upon getting snitched on. To his own daughter! Sam shakes his head, reaching for cologne.

“What?” Hannah screams from another room.

Sam locks the door to his bedroom and continues getting ready. Pretending like he doesn’t hear footsteps pacing up and down the hall.
Do they really not want step siblings that badly?

When he can no longer procrastinate it, Sam bites the bullet. Reaching for the door handle.
Immediately upon opening Hannah traps him in a hug. Two arms instinctively wrap around her, another catches their collective weight on the door frame.

“Oh my god, dad! I am so proud of you! I’m so fucking proud of you!” Hannah yelps.

“Aw,” Sam quivers, tearing up, “You’re going to make me cry,”

He remembers family movie nights spent making teasing fun of his near two decade long streak of being single. Seeing Hannah this hyped about Sam finally breaking it just makes his little heart all mushy and happy.

“I’m proud, I really am. Just, wha-. Why Ponk!” Tommy crosses his arms.

Hannah pulls from the hug to gripe at him.

“Because? Why’s there have to be a reason, Tommy,” she narrows her eyes.

“Imagine how bad it’ll be when they get married!” Tommy says, watching Hannah roll her eyes at him, “Don’t give me that look, adults always get married once they date with it’s. It’s only natural,”

“Tommy-!” Sam tries to scold.

Tommy continues to plead his case to Hannah, “No, think about it. That’ll be a seven person household. You’ll be the only girl, and we’ll be the only menstruaters. Hannah, it will be us against the world,”

Hannah crosses her arms bitterly, face getting red.

“Tommy, I can’t believe how much of a brat your sounding like. Why can’t you just be happy our dad finally found someone he cares about?” her face twists in fury.

They’re about to do the ol’ sibling scrap before Sam pulls them apart. Annoyed at his son, and flattered that his daughter would rise to his defense. She should never have to, but it’s still a nice sentiment.

“Hey, hey, hey! First of all, thank you Han, but I can defend myself. Second of all, Mr Toenail clipping, bobody said I’m marrying Ponk! If you have concerns about shared housing if I ever do, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Sam sternly gets across.

Hannah raises her chin as she steps into the light of fatherly approval, and thus victory. Tommy all but scowls at her.

Sam looks down at his phone to check the time. He still has about 30 minutes to get over to the restaurant they agreed on.
Is that enough time for flowers? How does he go about flowers?

He turns to his daughter, with literal flowers growing out her scalp, and gets an idea.

“Hannah, you can grow flowers right?” Sam asks.

She nods with a big grin, “Yes, I can,”

“Twenty bucks if you can go into the garden and bring me a bouquet before I have to get in the car,” he offers.

She takes up the challenge excitedly. Darting down the stair case, which at this point Sam should just make a ramp, and throwing herself out the back door.

Tommy comes up behind him with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

“Sorry for being a brat,” he apologizes.

“Yeah. You’re grounded and owe me twenty bucks,” Sam says sarcastically, “Don’t sweat it. No harm no foul,”

He ruffles Tommy’s hair with a grin. Just has Hannah returns with fistful of pink and orange roses tied together with vines.

“Thank you,” Sam smiles, accepting the bouquet.

She gives a mock curtsy.

Sam now is out of tricks to stall with. He has no other option other than get in that car, drive to that restaurant, and go meet Ponk.
Tommy catches him sweating.

“Go get in that car, you sad old man,” he chides.

“At least let me hug my children before I go-?” Sam tries to stall, they interrupt him.

“Nope!” Hannah pushes him toward the front door, “Out you to. Goodbye, dad,”

He almost doesn’t stop himself from digging his heels into the floor. A bit panicked at the idea of his destination.
Hannah tosses him out of the house before he can stutter an excuse.

“Break a leg!” Tommy shouts as Hannah shuts the door in Sam’s face.

Sam listens to the lock turn.
His fucking kids locked him out of the house so he had no excuse but to go on a date, those bastards. Then again, he’s the reason why they’re bastards.

Sam swallows his anxiety as he unlocks his car.

Chapter Text

[From the Spiral Bound Poems of Tommyinnit: Undone Poem]

(A page in a notebook covered in sticky notes and smeared ballpoint ink. Where a poem was obviously started, scraped, and then started again several times over. There are only a few legible words. Otherwise, it is merely scribbles)

Father.

Painkillers.

Walk.

Aisle.

Sorcery.

—

Sam is so fucked off nervous that he nearly rams into another car forgetting that he needs to actually use the to break to park. He shifts the gear, holding his breath.

“Fuck,” he exhales, “Fuck, ok. I got this,”

If he doesn’t got this, he’s locked out of the house for the foreseeable future.
Sam exits the car and begins the trek to the assigned restaurant. It’s some fondue place meant for romantic outings such as this, and is thus entirely too expensive. At least he knows there will be chocolate involved.

Outside, in the small crowd of people talking before leaving the venue, Sam watches Ponk appear out of nowhere in the spaces between blinks. He can taste the magic on the roof of his mouth.

“Hello, Sammie,” Ponk’s eyes twinkle, lower face obscured by their head scarf.

“Hey Ponkie,” Sam smiles back.

It’s the first date, and they’re already on cute nickname basis.
Maybe Tommy was right, and dating with kids makes everything go really fast. Perhaps it’s skill accelerating the process. Perhaps it’s Desperation with the capital D. Only time will tell.

“This place as thicker air. Have you noticed that?” Ponk asks.

Sam twists his face in thought, comparing the air quality of Elfheim and Earth.

“You’re right,” he nods, “It is thicker,”

They head inside. Going through the typical restaurant motions. Following the waiter to their table, ordering drinks, calculating how much distance between their knees is acceptable and how much will poison his bloodstream. All of those things are perfectly reasonable and nothing on that list was spawned out of paranoia! Stop assuming things.

"I've never been to one of things things here before. It's a bit weird," Ponk says, squinting at the menu.

"Oh, sorry. What's weird about it?" Sam nervously asks.

Ze smiles at Sam like he's a toddler who asked why the sky is blue.

“A lot less wine,” they respond.

There is at least one good part of being a fairy estranged from his own culture, Sam thinks. And it’s being able to be pixie lead by wolffish grins and mesmerizing, greenish beauty.
Sam would blush to think about all the things Ponk could make him do with just a sip of fairy wine.

Pulling himself out of those thoughts, Sam asks a single question.

“How’d we get here?” he leans on his hand.

Ponk takes a sip of her drink, “How much of the story do you want?”

“Everything,” Sam says earnestly, “I want to hear everything,”

Ponk blinks. Pausing for thought, weaving together something beautiful in that gorgeous head of theirs.

“It starts with an appleseed,” Ponk folds his hands together.

“Not a lemon one-?”
“Nope. It begins with an appleseed,”

Sam firmly shuts up. Letting Ponk begin storytelling, looking at zem in quiet awe.

“When I had first came to, um, this place, I found myself in an apple orchard. Miles it seems of fruitful trees in all directions. I didn’t know what to make of it, Sammie,” she starts.

The story takes a quick pause as the waiter shows up to quickly get their order. They decide on the meat centric fondue package, it seemed the most human.

“Why’d an orchard be weird? Don’t you guys have them too?” Sam asks.

“Not for apples. Apples are sacred to the Over King, and only exist in his garden. For the sole purpose of ensnaring hu-“ they remember where they are and correct themselves, “-you guys,”

Ponk snickers. Sam’s stomach gets butterflies at the simple sound.

“So I took one. Just a single apple, a forbidden fruit. Don’t you guys have a whole mythology on that idea? Of forbidden fruit? Whatever. What matters is that I ate it, and opened the middle to find the seeds. That’s where my court started. Right there in that apple core. Realizing that things are not as sacred and distant as they seem. Consequently, that’s where we start. Before we even met,” Ponk says.

The mental image of an entire rebellion Sam isn’t even allowed to think too hard about without the twist of magic grabbing at his brain starting in a human orchard makes him smile.
Ponk is incredible. Sam could get drunk on that fact.

Their food comes. They both skewer their little samples to dip in the fondue fountain. It’s good, but not as good as this story.

“What happened next?” Sam presses for more.

Ponk daps his mouth with a napkin, “An accident,”

“Really?” he laughs.

“Yeah,” Ponk laughs back, “Boomer didn’t mean to end up in your backyard. But the, traveling, sent him a bit to the left. So he ended up stuck on your roof and couldn’t help but overhear Tommy reading his poems aloud to edit them. Info gets back to me, I decide to take a chance on going to the talent show. Little did I know my potential poet had just this really hot dad,”

He rolls his eyes at that.

Sam guesses it’s history from there. A confusing one at that. One he hasn’t yet caught up on yet.
This moment lasts, though. Long enough for Sam to catch up. To realize he’s in the presence of someone so worthy of love, who decided to love him first.

The rest of the meal goes slower. They eat, they talk, they laugh.
Something balloons in Sam’s chest more and more until the beauty of everything becomes unbearable.

It’s raining, when they leave. Both of them so caught up in staring at the other that Sam didn’t even realize he left a seventy dollar tip.

They’re busy. They’re busy with a story that starts with an appleseed. Busy living it out, fleshing it out. Busy sprinting into the rainy street with little regard for anything other than the sensation of held hands and cheek splitting happiness.

Sam twists back to look at the elated smile on Ponk's face. Tightening his hold on her hand. That balloon of joy that’s been building in his heart now big enough to finally burst. When he laughs it's with a sincerity never before seen, a sound never before so free.

Here they are, illegally sprinting through the turn lane in the middle of the street. In the pouring rain. Shouting and jeering like kids.
All of a sudden decades wash off of Sam’s spine. He stands tall, and clean. Magically made a kid again with the painless love built in his heart. The kid in love he never got to be.

Chapter Text

[From the Emboldened Poems of Tommyinnit: Top Surgery Joke or Prophet’s Spittle?]

I'm not keen on getting the good word out,
This gospel I cling close to my breast-
(Purposefully not heavy)
-and I cleave.

I am not something to pick from,
My blood has no choice between:
-pulp
and
-no pulp.
This thick scripture ruptures my skin,
As the holy word tries to live again.

Somewhere along the line a deep valley was cast by shadow alone.
Within that, the truth.
Traded hand to hand, like a precious stone.
Cut and carved like breast flesh.

Top surgery joke, or prophet’s spittle?
Wrong (Both are Wrong)
I call this hope.

—

Tommy feels like a complete and utter dick.

Hannah was right, he was being really mean to dad for no reason. So he does the only natural thing to do when one does something they believe is wrong.

Go hide in another dimension!

Tommy sits in a high windowsill in the cold stone fortress of the Fourth Court. The moon, bold and first quarter, his reading light in the darkness of the library.

Tommy still needs to write a poem based on Elfheim, not Earth. He has to dig into the scripture and come out on the other side a bit different. Just slightly changed.

These worlds of his are twins. Born, red as always, from the same womb. Built with the same basic atomic building blocks. What divides Elfheim and Earth so starkly is that they have different gods.
Earth’s divine providence was swapped around as a story for so long that their name, if any, is lost to the living. Tommy’s god never walked among men. If they did, he isn’t even sure humans would still recognize them.

Tommy’s god is also two others. The Over King and Under Queen still lift the ground toward his feet, still tug at him like a tide.

He needs to know them. To spark just enough words out of the embers left by their coat trails. Just enough, just enough.
Tommy wonders if there even is any new words to say.

Fairy time works differently, lasts longer. Other fairies are fine living in their Courtly politics and godly battles. If they aren’t, they just move into the Middle Court and shake their fists at anyone who prays too loudly. (Those people are as close to atheists as you can get when your god makes regular appearances to fight the other.)

A sinking fear overcomes him. Maybe all the words to be spoken on the gods are gone. Maybe there isn’t any left, and Tommy will just accidentally repeat the same ol’ thing already spoken forever ago.

Over and Under already shake the world anew every so often. Tommy’s eyes unfocus off his page.

Maybe he’s looking in the wrong place.

Grumpy, Tommy flops over and glides back onto the floor. Returning his book back to its position. Eyeing up the others.
Prophecy. Bingo.

Tommy takes one big leap, flutters for a second as he fumbles to grab the book, then falls back on the floor soundlessly. Rubbing one reverent finger over the gold embellishments on the cover.
A Collection of Finished Prophecies by F. Symmetry. Deep blue over and navy ink text, categorized by order of completion.

It’s funny, really. How Tommy complains of not being able to find words never before spoken and then goes and reads all the things already set in stone.
He mindlessly flips through it. Treating this little inspiration searching session like bibliomancy. If he’s meant to read it, it’ll show up on the page.

One will move mountains of flesh, trading one chest for another.
Completed, as Doc M. invented top surgery.

Upon processing that information, Tommy doubles over in laughter. Eyes watering from the shear hilarity of him of all people stumbling across the long completed prophecy for magical top surgery.
These fairy bastards got it first and didn’t even share. That thought also sends him reeling.

Tommy makes grabby hands at the little notebook in his pocket before he remembers he has to physically grab it. Scribbling down the first line that comes to mind, cut and carved like breast flesh.

Nice. That’s the start of something. Maybe a human commentary on transness will be revolutionary here under the hill? Eh. Tommy continues reading.

His poor posture grows worse as the reading envelopes him. Wars fought and lost, assassins uprooted and slain, linages of nameless fairies cast to the wind. It’s incredibly intriguing.
Elfheim is it’s own mobius strip. It’s own ouroboros. It’s own self fulfilling prophecy. No wonder it’s revolutions are raised by poets.

A heretic will burn at the hem of the Under Queen’s cloak, the ash never washing away from precious feathers.
Completed, as a woman named Vitine escaped her execution for heresy before succumbing to her burns behind the Under Queen. The remnants of the body still stain her feathered cloak, and can be seen today.

Those words enter his body like smoke. Curling into his head, filling him with the stench of soot.
The punishment for heresy is fire. A heretic’s corpse stains the goddess herself.

That’s something he can work with.

Tommy tucks the book and his notebook under his arm and lifts off the ground. Returning to his window way up the stretch of the wall.
He thumps his pen against the paper for a solid minute before the first sentence arrives. Tommy snatches it out of the air like a child catching a firefly.

If cremation is saved for treason, what does combustion mean?

Tommy rocks a little, getting flappy hands. Ponk is going to be so proud of him.
And, with that thought, maybe the thought of Ponk being his dad doesn’t seem so necessary to keep distant after all. Fuck that actually. He refuses to care right now.

Something about a metaphors for inspiration being catching aflame, for being shone a light. Something about revolutions suckling from artists. Something about a world, so shaken, being steadied by being uprooted.
A poem, in it’s ugly rough draft, forms on the page as Tommy decides he’d prefer the fire if it let him create.

Chapter Text

[From the Pale Poems of Tommyinnit: Arrow Flight Pink]

Slip into silken silence,
Lean on a bow of rosewood,
And, with pink raw fingers,
Pick me from milk and honey,
of all that’s good and clean.

Raise me like an arrow,
Brace me on your knee,
Watch for your mark, and set me off,
Set the thorny bark free,
Then, please, cut some silence into me.

—

Hannah’s running back to her tarot cards again. Feeling like there’s a fire in her throat, a sickness in her skin. Anxiety is running at her with a cleaver, it seems. It seems further that she is hapless to stop it.

Hannah’s going to be graduating high school in two weeks. Two!

May is rapidly descending into June. The remaining days of senior year are barely double digits. There is no buffer between her and the future anymore. There is just the promise of a world she’s afraid is too harsh for a girl made of flower petals and not much else.
The roses whisper words of comfort and courage, but it’s not enough to still her twisting stomach.

If Hannah could muster up some sort of omen, for better or worse, she’d stop flinching as the seconds pass.

She’s lit a cotton and lavender scented candle. Phone pulled up to a cheat sheet and notes app, to retain all her upcoming knowledge.
Tommy and her managed to get a reasonable response the first time. Hannah’s nervously confident that this must work. Or, maybe it’s desperation. She’ll find out.

She just needs to know what the future has in store for her. She needs to know that she’ll make it out.

“Ok,” she comforts herself, “Card one,”

She pulls from the deck. Too scared to quake.

The tower presents itself before her. All fire and falling and destruction. Hannah winces as she frowns.
Nothing good comes from the tower. Death, yeah. That’s just change. But no one escapes the ruin that comes when the tower falls. It seems Hannah won’t either.

She pointedly places it down and pulls again. Trying to find something better, something worth the worry.

The five of cups rears it’s head.
The person draped in black, staring down at all their wine now overturned, a stormy sky above. Hannah’s stomach further twists within itself just looking at it. At its ability to get in her face while being a 2D piece of paper.

She checks the website for its meaning, the one of the upmost importance sticking out to her first. Bitter times ahead.

Fuck! Tell her something she doesn’t know. Tell her something that will make her feel safe, for once.

Hannah gingerly raises the third and final card she will be pulling tonight.
The magician rises upward feet first. Their table and flowers all turned upside down. Hannah isn’t afraid of it at first, checking to see what the reversal means. Manipulation and deception. And, apparently, a need to speak your truth.

These are all terrible omens. It’s like everything she didn’t want to hear.
Hannah feels embarrassed for crying. Salty tears falling thin and fast. Was it too much to ask to be told that everything was going to be ok? That she, courageous and bold, could actually face the days ahead?

Hannah is about to graduate high school. She can’t drive, she’s never had a job, she can barely cook when she isn’t too nervous to do so, and is also dealing with the added pressure of finding out she isn’t entirely human.

She feels selfish for wishing that dad was home. That he’d comfort her, and tell her that these things are stupid.
But Sam’s on a date, and she’s proud of him. These cards are not stupid. Perhaps this impending disaster will all be her fault, that her lie will sent a crack running through the entirety of all her tomorrows.

She stims by lightly scratching at her scalp. Mumbling nonsense and rocking back and forth. Quickly coming to and deciding, with breathless vigor, to put her foot down.

Hannah shuffles there cards back into their box and sets them on her desk. Sitting down to boot up minecraft and melt her brain until she’s too tired to stay awake.

There’s something alienating by being strange even among the aliens. That she will never be a human because she has wings and plant based powers, but will never be a fairy because she is not bound by their rules.

Hannah worries about her ability to lie. Her apparent lack of a true name. What marked her? What made her suspiciously less?
Tommy and Sam can’t lie. They have true names. What made Hannah the exception? Was it her mother hating her, then dying when she was young? Genetics? A curse? Some inherent flaw within her being, not tied to anything greater?

She joins her single player world and attempts to not think about it. Taking a few seconds to tab out and bust out her “songs that I like” playlist. Chasing cars comes on shuffle.

Hannah tabs back in.

Something is coming. She feels it stronger than she’s felt anything else. Those cards aren’t lying about disaster. The question is, is it her?
Think about it. The wild hunt appeared before her. The cards foretell a crisis. She isn’t bound by fairy law in a way that might expose the political counterculture that her little brother got wrapped up in. Maybe she’s the problem.

But that’s selfish. Boomer told her it was selfish to assume the wild hunt was about her. So maybe, just maybe, this is all just anxiety talking.

Hannah bonemeals some roses for red dye. Trying to make concrete for a nicer looking barn for the cows. Trying, with studious desperation, to bite down the bile in her throat.

Maybe the crisis is that she’ll have to live like this forever. All nervous, and scared, permanently waiting for some bomb to go off.
It’s a scary thought, but luckily the theory doesn’t seem to stick. It’s just anxiety talking.

Chapter Text

[From the Train Station Poems of Tommyinnit: Sorry I was an Ass]

Lapis, lore, station house, spilt vein,
Split and slit and Lord, here it is again.

Your rumbling heart like a train cart,
Dear Lord, I hear it coming.

Part braced for impact, part relaxed,
I reach out to grasp your hand.

You’re not the same anymore, unfamiliar now,
But I knew you since I was you, once.

And the train rolls over is like a thunderstorm,
All of its lapis and it’s blood spilled onto our shoes.

With slight hesitation, we turn back our heads,
We continue walking, and you are familiar again.

—

Sam and Ponk, hearts still pattering away in their throats, manage to find shelter in a very particular, very well-frequented-by-his-family-type store. One Sam is very excited to take his date too.
They walk into the Lego store. Shaking their pant legs free of water at the doormat, soaked and still giggling. Ponk’s scarf heavy with water. Sam’s hair plastered down flat.

“What is this place?” Ponk asks curiously, looking at one of the Star Wars sets like it might bite him.

“Welcome to, drumroll please, he Lego store! They’re these little plastic bricks you can build things out of,” Sam explains, “I love collecting them,”

“Oh,” zey say, “That’s cute,”

Ponk is still glaring at the Millennium Falcon. Sam could almost see where it’s glaring back, and where it (the plastic bricks) gloats when it does eventually win the staring contest.

Sam grabs their hand, leading Ponk through the store. Scanning the room for a set he both likes and doesn’t already have.

“I think we should build something together! That’s like, immediate second date material,”

He briefly worries he’s accidentally overstepped some imaginary boundary by bringing up a second date, but Ponk hums contently. Clearly pleased at the idea.

“I saw you staring at that Star Wars set. Do you like it?” Sam asks.

“No,” Ponk laughs, “It looks so sad and gray,”

Sam nods, “Alright. Let’s find something with color,”

They shuffle through the store in a wide circle. Passing a bunch of stuff Sam might considering coming back for, especially with the kids.

“Oh! Ponk, do you like this one?” Sam points.

Ponk looks at the box, “Pretty. What is it?”

“It’s the tree of souls from the movie Avatar! Tommy would make me watch that movie everyday for a week when he was little, it was one of his old hyperfixes,” he grabs the box and checks the price, deciding that he is willing to purchase it.

“Movie?” She crinkles her face.

Sam stops dead in his tracks.

Ponk doesn’t know what a movie is! Makes sense, Elfheim has no use for such technologies, but still! Still! No movies? Ever? That won’t be acceptable.

“Dude, no way. You’ve never watched a movie?” Sam asks in disbelief.

“I don’t know what it is,” Ponk giggles.

“Ok!” Sam tucks the box under his arm to begin his lesson, “It’s like a picture that moves for hours to tell you a story. And there’s a whole team of actors and directors and, uh, costume artists. To make a film that you can watch on a screen,”

Ponk thinks about it. She considers what to compare it to, until visually settling on something.

“So it’s a portable play?” They ask.

“Yes!” Sam claps, “It’s a portable play!”

Ponk takes one of Sam’s hands, still slightly damp, and interlocks their hands sweetly. Sam can feel his face go red and arms go slack.

“So for our second date you’re going to show me a movie while we build this box?” he smiles flirtatiously.

“Definitely,” Sam says in a breath.

Ponk presses a quick, sweet peck to the corner of Sam’s lips. He might just set on fire.

Settled on their choice, they make their way to the short check out line to wait. Sam explaining some of the things within the set to Ponk.

“-And Tommy would get upset at me for forgetting this guy’s name, but nobody really remembers it. This character is Netri. No- that’s wrong. We’ll just have to watch the movie I think,” he blabbers on.

Ponk just grins up at him, excited just to hear him speak.

Sam wonders if Tommy would be upset at him for watching Avatar without him as the person at the check out swipes his card and puts the box in a reusable bag. Smiling nicely.

As he grabs the bag from them, something dawns on him suddenly. Not unlike a lightning bolt or a smack to the jaw.

He forgot the letter.

The letter. The letter from his ex. His ex who is Tommy’s mom. Tommy’s mom who hasn’t attempted to make contact since his second birthday, and she didn’t even show up for that!

Shit, he thinks. Shit, shit, shit.

“Is everything alright?” Ponk asks, concerned about how he randomly froze.

“Yeah,” Sam quickly answers, “Just- fuck. I just realized I made a big mistake,”

“About the legos-?” she asks slowly.

Sam is quick to reassure them, “No, no. I uh, I forgot to give Tommy something,”

“Oh. Ok,” Ponk nods.

They hold hands, making Sam’s heart flutter, as they walk out the store and back into the rain. The city calming down around them. Streetlights painting the concrete and asphalt in a reflective orange glow.

“You know, I had a lot of fun tonight,” Sam says.

Ponk squeezes his hand, “I did too, Sammie,”

He gets butterflies at the cute nickname as if it was the first time he’s ever been called that.

They walk hand in hand back to the restaurant where Sam parked his car. Water seeping back in the few places it did dry.
When they arrive to the vehicle, Sam realizes how it hurts to end this. How he wants to stay here forever, and wander the streets with Ponk.

“See you at our second date?” Ponk grins.

“Absolutely,” he agrees.

There, with a small rumble of thunder, their lips meet again. Soft, delicate, full of something Sam is too caught up in the moment to name.

When he opens his eyes Ponk is gone. Whisked away by the water back to Elfheim.
He stands, bag in hand, and is left with nothing but the knowledge that he will have to deliver that letter.

Chapter Text

[From the Motherless Poems of Tommyinnit: Seething]

The seething comes in silence when the draining pain dribbles down to bone marrow. When, all alone, I mourn the thing I never had. Mourning with a chip in my tooth from cracking it, jaw too tight in fury.

[It comes when:
-there’s a holiday I have never celebrated before.
[When]
-there is a place on the family tree that’s twisted, rotted, blackened with mold.
[It comes when]
-I spot my reflection, and the chin that was hers before it was mine. ]

It comes when I write a poem attempting to reconcile with someone I wouldn’t bother reconciling with on a good day.
(But the pain doesn’t come on good days, brightened with the family I hold.)

It comes when the heaviest of rains come. It comes when I’m not looking, not thinking. Sunken into something I normally don’t even feel bad about.

I’d call it grief but it’s more like a middle finger. (Pointed both ways.)

—

That morning, when Tommy wakes up, he senses that something is wrong.

They’re all eating breakfast at the kitchen island. Both him and Hannah watching the way Sam’s mouth is pointed downward in a frown.

“So,” Tommy says between mouthfuls of eggs, “How’d the date go?”

Sam looks up, like he forgot where he was.

“Good! Good. We went out to eat, and went to the Lego store. Ponk’s going to come over to watch a movie soon. So! I did good. Landed a second date,” he explains.

The frown fades as he talks about Ponk and resettles when he stops.
Tommy’s stomach falls when dad reaches into a drawer. Pulling out a crisp envelope and, almost shamefully, presenting it to Tommy.

“I deserve so much shit for not giving this to you the moment it was sent. I just, I didn’t want to stress you out. Or upset you. And it’s my fault. I’m sorry for keeping this from you,” Sam slides the letter across the table with his lower arm.

Every inch of Tommy recoils from the letter, scared to read the name of who sent it. If dad is making such a big fuss, what the hell is it?
He nervously picks it up. Rereading the outside a million times. Trying to hope that it’ll change the next to around.

It’s a letter from his mom. Addressed to Clementine.

He really wishes his dead name and true name weren’t the same. Now, looking back, no wonder everyone saw him have a giant personality change alongside his name switch. He wasn’t accidentally being magically ordered around all the time!
A lot of the scorn he felt toward the name Clementine softened since he finally was able to understand it. To understand the little girl who held it before him. But this? This shit?

Tommy wants to rip the letter in half and throw the shards in a fire.

His mom doesn’t just get to wander back into his life after pointedly exiting it. She doesn’t get to call him Clementine when she will never understand what it means, what it can do.
A potent, white hot anger courses through him. Smelting the fear into rage.

Tommy rips into it to extract the contents. Unfolding the piece of printer paper to look upon the hand writing.

Dear Clementine Fran,

Years ago I left a hospital having made a promise to several people that I would never see you again. I’m not the type to go back on promises, mostly. I don’t want to break my promise to your father by resuming contact. I don’t want to break my promise to myself by attempting to gain contact with you.
But having, and keeping, a child of my own has challenged this.

I’ve recently had another kid. A little girl named Cherry. Even if it might not count, I wanted to continue the C name tradition. Cherry’s birth is really pushing me to mend what I’m now realizing was a mistake.
I would love to see you again, Clementine. I’d love for you to meet your little sister.

If you decided not to, I suppose this letter still won’t be in vein. At least you will surprised by a secret sibling you didn’t know about.

With best regards, your Mom

Tommy throws the letter down. Fucking pissed off that she thinks she can just have a second kid and think that’ll make her a better person. Make Tommy want her to be a better person.

Sam is quick to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. Rubbing his thumb in a small circle.

“You don’t have to send a letter back. You don’t have to go see her. Do whatever you feel comfortable with,” Sam reminds him, voice low and calm.

“Fuck-“ he drawls out, folding his arms and stuffing his head in there.

“At least your mom is still alive, Tommy. Thats enough to be happy about,” Hannah says, bitterly stimming by pushing her cuticles back.

“I wish she wasn’t, to be honest,” Tommy mopes into his arms, “Then I wouldn’t have to worry about this shit,”

“Tommy!” Sam scolds.

Hannah gets this look on her face.
It’s something torn between reliving a painful memory, and an anger he’s only seen directed at people being assholes to them. Tommy shifts uncomfortably seeing it.

“You we’re too little to remember the visitations. Or the funeral, or the protest. Fuck, even I was too little,” She looks at the ground, her hair falling around her face.

He looks quickly up at Sam. Sensing that he’s made a mistake.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, “I didn’t mean to say it like that. Really,”

Hannah clenches a fist.

“But you don’t just get to say that! Not when I’ve been extremely fucking jealous the whole time that you still get to have a mom while mine died as a National incident!” she yells.

“Hannah, we understand-” Sam tries to diffuse the situation.

But, still fuming, Hannah continues yelling. Eyes too squeezed shut to see Tommy recoil away from her.

“I hate how you’re so obvious to how lucky you are! You aren’t anxious, you have a mom, you have this-. This talent that literally bridged worlds together and, and. You just don’t seem to notice! Or care! I would kill for a letter like that! But I can never see her again!”

Tommy’s jaw tightens enough for him to hear his molars scratch against each other.
Fuck. They bicker all the time, but they never scream like this. Hannah never screams like this.

“I-“ she cuts off, shoulders shaking.

Silently, Sam uses all his arms to pull both his children into a hug. Letting Tommy and Hannah start crying for wildly separate reasons.

He still doesn’t know what he’s going to do about that letter.

Chapter Text

When Hannah was very little, she liked counting coins. It was soothing. Guaranteed, repetitive. Hannah was too young to understand why her head never made sense, but she was just getting old enough to know why numbers do.

The mixture of her developing this habit, a preschool teacher commenting on it, and happening upon a bank play set complete with its own coins, Hannah developed her very simple dream.
She just wanted to work at a bank.

“-and I’ll give all the people their money. But not the people I don’t like,” She told Sam once.

He just nodded, “Sounds good, honey,”

He grips her small hand tighter as he leads her through the visitors center of the prison. Down a grey hallway, made fuzzy with fading memory, to a small room with a couple tables.

A man in a uniform jangled his keys as he opened the door. Sam letting Hannah slip out of his hands to bound toward her mother. Dressed in dull orange.

“Momma!” she cheered, clutching onto her leg.

“Oh, I don’t know if you should be hugging me, sweetheart,” she sniffled, “I’m sick,”

Sam stood back as Hannah climbed up onto the seat next to her mom. Her little face furrowed with worry.

“Then have some soup. It always makes me feel better when dad gives me soup,” Hannah said, kicking her legs.

Mom nodded, “Ok, baby. I’ll have some soup,”

That was the last time she ever saw her mom. Obviously, Sam had a lot to explain.

Sam had to explain that what was supposed to be two years in county jail turned into a fever that didn’t break until she was dead. Sam had to try to explain broken police systems and petty crimes to his toddler who was more worried about counting her coins and trying to make her younger sibling play dolls with her.

Hannah barely remembers the funeral. The purple flowers, the orange shirts. A nice lady Hannah doesn’t know the name of printed shirts for the protesters. Sam also had to explain what a protest was. How they were people who came to say that the way they treated her mother wasn’t right, and it shouldn’t ever happen again. Hannah liked them at the time and likes them even more now.

Looking back, Hannah now knows the scope of how her mom’s death became a big talking point for inmate mistreatment. So that’s also what the flashing lights were. Cameras.

She barely remembers what her small, impromptu speech was. How she had to comprehend all these big concepts as a little girl.

“My momma was in the bad hospital. Where they put you in so they can take all the bad out and make you good again. The people at the hospital weren’t very nice though. She got very sick and nobody helped, and now everybody’s mad and I can’t see momma anymore,” she explained, slight feedback coming off the microphone.

She wouldn’t understand why people in that crowd were crying for maybe another year or two.
It’s not that Sam never tried to explain the concept of death to her, nor that Hannah couldn’t understand it. Death was just something that happened to other people.

Death happened to movie characters and old grandmothers. Death didn’t happen to the nice lady in orange, with the kind smile and with wrinkles that shouldn’t of been on a woman that young. With curly brown hair she passed down to her daughter.

Death did not happen to Violet Osmon. Death didn’t happen to Hannah’s mom.

Sam did everything he could to help her. Putting Hannah in therapy for the first time, calling ahead to threaten any teacher who would have the gall to be insensitive on Mother’s Day. He tried really, really hard.

One day, the family sat in their living room turned dining room turned play room. Hannah trying to teach Tommy, then still called Clementine, how to play with a Barbie without beheading her. Still counting her beloved collection of coins.

“Dad, how much money do the people at the prison want?” she asked.

Sam frowned, concerned, “What do you mean, rosebud?”

“I heard money can do anything. How much do I have to give the prison people to let me see momma again? I got to tell her about all the protesters and the games they played with me! Everyone has to not be mad by now. Nobody never stays mad this long,” she had explained.

Ten dimes. Eighteen pennies. Nine nickels. Two quarters. The same amount she had last time.
Hannah started to recount as Sam scooted closer, bringing in his daughter for a hug.

“Rosebud, you know she isn’t going to come back. She’s dead,” he explained. Again.

Hannah had just frowned. Scrunching up her face.

“Then we can get a scientist! They could do something about that. I’ve heard money and science can do anything,” Hannah looks down at her coins, “And-. And-, how many nickels is that?”

Sam then just hugged her tighter. Drawing her close, trying anything he could to soothe them both.
Hannah couldn’t see it. She couldn’t quite understand it. But she could feel her father’s heartbreak with such a bone deep, absolute certainty, that she finally stopped counting then recounting.

She had settled on it now. Ten dimes. Eighteen pennies. Nine nickels. Two quarters. Later, she would put them into her piggy bank. Finding the clank of coins stimmy even in her newfound, serious solace.
Something solemn had come over her. Hannah knew. Suddenly, death was something that happened to people she knew. It happened all around her. It happened in her home, and no amount of nickels would ever reverse that.

When Hannah went back to her preschool she still continued her happy little habit. Counting, then multiplying, then counting again. Even when her dreams grew bigger than bank telling.
Even when she could truly understand that there is no amount of metal that can be exchanged for the life of Violet Osmon, who gave Hannah her hair, her smile, and the shape of her eyes.

Chapter Text

[From the Bad Candy Poems of Tommyinnit: I’ll Hang Around]

Chew me a new one, I’ll cry a river.
I get the memo by now,
But, still, still, I’ll hang around.

Even when something sour sticks to the roof of my mouth,
Even when a hollowness carves my pelvis out,
Even when you want to shove me six feet in the ground.

I got it, sister. I’ll hang around.

Maybe I maim somebody else with the name of brother,
And maybe we go along with it too,
And maybe, sister, we’ll spend our whole lives following you.

Our faces scrunched around the sourness of our own tongues,
Our pinkies clasped like a camel train,
All the way to the future. All the fucking way.

—

Tommy curls into a ball of feathers, blankets, and the worn down familiarities of his old Sam Nook plushie. Eyes shut like dams. Holding back all the thoughts of mothers and bitches and the poems he’s written about such things.

He wishes he didn’t piss Hannah off. Hannah doesn’t deserve to be pissed off.

In all honesty, Tommy only knows the bare bone basics of the story about Hannah’s mom. That won’t stop him from having some selfish, ugly jealousy about it. About not having to worry that some random woman who never cared about you will just show up and cause problems.
But maybe that’s where their stories go wildly different ways. Tommy forgot that Hannah actually liked her mom.

He groans into his plushie. Furious with his own asshole behavior. How is his family letting him get away with being such a huge dick all the time? First he’s mean to dad about getting a date with someone he doesn’t immediately 100% approve of, then he tells Hannah that’s she’s lucky her mom is dead?

Tommy is sure he deserves to be hung, drawn, and quartered. It’s the only thing as dramatically dickish of a move as all the dick moves he’s been pulling just these past two days alone.

It’s become one of those days that he sinks further into soft comfort and internal dread. His happiness and word count bleeding out of him like the boba at the bottom of a drink, split between his teeth with a soft burst.

He can softly hear Sam and Hannah talking through the wall. Tommy mopes even harder. The ball that is his entire being curled impossibly tighter.

He doesn’t want to be an asshole. Tommy fucking loves his family, but right now he’s acutely aware of how they don’t feel that from him. That fact is enough to drown him in grief.
But what Tommy needs to be aware of is that he isn’t the one grieving. Hannah is. Sam is. He should support them better.

He should support them better. Wait a minute, he should support them better!

Tommy reaches for his notebook. Deciding here and now to fix all his relationships all at once with the single stroke of a few hours spent in laughter and apologizes.

The pen seems to move on his own as Tommy gets to work making flyers for “Tommyinnit’s Sorry-as-Shit family fun arcade day!”, where he takes everyone he needs to apologize or feel closer to the arcade in the mall. He makes one for Hannah, one for Sam, and one for each member of the Fourth Court.
The flyers are just highlighter, miscellaneous stickers, and the location of the mall. But this is going to work!

If Tommy can do something nice for his family and extended magical fairy found family, he can make up for all the dick moves he’s been pulling out of his ass like a clown with a scarf.

He marches out his bedroom door in a flutter of wings as he leaves two flyers on the kitchen counter. Forcing open the sliding door to the backyard in a not so subtle hurry to vacate the premises of this house as fast as possible. Stepping into the portal of Ponk’s lemon tree.

When he steps out, he’s in Phil’s house. Not exactly where he wanted to be but it works.

“Take one step to the left and you might just experience suffering,” Techno warns.

Tommy takes a wide sidestep to the right. Avoiding Techno’s potato farm and presenting him his flyer.

“You are officially invited to my sorry as shit arcade day. I will show you what a human arcade is. You have to go, it’ll be so fun,” Tommy takes a posh accent.

Techno’s bunny ears contort to show suspicion.

“An arcade?” he asks.

Tommy nods, “Yep! It’s a room full of games you play for prizes,”

Techno then shrugs in acceptance. He leaves a few more flyers for Wilbur and Phil to have, then steps back into the lemon tree.

Next stop, Ponk’s house. Where he finds all three brothers laying in their pond.

“Hey, Thomas!” Quackity greets.

“Esteemed gentlemen,” Tommy says, handing the three their flyers, “You are all invited to my sorry as shit arcade day,”

“Oh, that’s cool. I like arcades,” George smiles.

“What’s an arcade?” Boomer asks.

“Dream took me once, it’s like a dark room full of machines that take money from you for fun,” he answers.

“That sounds like shit,” Boomer frowns.

“It won’t be!” he interjects quickly, “It’ll be so fun,”

Quackity and Boomer see the other two giving them puppy dog eyes, and quickly relent.

“Yeah, I’ll go,”

Tommy cheers. Waving goodbye as he stumbles back through the tree and returns to his own backyard. Noticing an hour as passed on earth with a quick glance up at the sun.

When he goes back inside, Tommy notices one of the flyers he left is messing. The other is pinned to the fridge with an old vacation magnet. He considers that a victory.

Tommy flies up the steps, despite how many times Sam has said not to fly in the house, and locks his door behind him.

The nervousness of it call creeps back inside of him. Clutching his throat like a rag doll.

Tommy knows what he has to do next. If he wants to not be an asshole and truly be nice to everyone around him, that includes someone else.
It’s something he never thought he’d do in his worst nightmares. Something he never wanted to even think about.

He sits in his writing desk. Turning to a new sheet of unlined paper. Swallowing down both his pride and his fear.

Dear mom, he writes, I don’t go by that name anymore.

Chapter Text

[From the Smile Warm Poems of Tommyinnit: Love Limit(less)]

I’ll love you ‘til the bridges burn.
While there’s a limit, its extremist,
And it’s a limit never reached,
And it’s a fire never sparked,
And it’s a bridge never crossed.

—

That Friday, Tommy gets a little nervous.

He hopes the arcade event is going to make it up to everyone. That it proves his affection for them. Hannah and Sam especially.

Once the car parks, the Fourth Court becomes plainly visible before the giant glass doors of the mall in exact time with the click of the keys. Appearing from nothingness.

Ponk seats at Quackity in the distance. Tommy smiles at the sight.

“Ready?” Sam says as he exits the vehicle.

“Yeah,” Hannah and Tommy say at the same time.

“Jinx!” Tommy says first.

“Jin-, oh. Oh no fair!” Hannah elbows him.

The three of them go to join the crowd. Noticeably, Phil isn’t there. Wilbur and Techno seem vaguely pissed about it.

“Where’s your dad?” Sam asks.

“He’s holed up in his study. Wouldn’t come out when we knocked,” Wilbur explains, nose scrunched up in distaste.

“Shame,” Sam simply nods, not pressing further.

Tommy is a little disappointed that Phil didn’t show up. But! It’s food court time!

Between the size of their party, they get a little bit of everything. Pushing two tables together to fit everyone and their little feast of various fast foods.

Tommy got the same thing he always does at the mall. The giant pretzel bucket and a soda, conveniently sold for a grand total of five dollars. This snack is like a brother to him.

Techno sits on his right, curious about the bucket of pretzels.

“Want one?” Tommy offers.

Techno takes it. Inspecting the piece of food silently before eating it.
Tommy expects Techno, as a rabbit, to hate the stuff. He’d prefer greens, right?

“This is incredible,” Techno says, mouth full.

“Really?” Tommy smiles.

Techno furiously nods. Shoving another piece of pretzel into his face. Tommy repays the favor by helping himself to Techno’s waffle fries.

Once they cleared the food like locusts in a wheat field, the party splits into two. Team adults, Sam, Ponk, Techno and Wilbur, seem to get sucked into those massage chairs to never return.
Team kids, Tommy, Hannah, George, Quackity and Boomer, find themselves in Hot Topic.

“It’s so cool how Humans support these seamstresses like this,” Quackity says, admiring a pair of jeans.

“Oh, they aren’t made with a seamstress,” Tommy explains.

Quackity looks at him like he’s stupid.

“Clothes in malls are made in factories. With machines. A person didn’t make these, there’s like a shit ton of the exact same pants,” he shows Quackity the variation of sizes, all the same.

“That’s bullshit! You guys just have thousands of the same clothes?” he yells.

Boomer joins in, “There’s no way a machine can use a sewing needle,”

People around the Hot Topic are now staring. Kawaii outfitters and emo kids alike.

“The machine is the sewing needle!” Tommy tries to calm them down, “It’s called mass production,”

“Bullshit-“ Boomer drawls out loudly.

A lady crosses her arms. Her goth tween behind her like a solider with their shield.

“There are children here,” she states the obvious.

Spotting Karen from a mile away, Hannah steps in. A gallant axe to break said shield in the earlier metaphor.

“They don’t have malls where they’re from,” Hannah answers honestly.

“Oh,” the lady gets a face, “Where is that?”

“Europe,” Hannah dismisses her, dragging George away by his sleeve.

Once they exit the store, George clears his throat.

“What’s Europe?” he asks quietly, like it’s a secret.

Tommy could tell them about countries and geography, but he stays silent and lets Hannah deal with it.

“A place without any malls,” she says.

He nods his head. This is the correct thing to tell them.

After evacuating the Hot Topic, they wander toward the promised land. The arcade.

Tommy hands the teenager at the counter a crisp twenty to split into quarters. Eyeing the giant, ugly, lime green unicorn plushie literally stuck to the wall with a nail.

He’d explain how the different arcade games work and how to win the most tickets, if Boomer’s eyes didn’t light up. Immediately turning to Hannah.

“Oh, I’ll beat your ass at a dancing game! I’m an amazing dancer,” Boomer gloats.

“Prove it,” Hannah crosses her arms, getting in his face.

He squares his shoulders, “I will!”

They insert their quarters and argue over which song to choose, selecting Sweet Little Bumblebee. The preppy music a vibrant contrast against their outward aggression.

“Go Hannah!” Tommy and George cheer.

They stand on her side of the machine. Quackity is Boomer’s sole supporter.

“Beat her ass!” he claps. He is the only one clapping.

Hannah hits all the arrows in time. Getting mostly perfects. Boomer, on the other hand?
He starts doing this dramatic break dance waltz thing that hurts Tommy’s eyes. It’s a miserable sight. Just a stream of missed arrows and the few he hits on accident.

The song comes to an end eventually. The scores are thousands of points apart. Boomer doesn’t appear to know what he did wrong.

“That’s so embarrassing for you,” Hannah laughs.

“It really is,” George also laughs.

“How? I’m a way better dancer!” Boomer squawks.

Tommy points to the arrows on the floor, “You gotta hit those to get the points, Boomer,”

He looks at the floor in destain. Shaking his head until his bucket hat becomes in danger of falling off.

“Rematch! I call for a rematch!” Boomer lightly shoves Hannah in the arm.

“Cool, I’ll embarrass you a second time,” she shrugs as she inserts more quarters.

They replay the same song. Boomer finally understanding how the game works.

The rematch is way more even. Hannah having to put in effort to absolutely smoke him. Tommy cheers like the proud little brother he is. George and Quackity merrily tear Boomer apart for his mediocre dance machine skills.

“No, dude, I’m such a good dancer, he said,” George starts.

Quackity finishes, “I’ll beat your ass, he said,”

The three annoying bystanders snicker amongst themselves. Something in Tommy’s chest is warm.

He really likes this group of people. Like, a lot a lot. Perhaps a world where Ponk marries his dad isn’t a nightmare after all.
Tommy could get used to hanging out with this group all the time.

Chapter Text

[From the Winter Warm Poems of Tommyinnit: Thaw Through]

Sweetheart, send me shivering,
I’m tired but thorough too,
And each icicle snapping,
And frozen lake cracking,
Points all the evidence back to you,
Red hearts, pink hands, white snow,
And a bitch of a world to thaw through.

—

Sam has held to that sacred promise of that second date, like how a prophet holds onto their visions, ever since Ponk showed up to the arcade party looking pretty and laughing at all his jokes.
That’s so unfair! He can’t just do that! Sam might not survive the tug at his heart strings, they might just snap from overuse.

Luck has it that Hannah and Tommy did not, at least openly, make fun of him when he asked for the house to himself. They merrily ran off to Astelic’s and Tubbo’s houses for the night, and are probably burning them down. Not his problem currently.

Sam’s current problem is that no one told him the dress code for a date at his own house.

Sam settled for a hoodie and jeans option, but it is still making him nervous. He’s been anxiously readjusting the “enchanted grove” scented candle on the coffee table for what feels like decades now. Trying to use improv sacred geometry to angle the candle just right with the Lego set and charcuterie board.

That’s another thing. Is a meat and cheese charcuterie board the right choice? It seems like the most fairy like snack option. He can’t do pizza rolls, that’s so beneath Ponk.
It’s not like Sam ever prepared food for any of his previous dates. The last time Sam went out with anyone they hung out in the back of stolen junk cars, and then she never spoke to him again!

“Deep breaths,” Sam assures himself, “Deep breaths,”

He can feel the world ripple as someone steps through the lemon tree. He runs a hand through his hair, careful not to poke himself on any of his horns.

“I got this,” he mumbles to himself as he makes his way to the back door.

Where, waiting with a pleasant smile, is a very handsome Ponk. Tapping zeir feet wrapped in the most obviously handcrafted pieces of art Sam has ever seen on someone’s body, with actual fucking plants inlaid in the leather of the sandal. They’re also wearing something akin to a suit but so beautiful it puts a mockery to the word. Browns fading into lovely yellows. It’s so, so Elfheim and thus so, so Ponk.
Sam’s green cheeks go red as he smiles. Finding himself unable to take it all in.

Sam playfully bows as he lets Ponk in. She throws her head back laughing.

“I knew I’d be overdressed!” they laugh, cursing themself.

“I sort of expected something like this,” Sam giggles, two hands in his pockets and two shutting the door behind her.

“No one told me the dress code,” Ponk lightly complains.

“I had the exact same worry!” he throws a hand around in exclamation.

This is perfect, Sam thinks. He doesn’t know why he was ever worried. Why he ever thought to shy away from this.

They sit down on the couch. Ponk seeming very delighted about the presence of assorted meats from the human word.

“It’s strange. Even if they’re the ‘same animal’ it tastes so different,” Ponk says, chewing on a mouthful of tiny pork slices shoved onto a cracker.

“It’s what freaked me out eating breakfast over there that one time,” Sam agreed, “The bacon didn’t taste like pig,”

He nods, “Probably because our bacon comes from birds,”

“No,” Sam shakes his head, appalled, “Birds? That isn’t even close to the same animal!”

They snicker. The room feels so light and airy Sam might just start floating. It feels like he’s swimming in his own happiness.

Sam can feel the undiagnosed whatever-the-fuck he passed onto his kids kick in when legos are placed in front of him. Together, their brain power and desire to sort things combined, the two make short work of the set. Building the entire tree of souls in about twenty minutes.

Ponk looks at their completed work the same way he’s seen Ponk examine his children’s poems. With this admirable glint in his eye, weighing the art like a soul. Ze stares at the little plastic tree with wonder.
It makes Sam strangely proud to have garnered that look with something he always thought didn’t count, at least when there was instructions.

Sam gets up to place the finished tree gingerly onto the kitchen island. Careful not to accidentally send any pieces flying.
He returns to the couch, still smiling, then turns on the movie to match their Lego set.

Then they both try to pay attention to the movie. Keyword, try.

Movie dates always have been, and always will be, an excuse to lean in as close to your partner as possible. It’ll always start with some scooting over. Then perhaps an arm gets wrapped around a shoulder. A head lays across a chest. A separate hand sprawls out against a thigh. It’s the movie date’s holy purpose.

They get about to the park where Jack, no, Jake, is supposed to be taming his toruk before they both start getting handsy. He never really cared too much about Avatar anyway.

Before Sam can even blink to register it, Ponk is sat on top of him. Their lips colliding like the world is ending in an hour. Hands, four of them in Sam’s case, crawl between button ups and hoodies. The wind completely knocked out of his lungs.

Sam pulls away, leaning his forehead against Ponk’s.

“Turn that TV off,” he exhales, “The sound is getting annoying,”

Ponk laughs. Scooting over to let the person who understands what the magic box is turn it off. They silently agree to finish it later. They’re busy.

“Hi, Drops,” Sam grins ear to ear as he accepts Ponk back onto his lap.

“Hello Awes,” ze grins back.

They kiss again. Something hardened in Sam’s chest melts. Trickling from his heart down to his legs.

Chapter Text

[From the Fruit Tree Poems of Tommyinnit: Mend Me]

Sweet softness make my heart go through,
The X-ray, the metal detector,
The trials that will make me true.

Just let me do this one thing right.
Let me have this, and all of this,
Even if I’m given only this.

Sweet sunlight do not let me trip,
Lest I spill handfuls of pollen, mouthfuls of nectar,
The flowers that will scatter when I slip.

Make me be set right like a splintered bone.
Make me do this, all of this, the way it’s meant to be done
Then this breaking in my body might mend whole.

—

The lights of the football stadium have blocked out every single star. Hannah now knows that is a uniquely human thing to do. The uniqueness of that specific color of black sky.

She stims with her tangle in her lap. Sat stiff and upright. Watching that girl she recognizes from Tommy’s in school poetry club stride up the stage.
Sally looks nervous and glowing. Speaking into the microphone that hadn’t been replaced since the 70’s.

“I don’t think I’m afraid of the dream,” she says, voice steady and sturdy, “I don’t think I could ever be afraid of what lies ahead of us, of all of us. I don’t think the fog of that future takes away from the dream. I think I’m proud to stand next to every last one of you,”

Hannah listens intently to the entire speech. Trying to let the noise drown out a lot of the common fears felt at any graduation.

“I am reminded of a poem, of course. Robin Hyde’s Dream World, from her book Desolate Star,” Sally recites.

Hannah recognizes that poem. She knows Tommy printed it out and taped it to his wall, among the rest of the poems he’s given that honor.
Sally marches through the poem. Reading it aloud with the pulses of a thousand people sitting in patient silence. The dream creeping in through the corners, through that off black sky.

“Oh love, I shall not fear the storm of faces, the swords of the chimeric army ranged. For I have seen, surmounting desolate places, A Radiance, that bore your smile unchanged,” Sally finishes, with a single tear down her cheek.

The crowd around her and in the stands claps. A booming noise, as loud as Hannah’s heartbeat.

Rows and rows of students then walk up to receive the piece of paper they worked many long years for.

Eventually, the people beside her stand. She swallows drily before she can force her legs to follow. Eyes focused ahead on the fee rows of her classmates with last names that go before her. Walking with beaming smiles, teary eyes, and deep blue graduation gowns.

In just the few months she’s known her true identity and true heritage, all of her life has changed. As Hannah stumbles toward the stage, she prepares for another transmutation to occur to that life she’s leading. She’ll never know if she’s ready but she’s certainly leading something behind.

Hannah sees four years stretching out behind her. She sees all her eighteen years flooding back, making their presence known in the brief flashes of her blinks. Hannah sees childhoods that might of been spent in Elfheim in another life. She sees her mom. She sees a million anxieties and terrors. Her heart swells.

She sees her family.

Tommy and Sam aren’t looking at her right now. In a blur made by distance, they seem to be arguing about what she can make an educated guess is a confetti popper.

Next to them is, surprisingly, Ponk. George, Quackity, Boomer. They all showed up! Every last one of them! Hannah doesn’t really know why that fact is making her heart warm and mushy.

The principal has the same perpetual proud smile as he looks at her.

“Hannah Fran!” he says into the microphone.

Hannah accepts her fake degree to an applause so loud she wonders why she isn’t embarrassed. Her sibling and her friends all stomping the metal seats, popping confetti and generally being obnoxious. She gives them a big wave and scurries on back to her seat.

Alphabetical order has always benefited the Frans who stand at a good sixth letter in the line up. But, tonight that seems to bite at her nerves. She has to sit patiently and spin her tangle, waiting for the last kid to be called and the ceremony to end.
Hannah is admittedly very hungry and really wants to go hug her family.

Long after she received her high school degree, the final kid goes to sit down. Everyone waiting in anxious anticipation. Everyone wanting to go hug their families.

They don’t even wait for the principal to finish saying congratulations before the caps start flying. Hannah chunks hers upward with a sense of overwhelming exhilaration.
She doesn’t go to find it on the ground. Instead trying to spot Tommy in the stands.

Hannah watches him leap over the fence. Escaping the stands and hitting the ground running. Racing, like he’s aided by the wings he cannot show here, toward her.

They meet in the middle. Hugging and crying and feeling every bit of sentimental.

“You fucking did it!” Tommy cheers.

She just sniffles. Looking over his shoulder toward Sam and the rest of them.
Sam rubs his lower back, visibly winded.

“Fuck,” he mopes, “I’m getting old. I can’t do parkour like that anymore,”

“You climbed one fence,” Tommy chides.

Sam groans, “Yeah, it almost killed me,”

Hannah moves to hug her dad. Long and tight. Crying into his shoulder.

“My baby girl is all grown up,” he mumbles.

“I find that hard to believe,” Hannah quietly says back.

He grips her tighter one last time before letting her go. Hannah gives much more brief, but just as sincere, hugs to everyone else.

“I’m not quite sure what the significance of this is, your father was shit at explaining it,” Ponk smiles, “But I’m proud,”

Hannah doesn’t know why that gets to her.

She looks up toward the sky to blink tears out of her eyes. Spotting a circling crow high above her, hard to spot against the fake black of a sky shone with stadium lights.

Chapter Text

[From the Generational Poems of Tommyinnit: Sister Walk Slowly]

She’s chipped a tooth or two on the way out of here.
Walking toward tomorrow, uncertainty in her step,
As if we both couldn’t just fly away if we needed too.

It’s hard for me to not take this as betrayal.
Even if it always would be that unsure foot placed first,
Even if there was no avoiding this.

It feels like you’re walking away. Like going to a sold out show.
Like there will come a morning when I wake up and you are miles away.
(That morning is coming down hard, soon enough.)

Hey, sister?
Can you please walk a little slower?
Because, sister, I need you to wait for me.
Let my selfishness wipe us both of grief,

And let the sun shine through the palm print smear.
The wiping motion lining the path to tomorrow.
With a faith laced in our footsteps,
And selfishness guarding our hearts to the other.

—

There was once a time where Sam was sure that he’d never graduate highschool. The residual imprint of that thought is rubbed raw tonight, a dread felt decades ago comes back like a friendly ghost.

Because he did graduate highschool, even when no one expected him to.

Then he graduated from trade school, and got way further than anyone from his hometown ever thought was possible.
Now? Now he’s looking at his oldest smile at him in her cap and gown. The glint of big, bright stadium lights in her eyes.

Sam wants to yell to the rooftops how proud he is of this girl. His girl! This is his daughter! The one he raised almost entirely alone, with nothing but his own two hands and the kindness of strangers. Hannah’s doing the same thing he was never expected to do. Some great curse was broken, or avoided, or whatever the metaphor is supposed to be. Something has fitted together and made his heart warm.

Needless to say, Sam’s been crying. Hard.

“Oh, my rosebud, I’m so proud of you!” Sam says for the millionth time as they three all pile back into the car.

They planned on one of the nicer steakhouses downtown. Extending invites to Ponk and his kids.
Well, invite isn’t the right word. It’s moreso that Quackity asked and Sam has an inability to tell that kid no.

“You have to wear the hat,” Tommy insists.

“No fucking way,” Hannah frowns, holding the cap away from him.

He draws out, “Please-?”

“No,” she puts the cap back on, “No way,”

Sam smiles as he watches them in the rear view mirror.
He’s trying not to take these moments for granted. Soon enough, there’s going to be a lot less of them. Hannah’s going to move away for school and Tommy will have to be the only kid in the house.

His heart pangs with the painful strangeness of the thought. Sam just goes back to savoring the moment.

When they pull up to the steakhouse, Sam watches as the fairer folk in their party magically manifest among the crowd in time with him shoving the gear into park.
Ponk whirls around until she catches his eye. Zer scarf moving to show there’s a smile building beneath it.

It takes a good twenty minutes for their large party to get seated. In the meantime, Sam was happy to watch the kids come up with some bizarre game where the goal was to be the last to connect all your fingers together? It’s hard to explain what he’s seeing.

Once they are seated, and Sam finishes scolding Tommy for kicking George under the table, Ponk has a question.

“So, explain graduation to me. Sam was unhelpful,” Ponk asks Hannah.

She finishes chewing on her complimentary breadstick, “Humans have to spend twelve-ish years of their life in school. I’m a graduating senior, which means I completed all twelve years and can go to college. Which is like, special school for something specific. I’m going in for biochemical engineering. It’s like, a fancy way to say I’m going to make chemicals do important things,”

Ponk nods along. Taking mental notes.

“In Fairy we have this system of tutors and mentors. It’s very uh, ritualized but informal. Lots of tradition but not a lot of rules,” zey explain.

Hannah quirks her head, “But what happens if the tutor is a bad person?”

Ponk gets a surprised look on their face, confused by the question.

“The world watches,” Ponk says, “Anyone who lays a harmful hand on a child is swallowed whole,”

“Wish we had that here,” Tommy mumbles through a face full of chips.

“Too much of your justice is left to your hands and not the gods,” Ponk frowns.

“True,” Sam sighs, “But it’s not like our justice isn’t harsh once it’s actually handed out,”

Hannah laughs a bit. Everyone turns to her.

“Sorry,” she apologies, “It’s just a weird conversation topic for our little party,”

Sam agrees. Talking about how the gods don’t eat child abusers whole in the human world is a bit of a buzz kill for Hannah’s graduation dinner.

“So let’s talk about something else. Like, explain to me what a video game is. I can’t wrap my head around it,” Boomer chimes in.

Tommy grins widely, cracking his knuckles and clearing his throat.

“So-“ he begins, gesturing with his hand.

Sam smiles watching the scene unfold. Boomer’s brow downturned in a serious, studious expression. He’s not too off from the exact pose of the Thinker.

“A video game is a series of electrical instructions running light in specific patterns through a screen,” Tommy says, using the most amount of words Sam’s ever heard him use, “The player uses a controller to send inputs to the game, and the light responds accordingly. Imagine a really, really, complex and interactive art form that’s also a toy,”

Boomer thins his lips in confusion. Trying to think the puzzle through.

“So it’s like if theater was made of light?” Boomer asks.

Tommy nods. Finding the comparison more than satisfactory.

“If theater was light, and could be played by anyone in the world at any time,” he says.

Sam cannot help but smile.
He’s in the presence of rebels, poets, and family. He is also lucky enough to get to watch the lines separating those three labels swirl into each other. Where, in each moment, they become more and more of the same.

Sam was never expected to graduate highschool. He was never expected to have a family. He’s glad to say he exceeded expectations.

Chapter Text

[From the Half-Orphaned Poems of Tommyinnit: Mother’s Day Middle Finger]

You taste like wood shavings and suicide,
And what I think I hate most about you,
Is that you remind me of me,
If I deserved to hate myself.

Beyond the sordid taste of knowing you,
Lies a twinge of hope, a twisted hope.
The hope laying in the fact I hate you so much,
My own self hatred dissolves in that chemical solution.

Within that gunpowder mix of me and you,
The mix up in your atom-less womb.
Shattered a daughter never born,
And the rejection of the son that did doth emerge.

(Victorious, might I add.)

You hated me so much you ruined my body forever!
Great! Good! Whatever.
The proximity of you next to me is the same intimacy,
Of scrapbooking your own suicide attempt.

Grow up. Quit sobbing all your sawdust.
The funny taste between your teeth has a name, ya know.
Sometimes, I wonder if you know my name.
Willfully, day by day, I remember to forget yours.

—

Tommy meets his little sister today.

He sits on a bench in a public park. Realizing that, with a beauty blooming on top of his worry, that he can understand the birdsong. The language magically clicking into his head.

The beauty of that is still not enough to make him less anxious. Truly, Tommy’s not worried that she’s going to prove transphobic and thus not see him as her son. He’s not worried he’s going to get stood up. He’s not worried that he’s going to hate her more.

He’s worried that he won’t hate her anymore.

That all his anger stored over the years, that burned away grief like a scarecrow, will be reduced to nothing.
Then he’ll only have his grief. Then he’ll be burned down to nothing but a little boy who never really understood why he never met his mom before. That there’ll be no line of defense between him and that hopeless, bitter pain.

So, Tommy’s hoping he hates her. He hopes all the angry poems he wrote make sense after this meeting. (Like, he thinks they’re pretty good poems. It’d be shameful to waste them on actually liking her.)

In his letter, he talked about his transition and his art. Tommy was smart enough to not reference anything about the being a fairy thing. In the case scenario where his mom turns out to be a transphobic deadbeat, she’ll definitely not be open minded enough to accept the fact that he also has magic wings.

“Excuse me?” someone asks, demanding Tommy’s attention.

He looks up. Coming face to face with a red headed woman with thick glasses and a baby on her hip

“Can you help me? I’m looking for a kid your age,” she asks, “Tommy Fran,”

He summons his courage in the form of a watery smile. Tensing his entire body in a siege of a million emotions, hoping rage comes out on top.
The rage is less buoyant than he’d like to believe.

“That’s me. I’m Tommy Fran,” he manages to say, words thin as paper.

She blinks. Her jaw going slack as she examines Tommy up and down.

“You’re Cassidy, right?” Tommy tries to say boldly, but his lip quivers, “My mom?”

Her lip trembles, “That’s me,”

Awkwardly, she sits down next to him. Slightly too far away than what is typical for mother and child.
Cherry, wearing tiny clothes that match her name, seems unimpressed by the whole situation.

“Hey,” Tommy says to her.

In typical baby fashion, she looks at him then sticks her fingers in her mouth. Cassidy gently swats them away.

“How do we start?” Cassidy asks, seemingly confused, “What should we talk about?”

“I’m sorry I messed up the naming convention?” Tommy offers as conversation.

“It’s more than fine. Oh, that’s an idea. How did you come up with Tommy? As a name,” she adjusts where Cherry is sitting on her lap.

“It’s what they call British soldiers. And, uh. You can put clementines on a soldier’s grave,” he answers honestly.

Cassidy laughs, “That sounds just like your father. How’s he doing, by the way?”

Tommy should answer with fine. Or, something about Sam dating Ponk and that going well. Or anything other than what comes out of his mouth next.

“Why didn’t you stay?” Tommy blurts out.

Cassidy closes her eyes. Like she had prepared her whole life for that moment, hearing those words, and is now relieved that it is finally over.

“I wanted to hate you so I wouldn’t miss you. Because I did. I missed you,” Tommy fuses his sadness back into anger with a flimsy force, “Why wouldn’t you stay?”

“I was just a kid-“

“-So was dad. He stayed,”

“I think Sam is braver than me. Braver than I ever have been. Just, look at you! Clean and fed with nice shoes on your feet. I was worried I could’ve give that to you. I didn’t want to find out,” Cassidy explains, foot tapping.

Tommy doesn’t have it in him to stay angry. Like sand into the sea, he is swallowed by this massive sadness. Swallowed by his desire to just live in a world where she stayed.

“Cherry is making me brave. I think. That’s why I worked so hard to find you again. That’s why I want to try and stay this time,” she smiles weakly.

The sea churns within him. Tommy wipes his eyes on his sleeve and sniffles.
He thinks of how many years he wished to hear that. He thinks of Dad and how he’s worked so stupidly hard. He thinks of Hannah yelling about how lucky he is, to still have the option to have a mom at all.

He looks at little Cherry. Who has the same twist of her eyes and same bottom lip. His little sister, squirming in his mom’s lap.

“Are you still with her dad?” he gestures toward the baby.

Cassidy nods, “I am. He’s a great man, Tommy,”

“I’m glad. I’m you’re good at finding those,” he grins.

“I think so too,” she agrees.

They both smile in silence, for a bit. The air raw with a decade of words unsaid. Of first words never heard, and first steps never seen.

“I’m sorry I broke the C name thing,” Tommy perks up again, “It’s going to bother me for the rest of my life,”

“You can just pick a middle name that starts with a C,” she shrugs.

Tommy shakes his head, “Kraken doesn’t start with a C,”

She snorts. Unable to take in his sentence.

“There is no way your dad made your middle name Kraken-“ his mom laughs.

Then, They both laugh. For the first time ever, after sixteen years, Tommy and his mom laugh together.

In the back of his mind, Tommy thinks of all the poems rendered inert from this merry reunion. It doesn’t bother him anymore. He’d rather a thousand useless words than no mom at all.

Chapter Text

[From the Criminal Poems of Tommyinnit: Visceral Doubt]

Guilt sits in the throat like a misshapen glob of mucus
Making you feel like the grossest thing to ever be alive

Artist guilt, guilt you feel ashamed for talking about
But it’s all you can think of and all you can write down

It’s that shame that fucks your grief and together
They produce hellish spawn made of mourning

And it forces you spend hours sitting at the gravesite
Of all the things your hands have ever made

And it makes you cough up the defilement
Of all that things your hands will never make

—

Hannah has no clue what emotion needs to take precedence as she strolls through the busy farmers market of the Middle Court.

She keeps close to her father as hawkers and vendors scream every which way. Selling fruits and vegetables in colors never seen on Earth, whose quality ranks higher than anything she’s ever seen. The smell of it. The racquet of it.

Hannah doesn’t know if she sound be enraptured in total awe of it, or ashamed that she’s just a tourist here. This is supposed to be her home, isn’t it? She can’t even name all these fruits.

Ponk insisted that they go to this market so ze could make them a traditional fairy stew. They seemed really excited about it, and it’s wearing off. Hannah is practically glowing as she takes in all the pretty sights and sounds.

“Pearls! Get the finest pearls here, from the fattest clams in this Court and any other! Here, here! Fine Pearls!” a vendor cries.

She turns her head to look at the stall. Protected from the bright daylight with a fine, off white drapery, displaying massive pearls about the size of Hannah’s feet. Gleaming in shimmering colors.

Ponk notices her staring.

“You want one? Pearls seem like your stone,” ze asks, smiling under her orange mask.

“How do you even wear something that size?” Hannah laughs.

She doesn’t stop staring. Thus, with a happy roll of his eyes, Ponk grabs her arm and leads her over.

“Pearls! Pearls of the highest caliber!” the vendor continues to shout.

The vendor, sat on a stool behind the counter, is some sort of bipedal frog fairy. Their skin is so pastel green so pale it seems to shift color just like a opalescence of a pearl.

“A set of earrings for the newcomer, please,” Ponk taps the stall to get their attention.

“Earrings?” the vendor clarifies, “I’ll grab what we have in stock,”

They hop off the stool and dig through a jewelry box hidden under the counter. Finally they resurface with a small armload of gorgeous, shimmering pearl earrings. Some with gold, silver, copper, or paired with gemstones, feathers, or teeth.
After fiddling through the pile, Hannah plucks a pair that catches her eye.

The earrings are made fine freshwater pearls about the size of her thumbnail, paired with a dangling chain decorated with two thin, tiny fish teeth and the greenish blue wings of a dragonfly. Ponk nods in respect.

“They look like you. Sharp and strong, elegant on purpose,” Ponk says, passing the frog man a handful of strange metal currency.

“That’s sweet of you,” she smiles, genuinely touched.

Hannah pops out her human earrings, with their fake diamonds and sterling silver, and shoves them in her pocket. Letting herself be led back into the crowd by her arm as she fits the new ones in.

Her and Ponk reconvene with Sam, whose been busy avidly watching two rabbit hybrids go at it in this game Hannah can only compare to chess.

“Sam, tell me you didn’t bet on these fools? The games are rigged, the red player will always lose,” Ponk asks.

Sam shakes his head, “You didn’t lend me any money, we’re good. And, the red guy is winning by the way,”

Before Ponk can retort or exclaim confusion, the red player jumps up in victory as the standerby politely applaud. Exchanging money amongst each other as bets are lost and won.

Hannah finds everything about this place so familiar. It’s so close to home, but something far from it. Elfheim and Earth really are twin worlds, interconnected from the start.

Just as the three turn to make the trek back home with their new items and fond memories, two large shadows are cast.

She isn’t quick enough to notice how the crowd splits like a fractured arrow. Making way for two towering armored individuals. The have to be eight feet tall, with armor so black it radiates the oily colors of raven feathers.

Her heart sinks, then sinks further into panic.

One of the armored strangers punches her dad in the jaw. The rough metal of their gauntlet scraping deep lacerations into the side of Sam’s face.

She screams first, before the witnesses do. Ponk quickly pushing her back behind him, arms outstretched to become a barrier.

Hannah has never seen Sam bleed that much before.

She’s seen paper cuts and accidental nicks and scratches, but she’s never seen gushing blood pour down her father’s uncharmed face. Clotting the green fur there.

Sam, still conscious, makes an effort to fight back. Successfully dodging a few hits before one breaks through his four outstretched arms and knocks him out cold.
The sight of her father going limp in a busy street fills Hannah’s soul with bile.

“Go!” Ponk yells, before being clobbered with the same, blood wet fist.

Her wings respond where the rest of her body freezes. Hoisting her high into the air in an involuntary flight reaction, quite literally.

“Get out of here, go-!” Ponk gives one last order before they too black out.

Hannah watches Ponk’s arms go limp on the ground. Watches him be hoisted up on armored shoulders. Watches her father get dragged through the streets as confused onlookers cry out in shock.

The wind rises up to meet her like it’s yanking her way. A strong gale blowing her in the opposite direction of the attackers, one of whom knocks an arrow.
She has no choice. If she’s going to find help- find Phil- she needs to fly out of here. Fast.

The turns around and throws her whole body into speeding higher and higher. Throwing every atom into escape.
Just as she makes it out of the bounds of the city, just as she starts to reorient herself to Phil’s home, the soaring arrow finds its target.

It hits Hannah in the upper arm and sends her tumbling into the trees. With all the wind knocked out of her lungs, the only sound to mark her descent is a crack.

Chapter Text

[From the Honey Scented Poems of Tommyinnit: Glinting Gun]

These shin shattered sins and the glinting gun.
Smiling, aiming, shoulder’s knighted.
Sundering sunlight, all the lives you brighten.
Bleeding, fighting, the wrongs you’ve righted.
Gunslinger and arms dealer, heavy and true.
All these things lead back to you.

Splitting sun, to glinting gun,
To murderous momma moon.
I think you created all of it,
Since all of it leads back to you.

—

Tommy loves his friends.

Sue him! He’s such a people person. He’s an extrovert, he’s a clingy asshole. He needs company and is good at selecting it.

Him, Ranboo, and Tubbo all sit outside in Tubbo’s backyard. Dangling their feet in the pool and talking shit.

“Literally if Mr Ramtrax slams on the desk to wake me up one more time, I’m dropping out. I’m done! I’m gone!” Ranboo complains.

“Gone!” Tubbo adds.

“Gone!” He repeats.

“We should prank him. By like, planting smoke bombs under his desk or something,” Tommy wonders aloud.

“You say that like you’ve planted bombs before,” Ranboo chuckles.

He scrunches up his nose, “No I haven’t,”

“But you’re like, some sort of cool enemy of the state thing?” Tubbo asks, tilting his head.

Tommy blinks. Separately, the words ‘cool’ and ‘enemy of the state’ meld together in his mind. Creating, gloriously, an idea.

“Sort of. If we got caught it’d be treason. But we won’t get caught,” Tommy tacks on the last sentence to reassure them all, “And there’s no bombs involved,”

Synonyms of enemy of the state include public enemy number one, traitor, target for removal.

Traitor. Tommy knows what they do to traitors in Elfheim, they cremate them. A death of all deaths. Removing your ability to return to the world whence you came.

It gives him a good idea. A spectacular, axis tilting idea.

Ranboo breaks the silence, “How long will bombs not be involved?”

They snicker. Sunlight reflects off of the ripples in the pool, and it looks like happiness.

—

That idea follows Tommy on the walk home. A sunset spurring their little neighborhood into glorious colors, oranges pinks and blues.

A traitor burns. A loyalist rots. There is a poem there, and Tommy is rushing to the lemon tree to go get Ponk’s help to coast it out.

When he does get home, he tilts his head back to announce it.

“I’m back!” Tommy shouts.

His voice simply echos off the kitchen walls. He stands still for a whole thirty seconds, and no one calls back.

Anxiety blooms in his chest. It’s then that he notices there’s no dishes in the sink. Sam didn’t make dinner. The trash isn’t taken out, so Hannah hasn’t been home. The TV is off. The back door is unlocked.

Oh. Oh! Right! Ponk invited them over for dinner. That’s it. Tommy was on his way over there anyway.

His nerves don’t even remotely calm down as he hurries into the backyard and heads over to the lemon tree. His fingers tense against the bark.
As he steps into the swampy courtyard of Ponk’s estate, Tommy’s heart drops to his feet.

Boomer’s hat, their beloved hat from which they never part, is floating in the center of the pond. Soaked grey with the murky water.

“Boomer! Quackity! George!” Tommy calls out, “Ponk?”

No one replies. Only the wind whistling through empty stone halls.

“Clementine,” a voice calls, almost from inside of him.

Tommy cannot resist. The world around him tugs at his very soul, pulling him away from one location and into another.
Before he can even recognize what’s going on, a heavy force grabs him by the collar. His arms painfully wrestled away from him as wrists are bound in chains.

Tommy can only scream upon realizing these chains are made of iron.

“Tommy-!” Sam yelps, the sound of clinking metal following him.

He forces his vision to focus as the world around him comes into view. Everyone, from his dad to a hatless Boomer, are tied to the floor in chains. Locked inside a single room of iron walls and dirt flooring.
Outside the bars- coated in toxic iron- is him and Phil.

“Then there was one,” Phil sighs, disappointed.

“You’re sick, Philza!” Ponk screams, “Sicker than sick!”

Phil recoils at the usage of his true name. Scowling.

“I’m feeling quite well, Drops,” he spits back.

“What’s happening?” Tommy asks.

The panic in the room dilates to let the question through. Phil’s wings flick.

“I am fulfilling my oaths. I am to terminate my failed mission of the Fourth Court. I am to defend you, Tommy, on pain of death. Which is why you will not die with the rest of these failed lab rats,” he explains.

Tommy’s body fills with rage.

“Failed? You we’re supposed to lead us. We were going to save the world, weren’t we? If you can’t lie then why are we here? What did we do wrong!” Tommy continues.

Phil interrupts him with a sharp kick to the bars, creating a large rattling noise that shakes Tommy’s rib cage with it.

“Because! You poets aren’t normal artists. You don’t take commissions, you don’t create in exchange of money. All that power, all that potential, never to be pointed in the right direction. You do nothing in service of the Under Queen, only threaten her rule,” Phil sneers.

“I thought, if only I could make a story large enough to entrap a few poets, to create a tool that would allow me to aim you, that you all would write something that would dethrone the Under King. If I could only point you in the right direction. Instead you moaned over flowers and over ridiculous human deities! Instead of actually saving our world, you-. You complained about it in rhyme!”

Tommy drops his face to the ground. Tears dripping off his eyelashes to salt the soil below.
This man, who he looked up to, who he saw as a tertiary father figure, who he was willing to sacrifice his safety for, who he himself has vowed to defend Tommy with his life, sinks his words like talons into Tommy’s skull.

“So no. I’m sinking this ship. I’m taking this fight to the Over King, and none of you are deemed fit to go with me,” Phil spits on the ground just in front of Ponk’s knees.

“Dad-!” Wilbur shouts.

Phil doesn’t hesitate to snap at Wilbur, “Speak nothing of this! Our revolution was supposed to save us, Wil. You too sought to overthrow your own Queen,”

“You traitor! You traitorous fiend!” Techno screams.

Phil upturns his nose, sneering.

“If I’m truly a traitor, then I will not be the only one burning,” he says.

That poem bursts behind Tommy’s eyes, with an almost physical pressure.
For all the horror of this situation, he has never felt more inspired.

Chapter Text

[From the Collected Folk Poems of Elfheim, Prisoner’s Prayer. Transcribed onto a sticky note, highlighted yellow, and pasted into a thick notebook belonging to Tommy]

Branded by iron, let not this fire burn.
Release us, deliver us,
Keep the world high, O Gods,
And let this wheel turn.

—

Sam cannot flex his wrists without shooting, fiery pain flooding his all the way up all four arms. The iron shackles binding him viciously to chains on the floor.

Around him, the Fourth Court lies in shambles.

Ponk recoils into Sam’s ribs, trembling with rage that is physically making their skin burn hot. Wilbur and Techno have laid against the iron wall, languishing in the despair of their father’s betrayal.

The other side of the room is bringing a different energy.
Ever the schemers, Quackity and Boomer whisper into each others ears. Actively planning their escape and subsequent revenge. George whispers back to them harsher, swearing up and down that whatever they’ve come up with won’t work.

Sam cannot think of anything else but Hannah and Tommy. He cannot compute the moral peril he is in, the pain, the stress. He can only think of his daughter and son.

Ponk reassured him that ze saw her escape, but even then, where is she?
Hannah has no other adult that knows their secret. Astelic has met a few of the Fourth Court, so perhaps Hannah is laying low with her. Still! What if the Under Court goes after them in the human world? Can they even do that?

A true name, when called by someone of formidable strength, can summon its owner. They just saw Tommy get pulled into the room from nothing. But Sam knows no one, not even their family, knows Hannah’s true name.
She should be safe. Gods so cruel, let her be safe. Let Tommy be brave, wherever he is.

“I have never wanted to kill anyone before,” Ponk mumbles, barely audible.

Sam’s broken heart twists at the words. He tries to comfort Ponk but the chains contort into deeper pain.

“I have never wanted to kill someone before Phil did this. We exchanged names,” her eyes flood with tears, “I trusted him with my children. He was supposed to stabilize our world,”

“Dad-“ George tries to speak.

“I was going to follow him to the brink of death-“ she continues.

“Dad!” George repeats, more firmly this time, “We get it! We’re idiots. We’re all idiots for believing three families were going to rescue the world with a couple books. Just, just shut up about it”,

He crosses his arms stubbornly. As if he’s trying to convince himself of his own nihilism.

“Don’t speak like that to your father,” Sam scolds.

George twists his face in distaste, “Don’t speak down to me, I’m no child,”

“So you’re a grown fool?” Ponk asks.

George and his two brothers fall silent. The whispers dying off in one breath, like extinguishing a candle flame.
From their corner, the twin’s shackles chink as they twist their heads to observe the scene.

“If you are not a child, then you are a damn grown up fool. Just like the rest of us that bought into Phil’s stupid plan,” ze’s voice quivers.

The silence that rises from the dirt floor clogs their lungs like the smoke coming from the future. No one can speak, and nobody wants to.
Sam’s eyelids get too heavy to hold open, but plastered against that red film are the faces of his children. He cannot bare to not know if they are safe.

“I just wanted to help people,” Boomer confesses, so quiet he almost didn’t hear.

Quackity grimaces wickedly. Scrunching his entire face into a scowl, and throwing his whole body weight into kicking at the iron bars.
While it does dent, he also screams. Everyone else tenses at the sound, cringing away.

The intense, collective pain is multiplied by the proximity. Touching iron is like an allergic reaction and sandpaper at once, but even being near it can irritate.
All this iron, stacked on them and surrounding them, it’s enough to pile on the aching into Sam’s very bones. It’s almost like having your lifeblood drained, or standing in a castle made of uranium glass.

Boomer lays his forehead on Quackity’s shoulder, a less painful substitute for his hand. Trying to comfort his brother even in this layered agony.

The sight makes Sam want to cry.

“What will happen? To us?” he asks.

“We’ll have our names spoken before the entire court,” Wilbur explains, “To which anyone who needs a slave, or a test subject, or a wet nurse or whatever, can ensnare us until we are dead. Then. Then, we will be cremated,”

Wil sits against the wall limp like a rag doll. It must hurt so badly to willingly rest against the iron, Sam wants to rip him away from there so badly.

“Sam, there is nothing worse than dying in flame,” Ponk whimpers.

The tension in the room grows.

“It’s the ultimate symbol of shame. To be completely removed from contributing to the world, to be denied the blessed afterlife,” Wilbur keeps his dead, glassy eyed stare as he speaks.

“And it’s going to happen to all of us,” George says.

“Even Tommy?” Sam asks.

Ponk wordlessly nods into Sam’s chest. It’s all the confirmation he needs.

Sam exchanged a vow of silence for his son’s life. Tommy is safe, until his death comes in some other form. Then he will meet the flames just like the rest of them.
So it’s just Hannah that’s the wild card, then. Lost, somewhere on the outside, with no real way of being hunted that she wouldn’t be able to outsmart now.

Quackity and Boomer reconvene. Huddling together, hiding behind their hands. Their urgent, feverish debate held at a library soft tone. Voices twisting into one as they desperately try to out smart the rising flames.

For their sakes. For all of them. For all of Elfheim.

Chapter Text

[From the Roaming Poems of Tommyinnit: Loyalty, you Liar]

Loyalty, you liar, you schemer and fiend
I will not be tricked, you do not comfort me

For all your waxing poetics and your heroism things
You have not made my brackish blood clean

Nor done all the things you promised you would!
Help me, hold me, cut the rope and set me free

Gleaming and glittering and skittering beneath
Loyalty, you liar, I shall not fall for thee

For I rather be the road that doesn’t lead to Rome
Than bleed the heartland when I scrape my knee

—

Hannah crashes into the woods below so violently, she half expects to leave a trail of smoke.

She tumbles through the canopy, catching on every twig in every tree. Small cuts building into crosshatched wounds, the arrow in her arm snapping in two and burrowing deeper during the fall.

When she does land in the underbrush, her ankle makes contact first. Baring most of the weight of the crash and certainly twisting it. She cries out in seething, choking pain.

Hannah lays in the dirt for a moment. Bleeding, bruising. Every part of her skin cut in some manner by some branch or thorn.

With a sudden surge of desperation, almost like a test of survivability, she throws herself onto her stomach. Hannah flaps her wings, relief flooding her body when they lift her off the ground.
In lieu of a crutch, Hannah pulls herself forward by flying an inch or two off the ground. Her damaged ankle dragging behind her in the dirt.

While making her way deeper into the woods and further away from the attack, Hannah rips off both sleeves on her dress.
One sleeve she ties above the arrow, still jutting out of her arm in a painful shard, to act as a tourniquet. Time stills.

Hannah is a nervous person. She can barely drive a car because the thought of crashing makes her head spin. She struggles to ask for help. She struggles just to move about a room at all in fear of being perceived.
That’s why her mind is blank right now. It is blank because it cannot be brave. It cannot triumph over fear, but it can block it out just for the amount of time required to do what she must.

Hannah rips the arrow out of her arm with two tries and one piercing scream. A scream so loud, birds flood away from the trees around her.

The second sleeve she wraps over the gushing wound, to act as a bandage. The remains of the arrow lay discarded on the floor.

Hannah drags herself maybe a couple dozen feet before she can hear braying dogs and shouting soldiers. Before she realizes all her screaming has made her easy to follow.

She demands her wings pull her faster. Following the familiar murmurings of the wild roses growing a little ways away.
Hannah, unglamorously, collapses into the nearest bush. Letting her strange plant powers do the heavy lifting of hiding her body and soaking up her trail of blood.

Torchlight flows through the gaps of the leaves, causing Hannah to feel her heart beat in her throat. The roses recoil into their buds to match her fear.

Who could’ve done this? Who could’ve, and has, sent people after her family?

The Fourth Court has two enemies, the Under Queen, and the Over King. Those are the deities they are trying to rip political power from, trying to force to back off or get fully hands on, trying to make less fickle.
If someone has sent soldiers to track down and kidnap everyone associated with the Fourth Court it has to be one of them, but which one found out?

The footsteps draw closer. The orange glow of the touches glow brighter. Hannah is perhaps only a mere few feet away from death.

“Please,” she begs anything that could hear, “Help me,”

Hannah soundlessly mouths the words over and over. Help me. Help me. Her face presses hard into the dirt to cover her.

“What can you offer in return?” an unspoken voice speaks.

Whatever it is, it talks to her by the same silent method the roses whisper. Not in her mind, like a hallucination would be, but in her very soul. Traveling up into her ears.

“Who are you?” she mouths back.

“All the woods of Elfheim. Who know, who see, and who ask so little in return.
“We will provide you any aid you for which you ask, but we demand your true name in return. It’s power over you, you are helpless to deny,”

Hannah scrapes her nails against the dirt, uprooting shallow plants. She squeezes her eyes shut to think.

She doesn’t know her true name. Therefore, she has nothing to offer the Forest.
Yet, it has offered anything in return for something she doesn’t know, and isn’t even sure she has. Fairy rules put her at a significant advantage here. She has to play this right.

Hannah thinks and rethinks her wording a thousand times as she watches the soldiers scurry about. Some split off in different directions.

“I will tell you the truth of my name, and relinquish all powers to resist you once you speak it, and you will tell me the true names of the Under Queen and Over King,” Hannah states plainly, slowly.

“Exactly. In those words,” the forest whispers back quickly, hungrily.

Hannah takes a deep breath. She’d pray, but she can’t exactly let the gods of Elfheim know she’s scheming against them.

“I don’t know my true name,” she answers, honestly.

The Forest hums. She can feel it’s confusion twist up her spine.

“My mother never named me. My father didn’t know he was a fairy. I have only ever had my human name, and nothing else,” she continues confessing.

Silence falls over the woods. Birds stop singing, the wind stills to nought.
It seems to be sizing her up. Judging her word against its sacred codes, checking the bylaws.

“Humans must treat their gifted names like real ones, as their perspective is what makes the magic work. But you? You, half child? You have seen the world in the things you lack. You have given up what can not be gained back. Nameless child. Nameless, motherless half child.
“Their names are Kristin and Foolish. Do with that as you wish, nameless child. Nameless fiend,”

Hannah’s heart skips a beat, utter disbelief temporarily blinding her.
She actually did it. Those are the true names of the Over King and Under Queen. Kristin and Foolish.

“Nameless half thing!” the Forest suddenly seizes, anger arises from every living thing around her, “Nameless, humanoid fiend! Sickly child, unwanted and half loved. All halves and no whole, all choices and no choosing,”

She anxiously checks to see if the soldiers have noticed the change in the air. By some miracle, she watches them walk past.

“Humans are meant to be fodder for tricks. Elfheim resents being tricked by a human-half. By a sliver of a thing,”

“You can’t even hold your own,” she cuts back, albeit half heartedly.

“And yet,” the Forest responds, “The pillars that support us have names. Whereas you do not,”

“I guess I’m not that special, then,” Hannah frowns.

The Forest pushes against her skin, “Know this, you sickly nameless child. Elfheim resents being out done by the likes of you, but we have never been more in awe,”

With that, Hannah feels the voice of the world fade out like an old song. The moment she feels that she’s on Earth, the moment she sees the telltale patio chairs unique to Astelic’s backyard, rolls out of the rosebushes.

Hannah finally lets herself pass out the moment she hears footsteps approaching.

Chapter Text

[From the Sneaker Poems of Tommyinnit: Predation Game]

Predation runs the world,
And it runs from it too.
Catch you! Kill you!
That’s what blasphemy can do.
But the runaway is sacred

& All runaways, brave and nimble
Each will have this trifold creed:
-speed will save you
-speed does not want to kill you
-but it will do whatever it may please

—

Tommy always thought being trapped in a castle was for princesses caught in towers, but it seems anyone who falls into the right deal can do it.
The Under Queen’s castle is almost monotone. The green black shift of a raven’s wing painted on everything from the ceiling to the carpets.

He’s bound to the bedpost with one thin, almost delicate band of iron draped over his ankle, like a designer anklet. The chain is too strong to be broken but long enough to allow Tommy to move about this bedroom. He can even go to a balcony overlooking a slick, oil black wall.

The door remains just out of reach. There it lays, the twist inherent to all fairy tales. The twist of the prince locked in the castle.
Except he’s not a prince. He’s just Tommy. He’s just a teenager, lost in a place far from home.

He plops down onto the bed, as glimmering as everything else, with eyes drained empty of tears.

He didn’t know Sam did that. Making a fairy oath, silence for Tommy’s life? Phil is literally sworn to protect him with his immortal existence.
But, that protection is only in the form of keeping his heart beating. Phil has no qualm if it breaks.

So now he is to be trapped in a castle as his entire family burns, spared from the flames himself.

If cremation is saved for treason, what does combustion mean? Tommy’s fist curl.

His train of thought is detailed by the loud creak of the door, almost artificially loud, hailing the entrance of a stranger.

The woman looks exactly like what horror movies wish they could make demons pretending to be humans be. Twin horns twist from the side of her skull, her eyes are diamond slits, a heart shaped tail curls politely at her ankle.
She smiles with a grin full of canines, a carrot hair charm pinning back long black hair. Tommy is instinctively afraid of her.

“I have bedsheets,” she says plainly.

Tommy doesn’t say anything, nor does he move from his spot on the bed.
She slinks over, almost nervous.

“You’re the one they call Tommy, right?” she asks.

He blankly nods. The servants must’ve been informed about the prisoner.

“I’ve heard about you,” she places the bedsheets onto the empty space beside him, “about how the affirmative stands alone,”

A flash of recognition shudders through him like a thunderclap.

“How did you-?” Tommy tries to stutter out.

He is interrupted by the stranger flicking her wrist to expose her palm. An ethereal, blue flame of a floating key hovers in her hand. With a twist, the lock at the end of his iron chain falls off.

A second twist brings a second click all to fast for Tommy to say anything.
Beyond the glass doors, two shadows drop onto the balcony. His stomach twists in horror thinking they have been caught. Instead, the balcony door opens and two men step out. One in a purple cloak, the other in white.

“You can call me Tina,” she lightly grabs Tommy’s wrist, “That’s Purpled and Punz, and we need to leave,”

“How did you know my poem?” he asks insistently.

Purpled sighs, “You aren’t the only person Phil decided to screw over. Let’s move,”

Quickly, the four dart out the balcony. The other three vaguely attempting to shield Tommy from any potential line of sight, before sending him second up a flimsy ladder after Punz.
Using his wings to support his ascent, Tommy scales the building. Taking in views of twisting landscapes comparable to vines, dark colors and impossibly looming brair bushes of forests and towns beyond.

Tommy doesn’t remember when he blinked and suddenly his life became a fairytale, like a butterfly who can’t quite place when the metamorphosis occurred.

At the end of the ladder is a flat roof top terrace littered with clotheslines, fantastical laundry swaying in the sharp winds.
The faces of his companions fall. Tommy whips his head around to try and locate the source of grief, but can’t find it.

“Someone broke our zip line,” Punz grimaces, “They know we’re here,”

Tommy cocks his head to the side, “We were going to zip line out of here?”

His question is answered by his own startled squawk as an arrow wizzes past his nose.
Everyone seeks shelter behind a large laundry bucket as the single shot grows into a small army. Tommy’s heart near explodes.

“Carrots!” Tina shouts over the volley of arrows, “I can teleport us if we can find carrots!”

Purpled shouts back in sudden inspiration, “The garden! Get to the garden!”

With a courage Tommy whimpers upon realizing he has to imitate, Tina leaps up from cover and starts sprinting toward said garden. Arrows imbedding themselves into the ground behind her, scraping notches in her cloak.
Tommy sprints after her. Purpled and Punz pushing him forward where even his wings cannot. Pumping his legs like he never has before, adrenaline making his ears ring.

All this bravery is knocked out of his lungs with his breath when the very building beneath him comes to a sharp tilt.
The castle itself is fighting against their escape. Turning itself like a table just as the greenery of a rooftop garden comes into view.

All the non-winged members of their escape party latch on to Tommy’s legs as the roof goes near vertical. His wings burn with the strain of it all, dragging Purpled and Punz behind him where they dangle from him and each other.

Upward. Upward. Ever upward, toward escape.

Tina swings on his left leg like someone trying to build momentum on a rope swing, and Tommy can only yelp in pain.

With the same desperate grasp on his ankle as one may expect from someone trying not to get blown from the pack in an Arctic storm, Tina pulls herself forward and barely manages it.

The feeling of mortality creeps into his throat, until the familiar sensation of melting between planes floods his atoms, and Tommy knows Tina managed to get a hold on the sacred carrots they sought after.

Chapter Text

[From the Florescent Red Poems of Tommyinnit: Bleed Right]

Little bled living causes things to thin
But bleed to much and the lights dim

Shapen we must make the knife
To set the blade and the skin just right

So we must bleed the amount demanded
Digging as deep into our pains as destined

Bleed enough to live
And live long enough to heal

And make the blood bleed right
Ordained by heaven’s hymn

—

When Hannah comes to, she thinks she’s in her bed.

That’s why she doesn’t move, nor open her eyes. She’s waking up, in the same bed she always has in her childhood home, waiting for her alarm to sound so she can get ready and go to school.
Except, she graduated. This is Astelic’s couch. The stove-top pain of alcohol poured over countless wounds jolts her into full consciousness.

Astelic is immediately by her side as soon as she groans. She is there, pushing hair out of Hannah’s face and tugging her collar loose, in an instant.

“Oh my god, Hannah? Are you awake? Hannah?” Astelic asks.

Instead of an answer, Hannah grumbles and coddles her own arm. She almost forgot she was shot with an actual fucking arrow earlier. It just now it her. Again.

“Hannah?” a new voice adds.

“Tommy?” she replies.

When she finally musters the little scraps of energy in her to open her eyes, it is confirmed to be her brother. Safe, visibly scared shitless, and sound.
The guys in the white and purple are new. So is the pretty lady.

“And pretty lady?” Hannah doesn’t think she says out loud.

“Ok,” Astelic says, starting the run down, “That’s Purpled, Punz, and Tina. They were in on the Fourth Court but were already on the run beforehand. Tommy was held captive by you’re evil bird goddess lady and they helped him escape. They also knocked out my parents with magic? What the fuck happened to you, by the way?”

Hannah recalls the panic, raw and visceral, in Ponk and Sam’s eyes. It sends a chill through her body starting at her heart, fading at her arrow wound.

“The soldiers didn’t catch me,” she unhelpfully explains.

Purpled clicks his teeth. Posture tense, nose stiff like the air is choked with pollen. Must be something about the human world and all it’s iron.

“How likely are we to be found here?” Purpled asks.

Tommy’s wings curl nervously, “Not likely? I dunno. The rest of the court knows about Astelic, but I don’t think they’ll snitch,”

“Great! So there are strings attached,” Punz sarcastically adds.

Tina, otherwise known as pretty lady, sits on the floor across from Hannah and stares both mesmerized and offended at Astelic’s roomba.
She’s going to make a safe guess and say this is their first time on Earth.

Tommy runs his hands down his face. Him and both the guys in the colored capes pacing around the room seemingly to create three separate plans they are going to demand everyone follows at once.

Hannah rolls over to face the couch.

The Fourth Court is doomed. She didn’t know that everyone else got snatched. Is Boomer there? Wilbur? George? Has truly everybody been taken, with no way of getting outside help large enough to rescue treasonous prisoners from their godly prisons?

“Wait,” Hannah cries out.

“What?” Punz asks.

“Oh, you’re all going to be so pissed at me for forgetting this. But I made a deal with Elfheim,” she explains.

Hannah turns over again, forcing herself to sit upright. Her wings painfully seizing with the sudden motion they are not prepared to make in this moment.

“Elfheim? The place?” Astelic asks, confused.

“The forestb I made a deal with the forest, and I got the true names of the gods! I can’t believe I blacked out and didn’t tell you. Oh my god!” she yells out, clarity coming over her.

Shock erupts in the room. Faces fall then rises again. Everyone’s eyes lock onto Hannah like compasses pointing north.

“What could you have possibly traded do gain such an impossible thing?” Purpled scrunches up his nose to interrogate her.

“I was supposed to trade my name, but-“ she starts.

“-But?-“ he interrupts.

“-I don’t have one,” Hannah finishes.

Across the room, Tommy’s wings droop.

“You don’t have one?” Tina tilts her head, in genuine awe.

“I’m nameless,” Hannah shrugs.

Saying it aloud breaks her heart.
It almost feels like failure. Of being left out of identity, human or fairy.
Even humans have true names. Somehow, by her mother’s mix of scorn, distance, and adoration, the wires got crossed and left Hannah unclaimed by everything but the plant life.

Shit! She’s probably more like a rosebush than anything else, cosmologically. She’s more a plant than a daughter of Elfheim or Earth. Born under the hill in all the most alienating ways.

“Nameless? How! How can anyone be nameless?” Purpled spits.

“I have lead my life only seeing the things I lack. The things I don’t have,” Hannah curls into herself, “I was only half wanted,”

A soft silence settles the room, undercurrented by a million possibilities and a war so close to being won.

“So the gods cannot control you using your name?” Tommy asks.

“Yeah,” she says, “They can’t,”

Tommy looks at her with the reflections of galaxies in his eyes, his expression smothered with an awe Hannah feels bad for saying is misplaced.

“You have a superpower no one else does,” he says, with a thin breath and a small smile.

“I have a power over them, sure,” she reluctantly agrees.

“No,” Tommy stresses, “Hannah, you’re going to save Elfheim,”

The words flow like lightning within her.

Perhaps, being a cosmological orphan does have its advantages. Advantages such as dodging the largest weapons against the Fairies, and such as gaining an upper hand against the rulers of the realm.

“Kristin and Foolish,” Hannah whispers, the names shaking the room when spoken aloud, “Their names are Kristin and Foolish,”

All the other fairies and humans gasp as the furniture shakes and the ceiling fan swings to the side. And, for once in her life, Hannah actually feels confident that she can do something significant.

Maybe, just as much as her fearful heart allows, she actually can save the political agenda of the Fourth Court, and the whole of Elfheim.
And her family. She can rescue her family.

Chapter Text

[From the Hung High Poems of Tommyinnit: Quiet Lamb]

Gallows grim and gutted grime
Running loose and out of time
Spit and spatter, crossed, cut, and barren
Lives spared and lost and worsened

There will be no lamb that lays down quietly
That shares my last name

Hangman’s hunger and hallowed hide
Broken bones and bloodied flesh aside
Cream and crop, splattered, spun, and bruised
Nothing remains if there’s nothing to be amused

There will be no silent victim, patient with the knife
Not while I am living, not while I’m alive

—

Sam’s head, dizzy with iron exposure and exhaustion, can think of nothing else but his children’s laughter.

It’s a half hallucination, half daydream. Hannah and Tommy’s smiling faces float above him like phantoms. Comforting and concerning all at once.

Ponk lays against his chest, and all four of his arms are focused solely on cradling her. Sam bleakly stares off into the distance at the smiling faces of his children, and convinces himself it’ll all be alright. Beyond him, it will be okay.

Hannah is going to college, and all of that is done and ready. Her career is bright and blooming in front of her. Bad will be more than willing to house Tommy until he graduates, and there’s no reason not to believe Toms couldn’t get a full scholarship if he tried.
They’ll make it. The human world will accept them, and they will make it. They can shed Elfheim like an ill fitting shell. They will live.

Sam suddenly swells with pride. A ballon of emotion rupturing in his chest. His children will live. His children have to live.
His children will live on without him. Even if he is to be cremated in another world as a treasonous war criminal, Hannah and Tommy will get to grow old. Sam successfully laid out the foundations, the lessons, the support in the years he was there.

He won’t get to see it, but their adult years will be beautiful. He succeeded parenthood. He can die happy.

The existential omnipresence of this realization means Sam does not realize they have a visitor until they slam a gauntleted fist against the bars of their cell. Every fairy within startles to consciousness, drowsy and afraid.

Wordlessly, the hulking mass of black metal clinks open the cage. Visibly trying to touch the iron as little as possible.

The small crowd of slightly starved, iron-poisoned traitors trembles onto their weak feet. Sam stays behind making sure everyone else can get up on their feet. His efforts are rewarded by the dark guard with a jab between his shoulder blades.

The pain is blinding. Sam barely can soak in the details of their accursed prison. The way the walls are made of twisting branches, packed as tight as brick. The ceilings are full of nested crows, and fairies of all kinds billow about in a hurry. None give the prison escort parade a second glance. Sam assumes this is out of fear of being accused to feel empathy for their sorry states.

The guard brings them before a woven wooden door so tall Sam can't see the top of it. With an echo of magic, the doors crack open to give just enough spaces for the Fourth Court to squeeze in single file.
Sam enters last, just behind Ponk. He is immediately taken aback by the shear size of the place. This central chamber, shaped like a bowl, extends well into the sky. Birds soar what seems to be miles above them. He doesn't understand why anything could possibly be this size until he spots her, the Queen he betrayed.

The Under Queen is ginormous. She is easily thirty feet tall even while sitting on her tree trunk throne, draped in unthinkable swaths of oil black fabric with a large brimmed hat so wide it begins to fade from sight at the edges like a mountain in the distance. Her shadow casts Sam and his fellow prisoners in ominous darkness. It's no wonder she's worshipped as a living god, she has to be. She wants to kill him, his friends, his lover and his family. Sam swallows dryly.

They are forced to bow a sizable distance from the hem of her gown. Their iron chains are clinked into loops binding them to the dusty floor. Sam's knees scream in old man agony.

“All sentenced here will be killed and cremated for crimes of conspiracy against the courts!” the Under Queen booms, "This so called Fourth Court of revolutionaries shall be punished as heretics!"

Her giant finger extends down toward the accused. The entire Under Court squirms in anticipation, making even the air quiver as her blameful hand choses it's first victim.

"Bloodless!" she shouts.

Techno recoils back like her pointing finger has run him through. His ears pinned down in shame.

The crowd of fairies sitting in their distant stadium seats roar the word. Jumping up and down in sadistic joy.

"Sootless!"

Wilbur grits his teeth, an impossible coldness in his eyes.
The chanting shifts, and Sam senses the pattern.

"Alexos!"

Quackity's wings twitch, but he otherwise does not respond.

"Mycos!"

George bits his bottom lip and cries. His hands scraping against the iron binds fruitlessly.

"Eryops!"

Boomer screams like he's been set aflame. Sam wonders if it really feels like that.

"Drops!"

Ponk leans against Sam's shoulder. He does his best to comfort them without burning zeim with iron further.
The Under Queen finally points to him. The scent of smoke rises in the room as Sam realizes that yes, this really will feel like being set on fire. His name is going to brand him with the same heat of a cremation machine. His children are going to live.

She opens her mouth to curse him. Sam closes his eyes.

Then, with the banging of two wooden doors thrown open wide, two names are called out. Two names that fill the room with enough magic to suffocate everyone inside.

Two names in which Hannah Fran screams.

Chapter Text

[From the Crematory Poems of Tommyinnit: Traitor’s Burn]

If cremation is saved for treason,
What does combustion mean?

Do you have a word that can describe,
The flayed skin a poet cannot survive?

What does burnout do to the wicker,
If heresy has happily wed the fire’s golden flicker?

What does it mean if my skin is wet,
My cheek left unkissed in fear of tasting sweat?

Must I quench myself in the ground below,
To spare my fate from what heresy sows?

Do you keep my urn in the valley few shall trek,
Or is a traitor someone not kept nor loss is wept?

Best you bleed and believe, oh writer,
That I smell the curling smoke of that unrighteous fire!

Outcast in wait, lonely, as the bigger words get to gleam,
Without a traitor’s burning blaze to claim them unclean!

Their better words splatter about as compost and mulch,
Not doomed to the searing heat of which I provoke!

Ousted as I am cast above the dirts fatal crest,
The charring on my soul marking me as less!

The embers of my trespassing cannot begin to spark,
If to be buried I must submit to the soil’s cool dark!

For I, careless of how blasphemous it may be,
Would rather taste of ash then rotting oak leaves.
--

Tommy stands next to his sister, their hearts beating so loud he's sure they can be heard over the screaming crowd. His wings, afraid and defensive, curl around Hannah.
She's standing so tall, her chin held so high. She's shivering. Her entire body is trembling and Hannah has never been braver, Tommy is in awe.

"Kristin! Foolish!" Hannah repeats, her voice cracking.

The Under Queen, Kristin's, massive face falls in fear. Her out stretched finger limply stumbles back into her lap. Confusion, fear, and a strange embarrassment contorts itself across her features.

She looks exactly like the carvings in the Fourth Court. She has their father in chains.

Their defiant stand comes to a stumble when the expected summoning occurs. The wood-whined castle shakes with the force of a thousand earthquakes, and the terrified screams and fluttering about of the fairy audience is somehow more deafening.

Rising out of the ground like a pillar spilling forth from sand comes an equally towering figure of solid gold. Where Kristin is woodwork, Foolish is a goldsmith. Tall, shining, with the face of a shark and the stiff wings of lapis studded stone.

Tommy’s stomach twists so sharply his vision blurs.

The Over King, blatantly terrified, tries in vein to crunch his posture and make himself small.

Hannah screams again, “Foolish!”

The giant holds his hand, with a pinky finger as tall as Tommy, up to protect his face as if the sound waves were sharp enough to cut.

With her audience, her agenda, and her rage, Hannah cracks her knuckles and takes a deep breath. An auditor’s breath.

“Great gods! Mighty, and fallible,” she begins, “You tried to take my family. The land itself tried to take my name. You won’t have any of it,”

She steps forward, the two giants flinch back.

“Kristin, Foolish, I demand you free my family. I demand you free the Fourth Court,”

The two gods, bound by their names, stare at the small pair in shocked silence.
In a snap of magic, those insidious chains physically melt off their family’s hands. In a heap, the Fourth Court collapses. Sheep just shy of the execution block.

Tommy takes one step forward. The same angry, burning scream rising in his chest like every poem he’s ever read. Every voice that had to yell above the whirling void ascends to his throat to aid him.

"You, branding us traitors, when you have let your worshippers die on the field of your ego. You do not hold up the world alone, we always have done that together. Why punish your people so?" he demands.

The cacophony of civilians rises and falls at his words. Religious dogma, in one sweeping blow, has been violently upended.
There’s no equivalent to this in the human world. Two relative outsiders, bending the rules of magic to scold the very beings that created the soil they stand on. Nothing like this has happened before. He doesn’t know how it ever did.

“I know we together must hold our own. Not by ourselves. Not alone, stranded. Together. Together a million hands could rise up and hold the world. Kristin? Foolish? They never had to hold it alone,” Tommy announces, waving one arm to the crowd in a wide arc.

Hannah’s wings buzz in revelation, an idea popping into her head.

“Kristen, Foolish, Under Queen and Over King, get out of my sight. Never let me see you again,” Hannah shouts.

The snap of magic in the air is like a bomb going off. The sound enough to make his ears ring, the heat just below burning.
But, when the sizzling air stops, the two gods are no where to be seen. Gone. Out of Hannah’s sight.

The crowd officially dissolves into anarchy. Stadium heat and stadium screams multiplying indefinitely.

Tommy and Hannah fly over to the heap that is their family. Starved things, paper thin and rubbed bright red with iron stains. Tommy sickens just to touch them.
But they did it. By some fucking miracle, two kids desperate to protect those they love, tricked the gods.

Tommy ponders the moral of the story as he helps Wilbur lean on his arm and start hovering toward an exit. Any exit. Preferably one with a lemon tree but they will take what they can get.
What is the moral of this story? The pen is mightier than the sword? Family good, theocracy bad?

One by one, in the flurry of bodies inside the mass exodus and the vanishing of the gods, family members snap away into magic. Summoned by one of the thousands of strangers that just learned their true names.

Boomer trips over and disappears first. Then Ponk, much to Sam’s feverish outcry. Quackity. George. Wilbur’s weight vanishes from Tommy’s arm.

Tommy’s head does not catch up to his eyes until his knees crash painfully onto the porch of his backyard. Somehow, a determined Hannah led them to a mushroom circle. She led them home.

‘Them’, in a twist of fate, turns out to just be him, Hannah, and Sam.

Together, they openly weep.

Chapter Text

[From the Newly Completed Poems TommyInnit: I wrote this because I love you]

There is no fancier way to phrase these words,
Words I clung to so early within the work,
Steadfast as writing shifted and shimmered,

I wrote this because I love you

You, the happen chance of song lyrics
The mishap identity of ideas
And the love that blossoms within

I wrote because I love you

You, the story maker
Or myself- the lesser way to put it-
As I learn to allow you the room to love you

I wrote because I love you

You, the character
The streamer and their story
And the greater tale of many stories bound to one

I wrote because I love you most of all

The reader, ever kind
Who held the writing close
Even when I couldn’t recognize it’s shine
Understand the miracle you are
Understand what you have given to me
And the love I extend full heartedly

I wrote this because I had to

That this love, boundless,
Would break me if I did not
Would break me if I did any less

As the word count solidifies, and the last word stands
I leave you with a solemn truth, one that I could repeat a million times and come up short twice over.
So read this line. Reread it again. Understand the sentence I am trying to command.

I wrote this because I love you.

.:.

Life does not fix itself after Hannah forbid the gods from interfering with Fourth Court activities. It has no natural, pre-near execution state to revert back to. Life is actively fixed, with much effort and little help.

Everyone had to make deals with those who remembered their true names. Some deals more painful than others.
Notably, Wilbur lost his thirtieth year of life and Quackity an eye. George sleeps a lot now. Ponk gave up her second arm. Boomer cleans somebody’s house now.

Their Court has since enjoyed a massive uptick in membership. Their small, secret union of houses blooming into an entire political faction ensuring the end of the wars between the Courts.
Ponk has been working overtime, between the Fourth Court and the wedding planning. Zeir sweat smells like lemon juice and makes writing letters while nervous very difficult.

The sum of the wedding goes like this:
Fairy traditions, earth location, two white robes and fancy dancing shoes. Hannah demands to be the flower girl, so Ponk writes one in. The children dress in light grey robes that flower around them, sitting in a semicircle before their father and step father.

She watches Sam Fran, the man who raised her from infancy and will tend to her until his last dying breath, tie a cord around his and Ponk’s wrists. Vowing to intertwine their very souls, their entire lives.
All seven of their children burst into riotous applause. The buzzing of wings giving white noise to their hooting and hollering that continues for a solid three minutes uninterrupted.

Over dinner, a giggly affair refusing to be tainted by the political turmoil overshadowing both Fairy and earth, Hannah realizes something.
She realizes she’ll be anxious forever. She, this nameless thing, tongue heavy with the names of monarchs, will always be afraid.

Hannah’s learning how to forgive herself for being afraid. How to accept cowardice fully, not to cast a section of herself aside just because it quivers.
No, she will not continue to shame herself for crying. It was the first thing she ever did. That anyone ever did.

So Hannah will gently let go of her own ruler she hits against her own wrist with the comforting thought that the greatest strength of a human is another human. Our most important quality is that we can ask for help.
She is unlearning the fear of doing so. Unraveling the fear of being human. It is, after all, what made her such a great fairy. Hannah needs to lean on others, they need to lean back.
She will cry, and they will cry, and that is strength. Hannah will remind herself to rejoice after she weeps for there laid humanity, in those very tears.

There is an interconnectedness to all things. Hannah is discovering how to stop being afraid of it. Hannah is learning how to cry again.
Hannah is a human. Hannah is a fairy. Hannah is alive. Hannah will cry to prove it so.

Tommy wins scholarships. His poems are put in indie anthologies of upcoming writers. He takes the minutes of Fourth Court meetings and helped the twins confront their father in a trial by combat. The twins won.
Phil lives in exile, presumably wherever the Under Queen has run off to. Ponk and Sam took Wil and Techno in after the fall out.

She’s so proud of him. It’s his words that wrote their way out. It is he who stands foremost on the precipice of the new Elfheim.

Hannah sits there, looking at her dad smiling so wide it’s making her face heart, and she almost cries for the sixth time tonight. She’s so proud of all of them, of herself.
Tommy mutters something lightheartedly mocking her, then extends a napkin toward her hand.

Hannah elbows him before she takes it. Slowly dabbing her eyes and refusing to look anywhere else but Sam and Ponk’s smiles.

It’s a strange new world they find themselves in. One where Sam is married, Hannah moves out, and Tommy has two sisters and a mother. They have new siblings! Boomer has thrown cubed cheeses at her this entire dinner and she is going to strangle him.

They also overthrew the theocracy in Elfheim, a feat only made possible by the complex feelings of a mother who didn’t want her child.
It’s strange that if Hannah could, she’d thank her mom for not naming her. It saved her entire family in the end.

She’s going to go to college with the advantage of inter-dimensional travel and six annoying siblings. She is going to live, afraid and crying, for the rest of her nameless life.
Hannah has never been so fucking excited.