Chapter 1: Morning
Summary:
Hermes takes a mental health day.
Chapter Text
~*~
“Dad. Dad.”
Tumbling, turning, through some place deep and dark. Strange dreams, though sometimes they feel more like memories. Dreadful things, yet achingly familiar.
“Dad, wake up.”
Hermes surfaces from the skirl of his thoughts like a deep sea diver emerging into moonlight. He takes a deep breath, and lets it out slow.
“...I’m awake,” he mutters.
The arm draped over his eyes would be melodramatic if it wasn’t so heavy. He drags his arm off of his face, but the darkness persists-- and he remembers he’s still wearing his sleep mask. He tugs it off with a groan.
White etched with silver, dark eyes, a beaked nose. Fit for a masquerade ball, or, less charitably, a plague doctor. A strangely elaborate design for a mere sleep mask, but again, something about it felt familiar. Right.
He tosses it aside, but the darkness remains. The curtains are drawn, the sky beyond a gloomy gray.
“Morning,” his eldest daughter greets him.
“...morning,” Hermes sighs. Not a good morning. Just a morning.
“Meds,” she reminds him, thunking a glass of water down on his nightstand.
“You first,” Hermes says firmly.
The pop of plastic planners, the rattling of pills. The comforting mundanity of tradition, of routine. Hermes’ eldest daughter resolves in the dim light, her darkened hair and feathers a deep, midnight blue.
Tall. Tired. Trying. She’s turning out more like Hermes than either of them expected, and some days, that makes Hermes proud. Some days? That scares him.
Hermes sets his glass down on the nightstand. He catches sight of his clock and a flash of hot shame roils through his gut. He hangs his head, groaning.
“...Are the girls ready to go?” he murmurs.
“It’s okay,” his eldest daughter says gently. “Mimi’s taking care of it.”
Downstairs, Mimi, Hermes’ second-eldest daughter, has managed to put down her phone long enough to wash some dishes. If Hermes wasn’t feeling up to making breakfast, then she doubts he’d be in the mood to wash dishes, either. She loves her father, though Twelve forfend she ever say so out loud.
Three cereal bowls plunk into the drying rack by the sink. Only three, because Mimi has a bad habit of skipping breakfast and Hermes isn’t here to nag. She glances at her phone and a text from Ryne that sends a flutter through her jaded teenage heart, before checking on her younger sisters lined up by the door.
Six coathooks rise like steps on the wall as you come through the door. Below sits a similar tiered rack; opposite, a row of little wooden chairs in different heights. Everyone gets a hook they can reach, a place to put their shoes, and somewhere to sit while they put their shoes on.
But Hermes’ three youngest daughters are sitting out of order on the steps; the middle Meteion on the smallest chair, her younger sister beside her, the smallest Meteion on the middle chair, so that all three of them are the same height. The two smallest Meteia still have feathers in a bright, sky blue, but the middle Meteion, the brightest and most outgoing by far, has her feathers tinged the green of joy.
She’s helping her sisters into their raincoats and their thick rubber boots. It’s a bit of a novelty to them, wearing shoes. Most shoes either can’t fit their feet or get poked through by their talons, but these big clunky rain boots are one of the few exceptions.
“I wish we could wear shoes more often,” her second-youngest sister chirps. “Riqi-Tio has a pair of boots that are sooooo fluffy and soft! I want to wear boots like those!”
Mimi stifles a snicker. “...No, you don’t.”
“I do,” Meteion insists, pouting. “People always make fun of my talons! Someone even said I had ‘chicken feet’.”
“ Who said that?” Mimi snaps. “Where does he live?”
Thoughts of teenage vengeance fizzle out at the sound of talons coming down the steps. Hermes’ eldest daughter, Endsinger. Or at least that’s what her sisters, friends, and AO3 readers call her. “Found family”, “hurt/comfort” and “angst with a happy ending” are her specialties.
“End!”
Her two youngest sisters chirp in excitement and come running up to her, hugging her legs. Her hands settle affectionately in their hair. They barely come up to her waist. She’s so tall. Like her father.
“Is Daddy coming downstairs?” her youngest sister murmurs.
“I don’t think so, little birdie,” End says gently. “Not today.”
The youngest Meteion pouts. “But he’s going to miss our goodbye hug!”
“He’s… tired,” End says gently, softly smoothing her sisters’ unruly hair against their scalps. “Sometimes, Dad gets sad. Like me. And that makes it harder for him to do things. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still love you with all his heart.”
Little Meteion ponders this for only a moment, before she nods, satisfied. “...Will he be happy if I read him my favorite bedtime story?”
Her sister chimes in, smiling. “Oh! Or if I got him a caramel apple? He loves those!”
End smiles, despite everything. Not as broad or as bright as her sisters smile every day. Small, subtle. But sincere.
“...I think he’d like that,” End says gently. “But first, it’s time for school.”
The Meteia depart together. The middle Meteion takes her two younger sisters by the hand, and the wind carries them off. Mimi meets Ryne and Gaia in front of the house. They’re sharing an umbrella in unbearably cute fashion. Gaia hands Mimi a coffee; Ryne offers her a cookie, and reminds her that skipping breakfast is a terrible habit. Mimi smiles, and feels a flutter of something new and strange in her heart, before she shoves it down under a veneer of teenage indifference. Gaia asks about her father, her sisters, and Mimi shrugs. She supposes she’s just at that age where she would rather be third-wheel for her best friends than admit she loves her family.
By the time Hermes manages to drag himself out of bed, put on his house robe and make it downstairs, his daughters have already left. His four youngest are off to school, pre-, grade, middle and high. End has retreated into her room. College, and her mental health gap year, are still sore subjects. They agreed that she could take her time.
Hermes stands on the front steps, gazing out at the neighborhood. In the absence of his daughters, a deep melancholy settles like a heavy curtain over his mind, and threatens to pull him back into those spiraling depths. Deep, dark, far away.
“Hey, neighbor!” Venat calls as she jogs past in a dove-grey tracksuit. Every morning, like clockwork, rain or shine, retirement be damned.
Her voice jolts Hermes out of his thoughts. He lifts his hand and gives her a friendly wave. His arm doesn’t feel quite so heavy.
The morning routine goes on around him. Comforting, mundane. There’s Loghrif and Mitron, Gaia’s parents, sharing an umbrella on a stately morning stroll. There’s Zoe and Hestia, the co-chairs of Azem, rushing off on their next trip. Hermes pats his phone in his pocket, remembering Hades’ distant, outraged ‘what do you mean he’s not coming in today?!’ while Hythlodaeus’ sweet, serene voice urged him not to worry about work and to take all the time he needed.
Hermes gazes up at the gloomy gray skies. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he breathes out, his sigh isn’t quite so heavy.
A morning. Not a good one, but maybe not so bad either. Another day. Another ordinary day.
Life goes on. Even in the rain.
~*~
Chapter 2: Neighbor
Summary:
Hermes makes a friend.
Chapter Text
~*~
“I’m sorry to just drop in out of the blue,” Venat smiles primly.
“No, no,
I’m
sorry,” Hermes insists, fussing about his kitchen. “I’m sorry I haven’t done this sooner. Can I offer you anything? Water, juice, tea? Apple? We always have plenty of apples in this house…”
“It’s quite alright. Please, sit with me,” Venat says gently.
“I’m sorry,” Hermes says, sheepishly pulling up a chair. “I’m afraid I’m not used to entertaining guests…”
“Who could blame you?” Venat shrugs. “Managing five daughters must be difficult enough.”
Hermes smiles at the very thought. “...It has its pleasures.”
Venat smiles fondly, leaning an elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand. A table leg loudly thunks into the floorboards. Venat blinks.
“Ah. Sorry,” Hermes says quickly. “Table’s got a bit of a lean to it…”
“I can fix that,” Venat grins. She glances around, studying Hermes’ house and the wear and tear that five children could wreak upon it. “Any sagging doors, leaking roofs, stuck windows? I can fix those, too.”
“You’re a carpenter, then?” Hermes wonders, intrigued.
“Oh, no,” Venat waves the thought away. “I’m retired. I’m just good with my hands.”
Hermes’ gaze lingers on Venat’s hands, before flicking up to her eyes. So stunningly, strikingly blue. A thought catches up to him before he can stare for too long.
“...Retired?” Hermes blinks. “But, you don’t look a day over--”
“Yes?” Venat smiles.
Hermes snatches his gaze away with a cough. Venat chuckles.
“What do
you
do, Hermes?” she asks.
“Oh, uh, programming,” he says, rather too quickly. “I used to be a bit more hands-on, myself, working with animals, but I shifted towards something I could more feasibly do from home. Aside from the odd staff meeting where my supervisor insists we all meet in person…”
“Meetings that could have been e-mails, I’m sure.”
“Or conference calls, at least,” Hermes chuckles.
“You work so hard,” Venat coos. “Raising one child is already a full time job, let alone five. And you do this all by yourself? Is there no special someone in your life?”
Hermes scoffs. “I haven’t paid it much mind. I’m far too busy. Taking care of my girls is more important.”
“But who’s going to take care of
you
?”
Hermes hangs his head, and breathes out a sigh.
“...I don’t have the time. Or the… temperament.” He raises a hand, gestures vaguely to his head. “...Depression, you know. And some days it’s manageable-- most days, even-- but I’d rather not saddle anyone with the responsibility of carrying me through my bad days. Not my daughters, and certainly not a stranger.”
Venat smiles gently. “How about a friend?”
The thought pierces Hermes like an arrow through his heart. The sudden realization that, if not for his daughter’s teachers, and his own coworkers… his actual
friends
could be counted on one hand.
Hermes feels a hand on his. Venat’s so close-- since when was she sitting so close? He can feel her. Her touch, her radiant warmth. And her eyes, mesmerizing, spellbinding.
Hermes swallows. His tongue feels like cotton in his mouth.
“I’ve struggled with a few bad brain days, myself,” Venat says gently, ever so gently. “Do you know what I do to break out of that melancholy, that malaise? I know just the thing to get the blood going…”
An hour later, Hermes is gasping for breath. Oh, his blood’s going, alright. He’s doused with sweat, his heart thundering in his chest so hard he’s convinced he’s about to die.
“Ready for another round?” Venat grins. The hearty thwack on Hermes’ back nearly sends him toppling face first onto the sidewalk.
“Usually I just… fly…” Hermes groans, doubled over and panting. “...or take the van…”
“Come on, you can do it!” Venat beams. “One more lap around the block, then we can call it a day. Come on, keep your knees up! Let’s go, let’s go!”
Hermes gets the feeling that he and Venat have
very
different ways of maintaining their mental health. But as he takes off at a jog behind Venat in her dove-grey tracksuit, astoundingly spry for a retired woman, he finds himself smiling. He has a new part of his daily routine--
--and a new friend.
~*~
Chapter 3: Book Club
Summary:
Hermes is off to see a wizard.
Chapter Text
~*~
“You’re not lost, are you?”
Hermes pouts, dismayed. Not even two blocks away from his house, and already the streets became a maze, so rare were his forays beyond his front steps. Especially on foot. He glances down at the note-- a real note, handwritten, thank you very much, not a Note ‘app’ like the kids were using these days. Mimi would scoff.
“...I am, I’m afraid,” Hermes admits, sheepish. “I was just wondering if I had the right address…”
He glances up to study his Good Samaritan. A handsome stranger, his silver hair either dyed or prematurely grey. Behind him, an open garage, a toolbox and a half-assembled motorcycle. He’s not wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses, but it’s not hard to imagine.
“My, you’re a tall fellow, aren’t you?” the man grins. “Just like Uri. Actually… you look familiar. Haven’t I seen you at the high school?”
Hermes blinks. “Uh-- I’m not sure. I’m, uh, Hermes.”
The man snaps his fingers in recognition. “Aha! You’re Mimi’s old man! Ryne’s told me so much. I’m Thancred.”
“Oh! It’s a pleasure,” Hermes says, offering his hand.
Rather than shake his hand, Thancred slings an arm over Hermes’ shoulders as if they’d known each other all their lives.
“Good to finally meet you out in the real world,” Thancred chuckles. “It’s a wonder it took us so long.”
“Oh. I don’t get out much,” Hermes squirms. He coughs, embarrassed. “...I just get so busy with the girls, you know.”
“I’ve had my hands full with women in the past,” Thancred waggles his eyebrows. Phantom fingers cuff him on the back of his head, and he winces, a Pavlovian response to an imagined Y’shtola scolding. He clears his throat. “...Until I settled down, at least. Anyway, come in, come in. Uri’s out on the patio.”
Thancred leads Hermes through a house equally infested with books and machine parts. In the kitchen, Thancred heaves open a sliding glass door--
--and behind the curtain lies a wizard.
“Welcome,” Urianger intones, bowing deeply at the waist. “Thy coming hath been foretold… that is to say, Ryne said you would be coming. Please, join us.”
Thancred departs with a nod and a blithe reminder that he’ll be in the garage. Hermes steps out onto the back porch, anxiously tugging at the sleeves of his sweater.
An eclectic bunch sit arrayed before him. A miqo’te in an elegant houserobe-- clearly this was as much her home as it was her male friends’. A mesmerizing beauty in a pink gown and fiery red hair. A creature that looked, by all rights, like a friendly dog wizard. And another kind soul anxiously tugging at his own turtleneck, the most relatable of the lot despite being a lion man.
And beyond the patio, a stand of trees deep, dark, teeming with wonder and dread.
“Welcome, Hermes, to our humble circle,” Urianger intones. “Wouldst thou like to say a few words?”
Hermes blinks, taken aback. “Er… um. Hello! I am Hermes, and… my daughters are my whole world.”
A chorus of ‘awws’. Hermes manages a sheepish smile.
“...Of course, I wouldn’t be opposed to expanding my world a bit. Socially.”
“We are honored to help broaden your horizons,” Beq Lugg smiles, serene.
“We are only two chapters into our latest endeavor,” Urianger explains, “so it should not be too great a challenge for you to catch up. Until then, as the youth say: spoiler alert…”
“Now, then,” Y’shtola chimes in. “I believe we were discussing the heroine’s chemistry with her best friend--”
“It’s
bait
!” Titania bursts from their seat in indignation, flower petals inexplicably flurrying around their form. “It’s bait, I say! They draw us in with their
history
and
yearning
and then they’ll stick her with the first mediocre man they can find for the sake of the majority readership!”
“Well… the Prince seems harmless enough…” Runar tries.
“Pah! ‘Harmless’! Damned by faint praise, indeed!” Titania rails. “Sipping on lukewarm water is ‘harmless’, but it lacks both refreshment and flavor!”
The patio erupts into a spirited discussion of love triangles, queerbaiting, and heteronormativity, which is hardly what Hermes was prepared to dive into on a weekday afternoon. While Urianger nods along sagely, Hermes sinks into his chair, utterly bewildered-- but not in a bad way.
This is… different,
he sends silently into the world. Mimi silently sings back:
Well, you wanted to make friends.
~*~
Chapter 4: Names
Summary:
The two elder Meteia ponder their new chosen names.
Chapter Text
~*~
Mimi isn’t like the rest of her sisters.
She makes it a point to remind them of this every day. It’s right there in her name; the nickname that Ryne and Gaia gave her on their first day of school together, and the one she’d insisted on going by since. While her three younger sisters might be happy being a matched set and flying to and from the combined pre-, grade- and middle school hand in hand, Mimi stubbornly insists on going her own way.
“So, ladies, where to?” Gaia asks.
Ryne squeezes her hand beside her. Mimi, meanwhile, has her hands shoved in her pockets before she gets any ideas. The sidewalk isn’t quite wide enough for three, but Ryne refuses to let Mimi fall behind. She’s one of them, now, and always will be.
“There’s always the cafe,” Ryne offers. “But with our luck, it’ll be packed with everyone else who got out of school early. Maybe something a bit quieter, just the three of us. What do you think, Mimi?”
Hearing her name in Ryne’s voice sends a glimmer of pink across Mimi’s navy blue feathers and a flutter through her chest.
Sometimes Mimi thinks about this feeling; how much is just her hearing the echoes of Ryne and Gaia’s heartsong, and how much of it is her own.
That is to say, she makes it a point
not
to think about it. It’s so much easier not to care.
“We can go to my place,” Mimi offers, with an air of practiced teenage indifference. “I just hope my family isn’t home.”
“Your dad’s cool,” Gaia shrugs. “Way better than mine, at least.”
“Awww, and I
love
your family,” Ryne coos. “I’d love to be part of it someday.”
Mimi freezes in her tracks, her eyes wide. When Ryne turns to look at her she snatches her gaze away, covering her face with her wings-- but her traitorous wingtips blush for her and shimmer a telltale pink regardless.
“Gods, you can’t say stuff like that,” Gaia grins. “You’re gonna kill her.”
The familiar sight of Mimi’s house around the corner mercifully puts an end to the teasing. Ryne and Gaia linger by the doorway, taking off their shoes and changing into house slippers. Mimi and her sisters don’t wear them; talons, you know. Aside from Hermes himself, Mimi kept those pairs of house slippers around just for them.
Mercifully, they stopped pointing this out after the third or fourth time.
“Wait here for a sec,” Mimi urges, before venturing inside.
“Look at these
chairs!
” Ryne squeals behind her.
Gaia chuckles. “You point those out every time.”
Mimi heads through the living room, kitchen, and down the hall to her older sister’s room. The door is open a crack, a sign that she’s at least somewhat open to social interaction at the moment. Mimi raps her knuckles against the doorframe.
“End, it’s me.”
End comes shuffling up and opens the door more than a crack. A rhythmic pattern of sound effects keep playing from her computer.
“Am I interrupting something?” Mimi wonders.
“It’s okay. It’s all crafting macros,” End’s drooping eyes and perpetually tired expression lift into a small smile. “You’re home early.”
“High school had a half day,” Mimi shrugs. “I have company over. Just giving you the heads up. You don’t have to come out or anything if you don’t wanna.”
“I can say hi, at least,” End nods.
“Come in!” Mimi calls down the hall.
End doesn’t open her door all the way. Introvert tendencies, or, Mimi suspects, because there’s clutter on the other side blocking it from opening all the way. Still, End wriggles through her door and brushes Dorito crumbs from her hoodie, making a token effort to greet her guests.
“These are my friends,” Mimi says, too embarrassed to say ‘besties’. “This is Ryne, and this is Gaia. Guys, this is my sister.”
“Hi,” End waves shyly. She towers over all three of them, so tall she almost has to duck under her own doorway, but the way she meekly folds in on herself makes her look so very small. She nods towards Gaia. “I, um. I like your style.”
Gaia glances at herself, grinning. “Oh, uh. Thanks.”
End looks sheepishly at her own hoodie and baggy sweatpants, distorting her willowy figure into a cloud of black smoke. “I wish I could pull that off. I’ve got a sorta ‘shapeless Victorian ghost’ thing going on.”
End clears her throat, sheepish.
“Um. We’re all ‘Meteion’, but I guess I started the trend of growing up and picking our own names. Uh. You can call me End. Or, uh, Endsinger, that’s what I go by online…”
Ryne and Gaia exchange astonished glances. End shrinks away.
“Uh… sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
“Do you, um…” Ryne’s eyes sparkle with mirth. “Do you write?”
End glances at the floor, bashful. “Oh, uh, yeah, sometimes…”
“Did you write ‘At the End of Everything’?!” Gaia gasps.
End smiles. “Oh. Yeah. That was… that was me.”
“Oh my god!” Ryne squeals. “I think about that fic every day! ‘I want to wake up to you every morning, and come home to you every night’...”
Gaia recites. “‘They stole your future--’”
“‘So you can share mine!’” Ryne and End chime in together. Ryne and Gaia squeal and throw their arms around each other, jumping up and down in delight.
“What,” Mimi says flatly. “What is. What is happening.”
Ryne grins, sheepish. “We, um… we read your sister’s fanfiction. We’re actually big fans.”
All the color drains out of Mimi’s face. She claps her hands over her face, mortified. Her wings hide her face, her feathers turning charcoal gray.
Gaia digs a playful elbow into Ryne’s ribs.
“We gotta stop saying shit like that,” Gaia teases. “I think we might actually kill her.”
~*~
Chapter 5: The Cereal Aisle
Summary:
Hermes, his daughters, and the truth about breakfast cereal.
Chapter Text
~*~
“Alright, girls,” Hermes says, turning a corner. “You can each pick
one
cereal box--”
Meteion, Meteion, and Meteion all squeal in delight and leap out of their seats, kicking the shopping cart back into Hermes’ shins with a bang. Hermes cringes, biting down a swear. The middle Meteion, less tunnel-visioned than her younger sisters, doubles back to apologize.
“Sorry, Dad,” she murmurs, sheepish.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Hermes says gently. He presses a kiss to the part in Meteion’s hair before she flutters off down the aisle to join her sisters.
“Breakfast cereal. What a con,” Mimi scoffs, her eyes glued to her phone as she hand-picks strategic memes to send her group chat with Ryne and Gaia.
“What’s wrong with cereal?” End wonders.
“Psychological warfare,” Mimi says flatly. She points without looking, to the bottom-most shelves of colorful, sugary cereals. “Look at them.. They’re placed there with a purpose, to make eye contact with little kids and convince them to hand over their parents’ money. They don’t put in so much effort once you start getting older. Or taller.”
End wrings her hands, glancing around at the selection on the upper shelves. She’s so tall. Like her father.
“How’s the weather up there?” Mimi asks dryly, a full head shorter than her eldest sister. “Probably full of old-people cereal, like bran flakes and shredded wheat.”
“It- It’s good for you!” End cries, dismayed. “And-- And I only like the ones that still have the frosting, a-and the oat clusters… it needs the crunch! And that way it’s sweet, but not too sweet, while still being full of fiber!”
“No one under fifty worries about
fiber
,” Mimi drawls. “How do you have this kind of taste in cereal when the rest of your diet is corn chips and energy drinks?”
“It cancels out!” End squeaks.
“You eat like an old man,” Mimi says flatly. “Right, Dad?”
“Am I the old man you’re asking to confirm your hypothesis?” Hermes teases.
“Uh, yeah.”
End meets Hermes’ eyes, stricken. He chuckles to himself.
“Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of forgetting to eat breakfast,” Hermes teases, laying a fond hand in Mimi’s hair. “Now who does that remind you of?”
Mimi promptly swats Hermes’ hand off of her head.
“I do not ‘forget’,” Mimi huffs, indignant. “It’s a choice.”
“It’s because Ryne always saves her something from the cafe,” End murmurs into Hermes’ ear. They share sage nods.
“Sh-Shut up!!!” Mimi fumes, her wingtips turning pink.
Mercifully, Mimi’s younger sisters choose that moment to come barreling back down the aisle, their favorite super-sugary cereals in hand. They start clambering back into the shopping cart, middle Meteion sitting cross-legged, her younger sister on her lap, the youngest Meteion on hers-- a nesting doll of cuddles, with the smallest Meteion hugging three boxes of cereal to her chest like her favorite plush toy.
“We won’t have any room for groceries,” Hermes chides them, smiling.
“We’ll make room!” Meteion chirps. Three identical smiles beam up at him. Hermes gasps, clutching his chest.
“Is he crying?” Mimi wonders dryly. End gently thunks a chiding fist on top of her head, between her wings. Mimi swats her away.
“Alright,” Hermes takes a breath, dabbing his eyes with his sleeve. He pushes their shopping cart down to the end of the aisle, his eldest daughters trailing behind him on foot.
“Here comes the produce section,” Hermes announces. “Who wants apples?”
“I do!!!”
His three youngest daughters’ smiles are downright blinding. Hermes and End don’t smile that bright anymore, but they still manage. Even Mimi, under her veneer of teenage apathy, is content.
Grocery shopping with the girls is always an adventure. To some, that might sound boring. But what is life, if not doing boring things with the people you love?
~*~
Chapter Text
~*~
“Why don’t you just say it?” Gaia glowers. “You don’t like Ryne.”
“Gaia, you’re putting words in my mouth,” Mitron warns, haughty. “That’s a terrible habit, you know.”
Gaia balls her fists and bites back a growl. She gets her looks from her mother, but her temper? That’s all Dad.
“Gaia, sweetheart,” Loghrif cuts in, ever the diplomat, “it’s not that we
dislike
Ryne. We think she’s a wonderful girl! It’s just that, well… her parents…”
“
One
in particular,” Mitron mutters acidly.
“Oh for--” Gaia rolls her eyes. “Thancred? Don’t give me that. I bet he hasn’t even said two words to you.”
“Wrong again, dear,” Mitron sniffs with contempt. “He said
precisely
two words to my dearest Loghrif. ‘Hello, there’,
purred
out like some vagabond lech--”
“He’s literally married, that’s just how he talks--”
“And! His clothes! Ugh!” Mitron sneers. “Is a man who wears a leather jacket and
sunglasses
to a parent-teacher conference fit to be your future father-in-law? A man whose social circle is similarly uncouth? Why, I’ve even heard that his lady friends have infested an entire cul-de-sac just a few short blocks from here, and turned it into some kind of… of… lesbian commune!”
“Leave Ryne’s Aunt Lyse and her girlfriends out of this!”
~*~
“...so, basically, I’m grounded.”
Gaia grumbles over the phone.
“Oh no!” Ryne frets. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Dad was talking shit about your dads and their friends, and I wasn’t gonna take that,”
Gaia shrugs over speakerphone.
“Mom pulled me aside after and assured me that Dad wasn’t homophobic, he was ‘just’ bourgeoisie. As if that makes it okay.”
“Didn’t your parents make whale documentaries or something?” Mimi wonders, casually laying across Ryne’s legs on the couch. “Is there a lot of money in marine biology?”
“No. They were both born into money. They just studied whales for funsies,”
Gaia muses dryly.
“Now they’re socialites in early retirement with nothing better to do than judge people and keep me locked in my room. Sorry I can’t make movie night.”
“Thank you for sticking up for my dads,” Ryne says gently.
“Any time,”
Gaia smiles.
“...See you guys on Monday, I guess?”
“Yeah…” Ryne murmurs. “Love you.”
Mimi mumbles a plausibly deniable ‘love you’. Gaia chuckles.
“Love you two, too,”
she says. Ryne’s phone blinks, and the call ends.
Ryne blows out a sigh. She leans her chin on her hand, gazing wistfully out the window, idly trailing her fingers through Mimi’s hair, careful not to nudge her wings. Mimi fidgets, her talons thumping against the empty cushion on Ryne’s couch where Gaia would normally sit. Mimi takes a deep breath, and lets it out slow.
“Hey,” she says at last.
Ryne blinks, startled. She glances down and meets her eyes.
Mimi’s solemn expression curls into an impish smile. “...Do you wanna do something fun?”
~*~
“This seems like a bad idea!” Ryne squeaks, hugging Mimi’s neck for dear life.
“It’ll be fine,” Mimi reassures her. “I saw it in a meme once.”
“Yeah, again: bad idea!” Ryne hisses.
“Shh!”
Mimi closes her eyes and concentrates, silently calling the wind. Obviously, her and her sisters’ wings aren’t big enough in proportion to their bodies to make them physically capable of flight. But the symbol has power, and their wings were living conduits for magic that they carried everywhere they went and kept their hands free-- convenient when, for instance, your best friend/crush was clinging to your shoulders like a backpack.
The wind answers Mimi’s call, lifting her and Ryne up off the grass and up to a second storey window. Ryne reaches out and carefully knocks on the glass.
Gaia shoves her window open with a gasp.
“What are you
doing
?!” she hisses, astounded.
“We wanted to see you!” Ryne says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“You might be grounded, but I can fly,” Mimi adds, deadpan.
“Look, we brought you something!” Ryne chimes in.
“One sec,” Gaia says. She takes out her phone and snaps a photo of the absurd sight of her two best friends
floating
outside her bedroom. “Got it. What were you saying?”
“We brought you something,” Ryne beams, handing over a little cardboard box. “A fresh batch of coffee biscuits, to get you through the weekend. Whenever you start missing us too bad, you can have one and think of us. Sweets for the sweet!”
“You’re insane,” Gaia rolls her eyes with a weary fondness, setting the box aside. “I love you.”
Ryne giggles like an idiot in love, because she is, emphatically. She squeals in delight as Gaia takes her by the collar and pulls her in for a sweet, giggly kiss.
Their love explodes like a firework behind Mimi’s eyes. Blissful warmth wells up in her heart and surges through her limbs, brilliant, beautiful,
distracting
--
The wind falters beneath the duo and Mimi falls out of the air with a startled squawk. They roll across the top of an artfully trimmed hedge in Gaia’s backyard and fall into the grass, laughing like madwomen.
Gaia frantically mouths
are you okay?
and they wave off her concern, desperately stifling giggles.
“I’m sorry!” Ryne squeaks, desperately stifling snickers.
“It’s okay,” Mimi laughs, sheepish. “That’s what I get for looking at memes…”
Affection surges in Ryne’s chest. She pulls Mimi into her arms and presses a whisper of a kiss to her cheek.
“Thank you,” Ryne coos.
Mimi stares at her, her feathers, like Elpis petals, shifting from her usual dour navy blue to a brilliant, blushing pink. It takes her a long moment to remember how to talk.
“Who’s out there?!” Mitron bellows from the front steps.
Ryne grabs Mimi’s hand and they flee into the dark, their smiles gleaming like midnight suns.
~*~
Chapter 7: Imagination
Summary:
Meteion and her friends slay a dragon.
Chapter Text
~*~
“Open the gate! Open the gate!”
Ser Arkil, technically just a squire but a one-day Knight of Norvrandt, comes galloping up the hill on his trusty steed. In the sunlight, he would be a gallant sight, banner flying, his horse’s barding armor gleaming gold. But not today-- for a terror stretches across the valley, the shadow of mighty wings.
The great beast bellows its fury across the plains, a vast dragon in pitch-black scales and a piercing green gaze. It leaps from its mountaintop perch and roars-- spitting not fire, but a hurricane.
The monstrous gale hurls Arkil off his feet. He screws his eyes shut in terror, waiting for the wind to smash him against the castle walls and crush him in his armor--
--but the killing blow doesn’t come. Eirwel, his fellow squire, stands above him like a wolf above his cub, his cape billowing, shield raised against the storm.
“Riqi!” Eirwel cries.
The gate heaves open. Riqi-Tio comes running, her medical satchel bouncing against her hip. She slides to her knees at Arkil’s side, picking out a healing potion. She uncorks the vial with a sound suspiciously like poking a straw into a juice box, and lowers the potion to Arkil’s lips.
Arkil drinks his fill, sitting up and meeting Riqi-Tio’s eyes in wondrous gratitude.
“You saved me,” he whispers, unspeakably tender.
The dragon bellows, cutting their moment short.
“Look out! He’s coming back around!” Eirwel shouts.
The great shadow doubles back for another pass, a tempest roiling in his jaws.
Magic explodes in the great dragon’s face, bursts of light and color. A girl in blue rises up in defiance on the castle parapets, her hands shining with multicolored magic.
“Princess?!” Arkil and Riqi-Tio cry out.
“Do not be afraid!” Meteion cries out. She hurls another spell into the beast’s fanged maw, bursting like a firework or, perhaps, a fistful of markers.
The great dragon bellows in retaliation, gale-force winds shaking the castle walls as if it were made of cardboard.
“He’s going to bring down the mountain!” Eirwel cries.
“We can’t face him!” Arkil despairs.
“Yes, we can,” Meteion insists. “I know his weakness! Eirwel, with me!”
“Yes, my lady!”
Meteion pulls up the skirts of her impractically elaborate princess dress and closes her talons around Eirwel’s shoulders. She calls the wind beneath them and they take off towards the dragon’s lair. As they swoop overhead, the dragon bellowing its indignation, Eirwel dives, sword drawn, upon the dragon’s back.
“For Norvrandt!” Eirwel cries, plunging his sword into the dragon’s throat. His sword scrapes uselessly against the dragon’s scales, its armor too thick.
But as the dragon rears back to swat the audacious knight from his shoulders, he exposes his soft underbelly to the princess’ magics!
Meteion bellows a war cry as she dives upon the ‘dragon’ and gives him the tickle fight of his life. When the dragon slumps down to the carpeted floor in defeat, Meteion joins her friends in a triumphant group hug and a raucous cheer.
An annoyed car horn cuts through their celebrations. Hermes sits up, wiping marker ink from his neck. Outside, he can see Mimi in the front seat of the minivan, texting with one hand, the other impatiently drumming her fingers against the windowsill. Hermes smiles, shaking his hand.
“Alright, kids,” Hermes says, crouching down to speak with them at eye level. “I still have a few more daughters to pick up, so say goodbye to Meteion for now.”
“Awww!” choruses the quartet.
“Bye, guys,” Meteion says, as her friends line up for her to methodically hug goodbye one by one.
“See you tomorrow!” Arkil and Eirwel wave.
“Your dad’s the best,” Riqi-Tio whispers into her ear, as if it’s a big secret.
“I know,” Meteion whispers back, grinning from ear to ear.
Hermes pauses by the door to sign off on Mrs. Leveilleur’s clipboard. Meteion comes running up, instinctively hugging Hermes’ knees. Hermes lays a fond hand in her hair, before trailing down and taking her hand in his. Meteion glances behind her to wave goodbye; her friends wave with so much enthusiasm it was as if she
wasn’t
going to see them again in less than a day.
Another impatient honk from the front lot. Hermes shakes his head and smiles.
“And they lived happily ever after,” Hermes recites, glancing down and meeting Meteion’s beaming smile with his own. “Until their next adventure.”
~*~
Chapter 8: Shortcuts
Summary:
Venat spends some quality time with the neighbors.
Chapter Text
~*~
“Come on, girls! Keep your knees up!”
End trudges to a stop, doubled over, her hands on her knees. Her talons twitch with fatigue, tapping against the paving stones. Up ahead, Venat waves with a friendly, jocular grin, her ice-blue eyes shining with mirth. Either her signature dove-grey tracksuit is magicked to never show any unsightly sweat stains, or all this exercise
actually
isn’t enough to make her break a sweat. End, by contrast, thinks her heart is about to explode.
“It’s not fair,” Mimi groans, trudging up behind her. “Your legs are so long, you don’t have to take as many strides. Who let you run this race on stilts?”
“Well, you have the stronger lungs,” End ekes out. “Must be from blowing all that hot air.”
Mimi huffs and shoves her. End shoves her back. They’re both so tired and unsteady on their feet that their playful shoves run the risk of laying them out on their neighbors’ front yard.
“Come on, guys!” Middle Meteion comes jogging up, a smile never far from her face. “It’s just a little bit farther!”
End and Mimi hang their heads and groan like the dead. Two blue blurs zip past, and Mimi balks in indignant outrage.
“Who said we could fly?!”
Venat stops in front of Hermes’ house and raises her arms in victory. She turns, and laughs in delight as the two youngest Meteia flutter into her arms.
“Oh! You did it! You won!” Venat beams, hoisting the duo onto her shoulders.
“They cheated!” Mimi’s haggard indignation echoes up the block.
Meteion and Meteion giggle sheepishly, caught. Venat leans in and bumps her nose against each of theirs.
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” she whispers, like a secret, and the little Meteia mirror her conspiratorial grin. Her eyes glimmer with affection. “...Alright, now let’s head on in. I think your father has dinner ready.”
He does, indeed. And while End falls onto her couch and melodramatically drapes an arm over her face, her other sisters take their place at the dinner table.
“No texting at the table, please,” Venat chides.
“I wasn’t gonna,” Mimi says, pocketing her phone.
“Will you be joining us, End?” Venat calls into the living room.
“Bury me here,” End announces gravely. “Cause of death: the wild outdoors.”
Venat says something cheeky, probably to the effect of “an hour out of your computer chair and in the sun won’t kill you”, but End doesn’t hear it. She can scarcely hear anything over her heartbeat still pounding in her skull. But she feels something; a tugging at her sleeve.
End pulls her arm from her face to see her youngest sister, smiling from ear to ear, having waddled over from the dinner table to make sure End still got a plate.
End gasps, laying a fond hand in Little Meteion’s hair, the other clutching her heart.
The coroner will have to update her report. It was cuteness that killed her, after all.
While the girls are busy tucking into their dinner, Venat slips away. Hermes is in the kitchen, fondly but distantly watching over his daughters, a perennial shadow hanging over his face. She bumps an elbow against his, and he jumps, startled. Like a man in his sleep leaning too far over something deep and dark, and snapping awake before he falls off his bed.
“Thank you,” Hermes says, coming back to himself. “For… well.”
“What are neighbors for?” Venat says gently, touching his arm. She always does that; little touches, little warm gestures. Connected, body and mind. “How do you feel?”
Hermes sighs. Even with his daughters filling his eyes like stars, and Venat shining beside him like a second sun, there are days when clouds still linger in his skull.
“It’s a work in progress,” he says quietly.
“Well, you did some good work while I was out there,” Venat says, nodding to the table.
“Don’t give me too much credit,” Hermes chuckles. “Those dumplings came out of the freezer. And those crostini and tomatoes both came in plastic tubs.”
“Who cares?” Venat reaches up and playfully taps the side of Hermes’ head. “Look at your pantry. Look at your meds. If you can’t make your own, store-bought is fine. And if anyone says otherwise, you can say what I say.”
“What’s that?”
Venat glances around, as if to make sure they won’t be heard. She pulls Hermes into a conspiratorial whisper.
“...Fuck ‘em.”
Hermes snorts. He clings to Venat’s arm, giggling like he was twenty years young again.
“Oh, dear,” Venat muses, glancing up and catching the girls’ glances at the table, wide-eyed and whispering. “We’re giving them
ideas
...”
Hermes dissolves into another fit of giggles, bright, like a fog has cleared from his mind. His daughters never fail to make him smile, even if that smile grows brighter or dimmer day to day. But Venat?
Venat makes him laugh.
~*~
Chapter 9: The Circle
Summary:
Ryne consults her many, many aunts for relationship advice.
Chapter Text
~*~
“What’s wrong, dear?” Y’shtola coos.
Ryne blows out a sigh, heavy with the weight of teenage heartache. Y’shtola nods in sage sympathy.
“Oof. That bad, huh?” Lyse chimes in, slipping into a seat beside and handing Ryne a kebab.
Ryne mumbles a non-response and glumly nibbles at her food.
She’s laying on a deck chair in Lyse’s backyard. Of the five households on the block, each with long, messy histories and even messier love lives, it was Lyse’s backyard that everyone tended to gather in. Maybe it was because her house was conveniently situated in the center of the circle. Maybe it was because she was the only one with a grill.
“Where are your partners in crime?” Y’shtola wonders.
“Yeah, where’s Bluebird and Corpse Bride?” Lyse teases. Y’shtola gives her a chiding swat.
“Mimi’s busy with her family,” Ryne shrugs. “And Gaia’s… grounded. She got into a fight with her parents again.”
“Is that what this is about?” Fordola asks from her usual post by the grill. Her gruff demeanor is undercut by her frilly pink apron which was undoubtedly a gag gift from her girlfriends and not something she picked out herself. “Are her parents still talking shit?”
Ryne groans. “...Yes.”
“Well, it sounds like they should get hit,” M’naago says dryly. Fordola snorts and clinks a beer bottle against hers.
“They’ve been badmouthing Thancred, mostly,” Ryne shakes her head. “But they talk about you, too. Mitron makes you all sound like a coven of witches.”
Y’shtola glances down at her house robe-- elegant, dark silk etched with silver.
“I suppose I look the part,” Y’shtola muses. “Have you told your fathers about this? What did they say?”
“Uri wants to try to talk things out over dinner,” Ryne says. “...Dad thinks that’ll be the perfect opportunity for him to, ahem, ‘turn on the charm’.”
“That sounds like Thancred,” Y’shtola fondly rolls her eyes.
Across the yard, Ryne can see two figures through a sliding glass door. Yugiri, trudging home after a long day at the office. Cirina, welcoming her home with a whisk of Yugiri’s jacket off her shoulders and a tender squeeze of her hand. And a third woman, presumably a friend from work, a dark-haired beauty Ryne didn’t recognize.
Cirina slides open her door and comes out to join them. She’s greeted by a chorus of warm welcomes.
“Forgive my lateness,” Cirina says with a dip of her head, unfailingly polite. She leans in, an impish twinkle in her eyes. “Yugiri won’t be joining us this evening. She has a guest.”
Y’shtola smiles, bemused, while Lyse and her housemates whoop and wolf whistle like rowdy undergrads.
“Hello, stardust,” Cirina says sweetly, gently touching Ryne’s arm. “What did I miss?”
“Ryne’s future in-laws are putting her through her paces,” M’naago explains.
“Oh dear,” Cirina murmurs, thoughtful. “Perhaps if you made a batch of your famous coffee biscuits as a peace offering?”
“So, bribery,” M’naago teases.
“I prefer ‘diplomacy’, but, yes, I suppose,” Cirina titters.
“I don’t know why she should play their game,” Fordola shrugs. “I say we just bust Gaia out of there and leave her parents to choke on their trust funds.”
“I-- I don’t think we need to go that far--” Ryne chimes in.
“She would have a home here, if it came to that,” Cirina says gently.
“Negotiations are still an option,” Y’shtola muses. “There are softer ways to fight a war.”
“I never said anything about fighting a war!” Ryne squeaks, embarrassed.
“I dunno, Shtola,” Lyse shrugs. “I’m kinda still on Team ‘Talk Shit, Get Hit’...”
“You would be, wouldn’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
They laugh together in the fading light. Ryne sinks into her chair, embarrassed but full of love, honored and just a little bit frightened to be the subject of such furious devotion.
Her aunts sure are an eclectic bunch. They’re arrayed around her like the cul-de-sac in miniature; Y’shtola to one side, Cirina on the other, Lyse between them. The outermost members of the circle aren’t currently present: Krile and Tataru, G’raha and his husband, Sadu who lives downtown but every other weekend comes barreling down their block and back into their schedules like a hurricane. But Ryne knows they’re there for her; all of them, this whole street, with no fences or hedges between their lawns and no barriers between their hearts. They love fiercely and freely in every way Mitron and Loghrif, in all their straitlaced stubbornness, can’t fathom.
Ryne smiles, brilliantly warm, tears welling in her eyes.
Unlike Gaia, Ryne never knew her parents. But her family?
Her family’s right here.
~*~
Chapter 10: Alone
Summary:
Sometimes you can't make it on your own.
Chapter Text
~*~
Sometimes Hermes wonders if he’s actually nocturnal.
That’s what it feels like, at any rate. The mornings are so full of light and life, the girls scurrying to and fro getting ready for their day. The tinkling of cereal into bowls, the excited chirping over breakfast. Three hugs at the door, three kisses on three little foreheads. Maybe even a smile from Mimi if he’s particularly lucky.
And then they’re off, and it’s like the sun sets, and it’s back to the dark.
Morning briefing over video chat. The flash of Hyth’s lavender hair like the last lingering streaks of violet in a dusky sky. A morning spent poring over reams of code in his darkened, gloomy bedroom.
Lunch. Quick scan of the fridge, freezer, and pantry. Apples. Always plenty of apples in the house. Sandwich. Easy. Peanut butter and apple slices on untoasted white bread. Plate goes in the sink, clinks against the girls’ cereal bowls, still unwashed. Dishes. Hm. Later.
Check-in with Hyth. They chat about how much Hyth misses Hermes at the office, but that he can take all the time he needs at home. Hermes is reminded of the chats he’s had with his eldest daughter. College is a big change. The stress, the noise, the crowds… it was too much. She’s becoming more like him than they’d ever want to admit.
Hyth chatters on, cheerful as always. Hermes wonders how hours of screen glare and having to deal with Hades at work and at home haven’t dulled his chipper personality or given him bags under his eyes. Either the man has the patience of a saint or the sex makes it all worth it.
That’s a cursed train of thought. Hermes shakes it out of his head.
Back to work.
The hours pass in a daze. Hermes pushes his computer chair back and stretches, his joints creaking. Break time while waiting for his code to compile.
Downstairs. Apples and peanut butter. No energy to make a sandwich. He just smears the peanut butter right onto the apple and takes a bite. Dirty spoon clatters into the sink. Dishes are still waiting. Later. Later.
Hermes finishes his apple. He tosses the core into the garbage, or, more accurately, on top of the garbage. It’s starting to overflow.
Hermes frowns. He glances between the garbage and the dishes, trying to decide which one he can tackle, which one he’ll more strongly regret leaving undone.
His brain gets to rationalizing. Doing the garbage means tying up all the little garbage bags around the house, replacing them, stuffing them all into one big bag and bringing that out to the curb. All that back and forth sounds exhausting. The sink, and the dishes, on the other hand, are only a few steps away.
Hermes crosses over to the sink, rolling up his sleeves.
Hermes’ mind wanders, and a fog creeps in to take its place. His limbs feel so heavy; his movements slow, clumsy. The sound of running water entrances him, brings him somewhere deep, dark, far away. Suddenly, it’s a struggle just to keep his eyes open.
A bang. A slick plate slips from Hermes’ fingers and smacks against the bowls beneath it with a startling crack.
Hermes shuts the water off. He inspects the plate, and the bowls it smacked into. No damage. At least nothing you can see.
He sets the plate in the drying rack with trembling fingers. He grips the edge of the sink and stares down at what’s left of his task. A few spoons, a few bowls. Hermes takes a deep, shuddering breath, and is shocked and ashamed to feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.
It’s chores. It’s just chores.
It isn’t supposed to be this hard.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
End appears down the hall. For someone so tall, she hunches over and clings to the shadows, so small and shy, like a ghost in her own home. And for a supposed shut-in, her room’s still on the first floor right by the living room and kitchen, never too far away from her family.
“It’s alright, sweetie,” Hermes sighs, lifting his gaze out the window to the dreary, clouded sky. “Just a little under the weather.”
End brushes crumbs off a plate and into the overflowing garbage, before stopping by the sink. Normally, she’d just leave her plate and retreat back into her room, but today, she gives it a proper scrub, rinse, and sets it aside to dry.
She glances back at her father, with her drooping eyes and perpetually sad expression, before picking up a cereal bowl and getting to scrubbing. After a moment to collect himself, Hermes joins her.
“Can you help me with the garbage?” Hermes asks, as the last dish clinks into the drying rack. End just nods.
End’s room, Mimi’s room, Hermes’ room, the three girls’ room, kitchen, bathroom. Half a dozen garbage bags get stuffed into one. Hermes hauls it out to the curb and sets it down with a satisfied sigh. End follows behind him, ready and waiting with a little bottle of hand sanitizer.
“It’s almost time to pick up the girls,” End reminds him. “I can come with you.”
“You don’t have to,” Hermes blurts out, instinctive.
“I want to,” End insists.
They climb into Hermes’ minivan-- because not even a family of wind magi have the aether reserves to just fly wherever they wish without exhausting themselves in the process. Hermes takes a deep breath. The fog in his head, the weight in his limbs and perpetually pressing on his chest, eases just a touch.
“Meteion,” he says.
End looks up. Her hair and her wings, once blackened by her stressful first days out at college, out in the real world, have since softened to midnight blue with flecks of white. Hermes’ shooting stars. His wishing stars. His little girls.
“I love you,” Hermes says softly.
“I know, Dad.”
“Put your seatbelt on.”
End smiles. “I know, I know…”
End clicks her seatbelt into place. She reaches forward and turns on the radio, and a melancholy melody carries them away.
And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you that makes it hard to let go
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own
Sometimes you can’t make it
Best you can do, is to fake it
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own.
~*~
Chapter 11: Introductions
Summary:
Hermes and Meteion make some new friends at the coffee shop.
Chapter Text
~*~
“Oh dear,” Hermes says, gazing up at a bewilderingly packed menu board. “They changed coffee.”
“Hi Mr. Hermes!” Ryne says sweetly, looking dapper in her cap and apron. “What can I get for you today?”
“...Er…” Hermes scans the board, handwritten with colored chalk in a stylized cursive that makes his head spin. “...What would you suggest?”
Ryne smiles like the sun itself, so bright and warm that Hermes immediately understands why his daughter’s so taken with her. “Well, we’ve got every espresso drink under the sun, we have a number of coffee blends to match your taste, we have teas, of course, we have smoothies and blended iced coffees that, between you and me, are just caffeinated milkshakes, and if you’ll follow me over here to our bake case, we have all sorts of sweet treats…”
Hermes nods along, yearning for the days when a coffee shop only had three options: small, medium, or large. A short distance away, two women sit before a sweet treat of their own.
“Doesn’t it remind you of him, just a little bit?” F’lhaminn muses.
“When he was younger, maybe,” Ameliance titters. “But… I suppose he is a bit of a parfait. Sweet. Layered. Very fruity.”
They chortle together, clutching each other’s hands. F’lhaminn takes a spoonful of ice cream and squeals in delight, like she’s twenty years young again.
“Mm! Ame, you must try this,” F’lhaminn urges, scooping another spoonful.
“You don’t have to feed me, Minna,” Ameliance demurs, smiling.
“If you really meant that, you’d have asked for two spoons,” F’lhaminn teases.
A shock of sky-blue feathers pokes up from the edge of their table. They turn to discover Hermes’ youngest daughter, mini Meteion, bright eyed and beaming.
“Hi!” Meteion chirps.
“Hello!” the two women chorus back.
“What’s your name, dear?” Ameliance asks.
“I’m me!” Meteion proudly declares.
“Hello, you,” F’lhaminn titters.
“That’s a cookie!” Meteion points to the rolled cookie stick perched decoratively atop their parfait.
“Why, yes, it is,” Ameliance smiles, instantly charmed.
Meteion nods vigorously. “Can I have it?”
“Meteion!” Hermes calls, rushing over and placing a hand in Meteion’s hair. Mini Meteion, seemingly not grasping that this is a punishment headpat, just hugs her father’s knees with a beaming grin.
“...I am so sorry,” Hermes says, sheepish. “I only recently patched in their ability to eat, so tasting things personally is a bit of a novel experience…”
Hermes trails off, embarrassed. Belatedly, it occurs to him how bizarre that must sound to a layman.
“It’s quite alright,” Ameliance smiles. “She wasn’t bothering us at all!”
“Oh, she’s an angel,” F’lhaminn coos.
Hermes can’t help but smile. “She is. And I have four more at home.”
“Oh, he’s got a whole flock of them,” Ameliance gasps, clutching F’lhaminn’s arm. “You and your partner must have your hands full.”
Ice-blue eyes, snow white hair and a mischievous grin flash across the backs of Hermes’ eyelids. He winces, and shoves that pesky train of thought aside. Now’s not the time to unpack all that…
“Oh!” F’lhaminn says suddenly, rummaging through her purse. “You should join our little circle.”
F’lhaminn hands him a folded-up flyer.
“‘Mor Dhona Women’s Club’?” Hermes wonders.
“An outdated title,” F’lhaminn assures him. “All homemakers are welcome. It’s a place for us parents to bond over the struggles and successes of raising our children. Though for us empty-nesters, it’s really just a fine excuse to get out of the house twice a week.”
“Give it some thought, would you, dear?” Ameliance coos. “And if it would ease your worries, you would not be the only man there.”
Hermes nods, pensive. “...I’ll think about it. Thank you.”
“Order for Hermes!” Ryne calls.
Hermes and mini Meteion bid F’lhaminn and Ameliance farewell, returning to the counter to pick up their spoils. After all that, Hermes had ended up getting just a small coffee for himself-- and a huge assortment of pastries, in a bag so big Ryne has to heft it with both hands.
“For the girls, you know,” Hermes explains. “And whichever ones they like most, I’ll try my hand at making myself. Although, in Mimi’s case, nothing I make will ever compare to your famous coffee biscuits. I suspect she’s a bit biased.”
“Stop…” Ryne smiles, bashful. She nods towards F’lhaminn’s table, quickly changing the subject. “...I see you’ve met my grandma.”
Hermes almost drops his bag of baked goods in shock.
“She has a teenage granddaughter?” Hermes blinks, astonished. “...She doesn’t look a day over forty.”
“It’s complicated,” Ryne laughs. “Oh, before you go…”
Ryne glances around, as if to make sure no one’s looking, before leaning over the counter and sneaking a rolled cookie stick into mini Meteion’s tiny grasp.
“These are my favorite,” Ryne says, in a conspiratorial whisper. “Say hi to your sisters for me!”
Meteion beams and waves goodbye. Ryne grins, an impish, cat-like grin that Hermes finds strangely familiar. If only he knew where she gets it from-- not just her mother, but her grandmother and her mother’s godmother, who he’s actually already met.
“It’s complicated,” she says. If only he knew…
~*~
Chapter 12: A Friendly Game
Summary:
Hermes gets wrecked at the rec center.
Chapter Text
~*~
Hermes and his daughters aren’t exactly athletes.
But, well, maybe they could be, someday. No harm in keeping their options open. Exercise was good for you, as Venat is oft wont to remind him. And, to be perfectly frank, it’s better than just spending all day cooped up at home.
That’s how Hermes comes to find himself perusing the bulletin board at the community center, immersing himself in the strange and fantastical world of fitness. Any resident of town could enter the community center and the sprawling park around it for free; but there were a plethora of activities open for people willing to pay. Martial arts classes, swimming lessons, tennis lessons, hiking, camping, fishing…
Hermes’ fingers hover over a flyer. He lifts it out from under the many others partially overlapping it.
Mini-golf. They have mini-golf here! The world of civic recreation truly is spectacular.
A shout down the hall. Hermes turns to see some familiar faces with snow-white hair racing down the hall like schoolgirls. F’lhaminn and Ameliance go running past, giggling like madwomen, and at the end of the hall, Venat scoops them both into her powerful arms and swings them around, laughing with delight. She sets them both down on the tile floor and greets them both with loud, exaggerated cheek kisses, before Hermes, lurking in their peripheral vision, finally catches their eyes.
“Hermes! You came!” F’lhaminn coos, her tail swishing with joy.
“Oh, Minna, if he had a piece of Allagan silver…” Venat teases.
Ameliance lets out a scandalized squeal and claps a chiding hand on Venat’s arm. Hermes shrinks away from all this unexpected noise and attention, managing a meek little wave.
“...Hello, ladies,” he says with a shy smile.
“Hey, neighbor,” Venat says with a beaming grin. “You’re right on time! The guys’ team is short a player.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly…” Hermes demurs.
“Come now…” Venat protests.
“My, if she had a piece of Allagan silver…” F’lhaminn mutters, aside. Ameliance lets out a very unladylike snort and gives her a playful shove.
“It’s just a friendly little game of volleyball,” Venat says, slinging an arm over Hermes’ shoulder. “It’ll be fun!”
~*~
“Oh, wow, it’s been ages,” Thancred says, one hand casually on his hip. “Last time we saw you, you were between jobs, but now they’ve got you working night security, huh? How is it?”
A shrug, and a non-committal grunt. “‘Tis employment. Mostly they have me chasing off love-drunk teenagers sneaking in after dark.”
“But the pay is good, at least?”
Estinien glowers. “...No.”
Thancred mouths a wincing ‘O-kay…’ and swivels around, his hands up in surrender. A volleyball rockets into the floorboards just out of his reach.
“Point!” Kan-E-Senna calls out, dutifully flipping her scorecard.
“Thancred, old friend, prithee get thine head in the game,” Urianger calls.
“Right, right…” Thancred chuckles.
“Prepare yourself!” Merlwyb cries.
Merlwyb’s spike thunders like cannonfire. Hermes dives to catch it, and succeeds only in smearing his cheek on the gym floor. As Hermes groans and picks himself up, Merlwyb and Venat whoop and jump up, bumping their chests together with a cheer.
“They’re making us look useless!” Estinien roars. He leaps into the air with practiced grace, stopping a shot cold. His return volley rockets towards the court, wreathed in scarlet energy.
F’lhaminn slides underneath it, nimble as the rogue she was in another life. She kicks the ball into the air, Ameliance sets it up, and Merlwyb slams it down.
Thancred’s ready this time. He catches the volleyball on his arms and bumps it straight up. It hangs in the air an improbably long time, long enough for Urianger to dramatically pull off his track jacket and fling it into the bleachers.
“We are not finished yet!” Urianger declares, leaping into the air, constellations shining at his back. “Your fate is in the cards!!!”
The volleyball crashes down like a meteor. Kan-E blows her whistle.
“Point!” she calls.
“Good gods, man,” Estinien raises an eyebrow at Urianger’s shockingly well-defined arms and back. “Where was he hiding all that?”
“In his sleeves,” Thancred smirks, proud.
“Two can play that game,” Venat murmurs, a dangerous smile on her lips, as she unzips her own sweater and casts it aside.
All eyes on the court turn to her-- if not to her powerful physique, so often hidden and humble beneath fluffy sweaters and baggy jackets, then to the shining glyphs of pure white spinning at her back.
Urianger balks, nebulae shifting nervously above him. The wind anxiously swirls around Hermes’ feet. Estinien grits his teeth, his fists emanating scarlet and azure flame. F’lhaminn and Ameliance watch, transfixed, as her brilliant aura casts Venat in a statuesque light, a goddess carved in marble and ice.
Merlwyb just rolls her eyes with a weary fondness.
“Supers,” she scoffs.
“Withstand this!!!” Venat thunders like a commandment, as the gym goes ablaze with light.
An hour later, after a volleyball match worthy of Homer himself, the rather inaccurately named Womens’ Club shakes hands and scatters across the floorboards. Kan-E-Senna tucks her scoreboard under her arm and heads out alongside Merlwyb, a telltale green glow at her fingertips, already eager to ease her aches and pains. Hermes can hear Estinien trudging off to his shift, resigned to this volleyball match being the most exciting thing he’ll do all night, and can still overhear Thancred and Urianger at his heels.
“Aww, don’t pout at me like that, Uri,” Thancred urges. “We’ll get ‘em next week. Come on. Let’s go get some ice cream.”
“Frozen confections are for victors , Thancred,” Urianger laments.
Hermes himself lies boneless and limp on the volleyball court, grateful he’d worn black today, else one might see the sweat on his shirt permanently dyeing it a darker shade. Venat fondly waves goodbye to her white-haired lady friends, before taking a seat at Hermes’ side.
“...’Just a friendly game’, huh…?” Hermes wheezes, exhausted down to his bones.
“Yeah,” Venat grins. “We’re all friends here. No money involved. Just the thrill of competition.”
Hermes manages a weak smile. The muscles in his face are just about the only ones that aren’t currently on fire.
“...You do this every week? ” Hermes wonders.
“We rotate,” Venat grins. “Next week’s basketball.”
“...Maybe next time, I could play on your team,” Hermes groans.
“Okay, but I should warn you: you play with me, you play to win,” Venat smiles, playfully clapping a hand against Hermes’ cheek. “You hear me? You better give me your all. No half-asses. I want your whole ass.”
Hermes snickers. “Wow, if I had a piece of Allagan silver for every time I’ve heard that…”
“You’d have…?”
“Just the one,” Hermes laughs. “But that’s already more than I ever would have expected.”
Venat grins. “...Come on, neighbor. Let’s get you home.”
Venat carefully lifts Hermes to his feet. His knees wobble, unsteady, and he sinks into Venat’s arms like a baby deer taking its first steps. Venat lends him a shoulder, and together, they stagger out into the cool, crisp evening air.
“Maybe next time you could bring your daughters with you,” Venat suggests. “You could play tennis. Or go swimming. Oh, or rock climbing!”
“Ha! I don’t think my younger daughters are ready for that…”
“You could sign them up for soccer, maybe.”
“I’m not sure they could handle so much running around on grass. Talons, you know…”
“Hm… oh! You know what?”
“What?”
“Have you and the girls ever played mini-golf…?”
~*~
Chapter 13: Laundry Day
Summary:
Chores, change machines, and the value of good company.
Chapter Text
~*~
Any chore with Hermes and the Meteia becomes a family affair.
It starts with a dozen laundry bags stuffed into Hermes’ minivan, and it doesn’t end until hours later, with the Meteia at a folding table all lined up in a row. Mini Meteion on a stepstool, Little Meteion beside her, Middle Meteion in the middle, naturally, then Mimi, and then End on the end. Their piles of folded clothes form a gradient from one end of the table to the other; from a bright blue on one side, to pure cloud-white in the center, and then midnight blue and black on the end, like the blue sky stretching out into space.
Hermes sighs, content, his mind wandering-- though it hardly needed an excuse to think about something other than the huge cart of laundry waiting to be folded beside him. Hm… blue and white… now who did that remind him of?
“Hey neighbor!” Venat calls, startling Hermes from his daydreaming. She pats his back with a hearty thwack and slings a jocular arm over his shoulders. “Fancy meeting you here, hm? I mean, what are the odds?”
“More likely than you’d think,” Hermes smiles. “We’ve been here all day.”
“Really?” Venat blinks. “What’s the hold-up?”
“I try to come every month, but I missed our last trip. I was having a…” Hermes and Venat exchange knowing glances. “...a day, you know. But then I kept putting it off, and putting it off… and, well. It was either this or going clothes shopping, so I decided to muster my spoons.”
Venat touches Hermes’ arm and gives him an encouraging squeeze. “Well done, you. You made it.”
“Oh, I haven’t made it
yet
,” Hermes smiles, rueful, nodding to the overflowing laundry cart beside him.
“Between the six of you, you’re doing a years’ worth of laundry in just one day,” Venat says. “That’s quite the tall order. Here, let me help you.”
Hermes reflexively protests. “Oh, you don’t have to--”
“I
want
to,” Venat insists with a smile. “Just give me a moment to get my own load in.”
Venat departs with a wink that sends a baffling warmth twisting in Hermes’ chest. Once she’s loaded her washer and starts making her way to the change machine, a blue-feathered blur comes racing up to her and stops just shy of hugging her knees, skidding to a stop and almost stumbling before catching herself, beaming up at Venat all the while.
“Hello, little one,” Venat coos, her eyes crinkling with mirth.
“Hi!” Mini Meteion chirps. She reaches up, making grabby hands. “Can I do it?”
Venat blinks, glancing down to the piece of Allagan silver in her hand. She breaks into a smile. “Of course.”
Meteion takes the coin like it’s a gift from a goddess, stars in her eyes. She turns and lifts the coin up towards the slot on the change machine, leaning up on her talons.
“Can you reach…?” Venat begins.
“Let me do it!” Meteion insists, flapping her arms. She leans up on her toes, straining, a look of comically intense concentration on her face. Her wings flutter, agitated, before her sheer stubbornness lifts her off the ground on a current of dynamis and she slaps the silver coin into the slot with a triumphant shout.
The change machine whirs for a moment, before spitting out twenty 25-gil coins into its rattling dispenser cup. Meteion’s hands are too small to hold them all, so she scoops them into her skirt, held out like a big pocket.
“Can I do these, too?” she chirps, eager.
“Of course!”
Meteion scurries back to Venat’s chosen washing machine and meticulously slots 25-gil pieces into the coin slot, one by one. When she’s done, and the washing machine whirs to life, she spins around with a flourish, offering Venat’s change back to her with both hands.
“Why don’t you hold onto that?” Venat says gently, crouching down with a conspiratorial whisper. “Maybe you can get some ice cream!”
Meteion beams, bashful, before running up and throwing her arms around Venat’s neck.
“Thank you, Mommy,” she chirps.
Venat’s heart catches in her throat. She gives the girl a squeeze and ruffles her hair, and she goes scurrying back to her sisters.
“She likes to say hello,” Hermes explains as Venat sidles up at his table. “I hope she wasn’t bothering you.”
“No. Never,” Venat smiles, nodding towards Hermes’ daughters lined up in a row, the smallest excitedly chattering about her adventure to the coin machine. “Just look at them. They’re angels.”
“You should see them when they pick out breakfast cereal…” Hermes chuckles to himself. “You know, people ask me why I have the minivan when everyone in my family can fly. Flying takes work!
I
don’t have the stamina to just fly anywhere I please, much less my girls. And then, of course, there are things like carrying groceries, or laundry. I need the trunk space.”
Venat glances over her shoulder, bent over Hermes’ laundry basket in flattering high-waisted jeans.
“Is that what catches your eye?” Venat teases. “Trunk space?”
Hermes stares. Realizes he’s staring. Snatches his eyes away. “I-- I don’t follow.”
Venat laughs primly, a hand over her mouth.
“You know, it’s a shame you’re not a water mage,” Venat says, mercifully changing the subject. “You could skip the middleman and just wash your own clothes with a snap.”
“I try not to speak ill of people, but I only know one water mage, and he doesn’t seem the type to do
any
of his own chores,” Hermes says. “Before I discovered this laundromat, though, I did try my hand at drying my own clothes with wind magic.”
“Oh? How did that go?”
A memory flicks behind Hermes’ eyelids. Clotheslines in the backyard, an uncooperatively cloudy day. The thought of ‘maybe just a conjured breeze to help things along’. An overly powerful gust yanking his favorite shirt off its pins and sending it flying out of the backyard and into the street, where it’s promptly run over by a passing garbage truck. Hermes clutching his head in alarm and dismay.
“...Poorly,” Hermes says, deadpan. Venat meets his eyes, and they both break into snickers.
“Maybe I can come along with you next month,” Venat offers. “Keep an eye on the kids, help you with the folding…”
“I wouldn’t want to keep you here all day just folding laundry,” Hermes protests.
“It’ll go faster with a friend,” Venat coos.
Hermes nods, pensive. He and Venat together fold a comforter in half, and then half again, Venat leaving the bundle in Hermes’ arms. He hugs it to his chest like a plush toy, laying his cheek against the fabric, still pleasantly warm from the dryer.
“A warm bed,” Hermes sighs, content. “One of life’s simple pleasures, hm?”
Venat touches Hermes’ arm. She’s warm-- warmer, even, than a quilt fresh out of the dryer.
“I can help with that, too,” Venat says, dangerously tender.
Hermes’ heart flips in his chest.
“Ew,” Mimi says, deadpan.
The moment shatters. Hermes dissolves into sheepish schoolboy giggling, clapping a hand over his mouth in embarrassment. Venat laughs with him, bright and clear, the loveliest sound Hermes has ever heard. They laugh together, clinging to one another to stay upright as their ribs are assaulted by giggle fits, and the Meteia watch and whisper among themselves, five knowing grins all in a row.
~*~
Chapter 14: Snow
Summary:
Hermes, his daughters, and the adult reality of having to work before you play.
Chapter Text
~*~
Hermes doesn’t care for snow.
How did those crooners put it? “If we’ve no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow”? Well, that’s a pretty big “if”. Some people do have places to go, as a matter of fact. And even if Hermes didn’t work from home, even if Hyth wasn’t quick to give him today off-- Hyth was always generous with Hermes’ paid time off, even/ especially if it would give Hades something to grumble about-- there were three other reasons to promptly get shoveling.
“Can we go out and play, please, Daddy?” Mini Meteion asks, eyes bright, clinging to Hermes’ leg.
While middle Meteion sits her younger sisters down and helps them into their snow boots, Hermes glances up to meet the eyes of his two eldest daughters, already dressed and glumly resigned to the reality that snow days weren’t exactly all fun and games.
Do it for them , they heart-whisper silently among themselves.
“Soon, sweetie,” Hermes says, ruffling mini Meteion’s hair. “Soon.”
Hermes’ battle against the elements begins with an indignant squawk as the storm door budges maybe an inch against the pile of snow beyond. He shoves the door as far into the mound as it can go, takes one of the shovels they keep by the door for just this purpose, and wriggles an arm around the door. After a bit of awkward maneuvering and his younger daughters’ bemusement, Hermes clears the top step and actually manages to fully open the door.
“Why did I make the door level with the top step…?” Hermes laments… not that it would have made much difference, with the snow piled high as far as he could see.
Hermes and his eldest daughters blearily clear the steps and the path leading to the driveway, cursing their decision to go for cobblestones instead of smooth paving stones every time their shovels catch on the uneven surface. While Mimi and End start trying to unearth the minivan from its cocoon of snow, Hermes begins clearing a path out to the street.
Hermes’ house is on a slight hill, which means snow tends to pile near the base of his driveway. That, combined with the snowplows shoving all the snow in the street up against the curb, forms an imposing wall of snow that Hermes finds daunting even on the best of days.
“Do it for them,” Hermes grumbles, and pushes through.
Eventually, once Hermes’ hands are numb and his heart feels like it’s about to burst from his chest, Hermes’ efforts break through the wall of snow and make it out to the street. His shovel scrapes a nice, clean line between the driveway and the street, and Hermes crows in triumph and satisfaction.
At least, until a snow plow rumbles up the street and shoves another foot of snow in Hermes’ way.
“That is it !” Hermes thunders in uncharacteristic outrage. “I have had enough of this nonsense !!!”
Hermes stomps his foot on the ground. A shining green sigil spirals out from under his feet, bathing him in light and phantom wind.
“Piercing winds, heed my call!” Hermes intones. His eyes flash. He thrusts his hands forward.
A thunderous gale blasts the snow from Hermes’ driveway, sending his minivan rocking on its suspension. With a thrust of his palm, Hermes blasts a tunnel through the knee-high snow beside him, revealing the sidewalk underneath. He turns, raises his hand and blasts another furrow through the snow, clearing the other half of the sidewalk in an instant.
Hermes’ glyph fades below him like sidewalk chalk in the rain. He doubles over, panting; magic doesn’t come for free. His outburst had saved him the time, but not the effort.
“Hey, neighbor,” a warm, familiar voice greets him. “That was quite the show.”
Hermes glances up to find a bemused Venat looming above him, her hand planted on her snow shovel like the hilt of a sword. Hermes straightens up, still trying to catch his breath. At the door, End gives the all-clear and her younger sisters come fluttering out, chirping with delight and diving into the snow, laughing all the while.
Hermes smiles, despite everything.
“Well,” he begins, sheepish, “I didn’t want to keep them waiting for long. What about you? I’ve seen you at volleyball. I’ve seen you put on quite the show, yourself.”
Venat chuckles, her glyph appearing behind her back. In another life, her iridescent white magic would manifest as a wall of spectral weapons, every one of them deadly in her hands. Nowadays, it looks more like a wall at the hardware store. Venat sets her snow shovel in place between a power drill, a hammer, and a half dozen screwdrivers, before her glyph pulses with energy and they all vanish into lens flare.
“No,” Venat smiles, clapping snow from her gloves. “I did it the hard way. Figured the snow would stop us from taking our usual morning run, and shoveling would have to do for a workout. But with the job you did? I might just take that run anyway!”
Hermes is sore just thinking about it. He groans in exhaustion and slumps forward. Venat catches him, laughing, patting him on the back.
“Okay, okay,” Venat beams. “You can sit this one out.”
Hermes just fondly sighs into Venat’s throat.
“...I am going back to bed.”
Hermes doesn’t make it all the way upstairs to his bed and his extraordinarily detailed sleep mask. No, he hangs up his coat, kicks off his boots, and falls face-first onto the couch in the living room, and lets sleep engulf him like fog.
Hermes doesn’t know how long he naps for. When he wakes, the sky is as gray as it was before. But there is a warm glow in the corner of his vision, and the soft clink of a mug against the coffee table.
Hermes opens his eyes to find beady black eyes meeting his gaze, a core crystal in its forehead.
Arms wrap around the creature from behind.
“Daddy, look! He’s so cute!” Mini Meteion beams, lifting the carbuncle off the floor. Its belly stretches out and its hindquarters droop down, its poor legs kicking and scrabbling for purchase.
“Oh, sweetie, please support his legs!” Venat calls.
The poor ruby carbuncle squirms out of Meteion’s grip and scurries away, Meteion squealing in delight and giving chase. Hermes blinks, bewildered, glancing up and meeting Venat’s eyes.
“...That’s Ruby,” she explains, sheepish. “One of Ame’s son’s familiars. She let me borrow him for today-- he’s fire-aspected, you know. Good for keeping out the cold.”
Little Meteion comes running up, hugging a box to her chest. She stops short, bashful, as her older sister, middle Meteion, sidles up beside her.
“Miss Venat,” middle Meteion asks, perfectly polite. “Would you like to play a game with us?”
“Of course,” Venat smiles, meeting Hermes’ eyes. “But I should warn you girls: I play a mean Scrabble. And I play to win .”
The day ambles by, cozy and warm. The family gathers around the table in a time-honored battle of wits and words. Venat, Mimi, middle Meteion, little Meteion on Hermes’ lap. The littlest Meteion lies on her stomach on the carpet with a stack of paper and a box of crayons, kicking her talons and coloring by the light of a slumbering carbuncle in lieu of a fireplace. Hermes’ eldest daughter has retreated to her room just down the hall. On her computer, no doubt. But she leaves her door open a crack, and plays her music loud enough for the rest of her family to sing along, connected across the distance.
Little Meteion wins her first game. She’s delighted, and leaps out of her seat, taking Venat by the hand and asking how she could have won against “the smartest, prettiest lady I’ve ever met”. Venat ruffles her hair and admits that “you’re just that good”. Meteion beams at her in awe, stars in her eyes.
The doorbell rings. Ryne and Gaia come bearing gifts-- a batch of freshly-baked cookies, and a few extra bars of baking chocolate. They greet Mimi with a pair of cheek kisses that leave her flustered and babbling in her seat, and Hermes playfully informs her that that’s what she gets for texting at the table.
Ryne greets Venat with a pleasant “Grandma!” that leaves Hermes’ head spinning, confounded by Ryne’s eminently sprawling extended family. She cheerfully gets to chopping, while Venat puts a fresh pot for hot chocolate on the stove-- this time, enough for nine.
Hermes smiles, content, his family gathered round.
If the house is going to be this full, this warm, then…
Well.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
~*~
Chapter 15: In Dreams
Summary:
Hermes makes an... acquaintance.
Notes:
This chapter, believe it or not, came to me in a dream. Enjoy!
Chapter Text
~*~
Hermes wakes up.
He pulls off his sleep mask, kicks off the covers, downs his morning meds with a swig of water from the glass on his nightstand. He slides the curtains open with a sigh.
Overcast. Foggy and gray, like any other dreary day.
He raises his arms over his head, stretches, and yawns, before trudging into the bathroom. He washes his face. Brushes his teeth. Spits into the sink. He looks up.
There is someone else in the mirror.
A royal, regal figure, dark skin draped in sunny canary-yellow. Their clothes shift and blur in the light; a beautiful dress one moment, a handsome swallowtail coat the next. Their eyes and the top of their head are hidden by some sort of mask, crown, or headdress, in the shape of a dozen feathered wings that shimmer a deep, midnight blue.
“Hello,” they speak, their voice smooth and rich like honey.
Hermes stares into his mirror, bewildered. He belatedly realizes how quiet it is. It’s never so quiet in the house, first thing in the morning with five daughters getting ready for school. It’s strange how that is what finally gives the game away, not the entity in his mirror. He attends a book club with a sorceress, a dog wizard, and a friendly lion man, after all. He’s seen stranger things.
“...This is a dream,” Hermes says.
“Yes,” the entity nods. To Hermes’ distress, acknowledging the dream does not set him free from it.
“May I know you, ser?” Hermes asks.
“So polite,” the entity titters, a hand over their mouth. Their lips curl into a smile. “I am known as the Queen in Yellow. What is your
name
?”
A knot forms in Hermes’ throat. He swallows hard, standing up straight.
“...I apologize. I am afraid I cannot answer that,” Hermes says with a bow.
“No fool, either, it would seem,” the entity smiles.
The wings covering the entity’s eyes, as well as the others crowning their head, flutter in amusement. Hermes catches a glimpse of a gap between the feathers. An unsettling thought crosses Hermes’ mind-- that the wings may not be, in fact, a headdress, but a head.
Hermes lifts his head, careful not to make eye contact with the emptiness behind the wings.
“May I take my leave, Your Majesty?” Hermes intones, anxious. The Queen in Yellow laughs, long and loud.
~*~
Hermes wakes up.
He pulls his sleep mask off his eyes and flings it aside, mashing his fist into his eyes. He takes a deep breath, and lets it out slow.
He trudges down the hall. Washes his face. Brushes his teeth. Spits in the sink.
Nothing in his mirror but his own haggard self.
Breakfast. Hug the girls goodbye. Dishes. Text from Hyth that he got another extension on his deadline. Hyth hands out project extensions and paid time off like candy. It drives Hades crazy; that’s probably
why
he does it.
Venat meets him in front of his house for their routine morning jog. But partway through their route, Hermes finds himself on a familiar street, and excuses himself to take care of some business. Venat chides him for cutting out early, but sees him off with a friendly wave. Hermes watches her go, distracted by thoughts of the Fae and the occult, only for Venat to call over her shoulder and ask him if he was looking at her butt.
Hermes knocks on Urianger’s door, only to find it creak open, unlocked. Hermes furrows his brow in concern, striding warily inside. He flexes his wrist, his glyph flashing under his feet, the wind at his call, just in case.
Hermes steps out onto the patio. No one seems to be home-- save for one, a mesmerizing beauty with fiery red hair, primly and casually sipping tea on Urianger’s back patio.
“He’s at school,” Titania says, as if reading Hermes’ mind. “He teaches history at the high school. I know, I know. He doesn’t seem the type. You’d sooner expect him to run the theater.”
Titania titters at their own joke. Colors dance in their eyes like a kaleidoscope. They’re entrancing, mesmerizing.
“We’ve not met, have we?” Titania coos. “Least, not like this, just you and I. I am called Titania, or Feo Ul, or, on occasion, the King in Red.”
“I would argue your gown is more of a pink than a red,” Hermes chuckles.
“Ye’ll not argue with me at all if ye’ve got any wits,” Titania huffs. “Ye’ve come fer Urianger’s counsel, have ye not? Sit with me, [father bird]. Tell me your woes.”
It’s not a request. Hermes sinks down onto a patio chair, politely but firmly denies a cup of tea, and tells Titania about his encounter with the Queen in Yellow. Titania nods along sagely, sipping their tea.
“...Aye. This one is known to me,” Titania says gravely. “A rival, among other things. One not to be trifled with.”
“What should I do?” Hermes wonders.
“Ye would ask my counsel? Ye would ask the wisdom of the Fae?” Titania purrs. “...I would leave. Gather your birdlings and all your belongings.
Leave your house, and never return
.”
~*~
Hermes wakes up.
Colors dance behind his eyelids. Red and yellow on opposite sides. Why? Why now? In this world, magic is a fact of life-- he commands the wind as easily as breathing, his daughters were born of arcane simulacra and code so advanced it could birth a mind, a soul. But diplomacy with magical beings… such matters were still wild, dangerous territory.
Hermes’ bedroom resolves into shapes and shadows. The glow of his alarm clock. The fog of depression, ever present, only some days thicker than others. The nagging worry that he may have inadvertently signed his house over to become a battleground of the Fae. The warmth of an arm coiled ‘round his waist.
“What’s wrong, love?” Venat murmurs drowsily in his ear.
~*~
Hermes wakes up.
He’s falling. Or perhaps sinking.
Crystals drift in the vast space around him, the dark so deep he can scarcely see them. Tumbling, turning, lost and alone. There is only one light, high above. The faintest, furthest star, and all around, the scattered shards of who he used to be, floating through an endless, eternal sea.
He’s nothing. He’s no one. He’s everyone. He’s--
~*~
--awake.
Hermes wakes up.
He pulls the sleep mask from his eyes and sets it on the counter. The space beside him in bed is empty; he’s not sure whether he’s disappointed or relieved. He mashes his fist into his eyes with a groan. A fog lingers in his mind, blurring the boundary between dreams and memory.
“Oh, dear,” Hermes sighs. “Dreams within dreams…”
He stands up, stretches, and pulls the curtains back. Sunlight, pure and bright, chases away his haunted thoughts. An ordinary day. A beautiful day.
Hermes pops open his pill planner. He downs his morning meds with a swig of water. He heads down the hall to the bathroom, washes his face, brushes his teeth. He heads downstairs for breakfast, and greets his daughters with a smile.
Two figures watch from his nightstand, reflected in a drinking glass.
“Ach, look, ye went and scared him, my dearest duskdrop,” King Titania chides, arm in arm with their Queen.
“All I did was introduce myself, my beautiful brightbloom,” the Queen replies. “You’re the one who tried to take his house.”
“Look at it! It’s a lovely home!” Titania huffs. “Mortals have such tempting treasures tied behind tedious bureaucracy. I fill out the form, I say I’m twelve feet tall and four thousand years old and suddenly that’s ‘not realistic’. And don’t even get me started on bank accounts, I mean what even is a ‘bank’ anyway, we don’t live anywhere
near
any rivers…”
The Queen’s wings rustle in amusement as they patiently pat their King’s hand. They’re there one moment, and then they’re gone, vanishing into the place beyond the glass.
The Fae can be inscrutable, dangerous enemies--
--but they can be even stranger friends.
~*~
Chapter 16: Writer's Block
Summary:
End faces a struggle I'm sure we've all faced before.
Notes:
Partially inspired by this super cute piece of End taking after her dad in an unfortunate way. XD
Chapter Text
~*~
There comes a point in every digital writer’s life where the blinking cursor on your word processor starts to look passive aggressive.
“I know, I know…” End murmurs glumly, her chin in her hands. She’s talking to herself because the house is too quiet, and it’s not like her thoughts are particularly forthcoming.
She sighs, and tabs out to her AO3 dashboard. A whole month since she posted her last chapter, a big fat zero in her inbox. Oh how she longed for that euphoric rush of validation from grateful readers, craved it like nothing else.
“Alright,” End says to herself, clicking over to her Marked for Later list. “If you want to write, you have to read…”
End scrolls down the list, a snowball of guilt slowly rolling around in her gut and growing with every flick of her mouse wheel. Oh, gods, she’s behind. Some of her favorite multichapters have even updated twice or more since she got caught up. Not to mention all these one-shots. How long have these sat untouched in this list? If it’s been almost a month since she last wrote something, how long has it been since she’s
read
anything?
End glances at her bookshelf out of the corner of her eye. Even with how purposefully dim she keeps her room, she can see the dust starting to settle. There were those romances Mimi lent her, and the books that middle Meteion got her for Starlight…
Oh, gods. At least with her digital backlog, they weren’t gathering dust and taunting her every night she went to bed without pulling one off the shelf.
“This isn’t about them,” End says, swatting the thoughts aside. “Come on, girl. Focus.”
There’s her cursor, taunting her again. End frowns.
She opens a new tab, and brings up her AO3 dashboard. She clicks on her most recent project, reading through the latest chapter just to get her bearings.
Huh. When was the last time she actually read this? Probably for the editing pass a couple weeks ago. She posted it in the dead of night just for the satisfaction of finally posting something, only to have to scramble for edits in the morning. If anybody saw her typos in those first eight hours: no you didn’t. And those really good lines that only came to her after the fact, that she had to sneak in later? Yeah, those were always there.
Damn. This was good. Really good. Of course, with that thought always comes the creeping suspicion that she’s never going to write anything this good ever again.
End scrolls down her Works page, lost in nostalgia and past glories. An hour goes by without her even realizing.
End squawks in horror at the clock in the corner of her screen, and closes all her tabs in a panic.
“This isn’t focusing!” End squeaks. “Alright. Alright. No more tabs. Come on…”
Back to her word processor. End frowns, staring down her cursor. She sighs, opening a tab just to check her Twitter--
“What did I just say?!” End kicks herself, closing the tab before it even finishes loading. If she starts scrolling down her timeline, who knows how long she’d be distracted for? Although, on the other hand, checking her notifications wouldn’t take
that
long, right?
End’s brain catches up with her fingers, traitorously poised to open the Twitter app on her phone so she could see what the other, smaller Internet was up to. End squawks, caught, before slapping her phone face-down on her computer desk and jumping to her feet.
“That’s it!” End declares. “I can’t think on an empty stomach! I’ll just go--”
End doesn’t make it two steps away from her desk before her talons catch on her baggy sweatpants and she flops onto the floor. End squawks, indignant, before carefully unhooking her talons from the fabric and getting to her feet.
“Pants…” End murmurs, scornful. This is what she gets for buying men’s plus-sized pants. It’s not her fault they’re the only ones long enough for her legs!
End ventures down the hall to the kitchen and peeks into the refrigerator. An array of apples sit in neat rows on a sheet tray. Candied, caramel, chocolate-dipped. End picks out a caramel apple, sets it on a plate and takes the time to cut it into slices rather than getting caramel all over her keyboard.
She makes her way back to her room, pausing to duck under the doorframe and the sign helpfully reminding them to “Watch your head!”. So far End was the only one of Hermes’ daughters to inherit his tall, noodly physique, but the others were well on their way there.
End flops back down into her computer chair, half-tripping over her pants, munching on her apple slices. She stares at her blinking cursor, the sugar giving her strength.
Slowly but surely, the ideas start to come. The skeleton of a chapter, a few choice lines, a few target moods. End thoughtfully strings them together, a connect-the-dots of scenes and dialogue. After jotting a few sentences down into her outline, End looks over her work. It’s a start. Better than nothing. She’s drawn the starting line, but now that she’s looking out at the rest of the marathon…
“Well, that’s enough writing for
one
day,” End mutters, rueful, chiding herself for her work ethic or lack thereof. She saves her work, stands up, grabs her empty plate and shuffles back to the kitchen.
As she tips her apple core into the garbage and sets her plate in the sink, her inspiration starts trickling through. She can hear the characters in her head, their banter like a symphony, the curve and swell of emotion through climax and resolution, the perfect blend of action, suspense, and tender longing in between. It comes to her like a vision, a miracle. She can see it now! She just needs to get back to her desk and--
BONK.
End squawks in dismay, clutching her forehead, her wings flapping in pain and embarrassment. The “Watch your head!” sign sways on its post, as if shaking its head in disappointment.
End’s inspiration abruptly falters and fades. End taps on the side of her head, as if knocking to see if her muse is still home. No luck.
“
Awwww!
” End whines, pouting. “...I lost it.”
End trudges back into her room and falls face-first onto her bed in defeat. She lets out a long, strangled groan, before halfheartedly grabbing the wireless controller off her floor and glancing up at the TV mounted above her computer desk.
“...Oh, well,” End shrugs, managing a small smile. “Tomorrow. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
~*~
Chapter 17: One Step Forward
Summary:
Become light. Become hope.
Chapter Text
~*~
It’s been a rough week for Hermes.
Ask him, though, and he wouldn’t be able to tell you how, or what, or why. The days melt into each other, the hours ooze by like molasses. He doesn’t know what time it is, what day it is, how long he’s been sitting on the edge of his bed staring down at his hands. It’s dark; he knows that much, at least. But then again, Hermes keeps the curtains drawn in his bedroom. It’s always dark in here.
Hermes leans forward, resting his chin on his hands. Everything feels so heavy. One hand covers the other closed in a fist. He looks like he’s praying. Maybe he is.
Two knocks against the doorframe.
“Hey, neighbor,” Venat calls.
Hermes doesn’t respond. He just stares at the wall, lost in himself. On another day, the warmth and weight of Venat sitting beside him on his bed would be terribly distracting. Now? It scarcely even pierces the fog.
“...End let me in,” Venat explains, answering the unspoken question. This, at last, gets a response out of Hermes’ distant, vacant expression. A bitter chuckle. A rueful smile.
“If we keep doing this much longer, I might just get you a key.”
Venat smiles. “...Are you okay?”
Hermes sighs. “...You know I’m not.”
“Did something happen?”
“No. I don’t know.” Hermes shrugs, the barest, weariest roll of one shoulder. “...I think at some point, I paid some bills online, looked at my accounts and then fell down a spiral. Capitalism and depression, what a tag team, huh?”
Venat furrows her brows in concern. “...Hermes, if you need some money--”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Okay,” Venat relents, her hand up in surrender.
Silence stretches between them. Heavy. Aching. Hermes shakes his head in frustration and defeat.
“Sometimes I just feel like I’m… sleepwalking,” Hermes mutters. “Every day, just… getting the girls ready for school. Our morning jog. Morning check-in with Hyth. Coding. Cleaning. Cooking. And sometimes, you know, the schedule’s a good thing, it’s-- it’s something to hold onto when I feel like I’m walking through fog. And sometimes, it’s just… things piling up and not getting done. Like I’m sitting in my computer chair or just lying in bed while a trainwreck piles up outside my window.
“And it’s on days like that, days like today, where I lay there and I look out and I see my future. And I see all that, all the stress and struggle and frustration, the balancing act of time, money, and effort, going on-- every day, forever. And I ask myself: when does it end? When will it be worth it? When will it be enough?”
Hermes grits his teeth. He lays back in bed with a groan, draping an arm across his eyes.
“...And then I think I must be the most ungrateful piece of shit in the world. Because I have so much. I have a roof over my head, a job flexible enough to let me work from home, I have five daughters who I love more than anything. I have you--” Hermes coughs. “--and it, it just… it doesn’t make sense. I know people who don’t have any of that, and they still manage to keep their heads above water. And here I am, dragging my feet through the daily routine, wondering… why can’t love be enough?”
Venat exhales. She places a tender hand on Hermes’ knee.
“You don’t feel like you’re enough because your brain doesn’t know better,” Venat says gently. “It’s just chemicals, Hermes. It’s not some moral failing on your part, it’s not because you’re not trying hard enough, it’s not some kind of divine punishment. It’s just chemicals. That’s all.”
Hermes drags his arm away from his face, staring up at the ceiling. His anguish has transformed, simmered down into dry cynicism.
“...Well, those chemicals, or lack thereof, have caused me no end of grief,” Hermes huffs. “It still feels like someone watching over me. Smiling when I struggle, laughing when I squirm. A plaything of the gods.”
“What if I told you there are no gods?” Venat wonders, her voice soft, serene. “Or… maybe there were, but there aren’t anymore. No cosmic entity invested in our triumphs or defeats, no great good guiding us, no great evil leading us astray. What if there is no higher purpose, no grand design, no ultimate transcendence waiting for us in the end? What if it’s just us, here and now?”
Hermes chuckles. “...That isn’t much.”
Venat smiles. “But is it enough?”
Hermes takes a shuddering breath. He squeezes eyes shut, blinking away stubborn, shameful tears, because…
He doesn’t know. He really doesn’t know.
Venat’s smile twists in sorrow and sympathy. She sighs, placing a hand on Hermes’ arm and giving him a squeeze.
“...Rest now,” Venat intones. “We’ll see how you feel in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Hermes murmurs into his pillow. “...Will you still be here when I wake up?”
Venat laughs primly, a hand over her mouth.
“...No, silly,” she teases. “But I’ll be right next door. And I’ll never be too far away.”
Hermes closes his eyes, content. He doesn’t see Venat lingering beside him, or the flock of five bluebirds peering into his room, stacked up in height order like a beloved children's cartoon's detectives and their dog. But he can feel them, peeking through the fog of his thoughts, five stars around the moon. His strength. His purpose. His hope.
Tomorrow, Hermes whispers silently, like a prayer.
He’ll try again tomorrow.
Even when tomorrow feels like a lifetime away.
~*~
Chapter 18: Looking For Group
Summary:
End wishes she had some friends her own age.
Chapter Text
~*~
“Thanks for having us!” Ryne beams.
“And thanks for letting us use your controllers,” Gaia chimes in.
“Yeah, sure…” End says, shyly wringing her hands. “...I mean, racing games are more fun with a crowd.”
“We should do this again! See ya!”
Ryne and Gaia dart over to Mimi lurking beside them and plant a pair of chaste kisses on her cheeks. Mimi dissolves into flustered, half-hearted grumbling, as the duo makes their way down to the street hand in hand. They pause on the sidewalk, turn and give End a friendly wave. End shyly waves back, before gently pulling the door closed.
“...You didn’t see that,” Mimi huffs, her cheeks and wingtips still tinged pink.
“Sure.”
“And thanks,” Mimi adds, more genuine. “You didn’t have to let us play in your room.”
“They didn’t have to clean it,” End shrugs, sheepish. “...I’m almost going to miss the sound of crinkling chip bags when I lie in bed. Kicking around soda cans on my floor. The stack of ramen cups on my window.”
End pauses, wringing her hands.
“...It’s not… weird, is it…?”
“What? Getting attached to the garbage in your depression cave?”
A chiding fist thunks down between Mimi’s wings. Mimi swats her away.
“Not that,” End says. “Me hanging out with high schoolers. Is that weird?”
“Only if you make it weird,” Mimi shrugs. “Why?”
“I dunno,” End murmurs. She’s so tall, tall enough she has to duck under her bedroom door, but with the way she folds in on herself, she looks so small. “I, uh… I just feel kinda awkward. I mean, I’ve got plenty of online friends, but I dropped out before I could really make any IRLs… and… I dunno. I don’t want to be fourth wheel to the three of you.”
“Wh-What do you mean, ‘the three of us’?!” Mimi sputters.
Mimi squawks in indignation as End thunks her fist on her head and calms her poor gay teenage heart.
“...I’m just saying,” End continues, “I feel bad. I should make my own friends, friends my own age. Not just borrow yours.”
“You’re talking as if I’m some kind of expert on meeting people,” Mimi says dryly. “I don’t know. Go to the rec center or something. Did you know they have mini-golf?”
“I’m not really an athlete…”
“So? Neither is Dad, and he still hangs out with the PT-gay mom squad twice a week.”
“Don’t call them that!” End snickers, a hand over her mouth.
Mimi taps her chin thoughtfully. “...although, speaking of gay moms…”
End snorts.
Mimi grins. “...I think I might know someone.”
~*~
And so, End finds herself almost literally walking in her father’s footsteps, as her search for a social circle leads her to a different kind of circle. A cul-de-sac, just a few blocks from home.
It’s not exactly hard to find. Whoever lives at the end of the street is having some kind of barbecue block party, and is blasting music so loud End can feel the bass thudding beneath her feet. End glances at the Note app on her phone-- not a handwritten note, who does that nowadays-- and wonders if she has the right address.
End spends so much time fretting on the front steps that by the time she actually goes to knock, the door flies open in an instant.
“Hey!” Y’mhitra beams up at her, so warm and welcoming it sends an unexpected flutter through End’s chest. “Oooh, you’re even taller than I thought. I didn’t see how tall you were over the phone, but you sounded tall. And you even came in costume! Wow!”
End glances down at what she’s wearing-- a solemn, sober bone-white gown with a heavy black outer robe.
“Oh, uh…” End hesitates. This is the nicest outfit she owns, but she usually only wears it to funerals. She hasn’t been out of the house in awhile. She didn’t know how dressed up she was supposed to be. Wait, you’re supposed to say this out loud. She’s looking at you, waiting for you. Say something. Say something!
“Uh…” End clears her throat. “I, um. I didn’t want to just show up in sweats…”
Y’mhitra waves the worry away. “Oh, please, we’re all friends here. You look amazing, though. Come in, come in!”
Y’mhitra takes End by the hand and sends an electric jolt up her arm, through her chest, and up into her skull. Her wings flutter, involuntary, and she almost-- almost-- forgets to duck under the doorway.
New names, new faces. Two miqo’te aside from Y’mhitra herself, two lalafell perched on the arms of an armchair, small enough to share. End, as always, the odd one out. End doesn’t remember the last time she sat at her own dining table instead of just eating in her room, but the group welcomes her to their little circle as if she’s always belonged.
“So, um, how are you related to Ryne, again?” End wonders.
“Oh, I’m her godmother’s best friends’ younger sister!” Y’mhitra grins.
“...I see,” End blinks, struggling to visualize Ryne’s sprawling family tree. “She did say it was complicated…”
“Oh, not at all!” Y’mhitra beams. “It’s quite simple. We’re family. We’re all family on this block.”
“Dinner!” calls a dark-haired miqo’te in a midnight-blue turtleneck. Y’mhitra brushes aside papers and rulebooks to make room for a basket of freshly-made sandwiches.
“Morgan, you didn’t have to…” Krile demurs.
“Don’t you start,” Morgan smiles, hugging G’raha from behind and resting his chin between G’raha’s ears. “I’m not letting you order pizza every week when we have a perfectly good kitchen.”
“It’s not even your kitchen!” Tataru laughs. “By now, you’ve probably gotten more use out of it than I do.”
“Alright, I’m gonna bring this over to Lyse’s place,” Morgan says, hefting a tray of baked ziti. “You all have fun, now!”
The group sends him off with a wave and-- from G’raha at least-- a dreamy smile. He must see the look in End’s eyes, since he chuckles, bemused.
“Raha’s husband,” Krile explains, with a playful smile.
“Not yet,” G’raha swats, bashful. “...But… soon. Or, hehe, whenever we can put together the money for a wedding…”
“So!” Y’mhitra claps her hands, and draws all eyes to her. “This first session’s just kind of a planning, plotting kinda deal. We can all get to know our characters and the kinds of stories we wanna tell. Who’s got any ideas? Don’t be shy, now.”
“I was thinking rogue, this time around,” G’raha chimes in. “No magic for a change, but plenty of skills. I can be the party toolbox.”
“You know a thing or two about tools in boxes, then?” Tataru teases. Krile bops her on the head.
“I think I’d like to play a martial class this time,” Krile says. “A paladin, maybe. Defend the party instead of just healing them after they’re already hurt.”
“Um,” End speaks up, the creative side of her brain overriding her shyness. “Is there any way for me to be a necromancer but not… um… evil?”
“I can always make some special exceptions,” Y’mhitra smiles. “What did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking… a… priest. Of death,” End mumbles. “One who can… be friends with ghosts.”
Y’mhitra nods, grinning. “Now that… sounds like a goldmine for plot. I’ll have my eye on you. So-- four people, four heroes. A classic number. Round us out, Tataru! What’ll you play?”
Tataru claps her hands on her knees and jumps up on her chair.
“I want to be the party powerhouse! I want to be a seven foot tall Amazon with a big axe and bigger tits!”
G’raha crumples in his chair, beset by a giggle fit. Krile bops Tataru on the head again.
“Is that what you really want to play? Or are you just doing it for the memes?” Krile drawls.
“No, I’m serious!” Tataru insists. “I’ll be the one who charges headlong into battle, and you can be the one to yell at me not to get too far ahead, and you’ll be frustrated by my recklessness and I’ll be stifled by your rules but then we’ll fall in love when we realize we’re only cranky because we care."
“I don’t suppose Krile has any say in this, does she?” G’raha teases.
“So far, so good,” Y’mhitra grins. “So, Tataru, I’ll pencil you in as the party Fighter?”
“I wanna be stacked, by the way,” Tataru chimes in. “Write that down, would you? I want my character to have some real honkers. Some real bazongas. Some real-- ack!”
“Tataru!” Krile groans, punctuating her words with thumps on Tataru’s head. “You do this! Every! Game!”
Tataru smiles, sheepish, as Krile gives her one last bop for good measure. Krile sits back down with a huff, pulling Tataru into her lap and wrapping her arms around her waist.
“...This is a punishment hug, Tataru,” Krile grumbles. “You don’t get to enjoy this.”
End stifles a snicker, hiding her smile behind her hand. Y’mhitra meets her eyes, glittering with mirth.
“Alright, everybody, we’re off to a good start,” Y’mhitra beams. “Now, for the best part: Let’s! Talk! Backstory~!!!”
The table cheers, and End, after a moment’s hesitation, cheers along with them.
Just wait until she mentions that she came prepared, with a doc full of pages and pages of her character’s backstory and planned character arc.
She’s going to fit in just fine.
~*~
Chapter 19: School Concert
Summary:
There's nothing like concert night.
Notes:
Haven't updated in a little bit, so please, have a chapter that's even more self-indulgent than usual. Enjoy!
Chapter Text
~*~
“Oh, look at you, Mimi! You look fantastic!”
“
Dad
,” Mimi groans, her wingtips tinging a stubborn, dusky red. “I don’t want to hear that from
you
.”
“But you look so good in your new dress,” Hermes protests, pulling out his phone. “Can we take a picture? Just one, I promise.”
Ryne and Gaia come bounding down the hall, hand in hand, parting only long enough to slot Mimi between them as if she’s always belonged.
“Hi Mr. Hermes!” Ryne waves, sweet as always. She grins, admiring Mimi’s concert dress in midnight blue. “Oh, wow… Mimi, you look amazing!”
“Th-Thanks. Whatever. Shut up,” Mimi mumbles, staring down at her talons.
“Smile, girls!” Hermes says, raising his phone.
Ryne and Gaia pose for the camera, flashing peace signs, Gaia dryly amused, Ryne beaming from ear to ear, and poor Mimi flustered and fuming between them. Mimi mutters something under her breath as they whisk her away-- something that sounds suspiciously like “send me that photo”.
Down the hall, middle Meteion and her younger sisters are touring the school, gazing up at the classrooms in awe. This was all a novelty to them, not just being here after hours but being in the high school in general. The schools were on the small side, here in Hermes’ sleepy little suburb; the high school was the only one with an auditorium, and so was obliged to host these kinds of nights.
“Meteion, don’t run too far off!” Hermes calls, and his three youngest daughters chirp back. In his peripheral vision, he can see his eldest daughter lingering beside him, fidgeting, tugging at her sleeves. “...What is it, End?”
End bites her lip, self-consciously looking down at what she’s wearing-- the somber gown and robe she usually wears to campaign nights at Krile’s house.
“Do I, um… look okay?” she murmurs, wringing her hands. “I feel kind of like a… widow.”
“No, no, it’s elegant,” Hermes reassures. “You don’t look pale and tragic or haunted and wraith-like or anything.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Hey!”
Hermes turns, just in time for Thancred to toss a jocular arm around his shoulder-- or as close as he can manage, given their significant height difference. Urianger greets Hermes with a dignified dip of his chin.
“Hermes. ‘Tis good to see you on this night. And so impeccably dressed.”
A fine, albeit strange compliment from someone in full fortuneteller’s chiton-- an elegant sleeveless black robe bedecked in gilt braid and glinting charms. If anything, compared to Urianger, Hermes felt underdressed.
“Um…” Hermes glances down at himself. “...I’m just wearing a tie?”
“Which is yet more poise than
this
one can manage,” Urianger teases.
“Excuse me, I wore
suspenders
for you,” Thancred huffs, tugging the straps with his thumbs and letting them snap back against his chest. The top two buttons of his shirt were rakishly unbuttoned. Really, Thancred was one pageboy cap away from selling newspapers and breaking out into song. Fitting, for concert night.
“Ready to see your girls up on that stage?” Thancred was saying. The elbow he jabs into Hermes’ ribs jolts his train of thought away from beloved stage musicals. “We certainly can’t wait to see ours.”
“Is Ryne performing tonight?” Hermes wonders. “She wasn’t in the program.”
“Last minute addition,” Thancred grins. “Mrs. L hurt her hand, so Ryne’s on piano tonight. Apparently there was some kind of gardening accident, or so F’lhaminn tells me. Though when I asked F’lhaminn if she would help by kissing it better, she hit me with a dish towel.”
A pair of ushers-- or, more likely, hapless faculty-- heave open the auditorium doors. Thancred thumps a hand against Hermes’ arm.
“Come on,” Thancred grins. “You can sit with us.”
Hermes calls his daughters back to his side and they file into the auditorium, past a surprising number of familiar faces. Of course, wherever Ryne goes, her sprawling extended family follows, but Hermes certainly wasn’t expecting to see a glimpse of Hyth’s lavender hair-- or to feel the telltale heart-whisper of Hades, sulking in the wings. What were
they
doing here? Some board obligation, no doubt, though which board, Hermes could never be certain. Hades had his claws in so many offices and committees around town that Hermes could hardly keep count.
“Maybe we should sit near the end of the row?” End frets into Hermes’ ear. “We’re so tall… whoever’s behind us won’t be able to see anything.”
Hermes reassures her with a squeeze of her arm, and they settle into their seats. The susurrus of voices quiets down, and a figure steps up to the podium on the side of the stage. A stately elezen in a stark white academic gown clears his throat, before beginning:
“Friends, neighbors, I am honored to present our humble town’s 25th annual Song and Dance…” Fourchenault squints at his speech, as if wondering who wrote this. Ameliance in the front row smiles cheekily at him, giving him his answer. “...stravaganza. For our first performance, let us welcome Miss Qesh, Meteion, and the middle school chorus!”
The curtain rises to two dozen preteens arrayed on risers, F’lhaminn resplendent in pink and white, and middle Meteion in center stage, wearing a bright sundress in white and leaf-green, shining Elpis blooms in her hair.
From an ominous and sinister piano beginning, F’lhaminn leads the chorus in the floating, whimsical melodies of “What Angel Wakes Me”, the kids pattering through the quicker verses while F’lhaminn slides in with smoother, sultry hooks. And all throughout, Meteion leaps and prances across the stage like a faerie among the flowers-- and, of course, Hermes’ phone camera clicks nonstop.
After one final flourish, Meteion picks up her skirts and dips into a curtsy. The auditorium bursts into applause and cheering, her family brightest of all.
Hermes feels a hand clapping onto his shoulder.
“A lovely performance,” Hyth beams at him in passing. “And the group dance? Delightful.”
Hermes blinks, puzzled, but Hyth slinks off into the shadows of the auditorium before he can ask him what he means. And yet, flicking through the photos on his phone, he can see them-- little motes of light frolicking with Meteion on the stage. Orange, yellow, pink, white, and green.
Rejoice and revel, for the kingdom of rainbows is forever young.
Thancred jabs an elbow into his stomach and once again jolts Hermes out of his thoughts.
“What are they feeding these kids, huh?” Thancred grins, nodding towards the stage. “Look at this rock star. He’s almost as tall as Uri.”
That ‘rock star’ was a tall blonde that Hermes didn’t recognize. He plugs in an electric guitar before standing ready at his microphone, in a tight black T-shirt, a checkered red scarf, a peacoat, and rust-red pants.
Ryne plays him in, a darkly beautiful, church-like melody. Gaia emerges from backstage, lending her violin to the haunting ambience. He begins to sing, a wordless, mournful tune, the tension building, until he whispers into the mic as one might a lover’s ear:
“Now
fall
.”
He comes in with his guitar, a wild grin on his lips. Gaia watches with a certain satisfaction as her parents in the front row immediately wince in distaste. Together, the three of them bring the house down.
Again, the crowd cheers, though this time their cheering comes mainly from the younger half of the crowd. Fourchenault steps up to his podium, tugging at his tie.
“...Thank you,” he coughs. “That was ‘Fallen Angel’ by Mister… Galvus.”
“He doesn’t even go here!!”
A confused murmur ripples through the crowd. A few rows in front of him, Hermes sees Y’shtola and Fordola tugging Lyse back into her seat. Fourchenault warily peers at the blonde rocker on stage.
“Sir, do you… go to this school…?” he asks.
“Irrelevant,” Zenos proudly declares. “This is a talent show, is it not? And I am not one to shrink from a challenge, no matter the stage!”
A pair of faculty escort Zenos from the stage, one a tall, powerfully-built woman with snow-white hair, the other equally tall but with glasses and a noodly physique-- someone Thancred calls the tallest math teacher he’s ever seen under his breath. At the podium, Fourchenault awkwardly shuffles his notes.
“Er… for our next performance,” Fourchenault announces, “on behalf of all the alumni of this great school, let us welcome to the stage G’raha Tia.”
G’raha takes the stage to the cheers and/or jeers of his closest friends. He taps the microphone, shrinking away from the feedback, before stepping forward and clearing his throat.
“I, um… I would like to dedicate this song to my cat,” he says, sheepish.
In the audience, Morgan shrinks down into his seat, embarrassed. Krile, Tataru, Lyse, and Y’mhitra all crowd around him with knowing smiles. He bops them all on the head.
G’raha gives Ryne a nod, and she plays him in. He begins to sing, plaintive, longing…
“Whispers falling silently drift on the wind…”
Hermes feels a tug on his arm. He glances beside him, to his two youngest daughters sharing a seat, looking up at him with big bright eyes. They’re smiling, but their heart-whispers betray their ulterior motives. He chuckles to himself, ruffles their hair, and then stands up and makes his way down the aisle.
Out in the lobby, Hermes runs into middle Meteion and her friends, a pair of miqo’te in yellow and pink. At the sight of him they all jump up and wave, grinning up at him.
“Hi Mr. Hermes!” Khloe grins, hands on her hips. “Here to buy some cookies? Only 10 gil a box. All proceeds go to the Aliapoh orphanage!”
“Ah…” Hermes murmurs, patting his pockets. “Do you have change? All I have is a piece of Allagan silver.”
“Oh,” T’kebbe says softly, rummaging through her cashbox. “...I don’t have enough. Sorry…”
T’kebbe’s ears droop in disappointment. Immediately Khloe and Meteion are by her side, urging her not to cry. It is both the cutest and saddest thing Hermes has ever seen in his life.
“I-It’s okay!” Hermes urges. “Let me just, um… see what you have…”
Hermes returns to his seat, box of cookies in hand. End leans over as her youngest sisters start munching.
“You’re just in time,” End whispers. “Mimi’s up.”
Mimi stands solemn at center stage, her hands clasped in front of her as if in prayer. Gaia’s violin leads her in, and Mimi takes the microphone in both hands, beginning her haunting melody:
“For whom weeps the storm?
Her tears on our skin
The days of our years gone,
Our souls soaked in sin
These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow…
Who fights?
Who flies?
Who falls?”
Mimi opens her eyes and freezes in her tracks, feeling the weight of hundreds of eyes upon her. Hermes and her sisters, supportive no matter what. Thancred and Urianger, eager, expectant. Mitron and Loghrif, inscrutable, stony-faced.
Wracked with stage fright, Mimi misses her cue. Ryne and Gaia exchange glances, but Ryne improvises her piano melody, leading back around to try again. Mimi tries-- and the words catch in her throat. Ryne closes her eyes, willing her heart to reach Mimi’s ears. As her elegant piano melody loops back around for a third attempt, it’s Ryne who sings:
“Stand tall, my friend
Let all of the dark lost inside you find light again…”
Mimi gasps, finding her voice.
“In time, tumbling, turning, we seek amends
Eternal winds to the land descend
Our journey will never end…”
Ryne and Mimi’s eyes meet with a gentle smile. Gaia chimes in, to their surprise.
“From those who’ve fallen to those who rise,
A prayer to keep us ever by your side
An undying promise that we just might
Carry on in a song…
“Pray don’t forget us, your bygone kin
With one world’s end does a new begin
And should our souls scatter unto the wind
Still, we shall live on…”
The three girls sing together, an impromptu trio, Mimi looking not out at the audience but into the eyes of her dearest friends.
“Stand tall, my friend
May all of the dark deep inside you find light again
This time, tumbling, turning, we make amends
Eternal winds from the land ascend
Here to lift us that we won’t end.”
The crowd cheers. Mimi leads Ryne and Gaia up to center stage and they bow together, hand in hand. As they come down the aisle together and Fourchenault rises to his podium to announce the next performance, Thancred has an arm around Hermes’ shoulder, proud tears in his eyes.
“That’s my girl,” Thancred laughs, grinning.
“That’s
my
girl!” Hermes laughs with him.
“You’re both wrong,” Gaia grins as she passes their row. “They’re
mine.
”
The rest of the night passes in a blissful blur. Everyone has to make their rounds, everyone has to say hello and to sing the praises of the performers-- and, of course, all the parents have to take pictures. The crowd lingers in the lobby until the faculty have to shoo them away, and even then, they spill into the parking lot, chatting long after the concert has ended. Ryne gets pulled away for Venat, Ameliance and F’lhaminn to coo over; Mitron and Loghrif greet Thancred and Urianger in a way that’s downright civil; Y’mhitra pulls End away to introduce her to her sister and her bewildering array of sisters-in-law; Lyse, M’naago and Fordola all clink bottles together like this is just another backyard barbecue before Fourchenault rushes over and politely but
firmly
asks them to wait until they’re off school property before they start passing out drinks.
And when Hermes and his daughters
attempt
to part from the crowd, only to discover forty-nine boxes of Kitten Scout cookies in the trunk of his minivan…
Well, at least there’s plenty to go around.
~*~
Chapter 20: Depression Meals
Summary:
Hermes tries to eat healthy. He really does.
Chapter Text
~*~
Hermes tries to eat healthy. He really does.
But the man has five growing daughters and spends his workday slogging through reams of code, so forgive him if he occasionally takes the easy way out.
“30 gil minimum for delivery?!” Hermes balks. He slumps down onto the dining table, poking at his phone.
Hermes sees the future stretching out in front of him. A world where he orders four 7-gil lunch specials, and throws in a soda or something to meet the delivery minimum. One world where he reasonably eats just one and then tries to save the other three for future meals, only to be left with gloppy sauces and dry, crunchy rice. Another world where not a single bite goes to waste, and he spends the rest of the day in bed feeling bloated and disgusting. Another world where he just… doesn’t eat today.
No. He won’t be beaten so easily. Hermes lifts his head off the table and scrolls down the online menu, strategically choosing food that won’t suffer when cold. Soups. Noodles. Check out…
“Closed today?!” Hermes wails in despair, clutching his head. “Why wouldn’t you say that before I start ordering???”
Hermes throws his phone in a fit of frustration, only to catch it on a panicked, conjured breeze before the screen could crack on the kitchen floor. He wills it back to his hand and shoves it back into his pocket, glumly trudging over to the fridge.
A tray of apples takes up the entire top shelf. Different varieties, in neat little rows-- candied, caramel-covered, chocolate-dipped. There was always a tray of apples in the fridge; decorating them was a nice way to spend a night with the girls, and each of the girls had their favorite.
Hermes glances down to the other shelves. Now’s not the time for sweets. Now’s the time for real food, just… maybe not food he would have to actually cook.
A half-full tub of avocado mash catches Hermes’ eye.
Ah, the avocado. What a miracle of a food. A vegetable-- or was it a fruit? --that still had a high enough fat and protein content that, cooking-wise, one could substitute it for an egg. Hermes heard that on TV, and wasn’t entirely sure if it was true. Still, the thought of making bread or even ice cream with avocado instead of eggs was sure to delight his daughters.
Wait. Bread. Does he have any bread? Mitron regularly scoffs at young people and their ‘avocado toast’ but we can’t
all
have our own personal kitchen staff planning our meals,
Mitron
.
A shrill beep bursts out of the fridge. Hermes yelps and smacks the door shut, cutting off the open door alarm.
Right. Standing here, spacing out too long, letting all the cold out so his food might spoil. Thank you, fridge door alarm.
Alright. Avocado toast. A better plan than nothing. Hermes pokes through his cupboards.
Hm. No sliced bread. There’s a pack of rolls here that he’s saving for sheet pan sliders. That’ll be fun with the girls. Hm…
Aha! Bagels. Real bagels, the brand Hyth always pesters him about, without any of those nasty ‘preservatives’. Everything bagels, too, a perfect match with avo--
Hermes gags, and drops the half-empty sleeve of bagels into the garbage. These bagels sure came with everything-- garlic, onion, sesame seeds,
mold
. Maybe those preservatives are actually good for something after all, Hyth.
Hermes pulls something down from the shelf. A packet of instant ramen. Hm. If Yanxia Express won’t come to him, then why not try to do it himself?
Oh, right. Because that would mean cooking. Just lifting the pot onto the stove takes about all the energy Hermes’ limbs can muster. Not today. Not today.
Hermes sighs. In his hubris, he’d already torn the packet open, thinking, surely, he could manage to just boil some water. No luck.
Hermes experimentally lifts a sheet of uncooked ramen out of the packet and takes a crunchy bite. He glances over at the tub of avocado mash he still has left on the counter. Hermes smiles wryly to himself.
Carbs. Protein. Fruit and/or vegetable. The gang’s all here.
“End?” Hermes raps his knuckles against her doorframe, after his sort-of chips and guacamole aren’t quite as satisfying as he’d hoped.
“What’s up, Dad?”
“Can I have one of the energy drinks in your gamer fridge?”
End fondly rolls her eyes. “Don’t call it a ‘gamer fridge’...”
“What was that, sweetie?”
“I said, ‘sure, Dad’.”
Fighting depression and/or malnutrition with energy drinks is a bewildering experience. The fog in your head persists, but the rest of your body is like lightning. Hermes goes through the rest of his day with his heart thudding in his chest while his skull remains in malaise. He doesn’t remember much of it. Probably not a good sign.
At some point, he picks up the girls from school, and at some point, he decides to order pizza instead of attempting to cook dinner for them. Always a crowd pleaser. And at some point, he’d decided that pizza was just too heavy and greasy and if he ate any, he’d feel even sicker than he did already.
Hermes sighs. He lays sprawled out on the couch, a hand melodramatically draped across his eyes. He doesn’t know what time it is, scarcely remembers what day it is. The caffeine rush has faded by now, thankfully, but all that means is all his limbs are back to feeling as heavy as lead.
He vaguely senses a small figure waddling over. Climbing up onto the couch cushion, and wriggling under his arm.
“Daddy’s sad,” mini Meteion says softly.
“Daddy will be alright,” Hermes murmurs, absently ruffling Meteion’s hair.
“Daddy’s not eating,” mini Meteion observes.
Little Meteion, second-youngest of his daughters, comes up and sits on the couch. She offers him an apple. Not candied or anything, just an apple. It’s normal food, real food. He could just pick it up and eat it. But even that feels like too much for him right now.
“Daddy’s just not very hungry,” Hermes reassures.
Little Meteion pouts. She takes the apple back to the dining table and presses it into Mimi’s hands. Mimi tosses the apple into the air and slices it into sections with a whistle of wind magic. Middle Meteion catches the apple slices in a bowl, and hands it back to little Meteion. She returns to Hermes’ side, while her older sisters gently look on.
“Mommy Venat says you need to eat,” mini Meteion insists.
Hermes chuckles. He wonders when they started calling her that. “Does she, now?”
There’s a clink of a water glass on the end table, the rattle of a pill planner beside it.
“You shouldn’t take your meds on an empty stomach,” End reminds him. She settles down into a nearby armchair, instead of slinking off to her room.
“Uh-huh,” mini Meteion nods vigorously. “And Mommy also said that if you don’t, she’ll kick your butt.”
Hermes laughs. His eyes are wet.
“...Alright, well. Let’s do it for Mommy.”
Little Meteion sits behind her youngest sister on the couch, a warm weight against Hermes’ stomach. She sets the bowl of apple slices on her sister’s lap, and mini Meteion picks one up in her pudgy fingers and clumsily shoves it into Hermes’ face. Hermes laughs, ruffles his daughters’ hair, and takes a bite.
It’s delicious, of course. Made with love.
~*~
Chapter 21: Nightmare
Summary:
Sometimes, she doesn't just get sad. She gets scary.
Notes:
Inspired by this picture, of all things. Enjoy!
Chapter Text
~*~
There is a monster outside her door.
She can see it, lurking in the hall. A shadow, hunched over at a jagged, unnatural angle, because if it were standing straight it would be too tall to peer inside. A mass of black shadow with eyes like white candleflames, like will o’wisps in a swamp.
Middle Meteion swallows hard, fear rooting her to her mattress. Tendrils of smoke creak open her bedroom door and creep along the carpet, searching.
Meteion glances across her room-- her two younger sisters sleep peacefully, perched on their bedposts in bird form. They have normal beds, and Hermes has been trying to get them to sleep like humans do, but there’s something about being small that feels familiar, comforting.
Abruptly, like a bad film reel, the monster appears at the foot of her bed. Looming, inscrutable. Black smoke weeps from its form. The shining Elpis bloom on the nightstand between her sisters’ beds, serving as their nightlight, tinges violet; but the smoke shrinks away from its light.
Meteion has no such protection. She shudders, feeling the echoes of anguish wash over her heart, feels the rustling as the tips of her feathers shift from violet to gray to black. The monster looms over her, a dark, caustic sludge dripping from its eyes and sizzling Meteion’s sheets. A clawed hand reaches out…
Meteion snatches the creature’s wrist. The burst of courage and clarity lets her seize control, derailing the nightmare into a lucid dream.
Meteion carefully pulls the covers aside-- now’s not the time to kick them off, and get her talons caught in her blanket-- and gets out of bed. She pulls the wraith back out into the hall, spares a glance up the corridor to the bathroom, Mimi’s room, Hermes’ room, before turning around and leading the figure down the steps.
The figure growls. Its clawed hand squeezes Meteion’s, talons pricking her skin.
“No claws,” Meteion says, gently but firmly. The shade gurgles, but doesn’t protest.
She sits the hunchbacked shadow down at the dining table, the wraith briefly hissing at the light of the open refrigerator. The shade waits placidly until Meteion returns from the counter with an apple-and-peanut-butter sandwich and a glass of milk.
Meteion sits beside the shade as it sullenly picks at its food. The black smoke begins to dissipate. Claws become fingers. The shadows shift and settle at the figure’s feet, a roiling mass with raven wings slowly beginning to resemble a person again.
Meteion takes the empty plate and glass and puts it in the sink. She takes a paper towel and starts dabbing at the shade’s face. The dark sludge, which a moment ago would have set the paper towel alight with black fire, instead merely smears away like watercolor.
“How do you feel?” Meteion asks softly.
The shade’s fingers tense and twitch into fists, the nails biting into her palms. Meteion takes the shade’s hands in her own.
“No claws,” Meteion repeats, firm, pulling open the shade’s clenched fingers before they became talons. “Did something happen?”
“No,”
End ekes out, a shadowed whisper. “It just hurts. For no reason.”
“It’s not ‘no reason’,” Meteion insists. “You’re sick. It’s not your fault.”
End curls her lip with guilt and self-loathing. She heaves out a sigh.
“...I’m sorry. It’s late. You have school in the morning.”
“I’ll be fine,” Meteion shrugs. “Do you want to try to go back to bed?”
“Not really.”
Meteion manages a smile. “Do you want to play some Mario Kart?”
“...Sure.”
Meteion takes End’s hand and leads her down the hall. The darkness recedes. The shadows settle. By the time they get back to End’s room, her somber black gown morphs back into her baggy nightshirt and sweatpants, and the color returns to her unnaturally pale face.
End has terrible posture. She sits cross-legged and hunched over, bent by the weight of the world and her own myriad demons, and on her worst nights it feels like she’s about to collapse and implode into a black hole. But Meteion climbs into her lap and props her up, tucking her head under End’s chin, and when End blinks away tears they aren’t made of smoking sludge. They’re just ordinary tears: water, salt. Gratitude.
Hope.
~*~
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