Chapter Text
Father,
Part of me wishes I could not forgive you. There is something repulsive about my ability to forgive now that you’re gone. I am disgusted with myself for it.
I spent years without a memory of you in my mind, and when I finally do remember, you’re dead. It’s surreal.
.
“Thalassa, dear, remember to smile.” A voice pierces the solitude Thalassa had been practicing in, and she startles.
She spins around to see her father’s grave visage in the doorway. “How do you even know I wasn’t?!” she demands, hands on hips.
He smirks, putting a hand to his temple. “The Gramarye power can do many things.”
Thalassa frowns, taken aback. She certainly can’t do anything like that.
After a moment, he sighs and rolls his eyes, pointing to the wall behind her. She turns around.
It’s a mirror.
“Oh.”
“The power on its own will do little for you if you don’t pay attention to your surroundings, Thalassa.”
She sighs and crosses her arms. “I know. You just scared me, that’s all.”
“It will do you well to not be scared in the future, then.”
.
You were always so certain about everything. I never had a choice. I would be a magician, I would be a Gramarye, or I might as well be dead.
.
Shadi Enigmar is tall—almost a foot taller than Thalassa. He’s only a few years older than her, but that kind of difference feels huge when she’s twelve and he’s almost fifteen.
When her father had mentioned wanting to find apprentices, she hadn’t thought much of it. There are always new people coming and going in the ranks of Troupe Gramarye, always guest performers and crew members and staff to meet and befriend and never see again.
But this, she suddenly realizes, looking up at this kid wearing a confident smile and a red short-sleeve t-shirt, is going to be more permanent than that.
She’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
It will probably depend on if they get along, she thinks.
.
What were you like, before you were Magnifi Gramarye? Were you ever someone else? Someone kind? Did your ability to see the truth ever let you trust more than it let you take advantage? Or maybe you were always just the man I remember. I don’t want to believe that, though. I remember Zak at 15. He could have become someone better, in another world. I believe that more than anything.
.
“I need a stage name.”
“Oh?” Thalassa looks up from the playing cards she’s scattered around the table. “Why?”
Shadi shrugs. “Magnifi said so.”
She furrows her brow. “I’ve never had a stage name.”
“Well, you’re already a Gramarye.”
“I guess so…” She gathers up the cards from the table and gives them a shuffle. “What’s your stage name gonna be, then?
“I don’t know yet. I don’t have any ideas.”
She fans out the deck of cards in front of him. “Pick a card.”
He does. “Now what?”
“What card is it?”
“Ace of clubs.”
She puts a finger to her chin. “How about Ace? Ace Gramarye. Maybe a little on-the-nose.”
Shadi grins. “Oh, this is for my stage name. I didn’t realize.”
“Pick another card.”
“Two of hearts.”
“Anything there?”
“I don’t think so.”
“One more try?”
He rolls his eyes, but takes another card. “King of spades.”
“Hm.” Thalassa puts down the rest of the deck to look at the three cards in Shadi’s hand. “Can I see them?”
He hands her the cards.
She fans the three cards out in one hand and puts a finger to her chin. “How about…” she switches the order of the first two cards, so the corners read 2 A K, “…Zak?”
Shadi tilts his head and looks up in thought. After a moment, he smiles. “Zak Gramarye. I like it. Thanks, Thalassa!”
.
Maybe part of me just wants to believe you were stuck in the same trap I was. That we had that in common. I don’t know.
It doesn’t really matter in the end, does it? The cycle repeats either way.
.
Not long after Zak joined the Troupe, Thalassa’s father finds his second apprentice in a kid named Valant.
It’s a stage name too, like Zak, but her father gave it to him before she even got to meet him, so she doesn’t even know his other name.
He’s about a year older than Thalassa and he seems nice, if a little awkward.
It’s strange how quickly she went from being the only kid in the Troupe to one of three. Not bad, though. It will still depend on how they get along.
And so far, they get along great.
It’s Thalassa’s job to show Zak and Valant the ropes; they both have experience performing magic, but not anywhere near this scale, so she’s the one who gets to teach them the stuff nobody talks about—the pre-show logistics, the backstage navigation, the best way to ingratiate yourself to the crew (it’s buying them coffee, usually, by the way).
And in turn, Zak and Valant become her friends. Friends who stay.
.
You know it took me years to realize I had the Gramarye power? I thought it must have skipped a generation; I couldn’t tell anyone’s truth from lies. And then, slowly, I came to realize my calibration was off. I’m sure you can guess why.
.
Thalassa is up very high on the catwalk at the very end of rehearsal, because her father told her to set up some lights for tomorrow’s show. She’s up there longer than she expected to be, because one of the spotlights was being annoying, and by the time she’s finished, there’s no one else left in the tent. And the ladder is gone.
Shoot.
She tries yelling for help, but no one hears. They’re all back in their rooms by now. She sighs.
She surveys her surroundings and there are lots of ropes and chains and beams she could grab onto, but she doesn’t know which ones will stay sturdy and which will send her falling straight to the ground.
She yells for help again.
Time passes. The air grows cool as the night grows dark. Soon, she’s shivering.
She yells for help, as loud as she can. Her scream almost echoes.
It’s quiet up here. Peaceful, almost. She’s glad she’s not afraid of heights.
She tries one more time to yell for help. Nothing.
So she decides, since there’s nothing else she can do, that she will sleep there for the night. At least, she thinks, she can turn off the lights.
It’s not comfortable; she lies down and the metal beams are uneven and rigid and cold against her skin. At first she’s not sure if she’ll be able to sleep at all. But finally, exhaustion overcomes all other senses, and she drifts into a terrible sleep.
The next morning, she wakes up to the sun’s glow penetrating the opaque plastic of the tent and the sound of Valant’s voice.
She feels stiff and awful and completely disoriented.
“Thalassa? Why are you up there?”
“I couldn’t get down!” she yells down to him, voice still groggy.
Valant’s eyes go wide. “I’ll get the ladder!”
Thalassa lets out a deep sigh.
After what feels like an eternity, but is probably only a few minutes, Valant returns with Zak, the two of them carrying the ladder together.
A minute or two of setting up, and Thalassa is carefully stepping down the rungs to finally, finally reach solid ground yet again.
She immediately pulls both the boys in for a hug. She’s not sure she’s ever been so happy to see anyone in her life.
“Were you up there all night?” asks Valant.
She nods.
“That’s terrifying! If we’d known we would’ve come and rescued you!”
Zak nods in agreement. “I’m sorry it happened.”
“Well, you guys saved me in the end, so it’s okay.”
Zak cracks a smile and Valant beams.
“We’re like your knights in shining armor! Right, Zak?”
“Yeah…” he says, almost looking through her. “Something like that.”
.
But no matter how much I looked up to you, it pales in comparison to the boys. Zak and Valant thought you hung the goddamn moon. And you destroyed them. You taught them to see the world as something to be conquered, love as something to be won. Why? What did you want? Power? Adoration? Did you really think you were doing them a favor by teaching them to shut themselves away? Was this your idea of a legacy?
.
Thalassa is humming a melody to herself, trying to figure out if she made it up or just got it stuck in her head, when she hears the sound of footsteps coming into the main tent.
“Thalassa, look at what we got!”
Zak and Valant stand before her in new outfits, similar to hers.
Zak is in pink, proudly shouldering his cape with his hands on his hips.
Valant stands next to him in yellow, smiling yet still a little unsure, his hat just barely too big for his head.
“What do you think?” Zak asks with a cheeky grin.
“You both look nice.”
“Yellow is my lucky color!” Valant proclaims, striking the same pose as Zak. Well, it doesn’t look like a pose on Zak, but it does on him.
Zak rolls his eyes. “You only took yellow because it was the last one left.”
Valant pouts. “And it was lucky that the last one left was my lucky color.”
Zak sighs, looking at Thalassa expectantly.
She shrugs.
“Oh!” Valant regains his excitement after a moment. “Look what else we each got!”
From the belt at his waist, hidden by his cape, he pulls out a toy pistol.
Thalassa’s stomach jumps.
“Be careful, Valant! Remember, no pointing it at people.”
“I know! I’m being careful!”
“You should only ever point a gun at something you’d be okay shooting. That’s what Magnifi said.”
“I know!” Valant responds, indignant, but Zak is not looking at him; he’s looking at Thalassa, waiting for her to be impressed.
She nods thoughtfully. “He never taught me about guns but that seems like a good rule.”
The boys nod.
“So is this for a new trick or something?”
Zak shakes his head. “Magnifi said that all men should know how to shoot a gun.”
Thalassa snorts. She imagines Zak and Valant going hunting in the woods, or maybe dueling on some mountaintop at dawn. None of the images she can conjure of men who shoot guns really fit the two boys in front of her.
Valant narrows his eyes. “What, you don’t think we’re men?”
She cracks a smile. “No, nothing like that. It’s just kind of funny.”
“What is?”
She waves a hand. “Nothing, never mind.”
She looks each boy over, their forms newly draped in solid colors. She already knew they would be her colleagues, her brothers in arms, but the thought has more weight to it now. They really are all Gramaryes now.
“I just wanted to say… congratulations on officially becoming a part of the Troupe.”
The boys beam.
.
Well, congratulations, I suppose. You did it. Your influence will live on long past your death. I hope that’s what you wanted.
Yours forever,
Thalassa Gramarye