Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Linda Chanda gave a long, relieved sigh.

It was good to have Harper Deerstar back. She’d said as much, of course - but it was a bit difficult to admit how taxing it was, having the fifth of their sisterhood leave as soon as Anne was back. And she’d certainly had trouble expressing that sufficiently out of Anne’s earshot. It would do no good to feed Anne’s insecurities, not with Concorde still a foal, and Anne’s world still so badly tilted off its axis.

Linda had just hoped that maybe, when Harper came back, she wouldn’t have to be doing Harper’s schoolwork.

The Druid paddock at least had a wide enough stone fence to make a nice seat. And there was a lovely breeze. And Harper had even brought back a bit of bribery for her - a full set of 55 colors of gel pens. At least the schoolwork was light.

Maybe. Sort of. If choosing somebody’s future college courses was light, anyway. Just the low pressure of deciding an entire career. No big deal at all.

In the paddock, Rhiannon watched critically as Harper rode on top of her Jorvik Friesian. Darkwalker was in fine form, but Harper was less so - the cost of months away in city life. Literally getting back in the saddle was something Linda knew was inevitable. It was just going to take some frustration to get there.

Good thing the course catalog was pretty interesting.

“What do you think, Alex?” Linda lifted up the course catalog for her to see. (The persistent crunching was more than enough to know her fellow Soul Rider was behind her shoulder.) “Counseling, maybe? D’you think that’d suit Harper?”

Alex hummed a little in thought, but before she could speak, she was interrupted by a loud “ FFFUUUUCCK! ” from the paddock.

Rhiannon sighed loudly. “Language! And you’ve got to stay in the inner ring of the paddock when you’re dodging the obstacle carousel, Harper!”

“But it’s a fucking -” Rhiannon glared Harper into a splutter as she threw her hands up. “Okay, fine. Fine! I guess I’ll just try a-fucking- gaaain… ”

Alex meditatively crunched on another cheeto before making her pronouncement. “...Yeah, maybe not counseling.”

Linda muttered in agreement before going back to the catalog. “Hm, well, let’s see, there’s - oh! She’s already circled some history courses! Maybe a history major? What is she going to do as a history major, though… Like, as a career…”

In a sign of solidarity, Alex gently tapped Linda on the shoulder with the bag of snacks. (Linda carefully but cheerfully grabbed a handful.) “I think we already know what our careers are going to be: Soul Riders. I mean, definitely working with horses. Probably doing druid stuff. Definitely kicking in Dark Core’s teeth whenever it’s possible. And it’s not like we’ve got plenty of time to go work shifts at Leonardo’s while dealing with crises that threaten the fabric of reality or whatever, right?”

“I wonder if there’s any sort of plan the druids have for an ongoing salary… Maybe Anne’s trust fund can help us get some 401Ks funded? Wait, do the druids have money enough for, I don’t know, healthcare? Oh, it looks like Avalon and Evergray are coming up to watch, so maybe I can -”

Rhiannon, watching the exercises, abruptly blew her whistle. Another failure on technicality.

Harper threw back her head as her horse came to a stop, and she yelled at the top of her lungs. “ AIDEEN’S SAINTED BOUNCING TITTIES!! ”

For a brief moment, perfect silence followed. Even the birds singing in the forest seemed to quiet down. In the distant Valedale fields, a cow mooed as if asking a question.

Rhiannon pinched the bridge of her nose as if developing a headache. Before she even spoke, Harper piped up instead. “What?! You said to use language more befitting for a Soul Rider! There’s nothing more like a Soul Rider than invoking Aideen!”

Linda couldn’t help snickering. And, underneath her hand, Rhiannon grimaced to swallow down a grin. “Ohmygod…” Linda whispered around giggles. “I’d say don’t tell Avalon, but he overheard it, so… Wait, Alex, are you listening?” Alex, meanwhile, stared into the middle distance. “Alex? Hello?” Linda waved a hand in front of Alex’s face.

“Aideen’s sainted bouncing titties,” Alex muttered, busy with a moment of lesbian revelation. “Now… there’s a thought…”

“It’s not…” Rhiannon closed her eyes a moment and sighed. “Listen, as a druid…” She shook her head again, going for another start. “I mean, there’s a certain level of, I suppose, dignity, that comes with the position of being a Soul Rider.” Rhiannon tried to both keep to her topic, and keep her composure. “You have to think about presenting yourself as an agent of this organization, as it were. So that everyone can continue to be confident we’re here to help. Part of that is not appearing to just blow this off, so you have to properly embody some druidic ideals, talk about suitable topics, and -”

Evergray cheerfully piped up from the path. “I’ve found it a perfect topic for deep druidic meditation, myself!”

Another long moment of silence. Rhiannon covered her face with both hands and, from the sound, quietly screamed to herself in a stage whisper. It was Avalon, however, who really began to produce noise…

Spurring on her black horse, Harper trotted out of the arena. …even as the horse Darkwalker tried to ask a question. “But I can still say ‘fuck’, right, Miss Rhiannon? Right?” The mare looked at Rhiannon, ears perked, looking as cheerful as a student who aims to be teacher’s pet and knows the work is mostly done.

“I… I’m…” Rhiannon spluttered squeakily before sighing, then raised her head up from her hands. She wore the hangdog expression of a woman who recognized she had, irrecoverably, lost control of the situation. “You know what, sure. That’s… yeah. That’s fine. It’s the official policy of this druidic circle that horses can still say fuck.”

“Fuck yeah!” The Friesian starbreed neighed out before prancing the rest of the way over to Alex and Linda. 

Harper herself paused a second to smooth down her bleach-blonde hair, and adjust her leather jacket. Linda, meanwhile, still waved a hand in front of Alex’s face. “Alex? Helloooo? Earth to Alex…? Huh. …I think she’s lost in a bosom-based reverie. We might need to call in Maya.” Linda paused to lean around Harper and her horse to look behind Harper’s shoulder. The decibel level coming from Evergray and Avalon’s discussion was only increasing.

“Uh. Yeah, it sounds like…” Harper worriedly gestured over her shoulder without turning around. “Do I want to even…?”

“Oh, no, I think it’s just Avalon telling Gray that he’s going to feed him feet-first into a woodchipper to restore the family honor. You know, like usual,” Linda cheerfully said with a shrug. “Must be a day ending in Y, that kind of thing. The yelling about how he couldn’t find any copies of Playboy in Pandoria is new, though.”

Alex had blinked rapidly as if finally rejoining the rest of them before this notion seemed to hit her like a tidal wave. “ Pandorian Playboy… what a concept …”

“Alex? …Alex? Oh. There she goes again,” Linda sighed. “I guess this means we get to eat her snacks?”

“ Fuck yeah ,” the Freisian mare declared before, without warning or permission, sticking her entire nose into the bag of cheetos and crunching on them as if the true purpose of cheetos was, and always had been, to exist as a superior horse feed. Harper gave a dejected sigh. Alex momentarily was shaken from her reverie. Linda couldn’t help but finally double over laughing.

It wasn’t the usual end to a day of training, Linda thought - but then again, what was?

Chapter Text

Just because the Drakonium shipment was no longer dangerous, and the Pandoric energies were quelled, didn’t mean the situation was any less explosive.

The immediate danger was over. Now the four riders simply simmered in silence, staring at each other - or, really, three staring down one. Jay, Sabine, Katja. Garnok’s agents to the bone. Full of cruel smirks mere moments ago, when there wasn’t an emergency that demanded awkward cooperation with a Soul Rider. And so, too, had Harper’s biting righteousness been abruptly shelved. Now it almost felt like something hanging around her neck. A strange millstone. Where to put it?

Harper could only imagine just how awful it must have been on Boxing Day in World War One, when the previous day was all miraculous friendly truces, soccer games, and Christmas spirit - then back to the trenches. Plenty of tragedy to be found there, sure. Especially as soldiers lined up their shots and spotted faces they had laughed with mere hours ago. But mostly, in this moment, she found herself sympathizing with the awkwardness. The sheer social friction of it all. Who was going to call in the first artillery strike? What was the protocol for charges into no-man’s-land? At what point, exactly, did the war really resume?

She could be glad the Dark Riders didn’t seem keen on immediately breaking the truce, however.

The wind whipped up a little around them. It was hard to imagine free and open fields of the Harvest Counties being described as stifling , but sling enough magical influence - particularly when Aideen’s light was so outnumbered - and it was nonetheless achievable. Fortunately the wind rolled in sweet and green, smelling of fresh cut hay. But Harper would have taken a breeze slamming in from a fishing trawler hauling nets full of rotten sardines at that point. It was almost too much. Almost.

She closed her eyes, and nervously clenched the reigns of her horse in her hands. It had been a long few months away in city life. But there were reasons she took a leave of absence, and she didn’t regret them. That smothering nervousness would have squirmed out of her as a scream or snappish comment, a little intentional cruelty that she would then hate herself for later, spinning out of control, wrapped up in it, again and again - but not here, not now. The Soul Rider pursed her lips and let out a long, controlled breath. And she remembered every lesson from therapy, and more.

Good thing that coping strategies, like riding a bike, were something you never really forgot.

Five things she could see: Katja, wheeling her eerily pale horse around to stand with her compatriots, stare icy as ever. Sabine, shoulders square, hair immaculate, countenance steely. Jay, smirk playing on her lips, eyes darting around as if to decide where exactly to aim with an incoming barb. More importantly, behind them: the Harvest Counties, all familiar and kind landscape. The cedar trees by the side of the road shook off the last touches of Pandorian purple. And then, beyond, the sea - an ever-present comfort in Jorvik. (Good, Harper told herself, half-hearing her therapist’s voice. Keep going.) Four things to touch: the bridle in her hands, leather warm and familiar. Her mare’s coat, warm underneath her hand. The saddle horn, polished and pristine. And - as she reached up to adjust it - the collar of her leather jacket. 

They were staring now, she knew. A silent conversation in glances. She had always been the pressure point they wanted to test most. There was a place in the circle for each of the four riders, but what of a fifth? Out of place. Not like the others. When she first came to Jorvik, she knew, every single detail about her was blood in the water. All the anger, all the bitterness, all the hurt she carried were things Garnok slavered over in gleeful want.

(But enough. Keep going.)

Three things to hear: in the far distance, gulls, flying along the coastline in lazy loops. The wind rushing through the valley created a susurration as fine as any symphony. And very close, there was the sound of her own horse snorting, still breathing hard from the exertion and the rush of adrenaline. Quicker now - two things to smell: the green grass on the wind, the saddle polish just beneath her. One thing to taste -

The small bit of blood still in her mouth from biting her tongue while riding too fiercely.

Jay was the one to break the silence. “You belong with us , you know.” Her smirk reflected her self-satisfied tone. “I mean, just look at you. Black leather jacket. Black hat. Focusing on all that darkness. You even ride a black horse, called Darkwalker! ”

“Yeah, that’s me, now get my name out of your fuckin’ mouth,” the Friesian mare whinnied underneath her breath. Harper said nothing, gripping the reigns tight in her hand - but keeping them slack. No need to make her Soul Steed grumble around the bit.

“All this darkness -” Jay waved a hand, leaning forward in her saddle, tone almost gossipy. “I mean, you’ve got to be kidding yourself. Aideen’s Light? ” She laughed, and Katja couldn’t help bursting into cruel giggles as well. “You really believe that? You really expect us to believe that?” Katja continued laughing behind her hand, every giggle as polished to a fine point as a dagger.

Sabine spoke up in a tone that was less cold, perhaps disarmingly so, though still stern. “We rode together well, Harper.” Rare praise - something like jealousy flashed over the faces of her fellow Dark Riders. “Like it was always meant to be. Like you know that your place is with us. With Garnok. And it always has been.”

Harper closed her eyes and let out another patient, measured sigh.

She knew this game. It and all other games with the same set of rules. As soon as she stepped on any new school grounds, on any new setting, on any new speck of ground, she knew that reputation came with her. There she goes. She’s the crazy bitch. Whispers behind her back. I heard she’s just doing it for attention - did you see those scars on her thighs? Nobody who does that ever really wants help. The stares. The long looks. If they really wanted to kill themselves, they’d do it, right? Just another emo attention whore. The giggling that abruptly stopped when she got close, then picked up again even fiercer once she was just far away enough. I heard she’s the scholarship kid from St. Dymphna’s School for Troubled Girls. Yeah, it’s gotta be a pity thing. Tax write off if you put up with somebody who’s batshit. For a long time, that’s what the leather jacket had been about. If she put up the spikes first, if she lashed out with the first blow, then at least she’d feel like she was in control. Even if it was merely fulfilling someone else’s prophecy, she knew where she stood. Besides - hurt them before they hurt you. It was just the way of things, she’d told herself. It was how things would always be. That’s what the rules of the game told her, anyway.

So she refused, now, to play it. “No. It’s…” She closed her eyes a moment before blurting out something terrifyingly genuine: “I really hope someday you’ll all get to see the real Dark.”

Katja gave a dismissive little snort. “Like you’d hope we’ll all go to Disney World and have a lovely time together?” She mocked. “We’ve seen the real Dark. We are the real Dark. We’ve seen Death, and -”

“No, the real one!” A bit of the old anger flared up out of her, and Harper took another long breath. “That’s… see, that’s what I wish all of you could see. Like hoping someday your blind grandma will get to see a sunset again.” There was, underneath the words, an achingly genuine sentiment.

The Dark Riders shifted uncomfortably. They were used to being reviled, hated, and feared. They were not used to pity - or even worse, compassion.

“It’s like…” Harper paused to put a hand to her lips, as if that would help pull out the right word, before snapping her fingers as she caught ahold of it. “A whalefall! It’s like a whalefall, right?”

“A what, ” Jay said flatly.

“When a whale dies, it stops swimming - stops floating. It doesn’t just bounce up to the surface,” Harper explained, now gesturing in genuine excitement. “It falls, all the way down to the very floor of the ocean. To where there’s no light at all. And it’s true, there’s darkness there. That’s what it is. And there’s death, because -”

“The whale met its final end. The story is finished,” Katja interrupted coldly.

Harper shook her head, hair hitting the back of her jacket. “No, that’s why I keep saying you haven’t got the true Dark,” she said sadly. “It’s not the end. It never is. That’s why whalefalls are so… they’re beautiful , because that one whale, that one corpse?” Her hands had fluttered down to near her lap, as if miming out the descent. And now they sprung up again, weaving between each other like ocean currents. “It brings so much life. There are so many creatures that live just going from whalefall to whalefall. Even in the dark, even surrounded by death, there’s so much that happens. It’s not the end. It’s just the start. It’s a start for so many beautiful and wonderful things.”

She paused a moment before realizing her voice had just started to crack, and tried to play it off with an awkward laugh, still slightly embarrassed for how much this emotionally resonated with her. “It’s the same thing with the Dark. The true Dark. You’re focused on it being an end, and it never is. It’s not really harsh, or unkind, or even cold. It’s something that we all have, that we all carry with us. I mean - think about it,” she said, half-imploring them. “When you close your eyes at night, what do you see? What’s everybody’s lullabye? What does everyone start the new day with, before they open their eyes? It’s darkness. It’s there to welcome you, to hold you. It’s the first thing you had, before you even were born, and it’s what is going to be there to embrace you when you die.” Another long pause and Harper seemed to give up on the notion of not appearing emotional, her voice cracking in earnest. “I’m not explaining it right. I know I’m not. I just - I want you to listen, like, really listen, and really think about it, okay? You’re missing so much. I was missing so much. But the Dark isn’t the end. It’s just another part of life. If you focus on just the end, you’ll never know how beautiful it is when it all keeps going. It’s… it’s all the times when that Dark has been something that made you happy. A thief can come in the night, sure, but it can also be all the cover you need to sneak out to see somebody, right? And even - even within us -” Her voice trembled a little more before she paused to collect herself a second more. “Have you ever seen a diagram of an atom? Like, to scale?”

“First whales, now atoms,” Jay snapped, rolling her eyes. “Do you actually have a point? ”

“I’m trying!” It was the first time Harper sounded genuinely wounded by one of their barbs, but she tried to move past it. “Listen, there’s all those empty gaps, right? Between the nucleus and electrons. Empty space. Darkness. But just because there’s empty space doesn’t mean that important things aren’t made there. It’s that empty space that electrons fly around in. It’s that empty face that makes those atoms hook together into molecules. We’re all made of it. And this -” Harper gestured to herself, then out around her. “It’s not an end. It’s the start. It’s always been the start.”

She gulped solidly. By now the Dark Riders had drawn into quiet silence as if, somehow, the rambling was meeting its mark.

“That’s where I belong. The darkness that surrounds and supports everything. The moon and stars in the night sky, the vast emptiness of space around the sun in our solar system, the charged air that makes lightning strike - that’s it. That’s me ,” Harper pleaded. “Of course I’m the fifth. Of course I’m the Dark. It’s where I’m supposed to be. And…” The Soul Rider paused, tongue up against her teeth as if stopping herself.

Oddly, the Dark Riders declined to interrupt her. (Her horse, however, did look back towards her, questioning.)

She looked around her, blinking rapidly, before finally nudging her horse forward. “Listen, I know, it’s a lot of words. I talk a lot of bullshit,” she said, retreating into the safe harbor of self-deprecating humor. “It’s easier if I show you. It’s just…” Walking alongside the group, going the opposite way, she paused next to Sabine and held out a hand. “You have to trust me for a minute.”

Sabine looked down at her hand as if it were a mousetrap. The other two looked similarly suspicious.

“Please?” Harper begged softly.

Gingerly, Sabine extended her hand. Katja and Jay looked at each other, then to Sabine, attentively listening to her order: “If this is a trap, turn and ride.”

“But -” Katja’s tone was shrill, obviously thinking there was no way it couldn’t be. And Jay, from her expression, thought much the same. But they were both silenced by Sabine’s stern glare. The conversation was unspoken but clear: a good General knew the landscape and with it, how to command her troops. The strongest warrior is the one you send to spring a trap; after it is sprung, it is a known quantity. Garnok’s victory demanded such strategy.

Sabine lowered her hand into Harper’s.

And the world sighed away into midnight.

The darkness was not smothering, even with its quiet. It swooned in gently, and wrapped them both up in it. All that black fell so softly on them like the first snowfall, weighted and solid like a comforting blanket, swaddling them in serenity. It was the blackness of a nap in a loving mother’s arms. But in that, no sadness, or pain - a bubbling excitement and energy. The darkness of a theater with lights finally down, everyone excited for the play to finally begin. Play - that was a good word for the black that ebbed around them. As welcoming as hands over their eyes from a small child, giggling madly, delighted with their reaction before they even could see the waiting birthday surprise.

Sabine groped around in the air beside her. Katja snapped to grabbing her wrist, as if assuming Sabine called them into the magic for help. Instead, after a moment, Katja did much the same. Jay was far more tentative, fingers splayed in the air before ever-so-delicately putting her fingers on Katja's outstretched palm.

But the magic flowed down through them in a solid conduit. The darkness was alive with beautiful possibility: eyes closed to think of the wonders of tomorrow, the contents of a gift box hidden from light, the seed ready to grow as soon as it was buried in earth and dreaming of the grand tree it would be. All the gorgeous potential of the unknown. And all the safety of knowing that life never truly ends, only changes, and the meat they were in now would be gladly accepted as part of life, the wheel ever-spinning into fecund decay before growth. This soft embrace was there around them, black as pitch, lightless as shadow, and ready to welcome them as prodigal daughters.

And as soon as Harper withdrew her hand, it was gone. The sunlit fields seemed, now, somehow more empty and cold. Harper herself reeled a little, off-balance from the exertion, but took a moment to tightly hug her horse’s neck before composing herself.

The silence that followed was an ache. The landscape seemed empty, now. And the Dark Riders did not interrupt it, even to ask what they had just seen.

“If you ever want to serve a Darkness that’s happy to see you,” Harper finally blurted out, “I mean, one that’s always been your home - I… I’m here. I’m here, and I hope someday you’ll come ride with me. Where we all really belong.”

Harper gulped a moment as the silence settled in around them all again. Oddly, none of the Dark Riders seemed to be able to meet her eye. She noticed Katja staring furiously into the middle distance, Jay rolling her eyes all around the scenery, Sabine glaring with regimented precision at her left ear - eyes oddly glistening, a little wet, as if the start of tears lurked there - but none returned her gaze. Not even as she looked searchingly from face to face.

Quietly, they contemplated Garnok’s wrath - and Garnok’s fury for minions who missed the mark - and how the pain Garnok could inflict had been the horsewhip furiously striking up blood from each of them to spur them on. How there were aching promises of the rewards they would receive someday, someday , but not today. How the humanity they borrowed itched and chafed like a cheap sweater.

Perhaps later they would secretly let themselves yearn for a Darkness that loved them back.

Sabine was the first to find her voice. She cleared her throat imperiously, tone sharp and regal as if reminding herself of her role. “We’re not interested in Druidic rambling. And anyway, there’s no need to stick around here talking nonsense and showing off cheap tricks. …Things go back to normal, now. You stick to what you fight for, and we’ll stick with ours. Nothing personal.”

“Sure,” Harper agreed softly. “Nothing personal. Back to normal.” She nodded in agreement, hesitating a moment to turn her horse around. The Friesian Starbreed gave a low snort, looking back at her in a silent question. But the truce still held. Even as she expected a parting shot in the back, she turned away from them, giving them the silent test of seeing if they would break the faith, however temporary that may be.

None of them did.

The sun was starting to dip lower in the sky, now, painting the old farm and sweeping landscape in honey-gold. And as she rode away, Harper couldn’t help but look behind her, calling out one more time - tone dangerously, bleedingly compassionate.

“If you ever want to not have it be normal, and to have it be personal, though - you know where to find me?”

Her voice lilted up, half-begging, before she dug her heels into her horse’s side. Darkwalker took this as all the permission she needed to launch into a gallop. But from the silence that settled in around the Dark Riders, it was evident: Harper Deerstar was gone, sure. They would all carry the weight of her words for far longer. Worse yet, that sullen ache of knowing what they could have, but didn’t have - that would gnaw at the edge of their thoughts. And maybe - just maybe - the jumble of earnestness had planted something in them that was beginning to sprout.

For who better than the Dark Riders to love the stars so fondly that they cannot fear the night?

Chapter Text

“Oh, yeah. Just go ask the circus weirdo and trust he won’t fuck you over. That sounds like a really cool plan that definitely will not go wrong.”

Harper sighed and looked down at her horse. “I somewhat regret teaching you about sarcasm.”

“Because I’m better at it than you?” The Friesian starbreed said smugly.

“...Sure, let’s go with that,” Harper declared with another roll of her eyes before nudging her horse along. “Also, just because you’re mad I was away for awhile doesn’t mean you need to be so snappy all the time.”

The horse’s ears went back. “...But I was really lonely.”

“Yeah. I know. …I missed you, too.” Harper leaned forward to hug her horse’s neck tightly. “But soon I’m going to make you regret those words because you’ll be hauling me all over Jorvik instead of in a nice, comfy, warm stable box…”

“And I’ll make sure to run in some puddles to make you miss that apartment in the city!” Darkwalker teased back, veritably prancing, even as they wheeled into Nilmer’s Highland.

The circus tent had, by now, become a landmark in its own right. Always ready to move, but never quite enticed away to a new location. Apparently it put on a pretty good show. Harper nervously chewed on her bottom lip. Maybe she should butter Ydris up a little before asking him for a favor? After all, she was only a few days back from long months in the city. She’d barely begun to sort out Soul Rider business, even as it pointed towards the library of Fort Maria. (And it would be weeks still before she found herself in an uneasy alliance with the Dark Riders.) Maybe the cost of a ticket and seeing the show would be appropriate. Maybe she should’ve brought a little gift - would the promise of one be enough?

“If you’re gonna zone out, I could always buck you into a ditch,” her horse interrupted her cheerfully.

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass, cheers Walker,” Harper replied. “Also, language. Ix-nay on the speaking, uh, ay. Just pretend that was in pig latin.” She dropped her voice a little lower as they approached the circus site.

“But he already knows I can talk!”

“Yeah, but -”

“He’s turned people into horses multiple times. Including you. Also, you’re going to him for magic help.” The Friesian mare turned her head around to give her rider a look. “I think he knows. Like, you’re here because he knows? He knows. So…”

“So in conclusion, you’re not shutting up?”

“Yeah, exactly!” The horse replied cheerfully. Harper, almost despite herself, couldn’t help grinning. Horses taking after their owners was a blessing, whether they liked it or not. “Anyway, that looks like some really nice grass over there, I’m gonna go eat that while you ask Ydris how to do magic good or whatever!” Harper took this as her cue to slide off her horse’s back, leaving her horse free to do just as threatened and go menace a fresh green patch of clover.

She stood there a moment to steady herself. There were too many possible ways to start this conversation. All of them seemed bad. How would she even ask for such a favor? She grimaced a little as she smoothed out her leather jacket. Probably would help if she knew what she was even asking , first… So how to ask for a favor that’s figuring out how to ask for a bigger favor? There was no graceful way to do it. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and turned. She’d just have to -

“Pick a card, any card?”

Harper bumped directly into Ydris’s outstretched hand. He grinned at her with his usual sly self-importance. Someday that smirk wouldn’t hold so much smug knowing, but today, it certainly did. He casually brandished a fistful of tarot cards at her. “Perhaps the Page of Pentacles to help you ask for guidance into a miracle? The Nine of Wands so you can impress me with steadfast resolve? Or the Seven of Cups to dazzle me into compliance? Or, dear dazzling Deerstar, has the threats of the Queen of Swords always been your style, so you’re here to force me to mentor you instead?” He fanned the cards out, each one of them gleaming.

She was clever enough to know that this was a test. Even as the possibilities to start this little transaction danced in front of her, Harper paused, and let herself be self-important enough to look at the scattered major arcana in the pulled hand. The Magician? An obvious choice. Too obvious. Ydris would take that as a sign she was woefully unimaginative, and not fit to discuss esoteric matters with. The World would certainly be a card for a new beginning after being away on travels. The Hanged Man always seemed ominous at first glance, but was truly a tantalizing goal to work towards - the serenity of surrender. And yet, and yet… There was the card that she knew, immediately, had been put in the hand just for her. What sort of guest would she be if she didn’t pick it?

“Here we go. The Star.” She delicately plucked the card out of his hand, and Ydris’s grin widened, perhaps becoming a little more genuine.

She couldn’t entirely tell if his laugh was, though. “And here I was expecting the girl named Deer star , wearing a little star pendant, to not pick it! A fool am I, for thinking you would give up your nature so easily.” The rest of the cards snapped back into his hand, then disappeared up his sleeve - and with a snap of his gloved fingers, the card Harper was holding dissolved into a puff of lavender-scented smoke. She tried to not flinch and only mostly succeeded.

“Well, uh, thanks for helping me figure out how to start this conversation,” she said before grimacing at the realization she still had to do the hard part: actually asking him for help. “So, um, it’s sort of… well, I mean, the thing is -”

Ydris imperiously waved a hand. “Yes, yes, I already know. There’s no need to be tiresome and actually say it.” A grin tugged at one side of his mouth again. “I’ll always struggle with the human need for repetition in all the wrong places.” Harper opened her mouth to interrupt him, but he beat her to it, putting a finger in her face. “You want my help controlling your newfound magical reserves, yes? Knowing how to use them, specifically, to help others see what you see? Perhaps something more interesting , eventually, but until then, you fear yourself to be dragging down the rest of the Soul Riders, and wish to know what you wrestle with - so you come to me for guidance, as the Druids know Aideen’s Light , but not Aideen’s Dark. Am I correct, Little Dove?”

For a second Harper went cross-eyed, staring at Ydris’s finger in her face, and wore the particular expression of a young woman desperately fighting an intrusive thought.

“If you bite me, the answer’s no,” Ydris said flatly.

“Yeah okay that’s fair,” Harper muttered before shaking her head. “But, uh, yeah. That’s basically it. …There were other things I wanted to ask,” she claimed, though clearly inventing some additional unspecified requests so that she could pretend she still had some upper hand. “But for today , that’s it. I mean…” She blew out a long sigh. Vulnerability was, as always, excruciating. And the only way to get things done. Intentionally letting down those walls set her teeth on edge. Ydris grinning like it was a victory? That only made it worse. “I don’t need to use it as a weapon, or anything. I just… want to share with people. I can’t say it in words,” she pleaded softly. “I keep trying, and it sounds more and more stupid every single time. Maybe all I’ll end up needing is a sort of… push in the right direction, when it comes to verbiage?” She half-winced at how awkwardly she stated it. “Since you’re really good at words, and making dreams into reality, I thought… um, maybe…” She looked at him searchingly, still wearing a grimace as if expecting to be smacked.

For a long moment, Ydris looked at her critically, stroking his chin. His expression retreated into something more placid and cold - before then breaking into a smile that shone through with a little more genuine feeling than Harper had ever seen before. “That is the best compliment you have ever paid me, Little Dove.” He gave a dramatic motion towards his tent. “And more than enough to pay for a fortune! Now, come along, and we’ll see what this overwhelming magic you supposedly are in possession of happens to be…” The sly smirk entered his voice again as he swept ahead of her, always seeming to be two steps ahead. Even the bow he gave as he held the flap of the tent open for her was accompanied by a wink. A ringmaster, of course, always was in control. Who better than the master of ceremonies to know what was coming up next?

The tent itself was plush and heavily-ornamented. Harper felt it and smelled it before she saw it - sandalwood incense floated in the air, a hint of myrrh to reinforce the mysticality. The cushion she was guided to sit at was plush velvet. As her eyes adjusted to the dim candlelight, she could finally appreciate how the embroidery on the inside of the tent marched in silken gold down each jewel-toned cloth. “Now.” Ydris settled into the seat across from her before whipping off the cover from his crystal ball. “Let us see what we can see.”

Harper took a deep breath, looking into the crystal ball a moment, then up to Ydris again. His gaze was unnerving as ever, but she didn’t flinch from it. “This, um… it works better if I touch somebody,” she blurted. “I mean, like, hold on to them. I don’t know if the crystal ball will do much. Not yet. Since it’s your magic and not mine, you know?” Her voice squeaked out in a question as she held a hand out towards him nervously.

Ydris rolled his eyes at this, glancing off to the side - through the opaque tent, it seemed. Surely Xin and Zee were on the receiving end. That knowing look surely meant that she was being made fun of - a private joke shared among three natives of Pandoria. What sort of magic could a little human ever have? But, with a flourish, Ydris extended his hand. “Go on, then.” He smirked as if this was a game he had already won.

For a moment, Harper felt her ears burn. Anger itched underneath her skin, ready to burst out. But instead she focused. That, after all, wasn’t what she was coming to see about. That was yesterday. This was today, with all the new things in it.

The welcoming Dark glittered within her, beautiful and impossibly loving. And so she grabbed onto Ydris’s hand, so it could gleam around him, too.

It took effort. Like focusing while wearing someone else’s glasses. Like keeping balance on top of a surfboard. (There it was. Found it.) Like rising up in the saddle just in time at a full gallop. (Spool out the darkness. Let it catch in the air.) Like examining a negative thought with no spiral into shame but letting it pass. (Swirling like silk. Black as pitch. Cocooning ever-closer.) Like looking at the sheet music for how long to hold a note and preparing for the next chorus. (Coming home. Stepping into midnight. Finally, home .) Like -

Ydris’s hand snapped back from her with such force that he knocked the crystal ball from its pedestal.

Harper reeled at snapping back to reality, especially so violently. For a moment her head thudded as she wondered if Ydris had actually - but yes, now she dizzily found herself more on the floor than her cushion, he had shoved her back with such force that he may as well have struck her. “What -” The dim light was hard to adjust to, and the sudden brightness even worse. “Wait -” 

Ydris didn’t reply. He was too busy clawing his way out of the tent, not even bothering to use the proper entrance flap, half-tearing his way out. The crystal ball wheeled out slowly onto the grass, propelled by the force of the blow; the incense burner was similarly upset, candles knocked over to drown in their pooled wax. An entire immaculate world, all suddenly upended. And Ydris himself?

He stumbled into the daylight, one hand over his face as if about to throw up. And then the first sob ripped through him with all the elegance and kindness of a fisherman’s knife gutting its quarry.

Harper had never heard him make such a noise. Harper had barely ever heard anyone make such a noise. Each sob was so violent it came out as nearly a retch; the force of each was enough to make him drop to his knees and clutch the grass as if desperately trying to keep himself from being fully subsumed by the grief. It was the sort of sound that hurt to hear - even if she didn’t know the cause, it was enough to wrench her heart into sympathetic knots.

“What did you do!?” The Jester’s voice went shrill in a way she had never heard before, either - she had never known him to be this serious. But now his voice held a distinct edge of seriousness. “ What did you do!? ” He wasn’t scolding as much as he was damning, furious instead of the tranquil silliness that Harper was used to hearing.

“I -” She stuttered a moment, tongue-tied. “I didn’t - I mean -” Nervousness rose tight in her throat. “I didn’t mean to - I didn’t do anything!” She stumbled up awkwardly. “I was just trying to show him -”

Xin squared his shoulders and marched closer to her, squarely putting himself between her and Ydris. Zee did the same, the horse’s ears going back immediately, ready to fight. “Get out!” Xin was half-bawling - worry having flooded his voice. “Get out! Nobody wants you here! ” 

The shove was enough to snap her out of trying to stand there apologizing. Another time and place and she would have answered with a punch. But now it seemed the tears were catching, even as she stumbled back hard. “I’m sorry, I didn’t - I’m sorry!” 

Hoofbeats near her ear - then past her. Darkwalker mirrored Zee’s pose, a far more intimidating equine wall of protection. Harper grabbed on to her horse’s mane almost instinctively. “We’re going ,” the Starbreed snapped. It was definite enough for Xin and Zee to retreat, especially as the horse led her rider away.

Out into the wilderness around the clearing in Nilmer’s Highland, and Harper could still hear another wretched sob tearing Ydris apart.

“Fuck,” she warbled softly after they came to a stop, the Friesian allowing her to bury her face in the horse’s mane. “ Fuck . I just - fuck, Walker, what did I just -”

“Hey. It’s all right.” The horse interrupted her - harsh but somehow still caring. Darkwalker may have been wearing the reigns, but she knew how to verbally hold them tight right back.

“No it’s not, no it’s not -” Harper shook her head as her hands clutched painfully tight at Darkwalker’s mane. “You didn’t hear - the last time - the last time I heard someone cry like that , it was ‘Tabbi’s not going to make the next group session’ then ‘Tabbi’s away in the ICU’ and then ‘Tabbi’s funeral will be next week’ and -” 

The horse turned her head to nuzzle at Harper more pointedly. “Hey. Hey. ” An insistent sort of move that was enough to momentarily break the panic spiral. “That was then, and this is now. It’s different. …For one thing, I’m here with you.” Harper said nothing for a long moment, just clutching to hug her horse’s head, cheek to cheek. Her hands wandered up to clutch at Darkwalker’s bridle - an ornate, medieval-style affair with a silver medallion she now clutched at hard. “I’m here.”

A long, half-smothered sob. She ran her thumb over the medallion and its engraving. A practiced move. One she’d done hundreds of times before, even if the medallion hadn’t been set in the bridle yet. It was a quiet moment enough to give her some peace, centering once more.

“I wore it every day,” Harper whispered, clutching the medallion still. “Every single day. So that even if you couldn’t be with me, you were.” And it was true. It had been part of her uniform when away in Jorvik City. Tucked underneath her shirt, close to her heart; it had even started to slightly tarnish before finally being woven into the bridle Darkwalker now wore.

It was a strange thing, being a soul rider. Every single quippy quote from horse riders about their horses being their heart suddenly came true. It was a companionship uniquely deep. Something that the world usually only dreamed of in romance, but instead in a sister’s hoofbeats. Two beating hearts with one soul split between them, ebbing and flowing.

And in that long moment of comfort, it became obvious that Harper Deerstar and Darkwalker truly were suited to each other.

She gave another long sniff before wiping at her eyes, shoving up her glasses. A long breath as if to say something - but it came in too shaky to do so, and she settled for an exhausted huff of a sigh.

“Could ask the other Soul Riders what they think?” Darkwalker prompted gently. “Also, you’re better at doing that than me. ‘Cause I don’t have opposable thumbs.” The joke was enough to get Harper to crack a smile, almost despite herself. And dutifully reached for her phone.

Where else could a modern woman find answers, if not the wisdom of the group chat?

👹HARPER: HELP

👹HARPER : I BROKE YDRIS

⚡alexxxxx n 🥫⚡: lol congrats

⚡alexxxxx n 🥫⚡: use more lube next time tho

👹HARPER: NO

👹HARPER: NOT LIKE THAT

👹HARPER: BAD BAD BAD VERY BAD HE IS CRYING HELP

⚡alexxxxx n 🥫⚡: oh shit

Linda👩🏽Chanda: Ydris does something other than smirk?? Sounds like fake news

👹HARPER: I TOLD YOU!!! ITS BAD

Anne von ✨BUSSIN’✨: Woah. What’d you do lol

👹HARPER: NOTHING???

🌟🎸Lisa 🎸🌟: omg is he ok??? i can be over asap

👹HARPER: ok nothing ON PURPOSE

Anne von ✨BUSSIN’✨: oh boy

🌟🎸Lisa 🎸🌟: oh jeez

Linda👩🏽Chanda: oh dear

⚡alexxxxx n 🥫⚡: lol get his ass harper

⚡alexxxxx n 🥫⚡: C-C-C-COMBO BREAKERRRR

👹HARPER: IF I HAD GOT HIS ASS IT WOULD BE DESERVED AND ALSO FINE

⚡alexxxxx n 🥫⚡: ok thats fair

Linda👩🏽Chanda: So what happened? Or is it going to be too complicated to explain

Anne von ✨BUSSIN’✨: Yeah did you dropkick the jester or what

Linda👩🏽Chanda: I say like we do things that aren’t too complicated to explain lol

👹HARPER: OK ONE DROP KICK THE JESTER, KICKASS NEW SONG NAME

👹HARPER: TWO

🌟🎸Lisa 🎸🌟: i’m writing that one down lol

👹HARPER: LISA CAN I BORROW YOUR OVEN I THINK I KNOW HOW TO FIX THIS

🌟🎸Lisa 🎸🌟: uhh sure! i’ll text my dad to let him know but it should be fine

Anne von ✨BUSSIN’✨: Wait

Anne von ✨BUSSIN’✨: Do I want to know what the oven is for……

Nearly four hours later, Nimer’s Highland played host to an awkward piece of diplomacy. The weregild demanded by Zee and Xin was steep - a bouquet of apologies, followed by intense questioning of motives, and then finally an entire bag of apple-flavored caramel candies. (For the horse Zee, of course. Not the jester.) But the blood-price was accepted. They let her through to the clearing at Nilmer’s Highland - they even did her the great politeness of stepping away somewhat. She could be trusted to approach Ydris’s varda wagon with a degree of privacy. For now, anyway.

Harper steeled herself somewhat before knocking. There was, of course, no answer. But it was a politeness she felt beholden to do anyway. Same with her calling out before she opened the door - “hey, Ydris? …I’m coming in,” she said, turning the caravan’s door handle, both glad and a little worried that it was unlocked.

Another few seconds to let her eyes adjust as she stepped up and in - she knew that Ydris would be stretching the boundaries of space like taffy, so it was no surprise that the caravan was larger on the inside than outside. After all, he had created enough space for entire racecourses within just a circus tent. If anything, she was surprised about how small it still was - surely he could have made himself a sprawling palace, or at least a luxurious penthouse. Instead the space was only stretched out a little bit. It would have been even a somewhat truncated subway car, really. The place being so thick with ornamentation didn’t help. Shelves were crowded with books and all manner of gewgaws and knickknacks; to either side, charms and ornaments hung from the ceiling, crystal prisms next to astrolabe-esque mobiles and dreamcatchers. Strings of fairylights - powered by some unseen force - draped themselves to-and-fro across the ceiling, punctuated by the occasional decorative lamp. And at the very end, opposite the entrance, was an alcove with a recessed daybed - and Ydris.

The closest source of light to him was a Moroccan-style lamp, glittering in copper and throwing a glimmering mandala across his face. Despite the entire wagon being pleasingly shadowy, it was enough to see clearly that this was not a Ydris that Harper had ever seen before.

He didn’t look at her. Not exactly. Instead his eyes were unfocused, staring into the middle distance, odd-colored green-and-blue rimmed with red from crying. His usual suit had been abandoned for a (charmingly old-fashioned) nightshirt and, more importantly, a cocoon of colorful blankets and quilts. His hat was haphazardly tossed into a corner - not on the hook where clearly it was supposed to have taken pride-of-place - and even his hair was mussed. And as she looked a little more closely, not only was it no longer slicked back, but some forelock was almost bleeding into the shadows - broad sumi-e strokes - a tug-of-war between one world and the next. The only movement he made when she entered was to tuck a hand beneath the blankets once more. It wasn’t fast enough for her to not see the same inkblot blur, coming from fingers that were too long, too clawed, too strange to be human.

And so Ydris lay there, a magician so unable to hold himself together that he was letting his corporeal form slip away.

“...Hey,” Harper said, keeping her voice low and soft as if approaching a scared animal. “I, um, I’m here to say sorry, because I didn’t mean to do that, but also I’m saying sorry with cookies,” she blurted out as she held up her bag. “And hot cocoa. Or chamomile tea. I didn’t know which one you liked better, so…” Carefully, she wound her way through the clutter, stepping as gingerly as a goat finding a route up a mountainside. “I brought both. And the cookies are peanut butter and chocolate. Except I tried to do the thing where you put a hershey’s kiss in the peanut butter cookie but I didn’t have any hershey’s kisses, so -” A pause as she ran into a windchime and winced at the clatter it produced before ducking her head to the side and resuming her walk. “I used those lindor truffles instead because I had those so it’s better chocolate actually? But it does kinda ruin the effect. Visually, I mean. Not taste-wise.” Slowly, she shuffled closer, finally sitting down on an embroidered ottoman by the bed. “It helps. Not, like, fixes it,” she admitted. “But some emergency cookies and something hot to drink help. It’s still hard. Just helps it be a little easier.”

She offered out a cookie, and although it was in front of his face, he didn’t flinch - or even focus his eyes. Instead he gave a few long breaths, half-sighs, as the start of more tears gleamed in the low light. When he finally spoke his voice was thick with sorrow and wavering exhaustion. “I don’t think you understand how… monstrous… what you did to me is.” There was a snappishness that made its way into his tone at the end, but even then it seemed to mainly be bluffing. An empty space where anger should have been, and sadness echoed there instead.

“Yeah?” It was a softer tone than usually fit in Harper’s mouth, borrowed from the lips of therapists. But it offered a gentle safety net of sympathy. The one word was a prompt to keep going, and a promise both - keep going, and if you fall, I will catch you.

Ydris gulped down the start of weeping. “Hope. You gave it to me, and you don’t understand how cruel it is to hope. To feel like maybe this - this place - could be home. The hope of having that again.” He took another shuddering breath and then lifted his head from his pillow, finally looking to her, mouth open as if trying to find the right words to yell at her, and -

She stuck a cookie straight in his mouth.

“I mean, I might not know all of what you’re going through, but there’s always my twelfth birthday, right? Did I ever tell you that?” (Ydris gave a grumbling gnnmph but didn’t interrupt her, instead retreating back into the blankets to eat the cookie.) Harper smiled at him encouragingly, though her easygoing tone was one that obviously had taken a lot of work to achieve. “So my parents - split when my dad knocked up his secretary after they adopted me ‘cause my mom was infertile, right? Then she goes and marries my stepdad, pours all her energy into her stepkids, you get the picture. Anyway. Twelfth birthday. My dad had missed visitation with me over, and over, and over. Like, eight solid months. He only had every other weekend, too. But I was still a Daddy’s girl at heart.” Her lopsided grin became apologetic as she shrugged. The follies of youth included having trust in parents, after all. “So I begged him that all I wanted for my birthday was for him to take me out to dinner. Not even the full weekend. Just a few hours. And he’d agreed and had been talking it up to me the whole time. Picking me up from school in his fancy company car, reservations at a cool new restaurant, he even let me pick out a fancy dress from a catalog. So there I am after school, with this dress in my bookbag - two thousand dollars worth of dress, by the way, because my dad insisted that it had to be designer - waiting for my dad. And waiting, and waiting, and… yeah, about 5pm, when the last teacher was only sticking around to watch me, he called my cell phone and said something came up. Like it always did. Except this time it wasn’t really an emergency, he didn’t even really pretend.” This detail was enough to make Ydris peek his head out from the covers a little more, and then, after a moment, a few fingers - human but with tendrils of inky magic shadow blotted around them. She handed him another cookie. “My half-brother had a piano recital. It’d been scheduled for weeks. He said that he would make it up to me, but, well, you can guess how that turned out. …Anyway, I set out walking back home, cried my eyes out the entire way. When I got there, my mom would barely even look at me. Because I’d asked for my dad for my birthday. Which really pissed her off. So there was a party, yeah, but it was for my two stepbrothers, cake and a bouncy castle and everything, and she’d let them open all my presents because they ‘got jealous’ and I wasn’t there so I didn’t really care about them, clearly. I got a slice of cake and then my mom said I should go to my room because I was spoiling the mood of the party and making my stepbrothers and all of their friends upset, right when they were over to have a fun sleepover. And it was my own stupid fault for getting my hopes up. So it was better for me to be sent to my room until I learned my lesson about hoping for things.”

Ydris chewed on his cookie meditatively while peering over at her to give her a distinct look.

“So yeah,” Harper said with the sort of very practiced cheer that meant a significant amount of therapy had been invested into the situation. “My thirteenth birthday was way better. That year my gift was boarding school! And now you know why in the mornings, if you ask me to jump, I’ll sound like a maraca. On account of all the psychiatric medications. Anyway, tea or cocoa?” She held up the two thermoses.

After a moment of weary, cookie-filled thought, Ydris pointed listlessly to one and then flopped back down on the pillow.

“Cool cool, chamomile tea’s a good choice,” Harper nodded while unscrewing the thermos and filling its matching cup. “It already has some honey in there, though. Not too much, but just enough to kinda make you forget you’re drinking hot leaf juice.” Ydris accepted it anyway, even as he remained nestled in a miserable cocoon of blankets. It was an awkward angle to sip tea, but he somehow managed.

Harper leaned back for a second, watching him closely. (The tea, Ydris had to admit with great regret, actually did help. Quite a lot.) Though her gaze remained kind, there was something critical that glinted there, and she ran her tongue along her teeth as she thought. 

“But that’s not all of what this is about, is it?”

She looked almost surprised to have said it, coming to the realization as she uttered it. Ydris momentarily bristled and gave her a cutting glare… but it melted away into exhausted despondency almost immediately. “I don’t think I’m particularly fond of your new powers.”

“Oh. The, uh, the magic thing, or -” Her voice grew tight with nervousness.

“No. Knowing how to ask damnably good questions,” he sulked.

“So I’m right?” She grinned, but tried to not appear as if she was gloating too much. “I mean - it’s not a talent I really want to have, but you go through enough therapy, you kinda pick it up. Shitty consolation prize. Slightly more useful than the grippy socks, but pretty shitty anyway.” She rolled her shoulders in a shrug.

Ydris tried to stare resolutely into the distance again, but she peered at him closely, examining. “That’s why the hope hurts so much,” she said softly, almost to herself, though her tone was thankfully still suffused with sympathy. “You didn’t know Earth could be home like that, too, and you’ve been carrying on so long by treating this all as expendable so you can get back what you lost somehow. …Am I right?”

He said nothing, breaths growing quick and tight. Tears that couldn’t be denied forever gleamed in his eyes.

"...Ydris?"

“Please don’t make me answer that,” Ydris pleaded softly, tone startlingly heartfelt - wretched, defeated, and broken under the yoke of grief.

She reached out to smooth one of his blankets better around his shoulders. “I won’t.” Her tone was as soft as her touch. “Every circus needs a strongman, but you don’t need to shoulder this burden alone, Atlas. You’ve got Zee and Xin outside. You’re… you’re used to trying to do all of that worrying for them, right?” He didn’t answer, but the way he drew in a sharp breath let her know she was correct. “Share some of the weight. I promise, they won’t break under it. They both care for you - really, they do. You don’t have to go it alone.”

This, more than anything else, seemed to make him gulp desperately on the verge of sobbing once more.

Harper let her hand rest on his shoulder, atop the pile of blankets, before reaching out to gently comb her fingers through his hair. The one forelock bleeding into inky shadows of magic even obeyed as she tried to set it right, helping him slick it back somewhat into his usual style. Helping him remember what the shape of himself was again. “And if it’s too much for them, then I’ll come help bear it, too. I don’t know everything about what you’re carrying - but I know enough to help. I promise. …And I’ll leave you some reading, too.” 

She drew her hand away to reach in her bag, pulling out a small, well-loved tome. The title illustration on the front was simple but impactful, in the author’s usual style, showing a small blonde boy standing upon an asteroid gazing out at the glittering cosmos around him. The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. “It helps. It hurts to read, some of it - like the fox explaining that when you tame someone, you’re responsible for them, forever - but it helps. It really does.” She tucked it by his bed, and he made no objections, even as his shoulders shook under the blankets to keep back sobs.

“Bad news though,” Harper said sheepishly as she moved to stand, leaving the cookies and thermos of tea behind. Ydris tensed. “I’m a metal fan, and so that means, uh, my lullabies aren’t that great? Not a great selection. Like, great stuff, but it’s hard to headbang your way to sleep. But there’s some Babymetal that’ll do, honestly. Second part of that bad news is that I can’t sing for shit compared to Lisa or especially Su-Metal, but whatever, I’ll make sure you get a lullabye anyway.” She smiled cheerfully at this as he relaxed slowly, by inches. “Just… take some time. Rest. Close your eyes and rest in that darkness, and I’ll show up to sing it. …whether or not you like it,” she teased gently at the end. “But until then, there’s cookies, there’s tea. And I’ll come check on you tomorrow.”

He didn’t formulate a proper answer, but a vague mutter around a sip of tea showed he was agreeable. Or at least didn’t totally hate the idea.

Harper breathed a sigh of relief, content to see that some change had taken place. And it was true - Ydris still looked miserable. But it was a misery that was less fragile, now, and not about to collapse disastrously in on itself. The overwhelming and lashing waves of sadness could be endured.

Carefully, she picked her way back through the caravan. As she did, she hummed a little underneath her breath. The notes seemed to become entangled in all of the hanging prisms, mobiles, and dreamcatchers; they gleamed in tune, the notes unheard but magically seen. She was at the door before she turned and spoke again.

“Just - one thing - you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. But…” She ran her tongue along her teeth, reassuring herself that she really had seen it - the exhaustion of a ringmaster who could endure the road as long as he knew there was a town full of old carnies where he could retire, but had been robbed of that comfort thanks to Garnok’s destruction.

“Your town - home, I mean - what’s it called?”

Ydris’s lips trembled for a moment as he cleared his throat enough to speak. Even then, his voice shook, wavering at a breaking point, barely more than a whisper yet clear enough to be heard.

“Hiraeth,” he said. “It was called Hiraeth.”

Harper thought about this for a moment before nodding, as if it made sense, as if she had figured it out and was looking for confirmation. “Okay. Thank you. …Hope you feel better soon, and see you in the morning, okay?” And with that, she ducked through the door, closing it gently behind her.

There was a desperately-needed honesty in the sobbing that started soon after she left.

As the sun dipped low, the caravan quietly grew crowded. Even the Pandoria-born horse stuck its nose in through a window recently-invented in the wagon. It was not a sort of mourning that should be done alone, and they would not let their ringmaster do so. The tea and sorrow eventually combined into something to draw over him like a blanket. The darkness outside mirrored the darkness of his eyelids.

And then faded into a nightmare.

Garnok’s destruction was a technicolor terror, twisting and corrupting Pandoria’s natural hues. Bricks of cities and buildings crumbled and floated as the natural laws holding the land together unraveled. Somewhere in the maelstrom, something trembled, small and shivering, finally able to admit the hurt of his broken wings. How could one man stand alone against such forces? How could one man bear the pain of resisting anyway, and paying the price?

In the distant dreamscape, hoofbeats - something that wasn’t there, that shouldn’t be, but was there now nonetheless. A ribbon of midnight curled around him. Gentle, comforting, everything that the garish horrors were not. It hummed quietly, the notes caught in a shimmering mane, even as the song stumbled out in clumsily paraphrased English instead of its native Japanese. It didn’t belong there, same as the darkness. But it was there in the nightmare anyway.

During the dark of Ragnarok, whatever is left for us to see?  

The midnight flowed out and around, looping into gentle sacred knots. A shimenawa of shadow became a cave, became a haven. It shielded him from the cruelty outside. And it was enough of a home to call others there - two more souls, huddling in close, making sure that he knew they were there. That he was not alone.

No matter how long, how long the night, the morning will arrive.

It helped. More than he wanted to admit, it helped. Knowing he wasn’t alone. Knowing that the Pandoria they loved was still mourned. Knowing that others knew his hurt, and ached similarly, and could offer him the deepest welcome of empathy.

And the song lilted upwards into chorus. With a monochrome firework, we will - The melody soared, and the world around it answered. The darkness stepped in as backup singers where one voice was insufficient. - Illuminate the night sky in rainbows - and the notes swelled gently and beautifully around all of them, raining down like confetti. The last word of the lyrics was simple enough to even fit into an unfamiliar mouth:

Waratte.

Just smile.

The enveloping midnight smiled from her place on the saddle of the Friesian she rode. And Ydris knew the comfort of knowing that despite losing one home, there were still people here to help welcome him to another. It was a sentiment that made his heart hurt, but even more than that, it was the balm to his soul that he didn’t know he needed so very badly.

And the dark ushered him gently into true rest.

Chapter Text

“...Circle left, and circle right! All right now, y’all, half-sashay then rollaway -”

The square dance caller kept up his instruction over the music at the stage at Starshine Ranch. Both the intermediate class and the caller seemed to be thankfully oblivious to how they were being watched - or perhaps, because he was doing it so openly, they simply didn’t care. The caller had certainly given Ydris a bright smile and asked if he wanted to join at first - even made a joke about how it wouldn’t bother him none, as he was paid by flat-fee - but all he got was a shake of the head no and a demure wave. Even as he had changed to a quite frankly eye-catching ensemble of mauve, topped off with a cowboy hat that was far too pristine to mark him as anything other than a city slicker, Ydris wasn’t catching much attention. In fact, the rest of the Ranch seemed to largely continue operating as if he didn’t exist.

Just as he liked it.

Blue-and-brown eyes so busily focused on the dancers made it easy for him to slip into a sort of trance. Not quite of this world, not quite acknowledged as part of it, simply observing. A role that he was comfortable with. Far more comfortable than other roles, at least. That was a ringmaster’s role: all of the eyes on him, and then as the next act took the stage, none of the eyes on him. Better to be a feature of the landscape like a lamppost when he was observing. Better that very few acknowledge he was there at all. Better that he -

Be the perfect target to get snuck up on.

Ydris was not normally the sort to jump. He was the sort to make other people jump. He prided himself on that. And that’s why when he did jump at the nudge to his back, he whirled around with all the grace of a cat that just fell into a swimming pool - and then smoothed his cravat, like a cat who had just gotten out of the swimming pool and was trying desperately to act like it meant to do that the entire time.

“Ah. Harper. ”

“Hey, ‘sup.” She grinned up at him with a cheerfully placid air that can only come from knowing she was home, or at least at the address her mail went to. After all, it had been easy enough to turn the barn’s hay loft into a bit more of a proper loft. “Brought you lunch!” She offered up a plate, shoving it up under his nose.

He leaned back from it, rather comically so as he didn’t actually move his feet. “What…” Ydris squinted. “Sort of… food? Is… that . Some sort of…” A polite sneer crossed his face. “Cake of rice and horrid excuse for meat that has been wrapped with the cursèd mark of inky blankness -”

“It’s nori. …y’know, seaweed?”

Ydris looked quickly back and forth between her and the plate. “...I am not some sort of shrimp or perhaps sea otter -”

“It’s either otter or twink, dude -”

“And I do not eat seaweeeeeewwwwhat do you mean by that, what is a twink. ”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” Harper said happily while wearing a smile that indicated Ydris should, in fact, worry about it very much. “Anyway, it’s musubi! Spam musubi. It’s from Japan. Well, okay,” she rolled her shoulders in a shrug, “it’s more like Hawaiian, I think? Anyway, it’s good. It’s pretty simple to make. You get the can of spam -”

“The spam is the meat?” Ydris grimaced as if this made the foodstuff more dubious, not less. “Meat that occurs in canned form? ”

“Oh my God stop making this difficult, you’re hangry ,” Harper declared, hopping up to stand on the bottom rung of the nearby fence and more properly look him in the eye. “C’mon. Look. I made three types. One’s just kinda normal, you got your spam and rice and a little bit of furikake in the middle ‘cos I wanted it to be fancy. One’s, like, Hawaiian but more so, that’s why it’s got the spam that’s been basted a little bit with some teriyaki sauce and the grilled pineapple, okay, not like a proper grill but like, in the pan, and -” She shook her head. “Anyway not important! The third is just like a breakfast one. So it’s got the omelet egg in there and instead of spam it’s breakfast sausage. Just, like, normal breakfast sausage. …And some cheese. Listen, I ran out of bagels, don’t give me that look, I had to improvise. They’re all cut in half, so you can try a bit of each!” She cheerfully shook the plate in front of his face, rather like she was enticing a cat to notice that its bowl indeed was full of kibble.

Ydris gave a small strangled noise that can only come from a man of the opinion that the food being presented to him is incredibly dubious to possibly poisonous. 

“Listen. Look at me.” She leaned forward to get closer to his face, pausing to push her glasses up her nose, but not to push her hair out of her face. “You’re hangry. Combination hungry and angry. Angry because you’re hungry. You. Are. Hangry. I can tell .”

“I am most certainly not hangry,” he snapped.

“Okay, then, what have you eaten today?”

They stared at each other. And the noises of the rest of the ranch filled in their silence. The calling of the square dance class, the gentle hum of early spring cicadas chirping in the grass, a lowing moo from the longhorns in pasture. Silent as they were, they still managed to have an entire conversation in eyebrows. Hers furrowed and then raised in increasing doubt, then the quiet glare of someone who knows she’s right and knows that the other person also knows she’s right - and him, trying to remain indignant before the slow and steady concession to the fact that he was, indeed, caught out.

Ydris carefully removed one of his gloves with great ceremony before waiting for her to offer him a napkin - well, paper towel - that he then grabbed the breakfast musubi with. And this wasn’t something that let her knowing glare stop. Very delicately, half-wincing, he then took a very small bite, knowing it was apparently his only way out of the situation. And he stared her down as he chewed, though his steely resolve faltered somewhat as he seemed to not entirely hate the taste of it.

“...You forgot to mention the ketchup,” he said after a long moment as she grinned in perfect smugness.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s like an omurice situation.” He tilted his head at this as if trying to be dignified in his questioning but ultimately ending up a bit more like a puzzled puppy. Harper cheerfully waved his confusion away. “Whatever, I’ll explain later. It’s good though, right?”

Ydris did not answer, very pointedly. But - with a look of mild regret as his body very much noticed he hadn’t eaten all day and needed to do something about that - he took a second bite. A much bigger one.

This only made Harper look even more smug. “You’re welcome for lunch, by the way. I figured if I was fixing it for me, you should also get something to eat. And honestly the rice cooker doesn’t really do half-portions.” She picked up half of the grilled pineapple and teriyaki musubi and nibbled on it, at least content for a minute to look away from his face and out into the ranch. It was a surprisingly pleasant moment - two people eating in silence between them that was becoming increasingly comfortable.

After making it, Harper was also excited to break it.

“So how’s the menty b?” she cheerfully addressed Ydris with a smile.

“...My what.”

“You know,” she said with a shrug as if that was supposed to help communicate, “your mental breakdown?”

Ydris intentionally took another bite so he had an excuse to be completely silent while chewing his way through figuring out a reply. “...It was better before you called it that.” He gave an irritated huff, not daring to look at her, and instead settled on stuffing his face. Though by now the bites were big enough to give up the pretense that he didn’t like it.

She gave him a pat on the back. “It’s like that. But hey, this is how it goes. You go through the shit, you fall to pieces, and then you have to just… keep going.” Her hand stayed on his back perhaps a little too long, rubbing her thumb on his shoulder, but he didn’t move to object. “Being on planet Earth is basically like being a complicated houseplant with emotions. It doesn’t stop because you’re in the middle of losing it. Kinda rude of it, honestly. The only thing ruder is the fact that all the bullshit little nagging ‘ooh go take a walk’ stuff actually works and is necessary. ” Though they didn’t meet eyes, there was something underneath her teasing tone; as the jokes faded, it shone through like burnishing through copper patina to see the shining glint of warm metal beneath the green. As weary as it was energetic, as naiive as it was experienced, as experienced with the road as it was ready to realize he was going where no-one else has traveled. The empathetic warmth made it palatable - and it made him actually listen, despite himself. “So you’ve got to just… keep going through it. Get up, drink water, get some food into you, go out in the sunshine. All that fucking nonsense that you hate every minute of. Just to it anyway, and it helps. Like I said. Complicated houseplants.” She paused to look at how he was, by now, casually going to swipe the other half of the breakfast-themed musubi. “...Speaking of which, you’re eating, right?”

Ydris looked to the side and pointedly not towards Harper, even as she leaned in ever-closer to his face.

“...Right? You’re eating? You are putting actual honest-to-fuck food in your mouth and swallowing it and not throwing it up later or shit?” A note of worry born from experience entered her tone.

Ydris attempted to look as dignified as one could while wiping a crumb of ketchupy omelet from his lips before meeting her gaze with what he hoped was a regal bearing. “As a Pandorian , all I truly need to function is a close connection to magic, which proximity to runestones more than provides, and -”

“Oh my fucking God.” Harper threw up a hand as she rolled her eyes. And as he opened his mouth to object, she leaned over to casually grab his wrist and shove the bit of musubi he was holding directly into his mouth. “Do you need me to make you a sandwich every day? Because I’ll do it. I swear to fuck, I will,” she scolded. “I’m riding around doing errands all the time anyway! It’ll be a peanut butter and jelly, or something along those lines, because listen, let’s be honest, I don’t have time to go full, like, turbo-wifey with themed bento boxes -” (Ydris gave an indignant yet puzzled “mmf?” around his food.) “But I’ll do it! So help me, I’ll do it. I will even sit down and make sure you eat it. Do not test me, ‘cos I will. ” She waved his finger in her face.

And even in her scolding, there was the worry, sliding just in the back of her tone. A tightness in the chest of genuine care made things shrill - not disgust and condemnation. The anxiety was clearly born from experience. In an instant, without being told, Ydris knew that she was offering exactly what someone had done for her because it was sorely needed. Including sitting down to make sure every single bite was actually eaten.

He gulped. There was a suave answer to this, something slick and sly, but in that moment he utterly failed to find it. Instead there was just something that made the start of a blush try to itch its way onto his nose.

“...You would?”

“ Yes, dumbass!” She reached out to harmlessly, yet pointedly, smack his hat so that it was crooked on his head to emphasize her point before backing down from the anger. “Just hope you like peanut butter and jelly, though. Maybe peanut butter and honey sometimes. Or musubi, I guess. If you’re expecting filet mignon and gourmet shit, I’ll go get you some brochures from meal kit services or whatever, but I’m not made of money.” She leaned back with a crooked grin as she gestured to her leather jacket. “I know it looks like my battle jacket is full of cool patches because I’m metal as fuck, but actually about three-quarters of these? Load-bearing. I’ve ship-of-Theseus’d this shit. I can’t take off the patches. That’s just the jacket now. That’s all the mending I do, all of it, is put more patches on. It’s patches all the way down.” She paused only a moment to look at him. “I’m just gonna keep going if you don’t laugh or smile or give me something , goddamn,” she admitted while also losing the battle to keep herself from laughing at her own weak jokes.

Ydris thankfully gave her a smile before giving an agreeable shrug. “I suppose it would be a nice change from the usual. I’ve certainly grown tired of leftover popcorn from the concessions stand. …Not the cotton candy, mind you, as that is the perfect food,” he declared airily. “But if it’s so important to you, I can try to eat something other than cotton candy. Simply to broaden my horizons. Slightly. ”

“Are you shitting me? Have you seriously been just eating cotton candy? Oh my God no wonder you’re so fuckin’ hangry,” Harper teased egregiously, fussing even as she laughed… and leaned over to pull Ydris’s cowboy hat down over his eyes. He made a small noise of disgruntlement around his bite of food. “Right, I’m leaving the rest of the musubi here, eat it! And I’ll see you tomorrow when I stop by the circus with lunch, yeah?” She jumped down off the railing of the fence to grin at the squaredance instructor, shouting out to him even as she headed back to the barn. “Heyyyy, Jonesey, you make sure he actually eats his food! And you think about that New Vegas night I mentioned!” The instructor just laughed around another call to the square dancers, shaking his head, even as Harper wandered off while singing intentionally with more gusto than skill. “ Ooooh, Iiiii gooot heartaches by the number, troubles by the scooore… ”

There wasn’t much time to deliver his own dramatic goodbye by the time Ydris managed to get his hat back on his head properly, and especially not as he took a moment to smooth his cravat and adjust his sleeves. Not much left that he could do, he thought. Not much other than finishing the plate of musubi.

Well, he told himself, it would be churlish to refuse such a challenge, wouldn’t it? Strange how suddenly it did seem like a challenge - how suddenly he was keenly aware of being more than just a detached observer, but part of life in the ranch. Strange how it seemed like abruptly he belonged there just as much as the square dancers, just as much as the cows in the pasture, just as much as the plate of musubi perched on the top of the fencepost. 

A riddle indeed. And for some reason, Ydris didn’t feel the need to solve it.

-

The midday matinee had been pleasingly well attended - even though, if you asked him, Ydris would always say it was just as thrilling to perform for one as it was for a crowd. Still nice to see the tickets spool out and the crowds accumulate. He busied himself by waving the gaggle off as they went down the road. After all, he wasn’t truly off the stage until the gaggle of elementary-schoolers gathered for a day out in honor of the birthday boy had gotten out of sight; until then, he knew that eager eyes waited for one last trick from the greatest magician Jorvik had ever seen. Even if it was his reflection in the rear-view mirror of the rented van. Who would he be if he disappointed them? Not the sort of man who made his exit in a puff of candy-scented colored smoke, certainly.

Good thing that it was easy as breathing to simply pop behind his wagon, out of their line of sight, grinning as he knew that one touch was going to be all the birthday party talked about.

What he didn’t expect was to nearly smack his head on a bag, tied to the very top crossbrace of the wagon above its door. At such a height, most normal people would need a pole to put something up there without climbing the stairs up… Or if not a pole, then certainly to ride atop a quite tall horse. Like, say, a Friesian.

The old shopping bag was clearly a deflection, and the marker crossing out the store’s logo made that clear - and if any ambiguity was left, it was certainly quickly defeated by the scrawled block letters of FOR YDRIS (OPEN ASAP) (ALSO ACTUALLY EAT THIS) (YOU DORK). And for reasons that were not entirely clear to him, the extended label just made him smile.

Inside was a plastic box. A nicely-made thing, though opaque. Certainly it was far more weighty than Ydris had been expecting. Surely, as he tested it in his hands, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich couldn’t be this hefty? (Or maybe he had severely misunderstood the Earth foodstuff, having only considered it in theory instead of practice - an alarming thought.) Delicately, he opened the clasp on the box, leaning away from it suspiciously as if expecting a possibility of snakes (plastic or otherwise) or, worse, glitter shooting out of him, and instead…

Hunger punched him in the gut as soon as the smell was released. His eyes caught up after it. At the top of the box was a polite little set of reusable silverware, primarily a spoon and a set of chopsticks that looked of pleasingly good quality. And in the hefty bottom of the box? Three sections, two small off to the side and one large expanse, full of food. Some rather cheerful-looking sausages, delicately cut and fried so that each one looked like a tiny octopus. Below it, what was likely meant to be dessert - a pinwheel of jam swirling in a rolled-up piece of soft white sweetened bread, cut into slices, each one drizzled with a bit of chocolate, downright hypnotic-looking in simple sweetness. But the real feast for both eyes and stomach was in the largest section. A plain canvas of white rice was layered with a pillowy omelet, and then accented with cut-out shapes from slices of cheese that clearly took plenty of time. Each one was cut out in the shape of a carousel horse, not as neatly as perhaps had been hoped while following a template, but certainly well enough for him to get the idea. And finally, triangles of nori over the top of it all danced in soft arcs like flags of bunting put up to make things more festive. The triangles over it all had the occasional decoration carefully cut out in the middle - not so fussy as to be more than punch-out shapes, but legible as letters nonetheless. And so the decorated bento box spelled out its message clearly -

J U S T   T H I S

 O N C E 

As he took out the pair of chopsticks and admired for a moment how the bento box’s color matched the purple accents of his suit, and then sat down on the steps of his wagon to eat, Ydris told himself firmly that he was most certainly not doing exactly as instructed. He was just appreciating the effort, as it would be churlish not to. And he certainly only was feeling better despite such efforts, not because of them. He was just playing along for his own amusement, he was sure.

Just this once, anyway.