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There were very few times where Mordred Manor was quiet.
As it happened, very few of the Bad Kids actually had an inside voice– it was a big place, too, so it only made sense to shout out someone’s name instead of wandering the meandering hallways to actually find them.
There was almost never a moment of silence, or anything close to it. If the band wasn’t practicing, Jawbone was blasting his music while he cooked. If the kitchen was quiet, Sandralynn was calling for one of the teenagers who’d managed to somehow become her kids over the past year. There was always something.
That is, of course, until about 3AM, when a hush would seem to fall over the manor– the only sounds would be soft snoring and the occasional mumble or growl from Jawbone as he and the rest of the house slept.
It also happened to be approximately when Adaine and Aelwyn would wake up. (And Sandralynn, too, but her room was on the other side of the house. Much like her daughter, she was often grumpy early in the morning.)
Things were better now. Adaine might’ve even gone so far to say that, for the first time in a long time, or maybe even for the first time ever , things were good.
She awoke to the rare quietness of the manor— all she could hear were the crickets outside and soft croaking from Boggy’s enclosure. Adaine was almost certain he was sleeping, though she wasn’t entirely sure if familiars really needed to sleep— or eat, for that matter, but that’d never stopped him from snapping up any flies that dared enter the house.
Adaine peeked out over the side of her bed, expecting to see her sister still asleep. She usually went to bed a bit later than her, after all, and was usually keen on hiding under her blankets for a while longer after she’d awoken.
To her surprise, Aelwyn was very much awake. A few dancing lights softly illuminated the lower bunk, where the girl was sitting, painting her nails a dusty shade of green. Her spellbook and a pen lay across from her on the mattress, though it seemed like those had long since been abandoned in favor of easier things.
“Good morning.” Aelwyn spoke quietly, not looking up from the task at hand. She blew lightly over her nails in some effort to get them to dry faster.
Adaine yawned, climbing down from the ladder that led up to her bed. “You’re up early.”
That was met with a shrug. “Suppose I wasn’t all that tired.” She was lying, and they both knew it, but neither of them said anything. The only reason Aelwyn was ever up early was because she’d had a nightmare and hadn’t been able to fall back into a trance.
Adaine let out another yawn as she made her way over to the bedside table that held Boggy’s enclosure. The very round frog opened his large eyes slowly as she approached, letting out a warm ribbit in greeting. She only planned to refill his dish of water, but one look at him and she couldn’t help but lift him up to plant a quick kiss on his (admittedly slimy) head and to admire him for a moment. Magic was certainly real, and so was her frog.
“God damnit.” Her sister’s hissed curses pulled her attention away from him. Frustratedly, she was casting prestidigitation to clear the polish off her finger where she’d missed the nail.
Adaine walked back over to the bunk bed, opting not to put the familiar away. “Don’t you have a cantrip to paint them for you?” She asked, looking at her with a half smile.
The other girl sighed. “If I do that, I won’t have anything else to do. To be honest, I’m getting a bit jealous of how much your friends need to sleep. There’s hardly anything to be done this early.” She shook her head, nodding to the opposite end of the twin-sized bed. “Here, if you do my left hand, I’ll do both of yours.”
Adaine cared much less about the state of what her hands looked like than her sister did, but she sat down anyways, letting Boggy hop out of her hands to curl up beside a pillow. Aelwyn used to protest— he’d get her sheets dirty, she’d claim— oh, why couldn’t her familiar be a cat, or a bird, or something other than a damn frog. It seemed like she’d made her peace with him now, if the brief smile on her face was any indication.
The rest of Adaine’s friends always seemed to think she was upset about something, or that she just didn’t like them very much.
Of course, there wasn’t as much to be upset about now. And Aelwyn did like— tolerate— her friends. She just didn’t smile terribly often. A grin from her was more likely to be associated with a mean jab or a scheme, if family history was any indication. In that way, it was probably a good thing she didn’t look like the cat who’d caught the canary.
Adaine took Aelwyn’s hand in hers, adjusting her glasses before she started. Far easier than painting her own, she thought. She paused a moment as she looked back up at her sister, who was quietly giving Boggy a gentle pet with her thumb, careful not to smudge the still-wet paint. She’d pretend not to like him, sure, but there were few who could resist his amphibian charms.
“… who’s shirt is that?” Adaine asked, eyeing her sister’s pajamas. A pair of shorts and an Owlbears shirt that looked many, many sizes too big for her.
Aelwyn glanced down at it, seeming unsure of the answer herself. With so many teenagers living under the same roof, it was a losing battle keeping track of laundry. For as many t-shirts that would go missing from their laundry basket, just as many “new” ones would take their place.
“Ragh’s, maybe? Or Fabian’s” She shrugged, raising a brow at what Adaine wore. “What, does the Elven Oracle follow Helio now?” She teased, referring to the tie-dye shirt her sister used as pajamas.
She let out a soft laugh. “Look, the Harvestmen sucked, but Kristen’s right, her old church had pretty good merch. It is very soft. Besides, she didn’t want them anymore, so she let me and Fig take them.”
“And Fig actually took her up on that?”
Adaine paused to blow softly over her sister’s hand. “I don’t think anyone ever really knows what her motive is, least of all her— but yes.”
“Suppose that’s fair.”
A comfortable silence fell over the room while Adaine finished up. In their old home, silence was frightening, uneasy. It left Adaine on-edge with a queasy feeling in her stomach. She suspected it was similar for Aelwyn, but she’d just been better at hiding it.
This, though, was a feeling that neither of them seemed to have fully adjusted to yet. A feeling of safety—perhaps, but it was more than that. This was a place where feeling safe was the norm, not an exception to the rule. It was a place where being themselves didn’t need to be confined to their bedrooms, where their friends’—- their family’s faces would light up when they saw them.
It felt good.
When it seemed Aelwyn’s nails had dried enough, she turned over to the small pile of nail polish bottles that laid on the bed, glancing over the colors thoughtfully.
“Oh, that’s alright.” Adaine shook her head. (She’d casted a quick prestidigitation to dry her nails, though she didn’t mention that.) “Mine always chip, anyways.”
“Are you sure? I can’t have you do something for me and me do nothing for you.” Aelwyn shook her head. “Here, let me do your hair. I’m bored, and there’s no way I’m actually organizing my spellbook today.”
Adaine rolled her eyes as she stood, grabbing one of her pillows from the top bunk before letting it down onto the floor. She sat down on it with her legs crossed, right next to the edge of the bed. “I don’t think anyone’s actually done my hair since we were kids.”
“Mother actually did your hair? She always used an unseen servant for me.” Aelwyn laughed quietly, scooting up so that she could sit behind her, grabbing her hairbrush from the other beside table. Boggy took that as his chance to hop into her lap.
Adaine took off her glasses, cleaning them with the fabric of her very soft and very tacky t-shirt. “That’s what I meant.”
There was a quiet moment while Aelwyn parted her hair, starting to brush it out. “Suppose that wasn’t particularly normal of her.” She hummed.
“No, I don’t think it was.” Adaine let out a little laugh. “I don’t think there’s anything particularly normal about how we grew up.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Aelwyn said in reply. There was another quiet pause. Talking to each other like normal people, as it happened, was still quite new. There weren’t any ulterior motives, no competition, no secondary meanings. No real reason to fight anymore.
“…I’m sorry I haven’t been a very good older sister to you. I should have protected you, or just… not hurt you, but I didn’t.”
There was another pause. Adaine hadn’t forgiven her. She wasn’t sure that she ever would, or if she even ever could. “It’s okay.” She said, but quickly changed her mind. “I mean, it’s not okay, but I mean that we’re okay.”
“Right, right, it’s just—“
“Aelwyn, you don’t have to keep apologizing.” She interrupted, turning her head to face her. “What you did was… fucked up. Super fucked up. But I don’t want you to keep telling me that you’re sorry, I already know that you are. Besides, I’m not keeping score.”
A quietness fell over them, and again, Boggy’s soft croaking became the only sound in the shared bedroom. Aelwyn was— perhaps surprisingly— quite gentle as she pulled pieces of her hair away from her face to braid them against her head.
“...well, for the record, I’m going to try to be better.” Finally, Aelwyn broke the silence as she put in the last bobby pin. “There, finished.”
Adaine turned again to face her, shrugging her shoulders. “You’re already much better.” She said with a half-smile.
After a moment more, Aelwyn lifted Boggy out of her lap, pretending to be disgusted in an act that no one ever really bought. “Thank you, Adaine.” She moved back over so that there was more room for her sister to join her back on the bed, which she did.
They sat together for a little while, neither of them saying anything.
Adaine gave Boggy a scratch behind his collar, to which he responded by closing his eyes and letting out a low croak, seeming to enjoy the attention. Aelwyn at last took her spellbook from the corner of her blanket, bringing her knees up to lean against as she cracked it open.
“...you want me to leave so you can focus?” Adaine guessed, preparing to climb the ladder back up to her own bed.
Aelwyn didn’t look up, but shook her head. “I’m learning I work better when I’m around people that I like.”
That wasn’t terribly many people, Adaine knew. She paused a moment.
“I love you, Aelwyn.”
Her sister looked up from what she was writing in the well-worn book, considering her for a moment. “...I love you very much, Adaine.”
The silence that’d become familiar fell over them again, and it remained that way until the morning sun began to creep through the window. Jawbone’s heavy footsteps echoed through the hallways on his way to the kitchen to prepare enough pancakes to feed the village of kids who called the place home. Sandralynn was calling for her daughter to go with her to the grocery store so that she could practice driving
The quiet left after everyone was awake– the warmth stayed.