Chapter Text
Aelwyn’s mind hasn’t been particularly put-together in a good long while, so the slip into unconsciousness the second they land in front of the place that Adaine has been calling home should perhaps be unsurprising. There are holes in her memory, gaping craters of aching loss; her body has become too tired to even register exhaustion. She’s simply been running on empty for too long.
She feels her knees go first. This, too, is not a shock— she’d been reduced to casting Mending on her joints in the forest with her parents, a futile attempt to make it a little easier to walk without bursts of sharp pain. It didn’t work for shit; she had staggered along and kept her eyes on the ground, her father berating her every time she fell behind.
So: her knees give out the second her feet hit the grass, and then it’s a moment of awful spinning vertigo before Adaine’s arms wrap around her. She opens her eyes as spots swim in her vision; for a horrible moment, she thinks it is an unnatural shadow. But it isn’t, it isn’t, it can’t be. Kalina is gone. Aelwyn helped kill her. She’s gone.
Aelwyn takes a deep breath, blinking hard, and can’t stop her head from slotting into the dip between Adaine’s shoulder and neck. She exhales harshly, frustrated and humiliated in equal measure, as tears burn in her eyes.
“Okay,” Adaine murmurs, like this is nothing new. Two months ago in the timeline of Aelwyn’s memory, she slapped Adaine’s hand as hard as she could for the crime of grabbing her sleeve when they walked out of her disastrous Hudol entrance exam. Her sister’s forgiveness is, as ever, unimaginable.
Adaine adjusts her arm around Aelwyn’s waist, and starts the slow process of half-carrying her inside, embarrassment burning the tips of her ears bright red as she realizes that Adaine’s friends are all watching the two of them, lost on what to do.
“I’ll help,” Kristen Applebees declares, brash as anything; Aelwyn narrowly holds back a snarl. She feels Adaine pinch her hip, managing to grab only skin and bone. She may never have been a particularly good sister, but even she can register what translates to shut the fuck up and let us help, bitch.
If there’s one thing that’s become all too clear, it’s that Adaine and her party simply have no sense when it comes to leaving people well enough alone. Fighting this is going to take too much energy, so she elects to simply let things happen to her, as she always seems to these days.
She feels Kristen’s (mildly sweaty, but solid) arm wrap around her torso, the human girl’s fingers digging slightly into the jutting bones of her ribcage. Adaine moves her own arm to Aelwyn’s back.
“All set?” Kristen asks, and Aelwyn blinks when she realizes she’s talking to her. She gives some semblance of a nod and Kristen grins. One of her teeth is crooked, and blackheads and acne pockmark her skin. She is so painfully earnest that Aelwyn can’t focus on her face without feeling something strange form in her throat.
She stares at the hand supporting her instead. Kristen has a good dozen bracelets on her arm– faded ones that were probably made at her Helio cult camp, beaded ones in all manner of colors. The closest to her hand is made of braided string with six interlocking colors, the same pattern Aelwyn has seen on her sister’s wrist and wrapped carefully around Gorgug Thistlespring’s headphones. Now that she thinks about it, all of the party members have one just like it somewhere on them; hazily, she can even recall them wearing them when they tied her up for arrest at Ostentatia Wallace’s party.
They made friendship bracelets, then. Aelwyn wants to scoff, but the broken creature that lives in her ribcage causes another lump to rise in her throat. Her baby sister has friends, who love her enough to do stupid teenage activities and who support her in punching their father to death. It’s almost impossible to process, so she simply doesn’t; instead, she tucks that emotion into the back of her mind where almost everything is hidden away by now, and focuses on her continued survival.
With Aelwyn little better than dead weight, the two girls lug her towards the door. They make it up the steps and to the porch before anything goes wrong, which must be a new record.
A loud whoosh of magical energy rings out in the quiet. It’s followed by an implosion of air that sucks all warmth out of the porch, and then a frankly spectacular crash that sends Aelwyn flinching so hard she knocks her head into Kristen’s jaw.
“Fuck!” she hisses to herself.
“Don’t worry, I’ll Healing Word when we get inside,” Kristen says cheerfully. “Oh, did the noise freak you out? No worries, that’s just–”
The door flies open, slamming against the house’s decaying front wall. Standing in the entryway is an undead spirit, floating a few inches above the ground.
“Holy fuck,” he shouts, completely unabashedly. “Guys!”
He steps forward and promptly appears a few feet away, further back into the hall. Then he runs for the door, screeching a war cry. Shockingly, it does not get him any farther.
“Hang on, Z, don’t break your planar bonds.” Fig darts past the Applebees-Abernant train to run in. The ghost– Z? – rushes at Fig and goes right through her, and she hugs herself tight as he lands behind her. “That one’s for you, dude! Here, watch out, let’s get everyone in and then we’ll tell you all about our kickass adventures.”
The ghost boy moves aside so Fig can hold the door while Kristen and Adaine shuffle Aelwyn across the messy entryway. Ragh Barkrock squeezes gently past them, only to sprint into the house, bellowing “Momma!” at the top of his lungs. Aelwyn doesn’t watch to see where he goes. She’s simply too tired.
Kristen and Adaine help her towards a large living room, pulling to a stop in front of the couch, which is torn enough to reveal stuffing in multiple places.
Everything in this place seems well-used, worn in. Aelwyn grew up in a house where nothing was ever to be touched; this feels like some strange dream, of wear and tear and a cozy place to call home.
Before she lands herself in more of a freak out, Adaine sits down against the corner of the couch, putting a pillow on her lap. Kristen fully deposits Aelwyn gently against her, the soft fabric perhaps the closest to heaven Aelwyn will ever get.
She watches Ragh come back, walking next to the woman that must be his mother. Despite having a demon shard in her chest, she’s all smiles, Ragh holding her shoulders as he boasts to the adventuring party about having the coolest mom ever, of all time. Lydia Barkrock (Kalina mentioned her, once; Aelwyn suppresses a shiver) is looking at him with a kind of warmth and pride that Aelwyn has never seen.
Sure, her mother had been proud when she got a perfect test— but in the way you may perhaps be proud of an extension of yourself, a simulacrum or a pet. She’d always known that, and hadn’t particularly cared, because the joy of making her parents happy was all that mattered. But the way Lydia is smiling at Ragh— gods, he’s like the sun. He’s like every brilliant thing.
Aelwyn buries her face against Adaine’s stomach so she doesn’t have to look at them anymore.
The light and noise hurt her head, and she has already determined she’s too tired to fight. Whatever her penance— whatever comes later— she’s here now against her sister, curled up as small as she can. Adaine cups the back of her head as the party and their hirelings all bustle in. Nothing else matters.
The ghost, Aelwyn can just barely see from her spot against Adaine, has floated up to sit on the arm of the couch. Adaine does the same hugging thing as Fig did before jumping into a joyous conversation about the Sick Wizard Shit they got up to in the past week, gushing about Ayda Aguefort and how the ghost boy would totally vibe with her. Aelwyn closes her eyes again as they bounce off each other, clearly very excited.
This must be Zayn Darkshadow, then– Adaine had told her a little bit about the other manor residents while they traveled back. Adaine called him her best friend and was promptly screamed at by her party.
(“He’s my best friend, you guys are my siblings, fucking calm down about it!” Adaine had yelled, giggling when Kristen had fallen over her lap and pressed a messy kiss to her cheek. “I hate it here!”
Aelwyn feels something almost like peace while Adaine laughs. At last, she’s said it, set in stone: she has a new family. She doesn’t need Aelwyn to drag her down anymore.
But then Adaine looked at Aelwyn, in the seat next to her, and said— “I’m trading in our shit family for a better one, if you weren’t aware. You wanna come with? We could probably get a 2-for-1 deal.” Her smile was teasing, but she squeezed Aelwyn’s hand, and Aelwyn stared in numb shock at their intertwined fingers until they reached Elmville.)
Zayn was a Harvestman stooge last time Aelwyn checked, and she briefly wonders what Ragh might feel about that; she remembers the way he mooned over Dayne when he thought no one was looking, how religiously he had followed Coach Daybreak.
She doesn’t have to wait long to find out. Ragh’s steps are easy to pick out, heavy and sure-footed; once he’s done boasting and hugging his mom and telling her how much he missed her, he runs right over. Or, at least, he starts to– right before he hits the living room, he comes to an abrupt stop before walking a bit too slowly to be natural.
Interesting, the instinct for clocking weakness that never shuts up in Aelwyn’s head notes. He’s nervous.
His hand on the back of his neck, he looks awkward in a way that should be impossible for such a powerful barbarian; when he smiles, it’s almost bashful. “Hey, Zayn, um. I just wanted to say, I know the other residents said me an’ my mom could live here after our house burned down, but I also know that sometimes it’s hard to work with people who used to be part of somethin’ that hurt you, man, so I don’t wanna–”
“Nah, we’re cool,” Zayn says, clearly trying to sound chill and aloof and mostly just sounding sweet. “I know what bein’ a reformed villain is like, and I know how it was to be manipulated by Coach. You’re all set with me, no forgiveness necessary.”
“Rad!” Ragh bellows. “Are you a hug guy? I’m a hug guy, but–”
“I can’t really do hugs, ‘cause I’m incorporeal. But I like to try.”
“Hug towards him and then hold yourself,” Adaine says, demonstrating. “It’s how we show we care, because Zayn is very sensitive.”
She dodges the ghost punch Zayn throws her way while Ragh wraps his arms around and through Zayn, then hugs himself super tightly, clearly getting The Vibe. He’s changed so much since Aelwyn used to get dragged into going with Penelope, Dayne, and him out on the town. He was always a little bit off kilter then– now, he seems at home in his skin, in the frankly ridiculous kindness he employs.
“We should get Ayda to work on that, ‘cause being able to hug the homies is awesome.” Ragh sits down so the couch is moderately squished. “Anyway, sorry, Adaine, I interrupted right at the part about us fighting monster pirates. Keep goin’.”
Aelwyn listens to the noise weave around her, so different from the sterile silence of the Nightmare Forest. Gorgug is on the phone with Zelda Donovan, and is very clearly crying. Sandra Lynn Faeth is talking to the policewoman who arrested Aelwyn, Riz wrapped around her– that’s right, she’s his mother. Fabian, Fig, Tracker, Kristen, and Gilear (he’s still here?) are raiding the fridge. Lydia Barkrock has come over to listen to Ragh and Adaine tell their stories. It’s a boisterous place, and Aelwyn curls up a little tighter.
She can almost breathe until she hears another loud crash and a clatter from above her; then there’s heavy footsteps rushing down an unseen staircase.
“What the hell?” a deep voice bellows, and everything gets significantly louder. She throws up a ward on instinct, covering her sister and forcing her eyes open.
There is a hybrid-form werewolf standing in the center of the kitchen, clearly bemused, wearing a pair of plaid boxer shorts and a black t-shirt with a faded band logo on it. Tracker gasps and runs straight for him; the second she’s in range, he grabs her around the waist and chucks her over his shoulders, laughing. She appears to weigh almost nothing to him, hanging off him with her head at his chest while he presses exaggeratedly loud kisses on her forehead. “Track, bud, I’m so happy you’re home!”
Sandra Lynn Faeth runs over to him, pressing a kiss to his muzzle, as he runs a hand through the fur on his head, obviously bewildered even as he grins widely. “Hi, babe! I wasn’t expecting y’all for at least another few hours!”
“Cass gave us a ride,” Kristen trills. “I got a new god!”
“That’s great, honey,” he responds, clearly deeply lost even as he pulls the saint into a one-armed hug.
Aelwyn’s shield flickers and shifts, and Adaine settles a hand on her back. “Put it down,” she says in Elvish, her accent far closer to Common than it had been when they were young. “It’s just Dad.”
Dad, in Elvish even more so than Common, is a much different word than Father. Father— what they had always called Angwyn Abernant— is a mixture of words that translate roughly to both superior and progenitor. Using words in Common tongue, Aelwyn can only link it to the idea of serving someone else. Dad is far more as an endearment; it translates to “the person who has cared for me.” Aelwyn had never heard the term leave her sister’s mouth.
Aelwyn drops the shield despite her own misgivings, and with an effort that feels more taxing than anything she’d ever done before, she sits up and tucks her hands primly in her lap. No matter that she’s still working with six levels of exhaustion, her ripped traveler’s cloak covered in her own blood along with her sister’s. Pay no mind to her ever-shaking hands and knees. She will be polite to the man that has been raising her baby sister for nearly a year.
She’s seen Jawbone O’Shaughnessey a few times, back when she frequented the Black Pit, but had never met him. In fact, she’d tried her best to avoid him– even before his apparent sobriety, he’d always been the first person to catch an underage club guest and convince them to go home. She can understand, from those hazy memories, where his guidance counseling skills came from.
After carefully letting Tracker down with one more hug, Jawbone rushes over and picks Adaine up, spinning her around and making her laugh as he presses a bunch of kisses to her forehead. “Adaine, oh my— I’m so proud of you! You did that quest! You kicked that quest’s ass!”
“I did! And I killed my shitty old dad! I punched him to death!” Adaine reports cheerfully. “Oh, this is Aelwyn, my sister. Can she stay with us?”
“O– of course, kiddo, you know the doors are always open.” Jawbone smiles at Aelwyn and sticks his hand out to shake. Aelwyn visibly jumps, like a fucking coward, but all he does is put his hand down and stick them in the pockets of his knit cardigan. “We can put in bunk beds in the Tower, if you like.”
“Hell yes,” Adaine says, standing up. She glances at Aelwyn, suddenly almost shy. “Here, I’ll show you my room. I’ll help you with the stairs, no worries.”
Fuck, she’s going to have to walk. Her knees scream in protest at the thought of it, but Jawbone shrugs a little, unconcerned. “I can carry you up, if you’re comfortable with that. Some secret passages have ramps too if you’d prefer it, but I’m happy to.”
Adaine deserves to rest, and she isn’t going to go without Aelwyn. So she makes herself nod, holding herself as still as she can when Jawbone picks her up ever-so-gently. He cradles her so her head rests against his shoulders, and side steps around the dozen-or-so people around the living room and kitchen with experienced sureness. Sandra Lynn trails them after a moment, hands up near but not quite touching Aelwyn.
The world becomes unfocused as they walk. Aelwyn loses count of the number of stairs, only really processing that Sandra Lynn has settled her hands— one on Aelwyn’s shoulder, the other cupping the side of her head.
“What’re you so worried about?” Jawbone asks, teasing, and Sandra Lynn huffs. As Adaine climbs up the stairs ahead of them, she turns to glance at Aelwyn; she tries to tell her it’s alright, but she’s not sure the words ever make it past her lips.
“Last week,” says Sandra Lynn, “I watched you drop a hammer on your foot and howl like a puppy for a good ten minutes. I don’t want you tripping with the kid.” Her tone is serious, but there’s a smile on her face, swimming in the edge of Aelwyn’s vision. Oh. Is she the kid? She hasn’t been a kid in a very long time– not like Adaine, or the ghost of Adaine that had followed her around in her orb.
The memory, like water, slips away as Jawbone responds. “‘M not gonna trip, Sandy, have a little faith. Heh. Faeth.”
Their banter is fond and easy and desperately foreign, but Adaine looks at ease as they keep trekking, so Aelwyn makes herself breathe. Her sister’s caretaker holds her so softly– like some precious thing, exactly as carefully as he’d just held Adaine. Aelwyn can’t even begin to process what that makes her feel.
The walk up the stairs takes eons and also no time at all; Adaine opens the door to her room (a clearly handmade sign reading ORACLE’S SANCTUM is nailed to the door) and sighs loudly. “Thank fuck. Oh, whoa, presents! Thank you, I forgot about my birthday!”
She begins to sort through the items on her desk, giggling like a strange little gremlin the way she’s wont to do.
“Alright, I’m gonna go make sure Gilear isn’t drinking expired milk again,” Sandra Lynn says, long-suffering, while Adaine makes little excited noises. Jawbone deposits Aelwyn gently onto Adaine’s bed.
“You want the covers, kiddo?”
“Don’t call me that.” She gives him her best glare, but he doesn’t even look troubled.
“Okay, my bad, I won’t do it again.” He scratches the back of his neck, and the sincerity in his voice makes Aelwyn want to throw something. “Blankets are right next to your knees if you need ‘em. Alright, well, I’ll get outta your hair. Send your sister if you need anythin’, and I’ll have one of the ot–”
“Dad?” Adaine asks, cutting him off and using Elvish for the second time that day. The syllables must be foreign to him, but Jawbone turns around anyway.
“What was that, hon?”
Adaine is crying silently, her eyes glowing the bright blue of her magic, clutching a parcel to her chest. Aelwyn works to focus and realizes it is a manilla envelope, papers peeking out of the top from Solace’s Child Protective Services.
The next few minutes involve Jawbone telling Adaine exactly how wonderful she is, and Aelwyn is both touched and disturbed by how happy she is for her sister. She should want to keep her all to herself, both Abernants till the bitter end. But she can’t begin to make herself feel that way.
She looks at the way Adaine throws herself into hugging Jawbone, and thinks— this is what happens when big sisters don’t protect you. You find others who will.
When they let go of the embrace after a good minute, Jawbone wipes his eyes and grins. “Alright, I’m off to go get some wood for those bunk beds! You girls get some rest!”
“I love you,” Adaine says, and Jawbone smiles so wide Aelwyn can see his sharp molars.
“I love you too! So much!”
He walks out doing a little fist-pump where Adaine can’t see him but Aelwyn can (“Hell yeah! Jawbone!”) (Does he always say his own name when he’s excited?). She’s so disturbed by how genuine he seems that she attempts to throw a Detect Thoughts his way. Her magic fizzles and dies before it even leaves her fingers, and she promptly recalls that she has not properly rested in over a year.
Right. The torture. She pushes it, almost angrily, out of her mind.
Adaine gathers her presents reverently to put most of them on display at her desk; the baby blanket is placed into the inside pocket of her jacket, held tightly for a moment before it’s stored away. Aelwyn can see that Jawbone clearly put thought into this, probably spent a good amount of time preparing it. She’s got a book on frog life (Adaine fucking loves frogs, this is a basic fact of her sister) and a small stuffed animal, a little bluebird. That one is brought into the bed next to Aelwyn, along with a previously-there teddy that Adaine explains quietly was won for her at a carnival game by the other bad kids, specifically with Fabian’s good throwing arm and Fig’s skill for haggling about prices.
“His name,” Adaine says, pointing at the teddy, “is Beans. Because he is made of beans.”
“Of course.”
“And this shall be Ayda the Bird.” She squeezes the little thing tight, placing her next to Beans, who is on Aelwyn’s right. Then she sets about scooching Aelwyn this way and that, tucking a blanket over her and after a moment of hesitation pressing a kiss on her forehead. “Fuck you, bitch,” she says, without a hint of malice. “We’re being soft now.”
She wants to snap something back, something witty about how everyone around her seems to already be excelling in such odd behavior, but instead she takes a long, deep breath. Spitting barbs does not lend to protecting Adaine well, and she’d promised herself in that forest that protecting Adaine would be her only goal moving forward. Making up for a lifetime of misery and all that. This means she must be honest.
“I’m scared,” she admits, opening her eyes to look at her beautiful unstoppable hurricane of a sister. “I don’t think I really know how to do this.”
“‘S okay. I’ll teach you.” Adaine peels off her jacket and drapes it over her desk chair, then sits next to her on the bed. Her arms have gained more fat and muscle than they ever did in their childhood home, and she’s wearing a comfortable purple t-shirt. Aelwyn remembers her skin-and-bones baby sister, going to her first day of high school in a Hudol uniform, and swallows thickly. She nods, once.
“If you want,” Adaine continues, “I can stay ‘til you fall asleep. I feel like this burst of energy isn’t gonna last too long for you. Recovery might take a while.”
“I could trance,” Aelwyn mutters, ducking her head and becoming nauseous immediately.
“No, you can’t.” Adaine nudges her gently, like she can tell that Aelwyn’s vision is spinning. Maybe she can— she’s the Oracle. “I know what that kind of exhaustion can do. You have to get some actual sleep.”
Aelwyn tucks her chin to her chest, avoiding eye contact. “Don’t you want to be with your party?”
“Bad Kid Post-Quest Cuddle can happen later.” Adaine tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, laying back against the mattress. “The boys and Fig need to see their parents, and Kristen and Tracker are probably celebrating, if y’know what I mean. But yeah, we always sleep in a pile after quests. We started that after prom.”
“Mm?” Her sister is talking to her about something silly and personal. What kind of miracle is this?
“Yeah, we all went down way before Fabes did, and it really scared him, so we all slept in my room at Jawbone’s old apartment. I think we were all kind of shaken. It was easier to have everyone there. Same thing with all our school trips and all that.” Adaine shrugs. “We’re a very codependent bunch, and we’re really good at fitting into one bed. We shared in the van during the mission, too.”
“Sounds like an absolute nightmare,” Aelwyn says with no bite to her words. She sighs. “I, then— yes. Yes, you staying until I sleep would be very much appreciated.”
Without another word, Adaine wriggles under the covers and wraps herself around Aelwyn, one hand palming the back of her neck and the other arm wrapped around her middle, Aelwyn’s head laid against her chest.
“I’m glad you’re here with me,” says Adaine, just as Aelwyn begins to slip off to sleep.
“I love you very much,” Aelwyn replies into her collarbone, feeling naked with the vulnerability. Her head feels like it did on her very worst benders; too heavy to think or keep any thoughts at all locked away in her head. She can only tell her sister she loves her when she’s delirious, and isn’t that some kind of awful? “I’m so sorry it took me so long to act on it.”
“Hey, we had a shit life and you made mistakes. All we can do is apologize, try to do better, and move forward.”
“You sound just like Jawbone,” Aelwyn says, wry and fond. “You take after him.”
“Yeah, I fuckin’ do. Cause he’s my dad.”
Aelwyn smiles into her sister’s chest, and is asleep before Adaine takes her next breath.