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The air reminded her of back then, warm and heavy.
In fact, not much about the park had changed, aside from some minor landscaping. The playground remained affixed by the river, where eddies stirred up silt as the currents rushed on, backdropped by the cicadas’ songs of an early summer. Guardrails spanned the length of the pathway, yellow paint flaking from the metal, but all Vivian could focus on was the girl perched atop them. There was a quiet apprehension in the way Belle carried herself as she stared wordlessly into the horizon, a meaningful silence that she was not privy to. Distantly, a seagull crowed as if in victory—fries as its spoils, perhaps.
All in all, it made for a picturesque scene, one that she was loath to disrupt. However, her own presence was not by coincidence, but rather at the behest of the elder Lord Phaethon, whose concern had been made palpable in his furrowed brows and pronounced eyebags. His voice had been softened by exhaustion when he urged Eous to accompany her, to which the bangboo had nodded resolutely. Urgency fueled his little steps en route to their destination, hardly slowing except to ensure that Vivian was not far behind.
Now, upon seeing his other parent, Eous did not share the banshee’s reservations and greeted Belle with a hearty “eh-nah!” that earned a quiet giggle. With practiced ease, he clambered the railing into her waiting arms, his LED expression melting into one of contentment.
“Hey, Eous.” Belle’s voice was unusually subdued, albeit laced with fond exasperation. Her hand patted between his ears affectionately. “Now, why am I not surprised that you’re here? Wise sent you, didn’t he?”
“Eh nah nah ehna! Eh ne na,” the little bangboo chirped. “(He told me to check on you, but I would’ve gone even if he didn’t! Belle is also very important to me, and we were worried.)”
“Does the ‘we’ also include a certain Miss Banshee?” the girl asked cheekily. With a fuller-sounding laugh, the proxy’s eyes crinkled as she turned to shoot the other girl a wink, earning a shy squeak as the culprit attempted to shield her face with her fingers. When a gentle smile remained in the aftermath, as did the arm outstretched to her, Vivian carefully accepted the offering and situated herself beside her idol, thankfully with little more than a fierce blush.
For a while, there was nothing but a comfortable silence that stretched between them, with Eous humming idly as they watched ships carve through the outer bay. Vivian took this moment to ground herself, basking in the pleasant weather and the far-off bustle of Lumina Square. Belle’s fingers were cool between her own, and the dappled sunlight was warm on her face, parasol shut and lain across her lap. The wind was mild when it brushed across their cheeks, vaguely reminiscent of the flower field she had visited forever ago, yearning for a moment like this.
(It was still surreal, to watch all that she dreamed of on the train unfurl the way it had. She never forgot Belle’s steady warmth against her own as they read their old letters together, or Wise’s kind reassurance the first time they had both assembled bouquets. There was Hugo with his incorrigible but genuine tenderness, not to mention the contrasting personalities of Victoria Housekeeping, each with their own different forms of camaraderie. Robin had also been a reliable and well-meaning figure ever since her joining of Mockingbird, and Rain had been one long before then.
Even now, she wanted to take that little girl by the hands and tell her earnestly that the world, however small it seemed, was big enough to hold wonderful people she had yet to meet.)
Tears sprang to her eyes, unbidden, but she held her tongue and counted backwards from ten, a trick Hugo had taught her when under duress. As the timeframe passed without a single vision, the tightness in her chest abated in tandem. Gentle squeezing around her fingers prompted her to look up, her breath catching when she was afforded a soft look of concern. Along with the ache of warmth came a pang of guilt; here she was to offer support to the younger half of Phaethon, yet she found herself being fretted over instead.
“Are you okay?” Belle asked, voice soft.
“Y-Yes, all is well, Lord— Ah, B... Belle,” Vivian stammered, cheeks still fairly red from embarrassment, both at the physical contact and the unseemliness of her flustered state. “Beg pardon, I seem to have gotten distracted.”
“Lady Banshee,” Belle responded, cheek returning in the form of a faux-posh accent. “If anything, I am the one distracted by that mar upon your lovely brow.”
The sound of a whistling teapot rose between them, garbled. “Belle—! Y-You can’t just—!”
The girl in question laughed, the sound like her namesake. “Sorry, sorry! You just have the best reactions! Well, that and you tend to amp up the fancy talk when you’re nervous.” The proxy let out a chuckle before adding on, “I’m serious, Vivian. I don’t mind bending an ear for a friend if you need it.”
“…Shouldn’t I be saying that instead, Lord Phaethon?” was the quiet, pouting rebuttal. It was her turn to squeeze the other girl’s hand, to which Belle’s grin wavered, her face tilting slightly away.
Vivian was no stranger to observing the siblings, but she had to admit: now that she was up close, she could see how stiffly Belle held herself, a weariness present in minute details, all subtlety and shadow. The giveaway was the distracted glint in her eyes, staring yet unseeing. It felt like Vivian was sitting next to a phantom, one that she was unwilling to let slip away.
Inhaling, quick to where her breath stuttered, she tightened her grip, the other’s name on her lips all at once a prompt and a plea.
The focus in the proxy’s gaze sharpened, and Belle—her Belle, a traitorous part of her brain asserted—blinked to awareness. “Ah, sorry, Vivian. It’s nothing!” Her grin returned in all its charming glory, though this time, it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Sorry. Again. To worry you, I mean.”
“Would you like to talk about it?” Vivian ventured cautiously. Chiming in, Eous made a quiet sound of comfort, his little paws patting the arm that supported him.
“No, I—“ Belle released a heavy sigh, the uncharacteristic slump of her shoulders betraying her true exhaustion. Her shadows suddenly sharpened, and the space between them solidified with a newfound edge that had the poor bangboo between them metaphorically sweating. “Listen, I know Wise sent you both here today, but I’m fine. Seriously. And even if he doesn’t believe me, it’s not your problem to deal with.”
Vivian had experience with these kinds of outbursts before—from collaborators who were backed into a corner and desperate, to clients who had expected too much and found failure a nonoption. All this to say: she had seen her fair share of people who had simply burst from pressure, though Belle’s was more of a roiling boil than a point-blank combustion. Still, this instance was on a more personal level, and while she knew the fire wasn’t directed at her, the heat was intense enough to further flush her cheeks. The instinctive reaction was to apologize profusely and excuse herself, but given how Belle’s grasp stayed firmly within her own, she remained rooted in place, albeit hesitant.
“On the contrary,” Vivian whispered, delicate but ever earnest, “it is most certainly my concern if something is upsetting you. I am here as your… your friend, and I wish to be of assistance, if you’ll allow me.”
She allowed them a few minutes, the seconds ticking into eternity, the silence sinking into birdsong. Vivian watched as Belle’s jaw clenched and unclenched until the latter finally acquiesced, quietly lowering her head onto the proffered shoulder, a shroud of reticent acceptance descending around them. For a while, they simply watched a trio of local bangboo attempt to scale the various playground equipment, and it was not long until Eous’ conflict was made obvious, torn between his desire to participate and his desire to stay at Belle’s side. His gaze darted, imploring, between the group and his owner.
Belle giggled, her brow softened with affection. In turn, Vivian’s heart stuttered, particularly when the other girl’s hair brushed against her neck. “Go on, Eous. We’ll be here.” The bangboo eyed her surreptitiously, to which she huffed, crossed between indignant and amused: “Don’t worry, she’ll make sure I don’t do anything crazy.”
There was something domestic in the way his delight was displayed in the wriggling of his ears, in the way he bumped his head gently against Belle’s and directed a stern “eh-nah-ehn!” at Vivian before rushing off to play. It was especially evident how Eous took after his “parents” and their natural charisma when the other three bangboo enfolded him seamlessly into their activities, their glee echoing throughout the park. As the peace returned, it did so slowly and sweetly, the tension considerably lighter. However, all the banshee could think about was the press of Lord Phaethon against her, the contact innocuous but the implicit trust behind the gesture conveying more than words.
Vivian’s heart clenched yet again; whether out of fear or excitement, she could not tell. Her pulse quickened when emerald eyes met her own, and like the ocean, something deep swam in their depths. (A symbol lingered in the corner of her mind, nebulous but familiar. The night had been warm, then, hadn’t it?)
“Y’know, aside from the HDD equipment, he’s all we have left of her,” Belle said suddenly, quietly. Her thumb traced nonsensical patterns onto the back of Vivian’s hand. The gravity of it all seemed akin to a deathbed confession.
“Your teacher, correct? Carole Arna?” Vivian asked, voice equally hushed.
Belle hummed neutrally. “Yeah. Not a day goes by that we don’t think of her.” Here, she swallowed, hard. Her voice was more air than sound when she continued, “Back in the Hollows, with the Miasma, it was so real. Teacher… She was calling my name, and my hand was in hers. She was leading me to meet Wise. She told me we were going home.”
“Home?” Vivian prompted gently.
“Helios.” The word was whispered with such longing and desperation that it rendered the scene motionless. Even the leaves dared not sussurate, the water smoothed, the world muffled. Gooseflesh raced down her arms, alongside a chill that ran through her spine. Belle’s eyes had an unearthly glint to them; a trick of the light, she was sure, but there was a nagging to her thoughts that said otherwise.
Then, as sudden as it had begun, everything snapped back into real-time. The only sound left was their breathing.
“I’ve only heard about the school in passing,” Vivian murmured. “I suppose not even intelligence networks have a reason to delve too deep. The classified files are heavily redacted, and not much survived anyway. Nonetheless, its legacy is quite… mixed, to put it kindly.”
“True,” Belle murmured. “It wasn’t exactly a shining beacon of ethical academics. But to me and Wise, it was all we’ve ever known. I still remember the endless hallways, the large tree in the campus square, our domicile with the squeaky door…” Another shaky breath escaped her. “And our teacher would take us out every weekend to a place of our choice. Wise always chose the antique store, but I really loved the ice cream place across the street. We’d all share a sundae because it was too big for me to finish on my own.”
As Belle wistfully recounted more memories, Vivian closed her eyes and attempted to align their timelines. When Wise picked out an old portable radio on a particular Saturday, she had been tended to by Camille when she sprained her ankle carrying books. While Belle encountered a mysterious girl with seafoam hair on a nondescript Tuesday, she had curled her pinky with Dina’s and promised that they would be together forever. That particular memory left a bittersweet aftertaste, like the lingering tang of the tangerine candies Landon had once instructed them to share with the other children. Aside from meeting Phaethon, it was one of the happiest memories she had to her name.
Her name…
Once, Hugo—ever the hopeless romantic—had told her that her name dated back to even before the old civilization. That it survived so long was a testament to its timeless nature and a prolific symbol of her own perseverance, to which she had scoffed embarrassedly and turned back to her flowers. Though her hands continued pruning, the sentiment stayed with her, a warmth that left her humming. The meaning was not lost on her, either; she had always thought of herself as horribly misnamed, being the heralder of tragic omens, but it was only after that single online comment that made her realize that her name itself was a prediction of who she could and would grow into.
It was all thanks to the girl seated beside her that she was able to grant herself the kindness she had been seeking her whole life.
(After all, someone must have loved her to have named her as such, enough to anticipate a hopeful future for her. Or perhaps it was a name she had picked herself long before she could remember, born of a desire she wished to manifest.)
“Vivian?” Belle’s call gently brought her back to reality, whereupon her blush returned tenfold to the very tips of her ears. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to ramble for so long,” she laughed, sheepish.
“Not at all, B-Belle! I was listening, I promise!” In order to prove it, the banshee was bursting at the seams, cheeks puffed and prepared for any quizzing.
Belle laughed again, a sound now bereft of melancholy. “I don’t doubt it.” A pause, punctuated by the cheering of bangboo, then: “Thank you, Vivian. I know Wise and I don’t really say it enough, but you’ve always let us talk about whatever, and… I don’t know. It’s a nice change of pace. Sometimes we’re so caught up in other stories that we lose track of our own.”
“I understand,” Vivian murmured, expression soft as she recalled her old letter, the first one they unearthed together. “After all, I’m one of them, aren’t I? It feels like the least I can do.”
“Please don’t think that we mind!” Belle exclaimed, jolting upwards with wide-eyed alarm. “If anything, my point still stands. Anytime you need me, I’ll be there.”
An unusual spark of confidence led Vivian to place her other hand atop Belle’s in lieu of words. The “her” from years ago could never fathom making eye contact with her idol, let alone engaging in physical contact, but Belle and Wise had remained a consistent presence despite everything, despite her zealous obsession and her checkered past. The former had offered her hand when it mattered most and did it again without hesitation, when Hugo had been thought to be dead and Belle had held her as she wept bitterly into the other girl’s shoulder.
She had seen Vivian at her worst and stayed. The siblings had somehow seen something good in her, though she wasn’t exactly sure what.
I'm sure that my future self must have even bigger dreams. I wonder if, when I read this again, I'll still remember these days clearly. I hope you remember the person I once was.
But don't think about me too much. I wish for the future me to have grown into a better person.
Vivian glimpsed the girl reflected in her proxy’s eyes and, for the first time in a long while, did not loathe who she saw. “Thank you, Belle, for giving me a chance.”
To live freely as a mockingbird, full of courage and uncaged from regret.
To have met you and seen the world as you did, hill to vale.
The beaming smile on her companion’s face was more than enough.
By now, the sun had nearly sunk into the throes of twilight, rendering the sky a rich ombré of tangerine to lavender. Neon lights began to flicker to life with a buzz, creating a completely different atmosphere of animated conversations and inebriated laughter. It was a long walk home, especially when Vivian insisted on stopping by Richard Teamilk under the guise of self-care, which Belle thought was a fair suggestion. They had even ordered a drink for Wise, nothing too caffeinated but slightly bitter to account for his preferences. It was also pure luck that they ran into a new friend of Vivian’s, who reminded the reddening banshee to beta-read their “Lighter fanfic” before it was due for posting tonight.
“Lilac, please,” Vivian had practically hissed out of sheer mortification before ushering the proxy far, far away. Belle merely offered an enigmatic smile that the other girl had no desire to decipher. Somehow, she just knew Hugo was involved in this.
As they approached Random Play, Eous reached sleepily towards his parent from where he was cradled in Vivian’s arms, a content hum escaping him when he was comfortably situated on Belle’s hip. Light poured out the front door, bathing them in gentle gold. From within, they could hear Wise conversing with the remaining clientele about their rentals, alongside 06’s and 18’s puttering about as they prepared to close. If she really strained her ears, she could even hear the thrumming of the HDD in the staff room. It was a glimpse into what constituted a typical day in the life of Phaethon, the consequent confluence of passion and survival. It was also a shared secret that Vivian did not take for granted.
Regarding her mission, it seemed to be a success: Belle appeared quicker on her feet, her expression brighter and relaxed. Yet, a part of her did not wish for the day to end; Hugo and Robin were out meeting with Mockingbird’s intelligence brokers, and returning to an empty apartment was less than appealing. As she wrung her hands timidly around her parasol handle, watching the last customer depart, a soft warmth twined around her ankles. Peering up at her with a knowing meow, Inky blinked slowly before returning to Wise’s side, where he pawed at his human’s pant leg until he had been hefted up.
“So not fair!” Belle could be heard saying, incredulous. “Why are you his favorite?”
“Because I’m the one who usually feeds him, obviously,” was the smug response, followed by audible cooing and babbling. When the older half of Phaethon realized he had an audience besides his sister, he was quick to retreat inside after greeting Vivian with a strangled sound of embarrassment. Despite that, she found herself sighing in relief at how quickly the siblings resumed their normal banter.
After being set on the ground, Eous toddled after them with the teamilk in tow, leaving the two girls at the threshold. Belle lingered, her eyes gilded with emotion as she pivoted her gaze towards Vivian. She tilted her head inquisitively, a shy smile in place. There was an implied invitation that the banshee was hesitant to acknowledge, all too accustomed to being denied.
Instead, Belle extended her hand once more, an effortless warmth in her voice as she asked, “Are you okay with noodles for dinner?”
And just as easily, Vivian smiled back and accepted the offer, her parasol falling away in the glow, one light of many that comprised the skyline of New Eridu. She no longer wanted to disappear into them. Not when the windows were open, not when—
This was home, an intrinsic part of her sang, a medley composed of love and loss and everything thereafter.