Archive of Our Own

Dess tells her all the time that the reason Kris picks on her is because they have a crush on her. But that doesn’t make sense, does it? Kris picks on her because they like causing trouble. And that must be it, really.

They’re kids – everyone always says that, including Dess – and crushes and romance are a thing for adults. Or at least… older kids. For teenagers and up, right? Mom didn’t meet Dad until college, and Mrs Dreemurr didn’t get together with Mr Dreemurr until they were way older than her and Kris – old enough to win Festival King and Queen.

Her and Kris lost at the festival this year. Because they’re not a couple, and they’re not nearly old enough to be one. She was upset because they lost, and everyone said that it was just because they were too young. Unable to even spell each other’s names…

So Noelle knows that Dess can’t be right about Kris liking her. They pull her hair and make jokes about their soul and shake the Ferris Wheel and clank the horns on their headband against her antlers like they’re fighting because that makes them laugh. It’s nothing to do with her, really. They’re friends, and maybe if they get older and Kris gets a crush on her then… Maybe then they could be more. But Noelle doesn’t think that it will happen.

Dess just laughs at her. Like there’s something she doesn’t understand.

“Yeah, but that’s just what I used to be like to Azzy,” she says. “All of that stuff? The little pranks… The picking on you… The way they stay with you even if you cry at all of that… Kris takes it too far, but that’s all stuff I used to do when I had a crush, Elly. It’s a sign!”

“It’s just Kris being Kris,” Noelle says.

“And Kris likes you!”

Dess says it that funny way that all of the adults do when they want to tease her and Azzy. Likes. It supposed to mean something, she thinks. It’s supposed to mean that Kris more than just likes her, but why do they say it like that? Everyone says it like that. But it’s a silly expression, really. She wants to Kris to like her, and she’s pretty sure that they do, but it’s nothing more than that. There isn’t anything more than that for either of them.

“They just like doing things they aren’t supposed to,” Noelle explains. “Like, uhm… stealing Mrs Dreemurr’s pie. It’s funny to them because they know they’re not supposed to be doing it, and the idea of a reaction is a little… Uhm… Thrilling, I think.”

Dess snorts. “Oh, it’s ‘thrilling’ for them, alright.”

Noelle frowns. Dess doesn’t get it at all, which is silly, because she gets most things. Mom always says that she could be so smart. So why isn’t she right now?

“You’re right that you’re the same, though,” she huffs. “Mom’s still mad at you for quitting piano.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dess says, rolling her eyes just as Noelle thought she would. “But I didn’t like it. Guitar’s way more fun.”

See? Noelle does understand.

“Because you like it.”

“Don’t say it like that…”

But why shouldn’t she? The old piano and Dess’s guitar were more likely to win Festival King and Queen together than her and Kris. They don’t make sense there, like Dess and Azzy do.

Yeah… She’s not old enough for love.

When she grows up, Dess leaves. She’s gone and Noelle decides that nothing with Kris meant anything, really.

Without Dess, they don’t hang out anymore. She hasn’t seen Kris in weeks, even though it’s her sister who’s gone. Azzy’s still right there for them, but she’s just stuck at home with Mom and Dad, and they’re… She’s never seen them like this before. She wants Dess back. She wants Kris back.

But she’s alone, because Dess left, and maybe her and Kris were never even friends.

Well, it’s not like they could have ever been more if they couldn’t meet that benchmark in the first place. Kris was probably just… following her around. Maybe their mom told them to, since Dess and Azzy were already close. If she’d ever thought otherwise, it was just her imagining things – twisting the words Dess had put inside of her head.

Kris isn’t coming back. She knows that too, even though it’s only been a few weeks. Everyone says that they’re different now, so… It’s better if she was always right.

Dess isn’t coming back either. She always did crazy things just to see what would happen after, and this time must have just been too much. She had that look in her eye beforehand, and then… Noelle knows Dess isn’t coming back. She just wished that stopped that little voice in the back of her head that sounded like Dess – always reminding her of what had been said – compelling her to keep checking for news online.

…She thinks Dess is probably dead.

After she breaks at the spelling bee, the boy who beat her comes to speak to her. He’s happy; she can tell. His wings are quivering and he can’t keep a massive smile off of his beak. She isn’t sure what to say… She could congratulate him, but she knows why he won. It’d just be rude to point that out.

In the end, she lets him do the talking for her.

He’s nice about it, though. He clearly doesn’t understand what happened to her, but why would he? She doesn’t like to bring up Dess at the moment. Everything's too confusing, and if she lets herself linger on what Dess did or said for too long… then she may go back to thinking Dess was wrong, and she just… She can’t, right now.

It doesn’t matter what she knows to be true… She can’t just let her sister die as someone who was so, so wrong about so many things.

Isn’t it funny? Dess isn’t even supposed to be dead. Mom is so certain that they can get her back somehow that she still has the local police searching, and Noelle is sure that if she asked this boy’s parents, they’d know the story that Dess just went missing one day. She hopes the boy doesn’t ask his parents. Doesn’t… bring up how exactly he managed to win. She doesn’t actually want this to be about Dess.

She becomes friends with Berdly because no matter how sort of strange and confusing he is, he is nice to her. Sometimes in a bit of a… demeaning way, but it’s not her place to complain about that. She really doesn’t want to be all alone again; if he’s a friend, he’s a friend.

Just… As time passes, she notices it. By herself, this time. Not that there would be anyone to point this out to her, because really, is she expecting Mom to say much about this? But still… She notices, and she’s not best sure what to do.

It’s… Uhm… Well, Berdly seems to like her. She still hates that term, but she doesn’t understand what he’s feeling nearly well enough to label it otherwise. Is it… a crush? Something more? When does that transition even happen? She thinks that if they’re still doing Spelling Bees they must be still too young for love, but Berdly is clearly showing that to not be the case.

How old were Azzy and Dess when they got together again? Maybe she’s older than they were, now. She sort of feels like she is… She knows too much for someone so lonely and the adults – teachers especially – like to say how she sounds so mature... How she reads at a higher level… How she operates much more carefully than most of her peers… But does that make love accessible to her?

She can’t understand what Berdly feels even as he all but spells it out for her in what he says, so… Clearly she’s missing something. But, to be honest… Being in love sounds scary. Having to make big decisions and say big things all the time… But she couldn’t even spell ‘December’ when it counted.

Whatever Berdly feels, she definitely doesn’t feel the same. It’s not like she doesn’t try and do a little introspection on that. She knows that she always preferred the girls in all of the games she had when growing up, and Berdly is a boy, so maybe…

Is she a lesbian? That’s a big word that she’s not sure she’s supposed to know, but Dess taught her, once. It’s a word for a girl who likes only other girls. Or, uhm… likes only other girls.

She hasn’t really had a crush before, but if she is a lesbian, then who would she have even had a crush on? She doesn’t have any other friends right now, and what she had as a kid doesn’t count anyway. Kids don’t get crushes. She knows that.

She must just be a lesbian. That explains now. And when she was a kid, with Kris… That was a different time. Could lesbians even get crushes on people like Kris, who were neither boy nor girl…? Dess would probably know the answer to that, since she’d seemed so sure she understood what was going on with Kris and love years ago, but…

That’s getting too close to accepting that Dess was wrong. It’s fine. Dess taught her what she needed to, anyway.

“Mom, can I talk to you about something?”

This is a scary thing to do… She’s shaking right now in anticipation. Though… She knows she’s in a position of relative privilege. She’s her mom’s only remaining daughter, so even if Mom really hated this, she wouldn’t do anything that bad about it. She can’t. Noelle understands that.

Mom is hunched over a chair, bangs trailing down the edge of a wine glass. Her fingers are grasped around it, and because of her shoulders, Noelle can’t see her face. But that’s alright; she doesn’t need to anyway. She knows why she’s doing this, and honestly… Mom’s reaction doesn’t really matter. It’ll feel real if she tells someone, and there’s just no way that her mom could fail to react at all.

That’s why she’s scared, she thinks. No matter what, Mom will say something, and then it’ll be official that Noelle has grown up. Not older than Dess or anything… But more than just her baby sister.

“You can,” Mom says slowly, carefully.

“I, uhm… I wanted to tell you…”

“Tell me what, Noelle?”

Her patience has been famously running thin recently. Noelle really hates it usually, because who would want to be in trouble? She’s not Dess; she can’t just get away with it. And yet, right now… It’s a good motivator, isn’t it?

“I think…” She takes a deep breath. “I’m a lesbian. I like girls.”

There. It’s real now, isn’t it? Solid as glass. She’s become glass herself, transparent as anyone needs her to be so that she can be a functional girl. So… She can be adult, some day. Even if she is still shaking after speaking.

“Okay,” Mom says, measured. “Have you told Dad?”

No, because Dad would be too… nice about it. She doesn’t think Dad would have much of a reaction at all.

Noelle shakes her head. “No. I thought it was more important to tell you.”

“I’m…” Mom hesitates. “…Proud of you. The world won’t make it easy for you, of course, but when has it ever made to easy for any of us?” She chuckles bitterly. “You’ll be safe in this town. I can promise you that much. But in the future… be careful, won’t you? There are places out there which aren’t so accepting.”

She knows that, really. She knows there are places where Kris wouldn’t be accepted. Where… she won’t be accepted. That part still doesn’t feel real, honestly.

Dess always said she’d take Noelle wherever she wanted, so now Noelle tries to picture Dess taking her and some girlfriend to a city campaigning against her. Somewhere where she’d take this girlfriend’s hand and get given dirty looks in the street. The kind of place her mom was always picturing when she was envisioning the worst case scenario and fretting. Is it strange that she finds this vision comforting? It’s just… It would be somewhere that would vindicate her feeling so out of place.

“I know. I’m… always careful, fahah,” she says.

Is that true? She’s not really impulsive like Dess was, so… maybe.

But she’s here, shaking, and it’s sort of thrilling. She imagines, based on what she was told once upon a time as a kid, that this is what love feels like. That having a crush would be as exciting.

“I suppose you are. You’re… disciplined, at the very least,” Mom relents. “Of course, if you’re fortunate, you’ll grow out of it by the time this all becomes relevant.”

Noelle blinks. “Wh-What?”

Is the glass shattering, or does she just not understand after all?

“I thought I was a lesbian, when I was your age,” Mom says, pointedly. “Very sincerely. It wasn’t until I was with your father that I realised I could also like men.”

She tries to imagine that as her and feels a little sick. She doesn’t want to be like Mom.

Mom seems to catch the look on her face and grimaces, returning to swirling her glass idly. “Perhaps you can’t quite picture it.”

“N-No, I, uhm… I guess it sort of makes sense,” she tries. “People… used to say similar things about Dess for a while, didn’t they? Until she started dating Asriel, they thought she was a lesbian.”

“…Did they?” Mom asks. “She never told me.”

There’s a sharpness to those words, and even if this is like love, Noelle can’t take it anymore. She’s not going to push further. Maybe… compared to people like Mom and Dess, the best thing that she can do is to just try and fit in.

“Maybe I was wrong,” she says. “Because… I was just a kid.”

And kids don’t understand love.

There’s a new girl in class. She looks nervous. And… if Noelle is completely honest, sort of unprepared, too. She’s not carrying a bag, and when Ms Alphys walks in, she doesn’t try and retrieve any stationary from her pocket or anything…

It… Wouldn’t be cause too much of a fuss to try and lend her something, right? Surely not!

…Oh. She’s nervous… About the pencil, definitely, but…

This new girl, she has a strange sort of charm to her, doesn’t she? She’s pretty, Noelle thinks, even if not conventionally so, and her voice is so interesting! Noelle hears it when she answers during rollcall, and it’s this rough sort of thing that sounds like it has layers. Who wouldn’t want to find out more? It’s sort of exciting, picturing what this new girl – Susie – could sound like under different circumstances. Nothing really changes anymore in Hometown, and yet here she is, so new and unique.

Just what sort of a person is she? Noelle needs to know. She needs to know if Susie is going to be the one to finally break this strange syrupy miasma that’s been holding this town in place for so long.

She turns around in her chair, leaning across the gap carefully to reach Susie behind her, hand full of pencils. Susie, it seems, is resting on her arms on the desk, but when she notices Noelle, she reacts – narrowing her eyes and giving a wary look.

“Uhm! Hey!” Noelle says. “Do you want to borrow a pencil? It looks like you don’t have one, s-so…”

Kris used to take these from her. And they’d always want the…

Oh.

Susie plucks the candy-cane pencil straight from her hand, staring at it for a moment, before it bringing it over to her desk.

“Uh… Thanks.”

Susie doesn’t sound like she knows what to say, but Noelle doesn’t either, so she just smiles. It would be bad to disrupt the class, anyway.

The thing is… Susie’s a bit of a bully. She’s rude to nearly everyone, makes frequent threats, and bunks class whenever she feels like it. It doesn’t take long for most of the class to know to fear her, and Noelle supposed that group must include her.

She is scared of Susie. That’s a pretty normal reaction, right? Susie has sharp teeth and claws, and whenever anyone bothers her, she insists that she’ll use both. She’s certainly brought a sort of change, but it’s more… of a crack in unity. Everyone in this class has known each other for years… Or, well, everyone except Susie. Even Kris, who’s been so withdrawn in recent years, is still recognised as a part of the ‘normal’ class culture, but Susie… She’s an unknown variable.

Noelle’s probably a little crazy for finding that still interesting. She doesn’t know what she’d do if one day, she pissed off Susie and earned her ire. If Susie grabbed her by the shoulders and screamed in her face… If Susie started to treat Noelle like she treats Kris, really.

But, uhm… That thought… It makes her heart start to go a little. She gets nervous thinking about it and this – this is love, isn’t it? O-Or… A crush, maybe?

Susie’s strong and pretty and abrasive, and most importantly, she’s not like anyone else Noelle has ever met. She disrupts the class culture, but… But is that such a bad thing? That culture’s stagnant! That culture’s one that insists to her that she’s right to think that she and Kris are better off apart, and that she and Berdly… Well, that they should be a duo. Uhm… A partnership, maybe.

Berdly still acts like he’s crushing on her. But… It’s been years, hasn’t it? She’s never exactly told him that she’s a lesbian, but he has to know by now, doesn’t he? It’s probably time for them to both move on.

Yeah… Even if Susie scares her, she’s just so interesting! What she represents is interesting. And if that’s not love… Then what is?

Kris calls her obvious about Susie, when they talk briefly. Noelle imagines that Dess would have done the same. Berdly’s as oblivious as ever, but maybe it’s easier if he doesn’t know. If she doesn’t have to acknowledge the glass and tell him. She never did explain to him why she’d stumbled at the word December…

Maybe Berdly will notice anyway, though. It’s like… the reason she sort of wants Susie to pick on her is because she likes her, right? That just makes sense. Because they’re both the right age, both girls, and both of them clearly need a change.

They’re on the beach, Susie holding her tight, and Noelle tries to find the words to express what she’s feeling. It’s just… It’s incredible, isn’t it? Susie’s so brave and strong, and when Noelle’s with her, she really believes that there’s a good future out there. She feels brave and strong herself.

She feels grown-up.

Susie’s breath smells like that ice cream she ate earlier. Noelle thinks about where this encounter might be going if she and Susie are getting as close as they seem to be. If Susie, uhm… Kissed her…Would she want that? Would it be good? She hasn’t really thought much about kissing before. She knows her parents still do it sometimes, but it sort of feels… obligatory. Though… She used to think the same thing about Dess and Azzy ‘snogging’ all the time for show, didn’t she?

It’d probably be nice, she decides. Maybe. Since everyone else says it’s good…

She just… gets this feeling that this is all going somewhere. That Susie’s either going to say something, o-or do something, or… Well, Noelle doesn’t know exactly. But the moment feels charged, and she’s getting a sensation almost like Déjà vu from her anticipation. She’s nervous. So nervous… Susie keeps bringing up her crazy heartrate.

What scares her is what this all means. It’s so, so nice to feel wanted so openly. It’s so, so nice to be close to someone again and not have to second guess whether they actually wanted to be around her at all. It’s so, so nice that ever since that dream, a few days ago, she’s felt like she’s been able to trust Susie. But what it actually is and where it could go? Had she ever actually learnt that?

They stand together in front of the sunset’s reflection on the lake, and Noelle thinks that she needs to say something before Susie can. She… She needs to take charge of the situation. To steer it, right? To finally do something crazy and not have it be devastating.

The right words still elude her. She tells Susie, and Mom on the phone by proxy, that she really likes her.

Maybe she should have said liked? But even years later, she doesn’t get that phrase. What’s the point of it, really? There are many, many more specific words for it that she has too much adrenaline to find and use.

But what does Susie say to her? Susie says that she likes Noelle however Noelle likes her.

It feels safe.

This has to be love, doesn’t it? She’s so excited, and her heart keeps racing, and there’s Susie, this great, controllable fear holding Noelle in her arms saying exactly what anyone should want to hear. This has to be it. After this, they’ll go back to the Festival together and be crowned king and queen like her and Kris never could as kids, because they’re both ready now. They’re older than Dess and Azzy were when they won. They’re older than Dess was when she…

She’s not going to think about that right now. This is a happy moment.

It’s clear that she and Susie are new at this together, fumbling and blushing and smiling. It’s a bit of an act, really, finding the right way to manoeuvre through whatever this is. They’re sort of performing for each other, because they don’t know what to say. But that’s what a relationship is anyway, so…

…Gosh, has it always been so hard to breathe? She’s just so nervous!

Once Susie leaves, she drops straight to her knees, revelling in the slight sting of the gravel piercing through her fur to scrape at her skin. She has nothing eloquent to say. She feels like a puppet with its strings cut, now that she no longer has any reason to think through each action and word. B-But she’s never been so transparent! It’s a good thing, really. She’ll reassemble herself in a minute.

She realises belatedly that Kris has been here the whole time, and for some reason… It’s sobering. Right. She shouldn’t get ahead of herself.

What ‘this’ – what’s between her and Susie – is… It’s still up to her to determine. It’s just that they’re on the same page… Whatever page that is. The pressure reinvigorates her adrenaline, just in time for the sound of the phone once again.

Dad’s not awake right now. He looks, really, really, really tired. How had she not noticed that earlier, when she talked to him?

Mom isn’t being too clear about what actually happened, and Noelle knows that it’s because she’s upset too, but it just makes something fester in her chest. Like… a wound, she supposes, but that doesn’t quite cover it. It’s like, somehow, her perfect date at the Festival having been shattered has explained something about both her and the world around her. That transparency that she’d tried to wear was faltering, ink spreading out a new pattern over her chest like one of the church’s windows. She couldn’t see through Dad, so no one else could see through her in turn.

She’s really tired, all of a sudden. Is it an adrenaline crash? Is it because if Dad dies…

Noelle doesn’t want to be alone. She can’t do it again. And today… Today has been so perfect for her and Susie, but what about everyone else? Catti won’t talk to her and Berdly was left alone and Kris looked miserable all day… Has she been getting tunnel vision? Is she just a terrible person?

It sort of makes sense that her ending would be spoiled, when she thinks about it like that. The world saw right through her, and now it’s catching up to her. The Festival hasn’t been fun in years – if it even ever was – so why did she expect it to be different now? She feels terrible for Susie, left behind, because she knows exactly what that’s like, but wasn’t it always going to end this way? At least Susie has Kris with her.

She thinks she got overzealous. She’d got taken in by Dad’s words about her and Susie being dual queens, just the same as when Dess’s comments about Kris liking her used to swim around in her head as a kid, and she’d tried to place them over her heart.

Her body feels so still. Like an object in someone else’s grasp – like she’d never made any real choices today. It’s not that in recognising that, she’s stopped being scared. But her heart rate has dulled like it’s been condemned; whatever’s marked over her heart has lulled her, and she’s just not strong enough like Dess or Kris to do something crazy about it. She’s falling, but it’s inevitable, so the fear isn’t gifting her adrenaline… She’s not in love with this situation. She’s just resigned to it, so…

She’s clutching Dad’s hand around the IV and tuning out Mom’s cold stares. She knows her mistake in having expected a happy ending to today. The Festival has never been for someone like her.

The fantasy of Susie coming to rescue her from this is nice… She tells Noelle her dream is real, and maybe she’s just trying to make them feel real, but it’s a nice idea. Noelle follows her because even if it brought ruin to yesterday, she thinks she still owes it to Dad to try and find something nice with Susie. He’d wanted it for her so bad.

Dess is back, Kris is back, Berdly has denounced his own supposed feelings for her, and Noelle is dating Susie. Nothing… quite makes sense anymore. But isn’t it all perfect? What doesn’t make sense?

Susie’s supposed fantasy saved them all. In… In the most literal sense. It led Dess home, no matter how changed, and in turn, hasn’t that helped Kris? Even Berdly’s managed to turn over a new leaf because of it and what he remembers from it. Susie’s got all of these friends now… She’s become so different from the girl who’d scowled at everyone except Noelle because of some pencil. Or… Really it’s that Noelle has learnt to look past the opaque storm clouds surrounding Susie and see really how wonderful she is, but all of these friends… probably helped.

There’s Kris, obviously, who she won’t leave the side of, after everything. She says they have a ‘warrior’s bond’…? It’s sort of charming. And then there’s Ralsei, this sweet girl who’s apparently been looking after Susie whilst Noelle wasn’t looking. She’s, uhm… The one that Noelle thought looked like Asriel. That seems like a really silly notion now… Honestly though, the silliest thing is she sometimes wonders if Ralsei would be better for Susie than her. Because she and Ralsei are sort of similar, but Ralsei’s just… more whole. She’s worked hard to understand and be herself.

It’s probably really silly to think that one of your girlfriend’s best friends would be a better fit for her than you. Because, uhm… Yeah, there’s Noelle too. She and Susie are dating – formally, now. But even if Ralsei’s with Kris, Noelle can see a world whenever the three of them are together where they’re all in a happy relationship ship together and she’s… Just Noelle. Alone, probably.

She doesn’t want to be alone… Obviously not, but it gets harder and harder to justify the reasons that she’s not every single day. Everything’s supposed to be perfect now, but Dad’s still gone, and without him to cheer her on, Noelle thinks it’s sort of obvious that everyone has someone else they’d rather be with.

In a lot of cases… That person’s Dess. Noelle tries not to resent that because she refuses to resent her sister. But her sister had also been dead for years, and even before that, she’d just been wrong about so many things. Maybe that’s not the case anymore, since she’s changed so much in those years, post-mortem, but it lingers in Noelle’s head.

She understands the urge to fixate on Dess. She gets why Mom’s finally taken the spotlight off of her translucent chest to fret over Dess, and she gets that Kris was doing everything that they had for Dess anyway, but… Faha, is it silly to say that she thinks even Susie might be more excited about Dess than her?

The two of them argue a lot, but Noelle understands that it’s just them bonding. It’s almost ritualistic, like they’re both trying to stake a claim on the same thing, but Susie’s newer and fresher whilst Dess is marred with the scars of transformation. Noelle’s sort of envious of both. That just leaves Susie as playful with Dess, invested in her and her miraculous return, probably, and… Well, surely better off liking Ralsei than Noelle too, so…

Maybe it’s that if the world is perfect except for these tiny, minute, selfish things, there’s nothing to really be afraid of. No matter what her… jealously, or whatever this is, says, Susie chose her, not Ralsei. And Susie says verbally that Dess pisses her off and that she’d rather spend time with Noelle. So what is there to fear?

Saying that she likes being scared, or, uhm… likes being scared isn’t exactly accurate. She knows that Dess likes to say that she does. She knows that Kris probably thinks that she does. She knows that Susie likes that she does! Except she doesn’t actually, and it’s a little more complicated than that.

Noelle likes to simulate fear. When it’s such a familiar emotion, it’s comforting to be able to summon. She enjoys watching horror movies at three AM or watching creepypasta compilations on her phone or playing scary games under the covers that Mom would almost certainly ban. She enjoys the idea of doing crazy things, just like her sister. She enjoys being around Susie, who could so easily hurt her if she wanted to.

But those scary things won’t actually ever hurt her. The monsters in the stories can’t reach her. She can think about doing crazy things, but she’s known since crumbling at trying to press Mom that she won’t actually go through with them. And Susie… She’s sweet. She would never actually hurt Noelle.

She just likes the idea of being hurt, really. The idea of being able to be hurt. Of being so vulnerable to someone or something that they can actually see her, and they can use that to tear into her. It’s sort of beautiful, really. Just that idea. She wants someone to recognise her. That’s probably why the idea of love is similarly so intriguing. Because being in love requires someone to also see her and do all of those things to her. It’s a perfect simulation. It’s an ideal to chase, to show off her growth. Because… she’s been old enough for love for so long now, even if she still doesn’t truly understand it outside of the little microcosm that she’s summoned.

Being in love is like moving into a different snowglobe. Away from Mom and expectations about Dess, where people would look in and she would tell herself to become transparent enough to be part of the scenery – what they wanted to see. Once somebody loves her back, she’s in their world to observe, and it doesn’t matter if she’s dripping all over from dark and darker ink spring from a leak in chest, because she’s what they want to see. It’s sort of beautiful really. Just that idea.

She’s in Susie’s snowglobe now. Maybe that’s why the old one changing to become so idealised feels so strange. That’s just… not her home anymore. She’s trapped somewhere new, and the only way that she can be comfortable with that is because it does scare her.

So why does everything still feel wrong? By her own logic, she should finally be comfortable. She’s terrified of everything changing without her, even into a perfect state, and since it’d be weirder if she wasn’t scared… Has anything actually changed at all? If so, what’s even the problem?

In the end, Dess is home, Kris is happy, all relationships are settled, and Susie’s still got her arms around Noelle. Since there shouldn’t be a problem… Noelle decides that there isn’t one. She’s just a paranoid Noelle doing paranoid Noelle things to fret about otherwise.

“Hey! Noelle!” Susie says. “Can we… talk?”

She gets that feeling again – that one like Déjà vu. Susie’s smiling, so she doesn’t look upset or inflammatory, but she also sounds… nervous. That’s not necessarily strange for the kinder Susie that Noelle’s come to know, but she sounds like this whilst speaking to Noelle. It’s a bad sign. Noelle’s expecting a break up. She’s just… not sure how she feels about that.

Or… No, no, she knows she doesn’t want that to happen, but why exactly is a weird thought. She doesn’t want to because Susie’s her girlfriend already, and she likes Susie, but she thinks that if they could just stay close, stay special to each other, stay friends who like each other, what would be so bad about that? But that would be unrealistic. She doesn’t want to be broken up with because she knows that it’s supposed to be embarrassing, and because, truly, she can’t let herself just be left alone now, after everything.

She wants to stop Susie. But it’s not really her choice. Everything she’s thinking is all for the wrong reasons, anyway, so maybe she doesn’t even deserve that choice.

“We can,” she says.

Susie sits beside her, in the sand by the lake.

“I just… have some kinda weird news, I guess,” Susie explains.

Has she found someone else? Is it Ralsei? Is it Kris? Those are horrible things to think, but Noelle feels like she needs to think them. She needs to have a reaction to this. She needs to force something worthwhile to appear in the ink patterns over her skin.

“Well… This is a good spot for developments, isn’t it?” She laughs softly. Even to herself, it sounds a little forced, but she knows it’s just subdued. She’s not trying to sound like anything in particular. “For us, at least.”

Susie grins. “True. I, uh… Promise you won’t freak out? It’s not bad, I promise, and I don’t… need anything to change ‘cause of it. But I know that you need to know, and I mean… You’re my girlfriend, so I want you to know. It’ll be cool. Yeah.”

She sounds like she’s convincing herself, and Noelle’s stomach sinks just a little more. That doesn’t sound like the beginning a break-up speech, but she doesn’t know what else to think. This moment just feels too important – too adult – to be anything but relationship-related, and given that they’re both still in school… Where else is there for this to go but a tragic end?

Noelle wonders what the water would feel like, at this time of year.

“I don’t freak out that much, faha,” she says. “I can be calm! Really.”

She doesn’t even feel nervous. Not really, anyway… There’s this distance, between her and Susie, even though she can feel Susie’s shoulder brushing up against hers, and she doesn’t know what to make of it. Actually… Towering over her like this, being able to hold her head high, Susie feels so grown-up. She feels older than Noelle knows either of them to be.

“Never said you couldn’t! Just, uh… Try not to scream?” Susie grins. “I want this to just be about us.”

“Aw, Susie… That’s sweet.”

Her stomach’s eating itself. What’s wrong with her? This is a scene in a perfect ending… Why is she expecting something horrible?

“Heh, just true.” She takes a deep breath. “Alright. Whew. I’m gonna go for it…”

Susie looks so earnest, and it’s making Noelle hurt all over. She doesn’t know what she is anymore, but she’s got to be covered all over in little glass fractures for Susie to cut herself on. The lenses that she’s lookin at the world through are distorted – muted, even – and so even when she can see, with all of the pieces in front of her… She just can’t reach out shattered hands to put them together.

“C-Cool!”

“So. Noelle. I was, uh, talking to Kris and Ralsei earlier, about their… relationship, or whatever. You know… You’ve seen them be all sappy and shit, and I guess I was thinking about how we’re kind of different to that. Like… physically. Ralsei’s so touchy and affectionate, and we’re… us, I guess. I like hearing you, you know? But that’s a different to like, us being all over each other, I think.”

“Oh! Susie, I get it!” Noelle cuts in quickly. Her heart had dropped into her stomach, and now it’s returned to its rightful place to just to beat loudly. She wasn’t nervous before… Eugh, what happened? What changed? It doesn’t matter. She knows she needs to do. “You want us to… To… do stuff like those two. We can…”

She leans in close. Even after all of this time, she and Susie still haven’t kissed. That’s probably her fault, since she just gets so nervous, and she’s never sure if she should initiate or if she even wants to in any given moment, but still. Susie probably feels bad about it, and is trying to bring it up in a covert way.

This is a small sort of crazy thing to do, in the grand scheme of things. Mom won’t be happy, since she still doesn’t like Susie, but… That doesn’t even matter. She knows that Noelle’s a lesbian, and she knows that she’s dating Susie. This is… a natural course of events.

“W-Woah!” Susie stammers. “No, I… Can I finish talking first?”

Ah… Maybe she’d been right at first after all.

Noelle flushes. “Yeah! I’m sorry. I just… Nevermind. What is it?”

“I asked Kris and Ralsei why it felt… normal not to act like they did,” Susie says.

Normal… What a funny concept. Normal’s fluctuated so much, recently. The signs are written all over Noelle, tattooed on glass over the edge of her new snowglobe.

“They asked me what I like. About… relationships. I, uh… I hadn’t really thought much about it before. I like being with you because it feels right, and I guess because I knew you liked me first. Because it was super obvious, I guess, that you really liked me. That’s what Kris used to say, anyway.” That’s what everyone used to say. “I never thought about doing stuff, touchy stuff, with you before, because I never had to think about why I liked you. I just did.”

Noelle stares at the water. It wouldn’t be the first time something had gone so terribly wrong here, would it?

“The thing is… Apparently that’s not normal? For me to think like that. Not in a bad way! But like… That’s not what it’s like for Kris and Ralsei, and heh… Kris said that wasn’t what it was like for them too, when they were…” – Susie looks over at her – “heh, oh man… When they were a kid, and they liked you. That was kind of crazy to hear too, to be honest. Not that I’m surprised that someone would like you, but I guess… It’s just weird to think about how close that all is, and how like, different it makes me feel.”

Dess, a decade ago, saying that Kris picks on her because they have a crush on her. Dess in her head, from beneath a non-existent grave, still whispering about that. Dess, a shadow behind Susie now, confirming that of all the things that she’d been wrong about, this wasn’t one of them.

“Kris… Kris really did…” Noelle murmured. It just couldn’t be right; they’d both been too young for love. “They said that?”

“Admitted it under duress, but sure. You don’t need to worry about it, totally, because it got it all sorted out. It’s just… It made me think. Like… about us. About me. About why I never got really why you wanted to be with me.”

“S-Susie,” she tries. “It’s because… I’ve never met someone like you. You seemed exciting, always. You make my heart beat.”

“No, it’s… I know.” Susie puts an arm over Noelle’s shoulder. “It’s about why I never really got what why I wanted to be with you, too. I get that I like you. I get that you’re amazing. But this… What we’re doing… Why do we need to everyone else to validate us? Why do we need to be Festival royalty, or a symbol for Kris and Ralsei, or the love that I was always just supposed to find? We’re not a fucking sign! We’re not an inevitable ending! We’re people! You’re not a prize or some shit, and I’m… I’m not just some lover.”

Her blood’s in her ears because of how fast her heart’s racing. Why is it that she’s never loved Susie more than when she’s giving a speech which sounds like a broom over loud, crackling glass? That she’s so infatuated with the idea of Susie questioning them and their authenticity? That she revels in the feeling of there being a beam of light shot straight through her opaque chest to reveal a new pattern in front?

“Everyone knows that you’re more, Susie,” she whispers. “And everyone should say it.”

“That’d be nice. More people saying Susie rules!” Susie follows Noelle’s gaze. “But… I guess what I’m trying to say is that I found out some stuff about myself. Found some… words for myself. I’m, uh… Aro. Aromantic. Not like the weapon, though I would make for a pretty kick-ass weapon. Like aroace, ‘cause I don’t really get what makes people like each other like that, ‘cause I don’t like people like that.”

She knows what the words mean. Distantly. Aromantic, asexual. She’s known them basically as long as ‘lesbian’, even though she probably shouldn’t have. She definitely hadn’t got what ‘sexual attraction’ was meant to be as a kid. Though, then again, she’d not gotten ‘romantic attraction’ either, since she’d been too young for it.

Her head spins a little at what Susie just said. Susie… Her girlfriend Susie… She’s aromantic and asexual. She doesn’t actually… like Noelle.

That’s fine, isn’t it? Noelle doesn’t really understand what’s so special about that extra emphasis on the word anyway. It’s been years and she still doesn’t get that. It’s stupid, and performative, and love has always been more about the physical reaction. The nerves, the fear, the eye observing above that must see you… Yeah… That’s always been how she’s rationalised it.

“That’s really nice, Susie,” she says, even if she doesn’t know why she’s saying it. “I’m happy that you found yourself! You… You’re always best as yourself.”

It makes Susie’s eye light up with hope.

“Oh, man… I mean. Fuck.” Susie grins so hard that those hopeful eyes have to close. “I wasn’t sure how this was gonna go. I mean, I was hopeful, ‘cause I know you’re cool, but still… Thanks, Noelle. I, uh… You know I don’t wanna change things, right? I just don’t want to go further. Don’t need to go further. And if, uh, you do… I promise, we’ll try and figure something out. I wanna like you the same way that you like me, even if I have to live it a little different.”

They’ve been living it a little different for months, Noelle doesn’t say.

“It’s fine, Susie. I, uhm… I just want to make you happy.”

Susie looks at her curiously. “And I just wanna make you happy, dude. So like… It’s fine if you wanna ask about stuff. Or, uh… Set… boundaries…? Fuck. I can’t remember what exactly Ralsie said I should do.”

Noelle laughs a little. It’s not that funny, but it is very Susie, so… “You asked Ralsei for advice?”

“She’s good at this kind of shit!” Susie huffs. “She learnt it all from scratch, so she actually like… remembers learning it. Plus, she’s pretty smart. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do when I first realised, ‘cause I was worried that you’d be upset, but Ralsei was… She was nice about it. Uh, super helpful.”

“I would never be upset with you, Susie.” Who has given her the right to be? This is all on a matter that she inexorably can’t understand. She is shaking because part of her is still that little girl listening to Dess in denial. “You’re best as yourself. As… Susie. That comes with everything that you are, and if that’s aroace… then that means that I love that about you too.”

It sort of fits Susie, doesn’t it? She moves like a cannonball through relationships of all types, and she just can’t help making a splash where she goes. She holds this weight, this importance, to everyone around her, and she holds everyone around her up in the air. She doesn’t need strange emphasis on the word ‘like’ to define how she interacts with people; she just grins at them until they’re sharing the lead.

If Noelle were drowning… She’s pretty sure Susie would dive out to save her. She doesn’t think it ever would have been a romantic thing, and the only lip contact she’d make with Susie would be for CPR… She’d get so embarrassed about it afterwards, and then Susie would have to reassure that she’d do the same for anyone. For Kris. For Ralsei. Even Dess. Because Susie’s already saved Dess, hasn’t she? It wouldn’t be romantic… It’d just be Susie. Susie, who’s aromantic.

Should she care more than this? Is she reacting wrong to not be able to conceptualise it as a big deal? It just… seems like a nice viewpoint to see the world through, and it’s so Susie that Noelle can’t help but admire it.

“Man, you’re literally the nicest,” Susie says. “This is going way better than I thought. You, uh… Sure you don’t have any questions? About us? Or… fuckin’ boundaries or whatever?”

“Oh, I, uhm…” If Susie’s prompting her, she probably should ask something. It’d be natural for her to wonder too, given how limited and incomplete her own perspective is. “I guess I am wondering… How do you feel about me? N-Not is a sort of interrogation like way… Just, uhm. I always thought of love as a physical reaction. It’s… the fact that your heart is beating. That you’re nervous that someone can be so close to you. Is it calmer for you?”

“Uh.” Susie blinks. “I think I thought it was supposed to be a mental thing. That’s how Kris and Ralsei described it, so like, ‘cause I don’t feel stuff like that… I just like being around you ‘cause you’re a cool person. I get nervous around you still. But it’s kinda… I mean… You’re out of my league, right? Top shelf stuff. So I know… people might be judging. Which sucks! I wanna be good enough for you. That’s all just, uhm, social stuff, though.”

“I don’t think I’m really valuable, romantically,” Noelle explains.

“Huh? Dude, no way. Everyone likes you!” Susie exclaims.

“Yeah, but that… It’s different, isn’t it? It’s not that everyone likes me. A-And it’s not that I want them to! But I just mean… You’re the first person I’ve been with, Susie,” she says. “I always thought I was too young for romance. Every time I get older, it feels like the age you need to be at to really get it increases as well. I think… Someone truly ‘top shelf’ should know what they’re doing in a relationship. Don’t you?”

Susie squints at her. “You don’t get it either? I dunno about being too young for romance… That never seemed to stop anyone. But like, I definitely don’t know what you’re supposed to do in a relationship either. I kinda I assumed that you did, though… You seem like you do.”

Maybe this was the price of her failed transparency.

“No… I guess I don’t really understand any better than you. I kept waiting to, but… it’s funny. I’m in a relationship and I still don’t really get it.”

“Hey, uh… Can I…” Susie swallows. Noelle looks over, staring at Susie’s arm, still around her shoulders, then at Susie’s eyes, creasing at the edges. “Can I suggest something? Maybe it’s crazy, but…”

“I wish I could do crazy things,” Noelle says. “Uhm. I think… if you tell me to… Maybe I’ll find the courage to?”

“It’s just… It’s bugging me. ‘Love finds its way to the girl’. The prophecy’s total bullshit, but when I saw that, I was so excited. Obviously I know it’s more complicated than that now, but… It’s not even about my love. It’s, uh… It’s making a point what I’m getting. It’s about… your love.”

All around the world, and condensed into just this lake, there’s a sea of loves, and a sea of girls. Does she have to be either? She wants to just love Susie because Susie’s such an amazing person, not because it’s written somewhere. It’s not like she hasn’t always been good at following orders, though.

“It must be,” she whispers.

“Yeah, well… It’s like I said. The prophecy’s total bullshit. And then, what you said to me just now… It’s probably crazy, but it reminded me of the type of shit I was saying to Kris and Ralsei earlier.” Susie retreats her hand, just slightly, hovering it above Noelle’s shoulder. “So I, uh… I gotta ask. Is there maybe a chance that you’re like me?”

The world spins. Susie’s shaken the snowglobe, and in the falling pieces of glitter meant to simulate snow…

She’s known she’s a lesbian – said she’s a lesbian – for years now. She didn’t like boys, and then she does like Susie. But… That should be didn’t like boys, and does like Susie. What she’s been feeling, is it not love? Because what else could it be?

Yet… Isn’t what she and Susie feel for each other supposed to be the same? The same emotion, felt in equal measures. Because Susie likes her however she likes Susie. Noelle bites her lip.

“You mean as in…”

“Uh.” Susie looks away. “Aromantic. Aroace. Not saying that you’re a weapon either, but you’re pretty strong, so I guess you could be if you wanted to be.” She swears under her breath. “Sorry. Didn’t meant to make a joke out of it.”

She wants to say no to Susie. She should say no to Susie. So why won’t she?

“This is doing something crazy, right?” she asks, maybe mostly to herself. “Hey, Susie… How exactly did you know? I know it was only earlier today, but…”

“I didn’t have a crush on you. Before we were dating, I mean. I dunno if I ever even thought I did, but it was probably the assumption,” Susie says. “I was supposed to be finding like, love and stuff, which just sounded so wild and far off to me, so when it happened quickly… Heh, I didn’t even question it. But I love you ‘cause you’re my best friend, not ‘cause it’s like… romantic. I don’t want to kiss you and stuff. Like, it would be fine if you wanted to, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. Seems kinda… face bitey, doesn’t it? I don’t like that. I just want to have you near, not… as a date, I guess.”

“Susie, I–”

Susie shakes her head, seeming frustrated at herself. “No, I can do better than that. You know what it was, Noelle? I realised I wanted to be with you because I thought you wouldn’t leave, if we were together. I thought that if you were happy, we’d get to be super close, and then… I wouldn’t be alone again, no matter what happened with the prophecy and dark worlds and stuff.”

It strikes a chord. She hears a sound like a guitar from the water, and sees a star inked in blacks and greys and greens over her chest. It’s a first at night. A fantasy. Somewhere to run away to for just a while, until at world’s edge, there’s a great streak of purple, Susie’s smile emboldened in it. Noelle sees a scenery – such a clear one, even – and she feels wise for it. Much, much wiser than she has any right to be. Wise beyond her years, maybe.

And that’s it, really. If she looks for a message in the fake snow and glitter, it’s just a reflection of a girl who grew up a decade ago, when she stared at death and saw for it what it was. Had it ever been possible for her to have lost Dess and yet remained a child?

She did grow up. A long time ago, even. There aren’t thorns over her heart, and certainly not glass. Maybe she failed at transparency because… the sunset’s never been where she thrived; it was just the colours of an easier memory. If she sets herself up as a sundial, then it’ll appear like time hasn’t passed at all, because that’s just not who she is. Is it.

That’s a scary thought. Her heart has been racing all along, but she knows, she knows, and she probably should have all along, fear isn’t love. She isn’t known by virtue of a paralysis constricting her into a different shape. Under any watchful eye, she could perform, and all the same, she could convince herself that it was truth. But she’s not a child who can’t understand due to inexperience. That’s not the shape that she has taken on. That’s not what the eye above her should be able to see, if it’s truly looking for who she is.

But… If she lets this all be an explanation, won’t Mom have been right? She’ll have just grown out of her troubles, like it’s supposed to be that easy. It’s like settling – making a home out of a dome that’s just cosy, not expansive, without ever letting it be drawn across the Ferris Wheel.

“I don’t want to be alone either,” she says. “Please, don’t let either of us be alone.”

“We’re not,” Susie responds. “That’s like… We have friends. Great friends. I mean, you’ll have me as long as you want me around, but there’s Kris, and Ralsei, and… Hey, I mean, your sister too, right?”

“She doesn’t get it.” Noelle shakes her head. “She wasn’t the one left behind. She’s the one who… left.”

Susie rubs her back gently. “I get it.”

“I know. I know you do, Susie. That’s just…That’s the scary part.” Noelle watches the shoreline. “I’m not allowed to be like you, I think. I’m not supposed to change who I am, or push, or… I think I’m supposed to love. Love someone else like everyone means when they say like. My whole life is supposed to be… a sign.”

“Fuck that!”

Susie stands up, offering her hand to Noelle. She looks so beautiful like this, but that’s… It’s an instinctive observation, Noelle thinks. Something that she knows that she’s supposed to note. It’s not that it’s not true, but why does she really care? What makes Susie beautiful right now isn’t really the fierce look on her face or the way her hair’s blowing in the breeze or even the power she’s placed into her stance; it’s the claws that are poised simply to help Noelle.

Selfish… That’s selfish…

But doesn’t she deserve a happy ending? Everyone else is happy now. It’s just her. Just Noelle. Just the girl drowning in a mixture of water, antifreeze, and glycerol.

Dad had just wanted her to be happy.

“You should be who you wanna be! You love people because you do, not because you have to!” Susie says. “Nobody gets to tell either of us who to be now!”

“But… You’re a girl, and I’m a girl, so…”

All along, she’s said that she’s a lesbian.

“But it’s not love that found us, I’m pretty sure. We found each other!” Susie insists.

Noelle stares at her open palm. “That’s true…”

“You said you wanted to do something crazy. C’mon, let’s do something crazy! Let’s just be crazy!” Susie grins in brilliant defiance. She’s so happy about it. She looks so right in it. “If you think it sounds right…”

She doesn’t want to understand, she thinks. She doesn’t even need to. She doesn’t want to just be somebody’s queen, even if it’s Susie’s, and she doesn’t want to have to work herself up until she nearly faints just trying to prove to herself that she can be both brilliantly strange as Dess and perfectly normal as Mom’s daughter.

Noelle takes Susie’s hand, launching them both to their feet.

“Susie, I think… Whatever way you meant you like me, that’s how I like you too.”

And suddenly, it’s like the sky bursts open. The twilight settles into these beautiful, moody colours, dark and striking, and it’s a comfortable sort of scenery. She’s exposed herself, shining a torch on herself, but that means she’s done it willingly – not by the sun’s pressing insistence.

The air feels cold on her fur; it’s soothing. Susie’s hand is warm, drawing her in. Her chest is clear. Even though she’s with Susie, doing something crazy, Noelle can breathe.

“Joining me in the scabbard?” Susie asks. “Wait, fuck. That’s swords… Shit. Uhh…”

“Faha, Susie!” Noelle laughs, delighted. “You mean… in a quiver?”

“Yeah, that,” Susie nods, self-assured. “For arrows.”

It’s not like it was ever the easy choice, or something she’s fortunate to have grown into. Explaining this isn't going to be easy. But… She likes to think about challenges like that, doesn’t she? What if she does something more than imagine, for once?

“I am,” she says. “I’m… aromantic. I like you. Just like you. And that’s… enough.”

“You grew up so much whilst I was gone,” Dess tells her. “I’m… sorry I missed it.”

“For a while, I missed it too,” Noelle responds.

“Really? Nah, no way. You’ve always been super smart.”

“Well… Sorry to tell you this, Dess, but you’ve always been wrong about a lot of things.” Noelle chuckles a little. “We both changed, in the dark.”

Dess shrugs. “If that’s where’s comfortable.”

“It is now. I don’t… need to be scared of what’s there anymore.”

“Good. ‘Cause I’ll always be with you there. No matter what.” She meets Noelle at eye level. “I really am proud of you.”