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If AJ had to bet on places she would be spending an afternoon in, her current outing in Arboria would result in her going well and truly bankrupt.
The company is not all that suprising; she’s with Drift, who she spends most of her time with despite the two of them hating each other apparently. They’re on the rooftop of Drift’s brand new accommodation in Juniper’s village — actually, scratch that, they’re on the rooftop of their brand new accommodation, as evident by the two sets of keys, one of which is currently in Drift’s grasp and being dangled over her face, AJ lying down and said proud new owner hovering above her. They catch on the sunlight, leaving small beads of brightness that dance across her skin. Drift is grinning and giggling obnoxiously, jostling the keys enticingly like she’s toying with a cat. Playing along, AJ occasionally reaches up to catch them, not before Drift pulls them away and smirks smugly.
“If you want these keys, you have to earn it~” She sings between frankly villainous giggles.
“By doing what, Drift?” AJ retorts, equally sly. “I have a few ideas on how I could earn it.”
“Oh, do you? Do you want to kiss me for them?” Drift bemuses, her free hand pressed up against her forehead dramatically. “Maybe see if you can steal them while we make out? Or maybe if I’ll be so, so lovestruck, so obsessed with you, I’ll just hand them over? Oh AJ, please live with me, let’s spend the rest of our days together forever—“
“You’re so obvious.”
Drift pauses. “Wha… What am I being ‘obvious’ about?”
“That you want to give me the keys.” AJ retorts cheekily.
“And why do you think I would want to do that.” Drift grumbles, her smirk now accompanied by a wrinkled nose illustrating her annoyance at being caught in the act. AJ snickers.
“Because I know you, Open book,” she remarks. “Like how I know you’re trying to distract me so I don’t ask you what’s bothering you.”
Drift suddenly stills, a light blush rapidly colouring her cheeks. With a huff, she plops down on the roof, turning her head away from AJ. Bingo.
“…Am I really that obvious about everything?”
AJ snorts. “I don’t call you Open book for no reason now, do I?”
Drift practically growls an annoyed hum in agreement. She lays there for a moment, chewing down her lips and fidgeting with her sleeves, still refusing to catch AJ’s inquisitive gaze. Eventually, as minutes draw out under the gnawing silence and the pale sun, she relents with a long and heavy sigh. “It’s really dumb.”
“I don’t care. Tell me anyways.” AJ responds, amused.
Drift huffs again, squeezing her eyes shut with a slight pout. So very princess-esque; AJ giggles under her breath.
“It’s… you know the other day? That… thing with me, Legs, Ambear and Michela?” Drift strains, still with her eyes sealed shut. “The whole… God, the whole marriage thing. That I am not a part of! I’m not!” Her voices rises in panic with her last few words, eyes flying back open and shooting over to AJ, wild and shaky.
“I know, I know,” AJ reassures her with a small smile. “Goggles isn’t exactly your type.”
(She refrains from mentioning Ambear and Michela, lest her odd feeling from the other day — that is not jealously, obviously, why would AJ of all people get jealous — rears its ugly little head again and makes her start squirming as her head is clouded with thoughts of Drift happy and fulfilled somewhere else.
She’s not jealous.)
Drift flushes again, before turning back away from AJ. “…It’s so stupid.”
“Driiiiift, I don’t care if it’s stupid! You’re killing me. I’m dying. Just tell meeeee.” AJ whines.
“Okay, okay, fine,” she concedes with notable ease. “Well, the other day I was chatting with Megii and… it came up? I guess? I don’t— I don’t really even remember why, it just kinda did, and they were— I don’t know, pressing me about, I guess? Not in like a mean way or something, in like… like a Megii way, you know? A silly way.”
AJ hums in acknowledge, and Drift continues her confession. “So we were talking about it and… then I told her a bit about my feelings on marriage. With the whole… political gain and expectation thing and how… you know, it impacts my feelings on everything.”
“…Oh. Yeah,” AJ murmurs. “That must of sucked.”
Drift groans. “I know no-one like, means anything about it, and it’s just a funny bit, but… urgh, I don’t know.”
“You can’t help it if something upsets you, Open book.” AJ replies earnestly. Drift sniffs, and nods slowly.
“…I know,” Drift responds, her voice small. “And Megii was really nice about it, like they always are, and we chatted more about stuff, and then, and,” her voice trails off, and AJ watches Drift’s small blush grow ferociously bubblegum. It makes her stomach start suddenly doing cartwheels.
“And?” AJ echoes, hoping she doesn’t give away just how giddy she feels.
Drift abruptly sits up, pulling her knees to her chest in anguish with a deep groan that fizzles into a something akin to a whimper. She says something, but her meek and desperately embarrassed voice is muffled by layers of linen and leather; poor AJ is about to burst at the literal seams with anticipation and all-consuming need-to-know. It’s clearly something them related, if it’s got Drift this riled up, and it had to have come from a conversation about marriage of all things, so it must be wild. God, she feels erratic.
“Open book, if you don’t tell me, I will jump off the roof and die.”
Finally, finally, Drift lifts her head out. “Megii asked me if I wanted to marry you.”
Oh. Huh.
“And before you say anything, I didn’t say yes!” Drift exclaims. “I… I told her that it’s complicated. Because it is. Complicated.”
Huh.
The two grow silent, their faces shadowed by the passing clouds, the topic of discussion weighing absurdly heavy in the light air. In the end, once again, it’s Drift who ultimately breaks.
“Could you even imagine it, though?” Drift murmurs, eyes still caught on the skyline. “Us married?”
The obvious answer to AJ is certainly a resounding no. Nothing personal to dear old Rynn, of course — AJ’s just not one for something so finite, so singular. Her, bound to one woman for the rest of her days. Her, bound to the law of the land, placed squarely under its dominion under the guise of ‘true love’ and all that bullshit. A perfect follower of the perfect order of the kingdom. This world has never loved her, helped her out, giving her something worth following its orders; why would she be so complicit in its rules and expectations? Fun is found in the in-betweens, the thrill of the chase searching for somewhere higher, something better than the never-ending sunlight.
To be a married woman, a wife, sends a chill down AJ’s spine, the kind that settles dark and deep in her stomach and whines for attention, begs to be thought of incessantly. In her mind she hears the voice of Lord de Fruitclair, the way he spoke of a women’s duty with a pointed look in her direction on the rare occasions that pathetic excuse for a man and a father acknowledged that she was, in fact, a real breathing human being and not Ghostie’s weird little accessory. Marriage is a man’s world, a man’s weapon, held against her throat from the moment she recognised her own queerness. It’s the world of those who abide by the system, who follows what is known without question or remorse.
AJ does not abide. She does not play nice with what does not strike her fancy. She’s obnoxiously stubborn and unrelentingly, a mind so bound in long shadows it cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel, a corpse you can never reanimate no matter how often lightning strikes. So the answer is no. No. It will always be no.
But. But. God, why is there a but in her mind? Where did it come from, how long has it been there?
Because she cannot be a wife. She cannot be held down like that, metal pressing down on skin and bones. But Drift is talking in hypotheticals, in imagination, and in all she talks of disconnections and disillusions, the thought of AJ spending her life with Drift by her side forevermore is horrifyingly intoxicating. Finding something simple and pleasant, ridiculously saccharine in its domesticity. A speakeasy in Arboria, a home in Basketon, a cottage in Wisperville; a million different lives all coloured in Drift. Her Drift, her Open book. Something hers.
“I… I don’t— I don’t know, Open book.” AJ eventually manages to eke out, fighting against the rising tension in her chest.
Drift’s head shoots in her direction, eyes wide. “What?”
AJ gulps. “Look, I’m not good at—“
“No, no. You… I thought you’d say no,” Drift interrupts. “Like immediately. I mean, I thought you’d like, laugh at me.”
Right. That’s a fair assessment. After all, AJ expected herself to say no. She should have said no, she should have laughed the concept off in its entirety. Yet for whatever bizarre reason she just, well, didn’t. Couldn’t find the words to deny the ridiculous concept of getting married. Actually, genuinely getting married, making some grand gesture, vows of dedication sworn under the endless sky. To Drift. Marrying Drift.
Which could mean nothing! There’s a million reasons as to why AJ didn’t deny the prospect of marrying Drift, and they are all extremely air-tight and valid and true. She just can’t recall them right now — see, she has this condition. It’s developed very recently, so she’s still adjusting to it all. That’s why she can’t think of a good excuse right now. There is no other reason. Not at all.
The clouds above peel away, and streaks of white and pale lemon light flood the small roof space. One particularly eager beam catches on Drift, illuminating her in its gentle light, making her soft amber eyes come alive, pools of ambrosia with flecks dark as mud and dirt. Light catches on her hair, slightly windswept, her plait looser from the day’s excursions, on her crown, each glowberry now part of a halo of starlight, on her lips, pink and inviting.
“I don’t know. I… I feel the same way, with your whole thing about marriage and what it means. And I don’t really see myself ever really doing it, but…” AJ mutters, voice low. “Maybe I’m just feeling a little more stupid lately.”
Drift scoffs affectionately. “You’re always stupid,” she hums. “But… it’s kinda nice knowing you feel the same way as me. It’s… hard, when other people only really see it as something so, so nice. Just… nice.”
Falling back into a more comfortable silence, AJ turns her gaze back up to the sky, watching a pair of birds far up in the distance swoop and soar. They break away at times, pulling so far away it seems they are moving away forever, shattering whatever connection drew them into flying side by side, until suddenly they reconnect, unite with one another and fly close. As they leave her viewpoint, the two fly with barely a feather separating them off into the great beyond, far beyond Arboria, far beyond anything in sight.
“If we got married, it would have to break like, every marriage tradition ever,” AJ suddenly speaks, words rapidly tumbling out of her mouth. “It would be the most insane wedding of all time.”
Drift snorts. “Well, duh. Our wedding would have to leave a huge impression. Everyone wouldn’t be able to shut up about it.”
“True, true. We’d have to make sure we’d show up all the other dragon rider weddings. No one in our class is allowed to have a wedding as memorable as ours.”
“If they do we’ll just get married again and make it weirder.” Drift adds, and AJ nods vigorously.
“They’ll put us in the history books of the Summer Realm.” AJ continues, her face split open with a devilish grin.
“Um, the history of the whole of Terraventus, thank you. I have big plans.” Drift corrects, poking her in the cheek with a similarly wild smirk. AJ turns to bite at the teasing finger and is resultantly met with a sharp bark of laughter and shock as Drift snatches her precious hand away. “You know, funnily enough the one thing they don’t involve is biting.”
“Really? Because my wedding plans involve a lot of biting.” AJ teases.
Drift blushes deep. “You’re a freak.”
“As I recall, you were never that opposed—“
“Okay fine a little bit of biting!” Drift interrupts. AJ raises an eyebrow. “A decent amount of biting.” Her eyebrow remains aloft, and Drift practically turns fuschia. “AJ!”
“Oh, you’re so easy to tease, Open book,” AJ giggles, returning her gaze back to the sky. “I don’t even have to say anything most of the time.”
“Yeah because you’re thinking of something,” Drift sighs, folding her arms across her chest and joining AJ in watching the cloud swim. “You and your big weird brain.”
“Oh, so you think I’m smart?” AJ quips.
“Actually I said you’re weird but… yeah. You’re a lot smarter than most people give you credit for, AJ.” Drift states, something earnest and kind bleeding into her tone in the way affection so often breaks through her supposedly stoney surface, oozes with a tenderness that highlights all too painfully their shared past of desire and home. AJ swallows a lump she didn’t realise was forming in her throat, lets her head hang low and press up against the roof shingles.
“…You should say that in your vows.” She murmurs, quiet enough she hopes Drift won’t hear her.
Naturally, because the universe is squarely against AJ and is built specifically to torment her endlessly until she finally croaks, Drift hears, a small gasp escaping her soft lips. Then, AJ watches through her obscured view as she smiles warmly. “I probably would.”
Something akin to curiosity nibbles at AJ’s mind. Realistically, it’s probably something far more sinister, that makes her want to hurt herself over and over, pull her skin and rip at the wound so it remains always weeping, always fresh. AJ lifts her eyes back squarely towards Drift. “What else would you include?”
Drift continues to stares up for a moment, still drenched in soft sunlight, before she shuffles and turns her head, pressing her hands beneath her freckled cheeks. Tawny eyes stare deep and gentle in AJ’s own, and she drinks up all the attention hungrily, like a bad dog waiting for a treat even after shouting at the neighbours and ripping the house apart. “Hmm… well, I’d probably start with the story of how we met.”
(AJ feels her stomach drop, her body suddenly overwhelmed with a chill that feels bone deep. How they met. Right, of course. Of course.
Of course she would).
“You… think about that a lot?” AJ questions, flashing a smile she hopes doesn’t look as strained as it feels on her itching skin.
If Drift can sense her tension, she plays it off well. “Well, it comes up from time to time,” Drift hums. “I wouldn’t say all the time.”
“I bet you think about it every time you walk past,” AJ teases, steering the conversation back to safer territory — making fun of her. “Because you’re obsessed with me.”
Drift gaps at her, eyes sparkling with glee. “And where did you get the idea that I’m obsessed with you? May I remind you I hate you?” She retaliates, but her wide smile betrays the lack of genuine venom beneath her words. Suddenly, she gasps dramatically. “Oh I know, you’re obsessed with me and you’re just projecting as usual!”
“Oh am I now? Maybe I’ll include that in my vows. I met my Open book and became really, really obsessed with her. I saw her and all I wanted to do was make out with her sloppy style all the time.”
Drift laughs, loud and sweet. “You can not say make out sloppy style in your vows.”
“Why not? Our wedding is supposed to be unconventional. Sloppy style is perfectly fitting.”
Rolling her eyes, Drift groans. “You’re so annoying.”
“I know,” AJ responds cockily. “What else would you include?”
“Well… probably about how you… you’ve always seen me, exactly as I am. You’ve never… wanted me to be something else, like some pretty, docile thing,” Drift describes, her gaze low. A light dusting of pink grows in her cheeks, and AJ feels a similar heat bubbling beneath her own. “You see me. And I see you.”
Oh.
Under the open sky, AJ feels her heartbeat quicken, pound and thump thunderously loud in her ears, so loud she wonders if Drift can hear it, even feel it through the shingles. The wound she rips at continues to weep and tear pathetically at her skin, bleed her drier and drier. It echoes Drift’s name over and over, a chorus of yearning and anger and misery. Oh, it’s assiduous, the way AJ’s body aches for her, a pain that buzzes in her mind like a particularly persistent mayfly, like convulsions that rocket down her body and deep into her soul. She feels sick. She feels wrong. She feels so right. She wants her like a soldier craves another battlefield, like death wants the living.
(She can’t have her. Drift isn’t hers to have. She’s never been).
Drift, unaware of AJ’s racing thoughts, continues on. “And I’d probably talk about how… how much I love our quiet moments together, just the two of us doing something in the same room, or even like… doing nothing, lying around. We wouldn’t need to talk because we just… had each other. And in those moments that was all we needed,” she scrapes a nail against the tile, small rhythmic circles. “I always liked spending our nights just reading while you worked, or telling dumb stories about the other riders, or just… you holding me. Me holding you. Holding each other.”
Whoever AJ was in a past life, they must have been truly wicked. They must have been cruel, candid in their desire for destruction and slaughter, must have destroyed the whole goddamn world at some point; it’s the only explanation for how harshly and vivaciously the universe has chosen to spite her, wrung her dry and spit her out. She must have committed some great sin, some atrocity, to lie on this sun-kissed roof and hear the woman she wants talk so sweetly, knowing every word will fly off into the empty air like the swooping birds and vanish from view. Dissipate into nothing, fade from her mind, lose itself in her encroaching black hole of a mind and a body. Words she knows, knows are meant with sincerity, drenched in the kind of care that can only be described in the unspeakable word, that cannot mean anything. Because she fucked it up. Because it’s over.
Because she’ll forget.
AJ doesn’t want to forget. Of course, she’s never wanted to forget before, but right now the desire is so overwhelming it’s like she’s drowning, gasping desperately and humiliatingly for air. This moment, this roof, these words; they are hers. They belong to her. Stored away safely in AJ’s mind — she wants to keep them under lock and key. For just one moment, a day, a week, a year, for just forever, is that too much to ask? Is it too much to want peace? To hold on and not let go?
“Drift,” her voice feels so heavy, like someone has filled her throat with cotton wool, or maybe something crueler like cement, hot and hard and pulling down on her vocal cords. “I… Drift. I…”
“AJ,” Drift sings back, a wobble to her tone that betrays the growing shine in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
And fuck — she can’t take it anymore.
AJ lurches herself forwards, flies off the roof tiles so hard the surface chips ever so lightly, broken pieces of brick trickling and clattering to the ground. Her hands reach for Drift, who in turn pulls forward, waits for her collision with equally wanting arms. It’s the longest few seconds of her life, the time between moving and finding, slotting right into place again. Finding the rhythm of pressing her lips against Drift’s own is simple; the mind may decay, but the body remembers. No, AJ thinks it’s something deeper — the soul. Her very soul calls and yearns and knows, knows the shape of Drift’s cupid bow, the taste of her lip balm, the weight of her body pressed against her own. Digging her fingers into Drift’s back, AJ hums warm and desperate into her mouth, and is met with Drift’s gentle response, a matching sigh of needing.
The sharp edges and curves of the tiling dig into her skin, sending prickles of white hot pain down her body, and her bones and her muscles ache with the effort — but AJ can’t find the desire to care. Nothing matters when Drift rakes her nails across her shoulders, tickles the ends of her hair, kisses her like she’s starving. Nothing matters when her senses are being overwhelmed with familiar perfume and the sharp tang of memories, bedsheets that smell like lavender and late nights, bar tables with drink rings on dark wood, scattered thoughts that bloom suddenly into focus, harsh, beautiful, theirs.
She refuses to let herself fade into the background of these moments, become some pitiful ghost watching her devotion from the periphery. With every kiss, every exchanged breath, she tells herself this will remain, like those marks on that bar she can’t scrub out, like the scent on those bedsheets that won’t seem to wash out. AJ won’t lose herself. She won’t.
(It won’t work. She knows it won’t. Like how she knows this kiss won’t go anywhere, like how she knows Drift can also tell there is something wrong with her, like how she knows they’ll never get married. It’s all smoke and mirrors, half-truths and deceptions, pantomimes in crumbling buildings. She’s pouring gasoline on a forest fire and watching the flames lick the sky, and soon she’ll forget she ever even smelt the kindling.
In spite of it all she kisses Drift deeper).
When they break up, Drift wraps her arms around AJ’s shoulders, swirling messier strands of mahogany hair between her fingers. They lie barely a feather apart, noses touching, wearing matching flushed faces and shiny eyes. The two catch their breath in rhythm, each exhale echoing until they steady. Drift gulps, and shoots AJ a gaze so determined she cannot help but shiver.
“Tell me yours.”
And, though the smell of ash still clings, she does.