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It begins with a note. This is very typical for her; Ayda keeps her notes carefully organised. Labelled, filed, taped to her wall if they’re particularly important. Adaine calls it “charming”; Fig calls it “you actually know where you keep all this shit?”. Regardless of how it looks to outsiders, it’s a very precise organisational system, and one Ayda has spent all her years cultivating.
There is a note out of place on her floor.
It sits, innocently enough, beneath her perch, long since cold from her leaving this morning. Ayda has been looking directly at it for a few minutes now, head cocked. She would know if she had dropped one of her notes earlier. She always knows. Her memory is quite keen. She certainly did not write it.
Despite this, it is, tauntingly, written in her own hand. It’s shorter than what she usually writes herself, and slightly cramped, like she was trying to get her message out quickly. Her mind flashes to her father and Ayda considers whether chronomancy could be involved. Perhaps this is a warning from her future self. The pulse of her Detect Magic washes through the room, coming up empty. Well, drat. There’s nothing else for it, then.
Begrudgingly, Ayda walks closer, talons clicking over wood planks. When she bends down to pick it up, the tips of her wings brush the floor.
It is two sentences, both three words, each more confusing than the last. Ate yday morn, the first says. Check on Aelwyn.
Ayda flips over the paper. The back is frustratingly blank. Her True Seeing travels from her head to her fingertips to her toes, revealing… nothing.
The note crumples in her fist, then catches on fire. The next time Ayda blinks, she’s holding a fistful of ash. She blinks again, once, twice. She shakes her hand out over the wastepaper basket. A couple of pieces stick to her sweaty palm. She doesn’t seem to notice.
Well, that’s that taken care of, then. Resolved to ignore the issue, Ayda turns her attention to her librarian duties. There are plenty of pirates to hunt down for their books, of course, and Garthy to have a weekly luncheon with. Aelwyn will be fine to hold down the fort in the few short hours she’s away. Probably. Ayda attempts to shake off any doubt, particularly of the unsubstantiated sort from undisclosed notes. She wipes her palm on her trousers.
“Aelwyn?” Ayda calls out, wings shivering behind her as she enters the main hall of the Compass Points.
“What?” Aelwyn asks, grumpy, tucked away behind a shelf in the back. Ayda can just see the tips of her boots in the space underneath it, surrounded on all sides by book spines. “What do you need?”
Ayda doesn’t need Comprehend Subtext to decipher being bitched at by an Abernant. She pays it no mind. “I will be running errands this afternoon. It may take me well into the night,” she muses, thinking about her current target. “I do fear that Scrawny Carl may know I am coming.” Despite his name, he’s a rather fearsome pirate and doubly clever. The ensuing battle for his library book will, of course, be no challenge for a wizard of her calibre, but she’s looking forward to stretching herself a little bit. “I will expect you to be available to patrons if need be in the time I am gone.”
There’s a long silence behind the shelf. “That’s what you pay me for,” says Aelwyn. There’s something in her tone that Ayda does not understand.
She hesitates, paused halfway in the act of turning around for the door. “Are you alright?” Ayda finally asks. Sweat builds on the back of her neck.
“…Fine,” Aelwyn says shortly. “If this is about earlier, you needn’t mention it.”
Ayda frowns. Earlier today was, presumably, when Aelwyn Teleported in for work. They hardly exchanged five words; Ayda greeted her and asked if she needed help on organising the evocation section. Aelwyn waved her off, as per usual. Ayda didn’t think anything in the exchange had been worth mentioning, but perhaps she had missed something? Was it expected that she should engage in further friendly conversation with her employee before moving on with her tasks for the day? Ayda files it away as a question to text Adaine about later.
Ayda cleared her throat. “Of course,” she says stiffly, feeling distinctly out of her depth. The silence stretches between them. Adaine’s boots don’t move beneath the bookcase. “My apologies if I have slighted you in any way,” Ayda tries, shoulders tensed, jaw tight.
Somehow, it feels like the right thing to have said. Ayda can almost feel the release of breath as Aelwyn begins shuffling around again. “Just don’t do it again,” she says. Ayda mentally bumps up asking Adaine for pointers on courtesy.
“You have my word.” It feels wrong to vow not to repeat a mistake that Ayda doesn’t fully understand, but she resolves to do her best to find out what it is before she can replicate it. It’s—difficult, unfortunately, for her to always know where she has misstepped.
Still kicking herself for the unknown transgression, she lets herself out of the Compass Points without further discussion. The sun, somehow, is already halfway to sinking over the horizon. She must’ve spent more time organising than she thought. Her stomach, finally making itself known, growls loudly. She ignores it, tucking the sensation to the back of her mind. Pirate-hunting first, dinner after.
She casts Locate Creature, spell sinking into the earth around her. She can almost feel it through the wood of the docks, a mycelial web of magic spreading outward from the epicentre of her feet. She closes her eyes to focus on it more clearly, rocking back and forth.
She can tell the instant it catches hold, hooking straight into her like a fish on a line, somewhere around her stomach. Scrawny Carl is out at the western edge of the docks, moving in a regular pattern, like maybe he’s pacing the length of a cabin. The spell tugs on her like a tether.
Ayda bends, stiffens, and shoots off from the wood beneath her, wings spreading from her back to catch the wind. It buffets over her cheeks, tearing at her clothes. She can’t help but grin, leaning into it, and affords herself a single loop-de-loop midair. She has to bank hard to climb out of it, and takes the moment to admire how the setting sun reflects over the ocean. Like this, it’s hard to remember that Leviathan is a city built on hostility and mistrust. Some of the tension she’s been carrying all day ebbs away.
But, of course, she’s here for business. The moment ends. She uses Invisibility to prevent her from being seen by anybody in Leviathan as she soars above, keen eyes focused on the ground beneath her. She watches her shadow ripple and disappear as she casts it. Just like that, she’s nothing: a footprint in the dirt, blown away by the breeze.
In the back of her mind, something stirs. Her stomach rumbles again. Ate yday morn. Ayda has never abbreviated anything in her life. Her notes are written out fully, explicitly, in rich detail for future iterations of herself to understand as soon as they learn to read. Her brow furrows.
She wonders, suddenly, how many times she’s been reincarnated. Her stomach drops out from under her. She doesn’t understand why.
There’s a pressure at the nape of her neck, a migraine coming on. Ayda scrubs at her eyes with her fists, doing her best to rub it away, wobbling in the air as she does. She doesn’t have the time for this. She’s perfectly fine.
If her feet hit Scrawny Carl’s deck a little harder than she means for them to, well, nobody has to know. She rolls out of the ungraceful landing, talons scratching the wood as she drags herself back to standing. She’s already pulled the small dagger from her belt, though if all goes well, she won’t need it. She brandishes it before her, lowering into a fighting stance.
Scrawny Carl doesn’t come to investigate. She stays still for several long moments, invisible on the deck, catching her breath. Alarm bells begin to ring in the back of her head. Her spell assures her that he hasn’t left; he’s still belowdecks—but what could be so important to him that he wouldn’t notice the commotion above his head? Where is his crew?
She cautiously approaches the door to the captain’s quarters, prowling near-silently over the wood. If there are traps lain for her here, she can’t sense them. She’s certain there’s something more nefarious going on, but she isn’t sure what it is yet. It’s driving her mad. Ayda hates a problem she can’t immediately solve.
The door is ajar. Ayda stiffens. She can’t hear anything inside. It sets her further on edge.
She drops into a crouch, toes open the door with a talon. She’s not any sort of rogue, but her stealth is passable. She’ll be getting into a fight one way or another; she may as well commit.
The scene that meets her is shockingly pleasant. Scrawny Carl’s quarters are neat, orderly; everything in its place. The wood of his desk is polished to a high shine. Upon it are a few scrolls, ordered by size, and a pair of quills. In the centre, shining like it’s under a spotlight, sits the tome he failed to return. The beautiful golden filigree on it spells out How to Not Drown in a lovely script that makes Ayda feel briefly, intensely jealous of the author’s handwriting. Above the desk, on a shelf cluttered with various tchotchkes, rest a few more books: Sixty-Six Sexy Sea Shanties for Sailors, How to Read, So You Have Feelings for Your First Mate: A Pirate's Guide to Homoeroticism in the Workplace, Ex Marks The Spot: Talking To Your Crew About Divorce, and, of course, the latest volume of Scurvy, Curvy, Beautiful. Her gaze passes over their spines as she ducks inside.
Pacing over the wooden floorboards, an open book clutched in one hand, is Scrawny Carl. His eyes seem to flick up to the door as she enters. She freezes, still lowered as far as she can be, in case he moves to attack. Instead, he appears to go back to being engrossed in what he’s reading—Seventy-Seven Unsexy Sea Shanties for Sailors, according to the title. He isn’t practicing them. Curious.
The hairs on her arms raise right before she receives the Sending (pirate, of course) that upends the rest of her life.
Aelwyn’s voice reaches her, harried, tense. “I’m having difficulty holding the wards on my own,” she says. “They have torches. Part of the plan?”
Torches. Unbidden, Ayda can smell the fire. Sense memory. Something grows in her chest. Scrawny Carl looks up again, and this time makes direct eye contact with her.
“Gotch’er attention, did I?” His teeth are straight, even, reflecting in the dim light of his cabin. She refuses to admit that it unnerves her.
“Who has torches?” she Sends back. “I will return to you shortly. A matter here requires my attention first.”
Haste is now of the utmost importance. She gives up immediately on theatrics or dramatics, breaking out of Invisibility to toss a Banishment at Scrawny Carl. It fails to take hold. Her teeth grind together.
“Now, that’s not very polite,” he says, setting down his book. Ayda doesn’t care much about politeness.
“Your book is overdue,” she says perfunctorily.
He knows. He doesn’t care. He smiles, spreads his hands. “It’s there, innit? Why don’t ye come get it yerself?”
It’s a trap. Ayda doesn’t understand what he stands to gain from it. She straightens up, moves slowly towards his desk, keeping him in her line of sight.
“Ye know,” he says, conversationally, fingers tapping over the cover of the book he holds, “it’s annoying, innit? Gets tiresome. Ye hoarding all that knowledge. Keeping it from the people. T’ain’t right.”
“Anybody can check out any book they need at any time they need it so long as they have a library card,” Ayda says, her brow furrowing in confusion. “I fail to understand what you mean.”
His grin doesn’t reach his eyes. “Then t’ain’t truly free, t’ain’t it? If ye cannae keep it.”
Ayda frowns, hand hovering over his desk. “You’re upset that the Compass Points is not a bookstore?”
His smile widens. “Oh, missy,” he says. “I don’t wannae buy.”
Her hand comes down on the cover of How to Not Drown, other hand already conjuring a Fireball, at the same time as Scrawny Carl points to somewhere above them. His eyes never leave her face.
The next Sending hits just as Ayda heaves the fire towards him.
“They’re through the wards!” Aelwyn sounds properly panicked. Not good. “Pirates, too many of them. Get here now!”
Hand on the spine of the overdue tome, Ayda heaves it towards herself, cursing her decision not to prepare Teleport this morning. She doesn’t have the time to ritually cast it, nor the components.
Scrawny Carl ducks under the Fireball, ignoring the way it incinerates his bed behind him. In one smooth movement, he reaches up to the straps on his back and unsheathes his blades, something sickly green glowing along their edges. They light his face from beneath, green reflecting in the hollows under his eyes. Ayda shoves her way backwards, throwing herself bodily towards the door she entered through. If she can just make it onto the deck—
The first cut comes before she expects it, searing heat across her forearm. The flesh on either side of it burns, somehow hot and cold simultaneously. She doesn’t bother to glance down at it, busy working on another Fireball. She’ll need to get him while they’re still in close quarters.
Meanwhile, her mind is running overtime as she tries to avoid catching another blow. Whether or not she defeats Scrawny Carl here, she simply cannot be in two places at once. Regretfully, she admits to herself in the privacy of her own mind, she might be in over her head. Time to call in the reinforcements.
“Wards down at Compass Points,” she Sends with a flick of her own finger. “Out on business. Requesting assistance.”
“On it.” Garthy’s voice is like a balm on her soul. They’ve got it. Despite herself, she relaxes minutely.
Her momentary distraction costs her another slash, this one to the upper thigh, and a third to the hand holding the book. She cries out, struggling not to drop it. It’s much more difficult to ignore the pain this time. Ayda is immune to fire, and has been her entire life—it is rare for her to experience something that truly burns. She eyes the weapons again. That glow… Ayda feels her mind moving sluggishly, her movements becoming sloppy as she kicks backwards at the door.
When she throws the Fireball, it swings wide. It connects, still; she can see the way his face contorts into a grimace, the way the fabric of his tunic melts into the flesh on his side. It’s not enough. She kicks again at the door, and again. Why do they invent doors that only swing inwards?
The messages from Garthy and Aelwyn overlap. Addled, she struggles to make out the contents.
“Bit of a problem, darling,” Garthy says.
Aelwyn is much more to the point: “Fire.”
Black spots grow in Ayda’s vision. Flame leaps off her wings, embers scattering to the floor around her. Behind Scrawny Carl, the wall and floor on the other side of the bed alight, sending up tendrils of smoke. He doesn’t seem to notice, eyes on her.
Ayda can’t remember ever experiencing rage like this before. How dare he set her library aflame.
He doesn’t know who we are, something inside of her says. But he will. Move over.
Ayda remembers nothing else.
—
“Sooo… hey… how’s it going?”
Ayda loves her girlfriend. She is the luckiest woman in the world, to have a paramour like Figueroth Faeth. She also does not want to be having this conversation.
“I am doing just as well as the previous five times you asked,” she snaps, then immediately regrets it. She finds it difficult to tell for certain, but she is fairly sure Fig’s drooping ears are about more than just her short response to the question.
It’s been—frustrating, lately. Ayda understands a certain amount of concern over the incident with Scrawny Carl last week, and is, truthfully, incredibly disappointed to have accidentally lost one of her library books in the fire aboard his ship, but everybody has been walking on eggshells around her in a way that she finds hard to appreciate. The rest of her books were unharmed; Garthy and Aelwyn had it under control. The Compass Points is hardly scathed.
She sighs. “I appreciate your concern, but truly, I will recover from the loss of a book. The Compass Points has many more to offer.”
Fig looks hesitant, biting her bottom lip. “Um,” she starts, “is that what you think I keep asking you about? Like, with how you’re feeling?”
Ayda doesn’t understand. “Whatever else could you be referring to?”
For some reason, it’s Fig’s turn to look taken aback. Ayda contemplates casting Comprehend Subtext just to understand all the emotions that cross her face. “Well,” she hesitates, “I don’t want to, like, alarm you or have you take this the wrong way or anything.” She shifts in her chair, then shifts back the other way. Her fingers won’t stop tapping across the table between them.
“What would the wrong way be?” Ayda’s wings bristle. She can’t help being on edge.
Fig lets out a breath of air, looking up towards the ceiling. “Uh, like, freaking out. Or whatever. Panicking. Getting pissed.”
Ayda’s already on her way there. “These are all quite regular emotions to experience in response to bad news. Jawbone extended me a book on the subject.”
“Yeah, no,” Fig says hastily, throwing herself forward in her chair and waving her arms as though trying to wipe her words away. “I mean, you can feel however you feel about stuff, just like. Try to stay chill?”
Ayda has no idea what constitutes “staying chill”. Her stomach curdles. “You have my word.”
“Okay,” Fig says, still eyeing her warily. “Uh. How much do you remember about the other day?”
“In reference to the battle with Scrawny Carl?”
Fig nods. “And after.”
“I remember all of it.” Ayda’s brow furrows. “Are there details you would like me to recall specifically?”
“Nooo,” Fig draws out, leaning back in her chair. “Um. So you know what you looked like when you came back, then?”
Ayda tries to remember what Fig could be talking about. She supposes it’s rather vague and blurry, likely from the blood loss and the exhaustion. “Unwell?” she tries.
Fig taps her fingers against her mouth. “You could say that, I guess,” she says. “That’s all?”
“I was poisoned and wounded,” Ayda recites, factual. “Garthy assisted with a heal and I returned to my perch for a long rest. They had disposed of the culprits by the time I arrived, so there was no need for me to take any other action before I retired for the night. Is that enough?”
Fig is silent for a long, long minute. She has her tongue tucked up against her teeth. “Babe,” she says, finally, “you disposed of them.”
Ayda blinks rapidly as she does her best to process the new information. “I was running low on spells,” she responds, confused.
“You didn’t cast any,” says Fig, wincing. “It was like… it was like you didn’t know how.”
She won’t meet Ayda’s eyes. Her gaze flits back up to the ceiling, then over Ayda’s shoulder to the bookshelves, then her hands, where they continue to tap on the tabletop restlessly.
Ayda is speechless. She feels like the floor beneath her is splintering, moments from giving way. “I was quite disoriented. The poison…” she says, but her voice sounds strained even to her own ears.
“Baby.” Fig is uncharacteristically solemn. Her hands stop tapping to reach out to Ayda’s. “You were covered in blood.”
There’s a ringing in Ayda’s ears. She swallows, looks to their clasped hands over the table.
“I do not know what that means,” she struggles to admit. “Or if it means anything at all.”
Fig lets a long breath out through her nose. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. Well, so, Aelwyn messaged Adaine, who came and got me, first of all. And we got here as soon as we could, but we were still a little later than maybe would be ideal, right?”
Ayda doesn’t remember either of them being present at all. Bile rises in her throat. She nods.
Fig eyes her skeptically. “Ohhhhkay…” she says, but mercifully lets it go. “Well, we got here and helped, you know, smite the shit out of some stupid pirates—and put out the fires, babe, don’t give me that look!—but it wasn’t too long before you came back. Aelwyn and Adaine were working on getting the wards back up, and Garthy and I were working on clearing out the rest of ‘em when you flew in. And babe. Baby. You were already…” she falters, mouth opening and closing a few times. “I didn’t even recognise you at first.”
Ayda gives up on trying and failing to piece together what Fig is getting at and casts Comprehend Subtext. First and foremost: her girlfriend is skirting around something, and trying to be gentle about raising the subject. She’s alarmed by the state Ayda arrived in, and still a little bit scared. She thinks something was—is—wrong. The implication in her speech is that Ayda was covered in blood by the time she got to the Compass Points, which means… which means…
Ayda doesn’t remember killing him. Ayda doesn’t remember killing him at all.
I had to, something in her whispers.
She really concentrates. Memories come back, hazy, but she feels separated from them, like they’re on the other side of a thick pane of glass. The harder she reaches out, the further away they get. She knows, at least, that she did have to; there wasn’t any other way. She had been out of time and options.
“I…” Ayda is not used to being at a loss for words. It unnerves her. She breathes, tries again. “I had no choice.”
Fig looks unswayed. “I don’t care if you kill some guys,” she says, which is maybe the understatement of the year given just how many deaths her party is responsible for. “It just seemed like… I don’t know, I’ve never seen you like that before.”
Ayda pulls her hands out of Fig’s to reach for paper and pen. “I require more detail to draw a detailed conclusion.”
Fig smiles at her, but it’s wan. “If you’re making a list of weird things, you can start with murdering all those guys without spells,” she starts, and Ayda begins to write. Unprecedented and excessive use of violence. Unexplained reliance on brute force over magic. “Not recognising me or Adaine.” Lack of recognition, Ayda writes, then beneath it: difficulty accessing and connecting to memories—amnesia? She looks back up at Fig expectantly.
Her face is displaying another set of emotions Ayda can’t decipher. For some reason, she seems hesitant again. “Do you have any other observations to disclose?” Ayda prompts.
Fig sucks on her teeth. “Well,” she says, breath coming out in a gust, “this is kinda like the mood swings.”
Ayda is taken aback. Her pen hovers over the paper. Distantly, she notices her hand trembling. The shame such a statement should probably elicit is hard for her to reach. She feels like her head is stuffed full of cotton, like she has a bad case of vertigo.
“Mood swings?”
Fig looks like she regrets speaking. “Well, you know,” she says, like it explains anything at all.
“I do not know,” Ayda says, jaw clenched tightly enough to feel the ache even through the fog in her head, tension tightening like a band. “Figueroth, I need you to be direct with me.”
Fig caves, the way she always does when Ayda asks. “Sometimes you act really differently,” she says, her eyes moving around the room again. “You get really angry really fast, or scared, or excited. Sometimes you talk slower or faster or don’t talk at all. And it’s—“ when she hesitates this time, Ayda thinks perhaps she looks hurt. “This isn’t the first time you haven’t been able to remember me.”
Ayda is having a difficult time writing. Her head feels absurdly heavy. Everything around her is disconnected, like she’s floating with all the objects in the room. Blinking requires effort.
She stares at her pen and wills it to move. Different moods, she would write. Maybe even different speech patterns if she was really being thorough about it, which she always is.
Or, perhaps, apparently not. The note comes back to mind. Ate yday morn. Check on Aelwyn.
“I don’t feel well,” she hears herself tell Fig, echoing as though through a tunnel.
“Oh,” Fig says with some urgency, standing and rounding the table to try to help Ayda up. “Maybe we should get you to bed. Or perch, or whatever.”
Ayda wants to ask Fig not to touch her right now, but the ability to speak feels beyond her, and the idea of going back to sleep is incredibly appealing. Without protest, she lets herself be manhandled to her room.
“What… should I do?” she forces herself to say, the sentence taking far longer than it should for her to complete.
“We,” Fig corrects, helping her climb up onto her porch. “I’m not gonna let my girlfriend struggle on her own. We’re gonna figure out how to cure this—curse, or whatever it is. We just have to work out how long it’s been going on and narrow down some suspects. Do you think Garthy would know anything?”
For some reason, Ayda grows nauseous. She shrugs. Perhaps, given Garthy has known her her whole life. Two lives, even.
“Okay,” Fig visibly deflates when it becomes clear Ayda has no further answer for her. “Get some rest; I’m gonna go Message a couple people.”
Joy. Ayda wraps herself in her wings and closes her eyes.
“I love you,” Fig whispers as she leaves. Ayda does not say it back.
—
Garthy isn’t available until their next scheduled weekly lunch, busy entertaining “important guests” at the Gold Gardens. Ayda spends the week alternately avoiding Adaine and brushing off her paramour. She hates herself a little more for it each and every time, the way Fig’s face crumples when she turns down another date night at Basrar’s or movie night at Mordred. It gets to the point she can hardly bear to look Fig in the eyes whenever she has to deliver a line about “chasing down another overdue book” or “dealing with a nuisance pirate encroaching on her territory” every time it looks like Fig wants to ask her more questions. It goes directly against Ayda’s nature to avoid discussing a topic of intellectual curiosity like this, let alone one involving herself. She hardly understands why she’s doing it. At this point, the strain of lying is more stressful than the conversation would be.
The fact of the matter is this: the battery of tests and spells Ayda performed on herself all came up negative. No traces of magic outside of her own. Uncursed. No physical injuries or ailments. No poison residue. The tests Adaine repeated when Ayda turned to her for help, uncharacteristically uncertain about her own ability to determine what was wrong, resulted in the same. They all point to the same conclusion: there is absolutely nothing wrong with Ayda Aguefort, magical or otherwise.
Regardless, her loved ones have not given up. Since Fig raised the alarm, Adaine has taken up permanent fixture in the Compass Points, poring over heavy tomes into the late hours of the night. Ayda can hear her in the stacks as she closes up, muttering to herself while she takes notes, Boggy croaking at intermittent intervals. Lately, she’s moved on from books of magical injuries and ailments to volumes about all sorts of mental maladies and afflictions. Ayda isn’t sure how she feels about it.
Her only respite has, shockingly, been Aelwyn. She makes a point not to walk on eggshells around Ayda, doesn’t treat her any differently. She still has the sort of irreverent lack of respect for her that Ayda appreciates in a subordinate.
“I haven’t finished shelving the friendship section,” she says today as Ayda approaches.
Ayda can see that much. She’s found Aelwyn in the section of necromantic magic books usually only visited by the ghosts of pirates too stubborn to let go. The Depths of Despair: Why Haunting Submersibles Never Works lays at her feet.
Ayda tilts her head. “Why not?” This is a question she frequently asks Aelwyn, who acts each time like she doesn’t understand why Ayda keeps asking.
“They’re all absolutely worthless. I don’t understand why you keep them; mere children can understand the concept.” Aelwyn sniffs haughtily.
“I keep them for pirates who are interested in learning about the power of friendship. Though it isn’t particularly potent,” Ayda agrees, wrinkling her nose. This is, unfortunately, one sentiment she shares with her father.
Aelwyn harrumphs. “They ought to spend their time on something more worthwhile. Friendship has never saved anybody.”
It’s silent for a moment, outside of the sound of book spines sliding over one another as Aelwyn moves them all to their proper places. She has to shift the end of one row down to the next in order to make room for The Depths of Despair.
“Do you need something?” she asks, finally, tone implying Ayda had ought to say no.
Instead, Ayda hesitates. “You are my employee,” she begins.
“If you’re planning on firing me, you’re contractually obligated to give me two weeks’ notice,” Aelwyn says. “And no, I won’t apologise for the Dragon’s Breath under the toilet seats. Or the snuff in the hand dryers. You can’t confiscate any of it, by the way; it still belongs to me.”
“You have no reason to hide anything. Drugs are fully legal on Leviathan.” Ayda’s face creases, momentarily effectively distracted.
“Why do you think I took the job?” Aelwyn affixes her with a look Ayda assumes is offended. She then turns back to her work, immediately disinterested.
“As my employee,” Ayda continues, recalling her train of thought, “you would be one of the people in my life best-suited to describe my general behaviour and disposition.”
Aelwyn continues reshelving until it becomes clear Ayda isn’t going to add anything else. “Oh, you want my input?” She sniffs with disdain. “Your organisational system is abysmal, your customer service skills are worse, and your eating habits are best not spoken of. It’s a miracle you even recognise I’m in the building most days. But, somehow, you have won the friendship of my idiot sister. I suppose it makes you tolerable.”
Ayda understands this to be one of the highest compliments Aelwyn knows how to pay. It’s also not what she’s looking for. “My paramour is concerned I may experience mood swings,” she says, uncomfortable.
“Just because I’m bipolar does not make me an encyclopaedia,” Aelwyn says, harsh. “Your girlfriend can suck it.”
Ayda is taken aback. “My apologies,” she tries. “I don’t believe Fig had any prior knowledge of your… mental health status.”
“Bi-po-lar dis-or-der.” Aelwyn syllabises the words, looking properly pissed off now. “Two words, six syllables. I’m sure somebody of your calibre can manage.”
Ayda has clearly misstepped. She takes a deep breath. “I have obviously offended you, and for that I offer my sincere apologies,” she says. “I seek your input on my behaviour because I am… struggling greatly with a malady of some kind, one that appears neither magical nor physical in nature. Aelwyn, I am afraid something may be deeply wrong with me.”
She doesn’t realise how true it is until she says it. Ayda Aguefort is not used to being afraid. It washes over her like a tidal wave. She can only do her best to breathe through it.
Aelwyn looks like she’s seconds from breaking out into hives or perhaps throwing up at the honesty. “Ah,” she says, uncomfortable. “Well. It’s not like it changes anything if you end up fucked in the head like the rest of us.” Ayda grimaces at the blunt language. “All the best people are. But anyways.”
She appraises Ayda for a long moment, appearing almost to look straight through her. She hums consideringly.
“If you have what I do, you’ve been masking it incredibly well,” she says at last. “You don’t have moods that last for days or weeks or months without changing. But you are very… tempestuous.”
Ayda is tempted to ask what, exactly, tempestuous is supposed to mean. What a horrifically vague word to describe something so critically important. But before she can, Aelwyn continues: “There was also the other morning. I don’t know whether you consider holding your dearest only employee at knife-point a ‘mood swing’ or not but I’ll have you know that if it continues I’ll be forced to take action, regardless of how my sister feels about it.”
Ayda’s mouth tastes of bile. “Knife-point?”
“Dagger. Whatever,” Aelwyn’s mouth twists up, her hand flipping at the wrist to show how little she cares for the distinction. “It was sharp and testing the boundaries of my wards. You’ve promised not to let it happen again, so.” She looks pointedly at Ayda out of the corners of her eyes.
Ayda can’t look at her. Threatens violence to employees, her notes might say, or perhaps untrustworthy with sharp objects. Untrustworthy in general, these days.
“You have my word,” she echoes her own statement from the week before. “Thank you for your time. And your honesty.” Her throat feels clogged with fire.
Aelwyn’s attention is already off of her. “Well, you pay me,” she says. It’s a clear dismissal.
Ayda nods in parting and goes to locate her paramour. Perhaps it’s time to face the music, so to speak.
She finds Fig sitting cross-legged underneath the table Adaine is studying atop of, headphones on over her hearing aids. She’s scribbling down what look to be lyrics, despite clearly listening to an entirely-unrelated audiobook. She’s hunched so far over that Ayda nearly winces in sympathy, her horns just grazing the underside of the table. She doesn’t appear to be in any discomfort, somehow. Or at least, not yet. Ayda knows she’ll have to deal with the complaining later. She never minds.
Above Fig, the table is covered in loose papers and books, Adaine mouthing something to herself as she reads one of the tomes open before her. Her glasses have slid all the way down to the end of her nose, though she doesn’t seem to notice. Boggy is asleep in the chair beside her.
Ayda almost feels bad disturbing them. Almost. She debates the merits of clearing her throat the way she reads about in novels.
Luckily, she doesn’t have to. Standing like a menacing presence above somebody’s seat and staring them down must have its merits, because it takes no further action for Adaine to jump out of her skin, nearly falling out of her chair. The vibration of the sudden movement startles Fig beneath her, who jerks her head up, slamming her horns straight into the tabletop. Pages scatter and pens go flying everywhere. Fig groans and rubs her head.
“Fuuuuck,” she moans, burying her forehead into the meat of her palms.
“Ayda,” Adaine says, ignoring Fig and blinking blearily. She must be long overdue for a trance. “How are you? What’s going on?”
“Nothing of particular note,” Ayda says. “Figueroth, are you quite alright? Do you need a heal?”
Fig rubs at her forehead a couple more times, then raises her gaze enough to meet Ayda, bent double to see under the table properly. “‘M all good,” she says. “You’re not ignoring us anymore?”
The pang of hurt is deserved. “I have been… struggling to come to terms with all of the information being presented to me,” she replies, apologetic. She does her best to keep her emotions out of her voice, but deems it unlikely she succeeds to any measurable degree. “I am ashamed to admit that I have been rather,” she studies her hands intently, “frightened.”
Fig’s expression melts. Ayda can’t look at it. She doesn’t deserve the compassion her partner is extending. “We’re gonna figure it out,” she soothes. She clambers out from underneath the table without any grace, reaching out for Ayda’s hand.
“It’s that part I worry about,” Ayda replies, taking it gently.
“If I may interject,” Adaine clears her throat, “once I understood what my anxiety was and had the language for it, I was able to get help. It’s made my life immeasurably better to have Boggy and my meds and Jawbone. It’s isn’t anything wrong with me that I have panic attacks, and it won’t be anything wrong with you if this ends up being something mental instead of physical. We love you, you know that?”
Ayda blinks tears of fire from her eyes. It’s true—she doesn’t think of Adaine as wrong or diseased for her mental health condition, and therefore should not think of her potential self that way. Then again, Adaine has never threatened an employee. “Your sister said something very similar,” she says, instead of sharing her thoughts. Riz has been teaching her the art of the half-truth for evasion, and she’s been taking their lessons to heart.
“She said she loved you? That bitch,” Adaine mutters, storm gathering on her brow. “She hardly ever says that to me.”
“No; rather, that having a mental health disorder will not change anything about me.”
She feels torn about the sentiment. Things both changed and didn’t when Jawbone offered her that book on autism so long ago. On the one hand, as Adaine stated, she’d had language and resources where before there were none. She’d been able to develop a deeper sense of self-understanding. But it had also become more difficult to mask and ignore her symptoms. She’d remained the same person, certainly, but one who could no longer treat herself the way she had been or tolerate things she had before. She’d had to adjust, grow. She suspects she may be on the precipice of something similar now.
“Oh.” Adaine’s face settles. “Well, she’s right then. The way we feel about you isn’t going to change.”
Ayda has to look up to the ceiling to avoid tearing up. “I love you too,” she says.
Fig squeezes her hand gently. “You ready to go see Garthy now?” The gentleness in her voice is nearly enough to set Ayda off again.
“Yes, please.” Despite her fear, Ayda’s voice is firm. She can’t continue living in uncertainty—she needs answers. Perhaps Garthy will have them.
—
The steam coils off her drink and rises above their heads, dissipating as it reaches the low-ceilinged roof. Ayda blows on hers once, twice, before taking a sip. Red Bovine with all of the carbonation boiled straight out of it. Perfect. Her wings settle in behind her as she adjusts her posture, moving to sit cross-legged on the floor.
The Teleportation here took a matter of seconds, but then they had to wait for Garthy to finish up hosting and leave some guests with a lingering goodbye or two, and then the private room they always take for lunch had to be prepared. Prepared for what, Ayda is uncertain; it is, as far as she knows, only used for meals. Regardless, it’s been the course of several long minutes that she has spent agonising and building up the conversation in her head, so, naturally, it explodes out of her before food has even arrived.
“Something is wrong with me,” she says. She sets her mug down on the low table between them hard enough that some of her Red Bovine sloshes over and onto her fingers. A waste of perfectly good caffeine.
Garthy raises their eyebrows and sips slowly at their jasmine tea. “Pray tell, lovey, what do you mean?”
Ayda hums and rubs the heels of her hands against each other, distressed. She runs over her mental checklist of symptoms. “I forget things that other people remember. My friends have told me that I experience rapid shifts in mood. They also tell me I was either reluctant or incapable of using magic against the pirates who made an attack on the Compass Points last week.” Garthy’s expression doesn’t change. “I also found a note outside of my organisational system,” she tacks on.
“Did you drop it?” whispers Fig, who is clearly trying to be supportive and stay out of the conversation, but is obviously equally desperate to participate in it.
“I would never,” Ayda says, lip curling upwards in disgust. It uncurls as she remembers its contents. “It suggested I ask after Aelwyn’s health, though not in so many words.”
“Aelwyn?” It’s Fig again, leaning forward, drink entirely abandoned before her. “You didn’t tell me about that. What happened with Aelwyn?”
Ayda shifts uncomfortably. “I was uncertain until a conversation this morning, at which point I learned I had, ahem,” Ayda pauses, clears her throat, “threatened her. With my dagger.”
This, finally, stirs Garthy into movement. Their expression is inscrutable as they carefully set their cup down on the table.
Fig, by contrast, slams her palms onto its surface with enough force to rattle all of the dishes. Ayda watches, mournfully, as more Red Bovine slides down the side of her mug.
“You did what?” she exclaims. “Wait, what did you threaten?”
Ayda flounders eloquently. “Erm.” She takes another sip of her flattened Red Bovine to give herself a moment to mentally prepare. “She did not specify if I verbally issued any command. I allegedly only held her at knifepoint.”
Fig appears to mentally short-circuit, jaw dropping open. Ayda feels nausea curling in her gut once more. This is what she was afraid of—that those she loves will see her as dangerous, that she cannot be trusted with her friends or her work or this beautiful life she has worked hard to carve out for herself.
Garthy clears their throat gently. “Darling, perhaps I should’ve mentioned this to you a long time ago, but it’s best to be delicate about these sorts of things. I may have the answers you seek, but I fear being quite direct about them may not be advisable. It might be best to have this sort of conversation over a longer period of time, perhaps with Jawbone.”
Ayda doesn’t want to have the conversation with Jawbone. “I don’t have time to wait,” she snaps, wings flaring behind her. “If my friends and employees are at risk, it is in my best interest for you to share any information you have immediately, instead of continuing to withhold it!”
Ayda is not always the best at identifying what she’s feeling, so it comes as a surprise to her when she realises that she’s hurt. Garthy has been her only reliable constant her whole life, her source of support growing up. It hurts that they’ve kept something pertinent from her, especially something that’s made her feel so unsafe and destabilised.
Garthy can see it in her face. She sees the grief reflected in theirs. “Ah,” they say, and take a steadying sip of their tea. When they set it down, their face is clear once more. “As you wish.”
They settle further into their cushion, clearly preparing to speak. They cast their gaze up, eyes going slightly distant. Ayda recognises the expression from a thousand bedtime stories told to her younger self. Unlike back then, when a story from Garthy could be a balm for any ailment, she finds that her nerves remain unsettled. She has always so loved Garthy’s storytelling. She just wishes this time could be under different circumstances.
“My mother was the greatest woman I knew,” Garthy begins. Ayda, having not expected a discussion of her previous iteration, tilts her head curiously to the side. “She was brave, to take me in off the streets the way she did. Biggest bleedin’ heart of anybody I ever met. It should’ve gotten her killed out here on Leviathan, I always thought it, but she was also the wisest woman I ever knew.” They tilt their head and wink at Ayda, who can feel her wings flare with heat, pleased. "She was smart, brilliant as anything. She knew how to take care of herself.
“I tell you all this so you can understand, lovey, that I don’t mean it to be rude or judgmental when I say what I say next.” Ayda can see Fig stiffen in her periphery, leaning in at Garthy’s sudden sobriety. She doesn’t have the capacity to care, glued to their words.
“She was an incredible woman, and part of that was that she wasn’t always herself.” Garthy taps the side of their head gently with a finger. “She wasn’t alone, was she? Took a little bit to figure out, didn’t it, ‘cause the others didn’t always know who they were or what life they were living. But we worked out a bit of a system and they got to know me well enough.”
Black spots dance in Ayda’s vision. “What…?” Fig starts to say next to her.
“She used to call them her visitors,” Garthy says on a breath of laughter. “Used to say it was like being kindly possessed, weren’t it. Now I can’t say I understood it myself; I never could imagine how it must’ve been, but it didn’t seem to stop her one bit. She was still the greatest wizard of all time.”
“But her notes…” Ayda chokes out.
Garthy’s face falls minutely. They pause a moment. “No, I never could get her to write about them.” Their voice is gentle. Ayda feels like there’s a knife buried hilt-deep in her sternum, the way it burns on every inhale. “She said if no versions of her ever had before then maybe it was something only defective with her iteration. I don’t know that I ever believed that, but it wasn’t my place to push, lovey.”
Ayda struggles through one breath, then the next. “So, these, um—these other people?—they never wrote anything themselves?” Fig asks, hushed.
“If they did, she got rid of the writing before I saw it,” Garthy shrugs. Ayda sees the note go up in flames in her palm. Ate yday morn. Check on Aelwyn.
The implications hit her one after the other, each one before she can prepare for the next. The first, that her past self was a collection of people, barely registers. That Garthy is implying that she is, too, has no time to sink in. Instead, something else occurs to her almost nonsensically: then who knows them? Garthy might have met them, these other people, but it sounds like only barely. Did they have names? Desires? Hobbies? Did they like being in her past self’s body? Did they want to write? Did her past self truly dispose of their communications, if they had any? Does that make her past self cruel? Does that make Ayda cruel, here, now?
The stress and uncertainty hits her all at once. She can feel herself lose her words, head growing heavy. She sits without moving, shell-shocked.
“What... what does that mean for Ayda? Is she sick?” Fig also seems to be reeling, her voice small. Garthy looks at her with sympathy.
“Oh, darling, no,” they sigh. “Well, it doesn’t have to mean more than she wants it to, I suppose. The people… they can be all sorts of types. I was always certain some were men, you know, and maybe that some were different animals. When I was young, one used to play with me. It was just the way it was. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, to experience the world like that.”
“But that changes things,” Fig argues, voicing Ayda’s greatest fear. “She’s my girlfriend, but the other people might not even know me. How do I—?”
Garthy reaches across the table to hold her hand. “Take a breath, lovey. She’s not going anywhere, she’s right here.” They fix their gaze onto Ayda’s still form. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, darling. I wasn’t sure, when I was raising you, if it would be the same as it used to be. I’ve let you down.”
Ayda’s eyelids feel unimaginably heavy. She lets them close for a long minute. Any emotions on the matter are far, far away, impossible for her to access. She can’t feel the hurt she knows is there. She can’t feel anything at all.
Beside her, Fig sniffles. “I want to support her,” she says, her voice all wobbly. Ayda wishes desperately she could reach out. “I want to support them all.”
Garthy squeezes her hand. “'Atta girl,” they say, voice a little bit sad. “It’s up to her what you do from here. I can’t give you a roadmap. But lead with kindness, won’t you, and the rest will follow.”
Lead with kindness. The rest becomes blurry, as Fig helps her to her feet, says their goodbyes for the both of them. Ayda follows, blind, as she is led to the Teleportation circle.
“Let’s head home, baby,” Fig murmurs. Ayda closes her eyes. It’s time to go home.
—
“Is there anything else you need?” Adaine asks, her hand on the book inches under Ayda’s nose. She hums absentmindedly, transcribing another sentence into her notes.
“Babe,” Fig says gently, when it’s clear Ayda isn’t paying attention. “The books will still be there in, like, five whole minutes. They’re not gonna walk away.”
Ayda blinks, reluctantly peeling her eyes away from her page and blinking blearily at her friend. “What?” she asks eloquently.
“Are you all set?” Adaine’s voice is kind, her face gentle. Between them, Garthy and Adaine the Fish gurgles happily in his sphere of water.
“Oh. Of course,” Ayda says, straightening up in her seat. Her back pops repeatedly as she stretches out her shoulders and she grimaces. “Your assistance has been most invaluable. Please get some rest.”
Adaine’s nose wrinkles. “Well, I’m going to my sister’s, so I doubt it will be very restful. But I appreciate the sentiment.”
Ayda smiles at her friend. “Tell Aelwyn I say hello.”
“I will. Between you and me, I think the time off has been driving her stir-crazy,” Adaine says, then yawns. “Alright, I’m out of here. If you need anything you know to message.”
Ayda nods solemnly. “Of course. And likewise.”
Adaine yawns again. “I know, I know. Goodnight Ayda, Fig.”
“Night!” Fig calls, leaning forward to see her friend better. “Tell mom and Jawbone I’ll see them tomorrow.”
“Tell them yourself,” Adaine snipes, already halfway out the door. “Your crystal works just fine.”
“Ugh,” Fig whines, kicking her feet out. “It’s not charged!”
“That’s a you problem!” Adaine’s voice carries down the hallway. Ayda, used to this kind of ribbing by now, stifles her amusement as Fig slides down defeatedly in her seat.
“Motherfucker,” Fig grumbles without any heat. “How’re your notes looking, love? Anything new?”
Ayda flushes at the petname. Fig doesn’t pull it out very often. “They’re going well. Nothing new,” she says, looking down at them. Dissociative Identity Disorder reads the header of the paper closest to her, underlined twice. Another at her elbow titled Alters? currently only contains barbarian??? beneath it. She’s working on it.
“Well, that’s plenty of progress for today,” Fig says, leaning forward to rest her chin on Ayda’s shoulder and read what she’s written. “Oooh, weird. You think they’re all different classes?”
“At least one. It makes most sense for— for the conflict with Scrawny Carl.” Ayda curses herself for her minute hesitation.
Fig doesn’t push, but she does stay silent a moment. “I’m not scared of you, you know. Any of you.” She touches the pad of her finger to Ayda’s forehead. “You hear that up there? We’re gonna be besties. I’m not afraid.”
It’s not what Ayda is primarily worried about, but the gesture is so sweet that she melts anyways. “I know.”
“And now so will they,” Fig says, moving her fingers to tap Ayda’s notes. “Imagine that—all those other guys in every Ayda for the rest of time are gonna know now. You’re doing something so cool.”
Ayda closes her eyes to breathe that in for a moment. There won’t be other iterations of herself that don’t understand, that think of themselves as broken. Something still nags at her, though. She opens her eyes.
“They deserve to know,” she says. “Not just the other Aydas. Everybody should have the chance to be known, should they want it.”
She can feel the weight of Fig’s concerned gaze on the side of her face. “Yeah?”
“They never got the chance to be themselves or create for themselves without being punished for it.” Ayda’s body feels heavy. “Only Garthy ever got to meet them. What kind of a life is that?”
Fig looks up while she thinks of how to answer, fidgeting with her earring as she does. “First of all, punished is kinda a strong word, I think. ‘Cause that Ayda did it to protect herself, right? Like, if we know it’s a trauma-based thing, she probably felt safer if nobody knew about everybody else.” It makes sense, but Ayda doesn’t have to like it. “I also wonder… do you have to be known by a bunch of people in order to have a fulfilling life?”
“My life was significantly more fulfilling after meeting you.” Fig looks like she’s going to cry at the sincerity, but Ayda means it: her life without community has been nothing compared to her life with.
“Aw, baby.” She leans forward to hug Ayda. “Well, these guys’re gonna know and be known by so many fucking awesome people. Gods, they’re gonna get to know you!” She pulls back to give Ayda a wild, unrestrained grin, looking like the thought has just struck her.
Ayda is struck by the idea too. How does she get to know somebody—somebodies—inside of her, somewhere she can’t access or see?
She reaches out for a fresh piece of paper. Two sentences, five words each.
Sorry for burning your note. It’s nice to meet you.
“What’re you doing?” Fig asks, curious. Her voice holds no judgement, so Ayda feels safe explaining.
“Getting to know them.”
Fig pulls Ayda into her side tightly. “I can’t imagine anybody more worth knowing.”
And that’s the thing, Ayda thinks, leaning into her paramour, equal parts elated and terrified: she can’t either. She looks at her girlfriend’s face, and thinks about the amount of love she has from every corner, and, though she’s no Oracle of Everybody, Ayda Aguefort knows suddenly, with a fierce, unshakable certainty, that she can trust in whatever the future may hold.