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rainbowfic2016-02-12 12:19 am
crossfortune) wrote in rainbowfic2016-02-12 12:19 am
katabasis;
Name: Mischa
Story: evening on the ground
Colors: spark (We danced in graveyards with vampires until dawn), elvish green (death is just another path, one that we all must take), side B (Well, you're dead, you just ain't buried yet → Under the God (Tin Machine))
Supplies and Styles: fingerpainting
Word Count: 3365
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: discussion of suicide, an instance of transphobia
Summary: It’s a decision made in a moment, love and loyalty for the family of his choice, the friends he will never betray. A journey and a descent.
Notes: needs story tag. also thanks to two of my best friends who originally created Brad Mason and Cass Hunter (as well as the Valkyrie), and let me use them for this universe. And written for my creative writing class as well.
(his mother died of a broken heart, died of longing, years after she had disappeared. Myca swears, up and down, that when he dies, he’ll not die of anything so stupid.)
As a child, before he turned bitter and harsh, before he had a chip on his shoulder, Myca Vasile learned magic and everything else while dreaming at his dead grandmother’s knee in an orphanage in Bucharest, growing up a witch-child and a jinx in a Romania still scarred and healing slowly, even decades after the death of Nicolae Ceaușescu and the fall of his regime. These lessons were ones that he’d carried with him years later, even after the minor international incident that had been his adoption by the American relatives that he’d never known, even after rejection and disappointment when his sweetness had turned sour, when he’d grown thorns to hide how lonely he was. Blood and bone and the whispers of the dead, sacrifice and darkness.
“There is none of our magic that comes without a price, Myca, my grandchild.” she said, walking with him through her house built in dreams, through her night-blooming garden as the moonflowers opened beneath the light of the moon and stars, motes of light captured floating in their hearts. “And sacrificing others will never be enough to show us the way.”
Sângele apã nu se face. Blood is not water.
“And most of all,” she said, her wrinkled, weathered face calm and her ancient violet eyes, so dark they looked black, unreadable, as she turned to him and stuck one of her moonflowers behind his ear, in his long dark hair. “Everything is a choice.”
***
(Everything is a choice. Everything. Valkyrie brings her rifle to bear on Cass, screaming blasphemies in a tongue that hurts to hear. They still don’t know, despite years of effort and combined witchcraft, what the Valkyrie is, or how to kill her for good, or even what she wants Cass to become. There’s the prophecy that’s haunted Cass since her birth, and then there’s whatever warped thing the Valkyrie follows.
Brad stomps his foot and the earth cracks beneath the Valkyrie’s feet, but moments too late, a heartbeat too late to send her stumbling and to throw her aim off. Cass’s bloody fingertips glow as she invokes, but her shield won’t come up in time. It’s a decision made in a moment, love and loyalty for the family of his choice, the friends he will never betray.
Everything is a choice, and even as light and slender as Myca is, the momentum of his body is enough to knock Cass flat. White-hot pain and his hand comes away red, though blood doesn’t show against the black of his clothes. Eve curses, drops down next to him, even as Brad stomps his foot, cracks the cliff beneath the bitch’s feet, and he can’f find the strength to say anything, as his eyes close-)
Myca opens his eyes to moonlight, the earth cool beneath his bare feet. He’s alone - it’s not the first time he’s woken up alone, in this misty, hazy place outside time- and his body aches, though it’s not the sharp, white-hot pain moments after he’d been shot. Or, rather, had gotten himself shot, technically.
The mountain fog of Grandmother’s dream domain swirls around Myca’s bare feet, trees looming up shadowy from the mist, bare branches skeletal against the winter Romanian sky. The shape of the mountains on the horizon, home still even after all these years away, makes his heart ache. Carefully, he walks, and each step traverses miles, and the blanket of snow covering the stone and her dead garden that sleeps, waiting for spring, makes his footing treacherous as he follows the stony path down, down, down, into the valley, unchanged after all these years.
The path leads downward still further, beneath the great tree that he’d napped under as a child, descending beneath the earth. The sound of the sea, of waves crashing against the shore, grows louder the further he walks, the path growing narrower and closer in the further down he goes, beneath the great tree’s roots.
(A memory. Lying on his stomach on carpet, dragged along for some strange ritual of sleepovers: painting nails and talking about boys. Or something. Cass hands him the bottle of nail polish, and his nose wrinkles at the bright shade of pink.
“What’s wrong with pink?” Eve asks, leafing through a hairstyle magazine liberated from one of Cass’s older sisters and throws it aside with a disgusted huff once it’s clear that all the hairstyles are for white girls. “It’s a perfectly cheerful color.”
“That’s what’s wrong with it.” Cass says, cheerful and sarcastic. “Myca doesn’t wear anything other than black, black, and black.”
“I wore white once.” he objects, and glares at the two girls when they start giggling. At least it’s a little satisfying when Eve laughs so hard that she falls off Cass’s bed.
A memory, discarded. A piece of himself left behind.)
The slick stone of the path gives way to sand, gritty beneath his toes, brief memories of longed-for Black Sea vacations that never were and cold Pacific ocean water. Myca stands on the edge of the sand, feels the salt water lap against his ankles and wet the hem of his long black skirt, hears the song of the sea, the surf pounding in his ears. The ocean stretches ahead of him, deep and dark and anything but empty.
(another memory. Warm beneath blankets, when his cell phone rings. Who calls at 2 am, the night before an exam? He fumbles for it, eyes still closed, and snarls a curse into it in lieu of any friendlier greeting.
“And good morning to you, too.” Cass says, sounding tired.
“I was sleeping, Cass.” Myca hisses. “Did you turn the cheerleader queen into a frog again?”
Myca takes her silence as admission of guilt - this is far from the first time she’s done it, and as far as he was concerned, hopping around in the swamp and eating flies would do Lindsay a world of good.
“Of course you did. Why is it always the night before an exam?” Myca grumbles as he hauls himself out of bed to find his clothes and ritual bag, shoves his feet into his heeled boots. This isn’t the first time he’s stood in a swamp at 3 am with Cass, Brad, and Eve, chanting countercurses to turn Lindsay back into a person: he remembers every time he’s done it, but he’s doing it anyway.
“You’re going to break the curve anyway,” Cass points out, and Myca rolls his eyes, though she obviously can’t see him.
“Not the point. And why can’t this wait? Frogs are cuter and more pleasant..”
“Myca!” Cass yells at him. “Homecoming’s tomorrow, too, and we’ll get in so much trouble if she’s still a frog before the game.”
“Ugh. Fine. Is someone going to pick me up? I am not going to ride my bicycle across town to the swamp at 2 in the morning.”
“Brad’s going to come and get you. He should be there soon.” Cass says. “See you soon!”
Myca hangs up before she does. “...see you soon.” he mutters, to the empty air, and grabs his backpack as well. They’re going to be out there for a while.
another memory, left behind.)
A boat drifts silently with the tide, and Myca gets into it, and begins to row. The sea is deep and dark, and his passage makes no sound.
(fragments of memories, left behind.
years ago, when he’d been brought ‘home’ for the first time, looking around with wide eyes at the big house, the new surroundings. Gwen’s tired face, as she introduces him to her children - his half-siblings- for the first time.
“This is your new brother, Myca.” she says, and Gabrielle lights up immediately. Lucian, leaning against the door, scowls at him, resentfully.
“Hello,” Myca says, almost shyly, willing for the first, and perhaps last, time in his life to at least try to pretend to play nice, to get along.
“He’s not my brother. I don’t need or want a brother.” Lucian turns and stomps off, leaving awkward silence behind in his wake, and Myca hates him immediately.
***
Another sleepover with Eve and Cass, with more brightly colored nail polish that he turns his nose up at, another shade of pink with glitter that they’ll never get out of anything. This time, they’re talking about boys.
“-Lucian would almost be cute if he wasn’t a complete fuckup.” Eve says, tapping her nose. “If he wasn’t a complete fuckup, could keep his mouth shut, and if he wasn’t Myca’s brother.”
“Half-brother, thank you.” Myca spits, irritatedly and pushes the nail polish back at Cass. It’s bad enough that he has to be related to him at all.
“Right, right,” Eve says, shaking her head so her box braids swing.
“Like any of those would ever happen.” Cass says. “Also, ewww.”
“Well, excuse me, miss I-just-got-a-boyfriend.” Eve says. “Congrats again, though it’s going to be awkward, since you’re dating Brad and all.” after a moment, Eve sighs. “A cute girl would be nice, too. I’m tired of being single. Sucks being in a small town.”
“Maybe next time we go to Portland, we can go cute people watching or something. Teach Myca how to flirt or at least how to accept compliments without him trying to rip someone’s face off.” Cass suggests.
Myca glares at her. “I don’t try to rip people’s faces off.”
“Could have fooled me.” Eve says. “Besides, we never go to Portland unless it’s a complete disaster.”
“Last time wasn’t,” Cass begins, and then ruefully adds, “Until Valkyrie attacked while we were in Sock Dreams. At least we got to pay for our stuff before she jumped us and we weren’t in Powell’s.”
“If she’d attacked us in Powell’s, and the books got damaged, I would have found a way to kill her. For good.” Myca says, and means every word of it.
***
“Did you ever have a crush on anyone, Myca? I mean, I bet the answer’s probably no, but-” Eve asks, flipping through another magazine. Cass’s gone to help her mother with something, probably dinner, but Mrs. Hunter won’t let her guests raise a finger.
“A few years ago, actually.” he says, looking away. It’s not something he’s ashamed of, but it’s something he’s not used to. “On Brad, actually.”
He doesn’t need to look at her to know that Eve’s jaw is hanging open. “Seriously? He doesn’t seem to be your type.”
“He’s not,” Myca says, and wouldn’t admit this, to most people, but his friends, the few he has, are his family of choice, loyal to them like he isn’t to the family of his blood, except for his grandmother and his half-sister. “I think I just liked his...steadiness. His stability.”
Eve nods. “I think I get it,” she says. “Does Cass know? Or hell, Brad?”
“I told Cass a while ago,” Myca says. “Just to get it out in the open. Brad probably already knew already.”
“Yeah, he really would.”
***
Gabrielle smiles at him from the hospital bed, radiant joy, and her blond braids swing as she leans forward. She’s genuinely happy to see him, though he’s easily the most unloved person in the family: she loves everyone, with an openness of heart he almost could have envied. “Myca! I’m glad you could come,” she says, brightly. “Did you bring the poetry book today? I was looking forward to hearing you read them.”
“Of course,” he says, and sits by her bedside, opening the book. He can see how thin her arms are, how delicate: she’s not dying, not yet, but the shadow lies over her. Someday, she will die, and die young, and his heart aches at the thought of the only sibling he’s ever loved dying. “‘I have a beautiful child like a flower in form. I wouldn’t trade my darling Kleis for all Lydia or lovely...”
***
Lucian’’s gaze sweeps over him, down to the ankle-length black skirt and heeled boots he’s wearing. “Thought you couldn’t get to be more of a freak, Mihai,” his half-brother drawls. “ But now you’re wearing dresses, too, like you’d ever look good in them. Michael. Mikey-”
Myca clenches his fist as his half-brother taunts him, reaching deep inside himself for power, but Brad is faster, his fist crashing into Lucian’s midsection. It’s a very deliberate, controlled motion - Brad hates losing his temper, and he’s very obviously not openly angry- and his half-brother doubles over and slumps to his knees, gasping for breath and in pain.
“I’m not going to repeat myself, Lucian, so listen closely.” Brad says, calmly. “”If you ever talk about Myca again like that, or even think that too loudly in my presence, if even a whisper of a rumor reaches my ears of that, you’ll regret it. Do you understand?”
All Lucian can do is nod and wheeze, and Brad turns away, the obvious dismissal of a king to a lesser subject.
“Come on, Myca. The girls are waiting for us, and we don’t want to be late.”
But when they’re in Brad’s car, Myca watches as he puts the key in the ignition but doesn’t turn it.
“I don’t want to be a jerk about this, but I don’t know how to ask.” Brad says, after a moment, obviously trying to be delicate. It’s something Myca appreciates, even as it irritates him faintly. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but are you-”
“It’s difficult to explain.” Myca says, pausing, after considering what he wants to say, and whether he wants to answer at all. It’s hard for him to trust, and hard for him to open up, and he’s silent while he thinks, tapping his fingers against the dashboard of the car. Polished, real wood. It’s hard to put the truth of his existence into words, even to someone he’s certain won’t betray him, but it’s a choice, it’s his choice, and it’s a choice he makes, willingly, if hesitantly. “I’m not a girl. But I’m not a boy, either. I don’t think I’m either.”
“Got it.” Brad says, and turns the key, the engine catching before coming to life. “How should I call you, then?”
Myca shrugs, slender shoulders shifting with the movement. “Just the same is fine, until I figure things out. Most gender-neutral pronouns are too unwieldy, irritating, and-”
“You hate explaining to people.” Brad says, nailing it in one as he begins to back his car out of the driveway. “...how many people have you told, given that?”
“My grandmother knew before I did, I think. It’s why she...changed my growth.” Myca gestures vaguely to encompass his small size and slight frame. “But as for telling...you’re the first person I’ve actually told, though I’ll get around to telling Cass and Eve soon.”
Brad is silent for a moment. “Thank you for trusting me that much, Myca. To tell me. I know it had to be hard.”
***
fragments of memories, left behind. fragments of memories, falling away. layers and layers and pieces of himself left behind.)
The boat grounds itself on the opposite shore, and Myca gets out of the boat. A familiar old woman, her very long gray hair in two plaits and covered by a maramă, dressed in the old-fashioned, pleated and richly embroidered shirt and highly-decorated, long wrap-around skirt waits on the shore, near two silvery, glistening streams that twine together in their flowing course. What little light there is in this realm reflects off the surface, light dancing in shimmering sparks.
“Grandmother?” he asks, cautiously. His grandmother had died before he’d been born, or so he’d always known, but the magic of death and dreams ran in their blood. It was how she’d raised him, teaching him mathematics, how to read, his magic, but it’d been years since she’d last appeared to him.
His grandmother smiles when she sees him, and holds her arms out to embrace him, kissing him on each cheek. Myca doesn’t normally like touch, but he allows his grandmother to embrace him, her arms cool against his skin. “Grandchild,” she says. “It’s been a long time, and you’ve grown well. This wasn’t how I wanted to meet you again, but it is as it is.” after a moment, she pauses. “Walk with me.”
“Where are we?” Myca asks, as he follows her towards the water. “This isn’t the realm that you took me to, before.”
“These are the Waters of Life and Death,” his grandmother says, gesturing to the streams - and with that, everything falls into place. Myca feels stupid for how long it’d taken him to figure it out, that he’s dead and dreaming in the underworld, and his grandmother - the Grandmother of Witches, guardian of the Waters of Life and Death- smiles at him, sharp but warm around the edges. “I’ve offered the choice to my children, all my children, and so it is with you, Myca Vasile, born of my blood.”
Baba Yaga, the Forest Mother, steps closer, her eyes full of sympathy in her stern face. For a moment, it’s almost hard to reconcile the grandmother who had raised him with the stories of the Grandmother of Witches, the ambiguous goddess-witch of half a thousand and more fairytales, alternately helping and hindering would-be heroes. But then, the image of her dual faces reasserts itself, snapping into sharp sense, and it all becomes clear: she is both his grandmother and the Forest Mother at the same time, two aspects of the same whole.
“A choice?” he asks, skeptically, and his grandmother nods.
“Everything is a choice. The end of your life was a choice: saving your friend was a choice. Your choice to be true to yourself and wear the skin that was neither despite your family trying to choose otherwise for you, was yours as well.” Baba Yaga says. “This, too, is a true choice, not the dead-water or death, but life or death. Drink of the waters, and it will be your choice, what happens next, whether you live or die. I have given this choice to all my children, and all their children, and so to you.”
“What did Mother choose?” Myca asks, quietly, as he kneels by the joined streams, though he already knows the answer. A bone-pale Romanian witch-girl had fallen in love with a married American man with two young children of his own, whose magic dealt in light and angels, had given birth to him and then they both had disappeared. All he remembers, albeit vaguely, are his father’s lullaby and his mother’s long, black braids. His mother had died of heartbreak and longing, and who knows what happened to Arthur Starling, golden boy, who had run away from his wife Gwen and never looked back.
“Ah, my poor, beloved youngest daughter.” Baba Yaga says, shaking her head. “Too fragile a flower to live long in this world, though I tried to raise her more strongly than that, though it didn’t take. She took the Water of Death.” she sighs. “If you drink the Water of Life, you’ll wake up again in the world above: if you drink the Water of Death, then you’ll stay here, with me.” she smiles, wide and toothy, and squeezes his hand. “Whatever happens, whatever you choose, know that I love you, child. I give you the choice of which to take. The last before my blood I gave water to, I made the choice for them, and gave them the Waters of Death.”
(his image stares back at him from the water’s mirror. short, slight. bone-pale skin, long loose black hair, violet eyes so dark they look black. delicate features, pointed chin. there has never been anything of his father in him. he wears his mother’s face, but will never choose her fate.)
“Thank you, grandmother.” he says, and smiles back at Baba Yaga. He knows, deep in his heart, the choice he’ll make.
Myca cups his hands to catch the water, lifts his fingers to his lips, and drinks.
Story: evening on the ground
Colors: spark (We danced in graveyards with vampires until dawn), elvish green (death is just another path, one that we all must take), side B (Well, you're dead, you just ain't buried yet → Under the God (Tin Machine))
Supplies and Styles: fingerpainting
Word Count: 3365
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: discussion of suicide, an instance of transphobia
Summary: It’s a decision made in a moment, love and loyalty for the family of his choice, the friends he will never betray. A journey and a descent.
Notes: needs story tag. also thanks to two of my best friends who originally created Brad Mason and Cass Hunter (as well as the Valkyrie), and let me use them for this universe. And written for my creative writing class as well.
(his mother died of a broken heart, died of longing, years after she had disappeared. Myca swears, up and down, that when he dies, he’ll not die of anything so stupid.)
As a child, before he turned bitter and harsh, before he had a chip on his shoulder, Myca Vasile learned magic and everything else while dreaming at his dead grandmother’s knee in an orphanage in Bucharest, growing up a witch-child and a jinx in a Romania still scarred and healing slowly, even decades after the death of Nicolae Ceaușescu and the fall of his regime. These lessons were ones that he’d carried with him years later, even after the minor international incident that had been his adoption by the American relatives that he’d never known, even after rejection and disappointment when his sweetness had turned sour, when he’d grown thorns to hide how lonely he was. Blood and bone and the whispers of the dead, sacrifice and darkness.
“There is none of our magic that comes without a price, Myca, my grandchild.” she said, walking with him through her house built in dreams, through her night-blooming garden as the moonflowers opened beneath the light of the moon and stars, motes of light captured floating in their hearts. “And sacrificing others will never be enough to show us the way.”
Sângele apã nu se face. Blood is not water.
“And most of all,” she said, her wrinkled, weathered face calm and her ancient violet eyes, so dark they looked black, unreadable, as she turned to him and stuck one of her moonflowers behind his ear, in his long dark hair. “Everything is a choice.”
***
(Everything is a choice. Everything. Valkyrie brings her rifle to bear on Cass, screaming blasphemies in a tongue that hurts to hear. They still don’t know, despite years of effort and combined witchcraft, what the Valkyrie is, or how to kill her for good, or even what she wants Cass to become. There’s the prophecy that’s haunted Cass since her birth, and then there’s whatever warped thing the Valkyrie follows.
Brad stomps his foot and the earth cracks beneath the Valkyrie’s feet, but moments too late, a heartbeat too late to send her stumbling and to throw her aim off. Cass’s bloody fingertips glow as she invokes, but her shield won’t come up in time. It’s a decision made in a moment, love and loyalty for the family of his choice, the friends he will never betray.
Everything is a choice, and even as light and slender as Myca is, the momentum of his body is enough to knock Cass flat. White-hot pain and his hand comes away red, though blood doesn’t show against the black of his clothes. Eve curses, drops down next to him, even as Brad stomps his foot, cracks the cliff beneath the bitch’s feet, and he can’f find the strength to say anything, as his eyes close-)
Myca opens his eyes to moonlight, the earth cool beneath his bare feet. He’s alone - it’s not the first time he’s woken up alone, in this misty, hazy place outside time- and his body aches, though it’s not the sharp, white-hot pain moments after he’d been shot. Or, rather, had gotten himself shot, technically.
The mountain fog of Grandmother’s dream domain swirls around Myca’s bare feet, trees looming up shadowy from the mist, bare branches skeletal against the winter Romanian sky. The shape of the mountains on the horizon, home still even after all these years away, makes his heart ache. Carefully, he walks, and each step traverses miles, and the blanket of snow covering the stone and her dead garden that sleeps, waiting for spring, makes his footing treacherous as he follows the stony path down, down, down, into the valley, unchanged after all these years.
The path leads downward still further, beneath the great tree that he’d napped under as a child, descending beneath the earth. The sound of the sea, of waves crashing against the shore, grows louder the further he walks, the path growing narrower and closer in the further down he goes, beneath the great tree’s roots.
(A memory. Lying on his stomach on carpet, dragged along for some strange ritual of sleepovers: painting nails and talking about boys. Or something. Cass hands him the bottle of nail polish, and his nose wrinkles at the bright shade of pink.
“What’s wrong with pink?” Eve asks, leafing through a hairstyle magazine liberated from one of Cass’s older sisters and throws it aside with a disgusted huff once it’s clear that all the hairstyles are for white girls. “It’s a perfectly cheerful color.”
“That’s what’s wrong with it.” Cass says, cheerful and sarcastic. “Myca doesn’t wear anything other than black, black, and black.”
“I wore white once.” he objects, and glares at the two girls when they start giggling. At least it’s a little satisfying when Eve laughs so hard that she falls off Cass’s bed.
A memory, discarded. A piece of himself left behind.)
The slick stone of the path gives way to sand, gritty beneath his toes, brief memories of longed-for Black Sea vacations that never were and cold Pacific ocean water. Myca stands on the edge of the sand, feels the salt water lap against his ankles and wet the hem of his long black skirt, hears the song of the sea, the surf pounding in his ears. The ocean stretches ahead of him, deep and dark and anything but empty.
(another memory. Warm beneath blankets, when his cell phone rings. Who calls at 2 am, the night before an exam? He fumbles for it, eyes still closed, and snarls a curse into it in lieu of any friendlier greeting.
“And good morning to you, too.” Cass says, sounding tired.
“I was sleeping, Cass.” Myca hisses. “Did you turn the cheerleader queen into a frog again?”
Myca takes her silence as admission of guilt - this is far from the first time she’s done it, and as far as he was concerned, hopping around in the swamp and eating flies would do Lindsay a world of good.
“Of course you did. Why is it always the night before an exam?” Myca grumbles as he hauls himself out of bed to find his clothes and ritual bag, shoves his feet into his heeled boots. This isn’t the first time he’s stood in a swamp at 3 am with Cass, Brad, and Eve, chanting countercurses to turn Lindsay back into a person: he remembers every time he’s done it, but he’s doing it anyway.
“You’re going to break the curve anyway,” Cass points out, and Myca rolls his eyes, though she obviously can’t see him.
“Not the point. And why can’t this wait? Frogs are cuter and more pleasant..”
“Myca!” Cass yells at him. “Homecoming’s tomorrow, too, and we’ll get in so much trouble if she’s still a frog before the game.”
“Ugh. Fine. Is someone going to pick me up? I am not going to ride my bicycle across town to the swamp at 2 in the morning.”
“Brad’s going to come and get you. He should be there soon.” Cass says. “See you soon!”
Myca hangs up before she does. “...see you soon.” he mutters, to the empty air, and grabs his backpack as well. They’re going to be out there for a while.
another memory, left behind.)
A boat drifts silently with the tide, and Myca gets into it, and begins to row. The sea is deep and dark, and his passage makes no sound.
(fragments of memories, left behind.
years ago, when he’d been brought ‘home’ for the first time, looking around with wide eyes at the big house, the new surroundings. Gwen’s tired face, as she introduces him to her children - his half-siblings- for the first time.
“This is your new brother, Myca.” she says, and Gabrielle lights up immediately. Lucian, leaning against the door, scowls at him, resentfully.
“Hello,” Myca says, almost shyly, willing for the first, and perhaps last, time in his life to at least try to pretend to play nice, to get along.
“He’s not my brother. I don’t need or want a brother.” Lucian turns and stomps off, leaving awkward silence behind in his wake, and Myca hates him immediately.
***
Another sleepover with Eve and Cass, with more brightly colored nail polish that he turns his nose up at, another shade of pink with glitter that they’ll never get out of anything. This time, they’re talking about boys.
“-Lucian would almost be cute if he wasn’t a complete fuckup.” Eve says, tapping her nose. “If he wasn’t a complete fuckup, could keep his mouth shut, and if he wasn’t Myca’s brother.”
“Half-brother, thank you.” Myca spits, irritatedly and pushes the nail polish back at Cass. It’s bad enough that he has to be related to him at all.
“Right, right,” Eve says, shaking her head so her box braids swing.
“Like any of those would ever happen.” Cass says. “Also, ewww.”
“Well, excuse me, miss I-just-got-a-boyfriend.” Eve says. “Congrats again, though it’s going to be awkward, since you’re dating Brad and all.” after a moment, Eve sighs. “A cute girl would be nice, too. I’m tired of being single. Sucks being in a small town.”
“Maybe next time we go to Portland, we can go cute people watching or something. Teach Myca how to flirt or at least how to accept compliments without him trying to rip someone’s face off.” Cass suggests.
Myca glares at her. “I don’t try to rip people’s faces off.”
“Could have fooled me.” Eve says. “Besides, we never go to Portland unless it’s a complete disaster.”
“Last time wasn’t,” Cass begins, and then ruefully adds, “Until Valkyrie attacked while we were in Sock Dreams. At least we got to pay for our stuff before she jumped us and we weren’t in Powell’s.”
“If she’d attacked us in Powell’s, and the books got damaged, I would have found a way to kill her. For good.” Myca says, and means every word of it.
***
“Did you ever have a crush on anyone, Myca? I mean, I bet the answer’s probably no, but-” Eve asks, flipping through another magazine. Cass’s gone to help her mother with something, probably dinner, but Mrs. Hunter won’t let her guests raise a finger.
“A few years ago, actually.” he says, looking away. It’s not something he’s ashamed of, but it’s something he’s not used to. “On Brad, actually.”
He doesn’t need to look at her to know that Eve’s jaw is hanging open. “Seriously? He doesn’t seem to be your type.”
“He’s not,” Myca says, and wouldn’t admit this, to most people, but his friends, the few he has, are his family of choice, loyal to them like he isn’t to the family of his blood, except for his grandmother and his half-sister. “I think I just liked his...steadiness. His stability.”
Eve nods. “I think I get it,” she says. “Does Cass know? Or hell, Brad?”
“I told Cass a while ago,” Myca says. “Just to get it out in the open. Brad probably already knew already.”
“Yeah, he really would.”
***
Gabrielle smiles at him from the hospital bed, radiant joy, and her blond braids swing as she leans forward. She’s genuinely happy to see him, though he’s easily the most unloved person in the family: she loves everyone, with an openness of heart he almost could have envied. “Myca! I’m glad you could come,” she says, brightly. “Did you bring the poetry book today? I was looking forward to hearing you read them.”
“Of course,” he says, and sits by her bedside, opening the book. He can see how thin her arms are, how delicate: she’s not dying, not yet, but the shadow lies over her. Someday, she will die, and die young, and his heart aches at the thought of the only sibling he’s ever loved dying. “‘I have a beautiful child like a flower in form. I wouldn’t trade my darling Kleis for all Lydia or lovely...”
***
Lucian’’s gaze sweeps over him, down to the ankle-length black skirt and heeled boots he’s wearing. “Thought you couldn’t get to be more of a freak, Mihai,” his half-brother drawls. “ But now you’re wearing dresses, too, like you’d ever look good in them. Michael. Mikey-”
Myca clenches his fist as his half-brother taunts him, reaching deep inside himself for power, but Brad is faster, his fist crashing into Lucian’s midsection. It’s a very deliberate, controlled motion - Brad hates losing his temper, and he’s very obviously not openly angry- and his half-brother doubles over and slumps to his knees, gasping for breath and in pain.
“I’m not going to repeat myself, Lucian, so listen closely.” Brad says, calmly. “”If you ever talk about Myca again like that, or even think that too loudly in my presence, if even a whisper of a rumor reaches my ears of that, you’ll regret it. Do you understand?”
All Lucian can do is nod and wheeze, and Brad turns away, the obvious dismissal of a king to a lesser subject.
“Come on, Myca. The girls are waiting for us, and we don’t want to be late.”
But when they’re in Brad’s car, Myca watches as he puts the key in the ignition but doesn’t turn it.
“I don’t want to be a jerk about this, but I don’t know how to ask.” Brad says, after a moment, obviously trying to be delicate. It’s something Myca appreciates, even as it irritates him faintly. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but are you-”
“It’s difficult to explain.” Myca says, pausing, after considering what he wants to say, and whether he wants to answer at all. It’s hard for him to trust, and hard for him to open up, and he’s silent while he thinks, tapping his fingers against the dashboard of the car. Polished, real wood. It’s hard to put the truth of his existence into words, even to someone he’s certain won’t betray him, but it’s a choice, it’s his choice, and it’s a choice he makes, willingly, if hesitantly. “I’m not a girl. But I’m not a boy, either. I don’t think I’m either.”
“Got it.” Brad says, and turns the key, the engine catching before coming to life. “How should I call you, then?”
Myca shrugs, slender shoulders shifting with the movement. “Just the same is fine, until I figure things out. Most gender-neutral pronouns are too unwieldy, irritating, and-”
“You hate explaining to people.” Brad says, nailing it in one as he begins to back his car out of the driveway. “...how many people have you told, given that?”
“My grandmother knew before I did, I think. It’s why she...changed my growth.” Myca gestures vaguely to encompass his small size and slight frame. “But as for telling...you’re the first person I’ve actually told, though I’ll get around to telling Cass and Eve soon.”
Brad is silent for a moment. “Thank you for trusting me that much, Myca. To tell me. I know it had to be hard.”
***
fragments of memories, left behind. fragments of memories, falling away. layers and layers and pieces of himself left behind.)
The boat grounds itself on the opposite shore, and Myca gets out of the boat. A familiar old woman, her very long gray hair in two plaits and covered by a maramă, dressed in the old-fashioned, pleated and richly embroidered shirt and highly-decorated, long wrap-around skirt waits on the shore, near two silvery, glistening streams that twine together in their flowing course. What little light there is in this realm reflects off the surface, light dancing in shimmering sparks.
“Grandmother?” he asks, cautiously. His grandmother had died before he’d been born, or so he’d always known, but the magic of death and dreams ran in their blood. It was how she’d raised him, teaching him mathematics, how to read, his magic, but it’d been years since she’d last appeared to him.
His grandmother smiles when she sees him, and holds her arms out to embrace him, kissing him on each cheek. Myca doesn’t normally like touch, but he allows his grandmother to embrace him, her arms cool against his skin. “Grandchild,” she says. “It’s been a long time, and you’ve grown well. This wasn’t how I wanted to meet you again, but it is as it is.” after a moment, she pauses. “Walk with me.”
“Where are we?” Myca asks, as he follows her towards the water. “This isn’t the realm that you took me to, before.”
“These are the Waters of Life and Death,” his grandmother says, gesturing to the streams - and with that, everything falls into place. Myca feels stupid for how long it’d taken him to figure it out, that he’s dead and dreaming in the underworld, and his grandmother - the Grandmother of Witches, guardian of the Waters of Life and Death- smiles at him, sharp but warm around the edges. “I’ve offered the choice to my children, all my children, and so it is with you, Myca Vasile, born of my blood.”
Baba Yaga, the Forest Mother, steps closer, her eyes full of sympathy in her stern face. For a moment, it’s almost hard to reconcile the grandmother who had raised him with the stories of the Grandmother of Witches, the ambiguous goddess-witch of half a thousand and more fairytales, alternately helping and hindering would-be heroes. But then, the image of her dual faces reasserts itself, snapping into sharp sense, and it all becomes clear: she is both his grandmother and the Forest Mother at the same time, two aspects of the same whole.
“A choice?” he asks, skeptically, and his grandmother nods.
“Everything is a choice. The end of your life was a choice: saving your friend was a choice. Your choice to be true to yourself and wear the skin that was neither despite your family trying to choose otherwise for you, was yours as well.” Baba Yaga says. “This, too, is a true choice, not the dead-water or death, but life or death. Drink of the waters, and it will be your choice, what happens next, whether you live or die. I have given this choice to all my children, and all their children, and so to you.”
“What did Mother choose?” Myca asks, quietly, as he kneels by the joined streams, though he already knows the answer. A bone-pale Romanian witch-girl had fallen in love with a married American man with two young children of his own, whose magic dealt in light and angels, had given birth to him and then they both had disappeared. All he remembers, albeit vaguely, are his father’s lullaby and his mother’s long, black braids. His mother had died of heartbreak and longing, and who knows what happened to Arthur Starling, golden boy, who had run away from his wife Gwen and never looked back.
“Ah, my poor, beloved youngest daughter.” Baba Yaga says, shaking her head. “Too fragile a flower to live long in this world, though I tried to raise her more strongly than that, though it didn’t take. She took the Water of Death.” she sighs. “If you drink the Water of Life, you’ll wake up again in the world above: if you drink the Water of Death, then you’ll stay here, with me.” she smiles, wide and toothy, and squeezes his hand. “Whatever happens, whatever you choose, know that I love you, child. I give you the choice of which to take. The last before my blood I gave water to, I made the choice for them, and gave them the Waters of Death.”
(his image stares back at him from the water’s mirror. short, slight. bone-pale skin, long loose black hair, violet eyes so dark they look black. delicate features, pointed chin. there has never been anything of his father in him. he wears his mother’s face, but will never choose her fate.)
“Thank you, grandmother.” he says, and smiles back at Baba Yaga. He knows, deep in his heart, the choice he’ll make.
Myca cups his hands to catch the water, lifts his fingers to his lips, and drinks.
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Baba Yaga will definitely be making a lot more appearances in this universe. And I should write the ultimate outcome of this story, too.
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*ahem*
Sorry. I love Baba Yaga, and she's so fucking awesome here. Myca's strong, powerful. awesome grandmother is OF COURSE Baba Yaga because Myca is awesome enough to be her grandchild. And also I love the memories here, and the way you wrote this, shreds of moments falling away like the water.