We'll catch that dream together someday soon.
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Beta'd by Firstselector, SpytheEngineer, and Kinsfire.
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After Quarrel all but dragged Victoria into a side room, Odin's spirit and Amy in tow, to discuss her newfound apotheosis, Taylor was left to stand awkwardly in the foyer of the tree-that-had-been-made-a-house with the blonde that was probably Sundancer (and was apparently dating Amy? She wasn't quite sure on the details of that one) and Bella- that is, until Sundancer sidled out of the room, leaving just Taylor and Bella alone.
The silence in the foyer grew tense as the two both shot surreptitious glances at each other, some more stealthy than others- for all that Taylor had the decorum that Odin in all his kingly glory could lay claim to, there was only so much she could do when Bella was on the side of her missing eye, and she was wearing chain mail to boot, and by the time she remembered that she could see through what bugs were in the room, it was already too late and she'd been caught out fair and square.
After what was probably too long, Taylor sighed. "Come on, if you want to talk. We can do it while I alter the protections around the building."
Taylor strode off into a different room than Sundancer had left through, drawing power through the ansuz rune on her eye patch to grant wisdom to guide her to the heartwood of the tree, and a moment later, she heard Bella huff, sounding almost fond, and then the gentle sound of bare feet on hard wood floors as Sophia's clone followed her.
The building was not particularly large, as far as the number of rooms on every floor, but they were laid out with the whimsical logic, or lack thereof, of nature, and the two of them had many floors (and thus, many rooms) that they had to go through to get to the tree's heartwood.
On the way down, Bella had breathed in as if to attempt to speak two or three separate times, but each time she aborted the attempt, hair swishing softly as she shook her head each time.
Eventually, Taylor acknowledged that she'd have to be the one to start the conversation, as little as she'd want to do that.
"Bella. I don't… I don't hold you responsible for what Sophia did to me," said Taylor, hearing Bella stumble slightly at the statement. "I just don't like you making excuses for her. Yes, she was- is- in a bad place, but that doesn't mean that she didn't make her own choices in that situation. It might make the choices she did make somewhat easier to understand, but that doesn't make them any less… any less impactful, for me or those around her, and just saying 'oh, her passenger made her do it' isn't something that really makes it better, not to me."
"I know that," said Bella, haltingly, normally-smooth voice quavering a little. "It's just… Sophia hated so much about herself, that it's… it's hard not to love her, at least a little."
"Is that what you inherited from her? All her hatreds, reconstructed into love?" asked Taylor, sounding more tired than anything else.
"That, and entirely too much baggage." Taylor saw, through the eyes of a spider in the corner of the room, Bella run her hand through her hair. "Well, at least we'll match your redhead friend in that respect, eh?" she asked, bitter mirth dripping from her words.
Taylor stopped so abruptly that Bella had to backpedal to not run into her. "Emma? What did Sophia do to her?" There was far more anger in that than Taylor was expecting, given all that Emma had done to her.
"That's… it's not my place to say, even if I understood how exactly Sophia changed Emma."
The edge of fear, buried underneath the compassion in that sentence, gave Taylor pause, realizing that her abruptly-clenched fist had started dripping glowing squiggles that looked, if one squinted, vaguely like runes. Slowly, Taylor forced her hand to open, letting the lighting in the room fade back to the sunbeams entering through the mirror and the faint glow from her eyepatch. "Sorry, Bella. I don't… I don't want to take what Sophia did out on you. If I do, please say so."
"I… I'll try."
"That's all I can reasonably ask," said Taylor, starting walking again. "I'll ask Emma, sooner or later, but I-"
"With respect," interrupted Bella, "make it sooner. Something tells me that things are going to get in the way, and if you don't do it soon, it'll happen never."
Taylor snorted. "I thought wisdom was Odin's thing," she said, aiming for teasing but landing somewhat short.
"Yes, well, your Stand isn't here, so someone had to fill in," Bella returned, droll tone managing the teasing better than Taylor's flatter cadence.
"You have my gratitude," said Taylor.
They came to the end of the last staircase, and immediately Taylor knew she had arrived where she'd need to be to reinforce the protections, both out of what magical knowledge she had and from the faintly glowing Chinese characters painted on the slightly raised area in the center of the room. "We're here."
"Do you need anything?" asked Bella.
Taylor flicked her wrist, closing her hand on empty air that promptly revealed itself to be a spear longer than she was tall. "Nothing in particular, I think. I should be able to get away with just the spear to do the carvings, as long as I get the positioning right…" She trailed off, leaping into the air and remaining there in a susurrus of wind and a brief flash of golden runes.
"Hmmm…" said Taylor, the rune on her eye patch glowing brighter. "This goes here," she continued, carving one rune in the gap between two different characters, "and that goes there," with another rune all but appearing out of nowhere dead center in the raised area, "and…" the spear flickered out, seeming to be taller than even Bella's hulking ursine form and with almost treelike branches, leaving nine instances of one rune around the edge of the circle, before Taylor descended once again, landing gently in the center of the raised area. Her hand opened, the spear vanishing before it fell six inches, and Taylor closed her hand again, holding a short blade that resembled a needle more than anything else.
Nine times the needle entered the flesh of her palm, and nine drops of blood fell to the rune in the center of the circle before the wounds sealed themselves over, blood both on her hand and the circle hardening into crystal in the space of heartbeats. "With this seal," said Taylor, in a language forgotten to all but her, "I bind ye runes to your purpose, in Vár's name."
She felt the runes activate with a thrum, intertwining with the protections that Quarrel had constructed in a way that she couldn't articulate to anyone save Odin, then nodded.
"Alright, that's that," she said, feeling as much as seeing the way in which the runes glowed an earthy green to match the Chinese characters, the occasional spark of golden light flickering through the runes or the crystal on the raised area.
Taylor swept up the stairs, Bella seeming almost pulled along in her wake as she strode through the building.
"Have you thought… have you thought about the prospect of starting a hero team? A real, independent hero team?" asked Bella, halfway tempted to make the shift into her ursine form to keep up with the taller girl.
"I can't say I have, why?" asked Taylor, slowing and turning around to face Bella while continuing to walk backwards.
"Well, ah," stuttered Bella, a little distracted both by the intensity of Taylor's gaze and her feet as she glide-stepped backwards, as evidenced by her eyes flickering downwards. "New Wave is having some problems, what with Glory Girl and Amy not being on great terms with their mom and all that, plus the Protectorate is… not somewhere you really would want to be, plus you've already got more than enough capes who would- I- If you told me you were going to China to kill the Yàngbǎn, I'd be right there at your side, and I'm not the only one in this building."
Taylor blinked, the idea not, in fact, having occurred to her, before humming. "I can see how that could be beneficial, in this time, but… maybe not right in the wake of an Endbringer attack. I'd want to talk with anyone who'd want to join this team before, too, so we could make sure everyone's on the same page."
"I'm not asking you to make a commitment right now, no, I'm just asking… think about it, please."
Taylor nodded. "Of course." Her heel hit a stair, and without missing a beat, she turned a hundred and eighty degrees to climb it facing forwards once again.
After less time than it had taken to walk down- Taylor was much more assured in the path now that she'd followed it herself rather than relying on magic to guide her steps, and she was the one setting the pace they walked at- they arrived back in the foyer, meeting Victoria and Amy there.
"So, uh, Taylor. I think I'm gonna… gonna stay here for a while, see if I can get back on my feet without leaning too hard on you, and so I can try and feel out… whatever it is that being a god gets me," said Victoria.
Taylor had to push down her first impulse (that being to accuse Victoria of trying to abandon and/or betray her, just like Emma had) with the weight of Odin's memories and kingly bearing.
"Alright," said Taylor, nodding firmly. "If you need help, please reach out."
Taylor walked towards the door, purpose visible in her eye (or so she liked to think). Before she opened said door, Bella spoke up. "What are you up to now?"
"Taking your advice," said Taylor, closing the door and shooting into the air. It was time she got some closure.
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Taylor hadn't been able to make herself go to the Barnes house in years.
Intellectually, she knew now that she probably would have been able to get through to… well, someone, who would have been able to help Emma and make her stop, if she'd gone.
Emotionally, though, she had already been abandoned by too many people- her father had broken, Emma had stabbed her in the back with the school system's help, and even her mother had been torn away from her, even if that wasn't her fault, and she couldn't bring herself to believe that anyone would (or could) help her.
Now wasn't the time for self-recrimination, though, and she shook off the thoughts as she walked up to the door of the Barnes house, having already left the armor behind in favor of a ruffled blouse and loose jeans. She didn't do anything so cliché as pause to take a deep breath, but there was a hitch in her steps before she went all the way up to the door and knocked firmly. Perhaps too firmly- Taylor thought she saw miniscule divots in the wood in the rough shape of her knuckles, but before she got the chance to examine it more closely, the door swung open.
Zoe Barnes' kindly eyes had always helped her with the more recalcitrant parents in her job as a doctor at the university medical center, and they went ever so slightly soft when she saw Taylor standing at her doorstep. "Taylor!" The petite blonde stepped out of the house and dragged her into a hug. "It's good to finally see you again. When I heard about-" her voice broke. "When I heard about what Emma did to you, I've been trying to get a hold of you to try and apologize, but I've never- well, would you like to come in?"
"Sure, Aunt Zoe," Taylor said, gently patting her mother's friend on the back.
After following her inside, Taylor sighed, gazing wistfully around the large living room. Yes, there was a different blanket draped over the back of the couch, and the pictures on the wall had expanded to threaten conquest of the hallway, but aside from so many small details, it was like she'd stepped back in time to before Emma had turned on her.
"Do you… want anything to drink?" asked Aunt Zoe, more than likely falling back on an old, familiar routine given her wrongfootedness.
"No, thank you, Aunt Zoe." Taylor was willing to draw comfort from that old routine as well.
"Alright, well, I am going to make some tea for myself, I think…" Zoe trailed off, bustling around the kitchen for long enough to make a cup of tea for herself before settling herself on the couch, across from Taylor.
Again, Taylor was the one who had to take the initiative in the conversation. "Do you… do you know what happened? With regards to Emma and myself, that is," she asked.
"...I don't," said Zoe, not a little shame in her voice. "I know some of what happened, near the end. I know she's the one who-" her voice cracked. "I know she helped put you in that thing, and that she tried to break into your house afterwards, but I don't know why and I don't know much else."
Taylor breathed deeply, in then out. This wasn't particularly unexpected, but some small part of her had hoped that Zoe had known more than she did.
"Those are the big moments. Emma… she did a lot of little things, and she got a lot of other people to do little things, but… well, straws and camels, you know?" Taylor shrugged helplessly. "Honestly, I just want to know why."
Zoe was silent for a moment. "I'm not sure how much you'll get out of her, but… she's here on bail, if you want to try talking to her."
Taylor nodded, then pushed herself up from the couch. "I think I'll see what I can't get from her."
Zoe nodded. "Good luck."
Taylor nodded back, then walked up the stairs, the trepidation that had been bubbling in her stomach since she made the decision to come here coming to a head.
Emma's door had had the sign that Taylor made for her torn down, leaving slightly chipped paint behind, and Taylor closed her eyes for a moment at the physical reminder of how their relationship had failed. Then, she knocked on the door- not nearly as hard as she'd knocked at the entryway.
"G'way," came the muffled voice from inside the room.
"Not yet," said Taylor.
There was a moment of silence, then the door creaked open a crack, just enough for Emma to peer out at her.
Taylor made eye contact with the single green eye visible. "Well, Ems," she said, not above using the childhood nickname to try and elicit a reaction from the redhead. "Can I come in?"
A verbal answer was not forthcoming, but Emma pulled away from the door, which swung open on its own weight.
The room was a mess, with dirty clothes, school supplies, and all manner of other things strewn across both the floor and the desk. In the center of the mess stood Emma, normally-vibrant hair dull and unkempt and her eyes lacking both the cruel sparkle that she had exhibited of late and the earlier, kinder expression that Taylor remembered from when she was still Ems.
"Well," said Emma, sounding almost accusatory if not for her apathy. "Come to gloat, I suppose?"
"Come for answers," replied Taylor evenly, internally mourning Ems just a little bit. "We were sisters, Ems, in all but blood. Why… why all this? Why try to tear me down? Why try to kill me with Sophia?"
"Because you're not strong," spat Emma, a sneer firmly fixed on her face. "You're weak, you broke after your mother, and-"
"Just because I fell apart after Mom died," said Taylor, fury warring for pity now that she understood that Emma's confidence had been a front for months, if not years, "doesn't make me weak. Humans are a social species," she continued, only vaguely recognizing the ideas she was espousing, "and our strength is in our ability to work together, so why would you call me weak when you're the one who helped put me back together? When that would just call yourself weak?"
Emma's tears came without warning, and she flopped backwards, only barely making it far enough onto her bed not to break her neck as the air
whouffed out of her.
Taylor rushed forwards, already calling on the rune on her eyepatch to guide her to where Emma was injured, and-
Emma wasn't injured.
The redhead sobbed once she'd managed to refill her lungs, and Taylor, finally realizing why Emma was crying, gathered her once-friend up into a hug. Emma, in turn, clung to Taylor like a dog to a ball they refused to let their owner take.
For a long time, they stayed like that, Taylor rocking Emma back and forth gently.
Then, once Emma's tears were dry, she began to speak, and Taylor listened.
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And that's that!
I know I wanted to get to the Danny conversation in this chapter (and the setup for the nazi squishening), but Bella, Zoe, and Emma got chatty. Whoops. Sorry to push back the nazi squishing some more.
Fried meme dinner that this fic has a TV Tropes page, that hasn't gotten a whole lot of updates of late- seeing the shout out section being so small makes me sad, with how many references I've made to date.
Next fic update might be There Is No Death, might be a oneshot, might be Rouse the Stars, might be Fragrant Smoke. We'll see.
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Speaking of which, my thanks to NotableRonin and Ember for being patrons!
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That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!