#though the description suits constance better I feel
Text
What does your soul smell like?
Coffee
key words: intelligent, old soul, complex.
You are an extremely thoughtful individual with a creative mind and loving heart. being around you is like sinking into a warm bath. there’s something truly wise about the advice you give others, and being in your presence leaves others feeling warm, reassured, and inspired.
Compatible with: coffee, candle smoke, freshly baked bread.
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The emperor has to be god-king Andy. Also like since nicky and Joe obv have to have the lovers why not have andy and quyhn kissing as the empress.
Another related ask (potentially by the same person):
Also since the fool is a journey's beginning I'd almost want to pick Nile for it. As well there are four characters who commonly have swords (or an axe but close enough) and cards have four corners. So one sword each corner, nicky, joe, andy, and quyhn.
So. Someone has good ideas. Here’s the post that prompted these asks. This made me pull out my tarot deck and go through the cards. Below the cut is a break down of the entire tarot deck. There will be an explanation of the (standard) interpretation of the cards, good then less good, and then my associated headcannon (or more than one if I couldn’t decide). The source is my experience with tarot. I’m trying to minimize repeats, but historic and modern Old Guard members are counted separately. Enjoy.
The Major Arcana (aka the cards most people have heard about)
0. The Fool - the seeker. Naivety. Courage. Living in the moment. Journey’s beginning. All paths available. Folly. Apathy.
Nile. Anon convinced me. Though Booker has got the folly, apathy, and madness down, Nile is ultimately the beginning. She’s naïve but headstrong, and quite frankly a perfect match.
I. The Magician - the trickster. Power, skill, talent. Mastery, self-control, willpower. Subtlety. Divine connection and inspiration. Self-reliant.
Modern Nicky. Definitely Nicky. Just. He’s a formerly very religious man who just says these things. Also sniper.
II. The High Priestess - the moon goddess. Intuition, wisdom, foresight, divination, prophecy. Enlightenment, understanding, intelligence, education. Pride, emotional instability, unforgiving.
Historic Quynh. Her name means “night-blooming flower”, which is very moon goddess vibes to me. Also, I’d say over 500 years in a box turns understanding and enlightenment into emotional instability and unforgiveness.
III. The Empress - the queen. Feminine power, matriarch, mother. Fertility, pleasure, beauty. Success, evolution, movement. Marriage, wealth. Overattachment, domestic upheaval, delay.
Quynh. The counterpart to Andy’s emperor card.
Nile. Let’s be honest, she’s going to take over from Andy some day.
IV. The Emperor - the king. Masculine power, patriarch, father. Authority, leadership, proficiency. Wealth, stability, effectiveness. Perseverance, logic, endurance, experience. Lack of ability, weak character, immature, rebellious.
Modern Andy. She is the leader who’s short-comings effect her entire team. And who doesn’t love a little gender bending? (and her film look is already soft butch)
V. The Hierophant - the religious leader. Tradition, convention, ritual symbolism. Ceremony, religion, morality, philosophy. Mercy, goodness, forgiveness, humility, vulnerability, Impotence, Religious tyranny.
Historic Nicky. I mean, former priest (enough said).
Historic Andy. “I was once worshipped as a god” (enough said).
VI. The Lovers - the lovers. Love, attraction. Compatibility, harmony, choice. Triumph over trials, vacillation. Entanglement, enmeshment. Infidelity, moral lapse, vice, separation, quarrels, inadequacy, failing tests.
Andromaquynh. *peeks out from behind barricade* I know that most people would just put Kaysanova as this card, but look at all the negatives it is associated with. Sounds a lot more like our immortal wives can really cover the gamut. They have the range....I am a sucker for Kaysanova, though. Even though the beginning of their relationship is rocky, I’d like to think it’s been fairly constant over the years. But let’s reverse the uhaul lesbians and fickle gay men tropes! Sorry, Book of Nile fans. That ship just isn’t established enough for this, I’d say. Maybe one day?
VII. The Chariot - the journey. Ordeal, obstacles, competition. High stakes, ambition, discipline. Conquest, victory, greatness. Right action prevails, overwhelming odds, sudden defeat.
Merrick and/or Dr. Kozak. I mean, this is literally their characters in a nutshell. Merrick is the journey/ordeal for the old guard. He is driven by his ambition, thinks he’s won over impossible odds, and then has a sudden defeat.
VIII. Justice - the balance. Equilibrium, equality, symmetry, harmony. Integrity, honor, fairness, neutrality, moderation. Vindication, self-righteousness, bigotry, prejudice, favoritism.
Nile. This is the woman with a sword card. She brings a balance to the team, she clearly moderates conflict, and I’d love to see BLM art of her in this style. Just sayin.
IX. The Hermit - the seeker-sage. Wisdom, inspiration, contemplation, discretion, understanding. Safety, protection, spiritual quest. Seeking truth and justice. Self-denial, timidity, fear.
Historic Joe. The idealized warrior poet? Definitely just a form of the hermit. Helps explain why a Magrebhi trader/artist fought at the Siege of Jerusalem: spiritual quest. I also like the idea of Joe having a secret reserved side.
X. The Wheel of Fortune - cycles of life. Destiney, evolution and progress, advancement. Manifestation, unexpected events. Success, sudden luck. Ups and downs.
Modern Quynh. There is nothing that better encapsulates her storyline than the wheel of fortune. One day you’re roaming the world with your immortal wife. The next, you’re drowning for over 500 years. The next you’re in Booker’s shitty Paris apartment.
XI. Strength - fortitude. Resilience, courage, resolve, confidence. Integrity, moral victory, endurance. Energy, action, vitality. Power, force, violence. Abuse of power, disgrace, impotence.
Lykon. Do I love this character beyong measure and reason? Maybe so. We have so little to go on about him, however, that the only things we do know bely his strengths. Also, he becomes ultimately the weakest when he dies and encapsulates both “extremes” of the card.
XII. The Hanged Man - the tested. Delay, sacrifice, abandonment, rejection. Betrayal. Reversals, restrained or bound, limbo, trials. Falseness.
Booker. If the fact that his first death was by hanging didn’t convince you? Read that description again. His character arc is literally working through being the hanged man.
XIII. Death - the loss or parting. Alteration, transformation, transition. Boredom, depression, stagnation, failure or disaster. Bereavement, recovery, immobility.
Lykon. He literally represents the fear of death to the remaining immortals. It is HE that they invoke when they discuss it. Also, I’m still mourning my favorite underdeveloped character.
XIV. Temperance - the moderation. Self-control, economy, patience, coordination. Consolidation, harmony, friendship, recuperation. Unfulfilled desires, discord, stubbornness, hostility, clashing of interests. Time, seasons, and climate.
A Safehouse. I don’t think any of the people really capture the tempered essence of this card, the constancy throughout all seasons of life. An actual physical building that rises and falls with (regular) humanity, though, seems to do the trick.
XV. The Devil - the arcane. Magic, strange occurrences, prophecy, fate. Catastrophe, downfall, negative attitude, Temptations, sins, obsessions. Enslavement, bondage, misplaced loyalty, violence, fatality.
Honestly? I’m so torn. I feel like a major commentary of the movie is that our demons are the way people react more so than the people themselves. Maybe the armored van?
XVI. The Tower - the House of God. Disruption, expulsion from an earthly paradise, divine wrath. Punishment (of pride), loss, destructive rivalry, plans ruined. Need to start again, bankruptcy.
The Iron Coffin. While this doesn’t capture the religious undertones quite right, the coffin is the Tower for Andromaquynh, It is (divine? or very human?) wrath brought on by pride since the two probably thought that they would be fine. It is loss and painful new beginnings.
XVII. The Star - the bright promise. Hope, faith, light of the spirit. Recovery, symbols of immortality. Gifts, good prospects, new dawn, frustrated expectations.
Nile. The new immortal, enough said.
Historic Andy/Lykon. In a way, the first immortal would also be a great choice of representation.
XVIII, The Moon - the hidden forces. Twilight, illusion, deception, trickery. Dishonesty, danger, uncertainty, terror. Developments, particularly somewhat concealed. Errors, powerful feelings.
Copley. I know, I know. “He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness” and all that jazz. But look at this card’s interpretation and notice it’s pretty negative. Copley’s entire role is to pull the strings behind the scenes. He makes headway on problems in secrets, he lies and deceives everyone in the film at some point.
XIX. The Sun - the work’s rewards. Daylight, co-creation, union “of male and female”. Peace, joy, pleasure, love, contentment. Accomplishment, achievement, success.
Joe. Not only is he the sun, he also fits this card perfectly. He is creation and happiness. Enough said.
XX Judgement - the rebirth. Judgement, sentence. Rejuvenation, renewal, resurrection, call to the new from the old, rehabilitation. Creation, promotion.
Historic Booker. I feel like his backstory with his family helped highlight the theme of rebirth for the Old Guard. They must be willing to give up what they have left behind to move forward. Also, there’s the more literal play as well since Booker was a conscripted criminal.
XXI The World - the long journey. Perfection, completion, conclusion. Power through intelligence and wisdom. The universe and the material world.
A group photo, of course! Beyond that? Who knows.
Historic Andy? She’s seen so much of it. Like just her eyes portray the history of the world.
The Minor Arcana (aka the rest of the cards)
Since most people are only familiar with the major arcana, I’ll just briefly explain it. The minor arcana are actually the majority of a tarot deck. There are four suits associated with the four elements. Each suit has ten number cards and four court/face cards (traditionally modelled either based on one person or different interpretations of similar costuming). Each number or face has its own meaning, each suit has its own meaning, and their combination mostly explains what the card should be interpreted as. Quite frankly, the minor arcana are vastly underrated in popular understandings of tarot.
Suit of Wands - fire. Spontaneity, action, passion, adrenaline, life force, stroke of genius.
Guns? It’d be a bit of a niche take, but I associate guns with fires.
Staffs? More traditional in shape.
Suit of Coins - earth. Solid growth, material interests, possessions, profit, business, labor, slow and considerate.
Historic currency. Enough said.
Suit of Cups - water. Heartfelt involvements, imagination, spirituality, love, friendship, family.
Fountains around the world. Enough said.
Suit of Swords - air. Worry, trouble, boundaries, objectivity, the power of truth.
Obviously, their weapons of choice. I would go into more detail about who best represents each number, but I don’t want to bore you.
Court of Kings - mature men. Leaders, authority, status-quo, taking responsibility.
Again, most tarot is very gendered. But members in tuxes?
Court of Queens - mature women. Reflective and active, concerned with security/foundations, supportive, focused.
Members in dresses/gowns/anything that glitters?
Court of Knights/Cavaliers - young men. Dynamic, adventurous, intensive, revolutionary.
Tactical gear. Or historical armor. But it’s easier to do tactical gear right than accidentally draw a 15th century helmet on a 14th century suit of armor.
Court of Knaves/Pages - younger women, teenagers, and children. Students, apprentices, trainees, messengers, new opportunities.
Casual clothes.
#asks#lovely anon#tarot#reference#niche headcannons#major and minor arcana#i really thought this would have more kaysanova#but tarot is for wlw i guess? who knows
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One-night stands are supposed to be quick, easy, and forgettable.
No strings attached.
And they’re certainly not supposed to show up on your first day at work--your first crime scene, no less--with a roguish grin and sparkling blue eyes that are just as mesmerizing in the harsh light of day as they had been after four cocktails in a dive bar.
"Oh,” is all Scylla can manage to breathe out when Dr. Izadora L’Amara aka the medical examiner aka Scylla’s boss for the next year introduces her to Raelle Collar. Detective Raelle Collar of the Salem Police Department. It should be illegal for someone to look that good in black slacks and a form-fitting blue oxford rolled part-way up her forearms.
“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Ramshorn,” Raelle drawls as they shake hands, her grip lingering perhaps a second longer than necessary. “Again.” Her blonde hair--braided on one side like it had been on Saturday night--practically glows in the sun, and Scylla tamps down the memory of how much better it looked as a golden halo spread across a pillow.
“The pleasure’s mine,” Scylla says and then inwardly cringes when Raelle’s grin widens into shit-eating. She could have phrased it better. Much better.
“I didn’t realize you two already knew each other,” Izadora says, arching one eyebrow.
“We’re acquainted.” Raelle winks at Scylla, whose cheeks burn. At least Scylla could blame it on the summer heat.
Izadora hums as she makes her way to the bodies. Raelle follows after with Scylla in tow, past a small crowd of curious onlookers and a television news crew that’s setting up their camera and mic’ing up their reporter.
They approach an alleyway barricaded with yellow police tape, which Raelle pulls up to allow Scylla and Izadora to duck underneath.
“What do we have?” Izadora asks as Raelle leads them to the crime scene where three victims await, bodies arranged in a perverse triangle.
“Triple homicide,” Raelle answers. “And one we’ve identified as Constance Treefine, so you can imagine the press will have a field day if that gets out. Still waiting to confirm the identities of the others.”
“Treefine?” Scylla asks.
“A member of one of Salem’s oldest and wealthiest High Atlantic families,” Izadora explains.
Around them, patrol officers and crime scene investigators bustle about collecting evidence.
“Think the cause of death is pretty obvious,” Raelle says.
“We’ll be the judge of that, Detective Collar, thank you very much.” Izadora crouches down next to the closest victim and snaps on a pair of latex gloves. Scylla and Raelle follow suit. “Male, 40s,” Izadora says.“Ramshorn?”
“His larynx has been extracted.” Scylla prods at the wound carefully with a gloved finger. “The cuts are clean. Precise. Almost… professional. No signs of hemorrhaging, which is unusual. Cause of death unclear.”
Izadora nods in approval.
“If you say so, beautiful.” Raelle shrugs.
Izadora returns to a standing position. “Dr. Ramshorn, complete your preliminary examinations and meet me back at the station.” She eyes Raelle. “And Detective Collar, please remember to be professional. Lest I have another conversation with Sergeant Quartermaine.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Raelle gives her a jaunty salute before turning all her attention back to Scylla, who pretends she’s not there as she continues a visual examination of the bodies.
She notices a patch of red skin behind the victim’s ear and carefully lifts his lobe. “There’s some kind of marking here.” Scylla points at a black symbol of what appears to be a complicated sigil. “A tattoo, perhaps.”
“Fresh by the looks of it,” Raelle says before waving someone over. “Tal, get a shot of this.”
One of the investigators with a DSLR approaches, a woman with long red hair tied in a ponytail. She crouches down and snaps a photo, the camera’s light flashing.
“Fascinating,” she exclaims. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” She looks up and smiles at Scylla. “And I’ve not seen you before either.”
“Oh, sorry,” Raelle says. “Tally, this is our newest pathologist, Dr. Scylla Ramshorn. Dr. Ramshorn, this is Tally Craven, one of our best CSIs.”
“Nice to meet you, Tally. I’d shake your hand, but...” Scylla raises her contaminated gloves.
“No worries.” Tally nods in understanding. “Scylla’s a really beautiful name. Greek, right?” She tilts her head toward Raelle. “Didn’t you say you met a Scylla the other night?”
Heat prickles across the back of Scylla’s neck.
Raelle clears her throat. “Just a coincidence.”
“Huh,” Tally says. “Well, welcome aboard, Scylla. Let me know if there’s ever anything I can do for ya.”
She pops back up and wanders over to take photos of the other victims, leaving Raelle and Scylla together in an awkward silence. Raelle looks like she wants to say something more, but she doesn’t. Thankfully.
“Well, I’ll let you get to it, Doc,” Raelle says before she walks away to confer with other officers.
And Scylla lets out a breath of relief, thankful that she can focus on the task at hand, trying her best to ignore the occasional looks Raelle throws her way.
***
Several hours later, Scylla's on her way to the morgue, eager to begin the autopsies. This is where she thrives, alone with her work, disengaging from emotions and focusing on science to uncover secrets from the dead that only she can find. To bring them justice. And, she hopes, a modicum of peace.
She doesn't expect to bump into Ralle at the elevator, waiting for the car to arrive.
“So, Doc, you left super early yesterday," Raelle says as she falls into step next to Scylla. "Missed out on some mean chocolate-chip pancakes.”
She has to nip this in the bud. Pronto.
“Let me stop you right there, Detective,” Scylla interrupts. “Saturday night was… fun." That's an understatement. Mind-blowing is more like it. Earth shattering. Game changing. "But nothing more. And the sooner we put it behind us, the better.”
Raelle’s smile falls from her all too-attractive face. “Sure, of course.”
Scylla inwardly curses.
And that's that.
***
Or so she thinks.
Every once in a while, Raelle stops by the morgue to check on the “windpipe” case--Raelle insists on that description even though Scylla has thoroughly explained that the trachea and the larynx, despite their proximity, are two very different anatomical parts.
Raelle's professional and polite, despite Scylla's rejection, but doesn't quite get the memo that she's not supposed to be charming or cute or adorable.
One day, Raelle sets down a disposable cup of coffee on Scylla’s desk and pushes it toward her. A familiar logo adorns its sleeve: two coffee beans in a V-shape to form a heart. It’s from Scylla’s favorite shop, nowhere near the precinct.
"Kona, no cream, one sugar," Raelle props her hip on the desk. "I've heard on the grapevine it's your favorite."
"Are you stalking me, Detective?"
"Stalking?" Raelle mimes being stabbed in the heart. "You wound me, Doc. It's called gathering intel."
"Gathering intel," Scylla repeats, leaning back in her chair. She'd prefer to keep Raelle at arm's length, but a small part of her feels flattered anyway, an unwelcome warmth spreading through her chest."
"Learning about a new colleague."
"Temporary colleague. The fellowship's only one year."
"Still plenty of time for us to get to know each other better. And there are much easier ways than me tracking down your coffee order. Like, lunch? Or dinner?"
Scylla has to shut this down. Again.
"Detective Collar."
"Raelle."
"Sorry?"
"You can call me Raelle. Like you did when we met."
"Detective." Scylla’s face heats up, remembering exactly how she had said Raelle’s name on that particular night. Had breathed it out like a prayer, and a curse. "You're sweet.. But I don't date coworkers."
Let alone one-night stands.
"Who said anything about a date?" Raelle rubs her chin between her thumb and forefinger, just beneath the scar along her cheek that Scylla vividly remembers worshiping with her lips in the not-so-distant past. "You’ve gotta eat, don’t you? Or are you not friends with coworkers, either?”
Scylla rakes her teeth across her bottom lip, partly mortified by her assumption.
“Tell ya what,” Raelle grins as she slides off the desk. “If you're ever in need of wholesome and completely platonic sustenance, you know where to find me."
Scylla picks up the coffee and removes the lid. She blows on it, breath skimming the heavenly brown liquid, and sips. It burns her tongue anyway.
***
"So, how are things?" Sergeant Anacostia Quartermaine takes a large bite of her turkey on wheat, elbows on her desk as she chews.
Much like Anacostia, her office is practical, functional, and no-nonsense, with hardly any personal decorations except for a single picture frame on her painfully neat desk. In it is a photo of Anacostia and Scylla on her graduation day from medical school, both of them beaming at the camera.
Smiling at the memory, Scylla unwraps her own lunch, a vegetarian wrap. Extra mushrooms. "Not bad," she answers.
"Not bad?" Anacostia repeats. "We've got a serial killer on the loose and all you have to say about it is: not bad?"
"Fine, it's amazing," Scylla says in an overexaggerated manner. "A dream come true. In fact, it's beyond my wildest imaginings."
"And here you thought coming back home for your fellowship would be boring." Anacostia smiled. "You making any friends?"
Scylla waves that off, as she takes a bit of her wrap and mumbles, "I'm not here for that."
"I know, but it wouldn't kill you to have some fun every once in a while." Anacostias waggles a potato chip at Scylla before popping it in her mouth.
Scylla stops mid-chew. "That's hilarious coming from you."
"Excuse you. I have fun."
"Your idea of fun is organizing your kitchen pantry by alphabetical order. You don't get to judge me."
"I'm not judging. I'm encouraging, as is my right as your guardian."
On the other side of the glass wall that partitions Anacostia's office from the rest of the detectives' desks, Scylla notices Raelle enter the room. She doesn’t take note of Scylla at first, but when their eyes lock, she gives her a slow smile that still makes Scylla’s stomach flutter despite the self-imposed distance she placed between them. And Anacotia--being the savvy detective that she is--notices Scylla noticing Raelle noticing Scylla.
"Not making friends, huh?" Anacostia has a knowing smile on her face.
"We’re not friends," Scylla says perhaps too quickly.
“If you say so,” Anacostia says. “Collar is one of my best detectives, but…”
“But?”
“Just be careful with her,” Anacostia warns softly. “She’s not as tough as she’d like people to believe.”
***
If there’s one thing Scylla learns about Raelle after her lunch with Anacostia, it’s that she definitely has quite the reputation. Not that Scylla’s going out of her way to “gather intel” on Raelle. Not in the slightest.
Raelle and her partner, Abigail Bellweather of the High Atlantic Bellweathers, are the two youngest detectives in the department. They’re on a hot streak for solving murders, but they also have a penchant for mayhem. Lots of mayhem. Rumor has it that they once managed to blow up two large trucks in the pursuit of a serial bomber, damaging parts of a newly paved stretch of highway. The mayor was, suffice it to say, far from pleased. Neither was Abigail’s mother, Chief of Police Petra Bellweather. Aside from their destructive tendencies, Raelle, apparently, is also notorious for charming the panties off half the women in the precinct and breaking hearts--if scuttlebutt can be believed.
And Scylla takes it all as proof that she made the right decision to keep Raelle at arm’s length. Raelle is nothing but trouble disguised behind gorgeous blue eyes and a roguish smile.
***
But Scylla also discovers Raelle is very much a study in contradiction. She plays hard, but works hard, too. On nights Scylla leaves late at night after a long day of autopsies or reports, Raelle’s always at her desk whenever Scylla walks past the detectives’ offices, typing furiously on her keyboard, candy bar wrappers and open cans of Red Bull sitting atop stacks of manila papers and folders.
One night, Scylla can’t resist and stops in the doorway. “Do you ever sleep?”
“These cases aren’t gonna solve themselves, Doc.” Raelle leans back in her chair, lips turning up, languid and easy.
Scylla hates how Raelle’s smile still makes her heart skip a beat. “Detective, are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?”
“Should I be?”
“Yes, for your well being,” Scylla says. “At some point, the benefits you gain from working start to decrease the more you overwork.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong.” Raelle makes an exaggerated show of stretching out her arm and squinting at her wrist watch. It’s nearly midnight. “But it sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.”
Scylla rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying, breaks are good every now and again.”
“Doctor’s orders?” Raelle winks.
“Yeah, doctor’s orders,” Scylla can’t help but smile.
“I’ll take it under advisement,” Raelle accedes. “Though, if you’re offering to help me comply with those orders...”
And that’s Scylla’s cue to leave before she can do anything she might regret. Again. “Goodnight, Detective.”
***
The murders continue. Always in the same pattern. Three unrelated victims, of every age, sex, race, national origin, religion, and socio-economic status, positioned to form a grotesque triangle. All with their vocal folds removed with minimal blood from the wound site. All with a different sigil tattooed somewhere on their bodies..
“Toxicology finally came back on the first victims.” Scylla hands a copy of the report to Abigail, adopting a neutral and professional tone that she hopes effectively masks her disappointment that a certain blonde detective is nowhere to be seen. “Each victim had etorphine, pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride in their systems.”
“And what does that mean in English?” Abigail frowns as she flips through the pages.
“Etorphine is a tranquilizer. The others, when combined, are commonly used in lethal injections.”
Abigail’s head shoots up. “Seriously?”
It’s then that Raelle rushes into the room and brushes past Scylla, a little worse for wear. She tucks her dress shirt in her pants, creases apparent against white, and tosses a wrinkled blazer on the back of her chair. It looks suspiciously like she’s wearing the same outfit as yesterday.
“Sorry, I’m late.” She sits and rolls her chair up to the desk. “Oh, hey there, Doc.” Self-consciously, Raelle combs her fingers through her hair, wincing when they snag against tangles. “Didn’t think you’d be visiting this early.”
“It’s almost noon,” Scylla points out.
Abigail gives Raelle an unimpressed once over. “You look like shit.”
“Why, thank you, Bells. You always know how to make a girl feel special.”
Abigail gives her a flat stare. “Where have you been? Quartermaine would have had your ass if she didn’t have a meeting with the chief.”
Scylla bites the inside of her cheek at the mention of Anacostia. She wonders if anyone has put two-and-two together about their relationship. Not that they’ve been hiding it, per se.
“Had another all-nighter,” Raelle shrugs. “You know how those go.”
Abigail just shakes her head. “You’re hopeless.”
Scylla’s unsure what an “all-nighter” entails, though she has an inkling. Her stomach twists slightly, even though she has no right to be bothered about whatever (or whomever) Raelle does.
“Anyway, what were you guys talking about?” Raelle asks.
Abigail tosses the file to Raelle, who fumbles it slightly as she catches it. “Ramshorn here says the victims were drugged and executed.”
“Based on our findings, it’s plausible the victims were sedated and killed before their larynxes were removed,” Scylla explains. “That could explain the lack of blood around the extraction point.”
Raelle eyes the report. “So we could be dealing with a medical professional?”
“Assuming nothing was stolen or otherwise acquired through less than legal means,” Abigail says.
“Well, it’s more than what we had before,” Raelle smiles. “Thanks, Doc.”
“Oh, Scylla, there you are!” Tally bounds up to them from out of nowhere. “I swung by your office, but you weren’t there.”
“Sorry, Tally, I’m just finishing up with the detectives,” Scylla says. “Unless there’s anything else you two need?”
Abigail shakes her head. “Whoa, wait, your name is Scylla?”
“That’s right.”
Abigail’s gaze ping-pongs between Raelle, who looks ready to murder Abigail on the spot, and an increasingly embarrassed.Scylla, who wonders just how many people Raelle had told about their night together. For all she knows it’s the entire precinct.
“Well,” Abigail’s eyebrows raise, “That’s interesting.”
“Not as interesting as coffee,” Tally hooks her arm through Scylla’s.
“Wait, you’re having coffee together?” Raelle asks. She looks almost hurt, not that Scylla cares.
“That’s right.” Scylla smiles. “Tally Craven, let’s have that coffee.”
Tally beams as she pulls Scylla away.
Scylla swears she can feel Raelle’s stare every step of the way.
***
After another long Friday of autopsies, Scylla can’t wait to get back to her apartment and take a soak in a hot, hard-earned bubble bath. She’s almost to the front entrance when she nearly runs headfirst into Raelle, who’s sporting a busted lip and a bruise on her left cheek, just above her scar.
“Detective, what…” Scylla is at a loss of words, heart in her throat.
“Oh, hey, Doc,” Raelle tries to give her usual playful grin, but the effect is lost amid the shallow cuts along her chin and the dried blood caked around her nose. “Heading out?”
Worry claws at Scylla’s stomach. “Your face.”
“Still pretty, right?”
Scylla places a hand on Raelle’s elbow and guides her to the side. “What happened? Are you okay?” She asks as Abigail pushes the doors open, probably with a little more force than necessary. Unlike Raelle, Abigail is unscathed, a deep scowl on her face.
“Long story,” Raelle says.
“She tried to stop a robbery without backup like a reckless maniac.” Abigail crosses her arms.
“Okay, maybe not so long,” Raelle admits.
Scylla frowns, unable to stop herself from brushing a few strands of blonde from Raelle’s face. “You should really get yourself checked out.”
“I’m fine,” Raelle protests. "Everyone's overreacting."
“Raelle," Scylla says, immediately grabbing Raelle's attention with her use of her first name. "Come with me. Let’s get you fixed up.”
The corner of Raelle's eyes crinkle in a pleased smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good,” Abigail huffs as she turns to leave. “Get her out of my sight, Ramshorn, before I kill her myself.”
Scylla leads Raelle back to her office near the morgue. Thankfully, it’s late enough that it’s empty. Dr. L’Amara had left hours before.
“Sit and wait here,” Scylla orders.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re hot when you’re bossy,” Raelle says, wincing as she lowers herself in a seat in front of Scylla’s desk.
Ignoring Raelle, Scylla enters the exam room to wet a washcloth, retrieve an ice pack from the freezer, and collect a first aid kit. When she returns, she sits in the chair next to Raelle and hands her the ice pack. Raelle presses it to the side of her head with a sigh.
Scylla begins cleaning the blood from Raelle’s face with gauze soaked with a saline solution. Although she takes extra care around Raelle’s wounds, she still winces in pain.
“You really don’t have to do this,” Raelle insists, pink tinging her cheeks.
“And you really don’t have to be reckless,” Scylla says, uncapping a tube of triple-antibiotic ointment, squeezing some on a cotton pledget, and applying it to Raelle’s cuts. “But here we are.”
“I’m not reckless,” Raelle insists as Scylla takes the ice pack so she can examine Raelle’s scalp.
“Right, that’s why you’ve got a lump the size of a softball on your head.” Scylla’s fingers skim across Raelle’s braids, gently outlining a hematoma.
“Someone had to step in,” Raelle says with quiet conviction. “It was the right thing to do.”
Scylla bites back a lecture. It’s not her place to chastise Raelle or tell her how to do her job, even if she can’t quite shake the worry that’s weighing in the pit of her stomach. Instead, Scylla hands back the ice pack, picks up an otoscope, and shines a light into Raelle’s eyes. One pupil doesn’t constrict, confirming Scylla’s suspicions.
“You have a concussion,” Scylla turns off the light.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Scylla sighs. “You should rest, but it'd be better if you stay up for a few hours.”
“You know, I might need some help staying up. What do you say, Doc?” Raelle waggles her eyebrows and Scylla can’t help but laugh because Raelle’s incorrigible .
"In your state, I doubt you'd be able to keep up with me," Scylla lightly teases. It’s not flirting, she tells herself. It’s harmless banter among colleagues.
"I like challenges." Raelle’s blue eyes are serious now, no longer joking, and Scylla finds she can’t breathe. Or look away.
"Collar!” Anacostia barks from the doorway, startling them both. “In my office. Now!"
"Some other time then,” Raelle says with a small smile before she leaves.
When she’s gone, Scylla slumps back in her chair, hand resting on her chest, wondering what in the hell she’s doing.
#raylla#motherland fort salem#mfsweek#raelle collar#scylla ramshorn#non-magic au#a bit of an homage to rizzoli & isles too
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Myling Around || Morgan and Miriam
TIMING: Current
LOCATION: The Archive
PARTIES: @meflemming & @mor-beck-more-problems
SUMMARY: Miriam and Morgan go looking for leads to Morgan’s ghost problem and scare up an entirely different one in the process.
Even with her muted senses, Morgan couldn’t help but run her fingers over the stacks and breathe in the smell of old books in the Archive. “You ever miss the smell of old books?” She asked her companion. “Or do you have the smelling problem? Is everything still roses and lavender in your garden of un-earthly delights?” She steered down another aisle in the stacks and checked the titles she’d written down again. They had to be somewhere around here. “Thanks for coming, again,” she said. “I know this is up your special interests alley, but you don’t have to do anything for me. This is personal, not principle. And you are more than just my rent-a-witch-killer call, even if I’ve been kind of bad about showing that. You’re more, Mim. I believe that, even if I did drag you out to The Archive for a research field trip on ghost torture.”
“I have heightened senses,” Miriam murmured as she looked at another shelf, taking in the Archive. She believed that the last time she’d been in this place, she’d been alive, looking for some obscure book for Gilly and paying for it, of course. “Though, I wouldn’t say it’s all roses and lavender. You wouldn’t believe how much worse certain things smell now. Some of the colognes the kids wear these days? Disgusting, truly.” She wrinkled her nose at the smell of some teenager that had walked in her store the other evening. She had smelled his acrid, chemical scent from her office. “Of course, dearest, I’m happy to come.” She was happy to see how things had changed, certainly, and happy to see if there was anything around that she could add to her own home library. Miriam had grown quite the collection of books on magic. She liked seeing it get even larger, though it was mostly from trophies. She looked up at Morgan, an eyebrow raised. “You’ve made it abundantly clear that you think much more of me than just a witch hunter. I appreciate it.” Even if it did seem that all they did together these days was hunt witches and then discuss the moral implications of her continuously hunting witches. “Color me curious about the ghost torture, though.”
Morgan wrinkled her nose at the thought of smelling teenager body odor and cheap cologne, or even Deirdre’s carcass hauls with their odours dialed up to eleven. They were almost comforting to her with the way she was, sweet in their decay, but not enough to turn her stomach. At least, not in a bad way. “Maybe we should hold off on the sensory swap, then,” she sniggered. “Although I do have a literal garden with roses and lavender you could smell, if you wanted. You can remind me what they smell like. Hey, does this mean you can smell things you couldn’t before? Is there anything, like, surprising?” She glanced over at Miriam as she spoke, noticing the small upturn of her lips and the brightness of her eyes and she looked the place over. She was interested, engaged, almost alive. “The thanks still stands. I wouldn’t have thought you’d enjoy a place like this with all the, you know. But then, I guess I only know you a little well after all.” She stopped as she came to one of the titles on her list and hefted the book in her arms as the flipped through the contents. “I just...want to make sure you know that I’m not all talk. We can do normal things too, you know. I would even prefer that, maybe.” Or, also, not. Morgan couldn’t pretend to herself that she tried to keep her distance at least a little. She knew Mim was dangerous, that she could never be brought close enough into her circle to know who the Vurals were or about the coven that had thrown them out. But she did care for the vampire, and wondered how many people she had who bothered with her beyond what she had designated herself to ‘do.’
“I mean, bookshop trips are kind of normal,” Morgan went on quickly, “But I’m not really here just to browse, although we could, if you want, once I knock this out. And as for my purpose, well, as I said in my message when I lured you out here, I’m trying to torture a witch that’s already dead. And there’s not much that can hurt a ghost. But if I know humans at all, someone, somewhere, came up with something truly horrible for just that purpose.” She flipped back to the index and skimmed quickly, then put the book back, dissatisfied. “She’s the one who killed me, Mim,” Morgan said quietly. “The same one who cursed me. Well, me and my entire, miserable bloodline going back a hundred years. And she still can’t leave me alone. What’s up with that, right?”
“What?” Miriam asked in mock surprise. “You don’t want to smell all the wonders that White Crest’s population has to offer?” Some things, places, people smelled lovely. Some smelled wretched. “I have a nice garden myself, but I’m sure yours is far better. I don’t actually tend to mine.” She sometimes thought she should. It wasn’t like she had a problem getting her hands dirty. “Of course I wouldn’t mind describing rose and lavender to you. I might not be as descriptive as you’d like, but I certainly can.” She cocked her head a bit, thinking. “People who are sick smell different. Then, there are certain chemicals released when people are excited in any sort of way that I can smell if I’m close enough. And, if there’s spilled blood, I can smell the difference is species. All of my senses are heightened. Not to the sort of level as other supernaturals, but definitely a major difference.” She ran a finger along the spine of a book, old and brittle. “I can smell ink on pages, sometimes.” It had been far more overwhelming than she cared to admit, when she first turned, the heightened senses and emotions and urges to kill. Now, though, Miriam couldn’t remember what life was like. “Well, then, you’re welcome, of course.” The thanks settled in improperly. She didn’t really feel like she should be thanked for much of anything. “I do know that. Unfortunately, this town, what we are, doesn’t really agree with ‘normal.’” She laughed. “I don’t even know what that means, at this point.”
Miriam shook her head. “We don’t have to worry about browsing today. This is more important.” Both for Morgan and for herself. She’d been trying to… control herself, be a bit more discriminatory on how and off who she fed. And it was leading to her being more… irritable, at times. Anxious, but not anxious. She felt like she was slacking a bit, like she was denying an itch that begged to be scratched. “We’ll find something, I’m quite sure of it. It’s like you said: it has to exist somewhere.” She narrowed her eyes at Morgan’s quiet words before she gave a sharp nod. “Then we’ll make sure she suffers.” If she thought about it too hard, she knew that it could be her that all this quiet, simmering rage was directed at, this desire to hurt. She would have killed Morgan without a thought. Even though she’d liked her, liked talking to her, she would have done it, and there would have only been the slightest pang of guilt. She wouldn’t have allowed herself anything more.
“Why have a garden if you don’t tend to it?” Morgan smirked. “I mean, some weeds get a bad rep that they don’t deserve, but, don’t tend at all? Really? We need to get you a better hobby, Miriam. You deserve more than sad, lonely flowers. Maybe something with a group, like a book club, or sports. You kind of look like the volleyball amazons I ogled in high school.” But Miriam was right, this wasn’t a bookstore and coffee Instagram sort of outing. Constance hated her enough to tear down her life before she went in for the kill. For all Morgan knew, she was hiding around the next corner, waiting to throw down a shelf of books and grind her to pieces. Morgan shuddered at the thought and picked up another book. “We will,” she agreed, oddly strengthened by Miriam’s assurance. She flipped through the contents again, scanning as carefully as she could in case she missed anything. Lots of notes about exorcising ghosts in the abstract, or simplistic, but not about making them suffer on the way out. She was sure she’d read or heard something about the word ‘harm’ being attached to this or ‘to the ...something.’ Certainly not death. Morgan’s thoughts were interrupted by a shrill scream.
“MOMMY SAID NO HITTING!!”
“Wow, someone’s having a really bad da--”
“MOMMYYYYYY SAAAAAID!” It was one of those ragged wails that threatened to break the sound barrier. Morgan looked and...found most of the store looking at the walking child corpse with dazed bewilderment. Did anyone else hear that? A little kid, right? It’s probably someone watching a movie without headphones. Weirdest thing. But she was there, right there, and she was pointing at Morgan and Miriam like they had personally stomped on her Barbie dream house. She stomped towards them, screaming again.
“Because it’s something nice to look at. Besides,” Miriam said, a bit defensively, “it’s a bit difficult to only garden at night, you know. Better to just hire someone that knows what they’re doing in the day.” She raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Volleyball amazon, huh? I’ve never been the best at group activities, you know.” She tended to enjoy taking charge and doing the work herself. Besides, team sports didn’t suit the image she’d made for herself in her youth. It was a shame, really. She wished she’d had a better outlet for all that rage. Miriam began her own excursion into looking through books, hoping to find something that might help Morgan, occasionally skimming to see if there was something that struck her own fancy. She was startled out of her browsing by a child screaming. Her head snapped up to look at it, wondering who would leave a child unattended in a bookstore, when she saw it.
The child was clearly dead. Greyish parlor, vacant eyes, dirtied dress (something that looked similar to what Miriam herself might have worn as a child), and no discernable heartbeat made it impossible for Miriam to do anything more than stare, for just a moment, as the child stomped towards them. Then, she panicked.
“Morgan. Morgan, what do we do? Morgan?” she hissed out, eyes wide as she stared at the advancing little girl. Miriam liked children. She did. She had always wanted a child. She… did not know how to handle children, especially not undead ones throwing temper tantrums. “Hitting what? Books? Isn’t that all metaphorical?” Who was she talking to? Herself? Morgan? The toddler? She didn’t know. Miriam backed herself a bit into one of the shelves, her heels making clicking noises as she tapped her foot. She was at a loss on what to do here.
It took Morgan a moment to compose herself. When she first saw the spectral image, she froze, fearing Constance had found her. She knew what she should be doing: she should be pulling the iron rod out of her bag. She should be dumping lines of salt around them, or running for the door. But she couldn’t find her feet or her grip. The child was shambling towards them on broken legs that might’ve been made of gauze, for how she wobbled on the airy shapes. Morgan was sure she would have remembered her face if they’d met before. She didn’t make friends with all the ghosts in town, but those younger than her tended to stick out, it just seemed so much more unfair. This girl couldn’t have been more than seven at a generous guess, and Morgan wasn’t sure she had it in her to strike the dead girl. Which was looking...really unfortunate, since the Bad Seed didn’t look like she was going to be putting herself in time out anytime soon.
Miriam’s voice snapped her out of her fear. She’d never heard Miriam be afraid before. She had to do something. Now. “Get behind me,” she said, moving in front already. “Also, maybe uh--” She considered passing Miriam the rod, wondering if she’d have the nerve where Morgan faltered. Guilt gripped her at once and she fished into her bag for the salt. “If she gets too close, throw some of this,” she said. “I’ll just, uh…” See what she wants? “Hey, sweetheart…” she cooed, “You okay there?”
“I KNOW WHAT YOU DID!” The girl bellowed. “MOMMY CONNIE TOLD ME WHAT YOU DID!”
“Oh, shit. Mim, we gotta--” She was pushing them towards the door when the shelf they were next to cracked. The ghost girl waved from the other side of it, smug as a loony toon as it toppled down on them.
“I don’t need to get behind you, Morgan,” Miriam snapped in a hushed voice, though she moved a bit anyway. “I’m not scared of a child, dead or not.” Part of her ached for the little girl tottering towards them. A slightly larger part of her was still panicking, though, so unsure about how to handle this situation that she was more than happy to allow Morgan to try and handle it. She took the bag of salt, though she wasn’t convinced she could even possibly begin to use it. She watched Morgan try to deal with the little girl, her voice soothing and syrupy sweet. And she watched as the little girl brought the shelf down.
“Fuck,” Miriam snarled, eyes flashing red in panic as she used a burst of speed to try and maneuver her and Morgan away from the toppling shelf. It was coming down on them, there was no stopping that, and it was definitely going to hurt. It was a good thing that both of them were nearly impossible to kill. She grunted as the shelf fell, trying to support it as well as she could. “You’re the brawn, darling, you’re going to have to help me lift.” Why did fucking books weigh so much. “This child’s a brat,” she said through clenched teeth.
Morgan didn’t remember falling. She was trying to run out of reach, squeezing Miriam’s hand, then she was on the ground, wood digging into the small of her back and books crushing her limbs.
“YOU HIT MOMMY CONNIE!”
Morgan grimaced, struggling to push herself up on her arms. “Getting fucking kids to your work for you, Constance?” She hissed under her breath. “Because that’s so mature…” Her back burned with effort. She didn’t remember moving being this hard when she was alive. “Mim--” she grunted, rising a little higher. “I’m doin’ my best here. Still not exactly the Hulk.” But she had braced herself well enough to lift an arm, give herself a little extra push. Morgan hissed through her teeth. “How’s this sound? We get out from under here, run off with whatever looks useful that we can see, and go literally anywhere else. Maybe Al’s, they’ve got those giant salt shakers!” Morgan could just about sell herself on the idea when two little oxford shoes crept into view. “Or maybe we just go home. Push on three, okay?” She looked over at the vampire as best she could, hope just brimming through her grimace.
“Mommy Connie,” Miriam said, her brows furrowed with thought and effort in trying to help lift the stack off of them both. “Morgan, if this is about that witch bitch of a ghost that killed you, then, truly, count me in. One, two--” Instead of saying three, Miriam started to lift with all that she could with Morgan’s help, lifting the shelf off of them both. “Sounds lovely,” she said, feeling out of breath even when she didn’t have to breathe. “You grab what you need, and we can go to my place if you’d like. I’m going to--” she looked to where the child was, unsure and a little pained, “--to try and give us a bit of time.” She took out the bag of salt.
“I don’t want to do this,” Miriam told the little dead girl. “I’d rather not salt you. I like children, as hard as that is to believe. I don’t like brats, though. You seem like a bit of a brat. You could have hurt someone.” Dead things can’t be reasoned with. Still, here Miriam was, trying to reason with a ghost child. Fuck, she hoped Morgan got what she needed and soon. “Did you see my friend here hurt your… mother?” Could this child even answer a question? Or was she too far gone, just another creature that acted on instinct. Miriam clenched the bag of salt tightly, hoping she wouldn’t have to use it but ready just in case.
The little girl’s screams were starting to devolve into sobs. “M-my--Connie--TOLD ME!” If she’d been alive she would’ve started turning color. Every word ripped from her dead throat, raw, shrill, and choked. “She--!” The little girl pointed a chubby, trembling finger at Morgan, “Wants to make her go away! And I. WON’T. LET HER!” Her scream made the glass over the overhead lights buckle. Lights sparked and flicked.
Morgan, meanwhile, scrambled out from under the shelf and waded through the mess of books for anything that had Exorcism in the title. If she didn’t get anything useful out of them, she’d just return them. She kicked the other tomes out of her way, following the last of the panicked customers through the doorway. Some college kid was running backwards, phone out, trying to capture the spectacle. Morgan slapped it out of her hand and shouted, “Run, you idiot!”
“My phone!”
Morgan pushed the girl next and bolted out the door. She skidded to a halt and looked over her shoulder. Miriam was still in there, trying to...reason with the kid? “Mim!” She opened the door and held out her hand.
“NOT UNTIL YOU PAY FOR HURTING MY CONNIE!” The little girl smacked down another bookshelf, starting a cascade.
Morgan grabbed Miriam’s wrist and pulled. She couldn’t die again, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t get hurt either.
Miriam’s eyes widened as she took in the sobbing child, her undead heart cracking just a bit. Maybe the little girl could be reasoned with. But then she started pointing her finger and screaming, and Miriam gritted her teeth. “Oh, bite me, you little brat.” She jumped back as another bookshelf fell, reaction and instinct taking over to push herself away. For just a moment, she considered throwing the salt, ending it. She… couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Instead, she ran to the door and allowed Morgan to yank her out of the destroyed bookstore. Brushing an errant curl back into place, Miriam huffed and looked over to her zombie companion. “Never a dull moment with you, is it, sweetness?” She let out a breathless laugh. “My god, that bitch Connie really hates you.” It wasn’t funny. She didn’t quite know why she was laughing. She sobered a bit, gave Morgan a nod. “If you’ve got the books we need, then let’s get to researching how to get rid of this wannabe undead bitch.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m the only one that gets that title.”
“Yeah, that’s me!” Morgan said, laughing shrill. “Always one for adventure.” She checked herself over as much as she could with one arm and edged away from the doors. Nothing looked permanently damaged, but there was more debris than shelves in there, and in the middle of the room, the dead child with the broken legs continued to wail, heaving her dead lungs for a relief that was never going to come. “I never took you for much of a maternal type, Miriam.” A smile of amused wonder spread as she edged them further into the night. “You really are full of amazing surprises.” And just as quickly, the smile faltered. “I should tell you, though, the Constance pain in my ass was only nineteen when she died. “I don’t want to trick you into anything you’re not up for, but I can give you the rest of my sordid story back at your place, or tomorrow. Maybe next week?” She laughed again. “After all that, you’re the only dead girl I wanna deal with today.”
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Apricity: Chapter One
Read it here or on AO3 if you’d like.
Liam Kosta x fem!Ryder
Description: The irrational emotion of the moments between the big milestones are the warmest, tinged like gentle hands on cold reddened cheeks. Apricity (n): the warmth of the sun in winter. About earning names and finding heart and maybe home in the vastness of an uncertain galaxy. These are those little, vibrant moments.
Havarl’s charm was not for everyone. It was a lush, tropical world with a sky that seemed to remain a perpetual deep, dusky purple. Time would drift by with dreamlike inconsequence, marked only by the slight changes in the rhythm of the rain. There was always a relentless downpour, thick sheets of water slicking any available surface with the same ethereal sheen that hovered over all the towering vegetation. It was though Kiasa had stepped into one of Scott’s childhood far-too-enthusiastic coloring books, with imagined vibrancy exploding off of the page and voracious life eating its way out from between the lines.
She tried to push away the thick ropes of hair that plastered to her cheeks as she watched Taavos through the scope of her rifle from a nearby ridge a few thousand feet ahead. Liam and Vetra were jogging to keep up as their Angaran escort pushed forward at a punishing pace, taken over by a trance-like fervor that left him glassy in the eyes and single-minded. She guessed it helped them get to the vault, but when she spoke to him he unnervingly reminded her of the dementia patient that shared her mother’s room in the hospital. Taking a lookout suited her better. Vetra seemed unaffected, her loping step matched Taavos’ with ease, her manibles clicking in interest as she studied him. Their comms were open and she could hear the turian’s relentless questions.
“… I mean it isn’t really Zorai that you’re remembering right? Maybe something subliminal you picked up when arguing with the sages?”
Kiasa smirked to herself and pressed her fingers to her comm button, “Vetra leave the poor guy alone, I think he’s having enough of a crisis as a non-believer already.”
“Ryder, this guy’s been another person before,” Vetra’s voice crackled back, rain shushing them both in the background, “Suvi’s going to have a field day.”
She snorted and brushed a few strands of hair out of her mouth, “I feel like you’re trying to prove him wrong.”
“I’m not. What if this Zorai buried treasure somewhere? Or relics? A priceless cache?” she could almost see the sparkle in her friend’s eye.
“That you can sell? I should have known.” she tried tucking her side fringe behind her ears only to have it fall right back into place, “Avela’s getting any priceless relics before you get to pawn anything off, Vetra.”
“We’re trying to make friends with them.” Liam’s voice came low and frustrated through the line, “We can’t go steal the native people’s sacred stuff. Human history has a lot to say about that.”
“Nothing will be ‘stolen’ that has any cultural significance,” the turban’s mandible clicked back through the static, “But if there’s a bunch of old weaponry or ‘I heart Havarl’ sweatshirts lying around we could have something better than nutrient paste every night if we trade with the right people.”
“Can someone ask Jaal if Havarl was the kind of place you ‘hearted’?” Liam sounded smug. She had to stifle a giggle.
Vetra ignored the comment, “I can hear your hair in the receiver, Ryder, do you need an elastic?”
“You’re kidding, you found the one I lost in the crew bathroom yesterday?” Kiasa laughed.
“No.” Vetra’s eye roll crept into her tone, “I bought a bunch the last time we were on the Nexus because I know you always forget to bring them out with you. I’ll send one up with Liam.”
Liam’s voice chimed in with false annoyance, “I’m not the errand boy here.”
“Our Pathfinder’s depending on you.” she could hear Vetra rustling through her hip belt.
Liam’s soft “Tch” and his affectionate head shake tugged her lips up slightly.
“Mom!” she exclaimed playfully, “I don’t need you to keep looking out for me.”
“We need to take a break anyways, Taavos needs to think about which direction to head.” she heard some further disgruntled mumbling about her ungratefulness and how hard it was to find basic necessities before the line went silent.
She wiped her hands on her thighs for whatever good that did to help her grip on her rifle. She wanted to like the rain. When she was young it was something she only saw in vids, as the Citadel environmental screens on the Presidium always seemed dead set on being a picturesque walk in the park. It was why she liked climbing in the vents with the children from the wards, slingshotting washers at the mercs below. She was the best shot. Scott was better at warping cups and watching the drunk patrons stumble around confusedly. There was less— constancy amongst the hissing steam, away from her father’s caffeine fueled pencil scratching, equations and code scattered in crinkled paper around him. Her family hadn’t been broken, just— needed some greasing at the joints. Some water in between the cracks to make it all less…
She noticed an Adhi creeping up behind Liam, as he neared the base of her little cliff pocket, its head bent low to the dirt. The droplets reflected light in a way that camouflaged its soft blue scales. She had only seen it because its orb-like eyes had set off a movement sensor on the digital interface of her scope.
“Kosta, your six.” she said, hearing the comm crackle back to life “I’ve got it”.
She watched him turn around, a soft spray of water flying from his shoulders. White light flashed into her field of vision as she felt something hot and sharp in the back of her head.
The way droplets arced off of the white face of his arm guards triggered a memory of tent flaps snapping wildly in the stormy gusts when she went backpacking with her father in the Sierra Nevadas. It was one of the few circumstances before when she saw her father unreserved and laughing, water pelting them both as they tried their best to tie down their tents. His hands would cover hers as she tied the knots so her fingers wouldn’t slip. The whole of the Ansel Adams Wilderness could hear as she and Scott sprinted along the banks of Chittenden Lake in the dark, shins muddy and hands full of edible fungi. They were eighteen years old at the time, and the rain turned them back into children.
She felt her finger tug the trigger, with only a vague sense of where the Adhi actually was and heard Liam shout “Oi!” into the comm.
She shook her head and sat back away from the gun, loosening the straps on her breastplate so she could breathe, “SAM? Was that what I thought it was? This trigger hurt more.”
“Pathfinder,” SAM’s voice rang out in her mind, “It appears you have unlocked the second of your father’s blocked memories. You can access it in SAM node on the Hyperion.”
“Noted.” she heard the sizzle and pop of a jump jet nearing, “Um, SAM, did I hit our crisis specialist?”
“May as well have.” Liam rose into view and hovered for a few moments before her and she reached a hand out to pull him onto the ledge.
“Would you like to have a targeting training module loaded and waiting for you upon your return to the Tempest?” SAM’s monotone almost sounded dry. It was also broadcast to the open channel and Liam snickered.
“Hilarious, SAM.” she sighed, “Keep it up.”
Liam squeezed in beside her on the tiny rock shelf, his side pressed flush against hers as he rested his elbows on his knees, “You’re the best shot I’ve ever met and you missed me by a hair. You okay?”
She huffed, “You sound less mad than you should be.”
He shrugged, “Figured if you wanted to off me for saying something too annoying you would’ve already. Plus, I’m in a good mood. I like the rain.”
“Jury’s still out on the rain for me.” she began pulling back the sodden locks of hair into a high ponytail and found Liam’s open palm in front of her with two elastics, one black and one a familiar light blue, “I thought Vetra only had one?”
“Yeah” he smiled proudly, flashing teeth, “But I found the one you lost in the bathroom yesterday, by the shower drain.”
“No way!” she picked up the light blue one and wound it around her hair, “I was wearing it when I went into cryo. It made it all the way from the Milky Way with me.”
“So you’re sentimental?” his smile softened but also grew. He wore his heart so plainly and unafraid, it was strange to her.
“As much as you can be without ending up in a dark place knowing you can’t go back,” she said, flinching at the inadvertent disappointment in her tone.
“We’re working on it, Pathfinder.” he said warmly, somehow ever the optimist, “You’re trying to save a dying planet right now! That’s hero stuff.”
“That’s the basic job description.” she said, waving his compliment off, “I’m pretty sure Dad expected it to be working out better than this.”
“So you didn’t answer my question,” he raised his eyebrows, “But it sounds like you’re definitely not okay. I recognized the ‘memory trigger face’ when I got up here.”
She nudged him with her shoulder, “It was a good flashback this time, but sometimes the aftermath is just weird— nostalgia.”
“I get the nostalgia, but I won’t try to pretend I know the splitting headache.” he leaned his head back against the rough face of the rock behind them , “What’s got you about the rain, then? Alec’s monumental expectations?”
“Camping.” she replied more quietly than she intended, “Dad, Scott and I got caught in a thunderstorm in the Sierras and for some reason we all just decided we were going to stick it out.”
“Damn, the Ryder spirit is really something.” he looked at her with an embarrassing sort of softness, “Always chasing something reckless.”
“Yeah it’s probably a bloodline thing” she felt the nostalgia become less heavy in her chest, “Pathfinder doesn’t fit right with me though.”
“You’re doing a massively good job wearing it so far, Eos was a big win.” he leaned forward and retrieved her sniper rifle from its stand, popping the heat sinks, “But if it makes you feel better, something less title-y then?”
“I guess?” she met his eyes, “You have something in mind?”
“Starchaser.” he said without hesitation.
She choked on a laugh, “What?”
“Look the whole ‘Initiative needs you, you’re our only hope’ thing gets you down, I’ve seen it.” he said, seriousness firm in his tone, “But you are something special. I’ve seen your whole face light up when you found some new plant samples to send back to Suvi and Lexi because you care. You weren’t on the original team with me cause you wanted to be your Dad.”
“It could be a nepotism thing, you know.” she scrunched up her nose.
He ruffled her ponytail which earned him a glare, “You’ve earned your team’s respect. We call you by your title to show you that. I think you need something that can fit how incredibly brave and determined you are.”
“I—“ she found herself staring at him, unable to quite figure out what she wanted to say, “Thanks, Kosta.”
He beamed, “But if it’s too much, Starchaser is also good because you ask Kallo to speed up when we get close to a new system.” He raised his hands and placed his palms parallel, gesturing out the two parts to the word, “Chasing. Stars.”
She was suddenly aware of how close he had gotten, her rifle resting across both their laps. He had kind brown eyes that betrayed all sorts of his thoughts. But he was still confusing. It was confusing how easy it was to fall into a comfortable vulnerability with him. She wasn’t closed off by any means, but he was almost too easy to trust. They had only barely begun to know each other and here he was, understanding the root of her insecurities. A fat drop of water wicked off the tip of his hair and dropped onto his nose and she lifted a hand instinctually to brush it off, fingertips grazing his knuckles as he went to do the same. She felt her cheeks get hot and she flinched back, pressing her back to the ridge and feeling the rock ledge suddenly become too small.
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable for Kiasa, but she felt the need to say something to pull back from the edge of… whatever she had just grazed. She turned and saw him lifting her rifle to his eye, fiddling with the scope.
“You should let me take this apart when we get back to the Angaran R&D base.” he finally said, “I have a few ideas for stability.”
“I almost hit you just this once!” she groaned.
“Hey, no disrespect.” he replied, feigning nervousness, “I’ve seen you pick off Kett midair that were dropping out of their shuttles.”
“That rifle is my baby.” she said, taking it back from him, “Scott customized it for me for my 21st last year, right before we joined the Initiative. Or I guess six hundred years ago, damn. He also knows nothing about heavy guns, I just haven’t had the heart to upgrade it or change it in any way.”
“Has it got a name?” he asked, “All the good ones do.”
“Aphelion.” she smiled inadvertently, “The point farthest from the sun. Super appropriate for the journey and disgustingly thoughtful. If you ever get to meet Scott he’s got romantic literally emanating off of him.”
“Next time we’re on the Nexus maybe?” Liam sounded strangely hopeful.
“Yeah, I’d like that. He’s probably tired of just hearing my voice all the time.” she felt something hard settle in her stomach.
“Definitely not.” he replied gently.
She turned to see him studying her, kneading his thumb into one of his palms. He looked troubled, like he wanted to say something else, but looked away and leaned into her shoulder with a little more weight. She lifted her hand to her comm button, “Vetra, where are we at?”
“He’s just kind of staring into space, Ryder.” she could hear the frustration simmering in the other woman’s voice, “It looks like it’s hard on him but I have no idea how to help him. Reconnecting with past lives is way out of my job description.”
“Awesome, if he needs anything let us know.” she punched Liam in the arm who turned his loud laugh into a deep cough.
“Alright, I’ve been soul-baring”, she crossed her arms, “It’s your turn to tell me something about you.”
He looked thoughtful, “Okay… I have less complicated feelings about the rain.”
“Oh?” she shifted so that she was cross-legged and facing him.
He lifted his hands behind his head and let his legs dangle off the edge, “The neighborhood kids and I would set up dodgeball games in the alley behind my flat complex in London when it rained. Peckham wasn’t the best place to run around at night, but for some reason the rain made it feel safer. It made all the colored lights from the liquor store down the street look fuzzy— painting like.”
“Do you miss it?” she considered it for a second and then ever so slightly leaned her temple against his shoulder. It was at the perfect height.
“We’d get soaked and I’d always lose and end up with a bloody nose because some of the bigger kids wanted to cheat.” he hadn’t shifted away.
“I’m not surprised. Trying to get everyone to cooperate.” she felt fondness bubble into her chest.
“Yeah, scrawny kids like me are protected by the rules.” he had turned so his chin was resting on top of her head, “Made me a good cop even if I was always out to bend them a little.”
“Bloody nose, though?” she stared at his hands, resting loosely in his lap.
“I punched a guy in the stomach for saying he wasn’t ‘hit’ when he was and it just— jiggled. I guess my nose was less ready to absorb impact.” a laugh rumbled across his shoulders, “Okay but that wasn’t my favorite part about it. Afterwards, I would come home and my Mum just knew. She would have a clean towel and hot chocolate waiting. And she’d let me wipe up the blood and add two giant marshmallows.”
“You were always causing her trouble, huh?” Kiasa closed her eyes and focused on the sound of the rain and how warm he was.
“She never made me feel like it”, she could hear the tiniest wobble in his voice, “She used to sing this ancient, 1980s soul song.”
They were quiet for a moment, and then she felt the notes hum pleasantly in his chest before he started to sing. He had a breathy tenor voice, with a liquor-like sweetness in the timbre, “Oh baby you, you got what I need. You’re like everything I need. You’re like medicine to me.”
She almost didn’t say anything, but then sat up and brushed her fingertips at the corner of his jaw, no hesitation this time, “You sound sad.”
He forced a smile, “I liked marshmallows. We don’t get marshmallows out here.”
Vetra’s voice buzzed suddenly crackled, almost too loud, through the comm “We’re ready to go. Taavos thinks we’re ten meters from the entrance, actually.”
Liam seemed to break out of his gloom and stood, offering a hand to help her to her feet, “After you, Pathfinder.”
She took his hand and felt the pleasant moment of lightness as he pulled her up, then stepped off their tiny ledge, “Let’s see what this vault has got for us.”
Liam’s hollering bounced throughout the vault chamber and rattled uncomfortably across the comm along with pops of gunfire, “Solve the Puzzle! Solve the Puzzle! Solve the Puzzle!”
He was sprinting towards an assembler with his double omni-blades bared like jaws, landing on top of it and stabbing it through the head while throwing a grenade at an observer behind it. The Remnant had crawled out from the cracks in the walls, like giants, angry, red robotic spiders with death beams. Kiasa was running with nullifiers trailing behind, rockets exploding to her left and right as she felt her feet lift from the ground from the force.
“Shit.” she growled as she was flung forward and her rifle went skittering to her right. She yanked her pistol from her hip and flipped onto her back, aiming bullets right through the particle barriers between the — eyes? lights? of the remnant bots. She fired two precise shots and the machines exploded in a crackle of electricity before her.
“Liam.” Vetra hissed, “Yelling it more doesn’t make it go faster!”
She scrambled to her feet and slammed her hand down on the console with three pylons in front of it, feeling it warm to her touch and emit a beam of light that hit and weakened the barrier between the inner vault and their current, unfortunate position. She leapt over a barrier and unsheathed the Asari sword that Cora had gifted her with, cleaving a breacher in half on her way to retrieve her rifle. As she swooped down and picked it up, Kiasa shoved the scope up to her eye and knocked out two observers that were advancing on Liam’s six.
He whipped around and threw her a thumbs-up, voice filling her helmet through the comm, “Killer shot!”
She laughed and bolted for the final console, watching as Vetra blew two more assemblers to smithereens, their clicking and sparking deaths accented by a “Woohoo!” from Liam. He aimed an overload at an advancing observer behind her and it screeched as it became engulfed in electricity.
She heard him victorious in her ear, “Got your back, Vetra!”
The Turian scoffed back, “Don’t expect any profuse thank yous.”
The chuckle in his voice was slightly breathless, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She had to shove herself into the console to slow down and pressed her hand to its cool, hexagon etched surface. The beam of light this time slowly began dissolving the the silver barrier as she heard two more sizzling explosions to her right.
“Get ready!” she ordered, reloading and snapping an ammo clip into place.
“Always am.” Vetra jogged over and set up to cover her flank as they jogged forward.
Kiasa pat her friend’s forearm with a nod and gestured for Liam to watch their back.
Just as the Observers appeared to bar their access to the final reset button, Liam’s voice drowned out the first shot she fired, “You know, you didn’t seem to know the song we discussed earlier. You can tell a lot about a person by what they listen to. What did you jam to?” This was accented by a roar of jump jets as he propelled himself into two newly alerted assemblers.
She slung a bolt of biotic energy over her cover and it collided with Vetra’s concussive shot, creating a shockwave that knocked back an advancing nullifier, “I don’t know I was never a music person. I liked— podcasts.”
“Breacher!” Vetra growled as she wrapped her hands around its arms and shoved it towards Kiasa who cleaved it half with her sword, “Isn’t there a better time for you two to flirt?!”
Kiasa cleared her throat, inhaling slowly as she lined up a shot across a line of breachers that drifted into view several meters away, “Who’s flirting?”. She exhaled sharply as she pulled the trigger and all three shuddered and fell to the ground.
Liam ignored that, “You’re a sixty-year-old trapped in a twenty-something body, yeah? Podcasts. Incredible.”
“Show your elders some respect. Toss me an Overload!” she sent an incinerate at Liam’s perfectly timed attack and they burned the remaining cluster of bots, “Quarians had some pretty cool stuff to say about dextro-conscious baking.”
“Nerd. I’m also two years older than you,” He made his way to her and tugged off his helmet, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead that he wiped off with the back of his hand, “I’m gonna make you a playlist when we get back to the ship. I promise you’ll have some actual good stuff stuck in your head.”
She rolled her eyes as they walked to the console together, “If you include Krogan heavy metal in it I won’t miss my shot next time.”
“Oh you know I will now.” he said, his eyebrows pulling together as he stared at the interface, “Don’t know how you comprehend any of this gibberish, though.”
“I don’t.” she placed her hand down, “SAM?”
“I am beginning to interface now, Pathfinder.” the AI’s voice shifted into her implant as she pulled off her helmet, “Stand by. Reset in one minute.”
“Killer smoke, more like.” she glanced over to the door and waved at Vetra, “Reset in one, you got that?”
Vetra raised her assault rifle in acknowledgement, “Prepped to run.”
“Hey, Ryder?” Liam leaned in. She noticed how much taller he was for the first time, realizing he had to bend down to catch her gaze, “Thanks. For listening earlier. I didn’t mean to unload.”
“I think we both needed to get some things out in the open.” she smiled up at him, “You have a good voice.”
He was infuriatingly sincere. She didn’t have to know he meant it, or that he would respect her boundaries. He was just solid. Somehow comforting in a whole onslaught of desperation. He was as excited about the uncertainty as she was and it felt natural when punched her shoulder lightly in acknowledgement. The greenish glow of the console danced over his features and she couldn’t help but admire them, but stopped that train of thought as quickly as she could. She didn’t know what to make of him. Just that she liked him being around.
A low hum vibrated under their feet and the moment broke as she heard Vetra yell, “We need to go, Now!”
She vaulted over the console and felt her muscles straining against the sprint. She felt her omni tool ignite as she slammed her fist into a Breacher that flew into her path, watching it burn to ash and dissipate as she barreled through. Glancing over her shoulder she saw Liam hurdle over a low-lying pylon, a rare exhilaration spreading across his face. He was having fun. And in a way so was she.
Kiasa had almost reached the deactivating console when she felt her rifle come loose from her back and clatter to the ground behind her. She turned and saw the smoke begin to engulf it, her heart skipping a beat as she lurched forward. She stopped short when felt her shields sizzle angrily. Biting her lip, she whipped around and pushed hard for the interface, breath coming in pained gasps. Her comm suddenly lit up with angry hissing noises and she heard Vetra yelp in surprise at the overload of stimulus.
“What the…?” she planted her hand on the console just as she saw Liam come charging out of the blackened, swirling mess. The field retreated as she felt SAM lock onto the interface. Liam’s shields were fried and he was breathing hard, his jump jet pack intermittently flaring and looked mangled. He smacked it and it sputtered off. But he was holding Aphelion, the barrel smoking and slightly skewed from nearly being melted by the vault reset. She felt her heart leap to her throat and squeeze tight there, furious and frantic sentences buzzing in her head.
She stalked forward and placed an angry hand on his chest, almost choking when she reassured herself that he was solid and in one piece, “Who the hell do you think you are, Kosta?” She was surprised by how hot and sudden the anger was. It made her legs weak.
“Not fair. I knew you’d be devastated if it was gone, so I went back.” he seemed earnestly taken aback by her reaction.
“Does this look like I’m not upset?” she had to take every ounce of self-control to keep herself from punching him.
“No?” he ventured.
She turned around stalked towards the gravity well, too incensed to trust herself to say anything. She could hear him calling “Pathfinder” and running behind her. The weightlessness overtook her as the disembodied lights snaked between her fingers and around her torso. She felt the anger slowly seep away as she ascended, letting it leave behind a lot of questions she didn’t want to answer. He was her team, the closest thing she had to family right now. But that wasn’t just normal fear when she saw the smoke shrink away from him. It was knowing that if she hadn’t reached the button he would be dead and she would have been the reason. Why would he even try a stunt like that for something so trivial?
She heard Vetra’s amusement in the open comm line, “Go ahead, I’m going to look around for some salvage that Peebee asked for, first. You’re going to get a pistol pointed in your face when you get up there.”
“I know it.” Liam replied.
The rush of air from the surface smelled clean. She took a moment to orient herself as she felt her feet regain solid ground, and then walked outside. Her breath caught as she looked up into a cloudless night, the stars of the universe scattered like spilt marbles. The flora seemed to glow more intensely now, colors sweeping out before her in arcs. They had been under the oppressive rain for so long she had almost forgotten what clear skies looked like. Havarl would heal. She couldn’t help but feel giddy at the thought of that.
She felt her lips tug downwards the instant she felt a gentle hand tousle her ponytail.
She looked up to find Liam holding her rifle in one hand with his other nervously scratching the back of his neck, “Look—“
“Thank you.” she said, “For getting it back.” She took it from him and felt cool relief at the weight of it in her palms.
“That— was more civil than I expected.” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It means a lot, but I’m still pissed.” she snapped, “That you would even think to risk your life for something I could have replaced.”
“It was important to you…” he began.
“You would have died if I didn’t press that button on time.” she cut him off, “You think for a second I would rather have a sniper rifle over your safety? What kind of leader do you think I am?”
He raised his hands and sighed, “Okay. You have a valid point.”
“You are important to me, Kosta.” she relented, finally laying it out plain since he seemed to be too dense to get it otherwise, “You getting yourself killed would be devastating.”
He clamped his mouth shut and his eyes widened in surprise. She wondered if she had overstepped. There had been so little time to understand him— to feel this connected was more than disconcerting.
“I’m sorry.” he replied simply.
“Just. Be more careful.” she huffed and sat down, pulling her knees into her chest. He joined her, mirroring her posture and sitting just close enough so they were nearly touching.
She decided to forgive him for now, mostly for his sincerity, and changed the subject “You know, I never noticed that when you looked up before the vault was active, you couldn’t see the stars.”
He nodded, “I had started to take the overcast as just part of the planet’s environment.”
“Do you think that the terraforming is deliberate? That there was somebody from whoever built the Remnant that was charge of deciding what planets would look like?” she tried to trace out constellations but lost them in the density of pinprick light.
He shrugged, “I mean the amount of bioluminescence here, somebody must’ve been glow stick happy.”
She had to smile at that, he made everything sound so wonderfully inane, “But I mean to decide what the place would look like from scratch… you could make it uniquely yours. A home perfect for you. The vaults could do that for us, maybe..”
“You’ve got a sure as hell romantic way of looking at it. Guess that’s what makes you the Pathfinder.” he teased then looked up, starlight reflecting in dots in his irises, “It’s easy to get lost trying to find a new home… we would kinda settle for anything. But I hope we don’t lose the idea of what we want our place to be. I have no idea what kind of planet I’d come up with.”
“I think you’d want to place with sunset colors in the sky more often than once a day.” she remembered how excited he’d been, sitting on the roof of the armory in Podromos on their first night at the outpost. He’d called her up to join him and rambled senselessly about bad movies until the last oranges were no longer visible in the sky. She’d decided she could be good friends with him then.
“You wouldn’t be wrong. I’ve got a thing for sunsets.” he beamed, “And you’d want more sunrises.”
“I didn’t even mention—“ she turned to find him looking at her.
“You are not as quiet when you get up as you think you are.” he chuckled, “Shared bunkhouses mean some private things fall through the cracks. You’d disappear every morning at 0400 when were were crashing at Podromos.”
“I could have been up to nefarious things.” she pouted.
“Nah, too straightedge.” He mused, “Plus I went running around then, got into early morning endorphins with one of my HUS-T1 team members. Anyways, always catch your silhouette, kind of perched on the wing of the Tempest, facing east.”
She felt herself blush, “Didn’t know you paid attention.”
“You don’t hide who you are, Ryder.” he reached over and brushed his knuckles lightly over her jaw, pushing her face away playfully, “And I appreciate that. It’s refreshing to have someone to be open with.”
“Mm,” she scrunched her nose up at him, “Well can’t have sunrises without sunsets.”
Something dangerously close to affection settled in his eyes as he reached over and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
“Liam’s, not dead!” Vetra called out as emerged from the vault tucking a few bits of Remnant tech in her pockets, “Too bad.”
“Ay.” he glared, quickly dropping his hand to his side.
“Well if the squad’s all in one piece we should go. Let the scientists know they have a planet that won’t die on them.” their turian companion gifted them with a rare smile, “Nice work, Pathfinder.”
She grinned at Vetra and then shoved to her feet, turning to offer a hand to Liam, “You’re soft, Kosta.”
He accepted it, his grip was firm but gentle ,”I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was.” she said, letting go and feeling strangely buoyant.
“You know you can call me by my first name?” he said.
She thought for a moment, then replied, “Only if you’ll stop calling me Pathfinder.”
He nodded, “Sure. Okay.”
“Then… Let’s, go, Liam.” his name felt natural to say. As if she had been holding it back.
He grinned, “On your six, Starchaser.”
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