A/N-I wrote this awhile back for the Holiday Aisle fic exchange over on Ao3 (I definitely recommend that you go ahead and check that out, because there are some great fics over there about all kinds of holidays). I wrote the thing months ago, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but wanted to start updating things on this account.
On a side note, since this fic is about Great Poetry Reading Day, I'd like to recommend Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 73. It's totally not necessary that you read them, but they're great poems and they do play a role in this fic.
"Please, Myka. Pretty, pretty please," Pete said, his hands clasped in front of him as he knelt on Myka's bed next to her.
Myka dropped the book she'd been trying to read on her lap and sighed. This was what felt like the fiftieth time in the past twenty minutes that Pete had asked, and each time it seemed that he made a conscious effort to be even more annoying than the last. Myka had finally retreated to her room to read a book, hoping that the old 'out of sight, out of mind' cliché might work. But, no, not on Pete. He'd followed her up there a few minutes later like an annoying little puppy dog.
"Oh my god, Pete, I am seriously going to strangle you if you do not get off my bed and stop annoying me about this," Myka snapped.
"But it'll be fun," He said. "Please? It's just an hour, that's it. If it sucks and you're totally miserable, I will never beg you to do anything ever again."
"No, Pete, for the hundredth time, no," Myka said. "And since when do you even care about Great Poetry Reading Day?"
"Since you would care if you weren't body snatched by a sad, grumpy version of Myka," Pete said. "You love all this stuff. Remember last year you made me read a bunch of Old English poems?"
"I am not sad and grumpy," Myka said, pushing her glasses back up her nose and picking her book up to avoid eye contact. "I just don't want to go out."
Pete shifted his position on the bed so that his back rested against the headboard. He looked straight ahead, rested his hands in his lap and sighed.
"You're sad, Myka," Pete said, and not in the goofy teasing way he had before. "I totally get it. And I know there's this rule that we don't talk about it, but you're sad, and we both know why. You put away all of her books the same day we got back from Boone, and I haven't seen them since. That's not you, Myka, to hide any books, let alone some of your favorites."
Myka closed her eyes a moment then opened them and kept them on the page directly in front of her. Her eyes latched onto a 'the' right around the middle of the page, an inconsequential word, but something undeniably concrete for Myka to focus on that was not Boone, Wisconsin or Helena Wells. That, of course, was a failure, as were most other techniques Myka had tried over the past few weeks. Hard as she tried, Myka could not get rid of the horribly empty sadness, the heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of Helena living in Boone, of Helena choosingNate and Boone over Myka and the Warehouse. She still wanted to cry every time she remembered Helena saying she hadn't felt like she belonged anywhere in this century before meeting Nate, because Helena belonged, beyond a shadow of a doubt, at the Warehouse. The fact that she didn't know that, that she hadn't ever felt the same sense of comfort and home and warmth that Myka felt around Helena, well, that alone felt like a swift kick in the head directly after being punched in the face. It hurt like hell, and still ached weeks later.
"And you think that going to listen to mediocre readings of great poetry will somehow help," Myka said flatly. "Will somehow fix all of that?"
"What I think is that I want to try to make you less sad, and you love this poetry crap," Pete said. "I have it on good authority that you will enjoy this. I cannot stress how much you really, really should come."
Myka rested the open book in her lap and looked at Pete. With all the annoying that Pete got up to, it sometimes slipped Myka's mind that he was a genuinely sweet, kind person. She sincerely doubted whether one evening of listening to poetry at the small bookshop in the next town over would help at all. She could actually see it backfiring spectacularly on the good chance that someone would read a love poem that reminded Myka of Helena.
But Pete seemed to be putting a whole lot of his eggs in this basket. And it sounded as if he had something planned too, probably an embarrassingly dramatic public reading of Doctor Seuss or something like that just to make Myka laugh. Continuously refusing to go to the reading would only disappoint Pete, and Myka would feel guilty about it the rest of the day. In the long run, it would just be easier to drag herself out of her room and her comfy clothes for an hour.
"Alright, I'll go," Myka said as she snapped her book shut and put it on her bedside table. "And you should know that the poems I gave you last year weren't Old English. Shakespeare writes in early Modern, Elizabethan English."
"See! You know all this stuff," Pete said as he hopped off the bed. "I'd be totally lost without you. I mean, my ability to pick up women is going to be a little slowed down by the fact that I have another woman with me, but with all those little tidbits I'll be able to make up the difference. Chicks dig guys who know poetry."
Myka rolled her eyes and swung her feet off the bed so that they rested on the floor.
"You're gross, Pete," she said, though she couldn't help the little smile that pulled at the corner of her mouth. "And I am not going to be your wingwoman for a small town poetry reading."
"Aww, man," Pete replied as he walked around the bed and towards Myka's bedroom door. "I guess I'll have to do it with the Lattimer charm, then."
"I'd stick with using all that poetry knowledge you have, then," Myka said as she took her reading glasses off and put them on top of her book. "It'll probably get you farther."
"Ha, ha, very funny," Pete said, though his eyes were smiling, because Myka was smiling just a little bit. She liked the banter they had developed, the back and forth that always worked so effortlessly when everything else seemed so sucky. "I am totally charming, even my mom says so."
Myka really smiled at that.
"If you insist," Myka said as she pulled back on the socks she'd just kicked off before getting into bed.
"I do," Pete said, then added as his hand rested on the doorknob, "and trust me when I say that this is going to be awesome."
Pete and Myka arrived at the bookstore, a quaint little place called Burt's Books, a little before 5pm, about five minutes before the program started, and took their seats towards the back of the room. The place was relatively crowded, probably something to do with the fact that this was the only place in a 50 mile radius doing anything for "Great Poetry Reading Day."
As Myka flipped absently through the small pamphlet of great poems the owner of the shop was handing out to all of his visitors, she noticed that Pete was very occupied by his phone. When he wasn't texting, he was basically staring at it.
"Who're you talking to?" Myka asked as she tried to take a peek over his shoulder.
"What? No, it's nobody," Pete said as he shoved the phone in the pocket further away from Myka. He'd learnt the hard way that Myka was an excellent pickpocket.
Myka bumped her shoulder against Pete's.
"C'mon, Lattimer. Who're you texting? Is it a lady friend?"
"A lady friend? No, not that, definitely not that," Pete said. "She's way, way older than me."
"Why are you texting really old ladies so eagerly, then?" Myka asked. "It's alright if you have a thing for elderly women. It can be our little secret."
"Myka, I can guarantee that you would be the very first person I'd tell about my old lady fetish, because I am totally into the overshare these days," Pete said.
Myka had to admit that he had sort of valid point there. She had told Pete several times that hearing him talk about his bodily functions was entirely unnecessary, which of course meant that he continued with his charming little habit of telling her what his burps tasted like.
If the older woman theory wasn't it though, that still begged the question…
"Who're you texting, then?"
Pete sighed and rolled his eyes. He had to know that this was going to be one of those times where Myka would not give up for the sole reason that Pete would not answer her question.
"One of my mom's acquaintances actually," he said. "She's a poetry nut too, and so she's super fascinated by the whole idea of today."
"Mhmm," Myka replied, keeping her eyes on Pete's face, on the tiny little micro-expressions that might give him away. She got nothing concrete, but still hesitated.
Before Myka could press any further though, the owner of the establishment took to the informal stage, which was nothing more than a small, slightly raised platform with a microphone stand and a stool set off to the side, presumably if someone wanted or needed to sit while reading.
The man, who reminded Myka of a kinder, gentler version of her father, spoke for a minute or two about the wonders of poetry and the importance of celebrating it. He then started things off by reading from a few contemporary pieces that Myka was not familiar with, though she enjoyed and appreciated the enthusiasm with which he read them.
That was followed by several people, about an even number of men and women, reading or reciting a range of poems. Myka knew almost all of the poems, and not just because they were famous to the point of being borderline cliché. For example, Myka mouthed the words to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" because she'd known that one by heart since fifth grade, and had found it stuck in her head on more than one occasion. Poetry to Myka was like music was to other people; some got catchy songs stuck in their head, while Myka was more likely to get a catchy poem stuck on repeat.
The first dozen poems tread pretty safe territory because most were about the weather or nature. Though Myka knew that many of them weren'treally about nature, that they often had something to do with love or missed opportunities or the fragility of life, she could pretend that they were about nothing more than something like a snowy winter day in New England because that was safer, easier.
Then there were poems that she couldn't possibly do that with. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee," for example, poked at the huge, ugly emotional bruise left over from Boone. Though superbly constructed, Myka'd always thought the poem a bit over the top. Now though, it didn't seem so dramatic. It reminded her of the possibilities, of the kind of all encompassing love that she felt had been just outside her reach so many times. Myka wondered if she didn't already have that kind of love, that it was just unrequited and, as such, brutally suppressed. Perhaps that was why it hurt so damn much all the time.
Myka looked down at her hands as she clutched the pamphlet between them. Pete, who Myka assumed had been about to doze off, reached over and squeezed her hand.
"It's gonna be alright," he whispered. "I promise."
Myka nodded and swallowed before looking up at him.
"Ok," she said, because Myka trusted Pete even if she didn't believe that Helena living in Wisconsin as Emily Lake would ever be alright.
In the next moment, the woman on stage was on to another selection, this time a short passage about nature from Whitman's Song of would normally have been bothered by the lack of thematic or stylistic continuity from one poem to the next, but she was just glad to be back to more stable emotional ground for the moment.
And so it went. There would be a smattering of safe, enjoyable poems, most of which Myka could recite with ease, and the readings weren't horrible either. These people respected the poetry and seemed to be putting in their best effort to do it justice. They weren't professional readings, but they were enjoyable.
Then there would be a few readings that Myka couldn't find it in herself to analyze because she reacted viscerally, instinctively to the subject matter. She felt those poems, felt them so intensely. The ones about loss and lost love were easier to take than the happy love poems, because they seemed to put words and rhythm to what she was feeling, to make some tiny little bit of sense of the pain and confusion surrounding her relationship with Helena.
At first it was emotionally exhausting, but, as she adjusted to the intensity of her reaction to the poems, they became increasingly cathartic. She'd have to thank Pete for dragging her out, because it was definitely better than locking herself in her room and reading until she fell asleep early. To be sitting here enjoying great literature made Myka feel better, more herself.
As the hour was coming to a close, the shop owner took the stage, and, at the same time, Pete leaned over and whispered in her ear.
"You'll want to close your eyes for this last one," Pete said. "It'll be a ton better."
Myka rolled her eyes, but did as she was told, and heard Pete get up from his seat. So he did have some crazy idea then, and he was going to make it the grand finale.
"I swear, Pete, I will pretend I don't know you and leave you here if you cause any property damage," Myka said.
"Sounds like a deal," he said as she heard him walk away. And she could have sworn she heard the sent text whoosh that Pete's phone made, but she couldn't be sure.
There was a moment of quiet murmuring as Pete apparently talked his way into the show. Then the owner addressed the group.
"We're just about done, but we have one more last minute addition," the man said. "It does, after all, seem fitting, on Great Poetry Reading Day, that we have a bit of Shakespeare for the grand finale."
The man must have stepped off the stage, because there was a polite round of applause before the room fell silent and someone cleared their throat into the microphone. And it wasn't Pete. It was a woman.
"I must offer my sincerest apologies," the woman started.
Myka's eyes flew open. Helena stood at the microphone, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she gripped the microphone with one hand and the stand with other. Helena held Myka's gaze and she actually looked nervous. Myka'd seen Helena heartbroken, repentant, even happy, but she'd never seen her nervous.
"I must apologize," she started again, glancing away from Myka, and back again. "For being about to commit what some will consider blasphemy. I am going to recite for you what might be termed a remix of two of Shakespeare's greatest poems. They're quite lovely on their own, but I've always been a bit of a rebel. Change the rules. That's become something of a catchphrase for me."
Myka swallowed and exhaled shakily at the reference to the phrase that the Warehouse seemed to have attached to Helena. She vaguely registered Pete sitting back down next to her, but didn't turn to face him or say anything. Myka was focused exclusively on trying to process the fact that Helena was standing in front of her, in South Dakota, when, five minutes ago, Myka had been convinced Helena was settled comfortably in Wisconsin.
Helena tightened her grip on the microphone stand and took a deep breath. Another long beat of silence. Helena closed her eyes and and kept them closed as she started reciting the poem.
"That time of year thou may'st in me behold"
Sonnet 73. One of Myka's favorites.
"When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."
"But…
Helena paused after that brief addition to the poem, half a second, if that, and opened her eyes to look directly at Myka again.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
Sonnet 18. Myka's breath caught at the sudden change. Her mind had skipped ahead a few lines in Sonnet 73, so the shift brought her up short. That, and the absolute gravity and intensity with which Helena looked at her now as, without missing a beat, she continued with Sonnet 18.
"Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date."
Helena closed her eyes again and adjusted her grip on the microphone as she shifted her weight from one foot to another.
"In me thou see'st the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest."
The two references to brevity using such strikingly different imagery and to such different effect caught Myka off guard again. She leaned forward in her seat, and, as she did, Helena opened her eyes and looked right at Myka again. She took a breath. If the pattern was as Myka suspected it would be, the next part would be significantly longer.
"Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st."
On "shall not fade" Helena spoke with such conviction that her voice nearly cracked. At the end, Helena exhaled through her nose. Myka thought that Helena would close her eyes again, because that had been the pattern; eyes closed for Sonnet 73, open and making every effort to look directly into Myka's soul for sonnet 18. But Helena must have forgotten, because she kept her eyes locked on Myka.
"But…
Then Helena let go of the microphone stand and returned to the original poem.
"In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long."
Helena put almost desperate stress on the word "consum'd" and gestured with both hands as if trying to communicate some urgent, important truth.
Helena was saying, in her roundabout way, that she was still scared. She was still acutely aware of her own frailty, of her own human limitations. Though physiologically young, she seemed painfully aware of the wear and tear of time. She knew Myka loved her for it, knew that Myka loved her without reservation despite that, but there was still a tone of desperation, of fear in Helena's reading that the poem itself lacked.
Myka didn't realize that she had shut her eyes against the tears threatening to spill over until Helena recited the final two lines of her 'remix.'
"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
Myka opened her eyes in time to watch Helena recite the final line. She took a small step back from the microphone. There was a moment of piercing silence, as if the audience was still trying to figure out exactly what was happening. Then the same polite applause as the other readers got, as if that hadn't been far and away the single most innovative reading of the whole evening.
Helena nodded politely at the audience applause, then stepped off the low stage. As the store owner took the stage again to wrap things up, Helena walked down the middle aisle and straight for the exit. She made a point of catching Myka's eye briefly and nodding towards the door before pushing it open and leaving the store.
Myka stood and turned to Pete as she made a vague gesture towards the door.
"I have to…
Pete grinned and nodded.
"Go get her," he said.
Myka was out of the shop in a few quick strides. She looked left then right. Helena wasn't anywhere in sight, but the street was long and straight, and she'd only had a few second's head start, so the only possible hiding place was a small blind alley next to the store.
Myka hurried towards it found Helena leaning against the wall as she looked intently at the ground.
"Helena."
Myka's voice sounded a lot less substantial and more like a whisper than she had intended.
Helena looked up at Myka.
"I owed you an apology," Helena said. "An apology and an explanation for my behavior, but I couldn't think of anything even remotely adequate for doing that. So I determined that I would borrow someone else's words, but I could not find one single poem that said what needed to be said. I couldn't very well write one, because I may be a writer, but I am no great poet, and even if I were, words so often fail me when it comes to you. I decided to resort to what you just witnessed in there."
"Did it mean what I think it means?" Myka asked.
"That poem that I just recited for you means," Helena started as she pushed off the wall and took a step towards Myka. "That all of the poems I read about lovers like a spring flower or a summer day paled in comparison to your vitality, your beauty. In contrast, I often feel like a dying thing, a frail, failing creature, and you, with your life and vitality, you love me. I know, have known, that you love me in spite of, perhaps even because of that humanness."
Helena swallowed thickly and took Myka's hands in hers.
"I feel time slipping by so quickly," Helena continued. "I feel myself being consumed by it, but you, with your eternal light, keep on loving me anyway. That scares me, because I never want to see your brightness and vitality touched by death or time or my frailty and darkness. If I have any say at all in the matter, history will never forget you. Neither poem said those things, but, together, I believe they approximate the sentiment, and the fact that it is a new creation in your honor means that, in some small way, you will live in that poem."
Myka looked down and felt a tear running down her cheek.
"Don't," Myka said. "Please don't."
"What?"
When Myka looked back up, Helena looked profoundly confused.
"Don't say these beautiful things and recite this beautiful poem apology thing, then leave me again," Myka said, her voice cracking as the tears she'd held back rolled down her cheeks. She brushed them roughly away but still refused to look at Helena, fixing her eyes on the edge of the bookstore's roof. "You're with Nate, and I'm happy for you, but please don't come back here and tell me these things, because it makes it so much harder to not hate him for getting to keep you."
"Myka, Myka, please don't cry," Helena said, resting her hand on Myka's arm. "Myka, please look at me."
Myka did and Helena smiled gently at her.
"Do you really think I would subject either one of us to that?" Helena asked. "Parting from you brings a special kind of pain that I wish to experience as infrequently as possible."
"Wait, are you saying…
"That I left Nate," Helena said. "He's a lovely man and Adelaide is a delightful little girl who I plan to visit, but I couldn't stay. I realized that I need to be with the one who has my heart."
Myka's breath caught in her throat as the implications of what Helena was saying sunk in. Helena was coming back. She was re-choosing, choosing the Warehouse. Choosing Myka.
"But you said, you said Boone was the only place you felt you belonged," Myka said, because, if what Helena was saying was true, and Myka really hoped it was, then what had happened Boone was making less and less sense.
"I said a lot of things in Boone," Helena said. She sighed. "I said a lot of things designed specifically to make it easier for you to leave me and my tendencies towards damage and destruction behind."
"It didn't, you know," Myka said. "It didn't work. It just, it made things kind of worse, Helena."
"I know," Helena said, looking down at her hands. "I'm terribly sorry that I realized that much too late. It is one of the many things I will be continuously sorry for having done to you. I wanted only to protect you."
"Hey, Helena," Myka said as she took a step closer to Helena. As she rested a hand on Helena's cheek and realize that it was the first skin on skin contact they'd had in months. It felt as natural and comfortable as ever.
"First of all, I don't need protection, not from that," Myka said. "Secondly, I've told you once, and I will tell you again. Get down off that cross. Maybe you've made some mistakes, but you're one of the good guys."
Helena half laughed, half cried at the reference to their moment alone in the sanctum.
"And you know what else? You did protect me," Myka said as she smiled at Helena. "You sacrificed yourself to protect me when it mattered most, and I'm pretty sure that saved basically the entire world. I know only Artie actually remembers it, but it happened, and it gave us a fighting chance. I think you deserve some credit for that."
Helena rested her hand on Myka's and looked at her with that same piercing, into your soul gaze as while she'd been reciting the poem. Helena gazed at Myka without make any move, just looking with more adoration than Myka thought possible.
Myka leaned towards Helena, hesitated a second, the pressed her lips to Helena's. Helena seemed unsure of what to do with her hands for a moment before settling them on Myka's hips to pull her closer. When Myka pulled away, Helena smiled brightly.
"Not that I'm ever going to complain about being kissed like that," Helena said. "But what exactly was that for?"
Myka shook her head incredulously.
"You came back," Myka said. "You came back to me, and you made this big, grand romantic gesture that managed to incorporate my favorite poet of all time, and you want to know why I kissed you?"
Helena shrugged.
"I had hopes, but I didn't dare get them too high," Helena said. She smirked knowingly and quirked an eyebrow. "As you know, I've a well documented tendency to react quite poorly when things fall short of my expectations."
"Well, then," Myka said, leaning down to kiss Helena again, lingering as she let her fingers rest in Helena's hair. She pulled away just enough to speak. "Did that meet your expectations?"
"No," Helena said, then stole a quick kiss. "It far exceeds them."
Myka smiled into the next kiss. She kept her hands in Helena's hair for awhile because it was just that smooth and luxurious. Right around the moment Myka was considering copping a feel, she heard Helena's phone vibrate once, then twice, then a third time. Helena sighed in exasperation and pulled the cellphone out of her pocket. She read the message and rolled her eyes.
"What? Who is it?"
"Technically speaking, it is from you," Helena said, turning the phone so that Myka could see for herself. "Asking if we are making out yet, when we're going to have our terrifyingly smart children, and if we can name the first one Pete regardless of gender because he's the best partner in the whole wide world, in that order."
Myka would normally be inclined to feel some combination of annoyed and embarrassed that he'd stolen her phone and was now using it to ask embarrassing questions, but she had just been kissing, really kissing Helena, so there wasn't a whole lot that could ruin that bliss bubble. Besides, it was pretty clear that he had a lot to do with making the whole day happen.
Myka smiled and handed the phone back to Helena. She took a step back and peeked her head out the alley to see that he was standing leaning against the car, which he'd parked a few storefronts down from the bookstore.
Myka waved to him and he trotted over, all smiles. He had Myka's phone in his hand, and tossed it to her as he came to a halt. Myka caught it easily, but sometimes she realy wished he would treat their electronic with a bit more care. A conversation for later, that was for sure.
"Hey, hey, hey," he said, looking from Helena to Myka and back. "So it's looking like the big romantic master plan went well, then?"
"Quite well," Helena said, then turned to Myka and added, "Pete was very helpful when I called him yesterday to ask for his assistance. He was obviously the one to get you here, and he texted me with all of the driving directions and moral support that I needed. I arrived 5 minutes before the end of the show and waited outside the store. He sent a text message when it was time."
Myka smiled broadly at Pete. He knew instinctively how to be a friend, not just a friend, but Myka's friend, and she knew that was no easy task. He annoyed her to no end sometimes, but he had a genuinely good heart.
Pete shrugged and actually seemed a little embarrassed by the fond look that Myka gave him.
"Hey, you know, I do what I can," Pete said. "I totally wanted to tell you when you got bummed out about that one poem, but I knew the surprise would be worth it. Besides, I figured H.G. would, like, use her tesla on my junk or something if I ruined the surprise."
Helena scoffed.
"The tesla would've been child's play. For that kind of infraction I'd be far more likely to confiscate the private cookie stash that you believe no one else knows about," Helena said.
Pete gasped in what Myka guessed was half mock horror, half real concern regarding the safety of his cookies.
"You wouldn't dare," he said.
"Given the right circumstances, I would not hesitate," Helena said.
Helena smiled conspiratorially at Myka and Myka smiled back, as her eyes darted from Helena to Pete, then her own shoes, then back to Helena. As Myka had been watching Pete and Helena's familiar back and forth, this new reality slowly started to set in, and Myka found that there was something so wonderfully bizarre about it, about having Helena so un-complicatedly here. It made Myka a little unsure and hesitant about what she should be doing, where her eyes should be, whether her hands should be in her pocket or holding Helena's hand or clasped in front of her.
Helena must have noticed the uncertainty, because she rested a hand on the small of Myka's back as Pete said something about stealing her tesla if Helena ever touched his private cookie stash. Myka did not hear the actual words, because Helena was back. Helena was back, and she was here with Myka, smiling and laughing and offering that reassuring touch.
Myka made a decision then and there, on that sidewalk in small town South Dakota. As she listened to Pete and Helena banter about cookies and teslas, and fitting hiding places for them, as Helena rested her hand on Myka's back and laughed at Pete's lovable absurdity, Myka decided that Read Great Poetry was officially going to be her new favorite holiday.
A/N-The Shakespeare 'remix' thing was a bit weird for me at first because it messes with the strict structure and rhyme scheme of the sonnets, but these poems interact with each other in such interesting and complex ways that I don't even touch on here that I could not help myself. I also like to imagine that Helena, though a lover of great literature, would be as interested in tinkering and experimenting in unconventional ways with words as she is in tinkering in unconventional ways with technology. She is all about turning expectations on their head, and I believe that Helena might even be bold enough to tinker with Shakespeare.
I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading! I'd love some feedback on this creature I've created, because it feels a little different than other stuff that I've written.
In case you're curious and would like to celebrate, Great Poetry Reading Day is coming up on April 28. It's the same date as Kiss Your Mate Day, which was a cute little tidbit that unfortunately never got into the fic.