You know, this fifth chapter makes ATR my official longest fic ever...is that pleasing or depressing? ;-;
(also this might sound weird and/or arrogant on my part, but this was probably my favourite chapter of the bunch so far, heh.)
Ivor's faith in the world and every moron inhabiting it had lain in cold, grey ashes for over a decade. He trusted nothing, misjudged nothing. That is, until today...because he'd grossly underestimated just how irritating this kid was.
Morning air had long since settled over the sprawling remnants of the town outskirts, inhaling the grit and grease from lingering puddles. It wasn't any sort of birdsong that assailed his ears, though. Rather, it was incessant blathering from behind him. 'Incessant' as in he was beginning to lament not duct-taping their mouth shut when the idea had first occurred to him.
"I've never been to Sky City before. Or seen it. Or...heard about it, 'til Isa told me. She says it's really big and golden and everyone there has duties. And it's not actually in the sky. I asked her why she doesn't just call it Land City, but she didn't answer." And: "It's kind of sad seeing houses with banners all torn up like that. They don't even look like banners anymore, just really old posters. I used to have a poster collection. You know, I think I could've gotten famous for it." And: "You're an alchemist, right? I don't think there's a lot of those anymore. The suit-y woman with the llama said that. She also says they're useless now anyway. But she always borrows healing potions and invisibility potions and stuff from Isa's supplies." And: "Did you know that Isa has a chicken? I met her a few times. Her name's Benedict and she's pretty cute...I think she's Isa's best friend. Pigs are still way cooler, though."
And, when they cut back through the overrun Withered nest: "Oh...I thought maybe I heard some fighting, but..." They trailed off.
Ivor didn't bother to roll his eyes at that. When was there not fighting?
A wan drizzle, cascading from a sky that had turned to indifferent steel, swiftly evolved into a torrent. Intermingled with the continually swirling ashes, it made for a miserable blend that clung frigidly to every hair and item of clothing. Ivor quickened his pace all the more, grimacing at each sloshing step, until the familiar silhouette of his residence finally materialised on the horizon, upon which he was nearer to thanking hypothetical deities than he'd been in a long time.
He stood aside a moment or two in a token offer for the kid to go in ahead of him, but when they didn't move any further than the doorway, he simply pushed past and made straight for his awaiting bed, desiring nothing so much as a few hours' reprieve (despite the cold sheens of sweat and trembling breaths that regularly ensued whenever he attempted rest). The thin mattress sunk beneath his weight like a cobble block pitched into water.
Jesse, mercifully, looked about the cramped space without a word, evidently somewhat ill at ease, until they blinked upon catching Ivor's eye at the opposite end of the room from where they'd last seen him. "Wait - what're you doing, Ivor?"
He heaved his head up from the greying pillow, disdain written in every timeworn line of his face. "What's it look like?"
"Ooookay," they said half to themselves, rubbing their arm. "I'll just...be here, I guess."
An offhand shrug served to indicate that Ivor could not have cared less what they did. To be frank, without their infernal voice continually in his ear, he was free to draw a mental tally of all the things he'd rather be doing at that moment than playing chaperone - and God knew there was a great many. But a deal, regettably enough, was a deal.
He distantly considered what he'd be willing to do for a get-out-of-irksome-escort-mission-free card before his eyes fell shut. Sleep...he would settle for sleep, no matter how fitful. Petra would know where to find him.
Sheets of rain drummed against the broken ground outside and lashed at the roof and windowpanes. Jesse wandered around trying to occupy themselves for a while: running their fingers along the faded spines arranged on the bookshelf, wiping a thin layer of powder-y...stuff from a brewing stand with their sleeve, poking through the only chest that sat out in the open instead of being stowed away, tossing Ivor a glance here and there just in case he showed any signs of stirring (and catching them fiddling with his belongings). And still there were no footsteps and no cool lady with choppy red hair and a pickaxe came striding through the door.
Finally, in the absence of anything better to do, they tugged a rickety chair close enough to the window that their breath formed a misty patch and propped their chin in one palm, while Reuben instantly hopped up onto their lap, snuggling into his human's stomach. He, at least, was right where he belonged.
Jesse's thoughts whirled and whirred; roars of wet gusts and sighing treetops drowned out the dull thud of their knee against the underside of the oak-slabbed windowsill as their leg restlessly bounced. And bounced. And bounced.
Sky City was something new, wasn't it? It was an adventure. Hadn't they wished for that? They'd wanted adventure, excitement...it felt like a million light-years away now. Because now, they just wanted to go home.
They jerked round at a sudden noise from behind them, but the only thing - well, person; they didn't think he'd appreciate being called a 'thing' - within sight was Ivor, whose jumbled muttering continued for a bit before tailing off. His eyes were closed; if they weren't, Jesse would almost definitely have been on the receiving end of a glare right then, and yet they'd never seen anyone look less peaceful in their life.
Thinking about the kind of monsters that stalked their own dreams sent something cold running down their back and a pang of sympathy through their chest - not that Ivor seemed like someone who'd even want something like that. He didn't really give out the most sociable vibes. And they'd seen and heard enough in the time they'd been going along with him to figure out he didn't like them at all (they had to admit that the feeling wasn't exactly one-sided, either). Still...everyone liked to know that they weren't alone, right?
Alone...
They had Reuben, Jesse reminded themselves quickly, squeezing him closer. Their little guy. Always their best friend whatever they did, always by their side wherever they went. But there'd been others too and they'd all promised one another the same thing.
"No matter what, we'll always be best friends! And I know you'll be the best friends I ever had."
"No matter what," Jesse whispered aloud, like it was some sort of spell. With a finger, they traced a halfhearted doodle in the breath-haze on the glass - a little stickman, it wasn't even good - in an attempt to distract themselves from that old clenching somewhere in their chest.
Both of them were out there somewhere. They must've been searching for Jesse all that time, mustn't they? Maybe...maybe they were making their way to the Blaze Rods right at that moment- Isa'd point them in the right direction and they'd come bursting in any minute- Axel would scoop Jesse up in one of his warmest, tightest bear hugs and they'd help Olivia to build another treehouse and- and it'd be-
Jesse clamped a hand over their mouth just in time to muffle the sobs that racked their body with the force of TNT. Reuben whined softly, nudging the streams spilling down their cheek with his pink snout. Yet the rainstorm rolled on - inside and out.
She was there...staring into his soul, her voice filtering through his head, unintelligible yet penetrating his heart more acutely than thousands upon thousands of words could...then she began to fade, melting away, so he fought, struggled with all he had against invisible bindings but they only constricted further until he was paralysed, powerless to so much as reach out to Harper...because even now, even now he couldn't protect her...couldn't keep her by his side like he'd vowed all those years ago...and her blood was his blood, her wounds were his wounds, a raw nothingness was all that caught him as he fell because there was nothing, there was nothing left...except for the phantoms clawing at his flesh...and the Command Block...Command Block...dancing its sneering dance at the brink of his vision, pulsing with that spectral purplish glow-
The weight of sleep evaporated like so much spilled water under searing summer air. The sheets twisted as Ivor hauled himself upright against the ice that had spread through his veins- the air was too thick-
Unbidden, his head gave a mechanical turn to find that kid watching him carefully. God damn it, he'd forgotten about them. Seething waves were still crashing over the crags of his mind, but underneath it, he could (unfortunately) still make out the pipe of their voice.
"-you okay?" they were saying. It was likely just the swaying flame of a single torch flickering on the wall that made their eyes look edged with red like that. "You- you looked like you were...having a bad dream."
It took him a few moments before he could properly wrest himself free from the fingers of the darkness that preyed on his subconscious and another few before the question sank in and transformed into anything more than white noise. Of course...they'd seen the entire thing. Where he expected to find mockery or judgement in the kid's expression, though, for which he prepared an venomous snarl, he found an odd sort of understanding. And despite himself, the words simply wilted in his throat.
He bent forward, dropping his face into one hand to scrub at his eyes. "I'm all right," he eventually muttered in reply - more softly than they'd known he could. They glanced fleetingly to the side and then appeared to teeter on the verge of speech again, only to break off before they could actually form a word, looking up at the rasp of the door being wrenched open.
A familiar shape was framed in the doorway, with an unmistakable flash of gold in its right hand. Of course. "Nice to see you haven't driven them away yet."
"Oh, you know you missed me," Ivor drawled, straightening up (and forcing himself to suppress a grimace as the aching souvenirs of restless hours crept up his side).
Petra vented her feelings in a snort. "Nope. Really did not." She tried to make another face at him, but her eyes were gleaming - a look Ivor knew all too well. A shimmer of enchantments danced under the dim light as she raised the hand that was gripping her sword. "I got Miss Butter back," she continued unnecessarily in a low, triumphant tone, before he could draw breath. "Isa thought it'd sweeten the deal-"
"'Miss Butter'?" echoed Jesse, whose faintly twitching mouth betrayed uncertainty whether to smile or not. The pig curled in their lap appeared to agree with a strange little choking noise. Petra responded with a dramatic flourish of the blade, sharing a small grin with the child.
"What you mean is, Isa decided she didn't want to risk you meeting your death before we brought the kid over because then she'd have to find herself another hireling," Ivor countered in answer to her earlier remark, breaking through the nonsense impatiently.
The girl raised one shoulder in a shrug; such details tended to lean towards the inconsequential in her view. "Look, I've just seen the stash she's promised us myself and it's more than we can normally scrounge up in months. And all we've gotta to do to get hold of it is take on the job...kid must be pretty important." She shot said kid a long look over her shoulder. "What is it with you and Isa, anyway? How do you know her?"
Jesse blinked, tilting their head as though trying to work out whether there was any reason behind the question, before giving a tiny shrug. "She's my friend."
"You're friends with the leader of the Blaze Rods," Petra repeated slowly, torn between sceptical and mildly impressed against her will.
"Well...I gotta say she was a little scary at first, but she has a chicken, so-"
Not for the first time, Ivor couldn't believe the absurdity of what Petra had dragged him into. "I'm assuming it's not just...Miss Butter our generous associate provided you with; I'd personally call that a poor offer," he interrupted again, enveloping those two words in as thick a layer of derision as he could summon.
She thrust a fist into her hip with a look that plainly told him she was considering proving her sword's capabilities to him in a particularly painful way. "Fine - and these too." And from her inventory, she unceremoniously pulled Blaze powder and gunpowder, rabbit's feet and spider eyes, shoving them in Ivor's direction. That, in his opinion, was more like it. "She said she can't spare a whole lot, 'cause people keep raiding her stockpiles or something, but she thought you could use a little extra incentive...can't imagine where she got that idea from," she added under her breath.
Ivor debated a retort, but thought better of it. He had better things to do, as his fingers clearly agreed; they briskly deposited the stacks of ingredients into various bottles and arranged them on his brewing stand, which looked suspiciously clear of the debris that had previously clung to it (he flashed a narrow-eyed glance towards the child, who was apparently finding their shirt hem very interesting). "'Stockpiles'? What else has she got?"
"You're asking me?" Petra threw herself down atop the nearest chest, another grin nudging at her expression. "All I can think about is food." She ignored Ivor's scoff, as did Jesse, who all but leapt forward to accept one of the loaves she produced with a murmur of thanks - and, predictably, tore off a sizeable portion and proffered it to their pig, who devoured it eagerly. At least it diverted the kid from trying an impromptu therapy session on him, Ivor supposed.
Relative silence reigned for several minutes as the three (well, four, as Ivor grudgingly conceded when Jesse pointed it out) of them relieved their avid appetites and the brewing stand hissed intermittently. At length, Petra swept some fallen crumbs off her front and turned back to Ivor expectantly. "We gonna do this?"
Ivor heaved a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose hard. This wasn't the first time necessity had compelled him and Petra to act as transport in return for payment of some sort. That was what this surprise arrangement essentially was: just another delivery, another bit of baggage to hand over. That was all. And then he could simply return to his life (what was left of it, anyway) with the spoils and cast the whole matter out of his head...
Well then.
His sole response was to sweep every newly-crafted brew into his inventory, but Petra understood. The door was jerked open and the pair set out once more on the journey before them that had been skulking closer with every passing minute, this time with Jesse trailing behind. Something at the back of their mind wondered why Isa hadn't explained what this trip to Sky City had to do with her promise.
Underneath the collar of their shirt, a patch of purple-streaked skin crawled.
Have I mentioned how fun Ivor and his interactions with Petra and Jesse can be to write?
Chapter 6 has been in the works for two or three months now, but progress is somewhat slow (big surprise, right?) It is being written, though, I can promise you that T^T Is gonna include our first glimpse of a certain couple of characters as well as the return of ones from previous chapters :D
Also, there is now an ask blog for this fic (ask-atr dot tumblr dot com), so feel free to send stuff there if you'd like to.
That said, I shall see you all soon(?) Take care of yourselves, now.
(*awkwardly tips hat*)
~ Rainy