AN- This is something that has been kicking around my mind for a long time. Not the scene itself, but working through my feelings about a few things. Those things had to do with Niori's storyline, specifically in the third story. I am still proud of the writing – I think it's some of my most emotional- but it also leaves me uneasy. I understand a lot more about media at thirty something than I did at twenty, especially when it comes to harmful depictions around women. As much as I didn't realize it at the time, I played into some gross tropes around storylines about sexual assault, and it leaves me unsure. Stories aren't written in a vacuum, even if a writer isn't aware of it. If I was writing it now, I wouldn't go that way, but it is what it is. I don't regret it, even if I wish I'd known better.

This chapter is me working through it in my own head, not as some sort of apology or lamp shading, but mostly just to get it and move on to happier things. Hopefully it's something that still adds to the story, not just an emotional purge on my end.

Tales to be Told

It was on their fifth day of traveling that Niori's morning sickness started. It wasn't anything serious, thank God, just bouts of nausea that didn't quite get to needing to throw up. After a few days of it, Erin and Jane finally noticed something was off with her, even if they never guessed the reason. Niori waved off their concern by saying it was her emotions that were making her sick, and they didn't pry beyond solemnly telling her they were there to talk if she wanted to. Niori probably should have been annoyed, but she spent parts of the day feeling miserable that she was grateful and touched instead.

It was a week and a half into their travel. The skies had been threatening rain all day. All of them had been eyeing those clouds, weary of the thought of having to walk, or even make camp, in a downpour. They held all morning and into the afternoon, but eventually the clouds turned a dark enough grey that the guides called for the group to set up their tents early. The camp hadn't even been raised for an hour when it finally began to pour. Niori was already in the tent, hoping laying down would help her stomach settle. Erin and Jane were still outside, helping others. It took them a few more minutes to get inside, and when they crawled into the tent the three of them shared, the other two girls were soaked.

"You're dripping on the floor," Niori commented, moving her pack into her corner of the medium sized tent, away from the others. She didn't bother to sit up.

Erin's 'shut up' was muffled in the shirt she was pulling over her head. Jane didn't bother to reply, just stripped out of her wet clothes, and used an extra washcloth to dry herself off. Erin followed suit, until they had a mixed pile of drenched clothes in one corner and had changed into dry ones. Niori tossed them her extra blanket to put down on the puddle they'd left behind.

"Thanks," Jane said absently as she caught it. She out it down and then went back to drying her hair.

"This is waterproof right?" Erin asked, eyeing the tent's ceiling as she rang out her ponytail.

"So I was told," Niori replied. She hoped it was true, because she knew how miserable being stuck in a leaking tent was. It was sometime in the summer before middle school that the four of them, plus two other friends, went camping in Erin's massive yard and it rained. They spent a terrible night in a wet tent because none of them wanted to retreat inside and have Erin's parents say 'I-told-you-so' about trying to sleep outside in the rain. This time they didn't even have the option of going inside.

"So far so good," Jane said, checking the corners for water. Besides the water she and Erin brought in, there was nothing.

There wasn't much to do after that but sit inside and wait out the rain. It didn't stop, in fact it rained harder as the day went on. Niori was just happy that it didn't turn into a thunderstorm. As much as she loved them, she had no desire to be stuck out on an open plain while lightning crackled overhead. They ate some dried meat when dinner came around, and since her stomach had settled by then, Niori managed to have some as well. They didn't talk a lot, and Niori had noticed how easily it was for them to lapse into silence these days. It wasn't an awkward silence, at least not most of the time, where they struggled to find something to say to each other. Most of the time, it was just a feeling that they didn't need to fill the quiet with idle chatter. She wasn't sure if that was a loss or a gain, if it meant that they had grown up or if there was something that still wasn't mended between them and never would be. It hurt too much to wonder if it was the later and what that would mean, so Niori just let it be.

The day passed and eventually all there was to do was lay down in the darkness and try to sleep while the rain hit the tent. Niori had always found the sound of rain soothing and was just drifting off when Jane spoke. She kept her voice quiet enough so not to disturb anyone else around them but being so close together meant the other two girls could still hear her easily enough.

"How long do you think it'll take until the songs get written?"

"What?"

"Ballads," she thought out loud, "I mean, each of us had one written about us after the last war, and we only stayed for a few weeks after the fighting ended."

"I'll probably be soon," Erin commented, "once word gets around about what happened."

"God I hope not," Niori muttered under her breath, not intending for the others to hear.

They heard her anyway. Jane turned her head to look at her and Erin actually sat up to look over at her. They both looked shocked. Niori -needed to be centre of attention, bragged for days when she heard her name in a War of the Ring song Niori- didn't want the attention?

Niori didn't bother to look up, but she knew what they would be feeling. Without sitting up, she pointed over towards Erin, "You became a great warrior," she then pointed to Jane, "you stayed a great warrior. Carla did the heroic sacrifice thing. Me? I got captured, had a breakdown, became an alcoholic, turned into a revenge driven psychopath, used the man who loved me for comfort while going out of my way to hurt hid, and then had another breakdown. Shocking, but I'd rather that not be the story about me told for years to come."

Neither Jane nor Erin knew what to say, so an awkward silence was left in the wake of her words. Niori hated awkward silences, but there was nothing she could think to say. Jane, bless her heart, was apparently determined to end that silence regardless of how off guard and floundering Niori's admission left her.

"I don't think those will be the things you'll be remembered for, not really. Commented on, sure, but it'll only be mentioned to show how you survived so much. That's what you'll be remembered for- your strength."

Niori actually scoffed at that, "Oh please, have you never read a book or watched a movie? They love to focus on a woman being brutalized. Why would it be any different here?" Niori wondered what parts would be emphasized, which parts of her suffering would be told and retold. Very few people knew the specific details about what happened to her, but there were enough known facts -the assaults, the beatings, the brand on the back of her neck- to make up scenes around it. She just hoped the storywriters left Arien and Silmarwen out of it.

"Maybe some will be like that," Jane tried again, voice more solid, "but not them all. It'll be all about you being a hero, despite what it would cost you."

"Cost me?"

"How else would you put it? This war cost you your well-being, your sanity for a while, and almost your life…but it didn't. You're still here."

"Niori, any storyteller worth their salt is going to have their grand fanart moment be you standing up and rallying the troops. Anyone who does anything else, even something…" Erin struggled for a word, "lurid is going to be ignored with that as their competition."

"Fanart moment?" Erin's statement got a laugh out of Niori.

Erin rolled her eyes, "You know what I mean. Besides, if stories are going to follow gross patterns here too, what makes you think the rest of us are getting out of it looking good? We were trash, and people love stories about women behaving badly. It's why most of reality TV exists."

Jane's face fell at that, and Niori assumed her friend now faced at least a fraction of the dread she felt about the whole thing, "Oh God, mine is all boy angst. I'm going to go down in history for boy angst."

Niori felt bad, bringing it up. It wasn't something she meant for her friends to worry about. Hell, she said it as a statement of fact, not even to get their pity. Just because she had become neurotic about it didn't mean they had to be.

"Carla too, and she went further than just being a liar." Erin said it without venom -she was just stating a fact, which progress?- but Jane couldn't hold back her wince anyway. Everyone did her a favour and ignored it, "I'm the mother who abandoned her child for nearly two decades. It wasn't even my choice to come back. No one puts a mom who leaves her kid in a good light, no matter the reason. If Elijah had become a serial killer, everyone would have declared I was his origin story."

"And here I thought I was the one overthinking it." Niori couldn't dispute Erin's summary, so she tried to make light of it.

"I overthink everything," Erin replied, "and I've been dealing with the idea of what people must think of me since Elijah blew up at me." There was a lot of emotion in Erin's voice, something old and deep, one of those things that would gnaw at you when you lay tossing and turning in the dead of night.

"I'm a soap opera villain," Jane was caught up in her own distress and she groaned as her head went into her hands.

"That makes me a bad mother from a fairy tale." Erin sounded depressed, and then sighed, "You get to be the hero in your revenge story, as horrible as that is."

If Erin thought that was some sort of silver lining, she was very wrong. It still shifted something in Niori, hardened that pit of dread into something else, something made of steel, "Fuck them then. We'll just tell our own stories and be louder about it."

"We are good at being loud," Erin said it, a smile quirking up one corner of her lips.

Jane was still chewing on her bottom lip but nodded.

Niori still hated the thought of what was coming. The idea of her trauma being made into entertainment still made her skin crawl, but she couldn't stop it. So, she refused to let it cause her anymore suffering than it already. After all she'd been through, it would be nothing compared to that. Jane was right- Aras had cost her well-being, sanity for a while, and almost her life. He, or anyone who wanted to hurt her all over again by making her remember, would get nothing else from her.