This is another one I'm dedicating to someone, this time Tiny Fairy Tales, the Twitter account that wrote the epigraph I have used for this story, as well as a number of others in this collection and for one of the Part 3 chapters of Luciform. I love and have been inspired by the writing from that account so much. If you want little snatches of magic and beauty and emotion on your twitter feed then you should follow them.
there are so many things we can't measure. like how pink the sky gets when it starts melting into the dirt or how soda-shaken your veins get when your crush gives you a new nickname or that crisp purple feeling of leaving somewhere knowing in your bones you'll never be back again
-by Tiny Fairy Tales ( tinyfairytales on Twitter)
It has to end.
You know this, it has to end.
It will end.
Of all the things you have watched them do over these years, their fates weaving themselves around you as you yourself weave other fates, watching him come back here over and over just to look for you has filled you with such a honey-sweet yet lemon-bitter feeling, so thick you could drown in it, the love of it swelling your heart, making you glow. The other one with you, the trickster, they say that it makes you glow, anyway. But not the type of glow that he, or any human that dares to come on this mountain can see.
You have known this.
As the years have carved him sharp and weary, yet stronger, you have seen him come back here again and again and again. You have heard your name on the wind again and again and again. Sometimes, your name has become the wind. Every footstep he has taken in mapping the unmappable, searching for you, you have felt it in your soul as if you were the mountain itself. The devotion of his persistence, the monument to a short-lived but strong friendship that it represents, it is not something you have ever been able to ignore and yet you have never been able to tell him no, stop. You have never been able to do anything, not really, apart from bear witness.
Oh, there was the one time, when the fogs came down and he had a companion and they both would have been lost if you hadn't pushed them back to a path they recognised. There was that one time, but you could not intervene more than that, never have. After all, his threads, your oldest friends' threads, all the others', they are not yours to weave.
But his daughters' threads, they are yours.
The moment their threads were spun, first threaded through your needle, before they even became his they became yours. You did not intend to make them his, not as such, but the moment that they were born and you decided that it was better to keep them together and given away rather than separated you tugged their threads towards another friend, the jewel-red one who once stitched the scarf that protected your human shape. You watched as hers in turn became closer to theirs, and when they finally met you were satisfied. Seeing that jewel-red get brighter and brighter, you knew that that person would care for them, find them someone to be their family instead.
You did not expect that it would be him, that fate would decide that he would be their father, that they would be his daughters but the day you saw the divine hands pulling his dull-gold thread towards the pink and purple of the little ones and weave them together you were glad. You were glad because you have seen all these years that despite having your oldest friends with him, his newer friends with him, he has been alone. He has built many houses over the years, including his own, but for all this time his house was the only one that remained as a house. The only house that never became a home. But you have seen, over this past decade, how his house has started to fill with everything two small girls could need, softening the sharp corners and hiding away the breakables. How it has been festooned with pink and purple and sparkles and butterflies. You have seen how it has been stuffed with nonsense and tantrums and mess and laughter. And from all that, you have seen that house finally become a home. You have seen that he is no longer alone.
It is why you know that he has to stop.
For the first years of those girls' lives, you did not hear or feel or see him, but you could tell from the motion of his threads that he had not stopped. The gaps between visits have become wider each time, that is true. The routes he takes are more cautious, he does not venture as recklessly as he might have once, but despite his daughters threads being woven so tightly around him he still comes. He still turns your name into the wind. You have no thread, not any longer, but he is still tied to you.
It has to end. He needs to be free from this, the guilt that has weighed him down all this time, the obligation that keeps dragging him here. You know this, even if you have not admitted it to yourself from the pain of missing them all. You know this, and now finally you are admitting it to yourself.
It has to end.
It will end.
…
You wait until the trickster is elsewhere, meddling with the latest lives they have found amusing enough to do such meddling with. You swallow your own feelings about that, because the trickster knows. There is a reason that you have become known as Mercy, instead of the name you had as a human, after all. But they are what they are, and you are what you are, and you have more important things to do. So you wait, and once they are gone, you climb up the tree of mists and anchor yourself using your legs before reaching out to the three threads. As you brush the pink, and then the purple, you get a brief picture of the girls running around their school playground with friends before your fingers hover over the dull gold of his. You hesitate a moment, but then you remember this is all you can do. You cannot leave this mountain, not the way the trickster can, though over the years the overseers have granted you the ability to navigate around the entire mountain itself. But venturing the mountain is of no use here, so you close your eyes and curl your little fingers around his thread and you lean in and though you are still in the tree, you are also there.
You see him sitting, in the landing of the house that has finally become a home, the things he uses to be able to climb up your mountain all around him, head in his hands. Somehow you know that he is thinking what you have been thinking: that this has to end. So you lean in closer, press against the threads and you whisper:
"Stop looking for me, Howl. Stop looking for me."
You cannot tell if he has heard you or not, but your name rips out of him, wounded, before he then murmurs:
"But what will I tell them, if I don't go again?"
Before you can answer, though, something in him turns to steel. He squares his shoulders and sits up, moving to his knees, before gathering the things and beginning to put them away. He stops and sighs in exasperation as he pulls a small rainbow coloured sock out of the cupboard and holds it up in confusion. You giggle, almost uncontrollably and just as he startles you pull back, releasing your touch from the thread.
Just like that, the image fades, and your laughter does too. But you think that it's done now. You think that surely, surely it's done now.
That it has ended.
…
You turn out to be wrong.
It has not ended.
That is what you think when, some days later, on a cool evening when the soft breeze suddenly changes shape and becomes your name. You feel your heart in your mouth and the honey-sweetness becoming more lemon-bitter and you are ready to weep when the trickster taps your shoulder.
"Take a look at the threads," they say. "Look properly."
You frown, and the trickster prods you.
"Go on, see where they all are."
And that confuses you too-what do they mean, they? Is this going to be a repeat of that time with him and his companion? But you oblige, not wanting to stretch this out any further, and you find yourself astonished to see that his thread has stopped near the base of the mountain. But not just his but the two girls, as well as your friends. You start to reach out through the shrine window, but then you hesitate and turn to look at the trickster.
"Walk down there, if you want. It's still the mountain." The trickster says. "Besides, I am very curious to see what you will do."
"You know," you tell him. "You know what I want to do."
"That I do-so very boringly noble of you."
But there's something almost kind about the sparkle in their eyes, though their smile does not gentle itself. They flap, waving you away, and you do not hesitate anymore. You zip out of the shrine, float over the steps, and make your way down to where the threads tell you that they are. Of course, as you get lower and lower, you don't really need the threads. Not when you can hear their voices, hear the sounds of them clattering and clomping around, see the colours of their hair and their clothes. As you get closer, they come into focus and the sight of them, it stops the breath and swells your heart. Your friends, your oldest, most precious friends. They're old now, flowing through time in a way you do not, and they're so different but at the same time they're exactly the same. Still as bright and funny as they always have been.
And him, oh the sight of him. That new friend who kept putting himself in harm's way just for you, called you one of my own once a long, long time ago. You watch the way he helps his two little girls put up their tents, how he teaches them to build a fire, how he stares in fond bafflement as they goof around with your other friends before ruffling their hair. And you stand there, on a ledge just above them as they cook food over that fire and laugh and talk, as memories laced with your name are built up with their words all around them and as those memories waft to you, you finally realise what is happening.
This is the last goodbye.
It is ending, it was ending all along.
But first, they needed to do this. They needed to mark the occasion, to come here one more time and make the ending proper. Even though you have always known that you have never been forgotten and always been loved, they need you to know that it is still true, even now they are letting you go. They need to feel that you know, and of course they need to explain to the girls too. So you let them carry on, watch as their night continues and as they eventually tire and head into their tents. You watch and you wait for their breathing to even out into sleep.
Even once they sleep, you wait there.
You remain there the whole night, until the sky lightens and it is day again. You venture closer then, as they pack up and prepare to head back down and there is something about this that means you cannot prevent your sobbing. You muffle the sound with your hands, bowing your head and retreating but all the same some of the drops of your grief spill away from you, onto the ground.
"Oh! Is it raining?" one of your friends says.
"But the sky's blue, Aunty Char!" one of the girls says. "Look, it's so sunny!"
And it is, you know. It is the sunniest day this mountain has ever seen. And still, you weep. Even listening to your friends and the girl bicker about the rain, sounding so much like the people you left behind, the ones who grew up without you, that fills you with such sorrow it carves you out hollow. Even though this is what you wanted, even though the first goodbye-one you didn't even give to them directly-even though that was worse, it hurts.
Even though this is how it must be, it hurts.
And then, suddenly, you hear your name.
"Hey, do you think it's Ariadne?"
"What, Addie? No, it can't be. Maybe…"
You gasp and look up to see that they're looking up at the sky. So close, and yet so far.
"Yes," you whisper. "I'm here."
Your friends all blink in confusion, including him, but the two girls startle. The way they look around them, their long hair whipping out from beneath their beanie hats, you can tell that they cannot actually see you or hear you. All the same, there is something that they have sensed and after a moment they rush to where their bags are, riffle through and then bound back over. They rush to the ledge that you stand upon and they reach up, tip-toeing, but cannot quite reach the top.
"Adelais, Evadne-what are you doing?"
It is him, swooping in to the aid of his girls. You love how he looks at them, that all-encompassing love, the sense of home bundled up in these two rapidly-growing bundles of innocence. They are his own, too, just as his first friends were and just as your own friends are now. They are his own, and they should be so above all else. Including you.
"Things for Ariadne!" one of them says.
"Yeah, things for Ariadne! She likes cute and sparkly things, right?" the other chimes in.
"So, Evvy's giving one of her butterfly keyrings and a hairclip." The first one says.
"And Lesia's giving her sketchbook! With one of the pencils." The other declares.
They then burst into giggles and you cannot help but giggle too. Your name in their voices is like a song, your heart swells with it. It keeps swelling as he stares at his daughters in confusion.
"You're not going to be upset once they're left here, are you? We can't get them back once they're gone."
"Don't be silly, Daddy!" the first one says. "They're gifts, you don't ask for gifts back because that is very, very rude!"
"Besides, Daddy, I can get a new sketchbook, right? And Evvy can get new butterflies."
"You both have lots of both of those things, but yes. Sure. This is not an excuse for a shopping spree though."
You watch as he briefly hugs both of his girls, ruffling their hair briefly before he lets them go. Pain steals across his face for a moment as he stares up at the sky. He doesn't look all the way up, and for a moment it is almost as if he is looking right at you.
"It's alright to leave me," you murmur. "You need to stay with them now. I want you to stay with them."
He opens his mouth very slightly, but still you cannot tell if he can see you. Still, you try once more:
"Stop looking for me."
"Well, this is it then," he says. "I'll not be back. But…I won't be forgetting, either. If you can see them, here's some things from Evadne and Adelais."
The girls laugh and exclaim as he takes the things from them and places them up on the ledge. He stares right at you once again and though you know for sure now that he cannot see you, there is for a moment a brief flash of connection. It takes you back to that time when your own fate changed, that day when you were hiding behind a bush waiting to set out on your last journey and he offered you companionship. He's never had any debt to pay back to you, never. He never failed you, and though you wish that you could be seen and heard properly to tell him this it does not matter. This much is enough.
"Go safe, Howly." You murmur.
He nods, the timing so perfect it is as if he was nodding at you, and then he turns to his girls and to their other friends and tells them:
"Let's go."
And you stand there quietly, no longer weeping but warm again. The lemon-bitter weaker than the honey-sweet, feeling yourself glow once again. Just as you did when the ones you gave your life for left the shrine behind, you wait until they are entirely gone. Even as you bend down to pick up the offerings the girls left for you, clipping the butterfly clip to your hair and tucking the pencil behind your ear you do not let your eyes leave them, not until they have completely left you. Instead, you let this new reality settle deep in your bones as the sun climbs higher into the sky, illuminating everything so beautifully.
And then you turn back.
…
It is not as if you will never see them again. The girls' threads are still yours, after all. And just as the trickster does, you will always be keeping vigil over the threads of those that you were entangled in during that fateful year. But he does not come back again, none of them do, and life goes on as it should both in this mountain and in the world. It is done now, it has ended.
At last, it has ended.