A/N: oh my god, the final chapter... for real this time. TOO MANY FINALES THIS WEEK.
this one was a real struggle to write, honestly, i probably spent days just planning out the scenes and rewatching all the niffin!alice content from the season for research.
i hope my efforts paid off (;
i wrote this chapter to the album My Tears by Callie lol jk but i truly did cry while writing this and when i reread this chapter i full-on sobbed. so i'm right there with you all (:
and if you hate me when this is over, i probably deserve it and agree with you!
The first time Julia saw Kady after her death, she was drunk. So, so drunk that it would take a full day for the memory to return in its entirety.
And even when it did, Julia didn't believe it. It was just a side effect of the buzz. A coping mechanism in the form of a hallucination. It had to be. Kady was dead, no matter how hard it was for her drunken mind to register.
But the probable figment of her imagination didn't fade away as her hangover wore off. It only made Julia question her sanity even more, each time she caught a second's glance of untamed curls and jade green eyes.
The next time Julia found the very-alive looking Kady, she was lying in bed, on the verge of falling asleep, but strikingly sober.
Kady was leaned comfortably against the windowsill across from Julia's bed, staring out into the dim-lit streets below as if it was perfectly normal for her to appear in Julia's room, just days after the mourning girl had released the cacodemon that killed her.
"Kady?" The figure looked so real; Julia could see every detail in her long, tangled curls and they were just how she remembered them. Even if she couldn't see a face on the person, Julia would have known it was Kady from a mile away.
And when the figure did turn, she found her speculations to be correct, Kady's face revealed itself, moonlight shining on one-half. The signature smirk that Julia had grown to love was present on her lips, but faded to neutralization when the shining green eyes connected with her own.
"Is that really you?" Julia choked on the words as she spoke them, desperately attempting to hold back the tears threatening to spill down her face.
She would have given anything to hear Kady talk- to be able to talk to her. She had so much to say, but somehow none of the words surfaced, leaving Julia to stare silently at the uncharacteristically quiet girl by her window.
Kady started towards the exit to Julia's room, dragging her fingers along the wall as she walked, as if she hadn't even heard Julia's questions. Or perhaps she was ignoring her.
And Julia just watched, unable to move- unable to think- until Kady was out the door, disappearing down the hall.
When Julia's mind finally registered what she had just seen, she threw the blankets off her legs and rushed to the door at the front of her room, hissing loudly at the heat that radiated through her still healing shoulder. Breathing heavily, she entered the hallway, her eyes searching the space in front of her frantically, struggling to find anything resembling the girl she was looking for. She was only met with darkness.
The hallway was empty.
And Julia had never been more convinced that she was succumbing to insanity.
Because she had witnessed Kady die. She heard her screams as the cacodemon tore her to shreds. And while Julia's prior knowledge of niffins reminded her that live niffins were free to roam the Earth, the niffin that seemed to be haunting her was definitely dead, which meant she was almost certainly going crazy, or there was something completely unbeknownst to Julia about what happens to a niffin after it dies.
Her breathing was heavy and hasty as she shakily found her way back to the bed inside her room. It didn't feel right sleeping in it; it hadn't since the day in the alley, but sleeping on the couch somehow felt worse. The bed held memories with Kady, but the couch was placed directly in the center of a room that held memories far more intimidating.
Julia sat on what used to be Kady's side of the bed, gripping the blanket in one fist as if it felt anything like the warm hand she used to hold while falling asleep. It didn't. It was cold and rough and didn't squeeze back or rub its thumb across the top of her hand until she dozed off.
Her eyes fell upon a day-old glass of water on the nightstand- she had brought it in by accident, she was probably lightly drunk, but buzzed enough to forget that the usual recipient of the water no longer resided in her home- and her mouth suddenly felt awfully dry. Unclenching the fabric from in her hand, she reached for the cup and brought it closer to her lips. It was just inches from her face when she stopped, her stomach already vetoing the idea of having anything inside it. She never had an appetite, anymore.
Julia hated herself for being so affected. She wished she could go back to the way life was- continue living her life as if there wasn't a gaping void in her chest. But there was never a moment when she wasn't emotionally in pain.
And, now, to add insult to injury, one of the main reasons for her suffering wouldn't stop appearing at her window, or behind her in the mirror, or across the street in a busy crowd.
The world was either terribly ironic or had no sense of irony whatsoever. Julia hated it either way.
The cup in her hand stung as she held it. She wasn't thirsty anymore. Not for water.
She groaned pathetically, leading into a struggled cry, and her grip on the cup tightened. She could have crushed it in her grasp if she wanted, but the idea of slicing her hand on shards of glass didn't sound like the way she wanted to end her night.
She did end up shattering the glass, however, sending it flying across the room into a wall, where it crackled and splintered, falling as a mess of water and debris on the floor.
It was strangely comforting, but the tears were still flowing freely down her cheeks. She wiped them away as quickly as they fell, burying her face in her hands and sighing loudly.
The endless questions swirling through her mind made her head especially heavy. She fell back against Kady's pillow, inhaling the familiar scent that came from it, and closed her eyes.
But sleep never made an appearance through the night.
Julia's alumni key to Brakebills had been left untouched in a box under her bed since the day she left the school. She'd never had a reason to return to the campus; the only friends she made at the school had graduated with her, and once they were out of sight, they were out of mind. She didn't want to meet up with most of them, anyway.
But when the necessity to research a problem that Google wouldn't be able to give her the answers on arose, the room below the attic she lived in for five years seemed to be the best place to find those answers.
Julia arrived inside the school's library as the sun began to set, hoping that the later hour would ensure that she wouldn't run into anyone. But when she walked past the glass double-doors, students littered the area, noses buried in lengthy books and newspapers as if the library had become the new, much-less-exciting version of the physical kid's cottage. Either that, or Brakebills had seen a very recent influx in knowledge students.
Their eyes barely wandered from their texts as Julia made her entrance. She scanned the familiar room slowly, cold nostalgia washing over her as her gaze fell upon a certain couch- one that had once held a mane of unkempt brown curls.
But the girl that she found laying on it that day had heavily straightened, blonde locks, and the way she held herself gave off vibes of haughtiness, rather than the unaffected, natural confidence she was used to. It felt wrong to see the girl on what used to be Kady's couch. The one that Kady sat on for weeks during their last year at the school, back when nothing mattered and the only stress Julia had in her life was whether or not she was going to pass her end of year exams.
She strongly apposed the idea of remembering details of the time, but the thoughts were already spilling into her mind like an overflowing bucket of memories.
Julia didn't have any reason to be in the library that night, and if she was being honest, she was incredibly tired and would have rather spent the time in bed, catching up on the significant amount of sleep she had been missing since her nightly visits to the library began. But Kady was nearing the end of the second Fillory book, and Julia definitely didn't want to miss her chance to discuss the ending with the girl.
At that point in their relationship, conversation was beginning to feel like a normal occurrence throughout the nights. They didn't talk very often, only if Kady had a question or wanted to rant to someone about the scene she had just read. Julia just happened to be the only one in the library to hear those rants. And going to bed early meant she might miss one of those tangents that she loved so much.
Julia found her usual seat in the empty library as the clocked neared ten o'clock, long past its typically busy hours.
Kady usually showed up around the same time, but for some reason, that particular night, Julia was left sitting alone long after the shorter hand on the clock hovered over the number eleven.
Part of her wanted to leave, and she probably should have, but the other part of her was repeating 'one more minute' to itself every minute until the double-doors flung open, revealing the disheveled brunette behind them. Julia could practically see the irritation radiating from the girl.
"Sorry, rough day," were the first words to come from Kady and Julia wasn't sure whether the apology was towards her violent opening of the door or the fact that she was showing up far later than usual.
"And yet you still came to the library?" Julia knew that they kind of had a system going, but the fact that Kady had deemed it necessary to show up, even on a day that she was clearly unhappy, instilled a sense of something- she couldn't place what- inside Julia's chest.
"And yet you're still waiting here?"
Julia tipped her head in a way that said 'touché,' as if the comment wasn't sending hot sparks through her cheeks. Kady didn't push the subject any further.
"I guess reading just calms me down. I don't know." Kady found her way up the steps to the bookcase and mindlessly found the book she had been reading for the past few days.
She felt a little bad for seemingly forcing the explanation out of Kady. But the contents of the statement outweighed any of the negative emotions she was feeling.
She always knew Kady had a soft spot for reading. No matter what punk-girl facade she was attempting to live up to.
Kady plopped down on the couch, allowing her head to fall against the arm momentarily, before sitting up straighter and opening the novel to the page she had left off on, and starting to read.
Julia didn't expect Kady to be very chatty considering her sour mood, and found those expectations to be correct as the minutes past.
It was a solid half-an-hour before Kady finally did decide to initiate a conversation.
"What does lack- lacka-" Kady cocked her head to the side, eyes squinted as she tried to read a word written on the worn page. "I'm not even gonna try to pronounce it. What does this mean?" She gave up, pointing to a word in the book. She followed up the question by reading out the spelling of the word, letter by letter, but Julia was already leaving her seat, finding her way to the space beside the couch and kneeling down, scanning her eyes along the paper.
It happened often that Kady didn't have knowledge of a word's definition and she seemed to figure out early on that Julia almost always held the answers to her questions. Usually it was especially long or outdated words that were beyond her comprehension- words like 'melancholy' or 'salubrious'- but every once in a while it would be a word that Julia would have thought everyone knew the meaning of- 'lurid' or 'innate'- and it never failed to make her giggle when Kady would struggle to understand them.
Frankly, Julia thought it was adorable.
"What word?" Julia held back the smile from growing too wide on her lips.
"That one."
Julia unsuccessfully stifled a laugh when she saw what was hindering Kady from continuing her reading.
"Lackadaisically." Julia could see the girl on the couch tense slightly, tugging the book back to her lap. "It means unenthusiastically."
"Great, I'll add it to my list of words I'll never use." Kady mumbled, returning her vision to the few pages left in the novel.
"You're very lackadaisical about the word 'lackadaisically'." Julia straightened from her squatting position, hoping the remark would at least be enough to draw a smile to Kady's face.
She received far more than she had bargained for when Kady broke out into uncharacteristic laughter, shaking her head and rolling her eyes at the shorter girl.
"Alright, I get it. You're a knowledge student." She shot back playfully.
The giggles died down after a minute or so, allowing silence to reclaim the room.
It must've crossed over into the next day by then, but Julia didn't dare sneak a glance at the clock behind her, afraid it would give away how much she desired to be upstairs, asleep in bed.
But Kady only had a few pages left. And Julia could stick it out for a few more pages. Even if her eyelids refused to hold themselves open.
Finally- Julia thought she would erupt in cheers- Kady pushed the book closed with an exaggerated sigh through closed lips and stood from the seat, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn, exposing the area just above the waistband on her pants.
She wanted to look away but she couldn't. She just stared and by the time she realized that her gaping was probably seen as strange, Kady was already done stretching, sporting a smirk and an eyebrow raise towards Julia.
The taller girl turned away before most of the heat collected in Julia's cheeks, trudging back to the bookcase to return the book.
But when Kady walked back, she wasn't empty-handed. Instead, the third Fillory novel dangled by its spine from her grip as she returned to the couch and fell back into the cushions.
Apparently, Kady had no intention of ending her reading early.
It was going to be a long night for Julia. But she didn't think the idea of losing sleep bothered her too much.
She blinked away the scene from her mind, realizing how strange she must have looked towards the students, who were suddenly staring at her with curious expressions on their faces. The one on Kady's couch- which also happened to be the one that Julia's gaze was locked on- eyed her suspiciously, readjusting her position self-consciously before tucking back into the book in her grasp.
Julia lowered her head, hoping to avoid any further attention (and hide the tears welling in her eyes) and hurried to a wall covered end-to-end with tiny drawers.
It was the school's own Dewey Decimal System. Students would call out a topic and the enchanted wall would spit out where to find any books that held information on what they were looking for. Julia was no stranger to it.
The moment her feet were firmly planted directly across from it, she started speaking.
"Niffins." She called out, well-aware that the library had fallen silent since she had walked in; the students all too entranced by the older girl to continue their conversations.
But as soon as she started to speak, the inhabitants' whispers began to fill the space. Julia didn't have to see them to know that the looks on their faces were nothing other than horrified.
Three drawers flung open, shooting out one paper each, which Julia grabbed quickly before finding a seat to look over the information she had been given.
It was obvious she had scared the students, ones that had probably only heard niffins spoken of as a legend- something that could quite possibly be real, but since no one had ever seen one, it was just labeled as mythological. Julia remembered when she was under the same impression.
But she didn't care that her research was causing a scene. The students needed to know magic didn't just consist of glass marbles and playing cards. It was scary and dangerous and wasn't always performed behind the safety of a magic school's complex wards. She wished she had known as much.
Surprisingly, Julia was able to find the necessary material on the subject fairly easily, leaving her with plenty of time to read over the books.
She would have sat in her usual seat, but she couldn't. The idea hurt too much. So she settled for a long, six-seated table in the corner of the library. The two other Brakebills students at the table instantly fabricated a reason to leave to one another, suddenly uncomfortable to be sitting near Julia.
Good, she wanted to be alone.
The books all held a similar appearance, much resembling notes kept by someone in a very outdated notebook. As if someone had just written down their own personal experiences with niffins. It didn't at all look trustworthy, but Julia read it nonetheless, deciding it was better to have possibly false information rather than none at all.
The literature was accompanied by hand-sketched pictures, ones that had little relation to the words beside them. Or if they did, Julia couldn't find the significance.
It spoke of niffins as cruel, blood-thirsty creatures, warning the reader of their fearless and unprincipled behaviors. Niffin sightings were explained to be extremely rare. And living to tell of those sightings was even less common. It also went in depth into what must be done with a 'free-range niffin' as the book called it. It told of rituals and trapping niffins inside boxes to keep them from harming the world around them, but making said boxes was complicated, messy work that wasn't to be taken lightly.
But the more Julia read on the topic, the more she was convinced that the girl appearing scarcely through her life was not a niffin. But if she wasn't, then what was she, and why was Julia seeing her everywhere she looked?
A particular section of the yellow-tinted pages caught her attention, labeled "summoning a niffin" but the last few letters of the heading were smudged into an inky blob.
The text below the title was listed in bullet-points, separated into columns with shaky, dark borders drawn around them. One list was the supplies needed. One was a step by step guide. And for once, Julia was grateful that the world had given her a straightforward answer. For a moment, she didn't believe it. She was definitely unaccustomed to things working in her favor in life.
Still, she copied the instructions onto the palm of her hand in pen. The directions were fairly simple: return to the place where the transformation took place, call out a few Egyptian chants, and offer something personal- something the niffin would remember from their human life- as bait.
Nothing about the information gave Julia insight into why she had been seeing Kady flashing past her eyes, but she assumed that if Kady was a niffin, the summoning would work. And if she was truly gone- if it was just Julia's broken mind creating its own coping mechanisms- then the girl wouldn't show up.
Either way, Julia would be left with less questions than she had started with, even if the possible answers had the potential to break her even further.
And if summoning a niffin killed her, like the multiple warnings and disclaimers on the page said it would, then so be it.
The place of transformation was easy to remember, considering the events that occurred in that location never seemed to leave Julia's mind.
But the personal effect was harder to conjure from her thoughts, and Julia sat on the question of what would be used as bait for the better part of an hour before she realized the items she needed were enclosed in the room surrounding her.
The chair she sat in scraped obnoxiously against the hardwood panels below it as she stood from the table, shutting the books and tucking them under her arm to return them to their shelves. But before she did, Julia took a detour to a familiar ledge up a set of three stairs. As if they had been waiting for her eyes to fall upon them, five black hardcovers with gold-lettering stuck out from the center of one bookcase.
They might as well have had 'these are the personal items you need' written across their spines.
Before the decision fully worked through the messy maze of her thoughts, Julia was striding forward, hand outstretched in preparation of grabbing the series in front of her.
They burned in her grasp as she made her way to the front of the library, the stack of books weighing heavily in her arms.
"Um, excuse me?" A high-pitched, pretentious-sounding voice asked from behind her. Julia could practically hear the disgusted look that was probably on her face. She spun around to face the blonde she had already expected the voice was coming from. The girl was about the same height as Julia, maybe a tad taller, but close enough to where their eyes easily held each others' gazes. The confident blonde squared her shoulders and cleared her throat, obviously intimidated by whatever superior vibe Julia was radiating.
"Books are not allowed off campus." She could have scoffed the phrase and sounded less full of herself.
Julia vaguely remembered the rule from her days at the school, but never saw it enforced enough to commit it to her memory.
"I'm just borrowing it." Uptight blondie looked young enough to be a first year, and Julia just hoped she was stupid enough to believe the bullshit Julia was falsifying.
"Dean Fogg said books are not allowed off campus. Not even for borrowing." Her arms were crossed, now, and she looked at Julia from the tip of her upturned nose, as if she had some authority over her.
Julia wondered if she had been as revoltingly arrogant when she was at the school.
Either way, Julia was sure that goody-two-shoes wasn't going to let her leave, especially now that all her first year followers had their eyes glued to the spot where she stood on the rug.
So, reluctantly, Julia pushed past the girl- making sure to allow their shoulders to brush slightly, enough to send the blonde hair stumbling backwards before blondie cleared her throat and returned to her seat on the couch.
Julia half-expected the other students to fill the room with applause, like the blonde had somehow averted some terrible crisis with the use of language alone. No one did; they just returned to their literature like nothing ever happened. Julia had a feeling it wasn't blonde-bitch's first time reciting the rules.
It didn't matter much to Julia, even though she had secretly been hoping to steal the books for herself. She felt justified in thinking she deserved them. They were one of the only things left in the world for her to remember Kady by. When Julia had found her in the abandoned apartment, she didn't have much with her besides a deeply stained outfit, which they had thrown away as soon as she was wearing a different, much cleaner set of clothing.
Julia found herself thinking about the outfit often. She wished she hadn't thrown it away, as terribly disgusting as it sounded.
But Julia didn't need the library's Fillory series. It wasn't the only place in the world that was stocked with them. And one of the other places she knew she could find them popped into her head.
Quentin was most likely still in Fillory. Chances were, she could drop by his house and ask his parents for the set of books without causing too much of a scene.
But, as per usual, the universe had other plans for her.
Julia knocked on the door of the quiet, welcoming home- the one she remembered spending endless afternoons inside as a kid, back when Quentin would have rather died than miss a few hours of being with his best friend. Those times felt like distant memories, ones so fogged by the length of time separating them that Julia could have been tricked into thinking they were all part of an oddly realistic dream.
She could hear stirring from inside the house, signaling that the occupants were coming to open the door, and she bounced on her heels, staring at the well-worn welcome mat below her to keep her mind off of its usual, endless roller coaster of thoughts.
The lock from inside clicked once, and the door tugged open, revealing a familiar woman behind it.
It was Quentin's mother but she was older. She was frailer and hollow like the most important parts of her life had been ripped from her grasp. Julia only recognized the expression because it was the same one she saw everyday when she looked in the mirror.
"Julia?" She spoke as if it was the first time she had in days, croaking out the response in three broken syllables.
"Hi, Mrs. Coldwater," she faked the best smile she could, even reminding herself to squint her eyes along with it to make it seem more authentic. The older woman flashed a much less genuine one back, looking over her shoulder a few times before returning her gaze to her son's childhood friend. "I just wanted to-" the words came to a halt abruptly in her throat at the sight of scruffy hair rounding the corner to get a peek of who the visitor at the door was. He stopped and gaped when the question was answered.
"Julia," his version of saying her name was less confused- more direct, in a way that conveyed his surprise to her presence, while also maintaining a look that almost made her feel unwelcome.
But she was too tangled in the web of mental curses she was spewing at herself to wallow in the feeling.
Of course, Quentin would be taking some sort of annual holiday from Fillory on the exact day that Julia planned to stop by, hoping for the stop to be undetected.
But there he stood, in his awkward glory- apparently being the king of Fillory hadn't changed him a bit- probably on the verge of exploding with questions that Julia would be expected to answer.
And some part-deep, down inside her- hated him. Because he was the one that had given her the god-killing knife. And that knife just so happened to be what led her and Kady into the biggest fuck-up they ever made. It was his fault. Because placing the blame on him hurt tons less than reminding herself she had a role to play in the disaster, too.
Mrs. Coldwater welcomed her inside and Quentin led her off to his room, closing the door behind them.
"Is everything okay?"
And, again, nothing was, but this time it was far worse. This time, the numbness consuming her prevented any tears from escaping her eyes.
"No, I need your Fillory books." She didn't have time- or the desire- to sit around and play catch-up with Quentin, so she cut straight to the punchline.
The request must have sounded as ridiculous to him as it did coming from her mouth.
"What? Why?" His eyes betrayed him, shooting glances at the nightstand beside his bed, and Julia followed to gaze, cluing her in on the location of the items she needed. He never was good at keeping secrets.
Julia squeezed past the boy, who did little to stop her as she tugged open the top drawer.
"I just do. I'm only borrowing them." She half-lied, considering she didn't know what would become of the books after the niffin possibly got a hold of them.
"There's something you're not telling me"
'Yeah, obviously,' she wanted to say, but refrained, letting out a long, heavy sigh, instead. Once the five books were stacked in her hands, she stood from beside the nightstand and kicked the drawer closed with her shin.
"Why aren't you in Fillory?" Mostly it was meant as a distraction from his previous implications, but it also satisfied the part of Julia that desperately wanted to be mad at Quentin for leaving her when she needed him the most.
"I came home for my dad's funeral." Quentin's eyebrows sat low on his face, conveying the disgusted offense he took to Julia's question. But the expression neutralized when he watched Julia's face morph to one of regret and confusion. "He had brain cancer, and I didn't know because I was too busy being king of Fillory." His eyes fell to his feet, which were kicking at the carpet just for the sake of not sitting still.
Julia wanted to feel sad. She wanted to feel sympathy towards Quentin's loss, but she barely managed to conjure up enough pity to feel anything other than disinterested. She had no room left for negative feelings; all of the space was taken up by the depression and regrets that had been looming over her for months. She settled on a nod, hoping that it justified as an appropriate response.
"I'm sorry, Quentin. I just- I need the books. Please." She emphasized, tapping her fingers along the top of the stack and trying to hold back the memories that struggled to stay put when she touched them. Quentin's face reclaimed some of the offense it had held moments before.
"Um, okay," he scanned her face desperately for some sort of answer to what she had gotten herself into. She hoped he didn't notice that her face held the same depth of emotion that his mother's did. "Take them."
"Thank you," and the fake smile made its second appearance, but Quentin knew Julia's real smile too well and instantly caught on to the facade, his air diving deeper into suspicion. She stopped him before the expected questions could start to surface. "I promise when I'm done with these, we can meet up. I'll explain everything. But right now-" she purposely let her voice trail, figuring Quentin could finish the sentence for himself. And he did, nodding slowly, his eyes back on his shoes.
Julia pulled the bedroom door open and walked back out to the entrance of the home. Quentin didn't even attempt to stop her from leaving.
The alleyway felt different when she wasn't entering it with excited confidence and the hopes of killing a god.
It felt dreary and depressing and only held the possibility for closure rather than a new beginning.
The tears were pooling in her eyes before she was even standing near the blackened concrete, charred from a searing, blue fire. Her shoulder was buzzing in protest, as if the mere idea of returning to the location of its injury was enough for it to mimic the pain it felt. The sound of Kady's screams rung menacingly through her ears and when she finally did kneel in front of the spot where Kady had transformed, her hyperventilating was enough to make her vision blur with sliver stars.
The books rested in a pile beside her, the first novel on top, prepared to be used. Her hand still held the Egyptian chant she needed to say, but the inky symbols smudged into the creases in her palm, making them just barely legible.
It took a full ten minutes for Julia to put a dent in the anxiety rising in her, and when her breathing was slightly less heavy, she attempted the chant. She read over the language a few times in her head to ensure she knew exactly what to say.
The words left her mouth in choppy syllables but she didn't falter as she spoke, convincing her that the incantation was said correctly.
And when she was done, she reached for the top book in the stack.
The pages were worn from Quentin's probable long hours of reading them, but overall held a vaguely similar look to the ones in the library.
"The Chatwin Twins and their older brother had been sent to the countryside." Her voice managed to maintain a steady tone as she read from the first page. "From a young age, Martin Chatwin had a gloomy nature. And to combat his melancholy, he would lose himself in stories of wonder." She hiccuped the beginning of a cry as she continued, suddenly relating to Martin in a way she never had before. "So he knew that he would have trouble convincing his brother and sister that this was no fantasy. Rupert, wounded in the war and the first Chatwin to put away childish things, and Jane, the family skeptic."
Julia paused when she finished the paragraph, looking over her shoulder a few times to see if the niffin she was summoning had made an appearance. Her glances were useless and only met with cement and empty dumpsters. She turned her eyes to the darkened sky above her.
"Kady, please." She whispered to no one. When she returned to the reading, she flipped a few pages ahead, hoping that a further excerpt would draw the niffin to her.
"Martin thought they needed Fillory but, no, Fillory needed them. It is here that our story begins, but be warned, this adventure is no mere children's tale." Another pause. Another glance around the alley. It was still empty.
And the pattern repeated itself for the better part of an hour, and by the time the sun was low enough in the sky to begin to hinder Julia's ability to read, she was yelling random quotes from the books, muffled by tears, well-aware that the ritual wasn't working.
It wasn't until she heard heavy steps behind her that she halted her combination of choking out sentences in between sobs and begging the niffin-turned girl to show herself.
The source of the footsteps was not the curly-haired girl she had been expecting. Instead, Quentin was rushing down the path, just enough light on his face to display the worried expression painting over it.
"Julia, what are you doing?" She jumped at the sound, as if she had forgotten that other people could talk besides herself. But hearing Quentin struck a nerve deep inside her- one that forced her head to bury itself in her shaking hands.
She didn't see him kneel beside her, but when his hand fell on her shoulder, she leaned into the touch, pulling her tear-soaked palms from her face and throwing them around Quentin's shoulders.
And just like she had weeks before, she recounted her story- poured out every horrid detail- her body falling numb as she explained the failure that had occurred. And Quentin just listened (most likely attributed to his lack of knowledge in comforting someone) holding her close and squeezing her shoulder reassuringly throughout her monologue.
It helped nothing. Kady was still gone. Julia was still broken. And nothing would ever be the same again. But somehow, just sitting in the alley, engulfed in each other's embraces, helped to steady Julia's rapid breaths.
So, they sat. It might've been minutes, or hours, but Julia didn't want to let go, realizing how thankful she was to have her arms around someone- and to have arms around her- after weeks of them feeling empty.
Julia was drunk, again. It had been at least a few days since Quentin found her in the alley. He stayed with her the first night, laying on opposite couches in silence. But when conversation did filter its way in, they spoke in whispers, just loud enough for one another to hear.
They didn't talk about anything, specifically, just speaking when a thought came to one of their minds.
Quentin told Julia about his adventures in Fillory and Julia would interject at random points with off-topic questions as if she hadn't been listening at all. She was listening, her mind just wouldn't sit still anytime an inquiry entered it.
Through their conversation, Julia learned that her efforts to summon Kady were wasted. Dead niffins were gone for good. And though Quentin didn't comment much on Julia's sightings of the Kady since her death, it was obvious he thought of her as nothing more than an emotionally traumatized girl, seeing flashbacks to bad memories. She didn't blame him. She sounded crazy.
But after the first night, Quentin was summoned back to Fillory via Eliot, who Julia faintly remembered from Brakebills.
She let him leave; he'd done enough for her anyway- probably far more than she deserved- and she wasn't exactly keen to letting him stick around in fear that she would see Kady again and convince the boy she was truly falling off the wagon.
And while Julia was mostly convinced Kady was gone, that didn't stop her from chugging a few glasses of bourbon in the hopes that her fractured state-of-mind would merge with the alcohol and create the apparition she was in desperate need of a visit from.
Aside from necessities, Julia wasn't completely sure if she had left the couch at all in the days since Quentin had left, just wallowing in her own self-pity and insecurities.
Nothing mattered to her anymore, anyway.
Julia slid down on couch until her chin touched her chest, not apposed to the idea of falling asleep in the position, even if it would result in terrible kinks in her neck the next day. She wasn't in the position long before a familiar voice broke her from the silence in her mind.
"Idiot." Her eyes snapped open at the harsh voice, one that she hadn't heard in what felt like an eternity, but her brain was too clouded to fully understand the weight of the situation. The vision of Kady was back, but to Julia, it all just felt like some mean trick. And she wasn't going to fall for it this time. The insult barley phased her as she pulled herself into sitting taller.
"I summoned you three days ago. Nice of you to finally show up." She feigned apathy, hoping that the lack of reaction would drive whoever was probably messing with her to give up the act.
"You can't summon me. I'm-"
"I can't summon a dead niffin. Trust me, Quentin told me it all. Look," she paused to hiccup and slug down another shot of whiskey. She was close to blacking out. Just a few more drinks and the whole thing would be forgotten. "I killed you. And this," she motioned sloppily to Kady's air. "isn't real. So, whatever you are, if you could kindly get the fuck out of my life, I'd greatly appreciate it." Julia ended the remark with an obviously fake smile, the kind that was meant to be sarcastic. She liked the boldness that was being conveyed through her words. It wasn't a common tone for her to take, but she wondered if it was one she could get used to.
Kady scoffed.
"You thought your pussy-cat of a cacodemon was enough to kill me? I thought you were a knowledge student, Julia." She spat, her eyes squinted, arms crossed over her chest in a way that displayed the impatience laced into her tone. The jibe hurt more than Julia had expected, probably because Kady- the Kady she remembered- would never have been so crude towards her.
The question winded Julia. She had watched the cacodemon kill Kady. There was no way she could have survived the attack.
"But you-" the bravery was gone from her voice, leaving behind the pathetic uncertainty that always seemed to linger in her body no matter how much Jack Daniel's she downed.
"All your cacodemon could do was stuff me away, wherever it found most convenient." Kady talked as if Julia was supposed to understand what she was saying. But Julia wasn't following any of it, the bottle of whiskey in her hands accounting for most of that confusion.
"The tattoo, Julia." She practically groaned. Even with indignation masking it, the sound of Kady saying her name sent chills up Julia's back. But she forced the sensation from her thoughts, suddenly more interested in the other part of what Kady was explaining.
And just like a lightbulb had been switched on, Julia's thoughts metaphorically erupted in light. She wasn't going insane. But she didn't know if she preferred the truth over the falsehood she had been growing used to.
Kady was inside the tattoo. Inside her body. Her thoughts. Her entire being.
"We're stuck together, now."
Julia was thankful the black-out beginning to take effect stole her from being awake any longer.
Kady seemed incapable of shutting up after that night. As if Julia had tuned into an inescapable channel, one that she couldn't mute with alcohol or sleep.
And the words were no longer information on how the hell they had ended up in their current situation. No, they were just useless, random insults, shot at Julia for no apparent reason other than to seemingly annoy the girl. And not even a full day after Julia had gained the knowledge that Kady was locked inside a tattoo on her back, the insults were close to constant- telling her she wasn't good enough. Calling her boring, weak, pathetic, stupid- name it, she had heard it.
And even if Julia attempted to ignore the slights, it only resulted in them getting worse.
It was like the invisible girl wanted Julia to hate her.
And, honestly, it was kind of working.
Though Julia could never hate the Kady she remembered, the dislike towards the one sharing her mind came easily to her.
And while Julia tended to steer clear of reliving the horrible decisions that had led her to the position she was currently in, the recollections seemed to be Kady's most well-versed topic of discussion.
She knew niffins could be terribly cruel creatures, but she would have never guessed that constantly being reminded of her failures would fall into the category of 'cruel'. In Julia's opinion, Kady tormenting her about the day in the alley passed the line of cruelty and dove head first into being downright wrong and unfair.
"It wasn't your fault," was just one of the many mantras Julia found herself repeating daily, in hopes that it would prevent Kady's impeccable logic on the situations from cutting her too deeply.
But it was her fault. Kady knew it. Julia knew it. Kady just happened to be the one that liked to use it against her.
They had considered every possibility in their plan to kill Reynard, taking each scenario into account, revising if needed to accommodate the dangers. They spent days perfecting the plan, yet the events that unfolded were miles and miles from perfection.
"You know what you didn't consider?" Kady was shouting, now, her fists clenched into tight balls. Julia should have been used to the yelling; it happened anytime the shorter girl tried to block out what she was saying, but nothing burned deeper inside her than hearing her best friend- the girl she had grown to love in the few months of knowing her- shout at her as if she was nothing more than a stranger on the streets that had done something terribly rude to upset her.
Julia's hands were over her ears as she hummed loudly, hoping to shut out the voice around her. It proved fruitless; Kady simply moved her harassment to Julia's thoughts.
"What if the knife didn't work? What if Quentin was a fucking idiot who didn't know his own head from his ass?" Kady continued, her volume steadily increasing until the questions were blaring sirens in Julia's mind. "What if he was wrong? What if you were wrong? You killed me, Julia. All because you were too stupid to think of a plan that actually could've worked."
Julia had heard the jibe before- it appeared to be one of Kady's favorites- but it never lost its original sting, no matter how many times she prepared herself to hear it.
She killed Kady. She was stupid. So, so stupid. How could she have been so blind?
The abuse never seemed to stop.
At first, Julia would just stare at the ceiling for hours from the warmth of her bed, begging her mind to shut off and allow her to sleep; a task turned far more difficult by the niffin constantly hovering near her.
She found that allowing her eyes to grow heavy under the weight of her own tears proved to tire her out the quickest, and crying came easily to Julia when the girl she loved sat directly beside her, spewing harsh insults at her. Had Kady not known Julia's insecurities before, she sure as hell knew them now, and wasn't afraid to point them out any chance she received.
But as the days passed, the words became harder to ignore, burying themselves deep below the surface of the tough facade Julia was attempting to hide behind. Kady was breaking her.
"You let me go and this all stops." Kady was suddenly in her thoughts, appearing on the recliner beside her. Whatever twisted, reverse psychology Kady was trying to use, Julia could feel herself falling for it.
"How?" And while her mouth was asking, her head was already declining the idea.
"Just like the cacodemon. Say I can." The sickly sweet smile on Kady's lips was enough for Julia to know there was more to the story than what the niffin was revealing, and she wasn't going to fall for anything other than the full explanation.
"And then what? You're gone for good?" Her voice betrayed her at the last moment, cracking and revealing the true uncertainty behind it. Because even the idea of living with never-ending insults hurt less than the idea of never hearing Kady's voice again.
Kady obviously noticed Julia's apprehension as she stood from the recliner and stalked her way over to the space directly in front of Julia.
"I just got you back." She was mumbling it just as Kady began to answer, their words overlapping.
"I'm gone, and you get your life back."
Julia wanted to say that she'd never get her life back- not unless she got Kady, too- but she refrained, squeezing her eyes shut meekly, in the hopes that it would shove the niffin from her thoughts, but fully aware it wouldn't.
"But where would you go?" Julia suddenly felt incredibly thankful the she lived alone, for if anyone shared the apartment with her, they would surely find it strange that the girl was staring at the empty space in front of her and speaking to nothing.
"Wherever the hell I want. I'm a niffin." Kady shot back without much thought. Julia's mind briefly recounted all of the information she had seen inside the books at the library.
Kady was a niffin. A bloodthirsty, cruel, destructive niffin. And Julia had made a lot of terrible decisions in life, but she didn't want to add 'releasing-a-world-destroying-entity' to the list.
"I know what you read in those books, Julia. But I don't want to hurt anyone."
"Bullshit, you're a niffin." She threw the girl's own words back in her face. Kady rolled her eyes, letting out an audible groan to convey the irritation she was feeling.
"I just want to be free. Instead of sitting around and watching you cry like a puppy that lost its favorite toy." Kady spat, her signature glare as an added effect. But Julia ignored the harshness, remembering the official reasoning for their conversation.
"I can't set you free until I have the spell I need to box you."
The explanation sent Kady's head throwing back in laughter.
"You really think you'll be able to pull that off?" The niffin was still laughing as she asked it, shaking her head to fully reveal the disbelief and doubt she was feeling.
"I think I'd rather try than do nothing at all."
But the statement began to hold a sense of irony as days continued to pass without any furthering in her plans to create the tool she needed to box the niffin. Truly, Julia used the excuse of 'research' as a tactic to ensure more time with the girl stuck inside her.
While there were days when Julia returned to the library to read and reread the literature she already knew would hold no answers for her, she half-assed any of the tasks that were essential to completing the spell, for the sole purpose of spending just one more day with Kady.
Because she wasn't ready to say goodbye. She wasn't ready to enclose her favorite person in the world inside a piece of wood for eternity, even if it was the right thing to do.
And so, one more day became two. Then, three, until Kady gave up on giving Julia the necessary time she needed to study, replacing those hours with more cruelties with the purpose of annoying Julia to the point of finally breaking her and convincing her to shout the necessary words to set Kady free.
Julia's naturally stubborn personality seemed to be the only thing allowing her to stand her ground and hold her tongue.
She was never not drinking, typical for when problems showed themselves in her life; she downed shots of vodka with each new slight, hoping the fluid would be enough to drown out the words being thrown at her.
It was the most depressing drinking game she had ever played, but it at least secured her a chance to sleep, even if that slumber was alcohol-induced, and always resulted in a killer hangover the next morning.
Somehow the headache and nausea was worth it, as long as the events of the night before were fuzzy enough that she could barely unscramble them into a coherent memory.
And the method worked for a while. But just like all good things in Julia's life, the success of her only escape came to an end, eventually.
The onset of a few out-of-place symptoms were barely noticeable, considering Julia was almost constantly hungover, but she did, however, recognize something was not right when she woke up to a heavily blood-stained pillow, finding the source of the fluid to be from her nose.
She stared in the bathroom mirror at herself, ignoring the content-looking Kady behind her, and running her hands under the cold faucet water. She splashed the water on her face, scrubbing away the blood that had dried under her nose, on her cheek, down her neck, in her hair.
Julia could barely bring her eyes to look at herself in the mirror until she was cleaned up, terrified when she would catch glances of the incredulous amount of red staining her face.
But when she was slightly less disgusted with her appearance, she turned to the niffin behind her, breathing uneven and quickened.
"What did you do to me?" She growled, stepping closer as if it would intimidate the brunette.
"I didn't do anything."
"Cut the bullshit, Kady. Why the fuck am I bleeding?" Her heart was pounding, her hands trembling as she held the harsh tone with Kady. It never got any easier to raise her voice at the girl she had once been falling in love with. It still sent hot daggers into her gut each time.
"You can't hold a niffin inside you forever, Julia." Kady was smirking, which wasn't uncommon and would have once made Julia smile, too, but today the smile only made her hands itch to collide with Kady's jaw. And she would have done it if she didn't already know that her fist would go right through the girl and hit the wall behind her.
The phrase felt like ice in her veins, shocking her to the true weight of the situation. "You keep me inside you, and you kill us both." Kady clarified in case their was any part of Julia that hadn't already considered the possibility. The coldness growing inside her somehow managed to take a deeper drop in temperature.
"I- I just need more time. I'm almost done making the box." She lied half-ignoring the ultimatum that was just given to her. Her fingers found their way to her scalp and ran through it, catching on knots and curls that had formed after days of not showering.
"You've been at it for a week, Julia. And all you have to show for it is a carved piece of mulch."
"How long until-" She couldn't bring herself to finish the question. Kady seemed to already know what she was planning to ask.
"Days, maybe. I could always speed up the process if you need a little incentive." The smirk was back and the niffin raised a few fingers, pointing them at Julia and turning them to the side. Immediately, a steady drip of blood fell from one nostril.
"No, I-" Julia pressed the pad of her thumb against the bleeding side to slow the stream, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest.
"Don't be weak, Julia." It could have been taken as motivation, but the spitting anger it was said with only sent clear lines of tears down Julia's cheeks. The situation as a whole felt terribly overwhelming and Julia couldn't help but notice her head spinning in confusion and fear.
"I'm just trying to do what's right, Kady. And-" Again, Kady cut in before the statement was fully out of Julia's mouth.
"You've fucked up enough in life, why does it matter all of a sudden?" Julia dropped her hand from her nose, her chest constricting at the words that never seemed to lose their original offensiveness.
"And I'd be able to decide a lot quicker if you weren't insulting me every chance you get." She finished her previous statement in a yell, finally breaking, her fists clenched into tight balls of whitening knuckles.
Kady seemed taken aback slightly by the abrupt temper. As taken aback as a niffin could, probably.
"You leave me alone and I'll make a decision." It held far less anger, said in a huff under her breath, as if she was afraid she had upset the girl across from her. Kady didn't buy the claim, flashing a suspicious eyebrow raise at the words. "I promise." Julia feigned sincerity, holding her gaze with the green eyes that could probably see past the facade.
But Julia blinked and when her eyes reopened, Kady was out of sight, complying with what Julia had wanted.
Her promise was nothing more than an excuse. Truly, she had no idea what decision she would make. But the seldom heard silence distracted her from the weight that was resting on her shoulders.
She slid down the wall behind her, wallowing in the loneliness.
The longer Julia waited to make a decision, the weaker she became.
Her appetite fizzled away more and more as the days passed, making lightheadedness a common occurrence. The nosebleeds upped their frequency to multiple times a day, only adding to the shakiness she felt from the combination of malnutrition and blood loss.
And while she claimed to Kady that she was still making a decision, Julia deliberately avoided thinking on the subject, living the lie that if she didn't think about it, it couldn't bother her.
And the decision itself didn't bother her too much. But the inability to stand from her couch without nearly passing out? That annoyed her incessantly.
Kady was a fly on the wall to Julia at that point. Very much still there, but not buzzing around her head constantly with insults and demands. Though she did interject a painful reminder each time Julia would get a crippling headache or a gushing nosebleed, reiterating the theme that they were running out of time.
And Julia couldn't let her own selfish desires kill Kady, because if it was up to her, she would let this niffin inside her kill them both, in hopes that there was something beyond living where the two could meet up and be free of the problems that plagued them on Earth.
But letting Kady roam the world unboxed posed its own set of problems and possibilities. Because if the girl's claims of just wanting to be free were untrue and she really did want to do harm, then Julia would be the one who indirectly caused that destruction- the one who made the metaphorical spark that set the forest ablaze.
And as time ran out, Kady grew angrier, abandoning her commands to give Julia the much needed time to think, and returning to her pesky harassment, this time, not only using jibes to get her point across. This time, Kady had taken a liking to using guilt to fuel her attempts to be set free.
She begged, she pleaded, she reasoned, even going as far as to say that she would trade her freedom for anything Julia wanted in the world.
Too bad the only thing Julia wanted was the thing she would need to trade in exchange for it.
And that's when she made up her mind. Because a world without Kady was a world she didn't think she wanted to see.
So, gathering up all the remaining strength and energy inside her, Julia stumbled out of her apartment as soon as the sun had set, unsure where she was headed, but continued walking anyway, only stopping when she was standing in the center of a dirt-paved, abandoned junkyard.
It was quiet- a rare feature to find in any part of New York- and ensured that she would be alone for as long as she needed, and maybe even some time after that.
And by the time she made it to the middle, her eyes were crossing and her body was on the verge of giving out.
So, she let it. She fell to the ground with a thud, narrowly catching herself with the heels of her hands before pushing her way onto her back.
Somehow, even Kady was maintaining the silence.
"Kady," Julia broke the hush, her words slurring immensely from exhaustion. She wasn't drunk but she might as well have been with how loopy she felt. "I'm sorry." It left her lips in a cracked whisper. "I'm sorry for everything."
And as if the apology had flipped a switch, Kady was talking again, yelling for Julia to get up- to pull herself together and save the both of them.
The world around her darkened, but she could still hear Kady's shouts of anger, yelling for Julia to set her free or she'd kill her. She'd kill her and make sure no one came for her. Julia wanted to laugh, because no one would, regardless.
But the voice was getting quieter, fading from her mind. This was it. Julia either had to let Kady kill her, or she had to let her go and free herself of the only thing keeping her alive anymore.
The voice of the niffin suffered a drastic change when it found Julia's eyes to be falling closed, shutting out the moonlight caressing one half of her face.
"I wouldn't have wanted you to die." Kady was frantic. Julia could imagine the girl shaking her awake if she had been able to. "I'm not supposed to kill you."
The words broke the dam holding the tears back from Julia's face, and they fell freely out of her eyes, soaking themselves into her hair. "I wanted you to stay alive. Let me go and you'll live."
The reasoning was tempting- very tempting. The vision of Kady's face just before she morphed into the niffin ahe currently was played across Julia's vision. It was true. Kady would have wanted Julia to live. To move on and find a new life. But Julia didn't know how to find a new one when the only one she ever wanted could never exist. Kady heard those thoughts and used them to her advantage.
"I don't want to watch you die. You're supposed to be okay without me." Julia swore she heard tears muffling the words.
"I'm not." She managed, barely a whisper. Her arms felt too weak to hug around herself any longer, and they fell to her sides, exposing her chest to the frigid night air. The movement reminded her how cold she truly was.
"You need to be, Jules." The use of her nickname quickened the pace of tears on her cheeks, forcing them to mix with the blood that fell from her nose. She knew Kady was right. It was pathetic to let herself die. It was cowardly, but for once she felt as if she deserved the easy way out. "Please." It was the most emotion Julia had heard from Kady's voice in a while.
God, she loved the sound of Kady's voice. She loved the raspiness it held when she spoke softly. She loved the way her mouth tugged into a smirk with each phrase. She loved the way her laugh could brighten any moment.
She loved Kady.
"I love you, too."
Julia knew that the confession could very well be a product of the niffin's naturally manipulative behaviors, but she hung onto the words. They echoed through her thoughts, either because Julia couldn't stop thinking about them, or because Kady wouldn't stop saying them.
Nonetheless, she allowed herself to relive the moment a few more times before she sucked in a labored breath, her eyes rolling back with the effort.
She could feel everything. Every memory. Every touch. Julia could feel Kady's lips on hers, moving rhythmically, exactly how she remembered them from the night of their first kiss. She could remember the happiness she felt as they fell asleep in each other's arms, all before everything went wrong.
But they were just memories. Memories of times she would never see again, never feel again, but always remember.
This was it. There was nothing left for her.
"Julia says go free."
It might have been her injured subconscious adding its own flair to the ordeal, but Julia swore it hurt far more to let Kady out of her back than it had to let the cacodemon out.
She coughed and sputtered, involuntarily rolling onto her side as the niffin left her skin.
Julia didn't understand how she ever thought Kady had looked realistic before, because as the blue-lit figure towered over her, she realized she hadn't seen her- in the flesh and not a vision that only she could see- in weeks, and she looked perfect. Her shining eyes were beaming with excitement, even if the mischievous smirk on her lips made Julia think otherwise.
Kady looked happy. And for once, Julia was sure she had made the right decision.
Brown curls caught in the wind as Kady tilted her head towards the stars, eyes falling shut in content as she breathed in a long breath of fresh air.
Fluttering open, glowing green connected with dulled brown one last time, mischievous smile growing wider in genuine satisfaction.
And with one final eruption of blindingly bright flames, Kady shot through the air, leaving a line of sizzling smoke in her wake.
The blood was rushing back to Julia's brain, like flipping the switch on each of her nerves until she could feel the world around her once again. Her body felt unnaturally heavy, including her eyelids which wanted nothing else but to fall closed and drag her into a deep sleep.
But even the thought of moving weighed heavily as a task she was not prepared to put forth the effort to accomplish.
She certainly couldn't return to the queen-sized bed in her apartment, it held too many memories. Memories that would claw their way through Julia's chest, pushing their way past her lips in choked sobs and screams. She wasn't ready to face the emptiness that awaited her in the sheets.
Yet, in that moment, she trusted in the fact that she couldn't let herself fall sleep in the dirt, below the light of the waning gibbous moon.
But the pain had never been so overwhelming. She was drowning in it. No float, no kick board, no snorkel. Not even a measly pair of goggles. Just seemingly endless stretches of blackened ocean, ready to throw Mother Nature's ruthless obstacles at her from every direction.
Injustice had undoubtedly become a reoccurring theme in her life.
Previously, Julia had always been able to push past the swelling sea of melancholy, finding her way to calmer waters until the next wave tested her. But each time, the waves came back, they were larger and stronger, bigger and better, until Julia was engulfed in the tsunami of grief. Calm waters were a thing of the past.
And her feet couldn't kick anymore. They were exhausted, in desperate need of a break. But she was certain if she stopped, it would be the end for her. The wave would swallow her whole, suffocating her under the depths of her own emotion.
Julia had to stay strong.
It's what Kady would have wanted. She was supposed to be okay without her.
And every fiber of her being desired to live up to the expectation.
But she was broken. Broken beyond the hope of ever finding someone or something to quell the constant ache that had started to build its permanent residence in the emptiness where her heart should have been.
Broken, but not enough to ever forget what the girl she loved had last said to her; Kady's last words to her.
Do more than try.
And though the instruction had been said under a different context, she couldn't help but notice how relevant it was to her current state.
She was going to do more than try.
It hurt like hell, but she pushed to her feet.
Julia stood from the dirt and kept kicking.
A/N: aw, it's over ):
my original intentions were to end this WAAAAY sadder but after the recent episodes, it just felt too un-julia to have her not get up and keep going. she's such a fighter (':
thanks to anyone who read this, enjoyed it, hated it, cried, laughed, screamed, got drunk after, idk. i appreciate all the support on it immensely!
housekeeping-
1.) i tried my best to make this as cannon as possible, but some things had to go (e.g. julia's pregnancy/losing her shade) or i would have made this about double the length.
2.) i used the monologue from the pilot as the first pages of the Fillory book, because i was not about to write my own version of how i thought the books started.
again, i'm callieincali on twitter if you'd like to block me? or follow me? or band together and form a post-fic support group? up to you.
i'm also new to tumblr magicianstextposts and wickerjules
yes, i have two blogs. why? i ask myself the same question.
anyway, lots of love to you all! sorry about this mess i've caused, ha.
-callie