all I knew this morning when I woke
is I know something now, know something now I didn't before
Quinn waits until supper is over the next day before she seeks Brittany out.
Brittany seems a little surprised – well, her eyes widen – when Quinn grips her around her wrist and starts tugging her towards the front entrance.
"Where's the fire?" Brittany looks around quickly.
"What?" Quinn looks over her shoulder.
Brittany's face softens, in that not-quite-smiling way she has. "What's going on?"
"I have a surprise for you."
Brittany appears to be at the very least intrigued – so she starts keeping pace with Quinn, and they shove past crowds of rowdy students. When they finally reach the castle doors, Quinn kneels down behind a statue and pulls out two heavy coats, along with a basket.
"We're going outside?" Brittany's tone is a little glum. "It's so cold out there."
"I had Miss Hitchens charm these. They're really warm."
Brittany pulls the coat on, grimacing in skepticism. Quinn follows suit, pulling a hat and then gloves on. Finally, she adjusts a scarf over her face, and by the time she looks back at Brittany, there is little to distinguish her from a pile of laundry. It makes Quinn grin.
"Are you ready?"
Brittany just narrows her eyes.
Quinn pulls the heavy cast iron door, heaving backwards with her whole weight, until it finally screeches and begins sliding out of its frame. She tugs and tugs, noticing that people are stopping to pay attention to her, now – and by the time it's open wide enough for them to slip out, she's sweating inside of her clothes.
The day is dim and washed out; the sky is pallid and colorless, along with the entire landscape surrounding the castle. Everything is covered in a layer of ice and snow. Quinn can sense Brittany's hesitance, so she reaches down and grips Brittany's hand through their gloves.
Brittany looks down at their joined hands, and then back up at Quinn curiously, but Quinn doesn't pause. She begins trekking out across the cobblestone pathway, which is – mostly – clear. Quinn takes the path leading directly away from the castle, and finally they begin walking through the snow. It comes up to Quinn's ankles, and she's thankful for the waterproofing and the thick dragonskin hide on her footwear. Brittany steps lightly over the snow, making soft, tinkling crunch noises when her slim boots break through the layer of snow. Quinn feels like she plods ungainly along beside Brittany, but she's determined – and before long they're heading away from the castle altogether.
Brittany's face is red beneath her scarf, where the wind touches her skin, and Quinn – every time she glances up – can tell that Brittany's curiosity is piqued by the way her candle-flame eyes glitter. It makes Quinn's blood rush with adrenaline, and she smiles to herself, full of nerves.
They pick their way delicately over a tiny stream, frozen over, now, but with the quiet rush of water beneath the ice still audible. Quinn keeps imagining them breaking the crust and falling through, but thankfully, that doesn't happen. They make it through the thin, sprawling wooded area before they finally reach their destination.
It's a small clearing with a cave jutting out of the rockface, and Quinn feels a rush of pride at the expression of pure pleasure on Brittany's face. It isn't a smile, quite, but it is a start.
"If we go inside we can make a fire," Quinn says, and Brittany nods excitedly.
Quinn has been here before, during the first few weeks when she felt the most ostracized and lonely. It's close enough to the castle that it isn't dangerous to visit, but secluded enough that not many other students know about it. Quinn has to crouch down to enter the cave, and Brittany has to crawl – but once they get past the initial lip, it opens up, broadening upwards. Quinn quickly reaches into her basket and pulls out a thick quilt, laying it out on the floor. Next, she pulls out two thermoses, and gestures for Brittany to settle in. Brittany begins unwrapping her scarf, and the miniscule snowflakes that had collected on her face begin to melt, causing her hair to frizz.
Quinn tugs off her own scarf, hat, and gloves, and settles back against the wall of the cave. She opens her thermos and takes a drink, passing the other one to Brittany.
"Hot chocolate?"
Quinn nods.
"What are we doing here, Quinn?"
"We have an hour or so, but there's something I want to show you."
"It isn't a ghost, is it?" Brittany's brows wrinkle. "Some Avis boys tried to lure me into the dungeons to show me a ghost. I don't really believe in them."
"What?" Quinn frowns. "No. No, it's something else."
"Okay." Brittany sits back, taking a long drink of her thermos.
They sit in silence for a while, before Quinn starts to talk:
"I grew up in Ohio." Quinn looks at her hands, studying her fingernails for a moment. "Just outside of a sleepy muggle town called Lima. I have an older sister." Quinn smiles, instinctively, at the memory of Julia.
"I have a little sister," Brittany says. "Her name is Hayden. She's nine."
Quinn imagines a smaller Brittany, and it makes her flush with the same kind of warmth she has when she thinks about Julia.
"Sisters are the greatest," Brittany adds, after seeing the smile on Quinn's face.
Quinn nods. "I think so, too. I miss Jules."
Brittany sighs. "I know what you mean."
"My father breeds arions – a type of magical racehorse." Quinn doesn't wait for Brittany to ask. "So I grew up around them, helping to take care of them. I used to feed the babies." Quinn grins, hugging her knees to her chest. "My favorite was named Talaus, and he was a special gift to me from my uncle. My uncle Rudolph – he's very nice." Quinn turns her head, resting it on her knees, to better see Brittany. It's getting dim in the cave, and she knows they'll have the light a fire soon. "He always brought me presents, for my birthday and Christmas, and sometimes just because. Talaus came from his own personal line, which very much irked my father."
Quinn still remembers her father's steely rage at the sight of the young colt on their ranch during his first few years. He never said anything directly – but Quinn could see that her father hated Talaus. Russell had a fierce competition with his brother to breed the fastest, most sound racehorse, and Rudolph beat him almost every generation. Talaus was the offspring of Rudolph's top stallion, and Rudolph had plans to breed him when he came of age.
"I learned how to ride – really ride – on Talaus. I knew how to ride a horse, but I didn't know how to ride a stallion before him. I didn't know what it felt like to really fly before Talaus taught me.
"It isn't like flying on a broom, or anything else," Quinn says, because some people still ride brooms as a means of transportation. "Arions are like wind and fire in the same body. They're alive. They become part of you when you ride them."
Brittany's eyes are large and focused as Quinn talks, and Quinn is somewhat flattered – but she remembers Talaus, and how it felt to cling to his back while letting him rush across the fields. She remembers the feeling of sunlight beating on her back, and the dusty smell of horse, sweat, and grass in her nose. Quinn remembers the thick pulse of Talaus beneath her palms on his neck, so quick, and Quinn could swear that it mimicked her own –
"He would have been the fastest racehorse to ever live." Quinn bites her lip, and the shadow of an old sadness creeps over her face. "He would have been great."
"What happened to him?" Brittany's voice is small, but it feels big in the silence.
"He died." Quinn shrugs. "My father said it was an accident, but –" she swallows. "I think it was deliberate. My father hated Talaus. He hated the idea of Talaus growing up to beat out the arions in his own line. But I loved him." Quinn shrugs. "I didn't really care if he won races."
Brittany bites her lip, and her expression is so sad that it makes Quinn's lungs ache.
"It's okay. It was a long time ago."
"Why did you tell me that?"
Quinn takes a deep breath, and spends a moment thinking. "I wanted to tell you something about me. That story is important to me – I loved Talaus. I love my father, too, even though he's a hard man sometimes. I love my uncle Rudolph. We all love each other, and are trying to do the best, but Talaus paid for it the most of all. We all three wanted different things for him – my uncle used him to make my father angry and jealous. My father wanted him destroyed. I just wanted him to run and fly and be himself."
Brittany nods slowly, carefully. Quinn can tell that she's thinking – blue shadows move across her eyes, darkening them – before she finally says, "Are you saying that you're like Talaus, too?"
"No," Quinn smiles, a little sadly. "I'm saying that you're like Talaus. You're here, Brittany, but you don't want to be here. You're here because other people made you come. You aren't happy." Quinn's smile fades. "I can tell that you feel like you're dying."
Brittany's eyes widen, briefly, before she looks away. Quinn remains silent, spending that time thinking about how much longer it would be. The conversation has turned heavy and sad, and Quinn hadn't wanted this, exactly.
"Everyone wants different things for me," Brittany agrees. "My parents – they barely understand this. Sam isn't technically muggleborn, he's a half-blood. His father was a wizard, but he died when Sam was a baby, and Sam grew up thinking he was a muggle. His younger siblings are muggles, his step-father is a muggle, his mother is a muggle – we didn't know anything different. But my aunt knew about the wizarding world, so when I got my letter – I'm four months older than Sam – she was.. I don't know, excited. She was happy to help me. She helped to tell my parents about it, and she helped me go and get my first wand, my robes, everything. When Sam got his letter, she wasn't as thrilled – she just looked at him with this reserved look, like, 'I always knew.'" Brittany shakes her head. "My mom tends to listen to her about everything. My dad, he's a preacher – he has a harder time with it."
Quinn's eyebrows shoot upwards. She's heard of muggle preachers. They sound a bit scary.
"Not like you think. He's trying. He's definitely trying." Brittany sighs. "You should have seen the relief on his face when my younger brother, Tommy, turned eleven, and no letter for him. He was practically ecstatic."
"I'm sorry, Britt," Quinn murmurs.
"It's okay. I'm over it." Brittany shrugs. "But my aunt Linda convinced my parents to send me here, because it's the same school Uncle Shep went to. That's the entire reason I'm here right now: because my old uncle, who died before I ever remember meeting him, came here a lifetime ago." Brittany pounds the meat of her hand against the stone floor in frustration. "I got pamphlets from schools in Arizona, New Mexico, even Florida. I would have gone to any of them. Kansas, even. Anywhere but here."
"Your parents didn't want you to attend public school?" Quinn is genuinely curious about this. She knows that there's a system in place where every magical child can attend school free of charge, but they are day schools – the kids go home after classes are over. The series of private schools across the country are much more selective, and most of all, they require a yearly tuition.
"No." Brittany rolls her eyes. "I would have been fine with that, too. But when Sammy got in – well, they decided we had to go together."
Quinn nods. She wonders how different her life would be if she were with Julia right now, instead of Brittany.
"I hate the cold and the darkness. Everything here is dead." Brittany's voice is miserable. "It doesn't feel like magic, here. It feels.. haunted."
Quinn lets out a breath, and then nods. "I know why you feel that way. I understand. But the thing is, Britt, is that there is magic here." Quinn smiles, briefly, before she shifts herself into a crouching position. "I'll show you."
Brittany gives her a shrewd look, but takes Quinn's hand anyway. Their skin is bare, fingers a little chilly, so the sensation is mixed; Quinn feels shock and a rush of excitement at the contact, but also a kind of disjointedness from the vague numbness in her knuckles. It causes her to squeeze Brittany's fingers tighter than she might have, just to reassure herself of the feeling.
They crawl out of the little cave, and Quinn is already grinning before they stand upright. Brittany takes a moment longer to adjust, but when she does –
Quinn turns her face, carefully, to look at Brittany's. Brittany's hair is falling in a rumpled cascade, past her chin and landing in wispy curls on her shoulders and back. Her eyes seem to practically glow in the semi-darkness, and finally – after a long, breathless moment – a smile breaks out over her features.
Quinn feels the air leave her body; the sight of Brittany smiling like that makes her breathless. She freezes, eyes open, in order to drink it in: the perfect split of Brittany's lips over her small, feline teeth; the way her cheeks swell on her face. Quinn wants to grab Brittany's face and bring it close to hers – for a wild moment she imagines crashing their lips together – but she snaps out of it when Brittany turns to look at her.
"The northern lights. I've heard about these." Brittany's tone is one of amazement. "I didn't think to look for them, though."
Quinn smiles, inhaling, and almost topples from the feeling of air returning to her lungs. She tilts her head back, to see the sky – it's a brilliant, luminous green, with bands of yellow and pink and blues streaking through it. It's close enough that Quinn feels like she could reach up and just touch it – and it's bright enough to cast shadows against the snow.
"This isn't magic, though," Brittany says, but her smile is still in place. "It's science."
"It's beautiful," Quinn still struggles with the effort to breathe. "Like you. " she pauses, feeling her cheeks burn, before she shakes her head, breaking eye contact with Brittany. "Like the school, too. Even Alaska – even it's beautiful, if you let it be. You don't have to die here, Brittany. Not if you don't want to." Quinn lifts her chin, looking upwards again. "Think of all the things you would miss out on, if you let yourself fade away by degrees."
Brittany takes a long moment to respond, and it makes Quinn's heart kick painfully, sending blood roaring through her body. She doesn't miss her hat or scarf, mostly because her own embarrassment keeps her plenty warm – but she is acutely aware of her hand, still wrapped around Brittany's, and how the brittle air has made it almost numb.
"Okay," Brittany says, and she's smiling (an easy, casual smile – one Quinn has never seen before) when Quinn meets her eyes. "I'll do it. I'll marry you. You don't have to keep asking."
"Wh-what?!" Quinn chokes.
Brittany laughs, and it's the most wonderful sound Quinn has ever heard.
"I'm joking."
Quinn feels dizzy.
"I'm not joking about this, though," Brittany surprises Quinn by using two of her fingers on Quinn's chin, turning her head. Quinn has a moment to suck in a surprised breath before Brittany's lips are on hers.
Brittany is suddenly closer than she's ever been, and even with the wind blowing, Quinn can feel the heat coming off of her – she wonders if Brittany is just always warm, like the sun. Her smell reminds Quinn of wildflowers and sweet summer fruits, like peaches and watermelons. The scent of winter is on her, too, in her hair and skin – just like it's on Quinn; in the sky and the earth. Brittany's thick coat scrapes against Quinn's, making an abrasive sound between them, but Quinn thinks that she'll never grow tired of hearing it, because it means that this is actually happening, and Brittany has her arms wrapped around Quinn's waist, holding onto her.
Brittany's lips are soft and gentle, but her breath is hot and it makes Quinn's face heat up, too. At first it had felt like the dream of a kiss – because her lips were partly numb and frozen – but now that long heartbeats have passed, she feels the pillowy texture of them, just there. She can feel the pulse of Brittany's life underneath, and it reminds her of something vital – something like fire and flight and passion. Brittany's lips are smiling when she pushes her tongue out, and then into Quinn's mouth, bringing up one hand to cup Quinn behind her jaw. Quinn startles at the sudden chill beneath her hair, but in a moment she forgets – she forgets, because Brittany's tongue hot and thick, and her lips press firmly into Quinn's, and Quinn feels her body flare with a heat she didn't even know she was capable of. Quinn grips Brittany hard around the hips, her fingers digging into the fabric of Brittany's robes, while Brittany kisses her quietly and thoroughly.
When Brittany finally peels away, there's a gleam in her eye – it's playful and pleased, but something else, too. Something that causes a long, liquid tug in Quinn's body – she swears that something primeval in her is answering to an inaudible call from Brittany. It makes parts of her throb, and she isn't sure what it means.
"You taste like Starbucks mocha frappe," Brittany muses.
"What?" Quinn frowns. "It's probably just the hot chocolate, Brittany."
"Oh." Brittany tilts her head. "That's disappointing. I miss Starbucks." She grins. "I think that means I'll have to start kissing you at all times of the day, until I figure out what taste is actually you."
Quinn smiles, a little bashful, and suddenly aware of how close they are – still. "Well, if you must, you must."
Brittany laughs, and Quinn's heart swells.
"Thank you for bringing me here, and showing me this," Brittany says, giving Quinn a little squeeze. "I think it made a difference. I think it changed me."
Quinn smiles, looking between each of Brittany's eyes – sapphire prisms, like gemstones colored the same shade as the heart of the sea, cut through with veins the color of stardust and sunlight.
"I think it changed me, too."