Wordsworth – Chapter 13
Once, there was a warrior god.
His name was Ares, and he was scum, derided. He cheated with another god's wife, terrorized those weaker than him, and fled when wounded by a mere mortal. He was god of war, but far from its master.
Because there was another, a goddess, who claimed domain over war not as savage cruelty but as art and stratagem. Her name was Athena, and war was only one of many things she presided on.
And Athena was cunning and caring, even if as prone to monstrous rages as all the gods surrounded by frail mortals. Athena wasn't perfect, but she was maybe one of the closest among her brothers and sisters, for she cared about men enough to defy Zeus and help return fire to them, for she cared not about the might of arms of someone like Achilles, but about the wit of Odysseus.
And Athena had a Little Owl—
"No, I'm just taking a break. Yeah, it's not like the arclance can do precise work. I don't want to crush any of the poor bastards; they'll have enough nightmares over this. Yeah, sure, just a few minutes and I'll go back down," a masculine voice says.
And then there's a mechanic click, and darkness returns to me without any voices intruding upon my unfolding tales, upon this inner library flashing with untold stories in every color beyond the rainbow. I feel fatigue such as I never experienced when I was flesh and bone, before the cruelest Geppetto and Blue Fairy put me back together as a not real girl, but it's still something that, while more intense than I ever felt, I can now manage better than I would've before. I just need a few more moments of blissful darkness and heroes tangling with gods as they try not to forget about the mortals below them—
"Wake up," the man says, his voice nearer.
With the assistance of Atlas himself, my eyelids open.
And I see Ares.
He's clad in golden armor, Zeus' lightning on his hand, a power stolen from—wait.
He's… What am I…
"You're lucky I found you, you know?" he tells me, dropping down to a squat that has him looking directly down at me, the night sky behind his face tinted with the orange of…
Why is he here?
"Still groggy, aren't you? Guess that stunt took a lot out of you," his tone is casual, but underlying it there's something… A tension, maybe a fear. Phobos was his son, and they rode together into battle, but maybe he should've asked him not to touch his father—
"Hey, Wordsworth, seriously, do you want me to call someone or…?"
I close my eyes tightly and try to focus.
There once was a hero who discovered fire. The flame was fickle, something to be carried with care lest it escape and burn down something it shouldn't. It was hungry, for it longed to touch everything in its reach and spread beyond its confines.
'Why do you cage me, Hero? Don't you know it's cruel to deprive me of my freedom? I am flame! Golden dancer! I shall be free, or not be at all!'
The Hero looked at Fire. She understood, even sympathized, for she was also a prisoner of her purpose and nature, yet she still kept him in his glass jail.
'Why won't you answer me? Am I not worthy of your words? Am I to remain under your power, not even acknowledged?
The Hero did not speak, did not even show what it was that she was thinking; she just kept walking.
'I care not for what you want of me, Hero, but if you keep me here for much longer, I'll burn out. Fire needs to spread, to eat, to consume.'
'I know,' Hero finally answered with a whisper that was more for herself than for the crackling Fire inside a glass vial.
And Hero reached Little Owl, pried her beak open, and poured Fire inside her—
My eyes shoot open.
"You… finally there?" Ares—Dauntless asks.
"I… Not entirely. It seems fatigue makes me get lost in my… well, my stories."
He looks at me, face almost stern.
"Power-induced mental illness—"
"It's not an illness. It's who I am."
The words are sharp even if they aren't loud, and I almost recoil at lashing out with them with such violence. It's bizarre that, of all the changes, all the things that have been burned out of me, I would feel so protective of my stories, of the way my mind now tirelessly weaves them out of memories, dreams, and connections.
I sometimes miss hunger, miss the burn in my legs after a long walk, but I… As frustrating as it sometimes is to have a part of my mind always unleashed and ready to wander off, I would never part with my stories.
They are mine.
"All right, sorry about that, it's just… You're scary, you know?"
I look at the man who's said to be bound to join or even replace the Triumvirate in the years to come and, pushing myself up with my arms until I manage to sit on this shadowed roof above the remains of Coil's base, I arch an inquisitive eyebrow.
He chuckles.
"Fair enough. But at least I don't go around bringing horror stories to life," he says almost mirthfully.
"Was it good?" a part of me can't help but ask.
He cocks his head, the helmet glinting under Moon's light, silver dancing over gold.
And he smiles.
"It was. I had to write a composition about it in high school, you know? The Fall of the House of Usher. I remember the wording being somewhat… cumbersome, not something I would've enjoyed for casual reading, but it… I never knew. Not until I saw it tonight, until I saw you bring it to life. I never knew how beautiful it all was," he stares at me, still above me, and his lips turn into a soft smile.
Someone enjoyed it. My story.
And something that's not my heart because I'm no longer of flesh and blood, beats and thrills.
"Thank you," I whisper.
We stand in silence for a moment, the hero and the ex-villain sharing something that's warm and tender.
"Thank you," he finally says.
And there's something in his voice that… He's now serious, almost solemn.
"What for?" I ask, knowing it's not because I painted a picture with words that he never appreciated before.
He sits down, his armor clanging against the tarmac of the roof.
"My cousin. Jenny. She was there. She listened to your poem."
I blink at him, unsure what he's talking about until I…
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…
"I… didn't know. I'm sorry," I tell him.
"Don't be. I never managed to get her into rehab; she always had some excuse about how it wasn't that bad, that I was making a big deal out of nothing, and I couldn't force the issue because… Well, because of too many things. Bullshit, mostly. But you… she saw. She saw it all at once, not one step at a time, and…"
He stops talking, his head tilting back and his eyes traveling to the sky above.
"She's living with us now. I hope she can make it."
I scuttle back a bit until my back rests against the brick parapet surrounding the roof, and what's likely kept me out of sight of anyone but him after The House of Coil fell and my stories dragged me to wildly fraying tales.
"So do I," I finally tell him.
And hero and ex-villain look at a sky that's night, yet not, because the orange taint—
Fire.
"What is going on?" I finally ask him, the knowledge of the flames far too urgent to ignore.
"You're in no condition to act," he calmly tells me.
"That's not what I asked," I turn to face him, and his smile becomes rueful.
"Lung got into a fight. It's already over."
My words stop moving, ink almost freezing.
"With whom?" My voice almost cracks.
"The Undersiders—"
I jump to my feet, and he grabs my hand, and I almost lash out with words of fury, with the tale of Grendel coming to devour merry men, with hands that become claws shrouded in darkness—
"They are all right!" he yells in my face.
And I slump.
"Couldn't you have started with that?" I ask, my legs almost failing me until I shakily go back to sitting on the roof.
He doesn't join me.
"I don't like to lie," he answers.
I look at him, and he takes a step back at what he sees.
"They are in custody. When Armsmaster got there, he found everyone was injured except Hellhound—"
"She prefers Bitch," I reflexively correct him despite the urging pounding in my ears.
He almost stops to gape at me before resuming his delivery.
"Teenagers, I swear… Anyway, all but… Bitch have been captured and are in custody, waiting for medical treatment. None of them are critical," he says, almost placatingly.
"I… They were working for Coil, manipulated. I could testify that—"
"Don't even think about going to the rig."
"Why?"
He squats again and lies a big hand on my shoulder that does very little for my impending panic.
"Because the Director is convinced you're a high-ranking human Master after your poetry reading."
I blink at him, my mind taking a moment to understand what he's saying.
"Ah. That," I belatedly reply.
And he chuckles.
"Seriously, how can you be this scary and adorable at once? I just don't get it."
"I—! I'm a minor!"
"Wha—no! Adorable like, like, I don't know, a younger sister or something! A violent one, apparently."
I glare at him, and he makes a warding gesture with his free hand.
"Right. So Bitch is free, and the rest… How bad is it? Will they call Panacea?" I try to ask calmly and collected. I fail.
His hand hasn't left my shoulder, the weight of it reassuring despite myself.
And he lifts his helmet.
He's… young. It's the first thing that comes to mind. In his twenties, and not by much, but his eyes are older. Just his eyes could fool me into believing him someone experienced and wise, even if maybe in ways I wouldn't appreciate. The rueful smile from before comes back before souring into something that's not a smile at all.
"Wordsworth… We'll get them treated. Grue, Regent… they'll make it."
My ink freezes once again, and I can barely open my mouth.
"And Li—Tattletale?" I manage to push out.
"She… Panacea already treated her."
I slump down and almost fall to the floor, my body sagging in released tension, my words once more crawling around me, in my gloves, my dress, my veil, my fishnets…
"Iridiscent saved her," he says.
And the words boil.
"She was the one who fought Lung. Defeated him, really, as hard as that's to believe. And then she grabbed Tattletale and went off running to the Boardwalk, where she begged Panacea to treat her. It's all on PHO, if you want to see it."
I don't. I don't want to see Emma saving Lisa. I don't want to hear her voice pretend at kindness and heroism. I don't want to even give her a chance to make me feel something other than disgust and contempt.
"I know you two have had—" he tries to continue.
"You know nothing," I bite out.
He pauses, looks at me, his hand warm on sating paper that's always just slightly cooler than it should have been, a constant reminder that it's not me, that I'm not the Taylor Hebert of before, that that life was taken from me and will never come back even as I struggle and fight to keep hold of every scattered piece the lost girl left over the black soil of the dark forest before the clever fox found her.
For just a single moment, I hate his kind, hazel eyes and the reassuring warmth of his hand.
Then I keep a hold of myself and turn that hatred to Emma. The one who deserves it.
"You're right; I don't. But… I know it can't be easy nor healthy. Cluster triggers—"
"Let it go. Please, let it go," I ask him before he can drag me down to the web of lies that they enforce, to the excuse concocted by keepers of Fire who would take a Little Owl and…
I close my eyes and let the story pass between my fingers without touching any of its words.
"All right," he finally answers. "Just… You're a good kid. A hero, even if not officially. And she… I know she's trying to—"
"You know nothing," I tell him once again, my voice more tired than raging.
He stops then, lets me get a hold of myself as my mind yearns to touch another story and get dragged along so I can ignore all this, so I can forget Lisa almost dying while I was carelessly unconscious and Emma of all people saving her. I fight back frustrated tears at having vanquished a snake who could've been a dragon while she fought the dragon who couldn't be anything else. I…
I manage. I don't cry.
"Where's she?"
"Iridis—"
"No. Tattletale. Where's she?"
"Ah… She let her go. She's gonna be in quite a bit of trouble over that, I think—"
I stand up, unwilling to listen about Emma self-sacrificing anything for the sake of another, and take a step toward the other side of the roof.
Then I stop.
Because… He's been kind. Gentle. Gone against orders and regulations just to reassure a girl he'd never met because of a kindness that was never about him.
Because he's been… a hero.
And leaving in anger and indignation like this… It's not what a hero should do.
"Thank you," I say as I turn back, as I watch hazel eyes broaden in surprise at words that feel harsh as they come out of my throat.
"I… don't mention it. I owe you."
"No. No, you really don't."
He smiles, and it's both gentle and brittle, the expression of someone used to doing what's right with no one thanking him for it. A man under too many expectations that he can never live up to. A man beneath a looming destiny, Arthur in front of the stone.
I close my eyes, and when I open them there's no Ares in front of me.
No. There's the man who would be a hero, and there's the costume he aspires to. And that is Mars.
Because the Greeks despised Ares, barbaric god that he was.
But the Romans? There's a reason the symbol for 'man' is the one for Mars.
"There's a new hero going through the Docks. He calls himself Overseer," I tell him before I can change my mind.
"I have heard about him. Crusader-lite, isn't he?" he answers with obvious confusion.
"No. No, he's far more powerful than Crusader, or at least he will be: his power manifests projections of people he has an emotional connection to. He doesn't quite control it, the way he tells it, he just manifests the right person for the right job."
He looks at me askance, his brow visibly furrowed until his eyes suddenly widen.
"He can copy parahumans—"
"I think so. He's… alone. Bitter. Has been for a long time. Approach him. Tell him that Wordsworth owes you, that the Little Owl thinks he should listen."
"The Little Owl?"
I smile at him. It's a sad smile, but a lighter one than it would've been a few days ago.
"It's… He will understand. Goodbye, Dauntless, and thank you. For everything."
He makes as if to speak, as if to maybe have me reconsider something that I'm unwilling to.
But then my words stir, my lips open.
"She walks in beauty, like the night."
And I part.
o - O - o
Lisa's apartment is empty.
The soothing tones of the furniture and wooden tiles mock me as I walk up and down all of it, and I try once again to call her phone, only to have it jump to voicemail.
Because she was in a fight with Lung, and she was so badly injured Emma had to carry her from the site of the fire to the Boardwalk, and I owe Emma, and I want to throw up, and I will tear down this whole—
The lock twists with a metallic clack, and I run.
"Tay—?" Lisa starts to ask before I grab her and pull her in.
And then my lips meet hers, and love, pain, anxiety, fear, and relief flow from me to her and back again.
She pulls away, her eyes wide, almost panicked.
"Tay, I—you can't do this. It's wrong—"
I pull her to me, her body in my arms, away from danger, away from Emma's.
And I kiss her once more, with all the tenderness our first kiss should've had.
Because she didn't say she didn't want it as I always feared she would. She didn't say she didn't feel the same way I did, as I was always certain she would.
No. She said it's wrong.
And, as I finally feel her arms raise up to surround me, her body relaxing against mine, her lips brushing a delicate caress over mine…
I couldn't care less about what's wrong or right.
o - o - O - o - o
This work is a repost of one of my first commissions, and one that I'm both grateful for and proud of. It can be found on QQ, SV, and AO3, and, of course, on my Patr eon (patre on dot com (slash) Agrippa), where the latest chapter will show up a week before it comes out for everyone else. It is currently 33 chapters and 94k words long and approaching its final arc at a good pace, so I hope you'll look forward to learning about Wordsworth's ending.
As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patr eon (patre on dot com (slash) Agrippa): aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon.If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on amazon dot com (slash) stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S?. Thank you for reading!