For Chapter 62, I created an accompanying painting featuring Nomble, one of the Dora Milaje. Please check out this chapter on Archive of Our Own to see the art!
Simply search for: "KLeCrone Ao3 Winter of the White Wolf"
Winter of the White Wolf
Chapter 62 - Phase Synchronization
Barnes wasn't sure where his mind had been a moment earlier, only that a short choking noise had torn through the nighttime ambiance, jolting him awake.
His head and torso jerked upright, and he blinked rapidly as he sought to get his bearings. He'd anticipated darkness, but his dilated eyes were met with an unexpected wash of warm light that was just bright enough to force him to reflexively squint in response to his demands for his senses to acclimate with the urgency he felt in his gut.
While he struggled to deduce the direction and relative distance the sharp, alarming sound had come from, a shudder of motion short distance over his right shoulder caught his attention, and his head snapped to where Ayo was sitting up atop her bedroll.
Barnes couldn't make out the details in his first fraction of a second of consciousness, but he saw enough. Ayo's shoulders were rigid, locked in place while punctuated waves of haggard, quick breaths raked her body. Even from this distance, he could hear every one of them, in and out, like she was choking for air. Gasping.
Drowning.
She shuddered, dipping her head towards her lap as she plucked her earplugs free with the urgency of someone who needed them out now, who desperately sought to reconnect with their muddled senses with almost frantic urgency.
He instantly recognized what it was like to be caught in that moment of all-consuming panic, but he was so used to feeling it firsthand, that the sight of it on anyone else, especially Ayo, was profoundly unsettling, "Ayo?"
Had he spoken her name aloud before?
Her head instantly pivoted to him. For a moment, he caught the surprise in her expression, the raw emotion that surfaced unbidden. In the flicker of sunrise firelight, he struggled to parse what she saw – who she saw – when she looked at him.
The cascade was so quick, it was like trying to pick out individual drops from a waterfall:
Confusion.
Relief.
Confusion again.
Disappointment.
Relief.
She clutched one hand tight around her augmented earplugs while the other slid to cup the back of her stubbled bald head self-consciously. Her wide eyes tracked further left to where the overnight guard was stationed.
Yama remained poised atop a nearby log where Barnes had last seen her, but her alert brown eyes pivoted between the two seated figures, as if she sought understanding on what had just transpired. Her expression was devoid of her usual jovial manner, and instead held confusion and pointed concern, the bulk of which she was directing squarely at not him, but Ayo.
That was new.
"I'm fine," Ayo insisted when she met his gaze. But something in her tone implied that wasn't the whole story. Barnes got the impression she wasn't explicitly lying, but she hadn't supplied the unabridged truth.
Not yet at least.
He supposed that as far as sleep habits were concerned, he couldn't entirely blame her.
Ayo's eyes fell away from him as she added for Yama's benefit, "It was just a dream." She slipped her earplugs into a pocket along her hip while her free hand sought out the Kimoyo Bead strand encircling her wrist.
Yama was one step ahead of her, "You were asleep for a little over five hours." By the way Yama's lips stewed, Barnes felt certain she was deliberating on if she wished to challenge Ayo's claim of her unremarkable dream or not. Yama settled on, "Your sleep grew restless before you woke."
When Ayo chose to say nothing in response, Yama jutted her chin towards the warming skyline, "But perhaps it is fortuitous, for you both could choose to stay for the sunrise. If it suits you."
Barnes took the opportunity to glance down at his own beads and pull up one of many enhanced diagnostic menus Shuri's added. Apparently, he'd been under for forty-two minutes into his eighth sleep session. While he briefly weighed the best course of action and evaluated the merit of going back to sleep so that he could achieve nine complete sleep cycles as Shuri'd suggested, he didn't miss the quiet concern on Yama's face. The expression had a way of seeking out his support for what he interpreted as a communal desire to diagnose the root cause of Ayo's distress.
In the last two days, Yama and the others had skillfully leveraged certain tones of voice, inflections, and reassuring behaviors in order to politely coax him to be more willing to hear them out, and it was strange, if not oddly flattering to find that now his support was being sought for someone else's benefit.
He toggled off the next haptic timer. Another round of rest could wait. This was more important.
A short distance beyond the orange shield, Shuri, Sam, and Nomble were fast asleep. Shuri was curled up in a sea of colorful blankets atop what Sam had declared a "bougie cot fit for a princess," while the man himself was laid out face-up across a bedroll on the far side of the central campfire. He fidgeted his restless hands now and again in his sleep, and each and every time he did, it made Barnes wonder if it was just an unconscious reaction to the warm wind playing at the remaining hairs on the back of his hands, or if the movement was credited to what Barnes'd done to them two days before. The tremor of memory had a way of resonating with more deep-rooted guilt than Barnes had any idea of what to do with.
There was just… so much. So much he knew. And now he was beginning to realize: There was so much more he didn't.
He'd hurt people. Killed people. Been pointed like a living weapon by HYDRA, but this… this was different.
He had no one to blame but himself that after all of that, he'd hurt people, badly even, without realizing these ones were actually trying to help him.
What if he did it again?
Barnes frowned as his attention shifted to where Nomble, his previous overnight guard, had chosen to rest for the night. She'd opted to take what amounted to a split schedule, but had raised no complaints about the arrangement so that others could sleep uninterrupted. He was still struggling to sort out where he fit into all of this, how they knew one another, or at least thought they did, but Nomble had a certain type of patience about her that Barnes found he appreciated. It was obvious she sought out connection with him, but it was at his own pace. It lacked the urgency he sometimes felt when speaking to Sam or Shuri.
Once Nomble had resigned her guard for the second half of her slumber, Barnes didn't miss that she'd moved her bedroll to be closer to the orange tinted dome that surrounded him, at the furthest edge of the dampening field Shuri'd thought to use to augment the communal sleeping area. The idea was that the field was supposed to work in conjunction with the noise-canceling earplugs she'd brought along so that those that were awake could speak quietly without disturbing the others while they rested.
Barnes had given those advanced earplugs of hers a try, but well-intentioned as they were, and regardless of the numerous settings she insisted he should try, he found the way they nullified sound to be disorienting to the point of being numbing. The sensation reminded him too much of the many times when he'd been subjected to isolation, or when scientists had tapped into parts of his brain by force, hoping to better understand his senses, and why certain ones had been 'heightened.' He hadn't understood what they meant at the time, but now… now he wondered about the time before. What had it been like? What had he been like? Was the sound of complete silence always so distressing?
By and large, he found he preferred being casually aware of his surroundings, and quiet voices out here on the mountaintop right along with them. They'd grown to be oddly comfortable background noise, like the regular drone and interplay of moving bodies and vehicles in Washington D.C. A cacophony of disparate noises that had a way of seamlessly blending together into an ambivalent whole. After so many hour-long sleep sessions, he was surprised something so innocuous as someone making a sound in their sleep had been enough to swiftly wake him. Especially considering he'd been able to remain undisturbed through Yama's nighttime serenade of remarkably poignant snoring.
Now that he reflected back on the timing, had that been what had prompted Shuri and her offer of earplugs to begin with?
That matter aside, he was certain the alarming sound must have come from Ayo. But what did it mean?
Ayo's focus returned to her lap, as if she was self-conscious of the fact she'd earned the unilateral attention of the two figures awake nearby. Barnes searched her for cracks, for explanation. It was clear her respiration was elevated, though he couldn't make out her pulse on account of the rings encircling her neck. A mist of sweat collected in splotches across her dark skin, at odds with the chill of the overnight temperatures. Her choice to stay seated and isolated where she was spoke to a particular sort of personal distress, though. Distress he intrinsically recognized experiencing himself, but even now, he couldn't recall ever seeing cast across her expression. The sight of it had a way of unsettling him at the same time humanizing her in a new and unexpected way. It was both reassuring and distressing to know that someone as strong and collected as her could experience moments of restlessness as he did.
While she rubbed her fingers to the bridge of her nose and ran them over her eyebrows before settling them against her temples, Barnes pulled the blankets off his legs and rose his feet, softly padding to the edge of the shield. Once he got near to the undulating orange barrier separating him from the others in the camp, he folded his legs beneath him and took a seat facing Ayo, mirroring what she'd done the night before, when nightmares had roused him.
Ayo didn't say anything at first, but Barnes was certain she caught his change in position and hopefully grasped the silent message of support he sought to convey.
Barnes wasn't entirely sure what the correct protocol was in a situation like this, so he leaned into the question Ayo had once asked him upon waking the night before. She was doing an admirable job keeping her attention focused on her lap, but Barnes knew she could see his movement out of her peripheral vision if she only chose to acknowledge it. Slowly, he extended his index finger and pointed at her torso before collapsing his hand into a fist with his thumb pointing upwards. With intention of purpose, he circled his hand in silent inquiry, "Are you okay?"
The sight of that visibly stalled her, and she turned her head towards him. Her searching expression was layered, and so surprisingly complicated Barnes found it difficult to pinpoint the difference between the raw, personal parts, and the bits that were meant for him.
But the faint smile of familiarity, he was rather certain that was for him.
She used her hands to sign back, "I will be, thank you." He felt as if his question had a way of coaxing more truth to the surface than she might have planned to volunteer, "It was a dream from many years ago." She found her voice, and continued in crisp Wakandan, the language she preferred for more nuanced topics, "A memory. Not a nightmare itself but…" her lips pressed together, "from a complicated time." As if silently submitting to his offer of an audience, Ayo rose to her feet and stretched the stiffer of her legs before she crossed the distance between them, taking a seat in front of Barnes while Yama turned so she could more easily watch them from her perch just outside the edge of the shield.
Barnes got the impression her choice to remain silent was calculated specifically to encourage Ayo to speak.
Ayo glanced briefly to Yama as she settled, but her attention returned to Barnes as she raised her chin, inquiring, "You said you have a memory of the time surrounding when I first spoke the code words to you? In 2016?"
His nightmare from the day before. What a strange change of subject. Was that what this was about? "Yes."
"Is it clear?"
He considered the question, trying to focus on what he'd seen in the dream from the night before, and the parts that had opened up in his mind after waking, "Reasonably so. At least what came directly before and after. While it's happening, when my brain is in that… obedient state… it's… more muddled. But it's there, just not as focused as things outside of it." He wasn't sure what thread she was pulling at, but he didn't find himself disinclined to see where the thread led or how it related to her own dream.
"How long before that event do you recall? Before I first spoke the words?"
While they conversed in hushed tones, Yama glanced between them, set on trying to track the conversation in real-time just like Barnes was.
It was strangely comforting that even she appeared to be just as confused and intrigued at what Ayo was getting at.
He did his best to focus on what he'd seen in the dream and traced his way backwards as far as he could, or at least what felt like backwards. It was increasingly hard to tell these days.
His mind had a way of latching onto the few handholds he had in the experience itself, starting from a point of decided wonderment that he knew his handler's name.
Ayo.
"Remain still. You are safe and among friends. Shuri only needs to run some tests. They will not cause you pain or distress. Then together we will find a way to undo this. To set your mind right again."
Moments before that, she'd called him 'James.'
Before she'd called him 'Солдат,' she'd called him 'James.'
That distinction was oddly important.
His mind tracked the event back, keying into whispered, poisoned words he felt certain he wasn't meant to remember, but now did. Words that stuck because the press of them had been peeled away and lifted from him.
He wasn't sure when or how, but he believed their claim to be true.
"Товарный вагон." Freightcar.
"Один." One.
"Возвращение на родину." Homecoming.
"Добросердечный." Benign.
"Девять." Nine.
He remembered Ayo squeezing his hand once. How solid it felt. Grounding. And though he sat strapped into a chair with more than a dozen eyes on him, how he knew that with a single word, he could have asked her to stop.
…and she would have listened.
That meant something.
But he hadn't fought the words or their use, even though he was aware of what they did. The effect they had on him. He was afraid, terrified, even, but he trusted in what they were doing.
"Печь." Furnace.
"Рассвет." Daybreak.
His mind churned as it played the events backward, tracking the faces of those around him and their movements in reverse, set to the melodic chime of medical equipment and Ayo's dulcet words that he now realized were laced with both strength and apology.
"Семнадцать." Seventeen.
"Ржавый." Rusted.
"Желание." Longing.
He remembered the conversation with Ayo, with Shuri, with T'Challa and Okoye. Each of them, concerned for his well-being, for his comfort, for his willingness to continue. If he needed more time, they would offer it to him.
He believed them.
But before he'd stepped into the chair… he'd spoken with Shuri, going over the details with her while the others listened. And before that? He'd entered the Design Center with Ayo alone.
He could remember thinking he hoped it wouldn't be a one-way trip.
"I don't remember much further back from there," he admitted, lifting his head to address Ayo, "Maybe an hour or two? We were walking outside. You said I had a lot of 'nervous energy' and might be better served by meditation, but I didn't want to sit still. I needed to keep moving." He snorted lightly as his mind briefly offered up a detail he felt went along with the same memory, "So you suggested a jog instead to clear my head. I think it helped?" He refocused on her, "Why?"
Ayo's expression softened into a faint smile. When she shook her head, Barnes could see a hint of disappointment trickle back into her features, as if she'd hoped he might have more to offer her, "That was a strenuous day to be sure, but it was not the fabric of my recent dream. It was from a time before." She looked over her right shoulder, towards the ledge a short distance away and its warming skyline, "Down the mountain a little ways from here." Her brown eyes returned to his, "Do you recall being here, or nearby in these mountains?"
It wasn't the first time she or one of the others had asked him a question to that effect, but upon revisiting the inquiry, he had a growing feeling he'd spent time here beyond these last two days. He wasn't sure when, or with who, but there was a presence he felt deep in his gut. "Not any details, no," he admitted, "but now and then there's… a familiarity, almost. Not memories. It's faint. Closer to deja vu, maybe?" His words came out as an apology, and he hoped she knew he would have told her if he remembered something.
A quiet empathetic smile returned to Ayo's face, "It is alright. It would have been many years ago, and the area has changed greatly in the years since, especially during the press of the Decimation."
"But your friend was here before."
"Before the Decimation, yes."
"Not after?"
Her smile faltered, growing more distant, "Not after."
While Barnes did his best to follow, wishing for not the first time there was more in the well of his experiences for him to draw upon, Yama's expression suddenly shifted, as if Ayo's sparse inquiries now offered a possible explanation for Ayo's restless wakening, "Was your dream set in the week before you first spoke the code words?" Yama inquired.
Ayo shrugged offhandedly, "It was not all a bad memory," she confessed. Her sunrise tinged expression was melancholy, but not in a way that made Barnes believe she simply wished him to be someone else. She'd clearly hoped he might've held some portion of her memory, that connection too.
Unfortunately, as was growing increasingly common, he didn't.
Yama took the pause in the conversation as a cue to hop down from her perch to sit cross legged with them on the grass, offering a salve with her words, "We didn't set up camp overnight in those days." She emphasized her words with a casual flourish of her hand, "We hiked all the way in and out from the Design Center by foot."
He glanced over his left shoulder, gauging the distance between the spire set against the warming horizon and their present location with some amount of polite disbelief, "From there? Why? Why not just… fly in?"
Yama snorted, "As I recall, it was meant to be a bonding activity," but her bemused smile rapidly fell away when she glanced back to Ayo, sensing there was something under the surface of her choice not to join in the polite conversation, "...my Chief?"
Ayo's eyes flickered back to Yama's at the use of one of what Barnes took to be a proper title, but Ayo responded only by raising a hand and fluttering it about, as if dismissing the root of Yama's concern.
Lucky for them, he wasn't subject to their presumed hierarchy.
Barnes could tell Ayo's thoughts remained elsewhere, so he strengthened Yama's inquiry by adding, "...What is it?"
Yama looked between them, evidently proud he'd taken the cue to join her attempt in pressing Ayo for clarity on what was evidently still gnawing at her.
She didn't look thrilled at their united front, and she may have even sent Yama a brief glare of reproach, but… she didn't shut them out. "As I said, it was only a memory. It's fading now. It was nothing more or less distressing than when it happened, but…" She trailed off, and her attention suddenly shifted to his right hand before she found her voice again, "...You – our friend –" she quickly corrected, "once told me that he believed himself to have a type of 'eidetic memory,' but that it went far beyond simple photographic memory."
He was listening.
As was Yama.
Ayo sucked in a short breath before she continued on her tangent, "We'd spoken at-length of how the nuances of his collected experiences were cataloged in ways that went beyond simply memories of the visuals themselves. The sounds. Smells. Changes in temperature and positioning. Is your…" she stumbled over her words, "Do you find you recall events in a similar way? That they are more than just images?"
He took a breath, adjusting to the sudden pivot of topic. He wasn't sure what in her dream might've prompted the inquiry, but he found himself curious what she was getting at, because she wasn't entirely wrong, though it wasn't the sort of thing he'd remembered ever telling her.
Or anyone else for that matter.
…Had HYDRA ever asked?
Or maybe he'd been forced to forget that too.
"...Why?"
That got a decided reaction out of her. She held her breath and locked her eyes onto him, abruptly pulling herself to her feet. There was an urgency to her expression, as if she'd just grasped something of importance. He could only follow along as she clasped the cylinder of her collapsed spear in her hand and spoke, as if seeing fit to narrate her actions for his benefit, "I'm going to draw my spear, but I will not harm you with it. I will not use it as a weapon against you."
Why would she have even felt the need to say that? He stood up, confused, "...Okay?"
Ayo quickly nodded and extended it to its full length before pressing her fingers against the center of the shaft, retracting the bladed spear at the top of it so that it formed a staff. The simplified shape of it wasn't remarkable, and by this point, he was accustomed to at least one of the Dora Milaje guarding him to be armed with a spear, so it was hardly cause for alarm.
Why then had the rate of her breathing increased?
So far as he could tell, the protocol was that the spears and the cylinders that housed them were to remain safely outside the protective dome so, conceivably, he wouldn't have access to them. Likewise, though it hadn't been explicitly stated, it was clear whoever was tasked with guarding him had one available in case of… well… in case it was needed.
Against him, specifically.
That being as it was, he wasn't following why Ayo was making such a production about her spear or what possible purpose it could serve, but Ayo's attention was so rigid and focused, it didn't feel like it was the proper time to ask questions.
He could sense growing urgency in the air as she critically regarded the weapon braced firmly in her right hand before lifting her eyes to Yama. Something passed between them, and Yama cocked her head and got to her feet. He did his best to parse her expression, which was customarily the most open and closest to the surface, but there wasn't much to latch onto aside from tentative curiosity he shared in spades.
But Ayo's attention slowly shifted to the translucent orange barrier that separated them. It was as if for a moment, she'd forgotten it was there at all, and moreover: That she hadn't yet breached it, nor broached the subject of it.
As far as Barnes was aware, Shuri hadn't shown interest in crossing the barrier due to what he interpreted as some amount of protocol concerning her status amid their hierarchy, but he got the impression that Ayo's own reasons were… different. Perhaps it was because she was a senior officer, or because he'd injured her and threatened her life multiple times in the last two days? Maybe it was because she was once his handler, or maybe it was something else entirely, but he could tell she was struggling with how to proceed with her next request.
So he saved her the trouble.
Before she could even open her mouth to speak, he took a step back, making space in the dome for her to enter. If that's what she wanted, "...You can cross it if you want. I won't hurt you."
It was a promise.
At his declaration, Ayo's lips shifted and he could see a fraction of residual tension leave her shoulders. Not all of it, but some. She nodded quickly, acknowledging his offer while from just beside her, Barnes didn't miss that Yama's own expression warmed, evidently pleased at the unfolding events, and Ayo's new willingness to trust that he didn't intend her harm.
Barnes didn't get the impression that his recent conversation with Ayo had been a misdirect, or that even five minutes ago, she had any preemptive intention of stepping boldly across the barrier, but the unspoken urgency about her was palpable, as if she was many places at once in her thoughts. One of them, he was rather certain, was the pointed awareness that up until this point, no weapons had explicitly passed through the barrier. While a part of Barnes briefly wondered if Ayo kept her staff gripped tightly in her hand because of residual fear for what he'd done to her, or a latent desire for personal protection, he got the impression that wasn't the root cause. There was something here he was missing.
"Okay," Ayo breathed more than spoke, as if she was negotiating with her nerves on her next steps and doing her best to think through the coming moments. She hesitated for only a heartbeat before lowering her head and striding forward through the shield in earnest.
Each time someone first stepped through the barrier, Barnes found they carried a unique fingerprint of their personality with them. Though the area acted as a remote prison cell of sorts, Yama had been first to establish the idea of consent regarding the outer boundary. Everyone that had entered it since had followed her lead and treated it as if they were not only asking for permission to not only share proximity with him, but relying on mutual understanding that no harm would come to either of them while they were inside.
It was consent through permission.
Ayo's silent request had an intensity that swiftly reminded Barnes of when Yama had first asked to enter so she could mend his foot. She was bold and direct with her intentions, but Barnes didn't feel as though Ayo's lack of stated purpose was a misdirect. Her focus was unmistakable, and he found himself compelled to understand where this was headed, and why she didn't feel it suitable to pre-empt him with specifics.
He was many things, but he wasn't scared. He didn't believe her to have malicious intentions.
Her eyes stayed locked on his as she briefly stopped before taking another two steps forward, closing the distance between them. She was no more than two feet away, and her proximity had a way of swiftly reminding him that they hadn't stood and faced each other this close since he'd willed her to speak the last of the nullified code words. Culminating in the impossible.
"You are free."
Though he could tell by her breathing that her heart was racing, there was an intensity to her eyes that he yearned to understand. And in that very specific, precariously fragile moment, he found himself regarding her and wondering if this was what trust was.
"Okay," Ayo breathed more than spoke. Slowly, she telegraphed the motion of her free hand, as if realizing something else. "Can you…?" She stepped to one side and reoriented herself, "Turn a little more to your left? And then, mirror me. Like this?"
He wasn't sure what she was getting at, but he watched as she faced him and widened her stance and balanced herself, hunching her shoulders slightly.
Barnes did his best to imitate her, but by the expression on her face, she was seeing flaws in his attempt at mimicry, "That's close but… Can I…?" He wasn't sure what she was getting at, and by Yama's continued perplexed expression, neither was she.
"Can you what?"
Her words bore an apology, "Adjust your posture. It's—"
Like so many times before, a sunken part of him immediately flared in rigid opposition to the idea of being touched, but by her tentative expression, he knew she would respect his response, whatever it might be. But what was her ultimate goal here? "Fine. Just… keep it brief."
She nodded once and reached forward, holding her breath as she made quick, calculated contact with the fabric of his shirt sleeve, fine-tuning the height and relative position of his left shoulder to meet some unspoken criteria in her mind's eye. Before he even had time to diagnose the complicated emotions the brief contact drew up in him, and if it was directed at her or the scientists that came before her… she lifted her fingers and focused on his feet.
"Your foot was more…" she frowned and ever-so-gently used the side of her boot to rotate the toes of his right foot towards her.
She took a step back, made a dissatisfied face, and re-adjusted it again.
Evidently at least half-satisfied, she pulled her slender fingers around his right shoulder, making a determined effort to avoid touching his skin while she manually manipulated his posture one limb, one joint at a contact was always fleeting and clinical, and by the six or seventh time she set about adjusting his pose, he'd felt some of the residual tension leave his body, as if they'd since established an unspoken accord that she had no intentions of pushing boundaries between them or making contact with his skin unless it was absolutely necessary.
Once she coaxed his right hand into an open position facing the ground, she took a few steps back and inquired, "...Does any of this feel familiar?"
He shook his head, confused, "No. Should it?"
Ayo frowned, but Yama must've latched onto something, "The Guarded…?"
Ayo's attention swiftly turned to Yama, who cocked her head and took a step forward, as if she was beginning to piece together Ayo's unspoken goal of the exercise, "You mean to test if…?"
"I thought it a worthy possibility. Maybe it's nothing. A torn thread with no connection, but…"
"There could be merit," Yama agreed, and as Ayo turned her attention back to him, Barnes didn't miss that Yama discreetly punched something into the Kimoyo Beads around her wrist.
A short distance away, Nomble stirred.
When Barnes raised an eyebrow in her direction, Yama thoughtfully lifted her finger to her lips and placed her thumb under her chin in a gesture Barnes read as a request for silence while she artificially bought time until…
"Yama…? What are…?" a half-asleep Nomble mumbled as she put aside her earplugs and roused herself. Lidded eyes squinted and blinked rapidly as she caught sight of the three figures standing a short distance away, including Barnes and Ayo standing within the shield. Barnes didn't miss the moment of alarm that quickly made way to confusion to explain what she was seeing.
At the sound of the new voice, Ayo glanced over her shoulder in Nomble's direction before promptly sending Yama an accusatory half-glare that her Lieutenant easily shrugged away.
"We have need of your expertise in our Quartet," Yama offered as an all-encompassing explanation while using her free hand to urgently motion her sister Dora to join them. Barnes still wasn't following, but without missing a beat, Yama turned her attention back to Ayo, as if hoping her inquiry might distract her superior officer from her well-intentioned subterfuge, "What role was I?"
"The lone guard."
Nomble approached the edge of the shield, perplexed as she regarded Barnes, who was doing his best to stay positioned as Ayo'd posed him like some sort of frozen mime, "...I'm not following. Why…? Weren't we supposed to be sleeping?" Nomble looked across to the warming skyline, as if clarifying her point.
"Our Chief has an idea to chase. We do not yet know if it holds water. But it is from when we first trained together. Down the ledge from here, yes?" Yama's eyes looked to Ayo's for confirmation on what Barnes considered a remarkably obtuse statement.
Ayo nodded, though her attention was split elsewhere.
"Trained?" Barnes inquired.
While Nomble stretched and yawned, Yama offered only, "It was done with clear consent," she felt the need to clarify. "It was a formative period when we were prompted to see more of what was beneath the surface of one-another. To grow and deepen trust through lived experience rather than simply words and reassurances."
There might've been a time when Barnes would have bristled at the implication of a past he could not recall, but for whatever reason, he wasn't disinclined to believe in the possibility that what Yama said was true, even though it was unclear how that folded into anything he could recall.
For one: He still didn't grasp what any of this had to do with purported early attempts to remove the code words.
Nomble regarded Barnes and thought to ask, "Are you well?"
What a strange question, but he could tell his response mattered to her, "Yeah. Just trying to follow… whatever this is."
In response, she smiled lightly, looking to the women nearest her. Barnes got the impression she had questions, just like he did, but the sight of Ayo's focus had a way of deterring her from derailing her senior officer's concentration. Even so, Nomble made an attempt to help him grasp the greater context, "Our friend visited this place with us, but we trained together on the cliffs below us many more times as we sharpened our instincts and grew lasting bonds so that we might face the trials that laid ahead of us with both wisdom and practice."
For a moment, Barnes's own thoughts began to drive to a very different sort of 'training' HYDRA'd had for him, but he got the impression that wasn't what was being discussed here.
Nomble's next question was for Ayo, "Is there a specific instance you seek to recall?"
"The week before I spoke the first of the code words. After the first climb," Ayo emphasized.
Nomble cocked her head and her expression tightened in thought as Yama lightly tapped the side of Nomble's calf, "It is five years fresher for your eyes. Perhaps you remember it differently?"
"It was two years ago for me, sister. The details of such activities are not nearly so fresh as they once were."
Barnes still wasn't sure what the three women were getting at, but he hoped he could stop acting like some half-hunched-over scarecrow soon.
"And this does not feel familiar to you?" Ayo inquired again.
"No."
"What about in conjunction with the mountain?" Yama tried her luck. When he didn't immediately respond, she added, "Broadly, I mean. Do you feel an inclination that tells you, you have poised like this nearby here?"
What a ridiculous question.
"I don't remember being here before. And certainly not in some grizzly bear-like pose like this, but…" he faded off a moment, trying to collect his thoughts.
"But…?"
He'd said it before he thought through the implications of his statement, "I don't know… if there is, it's just a whiff of something. Just out of reach. Might be nothing. Could just be confusing it with the last couple of days."
Yama nodded, but it was Nomble that spoke next, "...Perhaps our positioning plays a part as well?"
"It is possible," Ayo admitted, deliberating as she glanced over one shoulder, visibly trying to orient herself. To what? Barnes had no idea.
"If I was the lone guard, then where was I standing? Yama inquired, her voice curious, if a bit eager. It was the tone Barnes recognized from when she was caught up in playing a game she intended to win. With a flourish, she smoothly extended the shaft of her spear, collapsing the bladed tip to match Ayo's.
…The weirdest part, was for a half a second there, Barnes swore he recognized the signature move, though logically, he couldn't recall ever seeing Yama maneuver her spear like that during the last two days. When she'd faced him in the Design Center, she'd immediately inserted herself between he and Shuri. They hadn't even come to blows. He felt like he definitely would have remembered 'training' with her.
That being as it was, he found he no longer discounted the possibility.
Ayo fluttered her fingers, motioning Yama to join them within the shield, and Barnes nodded to her, welcoming her back by proxy.
Wordlessly, Ayo gently took Yama by one shoulder and guided her, rotated her about so that her back was to Barnes, and she faced out towards Nomble. With practiced efficiency, Ayo adjusted her form, bringing Yama's staff aloft as if it was meant to block an incoming attack. There was strength in her posture. Familiarity. Resolve.
"Anything?" Ayo asked for what he presumed was his benefit.
"No." His response was swift, but even he was growing increasingly interested in seeing how this all played out.
Outside of the shield, Nomble extended her own vibranium staff, planting herself in an assertive pose that wasn't exactly a far cry from many of the other regaliaed warriors he'd faced the day before, particularly those in the Propulsion Laboratory.
Barnes was rather certain that wasn't the particular memory they were chasing, though even the mere sight of Nomble facing him with her weapon from outside of the barrier had a way of swiftly raising his heart rate and making unsung parts of his psyche come alive.
Logically, he didn't believe he was in any immediate danger, but that didn't mean his nerves insisted on other possibilities.
As if sensing the concerns building in his periphery, Ayo reassured him, "We will not harm you or seek to provoke you."
"We sparred extensively, in the week before you first spoke the code words," Nomble observed, "Is there a particular moment you are seeking to recreate? Or is…?" her voice trailed off when she latched onto something and the light rapidly fell out of her expression.
Ayo's mouth tightened in response, as if confirming Nomble's unspoken inquiry. When Ayo spoke next, her words were for Barnes alone, "I do not know how it is for you. Our minds all work differently. But our friend once told us that aspects of his memory were especially clear around poignant moments, and that he felt details such as the position of his body were recorded in particular clarity in these times."
"...So you're hoping if you put me in the right position, maybe I'd… remember it?"
Ayo flinched slightly, "In truth? I do not know. But we are here now, nearby similar woods, and the memories surrounding when we first tested the words together… they were from only a week later. I do not know if our location or the relative proximity to events you do recall might have any effect, but I suppose I thought it could not hurt to try." There was something in the tone of her voice that told him if he didn't wish to continue, she would respect that decision too.
In truth? He wasn't sure how to feel.
"But that was a long time ago for you, wasn't it?"
"Seven years," she confirmed, "but it the first times we sparred were… formative."
She wasn't lying, but Barnes got the impression again that it wasn't the whole truth, but there was underlying purpose to her choice of words.
It was Nomble that spoke next, though her voice was soft, tentative, "...If it is a particularly poignant moment you are chasing from our first dance together, you were closer, my Chief. At least when…" her voice faded, and Barnes could sense concern rise into her expression.
What had happened?
Ayo set her jaw and nodded once, but her eyes stayed focused on Barnes as she inched closer, "Would you take the end of my staff in your right hand, so that I might guide you through the motion? I will make no other contact with you."
Her voice was personal, but it was more than that. Her eyes pleaded with him to hear her, to focus and listen. And when he raised his hand to grasp the staff, he could feel the certainty in her grip, at the unspoken words lingering in the air that she was trusting him not to turn her own weapon against her.
From that dream where she first spoke the code words, he remembered he'd only had his right arm. Was that why Ayo leveraged it now?
He set his jaw and listened as he held the end of the staff, unsure of what she planned to do next. The request that followed required more and less from him at the same time, "I would like you to close your eyes, so you can focus on your body. Your senses. No harm will come to you, no unexpected contact. I will move you slowly only by the guided motion of the staff in your hand. Would that be alright, Barnes?"
A part of him fought against the idea of closing his eyes and surrendering his vision when there were armed opponents nearby, but he pushed his discomfort down, drowning it in his compulsion to understand what Ayo and the others were getting at. At the possibility of potentially recalling something formative from a past filled with more blank spots than memories, especially where the women before him were concerned.
He found his agreement wasn't simply blind obedience to a handler or a desire to acquiesce to someone else's whims or wishes. It was, at the heart of things, a profound display of something almost like trust, though he didn't feel as though it was misplaced, "Okay. Just… go slow. I don't want to accidentally hurt you." He paused a moment before adding, remembering back to when he'd kicked her the day before, "...again."
Something quiet flitted across Ayo's face as she bowed her head once in agreement.
And with that, he closed his eyes and listened.
Barnes expected Ayo, or maybe Yama, to fill the hushed mountain air with their words, but instead the women around him remained purposely and completely silent. While he found he didn't doubt the intention behind their choice, it felt odd to will himself to close his eyes when not only was he well-aware he was being watched, but when multiple armed individuals were nearby, and so close. Oddly, and perhaps thankfully, the uncomfortable disconnect and absence of visual stimuli was rapidly filled in by his other senses.
He felt the uneven ground beneath his feet, and the easy balance of his body. His injured foot was tight, but it no longer caused him more than mild discomfort. An echo of what had been an exemplary painful, and potentially debilitating injury. The shift in circumstance was itself not only notable, but remarkable. His head didn't throb, nor did his shoulder, and the reminder that he was now removed from those steady, unavoidable pains had a way of making him feel not only more present in the moment, but more aware of the little things. Things he might've otherwise overlooked.
He could feel the cool metal and steady presence of the end of the staff Ayo'd placed in his hand. She bore most of the weight of it, and kept it held aloft as if she was trying to suspend it in a very specific orientation in the air. As he stood poised and motionless, he did what he could to take in his surroundings anew.
The warmth of a nearby fire played lightly through the fabric along the back of his calves, and while he couldn't make out any details, he was aware of the rising sun through the warm red glow behind his eyelids. Morning bird songs jittered in the woods nearby, greeting the new day while a soft wind played across his exposed face, neck, hair, and arm. The scent of fire, sage, and damp grass filled his nose, but more than that, he was also freshly aware of the people around him.
Their presence didn't crowd him, but rather, it somehow fit into the place, like they were part of the mountain too. He could make out their relative positions by the quiet push and pull of their soft, unhurried breaths. Their presence had a way of reassuring him their actions were not a misdirect or prelude to an ambush. Ayo's was quickest among them, but considering their close proximity and shared weapon in their hands, he couldn't exactly blame her. Nomble's breathing was steady but heightened, no-doubt due to the unspoken decree that as she was the only one outside the shield, it was her responsibility to activate the debilitating electrical node on his shoulder if she feared for anyone's safety.
But that somber reality aside, he found that when the wind shifted just right, he realized he could tell them apart by scent as well. It was faint, almost to the point of being nearly imperceptible, but it was there.
The earthy, aromatic textures surrounding each of them were surprisingly difficult to encapsulate into any sort of language. Like trying to describe the difference between fingerprints by touch alone. So instead, he focused on what distinction he assumed might be credited to their chosen deodorant, laundry detergent, or toothpaste preferences. Nomble was furthest away from him, but her scent leaned towards juniper and vanilla, while Yama's was lighter. Airy. Minty and herbal. It was accompanied by a faint whiff of lavender that managed to blend seamlessly into the other scents, as if weaving them together into something new and uniquely her. And Ayo…? Her scent was a touch more musky. It blended in with the woods like it was part of them, set apart only by the faint hint of cloves.
He wasn't sure how long they stood motionless and silent, but slowly, carefully, he felt Ayo apply faint pressure from her end of the staff as she began to guide his arm and body through gentle, unhurried motions.
Like a dance.
There was nothing abrupt or alarming about the balanced moments that grew into a steady, predictable pattern that eventually circled back on itself. Though he had to focus to keep his eyes closed, he was casually aware that as he and Ayo moved, so too did Nomble and Yama nearby. They said nothing as they folded and stepped around each other with slow precision, never once coming too close or raising the thrum of ever-present alarms in the back of his mind that marked them as potential threats. He'd come to rely on those instincts to warn him if he was in danger. If he needed to be prepared to act. To react.
Instead, he sought to silence them. To negotiate with them that no one was going to suddenly strike him. Subdue him. Speak words of power over him. He found he simply let Ayo guide him through the motions over and over again, and the longer they went, the more he found the suffocating tension of the unusual experience slipping away from him, replaced by a wordless hope, a craving, that something came of it.
Softly, Ayo's steadfast voice slipped back into their surroundings, "It was many years ago, when we last did this," she explained, her tone taking on a hint of Nomble's storytelling grace, "Though we did so many, many times. The first time I sought to bring the four of us here, it was so that we could prepare for contingencies in case issues arose once we began work to free your mind of the code words that plagued you."
The unseen staff guided his arm into an arc that ran forward across his body. The movement was fluid and painless, and he didn't resist the added motion as it prompted him to take a measured step forward, then back.
He kept his eyes closed, focusing on the subtle fluctuations of his body and his surroundings as Ayo continued to speak, "My intent was to ease our friend into the rhythm of our ways so that he could see us as capable as we know ourselves to be, and so we could better learn his own aptitudes. In the process of doing so, we worked together in shared exercises meant to challenge, as well as to hone instincts and shape them so that we retained control over them, rather than allowing them to control us."
Barnes didn't need a roadmap to explain her implied subtext. After everything that'd been done to him, after all the effort HYDRA had put in to shape his instincts to react at a moment's notice… regardless of if the code words worked or not, he didn't doubt that those sharp instincts wouldn't have suddenly faded on their own. What he'd experienced in the last two days only made that painfully clear.
That being as it was: He hadn't ever considered the possibility that anyone would willingly put themselves in the position of trying to help him sort through all that. That there was a world where deeply rooted instincts could be unlearned through intentional choice.
…How much progress had they made before all this? Before he'd awoken in the lab.
The pattern of Ayo's movements repeated themselves again, slow and steady. Barnes listened, trying to feel the moment Ayo was intentionally circling, guided only by the staff hoisted between them, "During one structured training exercise, Yama was struck on the thigh by Nomble, and our friend unexpectedly intervened, intent to insert himself and prevent the possibility of further harm from coming to her."
Barnes took a step forward, following the motion of Ayo's staff, keying into a renewed awareness of how it pulled him nearer to Yama's side, directly between he and Ayo. He kept his eyes closed, bending with the motion, letting Ayo lead him… until a buried part of him he didn't understand… began to apply gentle pressure back in Ayo's direction.
It was almost imperceivable at first, enough that he wasn't even truly aware of the subtle change in their dynamic until Ayo reset the motion and started the loop again. The bodies around him moved, flowed, never once coming close enough to threaten him, but instead he felt like he was a part of their movements. Like a rhythm. A dance.
But this time, as he got to the moment where he was prompted to step forward and came between Yama and Ayo, he felt himself give into the motion, lightly pushing back in Ayo's direction, ever-so-slowly, carefully. Controlled–
His eyes snapped open in alarm, and a buried part of him felt a sudden pull that was swift as it was poignant.
He recoiled from the staff, rapidly retracting his fingers as words fell from his mouth in a rush of barely-contained horror, "I hurt you."
The brown eyes that met his were remarkably steady and at-odds with the brief flash of motion he saw in his mind's eye. It was bright, and searingly specific. How his muscles flinched in a small burst of forceful motion that upended her and sent her flying backwards, not with calculated elegance or intention, but with alarm.
It wasn't a memory. Not a whole one, at least, but he felt it. The terror in his gut, his pounding heart rate. The scent of sweat intermingled with fear. The way his empty hand fell open in a shudder of raw terror at the sight and wet sound of first Ayo's head, and then her body hitting the ground a short distance away.
There were voices too. He couldn't hear their words, only the sharp urgency of them. The cries of alarm and the echo of panic that made his stomach curl and twist. It wasn't that time froze, or there was clarity: It was as if so much occurred in one bright flash of unexpect motion that he could hardly make sense of them.
He felt his own heart-rate jump, scrambling to grasp of what he'd just seen, felt, feared. That in one moment, Ayo was snapped to the ground, perhaps killed by his own negligence, but she was also standing in front of him, meeting his wave panic head-on with unwavering conviction of purpose.
"What happened?" he had to know. Seeing her alive and breathing was of remarkably little reassurance in the moment. Was that what Ayo had seen in her dream, "You…?"
"I struck my head," she explained slowly, patiently. "Hard enough to briefly knock me unconscious for a few seconds."
"It was more than a few seconds," Nomble thought it prudent to specify. And when Barnes swiveled his head in her direction, he expected to be met with fear, distaste, and judgment, Instead he saw only… concern. Empathy. "I hope you will forgive me for correcting you, my Chief. I know you do not intend to belittle your own injury, but it is important we are candid about those events. You did not regain consciousness for almost a full minute."
Barnes found he was struggling to breathe. He didn't get the impression Ayo had sought to weave any mistruths, but it had been that long…?
"Is it a memory you now share with us?" At some point Yama had turned around and not only lowered her staff, but retracted it from view. Her expression was tight, focused, pained, but also… hopeful.
He was sure he made a face at her question, but he answered honestly, his voice hoarse, and surprisingly raw, "Not all the details, just… flashes. But…" he frowned. But what? What did it mean? How had… did that mean it was all true? Everything they said? Everything they claimed in the last two days? His eyes sought out Ayo's, as if he needed something to ground him, to reassure him she was okay. That he hadn't just killed someone who'd been trying to help him. But he couldn't even remember the details. Why couldn't he remember the details? He–?
"I am fine," Ayo assured him. "And I was fine a short time after. It was a startling moment, but one we were not unprepared for."
"But after…?" He pressed, wishing he remembered. Did they have to take her to the Design Center for treatment too?
At that, a small, empathetic smile made its way to her face, "After I sat a few minutes. After words of apology and emotion and fear realized flowed like water. After understanding settled in… we continued our work. Slowly. Carefully." She gestured between the two of them, then to Yama and Nomble, "We trained in earnest. Together. We worked backwards from there. Like this."
"It was the day when we first grew roots as a true pack," Yama volunteered. Her face alighted with warmth at the declaration.
"Others trained with us too," Nomble noted, "Sometimes Tasdi, Okoye, T'Challa, even Shuri, but the four of us remained a constant."
"Until the Battle of Wakanda. Until the Decimation," Ayo added, more somber.
"...It wasn't just that time? The week leading up to when you first said the words?"
Ayo shook her head as her resolute eyes searched his, "No. You were a part of us."
He… wasn't sure what to say to that. It wasn't that it was impossible to imagine it, but it was so unlike what he did remember of his time with HYDRA. His training. With HYDRA.
"I don't remember," he repeated, frustration pouring out of him. "But I…" his words faded out as he realized he didn't even know what he wanted to say. How incomplete, confused, and overwhelmed he felt.
"You are not broken," Ayo repeated, as if pre-empting his next thought. "I know you wish to remember more, and we feel for your struggle, but perhaps there is reassurance to be found in knowing your body still retains memory of these events?"
"The times were not all so dire," Nomble insisted, and Barnes found his attention drawn to her expression, and the quiet warmth in it. "There was levity to be found among the growing harmony between us, and the peace that comes from seeing those around you, and feeling truly seen in return."
Barnes didn't get the impression Nomble was so much trying to convince him of the truth behind her words, but that she was drinking deeply of her own experiences, and reflecting on the many memories she had out here on this mountain, the ones that spanned years, and involved many people, including the women around her, and even him.
"I intend to see this journey though," Yama noted resolutely, and as his eyes flitted to hers he remembered her immeasurably open declaration from hours earlier. About their friend, the one that was in some way him, but also not.
"He is part of us still. And you could be, if you wished it."
Yama kept her chin tilted to face him as he stood and struggled to absorb the many implications that had been dropped at his feet. At the harrowing acceptance that he couldn't recall large portions of his past, but that at least one of the dreams he had connected him to the people around him in new and unexpected ways. He'd felt a pull to understand before now, to peel back the layers and make sense of it all, but as he stood and let his perpetual frustrations and feelings of inadequacy wash over him, he did his best to refocus on the presence of women around him. On the solidity of their united resolve.
"...This is all so confusing," he found himself admitting to no one and everyone at once.
"I know," Ayo agreed. Her words were neither placating or condescending.
"And we are here still," Nomble reassured him.
"Perhaps there is more to be found buried in familiar motions of your body?" Ayo offered, "Would you consider performing the movements of the Guard's Dance with us again, at a slow, focused tempo? Perhaps there is more we can draw out, like the notes of the piano's melody? I promise that the surrounding memories were not nearly so frightening."
"But what if I…?"
"We will be slow and steady, and will not make contact with one another," Ayo assured him.
"...Unless you would prefer to sleep instead?" Nomble interjected, ever-mindful of their planned schedule.
He looked over his shoulder, reminded of Sam and Shuri still asleep nearby, courtesy of her augmented earplugs, "Were either of you going to go back to sleep?" He hadn't intended his voice to come out so concerned, but he was well aware that she was furthest behind in hours logged, with Ayo close behind her.
At that, Nomble only smiled, and it was a sunny expression that was mirrored in the faces of those around her, "There is not a chance I would turn down the opportunity to form new memories together, even as you seek to rediscover your own." She looked out over the horizon, "And as I recall, Yama did promise you many more sunrises and sunsets, and this one is shaping up to be one I would not choose to miss, even if hours later I may find myself tired for my decision."
"It would not be the first time," Yama teased, and Barnes got the distinct impression this wouldn't be the last time, either.
As Ayo extended the shaft of her spear to him as an invitation to take him through another set of motions, he grasped it with his right hand, but used his left hand to briefly still it. He caught the question lingering in Ayo's gaze, and took a deep breath, finding it prudent to interject his thoughts before they continued with the exercise, "I don't understand a lot of this. I'm not him, at least not in a way that makes sense to me, but…" he struggled with what he wanted to say, trying to piece together the combination of words that might convey the message he wanted, needed to get across before they went any further. "There's a lot I don't know, more than I do know, really, but I… just want to make sure you realize that this isn't just about filling in the blank spots. That's part of it, but…" he frowned, frustrated at his own inability to convey what he wanted so much to say.
"But…?" Ayo gently prompted, ever-patient.
"I want to understand this," he gestured between the four of them. "I don't know what's going on with my memories, and what's important and what isn't. I don't understand how it all works, and while I'm hoping for more… clarity, I guess just… at the end of the day, that only matters so much. I didn't grasp that back in D.C., when I was on the run, and I'm struggling to understand it now, but…" He glanced to Yama, "Figuring out everything that happened in the past matters less, not because it doesn't matter, but because the present matters, too." His attention turned to Nomble, honing in on something she'd recently said, "It might even matter more."
He took a deep breath after realizing how long he'd been holding it, "I just… wanted you to know."
Barnes wasn't how apt or clear his words were, but in response, the expressions on the three women nearest him grew even more crisp and clear in the morning light. They were nuanced to be sure, and each unique to one another, but he got the impression they'd heard what he was trying to say, and why it was so important.
But it was Yama that spoke next, as if she already knew just what she wanted to say, and had perhaps even been holding the question close to her for many hours, "Do you find yourself inclined to share a 'Ukupakisha ibhondi,' with us, Barnes? A Pack Bond?"
It was not the first time he'd heard Yama's term, but he found himself puzzled by the inquiry all the same, "Yeah, but… wasn't that what I just said?"
And at that, something miraculous and utterly unexpected happened: Ayo laughed.
It was brief and true, and the sound of it filled the space around them with a wave of utter unrestrained mirth. A second later, Ayo put her free hand over her lips and rapidly stalled her guilty expression in a feeble attempt to regain her composure from her self-conscious outburst.
But Barnes remembered that sound. It had a way of wrapping itself around him like the marmalade from earlier. He didn't know how or when, but he remembered it.
From just in front of him, Yama's teeth shown brightly from the renewed smile spread across her face. She made no attempts to hide it, nor did Nomble behind her.
He'd once heard Yama tell Ayo that their friend had called her his 'indawo enamanzi amaninzi' His 'Oasis.' He hadn't understood it then, not really, but as he stood in the glowing sunlight, surrounded by the three of them, he found himself oddly present in the moment, in the fullness of the new memory forming around him.
The future was unknown. Not guaranteed. His past? A jumble of confusion, holes, and trapped doors.
But this…? These people were not only his allies, but his friends. Unique voices he'd missed without even knowing why or how.
He was certain of it.
"That may have been the first time I have seen our esteemed Chief laugh since before the Decimation," Yama casually observed, clearly impressed.
"It is a pleasant sound," Nomble noted. "Like a rare bird."
"Are you both quite done?" Ayo didn't have a drop of heat in her voice as she rolled her eyes and returned her attention to Barnes and the staff spread between them. "Are you ready to go again, Barnes?"
"Yeah. But… Can I try it with my eyes open this time? I want to see the sunrise." He didn't know how many he might have left, but he didn't want to risk missing this one.
Ayo simply smiled as she dipped her head in agreement, "Of course."
"I remember that sound," Barnes felt compelled to clarify as Ayo gently guided him into the first steps of a new movement.
The stalwart figure on the far side of the staff snorted lightly and admitted, "I could tell."
[Full Image and Close Up of Chapter Art, featuring a painting of Nomble standing with her spear amid a forest sunrise and looking past the view with a warm smile, by me (KLeCrone)]
Somewhere in the last few weeks I found myself interested in doing another square portrait for one of the characters in this story, and settled on doing a painting of Nomble, and I'm really proud of the result! It feels like I really leveled-up artistically with this painting.
I really pushed myself trying to sell the *mood* of this piece, but I wanted to try and capture a moment at sunrise when she's watching the other three characters do what amounts to "sunrise, staff yoga" and just… has this private moment of happiness seeing some of her closest friends out here on the mountain again after so long. After so many trials between them, too.
Like Ayo and Yama, I can imagine Nomble expected that they'd visit this place together again at some point, and while the circumstances surrounding this visit aren't… ideal… by any stretch of the imagination, it's still a moment of levity and bonding in its own right. And so I wanted to chase a hopeful moment, perhaps similar to that painting I did with the shield back in Chapter 53 or Barnes and Nomble with the cup of tea back in Chapter 55.
Overall, I just really appreciate the opportunity to contribute my own art to this story, and how it's given me the excuse to carve out time to sit down and create. :)
For context, the first time I sat down and really tried to do a more "serious" piece of art for this story was that piece with Ayo renewing her Oath back in Chapter 50 (which I painted back in November!). I spent more time on this chapter's painting with Nomble, but I learned a lot on that Ayo piece that helped lay the foundations for this exploration, and it makes me excited for not only the continuing story, but all the art that's coming up too!
For Chapter 62, I created an accompanying painting featuring Nomble, one of the Dora Milaje. Please check out this chapter on Archive of Our Own to see the art!
Simply search for: "KLeCrone Ao3 Winter of the White Wolf"
Author's Remarks:
I hope all of you had a wonderful week!
I'd like to think this is a very specific type of pivotal chapter since we're not only putting into practice some of the growing trust between characters, but through a really clever approach, Ayo's also found a way to begin to reconnect Barnes with at least one of his absent memories! It puts further credence into their claims of a past and relationships he can't recall, but I love the idea that while this wouldn't exactly be the sort of memory anyone would have preferred to chase outright, it had a way of truly reinforcing and strengthening their bonds.
Along those lines: There were a number of songs I was drawn to that relate to this chapter in particular, and the idea of these characters growing their trust in new and unexpected ways. I love the idea of each step of the way, it's building towards a place of mutual understanding and hope, and that it's taken all of them (in the past as well as the present) to reach this point together, and that's… just… so damn wholesome. :)
It's pretty wild to think we've been getting to know 'Barnes' for nearly *thirty* chapters now, isn't it? Oh, how far we've come!
In any case, don't get too comfortable, because we're set to dive back into the fray and unfolding story just as soon as I return from my own camping excursion!
Some music tracks:
- "No Sanctuary," by UNSECRET feat. Sam Tinnesz and Fleurie
- "Current," by Phoria (The instrumental track was heavy on the *feels* in the latter sections of this chapter)
- "Little Ones (Bonus Track)," by Tony Anderson
- "The Ripples Must Be Endless (End Title)," Thomas Newman, from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for The Adjustment Bureau.
- "King of the World," by CRMNL (I painted the entire painting with this track on repeat for about 20 hours)
I hope you have a fantastic week, and thank you once again for all the questions, comments, kudos, and just… joining me on this journey. I can't begin to tell you how immensely gratifying it is to spend countless laboring in isolation over each chapter and painting to be greeted with so much enthusiasm and support once I share them. Just: Thank you!