The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
—Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
xXx
Lucy wipes dust from the top corners of her mirror. The tall glass used to hang on the back of her bedroom door, but her parents are anxious, now, of what might happen to their baby girl in their sleep, even if they won't say as much. So she promised to keep the door open for them more often than not, and that means moving this mirror to temporarily lean up against her dresser.
In this moment, however, Lucy hesitates, debating her need for solitude.
She closes the door.
Just for a few seconds, she tells herself, seeing as she knows exactly what she wants to do and how she needs to do it. The pretense of privacy, at least, matters to her here.
The door clicks shut, quiet.
Lucy takes a deep breath. She slowly peels off the weighted warmth of her wool sweater, a soft ivory stained with blood and soil and rot. The divine magic that restored her to life may have removed the visage of necrosis from her once-corpse, but it could not remove the stench.
It could not remove the scar.
She lets the blood-stained wool fall to the ground, discarded like remains of a sacrificial lamb. After taking a deep breath, Lucy studies her reflection.
Atop her chest—her thoracic cavity, the anatomical expert within her muses, as she always strove to be a cleric capable in both theory and practice—and descending across part of her torso are the echoes of an ancient rune. Written in Giant, ruby remains that are almost purple against her blue skin, Lucy traces the edges of Ankarna's name with her fingertips.
The name of her goddess's sister.
Lucy does not feel unholy for these marks, no. But this scar does resurrect unholy—corrupt—memories that she would prefer not to dwell on.
Scarlet light gleaming in her friends' eyes. A rogue's dagger, coming home to roost. Trying, trying and failing to catch a bloody, callused halfling hand in her own.
Lucy cannot erase this scar. No amount of cure wounds will make its raised edges push flat. But perhaps she will find some alternative to its eternal echo of violence.
For now, she tosses a sheet over the mirror. For now, what she cannot see will not be real.
For now, she will ignore the grief that burns like frostbite within and without her.
xXx
Lucy sits at the back of the room. She is reluctant to call it a nave, because for all she knew Kipperlilly like snow knows the inevitability of spring freshet, she does not know how or who Kipperlilly's family worshipped.
If they worshipped at all. This ceremonial location may be one of convenience, not true faith.
Even from the back of the room, she has a clear line of sight toward the casket at the front. There are few others in attendance. Jawbone, Lucy thinks she recognizes, and an elven woman with short brown hair sitting next to him. Her eyes might be deceiving her, but she swears she catches a glimpse of a curly-haired ghost floating among the rafters.
Sitting in the first pew are two halflings, both with heads of blonde hair that from certain angles show streaks of silvery white.
Lucy didn't tell the other Rat Grinders not to come… But they don't want to think about Kipperlilly, and Lucy doesn't want to think about them. Not yet.
Not while she's still pretending to erase the past.
Lucy closes her eyes, allowing the officiant's lilting Halfing speech to roll over her like a gentle breeze. She's ashamed to admit she doesn't know much of this cozy tongue, even after Kipperlilly insisted that Lucy was a rare non-halfling worthy of learning it.
There are two words she recognizes, though.
Sorrow.
Love.
The intonations in Halfing are near identical, differentiated only by a shift in syllabic emphasis, and Lucy feels tears brim in her eyes as she recalls the night Kipperlilly demonstrated this saccharine similarity.
They wore their matching pajamas. They always did. Ivy made fun of them endlessly for it, but after Kipperlilly quietly revealed one night that she'd never had classic slumber parties as a child, Lucy took it as her mission to make up for lost time.
Lucy clenches her jaw to withhold a sob.
She hates Kipperlilly for what she did, she really does, in spite or maybe because of how desperately she tries to suppress those memories.
But she hates herself even more for missing Kipperlilly.
When the ceremony reaches its end, when the other attendees disappear without conversation and when Kipperlilly's parents are sufficiently distracted in conversing with the officiant about burial plots and mourning periods and all of death's bureaucracy, Lucy drifts up the aisle and halts beside Kipperlilly's closed casket.
Closed.
Mary Ann told her how Kipperlilly died in the final battle with the Bad Kids. Caught by Hold Person, submerged into lava, screaming with fury—always rage, never pain—as her flesh melted off her body and blended with her burning cardigan.
'Pathetic' was how Mary Ann explained Kipperlilly's end, a description not acerbic or vindictive but flat and monotonous, giving voice more to Kipperlilly's perspective than to Mary Ann's own.
Lucy studies the lacquered wooden top of the casket. She knows not whether it's closed to disguise charred bones or to disguise—
"It's empty."
Lucy's head snaps around to see that Kipperlilly's parents now stand behind her, the officiant newly vanished into the depths of the holy building.
"It's empty," Landynleaf Copperkettle repeats. "There weren't no remains left for us to bury. Not from a reborn divinity's lava."
"It's empty," Octavia Copperkettle echoes. "Just like yours."
Lucy inhales a sharp breath, unable to settle her erratic heartbeat. "I'm—sorry," she whispers. Her bones ache. The scar atop her chest pulses. "For your loss."
Octavia tilts her head, green eyes dull as parasitic moss clinging to life on an uprooted tree. "Are you?"
She came to the funeral, didn't she? Does that not speak to the depths of her sorrow? Her regret? Her mourning?
Lucy wonders how Kipperlilly felt, seeing a different empty casket and knowing the part she played in keeping it hollow. But Lucy just couldn't… She couldn't sacrifice herself to rage. She couldn't forgo Ruvina.
Not even for Kipperlilly.
Kipperlilly always insisted they would be heroes, one day.
But a hero is nothing to a goddess.
"I'm sorry I couldn't do more for her," Lucy finally says, thinking of how Kipperlilly approached rage as its own faith, and Landynleaf laughs—a harsh, grating sound, like friction between crumbling bones.
"Those are the right words, kid. But you ain't got the right meaning."
Lucy's brow furrows in confusion. "I don't—"
"Please, Lucy." Octavia grips her husband's arm, desperate. "You're a cleric. Please."
Lucy stares at them both, wide-eyed, and recalls Kipperlilly's words as her once dearest friend first unsheathed her dagger on that unholy night: A hero is nothing to a goddess, Lucy, but a goddess is nothing without her believers.
Lucy turns back to the empty casket. She wonders how much Ruvina would ask of her.
She wonders what she might ask of Ruvina.
xXx
Lucy knows her parents are worried about her, sneaking out in the dead of night. It's the inverse of how it used to be, back when Kipperlilly was still Lilly, sneaking into Lucy's bedroom through the window not because of troubles at home but because her house was just too big for a family so small.
How time has changed for Lucy, so quickly and so slowly, a year that passed in a twilight haze.
Lucy makes her way through the Far Haven Woods, tracing a familiar path. When the mineral sand and the shining lake come into view, both sparkling with moonlight, she slips off her shoes to allow her feet to truly sink into the soft, nourished soil.
To her right, she sees a cozy forest, rats scampering about and the occasional squirrel foraging for a midnight snack.
To her left, she sees tree trunks toppled over and split open. Carnage. Ruins. Rotted remains.
This is where she died.
This is where, for half a year, she was buried.
Lucy takes a deep breath, cutting off the anxiety that rises in her chest at its hyperventilating source. The ancient rune still decorating her torso aches—at least, she assumes the scar remains the source of this dull pain.
She needs to get that looked at soon.
But soon is not now, and now is a time for reconciliation.
Lucy sits on the soil-sand of Lake Shimmerstone, where the pebble-laden shore and the forest's edge tangle and bleed together. Thankfully, the blood that once stained this ground has long since returned to nature's cycle, and perhaps that lack of waste is the difference between sacrificing a lamb atop an altar and crushing it with hot hearts.
Lucy shudders at the comparison, but she forces herself to close her eyes all the same. Reconciliation requires remembrance, and she cannot allow herself to be haunted by ghosts of the present any longer.
They asked her to meet them here, each in their own way. Texts from Oisin and Ivy, one intense stare from Mary Ann that always seemed to communicate more than words ever could, a call from Ruben, and an intimate request exchanged between herself and Kipperlilly at what Lucy now realizes was the last sleepover they would ever share.
Their noses were almost touching. Lucy remembers focusing on that far more than she was Kipperlilly's words.
In that moment, she might've agreed to anything.
Her friends confronted her on the sand, not the soil. Backing her toward the edge of the water.
It's your turn now, Ivy spat, words dripping with venom. If I had to go through this shit, you fucking do, too.
Confusion pulled a frown onto Lucy's lips. I'm sorry?
Her skin tightened across her body to see Mary Ann pull out her battleaxe.
We'll make it quick, Ruben promised. But we can't leave you out. Not as the champion!
Lucy winces at the memory. 'Champion.' How traitorous she felt in that moment—not to Ruvina, but to her friends, for how long had she been stringing them along about a plan she no longer intended to participate in?
Oisin cocked his head, studying Lucy intently, and a wave of magic swept over her body that she immediately recognized as Detect Thoughts.
The panic that flooded her was… intense. She remembers that.
And she also remembers choosing not to resist.
Huh, Oisin said, and Kipperlilly's head snapped toward him.
What did you do to her?
Nothing. He rolled his eyes. It's what she doesn't want to do for us.
Kipperlilly's eyes met Lucy's, glistening with uncertainty and—as they always seemed to be those last few weeks—a deep, deep fury. What's he talking about?
A shaking hand landed atop Lucy's heart. I can't… I can't be what you—what Porter is asking of me. I can't abandon Ruvina. A pause. Not even for her sister.
Shock stiffened Kipperlilly's shoulders, ricocheting through her body like lightning. What…?
I'm sorry, Lilly.
Lucy flinches as she recalls the betrayal, the hurt that flooded Kipperlilly's features. For her to have chosen Ruvina was not just to reject the now-known Ankarna—it was also to reject Kipperlilly.
Furious tears welled in Kipperlilly's eyes. Her hand dropped to her belt, where a familiar dagger lay encased. You can't do this.
'To me' went unspoken.
Lucy shook her head. This is a choiceless choice.
Kipperlilly unsheathed her dagger. In eerie simultaneity, Ivy nocked an arrow, runes began to glow across Oisin's scales, Mary Ann gripped her axe, and Ruben pulled out his guitar.
You don't need to be scared, Ruben reassured her, and Lucy remembers how impotent she was in halting the tears that flowed down her cheeks. It'll hurt, but only for a little bit. Then Porter will revive you and you'll be okay again.
From the corner of her eye, Lucy saw a stony figure step out of the shadows of the forest. Red glinted in his palm.
You'll come back, Lucy, Kipperlilly echoed.
'To me' remained unspoken.
Her friends—if they still were—never gave her a chance to respond.
'Brutal' does not encapsulate their violence. In retrospect, Lucy recognizes the power of the rage-stars, driving them to find pleasure in crushing bone and watching blood spurt from a corpse wanting in death.
Kipperlilly struck last. By then, Lucy had already fallen to the ground.
Lucy couldn't see. Blood and soil matted her eyes, too dense for even her endless stream of tears to cleanse. But she remembers the warmth of Kipperlilly pressing their foreheads together—See you soon, Lucy—and the pressure of the dagger that traced her neck in one quick slice.
Lucy's shoulders shake, and she realizes she is weeping, an ugly, gasping lament that throttles her chest. She lifts her knees and buries her face into her tall purple socks, sobbing and sobbing and allowing the rats of Shimmerstone to nestle against her sides even if she cannot stomach returning their comfort in this moment.
She died.
Her friends killed her.
Face still wet with tears, Lucy presses her fingertips against her neck. No scar from the moment of slaughter makes its presence known. No raised, knotted skin. Not even a faint white line.
Would she prefer to bear a physical reminder of the moment she became another one of Porter's little lambs? Or does the memory alone suffice in its permanence?
She died. Her friends killed her.
But Ankarna brought her back. Restored her, Ruben, Mary Ann, Oisin, Ivy to life.
All but one.
And Lucy is a cleric.
xXx
Lucy keeps her altar to Ruvina in the backyard of her parents' home. Her goddess embodies sorrow and desolation, winter and death, ice and endings, and as such it would feel improper to keep the altar within the warm, protected confines of a home.
In the backyard, out in the elements, Lucy can be truly vulnerable.
She has not prepared a ritual for tonight, though perhaps she will in weeks to come. Right now, turmoil and tumult consume her mind, and what she needs is a moment to breathe and embrace the presence of Ruvina.
At least, Lucy hopes—prays—that is all she will need.
She lights a candle in the center of the spruce altar, built with her own two hands and that of her father, and bows toward the small statue of Ruvina that she and her mother painstakingly carved out of dogwood. Neither of her parents worship Ruvina, per se, but they love Lucy too much not to be proud of her dedication to carrying on the divine legacy of the Frostblade family tree.
Lucy kneels before the altar, closing her eyes and centering her attention on the burning candle's pine scent.
Her mind conjures images of snow-capped mountains, white-blanketed forests, moonlight reflecting off winter's coating to ensure nighttime is never dark. She sees people, duos and trios and groups, sitting in circles around a burning fire.
Despite the blaze, they hold hands with one another for warmth.
"Ruvina," Lucy whispers, the name tumbling off her tongue with the gentleness that is the Giantish language, "I seek your wisdom in a time of crisis."
She sees herself and Ruben, braiding necklaces of puka shells while jamming to Fig and the Cig Figs.
She sees herself and Ivy, shopping together for prom dresses.
She sees herself and Oisin, studying together in the library.
She sees herself and Mary Ann, sitting beneath a shady tree and playing Quokki Pets.
She sees herself and Kipperlilly, making art journals together as an 'alternative means' of releasing Kipperlilly's anger. She sees herself and Kipperlilly, accidentally gifting one another the same friendship bracelets. She sees herself and Kipperlilly, creating snow angels in Kipperlilly's front yard and concluding with their fingers—though gloved—warmly intertwined.
Lucy sees blood dripping from her friends' hands. Lucy sees Kipperlilly's fists clench, manicured nails digging into her palms. Lucy sees how Kipperlilly's shoulders stiffen, how Kipperlilly's arm twists, how Kipperlilly always takes the perfect angle to strike and never—never—misses.
Lucy thinks about the fire of Kipperlilly's embrace.
Lucy thinks about the inferno that pulsated within Kipperlilly's chest.
Were those warmths one and the same?
"Ruvina," Lucy whispers again, "I know I am not wrong to be angry about what this world has taken from me." A year of her life, the sanctity of her friends' lives, opportunities to love and be loved. "But I know this anger is also mourning. Fear. Loss."
Kipperlilly's unabashed smile was always so similar to her practiced glare.
"I pray for your guidance"—Lucy closes her eyes, bowing her head—"as I seek clarity in this clouded world."
A cold wind rushes through the backyard, clinging to Lucy's shoulders like a wool sweater.
xXX
"This won't be quick," the aasimar said, gloved fingers idly tapping the tattoo gun. "It won't take all day, but it won't be quick, either."
Lucy nodded. "I know."
The aasimar shrugged. "Alright, kid. If you're sure."
Lucy tipped them generously, of course, at least as generously as a high schooler could afford, and now she stands once more before the tall mirror in her bedroom. She leaves the door cracked open as a favor to her parents, but she deliberately avoids direct line of sight, should they choose to come check on her.
She has cared for this tattoo for weeks now. Unscented soap, unscented moisturizers, abandoning bras and her favored wool sweaters in exchange for loose shirts that don't scratch and irritate the sensitive skin. She has avoided pools, avoided direct sun exposure, limited her use of magical heals to no more than twice a week, followed every aftercare instruction the artist gave her to the letter.
Lucy has always been good at following the rules. Perhaps too much so.
But in this instance, her habit has worked to her advantage, and now Lucy carefully removes the flowing t-shirt adorning her body.
Newly decorating her chest is a tattoo of Ruvina's name in Giant. White ink, ornate script, disguising and mingling with the faint scar of Ankarna that will perpetually lie beneath.
It feels appropriate, at least to Lucy, to bind these sisters' in eternal glory on her body. The violence enacted in Ankarna's name will never be erased, but perhaps it can be made well with the presence and devotion of Ruvina.
Lucy places a hand atop her chest, tracing her goddess's name slowly but surely, and she swears the ink is icy beneath her palm.
"Thank you, Ruvina," Lucy whispers. "I know what I need to do."
xXx
Ruben is the only one who joins her.
"I'm sorry, Lucy," Oisin tells her over coffee, and he of all the High 5 Heroes is most likely to really mean it. "I still—I can't face her. Not yet."
Lucy nods. "I understand." She knows Oisin is struggling but nonetheless trying to make amends in his own way, especially to Adaine Abernant.
"Maybe… Maybe in a few more months," Oisin says. He holds his shoulders lower without a shatter-star embedded in his chest. "Not never, just… Not right now."
Oisin then looks up from his coffee to give her a genuine, if weary, smile. "Thank you, by the way."
Lucy tilts her head. "For what?"
"For giving me a second chance."
"Oh, Oisin." Lucy's voice is barely above a whisper, and she blinks back the tears that start to form. "I could never leave any of you behind."
Ivy simply rolls her eyes when Lucy drops by her house. "If I never have to think about that bitch again, it'll be too soon."
Lucy cringes at Ivy's merciless tone, but she can't say she doesn't understand. "Yes. Sorry. I just thought I'd offer."
For a split second, Ivy's gaze softens. "You don't—You don't need to apologize, Lucy." She runs a hand through her hair, messy and newly reaching her shoulders. "I know you mean well. But I'm…" A flicker of bitterness returns. "I'm exercising my frustrations in my own way."
Lucy nods. After a moment of hesitation, she pulls Ivy into a brief—tight—hug. "I forgive you, you know. Don't forget that."
And if a single tear escapes down Ivy's pallid cheeks, Lucy is sure not to comment.
Lucy and Mary Ann meet up at the park, the brilliant summer sun beating down overhead.
"I can't," Mary Ann says, abrupt as ever. "And I don't want to." She avoids Lucy's gaze. "Am I a coward for that?"
Lucy reaches out, placing a hand on top of Mary Ann's. "You're one of the bravest people I know. I don't blame you at all for not wanting to visit her."
Mary Ann nods, slowly. "Maybe one day," she finally says. "If you ever go back." She stares resolutely at her knuckles, her cheeks darkening ever so slightly. "I wouldn't want to go without you."
"I would never ask you to," Lucy promises. "I'm here. Now and always."
Mary Ann turns her hand over, claws gently scraping Lucy's palm. "I'm really glad you're back, Lucy."
Lucy's eyes well with tears, and she smiles. "I'm glad to be back, too."
Ruben joins Lucy in front of Kipperlilly's grave. Lucy has laid down a checkered blanket on the soft grass, and he slowly sits next to her.
"Is it… I heard this is just a cenotaph," Ruben says after a long pause.
Lucy takes a deep, slow breath. "Yeah. I went to the funeral, and… No body to bury."
Ruben nods. "It's weird, you know? That could've…" He shudders. "That could've been me, if Ankarna had been in a worse mood."
Ruben's memories of his time with the rage-star have slowly been returning, including his incineration in lava. Lucy knows this, not just because Ruben has confided in her, but also because… she can feel it, for lack of a better description. Ever since her tattoo fully healed, Lucy has been granted a selective divine awareness of certain things related to the intersection of Ruvina and Ankarna, and what better reflects that duality than the intermingling of justice and sorrow?
"Thanks for meeting me here," Lucy whispers.
Ruben hesitates, then drops his head onto her shoulder. "We were best friends, Lucy. I'll do anything to get that back."
"You already have it," Lucy says, and Ruben shakes his head.
"You can't just hand me your trust on a silver platter. I have to earn it."
Lucy wants to protest, wants to argue, but she knows that's not why either of them are here today.
Her gaze drifts back to the tombstone in front of her, inscribed only with 'K. C.' and the dates of birth and death underneath. No memorialization, no 'Beloved Daughter and Friend,' no sense of reminiscence.
Perhaps Kipperlilly doesn't deserve that, Lucy allows herself to think, allows herself to finally, finally be furious at her best friend who took her life like a helpless lamb out of pure self-interest, out of unjust fury, out of corrupted desire. Perhaps Kipperlilly would be better left forgotten for all of time after what she did to the people who loved her.
"It hurts to be here," Ruben whispers, choked up, and Lucy nods, her own eyes hot with frustrated tears.
"I wonder if she regrets… anything." Lucy's fingers hover over her chest before coming to rest on her neck, where there should be but exists no scar. "We were her friends, weren't we?"
Ruben lifts his head from Lucy's shoulder. "You were. I don't know about the rest of us."
Lucy closes her eyes, devastation curdling in the pit of her stomach because he's right. Kipperlilly was the leader of their party, a position that often seemed to detach her from kinship and kindness, even though Lucy knew how much she envied the closeness everyone else in the High 5 Heroes seemed to share.
"She wanted to be everyone's friend," Lucy says after a pause, extending not forgiveness but a note of grace toward the empty tomb before them. "She had the whole party's birthdays memorized. But she never… She never followed through."
Another hint of frustration alights in Lucy, because Kipperlilly was such a coward, wasn't she? Never dared to give her party the gifts she got them for fear of vulnerability. Never dared to go on intense missions for fear of slipping up. Never dared to act her age for fear of being perceived like the child they all were.
"She made me lose myself," Ruben spits, bitter. Tears stream down his face. "Because of her, my uncle went through hell trying to get help for me with all the awful shit I was doing. I don't—I don't know who I fucking was! And it's all her fault!"
Ruben's chest heaves as he dissolves into ugly sobs, and Lucy wraps her arms around him, her own shoulders shaking with undisguised tears.
"I loved you, Lilly. So much." The nickname is acid in her mouth, familiar though it rolls off her tongue. Lucy feels Ruben hug her tighter as she speaks. "I'm sorry that wasn't enough for you. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I'm sorry I couldn't be what you needed."
Like a star, Lucy finally shatters, a scream of a sob shuddering through her body as Ruben clings to her like a lifeline.
"I'm sorry I can't forgive you," she whispers, the words interrupted by hiccups and laced with tears, because Lucy's just not ready.
Not today.
I'm so, so sorry.
xXx
Lucy gently strokes the feathered neck of the griffin that carefully sets down outside the ruins of the Temple of the Fallen Sun. The chilly winds coursing through the Mountains of Chaos hold Lucy in a tender embrace, and she smiles as she slides off the griffin's back.
"Thank you," she says, nuzzling its beak. "I'll be out in a few hours, okay?"
The griffin squawks in what Lucy assumes is agreement before leaping off into the forest, presumably to hunt monsters or distract itself in some other way. Lucy allows herself a deep breath before entering the temple, watching her step as she proceeds down the uneven stones.
"Fig?" she calls. "Are you here?"
As if on cue, the Bad Kids' bard pops her head out from behind a pillar further into the temple. "Lucy!" she exclaims, waving her down. "Get on over here!"
Lucy does as beckoned, offering Fig a small smile as she joins her in the inner chamber of the Temple of the Fallen Sun. "Thanks for allowing me to help with this."
"Of course! Kristen's busy today, and Ayda and I need all the extra hands we can get."
From across the room, the fiery half-phoenix Lucy assumes must be the one and only Ayda Aguefort gives her a succinct nod. "Greetings, Lucy Frostblade. We welcome you to our humble temple restoration team."
With that spoken, Ayda returns to facing one of the temple's walls, hands aglow with electric blue magic.
"Ayda has been working on some abjuration spells with Aelwyn," Fig explains. "Adaine's sister, if you didn't know."
Lucy can't help but chuckle. "After what went down with Kalvaxus, I think everyone in Spyre has heard of Aelwyn Abernant."
Fig laughs, loud and melodious. "Yeah, you're probably right!" She gestures to Ayda again. "But Ayda's been learning a bit of abjuration to install some temporary protections into the temple while we whip it back into shape for Ankarna."
Simply saying her goddess's name seems to make Fig glow with morning light, Lucy observes, causing yet another fond smile to grace her lips. She wonders if her body reflects something similar—if chillier—when invoking Ruvina.
"As for us," Fig continues, "I've found that focusing on mending has been the most beneficial at this point in the process, but I've also used Animate Objects to remove some of the larger, non-repairable rubble."
Lucy nods. "I can definitely cast Mending, and anything else you need."
Fig beams at her. "Awesome! Let's get to work!"
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a bard so skilled, Lucy finds that Fig's 'temple restoration' playlist is an invigorating one, a mixture of Fig and the Cig Figs, Kid Kobold, and what Lucy recognizes as some of Ruben's new indie music—the songs he produces now that he's no longer with My Clerical Gnomance, that is.
Ruben told her Fig was the one who initially helped him start to recall his memories under the influence of the shatter-star, though he also dryly—albeit not bitterly—mentioned that 'help' might be a generous word. Apparently she showed up at his house, asked him if he remembered how he died, explained her role in the process, and did not apologize for killing him but did express regret at her voraciousness in doing so.
She did, however, apologize for the year-long performance of Wanda Childa.
That alone, Ruben admitted to Lucy, was probably kinder than he deserved, given that he had also been actively trying to infect the Bad Kids with rage, kill her and her friends, and destroy all of Elmville.
Truth be told, he said, he doesn't remember much about Wanda Childa. Which was probably for the best.
Lucy did her best to refrain from judgment then and continues to do so now, seeing as she was not present in that final battle nor the long months prior.
It was a bad year for everyone, was all she said to Ruben, and he nodded in agreement.
Right now, Lucy focuses on mending the cracks in the temple floor, allowing Fig to center her attention on mending the ancient image of Ankarna and Cassandra holding hands.
Every so often, Ayda pauses in her reconstruction to check on Fig, or vice versa. The two interact tenderly with each other, Lucy notes with fondness, where Fig knows exactly how to accommodate Ayda's quirks and Ayda knows precisely how to make Fig laugh.
Despite herself, Lucy's chest aches at their quiet displays of affection, particularly where Ruvina's ink and Ankarna's scar intersect. She doesn't need to be a divination wizard to see the future promised for Fig and Ayda, and Lucy questions whether such happiness—such love—is ever destined for her.
The ache in her chest intensifies as Lucy thinks of Kipperlilly.
The blue corsage Kipperlilly gave her for prom, bellflowers and forget-me-nots grown in Kipperlilly's own backyard.
The warmth of Kipperlilly's hand in hers, offering strength and encouragement as Lucy nervously spoke to Yolanda Badgood about a seeming error on her report card.
The stolen moment, a surprise to them both, at the last High 5 Heroes sleepover Lucy hosted at her house. How sweet her friend's strawberry chapstick tasted.
Lucy always struggled to stay mad at Kipperlilly. And even after all the harm and havoc and hurt Kipperlilly wreaked…
Lucy still misses her.
She wonders if she's doing the right thing—as a cleric, as a friend—waiting as long as she is.
"I've been meaning to ask you, Lucy," Fig says, pulling Lucy out of her thoughts. "Do you feel a connection to Ruvina in this temple, since Ankarna is her sister?"
Lucy pauses at the question. The process of mending over and over has been fairly rote work, allowing her mind to wander rather than truly focus on the temple's religiosity.
Her gaze rises to the massive portrait of Ankarna and Cassandra. Fire and ice pulsate within her chest.
"I think… I do," Lucy says. Quiet, awestruck, doubtful of her certainty. She turns around, and in a moment of reverent instinct, she extends her hands to Fig.
Fig accepts them both.
At their touch, the wind in the temple picks up, a blast of blistering heat that rapidly sharpens to bitter cold. The swirling breeze tousles through their hair, undoing Lucy's braid in the process.
The energy only builds. Lucy cannot speak, and based on the way Fig's eyes widen she suspects the experience is shared, but it takes little time for Lucy to realize their hearts have begun to beat in unison.
When Fig drops her hands to pull Lucy into a tight hug, Lucy does not stop her, merely returning the embrace with equal force.
The wind abruptly stops, and their knees simultaneously buckle. Before they can collapse, though, Ayda catches them both, pulling them back to their feet and steadying them.
"What… was that?" Fig finally asks, and Lucy can only shake her head in wonder.
"A message. From our goddesses."
Ayda's eyes briefly glow. She clicks her tongue. "Hm. It would seem you and my paramour have cast a spell akin to Hallow together."
"Huh?" Fig says, confused, at the same time as Lucy's eyes widen and she says, "That can't be possible."
Ayda shrugs. "I am merely a wizard. I do not pretend to possess an intimate knowledge of holy magic. However, the power of the divine is meant to be beyond mortal understanding, is it not?"
"I…" Lucy's eyes trace the inner chamber once more, and indeed, something in the atmosphere has changed. It's not the Hallow spell, at least not one Lucy has ever experienced, but there is a new aura of… sanctity.
Devotion.
"Wow," Lucy whispers, and when Fig beams at her, Lucy returns her new friend's grin with a hopeful smile.
xXx
Her parents will not participate in the ritual with her—and Lucy would never ask them to—but they are more than happy to help her grow and eventually harvest the necessary items she needs to perform this traditional ceremony that honors Ruvina.
A beautiful juniper tree already grows in their backyard, and her mother promises to take extra care of it and their hardy pine to ensure they will remain healthy for when Lucy needs their branches. During the year she was dead, Lucy is almost certain her mother coped by throwing herself into gardening, because their two yards have been blooming like Lucy never remembered.
Her father is a toy designer by trade, but the tremors in his hands only worsened in the year Lucy was gone. Now, he fulfills more of the small business's managerial roles. He still promises Lucy, though, that as the time for her ritual nears, he can acquire for her the instruments she needs: straw, white cloth, ribbons.
There are still more components that Lucy wants to grow and create herself. She tends to fennel and violets in the front garden, blossoms she will preserve for the copse as the fall and winter months grow nearer. On the window ledge above the kitchen sink is a small herb box: lavender, thyme, rosemary, yarrow, basil.
Though it is customary to wait until the dawn of spring to perform this ritual, Lucy knows time is of the essence. She will, however, wait at least until the winter solstice, a week or so before Moonar Yulenear.
Lucy was never such a rigid planner as Kipperlilly, but it does bring her comfort in these final days of summer to know that she is well-prepared to reach out to Ruvina with her ultimate plea.
She knows not whether that plea will be answered, of course, but there is a certain confidence granted in the act of making herself wholly vulnerable to her goddess. Baring one's heart to the wrath and warmth of winter, choosing not to fear but to feel sorrow and accepting its lingering presence in the process.
The day before senior year begins, Lucy's parents sit her down.
"We want to make a small request of you," her mother says, and Lucy nods. "It's not mandatory, and we won't punish you for not doing it, but we want to put it on your radar."
Her father takes a deep, slow breath. "This semester… We'd like you to consider talking to Jawbone O'Shaughnessey."
Lucy tilts her head, not necessarily surprised but more so confused. "About what?"
Her parents exchange a hesitant look.
"We… It wasn't too hard for us to guess what your ritual might be for," her father says.
"And we don't want to dissuade you from trusting that instinct," her mother adds. "However…" She sighs. "You were dead for a year, sweetheart. You were resurrected, and within a week you attended… her funeral."
Lucy knows her parents have been deeply conflicted on the state of Kipperlilly. They could sense something was off with her long before Lucy did simply because they lacked an intimate affection to cloud their judgment, and yet they also know that Kipperlilly led the charge in brutally murdering their only daughter.
Lucy can't blame them for their uncertainty. She herself is still yet to settle the turmoil that bubbles within her, terror and disgust and anger at who Kipperlilly became clashing with her longing for the fiery, fond, supportive girl Lucy once knew.
"Mr. O'Shaughnessey might be able to help you process some of these changes," her father says. "And, you know, Kipperlilly was seeing him for a while. He might even have extra insight there."
"But again, we don't want to force you into visiting him." Her mother reaches out, and Lucy allows her to gently brush the strands that escaped her braid out of her face. "We love you. You know that, right?"
And Lucy smiles at them both, certain of just how lucky she is to hear her parents say that. "I know. I love you, too."
They both pull her into a tight embrace, and with grateful tears collecting at her lashes, Lucy allows herself to be held.
xXx
"Well, it would seem missing a year of school hasn't put you behind in the slightest," Yolanda says, equal parts amused and impressed, and Lucy gives her a soft smile.
"I wanted to enjoy senior year with my friends," is all she says of explanation, but she is certain Yolanda recognizes what goes unspoken: Lucy spent much of the summer teaching herself what she would have learned junior year, because to be a year behind her party members that she has forgiven and learned to love again would be too cruel an act of fate.
Yolanda nods. She writes a note in the margins on one of the many papers decorating her office desk. "I've got good news for you, Ms. Frostblade." She grins at Lucy. "Arthur Aguefort approved your skip months ago, and now that I've got confirmation you'll be well-equipped to handle this final year of cleric classes, I'm happy to say that you can put your junior year fully behind you. Congratulations!"
For all Lucy put on a confident front, her shoulders still drop in relief even as her smile widens with joy.
"I look forward to seeing you in cleric classes tomorrow afternoon," Yolanda continues. "That's all I have for you now, unless you've got any questions for me."
Lucy hesitates. This is the opportunity she has awaited since Kipperlilly's funeral, but anxiety dances in her stomach at the prospect of Yolanda deciphering her true motivation.
"With all my catch-up studies," she finally says, "I've been thinking, lately, about life and death. And what they mean to a cleric."
Yolanda tilts her head. "Are these thoughts in any way inspired by your own experiences in the afterlife—or two different afterlives, I should say?"
Lucy nods, because it's not quite a lie, if not the whole truth, either. "I—We were very fortunate to be resurrected by a goddess."
Yolanda chuckles. "Indeed we were. Exceptionally strong revivification magic was otherwise required to restore us to life."
"Magic an ordinary cleric could not perform?"
Her mentor shrugs. "How do we define 'ordinary'? True Resurrection is one of the most powerful spells a cleric can learn, but there are those who choose not to pursue their studies to such an extent. At the same time, with dedication and devotion, any cleric could theoretically possess such power."
"And… Divine Intervention?" Lucy cannot stop her words from exiting as a whisper.
Yolanda hums, threading her fingers together to rest her chin atop her hands. "In many ways, our revival was the product of an unusual Divine Intervention, was it not?"
Lucy recalls the sensation of awakening. Where death at Ankarna's unknown name came with a furious blaze, resurrection at her hands was like basking in the dawn of a summer sun.
Lucy has seen people revived before. How they always seemed to return with a choke and a gasp. Waking with Ankarna, though, reminded her of a mother's touch, gentle lips brushing across a child's forehead to soothe a fever.
Perhaps an apology, of sorts, for the violence her followers wreaked against Ruvina's devotees all those eons ago.
"Clerics pray to their gods every day," Yolanda continues, "whether we know it or not. The connection between the belief and a believer runs two ways, no?"
Lucy nods. "Divine Intervention is just… The moment when that connection is clearest."
Ruvina always hears her prayers, Lucy is certain of that. She believes, too, that Ruvina is a constant presence in her life—she can find Ruvina in every breeze, in every snowflake, in every child's embrace on a cold winter night.
Lucy just needs to keep her faith, then. Trust that Ruvina will intervene when—if—the moment is right.
No, not right. Not just, either. Not sure. Not certain.
If the moment is true.
If Lucy is true, then maybe—maybe—her goddess will choose to intervene.
Yolanda smiles. "Humans need protection. We make horrible mistakes. We cry for love, support, hope—to call for Divine Intervention is to embrace our mortal fallibility. Do you understand?"
Lucy nods, a small smile tugging at her own lips. "Yes. I think I do."
Yolanda leans back in her seat. "I thought you might. Any other questions for me?"
Just one. Just one that has been burning a hole in Lucy's chest, shaped like a 24-pointed star and with pain equally as sharp.
"Clerics have—not power over life and death," she says, "but a special hand in it." Lucy's gaze drops to her palms, tracing a lengthy life line that was once and could again be a lie. "How do we know when to exercise that guidance?"
She can feel Yolanda's eyes on her, sympathetic and sorrowful, but she dares not look up.
"We don't." Yolanda's voice is soft. "But I believe it is not always a cleric's responsibility to know. It is simply our responsibility to try."
Lucy sniffles, wiping at tears that have started to well in the corners of her eyes. "And if I fail?"
Yolanda can only shrug. "Death is the sister to life. An ending that invites a new beginning."
A cycle. Night ends to invite dawn, winter ends to invite spring, and a blazing summer day always ends in cool twilight.
Lucy is a cleric. A cleric who can bring Kipperlilly back. And she wants to.
Doesn't she?
xXx
"Is it true these sessions are confidential?" Lucy's eyes dart between Jawbone and his closed office door despite herself. "No one can know what we talk about?"
Jawbone makes a so-so gesture. "Yes and no. There are certain instances in which I am required to file a report, such as when I believe a student may be a threat to themself or others." Guilt flashes across his features. "I'll admit I have… struggled with that in the past. Thought I could help students, didn't realize I was in over my head."
He doesn't need to name her.
Lucy thinks of Kipperlilly's short blonde ponytail. She thinks of how she used to watch Kipperlilly gently pull her hair back, coaxing each strand perfectly into place.
She also thinks of watching Kipperlilly yank her hair out of her face, tearing out loose threads that did not obey her command.
Lucy wonders if she should blame Jawbone for not getting Kipperlilly specialized help fast enough.
Lucy wonders if she should blame Porter for taking advantage of Kipperlilly's mental health and insecurities.
Lucy wonders if she should blame Kipperlilly for chasing—choosing—her envy over Riz Gukgak over her love for her friends. For insisting on shortcut after shortcut instead of enjoying the long walks home. For welcoming—demanding, begging, bringing—a shatter-star into the depths of her spirit and body.
For looking at Lucy like a tool. Like a puzzle piece she no longer knew where to place in the vision of her life.
Like a means to an end.
"If the conversation leads to anything I think would necessitate a report," Jawbone continues, "I'll cut you off, and you can take a moment to consider whether you want to keep going or not."
Lucy nods, allowing her attention to drift back to the present moment.
"I think I just… need some clarity," she finally says. "I don't want to make a decision I'll eventually regret."
Jawbone chuckles, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Well, let me tell you right off the bat—we can never be certain what decisions we'll regret. It's okay not to know now. It's okay to never know. It's okay to do it anyway and wish you hadn't later. That's all part of being alive."
"What I'm worried about…" Lucy's voice drops to a whisper. "Are the consequences of stopping someone from being dead."
Jawbone raises an eyebrow, but Lucy continues before he can speak, allowing the words she has never dared speak aloud to tumble from her mouth like a waterfall.
"I can't hate Kipperlilly. I'm still—I don't know how to forgive her, yet, for everything she's done, but I've never been good at hatred."
Kipperlilly used to admire her magnanimity.
Eventually, she spit at Lucy's feet because of it.
"I keep thinking of how—who—she used to be," Lucy continues, hands quivering in her lap, "and I wonder if that person can be saved. Gods are a product of their believers. Aren't friendships similar? If I believe she can be better, that gives her a reason to try?"
Can she finally, finally be enough for Kipperlilly, Lucy wonders, and the truth hits her like the first icy gust of a blizzard.
How long has she been blaming herself? Apologizing at an empty tomb for a life that was not her own. Pursuing resurrection for an unrecognizable body that she hopes will mold into holy shape.
What kind of cleric can Lucy claim to be if she wasn't—isn't—able to heal the hurt that cut so deep into the heart of her dearest friend?
"Lucy," Jawbone says, and his voice wraps around her like a weighted blanket. "It's not your fault. It never has been."
Jawbone offers her a tissue. When did she start crying?
"I can think of more than a few adults to blame," he continues, "myself included. But don't put this on yourself. Not the weight of the past, nor the obligations of the future."
Lucy wipes her eyes with the tissue. "A few weeks ago, I was so certain this was the right path," she says, pretending her voice isn't shaking. "Perform a ritual, ask for divine intervention, and leave it up to Ruvina to determine whether Kipperlilly is worthy of a second—of another chance."
Her lack of knowledge wounds her in this moment. Lucy still talks to her friends, especially Ruben, but few of them ever want to speak of Kipperlilly, much less speak of the year each of them had holes gouged into their chest and shatter-stars shoved in by someone they thought of—if not as a friend—as a leader with their party's best interests at heart.
Lucy talks to the Bad Kids, too, has tried to be the person who mended the burning bridges between the two groups, and it's a task she has… mostly accomplished. Once away from the heat of battle, Fig in all her genial charm took their presence in stride and with a wink. Fabian still begrudges Ivy for her callous comments toward Mazey, but Lucy knows Mazey has been trying to soothe those mutual wounds. Gorgug, much like Fig, seemed to accept everyone naturally, though Lucy still isn't sure exactly what he has going on with Mary Ann.
Kristen, in all the chaos that seems to pursue her as the champion of mystery and doubt, bears no genuine ill will against any of them, though she won't hesitate to play up the past for gags. Despite her oft grating behavior, Lucy feels perhaps closest to Kristen of all the Bad Kids.
Lucy also suspects Riz conducted his own investigations to confirm the independence of her party from their rage-stars, a quest she does not blame him for. She remains amused, though, by how he still seems to dislike Oisin on Adaine's behalf.
Adaine, in turn, pokes fun at Oisin left and right. Without a shatter-star giving him certainty and confidence, Oisin is often at a loss for how to respond, much to Lucy's amusement and that of the rest of her party.
Lucy doesn't know how the Bad Kids feel about Kipperlilly. Or rather, how they would feel about Lucy's plan to create a possibility—not even a probability—for her resurrection.
Maybe she should talk to one of them. Find out… at the very least what they witnessed from Kipperlilly during junior year.
"I was so certain," Lucy finally repeats. Seconds that were years have passed since she last spoke. "But now I'm—I'm worried I'm overstepping."
Jawbone hums, nodding slowly. "Can you say a little more?"
"Who am I to question another goddess's divine will?" The words fall so quickly from her tongue. "Who am I to challenge Ankarna's decision not to resurrect Kipperlilly? She's the embodiment of justice, doesn't that mean she knows…"
Lucy can't finish.
Jawbone blows air through his lips. "I won't pretend to be an expert on clerics and divinity. But from what Fig has told me, Ankarna is not only the goddess of justice. She also represents a new dawn."
He meets Lucy's eyes, sympathetic and kind. "I can't tell you what's the right decision here. Whether you should reach out to Ruvina or trust the will of Ankarna."
Lucy nods. More tears prick at her eyes.
"But what I can tell you is that as time passes, the needs of the world and the people in it change. Maybe refusing resurrection for Kipperlilly was, at that point, justice." Jawbone shrugs. "Maybe that's not the case now. I don't think anyone's divinity would blame you for asking."
The dam breaks. Messy tears cascade down Lucy's cheeks, and all she can think as she bows her head in shame is that she hasn't felt so much like a child, in a long, long time.
"Would you like a hug?" Jawbone asks, and Lucy nods, her attempt to withhold her sobs resulting in half-hiccups.
"Yes, please."
His embrace is warm, oddly comforting in its strangeness, and Jawbone gently rubs circles on her back.
"I miss her so much," Lucy weeps, squeezing her eyes shut. "But I don't—I don't know if I can stomach seeing her again."
"There's a fine line between love and hate," is all Jawbone says, and Lucy knows he doesn't have all the answers and neither does she but there's still nothing that makes her chest ache more than this confusion.
Maybe she's just asking the wrong people.
Maybe not the divine. Not yet.
But maybe someone close enough.
xXx
"Thanks for helping me with this," Lucy says with a small smile, and Kristen grins at her.
"Thank you for inviting me along!" Kristen shifts the backpack over her shoulders, careful not to destabilize the various plants she has balanced in her arms. "This is a sick idea. And really beautiful."
Lucy laughs at Kristen's hasty addition, careful not to drop her own army of plants, and together they begin their journey through the Far Haven Woods, stopping where the trees meet the mineral sand of Lake Shimmerstone.
Last time Lucy was here, she wept.
The time before that, she died.
Still, she does not shudder, instead giving Kristen a brave smile. "Ready?"
Kristen nods. "Let's do this!"
The two of them carefully set down their plants in their arms, extracting the rest of the greenery and mycelium and saplings from their backpacks with similar caution. Both sit at the edge of a cavern in the soil, where trees are uprooted and faint red shards—glittering like shattered glass—can be seen shining amongst the dirt.
The process of restoring the soil of Elmville is a slow one, with efforts required across the entire city and its countryside, but Lucy chose this contaminated spot for a simple reason.
For half a year, this was Lucy's resting place. For a day, it was also Yolanda's.
Kristen was more than enthused to attend to this task with Lucy, with only one request: that they begin their planting at twilight.
The sun sinks below the horizon as they pull out small garden trowels and fertilizer, provided to them by the Thistlesprings and Lucy's own parents. Her mother asked her if she wanted their assistance as well, and Lucy told them maybe in another place, at another time.
Lake Shimmerstone will forever link Lucy and Kristen. The place, as holy as it is not, where Kristen Applebees performed Spare the Dying and allowed Lucy and Yolanda's souls to find a semblance of serenity.
Lucy isn't certain if she will ever be able to fully express her gratitude for such kindness. She is certain, however, that she will never need to—because Kristen already knows.
"What should we start with?" Kristen asks, pulling on her gardening gloves as Lucy does the same.
"Maybe the full sunflowers first," Lucy says. "Then give the willow saplings more space, and do the mushrooms last."
Kristen grins at her. "Sounds like a plan!"
Lucy was initially worried the process of planting flower after flower would lead to a sense of dull repetition, but she should've known to trust that Kristen would always have something new to comment on—sometimes inanely, sometimes poignantly, and sometimes simple observation.
Lucy is the one to shift the conversation away from the fate of 'K2,' a simulacrum she doesn't believe she ever met but does enjoy hearing so many silly stories about, when a blinking firefly floats in front of her face.
Lucy smiles. "I know you're tired of me saying this, but thank you again for letting me stay in your afterlife." The cool shadows of the Far Haven Woods remind her of Cassandra's domain, the time and place of twilight cultivating a space for doubt to inspire change.
Normally, Kristen laughs and waves Lucy's gratitude away, sometimes followed by a comment that it was all she could do and she's glad it helped, but tonight Kristen closes her eyes. She nods slowly, breathing in the chilly lakeshore air, and crosses her legs beneath her.
"What was… What was Cassandra's afterlife really like?" Kristen's voice is barely above a whisper. "Where were you before?"
Lucy has mastered the art of no longer flinching at the haunting memory of wandering through Ankarna's rotting corpse, aided by her concentration on planting a sunflower just right in the sparkling soil.
"I wasn't in hell," she finally says, "but at first, I definitely thought I was." Walking past smoldering mountains she eventually realized were bones. "There was fire everywhere. And pain. So much pain."
Kristen opens her eyes, tilting her head. "Not rage?"
Lucy hums. "Rage and pain aren't so different, I don't think. And to walk through it rather than experience it…" How the ground shook with staggering breaths. How cavernous wails ricocheted through the blazing orange skies. "I never felt angry while I was there. Just… sad."
Mourning the betrayal of her friends. Wishing she said I love you to her parents one last time. Regretting that she hadn't noticed just how far Kipperlilly strayed from her side.
On the edge of her vision, Lucy notices Kristen slide off a glove to rub at her eyes, shoulders shaking.
"But Cassandra's afterlife…" Lucy continues. "It was beautiful, Kristen. It really was." She hesitates. "I think—I hope it's okay to say this, but it reminded me of how Ruvina's afterlife is often described to be."
Sorrow and doubt, winter and twilight. Sisters through marriage, not blood, but kin all the same.
"I appeared in the middle of a forest." Lucy begins digging a hole for a new sunflower. "Cool shadows hung everywhere, clinging to me like… like the first embrace of a long-lost friend. But it wasn't totally dark, either."
She places her trowel aside to round out the indent in the soil with her gloved hands. "There was light breaking through the trees. Kind of an optical illusion." Purples and blues and shades of indigo in-between, creating visions not of monstrosity but of uncertainty left for the viewer to interpret.
In them, Lucy saw the first snowfall of winter. The bare hand of a frost genasi reaching out for the mittened hand of a halfling.
"There was a small pool of water in front of me," Lucy continues. She dusts off her gloves to reach for a new sunflower, carefully removing the cardboard bottom. "I could tell it was transparent, but when I got closer, all I could see was my reflection."
A fond smile drifts onto her lips. "For a moment, there was a hand on my shoulder." Lucy carefully places the sunflower into the soil's spacious dent, patting the dirt around it. "Lavender-skinned and dotted with infinite stars."
I'm sorry I cannot offer you rest, a voice whispered, lost in the wind. But I hope I can at least offer you peace.
Kristen takes a deep breath. Lucy slides off her gloves and moves closer, gently pressing their shoulders together.
"I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you," Kristen finally says, hushed and solemn.
Lucy leans the side of her head against Kristen's. "You did everything you could." Another smile, sorrowful and bittersweet, falls upon her features. "We've all got our own regrets to carry."
A pause.
"Kipperlilly?" Kristen asks, quiet. Not judgmental. Unusually gentle.
Lucy nods. "I wonder where she is right now." She feels Kristen lace their fingers together. "Hell? Ankarna's new domain? Banished somewhere else altogether?"
"I'm sorry," Kristen says again. She winces. "Maybe… Maybe not that she died, but for what you lost because of it."
"Can I be honest with you?" Lucy's mouth is dry. "I've been thinking about trying to bring her back." She closes her eyes, steeling herself against tears. "But I don't know what version of her I might resurrect."
"You're afraid to look her in the eyes," Kristen whispers, and Lucy's chest aches. "You're afraid you won't recognize who… or what you see."
Lucy thinks of Kristen, chasing deity after deity. Lucy thinks of Kristen and her tumultuous relationship with Tracker—what it means to love, to lose, to grow apart and back again. Lucy thinks of Kristen and her challenges with Cassandra, how a cleric can worship, what it means to change and be changed through veneration.
She thinks of Ankarna and the rage of grief.
She thinks of Ruvina and the sorrow of affection.
She thinks of Kipperlilly.
Lucy cannot change the past. She does not know the future.
Right now, in the present, she squeezes Kristen's hand.
"Can you forgive me, Kristen? If I try?"
Lucy opens her eyes at the sound of trowels clanking, Kristen adjusting her position on the soil to face Lucy directly.
She does not let go of Lucy's hand.
"Kipperlilly… tried to kill my friends. She left my hometown in ruins. I don't know how to forgive her for that."
Kristen leans in, pressing their foreheads together, and though Lucy clamps her free hand over her mouth she cannot stop a sob from escaping at the familiar warmth.
"But," Kristen continues, her own voice shaking, "out of those ruins, sunflowers are growing. That has to mean something. Right?"
Silent tears stream down Lucy's cheeks. Some fall onto the soil, soaked up by the roots of the nearest sunflower.
xXx
Lucy is finally ready. Ready to ask, at least, if ever unprepared for what answer she may receive.
She prepares the components of the ritual at home, telling her parents she needs no assistance but aware of how they hover at the edges of her vision. They know she's capable, and they're making more of an effort to trust her abilities and knowledge, but they had two memorials for her in one year. She can't blame them for keeping an eye on her.
This ceremony requires two items: an effigy and a copse.
Lucy has only met Ruvina once before, and she doesn't much remember it. When she was six years old, back when her family was still yet to move to Elmville, she decided she wanted to be a cleric of Ruvina, and the entire Frostblade extended family came together to perform a ceremony anointing her into that path. At the very end, Ruvina appeared—supposedly a rarity among these ceremonies—to bless Lucy herself.
Despite how fragmented this memory is, Lucy crafts an effigy of her goddess with the utmost care. She knots the straw how her father taught her, adorning it with a white dress both symbolic of winter and an allusion to the translucent garments Ruvina is customarily depicted in. She adds white ribbons for authenticity. She whispers a prayer in Giant, too, snowflakes falling off her tongue.
The copse is for the second half of the ritual, though Lucy prepares it now with as much care. She ties together juniper and pine branches, snipped from the trees in her family's backyard, leaving as many of the juniper berries attached as possible. Lucy knows she'll need most of the herbs she grew during the initial stages of the ritual, but alongside violets and fennel she tucks a few yarrow blossoms into the tied-off copse as well.
Lucy carefully places the copse into a bag that she hangs over her shoulders, holding the effigy reverently to her chest.
"I'll be back," she tells her parents, who nod and kiss her on either temple.
"Be careful, okay?" her mother says. "I know you and Kristen have started your—your 'cleansing plants' project, but if any of the rage fragments react negatively to your magic, get out of there, okay?"
Lucy nods. She doubts such will happen, but the last thing she wants is to needlessly worry her parents more.
"And don't be too disheartened if… you know," her father says. "The gods are always listening, but it's hard to make them pay attention. If Ruvina doesn't answer tonight, well, tomorrow's another day."
Lucy chooses to respond by pulling both of her parents into a double embrace. "I'll see you in a little while," she whispers, and they squeeze her tightly in return.
Customarily, the ritual takes place with a procession. Ruvina's worshippers come together to celebrate the end of winter and pray for a bountiful harvest in spring.
Lucy has already broken custom twice over: she makes this journey alone, and she does so at winter's opening rather than its ending.
She hums a children's lullaby in Giant as she makes her way through the streets of Elmville in the dead of night, uncaring who might look out their window and see a tall teenage frost genasi winding her way through the city with a white-clothed doll in hand. The journey to the Far Haven Woods and to Lake Shimmerstone just beyond is not a long one, but Lucy does not rush her steps, either. She lets the cool night wind cradle her in its arms, and any other day she might have smiled at the embrace of doubt but tonight she is certain.
Certain of what she needs, if not what will occur.
The rats join Lucy in the Far Haven Woods, scampering alongside her feet and turning her solo walk into something akin to the ritual's customary procession. She makes a promise to herself to scritch beneath their chins another night—they deserve such tender affection and more.
Lucy reaches the edge of Lake Shimmerstone, effigy still in hand. She slips off her shoes for no reason but instinct, allowing the mineral sand to pierce beneath her bare feet and pinch between her toes. The water's surface sparkles in the moonlight, not yet cold enough to begin frosting over, and Lucy takes a deep breath before getting on her knees.
From her bag she removes her collection of herbs: lavender, thyme, rosemary, yarrow, basil. She carefully rubs each one onto the effigy of Ruvina, tucking some into the folds of the cloth dress and tying others to the doll with extra lengths of white ribbon. Each herb is a prayer of its own, a promise to her goddess, and once the figure is completely adorned Lucy gets to her feet and casts Sacred Flame on the effigy.
Lucy has always been an unconventional cleric, and the divine fire that leaves her hand is a burst of blistering cold that singes the effigy before it fully alights with a freezing inferno.
"Hear my prayer, Ruvina," Lucy says. She picks up the burning effigy, closes her eyes, and tosses it out onto the still waters of Lake Shimmerstone.
A quiet splash echoes through the night. Lucy keeps her eyes closed until she has fully turned away from the lake's surface, knowing better than to look back at the holy blaze.
She then removes the copse from her bag, juniper and pine still braided tightly with fennel and violets, holding it with two hands as she gets to her knees once more.
"Hear my prayer, Ruvina," Lucy whispers. "In the darkest of night, we light a fire. In the bleakest of cold, we hold one another. In the depths of winter, we come together for warmth."
Her grip on the copse tightens, but she keeps her voice steady.
"We go gently into the night. We walk tenderly in sorrow. We follow your path, Ruvina, and light our own way."
Tears brim at Lucy's lashes. She allows them to fall.
"Ruvina…" Her voice wavers at the end of the formalities. To perform a ritual is simple.
To request her divinity's intervention…
"The summers have raged long, Ruvina." Lucy focuses on the roughness of the bark beneath her palms, the haunting of the breeze around her head, the crackling of the effigy that still burns behind her. "Hatred broils in the roots of this town. Winter must calm this blaze. Sorrow must temper this fury."
Lucy takes a deep, slow breath. She closes her eyes. "Forgiveness… must prevail."
She thinks of sitting at Kipperlilly's empty grave, Ruben at her side. She thinks of the regret in Jawbone's eyes, a regret that evolved into a gentle determination to do more. She thinks of casting Hallow with Fig, the power of Ruvina and Ankarna twining together the way summer and winter are bound in eternal pursuit. She thinks of planting sunflowers with Kristen, of being more than kin and knowing how much it hurts to be kind.
She thinks of Octavia and Landynleaf Copperkettle. She thinks of a hollow casket.
"No one has ever been selfish in their love for Lilly," Lucy whispers. "Let me be the first."
When Lucy opens her eyes, Ruvina stands before her, and Lucy cannot withhold a reverent gasp.
Like all Giantkin, her goddess looms tall above the sandy shore, a height made even mightier by the fact that Lucy remains on her knees. Ruvina's skin is an icy blue, not entirely dissimilar to Lucy's own, and shock white braids tumble down her back and past her waist. Snowflake freckles decorate the bridge of her nose.
"Lucy Frostblade," Ruvina says, and the coolness of her voice makes the Giantish tongue sound more arrhythmic than lilting. "You summon me to request resurrection. To undo my sister's bindings. To interrupt her jurisdiction and restore vitality to someone who has been stripped of it."
Lucy bows her head, laying the copse down before her goddess. "I request your intervention, Ruvina. Whatever that action may be."
Ruvina hums. The sand beneath Lucy's knees shifts with the intense vibration. "My votaress. Tell me what it is you desire."
"I…" Lucy places a hand atop her chest. Beneath her wool sweater is the white tattoo of her goddess's name. "I want to forgive her."
The rats of the Far Haven Woods have grown silent. The water of Lake Shimmerstone has ceased its lapping at the shore. The effigy of Ruvina no longer crackles and lights up the dark.
"The world is lonely, dark, and deep," Lucy continues. "Its winters are cold and biting. But we are made to warm each other. We are made to extend a hand—to offer promises that we must try to keep."
Cassandra's starry hand on her shoulder. Fig's hands excitedly squeezing hers. Kristen lacing their fingers together.
Embracing Ruben. Embracing her parents. Accepting Jawbone's gentle hug.
A group photo with Oisin, Ivy, Mary Ann, Ruben, Kipperlilly, arms looped around one another and laughing.
Kristen's forehead against hers. Kipperlilly's forehead against hers.
Kipperlilly's knife at her neck.
Cupping Kipperlilly's face with a bloodied hand.
"It's not about a second chance," Lucy says, and she meets her goddess's eyes. "It's about trying again. Holding each other until we're warm."
Frost dusts the sand around Lucy, tiny crystals freezing together.
Ruvina gets on her knees. She kisses Lucy's forehead.
"I am proud of you, my votaress." More frost clings to the ground, spreading across the sand and reaching the edge of the lake. "Winter may bring sorrow and discontent, but with winter always comes the promise of spring."
Ruvina places a hand on Lucy's cheek, a cold comfort. "Keep your promises, Lucy Frostblade. They will serve you well."
The wind picks up, Ruvina's braids spiraling like a storm in the icy air. The temperature drops. Lucy's vision goes white. Her blood freezes in her veins as a gasp escapes her throat, sorrow marking her cheeks with frostbitten tears.
The storm ceases as soon as it starts. Lucy gasps again as warmth courses through her body and thaws her blood, chest heaving at the sudden change.
"Lucy?"
Lucy's gaze snaps upward. Across from her, mere meters away, stands Kipperlilly Copperkettle without a scratch or burn on her.
"Lilly?" she whispers. Lucy stumbles to her feet, but when she steps toward Kipperlilly, Kipperlilly immediately takes a step back.
"Why?" Kipperlilly stares at her, a gaze laced with disgust that transforms into horror. She starts clawing at her chest, tearing through her cardigan. "Why did you do this to me?!"
Tears well in Lucy's eyes. "Lilly—"
"Shut up!" Kipperlilly screams, and she yanks her sweater down to reveal a white scar across her chest. A white scar that rests atop and warps Ankarna's faded rune underneath.
A white scar that marks Ruvina's name, written in Giant.
"It's—It's gone," Kipperlilly says, frustration that can no longer rise to unmitigated rancor and rage. She looks at Lucy once more, devastated. "Why did you bring me back without it?"
Kipperlilly does not wait for an answer, another scream escaping her as she collapses to her knees. "You should've left me dead!"
Lucy responds the only way she can think of: she pulls down her wool sweater to reveal the white tattoo across her chest, identical to Kipperlilly's scar, that mingles with the remains of Ankarna's name beneath.
Kipperlilly stills, her breathing at last slowing from its frantic panic. "You…"
"What's mine is yours," Lucy says. "In death and in life."
Kipperlilly exhales shakily. "No. I am nothing without rage. You were… You are everything without it."
"Let me share your rage," Lucy says, walking the line between a plea and a dream. "Let me share your sorrow. Let me share your joy and your suffering and your love."
She offers Kipperlilly her hand. "Please, Lilly. Let's try again."
Kipperlilly scoffs. "What makes you think I'll get it right this time?"
Lucy smiles. "You don't have to. You just have to try."
Silence hangs. Kipperlilly stares at the ground. "Lucy… Why did you bring me back? After everything?"
A pause. "The same reason you killed me, I think." Lucy kneels beside Kipperlilly. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you then. But I love you, too."
Messy tears roll down Kipperlilly's cheeks. She bites her tongue to stifle the cries.
"Let's try again, Lilly," Lucy whispers. She offers her dearest friend her hand once more. "Together."
Shaking with sorrow and devotion, Kipperlilly places her hand in Lucy's.
xXx
It's always been up to you
It's turnin' around, it's up to me
I'm gonna do what I have to do
Just don't
Gimme a little time
Leave me alone a little while
Maybe it's not too late
—Avril Lavigne, "Tomorrow"
hi, i love lucy frostblade with my entire being, come scream with me about lucy, frostkettle, and all things fantasy high on tumblr thinkingisadangerouspastime! i love talking about headcanons; post-canon possibilities; the triangulation of ruvina, ankarna, and cassandra; and the deliciously complicated homoeroticism of murdering your best friend. im also having a Lot of kristen&lucy thoughts rn (maybe even kristen/lucy with the specter of kipperlilly looming over them both?)
anyways, that's enough rambling, thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed!