Might as well repost the one-shot
Tuesday, July 11th, 2023 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
corneillemoisieFirst things first : I used to write fanfictions. I used to write fanfictions, not reread them at all, and then publish them on fanfiction.net.
Then, sometime in the 2010's, i decided to remove everything I wrote from the site because I was planning to write a book and I didn't think it would look professional (lol) to have fanfiction online if I was going to write something "serious" (re-lol). Anyway, a few years later, my external drive containing all my old fanfictions died (re-re-lol) and I lost nearly everything I ever wrote :). I have since also reviewed my stance on the professionalism of having fanfictions online as a published author lmao.
At the time, I was also trying very hard to re-write one of my fanfic as a "serious novel". Too hard, even. I kind of stopped writing at all around the same time. I guess I got discouraged or something.
But the fic I was trying to re-write was still haunting me :)
That fic was pretty much me finding a translation of the lyrics to Schwarz Stein's New Vogue Children, took it, and ran with it. I had made Hora into a mad scientist who made human flesh hungry babies to his trans girlfriend, Kaya, who also was trying to escape the kind of soured relationship they had (unrelated the the mad science of it :) ). Now my idea of her being rescued by a cop (Juka lol) was probably not the best, but hey, it was 2008 or something, when I first wrote these. I WAS NINETEEN. Also, the story derailed sooooo much, it barely had anything to do with the new vogue children themselves, by the end. It might be why its brainrot never really went away, tbh.
I have since scrapped the idea that this should be a science fiction story and made it into... gothique fantasy ? lol. Magic took over the science of it, partly because the science I used to make these "babies" "realistic" was based in real science and nowadays it actually is possible to "create" a baby without a womb, so i was not really comfortable with calling this science fiction anymore lol (i thought it was far fetched in 2008, mind you T_T)
And, since then, Hora became Orlège (and has been Orlège since 2013 !) and Kaya became 378 different characters tbh..... until I figured out that I can write a trans woman without it being complicated (it was very complicated, in 2008, apparently, ... ugh). She's still the main character though ! And her name now is Astride. And they're both mad because it's not fair to put all that on Orlège, lmao.
I've also understood, since then, that I'm processing a lot, mostly a lot of trauma, through my characters. It's probably why i write them so dramatically. But also, now i'm doing it on purpose instead of just letting it happen :). I'm never gonna stop writing tragic characters ehehhehehe.
Also, New Vogue Children (mine) was written in french, and I used to write mostly in french too. I only became fluent enough in english in the past few years and only now do I feel like I have a grasp on english good enough to actually use it in a literary context. The book i'm writing is being so in french as well. I'm using short stories to help make sense out of my outlining, so not everything that I wrote in english will end up in the final product.
So the one-shot ! I wrote this back in january, to shake rust off, to see if I could still write. I re-read it recently and made a few correction and decided I still liked it. There is not a lot of worldbuilding to it, as I'm thinking i'm gonna write more of these, but also because i wanted to focus more on Astride's emotions. The piece was inspired by Evanescence's Your Star, the Synthesis version. That's where the lyrics, at the end, are coming from.
Her eyes ran over the words perhaps for the fourth time, now. Astride still could not make any sense of it. She sighed as she let the tome fall on the lush fabric folds of her skirt. And she just now realized that the ticking of the clock was bothering her, actually. It was late, after all. She left the leather bound book that she had been attempting to read open on one of the desks, for she may find the focus to finish her reading sometime the following day.
She proceeded to go around the house to turn the lamps down or off, for the night. But what Astride really was after, here, was Orlège. And Orlège wasn’t home. And it really was late. She couldn’t hold in that other sigh.
She almost wished that she only had not heard him come back home and that, when she would push the bedroom door, she would see his shape in the shadows of their bed. But Orlège wasn’t home, obviously. She already knew it, even without pushing that door open. She couldn’t hear him breathe rhythmically, familiarly through his sleep.
She set down the lamp she was holding on her nightstand. She began removing the several layers of clothing that she was wearing to prepare to go to bed, but was not quite done undoing her corset when she came to the conclusion that she was in no head space to sleep.
She made her way to the adjacent bathroom with undone laces dragging behind her. She had decided to go for a bath. She finished loosening her waist cincher to a cacophony of pipes squeaking and rattling, straining to let the water flow onto the nearly-worn out enamel of the tub. Sometimes she wished she had an affinity with water instead of an affinity with fire. Shit, she never fucking wished for an affinity with fire to begin with, if you wanna fucking call that an affinity. At least, if she could do stuff with water, maybe she could help make it so these pipes weren’t so noisy.
She took the silver comb decorated with blue gemstones out of her hair, letting her dark curls fall on her lower back, on the bloomers she still had on. Or were they on ? Anyway, the bath was hopefully ready.
She slid in the water. There was one thing about having a fire gift, though, and it was that you could always make your bath water just the right kind of scalding. She thought she should have brought that book, maybe she could have read it now. Deciphering it would indeed help her avoid being alone with her own thoughts. But she didn’t bring the book, so alone with her thoughts she stayed.
Or maybe it was just that she had not seen Gladys in a while ? It… had, indeed, been a while. When was the last time she saw Gladys, Astride wondered. That probably wasn’t good, now was it ? She decided to go see her sister the following day. There was a time when she wouldn’t have hesitated, she would have just walked out to Gladys’ place and Gladys might have scolded her about how late it was, but she would have taken Astride in and they would have talked for as long as needed. But that night, Astride didn’t feel like she could. She felt embarrassed. It had really been too long.
She gestured towards her corset, on the tiled floor, which then flew into her hand, over the lip of the tub. She got to the secret pocket, in the lining, and pulled out her journal. She held the pages open with her left thumb and hushed to it words that were now spelled on the paper, in her handwriting. “Need to call on Gladys tomorrow”.
She remembered better when she wrote things down. Actually wrote things down. She was hoping this note would be enough to let her remember to actually call on Gladys. She would have actually written it, she would, but her hands were wet and she did not keep a pen in her secret pocket. She did try, but that only resulted in several ink-stained corsets, so she stopped carrying a pen on her person at all time and started perfecting her vocal notes enchantment. And when she did perfect it, she enchanted her journal with it. It was handy, you see.
Some thoughts, though, were better left unpronounced. Thoughts of Orlège were as such, these days. Thoughts that Astride could vent about through a pen, but were too painful to utter. She couldn’t bear hearing herself say out loud, or even whisper, how much she ached because of Orlège’s absence. Or just because of Orlège. It would be too close to admitting that it was true. She put the small book back in the lining of her corset and sat back in the tub.
A door slamming startled her. Through the wall, she heard Orlège swear and two boots being removed thump on the wooden floor of the foyer. So, Orlège was home. Her heart skipped another beat. Maybe she could catch his attention !
She got out of the tub as the water was gurgling down the drain. She made sure the bathroom door was just opened enough, just so the interstice would frame her nicely while she was pretending to nonchalantly finish her nightly routine, in the diaphanous robe she barely put on. Or at least she thought it would have looked nice, but Orlège hardly grunted anything and went straight to bed. She wondered if he even removed his cloak. He was already kind of snoring when she got to bed. Ah. Of course. Another sigh.
Astride could smell the earth and sweat on Orlège even before she lied down next to him. And that other smell that she couldn’t quite place, kind of sweet, kind of dusty, kind of musky, kind of unpleasant… She was speculating on the reason Orlège would give her for the state he came to bed in when sleep finally claimed her.
The old pipes rattling woke her up. Orlège was showering. “Couldn’t he have done that last night, before getting in bed ?” She complained to herself. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, still groggy, when Orlège came out the bathroom stark naked. She hated that he was doing this right as she was about to ask him a potentially loaded question.
“Good morning,” she half-croaked sleepily. A short “’morning” was his answer. He was now dressing up. What a shame. “Care to explain the mud ?” she asked, motioning toward his pile of dirty clothes from the previous night. She followed his gaze follow her pointing.
“Mud, yes,” he says, seemingly just now remembering that. He pinched his spectacle on his nose before continuing. “I went to collect, hum, samples…”
“Samples,” she repeated flatly. She was about to say something snarky, but he was quicker.
“Yes, samples. Yes, at night. Because of the moon.”
The moon was new, that previous night. She wasn’t sure what that changed in whatever he was studying, at the moment. She preferred to change the subject. “I was thinking about going to see Gladys, today.” Ah ! So, she remembered.
“Why ?”
She had expected all kinds of answer to that, but she had to admit that this seemingly worried “why” surprised her.
“What do you mean, why ? She’s my sister,” she reminded him.
“I know, but it’s been a while… I thought you two were not in speaking terms or something.”
He had finished dressing up as they were talking. The last sentence was said as he was pinning a jewel to his cravat. He was not going to teach or go sample collecting dressed like that. “Plus, I was hoping you’d come with me…” he added tentatively.
“And where would that be ?” she asked, her interest now piqued. She managed to quickly start getting dressed.
“Well, here’s the thing, love… It’s kind of a secret. It’d be better if I showed you”
She rolled her eyes. She took what Orlège said to her as a mean to twist the truth out of her. “Alright, then. I haven’t seen Gladys in a long time, that should be enough of a reason to go see her.”
“I never said it wasn’t,” he chuckled. “I can catch you up on my whereabouts later. Go see your sister ! But I think you should get more excited than that for what I have to show you,” he added on a semi-serious tone.
“I’d like to get excited for what you have to show me, Orlège, but only you know what that is, so it’s hard to get excited about,” she pouted.
They were now both dressed and about done teasing each other. Orlège went on attending his business and once more left Astride to herself. Although he did kiss her on the cheek goodbye before heading out, she did not feel it the same way she used to. It felt more like an habit rather than being heartfelt and that was regrettably not unusual, these days.
She soon was done getting ready, so she got her boots on, got out, and walked her way closer to downtown, where her sister lived. Gladys and Astride were not actually blood related, but they grew up together and had been a package deal until recent years. Astride would not admit to anyone that she might have started moving away from Gladys as her relationship with Orlège grew. But she knew it to be true and it might or might not be the reason why he assumed she and Gladys weren’t on speaking terms.
Astride was feeling nervous, but she still felt drawn to Gladys’ place. She tried going back home a couple times, but she always turned back, and now she was standing in front of Gladys’ place’s door, unable to knock. She was not sure for how long she stayed frozen there, gawking at the time-polished wood.
She wanted to walk away once more, but the door opened on someone who wasn’t Gladys and who bumped into her, letting some of the pale pink flowers covering their head sprinkle the cobblestones. Hydrange began apologizing profusely and, then, recognized Astride. “Oh,” was what they said, more precisely, before pulling her in and closing the door behind them. They – Hydrange – were calling for Gladys at the same time as she was poking her head through the kitchen’s door frame to ask them if they had forgotten anything. She comically remained hanging there for a second, or two, shocked, as she was not expecting to see her friend there, with her partner. Astride attempted to get back out, she did not feel like she could handle the embarrassment, but Hydrange was on the way of her hand reaching for the handle. She resorted to anxiously stare at the hem of her skirt. She probably was turning as peony pink as that fabric, now.
“Astride, what the fuck are you doing here ?” inquired Gladys in a low and concerned tone as she was walking towards her, her arms open.
Gladys held on to her tightly for what seemed like minutes. Now this was heartfelt, and Astride could only lean into it. Gladys did sound a little angry too, as she had expected her to be, so she was still a bit tense when her sister let go of the hug. She didn’t notice Hydrange leave. Gladys invited her to get away from the windows, guiding her to the kitchen. She was going to make tea.
“I’m sorry I’ve been worrying you…” Astride managed to say when Gladys handed her a cup she recognized. Gladys still had these ugly cups, huh. She smiled to herself.
“Do you know how long it’s been since I last heard from you, Astride ?” Gladys asked, straight to the point. “the Sanctuary had not been raided yet…”
“The Sanctuary has been raided ?!” interrupted Astride. What ?!
Gladys paused to process her little sister’s genuine surprise.
“You… didn’t know…” she whispered. Astride was staring at her tea. How long had it been ?
“W-… what happened ?” Astride could hardly ask her friend, afraid of what she was about to learn.
Gladys looked at her, she did not know where to even start. She got up and started pacing.
“The People of the Robe raided the Sanctuary. That’s why they created what they called the Biogenesis Project, you remember ? Turns out they were making an army of magical people… to wage war against other magical people so they wouldn’t get their hands dirty. And the government officials say it’s only fair cause it’s not involving any non-magic people…” Gladys explained.
Astride, like everyone else, always hoped the People of the Robe wouldn’t go that far. Except they did, and they did it in the most robian way too, keeping up the appearances and all that. She and Gladys could have been in that army had they not fled the Federation of Our Saviour of Troubled Youth Residence, when they were younger. Or at least Astride would, as she was born due to the Biogenesis Project.
“Was it because I let all the kids out ?” Astride suddenly asked.
“Well the Robians indeed didn’t appreciate that… You clearing the FOSTYR may have made them act hastily, but, honestly, I think it would have come anyway. It was… it was too well orchestrated to only have been a retaliation for, um, robbing them, you see…”
Their tea was now cold, neither of them would drink any of it. A year had already passed since Astride came up with the plan of freeing all the children from the FOSTY Residence after she came across documents from the People of the Robe proving the existence of the Biogenesis Project. The plan was to get the kids, all the kids, magic or not, out of there, while also recovering documents proving to what extent the Biogenesis Project was unethical. At the time, she and Gladys had been working together with Hydrange to get the newspaper where they – Hydrange – worked to publish the result of their – all three of them – investigation. Except Astride didn’t know that this story ever was published…
“Astride, none of this is not your fault,” Gladys said as she sat back down. She covered Astride’s hands with hers, on the corner of the kitchen table.
“Was the story ever published ?” she had to ask Gladys.
“No,” she answered. “They fired Hydrange. Josva would not risk it, he said.”
“Coward…”
“I know ! But I get it. I think Josva knows the robes well enough to just know it’s safer to cut any link with possible rebels. We only should have known better… If anything, he was probably the one leaking information, at the time. Anyway, Hydrange has been living here since,” she added with a slight curl on her lips.
“I see,” Astride chuckled. “Of course you two are together !”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that…” she said in an annoyed but pensive tone. “They’ve been really good to me, is the truth. Despite all that’s going on… I just wish we had better timing…”
“Why don’t you two flee ?”
Astride thought it was just a suggestion that made sense, especially if their old safe space had been raided, but the way her sister was looking at her made her feel like what she said might be rather stupid. Ah. Maybe she could disappear if she looked at her cup of cold tea hard enough.
“Sorry, I thought it was an option…” She couldn’t find an end for her sentence as Gladys was gazing a hole through her, again.
“It could be an option… But you’re here, so it’s not” simply said Gladys.
Astride took a minute to digest all that new information. It was the first time that she had paid attention to the decor of her friend’s home since she got inside. Gladys had always had a taste for colourful and sometimes (or was it “somewhat” ?) garish decoration and clothing. The thing was that she could make it look elegant. Although, at the moment, everything in the room, Gladys included, looked as if covered in a grey film. She saw just how tired her dear friend looked.
“So you would leave with Hydrange if I were to leave here too ?” Astride asked with, hopefully, enough resolve in her voice.
“Yes,” Gladys replied without hesitation. “I would. What are you thinking ?”
“Would you walk me home, then ? I can tell you on the way.”
Of course, Gladys agreed, she only needed a few minutes to make herself look presentable. She came back in an outfit of colours coordinated with Astride’s. She smiled at her sister; she had hoped that she would fall for her colour scheme. She went for her sister’s favourite shade of hot pink as her accent colour on her otherwise midnight blue dress. Gladys had only prioritized the pink because of course she would.
Gladys left a short note for Hydrange and then locked behind them. She offered her arm to Astride, who grabbed it, and they started walking back to Orlège’s house. This time, Astride saw how sadder the city looked. She was too busy being anxious, on her way to Gladys’ place, to notice anything, but now that she had reunited with her, she was seeing it all. She really had been living under a rock. Hmm.
“Have you seen Orlège, recently ?” finally asked the younger sister.
“No. Why ?” Gladys wasn’t sure why she would have seen Orlège anywhere, as she always preferred to be in a location different from his.
“I don’t know, I’m not sure… He’s… on to something, nowadays. He comes home late, exhausted, and covered in dirt or mud and what not. We haven’t really talked much at all, recently… Do you think he knows about the Sanctuary being raided and has omitted mentioning it to me on purpose ?” Astride ranted.
“You know what, he probably does,” Gladys confirmed. “He’ll probably tell you it was to protect you, but like… that’s just so he can keep you working on whatever you’re not telling me, you know.”
“I haven’t told you because it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” Astride paused both speaking and walking. Orlège’s house was in sight. “So my plan is that you are going to walk me home as if we just had a friendly chat and everything is good and well. When you leave, I want you and Hydrange to pack your things and go. Wherever you need to, I will find you, I promise. I just need to wrap some things up, here, before I can do the same. But you don’t seem to think it’s safe for any of us, here, anymore, so please, just take Hydrange and go. I know you want to keep an eye on me, but I just need to put some things in order, nothing rash, I promise.”
“You’re the worse liar, Astride,” mocked Gladys. “You know the reason I want to stay close is that you tend to push me away when you are about to burn shit down.”
“Well fuck you too, Gladys, damn ! I just want you and Hydrange to be safe, not to murder Orlège !”
“So, you do want to kill Orlège !” she teased.
“No !” That might have came out angrier than she intended it to.
“Alright, sorry, I went too far,” Gladys apologized.
“Look, first of, I need to pack. But, also, I need to know what Orlège is really working on, these days… And I at least owe him to break his heart in person-” Gladys almost choked on her spit- “Then, I promise I will be on my way to you.”
“I wish I could watch you break Orlège’s heart” whined Gladys, once she was done coughing.
“Of course you do. Probably should have listened to you since the beginning…” She sighed.
“Well, I don’t wanna say that I told you so, but I-”
“Shut up.”
“Yeah, shut me up !”
“Gladys !” Astride scolded her.
“Alright, let’s walk you home, darling,” cheerfully concluded Gladys as she grabbed Astride’s hand to wold down the path to the little house.
They were giggling all the way to the porch’s steps. The big sister couldn’t help herself and hugged her little sister tightly, whispering in her ear to stay safe and pressing her to find them as soon as possible. The little sister begged her to try not to worry too much, and wished her safety as well. Gladys held on a little longer. She left before anyone could notice the dust making her eyes water.
Astride announced that she was home as soon as she entered the house. The silence was the only answer she needed : Orlège was not home and, this time, that was fine by her. She pondered about where to start. She wanted to search the entire house for things he carefully omitted to mention and had to start somewhere.
She figured that she would most likely not find anything in the study, as this was where she spent most her days, lately. She would have noticed even if Orlège had been in the room. She also knew it to rarely be the case, as she was researching and, therefore, had taken the study over. Ugh, what a mess, she reflected to herself about her own doing. She decided that she would wrap up he search for Orlège’s traces with the library, if she even had to search it at all.
She opted to start with the living room, which barely contained fewer books than the study. The study also was not very big room, so it was not really surprising that their slightly excessive book collection had spread to the living room. Their collection, yes, but really, most of the books were Orlège’s, since they already were here when Astride moved in. And they were now getting dusty in the not so lived in room. Her fingertips picked up some of the grainy film from the few volumes she moved; she wiped her hands on her skirt. It only meant that, whatever Orlège was studying, he was done reading about it. He hadn’t been in the living room much, recently, either.
The problem, or, at least part of it, was that she was not sure what to look for. She had figured that he was maybe lying to her – hopefully not – but he surely wasn’t telling her everything she thought she deserved to know. Why was he insisting to call it their research if only she was reporting her progress to him and never the other way around ? Why did he suggest her to move in with him if he was always going to be away ? Why was he being so secretive ? When did he start being that secretive ? Why all the mud and dirt ? And what were those samples he was talking about ?
She let herself fall on the couch with a frustrated sigh. Then she saw him through the window. She cursed the bright colour choice she took from her wardrobe, that morning, as she decided that she would not make herself known to Orlège right away. She took advantage of his routine and quickly took her boots off at the same time he did the same with his. Thump… thump. She wanted to make herself as quiet as possible, and he didn’t wanna walk around the house in muddy boots.
She saw him possibly put something on the dining table, but had to retreat to the study fast as he was walking in her direction. She feigned having picked back up last night’s readings, in case she had to justify her presence, but Orlège seemed to have gone this way only to go to the bathroom to piss. Pulled the chain. Washed his hands. Back out and, then, in the kitchen. Astride following on tip toes at a safe distance, on the way noticing that his boots weren’t as muddy as she expected.
She heard the fabric of his clothes rustle, and two metallic clicks… like latches ? And sound like some weighty thing being dragged on the floor, a few quiet steps, until she had not hear anything for a few minutes. What the fuck was Orlège doing ?
Slowly turning around the corner, she immediately saw not only that Orlège had moved the ice box, but that this same ice box was mounted on some kind of mechanism, most likely to make it easier to move when he needed to access that hole in the floor, where the ice box should be. When she got closer to the hole, though, she saw that it was a rather steep stone stairway leading down to a dark and damp passageway.
The flagstones were cold on her solely besocked feet. She tried to repress the shiver creeping up on her, but she only grew colder and tenser as she got closer to the faint flickering light, at the other end of the tunnel. She had generated her own little flame, in her palm, for a little more light and warmth, but there was only so much she could do without the fear of being caught following. The light was coming from an opening in the wall. And there was that other smell Orlège came to bed with, last night.
“I know you’re there, Astride,” he calmly said.
She uselessly suppressed a surprised gasp with her hand, extinguishing the flame in her other hand at the same time.
“Come in !”
He almost sounded… Inviting ? She took a deep breath and turned around that corner too. It was a room on the smaller side, stones, like the rest, but filled with shelving and all kinds of box and crates. A storage room ? Orlège was on the other side of an old table with a crudely wrapped package on it. He nodded in its direction to mean she should to open it. She looked at him while reaching for the box. She couldn’t really read his expression in the half-light of the oil lamp he had turned on just before she caught up with him.
She carefully began to rip the thick paper, unravelling a nondescript wooden box. Orlège got closer, eager for her to see what was in it. The lid barely creaked when she lifted it. Inside was a shiny little black stone. It glowed faintly blue when Astride grabbed it.
“… The Obsidian ?” She didn’t understand. The last time she had seen this was when she handed it to Orlège for him to put up, after she had used it in her search for her family.
Orlège had originally fiddled with that stone so it could detect magic without being detected by the People of the Robe’s own magic sensor. It was something Ségolène, their community’s Elder and Orlège’s more or less adoptive mother, had tasked him with to help magical people find refuge in their Sanctuary. He had later altered it so that it would glow when Astride would be near, and edited it one more time, to extend that glow to anyone, anybody, any body, any bones related to her. It was his way of helping her finding her blood family. But all she had found was an ossuary. On the ground of the Federation of Our Saviour of Troubled Youth Residence. The same Residence she had accidentally set on fire, when she was 17 years old, and allowed Gladys to escape with her. “Orlège, what does this mean, please ?” she asked, confused as to why he was so excited to show her that rock.
“I saw it in the inventory, I just… You said you didn’t want to see it ever again, so I gave it to Ségolène, saying the same thing you said. I didn’t know what she did with it, until now. Apparently, she had bequeathed to me the ownership of a few safes, when she…” he paused. He had not yet said out loud that his maternal figure was dead. He inhaled sharply to regain composure and resumed, “So the Obsidian was in one of the inventories, you see… And this stone… It’s how I found you, remember ? I didn’t know we would end up modifying it that way, at the time, I was mostly just trying to figure out how to bypass the Robian’s magic sensors, really…” He chuckled nervously, realizing he might have been rambling.
“I remember, yes, but why are we here and why are you showing me something I specifically told you I never wanted to see again ?” Astride was getting agitated as she really did not want to see that thing again. Bones could say a lot when you knew just the right spell; her family’s bones did not have a happy story to tell.
“Right, yes, sorry, hum…” He stammered. He wasn’t done telling his story, though. “Look, it’s just, I know that what you found made you upset to the point you felt like you had to save the other children, and you did. You did save the children and I am proud of you for that ! And the truth is, I was only gonna put it up, but you had to follow me so I thought I’d let you know, I guess… And then, there’s also the thing where you are also correct about the fact that I’m not telling you everything. I only wish I came to know about that in a different manner… Astride, I don’t want you to leave. Please.”
Astride felt uneasy. Orlège seemed genuinely on verge of tears. But there was not that many ways for him to have known about her plan to leave. She only had decided about it while she was talking with Gladys, earlier that day. She frowned.
“Did you… Did you follow me ?” she accused him.
“Astride, I couldn’t do otherwise ! The war-” He had said too much.
“Ah ! So, you knew !”
Orlège opened his mouth to say something but the Obsidian started glowing brighter in Astride’s hand, giving the room an even colder blue hue. It was vibrating in her hand, just like… when she found the ossuary ! Her mind suddenly got filled with the idea that someone blood related to her was nearby. She looked at Orlège, confused. He went from looking at her to looking at the floor. Looked back at her, then quickly to the crates, back to the floor. He was trying to come up with an explanation but he seemed actually surprised things went that way.
“Orlège,” she began, reluctant to ask her question. “What’s in the crate ?”
He sighed and stepped between Astride and said crate.
“So, when you and me and Gladys and Hydrange, you know, when we went back to your old FOSTYR and me and Hydrange, you asked us to get the kids to the safety of the city. Hydrange managed to get the non-magic kids at the robian temple, as you know. And I was tasked to get the magical kids to Sanctuary, as you also kno-”
“Orlège, what happened to the children ?” She had to interrupt.
“Now, most of them indeed got to safet-”
“Most ?!”
“There was… an accident ? Hum… Look, I should have split with Hydrange after we got in the city… It’s… my fault. I thought it would be more discreet to use the side door to go through the Three Hearths to get to Sanctuary. And it would have, but I guess they sent their Project Biogene-bitch at us ! I did what I could ! Like I said, I did what I could ! I promise, Astride I didn’t mean things to go bad like that !”
He was getting flustered. She was slowly walking towards him, measuring each steps.
“So you mean to tell me that you got at least one of my blood relative killed, a child, at that, and then proceed to stuff them in a box-” She pointed at the crate Orlège was now almost sitting on- “and called it a day ?”
“W-… what ? No !” He exclaimed, straightening up, offended that she thought that was what happened. “Yes, one child was killed in the altercation I had with their warlock, but… well I don’t know that you two were related, actually, but that’s not the point. The point was that I could not just leave the corpse of a child in the fucking woods ! So I brought it with me and the other kids and the rest, yes, all made it to safety. And no ! I did not stuff anyone in a fucking box, Astride, what the fuck !”
She observed him for a minute. She planted herself in front of him and opened her hand to reveal the Obsidian, now visibly shaking in her palm, near his face.
“Then what does this mean ?” she whispered to him, an accusatory sting under her breath.
They both looked at the stone then back at each other. Orlège moved to grab the lid of the crate, but hesitated to open it.
“It’s… they aren’t ready, yet…” He was avoiding Astride’s eyes, now. “I wanted to tell you about all this, I would have liked more time. But I guess this is it, now.” He sounded disappointed.
Orlège lifted the lid under Astride’s careful watch. He looked at the content with a weird, almost proud smile. She stretched her neck to see over the edge, gasped in horror, took a few steps back.
“Why are there babies, in that crate ?!” She shrieked.
Suddenly, Orlège had his hand pressed against her mouth, in an attempt to quiet her.
“You’ll wake them !”
In the crate was indeed two horribly white, milky white babies sleeping together in a makeshift crib. Orlège nudged her away from the crate, his hand still covering her mouth. He took the stone from her, she was barely even holding it, slid it in his pocket.
“I made them, Astride. I made them,” he told her, his tone now softened. “I thought… it’s going to sound silly… I thought, as neither of us really had a family, growing up, and us not having genitals compatible for reproduction, well… maybe I could find another way to make us our own family…”
Astride was dumbfounded, enough that Orlège felt it was now safe to take his hand off of her mouth. This same hand tried to find hers, but she rejected it. She pushed him away, she needed a minute or two to make sense of all this and figure out which question should come first. Didn’t he basically admitted that he kept her from even knowing there was a civil war going on ?
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this ? You made them ? What does that even mean ?!”
He kept looking at the babies stirring in their sleep.
“I thought… Your research seemed to be progressing well, I didn’t want to ruin your mood with political stuff, I guess… And like… for the babies, well I… I wasn’t sure they would even live… I just wanted to make sure they were viable, you see…” he mumbled as an attempt at justifying his behaviour.
Astride scoffed. She could definitely believe what she was hearing, it was just so typically Orlège.
“Do you not trust me ? Wait, what am I saying, of course you don’t ! You stalked me visiting my sister !” she accused him, her voice getting higher as it was filling with dismay and pain. “You do not trust me at all… You never trusted me.”
“Astride, now, you know that’s not true !”
“Is it ?” she nearly barked at him as she grabbed him by his stupid cravat.
“I would have told you,” Orlège tried to add but she tightened her grip on the fabric which also tightened around his neck.
“But that’s kind of missing the point, now, isn’t it ? You keep fucking lying and I keep fucking believing it !” she said bluntly. “Stay with me, Astride, darling, I made us fucking children, Orlège are you fucking out of your mind ?!”
She grabbed his face with he free hand. This face. It was this fucking face. She would have done anything for Orlège and his damn pretty face. She really would have. But all he did was shelter her from everything else. And children, really ?!
“About as much as you, love,” Orlège struggled to say.
Astride could not really help it, she saw red and her hands suddenly became burning and Orlège’s cravat might have caught on fire. She decided that Orlège was probably too busy screaming in pain, and trying to put out the fire around his throat, to try to stop her from doing anything, so she quickly wrapped the now screaming babies in their blanket and ran out of the room. She could not leave them with Orlège.
She did her best to run up the steep stairway, slipped once, but made it upstairs quickly enough to get back in the kitchen before Orlège even came out of the cellar room.
“I made them for you, Astride ! I made them from you ! From me too ! Their are ours !” he was yelling at her from downstairs.
She set the bundle of babies on the small counter area. She needed both her hands free to push the icebox back in its spot. Thank fuck that thing was basically on rails. She then looked and felt around it to find the possible latches she heard Orlège fiddle with, earlier. At the bottom, one of each side. Click… clack.
“You can’t do this, Astride, let me out ! They are special, they have special needs !” he was now trying to plead. He definitely heard himself getting locked in.
She couldn’t think with both the babies and Orlège screaming. She needed to figure out what to do. Get away, get away was all she could do. She couldn’t just leave these little abominations behind, she had to save them too. And she had to make sure that Orlège – he was knocking on the wooden panel under the ice box – would leave her alone, at least for a while.
She took the bundle of woe with her, in the bedroom, and set them on the bed while she packed a few essentials in a bag. She put her hooded cape on, as it would draw less attention than her blue and pink dress and it was quicker than changing clothes entirely. Orlège was still banging to get out and screaming something about not letting a body go to waste. She tried to convince herself she did not just hear him confess that he used the body of a dead child to make these abominations squirming on the bed. She started packing faster.
She looked up and had a narrow view of the study through the bedroom’s doorway. What about their research ? She didn’t truly believe she had locked Orlège up for good, she also didn’t think she could risk let him have her findings. She had the most important parts in her journal, so even if the place were to go up in flames, she would not be missing much, and what would be missing would also be easy enough to find again.
It would seem that old tomes tended to be dry and therefore made for a better fire starter than she had hoped for. A little too good, even. She ran back in the room, slung her arm through her bag’s handle, wraped and picked the kids up, and finally ran out.
She ran and didn’t look back until she reached Gladys’ flat. Her sister let her in with many questions she didn’t have an answer for. The twins were still wailing.
“We have to go,” Astride finally was able to say.
“Not in that state,” ordered her big sister while gesturing at her and her upset offspring.
Gladys took one, Hydrange the other, and they went to clean them up and swaddle them better than the quick bedsheet wrap Astride had done. She caught her breath and looked up through the window. Smoke was already coming up from the direction where Orlège’s house was.
Gladys shouted some colourful swear words in the next room. The children were hungry, apparently.
All my fears turn to rage
And I’m alone now
Me and all I stood for
We’re wandering now
All in parts and pieces swim lonely
Find your own way out now
originally posted here
Then, sometime in the 2010's, i decided to remove everything I wrote from the site because I was planning to write a book and I didn't think it would look professional (lol) to have fanfiction online if I was going to write something "serious" (re-lol). Anyway, a few years later, my external drive containing all my old fanfictions died (re-re-lol) and I lost nearly everything I ever wrote :). I have since also reviewed my stance on the professionalism of having fanfictions online as a published author lmao.
At the time, I was also trying very hard to re-write one of my fanfic as a "serious novel". Too hard, even. I kind of stopped writing at all around the same time. I guess I got discouraged or something.
But the fic I was trying to re-write was still haunting me :)
That fic was pretty much me finding a translation of the lyrics to Schwarz Stein's New Vogue Children, took it, and ran with it. I had made Hora into a mad scientist who made human flesh hungry babies to his trans girlfriend, Kaya, who also was trying to escape the kind of soured relationship they had (unrelated the the mad science of it :) ). Now my idea of her being rescued by a cop (Juka lol) was probably not the best, but hey, it was 2008 or something, when I first wrote these. I WAS NINETEEN. Also, the story derailed sooooo much, it barely had anything to do with the new vogue children themselves, by the end. It might be why its brainrot never really went away, tbh.
I have since scrapped the idea that this should be a science fiction story and made it into... gothique fantasy ? lol. Magic took over the science of it, partly because the science I used to make these "babies" "realistic" was based in real science and nowadays it actually is possible to "create" a baby without a womb, so i was not really comfortable with calling this science fiction anymore lol (i thought it was far fetched in 2008, mind you T_T)
And, since then, Hora became Orlège (and has been Orlège since 2013 !) and Kaya became 378 different characters tbh..... until I figured out that I can write a trans woman without it being complicated (it was very complicated, in 2008, apparently, ... ugh). She's still the main character though ! And her name now is Astride. And they're both mad because it's not fair to put all that on Orlège, lmao.
I've also understood, since then, that I'm processing a lot, mostly a lot of trauma, through my characters. It's probably why i write them so dramatically. But also, now i'm doing it on purpose instead of just letting it happen :). I'm never gonna stop writing tragic characters ehehhehehe.
Also, New Vogue Children (mine) was written in french, and I used to write mostly in french too. I only became fluent enough in english in the past few years and only now do I feel like I have a grasp on english good enough to actually use it in a literary context. The book i'm writing is being so in french as well. I'm using short stories to help make sense out of my outlining, so not everything that I wrote in english will end up in the final product.
So the one-shot ! I wrote this back in january, to shake rust off, to see if I could still write. I re-read it recently and made a few correction and decided I still liked it. There is not a lot of worldbuilding to it, as I'm thinking i'm gonna write more of these, but also because i wanted to focus more on Astride's emotions. The piece was inspired by Evanescence's Your Star, the Synthesis version. That's where the lyrics, at the end, are coming from.
I've always had trouble figuring out genre and all that, but i can say this is kind of a slow build. Like I said, I focused more on emotions than on actual story telling, in this, so I don't know that this makes for a good introduction to my characters LOL but here it still is.
Roughly 6500 words, or 9 pages.
Her eyes ran over the words perhaps for the fourth time, now. Astride still could not make any sense of it. She sighed as she let the tome fall on the lush fabric folds of her skirt. And she just now realized that the ticking of the clock was bothering her, actually. It was late, after all. She left the leather bound book that she had been attempting to read open on one of the desks, for she may find the focus to finish her reading sometime the following day.
She proceeded to go around the house to turn the lamps down or off, for the night. But what Astride really was after, here, was Orlège. And Orlège wasn’t home. And it really was late. She couldn’t hold in that other sigh.
She almost wished that she only had not heard him come back home and that, when she would push the bedroom door, she would see his shape in the shadows of their bed. But Orlège wasn’t home, obviously. She already knew it, even without pushing that door open. She couldn’t hear him breathe rhythmically, familiarly through his sleep.
She set down the lamp she was holding on her nightstand. She began removing the several layers of clothing that she was wearing to prepare to go to bed, but was not quite done undoing her corset when she came to the conclusion that she was in no head space to sleep.
She made her way to the adjacent bathroom with undone laces dragging behind her. She had decided to go for a bath. She finished loosening her waist cincher to a cacophony of pipes squeaking and rattling, straining to let the water flow onto the nearly-worn out enamel of the tub. Sometimes she wished she had an affinity with water instead of an affinity with fire. Shit, she never fucking wished for an affinity with fire to begin with, if you wanna fucking call that an affinity. At least, if she could do stuff with water, maybe she could help make it so these pipes weren’t so noisy.
She took the silver comb decorated with blue gemstones out of her hair, letting her dark curls fall on her lower back, on the bloomers she still had on. Or were they on ? Anyway, the bath was hopefully ready.
She slid in the water. There was one thing about having a fire gift, though, and it was that you could always make your bath water just the right kind of scalding. She thought she should have brought that book, maybe she could have read it now. Deciphering it would indeed help her avoid being alone with her own thoughts. But she didn’t bring the book, so alone with her thoughts she stayed.
Or maybe it was just that she had not seen Gladys in a while ? It… had, indeed, been a while. When was the last time she saw Gladys, Astride wondered. That probably wasn’t good, now was it ? She decided to go see her sister the following day. There was a time when she wouldn’t have hesitated, she would have just walked out to Gladys’ place and Gladys might have scolded her about how late it was, but she would have taken Astride in and they would have talked for as long as needed. But that night, Astride didn’t feel like she could. She felt embarrassed. It had really been too long.
She gestured towards her corset, on the tiled floor, which then flew into her hand, over the lip of the tub. She got to the secret pocket, in the lining, and pulled out her journal. She held the pages open with her left thumb and hushed to it words that were now spelled on the paper, in her handwriting. “Need to call on Gladys tomorrow”.
She remembered better when she wrote things down. Actually wrote things down. She was hoping this note would be enough to let her remember to actually call on Gladys. She would have actually written it, she would, but her hands were wet and she did not keep a pen in her secret pocket. She did try, but that only resulted in several ink-stained corsets, so she stopped carrying a pen on her person at all time and started perfecting her vocal notes enchantment. And when she did perfect it, she enchanted her journal with it. It was handy, you see.
Some thoughts, though, were better left unpronounced. Thoughts of Orlège were as such, these days. Thoughts that Astride could vent about through a pen, but were too painful to utter. She couldn’t bear hearing herself say out loud, or even whisper, how much she ached because of Orlège’s absence. Or just because of Orlège. It would be too close to admitting that it was true. She put the small book back in the lining of her corset and sat back in the tub.
A door slamming startled her. Through the wall, she heard Orlège swear and two boots being removed thump on the wooden floor of the foyer. So, Orlège was home. Her heart skipped another beat. Maybe she could catch his attention !
She got out of the tub as the water was gurgling down the drain. She made sure the bathroom door was just opened enough, just so the interstice would frame her nicely while she was pretending to nonchalantly finish her nightly routine, in the diaphanous robe she barely put on. Or at least she thought it would have looked nice, but Orlège hardly grunted anything and went straight to bed. She wondered if he even removed his cloak. He was already kind of snoring when she got to bed. Ah. Of course. Another sigh.
Astride could smell the earth and sweat on Orlège even before she lied down next to him. And that other smell that she couldn’t quite place, kind of sweet, kind of dusty, kind of musky, kind of unpleasant… She was speculating on the reason Orlège would give her for the state he came to bed in when sleep finally claimed her.
The old pipes rattling woke her up. Orlège was showering. “Couldn’t he have done that last night, before getting in bed ?” She complained to herself. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, still groggy, when Orlège came out the bathroom stark naked. She hated that he was doing this right as she was about to ask him a potentially loaded question.
“Good morning,” she half-croaked sleepily. A short “’morning” was his answer. He was now dressing up. What a shame. “Care to explain the mud ?” she asked, motioning toward his pile of dirty clothes from the previous night. She followed his gaze follow her pointing.
“Mud, yes,” he says, seemingly just now remembering that. He pinched his spectacle on his nose before continuing. “I went to collect, hum, samples…”
“Samples,” she repeated flatly. She was about to say something snarky, but he was quicker.
“Yes, samples. Yes, at night. Because of the moon.”
The moon was new, that previous night. She wasn’t sure what that changed in whatever he was studying, at the moment. She preferred to change the subject. “I was thinking about going to see Gladys, today.” Ah ! So, she remembered.
“Why ?”
She had expected all kinds of answer to that, but she had to admit that this seemingly worried “why” surprised her.
“What do you mean, why ? She’s my sister,” she reminded him.
“I know, but it’s been a while… I thought you two were not in speaking terms or something.”
He had finished dressing up as they were talking. The last sentence was said as he was pinning a jewel to his cravat. He was not going to teach or go sample collecting dressed like that. “Plus, I was hoping you’d come with me…” he added tentatively.
“And where would that be ?” she asked, her interest now piqued. She managed to quickly start getting dressed.
“Well, here’s the thing, love… It’s kind of a secret. It’d be better if I showed you”
She rolled her eyes. She took what Orlège said to her as a mean to twist the truth out of her. “Alright, then. I haven’t seen Gladys in a long time, that should be enough of a reason to go see her.”
“I never said it wasn’t,” he chuckled. “I can catch you up on my whereabouts later. Go see your sister ! But I think you should get more excited than that for what I have to show you,” he added on a semi-serious tone.
“I’d like to get excited for what you have to show me, Orlège, but only you know what that is, so it’s hard to get excited about,” she pouted.
They were now both dressed and about done teasing each other. Orlège went on attending his business and once more left Astride to herself. Although he did kiss her on the cheek goodbye before heading out, she did not feel it the same way she used to. It felt more like an habit rather than being heartfelt and that was regrettably not unusual, these days.
She soon was done getting ready, so she got her boots on, got out, and walked her way closer to downtown, where her sister lived. Gladys and Astride were not actually blood related, but they grew up together and had been a package deal until recent years. Astride would not admit to anyone that she might have started moving away from Gladys as her relationship with Orlège grew. But she knew it to be true and it might or might not be the reason why he assumed she and Gladys weren’t on speaking terms.
Astride was feeling nervous, but she still felt drawn to Gladys’ place. She tried going back home a couple times, but she always turned back, and now she was standing in front of Gladys’ place’s door, unable to knock. She was not sure for how long she stayed frozen there, gawking at the time-polished wood.
She wanted to walk away once more, but the door opened on someone who wasn’t Gladys and who bumped into her, letting some of the pale pink flowers covering their head sprinkle the cobblestones. Hydrange began apologizing profusely and, then, recognized Astride. “Oh,” was what they said, more precisely, before pulling her in and closing the door behind them. They – Hydrange – were calling for Gladys at the same time as she was poking her head through the kitchen’s door frame to ask them if they had forgotten anything. She comically remained hanging there for a second, or two, shocked, as she was not expecting to see her friend there, with her partner. Astride attempted to get back out, she did not feel like she could handle the embarrassment, but Hydrange was on the way of her hand reaching for the handle. She resorted to anxiously stare at the hem of her skirt. She probably was turning as peony pink as that fabric, now.
“Astride, what the fuck are you doing here ?” inquired Gladys in a low and concerned tone as she was walking towards her, her arms open.
Gladys held on to her tightly for what seemed like minutes. Now this was heartfelt, and Astride could only lean into it. Gladys did sound a little angry too, as she had expected her to be, so she was still a bit tense when her sister let go of the hug. She didn’t notice Hydrange leave. Gladys invited her to get away from the windows, guiding her to the kitchen. She was going to make tea.
“I’m sorry I’ve been worrying you…” Astride managed to say when Gladys handed her a cup she recognized. Gladys still had these ugly cups, huh. She smiled to herself.
“Do you know how long it’s been since I last heard from you, Astride ?” Gladys asked, straight to the point. “the Sanctuary had not been raided yet…”
“The Sanctuary has been raided ?!” interrupted Astride. What ?!
Gladys paused to process her little sister’s genuine surprise.
“You… didn’t know…” she whispered. Astride was staring at her tea. How long had it been ?
“W-… what happened ?” Astride could hardly ask her friend, afraid of what she was about to learn.
Gladys looked at her, she did not know where to even start. She got up and started pacing.
“The People of the Robe raided the Sanctuary. That’s why they created what they called the Biogenesis Project, you remember ? Turns out they were making an army of magical people… to wage war against other magical people so they wouldn’t get their hands dirty. And the government officials say it’s only fair cause it’s not involving any non-magic people…” Gladys explained.
Astride, like everyone else, always hoped the People of the Robe wouldn’t go that far. Except they did, and they did it in the most robian way too, keeping up the appearances and all that. She and Gladys could have been in that army had they not fled the Federation of Our Saviour of Troubled Youth Residence, when they were younger. Or at least Astride would, as she was born due to the Biogenesis Project.
“Was it because I let all the kids out ?” Astride suddenly asked.
“Well the Robians indeed didn’t appreciate that… You clearing the FOSTYR may have made them act hastily, but, honestly, I think it would have come anyway. It was… it was too well orchestrated to only have been a retaliation for, um, robbing them, you see…”
Their tea was now cold, neither of them would drink any of it. A year had already passed since Astride came up with the plan of freeing all the children from the FOSTY Residence after she came across documents from the People of the Robe proving the existence of the Biogenesis Project. The plan was to get the kids, all the kids, magic or not, out of there, while also recovering documents proving to what extent the Biogenesis Project was unethical. At the time, she and Gladys had been working together with Hydrange to get the newspaper where they – Hydrange – worked to publish the result of their – all three of them – investigation. Except Astride didn’t know that this story ever was published…
“Astride, none of this is not your fault,” Gladys said as she sat back down. She covered Astride’s hands with hers, on the corner of the kitchen table.
“Was the story ever published ?” she had to ask Gladys.
“No,” she answered. “They fired Hydrange. Josva would not risk it, he said.”
“Coward…”
“I know ! But I get it. I think Josva knows the robes well enough to just know it’s safer to cut any link with possible rebels. We only should have known better… If anything, he was probably the one leaking information, at the time. Anyway, Hydrange has been living here since,” she added with a slight curl on her lips.
“I see,” Astride chuckled. “Of course you two are together !”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that…” she said in an annoyed but pensive tone. “They’ve been really good to me, is the truth. Despite all that’s going on… I just wish we had better timing…”
“Why don’t you two flee ?”
Astride thought it was just a suggestion that made sense, especially if their old safe space had been raided, but the way her sister was looking at her made her feel like what she said might be rather stupid. Ah. Maybe she could disappear if she looked at her cup of cold tea hard enough.
“Sorry, I thought it was an option…” She couldn’t find an end for her sentence as Gladys was gazing a hole through her, again.
“It could be an option… But you’re here, so it’s not” simply said Gladys.
Astride took a minute to digest all that new information. It was the first time that she had paid attention to the decor of her friend’s home since she got inside. Gladys had always had a taste for colourful and sometimes (or was it “somewhat” ?) garish decoration and clothing. The thing was that she could make it look elegant. Although, at the moment, everything in the room, Gladys included, looked as if covered in a grey film. She saw just how tired her dear friend looked.
“So you would leave with Hydrange if I were to leave here too ?” Astride asked with, hopefully, enough resolve in her voice.
“Yes,” Gladys replied without hesitation. “I would. What are you thinking ?”
“Would you walk me home, then ? I can tell you on the way.”
Of course, Gladys agreed, she only needed a few minutes to make herself look presentable. She came back in an outfit of colours coordinated with Astride’s. She smiled at her sister; she had hoped that she would fall for her colour scheme. She went for her sister’s favourite shade of hot pink as her accent colour on her otherwise midnight blue dress. Gladys had only prioritized the pink because of course she would.
Gladys left a short note for Hydrange and then locked behind them. She offered her arm to Astride, who grabbed it, and they started walking back to Orlège’s house. This time, Astride saw how sadder the city looked. She was too busy being anxious, on her way to Gladys’ place, to notice anything, but now that she had reunited with her, she was seeing it all. She really had been living under a rock. Hmm.
“Have you seen Orlège, recently ?” finally asked the younger sister.
“No. Why ?” Gladys wasn’t sure why she would have seen Orlège anywhere, as she always preferred to be in a location different from his.
“I don’t know, I’m not sure… He’s… on to something, nowadays. He comes home late, exhausted, and covered in dirt or mud and what not. We haven’t really talked much at all, recently… Do you think he knows about the Sanctuary being raided and has omitted mentioning it to me on purpose ?” Astride ranted.
“You know what, he probably does,” Gladys confirmed. “He’ll probably tell you it was to protect you, but like… that’s just so he can keep you working on whatever you’re not telling me, you know.”
“I haven’t told you because it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” Astride paused both speaking and walking. Orlège’s house was in sight. “So my plan is that you are going to walk me home as if we just had a friendly chat and everything is good and well. When you leave, I want you and Hydrange to pack your things and go. Wherever you need to, I will find you, I promise. I just need to wrap some things up, here, before I can do the same. But you don’t seem to think it’s safe for any of us, here, anymore, so please, just take Hydrange and go. I know you want to keep an eye on me, but I just need to put some things in order, nothing rash, I promise.”
“You’re the worse liar, Astride,” mocked Gladys. “You know the reason I want to stay close is that you tend to push me away when you are about to burn shit down.”
“Well fuck you too, Gladys, damn ! I just want you and Hydrange to be safe, not to murder Orlège !”
“So, you do want to kill Orlège !” she teased.
“No !” That might have came out angrier than she intended it to.
“Alright, sorry, I went too far,” Gladys apologized.
“Look, first of, I need to pack. But, also, I need to know what Orlège is really working on, these days… And I at least owe him to break his heart in person-” Gladys almost choked on her spit- “Then, I promise I will be on my way to you.”
“I wish I could watch you break Orlège’s heart” whined Gladys, once she was done coughing.
“Of course you do. Probably should have listened to you since the beginning…” She sighed.
“Well, I don’t wanna say that I told you so, but I-”
“Shut up.”
“Yeah, shut me up !”
“Gladys !” Astride scolded her.
“Alright, let’s walk you home, darling,” cheerfully concluded Gladys as she grabbed Astride’s hand to wold down the path to the little house.
They were giggling all the way to the porch’s steps. The big sister couldn’t help herself and hugged her little sister tightly, whispering in her ear to stay safe and pressing her to find them as soon as possible. The little sister begged her to try not to worry too much, and wished her safety as well. Gladys held on a little longer. She left before anyone could notice the dust making her eyes water.
Astride announced that she was home as soon as she entered the house. The silence was the only answer she needed : Orlège was not home and, this time, that was fine by her. She pondered about where to start. She wanted to search the entire house for things he carefully omitted to mention and had to start somewhere.
She figured that she would most likely not find anything in the study, as this was where she spent most her days, lately. She would have noticed even if Orlège had been in the room. She also knew it to rarely be the case, as she was researching and, therefore, had taken the study over. Ugh, what a mess, she reflected to herself about her own doing. She decided that she would wrap up he search for Orlège’s traces with the library, if she even had to search it at all.
She opted to start with the living room, which barely contained fewer books than the study. The study also was not very big room, so it was not really surprising that their slightly excessive book collection had spread to the living room. Their collection, yes, but really, most of the books were Orlège’s, since they already were here when Astride moved in. And they were now getting dusty in the not so lived in room. Her fingertips picked up some of the grainy film from the few volumes she moved; she wiped her hands on her skirt. It only meant that, whatever Orlège was studying, he was done reading about it. He hadn’t been in the living room much, recently, either.
The problem, or, at least part of it, was that she was not sure what to look for. She had figured that he was maybe lying to her – hopefully not – but he surely wasn’t telling her everything she thought she deserved to know. Why was he insisting to call it their research if only she was reporting her progress to him and never the other way around ? Why did he suggest her to move in with him if he was always going to be away ? Why was he being so secretive ? When did he start being that secretive ? Why all the mud and dirt ? And what were those samples he was talking about ?
She let herself fall on the couch with a frustrated sigh. Then she saw him through the window. She cursed the bright colour choice she took from her wardrobe, that morning, as she decided that she would not make herself known to Orlège right away. She took advantage of his routine and quickly took her boots off at the same time he did the same with his. Thump… thump. She wanted to make herself as quiet as possible, and he didn’t wanna walk around the house in muddy boots.
She saw him possibly put something on the dining table, but had to retreat to the study fast as he was walking in her direction. She feigned having picked back up last night’s readings, in case she had to justify her presence, but Orlège seemed to have gone this way only to go to the bathroom to piss. Pulled the chain. Washed his hands. Back out and, then, in the kitchen. Astride following on tip toes at a safe distance, on the way noticing that his boots weren’t as muddy as she expected.
She heard the fabric of his clothes rustle, and two metallic clicks… like latches ? And sound like some weighty thing being dragged on the floor, a few quiet steps, until she had not hear anything for a few minutes. What the fuck was Orlège doing ?
Slowly turning around the corner, she immediately saw not only that Orlège had moved the ice box, but that this same ice box was mounted on some kind of mechanism, most likely to make it easier to move when he needed to access that hole in the floor, where the ice box should be. When she got closer to the hole, though, she saw that it was a rather steep stone stairway leading down to a dark and damp passageway.
The flagstones were cold on her solely besocked feet. She tried to repress the shiver creeping up on her, but she only grew colder and tenser as she got closer to the faint flickering light, at the other end of the tunnel. She had generated her own little flame, in her palm, for a little more light and warmth, but there was only so much she could do without the fear of being caught following. The light was coming from an opening in the wall. And there was that other smell Orlège came to bed with, last night.
“I know you’re there, Astride,” he calmly said.
She uselessly suppressed a surprised gasp with her hand, extinguishing the flame in her other hand at the same time.
“Come in !”
He almost sounded… Inviting ? She took a deep breath and turned around that corner too. It was a room on the smaller side, stones, like the rest, but filled with shelving and all kinds of box and crates. A storage room ? Orlège was on the other side of an old table with a crudely wrapped package on it. He nodded in its direction to mean she should to open it. She looked at him while reaching for the box. She couldn’t really read his expression in the half-light of the oil lamp he had turned on just before she caught up with him.
She carefully began to rip the thick paper, unravelling a nondescript wooden box. Orlège got closer, eager for her to see what was in it. The lid barely creaked when she lifted it. Inside was a shiny little black stone. It glowed faintly blue when Astride grabbed it.
“… The Obsidian ?” She didn’t understand. The last time she had seen this was when she handed it to Orlège for him to put up, after she had used it in her search for her family.
Orlège had originally fiddled with that stone so it could detect magic without being detected by the People of the Robe’s own magic sensor. It was something Ségolène, their community’s Elder and Orlège’s more or less adoptive mother, had tasked him with to help magical people find refuge in their Sanctuary. He had later altered it so that it would glow when Astride would be near, and edited it one more time, to extend that glow to anyone, anybody, any body, any bones related to her. It was his way of helping her finding her blood family. But all she had found was an ossuary. On the ground of the Federation of Our Saviour of Troubled Youth Residence. The same Residence she had accidentally set on fire, when she was 17 years old, and allowed Gladys to escape with her. “Orlège, what does this mean, please ?” she asked, confused as to why he was so excited to show her that rock.
“I saw it in the inventory, I just… You said you didn’t want to see it ever again, so I gave it to Ségolène, saying the same thing you said. I didn’t know what she did with it, until now. Apparently, she had bequeathed to me the ownership of a few safes, when she…” he paused. He had not yet said out loud that his maternal figure was dead. He inhaled sharply to regain composure and resumed, “So the Obsidian was in one of the inventories, you see… And this stone… It’s how I found you, remember ? I didn’t know we would end up modifying it that way, at the time, I was mostly just trying to figure out how to bypass the Robian’s magic sensors, really…” He chuckled nervously, realizing he might have been rambling.
“I remember, yes, but why are we here and why are you showing me something I specifically told you I never wanted to see again ?” Astride was getting agitated as she really did not want to see that thing again. Bones could say a lot when you knew just the right spell; her family’s bones did not have a happy story to tell.
“Right, yes, sorry, hum…” He stammered. He wasn’t done telling his story, though. “Look, it’s just, I know that what you found made you upset to the point you felt like you had to save the other children, and you did. You did save the children and I am proud of you for that ! And the truth is, I was only gonna put it up, but you had to follow me so I thought I’d let you know, I guess… And then, there’s also the thing where you are also correct about the fact that I’m not telling you everything. I only wish I came to know about that in a different manner… Astride, I don’t want you to leave. Please.”
Astride felt uneasy. Orlège seemed genuinely on verge of tears. But there was not that many ways for him to have known about her plan to leave. She only had decided about it while she was talking with Gladys, earlier that day. She frowned.
“Did you… Did you follow me ?” she accused him.
“Astride, I couldn’t do otherwise ! The war-” He had said too much.
“Ah ! So, you knew !”
Orlège opened his mouth to say something but the Obsidian started glowing brighter in Astride’s hand, giving the room an even colder blue hue. It was vibrating in her hand, just like… when she found the ossuary ! Her mind suddenly got filled with the idea that someone blood related to her was nearby. She looked at Orlège, confused. He went from looking at her to looking at the floor. Looked back at her, then quickly to the crates, back to the floor. He was trying to come up with an explanation but he seemed actually surprised things went that way.
“Orlège,” she began, reluctant to ask her question. “What’s in the crate ?”
He sighed and stepped between Astride and said crate.
“So, when you and me and Gladys and Hydrange, you know, when we went back to your old FOSTYR and me and Hydrange, you asked us to get the kids to the safety of the city. Hydrange managed to get the non-magic kids at the robian temple, as you know. And I was tasked to get the magical kids to Sanctuary, as you also kno-”
“Orlège, what happened to the children ?” She had to interrupt.
“Now, most of them indeed got to safet-”
“Most ?!”
“There was… an accident ? Hum… Look, I should have split with Hydrange after we got in the city… It’s… my fault. I thought it would be more discreet to use the side door to go through the Three Hearths to get to Sanctuary. And it would have, but I guess they sent their Project Biogene-bitch at us ! I did what I could ! Like I said, I did what I could ! I promise, Astride I didn’t mean things to go bad like that !”
He was getting flustered. She was slowly walking towards him, measuring each steps.
“So you mean to tell me that you got at least one of my blood relative killed, a child, at that, and then proceed to stuff them in a box-” She pointed at the crate Orlège was now almost sitting on- “and called it a day ?”
“W-… what ? No !” He exclaimed, straightening up, offended that she thought that was what happened. “Yes, one child was killed in the altercation I had with their warlock, but… well I don’t know that you two were related, actually, but that’s not the point. The point was that I could not just leave the corpse of a child in the fucking woods ! So I brought it with me and the other kids and the rest, yes, all made it to safety. And no ! I did not stuff anyone in a fucking box, Astride, what the fuck !”
She observed him for a minute. She planted herself in front of him and opened her hand to reveal the Obsidian, now visibly shaking in her palm, near his face.
“Then what does this mean ?” she whispered to him, an accusatory sting under her breath.
They both looked at the stone then back at each other. Orlège moved to grab the lid of the crate, but hesitated to open it.
“It’s… they aren’t ready, yet…” He was avoiding Astride’s eyes, now. “I wanted to tell you about all this, I would have liked more time. But I guess this is it, now.” He sounded disappointed.
Orlège lifted the lid under Astride’s careful watch. He looked at the content with a weird, almost proud smile. She stretched her neck to see over the edge, gasped in horror, took a few steps back.
“Why are there babies, in that crate ?!” She shrieked.
Suddenly, Orlège had his hand pressed against her mouth, in an attempt to quiet her.
“You’ll wake them !”
In the crate was indeed two horribly white, milky white babies sleeping together in a makeshift crib. Orlège nudged her away from the crate, his hand still covering her mouth. He took the stone from her, she was barely even holding it, slid it in his pocket.
“I made them, Astride. I made them,” he told her, his tone now softened. “I thought… it’s going to sound silly… I thought, as neither of us really had a family, growing up, and us not having genitals compatible for reproduction, well… maybe I could find another way to make us our own family…”
Astride was dumbfounded, enough that Orlège felt it was now safe to take his hand off of her mouth. This same hand tried to find hers, but she rejected it. She pushed him away, she needed a minute or two to make sense of all this and figure out which question should come first. Didn’t he basically admitted that he kept her from even knowing there was a civil war going on ?
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this ? You made them ? What does that even mean ?!”
He kept looking at the babies stirring in their sleep.
“I thought… Your research seemed to be progressing well, I didn’t want to ruin your mood with political stuff, I guess… And like… for the babies, well I… I wasn’t sure they would even live… I just wanted to make sure they were viable, you see…” he mumbled as an attempt at justifying his behaviour.
Astride scoffed. She could definitely believe what she was hearing, it was just so typically Orlège.
“Do you not trust me ? Wait, what am I saying, of course you don’t ! You stalked me visiting my sister !” she accused him, her voice getting higher as it was filling with dismay and pain. “You do not trust me at all… You never trusted me.”
“Astride, now, you know that’s not true !”
“Is it ?” she nearly barked at him as she grabbed him by his stupid cravat.
“I would have told you,” Orlège tried to add but she tightened her grip on the fabric which also tightened around his neck.
“But that’s kind of missing the point, now, isn’t it ? You keep fucking lying and I keep fucking believing it !” she said bluntly. “Stay with me, Astride, darling, I made us fucking children, Orlège are you fucking out of your mind ?!”
She grabbed his face with he free hand. This face. It was this fucking face. She would have done anything for Orlège and his damn pretty face. She really would have. But all he did was shelter her from everything else. And children, really ?!
“About as much as you, love,” Orlège struggled to say.
Astride could not really help it, she saw red and her hands suddenly became burning and Orlège’s cravat might have caught on fire. She decided that Orlège was probably too busy screaming in pain, and trying to put out the fire around his throat, to try to stop her from doing anything, so she quickly wrapped the now screaming babies in their blanket and ran out of the room. She could not leave them with Orlège.
She did her best to run up the steep stairway, slipped once, but made it upstairs quickly enough to get back in the kitchen before Orlège even came out of the cellar room.
“I made them for you, Astride ! I made them from you ! From me too ! Their are ours !” he was yelling at her from downstairs.
She set the bundle of babies on the small counter area. She needed both her hands free to push the icebox back in its spot. Thank fuck that thing was basically on rails. She then looked and felt around it to find the possible latches she heard Orlège fiddle with, earlier. At the bottom, one of each side. Click… clack.
“You can’t do this, Astride, let me out ! They are special, they have special needs !” he was now trying to plead. He definitely heard himself getting locked in.
She couldn’t think with both the babies and Orlège screaming. She needed to figure out what to do. Get away, get away was all she could do. She couldn’t just leave these little abominations behind, she had to save them too. And she had to make sure that Orlège – he was knocking on the wooden panel under the ice box – would leave her alone, at least for a while.
She took the bundle of woe with her, in the bedroom, and set them on the bed while she packed a few essentials in a bag. She put her hooded cape on, as it would draw less attention than her blue and pink dress and it was quicker than changing clothes entirely. Orlège was still banging to get out and screaming something about not letting a body go to waste. She tried to convince herself she did not just hear him confess that he used the body of a dead child to make these abominations squirming on the bed. She started packing faster.
She looked up and had a narrow view of the study through the bedroom’s doorway. What about their research ? She didn’t truly believe she had locked Orlège up for good, she also didn’t think she could risk let him have her findings. She had the most important parts in her journal, so even if the place were to go up in flames, she would not be missing much, and what would be missing would also be easy enough to find again.
It would seem that old tomes tended to be dry and therefore made for a better fire starter than she had hoped for. A little too good, even. She ran back in the room, slung her arm through her bag’s handle, wraped and picked the kids up, and finally ran out.
She ran and didn’t look back until she reached Gladys’ flat. Her sister let her in with many questions she didn’t have an answer for. The twins were still wailing.
“We have to go,” Astride finally was able to say.
“Not in that state,” ordered her big sister while gesturing at her and her upset offspring.
Gladys took one, Hydrange the other, and they went to clean them up and swaddle them better than the quick bedsheet wrap Astride had done. She caught her breath and looked up through the window. Smoke was already coming up from the direction where Orlège’s house was.
Gladys shouted some colourful swear words in the next room. The children were hungry, apparently.
All my fears turn to rage
And I’m alone now
Me and all I stood for
We’re wandering now
All in parts and pieces swim lonely
Find your own way out now
originally posted here
