Jade Fern Grove everything costs

They travelled through the mainland. At one point, Everett had still been able to catch backward glimpses of light against water, small fragments of the ocean’s great expanse between snow strewn hills. But his visions retreated to the confines of memory the further Tybault led them away from the sea.

Tybault. Everett’s lips twitched, though he knew Vander would have frowned if he’d been around to see. But Evander was somewhere in the South, and Tybault somewhere in the West, and alone in this dark and moss bedded forest, well, what did they matter? Good riddance to them.

The thought stung him as his claws tore a score in the moss at his feet.

No.

He breathed in.

No.

He breathed out.

This wasn’t right.

But who was Tybault to usurp the lead from them? This was their search as much as his! And what more had he found than them? They had travelled just as far, and had lost their sister as much as he had — if not, even more.

Everett closed his eyes. No. Stop it! His heart beat quick again, that same rabbit race. Cool air filled the emptiness around him where he once might have heard Rose’s soft, familiar hum. Crickets strummed instead. And out of the silence and steadying breaths, he sang.

I saw upon some distant shore
a wand’rer clad in gold,
her paws alight upon the earth
her paws, for dancing formed.

She spun as golden field grass once
would sway upon the plains,
the plains of wildflowers and the
plains of wild rain.

The sand now moved beneath her feet
as if he’d always known,
this dancer would come dance with him
with paws, for dancing formed.

@Reverie

As a child, Reverie had always feared adulthood. She looked at her parents and saw them tired and angry with the world; she looked at her oldest siblings and saw them fearful and overwhelmed with new burdens. She looked at her future and saw that she would have to learn to bear the same burdens, to protect the next generation as her brothers and sisters protected her. And she didn't want it. She'd never wanted it; any of it, she realized now. Maybe it made her a bad person, but she wasn't the caregiver she'd always tried to be. It just hadn't ever been possible to be anything else, not for her. And now it was.
Now she could dance through a forest carefree and untethered as the wind, giggling to herself, growing quiet when she heard the song; a quiet thing, a pretty thing, and she could only stop and drift closer, moth-wings fluttering to the light. She spun as golden field grass once... A new song, but she knew that voice, had known it all her life and in her dreams and in every ache in her lungs and throat that called for home. She couldn't breathe. ...would sway upon the plains.
Light blooming under her feet; golden light, dancing light, a whirlwind of song swirling around her to carry her home. Everett. Her wandering sunlight come drifting down to join her, to touch reality as she had. And for a moment, in song and in dance, they were bare to one another; nothing but their bright fractured souls, soft light through cracked glass, joined where the gentle shadows touched. She circled him, surrounded him, a golden halo to his fallen grace.
She hated him. She loved him. It didn't matter. The Gilded Sea had broken them, all of them, but it would not take these beautiful moments from them too.

Somewhere in the song, he had closed his eyes, but he did not see darkness. Instead, he saw light. Fragments of memories less vivid than when he had breathed them. Surreal and distorted. They danced through his mind like a summer mirage.

and from beyond those golden plains,
a vision! given gently,

For many days within the Gilded Sea, the summer wind drove Mother Rain away, those days of fear and Father Fire. In his first summer, the sun burned the grasses beyond gold. He had sung then, unceasingly. They all had — but he had felt his parents eyes upon him most, even more than they watched Evander dance for the rains to come.

to one who bore that crooked crown
to rule that blessed, gilded sea.

There came a moment, in that first summer, when he’d looked to the horizon and thought he’d seen a lake. Shining, as though lowered from heaven in some celestial sheet. He remembered the ecstasy. The joy overwhelming. And he remembered the sand that had filled him when he’d thrown himself in.

The fire came the next day, and he learned, then, that rain did not run for the mirage.

to one who cracked that crooked crown,

He had to open his eyes.

and broke that cursed, gilded sea.

And there, he saw her.

Rose. Rose. Rose. His eyes widened. An angel of gold pirouetting around him - Rose. Rose. She was dead. Was he dead? And why did she dance?

Why did she -

Ophelia.

The breath whispered through him, and his song choked with a dry sob.

On gilded legs she spun a trail of
sunlight through the night,
The one they’d lost becoming here
an angel of the light.

It was the kind of moment that could have lasted forever. The kind people spend their whole lives chasing, again and again, because in the end — it was only a moment, and faded as they all do. A stolen glimpse of something pure and fragile, until the song faded and her feet stilled and reality settled in around them. And then it was The Gilded Sea hanging heavy between them. It was a wall of fire. They were just two broken things, their pasts etched into the shattered lines of them. She could feel the freedom of the moment slipping through the cracks, the light dying. But this moment — it didn't belong to The Gilded Sea. This moment was hers to break.
It should have been you, Ugly thoughts and ugly words, but there was no malice in her voice as she struck at the delicate peace between them. How many times had she thought about those words? The anger was gone now; this was something colder and deeper than anger could ever run, something forged in the snow alone and under the stars. That was the first thing mom said to me, after Rose. Do you remember how she screamed at me, how they both did? And you sat there, and did nothing -
She was crying; when had that happened? I don't want you here, Everett. Leave. Don't go back - don't ever go back there - just go somewhere else. I love you, but -
But I don't want to.

It should have been you.

Heat flustered through the base of Everett’s ears. Burning, like the fire that had taken her, taken their Rose. But was she wrong? I know, I know.

He lowered his eyes.

But Ophelia didn’t mean him.

Well, she should have.

Everett watched the ground as she parsed her accusations. All proper, all just. All weight upon the barbed crown that broke with every blow, the one his parents had deemed too heavy for themselves to carry. The one he’d willingly broken others beneath.

It was right that she should hate him.

Even as she sat crying, he couldn’t find his voice. No better than when he’d simply watched, back in the Gilded Sea. The shots echoing. Reverberating. Shutting him to silence. And for what? Another moment in fear? He had seen what they had done to Evander when he’d challenged father’s will. He had watched then, too, until he had forced his brother away. He had watched disgrace spill over him, crown knocked from his head. The feet to push the fires away bowed low and shamed.

And then, Rose had died.

Then, Rose had died.

Died.

And somewhere in the sorrows, they all had died, too.

She pushed him away, and he finally looked to her. She of gilded threads, tattered and bruised and clinging to her frail body like pine needles after the fire. He could not linger on the scars that marred her, but he saw their shadows, knew that they were there.

Silence. And then, a choked whisper.

They were wrong. I was wrong. It should have been me.

He remembered when Ophelia would talk with, walk with him, in ways no one else ever did. No one else, beyond Evander. Those broken days, breaking more, now that everything else had crumbled.

She would not listen to him. Surely not. But he would try.

Tybault is here, too. Evander, he knew they had done far better to her, we came for you, not to bring you back, the ocean broke through him, please, let me take you to them.

It felt right for a moment. It felt good, to see that same hurt she carried with her every day flash across Everett's face. Then he was speaking and all at once she was ashamed and horrified and full of hot directionless anger. And overwhelmed, she felt so overwhelmed; he thought it should have been him and Tybault was here (of course Evander was here, that was a given) and they weren't here to take her back, but they were here for her, why? She wanted to scream.
No - no, it shouldn't have been you. Or me. Or any of us. None of it had to happen, And that was what made it hurt so much. But it did. And I needed you. Now I don't. I don't need anyone. She took a step back from him, and felt it to be true right then; she was finally free, she was wild and unbound and made of nothing but light. No one could touch her. No one would ever touch her again.

None of it had to happen.

Of course none of it had to happen.

But it did happen, and there was no changing why, or that it did. It would have always been messy. Everett had seen that when he’d helped their father put Evander in his place. Their parents had built a tree and made themselves their roots. Look at what had happened when they’d driven them out!

But their roots had been shallow and built upon sand, and Everett knew he did not regret what they had done to them.

You’re wrong, he said softly, and though he confronted he did not advance towards her, even as she drew away. We needed you, we still do, and he meant it, seeing her now, being here now, and listen to yourself. You’re starving here. I see your bones! Let’s hunt together. Heal together. Please, he would not force her, but he found himself pleading with more words than he’d meant to give, I came here to find you, he said, and I saw you well, I saw you, dancing, alive in a place with crashing — waves. His ears fell back and he looked away.

Back when she was Ophelia, the gilded girl had always thought of herself as an attentive listener in conversations, especially heated ones. It was important, after all, to hear someone out and really connect with them, their feelings, their wants. But she wasn't that girl anymore. And Reverie was a woman utterly bone-tired and done with molding herself to the desires of her family. Soft words filled the space between them, but what she heard was the suffocating clicks and shifts of a burden refastened to her shoulders. We needed you, we still do, like the weight of the world shackled to her, and she heard little beyond that.
They needed her. She knew that; she didn't care. That was the point, and Everett still couldn't see it. This new life, this beginning, it was supposed to be about what she wanted. She realized she was breathing too quickly, thinking too quickly, reduced to quick childlike snippets of I don't care, I don't want to care, and this isn't about you!
It boiled over all too soon.
I don't - I don't care if you need me! She didn't want to be needed, not anymore. She took another step back, still breathing hard. I would rather starve - I would rather die than spend another second dealing with all of you. All your problems - deal with them yourself! Like I'm doing!
She ran from him.

He knew the moment her breathing quickened, like his had quickened so many times before, that he had said something wrong.

Oh no.

Ophelia, wait -

But his voice was too small, and she whirled like the tempests she had once danced for.

Oh, why had he been the one to find her! If only he’d been Tybault! If only he’d been Athens! They’d have the brazen nerve to steer her, the quiet voice to soothe.

But all he was, was Everett. A puppet master’s fool. He felt numb - sick, even. His paws rooted with that same terror he’d felt when he’d watched his parents beat her with their cruel, scorching words.

Ophelia, his voice cracked when she turned on him and ran.

He was not rain, but fire. And fire only made things worse.

But would not watch this time.

He could not sit back and watch her die.

Dammit Ophelia!

He sprung forward with anger and fear, with love and grief, with a hurricane of emotions that battered him like the waves against the worn ocean stones he’d walked upon only days before. I don’t need you for my problems! an ugly cry marred through his words once tempered with perfection, we just want you as whatever you become without our damned parents and that damned gilded sea!

His vision blurred, and he did not realize he was crying.

Ophelia.
No no no —
That damned Gilded Sea —
It all came back to that, and she felt the frenzy of flight leave her all at once. She stuttered to a stop, leaned heavily against a tree, back still to him. Ophelia. How could he still call her that? How could he look at what she had become and still see his sister? She was slipping, she could feel it; the blurry edges of her vision, the sudden heaviness of her head and her limbs. Don't call me that, She managed, voice weak and faded under the gathering fog. Reverie; my name is Reverie. But there was no fighting it. She closed her eyes, just for a second, just to forget the world for one —
And her thoughts stopped there.

They did not run far before she stopped and slid against the belly of a wide oak.

Everett slowed himself before he tore past her, the flurry subsiding, yet tears still blurred his vision like raindrops on glass. He blinked to clear his eyes.

Don’t call me that.

Her voice was small, distant, despite how close he’d drawn near her again. Not too close, not too close, but close enough he could pursue her again if she tried to run.

He would not let her die here.

Okay, he said, and Everett eased to his haunches and considered his sister.

He did not understand her. Did not know all that lay broken inside, only saw what was broken upon her body, ripped in places that should have been stitched, sunken in places that should have been filled. Reflecting that girl yet broken inside. Perhaps. Perhaps.

He knew, at least, that he would always be that broken boy, even as his face glowed, filled and whole.

An odd stillness stole the air around her.

Okay. Then what would you like me to call you? he asked softly, and hoped for a better start.

Somewhere dark, somewhere quiet; a snippet of solitude to clutch under the storm Everett had stirred. It was shadows and silence, until the voice; cracking through, golden light, soft yet falling like thunder. She knew that voice. She knew she was not alone.
Ophelia...
Rose? Truly? She blinked and the world was alight. Gilded. All sunlight-spun and yellow gleaming, hazy, grass swaying under a sweet-scented breeze. And Rose; how long since she spoke with her last, like this? In dreams and in memories, in the safety of her mind. Too long, and she found the promise of life too beautiful to turn back now; the world, all the people in it and the things to see and the mysteries and wonders, she loved all of it as much as she feared it. As much as she loved Rose. Her bright beautiful sister, who for so long comforted her even in death. Who even now reached for her.
Reverie could only close her eyes again and retreat back to that dark place. Rose was dead, and so was Ophelia, and it was time to let go. She didn't want it anymore. She knew what she wanted. Whatever Everett did, whatever he said, it did not reach her. Somewhere far away, in the self-contained solitude of her own mind, Reverie was dancing — and the light under her feet chased all of the shadows away.