All Epilogue 03 - Mila Webber

Shortly after the creation of the Few
Pierce sat huddled in the trees in the Northlands. Did it still count as sitting if you didn't touch the ground? The Completes had all been collected, and hovered around the area, keeping their distance from Pierce and each other; there was no way to get all of the Shares. The panic had begun to subside, replaced with confusion and fear. It was only now that Pierce really had a chance to realize exactly how much he had changed, and the realization scared him. It scared him as much as the Completes, who were just beginning to realize how different they were as well.
He couldn't go home. Not yet. Not looking like he did. He was confused and scared, his feelings shared and amplified among the strange creatures who were no longer All, the same way he was no longer human. That thought scared him too. The Wizard Council scared him. People scared him. The thought of his wife seeing him scared him.
He thought of Sienna. She was never scared; maybe she could help. She had helped before. He went through the motions of summoning her, as he had done many times before. It didn’t work. He tried a second time. A third. Why wasn’t it working?
He took a breath. Maybe...rather than the usual ritual, he instead tried a generic summoning spell, and made the appropriate modification to specify the target. This time, the stoat-like Etherian woman appeared. She blinked, looking around, tightening her grip on her polearm. “Sienna…” he said, drawing her gaze down to where he knelt over the ground. Immediately, she recoiled slightly, her short fur standing up on end as she bared her teeth, a look of fear and anger in her eyes. Pierce was taken aback at her hostility, shrinking back. “Sienna, I…”
“Don’t!!” she cut him off loudly, leveling her weapon and taking a step back. “Don’t talk. I don’t want to hear any words comin’ from yer mouth.”
“But...but I…”
“I don’t know what you are…” she cut him off, bristling. “I don’t know what you are, but you ain’t right. Whatever you are, you don’t belong and I don’t want nothing to do with whatever you are.”
“Sienna...I’m…” her anger was making him afraid, more so than he already was. “I’m Percival.”
“You ain’t!” she practically screamed. “Yer tryin’ to look like him, an’ gettin’ it all wrong. You think you can pretend? You ain’t him. Not at all. An’ I don’t like whatever it is you really are.” She pulled back further. “You ain’t right.”
“But I’m still…”
“He was my summoner!” she yelled. “You think I wouldn’t know him?! He’s gone!! He don’t exist anymore! And whatever you are…” she shook her head, “I want nothin’ to do with.” She still bristled, all aggression. “Send me back. And don’t ever summon me again.”
“Sienna, please…”
She crouched, ready to leap into an attack. She growled, “You got three seconds…two...” Pierce panicked, and dismissed her. He looked at the empty spot where she stood a moment before, then fell slowly over and curled into a ball, overcome with grief and fear. One by one, the Completes did the same.
-------------------
A few weeks later
Cohen's voice echoed in Cress' mind, I need you to do everyone a favour. Get Webber to talk to his wife. She thinks he’s dead, and he’s going to regret it.
The sending allowed the elf to reply, Shit, ok. I’ll figure it out. Where is he? I just know he went north.
Ten minutes later, the conversation continued, He’s in the unremarkable forest a few miles south of the tundra. North of Korova, find where the animals have fled. It’s covered in eyes.
Got it! Don’t worry, I’ve got this.
----
Though Cress couldn't cast Sending, there were more than enough wands and those skilled in their use working for his mother. Hello, Mrs. Webber. This is a message from Cress. I know Kalleandar is a mess; where are you staying? Are you safe?
The reply was related to him, Me and the girls are in Rochester at the house. Have you heard from Percival? I haven’t heard from him and I’m worried. Please help.
He had a response Sent to her, Sure. Give me some time; I’ll look around and see if I can find him.
Thank you. Please hurry: I don’t know why he never came back or gave a Sending. I’m so worried...
----
“This is ridiculous. I can’t just teleport where I haven’t been,” the young-looking, black-haired elf whined.
Cress rolled his eyes, “Dude, I showed you the picture. It’s a fuckin’ city. It ain’t fuckin’ hard.”
“And you would know what is and isn’t difficult,” Lupin retorted. “You can’t even cast a cantrip.”
“I know that this is important, and you’re gonna do it.”
Lupin groused, “How can this be important, when the city is in such a mess? You’ve got better things to be doing than running around in the Northlands.”
Cress groaned, “You want me to get my mom? ‘Cause I’ll go get Mom. And she’ll get your dad, and both of ‘em will be on you. So what’s worse? Casting teleport now, or getting both of ‘em on your case for being a prick who won’t help his uncle?” Lupin grumbled and crossed his arms, but didn’t retort. “Yeah, thought so. Wait here.” Cress knocked at the door.
A few moments later, a woman with long, dark blonde hair answered. She looked to be around 40, and her usually bright face was strained with worry and lack of sleep. “Cress! And Lupin! Are you both alright? Did you find out anything about Percival?” Mila asked, hope and fear in her voice in equal measure.
“Yeahhh…” Cress drew out the word. “Yes. Yes, totally did.” His evasive response did nothing to calm her expression. “Ok, so...it’s a really long, totally weird and pretty unbelievable story. And Lupin,” he said, pointedly turning to glare at his nephew, “has things he’s gotta do, so...ok, I can like, take you to your husband, ‘cause I know where he is. It took me a few days, but I got it. But it’s a hike, and I’ll tell you the weirdness on the way, ok?”
“He’s ok?!” she said, worry at its peak.
“He’s...alive? He’s not hurt or nothin’. Just...ok, he’s mixed up with all the weird shit that happened with the screwed-up cities and the lost time and you ain’t got half a clue how messed up it really was. So, if you can deal with some really messed up stuff, and you’re cool with a bit of a hike, ‘cause he’s kinda all the way up in fuck...sorry, way up in nowhere, then I’ll take you there. But if weird stuff, and I mean super weird, I-don’t-even-believe-what-you’re saying, fairy tale legend type stuff, is a dealbreaker, and for some people it is, it’s cool, then you’re probably better off stayin’ here, and I’ll just...tell you the slightly less weird stuff.”
Lupin perked up at this, “You mean you know something about what happened and you didn’t…”
“Lupin, shut up, this is more important,” Cress said with exasperation. “I already told mom everything, you can go ask her, ‘cause I ain’t wasting time explaining it for you, you aren’t missing family.” Lupin grumbled.
Mila blinked at him, took a deep breath, and said, “Cress. Sweetie. You’re a nice boy, and I love you, but you are terrible at explaining things.” There was an undertone of violence in her voice as she asked pointedly, “Is. My husband. Safe?”
“Yes. That one is a yes,” Cress said with certainty.
Mila gave a sigh of relief, before continuing, “Why didn’t he call?”
“Because...I don’t know, you gotta ask him.”
“Oh, I’ll ask him all right...” she said with the muted fury of someone made to worry. “Where is he?”
“In the Northlands, way up north.”
“Why on earth is he...alright. And we have to walk,” she said as a statement. “How far?”
Cress shrugged, “Depends on how fast you walk, I guess? A few days, if we’re taking our time…”
Looking at Lupin, she asked, “Can’t we teleport there?”
“We could,” Cress interjected pointedly, “but he won’t go any further north than Korova, ‘cause I can’t make a clear enough picture of trees,” he said, his tone mocking.
Sighing laboriously, Lupin defended himself, “I have to have a clear mental picture to teleport, and Korova is the only thing he can explain well enough for me to picture it clearly. If he had some sort of landmark that was more striking than ‘a river’, then maybe I could get closer.”
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “...Let me get some stuff together. Come in,” she waved them in behind her.
----
“...And so now I’m a werewolf,” Cress finished. They continued picking their way through the trees; Lupin had left them outside of Korova and they had carried on on foot.
“Well, that’s certainly something,” Mila said.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I’d show you, but sometimes I turn into a full wolf? Which isn’t bad or anything, but like, you’d be stuck with me rolling around like an idiot looking for you to rub my head, so...kind of a waste of time?”
She frowned, “Why would a wolf want its head rubbed?”
He blushed a bit and replied, “ ‘Cause I’m kinda more like a dog than a wolf, I guess? I’d turn back in the morning, but, it wouldn’t be a good idea right now. Later maybe. ...So, Mr. Webber, Mr. Erzebet and Dr. Cohen also turned into werewolves, but like, I think only the doctor is still cursed?”
“Really? Percival was? Is he alright?”
“Eh, he took it pretty hard at the time, we all did. But he got a devil to break the curse, so he isn’t one anymore.”
Mila looked shocked, stopped, rubbed her eyes and sighed, “...Cress, sweetheart. Context.”
He turned to her, “Oh geeze, right, so we had to get these moon pearl things, that were like, from somewhere in heaven, to close the holes that the All made…”
She cut him off, “In order, Cress.”
“Oh, right, ok, so, we were in Akroum…”
----
“So, there you go. That’s about it.” The pair sat at a campfire, under the night sky. It was cold, though snow was understandably delayed.
Mila was silent for a while, looking at the small flames. “...Did he...did any of you...think he was going to come back…?” she asked quietly.
Cress nudged a twig around uncomfortably, “...We all hoped he would. We didn’t have any real reason to think he wouldn’t…”
“...But you had no reason to think he would, either…” she added. Cress frowned and looked away.
She sat soundlessly for a long while, until eventually she said, “Why didn’t he tell me? I thought he might...I wouldn’t have even…” Tears formed in her eyes and she wiped them away. Turning to Cress, she asked, “Why didn’t he come back? He can teleport, you’ve said that enough.”
“He’s...he’s watching the abandoned All guys…” he said with only a hint of hesitance.
She wiped her face again, “You’re not telling me something. What aren’t you telling me?”
“I…” he stopped. Kicking the twig away, he turned his head and muttered, “...I’m not comfortable tellin’ you. He can. It’s his place, his thing, not mine. I’ll take you where I know he is, or was, and it’s between him and you.” Mila listened to this, nodded slowly, and looked back at the fire.
----
“We should be getting close…” Cress said. Mila suddenly gave a sharp ‘eep’, jumping backwards and recoiling. “What?! What is...hey! Yeah, we’re nearly there!” Cress came over and picked up the object of Mila’s surprise. It was a round, black shell, covered in bronzy spikes. It blinked as Cress held it and looked into its large, solitary eye.
“That’s...those things were all over Kalleandar. Rochester too,” Mila said, leaning over to look at it with Cress.
He held it out, “They ain’t scary or nothin’. They’re just looking.”
“I nearly stepped on it,” she said, excusing her surprise. “They shouldn’t be on the ground like that, if they don’t want to be stepped on. Or eaten.” She frowned a bit, “Though I can’t imagine what would want to eat it.”
“Yeah, the doc said something about animals being frightened of them. Maybe that’s enough? Between that and the spikes, maybe it doesn’t matter where they sit.” He looked about, settling on a nearby tree where he wedged it in the branches. “There. Better than the ground,” he said. “Come on, should be over here…”
As they walked, they began to notice more and more Shares scattered about; the forest became dense with them, all blinking passively in whatever direction they happened to be pointed in. Eventually, they came to an area where things had obviously been disturbed: plants and trees had been bent or broken, as though there were a great many people moving around without any real idea of how to make a campsite. No one was in sight, however: nothing besides the numerous Shares.
“...There’s no one here…” Mila said quietly to Cress, looking about timidly in the face of so many creatures staring at her, and in the wake of the deafening silence: no birds or squirrels made any noise. The only motion was the constant blinking.
Cress, however, shook his head. “Nah...nah, they’re here. Tons of ‘em are here. They’re just hiding. They fold up pretty small, apparently, but I can spot a few. Mr. Webber’s probably here too, but he can turn invisible, right?” He spoke up, “Yo Mr. Webber! I know you’re here, and even if you aren’t, you can toooootally see us. The doc told me you were hiding, so I brought Mrs. Webber here, because you’re both gonna be super depressed if you don’t talk or something.”
“Wait,” Mila said, standing up straighter. “Wait...he’s here? Right here?”
“Um...probably?” he shrugged. “Definitely...in earshot, at least. Guaranteed.”
“...Ok…” She took a deep breath, composing herself. “Cress, thank you very much for bringing me here.” She turned to look at him, expression polite and congenial, “Could you please give us some space?”
“Uhm…yeah, sure.”
He began to walk back the way he came; he jumped when, after he had gotten a reasonable distance away, he heard Mila shriek, “Percival Webber, you get out here NOW!!” Cress picked up the pace of his retreat as he heard Mila continue to yell. “How could you?! I worried you were dead!! Do you have any idea how much I worried? What kind of person lets his wife think he’s dead?! Who lets his daughters think he’s dead!?” She toned her volume down slightly as she began to cry, “And you’re hiding?! Why?!” She sniffed a few times, “What is it; you don’t care about us anymore? That you went on this...this huge life-changing quest and saved the world, and now you have these All things and we don’t matter anymore?” She rubbed her eyes angrily, her voice dropping lower with every sentence, “Or are you doing that thing again? Where you just can’t see what you do to people? Where you think of yourself and don’t get any farther than that? Cress wouldn’t tell me why you’re hiding, why you’re really out here...are you so afraid of getting hurt that you’re doing this to your family?” She dropped slowly to her knees, hugging herself. “...Do you really think so little of us?” she asked quietly. “Do you really think that little of me…?
She huddled on the ground in the cold forest, holding back sobs, when she heard her husband’s hoarse voice very quietly whisper nearby, “...I’m sorry…”
Whipping her gaze up, she looked around frantically, but saw nothing. “Stop it…” she said, voice sad, angry and emotional, “Stop...doing this…” She was met with silence. “Stop it!!” she yelled, “Stop it now! I’m not talking to you until you stop hiding, and I’m not leaving until I talk to you. I swear I will sit here and freeze and you can watch me, and Cress can take my body back to Janine and Adelle and explain that I died because you were too much of a prideful, cowardly idiot to TALK TO ME.” As her voice echoed through the trees, she caught sight of something. Turning her head, she saw a man, her husband, hunched over on the ground where he hadn’t been visible a moment before. His clothes were all lead-grey, and he clutched at himself tightly; even at this angle, she could see something was wrong about his arms and hands. His eyes were shut tight, and he was muttering something. Slowly, almost timidly, Mila crawled closer to him. When she got closer, she could make out that he was whispering apologies, over and over. He was crying, but the tears that were rolling down his face were jet black. She leaned over, trying to look at his face, reaching out but hesitant to actually touch him, “...Percival?”
“I’m sorry…” he whispered. “I’m sorry…”
She could see that his arms and hands were wrong: too long, too spindly, too hard. His skin had a sort of grainy metallic luster to it as well. “What...what happened…?”
“...I’m sorry…” he whispered brokenly, “I...had to cast the spell, or...the world would be destroyed. ...I...had to cast it...because...because I had to save you...It did...something...I...went...somewhere...with the All and...got sent back, but...I’m not...me anymore and they aren’t...All anymore...and we don’t...know what we are...but...we’re scared...because we aren’t...aren’t wanted. We don’t have...a place, and I...I can’t...can’t...I was watching, because I needed to know you...you were ok...and safe...but...never...seeing you again...hurt less...than...than being thrown away…”
“Percival…” she looked at him sadly. Reaching out, she touched his face; he winced, but she didn’t let go. “Percival, look at me...look.” Eventually, he opened his eyes, and she could see that they were grey, the black diamond-shaped pupils lacking irises. She frowned, her expression sad as she said, “Percival...I don’t know what happened, and I don’t really know what’s going on...but, do you have any idea how much you hurt me? Do you…” she choked on a sob, bringing her hand up to her face. “...Do you? Because you were...so worried about yourself...did you even think that that’s what you did to me? I didn’t...didn’t know where you went...I didn’t know why...Everything was in chaos, and...and we didn’t hear from you...days passed...And you...you were watching? You knew we were worried, and...and you just...I can’t believe you...I just...just can’t believe you…” She gave a few sobs, “You didn’t want to get rejected...so...so you rejected us first.”
Pierce coiled in on himself again, burying his face in his knees. “...I’m sorry…I’m so sorry...” his voice muttered out. “...You...you should go home…”
When he said that, she folded her hands in front of her. Taking a few shuddering breaths, she tried to calm herself. “No,” she said firmly, trying to hold back her tears. “No. That would be too easy. I could. I could go back home, and leave you here to rot, because you deserve it, after what you did to me. I could leave and tell everyone you’re dead, and meet someone else and be very happy, while you sit here and think about what you did. About what you threw away.” As she spoke, he curled in on himself further. “But that would be too easy. And I didn’t marry you because it was easy. I didn’t marry you because you were pretty and rich, despite what some people think. I married you because, despite you being a complete, callous, daydreamy idiot, I love you. And because I love you, I’m not going to let you sit here and get away with being a selfish, insensitive, stupid, short-sighted, self-centered...ingrate. Who doesn’t deserve someone who doesn’t take the easy way out.”
He lifted up his face to look at her. “Mila…” he was cut off, as she slapped him soundly across the cheek as soon as his head was up.
“Don’t you ever...ever...do anything like that again, or so help me, I will kill you myself and the police will never find your body.”
He looked somewhat stunned, but nodded weakly. She glared at him for another few seconds before sighing and leaning in to hug him. "I'm sorry..." he said, "I'm sorry, I won't...won't ever..."
"Shut up," she said through her tears. "It won't change anything now." She sniffed, "But you'd better...better do better in the future. Because I'm not going to let you do that again."
He shook his head slowly. "...I missed you...so...so much..." Very slowly, almost timidly, he let go of himself and made to hug his wife. "I was...so scared...and I didn't think...didn't think I'd get to see you again..." His arms were awkward around her, but she didn't seem to mind. The two knelt in the woods for a long while, crying and holding each other.
When finally one of them spoke again, it was Mila. "...I suppose...if anyone would have an excuse for vanishing...your’s isn't the worst..." she said with a hint of humour.
"I don't know what I did to deserve you," he replied.
"Well...apparently you saved the world...I guess that's a start." Both people chuckled slightly. She pulled back to look at him properly; with a bit of a grin she said, “You need a haircut.”
“Heh, I guess I didn’t really have one for six months…” he admitted.
She went to straighten his bangs, and he made a curious sort of face as she moved her fingers through his hair. “What?” she asked. “What is it?” she repeated when he didn’t reply.
“It’s nothing...nothing, don’t...don’t worry about it.”
His stammered replies only made her glare harder at him. “Percival…” she said, slightly threateningly.
He shut his eyes again, “I’m weird! I barely…” his tone became sad again, “barely even look human, and the deeper you go, the less human I am…”
“Percival,” she took him by the chin, “I have no idea what’s going on, or what you’re going through, and I’m trying my very hardest to deal with this as well as I can. But you have to tell me things, or I won’t be able to, ok? Stop not giving me chances. I know...that you aren’t the same. That’s obvious. But if I don’t know what’s different, how am I going to get used to it?” He looked at her sadly, and slowly dropped his gaze before muttering something unintelligible. “Speak up, sweetie.”
“I smell with my hair,” he said, poignantly unhappy.
“...What?”
“My hair...smells things,” he repeated louder, bitterly. “I smell, hormones or something, I don’t know, and it’s my hair that picks it up. I’m basically blind and deaf, I can’t taste or smell or feel pain or sleep or eat and I basically don’t have any organs, and I’m probably not alive so I’m probably not going to die and I weigh almost 300 pounds and...and…” he started to break down, covering his face. He continued at a whisper, “...And I can hear and see and feel what every single one of them is thinking and feeling all the time, and I don’t know what any of us is going to do…”
“Who…?”
He looked up at her again piteously, “...The Few. That’s...that’s what Cohen...Doctor Cohen...called us. The abandoned pieces of the All. The Few.” He made a wry face, “It’s...it’s not the worst name…”
“The...eyes?” she looked up at the Shares, scattered all about. “You can see through their eyes?” He nodded sadly. “All of them? Right now?” He nodded again. “...They’re...they’re everywhere…” she said, with something that might have been awe. “You can see everywhere…” She looked back to him, “You really were watching.” He nodded once more. She thought about that for a moment, before finally saying, “...I always said you were the nosiest man in the world. Now I know I’m right.”
He looked up at her again, a pleading look on his face, “...Please…” he dropped his face again, “Please don’t leave me…”
Mila sighed and tilted his face up to look at her again, “Honey...Percival...if I was going to leave you, it would be for your horrible stunt earlier. I’m not going to leave you for this.”
“...Really…?” his voice held a note of terrified hope. She looked at him with equal parts gentleness and exasperation, before leaning forwards and kissing him. He sat frozen for a few seconds, shocked, before kissing her back and holding her once more. “Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you…” he whispered, holding her like she might disappear. She smiled kindly, holding him. “I love you so much,” he said. “You can’t even possibly understand because I can’t remotely begin to describe how much I love you.”
She grinned cheekily, “And here you’re usually so eloquent.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to try,” he returned, kissing her again.
When she pulled back, she said, “I think you missed something, when you were listing things earlier.” He blinked, his look of fear returning. "You...seem to be floating? I...didn’t know what to say about that…”
“Oh…" he said, looking ashamed, "Yes...I...float. ...Yes.”
Considering the space between him and the ground, she asked, “Can you go higher?”
“No.”
“What if you lay down?”
“I’ll still float.”
"Even if I sit on you?"
This made him raise an eyebrow, “Yes.”
“...So," she hazarded a small grin, "what you’re saying is, you’re a hammock.”
Pierce blinked, and couldn’t help but chuckle, “This...this really isn’t funny…” he said.
“Always better to laugh than cry,” she offered wryly.
He brushed back her hair, looking at her tenderly, “...I love you so much.”
“You’d better keep saying that; you have a lot to make up for.” She made to stand up, “Alright, enough sitting in the dir-ahh!” she shouted and fell back over; as she turned, she saw a Complete no more than a few inches from her, which had silently floated up.
Pierce held her protectively, “No no no no, it’s ok! It’s ok!” The Complete flinched as she yelled, pulling itself back and bringing its arms up to shield itself. Others had floated out as well: some had drawn close, while many had merely peeked out from around their hiding places. “It’s ok, they won’t hurt you!”
“Tell them to stop doing that!” she said to Pierce in exasperation. She turned to the Complete, “Stop popping up out of nowhere! You’re all going to give me a heart attack!” It looked at her timidly, bringing its hands down slightly. She looked at it consideringly for a moment, before asking over her shoulder, “That’s one of the Few...things?”
He nodded, “It’s...not a thing, it’s a being. These are Completes. At least, until we think of another name, I suppose. They were Completes, when they were All. The eyes were Shares. There’s a third type, Response…” he held out his hand, and with a few gestures, summoned one to him. The worm-like creature felt around as he explained, “They’re like the Shares, but they hear instead of see. Not that any of them do it very well, but they do. They’re not intelligent, they’re like...insects, maybe. They just see things and hear things; not much else. But the Completes,” he said as he let the Response bury itself. “They’re...they’re people. But they’re confused. They’re like...children, who don’t know anything yet. They just know that they’re scared, and that people are scared of them, and that everything they ever knew is gone, and they’re alone.”
Mila looked at the closest Complete sadly. “But they’re not alone. There’s so many of them.”
“Compared to how many there were? This is nothing. This is...like being the three survivors on the whole planet, and even that’s...that’s not even close.”
She continued to look sad, then turned to look at Pierce, “Well...they have you, right?”
“Heh," he smiled sadly, looking at the ground, "For what little good that is.”
She smacked him in the shoulder, “Cress told me you brought them all here. You’re not just listening to them, you’re leading them, aren’t you? They’re all following you, because you do know where you are and what’s happening.”
“That’s...the long and short of it,” he conceeded.
She looked back at them, “You saved all of them, didn’t you? They wouldn’t have survived, if someone hadn’t gotten them together, and out of the cities.” He didn't reply to that, but she didn't press him. “...Can they speak?”
Pierce blinked, “...No, not yet. They could learn, but, I don’t think they can now.”
“Can they understand me?”
“...Yes, and no. They wouldn’t, not by themselves, but, because I can hear and I can understand, I can sort of...explain it to them. They’re communicating mostly in emotions, right now, because they don’t know language. But they know what I know.”
“Alright then.” She stood up and dusted herself off before moving to stand in front of the bold Complete, still cowering. She curtsied, “Good afternoon. My name is Mila Webber, and I’m pleased to meet you.” It watched her, confusion and hesitance clear on its alien features. It moved its hands about; it looked like it was considering touching her, but held itself back everytime. “...Why is it so scared? Am I scaring it?” she asked over her shoulder, keeping her eyes on the Complete.
Pierce fidgeted, “I...might be being overprotective…” She turned fully and glared at him, and he added quickly, “I don’t want them hurting you by accident!”
“Stop scaring them!” she chastised before turning back. “Poor things, is he being mean? He’s always been like that; he was like that with his girls too. I’m not going to break.” Very carefully, she held out her hand and took one of its. It looked between her face and her hand; slowly, it brought its other three hands around, drawing its fingers lightly across her arm, hair and cheek. She stood calmly, letting it touch her. “...This is weird,” she said conversationally. As she said it, the Complete quickly drew back.
“Are you ok? I can make them stop. I don’t…”
“Percival!” she turned and snapped at him, cutting him off, “Stop getting them all frightened, you’ll make them timid!” She huffed, turning back to the Complete, “Honestly. It’s like you have no faith in me at all. And that is not something I’d be testing right now: you're on thin enough ice as it is.”
“O...okay…” he muttered.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Yes, dear,” he said more clearly.
“That’s better.” Both of them smiled slightly. Two more Completes ventured closer. “Good to meet you,” she curtsied again. “Good to meet you.” They looked between her and each other, and both reached out tentatively to touch her like the first one did. She couldn’t help but giggle at the oddity of her situation. “Why are they doing this?”
“Because they don’t see or hear very well. They really only have touch and...whatever that hormone-smell is that I told you.”
“They have such large eyes though...seems strange.”
“I just don’t think they needed to see very well where they came from.” As Mila let the Completes near her, more and more began to inch forwards. She greeted each one as they approached her, and patiently let them investigate. With each one that she treated kindly, they became less scared and more curious, though they still continued to treat her as though she was made of spun glass. They floated around and on top of one another, vying to get closer; though they were almost impossible to tell apart, a close eye could see that they were cycling around, letting newcomers closer so that each of them could have a turn to be greeted. There were so many of them that this took hours, but Mila waited for each of them.
Eventually, she put up her hands and said with a smile, “Alright, I take it back, I did find something worse than our wedding. I honestly didn’t think I would, but that’s life for you.” She walked towards where Pierce was, obscured by the horde of Few. She gestured for the Completes to move aside, and they complacently floated out of her way, still entranced by her, “Is that all of them? I wouldn’t want any of them to get a complex because I missed one.”
“No...no, that’s every single one…” Pierce replied, his voice holding an odd emotional note. “...You met everyone…”
“Well, if I can talk to everyone at your awful state dinners, I can certainly do this,” she said smugly. She found him where he was before, hugging his knees. There was a very strange look on his face. “What is it?” she asked, kneeling beside him.
He looked at her for a moment, slowly reaching up to stroke her cheek softly. “You’re...it’s…” He took a shuddering breath. “I love you, so much...and they, know that. They knew that you were to be loved, but they hadn’t felt it before, so they didn’t really know what it meant. They were just scared, because I was scared, and I think they only really knew how to feel scared. But you made them happy, and now they understand what I feel, so they love you too. So, I can look at you and feel my love, but...also, his, and his, and his,” he gestured to the Completes. “Every single one of them. Every single one of them, loves you like I love you and it’s...I can’t…”
Mila smiled at him gently and took his hand, holding it on her face. “I love you too.” She yawned and made to sit down; Pierce quickly unraveled himself and took her, pulling her onto his lap so she wouldn’t have to sit on the ground. She smiled up at him and nestled into his neck. Her gaze drifted down, and she moved her hand about, silently marveling at how they were floating.
“...Do you want to go home?” he asked quietly.
“If you’re coming with me,” she replied sleepily. “Our house is kind of...full of root vegetables wrapped in cardigans, so we’re staying at Reid’s.”
“In the room with the awful tapestry, or the one with the bench?”
“Heh. The tapestry.” As Mila said this, Pierce held out his hands; with a few gestures and muttered words, they were suddenly in the aforementioned room in Pierce’s brother’s house in Rochester. Mila blinked, shocked for a second, then smiled. “Not quite home...but close enough,” Mila said, nuzzling into him again. Pierce lay back, still hovering above the bed, holding her tightly. “...You’re going to go get Cress, right?” she asked.
“I have literally wanted nothing more than this for the last, worst 6 months of my life. Cress is climbing trees; he can wait a little bit.”
Mila smiled slightly, “You’re a selfish jerk.”
“And I love you more than anything else in this world is capable of.” The two of them smiled.
Category:Advent of the All