The long path between Moonview and its cemetery gave Sue plenty of time to calm down after her chat earlier. Even more helpful than time, though, was Solstice's psychic assistance. Not in any mental way, either. The touch of the older Forest Guardian's magic took a hefty chunk of weight off Sue's legs, pushing their aching away enough to let the person they belonged to lift her daughter into her arms. Joy's presence did the rest; her deep breaths, toothy smiles, and curious looks at the rest of the group lit up Sue's face every time.
Solstice, for her part, got a long stick to wave around. Emulating Sundance's gesturing was fun for about eight seconds before using the impromptu wand to play with Comet took center stage instead.
Did her tattoos always light up when she was psychicing?
Sue would've guessed that the Moon Child was sufficiently used to his mom's psychics to not find glowing, floating objects worth any attention at all anymore, but judging by how loud his squeaks were whenever Solstice's pale blue glow whizzed past him, she was clearly incorrect.
And each time Comet laughed his little heart out, Jasper was there to add more fuel to the fire. His black hair tickled the infant's sides and tummy, making Comet kick and squirm in his arms. For a few peaceful minutes, Comet's laughs were the only sounds filling the sunset-clad sky and the darkening woods around them; a good luck charm warding against what lurked in the dark.
Whether they'd protect them against what hunted the creatures that lurked in the dark, Sue could only hope.
Eventually, however, Comet had enough, huffing and swatting Jasper's teases away more forcefully, before reaching out for his mom. The gesture was understood, and the payloads of one child and one stick were swapped around. The furry night kin had even less of an idea than his ex-wife what to do with the item, but Sue's question distracted him from that looming unknown.
Because the worries coiling in her mind would only let themselves be delayed, never forgotten. "So, there's something I've been thinking about for a bit."
Joy, Solstice, Comet, and Jasper all looked up at Sue at the same time; the former got a forehead kiss for her efforts. "Wh-what would that be?" Jasper asked, dumbfounded.
Something very timely, considering where we're going. Too timely, perhaps.
Sue sighed. "I guess it's just. What do you two think of the Plague? Where it came from, I mean." Doubts set in the instant the final word left her mouth, making her look away in embarrassed doubt. "S-sorry if it's bad timing, just haven't been able to stop thinking about that for a while."
The timing was inarguably crass, though any emotions the other two felt afterwards weren't aimed at Sue. "Truthfully, I don't know. I don't think I want to know, either," Solstice whispered, holding Comet closer.
"I think it came from where all the illnesses do—the rot in the ground," Jasper weighed in. "All the decay and stagnation accumulates in the soil, and too much close contact with it will inevitably spread it onto us." His lecturing pose and unexpectedly calm tone of voice made Sue do a double take, but they didn't last. The long fur covering his hands clenched tight, and the stick he was holding let out a painful croak amidst the background of steady steps.
"Heh. I don't think Sue meant it in that way," Solstice responded with the saddest smile Sue had ever seen. "Did you, Sue?"
There wasn't any reason to beat around the bush anymore. "No, no I didn't, no. It's just that Solanum threatened that—"
"She won't do anything," Jasper forced out through gritted fangs. "Empty threats and bullying is all she's ever done." He relaxed his voice upon seeing how much Sue and Joy were taken aback at hearing it raised, and continued. "A-apologies. I-I mean what I said, though. The more you even consider their words, the more power they have over you."
The group returned to silence afterwards. Sue churned through the night kin's words, finding them logically agreeable but emotionally flippant. She really, really wanted Solanum's threats to be as empty as he has insinuated they'd be, but what if they weren't? What if what had happened really was some kind of deliberate action? The culprit almost definitely would've been Solanum and Solstice's clan as a whole as opposed to the Pale Lady, but with her only experience with the deity being flippant assault, she couldn't fully discount that possibility—
"I-I'm guessing she showed up recently?" Jasper interrupted Sue's thoughts before his expression narrowed further. "And let me guess, Luneth and Nightbane are here too?"
The all too familiar name forced a whimper out of Joy, making her cling to Sue's chest as hard as she could. The Forest Guardian stopped to correct her grip on her daughter and held her tighter, green fingers stroking the top of her quivering maw. "He's not here sweetie, you're safe. I promise..."
Solstice looked at the metal girl with concern, holding her son closer. Comet let out a quiet, sad squeak, and reached one hand towards Joy. Jasper walked around Sue to get a better look and offered his own affection to the tyke. She didn't even notice him, though, clenching her eyes and listening only to her mom's heartbeat.
"By the Dark Lord, I'm so sorry. If I get my hands on him, I'll..." Jasper growled, facing away from Joy so as not to startle her more, before his pose deflated again. "I-I'm sorry. A-are they still around?"
"To the best of our knowledge, yes," Solstice answered for Sue, placing a hand on her shoulder. Comet tried to follow his mom's gesture, but was about one and a half feet of reach short.
"I ran into Solanum and—and the yellow one earlier, too. Thankfully, they just seemed content to throw insults at me and toss me onto the ground," Sue chuckled. And then, realized that none of the other three were aware of what she'd described, stifling an involuntary 'fuck' in response.
She definitely wasn't gonna say no to the extra close hugs that the toothy tyke gave her afterwards, though. Her short arms only barely reached around her mom's neck, especially with Twinkle in the way as well, but Sue appreciated the effort. More than she could express in words.
"^Are you hurt, Sue?^" Solstice scanned her body for any injuries she hadn't noticed earlier, and took a weak sigh of relief at not finding any. Not physical ones, at least.
And her pupil was keen to confirm her findings. "No, no. Bit sore, but that's it."
"^Once we get back, I'll find Cirrus and ask her to keep watch for them all day tomorrow. I'll not have them assaulting anyone, and especially you. I apologize for not doing something about that sooner,^" Solstice mentally muttered. The extra attention given to her well-being sprouted a fleeting blush on Sue's cheeks, but it didn't last once Jasper chimed in.
Hard to blush with blood draining from one's face, after all. "Let me guess, they've been hounding you about how you look like A-Aurora?" Whatever confidence there might've been in his voice, it wilted at having to mention his daughter.
Sue sighed, held Joy tighter, and nodded as much as her current pose would let her before resuming the group's march. "K-kinda, yeah."
The elephant-shaped magical monster of them knowing that I'm not even a real Forest Guardian is probably best left unaddressed.
"How'd you know?"
Jasper let out a timid, shaky chuckle. "W-well, I knew you h-had to learn about her from somewhere, and with the fixation these scum have always had about her, I guessed it was from them," he explained, confidence seeping back into his posture. "A-am I correct?"
Sue was starting to really dislike how much her brain instinctively jumped to lying whenever she was asked anything. After shaking off the convenient-but-dishonest 'yes,' she shook her head and gave Solstice a weak smile. "Actually, no. It was—"
"^I can explain if you don't want to,^" Solstice cut in, her mental voice so quiet it was barely audible. And once she received a confused nod from Sue, she did just that. "^We were training at my tent, and with how much she was struggling at first, I guess I saw Aurora in her for a moment. I blurted it out, realized what had happened, and then... *sigh.* Things went south.^"
Sue gave a dry chuckle. "If it's any consolation, almost the same thing happened with Jasper when I woke up in Newmoon after Juniper's attack." Solstice and Jasper gave each other surprised looks, which then wilted into shame at exposure to the other's gaze. Comet squealed sadly, patting his hands against his mom's arm to cheer her up.
"Is that interaction... all there is to it between you two?" Jasper asked, curiosity wrestling for dominance with not wanting to dig up anything upsetting.
The once-human opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again. No, the answer, as she saw it, was 'no.' But did Solstice see it the same way too? Sure, the feelings between them had been brewing for days now, and not even Sue's willful ignorance was enough to deny that, but to jump from that to actually admitting anything felt like a step too far.
To Sue, that is. "^In truth? No, no it is not,^" Solstice confirmed. Her voice steadied as she straightened out, actively trying to regain and maintain calmness. Just like earlier in Newmoon. "^Is there anything wrong with that?^"
Jasper's chuckle was more uneasy than it should've been possible for anything this bestial. "Oh n-n-no, of course n-not," he backpedaled, every single hair on his body pointing away from Solstice. He took a couple of steps away and tried to keep his space for the next stretch of the road, but as the tension faded, he returned to his earlier spot.
And so did the murk inside Solstice's head, unaddressed.
Sue had spotted it, but between Joy still needing a while to get better and her not being sure what to say, she kept quiet. Fortunately for her arms, they were already close, and after one last rightward turn, they had made it to the cemetery. Even with the daylight fading and there not being any magical fireballs to keep it lit up, the silvery treeling at the center stood tall, immediately catching everyone's gaze from the backdrop of hundreds of painted stones strewn across the clearing.
Even if they didn't yet know what it was. "Is that..." Jasper whispered under his breath, the words sounding hissed out.
"^Aurora's grave, yes. Her and everyone else's who got their lives stolen by the Plague.^" Solstice's words hung heavy despite her best effort to keep her tone calm. She stepped aside, towards the nearest bench, and gestured for Jasper to approach. "^Feel free to take a look. We'll be right here.^"
Jasper wordlessly nodded, gaze not veering from the treeling even slightly. As he approached the otherworldly grave, heavy steps muffled by soft grass, Sue caught up with Solstice and took a seat beside her, letting Joy down onto the ground.
"Is he alright?" Sue whispered, flinching as she watched the mountain of a night kin collapse onto his knees.
"^As alright as he is going to be tonight,^" her mentor answered. She stared at nothing, looking away from either her pupil or her ex.
Which prompted the obvious follow-up question from the former. "Are you alright?"
Solstice gave her a fleeting, sideways glance. "^I wish.^" Her son looked up at her from her arms, babbling quietly at her discomfort.
Sue slid closer and wrapped one arm around the older Forest Guardian, while alternating her other hand between the girl before her and the sleeping ghost on her shoulder. "Wanna talk about it?"
"^Won't hurt, I suppose. Really, it's the same thing as what you mentioned. About Solanum.^"
"D-do you think she might be up to something, after all?" Her mentor's worries reignited Sue's own, but Jasper's words were present in her mind too, putting a tamper on her fears before they could catch fire.
The older Forest Guardian shook her head, almost as if on autopilot. "^Maybe, maybe not. Knowing her, I'd doubt that.^"
Sue's deep sigh of relief sparked the quietest giggle she'd ever heard, but it failed to make either of them feel any better. And with the explanation given, she still had some questions. "Why the worrying, then? If you don't think they're gonna do anything, then it sounds like it's just a matter of hounding them away from here."
Her question was genuine, but all it did was make Solstice wince painfully. The Mayor shook her head, clenched her hands, held Comet even tighter, leaned forward that bit more. Kept her expression that bit further away from Sue. Words fought inside her, not wanting to be let out into the world for others to hear, for Sue to hear. But she needed to hear. "^I wish it was just about that.^"
Comet's quiet cry interrupted his mom's distress long enough to rock them both back to something approximating calmness.
Solstice's response stoked Sue's confusion even more than it did her worry. What else could it have been about if not the threat the psychic Ku Klux Klan wannabes posed to them? She thought inward, trying to find the answer without having to force her mentor to spell it out for her, thinking back to what she's seen of the interactions between her and Solanum. A fierce resistance when it mattered, seething hatred towards Nightbane, and then...
"A-are you worried Solanum is right?" Sue forced out the words. They felt wrong; they obviously were wrong, but it was the closest thing she could think of.
And to her disheartened surprise, she ended up being correct. "^I... I know she is. After all, Snowmoon is my actual name. I just hoped that if I'd, if I'd tried hard enough, a-and ran away far enough, I could pretend that wasn't the case. That my name wasn't Snowmoon, that the Pale Lady was as merciful and loving as I'd been taught she is.^"
The words hollowed out Sue's mind, only leaving her able to stare blankly at her mentor. And then, bit by bit, anger dripped into her thoughts. Her hand clenched on its own, her face scowled, the Forest Guardian before her winced preemptively. In guilt, in shame. Her son grew very, very quiet.
"B-but that's not true!" Sue raised her voice. Jasper looked over his shoulder at them, but she didn't notice. "You're not Snowmoon, you're Solstice! It's a name they forced on you and which you've been running away from since, why would you give it to them now!?" She thought back to how Sundance had talked to her soon after Solanum first showed up a few days ago, and hoped her reassurance would help just as much as the vixen's.
To her dismay, it did little. Solstice flinched as if struck, looked away, and mumbled out, "^Because they're right, whether I want it or not. It's, it's their faith. I just took it, hoped it could ever become something better. I live in their world, Sue.^" And then, she resumed rocking her son, remaining silent despite his interrogative, upset mumbles.
The pathetic sight chilled Sue's anger, replacing it with ever more doubt about what to do. She couldn't pretend that what Solstice had said was entirely unfamiliar to her, even though that kind of train of thought rarely intersected with religion in her case. The complete and utter surrender, not to an opposing worldview, but to one's own perceived helplessness. She remembered seeing it before, after Ginger accidentally damaged the altar, and it was just as harrowing here.
If it were about any other topic, Sue might've had an inkling of what to say to cheer Solstice up, but her mind kept drawing blanks. Even beyond her not sharing Solstice's faith, religion wasn't her thing. It was Solanum's thing; it was Root's thing; it belonged to and was wielded by the very people insistent on hurting the ones she cared about—
...
We really are alike, huh?
Sue tried not to fall into the same mental pitfall as Solstice, but even without that, it was difficult to come up with something to reassure her. Sundance was good at this, but Sundance wasn't around. Didn't mean that Sue couldn't try emulating her, though. She thought back to all the times when Solstice's faith had shone through, when it had bolstered her conviction instead of undermining it. Back at the Elders' council, where whatever had happened to her happened, the next morning when Solanum first showed up. The latter especially, there was a proud, resolute Solstice in there somewhere, struggling to break free. She just needed a hand, Sue hoped.
Just as she hoped that her clumsy words would suffice. "But it's also your faith. Right?" Her words perked her mentor up a bit, cutting through her nigh-catatonic anxiety bind. "Y-you don't have to go along with them just because they claim they're speaking for the Pale Lady. It's not their world, it's yours! Especially here in Moonview."
The conflicted, damp look that Solstice gave her sapped much of Sue's conviction. Her brain scrambled for anything more to say, even just a crumb of trite motivational bullshit, and only kept drawing blanks.
Just as Solstice was about to respond, though, Jasper's loud cry pierced the late evening silence. Both women jumped, one in startle and the other in fear, and looked toward him. His furry arm was raised high, beckoning them over. Well, beckoning Solstice and Comet over, probably.
Sue leaned into her seat, twisting herself to rest her side on the back of the bench while her mentor got up. Deflated, she looked at Joy, hoping her little one would inspire some relief within her. Instead, she found only an empty patch of dirt, sending her narrowing gaze scanning across the soft grass of the cemetery before she could even consciously process the absence—
"^Sue, Jasper says you can come over too, if you want.^"
Solstice's mellow tone first snapped the younger Forest Guardian's gaze to her, then to the towering night kin further into the clearing, and finally, to the knee-high two-faced girl sitting beside him. Her metal teeth glimmered with whatever remaining daylight had snuck its way over the purple-red horizon.
After she'd exhaled all the tension out of herself in the most drawn-out breath of her life, Sue joined the rest of the group beside the increasingly overcrowded treeling. Joy wasted no time scooting in next to her and trying to mimic her kneeling position, but her stubby legs made that significantly more difficult than she'd expected. Ultimately, she opted to just sit down on the grass, her maw pivoting to take Sue's fingers into its tip.
She's getting better and better at this.
The proud smile and quick embrace that followed filled the cemetery with a few seconds of high-pitched laughter, soothing something deep inside Sue, if briefly. She glanced at the other adults, hoping her outburst of affection wouldn't be seen as inappropriate, considering the situation. The sad smiles she saw were about the most reassuring thing she could reasonably expect. What she didn't expect was Comet squeaking at her and reaching out his tiny arms towards her.
"C'mere, Comet," Sue whispered, before trying not to laugh as the boy pressed himself into her.
With the affection exchanged, the scene returned to silence once more. Solstice and Jasper prayed intensely, the latter to the point of the fur entangling his clasped hands together. Sue didn't know either the words, nor really anything about the addressee, and so she observed instead. The stones surrounding the treeling were all of similar size, only about as big as Comet's head. Their colours differed, but their shape did not; they were all rounded and gentle, reminding Sue of small loaves of bread. The writing on them was decidedly unbreadlike, but Sue was overall satisfied with her analogy.
Sue wasn't even entirely sure whether this was the same writing script as the one in her dreams or on Poppy's pantry. If it was, then time hadn't been kind to it at all, eroding many of the characters into nigh-illegibility—at least to Sue's untrained eyes. She had a hard time imagining they could've been anything but epitaphs. Which then raised the question of which one was Aurora's.
No, it didn't matter.
"Heh, heheheh," Jasper chuckled absentmindedly. Sue froze, anticipating second-hand embarrassment, but the night kin kept going. "Oh-oh, man. Do you remember when we took her to the c-cemetery and she raced with the other kids on the benches?"
The question took Solstice out of her idle prayer, surprise quickly giving way to amusement as the memories came back. "^How could I forget? Had to carry her all the way back to Moonview after she tripped and hit her head.^"
"You say, as if I hadn't offered to carry her too—and as if she didn't laugh at the jokes I kept making about her new battle scar." This time, both Jasper and Solstice laughed at the comment, the former louder than before. "I-I think I even overheard her trying to convince Soot she got it from repelling ten deathweavers at once!"
Despite her best efforts to maintain composure, Solstice chortled. "^Wasn't Soot there with us when she banged her head open?^"
"Yes, yes they were! You should've seen how long they kept leading her on about it!" Jasper slapped his knee, matching Comet in his giggling.
"^Oh, by the Pale Lady...^" this time, Solstice kept any undignified laughter where it belonged—between her teeth.
"Speaking of!" Jasper continued, exercising superhuman willpower in not belly-laughing there and then. "Remember when she was like thirty Moons old and climbed on top of the Pale Lady's shrine and was all proud about it?"
A flash of distraught shock passed through the Forest Guardian's face before her memory connected the doors, sending her head reeling backwards with a drawn-out groan. "^Don't think I was there for that, but I remember how Root never let me hear the end of it afterwards.^"
"D-doubt Aurora screaming that she was the P-Pale Lady now after she'd made it to the top helped with that either, ahaha!" Jasper half-laughed, half-roared, utterly taking his ex-wife aback.
"^No way...^" she whispered out in disbelief. "^With Root around!?^"
The night kin nodded intensely, his bestial face dripping with amusement. "Yes! Then again, she was barely ten seasons old."
"^You say that, as if she wouldn't have done that at twenty as well,^" Solstice flatly commented, making Jasper lose the battle with his composure. "^Good gods, I suppose it makes sense now why he was so pissed about that in particular, he never told me that part. Why didn't you tell me about it, though?^"
The question caught Jasper red-handed, making him look around the night-time cemetery in search of a distraction before having to admit defeat. "H-h-honest answer? I-I had no idea h-how'd you react. And I kinda hoped that once Aurora grew older she'd be the one to bring that up to you first."
Solstice was taken aback, but had to concede the point. "^I'd like to think I would've been reasonable about it, but... no, I understand. Now I finally know, heh?^"
The chuckles that left both halves of the once-couple were much more distraught this time, expressing nothing beyond wanting to fill in the increasingly uneasy silence. Sue could feel Solstice's focus reach deep into herself, as if searching for something—and with another amused exhale, she'd found it. "^Remember when she tried to help Ginger that one time?^"
Jasper froze, his brain devoting every last neuron available to unearthing the memory Solstice had referenced. Seconds passed in silence without any follow-up, and Solstice's worries that she'd mentioned something she shouldn't have returned. Comet wriggled in Sue's embrace, reaching out towards his nervous mom, but before she'd noticed, the night kin beside them finally remembered.
This was the most relieved gasp I've ever heard, good Duck.
"O-oh, by the Dark Lord, I think I do, yeah. Did Ginger break his arm or am I misremembering?" Jasper asked, his voice distant.
"^He did, yes. Almost popped a vessel trying not to blow up on her afterwards, before we scolded her to the Moon herself.^"
While Sue had been entirely content to remain an idle observer until now, the eerie tone surrounding the topic got the better of her curiosity. "What'd she do?" she whispered, startling Jasper a bit.
"^Well, she had the bright idea of helping out the builders with moving some loads since she'd gotten better at her telekinesis. Would've gotten crushed under a load of bricks if Ginger hadn't dove in to push her out of the way,^" Solstice explained. The corners of her mouth tried to inch upwards to laugh at the comedic, averted tragedy, but her eyes didn't move, and no sound came. "^I remember now, it was just a couple Moons before...^"
The older Forest Guardian winced and fell silent. The night kin wasn't far behind, the last remnants of amusement flowing out of his face in unruly strands of fur. And then, silence returned once more, ever denser. Ever more bitter.
To Sue's surprise, it was Solstice who'd shed the first tear. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, sitting still while the warm tears flowed along the tattoos on her face and neck.
It took Jasper a few more seconds to cry as well, but once he did, he wept. Growls and roars and harrowing laugh-like sounds left him one after another, each of them louder and more miserable. His black-furred fingers touched the silvery leaves of the treeling with inhuman gentleness, caressing the nearest branch as if it had been his own daughter, even as the rest of his body shook and curled up on itself.
The only shred of relief Sue could scrounge up was that Joy was already asleep, leaning against her, and letting her use both arms to hold Comet as tightly as she could. Anything to shield him, however ineffectually.
"Aurora..." Jasper whined out, echoing into the night, before his own heavy sobbing cut him off. He half-lay down, half-collapsed beside the treeling, pushing the surrounding stones aside as he embraced its trunk. The fur on his head covered his face, as if trying to shield him even at his absolute lowest. "Aurora, s-so much has happened and I'm, I'm so sorry..."
Solstice watched in silence, stunned, but couldn't blame Jasper for it one bit. She nodded faintly and leaned in as well, resting one hand on the tiny, tear-watered tree. Her mouth opened, her throat flexed, but no sound came out. No sound could come out.
"I should have, I should've been there with you, it's my fault, it's—" Jasper mumbled. And then, he shrieked at the top of his lungs, five years of pain trying to squeeze through his parched voicebox all at once. Comet cried, the sound utterly drowned out. Joy and Twinkle clung to their mom's side hard, startled awake.
"Jasper, are you okay!?" Sue feebly spoke up, concerned for him and the little ones around her alike.
And to her shock, he'd heard her. His monstrous voice caught, and his body shuddered, as if he'd only just regained control of it. He didn't turn to look at her, but she could've sworn he forced out a small, pitiful nod nonetheless. "I'm sorry," he whispered to the treeling as he unclenched from around its trunk. "I-I love you, and I always will, Aurora. I w-wish you were still here, w-with us..." his voice trailed off, culminating into one last whimper.
Sue sat back and scooped Joy onto her lap, holding the exhausted girl just as close as the worried boy. The hauntling on her shoulder held her neck as tight as they could, and Sue only barely felt them. Jasper picked himself back up into a kneeling position, shaky hands trying their best to move the stones to where they previously were.
Solstice looked over her shoulder at Sue and the little ones, and muttered a wordless apology. Once she was sure that her ex would be alright, she dared to speak up as well, her physical voice barely a whisper. "Hello, Aurora."
Jasper doubled over in the corner of Sue's vision.
"Hasn't been that long since we last talked, heh." Solstice slowly exhaled, her breath warbling. "Wish I could say I'm any more composed now than I was back then, but I doubt it. Then again, not like paying you a visit any other time goes much better than this." She tried to force a grin, bitter tears contouring her lips. "I thought it'd hurt less eventually, but it just hasn't. I hoped one day I could look at your resting place without wanting to run, and..." She clenched her eyes. "I can't. I'm sorry. You deserve better."
Without saying another word, Solstice scooped a handful of stray leaves into her palm and brought it to her mouth. She closed her eyes and prayed; the mental words tickled the very limits of Sue's extrasensory perception. And once they had all been said, poured into the leaf litter, she blew them away, sending them spiralling into the air for a few fleeting moments before they rejoined the forest floor.
And then, there was only silence again. Drained, despondent, yet still restless. Without saying another word, Solstice took Comet into her arms and got back up, shuffling back to the bench. Sue wasn't far behind, carrying Joy despite her leg's complaints. To her relief, her daughter was already falling asleep again. Even after Jasper had shambled over and joined them, sitting down on Solstice's other side, nobody had anything left to say. They'd just poured it all into the soft grass of the cemetery, after all.
Even the one that hadn't known better than to speak up right away. Even once Twinkle was asleep and Joy had sprawled out on her—and including her maw, partially Solstice's—lap, she kept quiet for as long as she could. But eventually, her words had to come out as well. "What did you do?" she asked her mentor, the half-asleep Moon Child squirming in her direction. "At the end there, I mean. W-with the leaves."
Solstice nodded idly. "^It's an old prayer that we used to do where I grew up. To those we'd lost. You were supposed to whisper the departed's name and everything you wished you had the chance to tell them into leaves or dust, then scatter them into the world, and never mention their name again. Of course, the latter was much easier said than done, even back then...^"
That sounds quite overkill.
Still, Sue understood the intent. "Did it help?"
Her mentor let out a breathy, mirthless chuckle. "^Not entirely, you could say. Hardly my first time doing it either. It...^" she paused, gathering her thoughts and tapping her fingers against her thigh. "^It used to work quite well, growing up. Not with Aurora, though. Suppose I oughtn't be surprised, of course a prayer like that would be much more effective when it's a distant uncle you've seen all of once in your life. Even then, it's, it feels like I'm missing something.^"
"Maybe it's not that we haven't let go of her," Jasper growled as quietly as his anatomy would let him. "M-maybe it's just our shame that we're clinging onto, in her place."
Solstice hunched forward, nodding idly. "^You think?^"
"Yeah," Jasper answered. He leaned back in his seat and looked at the women beside him, giving them a chance to check up on him in return. His fur was even more disheveled and shiny than usual, but at least he didn't look like he was on the verge of a breakdown again.
Once he'd steadied his breathing again, he continued. "I-I remember when it happened, how I kept trying to soothe people through their pain with whatever we had lying around. B-b-but—" his voice caught for a split-second, "—but nothing worked. Only f-failure and pain and d-death and failure and death. And by the time we realized j-just how severe it was, Aurora had caught it too. There was so much crying, so much coughing and wailing and I couldn't sleep. I remember doing my rounds and being so exhausted I-I just kept forgetting where I was; or I'd suddenly snap awake on the road beside someone's home. All I could do was keep t-trying, keep praying to the Dark Lord to save us. Kept asking him why we would be stricken by this, kept screaming at him and d-demanding to know. A-a-and one day, I just remember looking at A-Aurora, and realizing sh-she wasn't gonna make it. And then I, I-I—"
His body fought with itself to let out another cry of pain, but he didn't want to startle the kids again. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and leaned forward, letting out a mute scream as his tears splashed against the grass below. "I-I-I failed th-them all, a-and her m-most of all..."
Solstice sat idly, her eyes unfocused and mouth parted. Beside her, Sue wished she would do something, say something, not just leave Jasper alone in his torment. The older Forest Guardian could hear those wishes, whispers in the wind, and each one of them stabbed her gut yet another time. The words were there, but could she force herself to utter them? She cast a quick glance towards Sue and the kids over her shoulder, shaking eyes begging for encouragement, for help, for anything.
All Sue gave her was her presence. She couldn't help; she had no idea how she'd even help, but she was there for her. Ultimately, it was up to Solstice alone to confront this. And despite how much it hurt,
Eventually, she acted. Jasper flinched as Solstice laid a hand on his shoulder, her pointed fingers digging into the loose strands of fur at the surface. Just like she used to. Words took a few more seconds to arrive, second-guessed until the very end. "^I... I used to blame you for it.^"
Jasper and Sue alike sat in perfect stillness, their hearts skipping a shared beat.
"^After she'd died. I, I guess it was just easier, at the start. And then, I just kept doing it. Even after the dust settled, after things went back to something resembling normal, I couldn't stop. It felt like if I ever stopped, if I ever tried to confront all the things I've done, all the resentment I'd held onto, the world would end.^"
The Mayor's hand shuddered, clenched, and eventually relaxed. Her gaze followed, finally meeting Jasper's own once more. It burned, for both of them. "^I realize how awful that was. I realized even back then. I know nothing I can do will make up for it, but... if it brings you any comfort at all, Jasper, I don't blame you for her death anymore. I don't think any of us could've been expected to handle something like this.^"
Jasper shook, fighting desperately with himself not to look away again. "B-b-but what I did s-still hurt you. I-I still w-wasn't there when y-you and she needed me th-the most."
"^Yes, what you did hurt me. And then, what I did in return hurt you as well, infinitely more.^" Each word turned Solstice's voice lighter and lighter, as if a cord tying her lungs began to come undone. "^Even when, when you were barely awake, you still kept trying your best to soothe people's pain. Take pride in that, please.^" Her hand clenched once more, gripping the lanky shoulder underneath the layers of fur. "^I ask you, with the Pale Lady and the Dark Lord as my witnesses, to forgive yourself, Jasper.^"
The night kin closed his eyes and, without sitting up, reached to lay his free hand on Solstice's. His fangs gleamed in the feeble moonlight as he, too, struggled for words. He nodded once, and again, and again, drilling Solstice's words into his head and trying to make them fit and however much she'd meant it and however much his deity would've agreed, there was something missing, still.
And Sue had spotted it too. "What about you, though? Didn't you help as well?" She whispered, mimicking her mentor and laying her hand on her shoulder. Her touch burned like acid.
Still, Solstice held through it. Her breathing quickened as she thought back, wrestling against the shadows in the back of her mind to present her part in what had happened in the most unbiased way possible. She really, really didn't want to.
But Sue did. And her faith in her mentor's ability to do it gave her the push she needed for the words to flow. "^Me? I tried my best, yes. I knew some techniques to help people regain their breathing, but their effect didn't last. And the worse the Plague got, the less effect even that had. I remember trying to do it to myself one day, inhaling as deeply as I could, yet not feeling like my lungs were drawing any air in. Eventually, I couldn't get out of bed, and neither could Aurora and my psychics could barely reach her. I tried to talk, but all I could think of was pain, my pain, her pain. It was suffocating.^"
Her breaths grew deeper, more hoarse, as if reliving their pain. "^On her last day, she wasn't conscious anymore. I crawled over to her bed, and held her as close as I could. Listening to her breathing.^" Agonizing as her recollection was, the most painful part was still ahead, contorting her expression as if she'd touched a hot coal. "^I, I don't even know when she died. I just realized one moment, hours later, that she wasn't breathing anymore.^" Solstice tried to laugh at her own words, but only sobs came out.
And then they stopped. "^I felt so, impossibly, alone. A couple days later I could walk again, and got out to assess the casualties. I-I tried to find you,^" she whimpered, looking at Jasper again, "^but I couldn't. I needed to tell someone, anyone. And then, Root found me.^"
Solstice shook, trying to sober herself up, fists clenched. "^He wasn't even compassionate about it, really. He didn't reassure me, he barely consoled me, it didn't even take a few minutes before he went to admonish me for 'letting it get this bad.' Claimed it was a punishment from the Pale Lady. I, I knew he was lying through his fucking teeth, I knew better, and yet...^" she paused, looking up at the crescent Moon, "^I still fell for it. Like he had charmed me.^"
Her gaze dropped, before stopping, and forcing itself to look at Sue again, thinking back to earlier that day. "^Like I was listening to my mother again.^"
Sue had long since lost the battle with her own tears, letting them trickle, staggered, before they splashed on Joy. One hand caressed the girl's cheek, and the other the bundle on her shoulder, both shaking. She wasn't there when her father died, but she'd paid him a visit a couple of weeks earlier. So many parts were similar.
The worst part is how little I felt.
Still, her commiseration could wait. "Perhaps you felt like you deserved to be abused like Solanum did?"
Her mentor nodded weakly, but before she could respond, Jasper chimed in as well. "And d-didn't feel like what you were doing was right, in the end?"
Solstice gasped at his words, her shame burning into distilled fear for but a moment. But then, seeing no anger from Jasper, anger she felt she deserved, she tried to steady her breathing again. She couldn't. She didn't even know where the tears had come from this time, but they were here, bleeding from an even deeper mental wound. "^M-maybe. B-but I wanted it to be!^" she pleaded. "^I needed it to be. I prayed every day for hours on end before I received my blessings, begging the Pale Lady to find my mission just. And, and then, when I finally saw Her radiant beauty for myself, She...^"
Sue gave her mentor a moment, then another, before nudging her to continue. "What'd She say?"
The words startled Solstice, sparking the fear once more before it again subsided. "^She blessed me, yes. But it never felt... right. Like She wasn't sure either. I tried to just take it at face value and not think about it, but, but I just kept coming back to it. That doubt. And it never went away.^" Once more, she looked up at the Moon, teary expression turning pleading. "^I kept waiting for something to happen to finally make it go away. Some kind of reassurance that would just fix it, a sign that I was actually doing the right thing. And it never came, and—^" she froze. Her gaze, apologetic and subservient, froze with her.
Words whizzed inside Solstice's head faster than Sue could even hope to comprehend, and all the while she just stared. Barely blinking. A realization was forming, one that had attempted to do so many times before, but which never endured until it could be consciously integrated. Even now, a part of her mind was still trying to drag it away and smother it, too terrified to let it bear fruit.
But it wouldn't let itself get discarded so easily, not this time. Not when people she cared about, and who cared about her, needed her to do better. Not when her failure to do so earlier, and all the harm that followed from it, were staring her right in the eye.
"^And maybe, I've had it all wrong this entire time,^" she muttered, her voice distant. Sue and Jasper exchanged a worried glance, unsure what the words implied, but Solstice wasn't looking at either of them. Her gaze remained affixed to the Moon, but to Sue's shock, it was no longer deferent. Her expression narrowed, her mouth twitched in anger, her eyes turned demanding. Comet's sleeping form was surrounded by her psychics and passed off to Jasper without a word.
She stood up, fists still clenched, and took steps towards the Moon. "^Perhaps, instead of meekly hoping She would bless my mission, I should have just known it. Known it like I know She is my mother. Known that my mission is just and true; known and demanded justice and healing for all in defiance of the sins of my kin.^"
The feelings inside Solstice's mind were so intense and violent they threatened to give Sue a migraine, but the thread of anger at the core of it all was crystal clear. Not at Root, not at Solanum, not at the Pale Lady, not even at herself. At the world at large for its injustices; at the suffering of the innocent; at Her name being defiled. Her pale blue glow grasped her entire body, sending her tattoos shining bright as she hovered into the air, inch by inch.
"^Perhaps She should've been the one to beg me for reassurance.^"
Sue and Jasper could only stare, stunned at her words and actions alike. They shared a gasp as Solstice's grip on herself failed for but an instant, together with the righteous fury burning in her mind, before she caught herself again.
"^And maybe I cannot know; maybe I will never know.^"
After all, the doubt was there.
"^But I can Believe. I will Believe.^"
It never left; it was still trying to drag her down to earth.
"^With clenched fists, and gritted teeth,^"
But she didn't have to listen to it anymore.
"^And prayers that refuse to be gentle.^"