Chapter Text
Ayda knows, somehow, when the time for fire is nearing. She gathers her remaining family close to her, so they will be near her when the fire comes.
Fabian is there, hair salted and peppered with age, but he's still spry. He'll live another eighty years or more.
Kristen is there, though barely. She aged with a grace granted by a god, but Ayda’s body has lasted nearly one hundred years, and humans are hard-pressed to live that long.
Zelda is there, less shy than she was in high school. Gorgug passed over a decade ago, but she still wears the marriage ring. In the time since then, she's grown closer to the others in their party. She's the only one of them who still adventures with any consistency.
Riz is gone. He died over twenty-five years ago. It hit them all hard when it happened, not least because they never got to say goodbye. It was supposed to be a routine mission, and then it wasn't. A reminder that adventuring will always have casualties.
It tore them all apart (it still does), but it hit Fabian the hardest. He was never the same, after that. Ayda hopes Riz is with his parents. Stupidly, selfishly, she hopes one of his missions will one day bring him to the Prime Material. On the rare occasions she visits the Lower Plains, she finds herself searching for hints of celestial presence. She knows the others do as well.
Fig is next to her, as beautiful as ever. She weeps silently, holding Ayda’s hand like she can keep Ayda with her. Still, they said their goodbyes privately, and Ayda knows that Fig is staying strong for her. Ayda left a letter for her, filled with all the things she never found words to say out loud. She hopes it is enough to keep her wife from breaking.
“Please stay.” Fig whispers, holding Ayda's gaze with her own. It is a hope, and a plea, and a reminder.
No one's ever asked me to stay before.
Then let me be the first. Please stay.
Then there is Adaine, her best and first friend. She doesn't look older than thirty in human terms. She does not cry, but that's not because she doesn't care. She's putting on a brave face, because she knows that Ayda needs someone to be okay after this.
Adaine has always done that. She knows what Ayda needs to hear or see almost unconsciously. Ayda remembers every time that her friend read the insecurity in her face and did or said the right thing, from I don't think you are sad or weird the day after Fig kissed her, to a hug and a whispered she thinks you're beautiful on the day of her wedding, to an I love you every time Ayda found herself crying and alone without Fig to help her. Adaine has always known when platitudes fail and distinct facts need to take their place.
Ayda says, “Goodbye.”
Then the flames roar up around her fingers, and everyone but Fig (who is long immune to fire) is forced to take a step back. Fig squeezes her hand, tears streaming down her face, and Ayda embraces her.
Adaine passes a hand up and down her body, granting herself immunity to fire, but by the time she reaches Ayda she has crumbled to dust.
----
There is a baby lying there, when the flames die down. Adaine had forgotten about that part. The others look down at the ash, numbly, so Adaine gathers baby Ayda in her arms and sets about wrapping her up in blankets.
There is no question about who will take care of the child, after that. Not when Kristen is so frail and Fabian so broken and Fig is still staring at the bed where Ayda used to be, gaze distant.
And so Adaine learns to take care of a child. She takes a week off from teaching and busies herself with buying what she thinks she'll need. Then she takes a few months of maternity leave (something Adaine never thought she'd do). Fig helps her out for a while, and they give each other time to sleep and shop and grieve.
A month and a half after Ayda is reborn, Fig tells Adaine that Fig needs to leave. Adaine doesn't protest. She sees the way Fig breaks every time the baby Ayda does something too Ayda-like. She simply nods, and smiles, and gives her friend a hug, and asks that they keep in touch. Fig promises. (She is lying, and Adaine tries not to hate her for it).
That first night after Fig leaves is the first time Adaine allows herself to cry. It finally feels permanent.
Adaine cries a lot, those first few months after Fig leaves. She starts teaching part time again (adventuring paid her well enough that she has savings for a long time yet). Fabian and Zelda babysit when they can, and Sandra-Lynn dotes on her granddaughter obsessively. Aelwyn comes over most often of all.
It is with Aelwyn that Adaine finally allows herself to admit how scared she is. It has been seventy-five years since she freed herself from her (biological) parents, and she still can't help but feel their influence on her.
Adaine cries, because she has no idea how to do this. She doesn't know how to raise kids. All she knows how to do is damage them, because that's all she was ever shown.
Adaine cries, because her best friend in the whole world died three months ago, and she's left dealing with the pieces. And, worse, the person she would go to most often in this turmoil is dead, so she can't do that either.
Adaine cries, and she wishes she were strong enough to survive this, and she wishes she were weak enough to give the burden to someone else.
----
Ayda’s first birthday passes (and with it, the anniversary of her death). Adaine brings the baby Ayda to Compass Points Library, which sits abandoned and warded against curious pirates, and she collapses into Ayda’s old desk chair, and cries.
But then Ayda, the one who is here and now, burbles half a laugh, and she looks up. In that moment, Adaine decides that she hates crying this much, being this weak, and she locks away her pain. She has her daughter's birthday to celebrate, after all.
After that, Adaine doesn't cry.
Time passes. She gets Ayda a nanny for the times that she's working, and on the first day she promises herself that she will not be as absent as her parents, and she tells herself that this doesn't mean she doesn't love her daughter.
Ayda’s second, third, and fourth birthdays pass. She spends them with Fabian when he can make it, or Aelwyn when he can't. The day after Ayda’s second, Adaine goes to visit Garthy. She figures she should let him know (she should have told him earlier. She didn't.)
A few months after Ayda turns five, Adaine enrolls her at Huedoll, mostly on the principle that if she's anything like the previous Ayda, she'll appreciate being around other wizards. Even snooty ones.
She spends the day barely soothing her anxiety, then goes to pick Ayda up. When she arrives, Ayda tumbles out the door, hand-in-hand with an olive-skinned half-elven girl. Adaine gives her a tight hug.
“I made a friend, Mama!” Ayda beams.
“Yeah?” Adaine asks indulgently. “What's her name?”
“Bryn! And she thinks my wings are cool and she’s gonna be a wizard like me and shewantstocomeoverthisweekend.” The words tumble out in an excited jumble.
“Alright, Ayda. Well, tell Bryn that I'll try to talk to her parents tomorrow afternoon.”
Ayda nods seriously, like this is a promise, which means it is. Then they begin the walk home.
The next day, Adaine pinpoints Bryn’s mom and gives a sheepish wave and a smile. The other woman waves back, then picks her way over to Adaine and Ayda.
“So,” she says, “this is the Ayda that I've heard so much about, then?”
Adaine smiles at her. “And I assume this is Bryn?” She gestures down at the child, half-hidden behind her mother's leg.
Bryn’s mom is tall, with ash-gray skin, ears that come to a gentle point, and long hair that flickers and dances like flame. “The very same. I'm Lia Ember.”
“Adaine O’Shaughnessy.”
Lia smiles at that, then holds out her crystal. “Do you mind putting your number in? Judging by how close those two are getting, we'll be seeing more of each other in the future.”
Adaine nods, puts her name and number into the crystal, then holds out her own in return.
They set up a playdate for Ayda and Bryn, then another. Over time, Adaine finds herself texting Lia for more than just discussions of Bryn and Ayda. Lia has anxiety, and she talks about it openly (the same way Adaine does, because talking about her thoughts robs them of power). That's not the only thing they have in common - Lia attended Aguefort a few years after Adaine, and she's another divination wizard, as well as sharing the same pure enjoyment of magic that Adaine sees all too rarely.
Adaine doesn't think of the old Ayda. She doesn't think of Ayda when Lia admits over drinks that she doesn't really have any other friends with mental illnesses (all she can hear is Ayda's voice saying it's nice to have someone who… understands). She doesn't think of Ayda when she tells Lia about a new advance in divination magics (she remembers saying it's so nice to talk about the kind of magic that I do with somebody who gets it and is not mean). She doesn't think of Ayda at all, because Lia is her own person and she doesn't deserve to be Adaine’s friend only because Adaine wants someone to soothe the pain of Ayda’s rebirth.
----
“So… did you know Ayda’s bio mom?” Lia asks one day.
Adaine flinches, then looks up, wondering why Lia would think she knows a phoenix. “What?”
“Sorry, I didn't… I just noticed someone who looks like her in pictures with you. I was just wondering.”
“It's fine. And no, that's not her mom in all those pictures.”
“Sister?” Lia guesses.
Adaine shakes her head. “No. Ayda's… half-phoenix, as you can see from the wings and claws and such. That means-” is she really going to say this? She doesn't talk about the old Ayda with anyone, anymore. Not even the remaining Bad Kids, when they ask- “before there was Ayda Aguefort, my daughter, there was Ayda Aguefort, legendary wizard. And one of my best friends.”
Adaine doesn't cry.
Lia, for her part, looks appropriately shocked. “That- she- oh.”
“Yeah.” Adaine says grimly.
“That's got to be a punch in the gut. I mean, obviously. I'm sure you know better than anyone.”
Adaine shrugs. “It has gotten easier. I can ignore it more than I used to be able to. But… for a few months after she regenerated-” Adaine doesn't call it dying, but they both know that that's what it is- “it was bad. It used to be hard to look at her and not see the person she used to be. Even now, I have to remind myself sometimes.”
“Gods, I can't imagine.” Lia says.
Adaine shrugs. “Everyone's lost someone.”
“Sure.” Lia says. “But I got to grieve and move on. It hurts, unimaginably so sometimes, but I'm not being forced to take care of a living embodiment of my loss.”
Adaine sits with that, quietly, for several moments. Then, she speaks, putting a voice to something that's been brewing inside her for a long time. “It feels disingenuous, you know. To wish that she was the same. We spent so long together trying to convince her that she doesn't need to be like her previous versions, that she isn't bound by their constraints and their wishes. And now that she's gone, sometimes all I can think is that I wish she got to stay the same person forever.”
Lia hugs her. “You miss your friend. It's only natural to want her back.”
Adaine smiles at her friend. She feels lighter, somehow.
----
Fig returns on Ayda’s tenth birthday. She knocks on the door with little warning, and Adaine freezes when she opens it.
“Hey.” Fig says. “I wanted to apologize. And wish Ayda a happy birthday.” Her voice cracks when she says Ayda's name.
It's only at that moment that Adaine realizes how angry she is. She isn't sure why - if it's the leaving, or the lack of contact, or the fact that she just showed up with no explanation, like nothing had happened.
“I think you should come inside.” Adaine is sure that the coldness in her voice is obvious, but she doesn't care.
They sit down at the table. There's silence for a few minutes, before finally Adaine says, “We should talk. Before you see-”
That's when Ayda comes into the room.
“Mom? Is Bryn-” she pauses, looking between Adaine and Fig. “...mom? Who is this?”
Adaine gives a tight smile. “Ayda, this is… Fig. This is your aunt Fig.”
Ayda tilts her head (in a way that's far too familiar, and Adaine doesn't look at Fig for fear of seeing the look on her face). “You said that weirdly. What social cue am I missing?”
Adaine pauses, deciding to go with a half-truth. “It's complicated adult stuff, don't worry about it. Fig just hasn't been here for a long time.”
“Hmm. It's good to meet you, Aunt Fig.”
“...Happy… birthday…” Fig says weakly.
“Thank you.” Then she looks at Adaine. “She's weird. I'm going to go wait for Bryn.”
And Ayda dashes out of the room.
Fig collapses into the chair immediately. “... She called you ‘mom’.”
“Yup.”
She puts her head in her hands. “...She did that thing.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“She talks the same.”
Adaine gives her a wry smile. “Harder than you thought it would be?”
“A million times harder, and I already wasn't sure I'd survive it.”
Adaine hums in agreement.
Fig looks up at her. “Are you mad?”
“What makes you think that?”
“You haven't said more than a sentence at a time. Also, you aren't comforting me, and you always would have otherwise.”
Adaine shrugs helplessly. “What do you want me to say, Fig? You left me to care for a two-month-old on my own. And given what happened, I could have forgiven that. But then you stopped texting, stopped calling. You didn't respond to anything, you could have been dead! And now you come gallivanting back here after ten years, and you want to be part of her life?”
“She was my wife, Adaine!” The chair scrapes the floor as Fig stands up, and a small part of Adaine hates that Fig is still taller than her. “You can't understand what it was like to see that- that other version of her every single day. I was driving myself insane trying to stay there, all for your sake. If I was still in contact with you, then she would be there too, and I couldn't handle that. I had to leave.”
“Then you should have been stronger!” Adaine bites out, half-yelling at this point. “You should have been able to bear it. You should have made yourself bear it.”
“I was grieving, Adaine. I needed time away.” She sounds defensive, though. “No one could have stayed under those conditions.”
“I did.”
Fig flinches slightly, and Adaine feels a bitter sort of victory well in her chest. “Well, I'm not you, Adaine. I'm sorry I couldn't measure up.” Then she continues. “But I do regret not coming back earlier. I saw that she was wearing a Huedoll uniform. How else are you following your parents' teachings, huh?”
Adaine’s face goes stone-cold. “Out.”
“I-what- that was unwarranted, I know, but-”
“Get out.”
Adaine snaps and summons a whirlwind of Mage Hands and Unseen Servants and elementals. She follows as Fig is half-shoved out the front door, then collapses in front of it as it slams shut.
Adaine doesn't cry. If she cries, then she'll remember everything she has to cry about. So she sits against the door, knees pressed up to her chest, and she does not cry.
She doesn't regret what she said. At least not initially. There is no burst of guilt after the door slams, there's only hours of turning their argument over in her head, finding the points where Fig was right and the points where Adaine was right to hold firm.
She almost apologizes. She is an inch away from calling Fig half a dozen times, but then she remembers what Fig said and cold anger washes over her again. Let her be the one to apologize, this time.
The thing is that she's never hit that low before. Adaine’s bio family is off limits, even during the Bad Kids’ rare arguments. It's the same principle they apply to Kristen’s family, it’s just common courtesy.
In the end, Fig calls her. Adaine lets it ring for over half a minute, despite the fact that she's been staring at her crystal for an hour. Finally, she picks up.
“Hi, Fig.”
Fig lets out a breath on the other end of the line. “Adaine. I…” she pauses for a long second. “I shouldn't have said that. I way shouldn't have said that, I don't know why I even thought-” she pauses. Takes a breath. “My point is that I'm sorry. Even if we were arguing, there are some lines I told myself I wouldn't cross.”
Adaine sits with that for a minute. Fig doesn't say anything. “You're right. You shouldn't have said that. You know exactly what they did to me. It was kind of inexcusable, Fig.” She sighs. “But. That doesn't mean it was unforgivable.”
Fig lets out a breath. “Okay.”
They sit silently together. Adaine tries to decide if she can live with this resolution, and thinks she can.
“I'm also sorry I wasn't in contact while I was gone. I just… if I talked to you, I'd have to think about the fact that she was there too.”
Adaine hums in agreement. “As long as you didn't talk to me, you could pretend she didn't exist.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
Adaine sighs. “I'm sorry I was so angry at you. I just… I resented you for leaving so easily. You walked away clean and left a messy hole, and that- I wanted that, for a long time.” With a start, Adaine realizes that there are silent tears slipping down her cheeks. She is crying, for the first time in a long time, and it feels like coming home. “You didn't deserve being yelled at, I'm sorry.”
“No, I did. You were angry, but you weren't wrong. I ran away again, the way I promised her I would stop doing.”
“Well, you came back. That's got to count for something.” It's true, Adaine realizes. The resentment has drained out of her with the tears.
There's silence on the other end of the line.
“Fig.” Adaine says. “That counts for something. She'd be proud of you.”
Adaine still can't hear anything for a second, and then she realizes that Fig is crying. “Don't- don't say that, Adaine. She's gone. You don't know what she'd think.”
Adaine just smiles. “I know my best friend, Fig. And you knew your wife.”
----
When Ayda turns thirteen, Adaine finds it harder to deflect her questions. A few months after her birthday, Adaine decides that it's time.
Adaine teleports the three of them to the Compass Points. Dust drifts gently across the room, turning sunbeams opaque with floating particles. Adaine doesn't come back here often, and when she does she places her feet carefully, reverently, so as not to disturb the sanctity of it.
Fig is next to her, putting on a brave face, pretending that this place has no effect on her. On her other side is Ayda, wings slightly open behind her as she takes stock of this unfamiliar room. Together, they make their way toward Ayda's old office.
“Where are we?” Ayda asks, and Adaine tries to think of where to start.
Fig gets there first. “Compass Points Library, in the pirate city of Leviathan. It was…” Here, she trails off, but by then Adaine has recovered her senses.
“You know how you're part phoenix, right, Ayda?” Adaine asks.
Ayda makes an impatient noise. “Yeah, we've talked about it a lot, but-” then her voice dies away, because Adaine has opened the door to the office.
It's cluttered, covered in papers and books, picture frames and spell components, and various other things, but within a few seconds of scanning the room Ayda’s gaze has locked on one picture, which sits in the middle of the desk in a place of obvious importance.
It's a picture of the old Ayda and Fig on their wedding day, Ayda in a coal-black suit and Fig in a dress that looks like fire (immediately after they started planning, Fig had declared that white was not her color). Ayda’s gaze travels from the frame to Fig, who has gone incredibly pale.
“You knew my mom?” Ayda asks.
Fig makes a choked sound in the back of her throat, and Ayda looks at Adaine, comprehension dawning on her face.
“My mom… wasn't a half-phoenix, was she?” Ayda asks the question slowly, with dawning horror, like she doesn't want the answer.
Adaine shakes her head wordlessly, and Ayda’s face falls into a mask of despair. Adaine envelops her in a hug, all the words she should say catching in her throat. Ayda clings on to her like the world is ending, like she can block everything else out.
In the end, it's Fig who speaks. Quietly, reverently, voice belaying her sadness. “We met here, in this library. Our group was going to Sylver, stopping another world-ending calamity. Along the way, we stopped here. I- we- met you. And then…” she laughed. “We needed someone who could teleport, or at least that's what I told myself. You came along, and then you kept coming along. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love.”
Adaine picks up the story from there. “We were both divination wizards. She- you- were interesting, and smart, and we just… clicked. We understood each other, even the parts that were sharp and messy. You always called me your first and best friend.”
Ayda only looks around, in something resembling anger.
Ayda watches, nearly angry, as two people she thought she knew reminisce over someone she's never met. But- no, she knows them, this is her mom and her Aunt Fig, and they're talking to her like they can talk to the person she apparently used to be.
“You both knew her?” She asks, trying to control her voice. “You were friends, you- you were married- and you never thought to say anything?” She turns abruptly toward her mom. “Who else knew her? You two aren't the only ones in these pictures. What about Uncle Fabian, did he know her? How about Grandpa Jawbone and Grandma Sandra? What about my teachers, do they know? Or- how about Bryn’s mom? Did you two plan for us to become friends? What-”
Okay, maybe she was more than nearly angry. But, to be fair, her mom had been keeping this from her for her entire life, so Ayda thought she was a bit justified.
At that moment, her mom spoke. “Hey, Ayda, it's not-” She paused, as if realizing that answers were probably the best kindness she could offer. “Fabian knew you, he was there when we met. Grandma and Grandpa both knew you. All of your relatives met you- her- at one point or another. Your teachers don't know, and I met Lia the day after you met Bryn.”
Her mom moved to put a hand on her shoulder, and Ayda dodged out of the way, refusing to be comforted. Her gaze landed back on that photo, with her Aunt Fig staring lovingly at someone who could have been her in fifteen years.
She looked up at Fig, who was staring at the picture almost wistfully, then at her mom, who looked anguished as she searched Ayda’s face, and something in her broke.
“I want to go home. Can we go home now?”