There’s No Hesitation. No Flinch. Just A Faint Twitch In Her Jaw As He Beckons — And Then She’s

Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?

More clothing. Definitely.

Not because she's trying to hide anything dramatic — She just doesn’t like the attention. Irene has never been the kind of person who walks into a room and wants eyes on her. Less clothing… that invites stares, comments, and assumptions. She has had enough of that to last a lifetime.

She feels safer when covered. More in control. Like there’s a layer between her, her weapons and everything else. It’s not about shame — it’s about comfort. About not being seen unless she chooses to be.

She doesn’t flinch when his shoulder clips hers — just rocks with it, weight shifting like she’d braced for it long before he made the choice to move. Sharp pain blooms across her collarbone, a jolt, but not unfamiliar. Pain never is. Not anymore.

She doesn’t draw. Doesn’t reach. The blade never so much as twitches in its place beneath the coat. It’s not mercy. It’s not fear.

It’s calculation.

He walks, and she lets him. Watches the shape of him disappear into the storm, the space he leaves behind already closing like he was never there.

He doesn’t look back. He shouldn’t.

The scent of him lingers —blood, rain, something older—and she lets it fill her lungs once before letting it go. The kind of monster who chooses to walk away doesn’t need her knife in his back.

Not yet.

She’s still there long after he’s gone, the storm curling tighter around her. Hair wet, face unreadable, and something sharper coiled behind her eyes now. Not rage. Not even fear.

Resolve.

It’s not that he didn’t scare her.

END.

        the sound of caperucita’s voice becomes a monotonous, boring buzz that rails into his skull, falling in time with the rain, becoming the background music to his restlessness. hunter or not, she keeps fucking talking him in circles. fuck fairytales, fuck barking, fuck judgy eyed little knife-wielders who can’t stay off of his fucking nerves. a chase in a hurricane sounds thrilling, but it feels too much like baiting into a trap, like she’s trying to call his bluff by denying him. that’s the human part of him speaking sense, far off and distant like the water he has his back turned to. even if it’s the wolf that delivers the violence, there’s nothing more he hates than that truth, buried deep, and pulsing. he’s alive, making conscious choices, he isn’t a slave to the feral nature, the curse. not yet, anyways. he won’t make it to be matteo, but now, he has choices, no matter that he doesn’t fucking want them.

        still, it’s only partially his choice not to listen to her. all he hears are little pathetic stabs at him, trying to provoke the monster that she claims isn’t on her list. it doesn’t matter, of course, he’s done enough to deserve it, could do more right now to make it worth bringing his skin back home with her. she might not be scared, he might want to give her a reason to be, but he doesn’t care. if she’s so eager to threaten him, he’ll come back later, if the rest of the world fails to kill him after all the blood he’s thirsting for is spilled. the long kind of chase, fueled by spite. and he’s fine with messes, just loves ‘em, never once been clean. césar gives her one last dry chuckle, one last look.

        control steers him away from chiquita and her steel, her stupid wolfsbane perfume, her list. but it doesn’t quite aim right. he moves forward, blowing past her with a sharp check of her shoulder. it’s a sharp kind of pain that wakes him up with a smile, but he keeps going. if she stabs him, it’ll be in the meat of his back, because he’s walking away now, bidding her goodbye without saying anything at all, and retreating into the dark of the storm.

Irene tolerated the hug like she might tolerate a cat sitting in her lap uninvited—still, unmoving, but with a faintly stunned look in her eye like she wasn’t entirely sure how it had come to this. She didn’t return it, not exactly, but she didn’t push Allie away either. Which, for Irene, was saying something.

“Matching energies,” she echoed, dry as ever, but her voice was quieter now. Less like bark, more like rustling leaves. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

She let Allie take the notebook without protest, though her fingers lingered a beat too long before letting it go. Like maybe part of her was tempted to hang onto it, if only to make sure it didn’t end up under the peppermint again. Or the radiators. Or that one cursed drawer that ate things whole.

At the question, though—do you have something like it?—Irene’s expression shifted.

Not visibly. Not much. Just a flicker in the way she blinked, the angle of her shoulders as she turned and started walking back toward the counter. Something closing behind the eyes.

“No,” she said simply. “I’m not a witch.”

It was too smooth. Too practiced. Not even a hitch.

“I just know a thing or two about herbs. Plants. I read a lot.”

The lie settled neatly between them, well-worn and wrapped in just enough truth to pass inspection. It always sounded better when she said it like that —like it wasn’t a big deal. Like the books and the jars and the faint, prickling hum of the walls around them weren’t strung together with old wards and stranger things. Survival, after all, had never been about honesty.

She paused near the counter, reaching to flick off a lamp that had started to buzz again, half-listening to the light catch in Allie’s laughter.

“You should be careful with those kinds of notebooks,” she said, tone light enough to sound like she was joking—though the words had an edge to them, buried deep. “Write the wrong thing down and it might try to make itself true.”

Then, as if to soften it —because Allie was still glowing at her like Irene had hung the stars with her bare hands —she added, “But I guess that’s your kind of magic.”

She gave a short nod toward the journal. “Just make sure it doesn’t end up in the peppermint again.”

        she giggles, a little apologetic, but mostly just tickled with humor. and, anyways, she’s pretty sure irene’s kidding. allie’s never put glitter in the mortars on purpose, but maybe if it’s gotten on her hands … still, her eyes flicker over to them, just to make sure the stone of them isn’t entirely bedazzled. but, before she can fully set her gaze on them, irene’s talking about her little lost thing, and allie remembers why the wind brought her back here.

        her head tilts sheepishly. yes, of course, she’d left something behind again. really, it doesn’t matter so much as long as she keeps coming back to the apothecary, and she always does. if she could hold onto things longer- memories -it wouldn’t matter so much. but it was on her mind and worth a try and she had hope and now, here she is! and here irene is, and she’s found it.  “ oh my gosh, thank you, thank you! you’re the best! ”  she forgets about her quest to keep irene from getting too grumpy with her as her eyes catch hold of the little journal. allie squeals, and rushes forward, wrapping her arms around irene’s shoulders in a brief squeeze, fueled by a rush of affection.  “ you’re so good at finding things, i think that’s why we’re friends. ‘cause we have, like, matching energies. ”  she lets go soon enough, resting back down on the ground, instead of pushed up on her tiptoes, reaching for the clouds.

         allie takes the journal back from where it’s dangling from the tips of irene’s fingers, clutching it gratefully, tender, to her chest. there’s more laughter spilling from her lips.  “ i’m very lucky, but it’s ‘cause of you, silly. ”  she doesn’t believe irene’s threat of keeping it, mostly because there’s nothing in there that’s all that interesting. of course, it’s all interesting to allie, but … everything is.  “ do you have something like it? like, a little book you keep all your magic stuff in? ”

END.

Irene didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. Didn’t rise to meet the bait like so many did — like Briar wanted her to. She just kept her eyes on the other woman, the corner of the worn label finally peeling back beneath her thumb like paper tired of keeping secrets.

“For fun?” she echoed, tone flat enough to skip.

She set the jar down with a soft clink. Not careless, not reverent — just exact. As if even glass had a place, and she wasn’t in the habit of misplacing things.

“I mend things that don’t belong to me,” she said, matter-of-fact. “I walk places people don’t think to look. I make sure what’s buried stays that way.”

A pause, but not because she was searching for anything. She just wanted the silence to sit there for a moment, thick and quiet and full of things unsaid.

“I’m not here to amuse you,” Irene added, finally lifting her gaze fully to Briar’s. There was no heat in it — just clarity, cool as the bottom of a well.

“And I don’t trade in curiosities.”

She stepped back behind the counter, rolling her sleeves down one at a time, slow and methodical like it was the end of something, not the beginning.

“But you asked. So that’s it. That’s your favor.”

Her hands moved to the ledger again, pen flicking once to mark a line through something unseen, invisible to everyone but her.

“No refunds. No rerolls. If you wanted stories, you should’ve asked for something easier to return.”

Franz Kafka, The Diaries of Franz Kafka

Irene hadn’t meant to be out this early, let alone in this weather, but something in her had pulled her into the downpour anyway. Maybe it was the pressure in the air, that humming, bone-deep ache that came when storms gathered their skirts and began to spin. Or maybe it was just that sleep hadn’t stuck the way it should, and the silence inside had grown too loud to bear.

She wasn’t dancing. Not really. But she also wasn’t not moving—hands tucked into her coat, hood drawn low, boots soundless on the wet pavement. There was a rhythm to the rain that pulled at her limbs, loosened something usually kept tight. She walked like someone thinking too hard about nothing at all.

And then—motion. A blur of color. A voice, sharp in its brightness.

Irene stopped a few paces away, rainwater trailing slow down her jaw, catching in the curve of her collar. She blinked once, then again, like she wasn’t entirely convinced the figure in front of her was real. And then her mouth quirked—barely—but enough to register.

“You’re gonna break your neck dancing like that.” It wasn’t scolding. It wasn’t teasing either. Just dry, and maybe a little impressed.

Her eyes flicked across the slick street, then back to Allie, still beaming through the storm like it hadn’t dared touch her. Typical. “Didn’t peg you for a rain chaser,” Irene added, quieter this time. “Guess I was wrong.”

She didn’t move to leave. Not yet. The sky hadn’t cracked open wide enough for that.

who: open to anyone wandering about ! ♡ where: Outside . / when: (Very) Early Day One, Hurricane Jac .

         she’d been hoping for rain, hadn’t she? and maybe she always is, but sometimes, it’s different than a want, and closer to a need. like the earth when it thirsts for growth, or a girl that wants to forget, and be washed clean, and forgiven. sometimes, she just needs to grow a little greener, too. and she’s not storm chasing, exactly. when she was younger, she’d tremble right along with the thunder. now, she’s outgrown that, and the talk of a hurricane feels like a distant nightmare that it’d be silly to fear. now, there’s only rain, and her walking takes on an air of wandering soon enough, and then she’s dancing right along with the song the sound of droplets make, the soft call of wind.

         the pavement grows slick under her feet, and in between a twirl and some kind of stumble, she slips. it’s only a moment, a soft breeze that draws an even softer squeal from her, but it does snap her attention away from only whimsy. through the rain, she thinks she can spot another person. like this, the water becomes a mirage, and she thinks they might be dancing too. or maybe it’s just the rain. either way, allie calls out to them with a beaming smile.  “ oh, sorry, i didn’t see you there! ”

Irene didn’t laugh — not exactly — but there was a breath there that came close. The kind that started deep in the chest and never quite made it to sound. The kind that held just enough ache to make it feel real.

Her hand shifted to the edge of the coat where Allie still clung to the pinkie-loop, careful not to break it. The fabric hung loose now between them, heavy with rain and some unspoken thing that hadn’t quite found a name yet. She didn’t tug it back. Just let it be shared.

At Allie’s question, she glanced sidelong. The kind of look people mistook for cold when they didn’t know her. But it wasn’t distance. It was calculation — quiet, sharp. The pause between hearing and answering that Irene always took like she was weighing truth in her palm, seeing what it cost before she let it out.

“I don’t dislike people,” she said finally, her voice soft but grounded. “I just don’t think most of them know who they are.”

A blink. Slow. Rain traced lines across her cheek like it didn’t know it wasn’t tears.

“They want to be seen a certain way. They learn how to show it. What to hide. What looks like kindness. What passes for honesty.” She rubbed her thumb once against her other wrist, over the bracelet she always wore — an old habit, like counting. “Most don’t lie because they’re cruel. They lie because they’re scared. Of being known. Of being wrong.”

The quiet between them thickened again — not uncomfortable, just full.

“I’ve spent a long time learning how to read storms,” she added, not quite looking at Allie. “But I’ve got no gift for reading people who don’t know themselves.”

Her head tilted a little, enough to catch the girl’s gaze again.

“You’re not like that,” she said, simple and unembellished. “You say what you feel, even if it’s messy. Even if it’s too much. That kind of honesty? It doesn’t scare me. It just… takes time getting used to.”

The barest smile, more in her eyes than her mouth.

She stepped closer, not quite breaking the small distance but bridging it, coat drawn wider between them like a half-offered shelter. It didn’t matter that Allie didn’t like coats. Irene wasn’t offering the fabric.

“You always talk about warmth like it’s something you find,” she said, thumb brushing lightly against Allie’s hand. “But I think maybe you’re the one carrying it.” She used to be like that, but the world was too cruel and now Irene no longer knew who she was.

The rain hummed on around them, steady and familiar, a lullaby made of water and thunder. Irene breathed in slow, watching it roll off the rim of the streetlamp like silver thread.

“If you want to stay out a little longer, I’ll stay,” she said after a moment. “But if your lips start turning blue, I’m carrying you home, like it or not.”

And it wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t even a joke. Just a promise, folded quiet into the space between the storm and the stillness.

        her petulance melts away with the rain, skips around soaking her dress and falls to puddle on the ground, instead. no matter the curious song of this storm, she can spend any day dancing in the rain. irene isn’t always here, and she isn’t always willing. today, that’s something to celebrate, so allie’s quiet as she listens, finds it easy to comb through the wind that continues to sing louder, and louder, to find irene’s voice. it’s because it’s her heart that’s listening. what the storm does for irene, allie thinks it’s what the woods does for her. she thinks the storm is beautiful, even in it, she thinks the danger makes it even more so, tempting it to spin her up into the clouds. sometimes, that’s all it takes to bring her out here, to feel caught, and held by something wild.

        when she was small, they’d scared her. storms were bedtime stories weaved together with heavy warnings, and in combination with the noise, it would send a younger allie to hide under her bed, to pull on a locked door knob. now, of course, it was nothing like that, but something was making a soft sense of fear prick along her spine, because the storm smells like something deeper than normal. she’s just as curious as she knows that irene’s taking them in the right direction, somewhere safe. she trusts her.

        “ is that why you don’t like people? ”  her head tilts, the sincerity of her eyes finding irene’s again. she holds onto her, even to the thread in her pinkie, small and tender, and she wonders. the storm’s honest. doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not.  “ you don’t think they’re honest? ”  but at least you know what you’re dealing with. when her head gets too loud, allie seeks out peace, instead of violence. she looks to the sound of the tree’s whisper, coos of creatures big and small, the soft sighs of petals and the gentle touch of the grass when it knows you need to rest. peaceful. but how many times had she torn herself to pieces just to quiet the noise that can’t be calmed? put magnifying glasses on the sparkly bits, shone like a mirrorball to hide whatever parts she was hurting.

        her friend’s apology cuts through the fog of thought, she finds irene again with eyes that look almost startled.  “ oh, it’s okay! ”  what could she ever have to apologize for? she hadn’t done anything wrong. allie’s the clumsy, clingy, messy one. she winds a finger around a strand of wet hair, pulling it away from her face, then letting it go. of course, it’s not the one entwined with irene’s pinkie.  “ i mean, i didn’t come out here to be caught by anyone, not- not on purpose, but, well, i guess … ”  loneliness flows through everything she does like a current. now, it carries her through the storm.  “ it’s always a plus, isn’t it? ”  then, like it’s supposed to further smother irene’s worry in petals and fluff.  “ and, anyways, i don’t like coats. they’re too heavy. plus, i like feeling the rain on my skin, that’s, like, the whole point. it’s only after that you get cold and sick and icky, and stuff. ”  she shrugs, then, tipping her head towards irene. of course, the ramble of nonsense had an exception.  “ i think there’s something warmer when it’s someone else's, though. it just makes it all the more lovelier. ”

She didn’t answer at first.

Not with words. Just pressed her face deeper into the familiar line of his shoulder and let the silence hold everything that should’ve broken her by now. He was still warm. Still solid. Still Riven. And that —that was the part that undid her the most. Because even after all the miles and blood and years stretched tight between then and now, even after all the things she’d killed and buried just to keep walking—he still felt like home.

A softer kind of breaking settled in her ribs.

He wasn’t as tall as she remembered. She didn’t have to reach anymore. Didn’t need to go on tiptoe to wrap her arms around him. But somehow, being in his arms made her feel smaller than ever. Not in a way that made her afraid. In a way that made her want to stay. Because if Riven was here, if he was real, then maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t all lost yet.

And then he said that—Try that knife on me.

Her whole body went still.

She pulled back just far enough to look at him, the truth of him, to believe he wasn’t going to vanish. Her eyes searched his like she was trying to see the seams, the trick of it, the thread that would unravel this illusion if she tugged too hard.

But there was no illusion.

Only him.

“I would never,” she said, and her voice cracked right down the center. “No. No, never. You hear me?”

The words trembled out of her like glass under pressure, but the weight behind them was steel. She shook her head once, sharp and certain. “I’d put a bullet in my own skull before I ever hurt you. Don’t you—” Her breath hitched again. “Don’t you say shit like that. Not to me. Not you.”

She closed her eyes. Just for a second. Just to breathe. Then his next question hit her like a cold wind through a cracked door. She huffed a sound —not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. A hollow thing.

“No,” she said, plain and simple. “No. Nothing’s okay.”

Not her mom. Not her dad and certainly not her.

And then, softly, almost dazed, “What do you mean, how did I find you?” Her brows knit, like the question itself hurt. “We live here.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

And the moment she said we, the world righted itself.

The old house. The protective circles. The soundproofing, the wards, the runes scrawled under the windowpanes. She’d kept it all running. For just in case.

She pulled back a little more, enough to take his hand in hers, fingers curling like they used to when she was smaller and braver and full of impossible belief and hope. Just like she used to do when she wanted to drag him away from danger, away from fights he didn’t need to take for her. Back when she still thought he could fix everything with just a smile and a soft hand on her shoulder.

Her voice dropped to something gentler now, touched with something like hope.

“Come with me,” she said. “It’s not far. You’ll be safe there. I don't want them to see you.”

She tugged at his hand again —not demanding, not pulling hard. Just like always. That quiet, steady kind of insistence. A lifeline, knotted in memory.

I can't get to have this.

He wasn't what she remembered. He was no longer gentle and kind— a boy, just as lost as she was, just better at navigating the halls of their haunted house. Who reached to catch her when she stumbled, and stood between her and the dark like it was instinct. A big brother, of sorts. Her shield.

Now he felt like a stranger wearing the skin of someone she used to need.

Would she be disappointed, once she learned the truth? His smile was tight, yet there, just enough to give her something to hold onto. "You can try that knife on me," he said, "See if I’d bleed." Usually ghosts didn't. It was a tease, but there was something in his eyes that didn’t quite laugh. .

When all the weapons dropped and arms wrapped around each other, Riven remembered the last time he’d held her this close. Back then, she barely reached his chest, going up on her toes. She wasn't little anymore, her head fit neatly against his shoulder, no stretching required. And still, she clung to him like he was the only thing left in the world that could save her. Christ. He couldn’t even save himself, let alone her. "Is everything okay?" No, he supposed not from the way she was shaking in his arms, but the words slipped out anyway, as his hand rose to comb gently through her hair— "How did you find me?"

Irene didn’t flinch at the mention of imprisonment. Just blinked, slow and tired, like the word didn’t surprise her — or maybe like it just didn’t matter here. Plenty of people came through this town with things trailing behind them, and it wasn’t her job to follow any of it home.

“February,” she echoed, half to herself. That would’ve been after she got here. After she’d unpacked more than she meant to in a house that still felt as empty as the moment they walked in. She hadn’t touched her inheritance yet. Back then, she thought she’d be in and out, keep her head down, move on. Not still here, not letting the town get under her skin.

She caught sight of the tattoos when she moved — didn’t stare, didn’t ask — just noted the language like you do a warning carved into stone. Then her eyes dropped to the parcel. The mix didn’t surprise her, though the mention of wombs did. Irene’s jaw shifted slightly — a faint, reflexive tension — but she didn’t rise to it.

“Appreciate the warning,” she said, tone steady. “Won’t add it to the tea. That blend’s for the everyday folk. Not the kind looking to sink too deep.”

A pause. She finally reached forward and pulled the parcel the rest of the way toward her, careful not to jostle it too much.

“I’ll tag it for storage,” she added. “Stephens’ll know what to do with it, if it’s meant for her.” Her voice softened a little, though not by much. “She doesn’t write much down. But she remembers everything. Like a bad habit.”

Irene let the silence sit for a beat, then looked up again, brow just slightly furrowed. “She teach you much? Or were you mostly here for the night shift?”

"Briefly, when I came hitherto from imprisonment." She has always taken little and less care in masking her nature as something not altogether mundane. She makes no bones about either her nature as a witch nor at her prickly nature. She invites conflict, because conflict often feeds that which needs be fed. Besides, she's among allies here in Tumataru;

"Took my leave come 'round February, working the late shifts here for the nightfolk and latecomers. I find shop work dreadfully boring even if the goods aren't, much more fun, dancing for wandering eyes." She rests a hand, dotted with old ancient tattoo-work - symbols and glyphic signs that will make sense aught anyone else but her - on the parcel she's set down and slides it down the counter.

"Hemlock, hogsweed, and a bundle of oily snakeroot that might find home in your Dreamless Tea. Take care though, only a dram of that if you do, lest you accidentally fallow the womb of some poor woman who simply seeks help for night terrors."

Irene didn’t answer at first.

She just stood there, half turned, coat stretched between them like a line drawn in wet chalk — fading, but still there. Allie’s words landed softly, but they lingered, like pollen in her lungs. You’re a pretty thing. She huffed out something like a laugh, but it was quiet, more breath than sound. The kind of sound that wanted to be disbelief but came out something gentler.

There was no way Allie knew what she was saying. Not really. Not when she looked at Irene like that — like there was no blood on her hands, no sharp edges tucked behind her ribs. Like this world could still be something soft, and Irene someone who could hold it without breaking it.

The rain kept on falling, slower now, steadier — but the sky hadn’t eased. Thunder growled in the distance, low and mean, a reminder that the storm hadn’t finished making its point. Irene glanced up, jaw tight, then down again at the soaked hem of Allie’s dress, the way she shivered under the weight of the cold even while smiling like she belonged to it.

“You’re gonna get yourself struck by lightning if you keep dancing around like that,” Irene muttered, and there was no bite in it — just that soft, tired kind of affection she didn’t hand out freely. “Not a poetic way to go, Allie. Moment’s over. Come on.”

She pulled the coat tighter around her — around them — and her hand lingered at Allie’s back a second longer than necessary. A quiet thing. A steady thing. Something close to safety.

Irene looked at her then, really looked, like maybe she was trying to memorize the shape of someone who still believed the world didn’t bite. And maybe that was why she didn’t say the hundred things clawing at the back of her throat — all the reasons they shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be close, shouldn’t pretend like pretty things could live long when they weren’t careful.

         allie shakes her head, it’s the easiest thing in the world. of course irene isn’t dangerous, matching with her is even less so. it’s natural, it’s perfect, it’s lovely. it’s the perfect day for it, even if the storm turns angrier, wilder, less forgiving for girls who are afraid of them. or at least, girls that are supposed to be afraid of them. allie’s not scared, now. she has irene. and this time, she doesn’t stiffen, or pull back, or watch her with a cautious, careful eye that makes allie feel like there’s a wall between them, even when she’s right next to her. now, allie tries, and irene’s letting her in. even if it’s almost, a whisper of a touch, a slight feeling- a catch of softness, like allie’s closing her eyes and running a finger along her surface. it’s something, and allie holds onto it. the fondness stays in her eyes, watching irene’s reaction to the flower. she’s not mad, she’s not angry, she’s not going to shove allie in the water and leave her behind. allie hadn’t done anything wrong, she hadn’t hurt her.

         it’s why she listens, it’s why she only pouts, doesn’t protest or argue when irene draws them away. her eyes only plead for the whimsy to return for only a moment, before she’s swept under irene’s coat. it had only been the slightest offer of closeness, and she takes it eagerly. it’s only then that she’d considered she had, maybe, been shivering from the cold, and had yet to notice. 

         because there, closer to her friend, it’s warm. she realizes then, the state of her, sopping wet and shoeless. there’s no regret, but she does feel bad for irene’s coat. allie goes, finding it easy to clear a way through the storm, so long as she wasn’t alone, so long as it wasn’t her idea. irene wants her to be safe, so she will. she wants her out of the danger. and, despite their completely separate definitions of danger, allie wants that too, because she does.  “ are you kidding? of course it is! i’m bare-footed, and you’re a pretty thing. ”  she giggles, her finger going to touch the yellow bloom tucked behind her ear, making sure it doesn’t fall.  “ we’re here, we’re meant to be here. if we weren’t meant to, we wouldn’t be. ”  maybe she can get her dance with her, after all.