Work Text:
***
Jess is the one who hovers, looking pointedly at her watch, as Maewen takes her time forcing buttons into the holes of her bright blue, woolen coat.
“Come on, Mae, the boys will be waiting.”
Maewen eyes her roommate apprehensively. Jess’ long brown hair has been flat-ironed into submission, making her face look angular, and even more fierce than usual.
“You could go without me,” suggests Maewen with a wistful sigh, though she knows it’s pointless. “I have a stats paper to write before I even think about studying for finals.”
“Typical,” Jess rolls her eyes, and uses Maewen’s favourite black tam to herd her wayward, redheaded friend towards the front door. “I knew you would say that. Which is why we are going to the matinée.” Jess draws out the last word, rolling it over her tongue with satisfaction.
“I don’t see how that makes any difference,” protests Maewen.
“Hah! As if you would actually have a single word written before two a.m.”
It’s a good point, thinks Maewen, but she’s not ready to give in just yet.
“I’ve heard the movie is dreadful,” says Maewen, striding down the front steps and into the dark, nearly empty street after Jess; words coming out in visible clouds of breath. “Not historically accurate at all.”
Jess flashes her an appraising look, eyes carefully outlined with black pencil and not giving an inch. “This coming from the girl who thinks us history majors are a bunch of flakes who memorize irrelevant facts about dead people, uh huh. Nice try, though, Quantum Physics.”
Maewen winces at the nickname and protests, “I don’t think that!”
Jess shrugs amicably. “It’s totally besides the point. King Amil is hot.”
Maewen giggles, covering her face with her hands. “You mean Patrick Kernsson is hot,” she amends, naming the actor for whom thirteen year olds everywhere (and her twenty-one year old roommate) have built shrines on their walls and fridges.
“Same difference,” proclaims Jess.
“Uh huh,” teases Maewen. “And what about Dave?” She asks, naming Jess’ not-quite boyfriend who is, without a doubt, waiting for them in a coffee shop around the corner.
Jess links arms with Maewen, and nods gamely towards the bus stop where a giant poster advertises The King’s Stone, with Patrick Kernsson - in period costume - gazing adoringly into the eyes of Henrietta Singer-Smithsdaughter.
“Queen Enblith is smoking hot, too.”
***
Maewen likes Linden because he’s so comfortably self-absorbed. That sounds horrible, even in her own head; she’s an awful friend. Linden is nice, if a bit pretentious, and endearingly dorky. He doesn’t think to ask awkward questions about the subjects that Maewen avoids, even with Jess and Aunt Liss. Linden can talk about physics, for hours and hours on end, for the sheer joy of science.
Here, they’re sprawled across Linden and Dave’s sitting room in a scene of end-semester cramming, textbooks and hastily scrawled formulas littering the floor. Linden Riversway is Maewen’s study partner of choice, brilliant with numbers, calm in the face of sleepless academia and unlike Jess, totally focused.
“Do you believe in the Undying?”
Maewen, lying on her back reading, textbook bench-pressed above her head, freezes mid-sentence.
“Err, what’s that?” she asks stupidly.
Linden sighs, his voice small. “I just - do you believe in the Undying, Maewen?”
His voice is drawn and solemn, and Maewen is compelled to close her text, and sit upright on the floor, giving Linden her undivided attention.
“Yes, I do.”
Linden blinks, pauses. “Your conviction is so complete, it makes me jealous.” And then, “How can you be so sure?”
There it is, thinks Maewen, not do you believe, but why? Her inner monologue is off and away before she can stop it;
Well, this one time when I was thirteen, I was magically transported back in time to replace a murdered girl who was my dead (haha, no literally dead) ringer, to help Mitt - that’s King Amil - win the throne. Good times were had! And then Mitt - King Amil - turned out to be immortal. I had a crush on him, you know, he was dreamy. Also there may or may not have been this creepy museum worker who was also immortal. Oh, and a witch. Not a bad one, she was just -- tired. Yes, I am totally sane, why do you ask?
Maewen pushes down the hysterical laughter and leans forward to put a hand on Linden’s shoulder.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” begins Linden, and Maewen is forced to give him a stern look.
“You’re not exactly the type to have an exam-induced crisis of faith.”
Linden pushes his glasses up his nose. “No, well, it’s not - Gran’s gone back into hospital - they say it’s her heart. She’s always been so formidable and solid, it’s awful to think of her small and helpless.”
Maewen’s own heart takes a dive, and she pulls her friend into a hug.
“Oh, Linds, I’m sorry.”
Linden sniffs a little, twists awkwardly away from the physical comfort. “It’s not your fault, Maewen.”
“You know what I think,” says Maewen, after a moment, sitting back on her heels. “The Undying are busy wandering, taking care of their important God-like things for most of their existence. And so we learn to take care of ourselves. But sometimes, when we need them the most, their paths cross with ours, and they’re there, like an old friend that we’d almost forgotten we needed in our lives.”
Linden gives her a shaky smile. “Maybe that’s true. And if it is, who needs them. I’d rather have you.”
“Er,” says Maewen. “That’s sweet.”
***
It’s Jess who jabs Maewen in the ribs with her pointy elbow when Maewen starts to snicker in the movie theatre.
“What,” whispers Maewen over the dramatically scored harmonies of a young, uncrowned King Amil (flowing blonde locks, shirtless to show off chiseled stomach muscles, wearing his signature purple trousers) leading his sizable army on the quest for the sword of Dalemark.
“I had no idea that Amil was such a stud - is that the fourth girl he’s slept with so far? Wasn’t he, uh, fourteen when he went on this mad, I mean epic, quest?”
“Shhh,” Jess tosses some popcorn at Maewen, her eyes fixed on the screen. “Stop ruining it. And those are just theories - no one knows how old he was.”
“Right, no body in the tomb,” agrees Maewen.
“And what a lovely body it is,” sighs Jess.
Maewen looks around Jess to Dave, who returns her amused half-wave with a baffled smile, before looking to her right, at Linden, who is staring at the screen, apparently entranced.
Life is so strange, thinks Maewen, as she settles back into her chair, watching a petite and tan Biffa (oh, but she must be cold in that nightshirt!) usher Amil and his men inside her family barn to conceal them from the passing soldiers.
“They say,” says Amil, pausing dramatically. “That the City of Gold is always on the furthest hill. But were it up to my heart, I would give up the search, and stay here forever.”
“Oh, my Love,” sighs Enblith in return. “You musn’t, Dalemark needs a King, and you were born to be our saviour. I will gladly bear my family’s armour and fight by your side!”
“I could never allow for such a thing. If you were to suffer at the hand of our villainous enemies...” Amil’s eyes widen in amazement, he becomes agitated, staring at the weapon grasped between Enblith’s delicate fingers. “My truest of loves, Enblith, where did you get that sword?”
“But in my father’s armoury, of course!”
Amil unsheaths the sword, and holds it to the fireside, showing ancient runes, glinting orange and red. “And so it appears our fates are bound by destiny, for this is the sword I have sought from the North to South! The sword that will unite us as one nation!”
As the screen blurs into a shot of Dalemark’s rolling hills and mountains, Maewen buries her laughter in Linden’s t-shirt, her forehead shaking against his shoulder.
Linden peers down at her tolerantly. “Weirdo.”
You have no idea, thinks Maewen. Iceberg, tip.
***
She half expects that he’ll be there, Mitt, in person, as they leave the theatre and spill out onto the cold street, caught up in the crowd. But he’s never bothered to show up before, even after four years like he promised, so he doesn’t show up now.
It doesn’t matter though, Maewen hasn’t laughed so hard in months. And it’s not as though she spends every day pining after Mitt - King Amil - because she doesn’t. This is Maewen, almost grown up, and living her own life. There are plenty of embarrassing crushes in Maewen’s teenage past, after all.
Sometimes there are months when she doesn’t think of Mitt, Moril or Navis at all.
***
Faith isn’t something that you can see, Maewen lies at night thinking into the dark expanse of her room. She wishes that this is what she’d said to Linden, instead of whatever she had come up with at the time.
Faith is knowing that you can catch yourself when you fall. It’s driving along a lakeside road, water just out of sight, and trusting, instinctively, that it’s there; will still be there to take your breath away as you come over the next hilltop peak.
It’s standing on the side of the ocean, salty water weighing down your long, damp hair, hands numb with cold, and knowing that you are such a small part of this huge, tangled, perfect mess of a world, and feeling everything until it’s too much. And so faith is, for a split second, feeling nothing; diving into unconsciousness.
Faith is letting go.
***
Maewen is the one who goes with Linden when he decides that his soulmate is a six-foot-four, rugby playing psychology major named Bruce. That is, after all, what friends are for.
As she steps into the foyer of the hosting players’ house, after Linden and through a throng of sweaty, muscled boys wearing scantily clad girls as necklaces, Maewen can practically feel her Grade Point Average slipping. She’s so distracted by the image of faculty advisors running away from her, screaming, as she helplessly begs to be their graduate student, that Maewen collides with someone’s chest.
“Uh, sorry,” says Maewen, looking way up into the face of a tired looking rugby player.
“No worries,” says the boy.
It almost ends there, but Maewen can’t ignore the words staring at her, written boldly in green, across his tight black t-shirt.
“Undying at Midsummer?” she asks, quizically, craning her neck upwards to look back into his face.
“They’re a band,” mutters the boy, and pauses before his face breaks into a smile of youthful glee. “A really fucking awesome band.”
“Yeah?” asks Maewen, and looks around the boy (it’s harder than it should be, thinks Maewen, he’s built a bit like a brick wall) to see Linden making wild gestures, engaging her in a game of charades that can’t be won.
Maewen wrinkles her nose in response and nods towards the corner of the room where Bruce - she recognizes him, having accompanied Linden on several recent stalking, er, information retrieval sessions in the past week - is lounging, laughing loudly with his teammates. Linden makes an obscene gesture in response.
So Maewen is distracted, and a little surprised when she looks back at the boy who is built like a brick wall, and he is hesitantly holding out a set of earphones, small music player in his hands and a hopeful look on his face.
“This is my favourite,” he says be way of explanation.
“Thanks,” says Maewen, carefully taking the headphones, her fingers stopping just centimeters away from his; they are close enough that she can feel the heat coming from him in waves. It makes her feel as if she’s had at least four drinks, not one.
“I’m Maewen, by the way.”
“Yes, I know,” admits the boy ruefully, speaking up over the noise of the party and the rushing of blood and alcohol in Maewen’s head. “You see, I’m Mitt.”
“Matt, did you say?” laughs Maewen in return.
“No, I’m Mitt.”
Maewen nods, and drops the headphones over her ears, curling into the edges of the lead singer’s voice. It’s rough, and unrefined, and nothing like the young singer-boy she knew as a thirteen year old pretending to have a claim on the throne of Dalemark. It's everything that she can feel in that moment, and it's perfect.
***