Archive of Our Own ^beta

Hey, I had fun last night

Same here

I meant what I said about coffee, still down?

It sounds wonderful, I’d love to get to know you better

And I, you. How is your Tuesday?

I’d love too

Wait shit, things are going down with the group I’ve been hanging with. I’ll be in the library researching all week. Raincheck?

No problem, hope things are okay.

Me too, Accalia. Me too .

In between the studying, the waitressing, the baking, and the living Abagail didn’t talk to her much that week. Luckily, she seemed to understand. The week seemed to blur by. The two occasionally texted that weekend, Abagail explained a little of what was going on. Accalia made her laugh and cheered her up. And then

If things have died down, How about we meet for that coffee later this week?

That sounds incredible! How is your Wednesday? 

Sounds like a date, see you then. I’ll pick you up at eleven.

The unfamiliar glow of the screen and the words hit all at once. She stopped. 

Right, a date. She felt her heart both soar and sink at the same time. 

Calliope, what about Calliope. 

Calliope is bone and dust.

Accalia is flesh and blood.

She shook her head to clear it and sent Accalia a heart in response.

She needed a distraction, she needed to keep moving.

No. She needed to stop.

She put her phone in her pocket and told Jermey she was gonna run and grab ingredients before her shift started. She walked feeling the cold air hit her at once. Memories of before pulling at her like tendriled currant of a riptide. The way she laughed, sounded like a waterlogged bell. Her smile could ensnare anyone to do her bidding, but she decided to use love and never fear.  

They did not ease once she got to the grocer. The cold mist of the fridge she grabbed blueberries from reminded her of how it felt in the rare quiet moments they had on some cold nights breaching the surface together and sharing stolen stories under the moonlight. Tales both tall and true. 

Abagail  

She shook off the details and got the rest of the ingredients quickly after that.

She walked home, bags of groceries on each arm. She remembered the armfuls of treasure they hauled together. How heavy they were, how they cracked jokes. How her eyes were a little too focused on the gold for a moment before she smiled her beautiful smile and shook it off. 

She got a look she didn’t stop to interpret from Jermey when she walked in with the bags and immediately ducked into the kitchen. 

Abagail started making a cake with a blue mirror glaze. She mixed and let herself get lost in the past. 

The mist was cold and the sky was beautiful. Stars, unfamiliar constellations. Nothing but saltwater and darkness for miles. Then there was them. Sharing secrets and stories. Ones they’ve told a million times and yet at this moment, they all felt new. Like shared treasure for only them. They kissed once, and never spoke of it again. 

She put the cake in the oven. She started the tarts next. 

She was laying across Calliope's lap while she played with her hair when she felt the fingers pause. Abagail looked up. 

“Abagail, if I die. Promise me that you’ll use any part of me that’s left to survive.”

“Calliope” She sat up straight, bubbles following her not yet graceful movements. “What’s brought this on?” 

“I don’t know. Just.” Calliope looked away. “Soon it’ll be the season that is tricky to survive, If I don’t make it, I’d want to at least help you.”

“Calli, I-”

“Just promise me, please Abagail.”

“Okay. But only if it applies in reverse. If I die, you use whatever is left of me to survive.”

“Promise me” 

Her face looked destroyed, the memory flaking away at her form obscuring her as the oven beeped for the cake. She recalled how later, that promise became a quip between them. Something so dark became light. She took out the cake to cool and set in the tarts. Her mind shifted.

“Abagail, huh? Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Calliope. You must be new?”

“How do you know that” Abagail was cadgy, defensive. 

Afraid. 

But she just smiled “Your legs, they aren’t quite a tail yet but they seem to be forming one. Plus, I haven’t seen you around here. Your song was beautiful”

“I was just figuring out the breathing thing, nothing special”

“Nothing special? I heard your call from miles away. I bet the others did too.”

“Others?”

“Allies, well sometimes” she looked sheepish “ we don’t have a formal deal or anything”

She started prepping the pie crust and filling it with the blueberries.She checked on the tarts. Letting a new memory take over.

“Why not just make a formal deal?”

“What do you mean? You know it’s everyone for themselves down here.”

“I know” Abagail’s tail fin flicked in annoyed agreement “ But you could convince them, make a set of rules. Ones they would follow like: always come to the aid of another if they call for help, we can hear each other so far after all”

“Abagail that’s incredible, using it as a more organized system. We could enact a temporary truce to those who follow it for the duration of the problem. Fighting for treasure is understandable, but only after the ship is sunk.” She propelled herself upwards giddy, thoughts racing so much they seemed to reflect in her eyes.

She raised her voice to the first call, and Abagail joined her in beautiful harmony.

Her latticework on the pie was done, she popped it in the oven and started the macarons. 

The new girl greedily agreed to the alliance when they found her. We never got her name, but she reminded Abagail of Snow White with a fishtail. She seemed, just a little too eager to get close to Calliope. Her smiles were too sharp, pearly white, and perfect. Young.

Abagail went to grab the tarts from the oven before turning her attention back,She banged the tray of macaroons a little too hard on the countertop to remove the air bubbles. 

She smiled, the Snow White girl, waved. Calliope waved back, Abagail was busy finishing up grabbing the rest of her haul after a good adjacent-natured tussle with June. She caught up, giving her a nod. The Snow White girl took a spear and stabbed Calliope through the back, as she turned to leave. Calliope’s eyes locked with mine as the pole pushed up through her throat and mouth; the top of the spear sticking out covered in blood. 

The Nix’s all turned smelling blood in time to see that girl pull the spear from out of her and Calliope collapse, and the light fade from her eyes. Everyone froze a moment but her. That girl, that upstart. 

The upstart spoke with a huge grin “ I think that makes me in charge”

“...I guess it does” June broke the silence. 

“ Abagail would never accept it though, would she?” The upstart pouted crossing her arms.

Everyone who didn’t just bail turned to look between them. 

“Kill her,” She said lazily, like none of this mattered

Abagail didn’t stick around long enough to find out who the blood-thirsty maidens would side with, she could take a wild guess. She used her tail to kick up the sand and bolted to a nearby outcropping, praying, pleading to stay calm, stay hidden. 

Something must have been merciful that day as her skin shifted to the hue of the rocks around her. The world listened to her call and answered with a blessing. She waited, hearing the Nix look around, they hummed to her. A call. She would not break her oath so she called to them. 

“Do not call upon me to a trap”

They seemed to talk around it, say it was fine. But their hearts weren’t in it she could tell. 

She kept her oath and answered.

But she did not go to them. 

She slammed the next tray of macaroons to get the air bubbles out even harder than the first. Again, and Again. The images flashed in succession. Seeing Calliope's body missing its head. Mourning, Praying. Making the spear. Hearing them call for a ship.

 and she swam

She stabbed her through the gut the second she saw her. Saw her gasp and tears formed in her sad little eyes. The crown- no. the Skull of Callipoe that sat on the girl’s temple got knocked off by the force of the spear. She took that crown and stabbed the horns it between that girl’s watery, fearful eyes. 

The Nix looked at Abagail, radiant Abagail. A spear of bone in one hand and a skull of bone in another;Both covered in blood that seemed to spiral out into the water in a beautiful calling card to those who take scraps. The upstart would be gone by morning.

“No leaders” She stopped June from speaking “We answer, and we hold a truce. I will not hesitate to enforce our rules, and neither should you”

She hit too hard and knew she probably fucked up the shells but the others wouldn’t complain at free pastries. Sol and Jeremy poked their heads in at some point, Abagail waved them off with uncharacteristic severity while mixing the meringue for the macaroons. They let her be.

She remembered burying her skull. She remembered to mourn. She remembered something that she learned as a kid, recalling how she knew candles won’t work under the sea. She said some words too familiar since her time in Arcadia and left the skull buried under a flat rock where she knew she could find it again. She did not have time to say the goodbye she wanted.

She let her hands lean against the counter propping herself up.  

Suddenly she was with her sister at a masquerade ball, sneaking down a hallway covered in candles. Asking if it was proper to light one; feeling she needed to, asking for knowledge, and asking to join the court. She lit one, so did her sister. She said some too familiar words quietly, though they comforted even still.

She rejoined her sister soon after and made a bet to ask someone to dance as a way to meet new people. She met Accalia by chance and by god did they make a scene. They talked of coffee and Abagail felt so light. Blissful.

She poked her head out of the kitchen, the cafe was long closed. She ‘borrowed’ a lighter of Numi’s and found a birthday candle in a drawer, it would definitely cause her mother to gasp but would do the job. She made a makeshift candle holder and covered her eyes a moment after she lit the candle. 

"יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא."

She started and quietly finished the rest. Abagail wasn’t the most religious, but even she knew to say these all too familiar words for the dead. To properly mourn her friend. 

She glanced up at the clock and rushed to take the macaroons out. Not her best work. She accomplished something, the knowledge that Calliope would want her to be happy. The knowledge that she would always hold a place in her heart but that doesn’t mean giving more people the chance to would be a betrayal. She loved Calliope, maybe one day she’d love Accalia too. She didn’t have to know yet, of course not. It was only a first date after all. 

She was allowed to want this for herself. Honestly, she knew deep down, that the true betrayal would be never moving on. She let the single candle burn as she turned to the task of cleaning the kitchen and let herself think of brighter things: like how to explain to Sol about why on earth all the pastries are some shade or flavor blue for the next week. Pies, Cakes, Tarts, Scones, Muffins, and Macaroons. She laughed to herself and quietly wondered if any of her new friends liked blueberries.