smallestopener | Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.

Ingress had a brilliant birthday. She’s eleven. Eleven is nearly grown up! It’s also the year when children in the stories she’s read come into their own. Adventures begin, schooling starts, worlds are saved… she can hardly wait to see what will happen next.

Her party earlier was such fun. Door was almost nice to Puck; Ingress had worried a little about that after she invited him. But he was very nice and charming, and Tom was nice, too, and Puck helped Ingress steal lots of roses off the cake while Havelock talked to Tom and Door, and it was brilliant.

She ate far too much icing sugar, but Tom had the peppermint potion waiting for her when the party was over. She feels much better now. And she’s eleven!

It sounds so good in her head. Eleven, eleven, eleven.

She should have asked Mary to stay the night with her, she thinks, as she tosses and turns. She’s never going to fall asleep, even with staying up past her bedtime. Tom and Door insisted she go to bed after she started yawning. They can be so silly sometimes.

She tosses one more time, and she thinks, again, how impossible it will be to go to sleep tonight. Her eyelids flutter and close. It is not long before she’s deep in dreams.

Page 2 of 15 << [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] >>

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ofthatantet.livejournal.com

Her smile stills, and her eyes flick to the woods; to the shadows that have drawn near again.

"Careful," she says. "Be careful in the woods. Never lie--but watch what you give away. They'll take whatever you're willing to give away. Your name, your face... your heart."

The good humor has drained out of her; the fire feels colder now, for her. She touches the cards. The World. "The world is a ball and we are the foundation." The Sun. "We are the shelter of the poor."

"Do you understand?"

Edited Date: 2010-05-18 03:21 am (UTC)

From:

aj_crawley

There's a ladder. It mightn't have been there before, but it's there now, wide wooden steps and an incline that should pose no difficulty to the young and adventurous.

All you'd need is a head for heights.

From up above, the sound of quiet laughter, muted by the hay.

From:

smallestopener

Ingress twirls in delight as the glitter showers down.

The butterflies have curly eyelashes, and they wink at her. Ingress winks back as she chases after them.

When she sees Raven, she squeals in glee. Once he speaks, she throws her arms around him in a big big big hug.

"I shall never forget, silly."

She drapes one of her necklaces over his head. It has purple and blue beads with tiny prisms in between. It is one of her very favorites. It can be his now.

From:

creator_raven

Raven wrinkles his nose, leaning down to ruffle her hair.

"That, I think, is what I said, too."

And then he's gone.

So is the necklace.

The glitter, however, remains.

That stuff gets everywhere.

From:

smallestopener

"I-"

She shivers. The shadows are cold, too.

"I think so?"

The world is a ball, wide and vast.

From:

smallestopener

"Are you having a birthday party? I love birthday parties," she says, hurtling up the ladder.

The hay is as soft a pillow when she spills over the top and into the loft. She laughs and then she sneezes and then she laughs again.

Heights bother her not one whit.

From:

ofthatantet.livejournal.com

"Don't be afraid," she says, unexpectedly gentle.

The woman looks up at the shadows; they've gathered again, pressing close against the fire light, and in the reddish glow her eyes are distant. "They're not so bad, you know."

"They'll always come back. And they don't always go when you tell them to. They'll take all they can, and they think it's owed them."

"But there are more dangerous things."

From:

smallestopener

Ingress knows the shadows are there, even as she tries not to look.

...a tall man shape and a short one, blood spraying over the roses, a black-eyed angel's face twisted in fury, knitting needles clacking coldly in the corner...

"Like what?"

From:

a-fell.livejournal.com

Aziraphael looks over at her from his perch on a bale of hay, wineglass in one hand, and smiles, warm and inviting.

"Ingress, my dear, how wonderful that you're here to join us. Crowley and I were just saying that we don't see enough of our friends. Do come and have a seat."

From:

ofthatantet.livejournal.com

"Like us."

Now she stands. "When I give the word we charge, understand?" She shrugs out of the jacket; it's just a white fleece hoodie (http://ofthatantet.livejournal.com/), a plastic daisy dangling from the zip. Under it her arms are bare. There's a bronze armband gleaming on one powerful bicep; letters scroll (http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/83075312/14543988) across it.

"You'd better take this. It's a tradition."

From:

mistressmaryquitecontrary

"Hurry!" Mary says, sticking her head round the side of the stable.

"Ingress, the roses just bloomed - you must come and see!"

From:

smallestopener

Ingress takes it. It's far too big for her, but then it fits just right.

"I need my slingshot."

She pulls it from the pocket.

She's ready.

From:

smallestopener

She claps her hands and laughs. The hay is hard for running, but her legs are strong, and she bounces through it like she's walking on the moon in her rush to join them at the table.

She kisses them both on the cheek.

"Can I have wine, too?"

From:

smallestopener

"Oh, I shall, I shall," Ingress says, scrambling to her feet.

She takes Mary's hand, and let's her pull her where she wants her to go.

(In dreams as in life, this is how things often go)

From:

ofthatantet.livejournal.com

As she hands it over, for a moment there's--a moment. A different moment.

They're seated in the playroom; she's wearing a denim dress and her hair is loose and wavy, her face like less war-like. Younger still. Nimble fingers wind ribbons through Ingress's hair; interlacing blue and gold. "You look good," she says finally, giggling a little. "Girl you look good," saying it the way her mother does.

And then the words are there (http://ofthatantet.livejournal.com/49800.html?thread=902024#t902024), as they never seem to be when she's awake.

"Being a girl," she says, looking down, "it's like anything else. You come correct or you've already lost. You have to wake up every day ready to fight. Because they will make you fight. Sometimes they will." She raises her eyes, Eddie (Dean) Toren's eyes, to meet Ingress's.

"You'll fight. You'll bleed."

"But you'll win." She takes a brand from the campfire and holds it up like a torch; like a blade.

She turns back to the shadows, and her voice is thunder. "For 'Riza!" she shouts. "For Chloe and the White!"

Edited Date: 2010-05-18 03:51 am (UTC)

From:

smallestopener

"For 'Riza!" Ingress calls out, her heart pounding and her cheeks flushed.

She's no longer cold.

"For Valdemar!"

They charge the darkness, young and fearless.

Edited Date: 2010-05-19 01:33 am (UTC)

From:

mistressmaryquitecontrary

The greenhouse is just around the corner - though 'just around the corner' seems farther away than usual, and greener, with wild bright lilies and orchids blooming larger-than-life to either side.

"You must come quickly," Mary says, tugging. Her strides are longer than Ingress', though not by much. "They shan't last long, you know."

From:

smallestopener

"How long do they last?"

Roses last for days. Roses last for hours. Roses last for minutes.

She hurries along. She wouldn't want to miss this.

From:

ofthatantet.livejournal.com

There's another girl moving through the woods; a few years older. Not a lot. She looks tired, but less scared than she was once; almost hopeful. Her hair is long and straight and dishevelled, and her face is tracked with tears. She's barefoot, legs scratched, wearing a t-shirt like a dress. There's a rip across the back, and she's bled.

She's got something tight in her fist, as she stumbles through a sort of doorway made by two silver trees.

From:

mistressmaryquitecontrary

"A rose's lifetime, of course," Mary says, in that kindly-patient tone of hers, as if it's something everyone ought to know (but of course, ten-year-olds can't be expected to know all of those things that everyone ought.)

The greenhouse stands in front of them, looking quite small and ordinary.

It's bigger on the inside, of course.

"Look, here we are!"

From:

aj_crawley

Crowley's lounging slantwise on his bale, easy as a latter-day emperor, so when he glances across at Aziraphael it's with a tilted, sideways grin.

"A little of the good stuff never hurt anyone," he reasons, then. And just like that, there's a third wineglass on the table, between the fruit bowl and the bread. Crowley pours with a practised flourish of the wrist, low to high, until there's two fingers' worth of dark, promising red in the bottom of Ingress' glass.

From:

smallestopener

Ingress glances up at the trees.

Temple and Arch

"Hey, are you okay?" she calls to the girl. She looks hurt. Badly hurt.

She must have been through a battle.

"You should go to the Infirmary. Or the leechwife. She's near Down Street. Hunter could take you."

From:

ofthatantet.livejournal.com

"I'm okay," she says. She smiles, quick and nervous.

She has familiar eyes. "I just gotta find my mom. He--" She points back behind her, through the (doorway) trees, with the fisted hand. "--said she's in a bar?"

"I'm

(really Rosie)

Rose."

From:

smallestopener

Ingress raises her glass and sips, a little wary. She's never had wine like this before.

It tastes like the best grape juice in the whole wide world.

(It may be the best grape juice in the whole wide world.)

"It's delicious," she says, beaming.

She's eleven, after all. She can have wine with her dinner.

(In dreams)

From:

smallestopener

"I've come here before."

Green tendrils snake along the tables and up the walls. They are smiling.

"You water the feet."

Her mother brought her to the conservatory every day, and the roses, oh, the roses grew tall and bloomed red.