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.

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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

awesome_lilly

Lilly is facing Alain, so she doesn't see Ingress right away.

"-and seriously, it wasn't like he didn't have more syrup for the waffles, so I don't even know what his problem was."

From:

smallestopener

"I am, I am," she says, and there is no longer a butterfly lifting her up. She has purple wings of her own!

"Hi, Puck," she calls, fluttering over a beam. It's easy to fly.

Because it has to be Puck. Who else would be such a pretty robin?

From:

smallestopener

"You'll be around to see. Forever and ever."

She asked Door what 'ethereals' meant, once, a long time ago.

From:

last-heraldmage.livejournal.com

Ingress is so young, so eager to serve. Vanyel smiles down at her. (Was he ever that carefree? He doesn't think so.)

"Then Valdemar was answered by a great white light -- at least, that's what the chronicles say -- and out of the light, at the heart of this very grove, came the first Companions. One of them Chose Valdemar himself, and another Chose Valdemar's lady wife, and a third Chose the Heir to the Throne. But the fourth Chose the chief herald of the court. In those days, a herald's duty was only to know and announce names and titles. But ever since then, all of us Chosen by Companions to protect Valdemar have been called Heralds.

"And the Companions have guided us ever since, selecting and supporting worthy leaders, showing the rest of us how best to serve our kingdom, and watching over us to ensure we remain honorable."

If something dark and painful flickers in Vanyel's eyes as he finishes the sentence, it's replaced by another smile almost at once.

From:

smallestopener

There is something special about the way two grown-ups can talk to each other. She sees it with Tom and Door all the time - that soft smiling, the way they look at each other like no one else in the world exists...

Ingress rarely refrains from barging in on Tom and Door, since they are Tom and Door. But she hangs back a little now. Alain has been gone a very long time.

She waves her hand in greeting and leans against a tree, waiting for an invitation. Birds twitter and peep in the trees, but she doesn't see any robins.

From:

no-prisoner.livejournal.com

Eddie waits, alone on the verge, until she's well out of sight. He's going to make damn sure she doesn't follow. He finishes his apple while he waits, then walks a little way away to an open spot; kneels. He takes a penknife from the pocket of the jacket and cuts a hole in the turf.

He plants the apple core.

The story ends there. What comes next, you'll have to make up for yourself.

From:

puckishly.livejournal.com

Puck flits and dips along after her, singing a cheery robinsong under his breath.

"Shall you come and wave hullo to the rest?" he inquires. A birdy smile. "We've all come round, you see, in your honor."

From:

oneman_onevote

"Your aerial technique is a little sloppy," comes a cool considering voice from nearby, and Havelock leans back against his rafter, half in and half out of the shadows.

"But in honour of the occasion, perhaps we can let it slide."

From:

awesome_lilly

"God, Havelock," Lilly says, looking up from the hammock that has appeared, slung between two rafters. What? It's hard to fly without spilling your drink!

"Can you save the endless technique refinement for the bedroom? We're here to celebrate."

She grins at Ingress.

"Cute shoes."

From:

smallestopener

They are blue and sparkly - her very favorite pair.

"Thanks, Lilly," she says, kicking her legs out to see the sparkles better. She does this with very little wobbling as her wings flap and balance her.

So there!

"I didn't know so many people came up into the rafters."

That hammock looks comfy cozy.

From:

oneman_onevote

Havelock raises his hands in gently mocking surrender.

"It's a fair enough place to watch the world go by," he says, and then because in dreams you can be as honest as you please, "I like it here."

From:

smallestopener

"Of course you do, silly," says Ingress, because in dreams you can call the dour assassins who teach you 'silly'.

"All the people you like best are here."

She flutters around Lilly, kissing her on the top of her head.

From:

honest-johns.livejournal.com

Warm, and pitched to carry over Lilly's shoulder, "Hile, lady-soh."

Alain, here and now and always, is a gunslinger. Con yer vantage, Cort taught; it holds true.

From:

smallestopener

The lake sounds like a river rushing far underground. Fog rolls in, and old cobblestones appear under her feet.

This is Milliways. This is the Underside. This is home.

It doesn't make things any less frightening or the lights any closer.

Edited Date: 2010-05-22 01:39 am (UTC)

From:

awesome_lilly

Lilly twists her head, her face lighting up as she sees Ingress.

"What up, sai?"

She pats a spot on the grass next to her.

"Come, sit. Uh, and ignore both Alain smoking and anything you might have heard me say in the last five minutes."

From:

smallestopener

Ingress laughs and comes to sit down.

"I am eleven, you know. I think I can handle both."

From:

youowemeafavor

Cobblestones turn to stones and stones to bridges, and whether or not they cross rivers or lakes or centuries-old things so unfathomable no one has ever seen them, they all serve a purpose.

They exist to be crossed.

At the entry to this bridge, a man neither tall nor short, old nor young, wise nor foolish, rich nor poor stands and waits, impatiently as ever and yet somehow there's no hint of a need to rush whatsoever.

"Night's Bridge," he says into the fog. "One should never have to cross it alone. In fact, one might want to avoid it altogether, if only they can find another way. It always exacts its toll."

From:

smallestopener

"We don't take that way," she says, standing tall. "We go round it, when we can. Or we don't go at all."

Ingress shivers. It's only the fog.

From:

youowemeafavor

His laughter rings out into the damp darkness. "Of course, Lady Ingress. Why take that way at all? Why take the direct route when the indirect and often far more difficult road presents itself?"

There's still a hint of mirth settling on the air as his laughter dies down.

"Why bother doing anything at all? Laziness is the privileged man's excuse for inaction, after all." It may not be what brings so many to the Underside, but it's certainly what keeps them there.

The same could be said for Milliways.

From:

smallestopener

"I'm not lazy," she says, frowning.

How dare he! She is a Lady of the House of Arch. And he is-

He is the Marquis. He is owed favors by the House of Arch. Door makes sure she never forgets that.

"I am doing something. I'm- I- there are shadows here. I'm keeping them at bay. I have to stay on this side."

From:

smallestopener

"I'm glad. When Megwyn found me, I was so sad. I thought I'd never be cheerful again."

She beams, because that was a long, long, long time ago.

"But I shouldn't like to be on the throne. I'll be happy riding circuit."

From:

youowemeafavor

"Required by law or bound by the rules of the Underside? Dear girl, everybody is doing something. But does it result in forward movement?"

Catlike, he takes a step toward her, torch in hand. "For every shadow, there is a corresponding flicker of light. Sometimes those can be dashed hard to find. One is allowed to ask for help."

From:

smallestopener

"We owe enough debts," she says, every bit Door's sister.

But she eyes the torch as she speaks. She should have brought one of her own. Or asked Tom- but that wasn't Tom, and he wouldn't have helped her.

"There are more shadows than I thought."

Too many, she thinks, her shoulders sagging.

From:

youowemeafavor

Bound by an oath, even if self-imposed, he will protect the House of Arch with his life -- again -- when necessary. Ingress might not know that, but it is something she'll inevitably learn.

Children always do, and London Below is no place for a child. But show him any place fit for a child: that world does not exist.

"Take this. My eyes are accustomed to the dark." His offer of the torch is kindly and without expectations. Perhaps she's verging on the fledgling stages of adulthood but she is still a child, too young for bartering, too young to be taken advantage of. More than that, she's sister to the lady Door.

Indebtedness is an inconvenient thing.

"Shadows are the flip side of angels." But not every angel is as full of light as it seems.

From:

kitchen_maid

"Tea and company," Amy says, busying herself with sugar and cream.

"Nice company," Princess Susan adds. She breaks her cookie in half and offers part to Ingress.

There are plenty of other cookies, of course, it wouldn't be a proper tea without plenty of cookies.

But that's not the point.