mountain in f minor / day four.

She likes listening to him talk.

That notion is distracting enough for a while, too long even. Background programs run rampant in her mind, relishing the feeling of that darkness wrapping its arms around her shoulders. It remembers the way it swallowed Hugo whole, devoured Sage the moment Lionel took a step back. Inga, Izzy, Axyl, that purple shimmer flared and then there was a boy from Five and a girl from Six who was getting tired of pretending.

His sword still glints red, despite the way he wiped it across Sage's clothes. Felicity swore he looked at her after like he expected her to run, but all she saw was someone giving back the piece that he could.

Maybe he was just being cruel. A part of her might've liked that, too.

She pulls out her toolkit and stomps through the cabins front door instead, sits down criss cross applesauce after a bit of maneuvering with her heavy boots. She fumbles with the toolbox for only a second before unwinding some of her makeshift wraps, too.

Does it scare you? She blinks, thinks about every time someone has looked at her like she was insane, and diligently keeps at her task, loosening bolts before considering just cutting a vital wire.

"No," is reflexive, quick, she doesn't event hink about the fight, the push bacl. It's like the hags stirred something up though, and all she sees are kids who called themselves friends, teachers who gave up on her, parents who tried to have faith but were never very good at it; even Abraham, Baines, Storm, soft spots and all, no one ever wanted her to see them. Specimen, too smart for her own good, she couldn't be trusted. Yet here Lionel is, throat bared, asking her if her can give up his mask. She bites the inside of her cheek, doesn't look at him; her worst flaw. She does not know how to be gentle; no one ever taught her how.



Something in the pit of her stomach starts burning, that bit of ore that a hag welded into her in the mist. A bit of iron, like a hook or a claw, it softens and bleeds until it can forge something new inside her chest.


Her hand slips, and her attention splits. She has to look at him, though the sight of him backlit by the dim lanterns casting long shadows in the room does something to make her blood start to simmer. "I'd like you less if you were any good."

The shock to her system is overwhelming then, and the pounding of that something being forged in her belly boils over the edge. For a second it feels like everything has caught on fire and she sucks down air, her whole body going rigid. Heat pulsed in her throat, under her skin, and she wished she could just claw it off before the tremor began to fade.

Felicity spends a long while thinking about Wren Jr. sleeping just beyond the zippered tent, no doubt curled up against Mouse's broad, feathered wings. She wonders what it'd have been like to grow up with a siblings, what it might have been like if she had not been quite so alone in the world. She thinks about the harsh cut of Lionel's voice when he said his brothers name, and the tenderness it requires to name one thing after another. What feels like hours later, she admits she named her familiar after family, too.

"My Dad's name was Viktor."

The words are thick, pulled from the pit of her stomach; they stifle the air in the tent, make it harder for her to breath. She has to focus on the even sounds of Lionel's breath in the dark to steady her own. It's been like that even since she found out, had to start talking about her Dad in the past tense rather than the present. It's like a little reminder every time. Oh, he's dead now. That's right. He's not coming back from that one.

Something flips over in her chest, a dying fish flopping pathetically on the docks. She can feel scales flying, catching on her heart, on her lungs, on her throat—jagged spines that leave ugly, red lines across the soft inside of her flesh. She feels the heat of those wounds across her skin and wraps an arm around her middle as if to stifle the fire leeching across the plane of her.

"Monkey Viktor reminds me of him a lot, actually." She's grateful for the small, clear plastic window cut into the side of the tent. For the first night, the storm clouds wash across the horizon haphazardly, uncommitted in their tirade against the forest. Every so often, the moon cuts through the bramble wood, bathing their tent in velvety white. She focuses on the fragment of it between the boughs as she lets her grief wash over her heart with a gentle current. "He has that same curiosity people warn you gets cats killed, you know?"

A thin, reedy part of her soul bends, and then snaps in the breeze. She can almost feel his breath on her face every time he exhales. He is so, so very close.

"I used to wish I had a sibling sometimes," the words tumble out as if they cannot be stopped, the weight of them carried along a heavy current she doesn't have control over. "A lot of the time, when I was really little. My Dad was prone to bouts of mad genius behind closed doors, and my Mom was really good at disappearing, so a siblings sounded like a great idea in theory." Her hands tug on the fabric of her flannel, latching onto them until she feels secure, safe, grounded. She bites the inside of her cheek for a second, wrestling with her truths. Never have they wanted so badly to be free of her. "I guess that starts to get a little less appealing when you're eight and you realize you'd probably be your little brothers Daddy and Mommy and big sister all wrapped up in one."