Tallulah got home from the library at half-past six, her scarf tight around her neck to ward off the fall chill. Halloween was only very barely past, but the weather in Hanover had turned cold - by the end of the week, they might even have snow. “So,” she called from the foyer of their small apartment, as she took off her coat and draped it over the hangers on the back of the door. “I was thinking of having my parents up for Thanksgiving. They could stay in the inn, we could cook something here… It would prove to my mother that really, no, seriously, I’m not pregnant…”
Which was, like, something Nellie was accusing her of on a weekly basis? It had been funny the first time but now it was getting on her nerves.
“Something smells good!” she called, finally making her way towards the kitchen. Nick was already home, which was normal, and cooking - which was not. Tallulah peeked around his shoulder at the sauté pan on the stove. “You know,” she said, watching him flip around onions and potatoes and spinach, “We have mushrooms?”
They were only going to go bad sitting in the fridge. “Do you want me to slice those up?”
Shibrogane
The very last thing he wanted to eat right now was mushrooms, Nick thought, a little woozily. They had been everywhere on his homeworld, and right now the mystery of their existence and apparently thriving ecosystem was still making his skin crawl. “Not tonight,” he said, and then he edited, “Sorry. I didn’t mean that to come out the way it did.” Snapping at Tallulah was not going to fix his own sad-sack demoralization problem. It would just isolate him from the only person in Hanover who got it.
“How was the library,” he asked, putting the lid back over the vegetable… hash thing he was making and turning back to the pot of noodles. He was still debating making some kind of terrible curry noodle thing, but--it almost seemed like too much effort. Honestly, he’d been done cooking when he’d finished chopping vegetables, but… he’d started it. Finishing it was sort of guaranteed by then. “And the weather? I think having your parents up would be nice.” After that dream, and his homeworld, and… he didn’t know if he wanted to endure any more pointed questions from his wife’s mother. That was not a world he wanted to bring a child into, and he hadn’t done enough yet to avoid it.
He pulled out the strainer and dropped it in the sink. “You could set the table, if you wanted,” he said. “I’m almost done.”
“How was the library,” he asked, putting the lid back over the vegetable… hash thing he was making and turning back to the pot of noodles. He was still debating making some kind of terrible curry noodle thing, but--it almost seemed like too much effort. Honestly, he’d been done cooking when he’d finished chopping vegetables, but… he’d started it. Finishing it was sort of guaranteed by then. “And the weather? I think having your parents up would be nice.” After that dream, and his homeworld, and… he didn’t know if he wanted to endure any more pointed questions from his wife’s mother. That was not a world he wanted to bring a child into, and he hadn’t done enough yet to avoid it.
He pulled out the strainer and dropped it in the sink. “You could set the table, if you wanted,” he said. “I’m almost done.”
The not tonight came a bit quickly, but Tallulah figured that he must have had a long day and let it slide. “Okay,” she said, pausing to rub her knuckles briefly between his shoulders. “I’ll tell my mother to make plans. The library was nice,” she continued. “There’s - there a study lounge dedicated to Doctor Seuss? I staked a claim there and did all of my comparative anatomy reading.”
She began to set the table. Tallulah still preferred the layout of their apartment back in Destiny City, but she’d told him that like half a dozen times and it was starting to get old. “The weather is getting cold,” she continued, setting out plates and silverware. She liked when they had sit-down dinners together. It made her feel terribly grown up. “We’ll need to break out the actual winter coats soon.” As opposed to fall coats. There was a woman at the grocery store who had taken great pleasure in explaining the difference between the two - and the importance of knowing that difference.
Living up North had a kind of steep learning curve.
“How was your day?” she asked, sticking some water in the microwave to make tea - faster than the kettle, and she was only going to ice it, anyway. “Long, I take it? You’re holding your shoulders like you’re really tense.”
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Of course there was a study lounge dedicated to Doctor Seuss. Nick had no idea why that made sense to him, but it did, and he made an appreciative noise when Tallulah rubbed his back that was half understanding and all do that again. “Everything make sense,” he asked. She was pre-vet, where he’d been pre-med, but there were translatable skills there, especially in anatomy. And if not, he could do the reading and lend a hand, too. That would be nice, he thought. Relaxing. He’d like to retreat to the ease of college lessons, rather than mind-numbing practicum details.
“Mhmm,” he agreed. He’d spent most of his youth in Canada, so… the trials of living north were not new to him. Nick smiled at her over one shoulder, a little strained, before pouring out the noodles. “There’ll just barely be time to enjoy a real winter before we have to go back to Destiny City,” he said.
He shrugged uncomfortably at her question. “Work was fine.” It could be hard, when he lost a patient, or when something was clearly from--a detached retina did not come from hitting your head on a desk, at least not from a normal fall scenario. But today’d been boring, almost easy. He’d only had to re-inflate one lung.
Nick glanced uncertainly out the window as he stirred butter and garlic powder into the noodles. “I went to Oenone today,” he said. “It was… very… not dead.”
“Mhmm,” he agreed. He’d spent most of his youth in Canada, so… the trials of living north were not new to him. Nick smiled at her over one shoulder, a little strained, before pouring out the noodles. “There’ll just barely be time to enjoy a real winter before we have to go back to Destiny City,” he said.
He shrugged uncomfortably at her question. “Work was fine.” It could be hard, when he lost a patient, or when something was clearly from--a detached retina did not come from hitting your head on a desk, at least not from a normal fall scenario. But today’d been boring, almost easy. He’d only had to re-inflate one lung.
Nick glanced uncertainly out the window as he stirred butter and garlic powder into the noodles. “I went to Oenone today,” he said. “It was… very… not dead.”
“Yeah,” Tallulah answered. “So far, everything’s pretty clear.” She knew that Nick liked tutoring her, but now that she was all caught up on everything, she wasn’t really sure how much she needed it - not that she wanted to make him feel useless, of course! But she’d always been at the top of her class growing up, and she was back to that now. Barring the very weird and very occasional relapse of her illness, of course.
“A real winter,” she laughed, taking the water out of the microwave and dunking some tea bags into it. “Says the Canuck.” He was still a Canadian citizen, she sometimes stopped to remember, even after all the magic Anabel had worked. Their getting married had had the bonus effect of solidifying Nick’s visa status in the United States. “Like what we get in Destiny City isn’t real. It snows back home, at least.”
But a trip to his homeworld, she thought, pausing in front of the freezer door. That would certainly explain his present mood. Senshi worlds differed vastly from one to the next, and there was never any promise of what you would find when you got to yours. She’d also never been corrupted - and who could say if there was any residual effect of Spinel’s existence on Oenone? “Not dead how?” she asked, opening the freezer very slowly and reaching for the icemaker. “I mean, I’ve heard of worlds with plantlife. Mine’s just naturally iced over.”
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Nick waved a hand through the air. “You’re so very lucky I have no Canadian family left,” he said. “Or we could go to Vancouver or Nova Scotia for a winter.” She would never complain about Destiny City again, if they did that. He certainly never wanted to complain about DC’s mild winters…
He portioned out the dinner, and considered the plate--it needed something else, but he couldn’t think of it. His whole head was full of cotton balls. Wet ones. That sounded like cracking bone as they rattled around his head. When he looked up at Tallulah again, he frowned. When had she closed the freezer door? The icemaker hadn’t even gone. “That’s a relief,” he said, slowly. “But Oenone is perfectly preserved. It kept going, even after the people left. I found… I heard…”
Something had moved. Not with the wind. He would know, if it had been the wind. “Something was moving,” he said, with difficulty. “There was the floor of a train tunnel… covered in… mushrooms, and bone--no, not bone, it was branches. Branches and something was moving. It’s supposed to be dead. There’s not supposed to be anyone else there.”
He portioned out the dinner, and considered the plate--it needed something else, but he couldn’t think of it. His whole head was full of cotton balls. Wet ones. That sounded like cracking bone as they rattled around his head. When he looked up at Tallulah again, he frowned. When had she closed the freezer door? The icemaker hadn’t even gone. “That’s a relief,” he said, slowly. “But Oenone is perfectly preserved. It kept going, even after the people left. I found… I heard…”
Something had moved. Not with the wind. He would know, if it had been the wind. “Something was moving,” he said, with difficulty. “There was the floor of a train tunnel… covered in… mushrooms, and bone--no, not bone, it was branches. Branches and something was moving. It’s supposed to be dead. There’s not supposed to be anyone else there.”
Tallulah bit her lip - she knew that he did have Canadian family, it was just that as Nick, he couldn’t reach them, and even if he’d wanted to, they wouldn’t recognize him. She didn’t see any difference between who he was now and Paul - but memory was funny and fickle, and had gradually replaced Paul’s face in all her thoughts with Nick’s. She could still remember the first morning after he’d crossed over, and searching his face for any familiarity, and finding…
And finding…
His features were the same. The way they fit together was the same. The overall effect was the same. And yet, he was not the same. Magic was odd.
Tallulah poured the tea, and said, “Did you sense anything?” It wasn’t that she thought there might still be something dark lurking on Oenone, something left over from when he’d been Spinel and left his world vulnerable, but if there’d been anything living on Oenone that clung to darkness or light, he would have felt it. “I’ve never heard of there being animals living on a homeworld before. I think it’s just plants.”
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He shook his head. “No. But I heard it move.” He didn’t have to see it, or sense it, to know it was there. His aura sense only worked on senshi and knights and Chaos, not on… this. Whatever it was. “Plants don’t sound like this did. It sounded like an animal.” Or a person, but Nick wrenched his thoughts away from that as hard and as fast as he could. He’d been promised that that was his world. That he didn’t have to share.
“It’s not just plants,” he said. “Although there’s many of those, too.” Nick sat down at the table and gestured for her to do the same. “Do you think it’s because… of the way I was?”
“It’s not just plants,” he said. “Although there’s many of those, too.” Nick sat down at the table and gestured for her to do the same. “Do you think it’s because… of the way I was?”
Tallulah joined him at the table, setting a glass of iced tea in front of him as she sat. “Um,” she said, biting her lip. She’d had a suspicion that it might have been, but now that Nick had brought it up, she wanted to deny, deny, deny. He felt enough guilt over what he’d done as Spinel - things he couldn’t even remember - and she didn’t want to make him worry that he’d corrupted his homeworld on top of that. After all, she had no actual idea how any of that worked.
“I don’t think so?” she said. “But it’s not exactly something I have any first-hand experience with. I could go with you next time, and we could check it out together?”
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He nodded, a little jerkily, and took a sip of his tea. “Thank you,” he said. “I’d like that.” Nick frowned at his plate, and pushed his food around for a minute before starting to spin the noodles around his fork. “I need to bring a light, next time. I think I’d be less worried if I did.” Less terrified, more like. But he didn’t want Tallulah to think of him as weak, so instead he turned his attention to mashing his potatoes up very small.
Tallulah nodded, remembering the unstable floors and myriad rooms of her own moon. “Homeworlds can be a bit spooky,” she said, spearing a potato. “But we’ll figure out what’s up with yours. It’s all part of the job.”
