|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 10:57 am
Know that you are not alone. And find me, if you want to talk to someone. I’ll listen.
Katie wasn't sure what to think of the letter that just appeared on her desk one day, much as the gilded ball had the year before. It was more of that magical destiny stuff, fighting monsters and saving little elven girls and running with gladiators. It was finding darkness in alleyways and being unable to push it away, no matter how your own light flickered. It was Chauvet, who received a very official-sounding letter from a Knight of the Cosmos because she was a part of their world, white-and-gold and effervescent and effortless.
It was not necessarily for Katie Catigern, who had been changing some bandaids on one of her knees when the letter arrived. But it was Katie who read the letter, who felt a strange stirring in her chest like belonging, and it was Katie who made the decision that she wanted to see what it meant, to be a Knight of the Cosmos and have the power to bestow magical destiny on others in the course of a single message.
She waited for a Monday evening after practice was over, and took the detour to Fishtown Park, parking her mom van on the end opposite the gazebo so she would have to walk and collect the butterflies in her stomach. She didn't power up, but in her hand she carried the ball that made her Chauvet as well as the letter she'd received, as if these might grant her proof or safe passage with the sun rapidly setting. Katie was all at once a dance of excitement and nerves--this Knight was Cosmos, which meant they were allies, or were supposed to be friends, or at the very least on the same team. But what if this Hvergelmir was mean, or a solo operator, or disappointed in her for taking so long to reach out? The letter itself was proof to the contrary, but Katie's imagination was a wild thing, and it spun a hundred wicked stories with each and every step.
Katie stalled just outside of the gazebo, not quite able to see who might be sitting there. She sighed, tucked the ball in the front pocket of her hoodie so that she could re-tie the messy bun of orange that topped her head, and then with a shaky nod to herself, she started up with her approach again. "Hey, umm, hello?" she called out, leaning on the outer banister of the gazebo while she glanced around for the sight of a six-pointed star. "I, uhh, I got your note."
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 8:36 am
It was only the second night of her new vigils, but so far, Hvergelmir had had no one. She wondered at the possible reasons for it: perhaps people who were interested didn't want to seem too rushed, or it wasn't easy to just schedule time. Perhaps there wasn't as much want, or need, as she'd thought there might be. Or perhaps it was simply that no one wanted to talk to her in particular. After all, she was no one's close teammate. Few people had ever fought beside her in battle -- she didn't fight -- and she avoided patrolling with companions often, for fear of putting them at risk. Perhaps, like Thraen, she was not the right person to build a community. Perhaps the people on her own side didn't trust her, or simply couldn't see her as truly sharing their struggles. Kairatos, she'd always thought, would be a better leader of people. He had been, in that other lifetime they'd all dreamed -- because he fought with them, he bled with them, he raged for their suffering and their deaths. People needed a hero among them, not behind them. She was not that sort of person. Babylon, too, had a gift with people, and Chariklo. They were vibrant, the sort of people who were enthusiastic, fierce friends that drew people to them. they were loved by people who fought with them. They were trusted, reliable, dauntless. Hvergelmir's position made her ill suited for that. She might make a decent martyr someday -- but a bloodied shirt to be rallied around was not the same as a proud banner to rally behind. She did her work alone. Maybe that made her difficult to trust. Or maybe not. Hvergelmir heard the sound of approaching footsteps . . . . . . but no aura, she realized. That could be a Negaverse agent with a cat, her nervous heart told her. Or a random bystander, someone out for an ill-advised stroll. Maybe a police officer on a solo beat (were there any officers left in Destiny City who were still that foolish?). She wasn't expecting the young woman in the hoodie, approaching her decisively. Not quite. "My note?" she inquired carefully, hands folded in her lap. She kept her thumb hovering just over her summons ring, in case she needed to make a quick escape.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 10:49 pm
God, Hvergelmir was beautiful.
Katie took a moment at the edge of the gazebo to be speechless, because what else was her poor gay heart to do? This woman was a vision of heaven, one just vaguely familiar enough to make her pulse stutter in her chest, and they'd made eye contact, and sure enough, there was the white and gold and glitz just like she'd been expecting. She knew then that she had to be in the right place, even if the glimmering knight before her seemed to lack interest in her presence.
"Yeah, um, there was a letter that I got, umm, from...my ball?" Katie started to lift her hand to show her the piece of paper in particular, but stopped herself when she realized that the other woman was far enough away that she wouldn't be able to read the contents anyway. "You know what, lemme just show you--" She cut herself off, shaking the little starred ball from side to side, and then up and down. Katie had never needed to call on Chauvet when something wasn't imminently happening, and generally speaking it something about the adrenaline rush that brought on the white gown, the rush of power. Without the threat of danger to prompt her, she uselessly dribbled the ball on the ground twice, trying to think of the magic words to prove herself to this star-clad goddess.
"Sorry," she groaned, tapping the ball against her head just in case. "This doesn't normally--ugh, Christ, this is so embarassing--" Katie gave a long stare at the ball in her hands, her expression as withering as she could muster for an inanimate object, and then she tossed it down once more. The third time seemed to be the charm--when the ball struck the gazebo floor, it flashed a brilliant white-gold, bouncing effortlessly back up into a gloved hand. Chauvet looked up with a triumphant grin, struck by how something in her transformation made Hvergelmir even more effervescent, the air around her shimmering like an overlay of stars.
"But yeah, you sent a message about meeting in Fishtown Park? And it said you were a Knight of the Cosmos, and I'm a...Page of Cosmos?" She hadn't ever said it out loud, but it sounded right, so she nodded in affirmation, gesturing vaguely down at her dress as proof. "And so I thought, hey, that makes us on the same team probably, and if you're here then all of this is probably not a dream, and, well, you're here, so..." She let her voice drift off, rubbing sheepishly at the back of her arm with her free hand.
"I'm Chauvet, by the way," she added, when she felt words return to her brain. "Have you really been fighting monsters for five years?" It was mind boggling to consider that any threat like treebeard or the crocodile ooze thing had been allowed to continue for five years, but then again, there had to be a reason the rent in Destiny City was notoriously cheap.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 11:21 am
Hvergelmir smiled, charmed. The other girl was only a Page, newly minted, but more than that -- she was a Page of the Cosmos. They were from the same order. Kith and kin, which felt rarer than she knew it must be. She'd met Cosmos pages here and there -- but so few that had ever made it to knights, that she'd seen. Some days it felt like a lonely calling, serving the stars. "It's not a dream," she agreed warmly. "I'm here, and so are you." Her smile faltered and fell when Chauvet offered her name. "I . . . Chauvet," she stammered. "I didn't realize. Yes, err, five years. I'm sorry, I -- I knew your predecessor. Briefly." Her voice was soft. "She was very young. And very brave."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 11:23 am
It was real. It was all real, this large cosmic tapestry that had at some point chosen to pluck Katie up and make her something more, something effervescent and light and magical, and so much of it was shrouded in mystery but so, so close to discovery that she found herself filled with the warmth of determination. The world was richer and grander than she'd ever expected, and she was seeing it more every day.
But Hvergelmir's expression faded and Chauvet's mood stuttered in time, wondering if she'd done something wrong. "Predecessor?" Chauvet had long since assumed that knighthood was something unique to the person, the way Superman was Clark Kent and vice versa. Could there be a Chauvet without Katie, even though the name hummed behind her tongue every time she became a page? Chauvet, Page of Cosmos. It was who she was. Could she imagine someone else wearing her name? It was as strange an idea as trying to think of another Katie Catigern, and it tugged at her sense of self and identity.
"I...didn't know that was a thing," Chauvet murmured, her eyebrows knotting. Is that the only reason the ball came to her? Was she just a second string for when someone else retired? She caught the tone of Hvergelmir's voice, but elected to ignore it, because that meant someone was dead, and knighthood wasn't that serious sort of business, it was fighting monsters and being badass and if they weren't all functionally immortal than Chauvet's stomach was going to turn. The world was suddenly bigger, but in a way Chauvet liked less.
"Are there a bunch of us? Chauvets, I mean," she asked, scuffing her heel against the wooden deck of the pagoda. This moment was starting to feel much less special than she'd originally planned. "I mean, like, I don't want to assume, but the ball didn't really come with an instruction manual or anything. It's all kind of just, um, learn as you go."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
