Wordsworth – Chapter 10

Morning is the time when the Sun awakes, but, as nice as the Sun can be, he's also a bit vain, and thus he demands others wake with him so they can watch him for as long as possible until he retires for the night.

So I am not surprised at ticklish, warm fingers made of gentle rays flitting through my cheeks, poking at my eyelids, and asking me to watch him, because the Sun can be, at times, a bit dim, and he doesn't realize I no longer sleep, I just drift among stories and tales that are sometimes mine and sometimes others.

It is like dreaming, but more interesting, because dreams lack too much even as they rejoice in excess, and so it also beckons me to stay, to turn around and find the next chapter so that a book can be born. But the Sun is as persistent as he's gentle, so I end up opening my eyes, a sigh of regret on my lips.

That is promptly forgotten.

Lisa's scrunched face is right in front of me, her eyes closed in stubborn displeasure as she tries to ignore the Sun's call, as his playful fingers dance over golden hair that seems to glow in places beneath the rays coming through a lazily covered window.

Her arms are warm, around me.

I take a deep breath, maybe to calm myself, but the air tastes of Lisa after a shared night, of the girl who cuddled with me while I was more lost in my stories than I currently am. The scent is sweet, coming from where our bodies meet beneath her blankets.

And, to my shame, I can't help asking myself if it would taste any different if she wasn't wearing her fuzzy gray pajamas, if we had done anything other than sleep.

It's a warm kind of Shame. The one that still lets you wonder, that is neighbors with Temptation, that invites rather than rejects.

I raise a hand still covered by my opera gloves, the ones people wear when they want to watch a book turned into song, and I gently brush Lisa's stray hair off her face, something in the tip of my fingers easing her scrunched face into an easy smile, into lips that capture my eyes, into…

Just in time, I watch up from dry, cracked, inviting lips to eyelids opening up to a new morning, the slit of emerald green shining as much as sunrays over spun gold beneath my fingers.

"Good morning," I say. Because I could say a thousand other things, but I'm not ready for half of them and too awestruck for the other half.

Her arms tighten around me, and her face burrows right above my slight bust and beneath my collarbone as she drags herself across the mattress and toward me.

"Good morning," she mumbles.

And then she shivers, and I close my eyes away from fairytale beauty, and I hug her to me.

Because it's my fault that she does.

***

"Tea?" she asks, mostly as a courtesy.

It's a bit of an adjustment to be with someone for whom so many questions are rhetorical, but she makes the effort not to assume, not to impose. And so, she offers me tea that she knows I'll take, because…

Mostly because of habit, actually. I don't get thirsty, nor hungry, but it's still a relief to be able to feel the old sensations, as unnecessary as they are.

And no, I don't know how that works. Magic, I would say, if I wanted to make Lisa frown.

So I nod and smile, and she does so in turn before pouring me a cup. Then she gets her own expresso cup, pretending she hadn't brewed the pot just for me before even asking, and bites down on her buttered toast.

"You sure you don't want any breakfast?" she manages to get out without having the slate grey countertop of her kitchen splattered with crumbs.

"No, thank you. The tea is plenty enough."

And it is. It smells wonderful, the subtle aroma carrying citric traces that make it all the more appealing. I'm tempted not to drink any and just take in the scent for as long as it wafts off it in warm clouds.

She shrugs, goes back to eating.

And studiously tries to pretend there's nothing wrong.

"Lisa…" I start, setting my cup down with a sigh.

"Everything's fine," she says automatically.

And I raise an eyebrow.

"Really! No issues here! We're just having a late breakfast like two perfectly healthy roommates who just cuddle in bed for no reason other than Platonic support and not at all because of my anxiety flaring up!"

I keep the eyebrow right where it is, and desperately try not to have my eyes widen.

She sighs.

"Tay, can you please… not make a big deal out of it?" she meekly asks.

Lisa doesn't do 'meekly.'

She's bold, brash, even if only to cover up whatever it is she so desperately wants to hide, so for her to act like this…

A stab of guilt goes through my chest, and I stand up, walking around the counter under an apprehensive look.

Then I stand in front of her, the girl who saved me still seated, still having a barely eaten toast in her hand, still looking at me like she would rather be anywhere else than here, having this conversation.

And I take a deep breath.

Because she's worked on it incessantly, and I desperately want it to be over and done, but the fact is that I still need a bit of courage before… Touching.

But that's what heroes do, isn't it? Gather courage.

So I take the last step forward, and I hug her to me, the flash of apprehension passing after a moment, and then I just have a warm body pressed against mine.

And Lisa drops the toast, hugs me, and starts shivering like she did this morning in bed.

"I'm sorry," I tell her, voice as gentle as I can make it as I caress her hair and her back through it.

"You aren't," she protests mulishly.

"Liz… I am. Not about what I did, but about how it affected you. I didn't know."

"You… couldn't have. It's not your fault. It's me that's… wrong."

And that could mean a lot of things. But this is Lisa, and if she ever says she's wrong it most certainly doesn't mean she's wrong about something. No, it means [she] is wrong.

So I hug her tighter.

"That's the biggest lie you've ever told me."

"It... really isn't," she says.

And then, silently, heartbreakingly, starts to cry.

I hold her against me, because I don't know what else to do, and I finally lift her in my arms and carry her to her sofa. All the way, she buries her face on my chest, refusing to meet my eyes.

"Talk to me, Liz," I tell her, hoping I am doing the right thing and that this is better than just letting her break down until she can pretend, once more, that everything's fine.

She shakes her head, her arms around my neck, her body on my lap.

So I go back to caressing her hair, my fingers threading through spun gold that befriends the Sun, and I…

I tell her a story.

That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it?

"There once was a clever fox. The fox liked to insist it be called clever, even though everybody knew foxes always are, because it was a bit vain, but also a bit insecure.

"That's a thing that often happens to clever people: they don't really know whether they are or if they get lucky from time to time. Because we from the outside can see their quick wit and marvel at it, wonder at their schemes and plans, but for them it's all normal. It's what they live with day in and out, and so they always are a bit surprised when someone tells them they aren't normal. They don't know they are really clever unless somebody else tells them they are.

"And so the fox liked to pretend it never doubted, while all the while kept trying to make others tell it how clever it was just so it really knew.

"Most of us do this in one way or another. We like to have others tell us what we are, confirm from the outside what is so hard to see from the inside, but that has the problem of letting them see what isn't there and making you carry it with you.

"That is a trap many fall for, living their lives under false names that they never chose. But that wasn't what happened to the clever fox.

"No, no, what happened was that the fox, while playing at its tricks, met someone who saw it and said: 'Oh fox, how clever you are, would you like to show me more, so I can tell you how much?'

"It hesitated. The fox liked the chance, but not at the tune of another, because it liked being clever, but it also liked being free.

"Or, at least, that's what the fox told itself. Because foxes are clever, tricky, full of wit.

"And excellent liars.

"And so, they are very good at lying to themselves.

"Because, if the fox had only wanted to play at its pranks, to show how much quicker and sharper it was than those that fell for them, then it wouldn't have had any issues with the stranger's proposal. No, the fox would have leaped at it, as it so often leaped at new things that caught its interest.

"But the reason it hesitated was that the fox, even if it tried to pretend otherwise, was a good person.

"It could be meanspirited from time time, cruel in some tricks, careless of whom they may be hurt with it. But that wasn't who the fox was, but just something it did, had done, and would, in time, grow past. Because it was gentle, because it was the kind of fox who would love nothing more than to trick a lost girl into finding a new home. Because the fox itself had been lost for a while, and wanted to have a measure of what it had left behind.

"And so, when it was offered the chance to be clever, to show just how much, to carry out meanspirited pranks in the name of the man who found it… The fox hesitated.

"And the man saw.

"But the man, unknown to the fox, was a hunter, though not the kind who fills wolves' bellies with rocks so they drown in a river. No, the man was the kind of hunter who takes from others, not caring for their suffering.

"And so he took the fox's freedom.

"He took its choice.

"And, worst of all, he took its wit.

"The fox was lost once again, wandering through an unknown forest, his cleverness leashed to a man it didn't like.

"But the Hunter had made a mistake. Because it didn't know the fox. Because it [couldn't] know it.

"Because shadow is the absence of light, and it's very hard to know about the things you lack.

"And then the fox met a lost girl, wandering through the same dark forest, and the Hunter told the fox to use her for its tricks, to carry her with it and make her a part of any meanspirited prank.

"The Hunter was sure the fox would obey, because that's what the Hunter would have done in its place. Because he wouldn't care about hurting a lost girl if she could be useful to him.

"But the fox was kind, gentle. Clever.

"And so it tricked the Hunter, because that's what foxes are supposed to do, and it helped the lost girl find her home, because that's what kindness is supposed to be.

"But then the fox was afraid. Afraid of what the Hunter would do if he realized he had been tricked, and afraid that the girl would leave it, because it had grown to care for her.

"And there was a reason the fox was alone, and the girl didn't know what that reason was, but she knew every time the fox forced itself to smile when it didn't feel like it, every time it pushed her forward on her way to her home, there was something in the fox that strained, something that didn't want to part.

"What the fox didn't know, despite how clever it was, was that the girl never meant to part with the fox.

"That she had been found, saved. Rescued.

"And that, even if none of that had happened, the lost girl liked the fox. She liked its cleverness, and she loved its kindness.

"The fox had stubbornly pushed the girl towards her home, away from the Hunter.

"And the girl turned around and said, 'I think I've found my home. I think it is wherever you are.'

"This could've been the end. In most stories, it would be, because the fox would've broken a curse, and then they would've lived happily ever after. That's how stories work, and how they should work.

"But the Hunter was still out there, still holding the fox's long leash.

"And the girl who had been lost now knew that the fox needed as much help as it had freely given.

"Luckily for the fox, that's also how stories work: deeds are repaid, promises kept, curses broken.

"And bad men vanquished."

Lisa's calmed down, her breathing slow and warm over my chest.

So I lean back, keep cradling her as my back sinks into the soft cushions.

I pretend she's fallen asleep listening to my story and let my mind drift, the flighty thing satisfied for now at having told yet another tale.

"His name's Coil," she says.

I tighten my embrace.

"I will destroy him," I promise.

==================

This work is a repost of one of my first commissions, and one that I'm both grateful for and proud of. It can be found on QQ, SV, and AO3, and, of course, on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true), where the latest chapter will show up a week before it comes out for everyone else. It is currently 33 chapters and 94k words long and approaching its final arc at a good pace, so I hope you'll look forward to learning about Wordsworth's ending.

As I don't have access to Webnovel's "premium" features, the original italics in the text will be conveyed through the use of square brackets. I'm sorry about the inconvenience.

As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true): aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!