why me?

[small_magics]

Isibel spends her last day on the island flying, and then she rejoins her expedition, and packs, and sleeps, and in the dawnlight she gets back on the boat to sail back to the Elven Lands.

She is kept quite occupied with small magics to keep the ship operating smoothly, and also with notebooking - writing quite small, as she brought more than enough notebooks for three weeks but then unexpectedly used many of them to draw and write with the demon and has only half of one left for several days at sea.

They land on the shore of the Elven Lands on schedule, and disembark.

Comments

[small_magics]

"I care about the world. So many people could die. They may have already started dying because I waited to learn to concentrate on things, but I couldn't help that, I don't think I'll be able to work otherwise, whatever work I must do. I might die anyway, if I do nothing. There's no helping it." She doesn't hyperfocus for these sentences; she pushes them out between sobs and miserable sniffling inhalations.

[endragoned]

The demon hugs her some more.

[small_magics]

"I have to," Isibel says in a small voice. "I can't consign so many people to suffer and die just because I will be unhappy."

[endragoned]

"You can," he murmurs. "People do that. Even people who are not demons."

[small_magics]

"Not me," says Isibel. "I can't."

[endragoned]

He sighs, and hugs her.

"I love you," he says. "I don't want you to be unhappy."

[small_magics]

She looks up and meets his eyes. "I will also be unhappy if darkness takes the world," she murmurs, not addressing the first statement. She doesn't know what to do with that. She can't process. She can never process again; she's going to have to make do with some combination of instinct and status quo and Bondmate opinion, and what she has written down. There is not going to be another chance to write herself into books and read her thoughts in plain words. Not with someone watching.

[endragoned]

"If you are sure," he says, "I will take you to my love."

[small_magics]

Isibel bows her head.

"I have to," she whispers.

[endragoned]

He scoops her into his arms and stands, stretching his wings.

[small_magics]

She closes her eyes and focuses on her breath for as long as she can.

When she can't hold it anymore, she's stopped crying. She's just sort of numb.

[endragoned]

By that time, they are in the air, headed for a different part of the island.

The dragon is hunting.

When they land, he is just in the process of scooping a giant turtle out of its shell, his wings spread to catch the sun.

[small_magics]

"I See you," Isibel says softly.

[endragoned]

"Yes," says the dragon.

He looks up from his meal. His eyes are still brilliantly green, greener than grass, greener than leaves. Green like fireworks.

[small_magics]

It's not hard, on a surface level, to just look. She knows what it means, but she's already made her decision about that, and now she can just - stare. They're compelling eyes, they draw her gaze, she feels a bit like someone has dropped her off a cliff and she might wish she could fly or that the cliff hadn't been there but it's not hard to fall.

[endragoned]

The first obvious thing about the bond is that they love her, both of them - that's not always true, with co-Bondmates, but it is true here.

The second is that there are not really three people here. There are two, in three bodies. The demon and the dragon are not at all shy about Isibel seeing into their thoughts, and in the newness of the bond that is still possible. They are one, in a way that dragon and Bonded usually aren't. Two separate experiences of the world, two separate voices, but one unified mind.

And they love her, and they are sorry.

[small_magics]

It's delicious and terrible, like poisoned fruit, she loves them and it's going to kill her and she loves them and she's going to die, because it's better than she imagined and worse than she thought.

She can see why the dragons might have predicted that she'd learn to tolerate the mind-reading. Their presence with her is so benign and tender and if anyone has to read her mind at least it's them, at least it's only this twinned-self who love her so much.

And it's worse. Because she hadn't expected to be able to feel it. She had expected to know she was being watched, to put aside the notebooks, to toss and turn before she could manage to sleep every night, to flinch at odd moments with the memory. She hadn't known that her own self-knowledge would be her window into the process as it happened. But she can feel her thoughts echo as they form, constant sensory confirmation that she's being watched.

She's sorry. She's sorry they have to have her in their heads, when she's going to be a creature of despair and a mechanical unthinking knife of focus by turns. She's sorry she didn't run for the hills and let Liselen chase her till the darkness swallowed up everything. (Or maybe she isn't. She'd have to write, to know for sure, and she can't, she can't, she's being torn open now but that doesn't mean she could hold the blade even if it'd lead to neater cuts.)

[endragoned]

The demon wraps his arms around her and cries.

He doesn't want to hurt her. When he was only his one-self and the other demons hated him violently, this was part of why: because sometimes he sees someone hurting and he doesn't want them to be. And now he can feel it, and it's so much worse, he would die if that would help, but if his both-self died it would kill her too and if only the demon died the dragon would be half a soul forever without him and she would still hurt.

"I'l sleep," the dragon says desperately, "I'll sleep your whole life, if I wake up I'll go to sleep again—my love, my love..."

[small_magics]

Isibel hugs the demon, tightly, tightly, eyes closed. Usually a dragon teaches their Bondmate elfmagery from where it's hidden under the exchange the elves' ancestors made, but there are other Elfmages, she can go back to the Elven Lands, she can learn from them, she can do whatever it is she has to do, but even if the dragon sleeps a thousand years there will still be the demon and that is not how he works, is it? It scarcely matters if it's one of them or both, the problem isn't how many eyes but that things never meant to be exposed are visible at all.

[endragoned]

"I sleep, too," the demon murmurs. "I sleep for days - I slept for a moonturn once. I'll do it as much as I can, my love." And he kisses her forehead, the way he'd kiss the dragon's nose, lightly and lovingly.

[small_magics]

She leans into the embrace. She loves them. If anybody had to read her at least it's them. Maybe she can hold together with the privacy she'll get when they're sleeping. She'll miss them, probably - certainly - but she can live with missing people, even these people. (She thinks. She'd have to write to be sure. Will she be able to do that when they both sleep? They'll still be able to see anything she chances to remember having written but it won't have the immediate sting. Maybe if she can write anyway, around that, she'll be all right.)

She doesn't understand how the reading can be so pervasive. She doesn't feel like she has more attention to spare than she ever did, or as though - outside of hyperfocus - other things are being neglected. But there they are, background hum of love-attention-invasion, like they can't even look away, try though they might. She needs just a moment - she takes a breath and concentrates, lets it out, concentrates, inhale, exhale, and that's all, she just needed a little break, a moment away, where she might not be doing anything productive but she wasn't conscious of being watched at it.

[endragoned]

When her attention returns, her Bondmates are bewildered but relieved. Feeling her focus like that is deeply strange, but at least it doesn't hurt. It's possible not to hurt. That's a start.

[small_magics]

She can't do it for more than an hour and that only when she's focused on something interesting or at least complicated. Magic will probably qualify. She's loved magic all her life. She'll do her best to recover her equanimity, here with them, while the Bond settles - she'll go back to Elven Lands; the boat will be making several trips and she can simply take the next one - she'll find the same teacher who taught her to focus - she'll work on magic. She'll try to figure out what in the world she's supposed to do with it.

[endragoned]

She can fly now, or as close as a wingless creature can get. Either of her Bondmates will carry her anywhere in the world she wants to go.

If she doesn't want to wait for the next boat, she needn't.

[small_magics]

She doesn't think the demon could land among elves and receive a pleasant welcome.

The dragon could.