Chapter Text
Machinery whirrs.
Something clicks, shifts. A boom rocks through the deep, muffled by the water.
She can turn her head if she strains. Floating. Something snaps into place.
Feels like a very old friend has just arrived...
><><
“It’s excessive.”
“How is it excessive?”
Petra leans under the upward arc of Jesse’s blade and brings her own down to stop it. “It’s unrealistic, I mean. You’re not gonna use it in a real fight. Your opponent would—“
Jesse twists her blade in a move Petra can’t block in time, and the wood slams painfully into her side. She grimaces.
“And one for me,” Jesse says. “Again?”
“Don’t do the fucking lunge.”
“Why not?” She readjusts her blade and paces away, assuming the starting position. The way she’s standing tells Petra that she thinks she looks much cooler than she actually does, and it makes her laugh.
Petra pats her bruised hip and backs up a little too. “Because it’s easy to counter. You can’t stop once you start.”
Jesse snorts in disbelief. “I’ll try it right now, watch.”
Petra moves first, both swings countered by Jesse’s blade with the sharp crack of wood on wood. Despite Petra’s strong offense, Jesse manages to clear space, and Petra has to resist the urge to face palm when she sees her body reel back. She waits for Jesse to leap forward, blade curved out in a wide swing, then Petra sweeps her own blade around and blocks once, then goes for Jesse’s side in a blow that mirrors her own.
As Petra predicted, Jesse became locked in her forward motion, unable to counter the strike as it arrived, and her momentum combined with Petra’s force plants her firmly into the ground at Petra’s side.
“What did I tell you,” Petra deadpans over the creaky groan Jesse emits.
Jesse sits up with visible difficulty, peeling herself from the patio. She grips Petra’s arm as it descends to help her up. “Okay, okay,” she grumbles, “I see what you mean now.”
Petra huffs in satisfaction while Jesse pats herself for injuries. Finding none, she picks her blade up from the ground and paces back. Again.
“Jesse, I think we’ve done enough for today.”
“Maybe I just need to be faster,” she says, almost to herself. Petra rolls her eyes. “Maybe my opponent won’t be as smart as you and they won’t see me coming.”
Petra scoffs and backs up anyway. “Compliments aren’t going to win you this next one.”
“Oh yeah?” Teeth flash at her in a grin. Jesse twists her wrist, spinning her blade in a lazy circle. “What will?”
Petra flushes at her tone, then immediately drops her expression. “Definitely not whatever you just did. Just now.”
“What, this?”
She’s tempted to smack the blade from her hands. “Yeah, the spinny-thing. Don’t do that either.”
“You do it, though.”
“I do not!”
“Okay, you used to. I learned it from you.”
“Then there’s a reason I stopped. So stop.”
Jesse pouts and stills her blade, readying for what has to be their tenth round. “It’s flashy, though.”
“Of course it’s flashy.” Petra grins. “I came up with it.”
Jesse leaps at her then, and the crack of their blades is the only sound in the lull of their banter. To Petra’s approval, Jesse doesn’t try that lunge again, the latest in her increasingly strange arsenal of her self-titled “signature moves.” Not one has stuck long enough to really be a staple in her skillset, though, mostly due to Petra’s strong discouragement during each sparring session.
Other than that, however, Jesse proves herself a near-even match for Petra, and almost manages to land a hit a few times before Petra pulls herself from her thoughts. It looks like she’s given up on her big flourishes and instead relies on the basics, tried and true and taught by hers truly.
She’s tired, though, and her swings are getting clumsy. Petra pauses to try to correct her posture (you’re gonna fall, here, stand like this) and is actually taken by surprise when Jesse manages to sweep her legs and send Petra to the ground. The dull point of her blade quivers triumphantly beneath Petra’s chin.
“You know, I think I’m a pretty fast learner,” Jesse pants. How is she breathing so hard and still managing to look so smug? Ugh. “Was that excessive?”
Petra swipes at her forehead. “Yeah, yeah. You forgot something, though.”
“Oh?”
She’s knocked to the ground, blade clattering from her hand. Petra’s launched herself at Jesse’s open, victorious pose and now pins her to the patio, blade at her throat.
“You let your guard down,” Petra says and can’t help the smile. “It was pretty impressive, though.”
Jesse huffs beneath her, then finally smiles back. “Whatever. That’s what, four? Five, for you?”
“Nine, actually.” Petra helps her up again and brushes the terracotta dust from her shirt. “Out of ten.”
“Ugh.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. I did that for you already.”
Jesse laughs and her exhaustion shines through in the sound. “Hey, I got one. I’ll take it.”
Petra’s still grinning. “Seriously, though, that’s enough. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
“No, not tomorrow,” Jesse says, taking both blades to the tiny rack outside the door to the house. They fall with a clatter against the shelf. “Lukas invited us to dinner, and I don’t feel like passing out during that.”
“He did?” Petra follows her into the house, kicking off her boots at the door. “When?”
Jesse leans against the wall in the foyer. “Earlier today. You were out.”
“And you didn’t get me?”
“Sorry. I didn’t feel like getting shot at in the woods at two in the morning.”
“Why was Lukas here at two in the morning?”
“Why were you in the woods?”
Ah. That’s what she was getting at. Petra blinks. “Touché.”
If Jesse wants an actual answer, she doesn’t push for one, just narrows her eyes ever so slightly before turning and disappearing into the kitchen. Petra sighs, half in relief and half because she’s also starting to sag with exhaustion. She was wandering about in the woods instead of sleeping, after all. Hopefully tonight will be better.
Something occurs to her, then, and she traces Jesse’s steps into the kitchen. She’s perched on the counter, eyes trained on the flames in their furnace. Potatoes.
She looks at Petra when she walks in, though. Petra eyes the furnace with some distaste.
“You were also up at two in the morning last night,” she remarks, only half-expecting a reply.
And Jesse is quiet for a moment, but she does eventually respond. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Another nightmare?”
She nods. “The same one.”
Petra’s used to hearing that by now, but it still sends a little chill down her spine. The past few weeks have been especially rough on Jesse and her sleep, and almost every night she reports stumbling into the same dream. Always where she wakes up in a dark, cramped library, and follows something—a light, a sound—to some obscure corner, only to gasp awake before she rounds it. At first, Petra wasn’t all that convinced of the dream’s capacity for terror, but something about it unsettles Jesse enough that she’s often visibly disturbed the day after.
If there’s more she’s refusing to disclose, Petra never pushes. Jesse doesn’t press her when she’s had a restless dream, after all, and these past few days she’s been especially grateful for that.
That’s not something Petra feels like dwelling on, now. She pushes it from her mind.
“Well, maybe it’ll skip tonight,” she attempts consolation, elbowing Jesse in her side and ignoring the ow that she squeaks in reply. “Hopefully Lukas chills out, too.”
A laugh. “I won’t be mad if he comes back. I miss him.”
“Me too,” Petra hums. It’s been a while.
The coals in the furnace crackle, and the two are quiet as their attention is pulled towards the flames, the burnt orange the same color as the setting sun through the window. Petra mulls over tomorrow’s reunion, but eventually her brain circles back around to sleep, and so she heads to bed soon after without ceremony.
Sleep is fitful. This dream is starkly different than the others of late, full of strange sounds and unearthly, mechanical clicking. When Petra blinks awake, she still feels as if she is underwater.
><><
Tonight the sky doesn’t burn the glorious orange of yesterday’s evening, instead settling over the buildings of town with a dusty lavender. It’s washed out from the warm glow of the redstone lamps lining the streets, clean and paved with gravel. It crunches under Jesse’s and Petra’s feet.
They walk their usual path, a route they didn’t think they’d take as often as they did. Living so far from town was meant to be temporary, a liminal space between their old and new ways of living. It quickly became apparent that that little house by the woods on the outskirts of town was their new way of living, though. So they had to become familiar with the path to town, around the woods and across the paved roads along the perimeter. The whole way, the pillars of light radiating from the town’s beacons stand tall, guiding them closer.
Eventually, the gravel roads smooth into even clay and cobblestone, and the buildings along the streets gradually become more crowded on the other side of the city’s walls. Once they’re in range, Petra feels her blood surge with the energy of the beacons. The usual regeneration, and…
And no speed. That’s… weird.
Either way, she rolls her shoulders under her black coat, and at her side Jesse pops her knuckles. If she notices the obvious and strange lack of hastened locomotion, she doesn’t comment. She swivels her head, examining the buildings pressing close around the street.
“What are those for, do you think?” Jesse says, pointing at something in the sky.
Petra looks up and sees enormous strings of banners, spanning from building to building and hanging over the road. The colorful cloth sways in the mild early summer breeze, dyed in assorted, vibrant hues.
“Looks like party decorations,” Petra says after a moment. Really, she doesn’t know, but the people here love their celebrations, so maybe it’s another one of those. She’s never been huge on parties, but apparently everyone else in town is. “Is there something going on?”
“Lukas didn’t say anything about an event when he visited,” Jesse says. “I haven’t heard anything, either.”
They pass under the first garland, and the next is just as colorful with the addition of redstone torches glowing faintly on the wool. Tall oak logs and fence posts support the weight of the banners, creaking just barely. The colors of the banners are different from the first, though, closer to pastels.
Then Petra sees the one hanging in the center, a sky-blue swath of fabric with a glittering, embroidered likeness of the Order’s amulet.
Okay. Makes sense.
They both pause in their tracks, examining the banner. Jesse chews on her lip, an unreadable expression crossing her face.
“Oh,” is all she says after a long moment.
“Oh?”
“It’s been a year. That’s what they’re celebrating.”
Oh.
Petra hums a small noise and it dies quickly in her throat. Has it really been that long? A full year is a long time, and yet not very long at all. Honestly, Petra’s a little puzzled as to how she managed to lose track of time. If it were any other year, this would be about the time she grew much busier, various townspeople more often seeking her and her services out to prepare for the year’s building competition. It was probably this day exactly last year that she started making arrangements to get Lukas that Nether star. And later, made that deal with Ivor…
It makes her uneasy to think about. Her foggy memories of Endercon are mildly disturbing at their best, and occasionally send her into a panic at the worst. She’d spent the next year attempting to purge that day and the following weeks from her mind. At least, most of it. For all her bravado, it turned out incomprehensible horror was hard on even her psyche, and the whole ordeal left her with the weirdest mix of dread and anxiety at the memory. Who would’ve thought.
She can’t help but feel she got the long end of the stick, though. Petra passes a glance at Jesse as they slowly move on. Her face is still twisted in thought, carefully neutral. They’ve never discussed it (too… big to discuss. Where would they start?) but Petra recognized early on that Jesse had taken a weird mental blow, too. If those nightmares were anything to go by, it messed something up in there. But besides that, she’s been operating fine, Petra thinks. Hopes.
Now, she’s weirdly quiet. Her arms hug her body close. Petra gropes for something to say.
“Well, it’s always nice to be celebrated.” Jesse nods but doesn’t respond. “Plus, we’ve got all that other shit under our belts for them to cheer about. It’s not just last year.”
“Yeah,” Jesse mumbles, “just… maybe they don’t have to be so overkill about it.”
Petra frowns. “I don’t like thinking about it either, I just—“
“It’s not that.”
More redstone lamps snap on alongside them, the sun finally sinking behind the forest surrounding the city. “…What’s wrong, Jesse?”
“I know we’re, like, celebrities and all that… and I like being celebrated. It’s great. It reminds me that I’m part of something important.” Jesse bunches her hands into fists. “But then I think about—about the old Order. And what they did with all that attention.”
“I… don’t follow.”
“It was fun at first.” She doesn’t meet Petra’s eyes. Her mouth opens and closes, before finally finishing, “Now sometimes I wish they’d go back to ignoring me.”
That’s definitely new. Petra frowns, turning her words over in her head, trying to puzzle out where this is coming from. She’s never complained about all the fame before. She even said it herself just now, she found it fun. So why…?
“I don’t think that’s really possible,” Petra says, just for a response. “You’re the face of the Order. People practically worship you.”
Jesse sighs heavy. Okay, so that was the wrong thing to say. “I thought you would get it.”
“I don’t. I mean, I want to. Just… what exactly is wrong with it?”
“I feel obnoxious.” Jesse raises her voice, tossing her hands. the words echo around the empty streets. “I feel like my reputation is so much bigger than me. I can’t live up to that, Petra. What’ll happen if I try to? I mean, you saw what Soren did to the Order.”
“That was Soren, Jesse, you are you.”
“I’m not, though! I’m not the me they think I am.” She pauses. “Or something.”
Jesse falls into fuming silence. Petra feels a pang of guilt at her uncertainty of how to comfort her. It just feels out of character.
Maybe there was some merit to her words, though. Soren did go a little off the rails. He basically destroyed everything his Order worked for. Maybe that’s what Jesse’s so afraid of—tearing the group apart from the inside out.
Okay, it’s still kind of stupid in Petra’s eyes. But she does feel like she knows where she’s coming from.
They round a corner, and both their eyes are drawn upward again by the colorful decorations on each building. It really does look great. A fitting look for an anniversary party.
Jesse cranes her neck back, light reflected in her brown eyes. “I’m sorry for yelling,” she says.
“No, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have brushed you off like that.”
Then Jesse smiles, and the tension dissipates like rain in the sun. “Maybe I’m just… freaked out over nothing.”
“Maybe.” Petra feels her muscles relax in one rush. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Sure, you’re famous, but it’s not like the town’s asking you to be their god or something. As long as they’re not building any statues of you, I think you’ll be…”
At her trailing voice and distant expression, Jesse finally looks at Petra. “…What? I’ll be—“
Petra gestures ahead.
“Oh.”
At the base of the Order’s hall, surrounded by beacons, stands the most intricately carved statue Petra’s ever seen. Marbled quartz sets Jesse’s features in a permanent, toothy grin, stone eyes lifeless and expression cocky. One arm balances an enormous stone sword, blade point on the ground beside a Wither skull ground beneath a quartz boot.
The other arm cradles a beacon, inexplicably active, white light piercing the dusk sky. The entire statue sits atop an equally-detailed pedestal, clay and stone bricks and flecks of diorite. Cut flowers and ferns litter the ground around the statue’s feet.
Petra examines the curve of the statue’s face, strikingly true to Jesse’s real visage. She suddenly recognizes the beacon effect that replaced speed—haste.
Beside her, Jesse creeps forward, some dark expression on her soft, non-quartz face. Instead of looking at her likeness, her attention is drawn to a plaque on the edge of the pedestal.
HONORING JESSE
SAVIOR OF BEACONTOWN
LEADER OF THE ORDER OF THE STONE
“That’s…” Petra begins. Jesse backs up like she’s been struck. Her cheeks are stained red.
“Unsettling,” she finishes bitterly.
“I was gonna say impressive, but yeah. It looks really similar, too.”
Jesse sucks in an audible breath. “Is this new?”
Petra picks up a flower from the statue’s base and twirls it around. It hasn’t even begun to wilt, the stem still wet where it was cut. “Has to be. I didn’t see this the last time we were here.”
The beacon above them hums, dispassionate.
“Did they just paint over a regular skull?” Jesse mutters, leaning over the Wither skull under her statue-sona’s boot.
“Right? They went cheap,” a voice says behind them, and Petra whips around.
“Lukas!” she shouts. Jesse looks up.
She crushes him in a hug and he pats her back. She missed him more than she thought—she has to pry herself away to throw a mock-punch at his shoulder.
He throws one back, to no avail. “Hey, guys. It’s been a while.”
“Oh yeah. We were just headed over to meet you.” Petra blinks. “Why are you out here? And not—“
He laughs. “They sent me out to come get you guys.”
Petra looks over at Jesse, but her attention is trained on her own face. “Were we taking too long?”
“Forever.” Lukas follows her gaze and his brow furrows over his long nose. “Looks like you found it.”
“Did you build it?” Petra asks.
“Me? No, of course not. They’ve been working on it this week.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Jesse says, making no move to join them.
“People in town,” Lukas replies, vaguely. “They built it for the festival.”
A festival. Petra makes a mental note to ask about it at dinner. “Weird.”
“Yeah, no kidding. What do you think of it, Jesse?”
She doesn’t answer. Her arms are crossed. Petra slowly turns back to Lukas, suddenly wanting to get a move on as quickly as possible. “So, the others are there, too?” she asks.
Lukas visibly brightens. “Yeah, actually,” he says like even he can’t believe it, “I managed to convince them. They’re waiting on us.”
“That midnight invitation win them over?”
He laughs and starts walking backwards the way he came. “Sorry,” is all he says, but doesn’t elaborate. Petra and a reluctant Jesse trail behind him.
He and Petra do all of the talking on the rest of the walk there, various brief stories and catching-ups. Any attempts at reeling Jesse into the conversation are stonewalled. Petra tosses a concerned glance at her, met with a silent plea for space. Reluctantly, she obliges.
She’d thought maybe there would be more people on this side of town, but it’s just as inexplicably empty as the way in. She asks Lukas.
“Oh, yeah. that’s the thing.” The three stop outside of a building with polished, stained glass windows. “It’s surprisingly quaint. “I kind of picked a bad day to do this. And, uh, people know you’re here.”
The door to the bar sports a banner similar to the one they’d saw at the edge of town.
“Lukas, don’t tell me,” Petra says.
Lukas grimaces. “Don’t get trampled.”
The door opens to a wall of noise, smells, and people. Jeez, it looks like half of the town is in this tiny place. Every head in the room swivels to watch them as they enter, and Petra moves in front of Jesse almost subconsciously.
The flood of praise and greetings rushes into the trio with immense force. Petra eventually gets sick of being polite and returning smiles and places a hand on the hilt of her blade. At that, the shuffling crowd moves to provide them with space.
Lukas weaves them through the crowd to a booth in the corner. Axel and Olivia are already crammed into it, locked in an argument that is quickly exchanged for lively greetings when the other three approach. They squeeze into the bench clearly built for a maximum capacity of two people, Lukas on the inside (I need this window seat like I need air to live) while Petra and Jesse are hopelessly squished together beside him. The latter does not say anything, still, lost in her head somewhere. Petra wants to reach in and pluck her back out.
“It was so late, we didn’t know if you guys were coming,” Olivia says. “Lukas said he’d be right back. That was an hour ago.”
Petra smiles. “Nice to see you too, Olivia. Hey, Axel.”
They exchange polite greetings (ow! Petra, chill, dude) and Petra warms at the familiarity. The five of them are so bad at coordinating, it’s rare that they get to just… be together. But something about it always feels homely. Lukas orders mystery beverages for the group and everything feels easy.
Almost. Jesse’s propped her head on a fist, poking at her menu absently. Her gaze is trained carefully on the crowd in the room. Everyone seems to be very pointedly not observing the Order, expressions meticulously schooled into indifference. Similar that they are, Petra finds herself watching them, too.
“Dude, Lukas!” Axel exclaims. “No wonder we’re here. This place is supposed to have the best steak in town.”
“Mm. Yeah, no thanks,” Petra says, only half-listening. “We’ll pass.”
“We?” Olivia asks.
“Jesse and I.” Someone glances in the direction of the table, briefly locking eyes with Petra. She smiles and waves, and Petra waves back with some confusion.
Olivia and Axel are staring at her when her attention returns. “What?”
“Nothing,” they say in unison, then trade looks with each other.
Olivia starts, “We just didn’t know—“
“—I was just surprised—“ Axel explains.
“—That’s really cool, though, it’s—“
“—They think you’re together,” Lukas finishes mildly.
Petra blinks at each wildly different expression. “…What? No, we just live—“
She’s interrupted by a waiter, and Lukas takes over again. When the waiter looks at Jesse after Petra orders, she just shrugs and says, “The same.”
The waiter’s place is immediately taken by a girl when they walk away. She’s the same one who Petra spotted across the room. Or, maybe she spotted Petra. Either way, she’s about their age and is currently vibrating with barely-contained excitement. One hand grips a book and quill, thrust indeterminately towards the group.
“I’m really sorry to bother you guys,” she says, voice strained to be heard over the din, “but I’m a really big fan and I really want your autographs. It’s a really big honor.”
Axel scans everyone’s face before taking the book. “Uh, sure. Of course.”
“Really?” The girl can’t hand over the quill fast enough, it seems.
Lukas leans into Petra’s shoulder. “Really really,” he whispers, and she has to bite a laugh back.
She signs the book with regular print (hey, it’s been a while since she’s held a quill. Plus, Lukas already took up half the page with his obnoxious authorial signature) and passes it over to Jesse. She pulls her head up from where it’d been tucked in her arms and eyes the book.
Hastily, she scrawls her name and snaps the book shut, thrusting it up into the girl’s hands.
Surprised, the girl blinks and stammers out a thanks, thrown. She recovers enough to give Petra another smile, odd but warm. She returns the gesture, and the girl disappears into the crowd again.
Silence settles over the five of them. Jesse crosses her arms and leans back, and her eyes meet Petra’s for a lightning-brief moment.
“Jesse,” Olivia says, “are you okay?”
“That was kind of rough,” Axel adds.
“She’s having a long night,” Lukas says to her defense.
Jesse grunts. “No, you’re right, that wasn’t super great.” She rests her eyes in her palms. “Not my best behavior.”
“It’s fine, Jesse.” Petra moves her elbows out of the way of the incoming drinks. “I don’t think she cared, honestly.”
“Yeah, she was too busy giving Petra eyes the whole time,” Lukas grins, taking his glass and leaning away from Petra’s assailing elbow. Jesse says nothing, but she does sink in her seat a little farther.
Petra eyes the glass and gives Lukas an askance look.
“What?” he says, eyes wide in feigned innocence. “Like you don’t need it?”
She grunts and chugs the whole, bitter thing in one go.
It’s only after a long, uncomfortable stretch of silence and one round of refills that the atmosphere loosens again. Petra accidentally dumps half her drink on Lukas, and he’s dejectedly patting at the stain with a napkin when Olivia finally thinks of the perfect counter to the asinine argument Axel’s started.
“It would make sense, but they all spawn at the same time,” she insists, nodding in self-agreement, “they can’t be related. There’s not enough time for a zombie to lose enough flesh to be a skeleton.”
Axel snorts. “They still have bones, don’t they? If you took the meat off of one, I’d call that a skeleton.”
“That’s not even—That’s a completely different point than you just said.”
“That’s gross, Axel.” Lukas glares at him, napkin forgotten. “And no, because that’s just a zombie without flesh.”
“I feel like that’s something we should try,” Axel continues, ignoring him.
“No way. Please, I don’t even want to imagine it,” Petra says after draining the last of her glass. Again. “But Axel’s right, that’s a skeleton.”
“No, it’s not!” Lukas pinches the bridge of his nose as Olivia buries her face in her hands with a groan.
“Just imagine it!” Axel mimes peeling away rotting flesh from his arm, and Petra laughs just from the realization that he hasn’t even had anything to drink. He’s just like that. “Gross.”
Petra hears a huff beside her. Jesse’s smiling at Axel’s weird display, albeit only slightly. Her glass has also been doubly-drained.
“Tell them, Jesse,” Petra tries, hopeful.
Jesse looks at her in surprise and turns thoughtful. “It’s not really a skeleton if it can’t shoot a bow,” she says slowly. Petra sinks in relief despite the opposing point. “I think that’s a qualification.”
“Exactly! Finally, someone knows what they’re talking about,” Lukas says a little too eagerly, looking just as relieved as Petra feels. It’s like having the sun in the room now that Jesse’s come around. “In order to be a skeleton, it should be exclusively bones—not originating from meat,” he says before Axel can interrupt, “and shoot a bow.”
Olivia drums her fingers on the table as she thinks. Silverware rattles. “And ride spiders. Ever see a zombie do that?”
“Baby zombies,” Jesse points out.
“They ride chickens,” Petra corrects.
“Fuck.” Everyone laughs as Jesse smacks her forehead.
It’s then that their food finally arrives, the waiter visibly frazzled by the enormous crowd in the building. They’ve pressed close enough to the table that the waiter has to fight in and out of the wall of bodies, depositing their plates before getting swallowed again. Petra glares at the only vegetarian item the menu had available—a single, dry, cold baked potato.
Still, she feels the kind of empathy for inanimate objects that only three glasses can draw out of her, so she resolves to not hurt the potato’s feelings and choke it down. Jesse pokes at her own plate, the mirror of Petra’s.
“How’s the steak, Axel?” Lukas asks, waving his spoon.
Axel chews slowly. “It’s okay,” he mumbles, disappointment dripping from his voice. Olivia laughs at that, loud, her dark skin flushed even darker and warmer. Maybe three refills was a bad idea, Petra thinks. She can feel the furious warmth in her own face.
Only Jesse appears mostly unaffected, if a bit more fidgety than usual. A hand taps against her thigh. Her silence has returned, less icy than before and satisfaction blooms in Petra’s chest. She reaches down and stills Jesse’s hand with her own. Unthinking.
Jesse blinks at her, but doesn’t move. Her eyes are round and soft, like a calf’s. Deep brown.
“Petra?” someone says. She quickly reverses course, reeling back as best she can when crammed into the booth like this. The moment passes without further comment, but she sneaks another look at Jesse and feels only slightly disappointed when she sees her eyes are back on her food.
“Petra,” Lukas says again, “are you gonna be back in town soon?”
She chews a piece of potato deliberately, head sloshing like a bottle of water. “Maybe. No. We’re not coming back for a bit. Probably.”
“Really?” Olivia pouts. “The festival’s in a few days. It’s gonna be a big deal.”
Oh yeah. “The fuck is the festival?” Petra inquires.
“You saw all the decorations,” Axel says. “They’re throwing this really big thing for us. Well, mostly for Jesse. They even built that statue.”
“That thing is crazy!” Olivia says, words overemphasized and blended. “I couldn’t even figure out how they got the beacon to light. And the detail? I’m no builder, but that looks hard.”
“Very,” Lukas agrees, “very hard. Would’ve taken them days without that—the thing.”
“Haste.”
“Thank you.”
Jesse places a hand on Petra’s shoulder, and she immediately knows it’s time to go. She stands and waves down the waiter.
“Woah, you’re leaving?” Axel says while Olivia complains, “Don’t leave me with these guys.”
“You guys okay?” Lukas asks, face abruptly clear and concerned.
Petra glances at Jesse, who honestly looks a little sick. “It’s, um. Past her bedtime.”
“I’ll walk you out,” he says, and the others mumble something about going too. The waiter approaches, squeezing through the wall of people.
Petra pulls out what she hopes is enough to pay for the whole group, refills and all. “Thank you,” she says, and that should be the end of it, but…
“Oh, no worries,” the waiter blinks like Petra’s done something odd. “It’s on the house.”
She looks at the group. “… Really?”
The waiter nods excitedly. “Of course. So sorry for the crowd, we really tried to control them. We’re all so happy you’re here.”
They grin an entirely fake smile at her, and bustle off without a second glance at Petra’s outstretched payment. As if on cue, the crowd shuffles and tosses looks at the group, noticing the commotion. Nervous to approach, yet eyeing the heroes hungrily.
“Yep, time to go,” Petra says, and Lukas nods.
Petra cuts through the crowd at the front this time, and they manage to make it through mostly unbothered. They do have to spare the occasional heroic smile or handshake or high-five, but you know. Heroes. Petra grins, she can’t help it. The girl from before stands at the door and waves furiously at the exiting trio, and Jesse gives her a small apology.
“It’s okay, really,” she dismisses, but her attention is entirely on Petra. It’s a little odd, okay. But still, she’s a fan. Forgivable.
Finally, safely outside.
“You okay?” Petra says to Jesse. The latter rubs her arms in the night breeze.
“M’ fine,” she shivers. Petra’s taking off her coat before she can think about it. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
Confused, Lukas looks at Petra. She raises a brow.
Still, they set off, the cool air refreshing on Petra’s burning skin. Each step is heavy. She can almost hear her bed calling her name.
Lukas nods like he hears her thoughts. “I’m exhausted. Thanks for coming guys, it means a lot.”
“Of course.” Petra’s boots scuff against the stones on the street, grounding. “Don’t come over at two in the morning, again. Sleep, dude.”
He laughs. “I’ll try. I haven’t really been doing that.”
“What, sleeping?”
“Yeah, it’s weird,” he continues, and he almost sounds sober—voice clear and measured. “Haven’t slept at all the past few nights. Insomnia or something.”
“Weird,” Petra agrees. She gets it. Hence, the woods.
The rest of the walk is silent, Jesse still supernaturally quiet and bundled in Petra’s coat. Petra tosses a glance back towards the beacons and the statue, now obscured by buildings. A chill runs down her spine without reason.
Lukas sticks with them until the house appears, and even then he lingers by the door and compliments the assorted weaponry on their patio. Jesse heads inside without delay, and Petra makes to follow her before Lukas stops her.
She looks at him, his face partly obscured in shadow.
“Can I talk to you?” he says.
><><
They find themselves back in town, retracing their steps through the streets. They’re not as hauntingly empty, now, though it is getting late. Those who are out and about in the streets quickly shut themselves into buildings. Now, most shops and restaurants are closed, lights off behind their glass panes. The only light in the streets comes from the redstone lamps.
Petra shifts, unable to stand the silence much longer. “So, what’s up?”
Lukas grimaces. “Look, I know neither of us are really sober, right now, but—“
“Flattered, but the answer is no.”
That makes him laugh. “You know I’m not asking that, jeez.” He shakes his head.
Petra smiles. “What’s going on?”
A light clicks off inside a building. Lukas turns to look. “Two things, actually. I wanted—“ He pauses, then exhales. Long and slow. “You know what time of year it is, right?”
Her stomach churns. “Yeah. Of course. Kinda hard to forget.”
They look up at the garlands overhead. The likeness of the amulet sways in the breeze.
“It’s messing with you too, huh?”
She nods and sets her jaw.
“I don’t know how I feel about it,” he continues. The breeze tosses his hair around. “It feels like—like it’s happening all over again. It’s so vivid to me. I tried really hard to forget, but I still feel afraid.”
“Is there a reason you’re bringing it up?” Petra attempts a playful tone, but it comes out exasperated.
Lukas just shrugs, used to her as he is. “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just me.”
They cross a block in silence.
“It’s not,” Petra says quietly. Lukas nods. “It feels so stupid. I think Jesse’s feeling it, too.”
“I’m worried about her the most, I think,” he says. “She didn’t seem… fine, today.”
Petra snorts. “That’s an understatement.”
“So that wasn’t just me, either. I got the feeling she really didn’t want to be there.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t just dinner,” she attempts reassurance. “She was weird before then, too. The decorations and shit on the way in… and that statue didn’t help, either.”
They round the corner like before, and the glimmering thing grins at them from the distance. Cold. Oddly beautiful. “I kind of thought she’d react differently.”
“How so?”
“More proud, I guess. Maybe excited. You know how she is.”
Petra nods. She of all people knows exactly how Jesse is. “Yeah, it was… we had this whole talk. She was really put off by it. I didn’t get it, either.”
“I mean, she has grown a lot,” Lukas says. “Last year, maybe she’d have been pumped. I don’t know, maybe she’s changed enough since then.”
“Yeah.” Petra feels a prick of warmth in her alcohol-pervaded gut. “She has. Good thing, too.”
Lukas laughs again. “Sure. Come on, you’ve always liked her. Even at Endercon.”
Dread and affection mix unpleasantly in Petra’s gut at that. “No way. Endercon-Jesse is completely different from now-Jesse. She was way different when we were kids, too. I’m just glad she grew up so fast,” she adds. “We needed someone like her.”
Lukas doesn’t respond. When Petra looks, he’s studying her face. “What?” she says.
“My second thing.” He slows as they approach the statue. It looms over them in the darkness, the beacon’s faint glow throwing an unearthly light over Jesse’s quartz features.
“Which is…?” Petra circles around him to sit on the pedestal, brushing flowers out of the way. The plaque is cold against her legs. Lukas sits beside her after a moment, hands clasped and eyes somewhere in the distance.
“You’re not in danger,” he finally says. When his gaze turns on her, it’s full of some emotion she can’t place. “You know that, right?”
Out of everything she was expecting, that was not even on the list. “Huh?” she grunts eloquently.
“I don’t know if you’re waiting for something, or if you’re worried—but you need to just drop it,” he says. His tone is completely serious despite speaking what Petra thinks is nonsensical bullshit. “Just go ahead. You’re not gonna tear us apart.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying you’re not gonna jeopardize the team like you might before.” Lukas blows on his hands to warm them. It’s not even that cold. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting, Petra.”
All she wants is to know what the hell he’s talking about. Still, something in his words strikes a chord within her, and she finds she can’t hold his gaze. She thinks about the woods, stumbling in the middle of the night.
“Dunno what you mean,” she finally says. A fitting reply, if you ask her. The safest one.
He rolls his eyes. “Come on, Petra. It’s getting weird, even for you. I know you like bottling things up, but it’s not getting you anywhere.”
“Did you seriously drag me out here to therapize me?”
She can’t help it, she’s pissed. Inebriated that she is, she feels her frustration bubble white-hot, threatening to boil over. A deep breath places the lid on it. Lukas watches her. He knows what he’s doing. What the hell is he doing? She doesn’t even know. She should be home right now, asleep…
“I didn’t,” Lukas says carefully, “I dragged you out here because I actually care about you. A lot. And so does—“
A shriek pierces the air. The two launch from the pedestal and draw their weapons in sync, backs to each other and eyes on the empty streets. The scrape of metal echoes off the dark buildings, then everything goes deathly silent again.
“… See anyone?” Lukas whispers.
Petra bites her cheek, hefting her blade. “No. What kind of—“
Another cry. She claps a hand over her ear at the high-pitched wail. Up. It came from the sky.
She and Lukas look up to see a dark, wriggling cloud, suspended just above the statue. The mass circles around the beam from the beacon.
“The hell?” they say in unison.
Part of the cloud breaks away and dives, and Petra’s swinging before she realizes it’s not a cloud at all.
Her blade collides with the leathery wing of a phantom, earning another screech. The creature rips itself away from the blade and struggles to gain altitude. An arrow whizzes past Petra’s ear and sinks into the phantom, and it puffs into the Void with a final wail.
Then all at once, the cyclone of phantoms ceases its spinning, and their formation breaks. Petra and Lukas both ready for action as they dive—
And land gingerly on the white marble of the statue. All of them. Like a gaggle of fucked-up birds.
There’s the occasional flap of wings and the low hum from the beacon, but otherwise, the town falls silent again. Petra slowly lowers her blade, scowling at at least a dozen pairs of unholy green eyes. There’s a creak as Lukas relaxes his bow.
They look at each other.
“Home?” Lukas says.
“Home.”
><><
Petra thought she was perfectly silent, creeping through the door after a hushed goodnight to Lukas and making her slow way to her bed. She must’ve made more noise than she thought, though, unheard over the deafening pound of her growing headache, because despite her best efforts, Jesse’s sitting up in bed, watching her close the door behind her.
She says nothing as Petra changes and crawls into the other bed in the room, sinking into the mattress with a relieved sigh. When she glances at her again, she can barely make out her bunched-up silhouette, knees pulled to her chin.
“Night?” Petra whispers.
“Who is she?” Jesse asks at regular volume. Her voice cuts sharp.
Petra blinks in surprise and pushes herself up on her elbows. “Who?”
“That girl from before,” she continues. Petra hears her shuffle slightly. “The one who liked you.” Her frown is audible.
It takes Petra’s cloudy, tired brain a moment to understand. “Oh—oh, no,” she laughs, “I was with Lukas, just now, I wasn’t—I don’t know her.”
After a pause, Jesse exhales slowly. “Oh. Okay.”
“You thought I ran off with some random girl?”
“Maybe. She did ‘really’ want that autograph.”
They both chuckle. Though she’s tired, Petra draws herself up to sit too. Something about Jesse’s tone lingers in her brain, but she’s not in any state of mind to analyze that now. She stares at Jesse’s dark form across the room.
“Did I wake you up?” Petra says. Jesse’s bed creaks.
“No, I’ve been up.” She yawns. “I had this bizarre dream.”
“The library one?”
“Different,” she states. “I can tell you about it tomorrow.”
“No, now I wanna know. Was it a nightmare?”
Petra just knows Jesse’s shaking her head contemplatively. “I don’t know. It was so weird, like a lucid dream or something. It was where I was back at that statue, and there was this swarm of phantoms.” Her arms gesture in the dark. “All circling above it. They landed on the statue and were just… staring at me.”
Petra stares at her.
“It sounds kind of dumb out loud,” Jesse continues, mumbling. “Something about it was—“
“Jesse.”
“What?”
She can barely contain herself. “You’re not gonna fucking believe this.”