WHO Blue Sargent and Essek Widogast WHERE A not terribly private room in the Outpost WHEN After the announcement of the plan to travel to the past (2033) WHAT Blue lodges her formal and valid complaints about The Plan to Essek, who listens and offers awkward comfort. WARNINGS Discussion of death and loss.
Anger burned at the back of Blue's throat. This was not a new feeling, but it was one she thought she was good at swallowing down over the years. Anger usually meant pain, and pain usually meant grief, and her grief had—despite all her attempts—had not subsided since Gansey's death. She had learned to live alongside it, to go through the motions when the days were too difficult to bear. Her grief had changed her, and she wondered if Gansey ever saw her now, would he believe she was the same person? Was she the same person?
Now she didn't have to wonder. Now there was a very real chance that a version of Gansey, young and unafraid of the world he had been stripped from, might come here, and Blue thought she might scream with the indignity of it. Bringing any of them here felt like digging up a grave, rupturing the peace of their death—Gansey had been buried under the birch tree on the Barns property, and that was where he had been for years. And even that had become more difficult to get to over the years. She wanted to keep the memory and space untroubled and safe.
But the anger was there too, as the wizards outlined the final aspects of the plans they had all worked toward since last year. As they forewarned of the names that the Prigany psychic had seen in a rare vision. Blue had seethed in the corner, arms folded tightly against her body, boring holes straight through Essek Widogast until the group broke apart, and those who needed to yell and argue about this aspect of the plan finished their yelling and arguing.
Ronan had stormed off, and Blue didn't have the wherewithal to stop him and to be rational for a moment. Their reasonable better halves hadn't been in the picture for some time, and Blue was a poor substitute to tell him to calm down. She wasn't calm; she was furious.
Blue followed behind the crowd until Essek had gone into one of the small rooms off the main communal space in the Outpost. She ripped back the curtain acting as a door and closed it as if could afford them privacy. Sound carried in the Outpost. Nothing was a secret.
"He's going to say yes, because he always said yes to an adventure. He's going to think this is a slightly more dangerous hike in the woods and it's going to get him killed again," Blue said, in lieu of a hello. She was not giving pleasantries to Essek.
Though not skilled with diving the future in the same way that their Prigany psychic contact might have been, Essek had known this conversation was coming the moment he had read through the names of those he and Caleb would be fetching from the future.
Essek was, he knew, insurmountably lucky in comparison to many of the other Outlanders. Though the two of them were missing a couple of body parts between them, he still had his husband. They had their children, both the now more or less grown bird children and their younger half-drow brother. Their lives looked very different than they had during those early years, but it didn't change the fact that when he laid down to trance at night, it was with Caleb beside him and Kir, Kiri, and Luka nearby. He was lucky and he would never take that fact for granted, knowing it could change in an instant; he had seen it happen to too many of his friends to not acknowledge that.
Blue was one of those friends, of course. His heart had ached for her when the news of Gansey's fate had arrived, aching also for himself and his lost friend. This plan would work. He had to believe that it would, with what little frayed optimism he had left, but it very much sucked, for lack of a better word, that it might have to happen off the back of his very good friend's pain.
"I know he will say yes." Essek had aimed for a cool and collected tone, but it came out more resigned. He turned, pinning Blue with the gaze of his remaining eye, and sighed. "This is a cruel plan to many still here. I do not believe any of us like it, truly." It was desperation that had led them to this moment, he thought.
Blue did not buy into that cool, aloof drow bullshit. She had been Essek's friend for too long to ever let it bother her, but right now she didn't feel particularly friendly toward him. A more sensible version of Blue might have said that it was her emotions speaking and that Essek was trapped in the same unfair series of events that led them to this conversation, but that version of her had been dead for a long time. Buried right there alongside Gansey at the Barns.
"And that's it? I'm not going to like it, too bad?" Blue asked, her voice rising higher as her anger slipped out. She had wanted to keep it tapped down, but it was so easy to unleash it at the closest person, who happened to be Essek. "What happens if they come back from the past, and he gets killed again because he's curious or he can't help but summon a spirit or—"
Oh, cracked her, just a little bit. She had gotten so much better at keeping herself together, but Gansey always made something impossibly painful stab into her side. Having him die again would be torture. Having something where she couldn't stop the love of her life from disappearing would shred the last bits of resolve she clung to. She took a quick breath, then another. Blue was absolutely not going to cry, she was angry. She was supposed to be angry.
"What are you even going to say to them? 'You won't cause a paradox in the future because you're dead, welcome!'" Blue said, throwing her hands up in the air, sharp with bitterness. "If he doesn't want to come you can't force him, if he knows he might not be alive, he might be practical for once."
"None of them will be forced to come," Essek immediately responded, slicing a hand through the air in what might have been a dismissive gesture were it not for the vehemence in his tone betraying how important that actually was to him. Even if the psychic had given them those names, preserving the agency of these people was important to him, too. Yes, these people were needed and he had to hope that they would help, but it was undoubtedly complicated.
"I also do not want them to feel obligated, though I hardly know how to approach any of this without making it feel such a way. We are surrounded by many, ah... heroes." Essek still struggled with counting him among such a title, all these years later. "I will need to speak with Caleb further to devise a plan, of sorts. He has always been better at talking to people than me."
Not necessarily true; they were better together at such things, in Essek's opinion, which was just one of many reasons he was glad that it was the two of them diving into this sort of unknown. Between Caleb's unique brand of charisma and Essek's courtly habits that not even ten years in Vallo could make him forget, they would manage. It was going to be difficult, but--well. What about the last several years hadn't?
Essek breathed out another long sigh, keeping his gaze on his friend. "Blue, you are one of my dearest friends," he started. He wanted to say something comforting or something to defend himself or literally anything that might make this situation better for her, but all of that felt so far out of his grasp. Instead, he just said the truth. "And I am sorry this is being asked of you. I truly am."
There should have been relief in Essek telling her they wouldn't be forced. But regardless Blue knew Gansey wouldn't turn down an adventure. He was a hero in his own right, despite the many times he had dismissed the possibility. His heroics had been the reason he died in the first place. Blue knew how much that tore away at the rest of Barns, that in the end he had died for others and himself. Some stupid part of Blue had wanted it not to stick, for Gansey to beat death yet again despite all odds, but some things were past the moments of delusion.
She sucked in a sharp breath. Blue knew that Essek was struggling with this in different ways, and she shouldn't take her frustrations out on him. She tried for something gentler, but it still sounded sharp and aggrieved. "It's not being asked of me, no one asked me," Blue said, corrected really. "It's just happening. There's nothing I can do because this is our best shot, right? That's what everyone else who isn't upset believes. Something to hope for and not this shitshow we're stuck in right now."
Blue wasn't sure how she had survived this long. A sense of responsibility to Gansey after he died to keep everyone from spiraling, probably. But it had gotten difficult when Adam went next, not dead but something just as horrible. Matthew had become a different person, a shell of himself, and Ronan's anger at the world had nearly exploded if not for Nora. She couldn't guess if him coming back would be a bandaid on their wound or just rip it further open.
"I don't know if I'm ready to see him," was all that Blue could manage. What she meant to say, but couldn't voice, I'm scared to see him.
"Asked is not the right word for it, you are right," Essek conceded, because it was a fair point. "Expected of you, I suppose, is more apt."
He said it not due to some know-it-all impulse that led him to discussing semantics, but instead just an attempt of showing that he believed that Blue could be upset--should be upset. This was, they all knew, their final true shot. If this ended up not working, their already dwindling hope of a better world was almost guaranteed to flicker out. Knowing that didn't make any of this easier, though. Blue had already been through so much, Essek was well aware of that, and this was just the expectation of her to give more, to allow this to happen, and he hated it.
Once upon a time, many years ago and before he even dropped into Vallo, Essek would have been someone who dismissed such feelings, if he had them at all. The version of himself that had stolen two Luxon beacons believed in sacrifice for the greater good, no matter the cost. Now, though, Essek just wanted to protect his friends, in whatever capacity he could. This felt very much like failing at that.
His feelings weren't important right now, though. "I would not expect you to be," Essek admitted, taking a step closer to Blue--a show of trust, if he ever expressed one, given that he knew she always had several knives on her at any given time. "And I cannot begin to imagine what this feels like for you, in any way."
"It's fucked up, that's what it feels like. If you want to start there," Blue said, but it lost all her heat. She knew that while the pain of loss was shared by multiple people throughout the years, there was an acuteness to hers that would never subside. Much in the same way it wouldn't in Ronan. Gansey had saved them so many times—physically, mentally, emotionally, existentially—that being unable to reciprocate had haunted her on top of her grief.
Blue pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, like she could somehow keep the crying at bay. She couldn't remember the last time she did, but she didn't want to in front of Essek. She spent so long building up her tough exterior—a necessity in the apocalyptic magical future—that if she let it drop now, it would be for nothing. She could have allowed herself to cry more, and she didn't want to have regrets about compartmentalizing her mourning in order to survive.
She was quiet, considering, before dropping her hands and asking, "And this is our last chance, right?" Blue stepped in closer to Essek, almost like she was about to shove him. Or stab him. It all looked the same to her. "If he's here, along with all the others, we might make it out of this hell hole. I need you to tell me that it's worth it. All of this—" Blue gestured at herself then the air around her head, as if to encompass her feelings, the world, everything. "Could be over because there is no other way than this."
Blue pointed to the doorway behind her where they had just come from the meeting. "I know that's what you told them, but I'm not everyone else."
"You are one of my best friends, Blue." It was true, even if Essek didn't always voice such thoughts as emotions still were not his strongest suit. But Blue had wedged her way into Essek's life in a way he thought was pretty akin to the Mighty Nein--in fact, she had changed him in ways similar to the Mighty Nein, too. All of that meant that, when Essek tipped his head to the side and said, "I would not lie to you," it was as sincere a statement as someone like him could make.
The disclaimer out of the way, though, Essek deflated, just a bit. "I do think this is our last chance. If this does not work, I--well, I am sure there are many that would fight as long as they could, but if this does not work? If we are not successful, who is to say what Interitus might do if left unchecked during the concurrence. Likewise, we have to take advantage of the concurrence ourselves, just to get all of the help we can get."
All of the help included those from the past, of course; it was a necessary part of the plan, their numbers so severely dwindled.
"I do not put a lot of stock in belief in the impossible," Essek continued. Despite his field of study, it had never sat well to dwell on impossibilities, not when anything could be possible. "And I truly do believe it is possible and that this is our best chance."
An overwhelming sense of knowing came over Blue —she didn't need to be told that she was one of Essek's best friends, and she didn't need to know that he wouldn't lie to her because of it, but, but. The world was a mess, her life was a shitshow, she barely could manage getting out of bed and hoping for the best, because hope felt like bullshit, but this was somehow enough. To know that she still had people, even after all her losses. Essek was one of them, and she needed to cling to his clinical optimism even if it sounded just like stating a fact.
Blue exhaled, long and hard. She hated when other people were right, and she didn't want to admit it. Not when everything about her felt scraped raw from the inside. What was a little bit more?
"There was a saying in my house," Blue started to say, apropos of nothing. She was looking past Essek now, at some spot on the wall, a crystalline rock formation. She thought she had all the new ones in the Outpost memorized, but sometimes things surprised her. "Fate is a weighty word. I don't believe in it, not really. But Gansey and I, that was fate. Meeting him was fate. There was something about stupid curses, and killing with a kiss and soulmates, and Gansey was all of it. All of it came true. And I didn't believe in it, that was impossible."
Her face felt wet, and Blue immediately slapped a hand to her cheeks to stop the tears. She was so worried about not crying that it was coming freely now. Blue wondered why she even bothered to stop it in the first place. "So can you imagine what could happen, if I believed in something? If I trusted you, and believed in this?" They were rhetorical questions, the ones where Blue was asking questions she already knew the answers to. Essek probably did too.
"Because what else is there left to do? I didn't come this far to not still try, even if the solution is going to suck."
Tears had always vexed Essek, just a bit. He had shed them himself, of course, and there had been a steady uptick in crying from those around him in years past, but he still floundered. It wasn't because he was unfeeling, because that was far from the truth; he might have become very good at projecting a more aloof exterior when necessary, but it was just a mask. It was simply that tears from those he loved and cared about made him want to fix things and right now there wasn't much to fix.
They both knew the truth: if their future was going to be any different than it had been the last too many years, this was going to have to happen. It was their last hope to give something better to the remaining good people walking around Vallo. It was what they had to do, if they were going to give the children a better shot at a good life. There was always the potential for the worst to happen, such as Blue's fears with Gansey, that much was true. But there was also that glimmer of hope that it wouldn't, that they would all be okay.
Hope was exhausting and dangerous, Essek knew this. But here he was--clinging to it.
Taking another brave step closer to Blue, he held a hand out to her. There was nothing that he could say to help, nothing that would assuage her fears entirely, but he could at least offer what sliver of comfort he could.
For one embarrassing moment, Blue thought that she was going to have to stand there and cry while Essek watched her. And maybe this was a good thing, to shed her emotions freely, make him suffer through that same crawling uncomfort that had often accompanied her feelings. But this was different, and the normal embarrassment had subsided into some kind of fucked up solace to know that her sadness had an audience.
But then there was Essek, offering out a hand, a silent peace offering, and Blue's expression shifted. Shocked, but not because Essek was offering or that he might be incapable of empathy. For all her yelling and shouting and aggressive—though not always honest—threats against him, she did it because she cared and she could. Somehow this hand was the same sort of expression: he cared, and he could.
That had surprised her, that there was a possibility that she could be surprised in a good way when it was always, awfully, bad.
She took it, quick and all at once, dragging herself into him. Or him into her. She wasn't quite sure, but Blue did have the strength of a knife-throwing, but sensible hardass, and enough muscle to toss a wizard drow around. But she was going for a hug instead. Her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and she took in the affection she could steal before Essek pulled away.
Now this close, and needing reassurance in his embrace, Blue said, through another round of tears, "You're such a pain in my ass for an elf who didn't know how to market his podcast or knit when I first met him."
Essek let Blue draw him in, as there was no other option in that moment as far as he believed, and returned the embrace. He may have just been a noodle-armed wizard, but he could give a good, tight hug when the occasion called for it--and if ever an occasion called for it, it was this one.
As he held Blue close, he chuckled softly at her words. "Yes, well. I have spent over a century perfecting being a pain in the ass." Given the infrequency that he swore, the curse sounded almost off in his delicate Rosohnan accent that he knew he would never lose. "Unfortunately you will have to just accept that about me."
Backing away just enough so he could look down at Blue's face, he raised one of his hands to brush her wet cheeks with the soft fabric of his sleeve--soft only due to a great deal of wear, rather than actual quality. The touch was gentle as his brow furrowed. "Thank you, as well, for putting up with my being, as you said, a pain in the ass."
When they pulled apart, Blue tried to swat off the affectionate way he dried her tears. Blue was not against softness—it came so irregularly in their lives that Blue had learned to live without it—but right now she wanted to just not recognize that she was crying. Just have it be their little secret, until she had a difficult conversation with Ronan.
"Don't thank me just yet. I might change my mind, I'm still kind of mad at you," Blue said, but it lacked her earlier heat. She had been furious at the wizards, and the psychic who saw Gansey and all the other people who were dead or under that curse of Interitus, and at the life they were stuck with. But maybe not for long, maybe not that much longer. Hope was terrifying.
She wiped at her own face this time, clearing away the last of the teary evidence. "I need to go find Ronan. See where his head is at," Blue said, though she sounded unsure. It had just been the two of them, along with Matthew, tending to Nora for a few years now, and she didn't think Ronan would buy into as much hope as she was attempting to muster up. There was a lot to do, and an equally large amount of magic to conserve in the next few days. It was going to be an uphill battle before an actual uphill battle.
"Don't do anything else aggravating before you leave, okay?"
Essek likewise knew that he ought to go out in search of Caleb, too. He hadn't been surprised that he had been cornered by Blue, but Caleb was just as likely, if not more, to be tracked down by another angry Outlander. The least that he could do was try to help extract him from an uncomfortable situation, even if he was more than capable; regardless of capability, such was the partnership of marriage.
Despite himself, Essek gave Blue a sliver of a smirk at that. "I will strive to do my best," he promised--or, at the very least, sort of promised. There was much to do in the coming days, including spending as much time as he could with his family should things not pan out as they hoped. That would be something to dwell over later, like when he was trying to trance.
Instead of voicing that, Essek raised an eyebrow and added, "If I do, feel free to put me in my place."