“I’m so sorry. My dad died. Last year.”
Ladybug nodded again, nodding with a tightly controlled smile, her eyes glossy with tears. “I know. Holt told me. I’m so sorry for your loss. I would ask how you’re doing, but I already know.”
Choked laughter wrapped in a sob escaped her. “It never stops hurting, does it?”
The other woman’s eyes overflowed as she shook her head. “Never. I miss them so much. Sometimes I can hardly breathe around it. It never goes away. But life goes on. You fill your days with other things, you give your heart to new people and hope they’ll take care of it. They still walk beside us. They still hold us when we fall. And we’ll see them again, eventually.”
“Trust,” Harper added, once she had swallowed down the sob that she wanted to scream, sucking in a shuddering breath. “Trusting new people to take care of your heart. Trusting yourself to let them love you.”
Azathé knew her worries and her fears and her aspirations; stroked her hair when grief occasionally overtook her, remained steadfast and present when depression clouded her mind.Snap out if itandget over itwere never words uttered from their mouth, and the expectation to be nothing more than exactly what she was was intoxicating.Lovewas a completely inadequate word for what she felt for them.
Ladybug smiled, unconcerned over the wet tracks down her cheeks, glasses slipping down her nose. “Trusting them with our hearts is how you know it’s real.”
OOTD: Leggings, hoodie, it is too early to be alive, wtf
They were beside themselves with excitement.
The delivery had been rescheduled several times, for reasons unbeknownst to Azathé, but now the day was here. Harper had arrived at the teahouse at the ass crack of dawn, as requested, and even though she had determined that she was most definitelynotan early morning person, she would sooner stay awake for the entire night and day without rest than renege on her promise. She would deny it if anyone claimed to have seen her outfit, but as she stepped into her boots, eyes still blurry with sleep, she couldn’t bring herself to care. The little cat hadn’t even been there at that hour, and as she came through the door, Azathé gave her an appraising look from the center of the dining room.
“You are the most adorable human I have ever perceived, little witch.”
Harper snorted, most unadorably, dropping into a chair and letting her head thunk onto the spirit board table before her. “I’m going to remind you of that fact tonight, when you ride the Ferris Wheel with me.” She had been half-joking when she’d said it originally, but Cambric Creek, it turned out,didhave a Fall Festival, and therewasa Ferris Wheel.
That morning, they were pacing. Back and forth, across the dining room, from the front door to the kitchen and back again as the minutes ticked by, practically vibrating with their excitement over the impending arrival
“I have just the right spot for it. We didn’t even need to move any tables. Just shifted some books and moved to a shelf or two. This is going to be the crown jewel of our collection.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Harper deadpanned from her table. She had pulled a tarot deck from the shelf and the three cards before her did not leave her feeling optimistic for her shadowy paramour’s new acquisition. “The Two of Cups tells me that you have planned long for this, which is great, but like, no offense? The rest of this spread is high key terrifying. What is this Ten of Swords, Azathé? That’s anightmare. Are you bringing a nightmare into the shop? Into our lives?”
They hummed, a static rumble against her, chuffed at her calling ittheirlife, together. “Of course not. You’re overreacting, sweetling. I thought you said you were giving up on divination.”
“I said no such thing, but this Lightning-Struck Tower in the future slot makes me think I need to give up ontown. Skip out while I have the chance before whatever nightmare you’re bringing in here comes to fruition.”
They scoffed, a dark ripple against her skin, and she grinned.
Harper wasn’t smiling when the movers arrived a short while later. “What thefuck?”
“Isn’t it beautiful,” they crooned, like a proud parent.
“What thefuck?! You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Holt’s kelpie glared with a crazed expression, looking even more terrifying and mutinous out in the open, now that it was no longer shoved into that cobweb-strewn back hallway of Ladybug’s giant house.
“You have no idea how rare this is.”
“You have GOT to be kidding me.”
“Isn’t it majestic?”
“Azathé! That thing is gonna come to life and kill us! No . . . no, wait. It’s moved. The head is different. When I first saw this thing, the head was thrown back, like this.” She demonstrated for the jubilant shadow, who was paying her panic absolutely no mind. “And now it’s turned! It’ssnarling, Azathé! It probably tried to bite someone! Wait, the delivery was postponed,why? You need to find out. You bought this from a sketchy, flea-bitten jerk named Holt, right?”
“Names are not traded in these types of transactions, sweetling.”
Harper groaned, covering her eyes. “Great, that’s just perfect. So he sold this on the black market, and you’re the hapless idiot who’s going to be eaten in their living room.”
“Is Holt not the name of your feline acquaintance?”
“He’s a fucking asshole, is what he is,” she snarled, feeling the kelpie’s eyes on her.
