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Shortly after they arrive to Yancai ~~and memories are returned~~, Emilia wastes no time in inviting Allison over for dinner. She misses their conversations over a glass of wine and a board full of what cheese and meats they could procure. There's plenty for them to catch up on besides, but then — is that not always true?

This world is relentless, and so is hers. So is Allison's.

They need some respite from the madness, and Emilia finds solace in the kitchen. The house she and Wrath were assigned to is far from ideal, but it does have a charming dough box that's helped her make many a crusty bread for her house mates. Tonight, she uses it to make what Allison calls a New York pizza.

Emilia is more familiar with sfincione, but the end result is the same: there is bread, there is cheese, and it is delicious. She thinks she can blend their ideas of the two and make this work.

She seems at peace as she stirs her tomato passata, Emilia. ... Until the toads start with their croaking, that is. "Please ignore them," she says with an apologetic sigh, tapping into her (barely there) patience.

Allison smirks at the croaking chorus, glancing out the window to see if she can try and see them. The promise of pizza is an enticing one - as much as she enjoys Emilia's food, there's something about good old fashioned New York pizza that makes her mouth water and think of home. She doesn't think Emilia's version will be a perfect dupe, but it already smells delicious.

It's too dark to make out any of the individual frogs, but the croaks continue to serenade as Allison glances away to take another sip of her wine.

"They're clearly trying to set the ambiance."

"Clearly," is wry in its agreement, Emilia setting aside the purée once she's satisfied with it. She returns to the dough, adding, "My silencing charms only work on them for moments at a time."

She has briefly wondered if this is due to the village and its ... fluctuations. "It's far from ideal, but really, it could be worse. And it's the first time Wrath and I end up in the same house."

In almost all of their journey, they've never been able to. Taravast split them up between Macaluso and Vannoza. Serthica between Minaras and Eidris. Prior villages gave them other family units entirely. Alem was, well, Alem. This has truly been the first time they've been able to share a proper space.

"That's always nice."

Sticking with the people that you know. Allison had been at least familiar with most of the pirate crew that she found herself stuck with, and she can't say she minds the outfit choices the magic made for her. But it might have been nice if she and Five weren't so quickly separated again.

"And at least you're not living on a falling apart pirate ship?"

Emilia considers this, and considers the daring pirate adventures she's read in books... back when she had time to curl up with them. Stories had felt like a magic all their own, then. Adventure she could safely indulge in while hiding from the brotherhood, and the Malvagi her Nonna made sure she'd fear.

It feels like a lifetime ago. More bitter than sweet these days.

"I might have risked it for the pirate ship. Is it truly in such poor conditions?"

She shrugs. "It's not going to fall over and crush all the occupants. But I don't think it's going to be seaworthy anytime soon."

Which is a shame. It might be fun to hit the water again, so long as there isn't an asshole pirating the ship.

"But my roommates are great. We all get along well enough."

"I'm glad to hear it. I find myself satisfied with my housemates, as well."

Beyond the fact she and Wrath are able to live together ... for now, she has great affection for both Hermione and Wrathion, and a great deal of respect for Wen Qing. They're making it work.

"It's everything else that bothers, like a splinter burrowed. Yancai's stillness is unnatural."

Not to mention the way it can toy with their memories. Enough of them have been stolen.

"On a sliding scale of weird things we've been through here, this one is definitely getting up there."

Allison finds the memories most disquieting. It makes her wonder if that's how it feels when she rumors other people, having no reason to question her rewriting of reality. It didn't last for long, but it was a taste of her own medicine that she didn't appreciate.

"It's also probably the wettest that didn't involve traveling on an actual boat."

A soft huff of a laugh as she starts to give the dough its proper shape. Their voyage into the Crossing was one of her least favorite experiences, which is saying something, and fuck Caladan Kreil specifically.

"How is Five doing with all of this?"

It's asked a bit knowingly. After all, time is sort of his thing.

"He's in conspiracy theory mode again."

Because when is he not. That feels like a safe thing to share in comparison with everything else. The ghosts and Five's mannequin wife are too complicated. But for the most part, he seems okay. And she hopes that he can keep relying on her.

"I'm sure he'll start digging into whatever puzzle this is soon enough."

"Of that I have no doubt, Allison."

Emilia doesn't know when she grew fond of Five, but she did, in all his idiosyncrasies, even as she worries about him, as well. This worry has not truly gone anywhere, certainly not after what happened in Alem.

She tips her head to the side, a bit of a twinkle in her eye.

"Time to take this outside."

The house is windowless, so... it's a good thing there's an outdoor oven.

Yes, that is for the best.

Allison grabs their glasses of wine as well as whatever else she can gather in her hands and follows Emilia out to the oven. She's doing her best to be helpful, but let's be real the wine is the priority, and she doubts that Emilia would object to that.

"My first husband wanted to put a pizza oven in the outdoor patio, which made no sense, because neither of us cook." Allison rolls her eyes. "Looked like his new wife let him have his way." Allison's objections were not to the oven herself, but to spending their money - her money, really - on something that neither of them would use.

One of the many, many things they used to fight about.

Emilia summons her fire magic to heat the oven at will, watching as the embers warm the stone.

Then she turns to Allison with unbidden curiosity. She knows more about Claire than she does the first husband. They've never talked about marriage at length for their own reasons, but she'd like to think their friendship deep enough that they can ask each other these more intimate questions.

"Did you love him?"

There must have been something in him to love if Allison married him.

"I think once upon a time I thought I did."

But what love she had for Patrick once upon a time, her divorce had burned to the ground. Some of the things he's done to her, she wouldn't have done to someone she loves. Allison can be a bitch, but ...

"I was just coming up in my career, and he and I were on the same trajectory. We both wanted the same things. It felt like ... a perfect match." The idea that someone wanted her outside her family and could handle the complications of her - or maybe she was just pretending in order to get what she wanted. She was good at that.

"You know, he did a cover story for a magazine announcing to the whole world that he and Claire were doing 'just fine without me.' Like I up and left them instead of him kicking me out and taking my daughter from me."

Allison isn't saying that she didn't cause problems by relying too much on her powers. But she doesn't think she deserved to be slandered in the public eye. "But divorces are messy, right? People who don't want to go through a divorce shouldn't get married."

Her perspective is not helpful toward this conversation, she thinks. Her marital bond with Samael has a magical component that is meant to be quite enduring. So she listens and attempts to understand Allison's own perspective instead, aware that her friend has done some not so great things, same as Emilia.

It doesn't mean she deserves this.

"There is messy and complicated, and then there is cruelty." It sounds to her like Patrick was engaging in the former to spite Allison, a woman he once claimed to love. And bringing their child into it, no less.

"Do you think it was ... competitiveness?"

If they were both in the same field of work. Some men do have fragile egos, goddess.

She sits with it long enough that it might seem like she's ignoring the question, but she's not. It's hard to say for sure, to step back and separate her own misuse of her powers from Patrick's own goals and ambitions because surely one is the bigger crime. But she can't say that there wasn't resentment there.

She had the bigger career. She had a tool to get her foot in the door. She hasn't had to use her power to get her a job as of late, but she's sure it wouldn't be a leap of logic that she had in the past.

"Maybe?" is the answer she finally comes up with. She can't say for sure, and she can't ask Patrick anymore to find out. He doesn't even remember being married to her, because she no longer exists. Also, he's dead, so ... there's also that.

Not that she relishes his death in any way. She wouldn't have one of the greatest joys of her life without him. She sighs.

"So much of our relationship got caught up in my powers, like my career, like my childhood. It's hard to tell how much of it was real, and how much was a story I told myself. My father never really taught me to know the difference. I had to figure it out on my own."

She allows the silence to settle between them, a companionable if not bittersweet silence as she checks on their dinner. Pleased with the promising result, she reaches for the long-handled paddle to retrieve the pizza, and eventually, she'll bring it over to the outdoor table not far from the stove oven.

It looks Neapolitan more than anything else, but certainly tasty. She can't promise it will eclipse the bitter taste of Patrick, but it might help some of it go down more smoothly.

Emilia — she has thought of Allison's power before, how terrifying it must be to those who are caught under its spell. But it's only now that she realises how terrifying it must be to Allison, as well.

How reality must blur for her, too.

"Have you?"

It certainly smells fantastic, and Allison will reach for a slice as she considers the answer.

"I know the difference." Is that a step in the right direction? She's not really sure. "When Ray and I met, I couldn't use my powers. I couldn't even talk. It was the first time since I was a kid that I couldn't tell someone what to do. How to feel about me. And he fell in love with me anyway."

It made her think that maybe she wasn't such a terrible thing after all. That she wasn't incapable of being loved, only accepted by people as broken as she is (her brothers) or a child who doesn't know better.

The taste of it is close enough to home that it brings a bout of nostalgia, though she no longer knows what she longs for. What was real and what wasn't. She closes her eyes briefly all the same, because, you know.

Cheese.

Emilia grows quiet at the mention of Ray, remembering their first conversation about him. She'd noticed the wedding rings Allison still wears on a necklace. She thinks Allison has learned the difference here, too.

"What was he like?"

A bright smile crosses her face because she does love to talk about Ray.

"In the sixties in Dallas where we were living, people who look like me - like us, because Ray was black too - we didn't have the same rights as white people. Long story involving centuries of slavery and racism but we were starting to fight back, trying to get the right to at least protect our ability to vote. Ray was the leader of one of the groups organizing civil disobedience protests, and he and his people used to meet in the hair salon where I worked after hours. I couldn't talk at the time, but I decided to give him some notes on one of his speeches one night. And a few weeks later, he asked me out to dinner."

And they both fell pretty quickly from there. Which doesn't really tell you much about Ray as a person, but it's at least a start for context.

Emilia grows silent, giving the story the attention it deserves, some of which is truly infuriating. But she places that emotion aside to listen, and when Allison is done with it, the hint of a smile returns.

"He sounds wonderful."

The kind of person they all needed, not just Allison.

"I'm glad you met him."

"Me too." She doesn't know where she would be without Ray. He saved her in a lot of ways, and she will always be grateful for that, even if back in the real world she's hanging on a little too tight.

"Sometimes I'm a terrible person and wish he was here. But he could barely handle finding out about my siblings and their powers, I don't know that he could process all of this without having a small nervous breakdown."

She loves him, but she doesn't want him anywhere near the undead.

Edited 2023-07-22 21:02 (UTC)

eastbound } { ic inbox | @taken for granite

shall we go back to the beginning of arc vi?

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