coda

Thick fog, cloying strong,
by sunlight so pierced….

Wirt nibbles at the end of his pen, realizes what he's doing, and stops. He's been trying to shake that habit for months.

Now, what rhymes with 'pierced'? He can't think of anything offhand—he wishes that he'd grabbed his rhyming dictionary from the cave before setting out here, but that hadn't seemed so important at the time. It wasn't, he supposes. The important thing was getting to Beatrice and Greg and Jason, explaining what had happened that awful fateful night.

"Wirt." A hand touches his shoulder. He jumps out of his reverie startled and annoyed, because what's the point of having these heightened senses if he's going to get too distracted to use them?

"Yes, Beatrice?" Greg is still sleeping, so Wirt keeps his voice low. "Is something wrong?" His friend's face (and they're still friends!) is grim, serious.

"Not really. I just wanted to talk to you without your brother listening in."

Wirt's heart clenches in his chest. "Oh. About… about the whole thing where I turned someone to edelwood?" It shouldn't be so hard to force the words out. He just spent half the previous evening telling the other occupants of this room about the incident, for crying out loud. But it is.

"Yeah, the edelwood thing. That and the bit about how part of the Beast is apparently still in you?"

"Right. That." The pen taps against his poetry book.

Beatrice's hands slip down to grasp his, dislodging the pen with something resembling gentleness. Wirt gapes. He can't help it. His friend has never been one for physical shows of affection.

He's starting to get a little nervous about where this conversation might be going.

Beatrice looks him dead in the eye as her fingers lace between his. "I've been there."

"I'm… sorry?" Wirt has no idea what she's talking about.

Normally, his confusion would merit a sarcastic comment or at least some eye-rolling. Today, though, Beatrice remains serious as she explains, "I know what it's like to have to kill someone, Wirt. I've been there. Remember Adelaide? And if I was in that situation today, I'd still open that window and let her melt to save you and Greg."

"That's not… Beatrice, you had no way of knowing that the night air would kill her."

She gives a little half-shrug. "I knew it would do something unpleasant."

"But, still." Wirt looks away. "You were a bluebird at the time. It's not like you had a lot of other options."

"And what other options did you have?" she retorts. "You could have walked away with one girl, and her cousin would have been completely at that witch's mercy for who knows how long. What exactly was it he said he'd do? 'Lots of things. They're both pretty enough.' We both know what that means."

"I could have, I don't know, just partially changed him, then turned him back when those kids were safe."

"Really," Beatrice scoffs. "You'd never made an edelwood before and didn't even know it was possible to create one so quickly, but you could have half-changed that witch."

"I got the tree off Greg before I even relit the Dark Lantern," Wirt mumbles.

"So? Undoing someone else's magic is different. And let's not forget that you'd never done anything like that before. You didn't know what you were doing."

"I should have."

"How?" She squeezes his hands. "Were you supposed to practice beforehand?"

"No!"

They both automatically glance over at Greg, but he and Jason are still asleep. No surprise there. His brother has always been a heavy sleeper.

"Exactly," Beatrice declares, returning to the subject at hand. "You couldn't practice because you have an actual moral code, so you had no way of knowing what would happen. And, Wirt, he was an evil man. You were protecting two innocent kids, just like I was protecting you and Greg from Adelaide. Sometimes you have to make the hard choices and learn to accept them."

Wirt stares at their intertwined hands. He's not quite ready to meet her gaze again. "You keep bringing up Adelaide. How did you…?"

She understands. "I had to keep reminding myself why I did it. But… once in a while, I still have nightmares and feel like a monster."

"What?" Startled, Wirt meets her gaze. "You're not a monster at all! I mean, yeah, almost selling us to a witch was kind of a jerk move, but you were just trying to save your family and you refused to actually let her enslave us. You are absolutely not a monster, Beatrice."

"And neither are you." Beatrice disentangles one of her hands. "Not for killing him, not for the way you did it, and definitely not—" She reaches up to touch the base of an antler, because apparently Wirt's forgotten to shapeshift them away "—because of these."

Wirt changes to something more human-looking automatically, without thinking.

Beatrice scowls at him. "You don't need to do that, you idiot. Everyone in this room knows that this—" She makes a sweeping gesture to encompass his entire frame "—isn't actually what you look like. You might need to get rid of those when other people are around, but Greg, Jason, and I aren't going to forget that you succeeded the Beast just because we can't see your antlers. Do you seriously think I'm that dumb?"

He flushes. "Of course not."

She folds her arms. "Change back."

He recoils. "What? Why?"

"I'm not sure—"

"You're not sure—"

"—but this is the second time I've woken up to find you without your little disguise, so there's obviously some reason that you don't keep it on all the time. I figure that it either takes a lot more energy than you're letting on or it hurts. Which is it?"

Wirt squirms, wondering how he can get out of this one. Except omitting things hasn't worked out very well for him, so he bites the bullet and confesses, "It gives me headaches if I look human for too long, but they're not that bad." Usually. If he changes back once in a while.

"Uh-huh." Beatrice does not look convinced. "Change back."

Wirt squirms some more, hands aflutter. "That's really not necessary. My head is fine."

Beatrice narrows her eyes.

Wirt lets the transformation fade. It's an unpleasant feeling, deliberately and knowingly wearing his real shape in front of Beatrice. He'd sort of felt this way with Enoch, back when the cat had found him in the woods, but this is worse. Beatrice recognizes him, she knows who he is.

The girl's expression softens incrementally. She unfolds her arms, lets them hang loose at her side. "There. That wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

"Yes, it is, actually."

"No, it's not, so quit sulking. We were having an important conversation before you started acting like an idiot. You're not a monster, Wirt, antlers and weird eyes or not. I'm not sure what the Beast left in you, but it wasn't that."

There's a question in her statement. Wirt answers it. "He didn't exactly say what it was or how much or even how that happened. I think it has to do with us both using the Dark Lantern, but, well, we both know I'm terrible at magic."

She frowns. "Remind me to tell you what Whispers said about that."

"Okay."

"So do you have any idea…?"

Once again, Wirt averts his gaze. "I know his songs. Lyrics, words, even the most effective key signatures. I've changed the lyrics to a lot of them so they're less existentially horrifying, but I still know the original versions. I get a sense of déjà vu all the time when I'm walking through the forest. It's like I've walked those paths before, though only in a dream. And I think I might have picked up some mannerisms, too."

Beatrice is relieved. "So nothing too bad."

"So far," Wirt points out. "I don't know how this works, Beatrice. His influence might keep getting stronger." He swallows. "One day, I might be able to remember him trying to turn Greg to edelwood, I'll remember those thoughts and feelings and actions like they were my own." He shudders at the mere thought of it.

"…that would be pretty horrible," Beatrice is forced to admit. She squares her shoulders. "All the more reason to keep looking for a way to make you human again."

"Beatrice, I already told you. Pretty sure that's not possible."

"But what if it is?"

Wirt throws up his hands in frustration. "If it is, I don't know where I could find that information. I can't just ask the Beast about it."

Beatrice grins at him. "Have you ever heard of The Tome of the Unknown?"

This didn't have the same tone as the part before, so I figured I'd post it separately.

Updates for this series will probably slow down for awhile. I'm not certain if I want to cover the Book Quest or just the end or what. Or maybe I'll just publish the one-shot about their parents to buy myself some time.

-Antares