The Parts We Play

She May Not Remember Me, But I Remember Her

"Come on," he said quietly. "Douxie and Jim are out. It's quiet as long as you want it to be."

Aja nodded silently, and Krel wrapped her up in a blanket on the couch and held her for a long while, breathing slowly and trying to soothe her somehow. She cried herself out for most of it, breathing jerky and uneven.

Maybe two hours later, after Jim and Douxie had returned and quietly retreated to their rooms (Douxie and Krel had used a combination of magic and technology to add a couple extras), there was a quiet knock at the door.

Krel rubbed Aja's back before getting up to answer it.

Cara stood there, holding a paper bag of takeout. "Douxie texted to ask me to cover for you at rehearsal," she explained. "He told me what's going on, so I brought my go-to breakup food for when my friends are going through it." She held out the bag. "Fried ice cream. Tell your sister I hope she feels better, okay?"

Krel blinked, surprised and touched by the gesture, and pulled Cara into a hug. "Thanks," he said softly.

Cara squeezed him gently. "Of course," she said before she made an egress.

"Who was that?" Aja asked, sniffling, as Krel pulled four takeout containers out of the large paper bag.

"A friend of mine," Krel explained simply. "She said she hopes you feel better."

"That's kind of her," Aja noted, taking one of the containers. She opened it and took the plastic spoon Krel handed her. She raised both eyebrows as she tried it. "Ooh- little brother, you must learn where your friend obtained this 'fried ice cream'-"

Krel smiled a bit, internally making note of that and also to thank Cara again later. "It's good then?"

"Quite. Try it," Aja insisted, gesturing to the other containers. "Be careful, though, the inside is deceptively cold."

Krel got Douxie and Jim, and the four dug into the fried ice cream. At first there was a careful sort of solemnity, but slowly the tension began to ease, if not the pain.

Douxie excused himself after he finished his fried ice cream and left the house.

He'd been thinking about this faceless threat, the unknown danger it posed. He knew Irene- they were close in age, within a few years, and somehow in the vastness of the world they always seemed to find each other. It never seemed to go well, either. Douxie dreaded being forced into a higher-stakes encounter with her where they still didn't get along. While he might not think much of sorcery, a dragon had respected it enough to be a sorceress' familiar; and Douxie hated to admit it to himself, but Merlin had held onto a lot of misperceptions out of pride. Maybe it was time he buried some of the ideas Merlin had left with him.

He knocked on the Halls' door, taking a deep breath. "Here goes... potentially a lot," he mumbled.

A young man, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with a face shape similar to Irene's but slightly wider, opened the door and blinked at Douxie.

"Erm- hello," Douxie greeted him. "I'm here to see Irene-"

The young man turned around and hollered, "YO, IRENE! THERE'S SOME SORT OF GOTH MODEL HERE TO SEE YOU."

There was a sound of a door opening, followed by light, but definite footsteps, quickly making their way to the front. This was accompanied by a feminine voice yelling back, "WHY IS IT GOTH!?"

"Punk, technically," Douxie noted quietly.

"A VERY PUNK GOTH, I DUNNO," the boy yelled.

Irene finally came into view, only a few steps down from the top of the stairs when she decided to speak. "Oh."