Welcome, welcome back! Every book since Nightfall has a short story, and since I don't feel like PMing for "special editions," it's just being published in the main fanfiction. Yayyyyyy!
And, here is your bonus short story! The poll ended up with a tie between Marella and Biana, so I made myself the tiebreaker vote. Why? BECAUSE I'M THE FRICKIN' AUTHOR, I GET TO CHOOSE WHAT I WRITE.
Oh, and I chose Biana.
Enjoy!
"You'll understand, someday, when you see the Vacker legacy for what it is."
The Vacker legacy.
Even in her sleep, Biana's mind searches for an answer to the Vacker legacy, and she subconsciously pulls at her hair in frustration when she finds nothing. Her thoughts, not getting anywhere anyway, are interrupted by an alarm beeping. She slowly slips back into wakefulness.
The morning starts the way it always does, at least in the first thirty seconds. After that, though, things instantly diverge from Biana's normal routine the second she realizes.
It's been a year since Alvar betrayed them.
It's stupid to be aware of that fact, let alone let it get to her. Elves don't care about anniversaries of anything. With their indefinite lifespans, keeping track of that stuff is such a headache. Most days, Biana doesn't even spare a glance at the calendar hanging up in her room. It's probably on the wrong month. But the fact that she's gone around the sun one whole time without Alvar seems pretty significant.
Although she's typically excited enough about the upcoming day to get up the first time the alarm goes off, needing the time to eat breakfast, find the right outfit, and do makeup, as soon as the reality of what today is settles in, Biana wants nothing more than to hide her head under the fluffy pillows and sink back into the blissful oblivion of sleep. So she does, until Fitz comes into her room and forcefully rips off the covers.
"Wake up, Biana!" he yells. Upon seeing his teal eyes glare at her, Biana's first thought is Well, someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
Her second is Oh. Right.
Fitz isn't done yelling. "Mom won't let me leave until we're both ready, and I refuse to be late for school because my little sister was too lazy to wake up on time, so get up!"
"Tell Mom I'm sick." In truth, she does feel sick. Lethargic. It isn't a virus, though.
Fitz snorts. "Good luck convincing her of that. Now I'm not telling you again, get up!"
"If you're not telling me again, I can go back to sleep."
"Biana!" he shouts, grabbing her arm and dragging her upright. Biana stretches before shoving him out of her room and examining her closet. Part of her wants to wear something simple and dark, not bothering to look pretty, but another part wants to look extra beautiful, almost like showing Alvar he had no effect on her. A lie, but whatever. She eventually decides on beautiful and grabs a dress she's been in love with ever since she saw it at that store in Atlantis. It has a sparkly light pink top with spaghetti straps, and the flowing skirt is a gorgeous ombre with blues, greens, and that same sort of pink. Instantly after putting it on, she feels a little better. Not much, but a little.
Her hair is a disaster, and she doesn't have time to do much with it, so she just brushes it and lets her hair hang loose. Makeup, though, can't be skipped. Luckily, she's applied it enough times to rush through the process of making her lips dark red, her skin smooth, her cheeks pink. After adding sparkly light blue eyeshadow she's been told makes her teal eyes pop, she starts adding mascara. Fitz bursts in right as she's bringing the mascara to her eye, surprising her to the point where she nearly stabs herself.
"What the mallowmelt, Fitz!?"
"Do you even care about showing up to school on time? Or are you shallow enough to care about your looks more?"
"I'm not shallow," she snaps, not looking away from her mirror as she finishes with the mascara and puts it away. "I like looking pretty because it helps me feel good about myself, not because I care how other people see me."
"Whatever. Come on, if you want to eat breakfast you have to go quickly!"
Biana rolls her eyes, slips on a pair of black heels, and ran down the gold spiral staircase. The intoxicating smell in the kitchen motivates her to run faster far more than Fitz's urging.
"Good morning!" Della says as Biana walked into the kitchen, nearly drooling at the scent of all the good food. "What do you want for breakfast? Muffin? Waffles? Pancake? Butterblast?"
Is all of the above an answer? "Why did you back all this?"
Della shrugs, turning her head away. "Oh, you know. Helps relieve stress."
"About?"
Della doesn't answer. Biana, already knowing, decides not to press further and starts eating a muffin as Fitz taps his foot impatiently.
"Where's Dad?" she asks between bites. He eats with them most mornings.
"In his office working. Stop asking stupid questions and eat!" says Fitz.
Of course he's working. He barely left his office for two weeks after Alvar left. Alden always drowns himself in his work. Biana sighs and finishes the muffin before leaping to Foxfire.
Although no one other than Fitz and Biana knows what was going on, most of their friends notice something was wrong- they'd have to be blind (or Sophie Foster) not to. Fitz deflects inquiries with snapping harsh comments, while Biana just gives a sad "I don't want to talk about it," afraid that opening up will shatter her careful composure.
Biana hadn't let herself skip school, but in retrospect, she wishes she had. Focusing on lessons and interacting with others while thoughts of Alvar thunder in her brain is about as fun as being trampled by a mastodon before walking through Everblaze.
On LEGOs.
Finally, the day is over and Biana can go home. She's excited until she remembers that Everglen isn't that great at the moment. In a sudden burst of brilliance, she realizes that she can tap Linh's shoulder and ask to spend the afternoon with her, and does just that.
Looking genuinely apologetic, Linh says "I'm so sorry, Biana, but Marella and I have a date planned. Maybe another day?"
Biana won't need to distract herself like this another day, but nods and thanks Linh before asking her other friends. Tam is busy stalking Marellinh, as she's dubbed it. Dex has to work on opening a cache. Sophie declares herself "busy"- probably busy thinking about her insane love life (the love life that, frustratingly, doesn't include Biana). Keefe is comatose. Fitz is too furious at the world to want to do anything.
Biana leaps home and walks up the stairs. All of her friends are busy. She's just left behind. Invisible.
Of course she's invisible. She's a Vanisher, for mallowmelt's sake. This isn't anything new- she's been invisible to everyone even before she manifested as a Vanisher. For as long as she can remember, really.
I never felt invisible with Alvar, she thinks sadly, brushing her hand across the door to Alvar's room. It's been closed for the last year. With tears stinging her eyes and, despite her best efforts, spilling down her cheeks and ruining her mascara- what was I thinking, using non-waterproof today?- she opens the door now.
Alvar's room is kept ridiculously neat. Not even neat freaks keep it this neat. His bed is made- honestly, who actually does that?- his floor is vacuumed, his furniture is polished, all of his belongings are organized on shelves or stored away.
All but one, glaringly obvious against the neatness. A journal. Eagerly, Biana grabs it and flips open the cover.
THE VACKER LEGACY is written in huge letters, handwriting neat and perfect. Not even daring to breathe- I'm finally going to find out why he betrayed us!- she turns the page.
There's writing on it.
It's just in some sort of code she doesn't recognize.
And so are all of the other pages, right up until they're blank.
Biana slumps against Alvar's bookshelf, sobs shaking her body. She was so close to figuring out why she lost her brother, only to get that chance taken away.
She wants answers. No- she needs them. She needs to know why her brother, her favorite older brother, the one who listened when she complained about Mommy or Daddy or Fitzy, the one who watched her mini fashion shows even though they had to be mind numbingly boring, the one who once let her do makeup on his face despite the toxic masculinity he'd grown up absorbing, the one who, even after betraying them, came to Everglen in the middle of the night to ask that she join the Neverseen or at least go into hiding because he didn't want her to get hurt in the crossfire, the one who she still almost believes is genuinely good inside- why her brother joined an organization that did nothing but bad.
Biana cries for everything she's lost. She cries for the answers that were almost within her reach and got yanked away at the last second. She cries for herself, the invisible friend, the afterthought, the one who Sophie Foster barely notices when her brother is around because Sophie's a teenage girl and her brother is a cute boy and Biana's just... invisible, and far, far too female for Miss Foster to crush on. She cries for her family that's been shattered and pretends they're okay when they might be beyond repair. She cries for her brother, too. Cries for the person he could have been, the good he could have done, the brother she might still have, if only the Vacker legacy hadn't turned him evil.
She cries, and cries, and cries.
And when all the tears have finally left her eyes, she Vanishes and walks back to her bedroom. Even if she was still visible, she doubts anyone would have noticed. But whatever. She grabs her makeup bag and stands in front of her mirror, wiping the tear tracks and snot and smeared mascara off her face. If anyone else saw her right now, they would laugh- the perfect Princess Prettypants, who's always perfectly polished, poised, and put together, standing broken in front of a mirror, looking positively ugly.
If Biana wasn't so upset, she might find it laughable too.
But finally, her face is clean. She takes a deep, shaky breath before lifting her lipstick tube from the bag and repainting her lips, then reapplying the blush. As she adds the finishing touches with mascara, it doesn't feel like she's putting beauty products on her face.
It feels like she's wearing war paint.
Biana studies herself in the mirror, tightly gripping the sides of the desk it hangs above. Her reflection doesn't show the broken girl she is underneath, pretending to hold it together in front of the gossips, pretending she doesn't mind being the invisible friend, pretending her family didn't get crushed by the asteroid of Alvar's betrayal, pretending. She doesn't look like a girl who has to pretend to be okay. She looks like a girl who can take on the world with time left over for shoe shopping. She looks like a girl who knows she likes girls and boys and genuinely takes pride in her sexuality. She looks like a girl who radiates confidence, who's made of iron instead of glass.
She looks like the girl Biana wishes she really was.
The girl she can become.
She takes a deep breath and whispers to herself, promising to do everything to make the words come true.
Biana Vacker creates her own Vacker legacy.
Heck yeah, Biana! My queen!
So, if you have eyes, you probably noticed that Biana is Bi-ana. Typically, I lean towards Lesbiana, but since I wanted to end Swan Song with nothing but Keephie and Marellinh canon, Biana has all the options and her love life is still left open to interpretation.
This takes place during the events of Swan Song, but honestly? Nothing about this is Swan Song specific. It's all canon compliant. So, that's probably an oops. Then again, the Keefe Flashback short story didn't have anything to do with the events of Flashback. So I'm good! Whoo!
Anyway, since this is the actual ***stunning*** conclusion to Swan Song, I actually won't be revisiting this story.
*Crickets*
Hey, this time I actually mean it!
*Crickets*
Fine, I might edit during the torturous wait for Unlocked.
And, since this is it...
I'm going to rethank everyone who's supported me on this journey of writing a novel length fanfiction. Not individually, but, dear readers, commenters, followers, and favoriters, thank you all so much. And thank you to Shannon, who isn't reading this, for letting me borrow your characters, world, and plot and play around with them like this. It's been great fun.
Since I DeFiNiTeLy didn't say it enough times, here is
one
last
THANK YOU!