At the End of the Rainbow 15&16/30
Rating: R for drama llamas and kissies
Characters and pairings: Glitch/Cain. OC, Jeb, DG, the usual suspects
Story summary: When the story ends, heroes fall.
Chapter summary: Jeb has weird things in his head.
Obligatory Author Drivel: So guess what, I'm writing again. After a bit of a hiatus (i.e. world of warcraft and graduating college) I am back on the fanfiction horse and this was the first bunny that demanded out of the hutch. I've no beta at the moment so there might be a few grammarz errorz. If anyone wants to beta, you would be made of super awesome sauce and would be repaid somehow.
TENDER
Jeb had slipped back into unconsciousness before Glitch was done but between Poppy and Glitch they had been able to half carry, half drag their newfound friend across the river and into the caves, large and sprawling, far from any marching tiktoks. Glitch started a small fire as Poppy removed some of her layers and covered Jeb with her coat.
He was a whimpering ball, and he flinched anytime Poppy's fingers brushed skin. Slowly she crouched on the other side of the fire, and looked up when Glitch settled besides her.
“Well? What are we going to do with him?”
Poppy shrugged, slowly, easing her chin into her hands.
“I-I don't know.”
“Will they be looking for him, you think?”
“N-no one's ever won against a t-tiktok. I d-don't know what will happen.”
Glitch's eyes were dark as he stared at the shivering figure over the fire, “Is there a person in all of them?”
Poppy closed her eyes as the thunderous sound of marching faded in and out of her memory. Was that really where all the people in the O.Z. had gone? The Dark Queen's army grew with each prisoner, each screaming viewer and sobbing princess. There had been a little hope, that people had escaped. They had found their way to the other side or across the desert. But that hadn't been true. The clockwork tower was beating machinery, slick with blood and chips of bone. They thundered in his head, DG was screaming, she was screaming and Az had gone so quiet... He'd failed them. He'd failed and this woman was going to...
“Poppy!”
She cried out when Glitch shook her, echoing a cry that shook Jeb's frame. Glitch looked back and forth between the both of them.
“Are you alright? You just kind of slumped over... What happened?”
“I-I-I...” Poppy buried her face in Glitch's shoulder trying to catch her breath. This man, Jeb... He'd been there. He'd seen the Dark Queen rise. He'd seen her kill the princesses. He tried to save them. He'd been there at the start of it all... and... Glitch was there, tenderly petting her hair, out of worry and she saw a flash of something. Short brown curls and a zipper. There was a tattered red coat and for a moment she saw the blue eyes that were stuck on the edge of Glitch's memory.
“Poppy, please say something.”
“DG.”
“DG? What's that?”
Slowly Poppy swallowed, “I-It's a p-person.”
Glitch furrowed his eyebrows as she sat up, “Okay, I guess. You still haven't told me if you're alright or what's happening.”
“I-I'll be fine. It's just... overwhelming. I-I hadn't done that in awhile.”
“Done what? Poppy!”
She stood, stumbling a bit, but Glitch caught her and with his help, she half crawled over to Jeb. Sitting down next to him she carefully ran her hand along his head. The world was an explosion of noise and copper and amber. Blood seeped through everything but just beyond that... Just beyond that were two pairs of blue eyes, a metal zipper, the feel of fur, and sunlight. He had sunlight dappled through trees but all of a sudden it was torn away with the smell of burning metal.
Poppy took a deep breath and looked at Glitch.
“He knows who you are. He knows a lot. I can see it.”
A moment passed before Glitch blinked, “You can see it?”
Poppy nodded and Glitch sank down on his haunches, not particularly sure if he liked this bit of information.
“You're telling me you can see into his mind? With magic?”
Another nod and Glitch bit his bottom lip.
“Can you see into mine?”
Poppy frowned, “I-It's hard. There's nothing really... there. Just shapes and blurs. N-not real memories. It... it looks like fire went through, and...”
She reached out and brushed her fingers across Glitch's cheek and for a second he saw what she did. A burnt out shell with debris littering everywhere. It was like walking among ruins, there were objects but they were all blackened beyond recognition. Only a few spots stood out, objects that were colored, like someone had cleaned them. Parts where someone had started to sweep up the ash.
Glitch gasped as the vision faded away and Poppy was there, frowning at him and then down at Jeb.
“That's some trick,” Glitch blinked.
“I-I can't c-control it v-very well. But... something's wrong. Something's wrong with Jeb.”
“What's wrong with him?”
“H-he's stuck.”
“Stuck?”
Poppy nodded and shifted over to half pull Jeb into her lap despite his whimpering.
“What are you doing, Poppy?”
Dark eyes frowned, “Don't panic.”
It was a moot point because Glitch was sure panicking when Poppy slipped her fingers through dirty blond hair and then slumped forward with her eyes closed.
FOREST
She was going to throw up.
The room was spinning and it was this disgusting color of smeary brown amber and... was she drunk? The smell was awful too, burning smoke and the messy acidic taste of... of...
Poppy took a deep breath and then another as she forced herself up on her hands and knees.
The whole world around her pounded with the marching feet of tiktoks and screaming split the air. The squealing of metal on metal went on forever until she thought her teeth were going to rattle out of her head.
Oh Gods, this was what it was like to be in one of those metal suits.
The amber glass and... why were sounds so loud but still muted? Everything sounded like thunder but... you couldn't understand anything anyone was saying. It was like being underwater... It was like drowning.
She had to focus. She had to or she was going to die, that's what it felt like. If she didn't focus she was going to be swept away be memories that weren't hers. Memories that weren't...
Gunshots. Babies crying. Water washing away graves.
Red scarf. Blue eyes. Silver zipper.
The smell of baking bread. The smell of Finaqua on a rainy day. The smell of burning blood...
Poppy forced her eyes open. She'd collapsed, lying on her back staring up at a screaming amber sky.
Mother told her to not try this until she was older.
Wait, wait, she had all the time in the world to learn to use her magic.
Mother. Mother. I want my mother...
Mother was dead. Mother was buried next to the cabin by the white elm, near the apple tree. He hadn't time to make her a proper headstone. Just a bit of wood and tears...
Mother was dead. Mother stayed behind so that the tiktoks wouldn't find her or her sisters. They'd all ran in different directions. They should have stayed together. She should have gone back for her sisters...
It was overwhelming, it was her mind and his and then...
Poppy screamed.
She screamed until she was hoarse, letting out all the noise she had to keep in so she'd stay hidden. All the screams that had threatened to bubble out when she saw her sisters cut down. All the screams that had choked and silenced her and somewhere in it all she realized that she wasn't the only one screaming.
She wasn't the one screaming.
Bit by bit she forced herself to stand and stumbled drunkenly around the amber room that wasn't a room until she fell.
Stumbling over the only solid thing...
Jeb.
Shakily she pulled him into her lap, just like she really was. Just like her real body was on the outside and oh Gods she hoped she hadn't really started screaming because Glitch would just be scared out of his wits...
The amber light had pulsed. Dimmed.
Poppy looked around.
Nothing had changed. But... what had she done? She was worried about Glitch... There it was again, a hitch in the cacophony.
Glitch.
A flicker.
There were memories behind... behind all this trash and Glitch was one of them. Poppy took a deep breath as her fingers curled into dirty blond hair while she held her other hand out and pushed.
For a second there was a gap, like someone moving a curtain aside, a flicker of... sunlight.
Sunlight in a forest, laughter, blue eyes, and...
Poppy bent down, her lips barely brushing the curls of Jeb's hair and she whispered, well, a rather silly word,
“Butterscotch.”
The world exploded into green.
“No! Jeb! Give it!”
The was a girl with long dark hair and the brightest blue eyes, dressed in trousers and a shirt that was her father's... She was chasing Jeb all up and down a sunny riverbank trying to get...
“No way. You've eaten the last two. I want this one.”
He was holding up an apple, just out of her reach as she pouted, barefoot in the shallow water.
The apple was a golden sort of caramel color, and shadows from the sun through the leaves in the forest danced on it.
“But! Come on, I'm a princess.”
Jeb was grinning, hazel eyes alight,
“There isn't any law that I know, that states that I have to give my last Butterscotch apple to anyone, princess or not.”
“Well, I'll make it a law!”
There was a beat before she reared up and tackled him, sending them both into the knee deep water. Laughter and then... something in blue eyes that Poppy was never meant to see...
“What in Galinda's garters are you two up to?!”
Glitch.
Poppy blinked as her friend... Jeb's friend came over the grassy hill and stopped at the edge of the river, his hands on his hips and a silly grin on his face. He was in grey breeches and boots. A linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up and Poppy recognized the green coat tucked under his arm. Brown curls shimmered in the sun as he shook his head. Parental, but still grinning.
“You two do know that the caravan from the Eastern Vale arrived an hour ago, you've already missed lunch.”
“Crap.”
Poppy blinked as the two untangled in the water and the Butterscotch apple bobbed happily downstream on to a different adventure.
Muted words and laughter. There was going to be a lot of explaining. Jeb's father had been so mad...
“That isn't happening...”
Poppy blinked as she looked down in her lap. Jeb's eyes were open and he was frowning.
“That isn't happening right now. That already happened. Right?”
Slowly Poppy nodded as she and Jeb sat alone in the memory of a forest.
“It was your m-memory.”
“I'd forgotten.”
“That h-happens sometimes.”
He closed his eyes again, leaning into her lap. He was tired, like they were all tired. Too much running, too many steps and stumbles and not enough...
This.
Poppy listened to the memory of birdsong and the memory of water rushing over stones. She felt the memory of warmth and the breeze that was sweet with the smell of life.
“This place really happened?”
Jeb's voice wavered and around the edges of green and sunlight, Poppy knew there was still amber and blood. The uncertainty of reconciling those worlds.
“Yes,” she said, forcing her voice to be strong, still hopeful, “This place really happened.”
Then, as if those had been some strange magic words, Poppy opened her eyes.
Glitch almost tore across the fire when she looked up. An hour, she'd been wilted like a rose in the shade for an hour with him pacing back and forth. Cringing at every whimper she made that Jeb shared.
“Poppy! Are you hurt? What happened?”
“I-I'm okay.”
The relief in Glitch's eyes made her smile and then there was a silence as they both looked down at Jeb.
He was dirty, thin, and as pale as the rest of them but he was awake. Awake and frowning up at the girl whose lap he was in.
“Poppy? Right?”
Poppy nodded and then held her breath as he turned to Glitch.
“Ambrose?”
Another second passed as Glitch blinked furiously,
“Am who?”
Previous chapters can be found @ fanfiction.net