Chapter 1: Wordsworth – Chapter 1
"Tattletale, I'm not sure we should be doing this," the black boy dressed in leather says.
"Relax, Grue, you know this will be great for Wordsworth's powers," the pretty girl with the blonde hair replies.
I… I think I find pretty girls distasteful. Mean. I don't know why, but…
Red hair. There was someone with red hair, once upon a time, who left her home to never return, and then a shadow found out, and the shadow thought 'This home is now empty, if only I could have red hair, I would be able to live here and nobody would say anything…'
"Wordsworth? Wordsworth, sweetie, are you in the middle of one of your stories? Do you want me to come back later?" The blonde girl is staring at me. She's pretty, but pretty doesn't have to be mean. She never is.
She's holding a book. I like books.
In fact, we are surrounded by books. This is a library, I think, a place where books gather, and have parties and talk to each other. They sometimes have a new chapter between them, and after enough chapters, a new book comes.
But that's not what's important. The pretty girl has asked something.
She's holding a book.
I smile, and I take it.
My white hand is like a page, satin paper covered by so many scribbled, shifting words that it looks like I've put gloves on, those long ones people wear to the opera. The opera is like a book, but it happens on a stage, so I can't eat it.
I can eat the book.
When I grab it, the black ink flows out of its pages, each single word dancing over the very tips of my fingers before they join my gloves. They look completely black if one doesn't know how to read them, but every now and then the light catches on a shimmering syllable passing by, and it's clear they aren't just silk and lace.
It's a weird book. Complicated. The words are arranged as in a song, pleasant noises more important than meaning, or at least than the meaning I can understand. It has animals in it, but it's not soft like a fairy tale or—
I see a tall woman. She looks like me, if I had more colors than creamy white and shimmering black, but pretty and older. I can see her face clearly enough, but even as she smiles I feel sad, maybe because I know the woman is no longer there, and never will.
She speaks some of the words in the book, and I know I've heard them before, but I didn't understand it back then.
When I open my eyes again, the pretty girl is in front of me, looking at me like she's trying to understand the words in the book and failing because it's a confusing, beautiful book. Then she smiles, and there's a mischief in it that makes me think of foxes.
I like foxes. They aren't strong, but they're as clever as I am not. They win because of that, and they're usually funny when they do.
I also understand books with foxes. That helps.
"I know it was a hard one, Wordsworth, but I'm sure you'll understand it someday. Now, why don't you try an easier—"
And the big window that should show the street if the library was open explodes.
Shards of glass scatter through the air, glittering in the dim rays cast by the torchlights carried by the girl and the boy as the groan of the metal shutters tearing apart reaches my ears. The girl looks pale, almost as much as I do, under her mask and turns toward it just as a knife-sized shard flies toward her.
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall."
The words leave my lips faster than I should be able to say them, but the faster they are, the weaker they become. I need people to hear them before they have strength.
But I have no time, and speed is better than strength, so I let the words skitter out of my gloves and reach behind the pretty girl, black bricks of ink falling on top of each other just in time for the glass to shatter rather than stab.
And the words flow back to me.
"Shit! Grue, cover! Now!"
"What do you think I'm doing?!" The boy replies as smoke bursts out of him, surrounding us just after I see the shadow flying toward us and the colorful girl jumping through the window.
I know them. I don't like them.
We are huddled together, and the boy is saying a lot of bad words that aren't on the books the pretty girl feeds me.
I still know them, but I don't like hearing words I don't have. It feels weird not feeling the echo thrumming on my gloves, my dress, my hat, my veil, my mascara… My black parts.
"Down!" the pretty girl screams, and I leap to the floor without knowing why, but I trust her, and so does the boy.
But she should have trusted herself.
A bolt flies through the smoke, too close for even my fastest words to leave my lips, and it sinks on the pretty girl's back.
She stumbles forward.
She falls.
I catch her.
"Hey… Don't worry, Wordsworth… Not your fault," she says.
Her face is as pale as mine, and red flows out of her like the wrongest words in the world.
"Lisa! Fuck, Wordsworth, let me—"
"Hey, do me a favor, sweetie?" I nod. Anything. "Good girl… Could you eat this one book for me? Please?"
She didn't let go of it when she fell, and her fingers are crinkling the softcover.
It's colorful, a girl with big eyes and a round face on it, the kind of drawing on the pages of the books I understand best.
Children's books, I think.
The girl is huddled on a doorstep, a burning match in her hands.
I take it, and the pretty girl smiles a tired, grateful smile.
Then the words flow to me.
It's a sad story, a girl trying to keep herself warm during a winter's night by lighting the matches she was asked to sell. But each time she lights one, she sees something in the flame, a glimpse of another life, a better life, warmer, with a tall woman that looks like me reading to her in bed, patting her head when she cries because the little match girl's death was so, so sad, even if it let her see a better life than the one she had, but mom is there to comfort me, and she's happy that I can be sad for the little girl that—
"Shush, Little Owl. She went to a better place, didn't she? It's a sad story, but that's what it teaches us, that the sadness is there, always will, but so will happiness, even if it's as a memory or a dream."
"Mom… I don't want that kind of happiness. I want a real one, not a dream," I said, clutching my bedcovers.
And she leaned down and kissed my forehead before her whisper flowed through my hair in her warm breath, the warmth the little match girl dreamed about.
"But don't you see, Taylor? You're crying because of the little match girl, and she's just a story. A story real enough to make you sad. And what are dreams, if not stories we tell ourselves?"
And now I have my name.
And my rage.
I stand up, Tattletale cradled in my arms, and speak.
"Three army surgeons went to an inn. They each boasted of their skill and claimed they could easily reattach their organs if they were to take them out and leave them overnight…"
I speak clearly, loudly, slowly. Only Grue and Tattletale are my audience, and I've never tried something as complex as what I'm about to do, but as we move toward the back exit under the cover of Grue's darkness and he keeps making us change direction to keep us away from Stalker's fire and Iridescent's charge, I feel it.
The words of the Grimm's tale take shape, and three army surgeons in glistening black look at me before they take the pretty gi—[Tattletale] off my arms.
I wish I could build another wall, but it looks like one story at a time is all I can do.
Which is more than enough, as the doctors fade one by one as they first take out the hunting bolt, then stitch the… Stitch her up, and the last remaining one bandages her with a torn sleeve from her costume before his words return to me.
Tattletale is now standing up, her face no longer as pale as mine.
"You are back," she says with a smile that lacks mischief and pity.
I look at her, at the girl who has taken care of me for months while my mind drifted through stories of a world made by a childish mind, while only rare glimpses of a past that seemed more dream than memory surfaced at chosen, select books.
While a powerful Thinker devoted her time and powers to finding out how to make me whole again. Even if I never was.
"Partly. There's still a lot missing." Her smile abates at that.
"But you are you." And there's something in her eyes that—
Grue is silent, far too shocked at the current events and my sudden healing ability, if I had to guess.
And the answer to Tattletale's not quite question…
"Enough. I'm enough, at least."
Then I remember the first book she fed me today, the one that was so hard to understand, but now I've got memories of mom reading it to me, explaining, and the meaning makes the words so much more powerful than they were when they only flowed like a pretty song.
"Grue, open a passage from me to them. You two remain behind."
He recoils at the first time I've addressed him directly, not used to my voice being anything other than short pieces of fairy tales.
"Wordsworth, they—"
"They will fall."
He's about to protest, to argue, and I can't spare the words to make him—
"Brian. It's all right. Trust her," Lisa says.
I don't think I have a heart anymore, but my inky words thrum at her voice.
Grue looks from me to her and back again before he not quite shrugs, and a black wall of smoke shifts between us before I'm left in an expanding clearing.
Then I see Iridescent.
Gorgeous, a body I would have killed for, suited in a leather glove that shifts in hue with every throb of her power. Her skin and hair always changing, always turning into something that displays the full beauty of whatever color passes over and through her.
"Ah, finally showing your face, coward? I knew you couldn't hide fore—"
"Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" My voice is strong, powerful, falling into a cadence that fills the space around us with the echo provided by Grue's darkness, and I raise my hand in an imperious gesture, because it is my hand that will frame terrible balance wrought in black and white—
"Taylor?" Iridescent stops her tirade, her every motion, only to look at me with fear, horror, relief, guilt—
Her hair blazes flaming red.
[Emma.]
I scream, and the Tyger roars.
Grue's darkness splits, and Stalker rushes in, crossbow in hand—
I point at her.
"What dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!"
And the Tyger, burning eyes in the forests of the night, leaps toward the shadow that has haunted me for so long.
There's a crashing sound, my words tearing through the wall with at least as much ease as Emma's power, and Stalker is forced to flee while she's pursued by a poem manifest.
Sophia was never very good in English class.
And now I am alone with a girl who, for once in the past few months, isn't throwing blinding bolts of color at me.
I walk toward her, the high heels my power forces on me making each stride a sinuous motion, my slight hips swaying with a grace I never had before as lean muscle shifts under what appear to be fishnets to anybody who isn't looking too closely.
Soon, I'll have to see if I can modify the hemline of my dress. It drags from behind like I'm going to a gala, but in front…
Anything above my knees is [not] something I want to flash to the whole city.
But now I am in front of Emma's trembling shape, and I cannot distract myself anymore.
So I take an apparently gloved hand and lift her blue features ([so achingly beautiful)] until I force her to meet my eyes.
"[Why?]" I ask.
And she cries.
And she [dares] hug me.
"I… I thought I killed you… Oh God, Taylor, I'm so sorry, so sorry, but I couldn't do anything but keep going, I didn't know what they would do—"
I slap her.
My hand throbs, and my eyes sting even as I feel black words flowing out of them in inky tears.
"How—how could you [even] think to touch me after everything—"
The Tyger's words return, and a moment after them, a crossbow bolt sinks on my back.
"Back off, Wordsworth. You just assaulted a Ward."
So I turn around, away from Emma's empty apology for something I have yet to understand, and face my other tormentor.
"This could have been a killing blow," I state far too calmly, the pain distant, muted.
"I just guessed a freak like you wouldn't bleed to death. I was right, wasn't I?"
Right. A freak.
A Case 53.
And now I [know] how those are made.
A vial, its contents burning down my throat before my body shifted, every color drained to monochrome as I screamed in agony, as I felt myself [change] into something other.
My mind splintered under the agony. I don't know where all the pieces went.
But I know who tried to take them away.
Sophia had nothing to do with it. Emma did, but fears them too much to betray them.
Looks like I'm on my own.
[Once upon a time a pretty girl was lost in a library. She didn't know what book she needed, not even if it existed, but she searched for it. The book she wanted held the memories of another girl, one that held the key to the maze they were in, and the pretty girl—]
Fine. Not alone. But these flashes of storytelling are going to get old real soon, if that's really how my brain works now.
Still, I need to deal with this.
So I look straight into Sophia's eyes as I reach back with one hand and grab the shaft of her hunting bolt before I pull it out as my back screams at the unnatural motion and the tearing of paper—
Oh.
I'm a book.
I'd better not fight any pyrokinetics. Also, Nazis have just become my natural enemies.
"Am I supposed to be impressed?" Sophia asks.
"Would you be, if I stabbed this through your eye?"
She shifts, her body turned askance rather than squared against me.
"A little bit, yeah."
So carelessly violent, so casually cruel, so [blindingly stupid].
Very well.
I remember a book, one of my favorites. Mom read it to me every night until it was finished, and I was sad, because I wanted more of it. She told me there were other books, but that they would be better when I was older.
Now I am older, but I don't have her to read them to me.
Still, there's always happiness, even if it's just a story we tell ourselves. And I have enough stories in me nowadays.
"'Arrow!' said the bowman. 'Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!'"
It's not an arrow, it's a bolt. But it is black, and Bard the archer, the slayer of the dragon Smaugh, takes it from my fingers without protest.
Stalker shifts into her shadow self and jumps back, swift as ever.
Bard is swifter.
The bolt sticks out of the dark blob where her face was just before she shifts back into flesh and blood and screams. It's at an angle, having gone through the hole in her mask, through her eye, but not through her skull.
And something explodes against my back.
I'm laying on the ground, Emma's body pinning me down, glowing emerald at her fingertips, at each side of my head.
"Taylor," she whispers, "I can't let you kill. That's not you."
Bard's words flow back to me, and my power is ready to be used again.
"That's rich coming from [you]." I don't use it. Not now, not with the burning rage making it far too difficult to choose between any of the possible stories that would obliterate Emma, that would tear her body to pieces, even with the most beloved of children's books.
Stalker has stopped screaming. She's lying still, probably passed out due to the pain.
I wanted her to feel [more.]
"I—I don't—it's not my fault, OK?! I never meant for this to happen, I just wanted—"
There's a metallic, clicking sound, and Emma stills.
"You just wanted to humiliate her, didn't you? Because you couldn't stand that she went through something and healed while you just kept falling apart in new and interesting ways. What was it, Emma? The betrayal of your protector—your [father] failing you? The helplessness at being at the mercy of—" Pretty girl's—[Tattletale's] voice, cruel and mean, but only because of me. She isn't like—
"Shut up!" And Emma turns, blinding emerald burning bright like a Tyger in the night, and—
I move.
Emma tumbles to the ground as I rise, but her red bolt is already flying, and I barely have enough time to reach Lisa and tackle her before it burns and—
Pain. So much pain, so much more than mere tearing, as I feel my pages—
I'm rolling on the floor, Lisa hugging me and forcing me to move, to smother the flames—
A pretty woman, like me, but older and with colors. She looks sad.
And I'm sitting down in the middle of a library, a place for books to have a party and sometimes have a new chapter that may be a part of a new book. I always liked libraries, the silence interrupted by rustling pages, the scent of old, yellowing paper…
Mine is usually white, but now seems a bit yellow.
"Emma, you have thirty seconds to take Stalker out of here. If you delay a single second too long, I will blow your brains out."
"I—I can help, I can bring her to Panacea and—"
"[Never] help her. Keep playing your stupid stunts, your heroic fights, but [never] get near her. I will kill you, Emma. Rules or not."
Pretty girl looks angry. But she sounds sad.
And colorful girl seems lost before she takes shadow and glows navy blue before running away.
Good. I don't like either of them. It's better when they are gone.
Then pretty girl's shoulders slump as she kneels next to me. It's like we're going to have a tea party with all the books, like we are kids once again, with my best friend—
"Taylor, sweetie… I'm going to take you home, okay?"
I nod, and she grabs my hand.
Hers is smooth, warm.
Mine is smoother, but it isn't warm.
***
I'm laying on my bed at the Undersider's base, and there's a pile of books without words by my side.
Lisa is sitting on the bed, looking at me with sadness.
"You are going away, aren't you?"
My mind is still swimming with regained memories, with faces, and names, and feelings, after spending the past few days once again trapped in my storytelling fugues as she kept bringing me books to devour. She's been taking notes, and now I understand that's her own backup of me, the list of the books she needs to give me if I ever lose myself again.
Lisa holds the key to restoring me. That's far too symbolic for the current me not to take notice.
"I always wanted to be a hero," I finally answer, my voice far too quiet in this small room.
"Even after all of this? Nobody would blame you if you decided to be selfish. I wouldn't."
"I… I would." And that's enough, I don't say, even if she hears it.
We remain silent, both staring at my bedcovers as if they were far more interesting than plain, beige cotton. I guess it counts as interesting that they aren't stained with ink, but Tattletale's power should have made that observation months ago.
Finally, she grabs my hand.
"You will always be welcome here," she says, voice slightly raw.
I pull her toward me, fighting against my urge to keep people away, to avoid having anyone touch me. Because she deserves this much, at the very least.
So I hug her, her body pressing against mine, and I am thankful for the fact my flesh is still soft, still yielding, still able to mold against her own as her arms surround me, and we hold one another for far too long.
And far too short a time.
"I am a hero. You are a villain," I whisper, my face buried in long, blonde hair.
"That's out there. How about, in here, you are Taylor, and I'm Lisa?"
She squeezes.
I squeeze back.
"That sounds… reasonable," I finally accede.
She chuckles.
"No need for that kind of language, young lady," she says with the affronted tone of wounded dignity.
And I giggle, surprising myself with the soft sound.
"All right. It sounds good."
Then she leans back, looking into eyes that are now black on white, the only distinction between iris and pupil being the shifting, almost oily current of gleaming words circling the latter.
"It does," she agrees with a smile without mischief nor pity.
And with far too much warmth.
***
Once upon a time, there was a hero who fought other heroes, and a villain who saved the hero's life. It was a story that made no sense, convoluted and complicated, with a curse that stole memories, another that turned the hero into a monster, and a dragon—there are always dragons—who roamed a ruined city.
The hero and the villain, though, had no idea how the story would go, just that, sometimes, they could afford to be Taylor and Lisa.
They could also hope that, like in all good stories, they would live happily ever after.
Stranger things had happened, after all.
==================
This work is a repost of one of my first commissions, and one that I'm both grateful for and proud of. It can be found on QQ, SV, and AO3, and, of course, on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true), where the latest chapter will show up a week before it comes out for everyone else. It is currently 33 chapters and 94k words long and approaching its final arc at a good pace, so I hope you'll look forward to learning about Wordsworth's ending.
As I don't have access to Webnovel's "premium" features, the original italics in the text will be conveyed through the use of square brackets. I'm sorry about the inconvenience.
As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true): aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!
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