Xenial

[Athena]

Xenial
Being an Archivist is Boring.

[Athena]

It is the year of the clockwork fiasco that Athena turns fifteen, and it is the year she takes her place as Archivist of the Silent Rose. She sits behind a desk all day and does not look up from her papers, from her work.

It only lasts for a day. On the second day she leaves (leavesleavesleaves because she cannot stand the stifling of the lights and the closeness and she needs the air and she misses home so much but it has been over six years since her mother died and another seven since she last saw Pippin (she was counting the days but the number got too big). She does not really like being in tiny little rooms and the office they have given her is exactly that. She does not like being Archivist. It is Boring. She doesn't understand why they have given her this job; she was in training to be an Artist for the Court, but instead she is stuck in Silent Rose territory during the melted season and she shall be boredboredbored until wintertime.

Dusty likes the Silent Rose. Dusty likes the carrots, and sitting on a desk, and being admired and picked up. He protests a little when Athena whispers to him that they are going to run away (run away run away run away run away), and tries to offer her advice but she doesn't listen.

They flee to the Sonambulists, she and Dusty, but she is totally unprepared when a war breaks out between the Sonambulists and the Firestarters. She looks back at the flying airships and maybe regrets her decision.

In the months between the melted season and winter, Athena moves into a castle. They all know she's the Archivist there, and they all assume she's come on some ambassador-related mission. They call her Athena Archivist, and she meets a boy who calls himself Howl, whose strings are all tangled up, but he makes her laugh and so they are friends. She meets a girl called Esther, and Esther is hard and cold and quiet and thoughtful, and she believes in Esther but stays away from her, because the martlets are always swirling around her and she doesn't trust them at all.

She meets a boy with blue hair and she meets a girl with grey hair who stick in her mind like hot tar. She tries to forget them.

She is sixteen years old when she sees Pippin again. She is in one corner of her room, and Pippin is pointing an arrow at her through a window. "Pippin!" she yells, and Dusty flinches at the loud noise. "Pippin!"

Pippin starts and nearly falls out of the tree. She drops her bow and then swears a bit.

Athena comes to the window. "Pippin," she says slowly. "you're a horrible shot."

Pippin rights herself on the tree. "...Athena?" she asks, and her voice is blurred.

"Pippin," repeats Athena. She straightens herself and places Dusty on the table. "Pippin, come out of the tree. We shall have tea."

Pippin nods and climbs into her window. They have tea and milk and cookies and they talk as if they are the only girls in the world again.

Athena lets Pippin go back to the Firestarters (even though she knows the Firestarters are -- well. She doesn't want to know.) and she lets Pippin go with a smile on her face and a promise to reconnect later, and that is when she knows she must return to the Silent Rose.

She says good-bye to all of her friends and heads back, to her airships and summer and molten seas. They give her a bigger office, and that is all right. She shares coffee with the man who has the office underneath her.

She knows that Pippin will cross to the other side of the Line very, very, soon, but a part of her suspects that part of Pippin has always been there.