Warning! Contains spoilers for Legacy. (I know the spoiler ban is over, but there are plenty of people who still haven’t read it and are browsing the fandom. To those people, I recommend generally staying away from the fandom until you’ve read Legacy once the spoilers start kicking in.)
Everglen’s huge backyard was a lot bigger than Tam expected. It was way bigger than anything at Choralmere, that was for sure. The field was as grand as anything related to the famous family was, with plant life stretching across the expanse.
The afternoon sun felt hot on Tam’s neck, sweat wetting his forehead and cooling him down only by a very tiny notch—but it was enough to spark an arctic rush that made the sun disappear. His eyes scanned the green trees around him, waiting forher. For some reason, even though he’d regulated his temperature, drops slid down his face.
For some reason he wanted to pull the pretty silver flowers that matched his jagged bangs surrounding him and their pretty little leaves out of the dirt as hard as he could. Why?
Then he remembered.Linh.Biana.
It had been a whole month since he came back from the Neverseen; he was trust-worthy!He was on theirside.Sophie trusted him.If it isn’t girls’ problems, why was it so hard to get them to open up to him?
Someone cleared their throat behind him, and he whirled around to see a cute, teal eyed Vacker.
“Hi Tam,” Biana greeted with a pink-lipped smile. Her brown hair was braided and woven with diamonds that flashed when she slowly approached him.
“Um…hi.”
The awkwardness swelled between them. He could’ve held her gaze, but that would require a courage that even his surly, cynical side didn’t have. He settled for twisting the button on his jerkin.
Biana studied him. “You really don’t have to be nervous. We’re just talking. Besides, you can’t have forgotten your snarky-ness that would never let you be this…whatever you’re being right now. I’ve developed some myself while you were gone!”
When he didn’t smile back, she rolled her eyes. “Maybe if we walk around it’ll loosen you up,” she suggested. “You clearly need it.”
She grabbed his hand before he could yank it away and pulled him into a run. The trees whizzed past them. She called to him after some time, “Just so you know, we shouldn’t do anything dangerous. I know you’re not great at that, but please try to manage.” They stopped running at a wide lake that shone in the sunlight, and she held up her other hand before he could protest and continued, “Woltzer will murder me if you don’t listen, and then I’ll take it out on you.”
A sarcastic “Ohno” snuck out of his mouth before he could stop himself, and Tam pulled his bangs over his eyes when Biana giggled.
“I’ll forgive and have mercy on you for your disrespectful comment on my tremendous power,onlybecause I’ve missed y—because I’ve missed your jokes.”
He didn’t miss the hesitation. He could’ve called her out on it, but for some reason he felt the urge to say, “Of course, Lady Biana.”
She smiled and sat down silently on the edge of the lake, which he quickly copied. The toes of her boots trailed through the lake water, rippling the surface.
Her face was happy, but her body soon said otherwise. Her shoulders drooped, and her eyes jumped away from him and watched everything much too closely. Her fingers looped around a loose strand of hair, winding it tighter and tighter and tighter.
“You’re not okay.”
“What?” Biana jerked her head down from where she was intensely observing a bird fly overhead.
“Areyou okay?” he asked in a low voice that made her whole body stiffen.
“What does it matter to you?” she snapped as her face darkened.
He pried his fingers open and closed. “Because I care about you—and the rest of our friends,” he added after he recognized howthathad sounded.
“Do you? You left us—but when Linhofferedyou wouldn’t come back.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” Tam argued. “I couldn’t leave yet if she could still hurt Linh.”
“Linh’s not helpless, you know,” Biana countered.
“I never said she was. But I’d never be able to live with myself if I let them hurt her.”
Biana looked away and yanked on her braid so hard the elastic popped off and her hair unraveled into a wavy mane. “Do you know how it affected Linh at all? How could you put her through that? Put her through the hurt and aching on the inside while being forced to hold a steady face that was inevitably going to fall apart?”
“You’re not talking about Linh,” he told her softly while she stared at her feet.
They splashed into the water. “No. I’m not.”
Tam dragged his hand through his black hair. “I’m sorry, and I know that’s not enough. So instead of going on and on about how I can make it up to you, I’ll ask you again, given that you technically didn’t answer.” He waited until Biana looked him in the eyes before he asked once more, “Are you okay?”
“Do you really expect me to be? If you want me to spell it out for you, then fine.I am not okay. None of us are, which might partially be why. Sophie, who’s been so strong for us despite how much she has on her plate, is in shambles after Councillor Oralie’s cache was unlocked. Keefe isn’t talking to anyone except for Sophie since he woke up a couple days ago, and he’s scaring me, Tam. He won’t tell anyone what the ability is—somehow, heknows—and Elwin won’t tell us either. Glimmer is being just as shady as you always are, and I can’t trust her when she hides so much. Fitz is…adjusting, but he won’t tell me the whole story onwhyhe and Sophie broke up. And now that you’re back, I thought things would go back to normal. But they haven’t. Things are changing, and I’m so tired of pretending I’m fine, because I’m not!”
Biana’s fists curled around a delicate silver petal, crushingit and scatteringthe dry pieces left.
“You know, I realized something while I was gone,” Tam slowly began.
“Let me guess,” she said, her voice coated in a thin layer of dripping malice.“You realized that you’d made a huge mistake and that you were being a jerk-wad to all of your friends.”
“I did realize that,” he admitted. Before she could expand on other things he’d supposedly realized, he kept going. “I also realized that sometimes that I kinda want things to change.” His throat probably shouldn’t have been as dry as it was.
A few seconds passed before her anger started crumbling, and it took eight seconds more plus a very deep breath for it to be truly gone. “I think if you stay with us,” Biana offered quietly, “then things could change.”
“You really think so?”
Tam tensed when she scooted a tentativehand halfway over his. Trying to will his head that was going crazy over this to keep its cool was a lot more difficult than it should have been.
Biana shrugged. “I guess I do.”
“And you don’t have any doubts? I mean, you’re beautiful, and strong and a Vacker. I was banished, I was a wayward. Everyone hates me because I’m a shade. Why would you want to change for me?”
When she looked at him, he forced himself to keep eye contact, but his eyes found their way to the still lake when she stated blatantly, “I don’t care about them, and you’re awesome. Nothing that you can’t control changes that. But being a Vacker does not make me awesome, or better than anyone else—including you.”
An image flashed through his mind: Biana on the ground being teased, because she was with the shade. He then quickly realized that she would probably just kick them in the jaw, so he shook it away. “Are you sure though? Look at what happened with your brother—”
“Fitz is caught up in a messy situation. He wasn’t as patient as he could’ve been, and he wanted a perfect appearance, which cost him. Though, it was a special case.”
Tam sighed, “With the moonlark, it always is.”
“I don’t need anything to happen quickly,” Biana informed him. “In fact, it’s better if it’s not. I don’t want this to get in the way of anything.” She leaned in a tiny bit closer as she said, “And just in case you were wondering, if you were unmatchable, I wouldn’t care.”
His face was in an oven, and Biana’s smirk as she leaned back made it burn a million degrees hotter. “This won’t change anything, don’t worry,” she assured him. Her smirk widened when she added, “For now.”
CoOoL Tiana rocks.
Okay, so I won’t be continuing this. Probably nobody was wondering, but whatever. It’s short and sweet, and I don’t really see anything I could expand upon (if you do though, shoot away.)
Quick notes:
- I intentionally made Tam hypocritical about the trust thing
- I also intentionally left out Tam's snarky side because 1) I can't write it, and 2) I think it would be both plausible and adorable if Tam was softer with Biana
Umm...thanks for reading, I guess.
-Lady Sassyfur
P.S: I won’t pretend that when I wrote a cute, teal eyed Vacker, I wasn’t very tempted to say it was Fitz.
