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aelwyn abernant returns to solace almost exactly a year after she left. and by left, of course, she means kidnapped by the third ring of the court of stars, and starved of magic until it nearly killed her. solace has never felt more familiar and strange at the same time. fallinel was the first place she called home - she grew up there until adaine was four or five (time means very little to aelwyn now, even less than it did before, so she measures time using her sister, the only constant in her life she has left). and then they moved from their elven homeland to a strange town full of unusual magic and technology and people, which was as terrifying as it was exciting. a long time ago she would’ve missed fallinel, perfect and eternal, but she’s had more than enough of things never changing.
aelwyn abernant returns to solace not much of a changed person, if you ask her. fundamentally, she is the same as before (adaine’s detect thoughts spell made sure of that, the clever idiot) but some integral part of her got lost and stayed behind in that fucking orb, so even when she lies in bed at night she can feel herself slowly turning and turning and turning until she feels ill, like adaine has cursed her with a ray of sickness under the breakfast table like she used to. though to say she hasn’t changed at all would be disingenuous - pre-nightmare king aelwyn wouldn’t have dared to stand up to their parents at all (if she thinks about it, post-nightmare king aelwyn wouldn’t dare either, not really, but her parents aren’t here, so she doesn’t have to deal with that thought). pre-nightmare king aelwyn was popular and likeable and brilliant, whereas post-nightmare king aelwyn wonders if she was ever really any of those things to begin with.
aelwyn abernant returns to solace and against adaine and jawbone’s repeated advice, goes to visit their old family home - or at least, what’s left of it. she stands in front of the ashy, crater filled ruins, alone, and silently mourns the death of something she can’t quite describe. it’s not her innocence - that small thing died a long, long time ago - but maybe something similar. and then it hits her like a magic missile that this house, her bedroom, was the only place she ever felt truly safe, the only place she could completely and genuinely be herself without any fears of repercussion. but eventually, the repercussions came anyway, like they always do, and now she’s left sleeping on the top of a bunk bed that she shares with her sister, which is lovely but terrifying, unable to let her guard down because if adaine saw her break- well, that just can’t happen.
aelwyn abernant returns to solace and, after hosting a funeral for her old house in which she might be both the bereaved and the bereaver, takes to walking the streets late at night, just to be alone and somewhere that isn’t mordred manor, a place that’s so busy and alive that it makes her feel like a corpse in comparison. and besides, it’s nice to be able to just walk with nowhere to go. aelwyn’s midnight travels are as aimless as she feels, which provides a strange sort of comfort as she wanders through cravencroft cemetery, past aguefort (she never lingers there though, too paranoid about seeing ostentatia or another of the seven maidens, even at this late hour. she’s heard they don’t hate her, not anymore, but aelwyn’s experience with hate is that it never truly goes away), and eventually to the marigold river, vast and ominous in the dark, stretching out across her vision. alone, she sits on the bank of the river for a couple of hours or so each night, watching the current churn up the breaking waves that echo throughout the ghost of this town and the ghost of her.
aelwyn abernant returns to solace with her sister but still feels alone, a crippling loneliness taking hold of her, rattling her bones and seizing her heart. still, being alone is better than pretending she can’t see the eyes that watch her every movement whenever she’s with other people who are always waiting for her to turn on them. even adaine does it, which aelwyn can’t blame her for when all she’s taught her sister is how to expect betrayal. she sees it, in adaine’s anxious gaze and twitchy fingers, always ready to cast a spell. (aelwyn can never figure out what spell, though - would adaine protect herself, or attack? it’s difficult to see adaine as anything close to violent, but then she remembers the crackling white lightning around her fist connecting with their father’s jaw, destroying the man she had thought untouchable in a single strike, and holds her tongue.) she thinks about reaching out to one of her old friends, and then realises they’re either dead or were never really her friends to begin with. so she is left with no friends and a poor excuse for a family, but she can’t bring herself to complain. it’s better than having nothing at all, at least, even if she feels like an intruder in every room.
aelwyn abernant returns to solace having lost both of her parents having but gained a new sort of family, a family of werewolves and tieflings and half orcs, a fact her father surely would’ve disapproved of. but her father is dead, she must remind herself, and his prejudiced words don’t mean anything anymore. she isn’t really sure if these people could even be considered her family - they are definitely adaine’s family and she’s adaine’s sister, so there must be some sort of transitive relationship there (fig’s girlfriend, ayda, is always talking about the transitive nature friendship and it makes aelwyn uncomfortable that the people she lives with are starting to rub off on her), but they don’t feel like her family. they feel like strangers that she just happens to share a house with - but then again, that feeling isn’t at all unfamiliar for her.
aelwyn abernant returns to solace and isn’t entirely sure what to do. there are no more classes for her to ace and no more parties for her to crash, so she now has more free time than she knows what to do with. everyone at mordred manor tries to find her a new hobby to spend the days: adaine wants aelwyn to come to aguefort, even though that means repeating her senior year (which is a terrifying prospect, because abernants do not repeat things, they get them perfectly the first time and never, ever fail); jawbone suggests she find a youth group to ‘build up her support network’ (which is ridiculous - she’s the only support she’s ever had, and she’s managed fine enough so far, hasn’t she?); fig offers to teach her to play the bass guitar and dress her up in spikes and chains (to which aelwyn very politely said ‘thank you, but absolutely not’ and fig replied it was her loss, and for once she is okay with losing); and kristen asks if she wants to join the slowly growing church of cassandra (to which she again declines - aelwyn doesn’t know what she believes in, isn’t sure if she believes in anything at all. hope is for the hopeful, and it’s something she gave up years ago without ever even realising it); but it’s lydia barkrock, ragh’s mother, who she ends up getting on surprisingly well with, though perhaps it isn’t that much of a surprise. lydia is kind and sharp-witted and strong, with a mind like a whip and a laugh like a foghorn. she tells aelwyn that she reminds her of a younger version of herself, scared but brave, and aelwyn cannot find the words to respond with - no one has ever compared her to themselves in a positive light before.
aelwyn abernant returns to solace and learns how to bake from lydia - they spend hours in the kitchen together until every surface is covered in flour and her arms ache from relentlessly stirring and mixing and kneading (it doesn’t really hurt, however - it’s the kind of ache she feels in her fingers after casting a powerful spell or abjurative ward, like her magic is in a rush to leave her). lydia is a good teacher, firm but gentle, and she doesn’t get upset at aelwyn when she forgets to set a timer for the cookies they made and the whole kitchen fills with smoke. aelwyn freezes in terror, squeezing her eyes shut tight and flinching in preparation for a harsh reprimand, until she feels lydia softly touch her arm and say “it’s okay, you’re safe. no one is angry, and no one is going to hurt you.”. that is the moment she starts to believe what adaine had said about their parents hurting them both in different ways, and maybe everything about her - her abjurative magic, her cruel personality - are just ways she has been trying to recover ever since. (it takes her a while to realise she had cast mage hand instinctively to grab the fire extinguisher in the kitchen, and that it was the first time since the nightmare forest that she had cast something without actively thinking about it, as if her innate magic was slowly but surely returning to her, like a loved one returning home from a hard fought war).
aelwyn abernant returns to solace, and while she chooses not to attend aguefort, she still gets her high school diploma after a few months of studying to catch up what she had missed in her final year and a half of school. they hold a small ceremony at mordred, with jawbone presenting her with her diploma (he even buys her a graduation gown and cap, which makes her burst into loud, ugly tears for the first time since the nightmare forest because he bought her a present, and it means so much more than the gifts and praise her parents showered her in). they have a small party afterwards to celebrate, far from the parties she is used to but far better than all of them combined. she knows most of the people there, and they all definitely know her, coming up to her at intervals to tell her how proud they are of what she’s been through. she wants to tell them to not be proud of her, to be proud of adaine, because look at her, but she decides to let the kind words be, let them settle in her chest all warm and soft. afterwards, when everyone has either gone home or fallen asleep, she curls up with adaine on the couch and they stay up all night watching cheesy rom coms, and god it feels good to be able to choose not to trance, because being able to spend time with her sister is far more important than one night of lost sleep. (it also feels strangely good that this quiet, tender moment with adaine would have been more rebellious to their parents than any number of nights of drinking and drugs and hudol boys - she realises there is a wonderful power in rebelling with kindness, with love.)
aelwyn abernant returns to solace and eventually runs into ostentatia wallace and the other maidens. she makes it a good few months while avoiding them, but elmville is a small town, and so she is on the way home from buying some groceries when suddenly the bejewelled dwarven girl is right in front of her. aelwyn drops the bag of groceries, sending food flying, and desperately tries to disappear into the ground. when that doesn’t work, she tries casting mending to clear up the mess and be on her way, but the stupid cantrip gets stuck in her throat and it won’t work so now she’s in her hands and knees in front of all of them and she hasn’t even said anything to them, because she’s such an idiot- but then blue hands offer her a banged up can of peas, and she looks up and it’s sam nightingale, the water genasi sorcereress. she didn’t directly trap sam in a palimpsest like ostentatia, but that fact doesn’t help her feelings of guilt lessen. she was still complicit in their entrapment, and after having been trapped herself for so long, it makes her sick to her stomach.
“you alright?” sam says, and aelwyn nods despite feeling nauseous. they both slowly get up and regard each other warily - sam backed by her friends, and aelwyn backed by nothing but herself - and whether she even has that is questionable.
“i’ve survived worse,” she replies without thinking, rubbing the raw skin on her palms and knees from kneeling on the sidewalk. sam lets out a sharp chuckle and says, “haven’t we all?” which makes aelwyn flinch before the other maidens join in laughing with sam, and she realises that maybe hate doesn’t have to last, and maybe liking people is a lot easier. (even ostentatia is friendly, if not a little cautious. aelwyn keeps trying to apologise, but the other girl refuses to hear it, so she buys her a pretty looking bracelet with the little gold she keeps saved for emergencies, and ostentatia accepts it with a smile and says “okay, now i forgive you.”)
aelwyn abernant returns to solace, and slowly becomes friends with the seven maidens. they have a weird shared experience of having their teen years ruined by being trapped somewhere for months, despite them having been on warring sides to begin with. they don’t always hang out - aelwyn has come to enjoy solitude and quiet company - but sometimes they go to the movies or have a sleepover and or go shopping together, and act like kids, reclaiming back their youths that had been lost to crystals and dragons and nightmares. she is eighteen and finally feels like it, finally feels like she isn’t looking back on the past or longing for some far off future. aelwyn gets on with all of the maidens but likes sam the most, because she is the only person she can really talk to about the awful, exhilarating rollercoaster ride of having been friends with penelope everpetal. they laugh together about her ridiculous obsession with popularity and being prom queen, and they cry together because despite all of that, they both still sort of miss her. aelwyn finds friendship in the last place she thought she’d find it, which makes it a lot harder to justify her own self hatred.
aelwyn abernant returns to solace an enemy of everyone, including herself, but eventually finds family and friends and some form of happiness, shy and tentative as that happiness may be, and it feels like calling an armistice with her anxious mind. she learns to put down the gun she’s been holding to her head this whole time, and the feeling is so relieving that it hurts. it is strange to think that who she used to be would hardly recognise her now, this gentle, kind person who bakes cookies for her friends and sings unapologetically loudly in the shower and trances on the top of a bunk bed that she shares with her sister, safe in a blanket of abjurative wards. she wishes she could go back in time to tell herself that yes, the fear will always be there, but it doesn’t have to be the only part of yourself that you have left, that there is more to you than anger and self loathing, more to you than who your parents want you to be. but she isn’t a chronomancer, and besides, she’d rather stay in the present, seeing as she figured out the message for herself eventually anyway.
aelwyn abernant returns to solace and after a year, finds the strength to call it home. she thinks about the old aelwyn (not that there is an old aelwyn, not really. she is every version of herself all at once, coexisting in a brilliant cacophony) so alone but worse, lonely, wondering how she could have everything and still feel this miserable. she thinks of the aelwyn that lived behind locked doors and drawn curtains, who now is nothing but open doorways and shared bedrooms and sunlight streaming in through open windows. aelwyn sits on the bank of the marigold river in the hazy heat of summer’s evenings, her ankles in the golden tinted water, feeling for the first time in her young but infinite life, that she is completely at home within herself. the setting sun lights the sky with red-purple bruises, violent and beautiful, just like her. aelwyn feels the pull of the current and the breaking of waves that echo through this old ghost town and thinks that if this is it, if these are her glory days, then she will look back on them and know that they were more than enough.