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January 17 - January 20, 2024
“Perhaps a person cannot fix the mistake they made, but that does not mean the mistake can never be fixed. After all, as I have been told many times, there is more than one way to find a flame pearl.”
Cliopher looked at Fitzroy, who nodded and put his hand on Cliopher’s shoulder. Cliopher had never had that before, and he did not know what to do. He did not feel right relaxing against Fitzroy as Aunt Onaya was against her husband, but … but it was a comfort, to have Fitzroy touch him, his hand warm.
And then Fitzroy said, “Because it’s a tower?”
whooooof
Cliopher thoughtfully ate one of the pastries. It was spiced chicken with some sort of mango salsa, and it was delicious.
sounds fucking delicious
“Kip, there is an iguana in the bathhouse. No—let me rephrase that. There is an iguana in the bath. My bath. With me. An iguana.”
literally obsessedddd
“Fifty-nine cousins sounded like a lot in the abstract, but it’s even more in the flesh.”
“I could find you anywhere,” Fitzroy said softly, or he thought he did …
awwwwww
He’d won it as a prize in a competition for debate in school, having managed to argue quite successfully—with an irony certainly not lost on him or anyone else who remembered the occasion—that a bureaucracy was a burden and a waste of money.
“There’s no shame,” he whispered, “in loving something, however big, however small.”
🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
the stuffed animal part is so real tho. aang meant so much to me when i was a kid
“Is this the part where you say you love me as a set-down? I do so enjoy that part, truly I do, but if it’s inconvenient for you, we can skip to the end when I feel very impressed and foolish and put in my place—”
omfgggggg the girls are fighting!!!!!!
“You know what it is to have a truth too big, too real, too much the ground of your soul. That is what I feel for you, for calling you my fanoa.”
“You know, I’m lying here thinking, ‘What would Jullanar do?’ But the answer is ‘healthy communication’ and ‘ask useful questions.’”
“It’s because you had a happy childhood, isn’t it? Mostly, I mean. I know there were difficulties. But you’re like Jullanar—or Pali—or Damian. You’re all so solid in yourself. Sometimes I used to think it had to be a front, a façade, some sort of performance, but it was never an act.
so real tho. i also think this just comes with age and acceptance
I went along with it at first because at least you were interesting and you seemed to like me—you seemed to see me—you looked at me—”
this is making me think of smth. andrew finding neil interesting? also fan fiction spock finding jim interesting
“Sometimes,” Fitzroy said very quietly, “I’m afraid there’s nothing beneath the performance. I can’t—Kip, I’m not like you. If we’re fanoa, two halves of a shell, you’re the whole one and I’m the empty curve. I don’t have—there’s nothing there. It’s all an act.”
awwwwww. real tho sometimes too
Cliopher could only speak the truth. “I love you.” Fitzroy flopped back dramatically. “The efficiency of your set-downs nowadays, Kip, it is entirely unbecoming.”
I wanted so badly to be real—and what did I get? A legend spun around me.”
being Fitzroy seemed such a dream I convinced myself that I’d only ever imagined it. I pretended I’d been in that tower the whole time, just imagined all the adventures and friendships and that I could create something worth living for—”
🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
“Nothing,” he whispered. “There’s nothing there, Kip.” “The more fool me, then,” said Cliopher, smiling at him, as the wind gusted fitfully and tangled the feathers and braids in his hair. “Since I took you for my equal.”
“We do have a cousin for every occasion.” After a moment, Fitzroy said, “I like the one I have for this occasion.”
“Most of the time, I have come to realize, our loved ones wish for two things: that they are happy, and that we are happy.” “Very simple.” “Indeed. The problem comes when they think they know what makes us happy—or even more, when they see us unhappy and assume that if only we did what they think is right, we would be content.”
god this is so real
“Many of us have a more fragile happiness in our twenties than we would like anyone else to know.”
NOT I (or at least not me rn!)
“I don’t think I know what that word means.” “I’m sure I’ve heard you use it.” “Doesn’t mean I know what it means,”
and an alarmingly loose grasp of what a triangle is.
I know you love the common and ordinary goods with an intensity greater than the sun.”
“An alarmingly loose grasp of what triangles and tigers are.”
“I’ll be the best fanoa, you’ll see.” Cliopher grinned. “You do have some unusually stiff competition there—” “I cannot believe you’re making dick jokes about Auri and El.”
“My name,” his fanoa said, solid as the earth, “is Fitzroy Angursell.”
And then they reached the floor of the sea, and there on a rocky outcropping that was steaming as if it were the chimney of some great subterranean oven was a small, white shell.
“I’ve discovered something, Kip.” “Have you?” “I want to have adventures with you for the rest of my life.”
“I do appreciate that even after all that time spent together on a small boat with, let me reiterate, nothing much to do besides talk, you still managed not to tell me half your stories.”
literally!!!!
“A matched pair,” said Fitzroy, with what Cliopher could not help think was slightly misplaced smugness.
“You’re so beautiful,” Cliopher blurted, and when Fitzroy gave him an incredulous look, refused to do anything but be as earnest as his heart wished. “With the shell in your hand and the magic in your face and your … your … everything …” Fitzroy smiled at him, blazing as the Sun, far more wonderful. “You’re rather splendid yourself, Cliopher Mdang.”
fitzroy giving him the incredulous look like erm i thought you weren’t about that business
Cliopher had not thought he could love him more, but he had been wrong.
What—What is your island, Fitzroy Angursell?” “This one.” Fitzroy dropped his hands. The fire at the heart of the world rose up.
Cliopher had tumbled head-over-heels in love with Fitzroy Angursell from the first few lines of Aurora, the glimpse of the man in the icon of the Emperor, a joke and a laugh and the meeting of eyes across habit and taboos.
!!!!!!!!
Two halves of a shell, not identical but because of that fitting together.
Navanoa
yessssssssa
“Fitzroy. You made me an island.”
Fitzroy had raised that island from the sea, but it was Cliopher who had set that star in the sky.
they’re each others equals!!!!!
It was not just any boat, either. It was Bertie’s yacht.
Cliopher felt too sozzled by surprise and magic and pure happiness to answer that. “I have no idea,” he said. “Fitzroy made me an island this morning. I cannot think about philosophy right now. I have only poetry in my heart.”
“And then we started to speculate,” Cora said, her eyes brimming with amusement, “how Vou’a raised the islands for Ani, and we wondered if it could possibly be the case that you and—”
hehehehe
That made Cliopher grin, his heart swelling what felt like several sizes. “Welcome to Navanoa.” Toucan said, “Of course you called it that.” Cliopher turned to look up the hill at the pale tunic of Fitzroy under the shelter of his wave. “We did, yes.” “Sickening,” Ghilly said, and took his arm. “Simply sickening. Shall we go wake him?”
Navanoa—what a name, Kip! But of course you wanted something that would sound excellent in the Lays. Stop sniggering, Cora, we all know Kip has absolutely planned his life around it.”
absolutely so silly and sweet
He nodded firmly. They stared at him. At last Toucan said, “Okay, I want a bit more than that.”
“And somehow this involved raising a new island?” Cliopher’s eyes strayed to Fitzroy. “We might have gotten a little bored.”
“I didn’t fall into Sky Ocean on purpose, Toucan.”
“You deserve each other,” Ghilly declared. “Because that sounds totally mad, I hope you know that?”
He waved vaguely, not making Cliopher think that there were any such auspicious dates to be considering. Fitzroy was not, after all, a Schooled wizard.
