Archive of Our Own ^beta

Pyrrha can tell someone’s watching her.

Hitting the razor against the sink to get rid of the water remnant, she looks up to see her face in the bathroom mirror. 

She looks like crap. No offense to Gideon. 

Camilla can't stay still to save her life, but Camilla doesn't tippytoe her way to the kitchen either.

So,

“What you looking at, No-no?”

Nona’s reflection materialises in front of the mirror. She's still in her pajamas, her head looking like birds have been nesting on her hair.

Fuzzy socks that took half her wage because Nona found them comfortable and Pyrrha couldn't deny her.

“I ate that, once,” she provides.

“Shaving cream?”

“Yes, Pyrrha,” says Nona, matter-of-factly. “What else would I be talking about?”

Anything, her mind supplies.

Anything that is non-edible has an invisible seal of approval in Nona’s mind. Window sills, forks, sand, pencils, hair, wood. She could go on forever.

“Smart-ass,” says Pyrrha instead.

Nona ignores that.

Always good at not giving a fuck when she chooses to. 

Pyrrha sort of envies her for it.

“What would happen if you stopped doing that?” Nona asks, leaning over the sink to get a better look at the razor.

“Well,” Pyrrha says. “I would prick you with my beard when kissing you goodnight and you wouldn't like that.”

“She’d go full pimp look,” says Camila’s voice, Palamedes behind it, as he passes through the hallway.

“I see,” says Nona, “thank you for shaving, Pyrrha. I love you,” then turns around and tippy-toes her way back to the kitchen.

“Love ya’ too.”

And so their morning begins.

//

It's hard to pour into words that make sense to anyone but her.

How to say that the thought of braiding someone’s hair every morning, simultaneously making sure they eat breakfast—at least three bites, she repeats over and over—, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of their head when they part ways on the street; all of it, Pyrrha enjoys it.

To take care and to feel useful for caring.

And to feel loved, she supposes, in return.

//

Camilla locks herself up in her room and the only sound that makes it past the walls is that obnoxious clack-clack from the recorder.

Over and over again. Drives her mad.

Nona sits next to her in the dining room and keeps looking at her through sweaty locks of hair that get tangled in her forehead.

She ought to buy a fan at some point. When she has spare money—which is never.

“You're worried,” whispers Nona, wiser than most, considering her age.

“Got me all figured out, huh?” Pyrrha murmurs. Then: “What gave it away?”

“It's in the way your eyebrows move.”

Something about the way she says it tells Pyrrha that Nona can't comprehend how no one else notices it too.

It's your eyes. You blink too much. 

You're angry.

Your hand twitches when you're worried.

You square your shoulders when you feel uncomfortable.

“Why?” Nona demands.

“Just—frustrated. About those two,” says Pyrrha, signaling to the locked door.

Nona looks back at the door and sighs, deeply sorrowed.

“I would be so sad,” she confesses. “If I were so far away from you guys the way Camilla is from Palamedes.”

Pyrrha hums, softly.

“I try to kiss Camilla the way Palamedes tells me to, but it only makes her sadder. I don't know what to do, Pyrrha.”

“It's not your fault, junior.”

Nona’s head finds solace in the crook of Pyrrha’s neck. Pyrrha’s arm surrounds her shoulders to pull her closer.

“Do you miss your friends too, Pyrrha?”

“Yep,” she says, falsefully cheerful. “Lots.”

“What were they like?”

She tries to think of anything that won't make her too raw.

Years ago, she would have surfaced to see her best friend’s face in the mirror, and even if it wasn't the same as seeing him, Pyrrha could count on the feeling.

He was there, she could feel him. All the damned time.

At some point things were bound to go to shit. It is what it is.

Pyrrha just didn't expect to be the one to outlive him.

“Fucking old,” she settles for.

Nona makes a nuh-uh noise, reproachful.

“Bad word.”

“Sorry.”

“It's alright. What else?”

“Boring, I guess,” says Pyrrha. “Try spending ten thousand years together with someone. You're bound to get bored at some point.”

“But you loved them. Even if they were—zombies,” Nona whispers the last word into her ear, secretive.

“Didn’t really matter,” she says. “At the end.”

Memory’s a funny thing. She recalls through blurred lens a time before time itself was rebuilt and reshaped. Half-cooked zombies and an apocalypse. Mind stuff no one can get access to, and somehow Pyrrha’s unlucky enough to have some fucked up version of it stored inside her fucked up brain.

“And the woman you loved?”

Sometimes Nona can really twist the knife without meaning to.

“What about her?”

“Well,” says Nona, thoughtful. “What was she like?”

“Explosive,” Pyrrha says, fondly. “Stubborn to the end.”

“Would I have liked her?”

“Hard to say, No-no,” she answers as gently as possible.

Far as she knows, Wake would’ve put a bullet through Nona’s head the second she realized what she was, and Nona’s response would be to throw a tantrum so hard she’d end up making herself puke.

“Oh,” Nona hums.

At last, Camilla finally makes an appearance, entering the living room with a blank, cold face. She speaks up.

“What’s with the long faces?”

“Pyrrha’s sad,” Nona says.

“Snitch,” murmurs Pyrrha without malice.

“Aren’t we all,” Camilla says absently, going around the corner to start getting things ready for dinner. Nothing in her voice denotes a real feeling to what she just said, but Pyrrha knows the telltale signs by now.

After the fracture and the pain, comes the numbness. One gets used to it, like it was always there to begin with.

She stands up and looks down at Nona’s hair.

“Come on,” says Pyrrha. “Let’s get those braids redone.”

Through fingertips tangled in locks of hair, she lets the topic go.

//

After Nona throws her second tantrum, everything grows quiet for a few days. It’s the kind of hush that settles after glass breaks, when everyone’s too afraid to move their feet.

Nona goes subdued. She speaks softly, sits where she’s told, lets Pyrrha braid her hair without tugging away. Pyrrha tells herself it’s fine. Growth. Recovery. Whatever word makes it less alarming. 

One afternoon, without really thinking about it, she rests her calloused hand on Nona’s forehead. The skin there is warm, faintly damp. 

And something inside Pyrrha’s head just—gives.

Their little family bubble doesn’t pop so much as collapse inward.

Funny, this is.

She really thought it would last forever. Breakfast and hair-braiding, for eternity. Burnt toast scraped clean with a kitchen knife that can barely cut. Fingers clumsy with elastics. Nona humming tunelessly, pleased just to be included.

So stupid.

So naïve.

It feels undeniable now—the nature of Nona’s true self. Pyrrha can’t unsee it. She’s seen it once, and now it’s everywhere.

Cam locks herself in her room and pours hundreds of words into her notepad. Pages whisper as she flips them, reorganizes her thoughts. Palamedes’ voice echoes from the recorder. Together, even now, they talk and write like if they just say the right thing in the right order, the universe will give them an answer.

But Pyrrha sees.

She watches Nona chew on her colored pencils until the wood frays and the pigment smears her lips. 

Watches the eyes.

“You’re neutral,” Cam says. The tone is level. Careful. 

It’s past midnight. Two untouched mugs sit between them, tea gone cold. 

Nona fell asleep hours ago.

“Just minding my business, ma’am,” Pyrrha says.

“You knew Harrow,” Cam argues.

“Briefly,” she interjects.

“You met Gideon.”

“In a very distressing context, if you recall.”

Cam’s fingers drum once against the tabletop. 

She doesn’t look amused. At all.

Yeah, Pyrrha’s not joking her way out of this one.

“You don’t see them,” Cam says. “In her—you don’t see them. Neither of them.”

Pyrrha scratches at her chin.

“Cam,” she says finally, slow and deliberate. “I don’t wanna lead her on by jumping to conclusions.”

“No one said anything about leading her on. I’m the one asking—me. Camilla. Palamedes, too, yes. Not Nona.”

“Nona’s already fixed on figuring out who you think she is. I don’t want her feeling like I’m expecting her to be someone she’s not.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe any of that bullshit,” Cam says flatly.

“None taken.”

“You don’t care about Nona feeling pressured.”

And that—that’s not fair.

“Imma stop you right there.”

“You don’t,” Cam insists. “Who do you see?”

Pyrrha exhales through her nose. 

She could say it. ‘S just a theory, nothing else. Say it’s a possibility. Inconceivable, but possible.

Let BoE take her and lock her up until one of the Lyctors comes looking for her. Kiss Nona on the forehead one last time and be done with this whole thing.

No more shitty jobs and minimum wage. No swear jar, no scrambled eggs, no picking-up-from-school routine.

Nothing.

That’s what Pyrrha has, outside of this.

She has nothing.

“I see Nona,” she says. “Just her—just Nona.”

The bed creaks behind her, pulling her out her train of thought.

Nona rolls over, misty-eyed. She looks small, swallowed by blankets that are too big for her.

“Is Cam angry with me?”

Pyrrha’s chest tightens. She shifts closer, the mattress dipping under her weight. Nona watches her, expectant.

“No,” she says softly. “Why would you think that?”

“I got really angry, Pyrrha. I couldn’t help it.” Nona’s voice trembles.

Pyrrha brushes her hair away from her face, fingers catching on knots she’ll have to deal with later. She rests her hand on the crown of Nona’s head.

“Stuff happens,” Pyrrha says. “It’s all good. No biggie.”

“I felt superseded,” Nona says, like Pyrrha hasn’t spoken at all.

The hand in her hair stills.

“Superseded how?”

“I… wasn’t me. Not entirely.” Nona swallows. “And I felt kicked out.”

Oh.

“Oh,” Pyrrha supplies, eloquently.

Her brain scrambles, reaching for something—comfort, denial, anything. Nothing fits.

The fuck is she supposed to say in response to that?

“You’re scared of me,” Nona assesses, too quickly.

Fuck. She needs a Nona manual. A pamphlet. What the fuck is she supposed to say?

“I’m worried,” Pyrrha corrects, forcing calm into her voice. “For you. There’s a difference.”

“Both can be true simultaneously,” Nona says. Then, quieter, “You know who I am.”

“I don’t.”

“You do. I can see it in your eyes.”

And I can see it in yours, Pyrrha thinks.

“I have a theory,” she says slowly, confirming Nona’s suspicions that—as always—happen to be right.

Her fingers resume their gentle movement, threading through Nona’s hair.

“Just like Cam has a theory. Just like Sextus has a theory. It’s just that, Nona—a theory. Nothing else,” she says reassuringly.

“You don’t seem doubtful about it,” Nona’s voice hardens.

Something shifts.

Nona’s face tightens, expression rearranging itself into something older, harsher. Her brow furrows, mouth curling—not in fear, but in distaste. 

There she is.

Pyrrha feels prey to the hawk’s shadow. Those golden eyes aren’t so warm now. 

“What are you looking at, Pyrrha Dve?”

The words are dragged out. Pronounced slowly, grunted out.

Pyrrha remains silent, frozen in place.

“Where is your friend?”

The voice that comes out of Nona’s mouth is wrong. Too deep, too sure of itself. Demanding. Resentful. 

And then, as soon as it came, it goes away.

Nona turns away, giving her the cold shoulder.

“I want to be alone, Pyrrha,” she says, perfectly polite. “Please and thank you.”

Pyrrha leaves without arguing.

//

Cam’s bedroom door is ajar by only a few inches. Pyrrha pauses there, fingers resting against the doorframe, and peers inside.

Cam is on the floor in the middle of the room, legs folded beneath her, a notebook balanced on her knee. Clothes are draped over the back of a chair, abandoned. Her pen moves steadily across the page.

“She’s asleep,” Pyrrha says.

She hums in acknowledgment. Doesn't look up.

“Good,” Cam says. The word is flat.

Pyrrha steps the rest of the way into the room.

She doesn’t remember what it’s like to be so newly dropped into the world. It’s been too long. She’s pretty sure she’s never looked as worn out as Camilla Hect does now.

“She’s doing better,” Pyrrha offers, mostly because the silence feels awful. “You know how Nona is.”

That finally does it. Cam’s pen stops mid-stroke. She lifts her head.

Her eyes find Pyrrha’s, questioningly.

“Do I?” 

//

For the first time in a while, Pyrrha rests her left hip on the kitchen sink and thinks she understands briefness. 

One day she'll say what she knows and Cam will nod, Palamedes will sigh and everything will be over. No dollhouse to play at.

One day she'll be brave enough to face the emptiness that comes with it.

Cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, her hands tremble as she fumbles with the lighter. It clicks uselessly a few times before flame finally blossoms.