Page 17 of Do You Ship It
Jake isn’t very talkative in the days following Comic Con, and the Discord chat goes quiet too, only solidifying the need for my recent adjustment to The Plan – an additional, slightly sideways step that involves pushing Max totally out of the picture.
I try stalking his social media to find some bad takes – something that would prove Max isn’t such a great person after all – but there’s nothing . His Instagram looks inactive, and I can’t find a trace of him anywhere else – no Facebook or Snapchat or TikTok, and he’s not even on the Discord channel that he first mentioned to me. He must have some cryptic username keeping him anonymous – but there are so many Moonwalker/Sir Grayson-related names in the forum I don’t know where to start looking for him.
After school on Wednesday, I’m hanging out with the girls in a field near college. It’s cold, and the weather switches between light drizzle and a loitering mist every few minutes, but there are some guys playing rugby there, including one Daphne is sort-of talking to, so we sit huddled on a picnic bench pretending not to look like we’re watching – or shivering.
I’ve spilled all (well, most ) of what happened on the weekend to them in person now as well as in the group chat, avoiding any mention of OWAR. Their reaction to Comic Con was exactly what I’d been afraid of, so I can’t let them find out about the fandom thing. I’d be totally ostracized. It’s not worth it.
Besides, I’m only doing it for Jake.
Mostly. Sort of. Anyway.
Nikita suggests confronting Max. ‘He sounds rude as hell, too. I’d call him out.’
‘Maybe you can tell Jake?’ is Evie’s advice. ‘He’s super sweet, I bet he’d understand if you told him this other guy is being a pain in the butt. You can always call it a “personality clash” or something.’
‘But what if he chooses him over me?’ I say, and she grimaces, not having an answer to that.
‘Doesn’t this Max guy have other friends?’ Daphne says, and I admit that I don’t know. Even if he does, it’s clear that he and Jake have become best friends and near-inseparable these days. Like we used to be.
It’s Chloe in the end who says offhandedly, ‘Maybe he needs a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend! Maybe it’s not about spending less time with this guy so much as inviting him to more things and trying to set him up with someone, or finding out if there’s anyone he’s got a crush on that you can help him with?’
I snort. ‘I don’t think I’m very well equipped to help anyone else with romance when I’m failing so spectacularly with Jake.’
‘You’re not failing!’ Daphne cries, reaching to give my hand a squeeze. Her brown eyes are wide and earnest; the damp weather has made her usually pristine dark hair frizz in a halo around her head. ‘He’s definitely into you. The kiss on the cheek ? Hello? Are we forgetting that? And he made that really cute Instagram post of the two of you! Plus , you spent the whole day at Comic Con with him, and I don’t know many people who’d put up with a hall full of obsessive nerds just for someone else’s sake.’
The others laugh, but I find myself biting down a comment about how, actually, I’d … kind of enjoyed it, up until we reunited with Max and I felt so pushed aside.
But Daphne’s got a point. Saturday wasn’t a complete failure; and maybe Chloe’s right, too, although where I’d even begin to set Max up with someone is beyond me …
Friday, our art lesson runs into lunchtime. The classrooms are always open during breaks for anybody wanting to come and work on their projects and portfolios and, today, I decide to stick around.
Evie packs her things up and comes over to the easel I’m working at, in the corner. And while I can hardly hide my coursework piece, a surge of panic rises up from the pit of my stomach, remembering how the girls reacted to Comic Con.
But when she gets close she gasps, and says in a tone of quiet awe, ‘Ohmigosh, Cerys! The way you’ve captured the light … It’s like it’s actually sparkling. How’d you do that?’
The comment makes me feel like I’m sparkling, too, positively glowing with pride. Having moved on from my sketch, I’m focusing on the acrylic backdrop to my next Téiglin-inspired piece, and have spent most of the last week adjusting the sunlight streaking through the glade in my painting, trying to capture the magic of OWAR.
Or I guess, since it’s OWAR, the magick .
Suddenly, I don’t even mind that I’ve become the kind of person that actively thinks things like that.
‘A lot of patience,’ is my only real explanation, and Evie laughs.
‘You’re going to have to help me when I get round to mine. I hate working with acrylics, but apparently I have to “expand my artistic horizons” if I’m serious about getting on to a good uni course …’ She casts a glare over her shoulder at our teacher, but grins, relaxing, when I promise I’ll help her if she can give me some tips on working with pastels, which is her strength.
Evie looks at the paints still spread around me. ‘Aren’t you coming for lunch? Nikita’s driving us to the retail park, remember?’
‘Oh, um … I actually want to try and finish some stuff on this. It’s nearly there, you know? You guys have fun, though!’
A tiny panic siren sets off in my mind, one that screams FOMO. Like if I say no to things they’ll stop inviting me altogether, and I’ll lose the group just when I feel like I’ve found my place with them.
But it’s only this once, and my agitation to get back to my painting wins out. I haven’t felt this inspired in a long time, and for once I don’t feel like I’m finishing pieces for the sake of a good grade in class, or losing steam and abandoning them before they’re complete. I keep finding my mind drifting to them, my fingers itching to reach for a pencil or a paintbrush. It’s like a fire in my veins, energizing me.
I’m worried if I don’t take advantage of it, it might disappear entirely.
Evie only shrugs though, and says, ‘That’s cool. See you later, yeah?’
Once she leaves, I slip my earphones in and get back to work. I’m trying out the first Of Wrath and Rune audiobook, and even though I’m not giving it my full attention I’m sure something will sink in. Plus, the narrator’s voice is really soothing, so it’s at least nice background noise.
Right now, conveniently, he is narrating a very long-winded passage about the Gilded Glade, where Téiglin and so many other creatures have taken refuge since the Eldritch King went missing decades ago, and one of the few places where magick is kept sacred. The book describes it just like it was in the show: shafts of golden light filtering through great oak trees and majestic pines, casting dappled shades of emerald and amber on the forest floor; a place where the world seems to almost stand still but for the rustle of leaves and lilting birdsong. Fresh brown earth and vibrant purple mushrooms and crawling vines of ivy, clusters of pure white daisies and swaying dandelions with their puff caught in the breeze – ‘ as if the glade itself were making a wish .’
The sudden mention of a dandelion has me gritting my teeth. I’d daubed a couple in, but now it only makes me think of that ‘JUST DANDY’ mug, and Max.
I swap out my paintbrush for a finer one, meticulously dabbing in the tiny greyish-white seeds floating in the air, and make wishes of my own. I wish he wasn’t always lurking around spoiling things. I wish Jake would see me, really see . I wish he’d kissed me on Saturday, I wish this didn’t feel like the be-all and end-all, I wish he’d just message me back already …
Jake’s been annoyingly quiet all week. He’s replied to most of my texts, but none of it has been with his usual enthusiasm. It’s always curt, cursory, polite. When he didn’t reply to me asking if we’d be resuming our Wednesday watch-parties, I went ahead and watched a few more episodes myself … and then a few more. Even if Jake wasn’t inviting me over, I could still prove myself to him – and if I’m being totally honest with myself, I did get a little sucked in to the show. I’m up to season three now, the action really starting to kick off, but the message I sent Jake in Discord to chat about it, thinking OWAR was some safe, neutral ground, got a similarly short response, so I didn’t bother after that.
Jake must have some stuff going on. Maybe with his family? Or college? Perhaps he’s just really busy, or not feeling too well, and he’ll be back to normal in a few days, and it’s nothing personal.
Or maybe I did something wrong?
There has to be a reason . Jake wouldn’t just … vanish. We’ve been best friends for too long for him to ghost me like this.
I’m so lost in my painting and mulling over every miniscule interaction with Jake and trying to pick apart where I’ve messed up, or not noticed something going on with him, that when the bell goes to signal the end of lunch I yelp and practically topple off my stool, knocking my bag over and dropping my paintbrush.
A couple of girls in the year above, who’ve come in to do their own work, giggle at me.
Face flaming, I pull out my earphones and set them aside, along with my palette. I pick my paintbrush up and see that practically everything has spilled out of my bag. A loose tampon, the lipgloss Daphne used on me a few weeks ago which I bought in a different colour in the hopes it would suit me better, all my notebooks and some pens …
I’m shovelling it all back in, knowing I still need to tidy up and get to my next class, when someone steps over in a pair of lilac Converse and tights with a ladder in them, bending down to help me gather up my things.
It’s Anissa. She’s cut her hair again – shorter, matching the length of the choppy pieces that hung around the front of her face. It’s tousled, not quite straight and not quite wavy, but looks much better now. Her fringe is in her eyes, and her eyeliner is either smudged kohl or yesterday’s mascara. Her fingers glint with three different gemstone rings, and I notice a rope bracelet around her wrist with the evil eye stone braided into it, reminding me of all the silly ‘witchy’ rumours about her.
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking the Biros she’s holding out. The last real interaction I had with Anissa was that Thursday morning debrief in Costa, when we thought she’d overheard us commenting about her hair. I wonder if she remembers it, too; it’d be burned into my mind, I think, if things were the other way around. As a bit of an olive branch, I tell her, ‘Your hair looks nice. That length really suits you.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘My mum didn’t give me much choice. I made a real botch job bleaching some of it a few weeks ago.’
‘Is that why you …?’ Too awkward to say ‘ had those awful, uneven chunks at the front ’, I mime a pair of scissors near my face instead.
‘Yeah.’ She laughs, a brash and short sound, but not unfriendly. ‘I was trying to dye them purple and after I started thought maybe I should just do a test patch, which is just as well because I basically fried it.’
‘Oh, shit! Well … it … looks …’
Better , I don’t quite say, but she obviously knows that’s what I meant, because she holds my gaze, and there’s a little more spark to it compared to any other time I’ve seen her. This is also the longest conversation we’ve ever had, and the most I’ve heard her say in one go.
I stand up, bag haphazardly packed, and Anissa stands, too, holding something else out to me.
Of Wrath and Rune: Book 1 – The Wakening
Crap. Crap, crap, crap!
It’s mine, it’s definitely mine, with the pages crinkled, the front cover creased where it bent in half in my bag, and a make-up stain on the side where I spilled some foundation. My heart thunders in my chest. She might as well be handing me a hive of angry wasps.
I stare at the book in horror, too alarmed to even try to play it cool – oh, I’m just hanging on to it for a friend … and Anissa gives me a soft, barely-there smile.
‘I thought it looked like Téiglin that you were sketching before,’ she says. ‘And I saw that photo of you and Jake from school at Comic Con on the weekend, with the guy who plays Daxys. That was really cool.’
‘It …’ I swallow the lump in my throat. The classroom is empty now, but it won’t be for long. ‘It was pretty cool actually, yeah. He was really nice. He liked my –’ No, not ‘my’ friend, Max is not ‘my’ friend by any stretch. ‘He liked Jake’s friend’s cosplay.’
‘Was that the guy dressed as Sir Grayson?’
‘Yeah. Max.’
‘Ohmigod,’ she gushes, suddenly animated, her hazel eyes bright. She smiles wide enough to show a gap between her front teeth I’ve never noticed before. ‘He looked so cool! That’s so amazing. I can’t believe you guys all got to meet Daxys like that.’ Her eyes skirt past me then, lingering on my painting. Her mouth falls open as she drinks it in. ‘Is that the Gilded Glade?’
‘Yeah.’ I point to an area of the trees. My heart is pounding, but it feels more like excitement to actually talk about my piece than worry at being caught out. ‘I’ve gone for a kind of more abstract look, but if you squint you can sort of make out –’
‘Téiglin!’ she cries, and laughs, the sound lighter this time as she tilts her head to see the vague shape of an antlered man blended into the trees, her eyes tracking across the canvas and picking out the subtle, half-hidden shapes of fauns, a minotaur, gnomes … You wouldn’t know unless you were looking for them, and it’s unrecognisable as OWAR fanart except to those who know.
And Anissa, unquestionably, knows.
‘I didn’t realize you were a fan, too,’ she tells me as I wash my paintbrush at the sink. Splodges of dried paint are caked on to my fingers, but I’ll have to deal with that later – I need to get to class. ‘How long have you been into it?’
‘Er, not long. How about you?’
‘Since always. I think I found the first book in the library when I was about ten, and I never looked back.’
‘ Ten? ’ I echo, jaw dropping, and I blurt, ‘I can’t even make it through more than a few pages of the book now; I can’t imagine reading them as a ten-year-old.’
She shrugs, looking a bit abashed, though I didn’t mean it badly at all.
‘So are you into all the other stuff too?’ I ask. I wonder if I’ve exchanged messages with her in Discord without even realizing it, or if she was wandering around Comic Con or the Worlds Beyond convention last month and we missed each other.
Anissa cocks her head, frowning at me. ‘Other stuff? What, like … Game of Thrones , Lord of the Rings , you mean?’
‘No, like the fandom stuff. Like Comic Con. You know, OWAR cosplays and fanfiction and Discords and that kind of thing.’
‘I …’ Her frown deepens, and she searches my face, almost like she’s looking for the lie in my words, some kind of trick. ‘I’ve read a couple of fanfictions, but …’
I have the sudden urge to ask if she’s a Silversmith shipper too, what she thinks about the theory that Devon will die protecting Lady di Silver, to say how excited I am for Lady di Silver and Roach to cross paths (which I’m sure they inevitably will in later episodes) because I’ve become convinced they’ll end up having a really strong platonic bond, like siblings.
The thoughts pour in so thick and fast I can’t pick which one to ask first, and they’re followed swiftly by the realization that I care about her answers. About this fandom.
And not even for Jake’s sake, but … just because .
I end up swallowing all my questions, and Anissa is still staring at me funny. She looks almost distrustful, as if whatever tentative bridge we just formed is going to shatter if she tries to step across it.
People are starting to pour into the classroom now, and I’m going to be late for my next class. I am late, probably. Anissa will be too, because she stayed to help me.
‘We should get going,’ I say.
She nods, and I wait for her to grab her own things, though we leave in silence. I can’t quite pinpoint what I said that shifted the conversation for the worse, and understand much less why it bothers me so much.
Do I even want to be mates with Anissa? The quiet, loner girl I was so keen to avoid, worried I’d be tarnished by association? Or cursed , like Evie suggested she was capable of?
At the end of the corridor, we part ways, and I mutter a goodbye. Anissa hums, not quite saying anything, and we move in opposite directions to our next classes, other stragglers cluttering up the hallways.
I only get a few steps before I spin on my heel and run after her.
‘Wait! Anissa!’
I catch up to her and she looks at me with that frown still in place.
‘There’s a Discord – a chatroom forum thing – for some local OWAR fans, they’re all really nice. There’s, like, channels within it for discussing theories or sharing links to fanart, and they organize meet-ups sometimes, although I haven’t gone to any of those. Mostly they just talk about the show. The books, whatever. I could send you a link, if … if you wanted?’
The crease in her forehead and the pinch between her eyebrows eases away, and she blinks at me, owlish, before nodding.
‘Cool, okay. Yeah. I’ll, um …’ I don’t know why I’m so flustered. It’s just – it’s weird, sharing the fandom with someone in real life, someone who’s not Jake. It’s also weird to think that a long-established fan like Anissa, who’s been into the books for six or seven years, isn’t already invested in every facet of this bonkers little community. ‘I’ll send you the link.’
‘That’d be really nice. I never get to chat about Of Wrath and Rune with anybody.’
‘Well, now you can.’
She smiles, showing that gap in her teeth again, and there’s something almost Jake-like in her grin that makes me smile back.
OWAR Discord #324
General
@mythicwitch
Happy Friday, folks! How’re your weekends looking? I just wanted to welcome @ladyanissadishipper to the group, she’s a long-time reader but new to the Discord
@sirmoonypants
Hey!
@fauningforhim
Hi @ladyanissadishipper!
@silversmithhh
Greetings, fellow fangirl!
@runicrascal
Welcome to the chat
@wizeguy
sup @ladyanissadishipper, great to have you here
@thesebootsweremadeformoonwalking
BE YE A RASCAL, @ladyanissadishipper?!
Private chat with @ladyanissadishipper
@ladyanissadishipper
Thanks for the invite Cerys can’t believe I didn’t know things like this existed for the OWAR fandom! And everyone seems so nice!
@mythicwitch
They’ve been very helpful to a newbie like me haha. And silversmithhh has some great fanfic recommendations (three guesses for which romantic pairing)
@ladyanissadishipper
I think this will be where I leave you, sorry
@mythicwitch
?
@ladyanissadishipper
The books made me Team Sir Grayson The Moonwalker before I even knew what shipping was lol. I get what the show is going for but … you won’t convince me she isn’t destined to end up with Sir Grayson
@mythicwitch
You’re right, this is where we leave each other
@mythicwitch
… but say more. I started the first audiobook a few days ago, maybe there’s some Moonsilver foreshadowing I need to be looking out for
@ladyanissadishipper
DEFINITELY. I mean, they’ve both got these HUGE ties to fate and so many parallels with their journeys of links to noble blood/duty that they twist out of to serve a greater good, and in this essay I will …