DVD Commentary: A Series of Anti-Climaxes
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A Series of Anti-Climaxes, Part 1
Title: The Hint of a Spark Everyone loves a Death Cab For Cutie title
Fandom: Spring Awakening (general) The text in parenthasis after my SA Fandom values note whether the fic is specific to the play, musical, or in this case, either way.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Moritz/Melchior Notice that Moritz is listed fiiiirst
Summary: Sometimes the things about ourselves that perhaps we should question, should pay attention to, are the very things we don't see ourselves until after they've been revealed to those around us. Ouch. That's a brain-full.
It was an exceedingly nice afternoon. Not just nice, you guys. Exceedingly nice. A dry heat embraced them with a sort of comforting touch As I wrote this I was trying to imagine what it's like on a hot day in Vegas... which is entirely different than a hot day in Wisconsin. Though the climate in Germany is more like Wisconsin than Nevada...-- but still, it pulled at their jackets, itched at their skin, and as they stumbled under the shade of a tree they quickly discarded their woolen cages of jackets and unbuttoned their vests. I think I stole the inspiration for this imagery from somewhere else. -- oh! I think it was the 2001 Workshop. "Still buttoned up in jackets, vests, woolen breeches..."
The ground beneath them was rough and uneven, intertwined with large, spider-esque tree roots and scattered leaves and branches. When Moritz leaned back against the chipping bark, it rubbed painfully against the back of his head. When he looked out, however, the ground spread out before him was dabbed with spots of sunlight like an impressionist painting, and he was willing to endure the reality to experience the fantasy. I love that sentence so bad. I'm obsessed with that kind of image, when the light shines through tree branches and speckles the ground... I've tried to describe it in writing more than once, and I painted a scene of that sort. I rarely am satisfied with it.
They filled the silence with idle chatter. Mm, show not tell thrown to the dogs.
“It's a lovely day today,” Moritz commented.
“A little sweltering,” Melchior said MELCHIOR MUST YOU ARGUE ABOUT EVERYTHING, pushing up his sleeves and glancing at the sun with slight distaste. ;D -- no, really, I actually did do that on purpose to increase the deliciousness of the mental image.
“At least the heat is better than the bleakness of winter,” Moritz said. Agreed, Moritz.
Melchior didn't reply, but Moritz saw the smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth. As always. Moritz studied the black buttons on Melchior's vest as the other boy leaned back against the bark of the tree, closing his eyes and letting the leaves cast muddled shadows on his face. In fics with two (or more) people of the same gender pronouns are a betch. The stillness of the woods was peppered with bird's song, a slight breeze rustled the tree branches and made the shadows flitter about like living beings. I like that... Everything seemed strangely serene. But, it was an eerie serenity, and it made Moritz's skin crawl with something strange and unbidden.
The silence hung over them, and it ate at him but Moritz felt as though there was something new, something strange in this single moment that he wanted to grasp onto for just a second more, and a second after that, just to be able to understand it's meaning. That's kind of a confusing sentence, but I like the feel of it.
Moritz reached forward, tracing his thumb over the grooves in the button on his friend's vest. OOOOOH He wasn't sure, exactly – it wasn't the button. It was the action, somehow. Something in it made him hold his breath. That was interesting sentence order. Do like...
He glanced up and met Melchior's eyes – and there was no reason not to expect that, but somehow it broke something, pulled the color from Moritz's face, and made him feel that he'd made a mistake. He dropped into a fearful situation where he could not speak on his own behalf, even to himself. Did Shelli ever beta this for me? I don't remember. I'd have thought she'd tell me that that paragraph was confusing. Because it is.
There was nothing questioning or accusing in Melchior's gaze -- just that sort of affectionate amusement that lingered on Melchior's face, at times slightly mocking and other times slightly comforting, every time his eyes fell on Moritz. LONG SENTENCE IS LONG. There were questions, however, weighing down Moritz's chest, blocking his throat, and when Melchior's fingers brushed lazily over his own just for a moment, perhaps meant and perhaps not, Moritz wasn't sure whether to flee or to burst into tears. I'm still not sure about Melchior here. Is he making a move or isn't he? The fact that Moritz doesn't know seems to make it okay that I never decided. I think, perhaps, that this is a reference to You Cut Me Down to Size.
It wasn't that he didn't want this – or that he wanted it, he didn't even know, couldn't bring his thoughts into focus. That reminds me of the Touch Me dialogue section... He was left chasing feelings without logic and drowning in questions, questions, questions. It was hard to figure out how to end this.
A Series of Anti-Climaxes, Part 2
Title: Not Who I Used To Be The song I had for this fic was hard to pull a title from.
Fandom: Spring Awakening (musical) It's musical because Anna isn't in the play, but a lot of my basis for Wendla is actually from the play.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Anna/Wendla
Summary: Anna – Anna couldn't lead anyone. She was sure of that.
Notes: For
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Wendla wasn't the oldest in their group, or the bravest, or maybe even the prettiest – maybe. Hintin' at the pairing right off in the first sentence XD She was always... in charge, though. As they wandered the woods, they always followed behind her. Anna wasn't entirely sure how that unspoken position came to be. I had this idea in my head of Wendla as the ring leader of the group, but I wasn't really sure how that worked. So, this was as much me explaining it as me working it out for myself. Perhaps it was process of elimination. lolol
Anna – Anna couldn't lead anyone. She was sure of that. Had to say that first to establish who was talking.
Thea certainly couldn't lead them. She was strong, opinionated – but not for herself. She stood behind others wonderfully – championing their opinions and their logic, but when she had to make decisions, when she had people hanging on her word, she collapsed under the weight. I tried speak respectively of Thea and reason out her personality in an objective way, 'cause I don't think she's a total betch but I haven't had much chance to explore that further.
Martha, well. Anna found herself all too often the one trailing behind to talk to Martha, to take her hand, to draw her into the group. Martha was almost outside the group entirely – far from the front of it. I struggled with this whole section, I didn't really have much foundation when it came to my interpretations of the girls' relationships going into this fic, and the idea of Anna sort of being the one that kept Martha in the group came, I guess, from often having trouble fitting into groups like Martha in my life and seeing Anna as the "motherly" one in the group.
But, Wendla -- Wendla fell at the forefront with a kind of grace. Anna saw Wendla as the fierce one. THAT'S THE FIRST TIME I'VE EVER SAID THE WORD FIERCE -- THAT'S THE SECOND. She spoke fearlessly -- saying things that were unexpected, unpopular, occasionally unkind but always what she felt honestly. I was thinking of the play here, and the girl's conversations, where to me Wendla always comes off as very sort of rebellious. Anna tried to model herself after this example, and Martha told her once that she admired Anna – admired her fearlessness. I had realized I sort of dug a hole for myself by putting together this image of Anna as being rather timid, when it's her who sort of throws out the reckless idea in the scene before The Dark I Know Well, and I wanted to account for that. But, she didn't see herself that way. She didn't care to see herself much at all – she wanted to see Wendla. Wendla, who was all at once fierce and proud but so much closer to childhood than the rest of them – Anna wanted to be that. This whole leaving childhood type theme comes up a lot in this fic...
When Wendla said she was going to walk up to her uncle's farm – visit the horses The only kind of barn I know a lot about was a stable – Anna asked to come with. She wasn't sure, exactly, what she was trying to accomplish by this, but it meant something to her. And it advances my story.
“This is Uncle's favorite,” Wendla said knowingly, reaching through the bars to stroke the horse with adoration. “I don't remember its name, but it's kind. Would you like to feed it a carrot?”
Anna leaned against the opposite stall door, casting weary glances at the black horse behind her. She looked from Wendla to the nameless horse with a look she was sure lacked the confidence she was trying to conjure up. Anna's family had moved here only a few years ago, from the city, and all these large animals made her exceedingly nervous.
“I suppose,” she said. Oh, I should say... my mom had a horse who passed away... 5 years ago? Hence the horse-ness. Whatever little scraps of memory I could pull up from the times I'd go with her to the barn. In the last year or so of going she would let me feed carrots to horses whose owners she knew.
Wendla reached into the sack at her feet and pulled out a knobbly looking carrot that was too short, far too short, when Anna wanted to put as much distance between her fingers and the nameless horse's mouth as she could. Anna took the carrot and gripped it as far down toward the end as she could manage, and looked the horse in the eye. Wendla had given it no name or gender and that only made it worse, only made it more of a mythical beast. Horses are hueg.
Wendla was impatient. She took Anna's hand in hers and gripped the vegetable with confidence ;) , poking it through the bars for the horse to grab. As the horse broke off a piece with its large, imposing teeth, the carrot gave a crack and Anna jumped. Wendla giggled slightly, then looked away suddenly.
“I don't know if horses like me very much, Wendla,” Anna suggested, shaken. Anna's such a wimp. But my plot appreciates it.
Wendla took the rest of the carrot from her, holding it to the horse. “I'll teach you to get along with the horses, Anna. It just takes time, that's all – would you like to see the kittens?” Everyone was all OMG KITTENS at this fic, and it's not like I went "kittens are cute, I should put in kittens!" it was like, "GAH what else could they do at this barn? Well, most of our old cats had been barn cats -- there were often litters of kittens at the barn..."
Kittens, Anna thought, were much more agreeable than horses. “Your uncle has kittens?” MY UNCLE'S NOT A CAT NOR A WOMAN, SILLY. I DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD THAT LITTLE SEX EDUCATION.
Wendla grabbed Anna's hand :) and pulled her to the stall at the end of the aisle and Anna grinned without thinking. She didn't even mind the horse that was staring at her with it's large, otherworldly eyes from the stall next to her – she might not care for the barn and its horses but she didn't mind it, didn't mind trying, when Wendla was there, pulling her from place to place with an effortless, childlike wonder that Anna was trying desperately to cling to herself. Long sentence is long, and there's that theme of losing childhood again. Hello, theme.
Wendla gripped the heavy stall door I'm not sure if stall doors are really that heavy or if it was more like I was always at the barn at a young age and therefore they seemed heavy to me, relatively and dragged it open a crack, just enough for them to slip through. Wendla, petite as she was, slipped easily through the crack, and Anna followed her with a slow caution.
“See? Kittens,” Wendla said, sitting on the ground with no care for her clothes, which were pristine on the walk to the barn but were now stained with dust and dirt. Anna thought Wendla looked more herself that way anyway. Because Wendla's such a rebel and Anna likes that -- why didn't I throw that in there?
Anna knelt beside Wendla, carefully pulling up her skirt before she did so, and peered in the box of kittens. “They're precious,” Anna said, feeling she should say something. Anna doesn't really like kittens, she just felt like she should act like she does. She's that much of a butch lesbian. Her attention trailed away from the kittens as Wendla entwined her arm with Anna's, leaning against her shoulder as she pointed with her other hand. One notices how girls can do stuff like that and it easily passes as platonic, but with guys that's certainly not the case...
“That one's my favorite,” Wendla said, her voice ringing with all the purity of a child. THEEEME
Anna looked down at Wendla's head lying against her shoulder and she was struck with a sort of disappointment. Wendla was still a child. Wendla was enchanted by the animals and she clung to Anna like a daughter to her mother, and she must not see, must not understand, that Anna was hoping for someone, anyone... to cling to her like that for any other reason. :( Here I finally show that Anna has some awareness of her feelings for Wendla in more than a vague way.
Wendla dipped her head back, her vivid eyes meeting Anna's, and then Anna saw it, there, in her expression. That tinge of fearful curiosity that made her realize that maybe, maybe everything she thought she knew about Wendla Bergmann, from her eternal childishness to her courageousness in everything, might be a farce afterall. CRASH BOOM THEME Wendla's expression asked questions, asked guidance, told Anna that she wanted someone else to lead her somewhere for once.
Anna drew away, reaching to lift a kitten, tiny and mewing, from the box. :3
Anna couldn't lead anyone. And that, ladies and gentleman, is why it's called A Series of Anti-Climaxes.
Title: My Latest Mistake Anna Nalick lyric -- "2 am and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake // "Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?"" I think...
Fandom: Spring Awakening (general, with musical leanings) The musical leaning is because I didn't want to have to try and work out post-Masked Man!graveyard
Rating: PG
Pairing: Melchior/Ilse
Summary:
The ghosts inside his mind carry his burden with them, and this time there is nowhere to go as the weight begins to crush him. She dances out of the trees like a phantom from his childhood and it's the dying embers of innocence and memories that attract him... Shelli's summary is so... Shelli. It seems weird to me because it doesn't match my style of writing. She likes it, though, she told me so again today XD
Notes: For labellacaracol, who suggested it, and also summary courtesy of her. Takes place post-canon. First post-canon fic I've written.
I should start with the fact that I didn't intend to write Melchior/Ilse. That was on my mental list of pairings to consider for later on, but it definitely wasn't supposed to be the third part -- that was supposed to be Moritz/Ilse and dedicated to
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They call it “growing up too fast”. Ilse was more inclined, perhaps with a taste of bitterness in on her tongue, to call it “life”. She assumed it happened to everyone eventually.
It's a period in your life where the world starts to become a different place. All through your life you encounter struggles and difficulties, but there comes a time in your life
Humans are co-dependent creatures. As babies they rely on others to fulfill their needs, as they grow older they cling to social contact.
There came a time in Ilse's life where she had to start to learn to fend for herself. At first the independence was a thrill – it didn't scare her like it should have. She learned how to talk to people, really talk to people.
And then the typing dissolves into song lyrics (Switchfoot - Daisy, if you were wondering) in the failed attempt of stirring something. I don't remember quite how Melchior/Ilse came to mind, but I know I was mentally trying her with a variety of characters before this (Anna, Wendla, and Moritz, I think), trying to find someone who fit, and the chat had discussed this pairing in passing before and I know Shelli wanted it explored...
I believe the quote I was looking for for this fic was "Loneliness the clearest of crystal insight into your own soul, its the fear of one's own self that haunts the lonely." - Keith Haynie. But, in the course of looking for it I stumbled across this one, which I like much better.
"The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us." - Robert Louis Stevenson
I just did a double-take. I was looking at my original, un-edited version of this fic to get the stuff above, and then I looked back here and I realized that originally this fic had another paragraph at the beginning. I remember some quote somewhere about getting started with a story by just making yourself write that first paragraph and then at the end, delete the first paragraph? This is something I do often. You'll notice most of this paragraph is redundant, as I probably knew right away that it wasn't going to stay. It just sort of puts down some concepts (Not knowing himself) and imagery (hairline cracks in the mirror) that I could revisit more cleanly in the coming paragraphs. Here it is:
Melchior meant to use the bathroom and clean himself off before bolting out of there, but he lingered. He caught his own gaze among the hairline cracks in the mirror. He looked more grimy than he expected, though he wasn't sure how he could've expected much better. Melchior no longer so fully resembled the clean cut schoolboy he had not such a long time ago. It was not this that concerned him so much, though. Rather it was the way, looking at himself, that he felt like he was looking at someone else. He was not the charming boy everyone once saw excelling in school – though they had changed their minds pretty quickly on that. But, he was not this either – not a runaway criminal. Not in his own mind.
He had a lot of time to think recently. He thought he'd have himself sorted out by now, but if anything his thoughts and feelings were more a tangle than ever. His memory had two divisions now: Melchior before the reformatory and Melchior after the reformatory. This was something that just sort of came out of nowhere at me -- you'll notice it is not a concept that was present in the disregarded paragraph. The latter was new, a recent concept lolol, but it seemed less like a period in his life and more like a different life entirely.
Right now he was staring into a mirror that seemed to break his face into a hundred pieces with a network of hairline cracks. Hello imagery already planned. Yet again, he brought the wet cloth to his face and scrubbed at the layer of grime that lingered there. After he managed to dump some water over his head, soaking the mess his hair had become, he was beginning to look a little less like the runaway he was and more like that other Melchior – Melchior before the reformatory. Melchior has multiple personality disorder. Water still running down his neck, Melchior met his own hard gaze yet again, and he could see a kind of fear in those foreign features – his own fear and uncertainty as he failed to fully connect the person in the mirror with himself. It was certainly not the first time he felt that way. Here I was thinking sort of play!reformatory scene rape!repentance.
Decisively, he pulled on the borrowed shirt that hung alone on the clothes line. It was loose on him, he had to roll the sleeves up to his elbows to keep them from falling in his way, and it carried a musty smell – but anything was better than what he had before. Everything in my dresser smells musty. It is something I am accustomed to.
Initially I thought him to be in a bathroom, hence the mirror, but then when I decided this was a little shack and not a house that seemed weird, so then he was in a room in this shack, but then he couldn't really dump water over his head, so ta-da now he's outside! Works better that way, anyway. The trees that surrounded him were ominous and uninviting, but in the days that passed he had come to embrace that darkness, that seeming endless stretch of woods and back roads, for their cover allowed him another day of freedom. However, he couldn't help but glance back at the dilapidated shack behind him -- that was his mistake. I think I used to have this sentence earlier on, or less before it, or something...
When he had spotted Ilse in the woods as the sun set, he had been faced with a choice. He could keep on going through the woods, try and find the road and see where he could go from there... or he could approach her. Beg her assistance. After all, she was a sort of outcast, and now so was he, and though he should have perhaps been more cautious Because, even though this is musical-leaning by the info, that's actually wrong. It's a mix, I was thinking of Ilse as possibly wanting nothing to do with Melchior because she considered him a rapist or what have you, he was so beat down with grief, hunger, guilt – the things that kept him going, the need to repent for the part he played in Wendla's tragic end I don't specifically say rape here, but that's what's implied and to carry on her and Moritz's spirits in his actions, seemed far off. That's a weird sentence, but I played with it a lot and I don't know a better way to do it. The thought had even crossed his mind that if Ilse betrayed him, maybe that was for the better... A mix of both guilt over what he'd done -- I don't know why I didn't just talk right off about the rape and such in the info. I consider the sex scene in the musical to be coercive rape, and I like to think of him realizing this and regretting it later (whether he can really be blamed so much for just being a pushy teenage boy as so many of them are, but Melchior can be hard on himself) a la the play. Anyway, a mix of both guilt over what he'd done and also being tired of running away.
But, she hadn't. He found himself now outside this little shack she'd led him to Convenient plot-shed in the woods -- originally (in my head) it was someone's house (that Ilse knew), but that's just too complicated, with the water and shirt – he had no knowledge of its previous owner – she had acquired for him, and he had been planning to bolt, to take advantage of whatever little she could offer him and then continue on... Long sentence. but as he looked back now at the shack -- surely she was inside still -- the idea disgusted him a little. It wasn't him to not at least offer thanks, a goodbye. He wasn't so sure who he was anymore Here's a repetitive theme in this fic..., but with a determination that comforted him a little, he was sure that that was not him. Convenient plot-polite behavior.
The door, sitting uneven on its hinges, creaked as he pushed it open. Ilse looked up from the armchair she was sitting in – the only piece of furniture he could make out in the room – and the moonlight pouring in from behind him made ghostly shadows of her features. I discussed with the chat as I wrote this section that much of the lighting discussion in it came from when I drew a sunset landscape in an intro art class I had and the teacher pulled me over to her desk after class to explain that when the sun is setting low behind mountains and you're looking straight at it, things in front of you would be in silhouette. She showed me many examples of this and told me she felt that I was at a level of skill where I should be able to look at pieces like that and realize that I was wrong. Art class: not just for art anymore.
“Now you're looking more like yourself,” she said, her voice carrying a cheeriness that seemed otherworldly in his current state of mind. I imagine Ilse is scheming a la Mimi on the stairwell in the Rent movie about here. He didn't care for the phrase THEME, and he thought, disconcertingly, that she couldn't possibly see him so well with his back to the moonlight. There's that art class learnings. She ushered him, reluctantly, to the chair and perched herself on one arm, her form a dark shadow next to him. Because the chair is facing left when you're standing in the doorway and she's on the left arm, so if Melchior's sitting in the chair, the moonlight from the door is hitting the opposite side of her. This is obviously too much to explain in the fic itself.
“Thanks, Ilse,” he said, and somehow the words sounded strange on his tongue. Melchior isn't good at needing other people, I'd think. That's something to explore another time... “I know you didn't have to help me...” His voice trailed off, sounding so foreign to his ears.
“I don't know if you deserve help or condemnation, Melchior,” she said. See above thoughts on rape. She turned her head, looking straight ahead, and the moonlight outlined the profile of her face. “But I can say that for a lot of people.” In the musical, I'm not sure she could feel that way about rape, considering her past. Why isn't this play-centric?! Silly Arq. I wasn't thinking of all this when I wrote the header.
Melchior didn't know how to respond, and he wished he didn't have to. There was a sort of sweetness in Ilse's voice that was so familiar to him -- brought thoughts of Moritz, Wendla, school, thoughts that felt much further in the past than they should have and seemed to belong to a happier, more innocent time. 1) Long sentence, 2) It seems to me that the same sort of recollections of childhood that Moritz managed to brush off is what sort of gets Melchior -- sort of playing off that whole idea of Melchior being more tied to life, even so soon after his own suicidal thoughts, than Moritz. Melchior had always spent a lot of time alone -- but there was a difference between being alone by choice and being lonely. Touched on in the quote at the top of the fic. The quote more obviously applies to Ilse, but I actually connect it to both of them. The thought made him realize how alone he really was now, how much the thoughts of the people he'd lost had kept him going but how unsatisfactory they seemed in the face of living people. "Those You've Known" only works to well over time. It's romantic to think of Melchior marching through the woods, powered by the spirits of his friends, but I think him faltering in this fic is more tragically fascinating.
In the midst of these thoughts, Melchior had abandoned the conversation, left it in an awkward, stretching silence. He almost didn't notice that the shape of Ilse's shadowed form had changed, that the worn fabric of her skirt was brushing up against his leg now, and though he was very aware at the light touch of her fingers in his hair, he didn't stop her. I should've broken that into two sentences -- I avoided this kind of clumsiness so well in part 1 of this series... But, I'm more used to Moritz, he talks more cleanly for me.
“Your hair's still a dirty mess,” she commented, her tone a little mocking, a little laughing Kind of how Melchior talks to Moritz sometimes..., thick with an innocence that contradicted the way she now slid from the arm of the chair into his lap. Ilse's a bit of a fox. He gripped her forearm roughly to push her off him, chastise her for making this into something so inappropriate to the moment at hand, but suddenly there was her mouth against his and everything seemed a lot less straightforward.
It was a horribly unfair situation to be in, and he felt like he was struggling for mental footing. Loneliness does things to people. See quote.
Ilse's fingers were brushing against the back of his neck and in a sudden feeling of despair he pulled her hand away. She pulled back abruptly, almost teetering off his lap and the chair. “Don't,” he croaked. But it's only a need to have someone, not for Melchior to have Ilse, or I think, vice-versa, and that makes the difference. It occurs to me that Ilse and Moritz could be the same way -- I'm seeing parallels between this fic and Ilse and Moritz's meeting in the play/musical. Very different than how I had intended to take my Ilse/Moritz, maybe the reason it was so hard for me to start was because that wasn't fitting the way I saw that scene...
Melchior could feel the heat rising to his cheeks, a mixture of guilt and – part of that guilt – a lingering thrill heavy in his chest. Now he comes back to reality.
The moon shone brightly on the curled mess of Ilse's hair as she returned to her feet. At the angle she stood now he could see the playfulness in her expression was almost entirely absent. That sentence would flow better with that word. With one hand she clutched the opposite elbow, with the other her fingers rested at her lips in thought. I was about to comment that I describe people's arm positions a lot in fic, and then I realized I mostly only do that for Anna -- and then I realized that I was thinking Phoebe as Ilse for a lot of this fic. Phoebe seems to have a tendency, as both Anna and Ilse, to always be doing things with her arms.
There was something sort of heavy in the room, a sort of despair. They said nothing. Melchior stood and just watched her for a moment, her eyes meeting his and he couldn't read them. They were both lonely, he realized. This sort of struck me when I got to this part of the fic, too. I had thought of Ilse sort of taking advantage of Melchior's loneliness, and then I had to consider *why*, and that made me realize that she's probably lonely, too. That's why she puts up with her artists, that's why she flirts with Moritz -- she's desperate to be loved, I think. Both pulled far away from the joyful childhood they shared. Truth. The guilt that had been eating at him turned cold, distant. The whole incident carried a sort of air of tragedy now. As it did for me in writing it.
Uncertainly, he reached out and touched her arm, fingers lightly brushing the fabric of her sleeve. It seemed kind of important to me that they not leave each other without Melchior sort of acknowledging "no hard feelings".
Then he walked away from her for what he knew may be the last time. I don't think that really does anything for the fic, but it seemed, well, true...
The series is expected to have a fourth and final part.