Iron Fic 5-1: Moving Time
Author’s Notes: This takes place at the end of Changes, when Harry is sitting on the boat, thinking. And yes, the irony of the title is intentional. The solid line towards end indicates the resumption of Changes, and all of those words are Jim Butcher’s, not mine.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the Dresden Files
Living Through Changes
It takes a lot to force a wizard out of his sanctuary. It’s one of those traits we all tend to share, whether our choice be an isolated farm, a stone castle, an underground complex, or a run-down basement flat. Hey, don’t look at me like that. Standing up to necromancers, evil fairies and demons may sound cool, but it doesn’t tend to pay well.
And I like my flat. Or rather, I had liked it, until Red Court assassins had firebombed the entire building. I suppose that constitutes “a lot†- it had certainly forced me out.
But I’d gotten the last laugh with bombs, and the magical one I’d set off had destroyed the entire bloodsucking lot of them. Including...Susan. The mother of my daughter, the woman I’d spent nearly a decade trying to cure. She’d never completely given in to her curse, not even at the end, and I had always hoped...but that dream was up in ashes, along with my apartment.
Which left me sitting on the deck of my brother’s beat-up boat, leaning against the left (starboard?) wall. I was dressed in my best clothes, which amounted to jeans, a t-shirt, and a fleece-lined denim jacket. I looked like a poster for whatever knockoff jeans brand K-Mart sold, provided K-Mart was desperate enough to hire strung-out, beat-up wizards to model for them.
And I was desperately, desperately trying to not think fifteen minutes into the future, when Karrin Murphy would arrive. In the grand scheme of things, we were probably rushing things. It wasn’t a good time for either of us - she’d been forced out of Chicago PD for disappearing to help me save my daughter from the Red Court, and I’d just...
I shied away from the things that I had just done, and tried to focus on the present. Listening to the water lapping against the boat, and the ticking of the wall clock, hearing it but not really hearing it.
Worrying about timing is for people who have time, and I wasn’t one of those people.
You see, this morning I was paralyzed. Not with doubt, or guilt, but with a broken spine. And being a busy wizard, I didn’t have time for that. I needed to be in Mexico, so that I could Show Up and save my daughter from the Red Court.
So I made a deal with a faerie for help. Specifically, I made a deal with Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the Winter Court of Faerie. Mab was vicious and literally inhuman. And sooner or later I would take up the mantle of her Winter Knight. Once upon a time, nothing could have driven me into her service. I would have rather died than become her Knight.
That thought brought me up short, like I was forgetting something. Something on the edge of recollection - bah, if it was important I’d remember it sooner or later.
The White Council, the body that governed (or rather, claimed governance over) all wizards, would probably not be happy with me about my new boss. But then again, they were never happy, so they could go hang for all I cared.
It was a comforting, familiar thought. I’d spent most of my life upset with the Council for one thing or another, so it was at least nice to realize that not everything had changed.
True, change was just about the only given in life. And I was going through just about all of them, all at the same time. Hell, I’d only learned about my daughter Maggie a few days ago. Since then I’d lost everything I owned, destroyed an entire species of vampire, lost the woman I loved, picked up a new job as the right-hand man of the closest thing to the devil...and given up my daughter.
She would be safer away from me.
‘How’d that work out last time?’ a voice whispered in the back of my head, an echo of my words to Susan when I’d found out about Maggie.
I ignored it, because I knew I was right. Even without my host of enemies, the mantle of Winter Knight...changed people. Would change me, into one of the things I’d spent my life fighting.
But Maggie would be safe, and weighed against that, I didn’t regret the trade.
I smiled at the thought.
On the whole, things were moving in a lot of different directions - bad for me personally, but better for everyone else. I could live with that. I’d lived with worse, over the years, and I’d kept going.
Who knew? Maybe I’d find a way out of Mab’s service, impossible as it seemed. Yesterday, I would have considered the obliteration of the Red Court impossible.
Best to keep on moving forwards, trusting to the future. Like Obi-Wan said, the Force would always be with me.
But my fears of Winter would have to wait, because tonight I had a date. I checked the clock - still ten minutes left.
_______________________________________________________
Then I said out loud, “Screw this Zen crap. Maybe she’ll be early.†And I got up to leave.
I came out of the cabin and into the early-afternoon sun, quivering with pleasant tension and tired and haunted - and hopeful. I shielded my eyes against the sun and studied the city’s skyline.
My foot slipped a little, and I nearly lost my balance, just as something smacked into the wall of the cabin behind me, a sharp popping sound, like a rock thrown against a wooden fence. I turned, and it felt slow for some reason. I looked at the Water Beetle’s cabin wall, bulkhead, whatever, behind me and thought, Who splattered red paint on my boat?
And then my left leg started to fold all by itself.
I looked down at a hole in my shirt, just to the left of my sternum.
I thought, Why did I pick the shirt with a bullet hole in it?
Then I fell off the back of the boat, and into the icy water of Lake Michigan.
Author’s Notes: This takes place at the end of Changes, when Harry is sitting on the boat, thinking. And yes, the irony of the title is intentional. The solid line towards end indicates the resumption of Changes, and all of those words are Jim Butcher’s, not mine.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the Dresden Files
Living Through Changes
It takes a lot to force a wizard out of his sanctuary. It’s one of those traits we all tend to share, whether our choice be an isolated farm, a stone castle, an underground complex, or a run-down basement flat. Hey, don’t look at me like that. Standing up to necromancers, evil fairies and demons may sound cool, but it doesn’t tend to pay well.
And I like my flat. Or rather, I had liked it, until Red Court assassins had firebombed the entire building. I suppose that constitutes “a lot†- it had certainly forced me out.
But I’d gotten the last laugh with bombs, and the magical one I’d set off had destroyed the entire bloodsucking lot of them. Including...Susan. The mother of my daughter, the woman I’d spent nearly a decade trying to cure. She’d never completely given in to her curse, not even at the end, and I had always hoped...but that dream was up in ashes, along with my apartment.
Which left me sitting on the deck of my brother’s beat-up boat, leaning against the left (starboard?) wall. I was dressed in my best clothes, which amounted to jeans, a t-shirt, and a fleece-lined denim jacket. I looked like a poster for whatever knockoff jeans brand K-Mart sold, provided K-Mart was desperate enough to hire strung-out, beat-up wizards to model for them.
And I was desperately, desperately trying to not think fifteen minutes into the future, when Karrin Murphy would arrive. In the grand scheme of things, we were probably rushing things. It wasn’t a good time for either of us - she’d been forced out of Chicago PD for disappearing to help me save my daughter from the Red Court, and I’d just...
I shied away from the things that I had just done, and tried to focus on the present. Listening to the water lapping against the boat, and the ticking of the wall clock, hearing it but not really hearing it.
Worrying about timing is for people who have time, and I wasn’t one of those people.
You see, this morning I was paralyzed. Not with doubt, or guilt, but with a broken spine. And being a busy wizard, I didn’t have time for that. I needed to be in Mexico, so that I could Show Up and save my daughter from the Red Court.
So I made a deal with a faerie for help. Specifically, I made a deal with Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the Winter Court of Faerie. Mab was vicious and literally inhuman. And sooner or later I would take up the mantle of her Winter Knight. Once upon a time, nothing could have driven me into her service. I would have rather died than become her Knight.
That thought brought me up short, like I was forgetting something. Something on the edge of recollection - bah, if it was important I’d remember it sooner or later.
The White Council, the body that governed (or rather, claimed governance over) all wizards, would probably not be happy with me about my new boss. But then again, they were never happy, so they could go hang for all I cared.
It was a comforting, familiar thought. I’d spent most of my life upset with the Council for one thing or another, so it was at least nice to realize that not everything had changed.
True, change was just about the only given in life. And I was going through just about all of them, all at the same time. Hell, I’d only learned about my daughter Maggie a few days ago. Since then I’d lost everything I owned, destroyed an entire species of vampire, lost the woman I loved, picked up a new job as the right-hand man of the closest thing to the devil...and given up my daughter.
She would be safer away from me.
‘How’d that work out last time?’ a voice whispered in the back of my head, an echo of my words to Susan when I’d found out about Maggie.
I ignored it, because I knew I was right. Even without my host of enemies, the mantle of Winter Knight...changed people. Would change me, into one of the things I’d spent my life fighting.
But Maggie would be safe, and weighed against that, I didn’t regret the trade.
I smiled at the thought.
On the whole, things were moving in a lot of different directions - bad for me personally, but better for everyone else. I could live with that. I’d lived with worse, over the years, and I’d kept going.
Who knew? Maybe I’d find a way out of Mab’s service, impossible as it seemed. Yesterday, I would have considered the obliteration of the Red Court impossible.
Best to keep on moving forwards, trusting to the future. Like Obi-Wan said, the Force would always be with me.
But my fears of Winter would have to wait, because tonight I had a date. I checked the clock - still ten minutes left.
_______________________________________________________
Then I said out loud, “Screw this Zen crap. Maybe she’ll be early.†And I got up to leave.
I came out of the cabin and into the early-afternoon sun, quivering with pleasant tension and tired and haunted - and hopeful. I shielded my eyes against the sun and studied the city’s skyline.
My foot slipped a little, and I nearly lost my balance, just as something smacked into the wall of the cabin behind me, a sharp popping sound, like a rock thrown against a wooden fence. I turned, and it felt slow for some reason. I looked at the Water Beetle’s cabin wall, bulkhead, whatever, behind me and thought, Who splattered red paint on my boat?
And then my left leg started to fold all by itself.
I looked down at a hole in my shirt, just to the left of my sternum.
I thought, Why did I pick the shirt with a bullet hole in it?
Then I fell off the back of the boat, and into the icy water of Lake Michigan.