Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“It doesn’t make any sense, Thomas!”  

Constance sat slumped over strewn papers and notes with her hands in her hair, as had become her ever-increasing habit. Thomas put down the tea he’d made for her.  

“Do you need me to be a soundboard again?” he asked. He didn’t understand anything of what Constance would tell him, but in her efforts to explain, she sometimes had a breakthrough. It seemed like today, though, she was more in the mood for frustrated venting.  

“Just! Look at this!” she held up manilla folder.  
“This missive contains a direct interview with Kate the Posthuman. Apparently, she gave interviews, I guess? But it’s one of the few direct sources we have. Or a recording of a direct source, I suppose. I can’t find the direct transcript, but it’s quoted.” 

“That’s... good, right?” Thomas tried. At times, Constance would get so frustrated at a lack of sources, that her yelling could be heard through the library door. She looked up at him with fire in her eyes.  
“You’d think so, huh? But it’s wrong!”  
She grabbed her own notes, and tapped her pen aggressively.  

“She mentions that she basically went no-contact with Lloyd and Raven after Caravan. Which is a decision I get all too well.  But then!” she flipped through it. “Here, it says she helped make preparations for the Dogs Project. So either someone messed up the copy, Kate got confused with someone else somehow, or she’s messing with us.  
It says she didn’t get involved with the fighting. Yet here, she spend months recovering from her injury. What injury? I thought she was too young to fight? Plus, here it says she helped directly with the final blow. So which is it, Kate! And oh my god, don’t get me started on the friggin’ Order members!”  

Thomas hadn’t, but Constance seemingly felt prompted anyway. She grumbled as she pulled the correct paper from the pile.  
“You’d think that the library of the Order would have some order in the accounts about its own members. So, 3 of them went to the fight. Why? Don’t ask me. Then they followed their orders and went down with this Sarah person.”  

Thomas frowend. “Wait, whose-?” 

“It doesn’t say!” Constance bemoaned. “ The Order’s orders? The Lost Ones? Fucking, fucking William? It doesn’t say, Thomas!” She put her head on her crossed arms, so that only her graying frazzled bob was visible. “It doesn’t saaaay,” she groaned. Thomas rubbed her shoulder encouragingly.  

“Okay, so the role of this Kate person is unclear. And we already know the Order isn’t very, well, orderly,” he tried to comfort her. “But how much does that matter in the grand scheme of things? You’re trying to figure out what happened to her, right? Can’t you focus on that?”  
Constance pulled her head up with effort and took a sip of the tea. Thomas smiled secretly at her pout. Despite their age, she could still be so cute. 

“Because it’s all like this, Tommy,” she explained. “All my sources contradict each other, are incomplete, or are just straight up untrustworthy. Or they make it hard to read through eyerolls.” 

She tisked. “Look at this, for example. The question is less why was Lloyd decieved, and more why was Raven not? Bla bla bla, he at least has sexual tastes involving women.” Constance rolled her eyes. “Right, because the only way a woman could be a liar is by using her boobs. Everyone knows this.” 

“They don’t hurt,” Thomas argued lightheartedly, and Constance scoffed. 

“Hm, you’re telling me.” She stretched in her chair, and despite the reading glasses and wrinkles creeping in at her eyes, she still had the same confident look that roped her marks in. 

“I was something of a femme fatale, wasn’t I?” 

“You’re telling me,” Thomas joked, echoing her. Constance laughed, the messy start of their relationship now an inside joke. She mused: "Well, it never went too far. With the target, I mean. Which brings me back to my original point. It takes more to be a master thief than to fill a brassiere.” 

Constance smiled nostalgically, before her smirk slipped slightly. 

Truth be told, she had been more of a fille fatale. Many years had gone by since those days, and she was now the age most of her marks had been. The older she got, the less she understood the appeal she had to them. She shrugged the memories off, before her recollection dampened the pride of her escapades. She wasn't that girl anymore, either way. 

She once again pulled through her notes, though this time with more tired resignation than frantic frustration.  

“Well, there is one organization that seems to have more knowledge than anyone. Or it might be a place. Maybe another dimension, even, I don’t know.” Constance pointed to a library stamp in one of the books. Thomas leaned over to read the text out loud. 
“Hail Discordia?”  

“They’re described as the Order’s “colleagues”, but no one knows who they are. These books were gifted to the monastery by a New Albian witch.  There were a some mentions of Discordia in old recordings, and then they just... disappeared.” Constance checked her notes with a weary sigh. “I have reason to believe they may be linked to a bunch of ‘demon children’, though there’s nothing conclusive on that.”  

“So,” Thomas asked. “That’s it? Your best bet is some organization or place that may or may not exist?” 
“Well, not really. My best bet is a direct source I could, theoretically, access.”  

“That’s great!” Thomas tried, but Constance’s expression didn’t get less weary. She held up a purple pamphlet. The gaudy letters in front boldly advertised a “newly opened” carnival.  

“I thought that guy was still missing?” asked Thomas.  
“I plucked this from another narrative,” Constance casually explained. As though interdimensional commerce was the same as picking it up from the corner store.  
“Time is fluid, Tommy. If I jump out and get to the CU, I should be able to meet with him. And probably Lloyd, if they’re reunited.” 
“Do you want to?”  

Constance leaned back in her chair.  
“Want is a very strong word. Not really. But it’s the only chance I have of getting Margie out of there.”

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Chapter Text

[A/N: So, this fic uses my headcanon of Constance and Raven having met before. You can read that story here: https://archiveofourown.to/works/48806080 ]

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Getting to the CU wasn’t easy. But Constance had some experience getting into places she shouldn’t; A little B&E was not outside her ballpark. She wondered if that was why she was able to master the trickier parts of postiedom so quickly. She hadn't narrated yet, but manifestation was getting easier.  

Or perhaps her progression was due to the fact that she hadn't left her narrative yet. It might be best to carefully inspect one’s wings before being thrown out the nest.  

  Of course, Margie had helped her a lot as well. The trapped woman’s memories were all over the place, but on good days, she was able to aid Constance in her new powers. Even though she had been trapped for ages, her advice was still more valuable than the second or third hand accounts in the library. Plus, it seemed to cheer her up. Though Constance was an adult, she was young in postie-terms. If seeing her as a protege made Margie feel better, Constance wasn’t going to correct her.  

And now she was going to the CU to meet with her old mentors. The circle of strange relationships was completed.  

  The Carnival looked better than she remembered it. The desert sun beamed down on the stands, and though it was hotter than gloomy New Albion, with short sleeves it was bearable. A light sweetly scented breeze helped, too. Nothing was broken or dirty, as far as she could see.  

  There was still an odd edge to it, though. A whisper, a pull that urged her to stay for longer than she intended to. The screams of the rollercoaster weren’t misplaced in such a seemingly fun place, but it still chilled her spine. She knew what this place could be, and what it housed.  

  She spotted the two men she'd set out to find. They appeared to be in the middle of setting up a new tent, softly bantering to each other. Raven heard her approach first, stopping mid-sentence and turning to face her. His eyes widened.  

  Constance kept her head high and posture open: this was going to be an awkward conversation.  

  "Afternoon," she greeted, making a best guess in this timeless place.  

She saw the way the hydraulics in Lloyd's shoulder joints jerked. She supposed she must look like a ghost to him.  

  "You," he said, and his voice still made her blood pressure rise. Despite the many years it'd been, she'd never forgotten it.  

  "Me," she confirmed.  

  Raven looked to his partner in surprise. "Wait, you know her?"  

  Lloyd's head turned in a similar way. "Do you?"  

  His face could hold no expression. But anthropomorphizing his body language, he seemed tense. He turned to Constance, with that same faux-friendly calming cadence he’d used to lull her back in character.  

  "Look. If this is about what happened, back then..." there was a twitch of something metallic in his forearm, not yet popping out. It was more polished than the rest of him. "We can talk about it, alright? I think that's best for all of us if things didn't... escalate."  

Constance resisted the urge to grab the strap of her shoulder bag and back off: the number one rule of thievery and politics alike was to pretend you knew what you were doing. She couldn't afford to show fear, not in front of two dangerous posthumans that had separate reasons to want her harm.  

  The threat wasn't lost on her, but she didn't let her voice waver. "I'm not here about that. In fact, I'm not here for either of you."  

  There was a soft click, and the metal sheathed back to Lloyd's inner mechanism.  

  "Oh," he said, with audible relief. "Excellent."  

"What happened?" Raven whispered.  

"Later, Ravey."  

Raven grimaced but didn’t push it."Fine. If you're not here for him- or me. Then why are you here?"  

  Constance squared her shoulders. Stay brave, she told herself. She had a friend to save.  

  "Margie would like to talk to you."  

  She had prepared herself to be met with hostility, or wariness at least. But at the mention of that name, the two of them immediately shifted.  

  "Marjolein? She's alive?" Lloyd asked, the static making him sound breathless. “Oh, thank god!”  

  "Is she alright? Where is she?" Raven shot off bulletfire questions. "Where did you see her, what did she say?"  

  Constance reeled for a second. Based on what she heard, she hadn't expected them to be this close.  

  "She's..." she searched for the best way to phrase the state she was in. "...trapped somewhere unpleasant. Her memory isn't exactly what it used to be, but she remembers you."  

  "She does?" Raven smiled, and his toothy relief was completely unlike the dark, dangerous man she'd expected to meet. It was almost more unsettling.  

  Lloyd’s gears spun cheerily. "I'm sorry she had to miss us so long."  

  Constance couldn’t help but feel like she should be honest, or at least correct them gently. It might not be smart, but better to prepare them now than during the emotional reunion. They seemed under the impression, somehow, that their relation was better than it had been.    

"Well... As I said, her memory is foggy. She seems... eager to see you, but there's some anger there." It was an understatement, but at least it was true.  

  Raven's smile faded and was replaced by a confused scowl. Lloyd didn't visibly react.  

  "Anger?" Raven asked. "I didn't... Lloyd?"  

  "Anger about what?" the doll asked measuredly.  

  "From what she told me...About how she ended up there."  

  Raven got silent.  

“Well, she was young... I didn’t get to see her after Sarah’s play-” Some of Lloyd’s gears audibly skipped, and Raven continued: “Right well, after that. I wouldn’t have send her into the battle, but I don’t know... Why would she be mad at me?”  

“You’re saying she should be at me?”  

“I- no, of course not! But I wasn’t there, was I? And you never talk about it-”  

“Ravey, please.”  

A tense silence fell. The sun was covered with clouds, and the carnival greyed. Lloyd hadn’t moved, save for the soft turning of his gears.  

"Look," he said. It seemed he wasn't surprised, or if he was, he didn't show it. "I suppose.. In retrospect, I might have.... shared some things, in the heat of the moment, that encouraged her to- do what happened."  

"Why am I hearing this now?" There was a sharp edge to Raven's voice, which made Constance's hairs stand on edge. She took a step back from the arguing men: if this turned really ugly, she would abort the mission and jump back to the abbey.  

  "What difference would it have made?" Lloyd asked coldly.  

  "What difference! You said Sarah got her."  

  "She did! Sue me for not wishing to disclose every detail of that. You think I don’t miss her? You think it doesn’t hurt? I just don't see the point in dwelling on it."  

  "No, you never do, do you?" Raven sneered.  

  "Oh let's not go over that old ground," Lloyd shut it down. "Can't we just focus on getting Marjo out? That's what matters here, don't you agree? We'll talk more when she's safe."  

  Raven stayed quiet, though the muscle in his jaw twitched from how hard he clenched his teeth. Then, he took a deep breath, held it, and let go.  

  "Fine," he said curtly. The clouds faded, but the breeze had turned from cooling to harsh and cold. After a short moment, he addressed Constance with an apologetic smile that seemed almost real.  

  "Sorry about that. Lover’s quarrel, you know how it is. Now, do you know where she is?"  

She shook her head, trying to put away the nasty argument she'd had to witness.    

"Not exactly. I stumbled on her distress signal, and we've talked. But she doesn't know where she is, and I couldn’t figure it out." She took the small radio from her shoulderbag and extended the antenna. It only played static.    

"It seems it doesn't work outside the Abbey," she explained. "I took it just in case."  

"Pssh!" Raven playfully waved it off, giving Constance some light whiplash. His earlier anger had faded, and his eyes were bright with excitement.  

  "Listen dear, radios do whatever you want them to do. Especially here!”  

  And so Lloyd, a walking spirit box himself, volunteered to tinker with it. He knew the most about how they worked, having done maintenance on himself for a century. He wasn’t used to working with an audience, and shooed Raven and Constance out the trailer.

They found themselves alone. Raven cleared his throat.  

“I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.”  

Chapter Text

He walked to a stand nearby. Instead of the usual candy or baked goods one would expect from a carnival, it was stacked top to bottom with recreational substances. A lot of them. Without taking a second to look, Raven easily grabbed a whiskey bottle and pour himself a handful.  

  “You want anything? Pick your poison. I have literally everything.”  

  Constance hesitated. It would be nice to get the edge off... Though she hadn’t used in a long while, the itch would rear its head now and then. There was even a tray with tiny bags of Tanzan. She collected herself. Now was not the time.  

  I’ll have tea, if you have it.” She was both proud of herself for saying no, and hated her own boring discipline.  

  aven took off his tophat, and with a dramatic flourish, pulled a steaming cup of tea from it- like a magician would a rabbit. His toothy grin begged for applause, but Constance wasn’t in the mood for whimsy.  

As she took the saucer, she realized what she was doing. Accepting a drink from a stranger was one thing, let alone this stranger, let alone mysterious liquid from his hat.  

She slowly put it down on the stand.

  “Actually... I lost my thirst.”  

 " Suit yourself.” Raven threw the cup back in his hat, and she heard it shatter. Then, he put it right back on his head, unphased.  

  He took a swig from his own drink, and didn’t even wince at the burn.  

Constance looked back at the trailer where Lloyd had started his work.  

"Do you think he'll manage it?"  

  "Let me tell you a secret," Raven said with a glint in his eye. "it doesn't actually matter if Lloyd knows what he's doing."

"I'd argue it does," Constance protested.  

  "Sure, it helps! But the radio will work if the narrative wants it to. It would certainly be anticlimactic if this development didn't go anywhere, right? So it must. The only question is, when."  

  Raven chuckled. “What really matters, is that he thinks he knows what he's doing. And Lloyd is really good at that."  

  He seemed to genuinely like talking about this, and Constance had to admit the explanation made her understand the way this worked a bit more.  

  She had read that Raven and Lloyd had been mentor-like types to multiple young posthumans. That had seemed wildly out of character from how they'd treated her, but she could see it now. The only thing she didn’t understand was why she had been the exception.  

  She grasped the memory of their first meetings close. She shouldn't let herself forget the darker sides of these men.  

  "This place is a lot nicer than when I first visited," she said, hinting at those thoughts.  

  Raven tapped the side of his glass.  

  "Yeah... That’s a low bar, but thank you. You should have seen it when it was new, it was truly.." his sentence trailed off, nostalgia in his eyes. Then he took another sip.  

  "But yes, I've gotten better. And now that we are talking... I would like to apologize for my- for our bad first impression. Because I understand Lloyd also has history with you?"  

  "You can say that again." Constance said coldly.  

  "Right," Raven said quickly, picking up on the sour tone. "I wish I could just.." he mimed gathering the jumbled mess and throwing behind him with a nervous laugh. "Ah, but we can't, right? All I can do, is say sorry for what I must have said. I wasn't exactly sober, so I don't remember what-"    

"You called me a waste," Constance reminded him.  

"Ah, yup. That sounds about right," Raven said with a wince. "Well, rest assured I was very incorrect, Miss Mountains to the West."  

  "I know." Constance responded dryly. Then, she granted him some credit. "I'm glad you're doing better, at least."  

  Raven's expression softened. "Lloyd helped."  

  Though Constance didn't voice her doubts, Raven must have seen something in her expression. She’d have to be careful, he seemed good in picking up the unsaid.  

  "I know that based on what you just saw, that doesn't make sense, but.. You know about archetypes?"  

  Constance nodded. "I read reports about you two. The Lovers, right?"  

  "Right! If you're romantic, you can call it soulmates." He clicked his teeth with a humorless grin. "If you're less romantic.. Well, you've seen how I get when he's gone. How we both get. Fun, right?" He took another long swig, and then snapped his fingers. The whiskey level in the glass returned to nearly full.  

  Constance, despite everything she’d been put through, couldn’t help feel a pang of pity.  

 " So, that's it?" Constance asked. "If you were apart, you would both... return to how you were? No matter what?"  

  Raven thought about that for a second. "Full disclosure," he said with a rasp. "I've done worse than be rude to a fresh postie. I’m trying, you know. To be better. When Han comes back from her trip, she could tell you all about it, now's not the time for that. But... Well. I don't want to return to how I got, then. And Lloyd doesn't either."  

  Constance noticed that that didn't answer her question. Raven knew she did. He put on a smile.  

  "Well. Next time I won't get myself trapped in a prison that's also an extension of my decaying soul, how's that? That oughta help!" he raised his glass in mock-cheerfulness. "Hooray for new years resolutions!"  

  He took a deep swig, closer to a chug. Constance knew many people who could handle their vices, but none like this. She wondered if Raven wouldn’t get drunk if he thought he wouldn’t, due to being a postie. Or if he just developed a liver of steel. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  

  "Speaking of trapped. Miss Constance, I do have to thank you. Despite everything, you came here to tell us about Marjolein."  

  "Well, I'm not doing it for either of you," Constance confessed. "I would have gotten her out myself, if I could. But you're welcome. And if it helps, she didn’t seem that angry at you. She’s excited to see you again.” Through the jumbled mess of her memories, she had seemed more fond of Raven than Lloyd.  

  Raven smiled. She could tell the confirmation eased some of his worries.  

  "That's a relief. And it's good you've gotten so close! Real friendships are hard to come by in our..." he thought of how to describe their position as posthumans. "..profession, heh. Unless it's more than friendship..? I wouldn’t judge-"  

  "Oh, gosh no," Constance balked. "No, Margie is just a friend."  

  "Still, a friendship with cute nicknames," Raven joked.  

  Constance shrugged. "I just call her that, because it's what she calls herself."  

  All background noise disappeared. The air fell still. Not a sand of sand shifted.  

  Raven's face had fallen into a confused frown. Then, slowly, his eyes widened, and the temperature dropped. Constance felt something softly gripping her heart.  

  "Raven?"  

  The glass Raven had held fell to the ground with a crash.  

  There was a noise of static from the trailer, and Lloyd called out:  

  "Ravey, come in, I got it!"  

  Raven's expression turned to nauseated terror.  

  "Lloyd!" he cried, voice cracking. He jumped over the stand before Constance could understand what was happening.  

  He ran to the trailer like he was outrunning a tsunami. "Turn it off, turn it the fuck off!"  

  Constance ran after him, and through the door’s opening, she saw a truly frightening scene.  

Slimy red-pink flesh flowered and writhed from the speaker, shiny viscera and tendons that only vaguely resembled a hand. It was reaching for Lloyd. Thinking quick, Raven wielded his cane in both hands and smashed the radio off the gear-covered table, to the floor. It landed with a wet, squelching thud. The boneless fingers bend on impact, and a hoarse tinny voice cried from the speakers.  

  Using the tip of his cane, Raven turned the radio off with a resounding click, and the meat lost its shape. It splattered to the floor and became a vile puddle.  

  Raven was out of breath. Lloyd hadn't moved, staying pressed against the wall. The only hint towards his terror was the way every gear and joint jittered and twitched. It took a couple of tries before he could get his radio to work.  

  "That-that wasn't..." he didn't finish his sentence.  

  Raven looked up, a panicked fire in his eyes.  

  "No. It wasn't," he bit.  

  He turned to Constance, who stood pale-faced on the little stair leading to the trailer's door.  

  “Wh-what was that?” she managed to ask.  

“That was what’s left of Sarah,” Raven snapped.  

 
The ground beneath Constance’s feet seemed to fall away.  

  Of course she’d read about the mysterious Sarah M. No one seemed to know exactly why she started the Posthuman War, but all fingers had pointed to her after it was done.  

And if “Margie” was angry at Raven and Lloyd for trapping her....  

“Oh,” Constance said, the puzzle pieces clicking together.  

  “Oh?” Raven asked incredulous. He gripped his cane tight.  

“You nearly unleash a monster into my carnival, lying to our face, and all you can say is “oh’?”  

  This was going sour. Thunder clapped in the distance as the two posthumans came down from their panic, and settled into anger.  

  Constance tried to jump, back to the abbey, but Raven drove his cane in the ground as she did; she stayed where she was. It was as though the ground was glue.  

“I think we need to have a little chat first, Miss.” Raven said, faux-polite.  

  “Let me go,” Constance tried to keep her nerves calm, slowly backing away as though from a dangerous animal. “I think this is a misunderstanding.”  

“I should hope it is,” Raven glared. “I’d ask if you have any idea what you’d just done, but it’s best if you really are stupid. For your sake.”  

  “I don’t want to fight!” Constance tried, heart pounding in her throat. “I just heard someone who needed help. And it wasn’t like I could see her before. I told you exactly the facts as I knew them.”  

  Raven paused, thinking.  

“So you really didn’t know who you were helping...”  

“Surely, you don’t believe her?” asked Lloyd sharply.  

Raven turned to him. “Well, you of all people should know how convincing Sarah can be.”  

Lloyd’s face couldn’t express, but he flinched a little. “Oh, that is both low and off-limits.”  

Raven rolled his eyes. “She was two seconds away from grabbing you, I think we’ve passed that stupid off-limits!”  

“Still, no need to bring up old arguments!” Lloyd countered.  

“I’m not bringing anything up, I’m just saying-!”  

Just as Constance was about to use the distraction of the lover’s quarrel to escape, a scream cut through the silent carnival.  

“What was that?” asked Lloyd.  

“It’s Floozy,” Raven said, concern deepening the lines on his face. “There’s someone here.”  

  A brightly clad young woman ran onto the scene. In a panicked, heavily accented voice she informed of some “real strange folk” that had snuck into the carnival.  

“They looked all...” she tried to find the right word. “...mutated-like?”  

  Raven’s face turned ashen. Without a second glance at Constance, he bolted away.  

“Ravey, wait!” Lloyd stumbled out of the trailer, looking rapidly between Constance and his quickly disappearing love. “What about her!”    

But Raven was gone. Lloyd considered her.  

“God, he’ll get himself killed... We’ll talk later! Don’t do anything, young lady, or we’ll really have trouble!”  

And he left as fast as his wooden legs would carry him.  

Left alone, Constance still could not jump. Whatever was going on, it sounded like trouble.  

A loud screaming filled the air, two voices she didn’t know. It sounded distant, but no less chilling.  

It sounded like they needed help. And despite her instructions, Constance had to do something.  

Constance shoved the battered radio in her bag and ran towards the sound of panicked screaming.