Mystery Beyond Compare - Fablehaven Oneshots

Just Another Birthday

When Kendra agreed to become an Eternal, she thought that she'd thought through all the pros and cons. She was doing something important; she'd been training most of her life for this, and who else was better fit for the job? Fairykind at such an early age, saving the world, and all the missions after that, she had perfect qualifications. Overqualified, almost. When considering this she'd gone through all the upsides and downsides, weighed the idea of staying like this forever, becoming a living key, and... she'd agreed. Bracken was there to support and help her, and she was strong enough to deal with the other consequences. Right?

She'd thought wrong.

There had been a time, in the beginning, where Bracken had tried to talk her out of it. It was just after the final meeting had adjourned and the plans finally set in stone. Not the best meeting, all in all; no smiles, all seriousness. She'd been questioned for hours on end about emergency situations, safehouses, and (of course) if she was really sure about this, and Kendra was just tired of it all. The serious air hadn't dissipated after everybody dispersed and she was left to trudge upstairs in hopes of maybe getting a few hours of sleep before tomorrow-

A warm hand grabbed her wrist as she turned up the staircase.

"Kendra." Bracken's face was tense. "I need to talk to you."

Not again. Bracken specifically hadn't tried to talk her out of it yet today, but everybody else in the house had. It wasn't like she hadn't gone over this all already in her own head, but she was too tired for this right now.

"Bracken, please. I just want to go to bed."

He shook his head, not budging. "I'm sorry, this can't wait."

With a resigned sigh, she gently tugged out of his grip and took a seat on one of the stairs. "Fine."

"I know you've gone over this a lot already-"

"We all have," she interrupted. "A lot."

He stepped around the staircase railing and took a seat on a stair one below her, taking her hands in his and staring unflinchingly into her eyes. "This is different, Kendra. I know you want to do this, for everybody, for us, but I don't think you realize what this'll do to you. You never get used to it."

Kendra leaned forwards towards him. "Bracken, I have to do this. I've gone over it, it's the right choice."

"But-"

"No buts." She smiled softly, and after a second, leaned in to give him a quick kiss before standing. "Now, I'm going to go sleep, because I've been in that stupid meeting for five hours and I'm tired." As she turned to make her way towards the attic, she turned back to him. "It'll be ok. I promise."

Bracken didn't smile back.

The first few years after she became an eternal, it had been fine. Great, actually, enough to have her wondering what exactly she'd been so terrified of in the first place. For a while Kendra had stayed around with her family and they all spent a couple happy years joking about how, "Found another gray hair this morning. That's one thing Kendra'll never have to worry about!" The situation was light and funny. What had once seemed serious now seemed like a gross overdramatizing of the reality, because it didn't really affect them for the time being. Everybody more or less stayed the same, including Kendra, and it was easy for all of them to forget that she'd ever agreed to the deal in the first place, that she was any different from how she had been just a few short months ago.

Then she and Bracken decided to go on a vacation. Originally, they'd planned it to just be a couple months, see the world (landmarks both mythical and human made), but it stretched itself out into five months, then six, seven, and before they knew it, they'd been gone for two years. Kendra wasn't one to lose sight of consequences. She was grounded, for the most part, and thought things through... right?