[Achtus 23, 2713 | Vienda, Anaxas] Winter Rose [Lit]

unwanderinggirl

(( This is so damn self-indulgent it hurts. But in a good way. I think. I’m not sorry, but hopefully y'all won't be either. Hang on. It's a long ride, people. I apologize that my writing style often involves skipping what feels like an important part of the story, letting the reader fill in words or events or transitions in their own mind. Part of it may be because I'm lazy, part of it may be because I'm impatient to get to the parts that are more pressing in my mind, and part of it may just be because I am weird.

This takes place as the date above implies, during the in between game times and after the start of the first Revolution. No, I don't know exactly how things happened to set up the scene, but it doesn't matter. It's a war, and wicks are certainly not the most welcome folk around Vienda, especially nomadic folk without writs like the Red Crow. ))

http://8tracks.com/bagginses/he-drinks-damnation

unwanderinggirl

“Ne, y’ent goin’. Ye can’t go.”

“I ent gotta choice, hama.” Tristaan’s voice was firm, tucking a knife into his boot instead of looking up to meet the terrified, angry gaze of Sarinah. Exhaling through clenched teeth, he stared at his hands for a few moments, sitting on their bed as he armed himself, dressed for the cold outside, “It’s Guaril, it’s Eudo, it’s Owin. They’re Crows. They’re fami—”

“Ne. They're kin. We’re fami.” The witch interrupted, tears in her eyes in their old, little hand-me-down kint, words wavering, “All three of us.”

“Don’t.” Came the pained whisper, grey eyes drifting upwards reluctantly, drawn by her words first to her belly where life they had made together was secretly growing. It’d been just over two months now, and the reality of what was coming into their lives had just begun to sink under his scarred skin. Finally meeting the brunette’s stormy glare, he was firm in his decision, recklessly trying to keep from thinking of the cost should nothing go as planned, “I can’t jus’ leave ‘em t’get hung. Or worse. They’re still fightin’ in there. Someone’s gotta get ‘em out.”  

The dark-haired passive stood, adjusting the belts that held both his old, worn flintlock and the short, curved blade he’d traded his sword for once reunited with the Crows. It was a gift from the only man he’d call da, the wick named Guaril. Something heavy was lodged in his stomach. It felt like a mountain: of fear, of anger, of worry, of helplessness. He was drowning in it all, weighed down by so many things that felt out of his control. If he couldn’t stand with his friends, if he couldn’t protect them, how could he ever protect his wife? His child?

“Tristaan, it ent gotta be you.” Her hands were on his shirt collar, standing between him and the door, “It’s Vienda, ye chen. It ent safe.”

“Oes, I chen.” He scowled, dragging his words over old wounds and through the lucid ghosts of the Soot District that sometimes still haunted him in his sleep. He knew just how dangerous the city was, not only for wicks that he pretended to be kin of, but for the magicless son of a galdor that he really was. His aristocratic features hardened, though he reached up to curl cold fingers over those of his lovely witch, attempting to gently pry them from his person but not wanting to let them go, “Y’know I do. There ent much time ‘less some o’us help. It ent like either side cares ‘bout a handful o’spokes.”

They didn’t. No one did, anymore.

“Please, hama. Stay here.” The thought of the city was no more pleasant for her as it was for him, freed as she was from her own time trapped there for entirely different reasons, “There’s others goin’. They don’t need ye.” She didn’t have to say the rest, so strong and obvious was her need for the man in her very field, “Guaril wouldn’t ask it of ye, not now. Ye know—”

“Enough.” The passive hissed, feeling trapped now by their closeness, by the mingling of their fears. He knew. Of course he knew. Of all the things to say … he couldn’t not know. There was no undoing of everything that weighed him down, of all the feelings of responsibility and helplessness that threatened to overwhelm him in the moment. Not even he wanted their child—their firstborn—to grow up without ever seeing his face, and as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t going to happen. Surely she knew that, but surely she also knew this was something he had to do. It was more than just a whim, but an obligation, a duty. It was a terrifying risk, to be sure, but one he couldn't ignore. He felt as though he owed so much of who he was to Guaril, to the patient old wick who’d endured so much anger to teach him how to be less of a boy and more of a man. He wasn’t about to leave him to the Seventen, especially if the only reason they’d gone into Vienda proper in the first place was to trade for supplies now that winter had set in so cold and so harsh. It wasn’t to pick a fight for once.

“I’ll be alright. It’ll be quick. I have t’go, macha. I have to—" Tristaan all but begged, holding Sarinah's hands tightly. He opened his mouth to say more, but some meaty fist knocked loudly on the painted door of their kint instead.

"Junta. Lessgo. Dawn ent far ‘way." Grunted the voice from outside in the snow. There were four of them in their small rescue party, and the truth was he had indeed been asked to be part of the group. It was far easier for someone without a field to stay hidden than one with.

His wife was looking past him, through him, really, tears down her cheeks now, hands still in his own. She said nothing as he released her hands, closing her eyes with a broken sigh as he kissed her. The passive wiped her face with calloused fingers, “Hamaye, Sarinah Greymoor. I promise I’ll be home soon. I promise.”

“Hamaye.” She responded quietly, finally looking into his eyes, voice heavy with fear and frustration. The lovely witch hugged him tightly, reluctantly letting him go with a heavy sigh, “Ye come back to me.”

Tristaan finished dressing for the weather, but said nothing else. Afraid to make promises he couldn’t keep, though he had every intention of keeping them. Then he was gone, out the door into the cold and the darkness.

---

unwanderinggirl

Ciela had contacts in the Resistance. She’d been part of them once, she said, though apparently spoke life had a greater calling for her than bloodshed. She’d left Vienda once writs were required and had been with the small band of Crows for only a short time, slowly adjusting to the wandering life after growing up a tsat. She knew ways into the city that did not require Seventen guards or checkpoints, though they were hardly any safer. The sewers under the city were uncomfortably warm, even in Achtus, hardly clean, and somewhat confusing. Still, the young witch led the three men with a sense of purpose, chattering ever so quietly in the faint glow of a phosphor lantern as they crept along,

“Them jents'll take ‘em with the Resistance pris’ners. Prolly to the same clockin’ gallows, too. But, don’ worry, the Res ent gonna let that ‘appen to their own, neither. We’ve got some folks meetin’ up with us once we get there.”

“Wo chet! Ent we jus’ gettin’ our kin an’ leavin’?” Tristaan spoke up, suddenly confused about what he’d been conscripted for. He was wet from the knees down and dressed for winter, not the steamy tunnels under Vienda. The smell and the heat made him dizzy, unfocused. He struggled to keep his thoughts from wandering into worry. Ciela’s words made it sound more like they were joining the fight, not rescuing their friends. He’d worked hard enough to keep himself out of the fight, having already wasted years of his life on anger.

“Oes.” Jora grunted, annoyed. The broad-shouldered wick scowled in the passive’s direction, “Ent like we can take ‘em all ourselves, ye chen. We jus’ ‘ad to make a trade in services, s’all. Y’know ‘ow it is, can’t pretend ye don’t, mujo ma. Yer my sapper, my ace in th’ole. I wouldn’ta brought ye if it was jus’ a walk in some clockin’ park. Getcher ‘ead outta the clouds ‘fore we get up there.”

Lem said nothing, cowering behind the lantern he carried.

Tristaan opened his mouth to object, but Ciela interrupted with her nasal whisper, cutting any more of his worry off with a hiss, “Boys, both o’yas keep it down with yer wordy spitch. It ent gonna be more’n four brigk, maybe a few natt conscripts. They’re jus’ walkin’ our kin an’ any other captives from their post to th’next. We be suprisin’ ‘em in an alley. It’ll be benny.”

The way the light shone in Ciela’s eyes was not comforting to the dark-haired passive, who sighed and squinted ahead into the darkness instead of asking more questions. He’d begun to notice hints and signs that the waterways under the city were used on a regular basis as a means of transportation and communication among those in opposition to the current regime. Symbols here. Scratches there. He was told it was just a pick up, not that they would be expected to fight alongside a handful of Resistance folk to wrestle prisoners from the grip of a few Seventen. It wasn’t the done deal he was promised, which made the trek through the oppressive stench of the sewers even more foreboding. He also knew now why he was asked to come; there were only a handful of Red Crow traveling in their group who were both seasoned warriors and willing to fight at all.

Had he known the details, he questioned whether or not he would have been so willing to come along.

---

unwanderinggirl

Dawn had broke by the time the four wicks crawled their way free from the clinging, disgusting heat of the sewers and up into a narrow alley. The alley spilled into a cross street with a bit of a courtyard, which seemed to lead toward the river. The tall brick buildings on either side appeared abandoned, empty shells of apartment buildings with broken glass windows and rundown interiors. They were dark and dirty, and it only took a heartbeat or two for Tristaan to recognize what part of Vienda they’d surfaced in. The cold air cut right through his wet clothes, but it was nothing compared to the icy fingers of old memory that clawed into his chest. There were few things etched so vividly into his memory than his childhood spent in servitude in the Soot District.

That heavy weight sank into his stomach again, a twinge of inescapable panic crawling under his scarred skin. There had been a time in his life when this sort of thing would have been exciting, when he would have willingly subjected himself to this sort of danger. The anger and fear were still there, to be sure, but the past two years had assuaged the once purposefully open wounds. After decades of running, Tristaan had indeed begun to face down his personal demons, but the winter air of the Soot District in the middle of a revolution felt like a slap in the face.

This had been a horrible idea from the start, and it wasn’t going to get any better.

“Get up there, Lem.” Jora was pointing up the fire escape to one of the buildings, “Ye be usin’ that aim o’ yours. Ciela, when’s your folks showin’?”

Snow was falling again.

The young witch rolled her shoulders, “Ent gotta time, but they’ll be ‘ere when the pris’ners come through. Might already be on the tail o’them brigk.”

Her words did not instill Tristaan with confidence that they were, in fact, getting any Resistance assistance in this suddenly suicidal-sounding mission. He just wanted Guaril safe. He just wanted his family safe. Now he was unsure he could have both. Alioe, he should have known better.

“Vrunta, so ‘elp me I’ll cott’cha myself if they ent comin’. We ent gonna take any vroo brigk on our own an’ y’know it.” Jora snarled, seriously threatening the young witch before he turned to the passive who pretended to be one of their own, “Get up on th’other side, balach. No higher’n the second floor. Jus’ in case.” They’d been closer friends once, decades ago before the magicless, older man had drifted. Now, the wick still wasn’t entirely sure how to feel, perhaps afraid he’d just abandon them again. This felt like a test.

Tristaan didn’t feel like he needed any more tests.

---

unwanderinggirl

Chroven. You could smell them before you could see them, even in the dingy air of the Soot District. All the gods in the Circle would have to help help them if there was more than one of those beasts with Seventen riders.

They’d been holed up for a handful of houses, freezing, waiting. Fingers numb, faces red, pretending they still remembered why they came in the first place as the snowfall became heavy and the wind rattled old glass and torn wallpaper. Ciela’s Resistance friends had shown up alright, all stopclocking two of them. Rough but wary humans who still carried promises of more help on their lips as rusty as their pistols. Tristaan trusted none of it, quickly losing faith in the sincerity of the side he’d always assumed he should be on.

Down the alley finally appeared a small group of people, led in front by a pair of well-armed, well-fed green-uniformed Seventen. Limping, broken-looking prisoners, all bound, trudged through the snow behind them. The three they were here for, Guaril included, were mixed among a ragtag bunch of captured Resistance fighters, making for a small crowd of twenty prisoners in all. They were being moved to a larger holding facility from the checkpoint where they’d been held since their capture. Behind them were a few green-uniformed militia, not galdori like the obvious Seventen. At the very end of their line rode a single Captain on her chrove, a non-standard red feather tucked into her helmet. Next to her was another Seventen and a second beast.

The passive bit his lip to keep from groaning, finding himself without the ability to even think of words to pray. His heart sank at the vision.

This was not going to end well, but he had promises to keep.

Like some magically silenced theater performance, everyone quietly took their places. The two Resistance folk and Ciela were going to be the first to get things started, supposedly because they had a plan the wicks weren’t entirely allowed to be privy to. Everything about this had red flags for Tristaan, and he struggled to comprehend why Jora was even capable of going along with everything. He felt as though there was something he wasn’t being told, and that made him more than just uncomfortable. It made him angry. He’d spent too much of his life feeling trapped in this part of this godsbedamned city; he didn’t need to feel trapped again.

The passive tucked himself tighter against the wall he hugged, holding his breath in the cold as he peered down from his vantage point on the second floor of the abandoned tenement housing. Alone. For a moment, he closed his eyes, tucking away old memories, afraid that when he opened them again, he’d be staring at the expectant faces of ghosts who’d spent decades waiting for his return. The cold wasn’t enough, the very air of the Soot District made him have to fight to breathe. He’d run from this place all those years ago and told himself he’d never come back. Did Jora betray him when convincing him to come along in the first place, or did he betray himself by even agreeing to be a part of this? Somewhere, probably not so far away, his own blood and sweat were still a permanent mark on a factory floor.

Alioe, keep me safe. I’m not here for myself.

Just as the first of the prisoners became visible behind the brigk on foot, there was a low rumble from the back and a yelp of surprise. Suddenly, one of the chroven howled and charged forward, throwing its rider, the other Seventen next to the red-feathered captian, into the snow. The creature’s massive jaws opened with a roar and the thing appeared to go completely berserk, tearing into the closest militia, rending half his steaming, fresh insides into the snowy alleyway before anyone else could react. It was unclear as to whether or not that was part of the plan for it felt like a handful of heartbeats too late when a blinding, fiery explosion erupted in the front of the line. What Tristaan had hoped was the Resistance jumping into the fray with a bang was, in fact, one of the two Seventen stopping a human in his tracks with horrible magical fire. The spell had been unbelievably fast; the stampeding chrove must have caused their folks on the ground to give themselves away too damn soon. He could hardly see what was going on anyway, stuck hidden in a building instead of down in the alley where he should have been in the first place …

With that, Lem and Jora opened fire, downing the first Seventen and wounding the second mid-cast. Forced to brail, the whole alley filled with a heavy, oppressively physical silence, everyone’s hair standing on end and a slow burn crawling up their cold, numb skin. Shouting of orders ensued, but not a sound of it carried upwards.

Everything slid downhill from there faster than he could process and anything planned was quickly abandoned.

The Captain was recovering her wits enough to begin to shout orders as the thrown rider was up, already casting. One of the three surviving militia was turning on the rampaging chrove as it released their dead companion. Even a second round of gunfire from Ciela was completely muted, though all she managed to do was hit a prisoner instead of whoever her target was, alerting the surviving two guards to her presence.

---

unwanderinggirl

Leaping from his place and out onto the fire escape with a string of silent expletives, the passive shrugged off his orders to wait for as long as possible before joining the fray. He was halfway down the first set of stairs when the chrove leapt at the prisoners who were scattering to flee, unable to hear his own voice shout in horror as the totally insane beast snatched up Guaril instead of anyone else. Over the rails he went, barely remembering to tuck and roll once he hit the snow from a story and a half high. Ignoring the pain of his sloppy, probably damaging landing, Tristaan struggled to tug his flintlock from under his heavy, still-wet coat. The chrove had the old wick by the leg, even as one militia was snatching up its reins. Too focused to have any idea what else was going on as Lem and Jora lept from their places to take care of the survivors, he attempted to aim at the creature without hitting Guaril.

He only had one shot, anyway.

The sounds of screaming and fighting were slowly becoming audible again as the mona, in their totally incomprehensible wisdom, decided it was a good time to recover. The passive heard only the sound of his own gunfire, however, before hearing the roaring groan of the angry beast as his aim proved mostly true. The creature had turned to toss the old wick, its big, blunt head suddenly a perfect, black target. The bullet had been meant for its broad skull, which would have proved too hard to have any effect had the beast been slower in its rampage. Instead, by some blessed stroke of good fortune, the small, round ball of lead found a better entrance, right through the creature’s eye and straight into its most likely very small brain. The chrove had turned on another prisoner, crushing him in his jaws just as he was hit, stopping him instantly in his tracks and sending the huge creature crashing onto the militia man who was attempting to snatch up its reigns. Twitching, the thing didn’t get back up.

Tristaan had no moment of joy in his accomplishment, however, no frosty breath for victory, for it was knocked out of him as something heavy and blunt and shaped like a boot smashed into the side of his side of his face. The Captain and her chrove had charged him, though they weren’t fast enough to stop him from killing the other beast. Crumpling to the snow, mind spinning, he felt the cold air around him begin to buzz and swirl, aware that the mounted brigk was beginning to cast but unable to get up right away. He could hear her words, alien sounds the gods had decided were not his to ever understand or command by will alone. With a groan, he struggled to stand, hearing the low rumble of a growl and feeling the hot breath from the chrove as it began to turn toward him. Shaking off the dizziness, he scrambled to climb the beast before it’s head snapped in his direction, all sharp teeth and strong jaws, nipping uselessly at his coat. The red-feathered Captain was still casting, and his reckless climbing charge caught her off guard, unable to entirely cease the words spilling from her lips. Her eyes widened and she began to shift in her saddle, not fast enough to brace herself against the man that came barreling over a stirrups and at her face.

Up and over the saddle the passive went, snatching the galdor by the collar of her green uniform and dragging them both over the other side of her mount, forcefully tossing them to the snow, hissing Tek curses through grit teeth. The woman’s field was practically an assault in itself, swarming his senses, burning his nose, crawling under his scarred skin. His attack had interrupted her casting, and he felt the angry sting of the mona as if he’d been slapped. His breath caught in his chest, afraid for a moment that he’d retaliate without any sense of control, but they simply continued their fast crash downwards out of the saddle and onto the ground. He’d never willingly been so close to a casting galdor, and as they smashed into the street, the passive twisting to make sure he’d knock the wind from the Captain and cut off any more of her monite, elbow at her throat something far more uncomfortable clawed its way into the back of his frantic, focused thoughts: familiarity. Something felt so familiar that it hurt more than the after effects of her brail. Everything felt too slow all the sudden, as if time itself had something to say.

He freed a hand from her collar as he pinned the woman against the ice, reaching behind him to attempt to pull his blade from behind his coat.

The woman groaned but was not entirely defenseless, struggling beneath her attacker even as her chrove turned on Lem and Jora who’d been rushing in to assist their companion. She writhed, fingers quickly finding the knife at her belt even as Tristaan bore down with his wrist, yelping at the strain on her collar bone and ribs. She turned to face the passive, angry grey eyes mirroring his own, black hair spilling from her helmet, snarling a gasp for breath.

His eyes widened at her face, sharp features cutting through his violent intentions and giving him pause. The faded colors of a spectograph sprang unbidden to his mind, snugly tucked away in the ticking pocket watch he wore on his person. She was no longer the girl who’d happily rough-housed with him in the garden, who tracked dirt through the house with mischevious abandon, who swore she’d always fight by his side in their matching green uniforms once they graduated from Brunnhold to join the Seventen. Seventen. Alioe … no … no … no … He froze, knowing full well the face pinned under his weight, confirmed by the familiarity that seemed to hang oppressively in her field. Time stopped and he couldn’t breathe, unable to process what was unfolding fast enough to even know how to react.

The woman only saw his pause as weakness, well-trained and stronger than she looked. She shifted underneath the passive and freed her knife from it’s place, shoving it hard into the closest soft place she could reach beneath his ribs.

“Nevi—” Tristaan choked in breathless disbelief, sharp pain causing him to slump forward into her hands, loosening his grip on her throat as his vision tunneled against his will. She twisted the blade savagely, desperate to be free of his weight even as he growled her name in a terrible mixture of searing agony and surprised joy,  “Nevinia Morgan Greymoor. Niaaaah. Nia … for Alioe’s sake … stop!”

The galdor hissed at the sound of her name, of her full name, of her nickname, looking up again at the man on top of her who was now bleeding all over her uniform. Her eyes darted about his face—his nose, his eyes, his chin—confused why some fieldless … wick … would know her name. Her mouth moved, but no words came from her lips. His hands slid away from her and he blinked slowly, looking down at his side, moving to the name engraved on the bronze badge of her uniform which clearly read Greymoor for all to see. He coughed instead of breathed, tasting iron.

“Nia, I—”

She released her grip on her weapon, reaching up to catch the man’s narrow shoulders, ceasing her attempts to struggle free as reality sliced its way into her thoughts.

“Clock the Circle!” she groaned, wide-eyed and utterly confused, fighting around her forgotten. There was no denying the face of her brother, though it’d been two decades since she’d seen it. He was no longer the boy she’d promised to be best friends with forever, the boy who’d join the Seventen with her, the boy who’d fought by her side in all their imaginary battles in the garden, the boy who’d disappeared the same year she was sent off to school... He’d died long ago, his funeral etched in her memory with fire and tears. She wore her uniform for him every clocking day, and here she was with her knife in his side, his blood on her hands. She’d spent her whole life attempting to forget the story her parents told her that day, but it all came flooding back to her as she stared up into the face of the man gurgling her name, “Tristaanian. Tristaan. Ian. No. You’re—”

Gone. Dead. Buried. Mourned, but not forgotten.

“—I don’t understand.” His face so much like their father’s that she felt something break inside her chest, something she’d convinced herself was unbreakable. Every bit a galdor, every bit who she’d imagined he’d be … except … oh. Oh gods. She understood what separated them now, feeling the nagging emptiness between them. It crushed her under the hollowness of its absence, heavier than anything she’d ever felt in her life. He did not have a field. Her parents knew. Her parents had always known. Panic washed over her, even as he slumped against her hands, still pinning her. Voices were shouting around her, but she couldn’t bring herself to react. Blinking slowly, tears of anger and betrayal and pain filled her eyes, “You’re a—you’re not—what’s going on? Tristaan. Please—Talk to me.”

Her voice was small, terrified.

Tristaan was recovering his senses faster than his sister, still very aware of the danger of the situation around them even as he felt his consciousness bleed slowly from the wound in his side. He wondered if Guaril was alive. If anyone was alive and safe. Were they winning? Were they going to walk away from this at all? Was he?

“I’m alive.” He hissed, his own blood on his lips even as he finally tugged Guaril’s short blade from under his coat, “An’ I’m a passive, Nevinia.”

Scrap. Broken. Useless. Unwanted. Abandoned.
Not anymore, and yet somehow always. He was, at the same time, loved. Healed. Changing. He was. Something else. No longer the same ... no matter how many times he was dragged back to that word. Those words.

But, clocking hell, he was alive. For the moment.

She’d found her godsbedamned mark alright.

That a girl.

Passive. He’d said the word, he’d named himself, so she didn’t have to, though the words burned his tongue as he did so while steam from his breath hung in the air, hot tears in his eyes, streaming down his cheeks. The pain only sharpened his thoughts, bringing him into focus instead of sapping him out of it. He knew he had to think fast, that he couldn’t just sit there and have the conversations he’d always dreamed of, that this was not how things were supposed to go. He knew that if Lem or Jora or any of the Seventen saw them, one or both of them would be dead. He knew that if he sat here and did nothing, he may very well be dead soon enough. He knew this was not the place to share secrets, to tell stories. He knew his ability to communicate at all was staining his shirt, ruining his breeches, blooming a red winter rose in the snow. He exhaled painfully through grit teeth, grabbing the collar of her uniform again and struggled to haul them both up, using her shock against her in his weakened state. She didn’t resist fast enough and he wrapped his arm around her, weapon at her throat. It took what strength he had, what determination he’d summoned from some dark, forgotten place in his chest, not to slump entirely against her, knees weak and head spinning.

“Epa—I’m sorry.” He whispered in her ear, voice breaking in distantly familiar Estuan instead of more comfortable Tek, “I’m so sorry. Trust me, right now. Please.”

“What are you doing?” His galdor sister shuddered, swallowing her instinct to resist.

“Savin’ yer erse.” Tristaan growled, grey eyes scanning the aftermath in the alley even as he felt Nevinia shift to support him, wordlessly surrendering her will to his request. She could easily have broken his hold, disarmed him, sent him crashing back into the ice and snow. She wasn’t injured like her brother, and she was a commanding officer in the Seventen. She wouldn’t even need to finish him off. He was well aware he didn’t have but a handful of houses to spare without magical intervention, “So y’can return the favor.”

The other chrove was down. The fighting appeared over. Jora and Ciela and the other human were beginning to free the surviving prisoners, who were in turn lining up the bodies. He was only looking for one body, whimpering at the sight of the old wick among the survivors but not looking well. He’d failed everything he promised. Everything. The weight of failure sank its teeth deep into his chest, a cold pain worse than the searing hurt in his side.

“Reinforcements will come soon.” Nia hissed, barely a whisper, “You’ve got to get out of here. I have to help y—”

“What’re y’doin’, Tristaan? Cott 'er, already!” Jora had spotted them standing there, the passive’s blade against his sister’s throat, “We gotta dust.”

“Ne. I ent gonna. Not yet.” He groaned, shifting so that the wick could see that he was wounded, watching the other man’s eyes widen in fear and anger at the amount of blood that stained his clothes, that was left behind in the snow, “She may be … useful.”

“Clockin’ hell.” Ciela whistled, shaking her head, “We can’t take ‘em all. We can’t take all the wounded, neither. We gotta cut’r losses an’ hurry, too. There’s somewhere we can hide.”

---

unwanderinggirl

“Gimme a tick.” Tristaan hardly trusted the witch, but his vision was clouding and he didn’t care. Nevinia shrugged her shoulders to keep his arm up with his blade at her neck, reminding him that for all appearances she was his prisoner, that he had to stay awake.

“Guaril,” he mumbled, leaning forward and dragging the two of them toward the wounded, tightening his grip to keep from stumbling. He stood over the old man, who was conscious, who offered him a toothy grin.

“Ye godsbedamned idiot boch. What’cha doin’ ‘ere?” The wick was bloody, broken, torn and tossed by the rampaging chrove. There was little anyone could do, but the old man was chastising the passive with his dying breath, “Vrunta! Y’ve gotta rosh … an’ a …”

“Shut yer head. Y’know why I’m here, da.”

Nia’s eyes widened between them, and then she was tugged downward as her brother knelt by the fading wick. She didn’t want to see or hear any of what was going on. None of it made sense. Why was Tristaan with them? Why wasn’t he in Brunnhold like all the other passives? Where had he gone? Who were these wicks? She stopped listening, staring at the scene around her, struggling to ignore the words of affection and sadness and death the two men exchanged. This wasn’t happening, she told herself over and over again, hearing Guaril wheeze and cough, hearing her brother mourn loudly. This wasn’t clocking happening. She watched the wicks pile the bodies of those she’d commanded up with their own dead, as if making a statement with their grotesque cairn of carnage. She’d failed, too, as a Captain, as a Seventen. Whatever had spooked the chrove had been a perfect, unexpected attack. Had it been planned? It had also ruined everything, but she would have to answer for it to Azmus himself. She didn’t want to think of the consequences, knowing she was about to assist at least one, if not all, of the survivors in escaping.

She had no choice.

She’d lost him once. She wasn’t about to let it happen again.

Suddenly, she was hauled up again. Her brother was openly weeping, and it had nothing to do with her. He said nothing, though, sniveling and looking away, knees weak. She moved to support him as he staggered, shifting her weight and moving his arm away from her throat. She didn’t care what the other wicks thought anymore, what the Resistance prisoners thought. The galdor glanced down at his wound, very aware of the damage she’d caused, resisting the urge to touch his face, whispering her childhood pet name for him instead, “I need to help you, Ian.”

“I know’t.” He groaned, turning to hold up a hand in her defense as Jora approached, ready to attack the the woman, “Ne, wait!” The wick was reaching for her, ready to snatch her away, “Jora, don’t. She’s … she’s fami.”

That stopped the man in his tracks, recoiling as if he’d been bitten by a snake. Horror filled his dark eyes and he glanced between them, face twitching in disgust, a string of expletives following, directed more at the passive than the Seventen who he obviously resembled, “What kinda’ laoso vroo is this? Y’ent a golly. Y’re a tsuter piece’o—”

“Enough.” Nevinia sneered at the wick in defiance, “I’m his sister, that much is the truth. Let’s get the clock out of here before more of my kind come looking for all your stopclocking erses. You can deal with me how you like, but if we don’t get out of here, I won’t be saving anyone, least of all Tristaan.”

“Yer clockin’ right I’ll be dealin’ with you. If ‘e won’t, I will.” Growled the wick in as threatening a voice as he could manage, glaring at the passive instead of meeting the galdor’s gaze. He couldn’t. She terrified him. He turned away, shouting to Ciela to get them the clock out of there.

---

unwanderinggirl

The snowfall was heavy enough that it probably bought them a few precious hours, covering their trail but not hiding it. It was impossible to hide all that blood.

Ciela had taken them back underground, down through a building, but not back into the sewers. Into somewhere else. Tunnels. Old, but not as ancient as the waterways under the city. She knew the safe houses, the ins and outs of the Resistance passages in a way that finally set Jora on edge, made him wonder if they’d all been used. She’d found them all a spot to rest, locked entire hallways behind them, bolted them shut to give them extra time, even if it was mere seconds in the face of galdori magic once the Seventen found them. And all of them were convinced they would.

They’d left too many behind. Only one of the three they’d even come for had survived, and barely at that. It was a horrible mistake, every breath of it, and Tristaan struggled more with the sorrowful weight of failure than he did with consciousness, though that, too, slipped at times during their escape under the city. Nevinia had no time to process anything: thoughts, emotions, none of it. She was surviving on instinct, on training, and, well, on a dream she had no idea she still held a candle for, so long had she kept it hidden in the darkest places of her heart.

Once they began to settle in the small room, the galdor knew her brother’s companions had expectations. She was unsure of the extent of her magical abilities when it came to field medicine; she was a Captain for her combat prowess … not her medical knowledge … though her understanding of anatomy was obviously effective in a singular direction. She hoped it would be in the opposite. Only the witch was willing to help her, Jora too afraid to be near the Seventen both because she was Tristaan’s sister and because she was a galdor. Ciela left him to care for the others instead, wordlessly hovering next to Nevinia in expectation of being told what she could do, if anything, to keep the man alive. When she was ignored, she inserted herself into the situation instead, speaking up as she helped get the man off his feet,

“He’s got a ro—a wife, y’know. She’s expectin’.” The witch sneered, letting the defiant weight of her words sink in, almost reveling in the effect it had on the galdor woman’s features. Ignorantly unaware that everything she said was more than just frightening, it was utterly unthinkable and illegal for the passive, that all he'd done he'd chosen for himself, inside wick society and outside of the place assigned to him by galdori. More tears. Pain. Confusion. Anger. Ciela devoured it like candy before she began to tug the dark-haired passive free of his bloody coat as carefully as she could. He rolled his head in her direction, hissing for her to shush in a wave of somewhat delirious anger,

“Don’t, Ciela. Now ent th’clockin’ time.”

There would never be a right time, honestly. Ever.

He wheezed, willing his arms and hands to move once he had some assistance, shrugging off his coat and moving to remove his blood-soaked shirt and provide a better view of the damage caused by his sister’s own blade. Incapable of thinking beyond acting quickly before he lost too much blood, already pale and cold, he thought nothing of what he was doing. He’d left a lot of shame and fear behind over the past few years, shedding it all like so much unnecessary skin, under the usually patient and loving touch of the witch he indeed now called his wife. Had it not been for Sarinah, for the destructive fire in Old Rose, for rejoining the Red Crows as spokes, Tristaan would have probably been more conscious of revealing the evidence of who, or what exactly, he was. The truth of his existence as a passive not only inked on his well-muscled bicep, but permanently scarred into his skin.

“I don’t want to know. I need to concentrate. Please …” Nevina stopped talking to the two of them, cutting herself short, gasping in horror and fighting the urge to crawl away from her spot on the floor next to the man who was indeed her brother once he began to shed his clothing. Her grey eyes widened and any resolve she had managed to hold onto shattered, feeling her entire world broken to pieces by the view she was suddenly given. In the company of wicks, helping the enemy escape, and … this. She stared wordlessly, first at the inked lines she understood and then at everything she didn’t. Surely, this wasn’t the kind of life passives led. They were kept safe. Hidden. Protected. There was not a single sign of evidence that was true on the bleeding man before her. Her younger brother. Her little brother.

“Oh gods. Alioe. By the Circle.” Nevinia didn’t know what to say, how to feel, or what to think, one bloodied hand over her mouth, “Where have you been?”

“Who clockin’ cares? Fix him.” The witch at her shoulder growled, “Talk to yer clockin’ dumberse gods later. They obviously ent been listenin’ t’ye anyways, gollyscum.”

“Havakda!” The dark-haired passive finally shouted a bloody-lipped gurgle, waving his hand at Ciela and all-but-begging her to leave, “Go help someone else ‘cause y’ent helpin’ me none.”

His hand fell heavily onto his sister’s wrist, tugging it from her face. He had to say something, her grey eyes unfocused, staring at his body and not his face. He sighed, feeling less dizzy and more weak, aware that he was currently on a the timeline of a watch winding down, and this stirred all kinds of uncomfortable, horrible feelings inside his already heavy, marred chest,

“I’ve been all th’places y’been told t’keep safe’n that uniform o’yours, Nia, but I grew up ‘ere, in Vienda. In a factory. Not where y’think I should’f been.” Tristaan’s fingers tightened into her skin, “I ent got time to tell y’what y’wanna hear an’ y’know it. If y’wanna keep me talkin’, y’gotta do what I can’t.”

What fate and genetics and whatever else in all of Vita had decided he could never do.

Nevinia blinked, looking finally at his face, so full of indescribable feelings she was sure her field felt like molten lead. She stared at him for a long time, gathering what she could of herself, of her magical abilities, placing her hand on his side, “I can’t even begin to tell you what this will feel like.”

“Y’think I don’t know? I’ll jus’ keep talkin’.” The truth was, he didn’t. No matter what depths of physical harm were carved as history into his body, he’d never been subject to galdori magic before. He was perhaps more afraid than he was capable of letting on, more terrified now that he was aware of his diablerie and his vicinity to the sister he never thought he’d see again.

She looked away from him then, at the blood seeping between her fingers, “I’m sorry.”

---

unwanderinggirl

“Lemme look first, please.” Jora’s voice was cautious, nervous, suddenly appearing behind the two just as Ciela stalked off angrily. He wasn’t a healer by any means, but he had a cousin who was. He’d been hurt enough in his time; he just never could muster the attention span to pursue anything disciplined like medicine. The wick knelt beside the galdor, even though her field made him feel almost nauseated. She moved her hand for the man, once again revealing the bloody, gaping hole in the passive’s side, wiping it on her uniform before reaching to hold the calloused one of her brother instead, still not meeting his grey-eyed gaze.

Jora blotted at his friend’s wound, causing him to squirm and wince, “Epaemo, balach.” He squinted, then prodded, eliciting an angry groan. Finally, he poked, trusting his friend not to lash out at him for doing so, “Well, golly, y’done a clockin’ good job ‘ere, but I don’ think y’went an’ cott anythin’ vital.” He was forced to talk above Tristaan’s noises of pain, and the Seventen Captain was forced to listen while he all but crushed her hand in his own, “Somethin’s bleedin’, though, but I ent gotta clockin’ clue whatsit.”

Nia smirked at the wick, unsure whether to be grateful or frustrated with him. It was true, her understanding of the body was how to hurt it, not fix it, and it was a comfort to know she hadn’t done all the potential damage she could have. Jora obviously wasn’t really interested in making amends, but perhaps he genuinely cared for her brother in a way she couldn’t understand. Why did he call these people his friends? How in the world could they be better? Where else did he have to turn, anyway?

“Thank you. I think.” She finally managed, releasing Tristaan’s hand with obvious reluctance. The dark-haired galdor was gathering her field again, and she noticed the fear it instilled in the wick next to her. She returned her fingers to the bleeding wound, nodding at Jora that he should make himself useful, “Hold him for me. It will make this easier.”

The passive began to object, but the wick would hear none of it, moving so that he was behind the passive’s head, holding his shoulders. It was Jora who closed his eyes, afraid of the galdor casting spells in front of him. Tristaan could only stare at his sister’s face, still filled with surprise and sorrow. She looked away, unable to meet his gaze for too long, looking instead to his side in an attempt to concentrate on her task.

Nevinia began to cast, her words filling the air with the faint scent of cinnamon as she closed her eyes and sought to undo what she, herself, had purposefully done. Her words were less a spell and more a plea, to the mona, to anyone who was listening outside of her mortal abilities if she could have been honest with herself in the moment. The mona felt sluggish, confused, aware that she was asking them to fix her own mistake. It wasn’t an objection, and while no one else could understand the words she spoke, everyone could feel the sentience in the air as it reacted to her casting. She knew where she had aimed, asking the particles of living, thinking magic to knit organs and repair veins, to bring together torn muscles. She’d missed just enough, considering he was still alive, but her twisting of the knife had done very real, very deep damage.

Nia was forced to focus on the bleeding first, knowing that was the most immediate issue. That, she could do, having healed her own wounds and healed the minor wounds of others. It just took longer, took more words, than anything she’d done before, sweat breaking out on her forehead and the taste of iron on her tongue.

Under her hand, her passive of a brother hardly moved. It was unnerving, really, the fortitude which he seemed capable of summoning from somewhere  invisible and unreachable. He laid still enough under the weight of Jora, though he was hardly quiet. Clinging to consciousness out of fear, convinced that if he passed out this view of his sister would be the last he’d ever see of her alive, Tristaan simply began to talk.

He groaned and growled and yelled and wheezed, but the words that tumbled stream-of-thought from his bloodied lips were all the things he could ever have thought he’d never be able to say.

He talked about his childhood, about being abandoned in Muffey by their parents, by their mother. He talked ending up in Vienda, on the streets. He talked about the factory, about the textiles and the beatings. He talked about his friend, the other passive. He talked about the diablerie and the day he ran away. He talked about the Red Crow. He talked about Guaril. He talked about drifting. He talked about mercenary work, how it was nothing like the Seventen. He talked about Sarinah. He talked about his own diablerie. He talked about Old Rose Harbor. He talked about everything that came to mind above the searing pain of being carefully knit back together from the inside out.

He talked to the room. To Jora. To Ciela. To Owin, to the Resistance survivors. He talked and talked, sometimes through clenched teeth, sometimes shouting, sometimes barely whispering. He talked to stay awake. He talked to remember. He talked because sitting next to him, trying to fix what she’d broken, was his sister, his grown up, lovely, Seventen sister. She’d done everything they’d wanted, everything they’d dreamed about as children. She’d kept all their promises when he hadn’t. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t jealous, that seeing her in her bloodied green uniform with her pins and her brass buttons didn’t burn something fierce under his skin much like her magic, that hearing her speak monite and have it listen didn’t feel like a fire in his heart of hearts. He talked because he had nothing like either of those things. He had a life of blood and sweat and broken bones … for what?

Well, his life wasn’t for anything anymore. His life was for other people. For Sarinah. For the new life they’d made together. For the wicks he called family. For Guaril. His life was now also for his sister, because his blood stained her clothes.

Nia was crying as she cast, clearly overgiving in the process, emptying herself through her words in a way she never thought possible. She’d heard too much of what the man who looked too much like their father had said despite her pre-occupation with her magic. She’d heard too clocking much of it, all of it chipping away at the carefully constructed worldview she’d been told it was her duty to protect and uphold without question. She’d questioned enough in her career, but this ... Tristaan’s words had revealed that so much of her life had been founded upon a lie. Every day, every day since that day, since his funeral, she’d lived an untruth. She wore her uniform not for a dead boy, not for her dead brother, but for a man who was very much alive, very much full of life though he couldn’t even see it. 

He'd been told it wasn't a life worth living, but he'd lived it anyway. 

He'd continue to live it, too, in defiance of her, of their parents, of every galdori who'd called him a scrap, who'd inked his skin and declared him nothing. His life was so full and he didn't believe it for a second. She couldn't help but feel that something was her fault, that his life could be different if she could only do something. All she could do was heal him and listen, knowing full well that their time together was fleeting.


Everything hurt. Her mind was on fire.

She’d never, ever, stretched herself so thin, in all her life as a Brunnhold graduate. Once she was finished, she all but fainted, slumping forward with an exhausted sigh, lifting a hand to wipe blood from her nose. A deep, puckered ugly scar, perhaps the crowning champion in ugliness among all the marks on the passive’s body, was evidence of her magical success and of her lack of complete experience in medical arts. It really was a hideous, obvious thing … but it was far, far better than the alternative had she done nothing.

Tristaan moved to catch her, nauseated and still in a great amount of lingering pain. Jora released him to do so, leaning back on his hands and doing his best not to vomit himself, the after effects of being so close to the casting making his head feel like it was going to explode.

No one else in the room moved to speak. Enthralled. Horrified. Tired. Wounded.

The passive’s life story hung in the room like a banner of words, though he was incapable of thinking it inspiring or helpful. He found it clocking pathetic, unable to exist outside of his scarred skin, unable to see past a lifetime of being told he was broken and useless.

---

unwanderinggirl

“Tristaan, you’re alive. This whole time … you’ve … not been dead.” His galdori sister curled into his arms, unashamedly sobbing as she did so, no less delirious than himself. She finally said the words that had been on her mind for what felt like a lifetime, even if it had been only a house or two. She still didn’t understand. It felt so impossible to let go of everything she’d told herself for twenty years. She just wanted to be held, shutting her eyes as tight as she could and pretending for just one moment they weren’t in some Resistance safehouse underneath her godsbedamned city, pretending for a few broken, tearful breaths that they were far away in their lovely rowhouse garden in Muffey, “Why didn’t you—”

“Find y’sooner? An’ say what?” He exhaled the breath he’d been holding for what felt like all of his twenty and a half odd years, words traveling through time as if he was dreaming instead of awake. He was unable to move except to squeeze the woman who was no longer a wiry tomboy of a girl, who reminded him painfully of his mother, who had tried to kill him, “There’s nothin’ I can say to change things, Nevinia. Nothin’ I can say that’ll ever change things, neither. Today’s proof o’that to me.”

“I never believed them.” She whispered furtively, unwilling to hear the full meaning of his words just yet, “Not for years and years. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

“Stop. Please. I can’t—” The passive bit his lip, fighting the urge to shove her away and to be angry. So godsbedamned angry.

What did she have to believe in? What difference did it make in her galdori life that he was alive? Or dead? Either way, she’d always be better off than himself. Right? Isn’t that how it really was?

He wrestled with the words that had been a sliver of glass in his heart forever.

He wrestled with the truth and how to say it.

When Tristaan finally spoke again, his voice was quiet and heavy,  weighted not by decades of being held down but by a handful of years spent standing up, “Nia, I’ve tried m’whole life to put this all away. I’ve been runnin’ from this very thing—this right now, seein’ you, seein’ anyone from before—since I can remember. I didn’t look for you ‘cause I can’t ever have what you do. I ent what you are an’ I never will be. I ent a wick, it’s true, but I ent a galdor, neither.”

Nevinia couldn’t reply at first, desperate to just stop crying, feeling empty of everything, from magic to hope. Casting had taken so much from her physically, and what it hadn’t she wished she could simply give away. What he said was both crushing and freeing at the same time. She sat up, reaching for his face with both of her dirty, shaking hands, steeling herself to meet his eyes even if it terrified her more than she was willing to admit. He was wiping her cheeks, already expecting the kinds of things she would say, having played out similar moments in his mind for what felt like his whole clocking life. While she may have felt surprised by her words, like she was defying everything she’d lived for, everything her green uniform and Captain title had defined for her life, Tristaan simply longed to feel justified, to feel even a brief flutter of hope.

“I wish I could say that didn’t matter, but outside of this place, to everyone else … everyone else but me from now on, it does. I know that now, seeing you. I don’t care, Ian. I don’t care that you’re a … that you’re a passive—”

“Nia, are ye married? Do y’have good friends in th’Seventen?” Her brother’s interruption wasn’t entirely a purposeful change of subjects. While Tristaan was very unfocused, slowly coming back to himself, he’d always known, somewhere inside, that he could trust in the love of his sister, that no matter what separated them socially, magically, physically or otherwise, she was not one to let such things get in the way of their unusually strong friendship. There was, however,  an entire population of others like her, with a handful of exceptions, who felt very different things about his existence. He’d also come to realize that even those who weren’t galdori had little idea what to do with his kind, save perhaps an equally small portion of wicks who could care less. All of those people, right now, were fighting each other over so many other things, and it had been a long time in coming.

This brief moment would not change the tide of civil war for anyone other than themselves.

He’d always known what she would say should they meet now, like this. What he didn’t know was her life, what’d she’d been doing, who she loved, how she’d risen to her place in the Seventen. He’d spilled his whole life at her feet, almost literally, and now he honestly didn’t want to talk about feelings he already knew were there, would always be there. If he’d changed her world, he could only hope it was for the better. But if this was all the time he had, that he would ever have again, then all he wanted to know was  all the things he’d missed.

“Am I what? No, I …” The galdor blinked at him, confused by his question, though she remembered Ciela’s taunting and it tugged at her. It wasn’t jealousy so much as curiosity. A witch? Wick children? At any other juncture in her lifetime, those thoughts would have made her skin crawl. The reality was, they still did. Half-bloods. Dirty. Usually criminal. Why would any galdor want to do such things? And yet, she was painfully reminded of what her brother wasn’t. Here she was, doing all the things they’d promised they’d do as children … and he was living a life she’d told herself she never could.

The Captain sighed then, holding his hands in her lap even as she heard Ciela and Jora and the others begin to organize some movement among the freed prisoners, “Father tried very hard to arrange something my second year in the Seventen, but I refused. I don’t … I never … I … After everything that happened, I, I told myself I didn’t want children.” Nevinia looked down at their hands, “And, yes, there are some decent people in uniform, if that’s what you’re asking.”

The passive was far from judging. He could imagine who he could have been, had everything been different, had he been a galdor. Those thoughts often haunted him just as cruelly as any truth in his past. He was well-aware of what he was capable of.

“An’ school? Didja like it?”

“Why? What are you asking this for, Tristaan? Does it matter?”

“Oe-yes. It matters to me.” Her brother drew out his quiet words, pulling away from her to begin to dress himself again in his bloodied shirt, “Tell me your life, Nia. Tell me so I can remember.” He dug in his coat pocket, turning to press a cold, silver pocket watch into her hands, carved with their family crest, the name they shared. She knew it had been their father’s.  He opened it first, so that their very young, very happy faces stared up at his sister in an innocence neither of them could ever get back, “This is all I got. Now, seein’ you, it ent enough.”

It would never be enough.

---

unwanderinggirl

“Stow th’soft talk. S’time t’go.”

Jora interrupted gruffly, warily eying Nevinia as if he really wasn’t sure what to do with her, as if he’d rather stick a blade somewhere deadly and then run away. While the younger wick was thankful that she’d healed the passive, the very idea that the two were related did not instill in him any confidence and all the conversation had made him horribly uncomfortable, “Can ‘e walk?”

The Captain closed their father’s pocket watch, tearing her eyes away from the spectrograph of their childhood before everything fell apart, pressing it back into Tristaan’s hands, stories of her life and how to share it with the man weighing on her thoughts even as the wick came and cut them short, “Yes, but my healing of his wound is very minimal. He can’t run, and he can’t fight. It would be very easy to tear it all open again and undo ev—”

“Dze, so what’cher sayin’ is y’wanna come’long.” Ciela rolled her eyes, all-but-growling at the galdor,  though she knew better than to look at her brother as acid dripped from her tongue, “I’d rather cott’cha an’ get it over with, vroo’r not.”

With a groan, Tristaan stood, only to stagger, coughing and gasping for breath as pain dug into his side. Jora caught him with a scowl before passing him to Nevinia disapprovingly, “S’fine … for now. It ent like she’s comin’ all th’way ‘ome with us.”

Taking the burden of her brother despite being dizzy and weak herself from overgiving, she quickly shrugged off her uniform jacket, pins and all, juggling him carefully as he leaned heavily against her. She folded it neatly, holding him up with a shoulder as if this wasn’t the first time she’d had to bear the weight of a wounded companion. Reaching under his winter coat, she closed her eyes as she pressed her cheek against his chest with a sigh. Yes, it was true, there was a beating heart in there, though it was unfortunate this wasn't just a dream. Nothing could really go well from here, not for the Seventen Captain at the mercies of those who had just recently been her prisoners.

Would the wicks really kill her? Isn’t that what she deserved from their point of view? Isn’t that what she would have done, had something gone differently? Wouldn’t she still if given the chance?

Definitely.

She wrapped her jacket over Tristaan’s stained shirt, tying it tight enough to cause him to wince, giving his weakened side some support.

“Ne, that ent for either o’ye t’decide.” The passive wheezed, though he knew he was helpless to fight off anyone else's decisions should they be made without his consent, “So stop flappin’ yer lips ‘bout it as if I’m gonna let'cha go stickin’ any shivs in ‘er s’long as I’m breathin’. Vrunta! Brigk’r not.”

A handful of freed Resistance prisoners had already eyed the galdor threateningly, but the dark-haired swordsman’s words enticed some laughter from their ranks. Most of them could care less about his threats, some of them seasoned warriors and not as wounded as the passive. While a few of them were wicks, they'd all traded their tribal causes for their current one, and now that it was obvious Tristaan was neither, they owed him just as little as they owed his sister, if not less. All of them had a bone to pick with the Seventen’s Captain.

“Ssh.” Nia sighed, changing her grip on her brother and leaning to imply they’d need to carry each other. She really wasn’t much better off after so much magic, “I can handle myself when the time comes.”

Jora laughed then, an edge of nervousness in his expression even as Ciela opened another door in the small underground room and began to lead them away from the direction they’d come, further and further into darkness, though she at least acted like she knew where they were going. With only one phosphor lantern between them, their walk was difficult and felt very long.

Nevinia filled the spaces with furtive whispers, this time keeping herself awake as well as distracting Tristaan from his pain. She shared the story her parents told her halfway through her first year at Brunnhold. She shared about his funeral. She shared how she did horribly in school for years, caring about nothing, believing her parents had lied. She talked about getting into fights, about being angry, her words striking a chord in the passive that cracked something hard and dark in his chest. She shared about her decision to still join the Seventen, to keep their promise, throwing herself into her studies and almost entirely cutting herself off from family and friends. She shared how she graduated with marginal success, hardly the top of her class with only a handful of friends, just academically sound enough to be accepted into basic training for the Seventen, how her physical prowess was basically her saving grace. She shared how, once there, she felt as though she’d finally found her place in things, how things made sense, though even as she said those words, she felt guilty and wrong, fingers curled into her brother’s bloodied shirt in the dark.

The passive listened, desperate to commit every word to memory, every sound of her voice and every facial expression, desperate to remember everything he possibly could even if all he could see was in the faint glow of a single lantern. His side ached and they seemed to walk forever.

“Ian,” Nia whispered, breaking a long silence after she’d run out of stories to tell, unsure of where they were under the city but aware by the smell that began to hang in the air that they were on their way toward the sewers, “How long have you … wait, no … why did you—?”

Her voice broke, unsure of her own questions, but afraid of all the answers.

“I ent a part’f th’Resistance, Nia. Never will be—”

He whispered back, assuming her question was about why he was even a part of the rescue party and not about why he was living with wicks, married to a particularly beautiful one, and expecting their first wick child. He understood that those questions would have been equally valid, for she was as aware as himself that such things were illegal and horrible. But he’d come to understand that love was much more important than his legal status as a person, that the feelings he could have for one person could change him on the inside in ways he didn’t think possible. Some things were worth the risk, were worth forsaking a faulty birthright for.

“—if that’s what yer askin’. Don’t think I don’t wanna be a part’f somethin’, don’t think I ent dreamt ‘bout real freedom. But, clock it all, this ent gonna fix nothin’. I don’t wanna part’f anythin’ that won’t matter.”

He tried to keep his whispers as quiet as possible, not wanting his opinions on the fighting and the cause folks had just stained the snow with their blood for to be overheard despite how convinced he was of the truth of his convictions. Deep down, he wanted to believe that something would change, that the Resistance would bring about something new. Deep down, he also was afraid that he’d still be left behind either way. Deeper still, he knew he simply had to choose his own path, to forge his own way forward, and to seek out his own freedom on his own terms. It wasn’t easy, but it was better than the alternative, no matter what was expected of him as the magicless son of a galdor.

Nevinia said nothing, squeezing his hand instead, tears down her cheeks in the dark. She didn’t entirely understand his words, not here, not now, and she was afraid that when the day came that she did, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself.

---

unwanderinggirl

(( Alright, one more section, methinks, and then this will be done. Done done done. ))