*COMPLETE* Allayria promised to do what it takes to stop the Jarles, to make the ugly decision. She thinks, at last, she understands what the dynast meant. The lesson earned from the top of that lonely cliff and given the dark murky water below.
It...
Months. Months in the dank cold and the dirt, no speck of sunshine, no sign of life, hand buried in shivering steel, and nothing but the hollow darkness, the slow drip of water somewhere, out in that darkness.
It was enough to go mad, and with the long stretch of nothingness and the twitching phantom fingers she nearly did. She nearly crumpled in on it, nearly, but there was something there, something beneath all the despair, that latched onto her thoughts:
Not like this.
And it fixed, set so it couldn't be shaken, wouldn't let go.
Not like this.
And she knew she wouldn't let herself die in that cell. Wouldn't let them take her away. She could lose, but they couldn't win. Not like this.
It started with pebbles. Tiny specks of rocks that trembled when her foot moved. This Skilling, her Skilling, that moves rock and water and vine, it is all about mirroring. Fluidity for water; curtness, jarring movements for stone. You adapt to them so they adapt to you, you move like them so they move like you.
It's a lot easier with hands.
Feet are clumsy. Limited in movement and range. Being tied to the ground certainly didn't help either. She's a lot better now that she's out.
Out and in the open, under the suns and nighttime sky. Ben got her here. Ben set her free.
And now he's elsewhere, chasing after another dream.
She brushes this thought aside, an irksome thing.
It's for a purpose, she reminds herself, thinking back to his fierce, furious expression amongst the wreckage and ruin of the flying ship.
"If they need me so much then they deserve to be enslaved."
People aren't like you, Ben, she thinks, swinging down with a high kick, settling a harsh jut of rock onto the head of the next opponent. People fear what they want.
He never understood that, never understood the stark terror of standing at the cusp of nothingness, the edge of infinite choice, without a guiding hand or helpful ally. He was always so damnably confident, so absurdly certain.
Less so now.
This too she shoves away. He's still certain. He's just...
"It was unavoidable," he'd said, and it was the first time he'd ever not been able to look her in the face. "She pursued—"
But the Paragon only pursued because he set the lure.
Before... everything she had thought it was sweet. The man more machine than human, turning soft every time he set eyes on her. Meg had actually been happy about it, happy that her friend had stopped spinning all his gears and had taken some time to live.
What shit luck we have, she thinks now, rain pelting on her face, mixing with the ash into a black sludge. What once was sweet has become one hell of a problem.
Not that he'll admit to it. Or Iaves. While Ben stews in his plans and his denial, their only other friend seems to think ignoring the problem is the best way to deal with it. Ignoring that whole year, like it never even happened.
"I'm not going through this with you," he had said flatly when Meg had tried to bring it up in those intermittent months, after Ben had trudged, safely out of earshot, off to collect firewood. "Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. She was never one of us."
That was a fucking lie. But maybe it was the lie Iaves needed. It wasn't what Ben had needed though.
Boys.
How was it, between three friends, Meg had ended up so alone.
She doesn't like the way this sits in her mouth, how it quavers across her lips, so she shoves this aside too, because she's perfectly fine going it alone. Perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She shoves an elbow into the mask of the charging soldier, hearing, with satisfaction, him squeal.
Four friends.
The correction comes unbidden as her gaze flickers to that awful tower in the distance, and that low sadness is quickly replaced by rage. That one lurking up there she should have seen coming.
That one will suffer.
Allayria... that was... fair. Understandable. Hopelessly, regretfully unavoidable even if she would have never— They will do what they need to, and so will she; he was another matter.
He sold us out. To them. To those people who would just soon shake his hand as put it in chains.
Meg knows where the blame of her long imprisonment lies, and she intends to make him feel the consequences of it.
On the other side of this madness the Brothers wait. When the street has cleared, when the survivors have crept back into the untouched parts of the city, they find the pair standing there, waiting. Their people unload alongside hers, and when the scorched bundles roll into the dirt one of them kicks a boot out, unraveling it.
They blink down at the bolt casters.
When their crates drop into the dust she flips a cover over and looks inside.
She has seen the Queen's bloodhound before—well before Solveigard, when the Paragon had first hunted them down. She knows what his face looks like, how small he really is.
She remembers Fae Urilong too. She and the Smith-caller had danced around Meg at Helm's Hollow, two-on-one, coming for the lonely girl with one, measly arm. Urilong had been pretty then too, delicate, all big, green eyes and soft, pale skin.
Meg looks down at what the Brothers of Wren have brought and for the first time in a long while, she smiles.
Fae Urilong will look very different when Meg next meets with her.
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A/N: Meg! Long time, no chat, though that remaining elbow does seem to still be very,
