Story by: katana_j
Author of:
"Everglow",
"Room Service",
"Bad At Goodbye"
Song: Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Seventy-third day.
Yue stared at the line she'd painstakingly carved into the wall. It was a few minutes before sunrise. Before all the Red soldiers in the Nortan side of the Choke went to their posts to carry on with the war the Silvers started.
It was the year 320NE (New Era), presumably 320 years after a great war diminished most of the population. The reason for the war have long been forgotten, the destruction so great that barely any record of the world before remained. It was said that it started soon after the first Silvers were discovered.
A strange mutation in genes brought about a race with superhuman abilities whose blood were silver-colored. At first, they were persecuted, with the natural tendency of humans to annihilate anything threatening. Until the Silvers seemed to grow in number, randomly being born into a family of full-blooded Reds.
Eventually the Silvers, though outnumbered, realized they could easily overpower the weak Reds. Small skirmishes eventually led to an all-out war, the Silvers coming out victorious at the end of it.
She traced the mark on the wall with a finger, the red scabs around her nails a glaring reminder of her blood color. A lowly, inferior Red. Born to poverty, and destined to die after she turned eighteen.
That was how it was and how it had always been for Reds in the kingdom of Norta. Her father had come home from the war without an eye and a stump in place of an arm. Her mother was nearly blind from working as a seamstress in very little light for one of the high Silver houses. But then her mother was one of the lucky ones. Labor was the only way to avoid conscription.
Yue was unfortunate enough to not have inherited any of her skill, and had been kicked out of apprenticeship more times than she cared to count. It was at the very week before her eighteenth birthday that her mistress at the dress shop had enough of her pricking the vile Silver customers with pins during fittings, and she was pushed out the door with fingers broken by said customer.
On the morning of her birthday, she was greeted by a legionnaire at the door, armed and ready to perform whatever was necessary to drag a new soldier away from her family. She went with him without a fuss. Her father had already patted her head with his one hand the night before, and her mother pointed at an apple and hard bread on the table. Her birthday feast to be consumed on the cart ride to the Choke.
They were resigned. Nay. Beaten to the ground until every ounce of fight left them, and then dragged off to either hard labor or a pointless war that had been going on for more than a century.
She was still nursing her broken hand when a rifle was pushed at her. It was amazing how broken fingers could work a trigger when a whip at your back was involved. In the end, she was probably lucky to have been conscripted before she could prick another customer. The Strongarm lady, with her ability for boundless strength, was only mildly miffed at her and had slapped her hand away. She might have come home with more than just broken bones after that.
Seventy-three days in the Choke and she was still alive. She had gotten used to the faraway sound of bullets but she has yet to see the front. The Choke was nothing more than a bombed-out strip of land connecting Norta to its neighboring state, the Lakelands. Decades of battles had destroyed whatever life used to be in it, and now only fog and smoke from explosions covered the ground.
Conscripted soldiers like her spent most of their years digging trenches to duck into, blindly following a Silver official at times, pushing back the Lakelanders' own conscripted Reds only to be pushed back by them the next day. Why the Silvers never fought on their own with their godlike abilities was beyond her. They looked too busy parading between their high houses.
Counting the days was pointless though. Not a single Red in here knew when his conscription would end. The best to hope for was to go home for a respite, a few days to spend with family, before they drag you back. That usually happened right before they send you to the front though.
Sometimes, if one is lucky like her father, you get sent home on disability when, after constant battles had sucked out your soul, they also take some parts of you physically in a way that feeding you in the barracks is costlier than to just send you home.
Most of the time, a mere letter would find its way to your family, thanking them for your service. Which, truth be told, would most likely be Yue's fate. She could fire a rifle, all right. She just couldn't hit the mark. She wondered how many more lines she could make on the wall before a letter with her name would be made.
The alarm sounded and she dragged herself out of the rags that served as her bed. The dull brown uniform that looked like it was made from patches swallowed her small frame. Months of heavy military training with measly meal portions had taken their toll and her cheekbones peeked prominently under her cap. Her feet, in boots that were too big, marched towards the grounds for the daily drills. Before she could get there, a Silver officer crossed her path and pointed right at her.
"You! Follow me, now!"
Her back snapped instinctively at the order and she fell in step behind him down an unfamiliar hallway that led apparently into the dungeons. For a second, fear shook her when he pulled out a ring of keys and slipped one into a lock. Her mind ran over the events of the previous day and came up with no reason why she would be thrown in here.
She took a step back but he motioned at her impatiently to enter. She stared at the emblem on his arm. A Magnetron. Most of the Silver soldiers were, the ability to control metal was a convenient skill to possess during gunfights.
It was useless though, to identify what kind of Silver she would face up against if she dared to ignore orders. She had no chance against any of them. With that thought she stepped apprehensively into the cell.
She thought her bunk was bad. But this was no place for anybody who was half-alive. Death and decay wafted from every corner of the small space. Only a small sliver of light peeked from an opening near the ceiling, and it landed on nothing but a small streak of silver.
Silver blood.
Her eyes widened and they followed the streak until she could make out the lump of a man on his hands and knees. His shirt seemed to have been long gone, judging by the amount of grime on his torso, his pants were full of dried up silver, and his boots had broken soles.
He spat more silver blood at the officer before letting out a low laugh. How he could find amusement at his state was beyond her.
Now that her eyes had adjusted, Yue could make out the crisscross of silver on his back. It looked bad enough despite the lack of light. Her stomach turned at the thought of the kind of torture that would make a Silver kneel and bleed.
It was not a sight the Silvers would want a Red to see. No, they were supposed to be invincible.
Who was he then? What did he do that his own kind treated him worse than us?
"No healer this time, Magnetron?" he said in a harsh whisper, and Yue could almost see the smirk on his gaunt face.
"No broken bones on you, you piece of scum."
"Ah yes, I noticed. Tell the Strongarm I miss him."
The officer turned to her. "Stop the bleeding, Red. Don't even think about trying to kill him."
The door clanged shut and his footsteps faded away before Yue realized the predicament she was in. She was in a cell with a bleeding Silver. No shirt, no emblem for her to figure out what kind of ability he had. No medical supplies at hand to follow orders. No rifle to even have a shot at survival.
"That's right, you don't have to do anything."
His raspy whisper irritated her, but she kept her tongue in check at the last minute. What little training she'd had taught her to figure out her enemy's strength, at the very least. While experience taught her that he could kill her despite the state he was in.
Taking a deep breath of the rancid air, she pulled up her uniform and tore off a large piece from the shirt she was wearing underneath. She then proceeded to tear them into strips and tied them up. Rags, but still better than nothing. It went against every fiber of her being, helping a Silver. She should be taking this chance to kick him senseless. She was going to die at the Choke anyway. She could at least die hurting a Silver.
The officer's threat stayed her. Being tortured was not something she was particularly keen about.
He hissed when she started to gingerly wrap the cloth around his chest. "I mean it, Red. Let me bleed to death. I know you'd kill me yourself if you had the chance."
"I'd kill you myself if I didn't have to suffer the same thing afterwards."
She tried to cover all his wounds but the parts of her clothing she was willing to do without were not enough.
"I don't have any more left. You're still bleeding."
He winced as he shifted to sit in front of her.
"They'll bring in the healer soon. They just want me to suffer for a while. They didn't do as much damage as they used to without that sadistic Strongarm."
She might have wanted to know why but she didn't really care. The sooner she got out of here the sooner she could forget about him.
"They're sending you to the front later."
His words jarred her. She'd known it would happen eventually. But she did not need to know about it from some random prisoner.
"And why should I believe you, Silver?" she snarled, scrambling to her feet.
"Think about it," he said as he tugged at the knots of cloth on his chest. "Why would they let you see me here and live to tell everybody else about a strange Silver prisoner."
"What's mysterious about a Silver prisoner in a warzone?"
"I don't look like a Lakelander."
"I can barely see you."
"I don't sound like one, either."
"I've never heard a Lakelander talk."
"I'm trying to help you."
"Why?" Her voice came out louder than she intended and the words bounced off the walls.
The room was suddenly too warm despite the missing parts of her shirt. He must be lying. She couldn't die before she could go back home.
She walked to the locked door and grabbed the bars, shaking them hard enough for anybody above them to hear. But they didn't make a sound.
She gasped as she felt them give, until a huge hole on the door gaped in front of her. The steel was split in half right between the two bars she held. She let go as though the bars burned her.
"What the hell -- ?"
Before she could finish, he was on his feet beside her, touching the hard metal to check it himself. Still as cold and unyielding as before except now they could get out. In a flash he slipped between the gap, and looked back at her.
"I don't know about you, Red, but I'm taking this as a sign I'm not dying today. You can choose to believe me or not. Doesn't change the fact that they'll be sending you out there someday to die. You can stay here and try to prove me wrong. Or you can try and wing it out - "
This time it was her who didn't let him finish, as she sped past him towards the stairs
If he was gone when the guard came back, she need not worry about the warfront. She'd be dead today.
The thing about accepting fate was that everything you did to change it only seemed pointless.
During her short stay at the base, she'd barely tried to find any place to hide, nor any chance to run. The Whispers, with their ability to read and manipulate one's consciousness, were enough of a deterrent. It was rumored they loved doling out the punishments for those who tried. No runaway has ever returned to fight at the Choke.
This thought froze her as she reached the landing. No guard was in sight. None was needed. There was no running from Silvers.
Then she felt warm fingers around her wrist, pulling her into a passage only a few steps away. It was narrow and cold, only slightly better than his cell because the air did not smell like rot, and it led them further away from the base.
For a few minutes they ran in silence until she felt exhaustion creeping in to her bones after only a short while. But they pushed forward, the effort of putting one foot forward after another taking all of their strength.
She was running away. A deserter now.
"The Whispers will come after us."
"Not until they come to get you out of that cell."
"The Whispers must be listening already!" she gasped after him, glancing at the trail of Silver he was leaving behind.
"They can't hear us," he slowed to a stop, his hands on his knees, gasping desperately for breath. He looked up at the small opening overhead, blinking away sweat and blood. The tunnel they were in seemed to be just beneath the surface. Sunlight was streaming in from the widely spaced openings overhead and what looked like a train track ran through it.
"Your king had this made for when he needs to move in between bases...He's not exactly friends with all his courtiers, is he?"
Her brows furrowed in puzzlement. "Speak Nortan, will you?"
He was gasping for breath, looking weaker despite the short rest.
"Silent....stone. Walls. Floor. Ceiling. Silver... abilities are useless."
"You look useless anyways, if you ask me," she retorted, looking back at the direction they came from. "So you're saying if they sent Reds behind us with guns, we're dead."
His gasps turned to a raspy laugh. "That's why...keep running."
He pointed forward. "The end... border to... Disputed Lands. Hide."
Adrenaline rushed through her, in a way that never happened before. For the first time, here was a solid chance to get out of conscription. The idea was enough to drive away rational thought from her head. She'll worry about survival once she got there. If she was lucky, the base wouldn't waste time combing through the unfamiliar terrain full of Silver bandits.
Oh shit. Silver bandits. There was no kingdom out there. Only outlaws who staked their territories and left them to raid Norta and the Lakelands from time to time. They were on nobody's side. But one thing was for certain, as it was anywhere else in this world. The Reds would always be beneath them.
She took a quick second to weigh her options. A Silver ally would be useful. Could she trust him to not kill her once he regained his strength? At what cost, though? Would he expect her to become his red slave?
Not worth it. No Silver has ever fought for a Red, not even one in his employ.
She started running forward but the noise stopped her. She looked back. He was almost on his knees now, and the sound of heavy boots on stone from further behind them was getting louder.
She cursed under her breath, rushed to him and ducked under his arm.
"You owe me, Silver."
He was emaciated and yet so was she. The Silent Stone drained him, and his weight was too much for her. They stumbled forward until he suddenly stopped.
"In here."
He nodded at a crack in the wall and she noticed a handle. She grabbed on to it desperately. It opened to a staircase of packed dirt that led up to the surface and she scrambled towards it. He crawled behind her breathing heavily and she gasped when she turned around.
Who knows how long he'd been inside that cell. From what he said, they'd sent in a healer every time he was tortured just so he could go through the same thing again. The swelling on his face, the matted dirt on his hair and his shirtless frame, the dried blood on his pants -- it was horrifying to see what they were capable of.
She was snapped back to the present when she heard the shouts from the tunnel, commanding them to halt at once. With what was obviously the last of his strength, the Silver heaved himself up and collapsed beside her.
The door they came from slammed open and Yue sank to the ground covering her head with her arms, a futile shield from whatever the Silver soldiers was about to rain on them.
The screams startled her. She looked back to see Silver officers dancing in flames towards them. The hole on the ground glowed orange as the rest of them suffered the same fate.
Her eyes widened as she realized what the Silver beside her was.
A Burner.
Only the kings and the sons of the kings of Norta had the ability to manipulate fire.
She turned to stare at him only to find him staring back at her in disbelief.
"A newblood," he whispered. "They will hunt for you now."
"I need a healer," he blurted out after hours of treading through the thick undergrowth in the woods.
"Well, we don't always get what we need, Your Highness. Especially not at war."
He scoffed. "You mean the thing they make you do at the Choke?"
She threw down the stick she'd been using to shove away the branches as she walked behind him.
"Well, yes. You see, you Silvers give us the guns and make us march through wasteland and shoot the Reds of your enemies on the other side. We've been at it for more than a lifetime. If that's not war, I don't know what is."
"First of all, I am not one of them, as you should clearly have deduced by now. Second but more importantly, horrific as the Choke may be, no that is not war," he retorted without even breaking stride.
"They hand you out excuses like a dispute over borders and territories, diplomatic disagreements and whatever political fancy shit-talk they can come up with. In the end, Red, it's population control."
"Whatever. It's no secret you alone can burn down Red villages. There goes population control."
"Silvers don't want Reds to disappear. They just want you down on your knees, too busy, too scared, and too hopeless to even think about rising," he said quietly.
"So they pretend to give you a choice - be useful to them and do the manual labor they feel are beneath them to do, or send you out to a pointless war before you hit your prime. You come back home half-dead, to children who will know nothing but the same choices. Or die by some random bullet, disease or execution."
Exhaustion finally caught after Yue and she sank to the ground.
"What happens to my parents now?"
"They'll be notified of your desertion," he sat gingerly in front of her. "It'll sound threatening enough for them to feel like there's no other choice than to turn you in if you show up at their doorstep. Of course, if you were an ordinary Red they wouldn't even waste time keeping watch. You wouldn't survive alone out here. But you're a newblood and that changes everything."
Her head snapped back up.
"Why did you call me that?"
He frowned at her. "You had no idea?"
At her confused look, he sighed. "You really would have died without knowing, huh."
There had been rumors at the base. Of reds that possessed abilities to finally fight and defeat Silvers. She shook her head. If that were true, the throne should no longer be holding a Silver king, and no eighteen-year old Red would leave home to fight.
He was watching her carefully, and she didn't know if she should laugh at him for trying to pull her leg, or punch him in the face. She stood up to walk instead. It was almost sundown and they needed to figure out how to survive out here.
"We're supposed to head out this way!" he called after her. "There's an inn that doesn't care about blood color as long as you pay!"
She marched back to him, making sure to let the low branch she shoved aside hit him as she passed.
True enough the inn, nothing more than a hut, came in sight after a while and an old lady with a constant scowl peered at them from inside. Just as Yue was feeling relief that he was not a complete liar after all, he merely grabbed a handful of clothing from the clothesline, tossed a coin at the lady's foot and smirked at her before pulling Yue back into the woods. Running.
She yanked her arm bank and dug her heels.
"What the hell was that, Silver?" she yelled.
"That was my last coin. We can't afford lodgings anyways. If you think the luxuries in Norta are pricey, well the necessities in the Disputed Lands are crazy," he retorted, shrugging into the shirt and coat he pulled from the pile on the ground. He nodded at the rest.
"In exchange for the first aid."
She stretched her neck in annoyance.
"It's also cold out here and we're not lighting a fire, so you can change into warmer clothing or freeze."
"You're a goddamn Burner!" She wished her glare could burn holes at him. "That was an old lady! You could have fought for the whole hut and dinner if you wanted!"
"Not now I can't," he twisted his wrist in front of her face. "They took my flamemaker bracelet. I need it to start a fire. Nothing over there that could have made sparks. The Silvers out here are very careful about that. Unlike you Newbloods, we can only control the elements, not pull them out of thin air."
"I can't believe I saved a useless Burner," she muttered under her breath, before she realized something.
"But you just set fire to all those soldiers behind us!"
"Well, actually...I didn't," he paused as her stared at her. "You did."
She raised her brows at him. Unbelievable. A useless, deluded Silver.
He laughed at the disgusted face she made and held out his hand. "I need to try something."
"Do it yourself, Silver. Just in case you're starting to think we're friends, the only reason I pulled you out of there was because you're my biggest chance of survival out here. But now you're starting to prove otherwise."
His head tilted to one side and that annoying smirk appeared again.
"Don't you wanna know what you can do, newblood?"
Ah an upgrade. He thought it would work, did he?
She turned her back on him and marched away.
"You opened the door to that cell," he called after her and she stopped in her tracks. "The officer you came in with was a Magnetron, the only Silvers that could do what you did."
She rolled her eyes and faced him. "Would you make up your mind already and tell me what special skill exactly I'm supposed to be having? Is it metal bending of flame throwing?"
"I'm guessing now you're a healer." And he held out his hand again. "The lady back there was one. But it's a year's worth of work before she would touch my back. And her hut would be the first the Nortan guards would search."
Only because she was sick of his yapping, she stomped back to him and punched the hand he stretched out. He caught her fist, and right before her eyes, the gashes and dirt on his hand closed and disappeared. He stood straighter, as if his back no longer pained him, and he towered over her small frame. The dark bruises and swelling on his face vanished, even the dirt on his thick dark hair. His hollowed cheeks filled out and she began to see some semblance of the Silver aristocrat he actually was.
It was mere moments but now she was staring at a tall stranger that looked nothing like the man she found in the dungeons.
She was still gaping and staring at her hands.
After his transformation, he had dragged her to a small pond and convinced her to try and heal herself. She watched her own face transform, her cheeks grew plump, her hair turned a shiny black, losing the grey ends characteristic of Reds, and her mangled fingers realigned. Even the throbbing shoulder she'd developed while training was gone.
The discovery made him whoop some more. Apparently, Silver healers could not heal themselves.
"What is happening?" Her voice shook as she whispered.
"Well idiot, this means you are a newblood. You copy the abilities of Silvers you come in close contact with," he declared with not a small amount of smugness. "For how long, we've yet to find out."
He pulled a brass button from his coat and tossed it to her. She barely caught it with both hands before it could hit her face.
"Try melting that. No, not with heat. Try flattening it."
She hesitantly squeezed it between her fingers but nothing happened.
"Hmm, curious. So it doesn't last very long." He snatched the button back and pocketed it.
"Which means you're useless without me, Newblood."
"I prefer Red."
Almost a month had passed since the truce they grudgingly arrived at, and they were still running.
Literally running, right now, weaving through the woods as tree after massive uprooted tree flew at them. The Silver was throwing fireballs at the Telky chasing them but turning back to aim was only slowing him down.
"Goddamit, Red! Stop running and fight back!" he yelled at her, obviously starting to run out of breath.
"That's a blasted Telky on our asses, Silver! You can't even land a decent shot."
"You're not supposed to fight like a Burner!" His exasperation was evident even as he turned his back on her to detract the Telky with a flaming arc.
She skid to a stop. Oh, right!
Her breath caught in her throat as she swallowed back the instinct to keep running the other way. She ran to the opposite direction, skidding to a stop under his outstretched arms, and tried to focus on the gigantic pine flying straight at them. It was flaming, too.
Nice touch, Silver. Just burn me alive if it doesn't crush us.
This would be the first time she would attempt telekinesis and she was clumsy. She wanted to push it back towards the female Telky standing more than a few yards away. Instead, it shattered mid-air and thousands of splinters flew in every direction.
The Silver instinctively threw up a massive wall of flame and the pieces that flew in their direction burned to ashes before it did any damage. The Telky wasn't so lucky though.
This time they stood their ground as the rest of the Nortan Silvers gathered around their fallen comrade. A Magnetron, a Strongarm and a Greenwarden, a formidable enemy with all the vegetation at his beck and call.
The Greenwarden threw out his arm and vines rose from the ground binding their feet. Yue hoped her borrowed ability from the dead Telky would still work.
The vines started twisting up around their bodies but the Silver burned them off in a blast of fire and Yue followed suit. They ran forward, the Silver's flame shooting from his fists ahead of them. The Magnetron sped away on the metal disk he was controlling to fly through the air, the Strongarm holding on to the bottom of it, while the Greenwarden had branches reaching out towards him to carry him off to safety. Their retreat might have been effective, if they had only done it a few seconds earlier.
Yue grabbed hold of a tree and yanked it upward, saving her awe for later at how easy it was with the Strongarm nearby.
She crouched and threw it forward before pushing it faster with her mind, mimicking the two-man act their enemies employed earlier. She was proving to be a fast-learner. With a wave of one hand the Silver shot a fireball at it, hot enough to turn it into a gigantic flaming boomerang spinning straight at the remaining three Nortans.
Without the Telky, they didn't stand a chance.
"That was impressive."
They turned in surprise at the newcomer, the Silver's fist already ablaze.
But it was only an old man in rags, sitting on a rock with a stick taller than him for a cane. He was hunched and grey with his head down low, yet there was an air about him that hinted of invincibility. His skin was wrinkled yet the flush was unmistakable.
A Red. It was funny how they lowered their guards down just a little, when it was not a Silver that confronted them.
That is until the old man looked up and stared right at them with blood red eyes.
"The fight, could have been better. But escaping and surviving wave after wave of Nortan rebels chasing after the only Calore son who does not want the crown, truly impressive."
The Silver beside Yue tensed at the mention of the Silver house name that held the crown of Norta for generations. Yue had known he must be a Calore - brother of Tiberias VII, the disgraced and hunted heir, and Maven, the child king who sat on a throne of Silver Stone. That was all she knew of the palace.
Why this particular Calore brother was out here and not building his own army to take his shot at the crown, she did not know. Nor did she really care. That was his business.
But to have it confirmed by a stranger was unsettling. He didn't tell her anything about it, dodging her questions when she tried to steer what little conversation they had towards his identity.
How many people knew about it?
"Oh just about enough to keep you running together a bit longer. And the child king. He knows of a half-brother his enemies could manipulate to snatch the crown from his head, hence your incarceration," the old man nodded at the Burner.
Yue turned to him sharply, certain she hadn't asked aloud. The old man got down gingerly from his post and stared blankly ahead of him.
"Yes, a newblood. Just like her," he said out of nowhere, and judging by the way the Silver jumped, the old man had just done the same trick with a question the Silver must have wondered about.
"A Whisper." The Silver murmured.
"No," the old man started walking towards them. "You Silvers would have an Eye who could see ten, maybe twenty, seconds ahead before something happens."
Yue wondered at the look on his face as the old man tried to explain what he was. Was it sadness, weariness, or smugness? Cynicism?
"I see the choices you have, and the consequences for each one. A Seer, if you need a term."
"So there is no chance meeting with you. You showing up here now is not coincidence, is it?" the Silver asked.
He chuckled. "A smart one, not unlike the present king. But noble, not unlike the disgraced one. You would make a great Silver king. The rebels chasing after you to use you would have been disappointed. You would not be swayed by politics, and your sense of justice would make life for the Reds a little easier."
Yue glanced at the Silver from the corner of her eyes. Was it tempting? The idea of ruling a nation he knew to be sending out children to war just to keep the divide between blood colors.
The Seer paused thoughtfully, his eyelids fluttering as though trying to read invisible pages that turned too fast.
"And yet, what good would a generation of respite do? When your Silver sons and their sons will yield to the power and greed?" He smiled suddenly. "Ask aloud, Calore."
"Will Tiberias make a better king?"
"No. But he will make the choice that will change everything. This is his fight."
"Then that is enough." The Silver shrugged, and yet Yue was unsure if the nonchalance was feigned.
"It seems you have made the choice long before, although the doubts creep up at times. This might help put you at ease. Some were meant to rise. Others do more in obscurity. The same goes for her," the Seer nodded towards Yue.
"Nobody knows of me."
"Oh, they know of you, the newblood that ran away with the half-brother. They just do not know of what you can do. It would be best to keep it that way. You're a weapon, one that cannot land on either side."
He nodded at the bodies that lay in the distance.
"Look at what you and an inexperienced Burner can do after mere weeks. Imagine what you can do if the child king had his Whispers control your head. Or if the noble war general prince, misguided as he sometimes could be, forged you into the battle piece his traitorous allies needed."
The idea of being used by anyone for their own motives left a bitter taste in her mouth. Life in the Disputed Lands was a constant battle for survival. But it was a freedom she had never known before.
The old man smiled.
"My purpose is done. You will never see me again."
It was almost sundown that same day, when Yue finally got the courage to ask him about it as they sat in front of their makeshift tents staring at a low fire.
"Why did you not join the rebels and fight for the crown yourself?"
He smirked as he sharpened the blade he looted from the Magnetron earlier.
"I hate sitting on thrones all day. I like running."
"Well, it sounded like you'll need to run with me for a while."
"No, you need to run with me, Red. You were almost dead meat earlier."
"It's Yue, Silver."
He set down the blade and leaned back.
"It's Dylan, Yue."
FALLING SLOWLY
Glen Hansard / Marketa Irglova
I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice
You'll make it now
Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
And moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won
Falling slowly, sing your melody
I'll sing it loud
Author's note
I would like to take this space to send my sincerest thanks to Lu Myhappyending95. Of course, for starting this project and giving us something to look forward to as this year ends. But also, primarily, for the patience and understanding.
Wattpad has always been a wonderful platform to find a treasure trove of DiYue and CaiSi fanfics, and eventually, to share one of my own. More than that, it led the best friendships and loveliest interactions with fellow DiYue readers and writers.
To the reader, I hope this story was worth the read. It's a crossover AU with Red Queen, a novel series by Victoria Aveyard that I've fallen in love with a while back. The settings, locations, backstory, the Silver abilities and many others (including Jon, the Seer) were all adapted from the novel. The Calore half-brother and the "Rogue"-like newblood ability were liberties I took to create a fan spinoff featuring two of my favorite characters ever.
Again my heartfelt thanks to Lu for giving me a reason to translate this long-standing dream idea into an actual fic.
Thank you, reader!
And to my lovely friends in this fandom, my friendship with you that had stood the test of a few years, is one of the things I am always grateful for. Let's make it last forever.
Chase happiness!
Lots love,
J