Chapter Text
"Ravus?"
Time seemed to freeze the moment Stella's brother's name left her lips.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Ravus' pacing ceased, shoulders stiffening.
He turned around, and he looked at her. Right at her, into her eyes, and his jaw fell.
"Brother?" Her voice wavered, as he took a step towards her, and then another, and she bolted across the room to meet him, unable to contain herself. Her arms fell around his neck, and his around her waist, and she was crying, and he held her tighter than he ever had before.
He could see her! He could touch her, hug her- She was real, and alive, and so was he!
"Stella-" His voice was thick, and maybe he was crying too, but she just shook her head, clinging to him even more. "I thought perhaps- I feared that you...had perished as well." Her head shook even more, and she pulled away, enough to see his face, but not to leave his embrace.
"Ravus, I am so happy you're safe, I was so...I am afraid." His good arm wiped at her face, frowning. "Mother is gone, and the Imperials roam our home's halls like theirs, and -" Ravus hushed her gently, moving them to the bed, and holding her in his lap.
"You're safe, Stella. That's all that matters at the moment."
"But Mother!"
"I know." His voice was thick, knuckles whiter than the sleeves of his shirt. He held onto Stella, onto their mother's cloak, and he held back sobs. "I know. But I am thankful that you too have not been taken from me." He trembled still, and Stella tightened her arms around him, face pressed into his chest. He kissed the top of her head, one hand moving to her neck.
"Your lip is bleeding, and your- Stella, Six you were shot!" His eyes widened upon recollection, and he clasped her upper arms tight with panic, turning her around in his lap. "The wounds-"
"They're fine. I don't understand it, but they're not...impeding me. Not too much, anyway. There are strange... frost marks around it. Ravus I don't know what's going on." She wiped her lip with the back of her hand, and pulled the cloak off her back. She heard Ravus gasp. He must've realised what it was, she thought. Carefully peeling the remains of her jacket off, she momentarily lamented its ruin. It had been a birthday gift.
"Stella, your back..." He ran his hand over her shoulder, tracing the marks that he'd just confirmed were there, running his thumb across them, and she leaned back into his warmth. "What are these?"
"I don't know," She replied, shaking her head. "But they're on my leg too. I... think perhaps... they're what saved me but I don't understand them." She turned around again, pulling her jacket back on, though it did little for warmth.
"Nor I, but... your being here suggests whatever these... markings are, they're a good thing."
Stella bit her lip, and Ravus tutted and wiped the blood from it. "I don't... know for certain that... that I am here, Ravus. I - Thrice today already I was seen, but - but no one took action against me."
"Sympathisers?" Ravus asked, though without an ounce of belief or sincerity, and Stella shook her head. It couldn't be.
"They looked at me just as you did, but they didn't see me. I broke a vase, I - I shoved one of the MTs, I shouted at the man with the tray, no one - and no one noticed me. I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't either." Her voice trailed off, into a frightened whisper, and it was all Ravus could do to hold her even closer and cup her cheek in his hand.
He shivered as he did so, her skin was cold to the touch. "But I did. And you are... freezing, sister." He spoke as he reached over and pulled Sylva's cloak closer, hesitating for just a moment as his fingers curled around the familiar fabric. A shaky sigh escaped his lips, and he draped the cloak around Stella's shoulder. "... Mother would say it's no use thinking when exhausted."
Stella's breath hitched in her throat, and her words died there, as Ravus continued. "Rest, Stella. We at least are safe for now."
Ravus clasped the cloak together after a brief struggle with bent metal, and laid his sister down, thick duvet pulled over them both. "I won't let anyone hurt you. Not ever again. I swear it, Stella."
"I want to protect you too, Ravus. That's - I'm supposed to protect you. I'm supposed to protect all of you."
He brushed some of her hair aside, and kissed her forehead. "Do so tomorrow. We have tomorrow." His words were soothing, but they shook, with quiet anxiety, with fear, with... total exhaustion. He was... just as scared as she was, wasn't he? And yet, Stella found herself unable to argue, eyelids growing heavy as she drifted away, listening to her brother's heartbeat, and taking great care to ignore the chilling absence of her own.