Chapter Text
Roan was about to die and he knew it: could feel the blood oozing through half a dozen stab wounds, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight the hand pushing his head into the fountain, his skin burned with the poison in the water. He would die and that was it. The fate of his people will be sealed.
The last thought of his pain-addled brain was spared for his half-sister. He had to believe she would pull through. She was a survivor. She would find a way to ride out Praim Faya and if not… Well, then they would see each other soon enough.
Roan didn’t have any experience with death, for obvious reasons. He had been wounded – badly – many times in his life, but, obviously, death was a first for him. All his life he had been taught that once he died if he died a good death, he would go to the feasting halls of his Ancestors. He had always hoped there would be horses there. He liked horses.
He had expected it to look like the Summer Palace: big and full of sunshine, huge windows opening to the rolling Hosh Daun Plana Hills. The air in the palace always smelled of wildflowers and honey. He had expected to wake up fully restored, probably rolling out of bed. A beautiful woman at his side would’ve been a nice touch.
What he didn’t expect was to blink and be standing in a room, surrounded by those beastly contraptions skaikru calls rovers, music blasting around him, so loudly he can feel it through the soles of his boots and up to his teeth. He can still feel the pain from his wounds, but when he looks down his leathers are dry of blood. Carefully Roan touches his face: the skin is tender, like newly healed tissue but, other than that, seems to have healed.
“Who the fuck are you?”
In the doorway into the room of the sleeping rovers stands none other than Raven Reyes, Fayalida kom Skaikru, a heavy-looking silver tool in one hand. An afterlife with Raven in it?He can totally get used to this weird place.
“You know who I am, Raven.” He smiles at her, but instead of smoothing out, her scowl just increases.
“No. I Don’t. How do you know my name?” Roan blinks at her as suspicion starts to creep into her scowl. “Did Wick and Jasper put you up to this?”
“I don’t know any…”
But she isn’t listening, looking around the room and calling “All right, boys! Very funny!” instead.
From the room behind her comes a soft crash and a young man with curly blond hair and a small moustache appears at her back. He looks at Roan with a frown. “What is a Viking doing in our workshop?”
Raven turns to him, eyes narrowed.
“You tell me.”
“How am I supposed to know? I just got here.”
The way the newcomer touches Raven’s elbow and smiles down at her makes something beneath Roan’s skin itch, his hand clenches around the hilt of his sword and he has to sheath it before he does something stupid.
Raven rolls her eyes at the blonde man and turns back to Roan. “Ok, whatever. Whoever put you up to this, it’s not working.” She limps past him and pushes a button by the wall to his left, the whole section opens up like a maw. What lies behind it takes his breath away:
The noise is deafening, louder even than the music; sun shines blindingly off glass buildings so tall they make the Tower in Polis look like a shrub; a line of skaikru vehicles honk and growl past the open door to Raven’s dwelling; bracketing the rovers, rivers of people stream by, talking to themselves, carrying bags, running with cables sticking out of their ears, a thousand different shapes in a thousand different colors.
Roan is very glad when the darkness takes him again.