Chapter Text
After years of working with General Amaya, Gren had gotten used to paying attention to details. Oh, he was never quite as good at noticing things as she was – her eyes were as keen as Pip's – but he was used to watching her motions for the subtle nuance in a gesture that marked a change in the tone of what she was saying.
And boy, did she love sarcasm.
Only in the absence of her presence did Gren realize how much he had come to rely on her – at least as much as she had relied on him, if not more so. She always had something to say, always commanded everyone's attention. He'd seldom needed to add anything to a conversation himself.
He'd been more than just her voice, though – in the field, he had also served as her ears. She was capable of reading a fight with just her eyes, but he was the one she relied on when it came to sound: everything from horns calling soldiers to action to a forest gone quiet in the presence of danger.
It was that kind of silence that filled Viren's lab now. The stone walls blocked any noise from the outside world, so the only sounds were those present in the caverns. Water dripped from the ceiling about once per minute. Sometimes, an eerie wind moaned in the darkness. At least once, Gren was sure the other prisoner was the one to groan in pain, his chains rattling.
The elf’s breathing was a soft, constant noise Gren had become aware of almost right away. The hoarse, ragged rasps and occasional pained coughs indicated at least one broken rib, but aside from that he made no noise at all. No sobs, no attempts to free himself.
To be fair, Gren had given up fighting his chains after the first hour. It was a waste of precious energy he needed to devote to other things – like figuring out how he was going to get out of this. Foolishly, he found himself thinking of Amaya again. She would know what to do, but she wasn't here.
"I trust you. You have been my voice. Now I need you to be my hands and save the boys.”
She trusted him, and he had failed her.
He cursed under his breath and let his head droop in shame. Mere moments later, the other prisoner coughed wetly, spat something out – probably blood, if Gren was right about the rib – and cursed in a foreign tongue. Elvish, he assumed.
Despite everything, Gren smiled a little. “We're just peas in a pod, aren't we?”
The elf's breathing paused for a moment, then gave a long, ragged sigh. He was probably exhausted, and it was very likely he didn't understand the phrase.
“You know. Peas in a pod. Stuck in the same boat? Two guys that... got captured.” There was another awkward moment of stillness, then Gren sighed and let his head fall back against the wall. “The general's going to be so pissed when she finds out. If...”
If Viren didn't get to her first.
Gren closed his eyes and bottled up all the pain that came with that train of thought. If the elf could sit in the darkness and not weep for his fallen comrades or his own inevitable fate, so could he.
Humans were strange creatures. Runaan had grown up hearing the elders speak ill of them and their swiftly-changing moods, but he had never expected them to be so quick to trust.
Surely that was what the other prisoner had been aiming for with his talk of... peace in a pod?
He also found himself haunted by the hopeful look the young human prince had given him, holding up the egg as a peace offering. But it was always followed by the memory of being led away from the king's balcony through the tower's halls. Blood was splattered on the walls and pooled around the bodies – human and elf alike.
If they were in the same boat, it was sinking. Rayla would hate that metaphor. She had never trusted water. “I like to keep my feet on the ground, Runaan.” A silly sentiment for someone that liked to leap about so much.
Runaan shuddered and coughed again, his chest aching something fierce. The king had caught him with a swift, unexpected kick to the side during their scuffle. Something was definitely broken. And yet, the pain was an almost welcome distraction from the burning numbness that was slowly spreading through his arm.
Somewhere out there, Rayla must be suffering as well.
Runaan tried not to think about her, or his friends, or the elf back home that was surely sick with grief by now, since none of their party had returned. It had been a risk they'd all been aware of, but... no.
He was dead, now. If the lack of food and drink didn't kill him, eventually his arm would fall off. Without proper treatment, he would bleed to death or the wound would fester and kill him. Runaan groaned. He had hoped to anger the mage enough to earn himself a swifter death, but the human had proven to have patience and stubbornness that rivaled Runaan's own.
Unlike the other prisoner.
He had gone quiet for a while, but was once again tugging at his chains now. Runaan could hear him groaning and cursing as he struggled, still muttering something about the boys he was supposed to save.
His desperation and devotion to his cause were frightening, in that they were far too easy to relate to. Runaan closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to drift back to happier days. Making snow elves, drinking warm tea, and being surrounded by the people he loved.
His life was over, but others would go on. Perhaps Rayla and the human princes would succeed at their fool's errand. Perhaps the other prisoner would escape and fulfill his duty. Perhaps he could even be convinced to free them both...
Perhaps days of refusing food and drink was finally taking its toll on him. Runaan cursed under his breath and shook his head, chains clinking against the wall.
He would not break so easily.
"You're a monster.”
“You're mistaken. I'm a pragmatist.”
Whatever the human wanted to call himself, Runaan knew what he was. Vile. Abhorrent. The kind of monster the elders warned young elflings about when they misbehaved. They had fallen for his trap, been so focused on taking out the king that they had not thought to strike the man that stood in his shadow, behind him.
It was not a mistake Runaan would make again, but his time was running out. His arm burned. His gaze fell to the bag of coins, the faces he'd seen trapped within seared into his memory.
“Rayla... I am sorry.”
The words were whispered in the elven-tongue. A single tear ran down his bruised cheek. He had no strength left to wipe it away.
The mage would return soon. His fate was sealed. But no matter how many times Runaan told himself he was already dead, his heart continued to beat in frantic defiance.
He had not been prepared for this.
Even though Gren pretended to be disinterested in talk that wasn't about food, he wondered what Viren had shown the elf before. His breathing was less steady now, prone to sudden quick bursts that betrayed his panic.
When he muttered something in Elvish, voice breaking, Gren felt a pang of sympathy for him. Maybe they didn't know the whole story.
Gren remembered the ease with which the boys had interacted with the elf girl. They hadn't seemed to be afraid of her. Callum had warned her about their presence. Why would he do that, if he could have simply told the general they had an uninvited guest?
It was Viren they should really be worried about. Gren had been sure of that the moment he'd been locked up, but the way he treated his prisoners was... terrible, really. Even the assassin didn't deserve – whatever was happening in the other room, with all the chanting and screams. Flashes of purple light cut through the darkness, and Gren shuddered as he thought about what the elf had told Viren.
“You've found something worse than death.”
Yeah. He definitely had.
When he found himself alone in the darkness after Viren left, no longer kept company by the sound of the other prisoner's breathing, Gren thought about the first thing he had said to the elf.
“We're peas in a pod, aren't we?”
He'd rather be that than... than coins in a bag. He sighed and rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes.
Drip... Drip... Drip... Creaaak.
Gren opened his eyes. Days of rotting in the dungeon had allowed his vision to fully adjust to the dark, and he finally noticed a crucial detail he had missed before.
There was rust on his chains.