Chapter Text
Brigan went and shut the door behind her, then turned around to face Fire. “Lady,” he said. “I have a request for you. If I should die in this war—”
Fire’s tears were real now, and there was no helping them, for there was no time. Everything was moving too fast. She crossed the room to him, put her arms around him, clung to him, turning her face to the side, learning all at once that is was awkward to how a person all of one’s love when one’s nose was broken.
His arms came around her tightly, his breath short and hard against her hair. He held on to the silk of her hair and she pressed herself against him until her panic calmed to something desperate, but bearable.
Yes, she thought to him, understanding now what he’d been about to ask. If you die in the war, I’ll keep Hanna in my heart. I promise I won’t leave her.
It was not easy letting go of him; but she did, and he was gone.
In the cart on the way back to her rooms, Fire’s tears stopped. She’d reached a point of such absolute numbness that everything, save a single living thread holding her mind to the palace, stopped. It was almost like sleeping, like a senseless, stupefying nightmare.
And so, when she stepped out of the window onto the rope ladder and felt a tug – like the tug of the moon on the tides – it was not intelligence that led her to climb down toward the enigmatic pull. It was dumb bleariness and curiosity that sent her downward to see what sort of creature could reach her mind at such a distance.
What she saw took her breath away as quick and sure as a punch to the gut. A human monster stood before her. The first thing that Fire saw was her golden mane of tight curls, as bright and shining as a crown, but brighter and more alive than the metal could ever be. If Fire’s hair was likened to a flame, then the strange monster’s hair was like the sun. The sight of her was just as warming, just as likely to burn.
Fire was supposed to be the last. Where had she come from? The first staggering moment of disbelief had stretched on long enough, Fire had to think, had to move, had to do something.
“I had to see you,” came a voice from the other lady monster. Fire forced her eyes to move from her perfect face – the smooth curve of her lips, the twin topaz eyes, the striking metallic arches of her eyebrows – and she realized that this lady was not clad in a dress, but light leather armor. The armor was a few shades lighter than her earth brown skin, and far less luminous. “I had to see if they were rumors or truths.”
The monster took a step forward and Fire forced herself to take a step back, but she staggered as she did so. Her body, her mind, cried out in both frustration and joy, in bitterness and melancholy. Fire had lived the past three years in isolation, with no end in sight, and suddenly she wasn’t alone. Suddenly there was another person, another woman, who could understand what she had been through, could understand her thoughts and feelings in a way no normal human could.
And yet… judging by the fur cowl around her neck, the high boots, and the curve of the blade at her hip, she was a Pikkian. An enemy.