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“Are you alright?” Robyn asked softly as she sat down next to Fiona. The abandoned cave they’d built a shelter out of was lit only by the dim glow of lanterns they’d salvaged from the ruins of Mantle, but Fiona could see every scratch and smear of dirt on her face, just as she could see the crumbling wills of the survivors they’d managed to round up.
“Tired. I could go for a shower right about now. Maybe some nice, hot soup. Something not out of a can,” she said.
“Yeah. I didn’t realize I would miss running water so much,” Robyn sighed.
“Or the snow.”
“Gods, what I would give to see the open tundra right about now.”
Fiona pulled her knees up to her chest and watched as May finished rationing the supplies they’d managed to scavenge that day, stopping every now and then to check on someone’s wound, or try and give a reassuring smile. She could see how fragile the smile on her face was, how it was one more blow away from cracking, shattering entirely. She was stronger than Fiona, who had let her hope crumble into something sharper and angrier days ago.
“You know,” Fiona said softly. “I can’t tell you why I still want to believe in the gods. Sometimes, I wonder if all this pain has a reason. That someone is watching, if only so they know that we’re trying. Gods, we’re trying.”
Robyn was silent for a moment.
“I think, if the gods are willing to stand by and watch us suffer, they’re pretty shitty gods.”
Fiona snorted and shoved at Robyn’s shoulder. “Of course you’d be the one to start a fight with an actual god.”
“I’m just saying.” Robyn reached out and took Fiona’s hands, threading their fingers together and bringing Fiona’s knuckles to her lips. “You’re trying, and that’s all I could ever ask for, Fiona.”
“I just wish it was enough.”
“Life takes, and it will always take, but gods, Fi, you’ll always be enough for me.”
Fiona swallowed and shifted so she could lean against Robyn’s chest. Robyn lifted a hand and carded her hand through her curls, matted with dirt and grime, but the motion soothed something raw and aching in Fiona’s chest.
Slowly, the shards of anger faded away, and she didn’t think of the pain reflected in the eyes of everyone around her, or of how casually Ironwood had tossed Mantle aside, or the heavy ache of exhaustion in her bones. Just Robyn’s fingers through her hair, the gentle thump of her heart under her ear, the rise and fall of her chest.
They were alive, and for that, Fiona would give her thanks to Robyn and her team over the gods any day.