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Chapter Text

They'd been married five years ago, in early Spring. The sky had been blue with whitish tints that day, endless and perfect, and it wasn't as though either of them had minded the fitful showers of rain one bit. Not when they'd both been so happy.

Happy was something she'd once expected never to feel again. She'd reconciled herself to that fact - or, at least, she'd convinced herself that she had. Happiness, love, peace, comfort...those had been little more than words back then, none of them meant for people like her.

But she didn't have to dwell on that anymore, she reminded herself, gloved hands busy tinkering with the cauldron she'd been leaning over for the past few hours as darkness began to drive off the daylight on the other side of the window. There was really no need to. Not since Ivor had come into her life, anyway.

Speaking of Ivor...

He wasn't quite as proficient at sneaking up on her as he used to be. Or maybe she'd simply grown used to it over the years. Either way, she sensed someone stealing into her little redstone lab and coming up from behind several seconds before a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her.

"You work too hard," a familiar voice reprimanded into her hair.

A grin tugged at Harper's lips. She turned to return the gesture but, upon spotting the flowers clutched in Ivor's hand (each one fresh and flawless with smooth, perfectly formed petals and tied together with braided grass stems), instead settled for rolling her eyes even as she pressed a thankful kiss to his cheek.

Ever since she'd let slip that flowers weren't something she'd seen a lot of while living and working in the mesa, Ivor had taken it upon himself to bring her what seemed to be every colour and variety of bloom he could find. It was for that reason that the little flowerpots that crowded the house's windowsills were always well-stocked with a rainbow of plants.

"I could say the same for you," she countered, feeling his eyes on her back as she walked around him to slip the posy into one of said pots.

Ivor let out a long sigh, the sound low and weary, and leaned back slightly against the workbench. "Touché. The difference being, of course, that I have good reason."

"So have I." Harper gestured towards her current project, another grin crossing her face as Ivor stepped closer to both her and the contraption to take a closer look. "Let me demonstrate."

In one deft, fluid movement, she picked up the bucket of water that had been sitting patiently atop a chest off to the side and emptied it into the cauldron she'd been bending over. A faint mechanical click, a narrow stream of water flowing down from some kind of system in the ceiling into a channel ready to catch it, and the lab door slid open as seamlessly as if by an invisible hand.

"Wow," Ivor muttered, casting his wife an admiring glance in between his close examination of the cauldron. "What a builder."

"Make sure you don't drool on my floor, now," she called wryly over her shoulder without missing a beat, her soft smile a mirror for his own.

(Except that hers was utterly beautiful, of course.)

"That wasn't quite what I meant, though," he continued, smile dropping as he turned his gaze to the opposite wall. "I meant the wave of sickness that's broken out across the centre of the city."

Harper paused in her tracks. "Sickness?" she echoed, eyebrows raised to her hairline. "What sort of sickness?"

"It's nothing you need to worry yourself about," he hastened to assure her, holding up a hand into the space between them. His voice dipped into a slight grumble. "I suspect all it means is that yet again, somebody in town got sick, others ended up infecting themselves by violating the basic rules of common sense, and I have to spend my every waking moment working on potions to fix whatever's going wrong this time."

She slowly tilted her head to the side, looking at him through narrowed eyes for several long moments.

"Be careful doing that," he said in a lighter tone, gently tapping the creases in her forehead with his finger.

The frown melted away and she playfully swatted at his hand with her best mock-stern look, evidently deciding to drop the matter.

He had a point regarding her work ethic; she couldn't lie to herself in that respect. It had always been something like her modus operandi, working and hypothesising and working and testing and working until Ivor threatened to hide or take away her equipment so that she would tear herself away from her lab and get a decent night's rest for once. Not that he would ever have done such a thing, of course; when it came down to it, Ivor was a terrible enabler in a similar sort of way that he was a wonderful partner in every sense of the word.

But she supposed that, in this case, she was indeed done for the night...although only as long as he was too.

If there was one thing they both knew by now, it was that there was no better sort of lullaby to fall asleep to than that of a familiar heartbeat next to your own.

*

Harper woke up to a dark room, an empty space beside her and a chill in the air.

It shouldn't have been cold on such a mild night. But this was a different sort of cold, the kind that prickled the back of Harper's neck and set tiny shivers chasing each other down the length of her spine.

First things first. She put out a hand, blindly running it over the spot next to her. Cold. Wherever Ivor was, he'd been gone for some time.

Her fingers found the redstone lamp beside the bed and a halo of light illuminated everything in the vicinity, falling softly onto the silver frame of their wedding picture. Five years. Five rollercoaster years that had pulled the both of them through each and every up and down and finally allowed them to end up where they were now. And that was why she wouldn't change or take back any of it for anything.

Harper bit her lip hard, then came to a decision and swung her legs out of bed. His potions workbench was empty, save for a cauldron half-full of what appeared to be an unfinished, congealed healing potion.

Unless he's been sneaking away to try and work on the sly again...it wouldn't be the first time, she told herself as she traced a finger along the edge of the table, forcing the anxious thrum in her heart to steady itself.

But then why would he, workaholic that he was (not that she was in any position to criticise), leave a potion partly finished even if that were the case? A healing potion, no less? And where in the world was he now?

"Ivor?" she called into the silence, wincing at the way her voice seemed to come out an octave or two higher than usual. The carpet swallowed the sound of her footsteps.

All of the windows she passed were closed, latched firm with the curtains drawn. That might've helped someone else to feel a little safer. But it made Harper's lips tighten, her body subconsciously arranging itself into what she still privately considered her 'battle stance', even if it had been a long time since such a stance had been necessary.

And it was for one single reason: namely, that they had never, not once during all the weeks and months and years they'd called this house home, had every window shut all at the same time. Ivor knew that Harper liked it when cool breezes drifted in (especially after spending so long trapped in the suffocating heat of the mesa) and she knew that, for all his griping about rain and insects getting in and possibly contaminating his potions, the man would never deny her anything that made her a little happier.

SMASH!

Something shot straight through the nearest window, instantly reducing it to sharp fragments. Harper jerked back instinctively, stumbling over an uneven patch of carpet, arms raising to ward off the threat.

...which turned out to be a wild-eyed green blur scrambling to its feet.

Harper's flinch fell into a scowl and she let her arms drop, irritated with both herself and- "Magnus, what do you think you're doing?"

"Where's Ivor?" he demanded, almost cutting her off. His head whipped from side to side as if he thought Ivor could be hiding in a corner or behind a curtain somewhere.

Harper could almost have snorted. "Took the words right out of my mouth," she replied dryly, running her hands through her hair.

Magnus rolled his eyes behind his mask and thrust his arms out, gesturing uselessly with his gloved hands. "Somethin'...bad's goin' on," he stated with a low growl in his voice, apparently under the impression that this constituted a decent explanation.

As though on cue, a distant scream rent the air and sent ice through the very marrow of Harper's bones. And at almost exactly the same moment, the front door slammed open and Ivor all but fell over the threshold, face terribly pale.

"Ivor? Where have you been?"

At the sound of his wife's tense voice, Ivor whipped around and pushed Magnus aside to cup Harper's face in his hands, eyes scanning her with a frantic rapidity. "Are you all right? Nobody's come in here, have they?"

"Not unless you count Magnus diving in through the window," Harper deadpanned, examining him almost as closely as he was scrutinising her (and absent-mindedly leaning into his touch as she did so).

"Don't wanna interrupt or anything," Magnus drawled, "but ya have any idea what's goin' on out there?" He jerked his head towards the tightly-shut windows (well, except for the one with a glaringly obvious griefer-shaped hole in its pane), eyes peering out into the night.

Harper looked at Ivor, but he was following Magnus's gaze. "I have some notion," he muttered, the words steeped in sarcasm. He tried to shove Harper behind him, but she pulled herself free of his grip and instead made him face her.

"What is going on?"

Ivor finally met her eyes. But somehow she got the impression that he wasn't really seeing her at all. "That sickness...it's worse than I thought. It's spreading," he told her, the words spilling into one another. "And it's doing things to people. Things I've never seen before. It's like they're being eaten alive, from the inside out. The people in the city who weren't...sick were supposed to stay in their homes until further notice. But of course they wouldn't listen."

Something frigid stole through Harper's chest. She shook her head as hard as she could muster in an attempt to dispel the nightmarish mental images painting themselves around Ivor's words. "So..." she got out, before taking a deep, steadying breath and continuing with more strength. "How do we- what does that mean?"

"What it means," Magnus cut in from where he was standing with one hand tight around the doorknob, "is that we gotta get the Hell outta here. Now."

He glanced from Ivor, who was staring directly ahead with his jaw set, to Harper, her muscles tensing in anticipation, then graced them with a single nod before throwing the door open.

"Go, go, go, go!"

And they ran. Tripping over each other even as they tried to push and tug one another along. Seeing and hearing the turmoil assaulting their senses yet not really taking it in, whether they were unable to process it or simply refused to.

People running and screaming in all directions like they could outstrip Death itself. Primal instincts manifesting themselves as bodies rammed and lunged at and grappled with one another in their attempts to get themselves to safety. Random belongings, the relics of broken lives, strewn all over the ground. Children stumbling along with drowning eyes and pets or younger siblings or bundles of worldly goods nestled in their arms. Incomprehensible cries, far-off explosions, a tempest of footsteps, the hiss of flames blazing amongst ruins, the shouted names of missing relatives all rising and falling and intermingling into some twisted version of a symphony that battered the air and the mind.

"Heard the guards are tryna block up the roads. Guess they think that'll stop it from spreading," Magnus explained between ragged bursts of breath. "First they said that it was just the people out in the city gettin' sick, now they're goin' on about Redstonia and Champion City being torn apart by whatever-the-Hell-this-is too...God forbid they actually tell us anything, though," he added under his breath, rubbing at his temples.

"Did they say how many people are-" Harper's voice caught just a little on the last word. "-sick?"

Ivor reached out and threaded his fingers through hers. "Enough. No, too many," was all he said, bestowing a tight squeeze upon her hand. "But not us."

Harper didn't reply. But not us. As though they were too quick, too clever for it. That was probably what all those others had deluded themselves into believing too. And look at how well that was turning out.

Then again, she supposed that nobody ever really thought anything like this could actually happen. Everything they thought they knew, collapsing in on itself in the blink of an eye. In a snap of the fingers. She certainly hadn't.

Stupid of her. Hadn't she already lost everything once before?

Don't borrow any more more trouble than you've already got, Harper. If there was ever a time when you should not tempt fate, it's now.

Quite suddenly, there was more clutching at Ivor's throat than simply fear.

Hands. Mottled purple-grey skin peeling in numerous places, flakes the size of postcards hanging off like cheap tissue paper. As dead as the dead, dead, dead purple eyes boring into his own with chilling emptiness. What used to be its mouth stretched open into a gaping maw, choking out a hellish gagging sound-

A blade swung through the air, slicing the thing's head clean off in a spray of blackish blood.

Ivor staggered backwards, pulling a deathly pale Harper out of the way as it pitched forward into the dirt. Behind the spot where it had just been stood a haggard girl in torn clothes, holding her sword aloft in a white-knuckled grip, chest heaving.

Ivor stared at her wordlessly for a good few seconds, still seeing those soulless purple-tinted eyes, until the ground lurched violently under his feet, jolting him back into reality. "Petra? Where's your father?"

"Can't find him," Petra muttered, her dark eyes darting around, standing out like bruises in her ashen face. Something in it seemed to change, tauten, before she heaved a shuddery breath. "You guys go on. I'll stay here and do whatever I can."

"Petra." Harper grabbed the girl's shoulders as though she could shake some sense into her. "I'm sorry, but this is beyond our help right now. And we're definitely not gonna be helping anyone, least of all your dad, if we let you get yourself killed out there."

Petra roughly shook her off. "This is just something I have to do. Go ahead. I'll meet up with you on the other side, I swear I will. And I'll bring my dad with me. He'll know what to do. He always does." Her voice was thick with a strained conviction. Desperate to believe her own words.

Magnus threw his hands up. "Hell, let her stay if she wants to stay! Let someone else burst her bubble!"

"What? No-" Harper reached for Petra's arm again, fully intent on dragging the kid along with them if she had to, but Petra recoiled like she'd been burned, jerking herself free and darting out of reach, taking off in the direction Harper, Ivor and Magnus had just come from without looking back.

Ivor's lip curled. "Such bravery." He shook his head as Petra's red hair vanished into the chaos. "Of course, there's often a very fine line between bravery and stupidity. And she's just crossed it."

Harper gazed at the spot where the girl had disappeared as though she was struggling to register it, opening her mouth to speak - but whatever she was about to say was lost beneath another explosion, this one close enough to jar every nerve in her body. Another layer of screams rang out, their owners hurling themselves to the ground and covering their heads, entire walls caving in, Magnus shoving both Ivor and Harper forward, the three of them barely making it out of the path of the smoking debris raining down behind them.

Harper's throat constricted, but she forced herself to keep on running ever faster even as she twisted to look back over her shoulder, heart all but throwing itself against her ribs. "If something happens to her...not only would Gabriel never forgive us, I'd never forgive us."

"You heard her, Harper. It'd be a waste of time to try and convince her." Ivor's words came out clipped. "And time is exactly what we don't have."

Harper shook her own head, jaw clenching. "Fine. But if she doesn't meet us there, I'm going back to look for her," she said in that tone Ivor had long since learned not to argue with.

Ivor closed his eyes briefly, releasing a long-overdue sigh through his teeth. "Let's get ourselves there in one piece before anything, shall we?"

The buildings (or, in many cases, what was left of them) were beginning to peter out, instead being replaced by clusters of trees glowering down at the three of them, their shadows drawing long figures upon the ground. The upheaval was growing fainter, more muffled, now. But it still lingered in the air, reverberating in their ears, prickling deep in their skim. All the strangers' faces they'd felt that they recognised simply by the expressions that had ranged from utterly distraught to hauntingly emotionless, tattooed upon every swathe of darkness.

That wasn't what made them stumble to a halt, though.

"Stop right there."

A lone figure had materialised in a clearing a little off to the side, his pallid face (the only part of him that was really visible, as his dark suit made him seem almost a part of the night) coldly expressionless, seemingly indifferent to the tumult still being borne towards them on the wind. In his gloved hand was a single torch, its flame reflecting oddly off the dull gold monocle-like device that covered one eye.

"Nobody comes in. Nobody goes out. I suggest you turn around and go right back to where you came from."

Magnus bristled, moving to the side in an attempt to shield Ivor and Harper despite being quite a bit shorter than either of them. "Listen, buddy, we've just been through Hell!"

"Magnus," hissed Ivor, arm curled protectively around Harper's side. "Shut up and just think for a second, will you?" And he nodded towards the block of TNT sitting on the ground in front of the deeply hostile-seeming guard. Just waiting for a spark.

After a few seconds' hesitation, Harper stepped stiffly forward as much as she dared, trembling hands half-raised in what she fervently hoped was a gesture empty of any sort of threat. "Look, we're not...sick. None of us. You can clearly see that. All we need is-"

But the guard cut her off, not acknowledging anything any of them had said. "It's my duty to bring order to all these...poor, chaotic individuals." His face was a blank mask. Yet his eye blazed with something almost demonic. "And when that order is threatened...I eliminate the threat."

He opened the fist of his other hand to reveal a flint and steel gleaming like a silver bullet under the torchlight.

And Ivor knew what was going to happen an instant before it did. After all, even though some people were sworn to protect the world and everything in it, they were almost always the ones with all the power. The ones who understood what caused pain.

His intent was to throw himself to the side whilst gripping Harper in one arm and catching Magnus in the chest with the other, effectively hurling them all out of harm's way. He barely managed to fling his arms out before the clearing erupted all around them in a flash of light.

Ears ringing. A faintly metallic taste somewhere in his mouth. Head splitting along some invisible seam. Something warm and red trickling down his face and dripping steadily onto his neck.

Dull footsteps. Rough hands hauling him to his feet. And then Ivor was face to face with Magnus.

He was quick to shake off the shock and find his voice, gripping the griefer's shoulders emphatically. "Are all of the ways in and out guarded? There has to be one somewhere that...that isn't..."

The words died on his tongue. Magnus's wide eyes were fixed on something out of Ivor's line of sight and something in his friend's expression made Ivor's blood run ice cold.

Time stilled for one eternal moment until Ivor turned around to look behind him.

And barely managed to catch Harper before her blood-splattered form fell to the ground.

*

It's like the worst kind of betrayal, the ultimate breach of faith, isn't it? The cold hard fact that forever is never quite as long as you think. The feeling of all your thoughts and ideas of having all the time in the world being ripped away from you. The sudden forced realisation that in the end, nobody really ever gets long enough.

And you can hold them in your arms as tightly as if you could keep them hanging onto life and yourself from falling into the chasm opening up beneath you that way, you can whisper "stay with me" and mutter all sorts of stupid useless lies like "you're going to be fine" while every fibre of your being is crying that they have to be fine, because this isn't right, this isn't fair, their life should be measured in decades, not moments, never moments, moments that are slipping through your fingers even as you hold and whisper and mutter...

All the while, something inside you will still tear and bleed with the knowledge that there's nothing you can do.

Nothing except watch as she tried to form speech and only managed to hack a series of deep, wet, bloody coughs. As the light began to fracture in her eyes, the tenuous grip her hand had on his own (slick with his futile attempts at staunching her wounds) slackening before sliding away altogether.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Nothing. No heartbeat next to his.

Six breaths.

Later, it always seemed much longer and much shorter – because of course Ivor clung on to the memories almost as desperately as he wanted to bury them.

They were all that remained.

Chapter Text

Twelve years later

He was pitched back into the fragments of reality with a jolt, struggling for breath as though he really had just been floundering through the murky swamp of memory. Held underwater by a subconscious search for clarity where there was none. Its poison lingering in his lungs and seeping thickly into his head.

The clock called it six thirty-four in the morning – whatever that meant anymore. If anything, it probably meant little more than another endless stretch of daylight, reaching through the windows to curl its fingers around him and drag him in yet again. He wanted darkness. He wanted silence. He didn't want to see anything, and he couldn't stand to be seen. Or reminded. Most of all, he wanted to wake up next to her, to be greeted with her face inches from his own the instant his eyes opened.

Not that time had ever given a damn what he wanted. It simply went on ticking.

The heels of his hands pressed deep into his eyelids until all he could see was spots of colour, melding into one another like some poor imitation of an artist's palette. Breathing in ashes, exhaling the kind of dreams that thrive off a dwindling will to live.

Then unbidden into the room came a hammering noise that sent tendrils of splitting pain shooting across his forehead, along with the impatient call of a name that sounded like his, as if there was something that mattered.

A raspy half-growl, half-groan scraped its way out of his mouth. It took several long moments to identify both the voice and the noise as someone pounding on the crooked rectangle of rusted metal that, although it could barely be called a door, at least provided some form of separation between the dilapidated building (really, why should he bother trying to call it a home? If home is where one's heart is, then what happens when one's heart has not only gone where it can never be reached again but has been gone for what feels like mere days and entire centuries all at once?) and the bleak, dark, shattered reality that awaited outside.

He shoved all such thoughts to the back of his mind where he no longer had to look at them. Where they belonged.

The door was jerked open to reveal an unkempt young woman, whose only reaction was to raise a fire-red eyebrow at him.

"You're late," Ivor ground out, the words grating in his throat.

Petra spared him a shrug, meeting his glower head-on with an unimpressed look. "All good things are worth waiting for." Wisely not wasting either of their time with further useless preamble, she pushed her way past him into the poorly lit dwelling. Her eyes fell almost immediately upon a glass vial sitting atop a chest pushed carelessly against the nearest wall, its contents glowing a luminous purple in the gloom.

"Don't touch that," growled Ivor, snatching the bottle away before her hand could do more than twitch towards it.

She rolled her eyes (a mannerism that had been honed to perfection over all the years he'd known her), but let her hand drop all the same.

With an eye roll of his own, accompanied by a muttered curse or two, he turned his back on her, stalking over to his shelves and none-too-gently setting the vial down onto the top one as he spoke. "I assume you're going to tell me what you've been doing that's so important that you turn up here a day late and clearly haven't got any of the things I told you to bring to me?"

Her eyebrows knitted themselves into a scowl. "What do you think?" she demanded around a clenched jaw. "Stella still has my sword – the one with all the enchantments and stuff. Won't let me have it until she thinks I've done enough to-" She imitated Stella's nauseatingly sugary voice. "-earn it back."

"Why would she? It sounds like she has exactly what she needs," Ivor drawled. "And you have exactly what you earned."

Petra's face flushed, arms crossing and jaw tightening still further until she wouldn't have been all that surprised if the few people standing around in the street outside could hear her teeth grinding. "I thought she just wanted to display it; I thought I could still use it!"

Ivor said nothing, merely curled his lip in disdain at such stupidity. She pulled a sour face back at him, refusing to be put at a disadvantage, before continuing.

"And then on my way here, I had this run-in with Aiden. Turns out Stella's been pretty busy. She's gotten Isa more outside connections than we thought." She let out a mirthless snort. "Though why either of them would actually want to work with that tool and his stupid goons..."

"Aiden?" Ivor repeated, his brows lowering. "The Ocelots' Aiden?"

"How many other Aidens do we know?" she deadpanned. "I already knew you were going senile, but come on..."

His features immediately twisted themselves into a responding sneer, all but out of patience. God only knew why he'd even kept the stubborn, snarky fool around for as long as he had. Certainly not out of any sort of sense of obligation to his former friend. It wasn't as though Gabriel wanted or cared about anything anymore, after all.

"But…" Petra held up her hands as though to placate him, though an amused gleam remained in her eyes. "I know exactly where we can find that little slimeball."

Ah, that was right. It was because she was useful – when she wanted to be.

Ivor stilled briefly, hand instinctively drifting to the assortment of vials attached to his belt. "Do you, now?"

Her lips twitched into a faint, satisfied smile at his tone. "You're damn right I do." Her expression darkened with that familiar determination – and for a fleeting moment, Ivor saw her father's eyes. "Which means I'll get to settle a few scores and he'll tell me where Stella's keeping my sword and how we can track Isa down whether he likes it or not."

Ivor was already striding towards the doorway she'd conveniently left open, requiring no further prompting. "There's no 'I' in 'team', Petra," he said over his shoulder, in a manner that could be light if it wasn't so utterly devoid of mirth or warmth. But why pretend? She knew as well as he did that he was far from some sentimental team player, but the prospect of another person to revenge himself against, another person upon whom to force some fraction of what he experienced every day of his life, often changed things in that regard - however temporarily and capriciously it was.

"No, but there is a 'me' in 'I'm gonna kick their butts'," Petra darted back, her face and voice filled with the same dark promise as he was.

Chapter Text

The sun burned a yellow-tinged orange as it slowly climbed its way above the horizon, filtered between a greyish haze.

Petra's hand reached reflexively for a golden hilt every once in a while, only for her fingers to close around nothing but thin air. A grimace darkened her face as she led the way across what had once been a cobbled pavement, clearly displeased about her lack of a blade, while Ivor brought up the rear with one hand upon his vial-festooned belt (that one small gesture sufficing to assure any onlookers of his thorough willingness to use those vials), throwing around an occasional glare that made almost everyone it fell upon draw back as though scalded.

As it was, the majority of the people that they passed were huddled like penguins in corners and doorsteps - or, in many cases, what was left of them - and almost managing to blend in with the dull, blank silence of their surroundings, if not for their constant mutterings, whispering about friends and neighbours who'd gone suddenly missing over the past couple of weeks and associates who'd been seized for some trivial offence.

Grey stone, grey people.

The small number of structures that were still standing mostly intact were riddled with cracks and shattered windows and creeping ivy, all of which stood out like scars - though none of those stood out in quite the same way the stains that could be found peppering the walls, still gleaming fresh and red. Petra looked down at the cobbles just underneath them with a deeply creased brow, her boot toe nudging a government tester stick lying abandoned.

"They're being extra-efficient lately, huh?"

"Such...wastefulness," was all Ivor said, before striding on past without so much as a grimace at the gory splatters all over the stones. What did he care? Why should he ever care?

After an infinitesimal pause, Petra nodded stiffly and continued on, slipping shadow-like around the corner that led to the deliberately poorly-lit labyrinth known as Bad Luck Alley.

The building that Jack had once called his 'emporium' (and that Ivor had called 'that ludicrously overglorified shop of his') stood just as dark and empty as it had been for years on end now. Even so, Petra darted a surreptitious glance at the storefront as though seriously hoping that the man might have magically turned back up. Ivor didn't trouble himself to hold back an eye roll at that. The entire reason Jack had left was because he'd decided he didn't want this anymore. And Ivor could hardly blame him for that.

The only person there now was a young bookseller who had set up a shabby little stall in the street just outside the entrance - made shabbier still by the presence of about a dozen meowing cats jumping and climbing all over it. The seller themselves was a short, thin person of perhaps eighteen or nineteen, darting around the occasional glance from under their brown hair but mostly keeping their head ducked downwards, busying themselves with petting one or the other of the felines or else shifting their merchandise around with an air of neurosis.

They looked up, however, as Petra and Ivor drew near, a ridiculous ray of hope lighting their pale face. Ivor responded to this with a stony look at the seller and a scowl in the direction of their furry, probably flea-ridden pets. Cats. How he hated the wretched creatures.

"Do you know if Reginald's on guard duty today?" Petra asked the seller abruptly, not bothering with a greeting.

Their face fell, but after a hesitation, they resigned themselves to nodding and pointing a stone's throw away to their left, where the alley came to a forcible end thanks to the addition of high fences and some guard or another always being posted there, marking the start of what was considered 'out of bounds'. Straying into such an area was just one of an endless list of punishable offences.

Reginald automatically barred Ivor and Petra's way with his blade as they approached, but upon recognising their faces by the torchlight (or perhaps it was just the effect of Ivor's obvious lack of patience being written in his every feature), he grudgingly slid the gate open as quietly as possible and allowed them to pass, evidently having no desire to hear what they were up to. "Just make sure you're back before curfew; I refuse to be held responsible for what happens if you're not," he hissed after them, even though they were both already well aware of that by now, having heard some version of it at least a hundred times.

Ivor, of course, took it upon himself to grumble as much under his breath for good measure.

*

"You should probably choose your cards more carefully, Aiden," Petra told the squirming boy lightly, pressing her foot deeper into his chest. "Unless you want them to play you."

"I...you...it's- it's not...I dunno what you've-"

"I suggest you tell us where Stella is and what she's planning with Isa," Ivor advised him in a bored tone, cutting through Aiden's stammering - and rather enjoying the sight of someone who had always been yet another thorn in Ivor's side now sprawled in an undignified heap on the ground with his stupid smirk wiped off and the handle of Petra's pickaxe pinning him down by his throat.

Aiden swallowed, eyes darting to where Ivor's fingers were curled around a vial containing a particularly nasty-looking concoction...and then suddenly trailing past, fixed on something behind him. And Ivor had a very good idea of what - or rather, who - even before he followed the boy's gaze.

From her impossibly pristine (and ridiculously impractical) suit and pin-neat hair to the snowy white llama bleating softly at her side, Stella looked so utterly out of place that it would have been hilarious in most other contexts. Not that it prevented a scornful smile from curving Petra's mouth anyway as she scrambled to her feet, though still remaining close enough to Aiden to be a warning not to try anything. Aiden instinctively shuffled backwards, though stopped very quickly when he almost toppled over the edge of the half-collapsed bridge they'd chased him onto.

"What is it you want this time, Petra?" Stella asked as sweetly as though they were talking this through over lunch, not acknowledging her apparent new best friend Aiden in the slightest. "Don't push too hard, now..."

"Sword." Petra's voice was almost a growl as she jabbed herself in the chest with one finger. "My sword."

"Oh." Stella's tinkling laughter broke icily into the air. "Oh, Petra. Sweetie. You know the rules. You have to work off your debt to us first. And I don't remember saying you could allow...others to get involved in our business." As she spoke, Stella shot a heavily pointed look in Ivor's direction.

Ivor's mouth thinned. "I'm fairly certain neither you nor Isa ever mentioned anything to Petra and I about an 'us' either. And I don't like surprises," he retorted, looking right back at her with dislike etched deep in his face.

Behind them, Aiden was slowly clambering to his feet, rubbing at his neck with all of his cocky smugness replaced by a wince.

Stella's sickly smile flickered, but she hitched it back onto her lips, examining her fingernails with a feigned indifference. "If that's how you see it...I suppose we can discuss this more at a later-"

"Oh, I think we'll discuss it now," Ivor said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, fine." With a dramatic huff, Stella mounted her llama and looked down at them all in what she seemed to think was a majestic manner. "There's something I-"

"'We'", Aiden interjected, perhaps not as strongly as he'd intended.

"We," Stella huffed again, "need to be taken somewhere. If you manage to pull that off for me - for us - then...perhaps I'll see about a more substantial reward than just your sword. Aiden, you stay here-"

"But..." Aiden protested weakly. "Wait...I don't know how to get back in alone..."

"-and both of you follow me." Before Petra and Ivor had time to do more than exchange distinctly sceptical looks, Stella had tossed her hair and trotted away on the llama's back.

"Wait!" Aiden's voice was so high, it was almost a squeak. "The...the guards know me and...you can't...if you leave me behind, they'll catch me here!"

Ivor's eyebrows rose in mock-thoughtfulness. "That's certainly true," he agreed, exchanging a meaningful look with Petra and then striding on in the direction Stella had disappeared. Petra would know what to do.

Sure enough, from behind him came the sound of rapid footsteps, then the quick swish and dull thud of a pickaxe being swung against stone, and finally a startled gasp that was abruptly cut off by a high-pitched scream.

Ivor glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Aiden plummeting downwards, green eyes wide and obviously harbouring the belief that the whole world had somehow given out from beneath him rather than a mere chunk of stone. As the fool's yells faded until he hit the water with a splash, and as Petra caught up to him with a satisfied grin, Ivor's sole reaction was to quirk up an eyebrow. "That's that problem solved," he commented, so dryly that if anyone else had been in the vicinity, they'd have immediately wanted a glass of water.

*

Some way away, a teenaged kid who was distinct from millions of others only in their height (or rather, their distinctive lack of it) and in their choice of companion (namely a little pig who was asleep with his chin resting atop their knee) was pushing themselves into a sitting position with a soft groan that, wordless as it was, spoke of a troubled night's sleep. One hand drifted upwards in an attempt to push a muddle of dark hair out of their slightly puffy eyes, a purple-dyed streak falling back into them even so.

It was still early; on the other side of the cracked windowpane, orange-gold streaks were dancing all along the world's invisible border. The kid gave up on the idea of further rest all the same, instead gently trailing their fingers over their piggy's little pink head and thinking.

Just thinking.

It was okay. Everything was going to be okay. Isa had promised.

Yet promises had popped like balloons before their eyes so many times already. And it was all because of this…this thing. Something else that they didn't ask for and never wanted but was still theirs. So really…it wasn't just the thing. Not really, not all of it. It was them.

Their own fault. Again.

The kid squeezed their eyes shut, clinging to their piggy, who stirred and gave a tiny, drowsy oink as his human's grip tightened around him. "It's okay, Reuben," they murmured, voice coming out only a little wobbly. "We're okay."

Not long now, that's what they'd been told many times over – especially by both Isa and that other woman, the one with the peculiarly shiny blonde hair and the voice that stuck like melted sugar to one's skin. They'd wanted to pet her llama. Not long to go until it would all be fine and then…then everyone would help the kid to find them, both of them.

(Promises.)

And everything would go back to the way it was. It'd be all right again at last. As if nothing had ever happened to begin with.

(So many promises.)

They tilted their head up towards the morning sun trickling in through the window, letting its rays unfurl over their tired face. They trusted Isa. They needed to trust Isa. Something good, something new and even just a little bit hopeful, had to come out of this tangled mess. It had to.

…hadn't it?

Chapter Text

The sight of guards - whether positioned in plain sight or skulking in whatever hiding places they could find - strewn over just about any still-functional pathway was by no means an uncommon one. More than a few of them needed only a signal from Stella to draw back and let the group pass without comment. As for the others, the ring of Petra dropping iron into their hands was enough for them to think better of it.

Just as well, really. A pile of corpses at every other corner tended not to add much to the surroundings.

On one particular path, however, Stella put out a hand by way of a command to halt. "You see those ones?"

Ivor nodded to the two up ahead, whose coal-black attire wasn't exactly inconspicuous, even at this distance. "Oh, we've had a few dances together."

Stella looked down her nose at him (and silently gloated over finally being able to do so when he normally towered over her). "Then you'll know that they can't be bought, won't you?" she asked, with an eye roll that how disparaged seriously they took their jobs. Ivor almost snorted. What a hypocrite she was.

Petra pressed herself against the side of an adjacent ruin and thrust her head through a gaping, jagged hole in its crumbling walls. Her sharp eyes spied a rectangle of daylight spilling in through an opposite wall - which happened to lead to a road that intersected the one they'd planned to take. "Through here?" she suggested, though it was more statement than question. Ivor ducked straight under the hole without waiting for Stella's agreement.

It took some seconds for his eyes to adjust to the murky gloom, but he crept further, unperturbed. Something crunched underfoot - whether glass, remnants of wrecked furniture or something else altogether. Petra and Stella were on his heels, their mouths twisting almost instantly. It wasn't hard to understand why when a vile brew of odours assaulted Ivor's nose. Mildew, rusty metal, spoiled food...mingled with putrid breath.

Even swathed in semi-darkness, there was no mistaking the shambling footsteps of a seething carpet of Withered, whose chests heaved laboriously. Empty contorted shell after empty contorted shell that knew no more than their twisted teeth and black fingernails and the eagerness to sink them into guts.

With a battle cry, Petra sprang into action; her iron pickaxe (for lack of a sword) swished through the sour stifling air like a whip. Ivor took advantage of this distraction by uncorking one of his vials with his teeth and downing its pearlescent blue contents. Those monstrosities could still catch his scent when his form melted away into invisibility like this, especially the ones whose eyes had mouldered away and fallen into their heads, but as long as he maintained a light step, he could slip into the fray and drive his blade into their necks with few difficulties.

All was confusion, blind instinct; weapons slashed without stopping and the pool of carcasses at their feet grew until, at last, the demonic screeches and whimpers faded.

Ivor waded through the mass of purple and black, kicking them aside with a scowl. Twelve years had well accustomed him to rotting bodies. Even if, sometimes, the canker could only be found within inner recesses. In hearts poisoned and mind corrupted by something other than the Withersickness.

On happening to look up as the three of them made it back into open air (skidding several times on blackened entrails), he wasn't terribly surprised to see Stella perched neatly atop her llama again, like there'd been no interruption whatsoever. "I - we - want someone we can trust with a piece of business like this...I expect the pair of you will have to do. You look just about smart enough to take care of it. You'll both be paid quite handsomely for your time, your inconvenience, etcetera etcetera; don't get your underwear in a twist about that."

Ivor, now that his breath had caught up with him enough to indulge in a lengthy grumbling mutter, swiftly did so. As if he'd be at all inclined to sacrifice his hours, days - possibly weeks - over something so- so tedious unless there was some likelihood of ample compensation. Like a chest of gold at the end of the world's most onerous rainbow. Not that those were very frequent these days.

"That's just business, right, Stella?" Petra quipped darkly, not-so-playfully jabbing the other woman with a bony elbow. Though her expression fell into a slight frown upon Stella's outer jacket slipping to the side, revealing a deep crimson stain dampening the white fabric underneath. "Oh," she muttered. "What's with-?"

"Nothing," Stella snapped. Pursing her lips, she tweaked her jacket back into place as if tugging on a mask. One hand took a swipe at Lluna to wrest more speed out of her (earning a disgusted look from Petra) and she trotted on ahead, with a toss of her head like some sort of pinstriped princess.

The redhead cast her an up-and-down glance. "Not gonna collapse on us, are you?" The question was loaded with tinges of consternation as well as sarcasm. After all, Stella was meant to be steering her and Ivor towards whatever mission she had for them - and to the 'substantial reward' she'd alluded to. It went ignored by Stella all the same.

"She'd better not give us away," Ivor told his companion in an undertone, glowering at Stella's back. The woman clearly didn't like Aiden (well, neither did Ivor, but he was hardly going to be forming a Stella Fan Club anytime soon either), which was likely why she'd had few qualms about metaphorically tossing him to the wolves to further the ends of the Blaze Rods, or whatever that syndicate of Isa's called themselves. Really, there was nothing stopping her from taking it upon herself to do the same to Ivor and Petra - provided Isa didn't object. And why should she object?

Scapegoats were, after all, convenient.

The sun was in full bloom now, and had been for a while; its light threw every deformity, every decaying half-structure hunched in straggles and every sliver of splintered glass carpeting the road, into sharp relief, down to the very dirt clinging to trailing cobwebs. No smoke billowed from a single one of those collapsed chimneys anymore. No lights or faces brightened the windowpanes, nor were there any hands left to wipe the smears from them.

Stella was the one to break the hanging quiet, as clumsily as if she'd taken an axe to it. "Here's the place." More relief slackened her taut shoulders than had any right to be there. It was growing harder with each step to bite her tongue and hide her winces at every bolt of pain shooting through her side.

How she recognised the building in a sea of so many like it, Ivor couldn't fathom. It was kept somewhat neater, perhaps, the cracks papered over time and time again - yet it was still little more than yet another fractured pile of wood and stone. For a moment, he was seized with summoned recollections of the ways certain builders and engineers could make the simplest of constructions something worth remembering...the ways she could...

No. Don't think about her.

Petra paused at Ivor's side, but wisely decided not to comment on how his hands had abruptly stilled. Stella, however, remained oblivious. In one movement, she leaned over (grimacing a little at the action) and unlatched the tarnished door. "Be our guest," she said, the ghost of a smirk on her lips, before gracing them with a dismissive wave of the hand.

"Can I assume you're going to drop the pantomime and get yourself cleaned up?" Ivor questioned with thoroughly mock curiosity, by way of wasting his breath on a goodbye. "Or have you outlived your usefulness too?"

Her hand instinctively went to where the wound was concealed beneath her jacket, no doubt bleeding steadily, but she merely rolled her eyes like he couldn't possibly be worth her precious time. "Ta-ta." She glanced back briefly, bent on having the last word. "Don't let the door hit you on the way, will you?"

*

The house - if it could be called that - was silent. Stagnant. Or so it could be assumed, before Ivor and Petra strode their way in. Sometimes the floor, partially laid with green carpet, would deaden their footfalls; at others, they were greeted with patches of bare stone.

At least, it was empty of the mangled groans of undiscovered swarms of Withered, the hisses of bloodthirsty spiders, whatever else had become commonplace in buildings like this one over the years. As though all the sounds of times gone by had retreated into the walls, or simply fallen off the face of the universe. Along with Isa, apparently. There was no trace of the leader to be seen.

For a haunt of someone like her, it wasn't much to look at, the feeble rays of light seeping in from outside notwithstanding. Low ceiling which traces of a recent scrubbing hadn't managed to rid of crawling damp. Small sofa half-buried under a tangle of blankets, evidently there to serve as a makeshift bed for someone of no great height - and then a shrill noise that sounded oddly animalistic and a hushed, distinctly unfamiliar voice.

"Reuben, Reuben-"

Unsurprisingly enough, it wasn't Queen Blaze Rod they came face to face with. Rather, it was some scrawny child, dark-skinned and with a cloud of black hair - save for one strip of magenta - that hung over their forehead. Both of their hands were currently occupied with a pig (of all things) that was watching Ivor with a frankly ridiculous imitation of a glare.

"Wow, Isa, you look younger every time we see you," deadpanned Petra, looking decidedly unimpressed.

Ivor uttered an irritated sound at the sight, raising a hand to greet his face and muttering into it. "Will this endless parade of useless babblers never cease?" In a harsher voice, he deigned to address this new nuisance. "Stella told us we'd be consulting with Isa, not- whatever you're supposed to be. Give us one reason why we shouldn't just walk out of here and go back to our peaceful little lives." Sour sarcasm enveloped the last few words.

"The payment?" muttered Petra pointedly. He opted to ignore that.

"'Cause Isa's on her way, I guess?" the kid ventured, greenish gaze darting between the two.

The man examined them cursorily. Certainly not worth trusting - though that wasn't saying much. Barely anyone was. Yet the prospect of the payment, as Petra called it, lingered quite insistently at the back of his mind. That being the case... "I suppose it wouldn't kill me to wait a few minutes longer." With that unceremonious announcement, he lowered himself into one of the chairs pushed up against an unsteady table. Petra, meanwhile, braced one foot to the nearest wall and leaned against it with tightly crossed arms. Her unruly red hair and striped bandana drew a stark contrast with the coarse wood.

As far as Ivor was concerned, the silence that stretched between them was a more than welcome one.

The kid didn't get the message, though. "So...uh..." Their voice died faster than a skeleton under dawn's light when their eyes met Ivor's hardened ones, but the urge to say something regardless seemed too great to bear. Ivor was on the point of searching the place for some duct tape when-

"Petra...Ivor." And out of the gloom that gathered in one of the most shadowy corners stepped a tall woman, dark hair hanging loose and windswept down her back. "I trust your wait hasn't been too unbearable."

Ivor couldn't have bit back the snap in his voice if he'd wanted to. "Oh, don't strain yourself. Your...friend here almost soured the deal, is all." The child averted their gaze, glaring a little at the floor.

"Okay, out with it. Enough of all the cloak-and-dagger," declared Petra, eyes narrow. "What's this 'something' you want us to smuggle for you?"

"What's- what's the deal with these guys?" the kid interjected uncertainly, also turning to Isa for an answer. The woman held back on responding to either of them. Instead, she gave Ivor and Petra a significant look, which then shifted to rest on the kid.

The latter's eyes widened. They released their grip on the pig long enough to gesture towards the two strangers. "With...them? But...I thought you promised-"

The protest was sharply cut off by Ivor, who'd also put the pieces together. As it turned out, they formed perhaps the inanest idea he'd ever heard (and he'd spent many years having to listen to the things Magnus came out with...wherever the man was now). "No. Absolutely not. We're not saddling ourselves with another damn thing." The child flinched slightly, but he didn't bother to look at them. "I'm no babysitter, Isa," he continued in a low growl. "I did not sign on for this."

Isa heaved a low sigh, raising her eyes to the ceiling. "Neither did I," she replied simply, before adding, "Do you really think I'd take the time and the trouble to arrange something of this nature if it wasn't vitally important - to all of us?"

"'Us', or just you and your cronies?" Petra was eyeing the kid (who'd paled several shades in the past ten seconds) dubiously out of the corner of her eye - though Ivor couldn't help but notice that she was gnawing on her lip, evidently irresolute.

Isa must have perceived this too, for she pressed on. "Whatever Stella's promised you, you may have it. Consider it...a token of esteem. All I ask is that you allow Jesse to travel with you for a while. Keep them as healthy as you can and take them as far as Sky City; I've ensured that some of my people will already be there to await your arrival."

Ivor quirked up an eyebrow. "And then they'll be taken off our hands, I assume?"

Jesse, or whatever their name was, shifted awkwardly, mumbling something along the lines of 'I'm not that bad'. The pig now settled in their lap gave a soft oink, as if in support. And almost perfectly in unison, both person and pig raised an imploring gaze to Isa's face. "Can't you do it? And- and on the way, I can show-"

"Jesse." Isa sighed again, massaging her temples. "You're acting as though I want things to be this way. I haven't forgotten what I said to you...we can talk it over more fully afterwards." Maybe it was only Ivor who heard the waver in her voice. Not that it mattered an iota to him.

Petra lifted her chin a little, scanning Isa closely. "Aaaand how do we know all this 'handsome payment' talk isn't just some dirty trick you guys are trying to pull?"

The other woman's lips curved up faintly. "A fair enough question," she conceded. "If you must, you can stay back a while and I'll allow you to trust the judgement of your own eyes. And...Ivor can go on ahead with Jesse, I suppose."

Ivor opened his mouth to express exactly how he felt about such an arrangement, but a dirty look from Petra - who had leaned forward with interest while Isa was speaking - halted him. Accordingly, he settled for the most venomous eye roll he could muster. Idiot girl. Perhaps she read his thoughts or merely caught his expression; in any case, she displayed her great maturity in the face she pulled at him behind the others' backs.

Isa cleared her throat, brushing powderings of dirt and soot and dust off her clothes, and turned to the child hovering nearby. "Are you ready to go?"

They cast her another look in mute appeal, although she remained seemingly unmoved. At least they didn't look thrilled at the prospect either, Ivor distantly noted; their feet were visibly dragging somewhat. Especially as they were about to pass Isa. "Stay safe, okay?" they offered lamely.

"And to you as well."

The kid lingered a second or two longer, as though hoping for a further word of advice or reassurance from her. When none came, they sidled closer to where Ivor was now standing cold and stiff as the stone floor, their pig dutifully scampering after them. The top of their downy head barely came up to his throat. "'M cool if he's cool."

"It's settled, then," Petra cut in. She glanced from one to the other, fingers tapping a light rainfall against the wall at her back. "You're both cool."

Ivor did not particularly agree with this claim. In fact, his face was as dark as brewing storm clouds. Teeth clenched, he threw open the door and, sparing the kid - Jesse - and their pig a scowling glance, jerked his head in the direction of a world heavy with the stench of twelve years' death and decay.

"Get going, then."

Chapter Text

Ivor's faith in the world and every moron inhabiting it had lain in cold, grey ashes for over a decade. He trusted nothing, misjudged nothing. That is, until today...because he'd grossly underestimated just how irritating this kid was.

Morning air had long since settled over the sprawling remnants of the town outskirts, inhaling the grit and grease from lingering puddles. It wasn't any sort of birdsong that assailed his ears, though. Rather, it was incessant blathering from behind him. 'Incessant' as in he was beginning to lament not duct-taping their mouth shut when the idea had first occurred to him.

"I've never been to Sky City before. Or seen it. Or...heard about it, 'til Isa told me. She says it's really big and golden and everyone there has duties. And it's not actually in the sky. I asked her why she doesn't just call it Land City, but she didn't answer." And: "It's kind of sad seeing houses with banners all torn up like that. They don't even look like banners anymore, just really old posters. I used to have a poster collection. You know, I think I could've gotten famous for it." And: "You're an alchemist, right? I don't think there's a lot of those anymore. The suit-y woman with the llama said that. She also says they're useless now anyway. But she always borrows healing potions and invisibility potions and stuff from Isa's supplies." And: "Did you know that Isa has a chicken? I met her a few times. Her name's Benedict and she's pretty cute...I think she's Isa's best friend. Pigs are still way cooler, though."

And, when they cut back through the overrun Withered nest: "Oh...I thought maybe I heard some fighting, but..." They trailed off.

Ivor didn't bother to roll his eyes at that. When was there not fighting?

A wan drizzle, cascading from a sky that had turned to indifferent steel, swiftly evolved into a torrent. Intermingled with the continually swirling ashes, it made for a miserable blend that clung frigidly to every hair and item of clothing. Ivor quickened his pace all the more, grimacing at each sloshing step, until the familiar silhouette of his residence finally materialised on the horizon, upon which he was nearer to thanking hypothetical deities than he'd been in a long time.

He stood aside a moment or two in a token offer for the kid to go in ahead of him, but when they didn't move any further than the doorway, he simply pushed past and made straight for his awaiting bed, desiring nothing so much as a few hours' reprieve (despite the cold sheens of sweat and trembling breaths that regularly ensued whenever he attempted rest). The thin mattress sunk beneath his weight like a cobble block pitched into water.

Jesse, mercifully, looked about the cramped space without a word, evidently somewhat ill at ease, until they blinked upon catching Ivor's eye at the opposite end of the room from where they'd last seen him. "Wait - what're you doing, Ivor?"

He heaved his head up from the greying pillow, disdain written in every timeworn line of his face. "What's it look like?"

"Ooookay," they said half to themselves, rubbing their arm. "I'll just...be here, I guess."

An offhand shrug served to indicate that Ivor could not have cared less what they did. To be frank, without their infernal voice continually in his ear, he was free to draw a mental tally of all the things he'd rather be doing at that moment than playing chaperone - and God knew there was a great many. But a deal, regettably enough, was a deal.

He distantly considered what he'd be willing to do for a get-out-of-irksome-escort-mission-free card before his eyes fell shut. Sleep...he would settle for sleep, no matter how fitful. Petra would know where to find him.

*

Sheets of rain drummed against the broken ground outside and lashed at the roof and windowpanes. Jesse wandered around trying to occupy themselves for a while: running their fingers along the faded spines arranged on the bookshelf, wiping a thin layer of powder-y...stuff from a brewing stand with their sleeve, poking through the only chest that sat out in the open instead of being stowed away, tossing Ivor a glance here and there just in case he showed any signs of stirring (and catching them fiddling with his belongings). And still there were no footsteps and no cool lady with choppy red hair and a pickaxe came striding through the door.

Finally, in the absence of anything better to do, they tugged a rickety chair close enough to the window that their breath formed a misty patch and propped their chin in one palm, while Reuben instantly hopped up onto their lap, snuggling into his human's stomach. He, at least, was right where he belonged.

Jesse's thoughts whirled and whirred; roars of wet gusts and sighing treetops drowned out the dull thud of their knee against the underside of the oak-slabbed windowsill as their leg restlessly bounced. And bounced. And bounced.

Sky City was something new, wasn't it? It was an adventure. Hadn't they wished for that? They'd wanted adventure, excitement...it felt like a million light-years away now. Because now, they just wanted to go home.

They jerked round at a sudden noise from behind them, but the only thing - well, person; they didn't think he'd appreciate being called a 'thing' - within sight was Ivor, whose jumbled muttering continued for a bit before tailing off. His eyes were closed; if they weren't, Jesse would almost definitely have been on the receiving end of a glare right then, and yet they'd never seen anyone look less peaceful in their life.

Thinking about the kind of monsters that stalked their own dreams sent something cold running down their back and a pang of sympathy through their chest - not that Ivor seemed like someone who'd even want something like that. He didn't really give out the most sociable vibes. And they'd seen and heard enough in the time they'd been going along with him to figure out he didn't like them at all (they had to admit that the feeling wasn't exactly one-sided, either). Still...everyone liked to know that they weren't alone, right?

Alone...

They had Reuben, Jesse reminded themselves quickly, squeezing him closer. Their little guy. Always their best friend whatever they did, always by their side wherever they went. But there'd been others too and they'd all promised one another the same thing.

"No matter what, we'll always be best friends! And I know you'll be the best friends I ever had."

"No matter what," Jesse whispered aloud, like it was some sort of spell. With a finger, they traced a halfhearted doodle in the breath-haze on the glass - a little stickman, it wasn't even good - in an attempt to distract themselves from that old clenching somewhere in their chest.

Both of them were out there somewhere. They must've been searching for Jesse all that time, mustn't they? Maybe...maybe they were making their way to the Blaze Rods right at that moment- Isa'd point them in the right direction and they'd come bursting in any minute- Axel would scoop Jesse up in one of his warmest, tightest bear hugs and they'd help Olivia to build another treehouse and- and it'd be-

Jesse clamped a hand over their mouth just in time to muffle the sobs that racked their body with the force of TNT. Reuben whined softly, nudging the streams spilling down their cheek with his pink snout. Yet the rainstorm rolled on - inside and out.

*

She was there...staring into his soul, her voice filtering through his head, unintelligible yet penetrating his heart more acutely than thousands upon thousands of words could...then she began to fade, melting away, so he fought, struggled with all he had against invisible bindings but they only constricted further until he was paralysed, powerless to so much as reach out to Harper...because even now, even now he couldn't protect her...couldn't keep her by his side like he'd vowed all those years ago...and her blood was his blood, her wounds were his wounds, a raw nothingness was all that caught him as he fell because there was nothing, there was nothing left...except for the phantoms clawing at his flesh...and the Command Block...Command Block...dancing its sneering dance at the brink of his vision, pulsing with that spectral purplish glow-

The weight of sleep evaporated like so much spilled water under searing summer air. The sheets twisted as Ivor hauled himself upright against the ice that had spread through his veins- the air was too thick-

Unbidden, his head gave a mechanical turn to find that kid watching him carefully. God damn it, he'd forgotten about them. Seething waves were still crashing over the crags of his mind, but underneath it, he could (unfortunately) still make out the pipe of their voice.

"-you okay?" they were saying. It was likely just the swaying flame of a single torch flickering on the wall that made their eyes look edged with red like that. "You- you looked like you were...having a bad dream."

It took him a few moments before he could properly wrest himself free from the fingers of the darkness that preyed on his subconscious and another few before the question sank in and transformed into anything more than white noise. Of course...they'd seen the entire thing. Where he expected to find mockery or judgement in the kid's expression, though, for which he prepared an venomous snarl, he found an odd sort of understanding. And despite himself, the words simply wilted in his throat.

He bent forward, dropping his face into one hand to scrub at his eyes. "I'm all right," he eventually muttered in reply - more softly than they'd known he could. They glanced fleetingly to the side and then appeared to teeter on the verge of speech again, only to break off before they could actually form a word, looking up at the rasp of the door being wrenched open.

A familiar shape was framed in the doorway, with an unmistakable flash of gold in its right hand. Of course. "Nice to see you haven't driven them away yet."

"Oh, you know you missed me," Ivor drawled, straightening up (and forcing himself to suppress a grimace as the aching souvenirs of restless hours crept up his side).

Petra vented her feelings in a snort. "Nope. Really did not." She tried to make another face at him, but her eyes were gleaming - a look Ivor knew all too well. A shimmer of enchantments danced under the dim light as she raised the hand that was gripping her sword. "I got Miss Butter back," she continued unnecessarily in a low, triumphant tone, before he could draw breath. "Isa thought it'd sweeten the deal-"

"'Miss Butter'?" echoed Jesse, whose faintly twitching mouth betrayed uncertainty whether to smile or not. The pig curled in their lap appeared to agree with a strange little choking noise. Petra responded with a dramatic flourish of the blade, sharing a small grin with the child.

"What you mean is, Isa decided she didn't want to risk you meeting your death before we brought the kid over because then she'd have to find herself another hireling," Ivor countered in answer to her earlier remark, breaking through the nonsense impatiently.

The girl raised one shoulder in a shrug; such details tended to lean towards the inconsequential in her view. "Look, I've just seen the stash she's promised us myself and it's more than we can normally scrounge up in months. And all we've gotta to do to get hold of it is take on the job...kid must be pretty important." She shot said kid a long look over her shoulder. "What is it with you and Isa, anyway? How do you know her?"

Jesse blinked, tilting their head as though trying to work out whether there was any reason behind the question, before giving a tiny shrug. "She's my friend."

"You're friends with the leader of the Blaze Rods," Petra repeated slowly, torn between sceptical and mildly impressed against her will.

"Well...I gotta say she was a little scary at first, but she has a chicken, so-"

Not for the first time, Ivor couldn't believe the absurdity of what Petra had dragged him into. "I'm assuming it's not just...Miss Butter our generous associate provided you with; I'd personally call that a poor offer," he interrupted again, enveloping those two words in as thick a layer of derision as he could summon.

She thrust a fist into her hip with a look that plainly told him she was considering proving her sword's capabilities to him in a particularly painful way. "Fine - and these too." And from her inventory, she unceremoniously pulled Blaze powder and gunpowder, rabbit's feet and spider eyes, shoving them in Ivor's direction. That, in his opinion, was more like it. "She said she can't spare a whole lot, 'cause people keep raiding her stockpiles or something, but she thought you could use a little extra incentive...can't imagine where she got that idea from," she added under her breath.

Ivor debated a retort, but thought better of it. He had better things to do, as his fingers clearly agreed; they briskly deposited the stacks of ingredients into various bottles and arranged them on his brewing stand, which looked suspiciously clear of the debris that had previously clung to it (he flashed a narrow-eyed glance towards the child, who was apparently finding their shirt hem very interesting). "'Stockpiles'? What else has she got?"

"You're asking me?" Petra threw herself down atop the nearest chest, another grin nudging at her expression. "All I can think about is food." She ignored Ivor's scoff, as did Jesse, who all but leapt forward to accept one of the loaves she produced with a murmur of thanks - and, predictably, tore off a sizeable portion and proffered it to their pig, who devoured it eagerly. At least it diverted the kid from trying an impromptu therapy session on him, Ivor supposed.

Relative silence reigned for several minutes as the three (well, four, as Ivor grudgingly conceded when Jesse pointed it out) of them relieved their avid appetites and the brewing stand hissed intermittently. At length, Petra swept some fallen crumbs off her front and turned back to Ivor expectantly. "We gonna do this?"

Ivor heaved a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose hard. This wasn't the first time necessity had compelled him and Petra to act as transport in return for payment of some sort. That was what this surprise arrangement essentially was: just another delivery, another bit of baggage to hand over. That was all. And then he could simply return to his life (what was left of it, anyway) with the spoils and cast the whole matter out of his head...

Well then.

His sole response was to sweep every newly-crafted brew into his inventory, but Petra understood. The door was jerked open and the pair set out once more on the journey before them that had been skulking closer with every passing minute, this time with Jesse trailing behind. Something at the back of their mind wondered why Isa hadn't explained what this trip to Sky City had to do with her promise.

Underneath the collar of their shirt, a patch of purple-streaked skin crawled.

Chapter Text

Even in the hanging grey clag left behind by the downpour, it wasn't hard to spot Axel inching his foot towards the ground with a furtiveness that was just a bit overdone. The fact that his eyes hadn't even darted away from hers (a telltale sign whenever he actually planned on escaping her detection) didn't exactly help his case either.

Olivia hiccuped a smile, as she could a sob or a laugh. "Stay off it or I swear, Axel."

He returned the expression - though it didn't seem to reach his eyes. With only a little difficulty, he wriggled his toes in her direction. "See? It's not that bad. I probably just landed on it funny or-"

He broke off as Olivia took a breath, letting go of the craggy ridge they were perched on to rub at red-rimmed eyes. "It's swollen. You're limping. If we run into any more Withered, you won't be able to..." She left the sentence hanging in the chilly air. Axel's tiny grin fell apart beneath it.

"Not much of a runner anyway," he muttered, trying to dredge it back up.

"Stop-" Her voice cracked. "Just...just stop it."

Silence closed in around the two, heavy on their shoulders and in their chests. After several seconds of picking distractedly at the clumsy dressings that swaddled his ankle, Axel turned back to her. His face was a lot darker this time.

"Why're we still sitting around? We have to go get Jesse."

She dragged her gaze away from him, down towards her abruptly locked-up stomach. Now who's being evasive? His look hardened almost into a glare, one that pressed her for an answer.

"I know." That was all.

Axel stared at her, mouth twisting. She still didn't meet his eyes. Finally, he huffed a small, incredulous laugh. "Then why the heck aren't we? What if they're hurt, huh?" The words began to spill over one another; she grew paler with each one. "Or trapped somewhere, or scared and alone and waiting for us to come and we're just- just sitting here!"

He was about to keep going when she scrambled to her feet. "Axel- Axel, it's been days. Jesse could've- they might already..." The words seized in her chest, her throat, until they finally froze on her tongue. She couldn't. She couldn't say it. As if giving those words breath might somehow make them come true.

"Shut up, Olivia!" he burst out anyway, hands clenching into fists. "Shut up!" It came out like it would shatter with the slightest push. And it tore through Olivia like shards of glass.

"You know I'm right!" she choked out around something lodged in her throat, folding her fingers away in a useless attempt to stop the trembling. "We have no way to reach them, no idea where they could go, no sign that they...that they even got out! And you-" She stuck out her chin, almost jabbing it in his direction. "-you know that! We need to just face-"

"I said SHUT UP!" He shot to his own feet - and then he was tipping sideways. Olivia hastily stepped forward in spite of herself (and her size), but he caught himself on the cliffside and leaned heavily against it, gingerly lifting his bound ankle from the ground. His breathing quivered. "Shut up," he whispered, no longer looking at her. "You're wrong. We...we know Jesse. And we know that they're...they're not..."

She shook her head, barely fighting back tears. "So what? We're supposed to just wander around aimlessly and hope we don't trip over their dead body? Or Reuben's? Or maybe we'll find them infected and then we'll get it too and we can all figure out who gets to put who out of their mis-"

A rough shove to her shoulders sent her stumbling. She cut herself off with a gasp; her hands flailed until they managed to grab hold of a rock face. She took a little longer than necessary to right herself - and just as slowly brushed damp curls out of her eyes to find Axel glowering down at her.

"You always have to drag everyone down, don't you?" he asked in a wobbly voice, planting his back to her and wiping his face on his sleeve. Olivia clenched her jaw.

"In case you haven't noticed, we're living in a nightmare. Optimism doesn't exactly keep anyone alive."

He spared her a glance out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah...maybe not. Sure as hell can keep you sane, though."

This time, the fraught silence that fell upon them was broken by Olivia. She breathed a long sigh, pointedly pushing Axel until he reluctantly returned to a sitting position. "Okay," she said softly, swallowing hard. "Okay. Fine. We'll...we'll figure something out."

Axel scrubbed at his face again, clearing his throat. The traces of tears still clung to his words. "All right. Just- they're out there, okay? I know they're out there."

She gazed back up the narrow mountain pass to put off the moment she'd have to look him in the eye. "Maybe."

He said nothing for a long while. Olivia's gaze drifted into the distance, at the wilderness sprawling into the horizon; a sickly yellow-brown ribbon of path was the only thing distinctly visible. What she wouldn't give to glimpse a worn-out white shirt and a magenta streak or a four-legged blot of pink clambering towards them...

"Do you remember the Blaze Rod lady?"

Something in his tone - some faint note of sudden excitement - made her twist so quickly to look at him that she nearly gave herself whiplash. She sifted through her memories (though she carefully skipped over both the freshest and the most harrowing...which were the same ones more often than not) until one finally surfaced of the woman Jesse had introduced them to months ago, rambling something about her having known Jesse's parents. Olivia had found her more high-handed than anything. "What about her?" she asked flatly, already turning her head back.

But his voice halted her again. "Maybe she's seen Jesse and Reuben. Or she could...I dunno, at least be able to tell us where they might've headed." He pressed on before she could argue. "Look, Jesse must've looked for us when we lost them, right?"

Olivia nodded automatically. That was their Jesse, all right.

"And when they couldn't find us, maybe they went to her and asked for help." Axel leaned back against his hands, another smile touching the corners of his mouth. "Maybe they're waiting there for us right now."

She bit down on her lip until the tang of blood greeted her tongue. But we don't even know where 'there' is - and Jesse could be anywhere. She thrust the thought aside, wrapping her arms around her knees. "Are you sure about this? I mean..." She trailed off once more.

Axel mustered a shrug, the offhand gesture at complete odds with the dead seriousness etched into his features. "Who else is there?"

If you could bite the dust from being wet, Aiden would have. Twice.

His shoes squelched in protest down alleyways and through overgrown former backyards that still held that dense earthy smell from the burst of rain which had decided it would be funny to make his situation even less bearable. If the feeling boiling in his gut was as infectious as the Wither, there'd have been a malevolent scowl on each and every chunk of cobble and patch of wilted daisies.

He stalked along the rickety aqueduct that every muscle in his body remembered being forced off by the stupid redhead; loose shingle creaked under his footsteps. It had probably once been something a bit more impressive. Something great. Like his gang, the Ocelots, had been before he'd convinced them it was a good idea to get involved with Isa and her Blaze Rods.

Isa.

Teeth set, Aiden slammed a fist against the nearest wall; his fingers were numb to the marks it scraped into his skin. I'm out here turning into a goddamn snow golem and Her Royal Lowness is falling over herself for that- that pathetic little pig herder...that figures, doesn't it?

He knew fine well what a stir she'd been making about the new kid. Hell if he knew what was supposed to be so amazingly special about them - as far as he was concerned, they were an annoying weirdo at best. And a giant distraction from the people who actually did something worth a damn - like him. But there Isa and all her lackeys were, plotting and fretting away as if the universe would collapse if the kid did everybody a favour and took off back to whatever ditch they crawled out of.

And there was something else he knew: the kind of things they all must have been muttering about him. "Aiden just takes orders. He can't think for himself or be treated with any respect around here. He's just a dumb henchman for us to push around."

He let out a mirthless snort, raking a hand through his mop of hair (and muttering a choice word or two at the freezing cold droplets still hanging onto the tips). It wasn't like that. And he'd prove it. One way or another, he'd prove it to them all.

It was with those thoughts smouldering in his head that he strode into the room where Isa sat erect, poring over something spread over the table in front of her. She jerked slightly at the groan of the door; Aiden's eyes followed her hands as they splayed over the papers as if to hide them from his sight.

"Aiden," she began, recovering her composure. Then her features tautened into a dubious frown as she took in his state. "What happened to you?"

"Where's that kid?" he demanded almost as soon as she finished, a vein flickering in his forehead at the question.

"You mean Jesse," she chided like she was talking to some toddler, annoyingly smoothly. "I'll have you know they're an intregral part of something important-"

Aiden just about managed to bite down a scoff.

"-and Ivor and Petra are taking care of the matter as we speak."

At this, he couldn't have held back his sneer if he'd wanted to. "You're working with them?"

She didn't look up, instead absently shuffling her papers into a pile. "It's not your affair - that is, not right now. And it certainly isn't your place to meddle. At any rate, they're not here anymore; they left hours ago...close the door on your way out, Aiden," she added pointedly.

She didn't see the venom in his eyes as he slunk away.

Sitting before her, pinned down by an elbow, was a scrupulously tidy stack of sheets, black and white and almost innocuous. Results of the sundry scans she'd had carried out on Jesse when they'd first been brought to her door. At first glance, the images likely would've appeared fairly normal - that is, if one did exactly what she could not and shut out the sight of the mottled shadows.

Right over the heart.

Isa's eyes slid closed for a moment against the dozen different rabbit holes pulling at her mind. It wasn't quite enough to seal them away. Once this was over...it could never, would never, be undone.

But perhaps there won't be any need. Perhaps a viable sample can be extracted through some other method.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

Isa let out the quietest of mirthless snorts. She knew naivety when she heard it. Even from herself.

Long fingers skimmed in a fitful pattern over the tiny pits gouged into the tabletop as she deliberately turned from the door. No. No, it was high time to tow that mind of hers back into its confines. Really, she had no reason (some, a whisper at the back of her head retaliated, would say no right) to feel like this. None. It was simply the way of this world, the only way. When it came to the greater good, sacrifices had to be made - sometimes all too literally.

Jesse would understand that. They must.

If nothing else...they didn't have much of a choice.

Chapter Text

Being told that this so-called huge smuggling job basically amounted to a glorified escort mission was something Petra could have wrapped her head around. Escorting a teen who, as far as she could tell, didn't have much more than a pig, the clothes on their back and the dented sword they were clutching - no fancy armour or rare supplies, no relation to some big-shot connection of Isa's, nothing that she or any of her 'associates' could be interested in?

Not so much.

Whatever it was that made them so goddamn important to those Blaze Rods, she decided with a blown-out breath, it had better be good.

She led the way most of the time. The four of them crept along the most out-of-sight, out-of-the-way paths she could think of, where clusters of weeds strangled loose cobblestone and pushed through every cranny they could - and there were a lot of those. Scars of time and tragedy. The kid was trying a little too hard to keep up; their feet stumbled over cracks and bumps, very nearly smashing their face into the ground on more than one occasion. Every single time, Petra found herself grabbing them by the back of the shirt to interrupt said meeting between face and ground. And every single time, Ivor gave an over-exaggerated eye roll, muttering words that made Jesse duck their head.

Petra wasn't all that sure where their stream of chatter was directed - at their pig? - but no matter how far they trekked, the voice behind her leapt from topic to unrelated topic, only stopping for maybe thirty seconds at a time whenever Ivor shot them his patented 'do-you-have-a-death-wish' look and then tentatively starting up again.

Well, let them ramble if it made them feel better. She had bigger things to think about. Like the silhouette of a certain building taking shape on the horizon, its sides crusted with vines that trailed like shrivelled veins.

The mountain of rust-gnawed minecarts piled up in front of the wall cavity was still there, their wheels long since beaten off in the hopes of stopping them from being moved very far. Petra reflexively leapt over to what she knew to be the best spot and braced her back and arms against it; with Ivor doing likewise next to her, the heap groaned sideways before long, just enough to expose a passageway as cramped and shadowy as any back alley.

"Where, uh...where's this lead?" Jesse asked, craning their neck like they could beat back the dark that way. They stopped short, a pained smile twitching on their lips, when Ivor fixed them with an obsidian stare.

"Just keep your feet moving and your mouth shut - better yet, don't even look at anything." With that friendly advice, he turned his back on the group and ducked his (annoyingly) tall frame inside.

Petra quirked a half-smile at the kid. "Don't worry about it. He's a greasy old grump to everyone."

"I heard that."

They brushed a hand over their face as if to wipe away a giggle. Petra stepped back for a second to let them squeeze past, the little pig (she hoped to hell that thing wouldn't cause them any trouble or worse, end up dead; suddenly having a kid on her hands was a hassle as it was, let alone a grief-crazed one) dutifully trotting after them, and then, after taking a few seconds to strain her ears for any patrolling guards or particularly rebellious citizens wandering a bit too close, wedged herself into the passage. Dank air dug its fingers into her face.

Right on cue, a pair she vaguely recognised as being in Isa's pocket popped out from a door that would've looked like a solid wall at first glance. Petra spared them a brisk nod, which they returned, only hanging back long enough to send somewhat curious looks in Jesse's direction before moving on. They, she knew, would slip out and haul the minecarts back into place - and thank God, because trying to close the hole up from the inside was a pain in the rear.

That was one of a handful of reasons she and Ivor didn't take this route much. But out of all the hidden ways they knew between them, it had the advantages of being one of the nearest to Ivor's pad and one of the least likely to have anyone unwanted skulking around, so it'd do.

Ivor stalked his way into Petra's spot at the front of the group, steering them down fusty paths where the clammy walls threw their footsteps back at them in a chain of weird, jumbled echoes and then through a wooden viewbox of sorts built into the cave system, where they had to duck down into some kind of crab-walk (something Petra was quietly glad nobody else was around to see) to dodge smeared windows that looked out into a guard-infested street.

After what she considered a way more than reasonable length of time, they finally made it to a more open area, where a man was perched in a rickety chair, thumbing through a book by the small, guttering flame of a torch lodged into the ground. His head darted up at the sound of their steps. Petra couldn't put a name to that face - she was embarrassingly bad at that sometimes - but some part of her brain did, at least, identify him as a guy assigned to keep an eye on the comings and goings in the tunnels.

On recognising her and Ivor, he offered a fleeting smile. "Been a while since you two passed this way," he greeted. "I don't know if you've seen how many of them are prowling around out there, but it's not a great time to be heading out right now."

"Business," Ivor grunted, his eyes nearly black in the semi-darkness.

The man just nodded, gaze lingering on Jesse in much the same way as the others' had. "So I see." He swished a hand towards the battered bookshelf behind him without waiting for further explanation, not that Ivor would've granted one. "Go right in. I'll shut it up after you."

Petra stole a look backwards on her way over to the makeshift door. The kid was craning their neck again, this time over towards the book resting in the man's lap. It couldn't have been any more obvious they were bursting to ask what he was reading. And when she turned back, there was Ivor's finest scowl, practically stamped onto his features by now. She didn't bother hiding the amusement playing upon her lips.

So Ivor's awful with kids. There's a shocker, huh?

The shelf was stacked so high - dog-eared books, knick-knacks pointing in all kinds of directions in a compass of dust and questionable stains, empty item frames shoved together in a heap, wads of crumpled paper with pens littered in their folds - that Petra almost wished they had another minecart pyramid to grapple with. And unfortunately, as the watchmen had bleated more than once, they mustn't pull anything off it or let anything topple to the ground no matter how crammed the damn thing was, mustn't do anything to disturb the dust or the cobwebs in case any nosy intruder realised it had been moved.

Instead of a passageway, it grated aside to scatter the caverns' diluted light upon maybe four or five steps' worth of solid stone before it dropped away, meaning either a drop to a ground of trampled dirt and dregs or a trip down the ladder fixed to the wall. Petra passed over the second option and strode straight towards the edge of the pit, touching down with a muffled thump of boots against grunge, swiftly followed by Ivor (who, to her faint satisfaction, landed with somewhat less dignity), the bottles stuffed into his belt clinking in protest.

That just left Jesse hovering on the ledge, their gaze see-sawing from Petra's expectant face to Ivor's surly one, a splotch of pink peering out from behind their leg.

"We don't have all day."

Maybe it was just Petra's imagination, a trick of the (barely existent) light or something, but she could have sworn that a trace of frustration flashed in the kid's eyes at Ivor's rebuke. But as soon as she glimpsed it, it was gone and they'd turned away to scoop the pig up into their skinny arms - and instead of taking the hint and jumping down into the hole, they grasped the ladder and started to clamber down it.

She let out a huff but said nothing; after all, it took them all of five extra seconds to reach the bottom that way. The jab of her foot against Ivor's ankle was enough to keep him quiet on the matter too.

Their next step was one that always left her grimacing no matter how many times she took it: a rectangular(-ish) metal dingus suspended above a gaping shaft and closed in by discoloured barriers on all sides, more of a basket than anything, really. She instinctively hustled Jesse into the middle of the line that the thinning walkway forced them all to form, keeping herself to the rear as a lookout while Ivor groped his way into the damn thing.

True to his word, the guard had lugged the bookshelf back into place, which - even though any light from the open hole had only spread about as far as one could expect from a torch - had the effect of letting the tunnel's murk free to chase her down the path and pool under her feet.

It wasn't like it made much difference, though. Darkness didn't shiver through Petra the way it had once upon a time; she'd long since adjusted to it. If anything, she understood it a lot better than she did the light.

Twisting back in the direction of the contraption, she was promptly rewarded with the spectacle of Jesse trying to scramble over the wall that stood between it and the path. It wasn't very high, but then again, neither was the kid.

"Oh, just- come here, will you?" That was all the warning Petra supplied before she caught their shoulders, plucking them right off their feet and - ignoring their startled meep - easily hoisting them over the barrier to plonk them unceremoniously into the (excuse for an) elevator, then stepping in herself, doing her utmost not to cringe as it vibrated under the movement.

Ivor's hundredth eye roll of the day didn't quite arrive in time for him to completely hide the quivers at the corners of his mouth. Petra darted a look at him, but he chose to ignore it in favour of tweaking a knee-height lever. She'd never had a lot of faith in this shambly old pile of rust - but thanks to what she assumed was some kind of redstone wizardry, it trembled deeper below the surface without adding three new corpses (and a porkchop) to the endless list.

The ribbon of tunnel at the bottom was doused in streaks of shadow that flitted over the walls, brushing Petra's face, her hands, her blade, broken only by the torches peppered around in an attempt at warding off mobs. Or Withered.

Pity it hadn't done the same thing with the sentries standing guard a little further in.

Petra's steps paused, shadows drowning her scowl at the rankling reminder of the hundred or so times she'd warned the Blaze Rods that this was somewhere ripe for a spot of light ambushing on the guards' part. She redoubled her grip on Miss Butter and spared Ivor one fleeting look before beginning to steal closer. After so many years, that was all either of them needed.

Maybe the one nearest to her sensed an enemy was there. Maybe it was just time for them to do the tunnel-prowling they called a search. It didn't matter. Their black-swathed body barely began to turn around, their gloved hand to stretch for the weapon slung over their shoulder, before a golden sword bit into their back.

It was nothing new to Petra; things like this were near unavoidable if you happened to be a fan of keeping yourself alive. A blade through the kneecaps for anyone who lay in wait for her around corners and in blind spots of caves. Slipping close up behind those dressed in the coal-coloured gear of a guard, one hand piercing their throat with the tip of whatever object she'd snatched up and the other pressing itself over their mouth until the convulsions shuddered to a stop, then letting them fall like paper dolls into still-warm puddles of their own blood.

And other ones, too. All those hunched and twisted bodies, who'd begged her dead-eyed for a quick end instead of waiting for the Wither to ooze through their bodies and minds, or for a firing squad to drag them out and make them that evening's state-sanctioned entertainment.

She gave her head a rough shake to clear it (enough of that, enough of it all), turning away from what was left of the guard in time to watch the other slump to the ground at Ivor's feet. A clean job - except for the thick reddish flecks decorating Jesse's shoe.

Instantly, clumsily, they scraped off as much as they could with their other foot, throat working like they were holding back a gag. But at least they didn't have to be brought round with smelling salts.

Well, they're not a total greenhorn, her head conceded. Not that that was saying a whole lot; in a world like the one that'd been warping and decaying around them over the years, getting a reputation as a wimp was somewhere near to signing your own death warrant.

The tunnel started to lean into an incline now, meaning a slog upwards to a craggy opening blown through the side of what used to be someone's sprawling basement, probably thanks to the house improvement policies of some long-ago Creeper whose ashes had mingled with a crusting of dirt and mildew. 'Peeling' was a polite word for its ceiling and walls, and Petra didn't even want to know what she kept skidding on, but it was unobstructed. It was safe for now (relatively speaking) and they needed every scrap of that they could rake up.

At first glance, the basement would've looked like a particularly charmless dead end, unless that glance ran across either of the narrow doors hunching into its sides...well, door frames, since the doors themselves sagged drunkenly, having either rotted or been ripped almost off their hinges. The nearest one - which she and Ivor normally used whenever they took this route - would take them up and out into the weed-throttled yard at the southern side of the building. The other led north, where Sky City lay. Or what was left of it, anyway.

And of course that just so happened to be the one with a hefty beam rammed right under its frame, wedged firm between it and the floor.

Petra bit back a groan, instead letting her foot lash at the nearest wall to air exactly how she felt about this. One thing at a time, though; making sure they weren't about to get their throats gnawed out was, as usual, the priority here.

That being the case, she nimbly pressed her side up against the right-hand wall and began to trace it with one hand all the way down to the end of the room, eyes ransacking the place and half an ear waiting for the sound of Jesse and their pig trailing after her. And waiting. And waiting, until she flicked her head around to make sure they hadn't somehow been kidnapped from under her nose.

The kid wasn't following on her heels, wasn't even close. And they weren't hovering within pester distance of Ivor, either. While the search unfolded, they'd stayed behind just in front of the gap, stone blade gripped ready, even keeping the pig burrowed into the backs of their ankles as if to shield it...or him, she silently corrected herself. Their face was brimful of a set look of the kind she hadn't seen there before, despite the paleness lingering on their cheeks. Guarding the path. Guarding them all.

She had to admit that that wasn't what she'd been expecting.

It came to the same thing, she guessed. There was still a job to be done, and always possible danger to hunt out. That fact prodded her further, past the mangy remains of a sofa shoved onto its back, the murmur of a seething haze of flies, a scuttling of disturbed rats (at least nobody spotted her involuntary grimace), something beneath her feet that might've been thick mould or dead bugs. Other than that, empty. "Clear," she reported, old habit pushing her voice down low anyway.

"Clear," Ivor announced a few seconds later from the opposite end.

No sooner did the word leave his lips than the ceiling chunks dangling over their heads shuddered faintly, in a way that Petra would've probably called a bad omen if that wasn't kind of stupid. The dull whine of machinery, then strings of nearly inaudible and completely garbled talk from iron-grey voices, blending after a minute with another mechanical scrape. A massive gateway creeping open and then closed again while sentries swarmed over it like spiders in a wood pile. Not wholly unfamiliar, as sounds went.

Jesse didn't seem to share her feelings; their head perked up towards the sounds with interest (getting distracted, rookie mistake). "So we're right below the district limits?"

"Yep," Petra grunted. "Well, yeah and no. Just crossed 'em while we were down in the tunnel. No way for us to get over the border legally and we'd end up shot full of arrows if we were dumb enough to try, so-"

"So we've sunk some time into making our own arrangements," Ivor finished for her, striding over to the barricaded doorway.

Jesse nodded, for once briefly scrabbling for words before they managed to latch onto them. "I haven't really...been, um, out in a while...out there, I mean, and it was different when I got here; at least, I'm pretty sure it was, 'cause I was with someone and they had all this paperwork ready to get us through and I didn't know if we could rest so much on some pieces of paper, but the guards didn't even hold us back to search us like I thought they were gonna, so I wanted to ask what the papers were and how they got 'em, but they didn't seem to...uh..." They tapered off a little sheepishly, apparently not as oblivious to Ivor's incredulous stare drilling into the side of their head as they'd seemed.

Petra meant to nod and move on before she aged five years - that, however, was until she caught a glimpse of something at their collar, stark against its smudgy white fabric. Her brow slowly puckered. "You got an injury?"

They kid frowned back at her for a second, tilting their head in a way that made for an uncanny reminder of a confused dog, until their eyes suddenly widened. "What?" they mumbled, pulling their arms in towards themself. But she had the feeling they'd heard perfectly well.

Her sigh, almost a groan, billowed into the freezing air. "That." She pointed with Miss Butter's tip at the faint edge of something mostly veiled beneath the shirt, its tinges of violet and blue and black feathering into one another. "It kinda looks a lot like a bruise," she added with a tang of impatience.

Their only answer was to shift under the weight of her stare; their mouth opened a quarter inch before quickly snapping shut again.

"Give it to me straight, Jesse," Petra said lowly, muscles tautening for a reason she couldn't really put her finger on. "Why're we even doing this? What the hell do people like Isa and Stella - Stella, for God's sake - want with you?"

"I'd certainly like to know," Ivor cut in under his breath from his one-sided vertical grappling match with the timber.

A deep breath drew Jesse's shoulders up to their jaw and let them drop again. The piggy stood firmly in front like the world's shortest, pinkest stone wall. "I'm not supposed to say anything." Their eyes met Petra's. "And I'm not gonna."

She turned on her heel before they could see the twist of her lip. Practically biting her tongue in two. Frustration prickling in her fingertips.

They were a kid, she reminded herself. They sure hadn't been the one planning this. She wouldn't sink so low as to try and force anything out of them. But- damn it, of course this, of all times, was when Jesse decided to clam up. Didn't they, or Isa at least, or Stella, or her stupid llama or someone owe her and Ivor some kind of explanation when their necks were the ones on the line? When her interest in fighting nearly everything around her just for the sake of fighting it sat at roughly zero?

Teeth bit down harder. It wasn't enough. Her tongue, if not her fists, refused to still. "Okay," she started, wrestling with her voice.

But she didn't have to.

A harsh splintering shot through whatever she'd been going to say, as well as the basement's quiet. Grit hailed down from the corners. And before she could make sense of the half-decrepit bat suddenly flinging itself from its roost with an alarmed squeak - of Ivor stepping through a now open doorway and the beam lying tossed aside on the floor - the world caved in on her.

Jesse squinted through fog, seeing nothing before them but a sturdy, vaguely familiar silhouette. A golem? Or some sort of buff spirit, here to carry them away like Peter Pan? Maybe the ceiling came crashing down on them, squashed them into zombieflesh. Or maybe what Isa had told them was wrong and that- thing was finally coming for them...for a second, that thought wasn't entirely unwelcome...after all, why should they get to-

"Ugh- God fucking- fuck-"

...a spirit with a bit of a mouth, then.

A damp nose nudging their shoulder. Noises - the muffled crunch of footsteps and then something or someone pounding on metal. "Ivor?"

Oh. Right.

With a shake of their dully throbbing (and oddly heavy) head to brush off the last of the blurry spots, Jesse struggled to their feet and instinctively reached out for their extremely dusty but mercifully unhurt piggy, who leaned into their hand right away.

Petra's hair and clothes were plastered with grime too, but she didn't seem to care, or notice. All her attention was on drumming her fist against what had once been a door and was now the mangled heart of a jumble of rubble. Reuben started, pressing himself against Jesse's ankles, as a sudden thud rang out from behind it.

"Ivor, is that you? 'Cause this isn't funny." Nothing. Then another thud, slightly closer this time. Petra slammed her open palm down with a blazing scowl; the walls hemming them in sang along with the sound. Jesse winced a little and snuck a glance at Reuben, wondering whether it would be a good idea for them to cover his ears. "Whoever you are, get over here and say something or I swear I'll bust right through-"

"With what?" a distinctive voice called back around a strained grunt that probably went hand in hand with the low rasp of something heavy being dragged aside. "The power of your imagination?"

The flash of relief across Petra's eyes didn't stop her from throwing her gaze and hands up towards the remnants of the ceiling, mumbling what sounded a lot like "zarky jasshole". Jesse (somewhat regretting not clamping their hands over Reuben's ears when they'd had the chance) picked their way along what floor they could until they stood next to her as if in some sort of solidarity. "At least we know it's him?" they offered.

She didn't even look at them, but a spasm tugged at her mouth, some of the strain falling away just for a second before inching back again. That was something, at least.

Ivor, apparently, was planning to hunt for some hidden other way through instead of bothering with mining, which Petra didn't find an acceptable or not-overdramatic idea. Jesse listened to the debate as they would to some sort of background music, letting their mind drift away from the darkness and the monsters. Maybe it was weird, but it reminded them of home. Of sitting in the treehouse doorway under the goldish smudges of a sunset with their legs propped on the ladder, Reuben nestled in their lap and the sounds of Axel and Olivia bickering over the appropriate use of dispensers in the opposite corner, reassuring Jesse that they were both close by.

If they ever made it back there again.

A sudden knot caught at their throat; they swallowed it down before it could reach their eyes. Cut it out, they told themself, raking their teeth against their tongue. You are going home. It's fine. They're both fine. We. Are. All. Fine.

Petra abruptly tapped her boot toe against the wreckage, the solid little thunk tugging Jesse's focus back into the room. She was kneading her eyelids with scuffed knuckles, an action Jesse recognised from Olivia as a sign that the pulse was beginning to pound in her temples. "Looks like the only way out is through...so it's either wait around for Ivor and his old man knees-" She pointedly ignored the scoff from the other side of the blockage. "-to find this magical secret passage of his, or we dig up and around ourselves."

Awesome.

...bit of a problem with that, though.

Jesse shifted where they stood, examining their sword as though looking hard enough would make it transform. "Um...I don't have a-"

"Then figure something out."

At her thin tone, Jesse resigned themself to crouching by the heaps (and clenching their muscles against the twinges that sliced across their neck and shoulder at the movement, just in case they needed a little reminder of...well...), but they were halted by a sudden "wait, Jesse, your-", along with a deft - but surprisingly light - swipe of fingers against the side of their head. Jesse had always hated letting out sounds of pain, but they couldn't help it; as soon as the contact was made, the stinging throb there shot up about fifty-seven notches and they flinched away with something between a hiss and a dumb whimper, free hand instantly floating up towards that spot. Their fingertips came away streaked with sticky crimson.

Petra made a face, digging around in her inventory in search of anything she could use as a quick-and-dirty dressing...and supplying the silence with under-the-breath words that Jesse was silently a little thankful they couldn't make out. She came up empty. "I'll make Ivor the Grump patch it up," she eventually decided in a half-mutter.

Jesse released their lip from a hard bite (hell, their head was on fire, it felt like ripples from a thrown pebble) long enough to slide a slow gaze over to Reuben, who blinked back at them, and then to her again - well, to her back, since she'd fished out her pickaxe and was busy chipping away at the nearest pile of stone. "And you think he's gonna agree to do it?" they questioned, skimming a thumb over their mouth.

She tossed them a glance over her shoulder. "Point taken. Then I'll just kick his ass until he does, yeah?"

Jesse had to agree with that logic.

As with all of the structures piled over each other at this nigh-deserted fringe of the district, this felt like nothing so much as some manner of godforsaken prison. What few windows weren't clumsily covered with yellowed paper (worn to scraps, as meaningless as the LOCK UP YOUR HOMES edict that it must once have borne) had long since stopped beckoning any noteworthy light inside and its corners coughed out a decayed darkness that gathered narrowly, as though nothing could have illuminated it even if Ivor had cared to attempt it.

Besides his own low tread on the cramped stairway, the only hints of life were the intermittent hisses of spiders skulking behind their lacework somewhere and a spate of quick, dull thuds that probably marked Petra and Jesse embarking on their burrowing plan.

That granted him a flicker of relish. At least he wasn't the one lumbered with the kid and the porkchop this time. And he was damn well going to savour the (comparative) peace, no matter how temporary, no matter how bristling with dangers…

Like this one.

Ivor's grip on his potion vial constricted. A warped husk was sagging against the next door, sealing it shut under a festering growth that sprouted from what were once its neck and back. The floor around it strewn with rancid clumps of flesh, of intestine. And something - no, more than one - bulging black and bloated and putrid from behind its mats of hair.

Not eyes.

Tentacles.

It sensed him. Skeletal stumps no longer identifiable as fingers quivered, a blighted, atrophied throat worked furiously, yet all it could utter were scant, rattling gasps. Dying, of course...assuming that it had enough remnants of humanity left to manage even that.

Ivor drew back his hand, thrust it down to the Withered's neck and watched his bottle sink its shards deep into worm-eaten flesh, watched its contents seethe a web of blistering paths over flayed skin.

It did not shriek; it was long past that, but its convulsions were enough, tentacles thrashing like a whip, hell-bent on condemning him to take its place even as it ripped itself further apart. He drove the jagged sliver between his fingers deeper still, just as he did the first time he ran up against one of these abominations, when reports that the official death toll had climbed to fourteen hundred (and the unofficial was likely a lot closer to two thousand) were seeping into the newly cobbled-together quarantine zones. When those numbers were in some way significant.

It quietened in the end, just as they all did...people and Withered alike. He tossed what was left of the vial under an empty window frame, wiping away the embedded fragments and blood droplets flecking his fingers as absently as he would streaks of dirt. Little point left in to make it seem as if nothing had been here of late, he noted dryly, glaring back towards the now-invisible rubble of that pestilential basement, but the damage could feasibly be blamed on a Creeper.

Even if it clearly wasn't only guard patrols that needed to be fooled.

He forced his boot toe between the monstrous lump at his feet and the door, straining and straining until it finally peeled away and slumped face down with a foul sound. If there'd been one here, it was hardly vanishingly unlikely there were others - whether sunken in on themselves and putrefying into nothing, or else shambling around sightlessly, sleeplessly, mindlessly, until they were. And they could more than feasibly have made a hive inside the walls...the same walls that Petra was, at that moment, ploughing straight through.

He wrenched his mind away, grumbling at himself. There was no reason to think along those lines. None at all.

The room beyond was neither of particular note, except perhaps for the stench woven into everything from the furrows in the tabletop to the cobweb slivers drooping from the ceiling, nor home to any manner of face, humanoid or otherwise. He did not falter (though instinct kept a hand tucked aside his belt, fingers resting simultaneously against the neck of a potion and the side of his sword) until he eventually halted in an alcove adjacent to the door north, making sure that he remained sheathed in shadows, and considered. If he was to determine exactly which direction Petra and Jesse must have headed and cut across to there himself, surely he would come upon them, and preferably sooner rather than later.

He compressed his lips with such force that they briefly lost sensation. Jesse.

It stood to reason, really, that his first piece of cargo in a while not only had the unfortunate ability to prattle and wander and deplete resources, but they were obviously nowhere near as seasoned a traveller as either of their grudging escorts, not to mention rather insistent on dragging around their uncooked lunch everywhere, like its squeals wouldn't grate on his nerves at best and attract things they didn't want to attract at worst. The sole hitch, the rein keeping him from simply casting the pair into a gutter and being done with it, was that if he trusted Petra - and, God help him, he did - the recompense would render his labours worth it.

Even leaving aside the sheer inconvenience of the situation…like Petra, Ivor had divined neither the significance nor the urgency surrounding one undergrown, incompetent child. They seemed no different from any other brat, after all. It was that very fact that let his mind fleetingly slip its confines, dipping into amorphous possibilities and hypotheses that never quite rang true. And it was conceivable that the old Ivor, the Ivor that had bled out alongside Harper and the world they'd known, or they thought they'd known, would have been inclined to press for more information. To demand answers as to just how a kid like the one trailing around with him could benefit Isa, or indeed anyone else.

But for the new Ivor (and he was hardly new anymore, was he? At this point, he was all there was and the traces of twelve years ago were mouldering in a shallow grave)? This was just another errand. Jesse was merely the latest in a long line of deals to make. So each of those useless conjectures, too, were duly swept aside without hesitation. As far as he was concerned, whoever was waiting at the city could do what they liked with Jesse once they were out of his sight.

His senses prickled insistently, jerking him back into the present moment. Long years of instinct pinned him against the wall, chest and hands taut, invulnerable to any surprises. He didn't appreciate those.

But it wasn't the crooked groans or guttural, laborious breathing of Withered that he was confronted by. Rather, it was an intermittent yet distinctly human voice, and one that he could only assume was pronouncing coherent syllables, though he couldn't make out anything of the sort. He followed its (fairly rankling) notes, steps swift and soundless as time itself - and as it trickled closer, flashes of recognition and irritation alike besieged him.

"...shame this house got so...probably used to look...room like this once...banned from going in there after the, uh, toaster incident…"

That struck him as the living embodiment of a headache if ever he'd encountered one. And it was something of a routine, a pattern traced into the dust of his life: that whenever headaches manifested themselves, Petra was involved somehow.

What was it that Gabriel used to say? Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Naturally, it had usually been uttered with Magnus in mind, as opposed to his daughter; more specifically, the man's penchant for materialising out of thin air mid-conversation to offer his wildest stab at what was being discussed.

And just as naturally, Ivor wiped the reminder away like the meaningless bit of junk it was. This was neither the time nor the place for a trip down Memory Lane. There was no time or place for such absurdity anymore.

At any rate...that axiom apparently applied to Petra too, because not a moment later, the wall just to the left started to fracture under the duress of her sword and then she (or rather, a thoroughly dirty, dishevelled version of her) was there, writhing her way free and staggering a little over her feet in a way that she would vehemently deny later. A trail of discarded cobble and granite stacks followed her, a testament to her grousings about inventories and blocks.

Jesse brought up the rear at first with their arms clamped around the pig, but promptly scampered ahead, evidently taking his raised eyebrow as an invitation to pour the story of their adventure all over him.

"Did you hear that really big noise befo- well, you were right there and you were moving all that stuff around, so you must've heard it, right? The whole basement fell in like Petra said and it was worse than we thought so we had to mine all the way around instead of through just a little bit, then we had to take a detour 'cause we heard cave spiders and then we thought it'd be smart to-"

"Let's get out of this hovel before we pat ourselves on the back, shall we?" he cut in testily, making a mental note to fathom out whether or not earplugs were still available somewhere.

He was all too glad to set his back to them, but Petra grabbed his wrist before he could. "Hold up, there's something we gotta do first."

A growl clawed at his throat. "Oh, what now?"

She gestured to Jesse by way of an answer. More particularly, to the splotches glistening wet and dark at one side of their hair.

Ivor hissed a breath through clenched teeth, abruptly wishing a desk would materialise for him to smack his head against. Apparently, being saddled with a babbling adolescent wasn't enough - no, it just had to be a babbling adolescent who couldn't seem to handle themself for longer than ten minutes.

"What's such a huge pain in your rear?" Petra wanted to know, reading the look washing over his face. "Yeah, it's not a bundle of fun times, but we're gonna be here an extra five minutes at most and you've already got some healing stuff on you, right?"

With what he considered rather immense self-restraint, he successfully held back a quiet curse or three. "Brilliantly put, Petra, two arguments that miss the point spectacularly all in one sentence," he retaliated instead, pausing only to direct a glower at Jesse. One finger stabbed towards the most level area of the floor around them. "Sit."

They averted their eyes, mumbling something under their breath that he decided to turn a deaf ear to, but planted themself down anyway, the pig crawling into their lap and huddling close like some sort of oversized, over-squeaky stuffed animal. Ivor saw no point in holding back an eye roll. His lip curled in distaste as his knee met the mildewed excuse for a floor, while one hand ferreted around for his meagre stock of antiseptic agent (almost excruciatingly hard to come by now, despite being less than useless against the Wither, and something Jesse should frankly have counted themself fortunate that he was not only wasting on them but had on his person to begin with). Petra, meanwhile, stayed resolutely on her feet, hand propped on the hilt of her blade, free to assume the role of guard. This, at least, was one thing that would be even more of a nuisance if they were two people, rather than three.

As Ivor well knew from extensive experience, head wounds had an irksome tendency to bleed disproportionate to their severity or lack thereof, which in turn would draw certain unwelcome hordes with its tang. From the way Jesse was tracking his movements with wary eyes, though, they didn't have a concussion, meaning one less thing to contend with. Small mercies, he supposed.

Ivor forced their head up, gnashing out a "hold still" that wasn't entirely necessary, and unceremoniously let as little of the vial as possible fall in colourless drops into their cut, barely visible under its ponds of blood. Jesse let out a quiet, hissing breath, twitching in a tiny spasm as if about to cringe away, but a look from him was enough to convince them to wedge their cuff between their teeth and make no further sound throughout his ministrations.

"Good as new," Petra took it upon herself to comment behind them, examining the slapped-on fragment of gauze that was already staining scarlet.

He straightened with a jerk, barking a clipped, grey laugh. "Oh, of course; forgive the limits of my reserves. I hadn't planned for my being expected to play nurse to a child I had no idea existed until this morning." The corner of his eye told him that said child made a minuscule movement at that - a tightening of the mouth, a dip of the head - but he didn't trouble himself to glance at them; neither did Petra.

"Y'know, I swear I remember Isa saying to keep 'em in good shape before we started out..."

"Yes...just as I seem to remember that agreeing to this little errand in the first place was your bright idea, not mine. Besides, perhaps they'd be just fine if your nannying skills were up to the mark-"

"And what the hell was I meant to do? Grab Miss Butter and poke their head better?"

"It's just a dumb scratch," Jesse murmured, sending fissures into the dispute; two gazes snapped towards them. They were clearly finding their pig the most important, fascinating thing in the world. "I won't get any more, okay?"

Ivor clicked his tongue, deep disbelief colouring the sound. Petra scratched her cheek, nails leaving grooves in the grime, and sighed.

"Just watch yourself...it's nothing hairy this time, but this isn't somewhere you want to get dinged up. And get rid of that stuff," she added, ripping a rag in two and slinging one half towards Jesse while applying the other to the whitish grit smearing her own face. "When it gets dark and the moon's out, anything light is gonna stand out like a beacon." She glanced down at the kid's (admittedly no longer markedly white) shirt but made no further remark.

Ivor heaved a lengthy sigh, wheeling around to the door waiting so tantalisingly close by and reflexively testing its resistance. The handle, hinges, frame had been virtually devoured by wear and corrosion, but after some urging on his part, it reluctantly crawled open to allow a finger of daylight to touch the room.

"Get down," he instructed, not concerning himself with waiting for a reply from anyone before edging around the gap and onto what was a broad, cream-walled porch until it was all but destroyed by some scavenger group or another in a hunt for wood and crept up on by meshes of moss and ivy pencilling their convoluted green graffiti.

Which, as it transpired, also provided an elevated view of the world on the other side of the county gates.

A thin straggle of buildings, scorched and blackened ruins scattered among them, having been set alight in one of the first guard-led 'Purges'. In the gaps between them, trees and vegetation had struggled up from the weeds and dead bushes. Blankets of cloud that still persisted, but whenever they wore thin for a second or two, bars of sunlight threaded through, glancing over it all. And not a spiked barricade within sight, unless he was inclined to turn his head back in the direction of the border crossing.

Silently, Petra pointed with her blade towards the skyline. Silhouettes in the form of sagging towers, still climbing from the horizon and - well, hardly piercing - but prodding the pallid sky in feeble defiance of their ramshackle state. Ivor exhaled, the mist of his breath writing his sentiments in the air. Isa's precious Sky City. His finishing line was within sight and it was damn well going to stay there - because if not…

He shot a narrow-eyed glance at the kid crouching at his elbow, at the pig tucked under their arm, at the faint awe playing across their smudged face as they took in the view almost like there was seriously anything left worth wondering at.

If not...then God help him.