Work Text:
It’s all about the mindset.
I’m going to fight to kill.
This has to end.
Violet meant every word he said, but that didn’t make it any easier.
He had a responsibility to make Lilias pay for what she’d done in the pursuit of her dreams of conquest. That wasn’t the part he struggled with, not at all. But underneath the blazing sunset, while the fires of battles raged in the temple around them and steel rang against steel—
“We don’t need to be enemies, Violet.”
Her words still rang in his ears.
When had Lilias changed? Violet found himself asking that question. How could he, none other than the genius of the Perland Raiders, have missed such a fundamental change in someone he thought he knew so well—or, if it had always been there, how had he not noticed?
She blocked his sword with her own, pivoting to the side. A gunshot, from behind him, aim perfect as always—but you had to be more than perfect to penetrate the Bastion’s defenses. It was only just starting to crack, but Lilias had made them deal with cannon-fodder first. She was only just getting started, while Violet’s skin was slicked with sweat from the effort of keeping up with her and the heat that consumed the temple.
Left, right. It was kind of like a dance, really. Fighting Lilias seriously wasn’t that different from sparring with her, except now they were using real weapons and they were both aiming for the kill.
The knowledge that so much was on the line set his blood on fire.
The world blurred around him every time she landed a blow, white-hot pain pulling at the edges of his vision. The sound of Pavel firing again snapped everything back into focus.
Nothing felt real.
There was a cliff, and a gunshot, and a bloom of red, and a misstep, and a flash of pale hair as Lilias fell.
Violet had been prepared to deal the final blow, to drag her body back to Perland and hold it before the council as proof that their rogue citylord had been taken care of. This, though, was somehow worse.
At least if he’d been the one to deal the killing blow, he could reason away the bitter taste in his mouth that overruled any semblance of relief that Violet imagined he was supposed to be feeling right about now. Relief in having dealt with a would-be tyrant— there was no way anyone could survive that, even with the Bastion —was completely overruled by the knowledge of what they’d done.
What he’d done.
The sky was stained with blood now, too. He drew in a shaky breath, balling his hands into fists as Pavel put his own thoughts into words, breaking the silence that grew between them.
“It would be a miracle if she survived.”
Yeah. Pavel was a rational, realistic sort.
Hearing him say it out loud was like the final nail in the coffin.
She’s really gone.
Lilias was defeated, but the war wasn’t over. They still had one last battle to fight, situated right underneath the ominous gate floating in the sky above the largest temple in the ruins.
Still, Pavel took Violet aside. The dark of the ruins was comforting, in a way. It was easy to forget, hidden away in this little alcove, that their world was coming apart at the seams.
“Violet,” Pavel said, and the sound was enough to anchor him in the present—for now.
“Mm, what? Sorry, I was just thinking.” He forced one of his typical winning smiles, crossing his arms over his chest. Pavel held out a canteen to him and he took it, automatically, before he even had the chance to think about the action. Something, anything to occupy his thoughts.
The water was warm and it did nothing to wash the acrid taste of smoke out of his mouth, but his body told him that he was supposed to be refreshed nonetheless. And in a way, it did help a little, at least in the way that it reminded his body that his mouth was not supposed to be that dry.
Pavel pressed his lips into a thin line as he looked him over with eyes that were too bright, shifting like the flames that turned the darkness that consumed the temple the color of rust. “About?” he prompted before he looked away. Never good with words, never good with the whole feelings thing, Violet knew, but…
“I am capable of self-reflection, you know.” Violet forced a laugh to his lips as he passed the canteen back. “I know, I know, I don’t look the part. I was just thinking of how I let things get to this point…” Which was, well, not a lie, but the truth behind the words was muddied and faded as Violet continued: “If we weren’t taken so off-guard, we could have finished this in Perland…”
“Violet…” Pavel’s mask of grim, deadly-serious neutrality slowly morphed into a frown.
And still Violet continued, the words flowing like blood from a wound, because if he stopped for even a second… “… We could have saved a lot of trouble, and a lot of lives besides… I mean, I always knew Lilias was ambitious, but to team up with Straze of all people, to sacrifice the Raiders …”
“Violet,” Pavel said, a little more forcefully—and the weight behind Pavel calling his name gave Violet enough pause that he lost track of where he was going with his words. The silence grew between them for a moment and Pavel made an attempt to hide the fact that what he’d initially thought to say caught in his throat. “You’re… Are you really okay with this?”
“Huh? Of course I am. Why?”
“Lilias has a way of getting under people’s skin, and you two were close,” he offered in return, somewhat awkwardly before tipping the canteen at his own lips. “And… You’re crying.”
Was he?
…
Oh.
Violet brought a hand up to dab at his eye and—sure enough, tears. He was so sweaty from the heat and the battle that he hadn’t even noticed. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to notice.
‘Laugh it off,’ he told himself, drawing a shaky breath inwards—
—But his attempt to laugh came out sounding more like a choked sob before he managed to get a handle on his composure again. Now wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the time! But…
“We don’t need to be enemies, Violet.”
Her words still rang in his ears.
It was a funny thing. Killing.
Death.
It was never something he thought much about in the course of his work for the Raiders. Death was just something you came across naturally, and you weren’t really supposed to let it bother you. The instant you let it bother you, you can’t really be called one of Perland’s elite, can you? The Raiders were tasked with everything from espionage (where the threat of death loomed if you were caught) to breaking up gangs (where the threat of death loomed if you were outmanned or outgunned) to regular military operations (where… Well, if you were going to die anywhere, the military would be it).
Violet was the best of the best, the (self-proclaimed) genius of the Perland Raiders, and he’d more or less grown up with Lilias, who took command of it all. First as Citylord, and then as a would-be queen.
Death was something that happened to the elderly, the infirm, the wicked and the careless. Which—well, Lilias was certainly careless ( he could still hear the gunshot, the sound of gravel under her boots as she slid backwards over the cliff’s edge ), and Violet told himself over and over that she was wicked. She deserved whatever came to her for pursuing the path of war, for undermining Perland’s established systems to grab for more power, for having Raiders murdered as soon as they were inconvenient to her cause.
Maybe if he repeated the story enough times, he would start to believe it.
Pavel was never really good with the whole comfort thing. The most he actually had any experience with was soothing Ralph’s fears during one of Perland’s many festivals—almost all of which involved fireworks. It was easy, in the course of his work as a Raider, to detach himself from things, to get the job done.
Lilias had needed to die, or otherwise be brought to justice. (But really, what kind of megalomaniac would come quietly? The end result was inevitable.)
Pavel knew this, and he knew that the rational part of Violet knew it too—but Pavel was never as close to Lilias as Violet was. To Pavel, Lilias was just an agent of Perland—his boss, sure, but he knew her in her capacity as the Citylord, not really… As a person.
It compounded his difficulty offering comfort to Violet as he rested his head against Pavel’s shoulder, his tears staining Pavel’s cloak. Thankfully, Violet wasn’t an ugly crier (well, nobody was really pretty when they cried, but Pavel didn’t have to worry about snot or anything like that at least). Surprisingly, for the most part, Violet was quiet, his sorrow instead just making his shoulders shake as he drew in breath.
This small comfort was the least he could offer Violet. (If he ended up in Violet’s position, and Violet in Lilias’s, then he was half-certain he would have come undone just the same.) He twined their fingers together and brought Violet’s hand up to his lips, kissing the back of his glove—a reminder that Pavel was solid, that he was here, that even if he didn’t have the words to soothe Violet, he would do his best to support him nonetheless.
And he’d stay there, still, quiet, waiting for Violet’s breathing to even out.
This was far from over, after all—but even at the end of the world, people needed to be allowed to grieve.