Chapter Text
“I told you not to leave anyone alone in marrowbone! It’s a barrel of explosives waiting to blow!” Miss Avocet snaps, angry and upset as she drags the younger Ymbrynes with her towards the Panloopticon. "What were you thinking?!"
"We were just trying to help." Miss Treecreeper said meekly, wincing at the woman's strong grip as she was pulled along.
"Alma and Isabelle never turned up for their shift." Miss Thrush agreed, though both women went ignored by their former teacher, who merely picked up the pace walking.
Miss Blackbird waits for them at the door of the Panopticon, and if the younger Ymbrynes were trying to make excuses before, they now fall quiet. They know it’s a bad omen when she stands there, calmly waiting with her third eye spinning in it’s socket.
“I told you not to leave her alone!" She hiss at Miss Avocet, berating her for something beyond her control and she glares at her former students in turn.
“I didn’t, Bonnie, Florence and Millicent did! They left their positions to look for Alma and Isabelle." Esmeralda defended herself, but her face softened somewhat as she continued. "They never turned up for their shift."
Miss Blackbird shook her head, the third eye glaring at them ominously - obviously not as worried as Miss Avocet about the missing Ymbrynes. “Fools! You must hurry, and hope it’s not already too late!” She ordered, opening the relevant door entitled ‘Negotiations’. “We can’t afford to lose her yet!”
“Yet? What…!” Miss Thrush starts to protest, but she is dragged along by her fellow Ymbryne and before she can finish her questioning she is already out on the other side, standing in the sweltering Texas sun.
Miss Thrush and Miss Treecreeper look at one another, not knowing what to do as the Town of Marrobone rises up in the distance.
There’s the sound of a single bullet being fired, and a sole scream that follows, before the sound of many more bullets and screams suddenly start to fill the air.
“Ravenna!” They yell in tandem, recognizing the woman screaming first as they run down the road towards the old town as fast as their legs could carry.
The leader of the Northerners, Antoine LaMothe, stands waiting by the road. He is safeguarding a tent filled with women and children, their terrified faces peek out of the opening in the fabric, and when they see the Ymbrynes they start to yell.
“The truce has been broken!” One of the women calls for them, terrified, but it’s as though they can not hear. They left their sister all alone, and now they are running, hoping they can catch up with their mistakes and make them come undone.
Once they’re in the town, they get caught in clouds of gunfire and the screaming agony of wounded soldiers, both sides firing mercilessly at each other to see who dies first.
Normally, they would've tried to stop the bloodshed, but for now there are more urgent matters to attend.
“Ravenna!” Millicent cries out, afraid to enter the fray and get hurt but worrying for her friend, knowing she needed support.
A single Ymbryne didn't stand a chance against Californios and the Northerners combined.
At first, there was no response to their inquiries. The world around them was perfectly silent except for the noises belonging to merciless battle being fought, leaving the standing there until it suddenly wasn't - a soft voice breaking through the frey.
“Millie….down here..” It’s quiet, weak, but it is recognizable, and the Ymbrynes knows immediately who it is that is speaking.
“The stables!” Florence concluded, going down a side street to come to the back of the big building. The noise is even louder there, the animals inside screaming along with their unfortunate owners, but no hearing is needed to see the figure slumped against the wall.
Miss Babax is all but laying in the street, panting harshly and grasping with her hand at a spot just below her left breast, the other hand at the side of her neck. Red blood drenches her clothes and skin, so much of it already having leaked out that it was hard to say what comes from where, and if it was just her or someone else as well.
“Millie…” She gasps, moving her hand away from her neck to reach for her friend, only for a thick river of blood to burst forth when she did.
“Ravenna put it back!” Florence ordered in a panic, falling down on her knees next to Miss Babax to inspect her injuries. “What did they do to you?”
“The truce was broken” She whimpered, upset and in agonizing pain. “They fired their guns...I had to… aaah!” She broke off into cries of pain as Miss Treecreeper started to prod at the wound in her chest, which also gushed blood without a hand there to stop it.
Quickly, Florence pressed her weakened friend's hand back against the hole, adding some of her own strength on top of it to stop the blood coming out.
"At least it missed her heart" She concluded matter-of-fact, pushing the hand down tighter. "She'd be dead if it had hit it’s mark."
"And her neck?" Miss Thrush asked, helping her friend to put pressure on the second injury. "It's bleeding bad!"
Florence glared at her. "It's like the other wound, the bullet must've missed! It would've killed her if it was really in her neck." She sighed. "It was probably just scratched."
At that moment, Miss Babax seemed to come awake, starting to cough violently until blood was coming up to stain her lips and her previously vacant eyes started to slip shut.
"Ravenna don't!" Miss Thrush shook her shoulder forcefully, worried that she wouldn't wake up again if she fell asleep. "Florence, do something!"
"Move your hand and keep her awake." Florence muttered."I can fix that neck but we need to get her back to the Acre. The chest wound can't be fixed without proper surgery and the help of a bonemender." She warned, wrapping the neck in gauze and seeing her mistake as the blood immediately started blooming through the layers. "She needs to get back to the acre." She sighed, concerned.
"How?" Miss Thrush snapped, trying to help Miss Babax up, but almost falling down herself as Miss Babax couldn't carry any of her own body weight.
"I don’t know, but she'll die if we don't!" Florence hissed, rushing to help support their friend when she failed to carry herself.
Miss Babax shook her head tiredly, trying to break free of the support that was keeping her upright. "Leave me." She said, "Just…" She stopped, coughing and choking as blood went up her throat, eventually resulting in her spitting it out on the street. "It's too late" She concluded, resigned to her own death.
The other two Ymbrynes stared at each other, shocked and disbelieving as they tried desperately to figure out a proper response of some kind.
"Ravenna we can't…" Finally, Miss Thrush is the one who starts to talk, but she is interrupted as a loose bullet comes flying into the alley, ricocheting off the walls and forcing them to scatter. Ravenna falls right back down on the ground without the support of her sisters, Florence and Millicent throwing themselves after her to avoid the shot.
The single bullet is followed by soldiers, and soon they are being held at gunpoint by Carlifornios, all of them grinning maliciously. “Look! There’s more of them!” One soldier exclaimed, and they all laughed as Miss Thrush felt her blood go cold.
“More of us?” She asked very weakly, trembling as she saw the gun pointed at her head.
The Carlifornian soldier simply lifted his hand to his mouth and whistled, upon which command two more soldiers came out of the stables, holding Miss Peregrine and Miss Cuckoo to them with knives placed tightly against their throats.
“We intercepted these two at the loop entrance. Luckily, they were smart enough not to put up a fight” The leader of the group explained all too happily, directing a light kick against Miss Babax side, eliciting a gasp of pain from the injured woman laying on the ground.
“Ravenna!” Despite knowing she had been told not to, Miss Cuckoo shouted. Her partner, her lover, is laying near-unconscious and heavily bleeding in the street, gasping for breath as their kidnappers kick her. She cries, desperate to try and break free from the man that held her to help her love.
“Isabelle don’t!” Miss Peregrine hissed, but it’s too late. The soldiers are back to kick Miss Babax harder and the knife against Miss Cuckoo’s throat is tightening, as is the one against Miss Peregrine’s.
Seeing her friends being held tighter with sharp knives pressed hard against their throat; Miss Thrush breaks into sobs as well, thinking that this is it. They’re all going to die, simply for trying to help these poor people. Their children would be abandoned, and it was all their own fault.
The man who is going to slit Miss Cuckoo’s throat never came that far, the knife cutting into her skin but not slicing anything as a bullet passed through his brain and she was released, stumbling and falling straight down on the ground next to her lover. Miss Peregrine’s capture goes next, and before Miss Treecreeper or Miss Thrush can do anything for themselves, the remaining soldiers have run, frightened as Northerners swarm the space to protect the Ymbrynes.
“Come on!” LaMothe swept in, gesturing for the Ymbrynes to follow him. “We need to leave now!” He ordered them, impatient.
“We can’t leave!" Miss Treecreeper argued, falling down to check on Miss Babax and Miss Cuckoo. “They’re injured. Ravenna can’t possibly walk.”
LaMothe shook his head. “Get the other one on her feet. We’re sending you back to your own loop.” He gestured for one of his largest soldiers, who picked up the unconscious Miss Babax without trouble, carrying her in his arms.
“Why are you helping us?” Miss Peregrine asked, frowning as she followed behind, supporting Miss Cuckoo, who had a thin river of blood running down her neck and was struggling to walk straight.
"Ravenna" Miss Cuckoo moaned, and Miss Peregrine clung on tighter, steering her straight so she wouldn't run into anything.
"Shh, she's okay" Alma lied to her confused friend as they walked. She knew if she said anything else, at this point, she wouldn't get Isabelle to the loop entrance.
They're almost at the edge of town when, suddenly, they stopped, and before any of the Ymbrynes can react the Northerners fired a round of bullets in order to mow down three Californios that came out before them, all three falling dead to the ground before they could even raise their own rifles.
"We are protecting you because of her." LaMothe finally explained, pointing to the ashened Miss Babax. "She took two bullets for a child from my side of the conflict. If not for her, she'd be dead. This is paying back the debt."
The Ymbrynes all looked at each other, worried, but then they actually arrived at the loop entrance and found two more of their sisters waiting, along with more Northerners, and Sharon.
"We got them" He said, bowing before Miss Avocet, who merely looked anxious at the state of her former students.
"Are they all alive? I was very clear Antoine!" She snapped angrily, her worried gaze going to Miss Babax. She lay slack in the soldier's arm, unmoving.
"They will be if you hurry," Antoine said calmly. "My man will carry her where you need to, then he'll return and the debt will be paid.
Miss Avocet huffed. "Give her to Sharon. Your men have done enough." She instructed, gesturing for everyone to go.
Sharon gently held out his bony arms, accepting the heavy body with surprising ease. Immediately as his skin touched hers, he started to swear angrily.
"It's bad Esmeralda" He reported as they crossed over from one loop to the other, hos voice heavy with worry. "An hour and a half, at most. She’s going fast." He warned.
Miss Peregrine gasped. She knew what it meant when Sharon said that, and she knew the danger Ravenna was in. Behind her, Miss Treecreeper had gone pale too, running to the front of the group.
"She need a bonemender and serious surgery." Miss Treecreeper suggested. "She's nearly hit in the heart with a bullet that’s still in there and I'm afraid the neck injury is much worse than I thought."
Miss Avocet nodded sharply. "I hope you're ready for it, Miss Treecreeper." She said - the use of her formal name making all the Ymbrynes shiver. It was a very bad sign that Miss Avocet was so unhappy.
Florence, however, simply squared her shoulders and nodded. "I am."
It leaves no room for arguing, and minutes later she finally run away with the bonemender to do what they need to, while another mender kindly asked for Miss Peregrine and Cuckoo to sit down, the later's throat still squirting red that slowly trickled down on her clothes.
"What happened?" The mender asked, inspecting Isabelle first, trying to mop up the thing trail of blood with a napkin.”Who tried to slit your throat?”
"Yes, what happened?" Miss Thrush fretted from the sideline, still extremely guilty about Miss Babax as she watched Miss Cuckoo be taken care of.
Miss Cuckoo was silent, unresponsive, completely ignoring the questions posed to her. Only as the wound was bandaged did she make a sound, a low whimper making it out of her throat.
Miss Peregrine swallowed, looking at her distant friend before speaking for the both of them. "We were captured by the Californians the moment we came into the loop. Their plan was for you to leave so there wouldn't be enough Ymbrynes left to fight them when they fired." She tries to brush the bone mender off when she comes, but winces when the rough hands are pushed against the pink line left behind by the knife, and she let them heal it.
"We're sorry" Miss Thrush said, shivering. "We were just trying to find you...we didn't want them to hurt Ravenna."
The moment the name is said, Miss Cuckoo comes alive. Her head snapped to the side, staring them down. "How dare you do this?!" She asked, screaming without any real reason to. "You abandoned her! You left your sister to fend for herself! For us!"
Before any of them has time to really comprehend, Miss Cuckoo is sobbing into her hands, weakly pulling at the tightly wrapped white gauze around her neck. Miss Peregrine extends an arm, pulling her best friend into a sympathetic hug.
"She will be okay Belle" Alma mumbles, and Millicent just can not stand it because she knows, she knows that if it had been Florence she would be sobbing just as desperately.
She'd be just as mad, just as betrayed, because they really did fail. Fail in protecting one of their own, a sister who might just die for their mistakes.
"Millicent" Miss Avocet's bony hand is recognizable simply by it's firm touch, and she jumps up, ready to speak, only for the other woman to gesture to her not to.
Instead, she leads her out into the corridor while Miss Cuckoo continues to sob, and by the time they make it there she's pretty sure she knows why her old mentor wouldn't just come out with it.
"Did she die?" She asked, shaking and nearly crying herself, absolutely overwhelmed by the guilt for what happened. "Did Ravenna die?!"
Miss Bunting comes from behind, her soft hands and rose-perfume pulling her into a tight hug. Always comforting, always loving, it make Millicent relax at once.
"She's alive, Millie dear." She assured her sweetly, and nothing had ever sounded better to the ymbryne in her arms.
"Barely" Miss Avocet huffed, then sighed. "She's still in surgery, but she won't die. Mother made sure of that." She explained.
Miss Thrush nodded shaking. She knew it was truly bad if Mother Dust had been called. The self-sacrificing healer had been quick to offer herself up once they freed her from the Wights, and the Ymbrynes had all agreed to be better and not continue to exploit the woman and her gratuitousness.
It had been an even easier choice to make once Sharon took upon himself to protect the woman and her child, something much more soon blossoming between the two peculiars.
Miss Thrush swallowed again, thinking of how much it must hurt to watch the person you loved pick themselves apart.
"How much did it take?" she asked hesitantly.
"A toenail" Miss Bunting said quietly, holding Miss Thrush closer. "Don't be upset Millie. It's fine, I promise."
Miss Thrush just shook her head, too upset to comprehend. She felt the guilt tearing her up, and so she just cried.
Miss Avocet sighed. "It will be fine, girl."