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Syfyn's eyes narrow, brows furrow deep that would only enhance the lines between them as she stares at the state of what once was an admirable commander. Her sharp gaze is unwavering despite the storm, despite the heavy rain falling onto her mask.
The White Wolf struggles to stand with shaking hands, falling once more as another layer of mud coats her tired figure. Her knuckles pale, bruised, with wounded lips pursed tightly and nails digging into her palm as she endures the suffering of broken bones poking, digging into her muscle.
A bitter heart would say her title name grows less fitting than the day before, or years then when she still held it proud.
As she looks tainted, she looks as if she lacked the purity and ferocity of the White Wolf.
But the Brazen Griffin knows better.
Because she knows her.
Syfyn remembers soft white hair falling onto her freckled face. Syfyn remembers how gentle her touch was despite the coarseness traced each skin by war. She remembers deep brown eyes that stare back at her and a masked worry that hides between her soft smile and comforting voice. Of tenderness so foreign almost dreamlike.
Syfyn remembers.
But she shouldn't, she doesn't want to.
"Kill the stray dog." A voice whispers from memory.
A reminder, an unfulfilled objective.
The ex-commander finally stands — shakily so with as much strength her body could muster. Her body hunched, her discoloured hair hiding her face, with each exhale loud enough Syfyn could hear despite the thunder.
"I would never hurt you." The Wolf whispers with her head down. "Never in a million years while conscious is with me."
Guilt.
Guilt tugs onto her heartstrings like the puppet she is at the sight of what she's done.
'For fucks sake Ivy, at least put up a fight, please.'
Syfyn's movements are mechanical as she approaches Ivy. For a moment, foreign, as if each movement and this body isn't hers. The other doesn't seem to notice or is too exhausted to react to her incoming footsteps, each stride with purpose, uncaring of the sludge that smears her armour.
Syfyn knees Ivy's chin — the sound of the White Wolf's teeth crushed into each other prominent in Syfyn's ears — and she topples backwards on the ground again, this time on her back. She notes a flow of crimson dissolving from the puddle water, uncertain from a new wound or old.
Before Ivy could counter, or even focus on her companion's face, her chest is crushed by the sole of the second-in-command.
"The White Wolf is gone as she has always been." The same whisper seethes.
And Syfyn knows.
There was no familiar white hair, there was no softness, no smile, no love nor holiness in her appearance.
There's no White Wolf, there's no commander.
There's only Ivy. There's only Ivy and her scars and broken soul carved open by every weapon that curses a name that isn't uttered by her mothers.
'And you've ruined her just as others.'
'Just as you've hurt yourself.'
The edge of Syfyn's sword touches her skin,
— feeling the way her throat bobbles up and down — it glints when lighting cracks between the clouds.
Ivy merely glances at Syfyn with a bleeding eye, not even prompting her head to directly face her from the large bruise that disallows her so.
She's tired, she feels too tired. There's little movement or barely at all. There's no familiar light in her eyes, there is no resistance.
Syfyn knows that Ivy notices her hesitancy, masked as intimidation. Why wouldn't she? For she knows her ruthless efficiency, she knows her swiftness to take action. She knows a commander never wavers.
As she is the north's Brazen Griffin, and these stories of her do not lie.
Yet she's also Ivy's heart.
"I'll always love you and will always do, unquestionably and deeply so." Ivy murmurs once more.
"Even when you look at me with rage-filled eyes, and hatred boiling your heart." She touches the sword with a wounded hand. "Even if the gods and all those bleed gold are against it,"
"I'll love you still, with my being, with my everything, with what I can offer."
There was no response by the Brazen Griffin, not a dare to push the weapon further nor to pull it away from her tawny neck. Only the rain, only the wind, and god's rage rumbling, filling their ears.
Syfyn's uncertain, she continues hesitating. She forgets how to breathe.
"This won't be a problem for someone in your position, would it?"
Ivy's other hand touches the steel, now both hands gripping weakly onto the sword, growing more wounds on her palm. She stares into the emotionless golden mask of the Phoenix.
"Sy," The corner of her lips quirk, an attempt to smile. "It's okay."
"It's okay."
Syfyn's eyes scans Ivy's face, engraving each imperfection into memory. By the gods, she wished that Ivy wasn't so understanding, so accepting of this. To just last more, to live more. Maybe with that time and that hope, it'll rub onto Syfyn. Then she would hesitate more, maybe holding the sword would feel more repulsive, and possibly even then a will, a want should build up within her core that overwhelms any sense of fealty of now.
Maybe then she would have joined and left with her. Maybe then...
She narrows her eyes at the obvious doubt of her attendant's tone, expressing zero indecision by her reply. "No."
The grip on the handle tightens in her grip.
And the shining weapon of the Phoenix rises with certainty, with force.
There's no more White Wolf. There's no more commander of North. There's no more daughter of the Queens.
Ivy's eyes close, water droplets catching onto her eyelashes, as her chest rises slowly in calamity.
"I'm sorry." Syfyn whispers into nothingness.
There will be no more Ivy, only the histories recorded by fabricators and remembrances of them then.