Work Text:
The spaceship leaving for Canaan feels like a tomb. In a way, it’s not very different from the room you’ve been inhabiting for nearly three decades; excessive, filled to the brim with luxurious fabrics, comfortable pillows, beeping machines, and roses, too many roses. Probably to mask the stench of death. You hate roses.
This is not a see you later.
It’s a goodbye.
Nobody expects you to come back. And that’s how you walk the few steps to your metaphorical and literal coffin. Back straight, chin up, a kind smile on your lips, nails digging hard on Protesilaus’ arm while you concentrate on moving one foot after the other. A last show of strength, a quiet fuck you to those who think you are not even going to survive the trip.
You cannot wait to get to the wheelchair that awaits you at the end of the ramp.
As the roaring of the engines fills your ears and the seatbelt digs on your already bruising skin, your mind wanders. You are one short flight away from seeing them for the first time ever. Palamedes with his endless letters, endless ideas, endless care. Camilla, who never wrote to you directly, but managed to show how important you were to her through Palamedes’ words.
You sometimes like to close your eyes and imagine them. Palamedes probably moves his hands around a lot while he speaks. If he has long hair, the tips are probably burned, though you doubt that man settles for anything less than comfortable, so short hair it is. Camilla’s hands are probably rough and full of callouses. She probably massages the Warden’s after a long night of writing theorems. Would Camilla’s hair be short or long? You cannot imagine her going for the pretty option instead of the efficient one. Nonetheless, a selfish part of you wishes that at least one of them does. You want to play with their hair, run your fingers through it, maybe even braid it.
A giggle of delight escapes your lips. Protesilaus looks at you, concerned, but his shoulders relax as soon as he sees you and gives you a small smile back. Well, that’s a rare sight. Those are usually reserved for his kids and Mia. Or when he comes to your rooms and finds you peacefully asleep and not drenched in your own blood. So, yes, indeed. A rare sight. But he gets it. He understands. You are out. You are free. You can prove your worth. You won’t be babied around all day, at least not too much and only by him. And maybe the Sixth, but you think you can work with that, or, rather, around that. You don’t doubt you can make Pal dance to your own tune. C may be… harder to sway, but that only means you get to have your fun and learn what buttons to push. The thought almost makes you squirm in delight. Meeting new people is one of your favorite activities, but getting to truly know the people you have known and loved for twelve years…
The spaceship has barely left Rhodes when you realize the death you so patiently have waited for for years has grown restless and has come to find you.
She stabs Pro before he can even unsheathe his sword. A quiet grunt manages to escape his lips. You don’t even get to scream. You can’t even try and defend yourself. Your whole body just freezes up. You notice the tendrils of thanergy coursing through your veins. She is not trying to kill you.
Not yet.
She smiles, introduces herself, she is kind to you. You know she is going to take your place almost as soon as you see her. You can see the resemblance even before she starts to move things around in her face. Bitter tears prickle in your eyes, but you refuse to give her the satisfaction. You had accepted your death long ago, even before a little boy with too many dreams started writing to you. You being alive right now is a miracle and yet, this is the first time you fear the inevitable. You realize you don’t want to die yet. What are a few weeks, a few days even, when you have outlived your life expectancy by more than three years? Nobody expected you to live to 25, but here you are still. You want to beg. You want to beg so bad, but you don’t. You won’t. Hell, you won’t give her the satisfaction. You greet her back. Ask if she wants a cup of tea. She is courteous but doesn’t dilly-dally. Her voice, her inflections, her mannerisms change slowly to become a terrible parody of yours. You bite your lip and think about faking yours, but nobody who has heard you or seen you awaits at Canaan.
She asks you about yourself, your relationships, how do you take your breakfast. You lie with a smile, with the voice you use for Protesilaus when he asks you how your sleep was. With the calmness with which you wrote to Camilla and Palamedes about refusing his offer of engagement. She believes you. You think she maybe understands. She looks ill. Deathly ill, like you do. She probably fucking thinks she’s doing you a favor by not even giving you the chance to become a lyctor and saving you from an eternity of being devoured by cancer, unable to die.
You don’t even want to become a lyctor. Not really. You just wanted a chance to prove yourself, to live your last days without caretakers running around and making a fuss. Without being sent to Pro’s house in the countryside. Surrounded by people who actually care about you and see you as a person and not a battery of thanergy. You wanted to see C train, you wanted to read some distasteful magazines out loud while Pal tried to work. You wanted to see them, touch them, hug them —maybe even kiss them if they would have you.
“The Princess of Ida invited me to her birthday party once, but I couldn't attend, which was a pity because I heard the sweets were delicious and that her cavalier...”
“I love romance novels, their main characters with big burly arms are just exquisite you know, oh to be a carried by them into the sunset… well, anyways...”
“The cavalier of the Eight used to send me poetry when he was younger, but he will deny it if you ask him.”
“I like milk in my tea.”
“I’m mostly not well enough to walk.”
You try to stall even though you know you will be dead well before the shuttle lands. But oh, how you wish for a small miracle. For a call in the intercom from Canaan. For an asteroid to hit the ship and kill you both. But they never come, and she devours your lies one by one. For a fleeting moment, you wish you could be there when the seeds you have planted all bloom. When Camilla notices you are not taking your coffee black, enjoying the bitterness in a world determined to make of your death a sweet hymn. When she apologizes to the Third for missing her birthday. When Palamedes sees you are not wearing the pulmonary drain he invented for you. But he is such a good kid, he probably won’t confront her about it. You sigh to yourself. He is too kind for his own good. And now you fear you will be the death of him.
When she considers she is done, she thanks you and bids you farewell.
Death finally catches up to you, welcoming you not with the warm embrace of a delirious fever, a productive cough, and your own blood eating you away as you expected, but with the cold kiss of a sword piercing your heart.
It could have been worse, you think. At least it will be too late when they find your corpse. Your flesh will have rotten away and returned to the earth. You won’t be preserved in a glass coffin.
You won’t be made into poetry.