Chapter Text
This is new and horrible, Ava thinks to herself as her body thrums in agony, her limbs failing to move, every one of her nerve endings sizzling in pain. The feeling of being trapped and helpless fills her mind. If she had made it through the Arc, this should all be gone, Lilith said this was the only way to heal her and nothing about her current state of feeling felt like it was being healed.
Her second thought is that she is waking from the longest most elaborate dream she’s ever had. If she opens her eyes, she’ll find herself back in her bed at the orphanage, Diego to her right, the events of the past three maybe four months the result of too many hours in front of the tv and her brain deciding to create an entirely new life to cover the horrific experience of her child and early adulthood.
She’s not sure what would be worse. If it never happened or if it did. Either way, she would be alone. Again.
Ava squeezes her eyes shut tighter, bargaining with herself. If it was all a dream she’d start trying to get her body to move, doing exercises, stop fighting with the nuns so they help her instead of hinder. If she’s back in the orphanage she’ll start writing letters or, well, find a confidant to write letters for her. The muscle memory of writing is there from her dream but the real life application might be gone.
If her Mother Superion didn’t actually exist, if the order wasn’t real, there would still be nuns and sisters of the faith she could meet. Write to and try to gain favor so at eighteen they’d accept her into their fold.
The other option, walking alone in a desert in the Arc Realm, well, she’d just have to open her eyes to figure out her plan of attack. Or she could keep them closed and let the Tarask rip her to shreds without having to see their approach. She couldn’t fight back anyway.
All she has to do is just open her eyes. The simplest of tasks, it doesn’t require anything, but she would give up everything the moment she does. She would give up the people she has grown to love with a fierce intensity whether they were a dream or not. She would give up knowing anything real about herself, she would give up touch and exploration and learning and growing. She would give up earth in it’s entirety if everything was real.
She keeps her eyes shut, not ready for reality as she lets her head move from side to side. All she feels against the roots of her hair is the granulated heat of millions of overheated pieces of sand. She leans far enough to one side to feel the sand against her cheek, feeling it waterfall down a piece at a time when she rights her head again. She needs to feel more.
Pushing her mind out to the rest of her body, she wills her hands to move, to reach and feel for something, anything to ground her. All she feels is a bead of sweat drop from her forehead, feels her jaw muscles twitch in excursion, hears the groan from her throat before...
There.
She feels her hand jerk, her fingers twitch. She feels the same heat against her fingertips that she feels against the back of her head. Pushing more, willing harder, her fingers curl around a handful of sand, so similar to the first time she ran on a beach months or a single sleep ago. Almost like this dream or alternate reality is taunting her. Teasing her with feelings she knows to be true in her heart but not yet solidified in her mind.
She digs her fingers deeper, feeling the heat of the top layer break away to colder granules, so cold Ava thinks her fingers might come away with the black of frostbite. But she keeps them there, letting the heat of the surface and the cold of deeper layers wake her body up. Jolt her back to herself.
Eyes still closed she lets waves of heat and cold consume her body, lets herself be carried by the waves of whim and mystery. She could be anywhere in space and time, she could be anything, she could be the very sand she touches beneath her. All it would take to figure it out is to open her eyes.
Open your eyes you shit head, just open your eyes. Do it and get it over with. It can’t be worse than being murdered or dying so just open your god damn eyes.
Even with a pep talk, Ava doesn’t look, can’t look, won’t look. She plays back the last three months. Everything she’s done, who she’s become, what she’s been able to do, the people she has been able to love. She doesn’t want to give it up yet but she knows, eventually, she’ll have to. Ten more seconds and she’ll do it, ten more seconds of memories and she'll throw herself into this.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five-
“Hey shithead.”
—-
Beatrice sits until the overheated metal of the Arc cools enough to send a shiver through her body. She feels like all of the warmth is slowly being sucked from her body the longer Ava is gone. She doesn’t know the math, doesn’t know how long an hour is in the Arc Realm, doesn’t know how long a day is. All she knows is that Ava has been gone too long. She knows the Arc isn’t going to power back up. She knows Camila will be down any second and will realize what’s happened.
Ava is gone, Michael is no more than a smear on the floor, Lilith is no longer their sister. Intrinsically Beatrice knows she is not alone, she knows she has the new sister warriors, Mother Superion, Camila. She has them but Beatrice has never felt more lost and alone than she does now.
In a cavernous space that has taken everything from her, it does give back one thing though. It gives back the echoes of her sobs. Echoing sobs that swirl together with the still ringing sound of Ava’s I love you.
The echoes seem to taunt her, telling her she didn’t fight hard enough, didn’t train Ava enough. Didn’t do enough.
Beatrice knows she could’ve done something else, something more if she just had more time. More time to figure out what they were supposed to do or more time to figure out how to defeat Adriel. With time, she could have figured out what the secrets of the thorned crown were, what the Arc actually is. If she just had more time she knows she could have saved Ava. If not saved, made sure she was safe and free in her next inside the Arc. But Beatrice sent her there on the brink of death with no idea would would encounter once there.
A small part of Beatrice knows that that’s not true though, not for one specific thing. She had time. She had plenty of time to do the one thing that she’s been thinking about for months. She had an opening. She had a stage, spotlights, a captive audience and she still couldn’t do it. She couldn’t say it.
She let Ava slip through her hands and into the Arc before she allowed herself to say those three words back. By the time she said them, said them for herself, admitting it out loud for the first time, it was too late. She was too late and Ava would be alone, in an unknown realm, not knowing that Beatrice loves her back. Had said it back but was too late.
It brings about another round of tears, fighting through exhaustion and dehydration to make themselves known. Stinging down Beatrice’s cheeks to remind her of how much she has failed. She hopes they scar, she hopes they leave lasting track marks to remind her of how much she’s failed every time she looks in the mirror. She hopes her sadness cuts deep enough for others to see, to know so she won’t have to talk about it. Talk about her failures and how it was her fault that Ava is gone.
Slowly, Beatrice starts to take out the remaining knives from her tactical habit. She sets them one by one on the Arc. After the weapons comes the bulletproof wrap, her leather belts, every outer layer protecting her from harm. Last, she slides her tight cowl from her head, unclasping it and pulling it from around her neck.
Standing on numb, shaky legs, Beatrice looks at the weight she has shed, the tools and disguise she has worn and wielded for years. Her duty on display at the foot of an altar that took everything from her.
She doesn’t feel any lighter, she doesn’t feel unburdened. She feels lost and empty. Bitter and furious. Heartbroken and devastated.
Footsteps mix with her echoing sobs and Ava’s long gone voice. Beatrice steals herself, wiping her face, wanting the scars to show but the tears to be gone when she is found. She stands in a common nun’s outfit, the only distinguishing features of her are the OCS pendant and her uncovered hair. She turns, squaring her jaw and shoulders, ready to inform the others of what has happened with a straight face and no heart at all.