Work Text:
Maybe there isn’t a God.
Maybe there are no Powers That Be.
Or maybe there are; and God is indifferent, and the Powers That Be are cruel.
He can smell blood again.
He can feel dirt under his fingernails.
The grasses of the steppe are withering under the merciless sun.
The river is drying while the fish drown.
The town is full of the dead.
He sees the ravens land.
Ready to feast on the dead.
This is, he seems to recall, how they gain their powers.
He stumbles and falls.
There’s no point in picking himself up again.
The ravens are jeering.
The town.
The kin.
Daniil.
What has he done?
He is a haruspex who has rejected his duty and damned them all.
The ravens stop their cawing abruptly.
He raises his head and sees a familiar figure standing amongst them.
The gathered valravne wait patiently.
The feathered mask tells him everything that he needs to know.
But then those gloved hands lift the mask away from Daniil’s face.
And the eyes that turn towards Artemy aren’t empty at all.
The ravens shriek.
“Enough!”
Daniil’s voice is thunderous.
It seems to resonate as if erupting from the earth itself.
The ravens, the valravne, launch themselves up into the air.
It’s almost as if they’re fleeing.
Daniil holds a hand out to him and Artemy grasps it tightly.
He’s pulled to his feet.
He stares down into Daniil’s face.
“Come back to me.”
And in the split-second when he realises that he’s dreaming, that none of this is, currently, real, he hears Daniil’s voice again.
“I won’t let them have you.”
And the conviction in those words is suddenly terrifying.
This, too, is a possible future.