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Kristen Applebees watches Buddy Dawn die and for a moment sees herself - throat slit, blood oozing across the dusty bricks. She wonders if that could have been her.
If her parents hadn’t been quite aggressive enough with their faith to prompt her stumbling down the path towards the Bad Kids. If she’d never died that first day and been slapped in the face by a god who didn’t have an answer. If she hadn’t finally found her family in her freshman year of highschool, hadn’t fought side by side with people she trusted more than anything else in the world, hadn’t died again and finally found a divine purpose that felt right.
Maybe then she’d still believe in Helio, be his chosen one and be so confident in all of it that she could stand at the side of a game of beer pong with a beer can of water at a party she’d never fully be a part of. Maybe she’d meet everyone with a blanket congeniality, truly believing that she could save them with the light of the sun and answering every insult with a smile and a prayer. And be murdered by people she thought were her friends.
Kristen Applebees watches Buddy Dawn’s adventuring party kill him in well practised movements and feels sick to her stomach. She watches the Bad Kids fighting for her, for each other, in the colosseum and knows the Rat Grinders don’t have that kind of love between them, not anymore.
She feels a roar of flame hit the side of her face as Fig smashes her bass into the wyvern with a swing guided by Adaine’s spectral hands over hers. Chords crashing through the air, Kristen feels the opening notes of Dawn of Justice sink deep into her bones as Fig just laughs and throws a wink Fabian’s way. The low thrum of Gorgug’s Warding Bond tugs at her core as she feels him welcome the fury of the purple worm, taking damage that would destroy the rest of them with ease and swinging his axe twice as hard each time. He’s back to back with Fabian who swirls his battlesheet with glee, sword glowing as it arcs through the air with impossible fluidity, destroying the crab monster without even leaving its grasp. Kristen hears him yell Nice shot The Ball! and there’s a flash of gold in her periphery as he throws a bardic Riz’s way.
A shockwave sends her stumbling as a massive spectral hand slams into the side of the purple worm and Adaine grants Gorgug a moment for an extra lungful of air. Her eyes glow white as she twists fate in their favour, unbothered by the teeth of the mimic clamped into her thigh, smirking as her constructs send monsters shrieking and clawing at their eyes. She has enough trust to turn away from the pentacorn at her back because she knows Fabian’s sent the Hangman to guard her without even needing to check. Kristen jumps as a bullet from Riz’s gun cracks through the air, toppling the umber hulk, and she knows he’s not even watching it fall as he scrambles for cover, calculating their next moves and calling out shots that the others take without hesitation.
Does Kipperlilly do that for the Rat Grinders? Or did she only used to, back when they were the High Five Heroes?
Were they once comforted by the sharp whoosh of an arrow, knowing it meant Ivy was always watching their back? Did they used to hum along to chords they’d unwittingly learned as Ruben helped patch up their wounds? Was Oisin’s voice as familiar in their minds as their own? Would they forever associate the click of a can tab with the scent of mangoes?
Would they always be reminded of a healing touch when the first snow fell or a cold sun shone on a bright winter morning?
Did they still remember what that felt like? Did they flinch when they were met with blinding golden light and the whisper of corn stalks instead? Or did they flinch because they were forever reminded that they would never feel her frost again?
Kristen Applebees watches the light leave Buddy Dawn’s eyes and realises that this was meant to be permanent as she does not find her diamonds. She hears him ask if ‘everything was okay’ again in her head.
He knew her disdain for his faith. He’d watched her abandon his community, his god, and rob them of their chosen one. He’d seen her campaign against his friend every single day and despite the neutral tone in her words when they spoke he knew she did not care for him. And despite all the anger he held against her, he’d asked her if everything was okay just before he died.
He’d had the assuredness of someone blinding themselves to their own actions by turning to stare into the sun. A trust that he let consume him piece by piece until he believed he was nothing but a conduit for a god who thought for him, that he never enacted violence but that it was enacted through him by someone else who knew what was right. By a god who couldn’t even explain to his chosen one why there was suffering in the world.
Kristen Applebees watches Buddy Dawn’s grip on his holy book fail and wonders if he’s face to face with Helio right now. She remembers being there herself.
Maybe he’ll stride blindly into the light in a show of the loyalty drummed into him since birth. Maybe, as Helio puts his arm around his shoulders and guides him forwards, he’ll tell himself that everything happened as it was meant to because Helio doesn’t make mistakes, because he’s played his part and walked off stage just as the script said, because if it wasn’t meant to happen he would have been saved, right? If it wasn’t as it was written, Helio would have protected him, right?
Maybe he’ll ask a question just like she did and the response will thud to the bottom of his stomach, uncertainty rising like nausea in his throat. Maybe he’ll ask Helio about his betrayal - why didn’t he stop it, why did it happen - and be forced to swallow the knowledge that the god he devoted his life to cannot give him an answer.
Kristen Applebees casts spare the dying on Buddy Dawn. She hopes he’ll be okay.