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Are you ready?
Sophie wasn't sure she would ever be ready for what came next. Familiar faces stared into her back, and it was far too many for comfort. How could she have let so many of her friends put themselves in harms way?
The voice, accented and sounding as anxious as she felt, swept through her head like a breeze, and Sophie almost looked for the source. But she knew he was nowhere to be found. Fitz was somewhere else, with more of their friends, about to fight his own battle.
I don't know if 'ready' is the right word.
She couldn't lie to Fitz, she knew that too well. If she could, she would in a heartbeat. But she couldn't wrap every feeling up in a nice, ice blue colored box and string it up with a bow. She was learning that the hard way.
Just call if anything happens. Remember: swan song.
Sophie cringed at the codeword. The thought of hearing it in her mind made her insides curtle, and she almost took a step back from her post.
But everyone was looking at her. She was a leader. She was a child leading children into battle.
She couldn't even get herself to look around, afraid that each face would chip away at her carefully built armor and leave her vulnerable to her fear. She couldn't afford to be afraid when she held a dagger in her hand.
Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid—
"Hey," Sophie heard from somewhere on her left. A hand fell on her shoulder, and she turned to find the familiar sight of Keefe looking at her with furrowed brows. She didn't realize her hands were shaking until Keefe reached down to take Hope out of her too-loose grasp.
Before Keefe could open his mouth, Sophie blurted, "I'm not scared." She held his stare, willing him not to argue her on the statement; they both knew it wasn't true, but she needed to believe it. Maybe Keefe did, too.
He nodded and, careful not to touch the knife he held to her skin, placed his other hand on Sophie's other shoulder, steadying her and facing her head on. Sophie almost dipped her head, but she knew if she had, she would start crying.
"I'm not, either. Not as long as I've got you with me out here," Keefe murmured, but he was still loud enough that Sophie heard Dex whine from somewhere behind her about "gross and mushy." She didn't mind all that much, though. His teasing had become the new normal.
If she thought about their current situation, it wasn't all that far off from their normal. Sophie would be lying if she said she weren't regularly flirting with death, and gearing up to fight what could potentially be a multispeciesial battle wasn't one of the craziest things she'd ever done. Nor was it the first time she'd done it.
But this time she had a dagger. And she was really planning to use it.
Every person on their side had a blade of some sort. Thanks to the help of the dwarves and goblins they had a hefty supply of weapons of many ranges, and had trained with them for as long as they could. But the idea of spilling so much blood, of causing so much pain, was clearly starting to bother Sophie at the most inopportune time.
"Hey," Keefe said again when Sophie's eyes drifted off to nowhere, and she blinked away the thoughts. "Nobody is spilling innocent blood today, Sophie. I don't like the guilt I'm feeling from you."
"Neither do I," she admitted, and she wished so dearly that she hadn't made Keefe promise to stop her if she went for an eyelash. "I know they're not innocent. But I'm not either — or at least, I won't be, if I use that," she told him, finally airing out one of the worries she'd wanted to hide. She wanted to be a good leader, and good leaders weren't supposed to be scared of their own weapons.
Keefe ducked to meet her eyes once again when she finally dropped her stare to their boots, and Sophie really was in danger of crying when he spoke. "Neither am I," he whispered. Nobody whined or mocked them this time. "I mean, I hit my mom with a goblin throwing star, but she also nailed me in the head with a rock, so I consider that one even."
Sophie had to snort a laugh at that, a snotty one, but a laugh nonetheless. Keefe smiled, his eyes crinkled in the corners, and his lips fell lopsided with the ghost of his smirk. Sophie loved that about his smile.
"I am scared," she admitted quietly. She couldn't lie to Keefe, either, whether she liked it or not. "What if something happens to one of you? What if—"
What if something happens to you?
She transmitted the question, not wanting to air out her deepest fear to everyone milling around behind her, waiting for their battle to begin. Sophie's battle had been waging for years already.
Keefe didn't answer her, only raised his unarmed hand to cup Sophie's cheek, and traced his thumb over her skin like she were the most precious thing he'd ever get to touch. His gaze dipped to her neck, where a beaded necklace lay across her skin, a panakes blossom painted into the center bead. His expression nearly knocked the wind out of her.
She didn't want to cry, not while she was wearing armor and a circlet and had a small army behind her. But she could feel the words beneath his fingertips, behind his eyes. They echoed her own; What if something happens to you?
Her breathing was shaky already, her eyes threatened to betray her, and she knew there were no words to make their situation any less terrifying. Truly she felt there was nothing else to do in that moment but grab the collar of Keefe's shirt and yank him into a kiss.
It may have been short, boring, and in front of a lot of people Sophie wasn't too comfortable kissing in front of, but she needed to feel the touch of Keefe's lips. Especially if it could be the last time.
Letting go was harder than she thought it would be. She could kiss him all day, and he'd let her. But her eyes were stinging, and she couldn't stay in her safe place forever.
Keefe returned Sophie's dagger to her right hand, and she was glad that the weight felt natural to her arm, the hilt comfortable in her palm. She wasn't shaking anymore, either. If she wasn't so sure she wasn't enhancing, she'd think Keefe was sending her wisps of calm breezes through the unique connection with their abilities. But it was just being around Keefe himself; he was the gentle breeze that calmed Sophie to her core, and grounded her to her reason to keep fighting.
"There's the resolve," Keefe sighed, and Sophie wished he knew the extent to which that was true. She made a silent promise to herself to tell him after everything was said and done that day. Because she would get that chance.
She would make sure of it.
For now she would have to settle for telling him, "I'm ready."