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A/N: This fic was inspired by a wuwa fan comic, made by the artist @mopahu on X/twitter. I thought it was a very romantic idea, though this fic’s concept heavily modifies it. You can find the comic at x dot com /mopahu/status/1937843219632664836
This fic has no relation to any other fics that I have written or will write.
Beads of Red
…
The world was white.
The gust pulled at Rover’s scarf, the all-piercing chill forcing them to wrap her mouth in the hopes of keeping some of the heat in. The snowy floor fell a few inches with each step – a surprise, but only a moderate blessing. Rover could not sink in the snow, it already rendered into blinding, icy dust in the wind.
The Pursuers had not relented for months. What little rest could be carved out was taken in the branches of leafless trees.
It was hard to imagine, the heavy-hitters of both sides fleeing – depriving the conflict of a resolution before the climax. Although incurious about the reason of pursuit – whether it be outright elimination, or to persuade them to return – Rover understood that she could not give in. Her objective – farther along the path – was just out of reach.
Yet even as the blizzard’s icy talons raked at her coat, a slow harmony built.
A bead of red, like an ever-watching eye, peaked through the blur of airborne snow. As though pulled by a thread, Rover was drawn to it: a crystalline Lycoris flower, standing upright on the ground.
Rover reached out, and it dissolved into crimson light. Like a corps of fireflies, it swam around in a loose cloud, quenching its light all along her body; it was warm, as though someone had stored the heat of a campfire and released it.
A particle of red hovered near her face. She looked up, and it landed. A small high: the feeling of being kissed on the forehead.
The cliff-face rushed below Rover, its sheer, icy surface not hindering her one bit as she sprinted upwards. She vaulted over the ledge, throwing themselves over to roll onto a shallow rock-shelf.
Rover tumbled, then landed, splaying out like a starfish, taking deep breathes to collect themselves. Even as the Lord Arbiter, running up a wall for a continuous half-minute still pushed their endurance to the limit.
The blizzard had dwindled, and now Rover only had the morose, gray sky to keep her company. That connection that she felt, it was getting a bit out of hand. She had been scaling the mountain for nearly a whole day. The many false-summits aggravated her; it was difficult to see the true peak whilst traversing the mountain range. Far away, one could make an easy survey. Up close, the most immediate challenger demanded that she either go about its circumference or climb to find out its true rank.
Chest rising and falling, Rover closed their eyes as the howling wind engulfed them.
Through the exhaustion, there was a twinge of feeling – a redirection from the horizon, coming closer. For a moment, in the darkness, Rover felt as though someone were leaning over above them, smiling as their hair hung about their shoulders and brushed Rover’s cheeks.
A sharp inhale – eyes opened – as though Rover had dreamed of falling from the sky. The slightest red glow hung in the cloudy low-light: a Lycoris, leaning over Rover as though giving slight shade.
Rover sat up and turned to face the flower. When she reached towards it, it didn’t dissolve. Carefully, Rover traced its petals and stem and, with some reservation, pulled it from the snow.
She twisted it between her fingers. Rover adjusted her scarf and inserted the Lycoris at the neck of her cloak. Its petals cupped one side of her face, and she smiled.
Another forest, another couple of days. Rover had slowed her pace, knowing that no matter how mobile their units were, traversing a mountain range with a large group of pursuers would take monumentally more time and effort than Rover had expended sprinting through it solo.
The trees thinned; Rover suspected that they were about to enter a clearing. She had no allies anymore. If there was a sign of civilization, it would be best to proceed with caution.
Yet as the path cleared, there was no sign of life. There was just a hill, and on that hill there was a sight Rover had become too familiar with. Even after all of this time, she could not get used to this feeling.
Wooden posts dotted the slope, arranged in a battalion at either side of a central path leading to the top. With so little place to put a name and an epitaph, it had become common practice to simply leave something of that person on the post. For half of the lost souls, it was a piece of cloth, waving in the gust.
From the look of how many wooden posts were barren of anything, a dreadful feeling settled. Whether the thief was the blizzard or some exile, many had lost the one fragment of identity they had left.
Rover sunk into the feeling; the connection told her to proceed. But why here?
The Lycoris tucked into her collar grew warm against her neck, and it dissociated.
As though in a dream, the notion that Rover could not steal a glance at the girl at her side took hold. As the ethereal woman’s hand took hers, Rover interlaced her fingers without thinking about it.
It was a familiar feeling.
Rover took one step forward, and the phantom stayed perfectly in her peripheral vision. She proceeded up the hill, in the direction where the connection grew strongest.
It was halfway up the hill when Rover’s internal compass diverted her to one of the aisles on her left. With the realization of where she was heading, Rover’s heart fell into her gut, yet she felt that hand in hers squeeze a bit more. Her companion leaned in, hugging Rover’s arm.
These graves were clearly not recent. The graveyard’s vanguard was near the top.
Who had Rover not seen in the longest time?
Rover kept walking, slowly tracing the circumference of the large hill. As graves disappeared far behind her, new ones peaked ahead, until a bead of red emerged in the distance.
And there it was. It was unmistakable, even from this distance. Rover broke into a sprint; her companion followed, trailing weightlessly by her hand.
Sliding on her knees next to the Lycoris, she swept up that fragment of identity up in her arms, and she hunched over.
It was colder than the blizzard’s talons: metal. A broken gun, burst from the inside.
The fate of the wielder rushed into her: fighting wave after wave, body growing hotter, overheating – but it was not her body that broke first, but her weapons. Then it had ended soon after, the rashness that enabled endless heroics making retreat to fight another day a non-starter.
Beside Rover, the Lycoris that had marked the grave dissolved.
Softly, the feeling of someone wrapping their arms around her. Rover’s eyes clamped shut, she leaned into it. The phantom guided Rover into their bosom and let them stay there for as long as she wanted.
Heavy.
The grass, green in spring. Wakefulness seeped from Rover, red, slicking a trail behind her.
No risks.
Rover had been asleep. How would you kill a legend in their sleep?
Without risk. All at once, at a safe distance.
Not so safe… heh heh. An air of pettiness pervaded her. There was not a soul for miles to appreciate it.
As Rover smiled to herself like a madwoman, she continued walking. At times, it was as though she were sleepwalking, eyes falling to the ground without meaning to, then startling to attention much farther along than she remembered.
Even as Rover channeled aero, it only deterred her from bleeding out.
As the sun sank to the horizon, a small quote from a book Rover read centuries ago flitted back into her memory: there are not two suns in the sky, nor two sovereigns over the people.
She sighed. The founder of a nation, in this state.
Heavy.
How tall was this hill?
Rover reached its zenith and fell to her knees. Sitting on her heels, her eyes floated to the sky; her vision swam. Through the blur, the sky broken in orange and purple, Rover thought she saw stars. This peace, it was as though she were at the Black Shores again. She inhaled; the smell of saltwater.
…?
The rolling hills came to focus again, no body of water in sight.
A realization, like lightning striking the top of her head.
Rover looked down, and there was a Lycoris, half-dissolved.
The scent of saltwater.
Where was there saltwater?
The wind softly brushed the grass, turning. It traced a circle around Rover, carrying loose blades of grass and light debris.
Layers of suppression, tearing one-by-one like gauze being cut. With each level, the gust’s violence grew, rising until its tempest lifted the dried blood from Rover’s skin and tore into the crown of the hill.
One foot down, and the tornado bloomed outward like a flower. Streams of wind raced out in lopsided ovals, drawing petals that tore through hills like giant spears. Clods of dirt, clay, and grass rose as though being raptured, then were weathered into imperceptible dust.
Rover jumped, and the wind caught her, throwing her in the direction of the nearest sea.
The waves rolled on the beach, leaving streams of salty foam in their wake. Rover dug the tips of her boots into the sand, upturning it with each step. The wind ebbed into the aquamarine sea: morning, when the coolness of night tilted and drove the gusts into the water.
Would it be worth it?
A question, the answer of which grew more uncertain as time passed.
Maybe something had changed, and it wouldn’t work anymore. It all could have been for nothing.
The traces you left behind kept my heart full, but I could give you nothing in return. So far ahead – would you look at me the same?
The connection had grown faint. It had not been so tenuous all this time, yet despite this, Rover smiled.
No more crutches, right? The tension made Rover’s heartstrings go taut.
She had to be near.
The highway of sand grew narrow, crags of rock invading either side. The waves hit the rocks, and for a moment, its sound lingered in Rover’s mind. Was it because of the way the crags settled? One crash of deeper tone, and two more moderate: the lower part of a waltz.
The wind blew past Rover’s ears. It’s multitude forbade any sense of tone, but in the way it rushed and relented there was the essence of a melody: careful, stepping quarter-notes landing on longer holds, then going back up as though floating.
Rover sped up to a jog, traversing the uneven terrain in a series of vaults and hops. The crags gave way to a cliff face. Rover tore up its rough surface. As she reached its shelf, she looked out to where the wind flowed.
The rock cliff jutted out into a natural pier, raised high above the sea.
Out so far it was as though she were going to fall, there was a Conductor looking out into the blue.
Her left hand swayed in short crescent paths, counting the three-beat measures. The waves crashed below, and the Conductor, with her right, swung a Lycoris and drew harmony out of the waves and wind.
One by one, different pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The low accompaniment, the melody, the countermelody – waning and waxing in their prominence to draw focus.
Rover let the sound go through her. She hummed a new melody as she walked. When Rover had come close enough, the Conductor’s hands hesitated. Rover’s melody became more playful; the Lycoris’ path altered.
Together, they musically sparred, improvising a response to the other’s invention.
Rover put her chin on Phrolova’s shoulder and hugged her softly from behind. Their musings interwove above the waters. Even though the Conductor had stopped directing, the song continued, as though the sea had approved of it.
They stood there, looking over the heights.
Phrolova softly squeezed Rover’s hands. With that, she let go, and Phrolova finally turned towards her.
The dawn’s orange light gave way to a silver-blue, and it all seemed to shrink down to the deepest part of Phrolova’s irises. A bridge between red and red, Rover couldn’t help but think of the petals of a flower. For petals of darker hues, its ends were solid and full of color, but if plucked, it faded at its base.
Rover slid her handprints into Phrolova’s, and Phrolova smiled – like someone who had achieved their coup de grace; Rover loved it, even more so when in a moment shared only by them, she smiled like that, and Rover understood that she was imagining how perfect the moment was – as though she had stepped into a play, a movie.
Their hands locked, and it began.
To the rhythm of the waltz, the rock shelf was their ballroom, the waves and wind as their orchestra.
One step at a time, not thinking twice in the moment.
They danced on the gray slate. So close, even then competing, they found new reasons: how it was all worth it, how the past could be put away for good.
With a single dance, they could start over, one day at a time.
Then like poetry, coming back to this moment and knowing all these feelings again, reading into it another hue that came with new experiences.
All notions of propriety extinguished, Phrolova laughed. Nobody had told a joke, but something bubbled within them anyways; their smiles became round. Phrolova rested her head against Rover’s shoulder, and they slowly swayed, holding each other, until the winds ceased long after.
A/N: Loving-couple maxxing.
I couldn’t make Phrolova evil this time, bc this piece was short and it would grate against the concept of the story. However, I’d wager you can be a little evil and also in love.
Hope you enjoyed. Until next time.