Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was supposed to be a normal trip. Just get the wyrmsilk and get out. Nothing crazy.

Lainn’s first mistake was forgetting to question what had scared the burrower wyrms away, and her second was tuning out of Dainix and Drann’s conversation.

She only zoned in on what was happening when Dainix shouted out a warning and Drann yelled out in pain. After that was a rush of adrenaline and a desperate scramble to regain order and berating herself for making such stupid mistakes.

Her third mistake was made before the first two. She forgot to bring the enchanted Blades of Ice. It was her responsibility as the leader of their team to make sure that she had them, it was her responsibility to be prepared for anything, even obsidian ghouls.

Lainn remembered her thought process that morning, waking up late and needing to pack quickly lest she make their supervisor even madder than usual. She remembered already rushing in the street before realizing that she’d forgotten the Blades of Ice, enchanted to never melt, and controlled with water lacrimas. Lainn remembered thinking that she was running late enough, and that the Blades of Ice were almost never used. She remembered thinking that she could get away with not having them.

She was wrong. And now they were paying the price.

Lainn could see Rase bridal carrying Drann’s motionless body, and did her best to cover for him using her fire, not that fire actually did anything to obsidian ghouls.

Everyone was yelling, Drann was dying, nobody had anything to fight these things, and Lainn was supposed to be their leader, she was supposed to know exactly how to rally her team and kill the monsters.

She had no clue what she was doing. Except one thing.

“We can’t let them get near the settlement!” she cried, doing her best to keep her team relatively in one place.

Rase was quick to shoot back “Well if you had your Ice Blades, I would back you up! As it is though, I don’t think we can survive this alone!”

The first sentence stung more than it was probably meant to, but Lainn couldn’t focus on anything more than shoving more useless fire at the obsidian ghouls.

She could see from the corner of her eye that Layara was in the same boat as her, completely blindsided and struggling to use anything other than her fire. Dainix however, had no such reservations, and was using his crossbow at its full capacity. It made sense though, he never had fire, and trained accordingly. Lainn decided that he was more prepared for this, and thus allowed her attention to slide off of him and onto the more pressing matter, namely, keeping the ghouls away from Rase and Drann.

This was her fourth mistake.

Her eyes only left Dainix for a second, but in that moment, she heard him cry out in pain, and then a loud whoosh that she associated with a lot of fire being generated at once.

But Dainix doesn’t have fire…?

Lainn’s head snapped back to her teammate just in time to see an enormous fiery beast plunge a hand-like appendage into the nearest ghoul’s face, and tear out something that almost looked like a skull.

The thing-that-was-Dainix-that-was-fire looked vaguely human, but was too tall to really be one, as if she’d coalesced her fire magic into a human shape. The creature had some brighter parts to it that undeniably resembled Dainix’s skin stripes and eyes. Its right eye was just a mass of bright yellow flames.

And then it turned its attention to her.

Lainn was filled with a will to flee so strong that she momentarily forgot about the obsidian ghouls around her. A fear so potent that she was completely and utterly frozen.

She was lucky that the thing – the Demon – was around, or she might not have survived the next few seconds. It charged, and barreled straight into the ghoul that would have taken Lainn’s life, and then, the Demon shoved one hand into the ghoul’s chest, and the other in its head, and pulled-

Lainn turned away the second she could force her body to.

“RUN!” she shouted to Rase and Layara. Both of them were staring wide-eyed at the Demon, but bolted the second that Lainn gave them the order to.

“Where?” asked Rase, though he was already following her as they ran in the desert.

“Go to the bunker”, Lainn told him firmly, “I’ll go to the settlement and start Evacuation”

Rase hesitated, but Layara grabbed his arm and started pulling him off course, towards the town’s bunker. Lainn kept going, even as she heard a few of the obsidian ghouls start to follow her.

It didn’t take long for Lainn to get to the settlement, and it didn’t take long for her to barrel straight to the Ravvan Watchtower. After a few seconds of breathlessly explaining the situation to the Bell Master, he went up into the Bell room and in no time, Lainn heard the tolling of the Evac’ Bell.

It was an old bell, and it wasn’t used seriously often, but it was in good shape. It had to be in case of an emergency. The bell was tolled once every sindahlan to ensure its good condition, but in an Evacuation, it was to be rung three times.

Lainn took a moment to breathe, and then took off again to help others evacuate. Their settlement was relatively small, but it was still enough people for Lainn to be worried they might not make it in time. Fortunately, the Demon bought them enough time for the settlement to be evacuated completely.

Unfortunately, said Demon was also the reason they were evacuating in the first place.

It took hours before they declared the settlement safe again, and Lainn used that time to check in on her team.

Or… on the half of her team that was left anyway.

Layara was openly grieving but also trying to keep on her brave face. Lainn did her best to console her and remind her that if she needed anything, she could ask anyone.

Rase was also grieving, but his approach was a lot more… fiery.

“Oh, now you care? Now you acknowledge your team as more than just chess pieces that you can move around? Now you try and make amends? Well guess what Lainn! ‘Sorry’s and ‘you’re okay’s and sweet nothings don’t bring back the DEAD!”

“Rase I’m not-” she attempted, but was cut off by the other ignan.

“SHUT UP! You always act like you’re this- this great flawless leader, and then when things go wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault! It’s always something out of your control! Well guess what Lainn! You’re NOT! And you were supposed to have the Ice Blades, and now, because of you, we couldn’t defend ourselves! And now, because of you, Drann is DEAD!”

“Rase, I don’t-” she tried again, but her heart wasn’t into it. Rase always managed to hit where it hurt with his words. She wished that Drann hadn’t been killed by those wretched ghouls, he could always talk Rase down.

In the end, it didn’t matter, Rase’s next bout of accusatory shouting was interrupted before it could even begin.

“Enough.” The voice might have been quiet, and the person saying the word might have been frail, but Lainn and Rase both had it drilled into them to listen when the Elder spoke.

“Your senseless bickering accomplishes nothing, children. You both grieve the same people, and feel the same pain, yet you obstinately bear down on each other. Lainn. Go speak to Layara, speak to Drann’s immediate family, as they will likely want to know more of their kin’s death. Rase. Follow me, I want a word.”

Lainn silently turned and left to try and find Drann’s parents and his sister, who no doubt was trying to see her brother. She’d already talked to Layara, but maybe she could confide in her further.

~~~*~~~

The dam that was Lainn finally broke sometime during the night.

She didn’t- this wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Drann died, it wasn’t fair that Rase was the angriest and most frustrated that he’d ever been in Lainn’s memory. It wasn’t fair that Layara had all but shut down, and that Drann’s little sister had to deal with the fact that her brother was dead.

And it wasn’t fair that Dainix was half-blind and he was a Demon and he was a monster even though Lainn had known him for almost their whole lives. And he would be exiled, because that’s what you did with monsters.

(But he’s a person, a small part of Lainn whined, how do you draw the line between person and monster if a person you knew as a person ends up being a monster? A monster that even they didn’t know about? Would calling them a monster make you the monster?

Lainn shut down the thought before it could bring more tears to her face.)

Lainn remembered earlier that day, how everyone had returned to the settlement, how she was the first to find Dainix amongst the melted glass of her world. How he looked dead. How blood coated one half of his face. How she thought she’d lost someone else to her one stupid mistake.

Lainn remembered the grief. And the rushing feeling of relief flooded her veins when she saw that he was breathing. And the desperate feeling she got when she started shouting for a healer.

Lainn remembered how it felt like calling out to Caliban, and getting nothing but a smirk and a flash of something that wasn’t really there before the Trickfire vanished in the glare of the desert sun.

Lainn remembered the fear as Evvli, the only doctor she’d ever known, started swearing up a storm at Dainix’s injuries. She remembered how it felt like stepping onto quicksand and falling into an underground oasis, unable to breath, or swim, or think.

Lainn remembered thinking deliriously that Dainix ought to be more familiar with that particular experience than her, given his near drowning experience when both of them were still bright-eyed children that believed in fairytales.

Lainn tossed over in her bed, the day’s events playing out in her mind, and twisting into branching scenarios.

What if…What if… What if…

What if I’d been a better leader?

What if I took the damn Blades of Ice?

What if I didn’t manage to get Evac’ going in time?

What if Dainix turned into a Demon because of me?

What if Rase is right?

What if I didn’t get to Dainix in time to stop the blood loss?

What if the team falls apart because of me?

What if this is all my fault?

What if… What if… What if…

Lainn didn’t sleep. Not for hours. Her mind tormented her with graphic images of her team, wounded, dying. And when she finally found sleep, in the depths of night that pulled one day into the next, the nightmares that plagued her drowsy soul were too vivid, too bloody, too full of guilt and self-hatred for Lainn to truly find solace in the little energy it gave her body for the next day.

Morning rose, and with it Lainn, who was finally done pretending that she was getting any sort of rest.

She got ready for the day, stubbornly ignoring the sluggishness that followed her every step. She pretended that she was just not that excited for the day, and that that was the cause for her slow clumsiness.

When Lainn got out of the house, she fully ignored the massive melted hole in the opaque tempered glass that led straight into the kitchen. It wasn’t that the hole wasn’t important, it was that Lainn didn’t want any reminders of the previous day’s events.

~~~*~~~

Surprisingly, it took only took until near nightfall for Dainix to finally wake up. Lainn had been tasked during the day to keep people from entering his room and disturbing Evvli in their work. The only perk was that she was the most informed when it came to how her teammate was doing.

In short, not well. He was about as exhausted as Lainn would be if she tried to incinerate an entire forest in one go, and he had so little blood in him that he needed two separate transfusions to keep him alive. The source of the blood loss was his right eye, which had been gouged out of his face by an obsidian ghoul. The only upside to this was that the rock plating of the monster was hot enough to partially cauterize the wound, which was also the only reason Dainix was still alive. Additionally, Dainix had apparently hit his head when he’d toppled over after killing all of the ghouls. Thankfully, he wasn’t bleeding externally from this, but he probably had a minor concussion.

Safe to say, Lainn was thanking every deity associated with healing, along with Caliban, that Dainix managed to both live, and also wake up within the day.

Among the myriads of people that visited (or rather tried to visit) Dainix, only a two stood out to her. The first was Layara, not because she wanted to see Dainix, but because she came to see Lainn.

“I think I’m going to leave” were the first words she spoke to Lainn that day.

“Leave? Why are you leaving? Is something wrong? Is- is it my fault?”

Lainn was almost surprised when Layara huffed a small laugh. “It’s not your fault. I was going to leave soon anyway. I think this might be the last push.” Probably seeing the look on her leader’s face, Layara clarified “It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault really. Just that I need a change of pace. I think I’m going to go and protect people out in the wider world. And hey,” she paused, and gave Lainn an almost playful smile, “maybe I’ll even see snow someday. But I’m not leaving right now, I’ll be staying at least until Dainix is cleared to go back to his parents’ house.”

Lainn knew in her bones that her sleeping mind would twist this into being her fault, but still, she gave Layara a smile, and congratulated her on her decision, and told her to visit. When Layara left to go fix her parents’ house, Lainn felt a hollow in her chest widen.

The other visitor that struck Lainn was purely because he didn’t visit. Lainn knew that Rase wasn’t one to forgive easily, but she still expected him to show up and try to learn about how Dainix was doing. Apparently, she was wrong. Maybe she’d misread their few fights, maybe she didn’t know their dynamic enough, maybe it was just that Rase was too annoyed with Lainn to even try and see Dainix.

Maybe Rase just didn’t care all that much about Dainix. Maybe the only reason Lainn never realized was because Drann always played mediator between the two.

Lainn snapped out of her mild daydreaming as Evvli opened the door. The doctor looked like they hadn’t slept in the last two days, but Lainn couldn’t blame them. She hadn’t either. They looked at her, disgruntled, and then motioned for her to enter. Lainn blinked in surprise, but Evvli was already turning away and into their “lair”. Lainn followed.

Dainix looked about as exhausted as Lainn and Evvli, but a lot more anxious. And a lot guiltier. And a lot more run down.

His head snapped up to Lainn, something that he instantly regretted if the look on his face was anything to go by. He was sitting up in bed, white bandages covering his right eye and the back of his head, his vibrant orange hair was crusted with dry blood and cascaded down his entire torso, making Dainix look even more disheveled than he probably was.

“… hey Lainn.” Dainix’s voice was quiet and raspy, almost a whisper, as if he’d tried to speak, but his voice failed him.

“Hey Dainix. Are you feeling… better?” Lainn winced at the obviousness of her question.

“I… I feel a bit better, I think.” Dainix started fiddling with the ends of his hair, avoiding eye contact. Ah, that was it. He wanted to ask something but wasn’t sure how.

Lainn had a suspicion of what he wanted to know. “Nobody was hurt, you know.” Dainix looked up at her in surprise, clearly expecting there to have been some sort of casualty by his hands. Lainn continued, knowing that he needed this. “Really, you ignored everything except the ghouls, went right past me and straight to the thing’s heart. I got an Evac’ going before you got to the settlement.” Dainix sighed, tentatively believing Lainn’s word. But clearly, he wasn’t fully convinced that he hadn’t hurt anyone.

Lainn wondered at that for a second, then decided to ask. “Do you not… remember?”

Dainix’s expression was troubled, trying to recall what happened. “Not… not clearly. Nothing concrete, just flashes and emotions.”

Evvli chose that moment to enter the room. They glanced at the pair of Ravvans, and simply grunted, “I see you’re not as worried anymore. Good.” They dumped a pile of what Lainn could only assume was medicine next to Dainix’s bed. As Lainn caught her teammate’s eye, they shared a “by-Caliban-what-is-all-this” moment before Evvli spoke again. “Well. Now that you’ve eaten, and you’re relatively rested up, and you’re not actively bleeding, and you have been walking around yesterday, I think it’s a safe bet that you can probably stand.”

Dainix perked up at that, a spark returning to his one eye. (And wow that was trippy, Dainix would probably need to re-train just to get a hang of fighting with only one eye.) With a little maneuvering, Lainn ended up holding up Dainix with one of his arms slung across her shoulders, and one of her hands holding him up by the torso. Dainix didn’t seem in much pain at all, and didn’t even appear to be dizzy from standing up so suddenly. Tentatively, the pair carefully separated until Dainix was standing on his own.

And then he fell, as if he was never meant to stand in the first place.

Lainn was quick to catch him, and so was Evvli, and they got Dainix back into bed to hopefully avoid another incident.

As Lainn was leaving to return to her parents’ house, she heard Dainix call out to her. “Oh! And Lainn,” she turned to look at him, and he gave her a wobbly smile. “It’s not your fault.”

~~~*~~~

They held Drann’s funeral one sef after his death. It was customary to grieve for seven days before burying the dead. Dainix wasn’t well enough to attend. He couldn’t be out of the medical center without getting coughing fits from the dust and sand, though Evvli said that it would clear up in time.

Lainn hated every part of this. Hated how her team was being torn apart by one mission. Hated how they were burying Drann, the most optimistic and bubbly of them all. Hated how Dainix was still too sick to attend. Hated how Layara would be leaving in two days. Hated how Rase dared say that even if Dainix could attend, he shouldn’t, because he was a monster.

Lainn and Rase kept getting into shouting matches. Mostly over their unavailable teammates. Mostly over Dainix. Sometimes over each other.

But regardless, it was unnecessary to push for Dainix to attend. He couldn’t endure thirty seconds outside, let alone the two hours that the funeral ceremony would last. Lainn and Evvli ended up agreeing not to tell Dainix until the ceremony came to pass.

They made that agreement in the three days leading up to the funeral. They were the worst three days of Lainn’s life. She almost couldn’t stand being near Dainix, not with the horrible, roiling guilt eating at her. Not when she could tell that she was worrying him with her caginess.

The funeral came and passed, Lainn spent it balling up her emotions so that she could let go of them when they lowered Drann into the sandy ground. It didn’t completely remove her grief, but the hole in her chest shrank just a bit. (Then grew again when she remembered that Dainix couldn’t do the same)

~~~*~~~

Lainn would never forgive herself for how she broke the news to Dainix about how he missed Drann’s funeral. Or about how Layara was leaving. Or about how he was probably a Demon. Or about how he was going to get exiled the second he was medically cleared to. Or the other half-a-million things she spilled.

Lainn was tired, she hadn’t slept well in over a sef, hadn’t been able to speak to anyone about the things weighing her down, hadn’t been able to deal in any way with the grief and fear and self-hatred that plagued both her waking life, and her half-asleep dozing at night.

And Lainn would never forget how Dainix’s face had changed to reflect a million emotions that she didn’t register before shifting to something caring and gentle as he asked her if she needed a hug.

And now he was gone, gone to explore a world that he’d never seen before, gone on a wild goose chase trying to find information that likely didn’t exist, gone and unlikely to ever return.

And now all that was left of her team was Rase, whose hate for her was only rivaled by her hate for him.

Chapter Text

Lainn settled into a new, strange routine. Her team was decimated, from the usual five members, one was dead, and two were gone. Additionally, she and Rase could rarely spend even one hour in the same room without ending up yelling at each other, let alone do their usual Ravvan duties. So, they were supervisors instead. They didn’t need to be in the same room, didn’t need to interact, didn’t need to go out and be a team.

Lainn was assigned to a very young group of Ravvan who were still getting used to each other and hadn’t gone out on any missions yet. She’d never been more frustrated with someone younger than her before.

“Raya.”

“Yes, Ravvan Lainn?”

“Put. The spear. Down.”

Raya gave Lainn an innocent, wide eyed look, batting her eyelashes a bit.

“But it’s just a spear.”

It wasn’t “just a spear”, Raya knew exactly how Lainn felt about it. The whole group knew perfectly well that they weren’t supposed to touch anything that belonged to Drann.

Caliban give me patience. Lainn thought, knowing that the Trickfire was just about the last god to call to for patience.

Tavvil, another member of the team who was quite good with a crossbow, sighed and put a hand on Raya’s shoulder.

“Raya, you know how Ravvan Lainn doesn’t want us touching this stuff.”

Raya scoffed, and before she could start another argument with Tavvil, Lainn cut in with just about as much social grace as she could muster.

“Kids, this is enough. Raya, put the spear down, and start stretching. We’re going to practice how to fight burrower wyrms.”

The Ravvans in training grumbled, but complied. Lainn was so, so tired.

~~~*~~~

Lainn was the first to know when Layara came back. It had been a year since she’d left, but it by Caliban, it had been a busy year. Lainn had three teams under her wing and was exhausted trying to juggle between them, even though all of them were starting to mature and grow to like each other.

Lainn was on watch duty when she saw the unmistakable shape of an ignan traveler. Most traders and such had covering against the oppressive desert heat, but not ignans. Ignans didn’t need to hide from the sun, and for them, hiding their faces and bodies in cloaks was purely to avoid being seen.

So Lainn knew that whoever it was who was coming up to the gate, they were ignan. That doesn’t mean that she expected them to be Layara.

When she saw Layara’s face however, she was overjoyed. So was the rest of the settlement, to be honest. Even Rase gave the youngest of Lainn’s team a half-hearted side hug.

Lainn and Layara took the time to catch up, reminiscing about this or that from their old team, gossiping about town rumors, and then, Layara started recounting her travelling adventures.

It was an exciting life, that of a wanderer, but not one for everyone. Apparently, the city of Zuurith was less than welcoming to anyone that had any sort of fun in their lives ever.

Layara had also found her way to another small town, one in the middle of a vast forest, and had heard quite a few rumors.

Apparently, chimeras had been plaguing the town for sindahlans, until a trio of travelers arrived, completely unscathed from their encounter with said chimeras. The next day, the trio was gone, and with them, the town doctor and the chimeras.

According to Layara, the small pub that she was in when she heard the story immediately went alight with theories from various other town folk, and she recounted all of it to Lainn.

Layara had also traveled to Vash, only to find it completely gone. There wasn’t a trace of the once proud stronghold, not even the crater was there. So, Layara had camped on the hill where Vash was supposed to be.

A day or so later, Layara had arrived in Windscrest, a town fueled by Ravv Ainox. Only to find that Ravv Ainox itself was gone. The magistrate of the town had told her that a life mage had grown an enormous tree to keep the people from suffering the loss of the usual wind in their proverbial sails

The description of said life mage was suspiciously close to the description of a member of the trio from the small town of Hilltop.

But regardless, Layara was quite happy with her wandering life, and had even started picking up odd jobs to keep a stable income. Lainn was happy for her.

Once Layara promised to stay until Ishva’s Turn, Lainn ushered her friend out of her house and back to her own house.

~~~*~~~

Ishva’s Turn was always amazing in this settlement. Everyone got together and put a small paper with their name on it in the Elder’s jar made specifically for this, then they would draw a random paper (putting it back in if they drew their own) and prepare a gift for the person without ever telling them.

Lainn loved it so much.

She remembered doing a separate celebration in the team where everyone got gifts for everyone, but those days were long gone.

Lainn picked a paper and smiled at Raya’s name. She knew exactly what to do here. Even though it would hurt her.

Despite her best efforts, Raya was showing to be proficient with Drann’s spear, but no other. It made sense though, due to Drann’s smaller stature, his spear was balanced differently than others. Lainn discreetly took Drann’s spear from the Ravvan training hall, and brought it home, where she started looking for a suitably sized box to put the spear in.

Lainn hadn’t really wanted to admit it to herself, but Raya was probably her best student, despite all evidence of the opposite. She was attentive, quick to understand, quick to act in Lainn’s surprise training, good with her fire and good with her weapons. One of her only issues was the spear.

Raya was also the glue that held the team together, even her dumb disagreements with Tavvil were usually effective to keep the mood light in the group, and Raya was very good at comforting her teammates when they were upset.

Lainn had the passing thought that Raya was the team’s equivalent to Dainix.

She focused back on wrapping the box in paper.

Finding the box had been enough of a time sink already, a box that could snuggly fit a spear was hard to find. Thankfully, with a couple asks through the settlement, Lainn had found a good box.

It was a bit scrappy in places, clearly used for Ishva’s Turn multiple times if the rips were anything to go by. It was a good box though, and Lainn knew that there would be few boxes that hadn’t been used for Ishva’s Turn before.

The colored paper was Lainn’s special one, it was made of a special material, specifically engineered to adhere to glass. Lainn wasn’t sure how it worked exactly, but it was kind of her calling card at this point.

She went to the glassblowing forge to properly add her touch. She was good friends with the smith there, Eitrann, after having come by year after year for Ishva’s Turn.

Glassblowing in the desert was quite common, with the abundance of fire and sand. Lainn was used to making chains of glass beads and wrapping them around her gift, the paper ensuring that the beads didn’t get loose and that the chains didn’t fall off.

Lainn chose red and orange and yellow beads, like she always did. And carefully wrapped them around the box.

And her gift was ready! It was customary to leave finished gifts at the settlement center, without putting the name of the person meant to receive it or the name of the person gifting it.

However, the latter part of that was almost completely unnecessary, given that, like Lainn, most of the settlement liked putting calling cards in the way that the gifts were wrapped.

Regardless, by the time Lainn was depositing her gift, the pile of gifts was quite large. It made sense though, Lainn was used to being one of the later gift givers.

Ishva’s Turn celebrations lasted for a sef, the first six days were dedicated to preparing gifts, and the last was spent receiving the gifts in question. Lainn’s gifts usually took all six days, and they rarely disappointed.

~~~*~~~

The next day was Giving Day. Quite self-explanatory really.

Lainn was really excited to see Raya react to her gift given how much she wanted the spear.

As the people gathered around the pile of presents, the Elder began her speech about the importance of community and the unavoidable passage of time. Lainn, like so many others here, knew the speech almost off by heart, having heard it every year of her life.

And then they were given the green flag to retrieve their present and offer it to whoever was destined to receive it.

Lainn picked up the embellished box with Drann’s spear in it, and set off to try and find Raya in the masses of people. This task was possibly the hardest in entire celebration, trying to find one person while the entire settlement was doing the exact same thing.

Eventually though, Lainn managed to pin down Raya and hand her the box. The look on the younger Ravvan was priceless, and her squeal of glee at the sight of the spear would forever stay ingrained in Lainn’s mind.

And then Lainn got her present.

From Rase.

Two objects, resembling Blades of Ice, made out of red stained glass.

Lainn felt all of the joy and excitement drain out of her, replaced by a grief so strong that it made her head spin.

She didn’t say thank you.

He didn’t deserve it.

~~~*~~~

Lainn rose before the sun. It wasn’t common for Ignans to do such a thing, most of them woke up hours after the sun was up, but Lainn had a routine and it began before the sunrise.

She got her Ravvan gear on as swiftly as usual, sheathing the Blades of Ice in their new spot on her belt. She couldn’t help how her heart panged painfully at that. It had been two years since Drann’s death, and by now, Rase had retired from the Ravvan, even though Lainn stayed to train recruits.

Lainn heaved a sigh, and stood up from where she was lacing her boots. She pulled on the Ravvan poncho and swept out of the house.

The weather was cooler than the usual desert heat, partially because it was before dawn, and partially because Ishva’s Turn was approaching.

Drann’s grave used to be a minimalistic thing, a gravestone with his name, facing the setting sun. Lainn had since then decorated it to help make it livelier. She was used to simply sitting there and talking to him, telling him about the day prior, wondering about Dainix and Layara, or simply watching the sunrise in quiet companionship with her teammate. It wasn’t hard, Drann was never hard to talk to, and it was always easier to speak to the dead than to speak with the living.

Once, Rase had asked her in a condescending tone why she didn’t also speak to Dainix there.

He only made the mistake once.

Lainn knew more about the outside world now, thanks to Layara, and she was certain that Dainix was not dead. He was too stubborn and too overprepared and too adaptive to die, and this was one of the few hills that Lainn was willing to die on.

Lainn wondered if Drann would’ve backed her up on that, then snorted softly. Of course he would’ve backed me up, he never thought for a moment that any of us would be taken down.

And then he’d been the first to die.

Lainn shook her head, trying not to fall back into a spiral of nihilism. Drann wouldn’t have wanted that.

“Would you have kept the team together even after Dainix was exiled?” Lainn asked her teammate, knowing that he would not answer.

That was okay, she already knew that he would’ve said yes.

Lainn watched the sun start to peek over the horizon, reds and pinks and oranges streaking the few clouds that she could see.

Lainn sighed, and took out her Blades of Ice. Gently, almost reverently, Lainn carefully carved another flower onto the gravestone. It was something that she did every day that she visited Drann. She would decorate his final resting place with a little more life. One day she would carve a flower, and the next she would fill the cracks with stained glass as to make it a little more beautiful. Rinse and repeat.

It was a good way to honor Drann, and Lainn had no shortage of flowers to carve. She had an agreement with Layara to get as many botany books as she could find.

Lainn heaved another breath, and stood up. She didn’t want to be late to Ravvan training. She had taught the younger recruits that it was okay to be late if they had a good reason, and that under no circumstance were they to not bring some gear if they knew that they didn’t have it. Even if it made them late to grab it.

They wouldn’t make the same mistakes as Lainn. Not for as long as she taught them.

Chapter Text

It was two sindahlans before Ishva’s turn when they arrived.

Lainn was on watch duty with Layara, and they were wrangling an energetic team of younger Ravvan. It was Raya’s team, and at this point, they worked like a well-oiled machine. They’d gotten good enough that they were officially out of training, and into supervised activity. They still had much to learn though, like being patient and alert when literally nothing was happening.

Lainn was reiterating for the umpteenth time that nothing happening was a good thing and they should be grateful not to have to deal with any monsters when Layara whistled two sharp notes. It was a code that Dainix had come up with, so long ago, in which they didn’t need to call out verbally to communicate what was going on. This in particular meant something along the lines of “incoming, people.”

Lainn looked across the desert and Layara pointed out a group of travelers, six in total, and one of them ignan. Lainn saw Raya light up.

“Finally something interesting! Who do you think it is, Ravvan Layara?”

There was a pause as Layara, seemingly engrossed in trying to study the travelers, didn’t respond. Lainn cleared her throat instead.

“Well, probably five travelers and their ignan guide, if I were to hazard a guess.” She told Raya, who was still facing the travelers and squinting against the Trickfire that made the horizon wobble.

She saw Raya’s lip twitch downwards and Tavvil make an aborted motion to stop his teammate before she committed a suicide by words.

“I didn’t ask you.” Tavvil facepalmed and another one of Raya’s team, Hassan, took a single step away from both his leader and Lainn. The other two members of the team, Gretir and Revvinn shared a look and turned back to the horizon.

Oh, now Lainn had to make the younger Ravvan regret her words.

“Well, Raya,” Lainn started scathingly, “one part of working in a team is that you should work as a unit. Layara is clearly distracted trying to observe these newcomers, so I answered your question in her stead. That’s how a team works.”

Lainn felt mildly concerned when Raya visibly chose to double down. The Ravvan blinked up at Lainn, eyes wide and innocent. This was a technique she only used when she wanted to pretend she didn’t know what she was doing. It was one that Lainn was intimately familiar with.

“But you don’t have a team, Ravvan Lainn.”

That apparently was enough to snap Layara from her mental theorizing. Lainn’s teammate whipped around to look at Raya, then hissed in a tone that Lainn knew meant she was genuinely mad: “You will take those words right back if you know what’s good for you. Disrespect of this caliber is grounds to strip you of your rank, so I suggest that you pipe down and listen to what Lainn tells you. You will also tell me everything that you can glean from these travelers, and if I don’t think that you’re doing as good as you could be, I will make sure that the only thing you are scheduled to do for the next sef is watch duty.”

Raya fell quiet, and so did the rest of her team. Then, under Layara’s narrowed eyes, she simply nodded and said in a small voice: “Yes, Ravvan Layara.” And turned to the horizon.

In the time where this argument had taken place, the travelers had come a lot closer, and now, Lainn could see a lot more details than before.

Raya started speaking.

“They- uh, there’s six travelers, and one of them is ignan. The- the ignan looks like they’re Ravvan? It looks like they have the poncho.” Layara nodded, and gestured for the younger Ravvan to continue.

“Um, one of them is… Ferin? I think? They look like they have a tail.” Lainn had also noted that detail.

“And there’s someone that looks like they’re made of metal almost. And that one looks like an elf.”

Layara raised an eyebrow at Raya, who quickly and quietly admitted that that was all she could see from the travelers. Layara sighed, and then dropped her scary face. Lainn saw Raya relax and sigh in relief. Lainn also knew that Raya hadn’t even seen the peak of Layara’s anger right now.

She was scary when she wanted to be. Especially these last few years, given her new experience wandering about and getting into skirmishes.

Revvinn tugged a little on Lainn’s poncho, and she turned to them.

“Um, Ravvan Lainn? Do you think we know the ignan Ravvan person?”

Lainn smiled down at the youngster, “I don’t think we do, I can’t think of any travelers the settlement knows that might travel with such a wide range of people from different walks of life.”

Just as she finished, she saw the ignan cup their hands around their mouth as they shouted to her.

“Hey Lainn! Long time no see!”

And Lainn froze. She knew that voice. Out of the corner of her eye, she also saw Layara freeze. They both knew that voice. Lainn dropped her spear in shock and saw Layara’s hands catch fire for a second.

Then, in tandem, they both screamed.

“DAINIX?!”

~~~*~~~

Almost the whole settlement was overjoyed at Dainix being back, and welcomed his companions just as warmly. They learned their names, and some of what Dainix had been up to these past five years, though Lainn suspected him of holding back some details. The group was chaotic and funny and clearly all cared for each other, but not all of them were willing to admit it.

The aseran emissary, Erin, seemed completely off kilter at a settlement that acted more like an enormous family than an administrative hellscape like he was used to.

The ferin, Falst, was jumpy and skittish and defensive, but ultimately seemed to relax a little bit when surrounded by the other members of the group.

The metal-caste, Tess, was clearly used to travel and looked to have a somewhat easy time picking up what was generally acceptable and what wasn’t, unlike most of the others.

The elf, Alinua, was quiet and easily overwhelmed, especially when she accidentally let slip that she was a life mage. A group of about a dozen children had immediately started hounding the poor girl about her magic and how different it was to theirs. They’d only been stopped when Dainix had stepped in and kindly, but firmly told them to leave her alone.

The human(?), Kendal, had been content to quietly answer questions he was asked, but not in so much detail that he opened room for too much more conversation.

And finally, Dainix was about as happy about being home than everyone else. He was clearly excited to finally show his friends where he came from.

Unfortunately, there was at least one person who was still salty about Drann’s death, and Dainix’s status as a Demon.

Lainn knew something bad was going to happen when she saw Rase approach the travelers with a sneer on his face. However, before she could do anything to stop it, the bitter ex-Ravvan started talking.

“So, this is the group that you’re replacing us with?”

Dainix paused for a second, then turned to look at his old teammate. “Rase.” He paused again, clearly at a bit of a loss for words. “I didn’t- I don’t want you to think that I just replaced our team with the first people I came across.”

Rase, ever in character, didn’t wait for Dainix to finish speaking.

“Oh, you didn’t? Because that’s what it sure fucking looks like! All I see is this great new team you got after Drann died and you abandoned us-!”

And he didn’t manage to finish before Dainix stood up. “I abandoned you? I abandoned you? What are you talking about? I was exiled so that I wouldn’t accidentally torch the only home I’d ever known because I got too uncomfortable one day! What do you mean I abandoned you?

The room was quiet now, had gone quiet when Rase had started throwing thinly veiled insults. Lainn saw Falst move to interpose himself, but Tess put a hand on his shoulder and whispered something to him.

Rase kept yelling. “Remind me why exactly you had to be thrown out? Because you’re a MONSTER, DAINIX! You’re as bad as the Cave Crawlers and the Obsidian Ghouls and-”

“DON’T YOU DARE FINISH THAT SENTENCE.” It wasn’t Dainix’s voice. It was the ferin. Falst.

The room was quiet for a second.

Then, Rase huffed. “Like attracts like, huh? Where there is one monster, there is always another.”

Lainn saw Alinua flinch minutely.

Falst started again. “You Ravvan, all the damn same. You all believe so strongly about the difference between people and monsters, well let me tell you something.”

Lainn saw Dainix’s eyes widen a little as he presumably could tell what his friend was about to say.

“The thing that you don’t realize is that there is no line. There is nothing defining a monster from a person. And even if there was, it doesn’t matter.”

“Falst-”

“Have you ever seen someone get Cave Corruption, Rase?” Falst soldiered on, ignoring the Ravvan trying to get his attention.

“I- No. No, I haven’t.” Answered Rase, taken by surprise at the question.

“Falst.” Dainix tried again.

“Well, I have. And let me tell you” Falst growled, somehow coming fully face to face with a man much taller than him. “Those people die long before their bodies do. This is a concept that most of us in this team are intimately familiar with.”

The silence that enveloped the room was suffocating. Lainn was almost too shell shocked to register Falst’s next words to Rase.

“So don’t you fucking dare call Dainix a monster, and don’t you fucking dare insinuate that he didn’t grieve Drann just as much as you do. Because unlike you, he actually managed to come to terms with it.”

Rase avoided the group after that. It was probably for the better.