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Chapter Text

Apo is nineteen and she bows her head when the orders arrive, drafts calling for more able-bodied soldiers on the front lines. There aren’t any more farmers or hunters available, from when they were sucked into the machine of war merely months ago, so the officers turn to the next best thing. Student, tailor, cobbler, shopkeep; it doesn’t matter in the grinding silver gears of the government, so long as you can fight. So long as you can bleed.

Apo is nineteen when she’s told to prepare for war. There’s no excuses left; her father, a well-to-do retired merchant, had enough gold to pay for her education but not enough to pay for her freedom. She’s in relatively good health, and her field of study– architecture– is considered a boon when she starts training.

It’s useful to know the weakest links in a building when you’re told to blow it up.

—

Timed explosives are a fairly new invention, all things considered. Sergeant M of the 77th Company stared her down as she reported to his command, resisting the urge to shuffle. Instead, she steadied herself into a parade rest; a new stance that had rapidly grown familiar over the past few weeks. There had been a few new recruits with her, and they’d been drilled on proper posture and field positions, but it was only Apo who’d been lectured on the use of black powder. The others had already been assigned, filling the conspicuous gaps where other recruits once stood. Apo, however, had been instructed to report to the Sergeant directly.

They were on the southern front, the furthest edge where their eastern waterlocked country met the west, shortly before the unforgiving seaside cliffs. Humidity and the salty breeze meant the thick red fabric of her coat rooted her in place just as assuredly as the Sergeants heavy stare did.

“Sapper Apokuna, you’re assigned to Corporal Punz. Your orders are sabotaging the provision lines of the West through any and all means possible. Understood?”

The thought of war had never felt so real.

“Affirmative, Sergeant.”

“Then you’re dismissed, Sapper.”

—

At first, Apo tries to lie to herself. It’s an empty encampment. She’d think unconvincingly. If she did it for long enough, it started to sound like the truth. No soldier is innocent. They’re guilty of being in this war, they’re guilty of continuing it.

Maybe it could’ve worked if she didn’t see the aftermath. Where, after her unit spent a long day marching, they didn’t encounter the remains.

The thing is, it wasn’t hard. That was the cruelest part. She’d hunt down the obvious trails left behind, furrows where wagons had established paths. One of the other privates operating under Corporal Punz, Cherri, typically found the signs first. Crushed grass, hoofprints. Then it was just tracing the dirt markers until they found the next supply train. That was when Apo’s particular skillset would come out to play. She had a collection of fuses, mostly wood, with slow burning black powder inside. It was merely a matter of confirming the desired time to strike, and linking the fuse to the appropriate hollow iron shell.

It was easy, and that’s why it was so hard to lie to herself. If it was difficult, it would’ve balanced out. Of course, killing should be hard. Apo’s not a fighter. She never wanted to be. But then there’d be the screams, and the blazingly fast flash of light. The deep booms that never quite became background noise. Soot on her fingertips, ash on her tongue. There’s no way out of the guilt then, not even lies.

—
Apo is newly twenty but feels like she’s thirty, and one of the other soldiers brought her flowers. Private Cherri smiles brightly, crookedly, and in the dying light of the sunset her eyes gleam like fire. In her hands she bears a bouquet of daisies and violets. The petals are bright against Apo’s stained fingertips.

“Hi! I’m Cherri; we’ve talked before, but only during missions. Girls like us need to stick together. Want to be friends?”

Apo, taken aback, replies on instinct.

“Huh? Oh, I’m Apo. And, sure, I guess?”

“Great!” Cherri beams, mischievous and warm like the sun, and Apo is a moth beneath her light. The world grows saturated despite the oncoming dusk, and for the first time in months she breathes a little easier and doesn’t taste smoke. When Cherri drives her to laugh, a stuttered, choked sound, she looks down into her lap and notices her fingertips are clean. For once, it’s not a lie.

—

There’s whispers of a ceasefire on the wind, when everything goes to shit.

Apo had been stationed at the southern edge for over a year by this point, albeit all the days blur together. Their encampment, christened Fernsfield after the ferns that coated the northern cliff faces, had grown steadily over that time frame as they grew entrenched in the local topography. Steep hills and granite cliffs made for excellent natural barriers, especially when laced with thorny heather and thickets of yew. The southernmost part of camp edged the salt marshes, which were brutally tricky to traverse and had protected them from any naval battles or amphibious assaults. As a whole, this meant their camp had suffered few direct assaults, and had proven a secure stronghold for the eastern forces. Over the past year, once that became clear, the tents had gradually been exchanged for freshly erected wood buildings. Apo had even been the one to suggest a couple of them! In addition, the relative drought had made building even easier, as the units stationed here fought less against the mud and cloying humidity.

Things were, if not ideal (because war was never ideal, Apo was certain) then relatively comfortable. The rumors of a ceasefire as well had hope brightening the eyes of even the most grizzled. People that Apo only knew in passing, that looked grim even during the best of times, were smiling. The medical outpost had its least number of patients since ever. There was warm chatter in the air, only in part from Cherri at her side. Apo was so, so close to going home.

Apo wished she could lie better, that she could lie to herself. That she could convince herself it wasn’t her fault. Her mistake. A small one, but deadly nonetheless.
It started with the acrid scent of smoke. A concerning scent, but familiar. Apo didn’t think anything of it, at first. She smells smoke all the time, even during the clearest nights. It lingers in her sinuses like a purring cat, slothful and unavoidable. Her attention was instead fixated entirely on her bayonet, carefully cleaning out the barrel alongside Cherri. They were sitting on an improvised log bench beside the storehouse, facing each other. The alarm bells in Apo’s head only started ringing when Cherri made an absentminded comment.

“Do you smell that? I wonder if someone’s started a fire.”

Apo paused, glancing up at the sun. It was still brilliant and smoulderingly hot overhead. It was too early for dinner. Why would there be smoke?

She’d just opened her mouth to say as much when the storehouse e x p l o d e d.

.
.
.

A blast of heat buffeted her face, followed by a shattering BOOM. There was piercing pain as something whizzed past her ear, taking a chunk with it and tearing some of her hair. Cherri let out a cry beside her, but it was muffled beneath the ringing in Apo’s ears as she slammed into the ground from the shockwave. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t hear, and her eyes were watering from the false sun that’d erupted in camp, flashes of bitter white traced over her eyelids. Where was Cherri?

Blink.

The smoke was suddenly growing worse, all encompassing, all surrounding. Ash on her tongue, soot on her fingertips. Soot? She raised a hand to her face, eyes catching on the red that drizzled onto it. It swirled into the black that never fully vanished. That wasn’t soot.

The pain hadn’t sunk in yet, so she looked away. Breathed. Where was Cherri? She couldn’t hear her voice through the bells in her ears; clanging, clanging, clanging. A death toll.

Blink.

Faces blur and mesh, but Cherri had remained a constant the past year. She needed to find Cherri. Where was Cherri? Apo stumbled upright, her bayonet sliding to the dirt. Her vision swam, static starbursts drowning out all but the faintest of impressions.

“Cherri?” Her mouth moved but there wasn’t any feedback, no response, no one home. She needed to move. She needed to find Cherri.

Blink.

She was crouching, half collapsed. Her ear hurt. There was a red sleeve beneath her fingertips. It blurred and meshed with the red on her hands. She couldn’t see Cherri breathing. Was she breathing? A pulse beneath her fingertips. They needed to move. She couldn’t hear anything. She couldn’t hear Cherri. Step. Step. Step. She needed to get Cherri out of here.
Step.
Step.
Step.
There was a lot of red.
Step.
Step.
Step.
She hopes Cherri wakes up.

—

Was this some form of divine punishment?

No.

Apo’s not a good liar. The only punishment here was from herself. Her failure. Her mistake.

Salt water is a corrosive agent. It oxidizes metals, materials, whether they be bullets or bracelets. It eats away at the things you consider stable, inert. Like iron shells. And old gunpowder can be remarkably unstable.

She stares down at her hands. They’re scarred and calloused, and fresh pink skin stretches over the new burns. It creeps up her arm in some places, places where she’d had to push aside flaming debris with her back occupied. There’s blood on them, mixed with the soot, that never truly washes away. It’s Cherri’s. She hasn’t woken up yet.

—

The ceasefire was signed five days later. It doesn’t erase the blood either. Apo feels sick.

—

Apo is twenty one and has spent the last five weeks in a hospital.

“Sapper Apokuna, you stand accused of damage to a service property and failing to attend to your assigned duty, leading to the injury of 24 military personnel and death of 3 soldiers. How do you plead?”

“Guilty.” Apo’s voice was dull. Her body stood at a parade rest, hands tucked behind her back, feet spaced evenly apart, but her mind hadn’t left the silent white room. Hadn’t left Cherri’s side. It wasn’t normal for her to be so quiet. So still.

“Very well. It is fortunate your commanding officer speaks highly of you and the extenuating circumstances. The verdict is such: you are barred from reenlistment pending the remainder of your sentence, and will be transferred effective immediately. You are hereby stripped of your qualifications as Sapper, and any associated equipment must be turned over to the correlated personnel immediately. Your new orders are establishing a military outpost in the town of Oakhurst. You have five hours to requisition relevant necessities. Dismissed, Private.”

—

Cherri still hasn’t woken up. Apo sat beside her on the uncomfortable wooden chair provided to visitors, watching her breathe. She had twenty minutes until she had to leave; she wasn’t going to be here when Cherri woke up. If she woke up.

“If you want to send letters, I’ll make sure she receives them when she wakes up, dearie.” An older civilian nurse offered as she checked over Cherri’s vitals, sending a pitying smile to Apo. Apo nodded jerkily, ashen fingers still woven tightly with Cherri’s own. She squeezed them– there was no response.

“That would be– be appreciated. Yes. Thank you.”

She’d have to write every day. Every day until she got a response. Every day until she knew Cherri woke up.

—

Apo’s not a good liar. She learns to avoid the truth instead.

“It’s just for six months.” She writes slowly, guilt almost choking her tongue. Six months was a long time when she didn’t know if any day would be Cherri’s last. One hundred and eighty two days until she could see her again.

“It was my fault. I’m so sorry, Cherri. If I’d only caught it sooner, we’d both be back at the capital by now. I’d show you that cafe I visited once with the blossom tree and the pastries, and you’d have taken me to your favorite boutique, and. And you’d still be here. I miss you. I’m so sorry. I hope you wake up. I hope you’re okay. We made it two years through the war; we only needed five more days. Five more days until we were free. If. If something happens to you, don’t die. Please. I’m so sorry.

Love, Apo.”

Chapter Text

Apo had read a little about Oakhurst in her deployment orders. An abandoned town, ravaged by plague and war besides, only of interest due to its relative proximity to relevant river channels that bridged the gap between the ocean and intercountry domestic ports. It was located somewhat towards the interior of the country, far more eastwards than her previous post. Supposedly, it was also entirely uninhabited.

Apo hoped so. It’s far harder to fail people when there’s no one else around to fail.

—

It took her a week to arrive at the area Oakhurst was said to have once stood. The trails grew steadily more overgrown and ramshackle as she drew closer, until she was following her compass and map more than anything else. Cherri had been brilliant at finding trails, and had made a game of teaching Apo during their downtime. She put those lessons to good use as best she could as she grew nearer to her destination.

She didn’t think the ruins would be located within the thick forest that surrounded her, but it was hard to be certain. At minimum, she felt uncomfortably enclosed by the depth of the woods, shadows stretching where anything could lurk. It was a far cry from the moorlands and heather of her last post, although the craggy stone peaks remained the same– what few she could glimpse through the thick branching leaf cover overhead, at least.

At long last, the winding path opened up into a rolling highland. A deep fog covered most of the land, concealing all but the barest of details; on the horizon, she spotted wilting wooden walls, half-eaten by the dusk and the rain. She started off in that direction, locating with greater ease the areas where the dirt path grew obvious. Grass crunched underfoot, although Apo was careful to avoid stepping on any daisies along her route, until at long last she reached the ghost town.
Or rather, that’s what she expected. The low murmur of voices as she crept closer put an end to that plan. Apo barely resisted uttering a curse. I thought this place was supposed to be abandoned?

Apparently not. She stifled a sigh, and headed over to introduce herself.

—
“My beloved Cherri,” she wrote in the gloom of the newly set night, her letter just barely illuminated by the flicker of candlelight. Faintly whispering of smoke, the flame was nearly as reassuring with its familiarity as it was haunting with its memories.

“I mentioned in my last letter how I’d arrived at the ruins of Oakhurst, and how other people were moving in as well. It’s hard to be around them. Not just the fact some of them are crazy– Rich Boy actually drew a sword on me over some book– but because they’re relying on me. Like you did. I’m not sure what to do; I don’t want to mess up again. I don’t want to fail them like I failed you. Like I failed Fernsfield.” Swallowing back her nausea at the thought, she added:
“I wish you were here, you would know what to do. You should be standing in my place, not lying on that bed. I should’ve been the one who got hurt, it was my mistake. I’m so sorry.” Apo absentmindedly tried to wipe the soot and blood off her fingers, as if it would stain the page. There was no change.

“Every day, I think of you and hope you are feeling better. I hope you wake up soon. I… I’ll see you in 5 months.

Love, Apo.”

—

Apo sank back against the cold stone edge of her tower like the ground was falling beneath her feet. Like everything was unreal, colors bleeding into each other in monochrome fog, stirred only by the butterfly swift beating of her panicked heart. She’d entered that pact with Rich Boy and the Gay Romance Author to disprove the ramblings of that paranoiac Avid, not– not prove it! Shit. How was she going to report this? What was she going to say?

There were scabbed over bite marks on her wrist and neck, twin pairs of holes where Scott and Pyro had taken a sip. Her breathing was fast, shallow, as her fingers picked away at the crusted blood. There was red on her fingers and she couldn’t tell if it was real. There was so much soot it coated her arms like a second glove, like a marker, and when she blinked it felt like fire and fangs sinking into her veins. Her nails scraped against her skin but they weren’t strong enough to peel the layer of caked ash. Smoke in her nose and the saltwater on the breeze.

Twenty four hours to pick someone else, and Apo didn’t know what to do. She felt like she was choking on the ash again, picking her way out of the fire and the flames from one wasteland to another. How could she pick someone else? How could she do that to someone else’s Cherri?

But if she didn’t, they would just kill her.

Forever.

She couldn’t leave Cherri like that. Not like this. Not when they’d made it out of the war, out of the fire. But she didn’t know what to do.

Oakhurst was still standing. This wasn’t Fernsfield. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let it become Fernsfield.

—

Was she lying to herself? Thinking she could make a difference?

Scott laughed as he lifted his head from the floor where her axe had cast it away, setting it back on his neck with a little flourish. His lip quirked in smug bemusement, eyeing her like a bug, a puzzle to reshape with new pieces. There wasn’t blood where she’d cleaved his neck apart, even though it felt like her fingers were coated in it; just a faintly transparent liquid that coagulated and beaded the wound shut.

“Soooo, did we get our anger out?” He drawled, checking his manicure with loose confidence as he perched on the end of the grand table. Garnet red eyes flickered up, staring Apo down, paralyzing her much like her old Sergeant could. “Are you done?”

“Why… why are you still alive?” She couldn’t help but whisper, fingers clenched around the handle of her silver blade. She didn’t know what to do. It was with sudden intensity that she wished, desperately, that she still had black powder with her. There were seldom few things that could live through that.

“See, this is what I was saying before!” Scott exclaimed with a clap, cold glee animating him more than Apo’d ever seen before. He kept speaking, gesturing, but all Apo could hear was the ringing of bells. A death toll she’d heard once before, and this time, it was for her.

—

A hiss of wind through the heather and the ferns, the sizzle of gunpowder and cackle of smoke. Turning felt like all of that, fire and pain and emptiness and inevitability. It felt like loss, like Apo was sitting at Cherri’s bedside with no hope of her ever waking up. Like she was now missing something she’d only just noticed by the lack of it.

Scott unlatched his fangs and claws, stepping back with grace, but Apo barely noticed him moving. She was staring down at her hands, silver axe long discarded to the floor, feet still frozen in a parade rest. There was blood on her fingers, and soot, but for once she could tell it wasn’t really there. Something whispered that it didn’t smell right, it was only skin, even though her eyes still traced the liquid splish splashing each singular agonizing drop at a time. It still felt like Cherri’s blood.

Cherri would be so disappointed in her.

“Isn’t that better?” Scott’s voice broke through her thoughts, unchanged from before. Still airily confident. “Do you feel stronger?” He crooned, tilting Apo’s chin up and away from her hands, until his scarlet eyes were staring into her carmine ones.

“I feel… different.” Apo mumbled out, freeing herself from his grasp with a few hasty steps. She opened her mouth to say more, but didn’t even get a chance before Scott moved past her.

“There’s Avid. Hi~!” He called out, prowling forward, and Apo’s mouth slid shut without a sound as she turned around.

Avid. Drift.

If she’d waited just five seconds… she would’ve left here alive. She wouldn’t have to look Cherri in the face as a monster.

Five seconds or five days; the littlest amount of time can make the greatest difference. It was just Apo’s luck that it’d ended like this. The worst things always happen to her in intervals of five.

—

Silver blocks lined every lamp post and door. They smelled metallic, like iron and saltpeter. It mixed with the smoke that lingered in her nose when the lanterns flickered too brightly. Apo sat, half collapsed on the narrow spiral stairs of her tower, and watched them burn. Her stomach churned emptily, and saliva pooled around her achingly unused fangs, but the thought of blood made her gag.

Keep it together, Apo. Cleo’s words from weeks prior echoed through her mind. Hands shaking, she raised a cut of raw beef to her lips and bit. It was still warm, freshly butchered. It didn’t matter how often she repeated this gruesome ritual, how much she fed the cravings. Her tongue celebrated the viscous liquid even as she choked. Blood coating her fingertips, only now her nose burned from the scent of it too, and the meat sank into her stomach like charred rock. Like ash.

Supporting her back, the silver block behind her blistered with a cold fire. It cut most of the instinctual fervor– the instinctual bloodlust– as Apo drained her midday meal, leaving her shaky and weakened even with the hunger appeased. The silver laced nearly every surface of her tower, and she wondered if Abolish would mind if she moved some of it. Each glittering surface grew just a little more tarnished when she brushed past, and the process only brought back bad memories.

Tarnished silver looked a lot like oxidized iron, after all.

—

Pyro, Shelby. Herself. Cleo, Avid, and Drift. How many more names until the vampires are satiated? How many more sacrifices until there’s a cure? She didn’t know what to do, and she was so hungry.

Apo’s not a good liar, so she puts off writing to Cherri for a few days. How could she even explain it? It’s not the mushrooms, nor the water. It’s something far more fundamental. There’s soot on her fingertips, ash on her tongue, and something missing. Maybe it’s her heartbeat. Maybe it’s her breath. She doesn’t know, and she can’t think, because she’s so hungry.

She can’t touch a human though. Can’t bite anything but the cows and the sheep. Cherri would be disappointed in her, otherwise. And Apo can’t lie to Cherri, but maybe she can lie to herself.

Her first lie was this: Apo is not a good liar.

—

Apo’s not a good liar.

Apo’s not a good liar, but she has to be, because there’s no other option. She needs to see Cherri again. Scott titters and laughs, perched upon his little throne in his game of house, but there’s no humor to the laughter. No humanity creases his face, not even a hint beyond his omnipresent smug mask. He sits upon his empire and laughs, but his eyes are sharp and cold and so, so calculating. Apo’s a new plaything, a chess piece on a board that she can barely grasp the edges of, and she needs to play her role. Needs to sell the performance, because if she doesn’t, Scott stops playing the game.

In the game, she has the illusion of choice. She doesn’t want to see what it looks like when Scott stops playing.

So she folds her hands, ignoring the stains, and watches Scott. She laughs with Shelby, teases Pyro, argues with Owen. There’s five vampires in the coven, and Apo is happy to be here. She’s harmless. She’s just an architect. Cherri’s fine. And bad things don’t happen in intervals of five.

—

There’s a fuse burning now.

Apo knows just where to place it.

Cherri will forgive her anyways.