Chapter Text
Dainix, skin fever-hot and cracking like clay, leaning on his spearshaft like it was the only thing keeping him upright. His breath came in short, shaking gasps, his single eye blinking away tears that sizzled down his cheeks, staring at the plain, uncarved gravestone at his feet. He looked away, turning to the sky slowly, in mourning, but his face was twisted in anger.
“She wanted to see the world,” he accused the sky, the words whispered, crackling, furious. “She said she was tired of the desert. She was fourteen!”
Alinua could feel the corpse underneath the earth, cradled by the roots of the grass. There was no coffin.
She knelt, and flowers grew over the grave, azaleas and lilacs and chrysanthemums. They would not die, not even through the winter, not until they were torn from the earth. She felt tears prick her eyes. Alinua had not known this girl, and yet she mourned.
“I’m sorry,” she said, standing slow, almost reverently, with the weight it deserved. She reached out, to touch him, to comfort him - he would burn her palms raw, but pain was nothing to her anymore - but at the brush of her fingers he flinched away so violently he fell to the ground. An expression of horror flitted across his face before he bit it back.
“Don’t-” he managed to force out. “Don’t touch. You’ll hurt- yourself. Hurt me. Hurt.” There was a soft sizzling noise as the grass beneath him began to turn black. “I’m- just- don’t.”
Alinua smiled sadly. “It’s okay. I know a bit about being… afraid. Of myself.”
Dainix didn’t look like he was listening. The air around him began to shimmer as tendrils of flame snaked out from under his skin. The tears were flowing freely now, but they boiled away before they could drip to the ground. He tried to move, but new cracks formed where his skin stretched too far.
She didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t something she could heal. She stepped hesitantly forward again. “Do you want me to-”
“Get away!” It was a half-breath, half scream.
She stumbled back, thinking. Fine. If she couldn’t help him, she’d try to contain the damage. Closing her eyes, she ignored the dead ring of fire in front of her and focused on the trees that ringed the clearing, telling them to pump themselves full of water, to be green and fat. The dry leaf litter was suddenly consumed by new growth. Wet moss grew over the dead trees, ferns and flowers suddenly dropped their seeds, all the squirrels and birds suddenly scurried away. And-
And there, on the edge of her senses - something was moving. It was familiar. Oh, thank the stars.
A second later, a voice echoed through the woods. “Dainix?”
Dainix’s head snapped towards the sound, his face sagging with relief.
“FALST!” Alinua shouted.
“Falst,” Dainix breathed raggedly, voice cracking.
The leaves rustled. Falst emerged from the shadows, eyes shrinking to slits from the sunlight as he took in the scene: the gravestone, the smoking grass, Dainix’s cracking body.
Alinua couldn’t remember ever seeing that expression on his face before. Panic, deep and instinctive and unreasonable.
He shimmied down, the sky-blue scarf around his neck fluttering in the wind. His feet were wide-set and planted firm, like he was ready for a fight, but his eyebrows were scrunched tightly below his brow.
“You’re angry,” he said. “Really angry. I’m angry too.”
Dainix closed his eyes, still crying. “She- I-”
Falst looked at him helplessly, fists clenching. “Dainix. There’s nowhere for the anger to go, don’t you see that? Not if you try and hold it in like that.
“You do transformation. That’s your whole thing. So take the anger and turn it into something else! I know you can do it.” He took a step forward. “You can, even if I can’t.”
Dainix didn’t move. His chest stuttered up and down. Alinua could feel the heat against her skin. He was getting awfully close to him. “Falst-”
“Shut up.” He took another step, the charred grass leaving black streaks on his feet. “Come on, Dainix. You’ve done it before, you can do it again. You want revenge, we can do that! But…” He looked at Dainix, eyes full of some emotion Alinua couldn’t begin to name. “I don’t think that’s the problem.”
Dainix let out a wet sob. The heat spiked, cracks tearing through more of his skin with a sound like ice dropped in hot water. He shuddered. Alinua stepped back, realizing she’d unconsciously summed her magic to the surface. But there was nothing she could do.
“Come on,” Falst growled. “What is it? Come on!”
“It’s not fair!” Dainix blurted out, a scream towards the sky, his eye squeezed shut. His voice broke. “Not fair that I made it this far and- and she didn’t.”
Falst took a few more steps forward. He knelt, and Dainix’s hand twitched towards him. “Falst,” he said weakly, like that was the only thing he could say.
A moment passed. Alinua suddenly felt like she was intruding on something.
Falst suddenly barked a laugh. “Gods, I’m such a hypocrite,” he scoffed. “Forgiveness, right? That’s what you need. None of this is your fault - not what happened to you, and not what happened to her. You know that. You have to forgive yourself.”
Abruptly, Dainix’s arm shot out, grabbing Falst’s wrist. Alinua stepped forward instinctively - even half-transformed, she knew his touch was hot enough to cause second-degree burns in just a few seconds - but nothing happened. No tensing up, no sign of pain. Right. The scarf.
And, something told her, Dainix could never hurt Falst.
Falst, to her shock, didn’t pull away. His eyes closed, and, slowly, he pressed his forehead to Dainix’s brow.
There was no flinch, no fear. There was just the two of them, together.
“Come on,” Falst murmured quietly, breathlessly. “It’s not your fault. Come back.”
All the tension drained from Dainix’s body. He took a long, shuddering breath. Some of the cracks began to seal.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Nothing to be sorry for. I told you.” Falst’s fingers twisted around his, intertwining and holding tight. “You’re doing your best in a shitty situation, just like the rest of us.”
Alinua decided to recede into the woods, just beyond the clearing. It looked like they needed some privacy. She looked down and realized, with some chagrin, that wine-red roses were pushing up the dirt at her feet.
They stayed like that for several minutes, heads together, breathing in unison. The heat slowly receded from the air.
Dainix spoke first. “Thank you.”
Falst rolled his eyes. “I told you, you don’t need to thank me. I’m just talking to you.” He offered his hand (offering his hand - that was definitely a first) to Dainix, which was gladly accepted.
“Talking tactically.” There was a grin in his voice, under the exhaustion. “Where’s Alinua? Is she okay?”
“What? She’s fine. She’s over there.” Falst jerked his thumb impatiently at where she waited by the trees. “You should be asking if you’re okay.”
He paused. His gaze shifted to the gravestone. He knelt, and ran a hand through the wildflowers that now grew there. The gesture was slow and deliberate, almost reverent.
Finally, he stood. “...I’m okay.”
Falst eyed him. “You can stand,” he said, sounding satisfied. “You look okay.”
Dainix nodded. “So do you.” Seemingly oblivious to the flush that began marching its way across Falst’s cheeks, he glanced over at Alinua. “Let’s go, please.”
They left to rejoin the others. Back at the inn, Alinua noticed a bouquet of wine-red roses, tied with Erin’s book-binding string and left outside Dainix’s door. She couldn’t help but smile.