…..
The
Waste Land
Fandom: Legend of Dragoon
Summary: The not-so elusive apocalypse fic. Featuring crazy!Shana and pissy!Miranda. Shiny AU?
Note: Goodbye fandom. You were a pretty, lovely thing. Soa, you have no mercy.
…..
I.
…
And that would be what an apocalypse looked like. Dusty and slow. There was a drought, and there had been for what Miranda thought was years. Seemed like years, decades, even. Her bones ached as though she were far older than she should be, and when she moved she could feel them cracking like twigs.
She thought it should have been quicker. Something blink-and-you'll-miss-it. Not this quiet, creeping strangulation. According to the notches cut into her belt, it had been two months. A God of Destruction should be more efficient.
She thought it should have killed her, too.
--
Donue was thick with the dead.
Miranda paced though the litter, breathing through her mouth. Dead people, dead flowers. Both lay in clumps, and it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. The flowers festered with gnats, rotting sweetly in the never-ending sun. The dragoon stopped herself from looking at the people. Their faces had begun to run.
When she had passed through Fletz, she thought she had seen Albert in one of the piles, and she had quit searching faces thereafter.
"We were supposed to meet there." She croaked. Misery swept inside her when she believed herself immune. "Everyone not dead."
At a jumbled courtyard, she felt a presence fill the space behind her. She spun and almost teetered to the ground, seizing the dragon's spirit in her pocket in one hand and fisting the other.
Shana was already falling away, hands clutching anxiously at the hem of her ragged shirt.
Miranda wavered, her arm heavy and tense. She could punch her, not too hard, might teach her not to come lurking up on people. "Thought I told you to stay put?" Lowered her arm, wondering if she had always thought like that. She hadn't, right? "'s wrong? Scared?"
Little girl look, brown eyes half-lidded. Shana's hands curled, mimed rocking something. Her entire body shuddered and jerked with the motion. She looked like a broken doll left behind in the dust.
"It's not gonna help." Miranda felt the bottom dropping out of her stomach, a vision of silver chips sparking before her eyes. It her grasp, the glassy orb remained cold. "Shana." She lifted it from her pocket and held it out. Thought about drawing it back as the girl reached for it. It had been Keep-Away when she'd been young.
"Take the damn thing," Miranda said tiredly. "Just don't start that fucking crying when it doesn't work."
Shana didn't touch her as she took the spirit and held it reverently to her heart.
…..
II.
It was dusk, or dawn, maybe noon. The sun never set, never wavered except in the heat waves of her vision. It baked the ground relentlessly, peeling away grass and leaving cracked dirt that looked like scales on the back of a snake.
Miranda yawned, tongue curling. It felt dry in her mouth, hurt when she tried to swallow. She might have complained, but it was only she and Shana, and Shana didn't talk much anymore.
An unchecked wind rattled the lean-to, filling the cloth covering like a sail. Sails made her think of boats. Boats and the ocean. Ocean blue. Miranda leaned back, resting her head on her hands. Dart had blue eyes. Had.
There was an unpleasant wiggle in her heart. Burning behind her eyes. She pressed the heels of her hands into them, pushing until red sparks began flecking the black.
"The world's dead. The water's gone. Going." Her voice halted, thickening as a sick feeling rose in her stomach. The feeling of loss poured over her scoured brain and spilled over. "Gone. Everyone's gone and I don't know where to go."
Gone and dead. The wind tasted like ashes. The air felt like fire. A heap of jumbled images smeared themselves across her eyelids. Small things. Quick.
"Heat stroke." She murmured. She wished. She could lie there and wait for the sun or the Virage to finish her. It would be an end, at least. Something. Something that rubbed against the grain of her ability.
Small, furtive movements across the blanket she shared with Shana. Miranda didn't move until a small hand curled around her wrist. Felt something round and cold fall onto her belly. Dragon spirit.
She opened her eyes to Shana, a species of hate pinching her face. The girl blinked, her expression fixed. Little lost girl, waiting to go to a home that wasn't there. Shana's eyes looked flat, like someone had blown out a candle and there was nothing but darkness now behind the windows.
"They're dead because of you." Miranda told her. Tone. Shana might not understand the words, but she reacted to the tone. Miranda kept it even and soft, and Shana relaxed into a loose curl at her side. "Dart's dead because of you."
Dart's DEAD.
Miranda twisted violently; shoving herself to the side of the shelter, jaw working soundlessly. Gagging. Stomach clenching, seizing, madly. Silver splashed before her eyes in crazed flickers. Brainless panic.
I'm alone, I'm ALONE, I'm alo-
Albert liked to write poetry. Bad poetry. He sometimes shared it with her when the others slept, and she sometimes pretended that he wrote it for her.
Meru liked the color yellow, because it reminded her of the sun and she wove a crown of dandelions once and gave it to Kongol.
When Rose slept, she curled her toes like a dancer might.
Wink hated the taste of coffee but loved the smell.
Setie grew lilacs inside in the winter and had a mean right hook.
Dart had said it was all going to be okay…
It's not okay.
She felt warm fingers touch her cheek gently. Shana crouched down beside her, watching intently, carefully.
"Bitch." Miranda said.
…..
III.
The notches sawed into her belt numbered seventy-three when Miranda saw ponderous blur in the wide distance. Bleeding fingers worried at the leather in her hands, toying with the frayed edges. She was going to need a new belt, soon, she thought mildly. Maybe two. Or a whole cow.
Shana made a small sound a few steps behind her and fell into a crouch in Miranda's shadow. Miranda twisted, looked behind her and scowled. The girl rocked mindlessly in the dirt, hands clapped over her ears, eyes glassed over.
The blur wiggled in the heat, shape indistinct as cloud masses.
An old ache unfolded in her chest. Miranda squinted, feeling the skin around her eyes crack. Her hand skimmed back to the familiar curve of bow at her back and hit rough wool and hardened leather instead. Her other hand snapped to the buckles that held the pack to her, ready to rip it free because she was DAMNED if she was going to die bent over by trail rations.
"Stop it, Shana."
The blur (Virage, her mind echoed in benumbed awe) seemed to bounce and lift skyward on ragged sails. Circling. Hunting.
"Looks like they found us." Looks like they're looking for their little lost lamb.
Shana keened thinly, a sound like a wounded prey animal.
--
Rose never raised her voice, but she had shouted then –"Get her away!"- and Miranda had swept a thin, crying girl up. She couldn't remember if it had been Shana or herself that had been shaking. She couldn't remember if it had been Kongol that bought the time, or it had been the father and son
(dart)
that held against the calamity of limbs that was Melbu Frahma.
She thought it had been Meru that lay broken as Rose screamed for her to run. Meru, twisted beyond repair, flower with a snapped stem.
(Miranda carried one of her ribbons in her pack, at the bottom, and wrapped it around her fingers when Shana slept)
"Go! Just GO, just run anywhere!"
And in the end, Miranda remembered that she had nowhere to go.
…..
IV.
Miranda wondered, sometimes, what went on in that meek little head of Shana's. Nothing to justify sleeping with a hunting knife under the edge of her blanket (but she did anyway.) Hell, she thought, maybe she was thinking about the sound that flies would make when they buzzed above their baked corpses.
It was always the passive ones that snapped first.
She peeled a hank of hair off of her forehead and jammed it back into her headband. Stupid thing never helped. Honestly? She didn't know how Rose had put up with hair that long for THAT LONG. 11,000 years? And she bet the bitch never once had a bad hair day.
"What do you think?" she asked. Stopped and turned to face the almost-Goddess. Shana smiled in a bemused sort of fashion and kept walking an exact step behind Miranda. Kept in her shadow. Kept out of her sight, for the most part.
"Never mind what you think, then." Once again, that left behind little girl image imprinted itself on her staggering brain. Little girl with haggard eyes. When she stood still, she clasped one hand in the other shyly, like she was asking permission for something unnamed.
(you can't leave her)
(you can't because-)
--
It was the land of eternal noon, and around that time, with the raging sun still high cast above, there came the wet growling of thunder.
Shana was balled on the hardpan before Miranda could turn. Cringing, palms pressed flat to her ears and she was making that godsforsaken wailing noise, a frightened animal sound.
Tiredly, Miranda put the heel of her palm to her right eye, from where a headache was beginning to bloom. "Thunder, sissy-ass. Haschel, like Haschel. You remember Haschel?"
Keening.
The sound pressed into her eardrums like needles.
"Shut up, Shana."
The girl looked at her, snapped her head up with a quick-strike speed of something unnatural and Miranda fell back a step, fist reaching back on pure instinct.
Shana's mouth was a dried, thin line, and that shrill cry issued forth.
Miranda shuddered, bared her teeth set in receding gums. 'I know that sound…' "I said shut up!"
Sounded like crying.
"Be QUIET!"
Sounded like laughter.
Nerves sparked, fired, and Miranda lunged forward like a badly wounded animal, arm heavy and loaded with furious intent. "SHUT UP!" she screamed, and split her knuckles open when her fist hit hard on Shana's mouth.
Sounded like a Virage.
Shana lay flung out on the cracked hardpan, hands held before her frantic eyes, trembling. Mouth bloodied, an open wound.
Miranda sprawled on her knees, fist throbbing madly. She wanted to scream and knew if she did, she'd never stop. She wanted to shake the silence out of Shana and knew all she'd get was another scream.
'I want to stay here until dust fills my lungs.'
'I want to go back to how it once was.'
"Why didn't you just DIE with the rest!" she raved, and that far corner of her brain preserved in cold sanity wondered if she was speaking to Shana or herself.
A shadow passed over the sun. A darker shade of black drifted over the starved ground.
Miranda twisted upward, looking up, because that was where it would come from. It was gone, already merging with the bulge of storm clouds that perched in the middle distance.
When she looked back, Shana was gone.
…..
V.
The first drops of rain fell grudgingly on the ground around her. Accidental. Maddening. Miranda tilted her head skyward, mouth cracked open, and stumbled.
There was a brief moment of clarity when Miranda looked down at her right ankle, saw the twist, and the hard pain rushed to fill the void.
It was, of course, times like these that argued against the existence of any deity other than the one out to kill you.
Miranda let the hand that half-caught her fall slide outward, and dropped herself onto the warm hardpan. Breathed.
(shana)
Miranda sprawled, pressing her cheek into the dirt. Sun baked warmth on this side, a slither of cool air on the other. She heard the echo of thunder and felt it rattle the very earth.
(virage)
Silver fragments, ghosts of color, sparkled in her vision.
The breeze ruffled her ragged ponytail, flipped hair into her narrowed eyes. Still, silver spots jangled there like coins. Insistent. Like the coiling pain in her ankle and the throb in her fist. She blinked and got an eyeful of dirt as the breeze kicked up its heels and ran.
In the edge of vision, lightning arced from sky to ground, as if tracing the path for the shock wave of sound that came with the thunder.
Miranda felt it in her bones.
(o'lost!)
It was the edge, the end, the beginning.
She felt gritty warmth well behind her eyes. Swept her lank arms around herself, and choked on a cry, a scream, a
(I'm SORRY-)
"I'm sorry for myself, for failing, for living, for not dying, for-"
In her pocket, where the dragon spirit lay sleeping, something pulsed. Shuddered. Did the dreaming dead have nightmares?
"I hate her. I love her. I-"
(don't want to be alone…)
--
It started (or ended) with the rain.
Miranda snarled as she walked- no, dragged – herself along. Stepping down on her right foot felt like having a spike hammered into it. It was cathartic, if you were a masochist, said an Albert-voice in her head. Miranda figured it was as good an explaination as any.
(kill her keep her)
The cold wrapped around her skin and pressed into her bones.
(kill her)
--
When the sky began to bleed color, Miranda stopped, swayed on unsteady legs and watched stupidly. Blue wrung from green from red from pink to yellow. It wavered like heat and ghosts on the horizon.
A cancerous white shape cut across the clouds and colors, gliding on ragged wings (ears). The spirit at her side flickered in brief recognition.
Miranda panned her gaze down from the sky to the flat plain. And there, where the land met the sky, was Shana.
--
She had to have heard her approach. Miranda snarled and cursed, air hissing out from clenched teeth. Her foot dragged, swollen yellow and purple beneath a constricting boot. Miranda fisted her hands, set on a grim course.
(killkeepkillkeepkillkeep)
Shana stood ridged, head tilted back to the light show in the heavens. Miranda could see her shoulder blades sticking out in stark lines against her rain soaked shirt.
Miranda reached out, hands splayed and rising to wrap around that skinny neck, laid bare in open invitation.
"I'm tired." Miranda rasped.
And Shana turned.
--
She didn't fight. Just looked at her with eyes that might have said, "I'm tired, too." Glossed over eyes that passed over insanity to numb acceptance.
Miranda tightened her fingers around Shana's throat, gritting her teeth in a mad, animal smile.
"Just-" (Don't)
"-Die-" (Leave)
"-Already!" (Me)
In her pocket, the once dead spirit burned anew.
(youcan'tyoucan'tyoucan't!)
"SHUT UP! I HATE YOU!"
Blood threaded from Shana's nose. Her expression unchanged, she lifted a badly shaking hand and touched the side of Miranda's face.
"Mir-" Words torn from a compressed throat, rasped, and felt like salt in a wound. Shana opened her mouth again.
"Miranda."
--
She saw her reflection in Shana's eyes.
She felt a heartbeat in her ears, and released her grip, hands falling lank to her sides. "I hate you."
Another pale, little girl hand came up and cupped the other side her face. Miranda leaned into the hold, eyes falling shut.
Shana said simply, "Me too."
Miranda choked on a sob that lay thick in her throat. "I don't want to be alone…"
"Me too."
The ground shook, rattled under their feet enough to stagger Shana. Miranda reached, folding an arm around her even as a sick, familiar sound began to reach her ears.
(laughtercrying)
The blonde lifted her eyes from Shana, who had gone the color of a corpse, and felt her body go numb.
It stared, massive and unnatural and utterly without emotion. Alive and dead all at once. Pallid, rain wet skin highlighted with the colors of the fiery sky. Virage.
The white-silver orb called out, a battle cry; ancient and unsettled, that unfolded a world of white around them.
And through it, Miranda though she heard-
Humans fight by making themselves enter insanity.
Thump.
Take care of them.
Thump.
I promise.
Thump.
Get her away!
Thump.
But where is there left to go-?
The air ignited in incandescent purity.
(laughtercrying)
Miranda felt the weight of armor settle around her. Clean. Safe. Strong. Warm. Felt the heartbeat of the dragon racing joyfully. Felt herself smile.
The world was ending (or beginning) on their blood and tears.
(this is how it should be…)
Shana was laughing and crying all at once, and in the back of her mind, she was, too.
…..
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
-- T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
…..