The Cost to Restore
Summary: PoR. As Boyd lays gasping for life, Ike and Mist fully understand that everything in life has a price. There is nothing that can be taken for free. Explores the concept of staves, Restore in particular. Path of Radiance, no spoilers. Oneshot.
A/N: I do not own Fire Emblem, nor do I own elements from Full Metal Alchemist. I own only this concept and the way I have presented it.
She closed her eyes, fisting her hands around the battered old staff, tightening all the muscles in her body as she gently rested the orb on the staff on his labored, heaving chest. She inhaled deeply, refusing to let panic overrun her, tucking away unnecessary thoughts (oh my Goddess, he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die, hurry, hurry—) and surrounding noises (his breath is agitated, he's choking and retching, lances, metal, roars, he's—) into the recesses of her mind. She had to concentrate now—she couldn't have panic clouding her focus. She knew what she had to do. She'd done it before. She just had to trust Ike and Rolf and Oscar and Titania and everyone to keep her safe, to keep her safe as she saved him. He trusted her and she trusted them.
Call out your heart. Feel it wrenching out of you, transferring through you and through this median, and into him, into his heart. Heal his heart. Heal his body. You can't mend anything without giving up your soul.
She reached deep into her soul and pulled, pulled at her heart. I need you, she pleaded. I need you now. I need you for him, now. She eased her heart slowly out of her soul, bit by bit, memory by memory. A sharp intake of breath signified her success of removing her heart from her soul. From this point on, any distractions on her part would cost her; anything at this point that jarred her concentration would cause her to lose her precarious grasp on her delicate soul, a thing not to be directly concentrated on and needed to be drawn out tenderly, with love and serenity.
She felt her energy twirling through her body, the gentle flow from her heart to the staff. Seeing the warm glow from beneath her closed eyelids, she guided its course only with her heart, not trying to judge where the poison was by eyesight. Seeing is not believing.
She felt it, felt the disgusting writhing of it, the wrongness of the thing. She knew where it was. Exactly where it was. It had not spread far. She drew another slow breath. Nice and easy, there, nice and slowly. Try to wrench it out too quickly and you'll hurt him. Now pull it out with your heart. Pull the wrong out with your heart. Mend him. Heal him. Take the wrong with you, take the repulsive thing with you. Take is so that he may live another day, fight another fight, eat another meal.
Take it in exchange for your own day, your own fight, your own meal. Nothing can be gained without giving something of equal value in return. There must be equivalent exchange. That is the law of the Goddess. Humans are not gods. Laguz are not gods. There must be equivalent exchange. Her muscles shuddered from the tension, trying to pull out the wrong as slowly and painlessly as she could. She felt his pain, felt his screams tearing through his mouth deep inside her heart, echoing in her heart with everyone else's pain. It hurt, oh Goddess, it hurt so much. But rather me than him. Rather me than him. She pulled, she pulled, both their souls crying, and it was out, out, it was out of him and she felt his soul relaxing again, his soul calming and falling into a healing stupor. Her heart lightened as she withdrew from her invasion, refusing to let the wrong escape into the world, desperately trying to keep herself from crushing her own soul as she returned back within herself with the foreign venom. She just needed to pull a little bit more, just a little bit farther, just enough so that her heart would settle itself back in with its memories and its newly added weight of Sin, just far enough so that it wasn't so close to the surface of her heart that it would break out and infect her completely, yet not so far down that it became ingrained into her soul. Ease it in, find it a nice place to settle, far enough from your other Sins you carry so that it cannot band together, multiply, and take you down. And yet, spread them out too far apart and you will fall from having your Virtues too far apart.
The heat of the battle cooled, at least for the moment, Ike stole a glance backwards to check on those who he had been protecting. His eyes saddened at the sight of his sister who had tried so desperately to Lift the poison from Boyd when he had gotten grazed by an axe laced generously with snake's venom. While Ike did have complete faith in Mist, Boyd, and those that were guarding them, he was—he'll admit—dismayed that the poison was apparently so potent. The slumped figures of both Mist and Boyd were proof enough. And it had just been a scratch, too, not even close to comparing to what the effects of the arrow were intended to be. A frown etched its claws deeper into his battle-worn face. Weapons these days had seemed to have developed to such a terrible point that Ike often had the intense urge to keep his barely battle-hardened little sister from breaking, to shield her from having to see such appalling things only mortals could seem to formulate in such a way that they even sacrificed the Goddess' Laws. Are you laughing, Goddesses? Are you amused at our struggles, at our attempts to be able to kill each other more easily? Does it pass your eternal time well enough?
End.