we are the shadows
. .
( her heart is pounding in her ears. - yuri and rita, in the end. )
disclaimed.
.
.
her brain short-circuits, fuzzing at its imperceptible edges and evening into soft waves that catch the shore, chase the tips of toes on the sand. she isn't thinking anymore, not when she breaks, not when she throws herself into battle, not when she casts hellfire through the air with one aim: to kill. these are flames of death, and she is death's victor (she has defeated and she will always defeat death with him by her side, she will). she hears him scream her name, hears it roll off of his tongue like a prayer, but someone is crumpling to the ground and she -
she did that. she's done that.
(you're far too young, he tells her once, lifetimes ago, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. you're far, far too young.)
. .
if rita is too young then so is yuri, because she is mature beyond her age and beyond his. he has nightmares, vivid darkness in his heart and his mind, and these keep them both awake at night, staring at the blackening sky. there are no stars, not anymore. they've gone, flickered out like the lights in the peoples' eyes.
they thought they were saving the world. they thought - that things would be alright. they thought quite a few stupid, hopeful things. (she told him that it was stupid to hope, but estelle had said to keep hoping, and he's always chosen estelle's advice over hers. would probably keep doing so if - if -)
things are different. they had statues made in their names that have long since been torn to ruins, kicked into ravines and crushed to rock dust. (it affects him more, she thinks, hurts him in ways she cannot bear imagine. they tore down the child of the full moon's statue and then the child of the full moon. yuri may have loved her - he must have - and perhaps rita loved her, too, but rita loves yuri more, only has yuri, now. if she felt alone before it is nothing compared to the present.)
he turns over, sleepless, reaches to push strands of her dirtied hair from her face. they haven't washed for days, haven't slept for longer. she is grimy, gritty like her very nature, and he is - he is so, so beautifully tired. the circles under his eyes bring out their shine. (he shines; he shines like brave vesperia, still. still.)
"go to sleep," he murmurs, voice a safety net, and the switch flickers in her brain, shutting down.
. .
it is a grand effort, to live when everyone in this world wants you destroyed. flynn, captain of the knights, asks for yuri's head, sends out warrants and wanted posters and offers a reward for it. (rita has a bounty, too. the others had them for a while, but. but.)
that's the worst part, she thinks. losing faith in those who believed in them once. (this was lifetimes and lifetimes ago. she's grown up. she's sixteen years old and wearing sixty, he is twenty-two wearing twelve.) yuri loses himself somewhere, too, but she finds him in the rubble, scavenging him like the ruins she studied before. she pieces him back together with careful, shaking hands; she is no doctor but she is a scholar, so she solves the equations, fixes him, gives him an answer: she is all he has and nothing he wants.
(he had nodded. she remembers the dead look in his eye when she tells him that estelle had been. well.)
. .
"you're brave," he whispers to her, tucking her to his chest, cloaking her with his body. they're pressed into a tight alleyway and she's shaking - so visibly and brutally that she swears her bones are clattering. "you're brave," he says again, fiercely, firmly. the voices are getting closer; the people are searching for them, and they are hiding like rats in a sewer.
"i'm brave," she says, just to herself. the words vibrate against his chest.
they are not found.
. .
there are days when they are crumpled by hunger and so weary from sleeplessness that they feel they may die by their own methods, days when yuri doesn't shine and days when rita curls in on herself and becomes someone else. these are good days.
there are other days, days when they run and rita slices her skin on branches from grappling trees, dirties her elbows and knees from falling. there are days that yuri kills someone they knew, once, someone they helped or solidified, and he doesn't - can't - fathom why, why, why. days when rita's anger surpasses her sense, days when she and yuri are their own greatest enemies.
some days, though, are spent tucked away into their sleeping bags, hidden by the monsters in the woods, holding each other so closely that their beating hearts mold.
. .
karol left them, first, because he had been braver - stupider - than the rest. yuri had been quick but not quick enough, had nearly saved him, but.
karol asked for forgiveness as he went, crimson staining the cracks in his lips.
("i should've been stronger."
"you're strong enough, karol. you are, you are, you. . .")
. .
"are we going to run for the rest of our lives?" rita is tired and perhaps a little sad, underneath numbness. they are somewhere unrecognizable - the world, the world is unrecognizable, now, i'm sorry, i'm so sorry - in front of a fire that is minutes away from flickering out.
"yes," yuri says. he's jaded, they both are, both always have been, but now. now.
"yes," she repeats with a slow breath. "i know. i knew that." she closes her eyes. he runs his thumbs over the bones in her cheeks, tells her he's sorry.
. .
the end of their days began like this: slowly, with armies getting built up, knights fighting to protect cities from the monsters after the blastias stopped working, with children getting trained in weaponry at an early age, with the people banding together for safety and security, everyone on the same side for the first time in all their years. it had been easier, in the beginning, because the monsters had been frightened by the sudden vigor of the people, but as they realized how easily overpowered they were, they moved in. it started in the smaller cities and expanded to the bigger ones; zaphias, dahngrest, were the last to fall.
halure still stands. the tree is the only barrier left, and only now is it beginning to fail. (there are hideouts carved in their trunk; once, they were meant for them, for yuri and rita and the rest, but the mayor, the only man who still had faith in them, fell, too. the rebels have found the hideouts now, and they discovered this the hard way; repede left them, there, and judith and ba'ul were captured as they attempted to escape. estelle had cried and raven, their very own omen of death, had been too numb to even ask estelle to rest on his shoulder.)
what was left of them hid in aspio for a while. flynn found them, took raven in exchange for the rest of their lives (flynn still loved yuri then, couldn't - he just. he couldn't take him, but he couldn't leave them all. he's failed enough, he has) and they ran, again. ("ol' raven will be alright, kids." fuck, fuck, they hoped so, they prayed so.)
estelle left them after that, months later, and it should've been rita.
she doesn't know if yuri holds that against her or not.
. .
yuri kisses her first, holds her steady, presses bruises into her hips.
"i just," he mutters when he pulls away, and rita - she understands, she does, "i need (someone, something, somewhere) you."
"yuri," she says, and then - "no, no, i've always i needed you, you can't need me, please don't need me, yuri, please, please, don't need me, please - "
he kisses her again. (hallelujah. hallelujah.)
. .
they hear that raven has been hung, and his blastia heart has finally settled like it should have ten years ago. eleven, now.
. .
"you're all i have left," yuri whispers to her, his breath warm on her face, the words catching on her eyelashes.
he is all she has left, too. he is all she's ever had.
her fingertips stumble over his chest, feeling, feeling, feeling. he lets her, perhaps wants her to, just. because.
"i want to give up," he admits, his voice even softer, now, a rumble in his chest, "i don't want to do this anymore. i don't want to run, i don't want to hurt anyone else that doesn't - deserve to be hurt." they were heroes, once. they were good.
he hesitates. "i will, for you."
she will do anything for him, too. anything at all.
. .
her heart is pounding in her ears.
she thinks, perhaps, they won't have to do this anymore, after all.