and darkness follows in their wake
Summary: The same fate, the same pain. Death comes to night creatures and hunters alike. And yet tomorrow they will be enemies again. OneShot.
Warning: Angst. Darkness. Same as ever. *sigh* Does anyone have a nice, sweet idea I could use?
Set: Story-unrelated, future-fic
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
Somewhat-request by useless knowledge. She wished for a story featuring Alex. Well, this one does, though probably not in the way one would imagine it…
Based on a brilliant movie named "Operation Kingdom". Who recognizes the quote? By the way, this is what happens when people like me read "War" by Sebastian Junger and watch aforementioned movie in short succession. Like, two months. The book is brilliant, as well... in a realistic way. And sad, so damn sad.
Grey mists grow from the forest floor, swirl around trunks and roots and legs and feet. The grey morning light is barely enough to reveal the sharp, edged branches and the thin but stout tree trunks.
Winter.
The air is cold and dry, the grass glitters with frost. A world like a postcard image, beautiful and calm. But the forest and its darkness are threatening, the trees towering signs of warning, the mists lethal messengers of foreboding.
Silence.
So profound and total the world seems to have ended, time seems to have frozen.
And then sounds return. Time continues flowing, hearts continue beating. Faces contort with sheer disbelief, sudden rage and absolute terror. A shrill, voice- and wordless scream shatters the silence into a million sharp, crystal-clear pieces. As the world takes on turning again, the abyss of truth opens up and swallows them entirely. Weirn, demon and hunters alike.
An accident. A horrible, horrible accident.
Ronee's brain seems unable to function. She can just stare in shock, frozen to the spot. But even though her brain doesn't work her senses do so perfectly well. She can feel Sion and Remy by her side, the usual cool from Remy's demon body, the warmth of Sion's skin. They are standing so close to her she wouldn't need to lift a hand to touch them. Sion's hands are pressed to her mouth; Remy's hands are halfway lifted as in defense or attack. Whatever it was is useless now and he probably can't remember what to do with them, the same way Ronee can't remember why her hands are stretched out in front of her as if to hold on to someone. Two meters in front of her Rochelle and Alex are standing, have stopped in mid-run. White hair mingles with dark locks in a gust of wind that feels icy on her skin and hurts.
On the other side, seven people are staring at the same scene she is looking at, frozen with the same horror and fear she feels in their faces. Ronee can see them clearly and she wonders what it is that makes them so different on every other day: right now, the same desperate refusal to believe what they see is written on all faces.
And then Alex screams. The scream shatters the silence – a horrible, high-pitched, wordless scream – and the girl starts forwards, escaping both Rochelle's and Ronee's hands. She crosses the few meters and throws herself on the limp body lying on the cold forest floor.
Red-blond hair is crusted with ice, blood and earth.
"Sarah! Sarah! SARAH!" The girl sobs while she tries to feel a pulse. "No! No! No! Sarah, wake up, that's not funny, please, Sarah…"
Ronee watches helplessly because she knows there is nothing they can do anymore. Sarah Treveney is dead.
So is the dark-skinned hunter.
Rochelle crouches down next to Alex and wraps her arms around her best friend but Alex pushes her away and continues trying to revive her sister. Sion and Remy don't move, either. This can't have happened. But it has, and a stupid accident has taken two people's lives. Pale skin turns even whiter as death claims his toll. Numbly, Ronee wonders. Why is it that vampires turn to dust when they are killed, demons to water and wolves to moonlight? There is nothing like this for weirn. Of all night creatures, they resemble humans and hunters most. Weirn live and breathe and feel and talk just like hunters. They sleep at day and live at night but not because they have to, like vampires, but because it is safer for them to do so. They possess magic but hunters have their means, too.
Why is it that they fight each other whenever they meet?
The tall woman – one of their leaders – screams a name and rushes to the fallen man's side. Trying to revive him, she beats his chest, repeating his name over and over. Another girl walks forwards and crouches down on her side and then the others move as well, kneeling on the cold, frozen forest floor grief-stricken. Tears flow freely over the small girl's face while the boys' expressions are masks of stone. None of them tries to look at the odd assembly of night creatures on the other side of the clearing.
The similarity between them is striking.
Ronee tries to imagine Benjamin Theron High without Miss T. She finds it is impossible. And it is not because her brain is still refusing cooperation. The chaotic night keeper has become a part of the school, as much as Mrs. Murrey, suddenly-opening rivers or abysses both appearing and disappearing, flesh-eating desks and that Eron guy. Ronee doesn't like to admit it but she has come to like and to respect the kind woman. Miss T achieved so much. And she hadn't only been a teacher to them. She has been far more. She was Alex' sister but it had felt like she had been their sister, too.
Sarah.
Ronee can't cry. Rochelle always could and she has caused her elder sister a lot of pain by her sudden outbursts at times. But since they have been freed from the curse when the Nereshai used the Reave it doesn't hurt anymore. At least not physically. Emotionally, Ronee found, it's much harder to stay uninvolved. She loves Rochelle too much to not feel sad when her sister feels sad. Now that she's free of her she can admit it to herself.
Sarah.
She is dead. They have felt her dying. Have seen her dying. And with her, an unnamed hunter has gone to the Silver Gates. Ronee would like to turn around and leave but she is glued to the ground. She can't move. She can't breathe. A weight is pressing on her chest, making each breath painful. The air seems too thick to breathe. Suddenly, the wintry cold seeps through her jacket. She starts shivering violently.
On the other side of the clearing, the tall woman is bent over the dead man, her shoulders shaking, too. Ronee can't imagine she is crying. But she feels the woman's grief: sharp, raw and edged. There is no escape from it.
Who has made them what they are? Who has created both Hunters and Night Creatures and forced them to fight each other? Or maybe there was no need to force them into a war. Since the world took its first breath night and day have fought each other. Where there's light there's darkness, where there are night things there are hunters. A never-ending circle, an endless variation of the same tune. They are so similar and yet the divide between them is impossible to bridge. Ronee feels pain and sadness and desperation. And anger and fear and hate because those over there are hunters and they are responsible for Sarah's death. And, at the same time, Ronee is responsible because she is a night creature and those are responsible, too. She tears her frozen gaze away from the hunters and looks at Sarah's face. Or what she can see from Sarah's face because Alex' white hair is covering her as the weirn girl shakes with the loss of her mother and sister.
Maybe she hasn't expected it.
Maybe Ronee's brain has become muddled and slow but before she has realized it the tall hunter woman is on her feet and is screaming threats at them. Alex shoots up from the ground and answers with the same desperation which laces the woman's words, too. They would have killed each other, Ronee is sure, if they had let them. But the instant the woman catapults herself towards Ronee's group and the instant Alex jumps up to storm towards the hunter the tall, ginger-haired man wraps his arms around his fellow hunter and Rochelle get a hold on Alex' hand and both stop, unable to continue forward, shaking with fury and hate and anger and sadness and grief. For a second, they just stare at each other.
Then, they crumple, the hunter woman into the arms of her companion, Alex into Rochelle's hug. Silence envelops them once again, after the screaming and shouting of things one never would have said and would have regretted hadn't it been said in the company of the dead. Ronee still doesn't feel like she can move but Sion and Remy take her hand and lead her towards Rochelle. They crouch down next to her and add their presences to Rochelle's and Alex weeps helplessly. On the other side of the clearing, the woman clings to her friend like he is the only thing that saves her from drowning, and he holds her as if he doesn't care whether his tight grip might shatter her. Ronee watches him whisper something into her ear. She doesn't hear anything, not even the soft voices of birds slowly picking up the song of the awakening sun. Rochelle is whispering, too, her lips close to Alex's ear, her eyes closed tightly. The words Ronee hears from the lips of her sister can't shock her anymore. She is already numb with pain and coldness. The fact that Rochelle – her little, peaceful Rochelle – utters them doesn't seem to be processed correctly by her brain. Maybe it is because she agrees.
Ronee feels Remy's hand tighten around hers, he probably has heard the soft string of words, picked them up with his finely tuned demon senses. Still numb, Ronee turns to look at him and finds both his and Sion's gaze fixed on the hunter's group.
"What…"
She has to try twice to finish the sentence at all.
"What did he say?"
She's referring to the hunter, the second leader, who is still holding his partner tightly and whose face is a mask of grief. Ronee doesn't know why but it suddenly is important to her. Sion answers her gaze, her pretty features contorted in pain and hate. Remy repeats the words and Ronee feels the world thud to a halt. They stare at each other wordlessly.
Why?
Why, oh why, is this the way it has to be? Tonight two people have died. The hunters have lost one of their Clave and the night creatures have lost one of theirs. And the pain they feel is the same, is so heartbreakingly alike Ronee is unable to differentiate between hunters and night creatures any more. Both are living, breathing beings. Both feel pain, feel loneliness and sadness and happiness and regret. Why do they still fight each other? Why? Why is this the way it is – the killing and hunting and the teasing and annoying, until one snaps and mistakes happen, accidents, horrible things? Why? Where is the sense, where is the fairness?
Nowhere.
There is no sense and no fairness in a war. And war it is, between hunters and night things, Ronee is painfully aware of the fact. And she hates it with everything she has. She hates the way she agrees with what Rochelle has whispered, she hates how she agrees whole-heartedly. While, at the same time, she knows it is wrong. War is no solution, never was and never will be. The ginger-haired hunter knows it too, even though he repeats the words the same way Rochelle repeats them: to calm herself, to calm Alex, to try to mend the broken hearts that have been ripped apart again tonight. Ronee knows it is terribly wrong and yet she can't help but repeat it in her mind, too, like a lullaby.
Maybe it's what keeps them sane, hunters and night things alike. Maybe it is what kills them. But it is the knowledge of the truth of the statement that gives them the strength they need to bring Sarah home, to bury her and to go on. And the same for the hunters, who burn their dead at nightfall.
It shouldn't be the truth.
Neither for hunters nor for night things. Ronee can't imagine it was meant to be this way and yet there seems no other way out of their deadly dance. While the sun slowly chases away the mists of the night, there is a truce between hunters and weirn and neither of them breaks it. But tomorrow they will fight each other again. They will go out and kill each other because it is what they do, day after day. Darkness follows in their wake but nobody cares because they already are lost in the darkness so badly there is no way out again.
In Ronee's head, the words uttered both by Rochelle and by the ginger-haired hunter dance and swivel and refuse to let go.
We'll kill them all.