It's been a while since I've read Valiant, so forgive me if I missed something with this—I just thought of it and couldn't help myself.
-X-
Lolli looked down at the shimmering syringe, then up at Dave.
"Will this fix it all?" her voice was small, frail. She clutched the remains of a cotton blanket around her shoulders, shivering convulsively. Her pale, porcelain face was a patchwork of blue and red, bruises and cuts, bruises and cuts. Her brown hair hung in limp curls around her face, and her hands were smudged with dirt as she held them out, trembling, for her release.
"This will fix it all," Dave crooned, fascinated by her torn beauty. She was like a doll that had been forgotten, left to the dog, then rediscovered, by rough hands that offered no comfort. The subway station was frigid, even though it was underground. The stone radiated cold, and Lolli felt like she would soon die. Then again, she had felt like that for a long time, now.
She gave a moan as the sharp tip slid into her skin, and her eyes seemed to gain life from the drug, drinking it in. Her large eyes looked at Dave with a sort of fire that he himself lacked, and he yanked the needle out of her skin prematurely, and injected himself. Usually he didn't do this. It was like condemning himself to a temporary death of blurred memories and emptiness after fulfillment. Still, his eyes fluttered shut with ecstasy as the stuff entered his veins. Just a bit more and it would go from a boost to a drug, and it—
"David," the voice was grating, and it came from the corner of the subway station. The noise startled him, and he took the needle out of his arm, deciding this time it'd only be a buzz.
Ravus's long, black clad form was leaned on the wall of the station, Dave slipped the needle underneath a mattress, hoping he would ignore Lolli's dazed smile, and how she glamoured a soda can into a dozen things, all of them lovely. A gold watch, a ring, a kitten, a cake.
The troll seemed to disregard the needle and the girl, his coal black eyes riveted on Dave. Dave returned the stare, idiotically, unlike his brother he had never seen those eyes flare to life like wind on embers. Never hummed along his veins like a cheering crowd; he could do anything if he had its support.
"You've brought another one down," he said, gaze flicking to Lolli, but not her hands, not her eyes, not the patches of darkness around her. How long would his luck last?
"Yeah," he said, and the word seemed lame in his own throat, he should have some witty reply that would invoke the trolls grating laughter, so he could hear it, finally, how much he wished he could—
"I'll get nothing out of you that way," the troll snorted, and handed Dave a root. His fingers curled around the shriveled thing because Ravus wanted him to—how lovely. Then Ravus' courtly, handsome face faded into the gruff reality, and Lolli was once again giggling behind him and now she was standing, twirling, glamoring the entire station bubblegum pink, and covering all of her bruises with new, lovely skin.
Ravus seemed contented, and he swung a coarse messenger bag over his shoulder, extracting two bottles. The contents shimmered with Never, and Dave reached for them immediately, almost as fascinated by them as he had been Ravus. The troll slapped his hands away.
"This stuff," he said firmly. "Is not for you to use. I know you do, and I don't care. Stop, but thats only my advice, not a command.
"Now. Give this to Mabry. You know Mabry, I presume?" Nod. "Excellent. Give her this one. See the one with the red wax?"
Dave nodded, calculating. He wasn't an idiot, much like the troll seemed to think, and if he wasn't allowed to shoot it up his arm and it was special . . . poison. He rolled the bottle around in his fingers and nodded.
"And the one with the normal white? That's a regular delivery. Be sure you don't mix them up." Ravus' gold-flecked eyes were stern as he demanded that of Dave, who nodded again.
"Good," he said, taking the root from Dave, who spiraled into the release that was Never.
-X-
Two little bottles, red wax white wax; two deliveries for two very different purposes.
The problem was, Dave couldn't remember what they were.
One was dangerous, one was safe, one was important, the other was not worth a sigh. One ensured his safety under the wing of the troll, the other made him enemy number one.
The red pill, or the blue pill?
Apparently now Dave was colorblind.
-X-
Who would have guessed Mabry would lie? She hated Ravus, true, she wanted him dead, true, she killed him and tried to poison her King, all of it true. She would practice brutality to humans because, after all, what did they do but kill and die? They weren't alive like she was.
But to poison another of her kind?
Never.
The first girl to die, Dave was horrified, he cringed when he realized it was him who had killed her. All him. But after a while watching the fey as they took the poison was perversely enjoyable, and to see them gasp damnation with their last breath was like the best comedy.
But she owed Ravus from a long long time ago, when he had realized it was her who had murdered Tamson, and he had stayed silenced because of a certain morbid curiosity. But even though the debt was unspoken and; on one part un thought of, in Mabry's heart she owed him her life.
And she paid in kind.