Sorry, for some reason the chapter didn't upload and I've only just realised now. This has been on AO3 for weeks, so sorry for those of you who follow me on both platfroms.
My bad.
Chapter Sixty-One:A Want For My Arenphine
Life was such a trivial, fickle thing. One moment Lance can see victory at the tips of his fingers, so close that he can touch it…
And the next all he can see is the endless stretch of night that falls upon his life, stealing the next sunrise from his future.
System: Medellin
Location: Caldara
"Eldar?"
The name comes choked and panicked: black beyond the recognition of blue, purple, red that coats the knife that pierces through flesh and armour, its motion halted in weak hands where Eldar holds the blade and keeps it in.
Understanding comes rushing back with the speed of a fired bullet, and with it the pain, hurt, heartbreak of realising that he had placed himself in its path, sheathing it into his own body when it was for Lance's heart it aimed.
And yet, it had found Lance's heart regardless.
"No, no, Eldar, NO!"
Beyond them, laughter booms like the threat of a storm, but Lance only has eyes for his lover, mind catching, tripping, tumbling—
The pair of them fall together, Eldar holding Lance, the poisoned demon fang still biting into blue; the tight of his grip doing little to hold back the tide as it floods forward in bountiful waves that rush up the beach, soaking everything it touches, staining everything the colour of a shattered sunrise.
"El, Eldar," Lance says, because he cannot push past thought that the blade had only grazed him, but taken all of his lover and holds him on its edge, struggling, breathing heavy, breathing slow—
"Eldar, look at me, look at me."
"I am, love. I—am."
It hurts for him to speak.
It hurts Lance to even think.
He wars with himself; the want to stay by his lover's side, and the rage, torment, demand that Ovule pays for this violence in eternal purgatory. And as much as Lance wants to see all of the bastard's blood spilt; as much as he wants to stand and take the place of the Red Paladin that plays opponent for now….
He can't.
He can't tear himself from Eldar's side for even a moment, can't entertain the thought long enough before his fears and nightmares breath themselves new life at a cough, a stutter, a whimper of pain that comes from pressing hands and blood, the wound, the taint of poison that will push Eldar over the edge—
"El…"
"I'm fine—" he says, but his tone implies he does not believe it – his words not strong enough to allude to the strength he tries to give Lance; strength pushed instead into the motion of trying to sit up. But the moment that he tries – gasping, crying, whimpering in pain – Lance is already there, pushing him back down to the warm dusted earth, pleading that Eldar not move, that he doesn't hurt himself anymore.
The shards of shattered sunrise press bitterly into flesh, stealing more and more of Eldar's life and bearing it to the world in pools of ruby glass. It is warm, soaking into Eldar's fur, into Lance's armour as their hands intertwine above the demon fang, finding flow but unable to stop it with hands and hope alone.
"It's fine," Eldar says again, and while he sounds stronger this time, he does not dare to rise. Instead he pulls one of his hands from where he had been attempting to staunch the flow of blood and reaches behind him – his body twisting painfully, his breath caught and choked – to where one of his short swords lies. His grip is unsteady, the metal loose in his blood-slick grip, but there is a focus in the way that he holds it, it's blade edge angle protectively across the pair of them.
Because they are not alone.
Beyond them – beyond the crumbling of their worlds – Ovule still laughs. He is bleeding from his own deep-cut wounds, but none of them pain him as Eldar's does – none of them deep enough that he wouldn't be able to witness the destruction unfolding at his hand.
Keith has barred him from taking a step closer; Rayon and Gereen behind him, using their bodies and the last of their energy to take a stand. Rayon still crouches beside his prime, but he is as torn as his king with the want to fight and the want to heal. He bleeds as Ovule does. As Keith, as Gereen does. As Lance and Eldar do.
But there is no choice in facing this foe, only the demand to ignore the pain in their hearts and the pain of their broken bodies before they lose the fight and succumb to the poison—no choice to standing their ground or falling; only the strength that keeps their feet and curls their fists for another moment longer.
But they are ignored.
"I told you I would kill him," Ovule sneers.
The fires of Lance's hatred burn, but it only serves to amuse the brute; licking his lips, staring past Valion's protectors to the King and his heart, whom he cradles like a child in his own bloodied hands. "I won't let you," Valion whispers, hands curling tighter around Eldar with the same protectiveness that had Prime level his sword. But their strength is an hourglass – cracked and spilling – neither able to fight the inevitably of choking on shared pain when Eldar's breath stutters in his lungs.
Ovule doesn't bother hiding his delight at the sight of them hurting – Eldar's physical, Lance's heavy enough that it may as well be when the want to rise to his feet is drowned by the want of remaining by his Arenphine's side. His touch remains, anchoring, steady and sure and a hundred thousand other things that holds Lance back and urges him forward in the same instant.
He is fighting too many wars at once; too many battles inside his mind, and throughout bruised, battered bones. He wants to run. He wants to fight. He wants to kill the monster in their midst, and somehow knows that if he faces him, then he'll die. Just as Eldar is dying.
Eldar…
Lance couldn't help the tangled thoughts running rampant throughout his head – the confusion that plagues his scent enough to alert his lover; the need to hold Eldar in his gaze as the fleeting wish for this nightmare to be vanquished stealing what little focus remained. Ambivalent in the way it tugs at him to stay, and pushes for him to go.
Eldar still lays beside him amongst the tumbled rocks of Foci's anger, his sapphire fur stained with crimson in a way that is entirely foreign to the memory ignited from searching for an escape from this madness. Months ago in reality, and yet inside his mind, the memory was as clear as if he had lived it yesterday; where he and Eldar had sprawled lazily across their own tumble of rocks by the river, when it was that they had visited Tuatha, far, far from this nightmare.
It wasn't selfishness, but simple desire that faced Lance with the truth that, back then, in the moment of blissful tranquillity and ever since feeling it, he had often entertained the thought that he and Eldar should never leave their shared peace – absconding all ties to the Solnha from that moment and simply live their lives in peace, between the filtered light, beneath green leaves and the warmth of the rock beneath his skin.
They had talked of scars. They had talked of home.
They had talked of together and family and forever in the same breath.
If only back then Lance knew how much he would lose, he would've never left at all.
"You can't run, Valion. Not from this. Not from me."
The words tear Lance's mind to shreds, fear paling his scent, sharpening it into ice-fragile daggers that pierce him, and Eldar, and Ovule in a way that the monster enjoyed the feeling.
"I told you I would make you watch as I killed them all."
"You'll be dead before you can even try," Keith snarls under his breath, his patience for words long since lost when he is left standing upon the crumbling shore, watching everyone around him drown, watching the tide creep closer in threat that it will soon drown him also.
Ovule's grin darkens with humour, eyes alight when he regards Keith and the emotions that roll off of him. Not as sweet as Valion's pain, his anger not quite the same, but there is a familiarity that draws him closer – adient – and claw meets bayard once more.
"You're like him," Ovule says, when Keith slams his sword against the Arroyo's resistance again, intent to ignore the curling of dread in the pit of his stomach at how futile the efforts feels when Ovule simply cocks his head to the side with another sickening grin. "I had thought Valion's stupidity was what intrigued everyone – fooled them into loving him. But you have that same… need, the same desire to save everyone. Deserving or not."
"It's not about deserving. It's about defending," Keith growls breathlessly. But the words are useless when direct Ovule, who was twisted beyond recognition of anything worth defending. He incited pain for his own enjoyment, encouraged fighting and battle simply for the want of it.
He was selfish. Self-serving. Narcissistic in a way that hurt everyone around him, deliberate in the way he intended to hurt everyone around him, to bleed them and their souls.
"You'd willingly defend him? Even if it might kill you?"
"Yes," Keith says, and it's so sure, so resolute in truth that Lance's mind feels scarily blank as he stares at the cracked white of the Paladin's armour, the deep scarlet of his status that is so much more than just his suit—
"You'd protect him, even when he tried to kill you?"
This time, Keith does meet Lance's eyes. Doesn't react to what he sees there.
"Yes."
Ovule's maw curls into a malicious smile. His eyes burn.
"Then let's see how long you can protect him.
Ovule launches before Keith can fully ready himself.
He is exhausted. Hurting. Torn with mind and body and everything in between; from facing Valion in the war chamber to facing Lance in his quarters. And now death is knocking down the door and he hasn't had a chance to catch his breath.
To stop and think. To compartmentalise and order his thoughts into logic – rational or otherwise.
All he has are his instincts and they raise his bayard in time to parry the glancing blow of sharpened claws, dodge the jaws that snap the open air where his arms had been, roll from the falling swing of Gereen's sabre. When he had found it, and when he had picked it up was lost to Lance, but that doesn't change the fact that Ovule is armed with something beyond his nails and teeth.
He is forced to hold it with two hands – his growing tiredness demanding that much of him, but it does little to his speed and strength that demands all of Keith and then some, just to keep his feet. They are beyond insults. Beyond taunts.
When Ovule holds the sword out, Keith shifts away, circling sideways with careful intent and a focus heightened with pinprick accuracy. His whole attention remains locked on Ovule, without any spare glance to those he protects while remaining out of reach of the full strength of Gereen's sabre. He's breathing heavily, Ovule less so; and then Keith tenses as the Arroyo lunges forward, their swords clattering together in a scream of metal, of bones grinding, muscles tensing, scents lighting up with a potency that makes Lance's head swim.
Beneath him, Eldar's own body tenses up, blood on his lips and the tension of firmly clamped hands rolling off of him like waves on a shore. "Hold on Eldar," he tells him. Nothing more comes to mind. Nothing but begging to Gods he doesn't believe in, to Death himself; not to take his lover too soon.
"Hold on for me."
Rayon is whispering beside him, on his knees as Lance is, the weight of waning strength staunching what blood flow he can. His whispers whip like a raging wind, fast and hurried with an urgency that takes them and twist them into something too much for Lance to grasp; to hold and understand when another cry of pain, louder, fiercer, more terrifying than the last casts the room in woodsmoke, brittle and burning. Cast darker from the rumbling thunder of Ovule's ill-tainted mirth.
Keith is holding his ground for longer than Lance had expected.
He knows the thought is bordering insulting, knows that there are more pressing matters than caring when Ovule faces the Red Paladin down with the might he bears and a teasing sneer that hasn't faltered since joining him in the battle ring. He is stronger than memory serves; is more agile with one sword when Lance knows his preference is to switch between bayard and Marmoran blade.
But there is no second blade and the footing is rocky; the terrain of the rubble-tossed ground ill-suited for the darting dodges that Keith prefers, and Lance can see the boy grimacing with each glancing blow Ovule lands, as if Keith is feeling the pain of the impact in the very marrow of his bones.
His strength wanes for a moment; be it from pain, exhaustion or the fear that cloys the air, but there is no denying that his strength is not enough to cut the swing of the brute's fist. Slow it, perhaps, but little more, and Lance can barely choke out the Paladin's name as he watches him stagger beneath the weight of the sabre.
And still he stands.
Ovule's sword swings up and around, slicing through the air and towards Keith's head; but Keith was fast enough, or desperate enough, that his bayard managed to swing upwards to meet it, to shed some portion of the blow before it knocked him back. Instead, the motion rolls through his body, off-centre enough that while unbalancing, it sets him on the path to dart sideways, out of the way of another falling attack – sword-less, but still deadly.
He is slower than what Lance remembered him to be, when they fought side by side, when they fought one another. He is slower, burdened by injuries from their earlier battle and an air of ungracefulness that comes from a distracted mind, but he has the beginnings of understanding that come from already facing this opponent; learning quicker than Lance had when Ovule's tail lashes and Keith has the mind to dodge.
Weariness rises within both of them, growing heavier with every moment that passes.
Far too soon, there is a desperation in the set of his shoulders, in the grip of his hands around his bayard's handle; Keith lunging forward to throw a sharp blow against the side of Ovule's chest, slamming hard against his side with nothing at all to block the impact.
But Ovule simply huffs at the blow, only the air in his lungs knocked loose by the impact and nothing more. He stays on his feet, doesn't move as much as a stumble and a returning blow that takes Keith entirely across the chest, Keith's wide, shock-filled eyes growing wider as his feet leave the ground and he's knocked backwards—
Lance feels Keith's name on his lips, feels it leave him in a strangled cry even before he had fully hit the ground. But anything further is stolen at the stillness in the air.
Ovule does not chase him.
Instead his cruel gaze has found Lance: his true prize.
His first step saw Gereen bar his path – broken arm or no – ready to defend his Tae-Sault—
But Ovule barely cast the Pawther more than a glance; not even bothering to swing the stolen sabre and instead land a firm blow on Gereen's broken shoulder instead. He stopped long enough to watch the way the Dull's entire body swayed, sickeningly, laughter bubbling anew as insults spewed from his rotten mouth like vomit.
One final kick took Gereen's legs from under him.
And yet, Rayon rose in his place, burdened with Leonel's poison and his own black-pained wounds he took up one of Prime's swords.
There was no exchange of words, no barbed insult, no spiked abuse above the swinging sabre and the crumbling of another body that was not strong enough to stand against it.
There was no time to think. No time to prepare as the beast charged forward, Lance's hand wrapping around the handle of Eldar's levelled sword, fearing the ease of which he could take it. "Lance no—" Eldar says, but it's all he can say as the boy rises, rising quicker to step over his husband and take a stance before him:
It was his turn to protect those he loved.
Ovule didn't care for the short sword. He didn't care for Lance's defiance either; his anger taking a second stride into the battle that saw the monster's hand close firmly around Lance's neck – too fast to dodge, too strong to break – and lifted him from his feet with a biting snarl.
In his panic, Lance lost the grip of the only defence he had; the shyrd clattering to the floor in an applaud of his mistake; mind torn to the closing where his fingers breach the seal between throat and fist in efforts to save himself a few seconds.
To think. To plan.
To fight back.
"So weak," Ovule hisses, pressing his claws into the soft of Lance's flesh; his talons placed expertly upon four bullet-like scars that remain from their last encounter. "Always so weak," he croons, the slithering of his tongue dragged against the boy's cheek to taste the potency of pain, regret, fear, anger; his laughter breaking through the suppressed noises of Lance, caught between promising death, and a thousand ways that he would grant it.
"Valion is nothing more than an accolade – a mask that hides as much as it fools every last one of the culm'anyu beneath us into following your mindless whims. Without it, you are weak and powerless," Ovule mocks, laughing at the feeble curses from Eldar, talking beyond the monster to the boy in his grip; lips turning blue from more than just starving air.
Lance didn't want to give in to his despair. He didn't want to believe the weakness that he was faced with, the voices in his head telling him he had fought tougher thrall, and yet all of that seemed pointless when he struggled to breathe, struggled to find air when he was drowning in the fear of losing everything because of Ovule's selfishness.
He didn't want to lose Eldar.
Fear lights Lance's scent in a multitude of colour – fear to his husband taking prominence when his eyes find the sprawling figure, sees the scarlet clock ticking backwards the larger it grows, both their time running out the longer Lance just hangs in the air, succumbing to words and emotions and things that should mean nothing. And will mean nothing come the oblivion.
He has to do something.
"Shall I make it quick?" Ovule whispers beneath the intoxicating despair that touched Lance's scent, sweetened it with a sour, too-bright yellow. His voice remains husky, warmed by the pleasure of taste as he takes another deep inhale to the curses of those around them, the trills of his feathered spines twitching and standing on end as he dragged desire from tasting Lance's snow-sharp fear on his tongue; the brine of salt on his skin.
"I can make it painless," he says; a pretence of caring softening his words to less than a whisper. "I can end all your pain. You just have to ask—"
"No, no, Lance," Eldar says, yells, cries out as the demand for him to fight is not strong enough to push through the pain of his wounds. The clock spins backwards, faster and faster as the scarlet ocean pours forth, Lance begging Eldar not to hurt himself, hoping that his thoughts can be heard when Ovule's grip tightens and the air stolen—
"Stop it Ovule! Let him go!"
"Only when he begs me," Ovule spits, brandishing the sabre towards Prime, his feathers raised in warning and threat all at once. "Then I'll let him go for all eternity."
No.
Not yet.
He wasn't ready to leave Eldar.
He has to do something.
Lance abandons the struggle for air; his useless claw-less fingers doing nothing to the stone-strong scales of Ovule's hands, and reaches up instead to the vulnerable of flesh of eyes. Pain, Lance demands, his hate-anger-rage-violence sickening him in a way he can't comprehend when fingers find a give and – it's only for a moment – but there is triumph in a sudden snarl.
The hand around his throat closes. The talons bleed his neck.
Lance knows he only has seconds…
Ovule won't let him reach his eyes again, one closed and pulled away, but that offers the Human a handful of feather spines. Yanking on them means little – it's about as painful as grabbing a fistful of hair – but it's all Lance can grab, and with the darkness clouding his vision he holds tight to what he can feel. Down prickles his palms, blood and sweat and fear dampening his fingers as he yanks again, feels a give; grasps another handful to the bitter growls of the Arroyo feeling pain.
Something touches Lance's face. Touches his cheek. He can't see it, can't focus on it, can't push past the heavy onset of fog that clouds mind, body, soul—
Lance bites down with all of his might. Something breaks upon his teeth, splinters like wood beneath the bone of his teeth. Water floods in, floods down his chin, around his neck. The black, fading, retreats when the noose around his neck is severed with the crack-crunch-scream-howl—
The world rises to meet Lance as he falls.
He finds his feet before he finds his mind.
All he has are his fists. He doesn't have the time, the thought to wish that it is enough, only knowing that it is all he has and all he needs to hold his ground.
Until what, Lance doesn't know. All he can think, feel, breathe is blood upon his hands – Ovule's blood, Eldar's blood and his own, feel the heat around his neck, feel it burn his lungs as he inhales on the first, second stride, third until there is a wall beneath his hands and he beats it with every fibre of his being.
The first retaliation landed squarely against Lance's chest. So did the next.
Then came the rippling of what should be pain over his ribs. His stomach.
The initial burst of adrenaline from Ovule's punch kept Lance powering through his lack of co-ordination, and Ovule grunted as Lance's fists connected with mounting anger that had no use trapped within the confines of his own body.
He let it rise, let it flow through him, let it build and surge like tempest waves crashing upon the cliff face. There is no flash of silver. No blade to parry him. The importance of the fact is lost to Lance, but as his strength surges, so does a lightness in his soul.
Valion joins him.
But god damn Ovule's stomach had no give under their fists. It reminded Lance of his limited experience of punching bags back on Earth; leather packed with sand, resilient and built for taking hits. Reminded him even more of the metal-skeleton gladiators that he had faced on the training deck, where they had split his knuckles like firewood; had sought to split his will just the same, and had broken upon it instead.
Ovule would break, just as the gladiators had.
But not before holding his ground.
Even though he was injured – bleeding, bruised and broken beneath his smattering of scales – it was clear Ovule wasn't going to be going down fast.
Punching does little, and although unarmed, Valion can do more than bleed his knuckles. With the next strike, his hand is levelled flat, tense with taut muscles and pointed fingers that aim a particularly vicious jab to Ovule's side, driving into the softness between his ribs. Something cracks – Lance doesn't know what, nor care to find out, doesn't care to think beyond Ovule's hiss as he backs up; Valion eating up the distance immediately.
He can't quite form a fist with his right hand. There's more pain than bleeding knuckles, but while the blight still stands, neither he nor Valion will think of anything until there is a corpse at their feet, or they themselves fall.
But not yet.
Not yet.
Ovule rages in word and fist alike; insults rolling across Valion's armour that cannot be heard. A mindlessness has taken him; far superior to Anadón's gift, to Zaos's shared companionship.
It is red in anger and black in pain. Grey in emptiness and the bright white of stars that fill him, fill the throw of his fist; meteors sent from the heavens like rain. Thunder cracks deep inside their bodies; a symphony of bones breaking beneath flashes of light; lightning illuminating the tear of muscles when movement becomes too much – too quick, too fierce, too strong for the humanity that binds him.
Abandoned for the sake of victory.
Imbued with pain imprisoned in this tomb of flesh, Lance would shed every worldly anchor to become more than what the bindings of his humanity would allow. Whether there was control, or need, he did not know or care. All he understood was the acceptance that came from casting aside his mortality to become something greater, something that even Death could not touch until he saw this monster felled.
And if he survived this fight, he would remain to fight all those that came after.
He would shatter the shackles that trapped him in the realm of living, shatter them and reforge them in the fires of his anger. He would arm himself with the metal of his broken body, steel his heart in iron to weigh him with the pain so that every time he raises his fist, his might, his sword, may it be that he remembered the hardships he faced; the hardships he had conquered.
And may it be that he can raise his sword over and over until every mountain is toppled, until every river has run dry, so that every ocean has been drained and all the wonders of its depths are brought into the light.
And Valion would be the light that shines in the dark.
He would be the fire that would never burn out; the spark of hope that would aid the fragile hearts of his people, when their arms were heavy and their body tired. His breath would be the wind that carried the roars of their battle cries; his ashes the dust that would settle when the fighting ceased; his blood the tears they wept when they stood in triumph.
There is no room for doubt here.
There is no one here that would shelter the seed sown by other's choices; no one to give light and life to such burdens when the risk of losing everything is burden enough. Burden and incentive all at once.
Ovule feels the depth of power beneath the punches. He hears the change in the silence that follows his own.
He sees something previously hidden, and now there is more than just anger and hate and resentment behind his blows. There is fury to the unbroken, confusion to the resilience that does not crumble, has not crumbled, will not crumble.
And there is something else.
Foreign. Unwelcome.
Sour and bitter in a way vastly different from that which he had stalked down dimly lit halls, stolen with the taste of blood upon his tongue; lavished beneath the symphony of screams.
This fear is his own: unwanted and uninvited.
It stole the strength from his blows and stole the air from his lungs. It sapped his scent of colour and stumbled his feet until he had gathered distance between himself and the insignificance that would not fall. Understanding returned, and, in the quiet of the rock-carved room, he blustered his laughter with the intent to dismiss this confusion that took seed from the unfamiliar that plunged ice into his being.
Valion could see the confusion. The fear. The uncertainty that quietened his tongue; the barbs of his insults far less damaging than all that had come before. Around him, the flickering lights of his family watched on. Some were yet to understand what was happening, some less attuned to the air, to the earth, to the electricity of the air that sharpened Valion's mind in the same instant it dulled the Arroyo's tongue when he tasted blood.
His blood.
Something reminiscent to a smile pulled at the lunes of the boy's face: a flicker of humanity that remained in the deep shadows of his eyes and the slight of his lips.
Ovule should've known better.
He should've stopped to think for a moment, to stop and consider who it was that he was betraying — (No. Not betraying. Because Ovule was never really Solnha to begin with. Once, he might've joined them on their ships, might've fought by their side when the situation arose, but that was only for the sake of survival; the fake of his companionship brought because the Solnha were good for instigating the Galra into battling them. Because logic wielded true, in that the Galra would pay more attention to a fleet of rogues that tripped them at every turn rather than one Arroyo with a taste for violence and blood and beating things until they broke apart.) — and how far he had come since their first meeting. It had been deep in a cave much like this, with its crumbling ceiling and dusted earth.
Ovule should've stopped to consider who Valion was, who Lance used to be – the human who had abandoned everything known and still sought for the light, who had been given every chance to lay down and give up, but instead survived almost impossible odds through sheer force of will.
Ovule should've stopped when he saw how deep Valion's anger went, how hot the fire of his anger felt on his scaled skin, how the bite of his words was as if his tongue was laced with poison far more potent than that of the demon's fangs that pierced the Human's heart.
Ovule should've known better.
And yet some part of Valion was glad that he didn't.
For Valion, for Lance, time has slowed.
It is no longer a raging waterfall falling upwards, backwards, but now a simple trickle of water, dripping in time to their heartbeat that joins in chorus from the depths of their chest; having slowed just as the water has while Ovule continues to taunt with words that are not heard in the stillness of time running out.
Maybe it's part of some plan, maybe it's nothing at all and Ovule's taunts are simply born from the want to hurt another, the want to hurt Lance. He knows the reach of his claws, knows the power of his bite, but neither can reach Lance's soul like the promise of death and pain and loneliness. Its these words, and Eldar's name, that echo loud enough for them to slip through the stillness of fluid time.
But whatever intent with which they are cast cannot find him in his haze.
Ovule's voice becomes nothing but a drone in the lapse between apoplectic anger and voracious rage.
Whether deliberate or otherwise, he takes the moment to prepare himself, idle and unhurried in the way he lets a hand roam the cuts on his arms, a casual eye cast to a wound far from the lethality it should've been.
By contrast, Lance, Valion, do nothing at all: it's enough for them just to remain standing.
Lance's hands burn, his mind catching like silk on a razor's edge; Valion ignoring the fight inside him when he curls his hands into fists - the only sign of the torrent hatred warring within them both.
To him, to them, it does not matter what weapon weighs their hands, doesn't matter that nothing weights them at all; Ovule's rambling taunts are the delay to the conclusion of an ongoing battle, starting with their first meeting back in the Torous's caves, dragging itself through the stars to this moment of breathlessness and blood.
Valion braces themselves where they stand, planting his feet hard against the dust earth as the worlds falls away. Pain prickles his eyes; a wetness caught his throat that hasn't the strength to push past the pretence of mindlessness to make itself known.
It is lost, as all things are, beneath the sweeping tide of fire, flame, poison and smoke, until nothing remains but a boy and the monster he faces.
He doesn't need to wait for Ovule to come to him.
Valion throws himself across the divide.
He finds a smile from the sound of Ovule's startle, watching his feet shudder beneath his weight, the flick of his tail straightening to balance before Lance is on top of him once more. His fists are iron, his bones steel. His jaw is welded shut to lock the scream of pain when a punch lands, and, Ovule's ribs cracking, his fingers folding at a sudden jerk of movement he didn't register making.
It's the same hand that had burnt, the same stone-resilience that won't quite let him make a fist.
No matter.
Lance didn't let himself mourn the loss of his fingers when he had fashioned his entire body into a weapon at his disposal.
He threw up a loose guard to the sudden of a meaty fist, but his focus remained on the offensive and suddenly it is Ovule who bars the path to his maw leaving Valion to pound chest, ribs, stomach.
Something breaks through Ovule's defences.
It's not a whimper, but it's close enough and in that moment, when sound echoes throughout Lance's mind like the chiming of a bell, he can feel something shift inside him. Something changed in Ovule too. Suddenly his eyes aren't so sharp, his scales not so white, as if they had lost the glow and the beauty to them, of which Lance would never let himself admit.
Lance's focus inhaled that feeling with fervency, brain tunnelling down on the feeling that was as addictive to him, as the sweetness of blood was to Ovule.
He blocked out everything but the rising blue of something within him, something familiar in blue as it is in red and purple and every colour the sky can be between sunrise and sunset. His muscles scream within the confines of his body as he draws his arms back and lets them fly like bullets, again and again, but there is no give, no pause, no wait, no sympathy to the breaking that beats like drums in his head. Black clouds his eyes and Lance fights the drag of his lungs just to keep standing, to keep fighting, to keep his hands flying.
Ovule chokes when Valion's knuckles bury themselves into his throat. Spits blood and tooth when an elbow catches his maw, a kick to his stomach that doesn't fucking give, but there's a resilience that draws Lance closer in challenge to breaking it.
If he can beat down this wall, he can beat down any that lay past this one.
If he can topple this mountain, he can level the thousand more that wait beyond.
If he can win this fight…
This battle was but an empty desert to Zarkon's mountain of reigning terror and Lance would not fall upon it. There had never been any choice but to persevere, and although his bare feet may be bloody and his body may stumble, Lance would never stop, never turn back until he had conquered both desert and demon.
Beneath the blanketing fear, this moment was just another hill to climb, just another trial to face as he had time before since his births; the one that brought him into this world as Lance, and the second that renewed his strength and purpose when he took the mantle as Valion.
When doing so, he had chosen to turn the tide of nature's destruction; to rip up the book already written and carve his own future true. As Eldar had once said, the scars that had been imprinted into his flesh were not the signs of weakness, but a testament to his strength; to his will; to his very being that had survived a war spanning millennia.
Around them the world quakes as if each punch, each blow, each bullet of bone-flesh-muscle beats a rhythm into the earth; as if the cave that crumbles has decided to join the breaking of bodies. Dust falls from above like a copper snowstorm. A familiar voice screams into the wind, but it is stolen between hearing and understanding as Ovule and Valion and Lance battle for sway in this fight.
Soon enough, it will draw to a close.
Before the light leaves.
Lance's balance is all wrong; he can't dart away in deflection of a surprise kick, doesn't possess the speed or swiftness that would carry him over the uneven ground to Ovule's unguarded rear.
But Ovule's hands, clasped tight with one another, is already falling. The weight of his arms slams hard against the curve of Lance's twisted body, and he goes forward at once. He would've been knocked right off his feet had Valion not intercepted, taking the momentum of the stagger and pulling their tired limbs into a roll. Fila 'Ion protects his back from the sharp of stones, and once more he's on his feet, hands steadying himself on something hard.
Something that shouldn't move, shouldn't let his fingers dig into its skin and break it apart, but it does and Valion turns back to his opponent armed with a rock in his fist.
"That won't help you," the Arroyo snaps, but even he cannot deny the blood that stains it after the third hit, the fourth hit. On the fifth it crumbles into copper snow and Lance is left with broken fingers and a visible shake to his being. He grits his teeth. Welds shut his jaw and launches forward, into the fray.
Each punch is retaliated, each kick, each shunt, each shove and snarl are replied in kind.
When Ovule slaps Valion with his tail, Lance hangs on. Finds feathers in his grip and yanks them out. Arms himself with the pinprick quills and aims for the eyes.
When Lance clamps his teeth around a hand aiming for his throat, Ovule's claws tears the worn of armour and draw blood into the heated battle. Draws the taste to his mouth and savours the taste.
When a reaching fist becomes a grab, Valion pulls himself and Lance backwards. He is slower than intended, his body heavy in a way Lance understands but Valion can't quite grasp. Their arm, locked behind muscle and claw, does not follow the body.
Bone does not stretch.
It snaps. It breaks.
Muscle tears. Skin shreds.
Lance turns his agony into anger, turns his stubbornness into strength, turns his mind to ash and lets the fire of abandonment burn him to the core and beyond. He is the stars, the sun, the moon. He is the oblivion that awaits him, the explosion that started it all and the explosion that will end it.
He is life.
He is pain.
He is death.
Ovule's death.
The fight was already over.
Lance can see it, can feel it in the shake of his strength, the unknitting of bones; hear it in the gasping inhales of an opponent that takes longer and longer to muster the strength to return the blow that breaks upon his scales.
Valion can feel it in the ease of knocking past weak defences, can feel it in the ease of Ovule breaking past his own with a slap of a tail that may wind, but does not lift him from his feet.
They stand close together, holding distance and closeness in the grasping hands that hold themselves up as much as they hold the other.
Valion's lungs burn with every inhale, his ribs like molten lead with every expand of his chest and the movement that he cannot still in his desperation to catch his breath, to catch his racing mind, to catch hold of the understanding that Ovule is close enough to strike, and yet neither he nor Lance can lift their arm to hit him.
Their hands are shaking, fingers, bloody. Sweat drenches his body, copper snow sticking to his skin, to the stickiness of blood that clings to him like tar. It clings to his hair, his face, his hands and chest.
Fila 'Ion weeps her own garnet tears that seep into his skin and weigh him. Weigh against his heart. It beats firm in his chest, but there is a dullness to its sound, like a chord struck wrong, or out of time, of losing the momentum of running down hill—
Ovule is the first to move.
His hand reaches from beyond the grip of Lance's arm to his elbow, to his shoulder, as if his attacks have to be divided into steps to complete them with the sheer exhaustion that pulls at both of them. There is intent in the grip, but it's not strong enough to push past the bone-dry-weary-lull of enervation for Lance to pull his arm back.
With a shuddering breath, the Arroyo collapses upon his knees.
With the grip on Valion's shoulder, he is pulled down too.
"Weak," he says, in insult and jab and question.
Lance meets the paling milk of white-iris eyes, finding a blindness in one and distance in the other. "I beat you," he says with only the strength of the air in his lungs; and nothing more that would betray the emotions that smoulder inside him. The flames died out when the fighting did, but the embers still glow and the ash is still hot.
Ovule, in his desperation for some semblance of victory, cannot help but snarl: "You are dying."
But Lance, Valion, can only smile. "Maybe. But I am not dead yet. And will not die; I will continue to fight, long after my body gives out, so long as I bury the memory of you."
And he would gladly sacrifice the last of his time if it would be that he would drag Ovule into the depths of oblivion. This would be the final battle in which they would face one another; one that Ovule would not walk away from, for Valion would not allow himself to die until the monster had drawn his final breath.
"You will still die."
Grasping.
"We all die. Some of us just live longer than others."
Around them, the world has faded into a memory that waits for permission before raising its voice; bending its will to Valion's and Ovule's that tangle in this moment of time running out. Hourglasses cracked, clocks ticking backwards, water running up hill…
Before the light leaves, Valion thinks, when their minds sway and the world doesn't match with memory for a moment too long.
Shakily, he rises from his knees.
His body fights him, the earth around him, fights him, and still the boy climbs to his feet. Ovule doesn't bother to hold on. He watches through lidded eyes, caught more on the pain of breathing another lungful more to follow the unsteady steps of his prey.
Lance sees the shine of metal within the haze of everything turning, tangling, frozen as if everything is holding its breath. Even the smell of the air is muted, his mind withdrawn as not to over crowd or pressure or unbalance when Lance bends slowly, hesitant for the fear of kneeling and being unable to stand.
But his hand finds hilt, the familiar to one of his husband's favoured sword weighting his hand, burning the muscle of his grip, grating the shattered marrow of splintered bone.
Before the light leaves.
He retraces his steps to where Ovule still kneels, head bowed in a defeat he cannot fight, neck bared to the King that rests the sword against it. There is a tremble to his body, so unlike Ovule that it is this that calls for Lance to take pause for a moment. The sword remains, it's weight on the Arroyo's shoulder like some twisted bestowal of knighthood rather than the call for execution.
The fight has left him. His defiance has flamed out and all that remains is the tired body of a soldier caught up in the wrong war.
But then every ill-thought, every damning words, every splinter of hatred and rage and pain comes rushing back like a tidal wave and Lance finds bitterness in forgetting for even a moment. Both hands wrap firmly around the handle, his arms tensing for the pull, hold, release—
"You haven't won," Ovule tells him from the dirt. Finds Valion's gaze and holds it. "Killing me won't save them."
"It will save them from you," the boy says with a voice that is not his own.
With lingering strength, he lifts the shyrd on straining arms, the silver sheen of the short sword not heavy enough to demand two hands, but the taxation of the battle does and Lance can feel his body protesting as he lifts the sword high, point angled down.
Ovule's eyes flicker between Lance's and the blade, a flood of thoughts hidden behind the dull tiredness that pales their colour. And the weakness of human's hesitates Lance's hand.
It is noticed in an instant.
"You can't."
"I can. I just never wanted to kill you so quickly." He raises the sword higher, ignoring the tightness of his body – his muscles taut like piano wire. "But I will. And I will learn to live with that regret."
Ovule laughed, but the sound meant little. Over spoken:
"Death is a mercy I wish I could've kept from you, until you were begging for it." With every word, Valion feels his memories urging him forward. They fill the emptiness of air between them, sharpening his scent, his tongue and his teeth. He didn't have the energy, but neither the choice when emotion took hold with strength renewed and Lance felt his mind pulled in a hundred different directions at once.
He could feel the heat of panting in tight lungs, feel the sweat on his hands and the fear in his heart as he ran from the monster that hunted him in familiar corridors. He could hear the gentle stuttering of Or's heart as it slowed inside her chest, felt the warmth of her blood, of Ygrainne's blood, of the Hycis' blood as it was drawn from his fingers when he held their broken bodies and watch the life leave them.
He could feel the pain of blistered palms as he carved his brother's names into the Hearth, drowning beneath the torment of too many names to speak, too many faces to remember, too many lights snuffed out.
Lance leaned in closer, words dripping malevolence; "I wish that I could have savoured your pain, as you have savoured mine; that I could have granted you an eternity of torture, that even your mind turned against you. I would've stripped you of everything you are proud of, torn from you what makes you feel yourself and poisoned it, poisoned you with everything you hate so that you wouldn't even be able to recognise yourself."
"You—you couldn't," Ovule chokes, but there is something unsure in the silence between his words. "You are too soft… you don't have the stomach. You— care —too much, for too many. You're not capable of hurting—"
But Lance is resolute: "I will gladly hurt those that hurt my family."
The gruffness of his anger is soft and fragile; glass fingers reaching, curling, tightening a hand around Valion's hip. Reaching upwards, but unable to fight the gravity that bars his intent. Talons prick the give of flesh. But there is no strength behind his grasp when it is that his strength is given to his hold on the living realm.
Anger is only secondary to a fear he had never felt before; the taste of metal on his tongue, harsh and striking and far too familiar to the fear he had bestowed on his prey.
Strength waning, his head begins to droop, eyes rolling backwards. It is Valion's turn to reach out, one hand taken from the blade that would cut the string of fate — frayed and fraught, stained colourless as the strands are wrenched from the tapestry of life: knotted, winding, lashed, as the whip once had, when it had been held by his own hand — to the curve of Ovule's cheek. A ripple of unspent emotion lets him hold the Arroyo's head upright; granting him only the want of focusing his eyes.
In this moment, only they two exist, and Valion demands that Ovule look into his eyes and sees the truth reflected in them.
But the man can only laugh.
"You're too weak. You still show compassion," Ovule spits with what could be his final breath. And Lance could deem it so, with a flick of his wrist. But there had been no lie in his words when he told Ovule of his wishes; not all of them, but only those that concerned him and what remained of their time running out.
He leans closer, wanting Ovule to hear every word; to hear that he means every word:
"I would've watched your strength wither with every sunrise. I would've watched your soul rot inside your body with every sunset. I would've watched you die. Slowly. And I would've enjoyed every minute of it."
The grip of the blade twists – Lance's fingers white and bloodless from the force he pushes into the action of relinquishing sword to gravity's calling, following it, forcing more power into the fall.
He lets it anchor him, lets it ground him, lets it be the rock in this ocean of noise and nothingness – his world entire long-since crumbled beyond the pair of them.
Before him, Ovule gasps, the hand that had found purchase in Valion's hip is released when instead it reaches to the hand that holds his cheek – gentle – to steady it. Whatever words he wanted to say are lost in breathy gasps, his strength waning far enough that he leans into the Human to keep himself upright. Lance presses his lips closer to the Arroyo's ear, words devoid of emotion as he speaks:
"Pray to the stars that Eldar lives, Ovule. Because if he doesn't… I will find you. Beyond Death, I will find you in oblivion, and I will bring you suffering for the rest of eternity. That is my promise."
Ovule's body slumps.
Falls to the dirt.
Unmoving.
Dead.
There is a moment of absolute silence: from Valion, from Lance standing staring at the still form in front of him. Then someone takes a breath from behind him, and someone else raises his name in an uncertain question, and then the entire world falls back into time and there is noise, questions, chaos.
Shadows flitter from the stone columns that hold up the sky, drawing closer to the dead with a hesitance and a reverence to Valion that still holds the blade that had severed the strand that tied Ovule to the act of being – no more when his body grows cold and his colour fades.
A broad body steps between Lance and Ovule, a shadowed figure bending lower over the other's motionless form, a curtain of darkness stealing his sight; and then his name topples from a thousand lips in earnest and sadness and caution, Valion's name chorused in relief and tears and a breathy laughter that sounds more like tears. And there—
"Arenphine."
Lance blinks for a moment, his body spinning too fast for his mind to track, almost falling – would've, had it not been for a faceless someone by his side, steadying him, speaking his name and a multitude of words that mean nothing when all he can think, feel, see—
"Eldar."
Eldar still lays where he had fallen. His blue lips are pressed into a smile, his breathing laboured in the small silence that divides them; divides them no longer when Lance finds the distance swallowed and sinks to his knees on the uneven ground, close enough to brush his fingers through Eldar's fur; to outline his chin and trace the familiar patterns of colour beneath teary eyes.
The boy's body rejoices in quiet appreciation at the act, having been waiting in the wings until it could take itself a moment to recover the energy spent on vanquishing the blight that had invaded the peace; and that when Lance finally finds the ground beneath him, he finds its comfort inviting his head to lay down, for his eyes to close, his mind to silence—
Before the light leaves…
A shadow moves to Lance's left and – he doesn't startle, doesn't have the energy for it – but there's a tension that surges throughout his body, waning when the charcoal smoke softens into the familiarity of Tho's reaching arms. He holds snow in his hand and lays it gently across Eldar's stomach – no, not snow, a blanket of sorts that moulds to Eldar's form but does not allow the ruby glass to pierce its purity.
"Wha— why?"
They are the only words Lance can choke out; the Yeiráís lifting with a sadness, layered in intricacy and a depth that Lance hadn't the want or courage to breach. "It is going to be okay, Valion," he says, but whether he is lying for himself or for the boy that kneels, opposite, broken; no one can say.
Beside him is Coran, the pair working together, but there's confusion in Lance's mind when he thinks to their arrival and finds a blank empty nothingness.
The same nothingness that lays across Eldar's stomach where the demon sword had been, only to find it several feet away, the black of its venom mixing with the wine red of stolen time in a puddle that holds far too many moments that shouldn't have had to been sacrificed for his sake.
Always for his sake.
Eldar sees him looking. Sees the question in his eyes as a hand reaches from where it had been buried beneath the snow to take Lance's hand. Brow furrowing when Lance barely reacts to the touch to broken bones.
"Lance—"
"Careful Eldar," comes the soft reprimand, and Lance sees a reaching hand that will break them apart—
No, no!
The boy tightens his grip. Doesn't care for the twinge that sends electricity up his arm. Apologies for the tightness in Eldar's offered smile. Smiles in return when Eldar tightens his fingers and offers a second hand to wipe way the pearl of blood that traced a line from his hair to his eyebrow.
There must've been a stray tear because suddenly, Eldar takes Lance's face into his hands, hushing him, pushing through the pain that shadows his face, even trying to sit up despite the protests around him.
But Lance is the only one on his mind.
"Sssh, sssh, it's okay," he says gently, fingers playing a familiar melody as the stroke the smooth of Lance's skin, outlining his face, following the contours of a missing smile until it blossoms into being; his own smile deepening at the sight of it; letting slip a bubble of laughter that is choked more than it should be, more of a sob than contentment.
"It's okay Lance. Everything is okay."
"Liar," the boy whispers in return, as if being heard would confirm the pain that anchors his heart in the moment of being unable to breathe.
But still he smiles.
For Eldar.
For himself.
He lets his husband pull him closer, his body leaning, lips already warm as he greets the blue petals that have always been his, will always be his.
He is home in the kiss, soft and warm and safe in the kiss. He is as simple as a breath of air and just as light, free from the darkness that had crowded him in the duel, all of it washing away to leave pastel colours and open arms.
From between their lips, rises a small bubble of noise.
It breaks inside Lance's mouth, the simple muffle of amusement muted beneath pressed lips and unspoken words; ignored at first, but harder to when the snickering builds from a simple noise to pink-cheek laughter. Lance's forehead rests against his heartmate's, sharing the sound between them as it grows, rises, builds in the quiet privacy of two.
But the laughter is unsteady on Lance's lips and he can feel something blue, purple, silver, thick on his tongue and the sound bubbles wetly into something different.
If the choice is to cry or to laugh, then he would rather laugh.
Lance buries his face in Eldar's fur and kept on laughing. Almost choked himself hoarse on the stupidity of it all, but that did nothing to the sound.
Around him, he can hear feet pattering on stone, can hear his name and Valion's on worried lips. The touch of a hand caresses his shoulder and Lance can't laugh anymore when his breath is stolen in a flare of pain, roaring, rolling, driving the air from his lungs in a poor excuse of hilarity.
All of a sudden, he is tired.
So terribly tired.
With what little of himself remains, Lance buries his face into the tufting of Eldar's fur where neck and body join, feeling it tickle his noise and invite more laughing, but Lance wants for nothing more than to abandon his mind; laughter and all.
Breathing hurts. Sobbing more so, but he had slammed his fists into the same wall over and over and now there is no guard between himself and the reality that lies before him, beneath a blanket of snow that creeps into his being and saps the warmth that should be felt in their entwined hands.
He does not want to consider the thought. He does not want to put it into words, for the fear that putting it into words will make it real, and Lance doesn't think he can cope if Eldar is truly…
Before the light leaves.
"El?"
"Sssh, love," comes comfort abound, and Lance wants nothing more than to fall into Eldar's waiting arms. He wants to fold himself into the space against his chest, to slot their hearts together and just… exist.
No pain, no thought, no laughter. Just the two of them and their heartbeats to fill the space of broken things, and broken clocks and broken waterfalls.
The bravura that had clung to him like a rain-sodden cloak seemed to drift from his shoulders, leaving a boy in the boots of a man who stood on the edge of losing everything. Reddened eyes blinked behind a steady stream of tears, no end in sight. The hand that held Eldar's tightened, hesitant as not to share the pain, but find simple reassurance when the motion is replied in kind and Lance can feel a promise in the tightness that holds him. Not yet, it says. Not yet.
Around them, words fell like ghosts; falling and rising and falling again, but no one dared to touch the boy, nor pull broken hand from breaking heart. Not before the light faded.
Sometimes familiarity would loom from the shadows, recognition to faces and names, but the exhaustion that had found Lance holds him with a strength far greater than Ovule's hold, far mightier than the fires that had burnt through him and broken his humanity just for the sake of victory…
When Shiro speaks, Lance can barely understand him. His face blurs in a rush of stillness, the gleaming white of his Paladin armour too much to look at, but Lance hasn't the mind to pull his eyes away when a thought occurs and sickness boils like sludge in the depths of his stomach.
"Keith—"
"Keith's fine. Just a few bumps, few bruises. Nothing a bit of sleep and a mug of kirkuk won't fix," Tho' ushers, suddenly beside him, not opposite.
It's like Lance is drunk. Like he has downed half a dozen mugs of the silvery drink and has been plucked from the dining hall and thrown here, into this mess, and left to tread water until the drunk-ness washes away. Shiro's face, the reflected twinkling lights and Eldar's ocean of blue all blur together. Fading.
"Lance."
"Yes," the boy says, opening his eyes with a quickness that tilts everything. Concern watches him from countless eyes.
Words rise once more, but when someone speaks of leaving, of sleep and space, all holding the disguise of distance from Eldar, and Lance stops listening. Finds his husband still lying beside him, their hands still wound tight together.
Eldar doesn't tilt like the world does.
He is looking away, speaking in a low voice to one of the shadows, the blue of his fur vibrant. The snow has given way to red roses and prickling thorns.
Eldar must feel his gaze. Must hear the silent pleading of his other half, turning his head to find Lance's tawny eyes misting with morning fog.
The hand that holds his face brushes against his skin with the tenderness of their first kiss.
"I'm right here, love."
For how long?
Until the light leaves.
When will the light leave us?
Lance can see the discolouration of his scent, can taste the pain in his lover's heart like copper-metal-earth in his own mouth. Tastes the shattered sunrise when Eldar's fingers trace his lips, to urge his smile from the shadows. And while Lance smiles – for Eldar, for himself – he cannot deny there is a deeper chill to Eldar's touch; his fur doing little to bar the cold that had first been given from poison blade, and now clings to his lover's, to his fingers and the warm-sticky-heaviness of Lance's blood, numbing him from the inside.
Even the hand Lance holds feels cold to the touch. He cannot warm it.
There are words beyond them, names and reassurances and questions all swirling in the air like leaves caught in the playfulness of a summer breeze, but Lance still chooses to ignore them. He isn't ready to step away when the still lingering fears hangs unspoken in the air: that this moment shared is nearing its end.
That this moment could be their last.
Before the light leaves us.
"I'm right here," Eldar whispers again, as if he knew what his love was thinking.
And maybe he did.
They knew each other so well, loved each other so deeply that the lines between them had blurred, granting Lance the inhuman aptitude to discern emotion from scent, as it granted Eldar a deep burning of compassion, understanding and unimaginable strength of will that Human's held within their hearts. Together they made one another more.
But what if they are together no more?
What happens then?
"Lance," Eldar says softly, cupping Lance's cheek, holding the boy's hand where it holds the matted, tear-soaked fur of his own. Ignores the scent of blood when he presses his lips lightly against the boy's palm. His wrist. His fingers.
"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
Lance smiles.
For Eldar.
For himself.
"I'll go with you, if you do."
