The clouds scraped beneath her clawing hand. With the wild scream she made with the bellowing of her flame, Cinder knew what she was doing. For the first time in a long time, she had a purpose, one she chose and one she believed in. She was going home. Not to Salem, the fortress, some warehouse in Vale, not an apartment in Atlas, not a cave in Vacuo. She was going to her honest and true home.
Day bled hot into the night, the roaring waves of sunlight in Vacuo bore rough into Cinder. Her black ensemble burned and scorched in places as she flew. The flames which extended from her hand and feet only bolstered that. However, the heat was the least of Cinder's concerns.
Cinder had been allowed a second chance in an almost epic poem's finale circumstance, as if through divine intervention. Though Cinder would rather it be through some divine twaddle that she had been spared than the reality.
Ruby, and her insufferable band, were the ones who had smiled and waved her off. The lot of them, basking in their victories. Had Cinder not used the Relic of Choice and seen… seen her best future… she would have tried to do away with red and her lot then and there. Though, of course, she would have given Ruby a chance, it was that girl who lifted the curse of her monstrous appendage.
Warping and scorched, the black cape Cinder bore to hide her former Grimm arm now only hid heavy scarring. In one of her bouts of actually being helpful, Ruby eliminated that last thread Cinder had to Salem. One day, hopefully on her deathbed, Cinder would say how thankful she was too little red. Though for now, she was contemptuous of merely doing without the arm. A replacement would have to be set in order.
As the day bore on, and Vacuo's blue skies bore down on her, beneath her, Cinder could see the makings and whipping edges of sand storms dissipating. The ebbing of the dunes brought a lift to her spirit. A smile was beginning to grow on her as greenery began to pick up on the floor. It was a long journey, but Cinder was confident it would be worth it. She only hoped that Lila waited for her. She swore she would come back, she had promised, her letter detailed it all. Gods, please just have let Lily stay for her.
Nights passed slowly, their darkness letting the ground beneath her transform. Tufts of green hills sprouted, rising gently before sharp guards of rock began to pillar high toward Cinder. The thick grey rock gave Cinder some brief recollection of the damned castle—her broken bed, which that cursed Watts never fixed. The black citadel would never again curse her with nights of unrest. Cinder had done her time in that Witch's court. Never again would she have to pester herself with those hateful memories. But Cinder skirted those thoughts from her just as quickly as the mountains swayed past her form. Their grey steeples reaching high into the morning sky as if giants were waiting to stand.
More time she spent amongst the heavens led Cinder to tire. Her arms and form were stiff from the use of her powers. Where she would usually have flown with a stern determination and carelessness, now she was quivering to just coast. Her flames, which began as raging and bright, were shrill and incredibly powerful. Cinder just hoped she'd be able to reach Vale. Her clothes were similarly splintered, burned, and scrapped off in the wind.
The pendant Cinder had splintered with missing feathers. A crack ran along with the gemstone within it. The damage hurt more than anything else for the Fall Maiden, particularly because Lila had so painstakingly crafted it. The rest of her clothes were similarly beaten to high heaven.
The cape was growing more and more ragged, but in her haste for time, Cinder couldn't afford to discard it.
Though the final thing to slip from Cinder as she roared across the waxing morning sky was the faint snapping of her eyepatch. The black fabric was largely destroyed, one of Salem's final lashes at her vessel before the end, it seemed. With a last loosening of the strings by way of the wind, the matted patch slipped its elastic hold. Falling through the waves of Cinder's mane and whipping back behind her. The eyepatch catching the trail of her ebbing flames, lighting the symbol aflame as it crept downward. Its wearer barely noticed its loss.
The nights of travel, brutal chill forced itself through the thin material of her clothes. The warm blood drained just as her aura continued to, leaving Cinder without the safety net of her semblances heat. Her eyelashes froze together once too many times because things weren't hard enough to see kilometres up already.
It felt like months. Cinder's body had never been so sore and hurt, not even after Beacon. Her frame burned, aura dripping like an IV, some small part of her thought she was about to drop. Dropdown far below and crash right into those… buildings?
Vale had never been more of a sight for sore eyes than it was for Cinder that morning. But that didn't change her situation. Vale crept on the edge of her horizon, taunting her. Buildings stretching high, swarmed by cranes and scaffolding. The sight would have sickened her not too long ago. It symbolized her failure. Now, it gave her some brief hope. If humanity could rebuild after such a thing, indeed there was hope for one little Fall Maiden.
Slipping into Vale was surprisingly easy. The boarded guards smiled at her as she wandered through the checkpoint. She had skeptically readied a blade behind her in anticipation. It shocked Cinder the open arms she was met by. People entered the city in couples or families, returning to the wrecked urban sprawl. Slipping amongst the dirt and filth, it reminded Cinder of all those years ago. The police wandering streets without a care were now replaced with a population emboldened by their pyrrhic victory. Again, Cinder was confronted with her failure. She was meant to break these people, and yet she watched as these people spoke happily on street corners. None of these people even showed care for the very well near-end of the world they could have experienced. Some of them even waved to her, her, never in Cinder's life had she experienced someone greeting her for any other reason than a favour, of one sort or sadly another.
Around every corner, Cinder would find just another scrap of her handiwork being undone. Grimm invasions being thwarted in the suburbs. Large reconstruction projects sifting through the wreckage. As she reached closer and closer to the docks, Cinder felt her heartbeat pull at her eyes. The brimming of tears exploded when she saw the ships arriving in Vale.
From her point of view above the wooden ports, Cinder could see the droves of people returning to the city. Boats of all make, civilian and cruise liners hauling in droves of all sorts of people—refugees returning from their long overdue exodus. Cinder watched as families reunited at the steps, hugging and calling one another's names in a sickeningly sweet symphony. It pained Cinder to watch the scene evaporate into the dark fog of Vale's sea, the boat she gained passage onto rocking slowly off.
The boat rocked gently beneath her. Her pockets were lighter, having used much of her lien to get just this far. She was leaning on the front rail, watching the ebbing and thrashing of waves into the sturdy boat's front. The light haze of the sea's air filled her lungs, water dancing on Cinder's addled body.
Though it had been a week at this point of her journey, the heavy bags under her eye, alongside her slackjawed posture, indicated the Fall Maiden had yet to wind down for rest. She could not find itself in her to rest. Somewhere out there, the fate of the world was being celebrated, cheered, and Ruby's crowd hailed as victors. But Cinder… Cinder just had her mind on one thing.
What if Lila was gone?
Surely she had heard. That small village was isolated, but it was by no means off the grid. Hell, even her wanted poster had made it to that small part of Mistral. She wondered if Lila had seen what had happened to Atlas, had she thought less of Cinder? The Fall Maiden tossed and turned with that thought. Bringing down Ironwood, regardless of Salem or not, was a good decision. Even Ruby had said so. It was just the method in doing the act that was different. Accompanied by the destruction of Atlas proper, Cinder rocked herself silly night after night, imagining the look on Lila's face. It must have been so shocking how someone so morose shared the same bed as you all those months ago.
It was the better part of a week before Cinder managed to rock herself down from her terror. The sleep she got was unbearable. The bed was cold, wet, putrid. Its canvas bedding was only intensifying her dreams for that soft mattress in the cottage: the warm red quilt, the dozens of pillows they never used. The warmth of Lila at her side, clutching onto Cinder for her heat. The soft mumbling in the morning about how Cinder "Smells like the fire." That small, sweet voice got Cinder out of bed, making tea for them to enjoy while working together to nurse Cinder back to health.
She hated leaving. It felt impossible, and Cinder was such a coward about it. It was un-stomachable to say it to Lila's face. Of course, they had talked about it before, and Lila was so persuasive. "You run off to fight someone else's battles. When will you choose your own path?" She remembered Lila saying that while they worked the garden. Cinder could never find herself arguing, just nodding and going back to whatever they were doing. Then came the day she had taken up Lila's clothing, money, pen, and paper.
In that beautiful blue ink, Lila loved to write her numerous recipes; Cinder spelled her goodbye. The parchment buckled heavily under her trembling hands, unable to write straight even then as tears built in her eye. It was the first time in a long while Cinder could admit that she was terrified of the outcome and not the punishment.
Blessings came to the Maiden when Mistral's coast overcame the horizon. The warm moist air was a pleasurable change from the seas and her past residences. It was homely. The soft creeping breaths of wind livened the coast. The dock the boat slowed at allowed Cinder to liberate a map of the grander area. It was not too simple to find the village on the map, being that it was still so snugly tucked into the area around the academy. The town was a heavy stroll downstream from one of the larger rivers. Cinder supposed she could follow that, be damned her wavering eye, she could rest when she was begging Lila for forgiveness.
Rough thicket and underbrush met Cinder like a tiger and rope. The woman snarled, bit and fought her way through the mess of foliage. Foilage coated the edge of her blade thick with green, the woman using all of her strength to part mess after mess as she skulked off the main roads.
Maiden embued fire was absolutely out of the question. Not only would the forest be at risk, but any attempt to make this journey somewhat bearable would drain the remainder of her already slim aura. If she needed warmth, she would have to do it the traditional way. Regardless, Cinder plunged on, destroying and reforging her swords multiple times as she heaved herself forward.
No time had passed before she abandoned her heels; naturally, they were detrimental, but they did make good fire material. Their black fabric lit surprisingly well in those wet and nights. The sounds of rushing water slowly lingered closer and closer each nightfall, but so did the sounds of birds, beasts and the underlying snickering of the forest floor's insects. The chittering, gods the chittering, it reminded her of the cold store room the Madame forced her into. Rats, so many rats slinked in and about there, gnawing and smacking their teeth. It was a horror show.
Downhill, the homestretch, or at least hoped it was. The river rushed and roared with a tyranny only a force of nature could. Frankly, it terrified Cinder. The Maiden swallowed thick and heavy nausea as she slipped barefoot down to the river bank. Roots and dirt threatened to trip her into the rush or impale her already broken feet. Deprivation of rest made Cinder stumble, slink, and spill side to side and tree to tree. But she stood firm. She was forcing herself forward through the black gunk of the mud. Sap plastered over her skin, the same as her sweat, black hair matted to her brow in some mockery of her former styling.
Anxious, tired, broken, Cinder's stumbling and broken spirit only slumped her forward. There was no backtracking, not anymore. Trees blended to make a canvas of bleak terror. Her eye struggled, head pounded, joints begged for rest. But she pushed further, her aura barely preserved Cinder, let alone recover enough to be helpful. Cinder had long since dropped the map from her grasp; she just stayed by the river. Begging to the world quietly that Lila would come, she was sure of it.
No idea how many moons had risen and set, Cinder's skin felt like the river's chill had taken up residence there. Her eye was stuck shut, only a bare squint making it out as the dirt affixed to her. A sudden stumble brought the Fall Maiden forth, a rock hitting her shin.
A rough bark cracked from her. Pain rang through body as Cinder fell forward. Her hips and mid connecting with the thick stone she had trodden into. Flipping over the rock by momentum alone, Cinder was dropped almost five feet onto her back. A sickening crack rang out. The familiar feeling of nettles and thorns stuck into her back. Thankfully for her face, the cape protected her, as the fabric had swung up and over her.
The fall must have broken Cinder. The pain rang through her back, the pricks and needles, the deprivation, and above all, the terror. Tears broke through and languished underneath the cape's material, creating thick steam in the dark. Cinder Fall, a one-time proponent of the end of the world, right hand of Remnant's would-be-destroyer, and the Fall Maiden, broke down. Her voice low and wining, overburdened by her days of broken travel and emotional baggage. She cried out for the only person she thought would help her as she hit the ground.
"Lily!" Her inner child finally called for the help it so needed.
Ringing in her ears shook loud, though Cinder could not focus on anything besides her deprecating tears. If she had some sense left, she would have heard the loud bang of a heavy wooden door, shouts, and the swinging open of a wooden gate. All overlaid with the panicked rushing of socked feet through the wet lawn and flower bed as Lila rushed from her home to the backyard.
Cinder spasmed at the sudden burning hands that touched her blank thigh, their heat quickly rising and grabbing her shoulders. "Cinder!" Echoed as Cinder shook in their warm grasp. The cape was flung from the Fall Maiden's face, blinding the woman for a moment as the morning sky's blues and purples shone down at her. The blinding light, however, did not stop Cinder from recognizing those brown bangs. The brilliance of the lilac pools she was so lucky to see—the soft tan skin of her partner. Cinder's hand slowly raised from the petunias, shaking from chill and shock. Its paleness stark to Lila's own, "Lily." Cinder mouthed, the air leaving her in a shocked smile.
Lila's tears could rival Cinder's, though their heat fell onto the Maiden in steam. The strong cottage woman's worried expression was matched with her body's movements. Frantically, Lila worked to get under the Maiden. Grasping Cinder up so tightly, "Y-you came back." Lila hummed through a reddening whisper. A gawking cough wheezed from the Fall Maiden, "O-of course I did. I promised."
Taking up the broken, tired, and above all else dirty Cinder's form in her arms, Lila cried as she clutched the woman to her chest. Carrying her back through the garden. Cinder sat, barely conscious of the world, her head pressed hard into Lila's chest. A poignant and loving smile swept over her sour and dirty face. Her arm clutched to her partner as she let sleep finally drift over her.
Honestly, there was no better place than the home Lila had Cinder in her chest. Cinder shook with excitement. Clutching Lila as she mouthed to herself, "I'm home." Through her tired breaths.