Author's note: I've heavily revised this since its first posting; it's noticeably less fluffy than the original draft (note the rating change from PG to PG-13, for more graphic descriptions); it's also more of a romance. Returning readers, note also that I split it into two chapters this time. Opinions on the changes are greatly appreciated, as is general feedback and concrit.
Mad props go to the following individuals in alphabetical order:
-Jyasu the beta-reading moogle, for exhaustive comments on all three interim drafts.
-Karthur, whose feedback on the first draft started me down the road to this revision.
-Rienna the Red, for an enormous amount of help with regards to medical accuracy (any remaining mistakes are entirely mine), beta-reading, and unexpected fanart!
The Darkness Erases All Distances But The Last
"...and I was thinking we'd have Percival bring back his men, to here." A gloved finger came down decisively on the map, and the rickety camp table shuddered, wooden pieces wobbling slightly. The glove pointed to a place just west of where the blue wooden figures indicated the location of the fifth company; they were set a ways apart from the main body of the Zexen forces, and closer to the brown figures representing Tinto's army. "He's pushed too far ahead; if he were attacked by superior numbers, we wouldn't be able to reach him in time."
Salome Harras, strategist and vice-captain of the Zexen Knights, was in the chambers of Lady Lightfellow. Well, living space, at any rate – as spacious as it was, the captain's tent hardly merited so lofty a designation. Ordinarily, he knew, it would have been viewed as the greatest impropriety for a man to be in the quarters of an attractive unmarried woman, unchaperoned as he was. But Lady Chris, captain of the Zexen knights, was hardly an ordinary woman.
They would have been hard-pressed to find an appropriate chaperone for Lady Chris, Salome mused, watching his captain consider his proposal. She had no surviving relations, and it would have been ill-reasoned to bring ordinary servants to a war camp. As for the other senior officers, only Borus was presently in the camp. Salome would more likely be considered the chaperone, had the younger man been there – ten years older than his captain, it was generally believed that Salome's affections for her were paternal, where Borus's were known to be romantic.
There was of course her squire, Louis, but at seventeen and almost a full knight, his presence was itself almost enough to cause a minor scandal. It would have, if Lady Chris had not been so universally adored by the general Zexen populace. The gossipmongers had long since found there was no market for such stories about the country's beloved female captain. Even the nighttime visits by the Harmonian Nash during the War of Champions had not prompted gossip among the members of Fire Bringer, although Nash's other meetings with women had often garnered the first page of Budehuc's tabloid.
"You're right, Salome. We should have seen this before."
Chris's words drew him back to the present, and he straightened, folding his arms as she continued.
"Percival gained too much ground, too quickly – even he thought something was odd. Let's not wait until Roland gets back with the reconnaissance report; Percival needs to withdraw now." Chris turned to get a quill and ink, then frowned. "I sent Louis for more paper fifteen minutes ago... I talked with the quartermaster earlier this evening, so I know we're not out."
Salome started to speak, then frowned down at the table. The troop markers were wobbling again, slightly, but neither he nor Chris were all that close to the table any longer.
"Lady Chris..." he began, but the trembling had stopped and the figures were still.
"Hmm?" Evidently, she hadn't turned in time to see it.
"It's nothing." Salome turned from the table, heading to peer out the entrance for Louis. He knew he hadn't imagined it, but the squire's absence was more worrying.
There was a rattle from behind him, and he turned quickly to see the wooden pieces bouncing off the table. Chris did see them this time. She looked up at him, and her expression of surprise suddenly turned to horror.
"Salome, the lamp!"
The strategist put his hand up and ducked just in time to block the flaming ball of a hanging lamp from swinging into his head. The oil sloshed out of the glass that held it, and the wicker basket of the lamp began to burn. He grabbed it by the chain and tore it down from the support beam.
Something blue flashed near Chris, and the flames suddenly went out, plunging the tent into near-darkness.
Then everything went quiet and still.
"Well, that was certainly odd," he heard his captain say slowly. She said something else, and suddenly the area around her was bathed in a sickly blue light. It shone eerily off her armor and face. Salome could just barely make out a heavy wooden trunk off to his left, and the scattered army pieces on the floor before him. "I wonder what that was about?"
Then everything exploded.
"Salome? Salome...wake up, Salome. You need to wake up. Salome... please wake up."
Consciousness slammed into Salome like a brick wall, and he let out a gasp. His entire body ached, and a throbbing agony in his left leg shot white lightning through his vision. Not that there was anything else to see – eyes open or closed, there was only pitch darkness beyond the flickering. His mind raced, coherent thought nearly drowned out by the rhythmic thudding in his ears that pounded in time with the spasms in his leg. Breaths came raggedly, forced by the excruciating rhythm of agony, and each time he tasted iron and bile.
Some rebellious corner of his mind fought the panic, strove to reach past the pain for some sense of his surroundings. Up and down were nowhere, spinning about madly, but he forced them into being. As best as he could tell, he was lying down, slightly propped up; the hard and sloping surface against his back must be partly the ground, partly a wall or tree. There was something stiff against his side, against the leg that didn't hurt - probably an exposed root. That leg was straight in front of him, and the other seemed to be, but it was hard to tell. It was constricted, arrows and needles shooting through his veins, and even in this distant, walled corner of his thoughts it was better not to think about what it felt like below the knee.
"Salome?" Lady Chris's worried voice floated down and behind him, disorientingly, but it shattered the roaring silence. "Salome?"
"Lady... Chris..." His mouth felt dusty and wet, but at least none of his teeth were loose.
"Salome? You're awake? Thank the Goddess..." Even through the darkness and pain, there was no way he could mistake her relief.
"Almost... wish I weren't," he croaked, testing his voice between ragged breaths. "How long...have I been...out?"
"I'm not sure... I think we've been down here for half an hour."
"...down here?" He'd assumed they were above ground; he could feel a warm breeze, irregularly tickling his cheek. He struggled to sit up, having some vague notion of getting a wider idea of his surroundings, but something pressed against his chest.
"Don't move," Chris told him unhappily. "Your leg is broken. I know it hurts a lot, but it's going to be okay, Salome. Does anything else hurt?"
His entire body felt battered, sore, but that wasn't what his captain was asking. "Just... leg...."
Chris exhaled loudly. "Good."
"Mm..." Salome felt his mind fading again, hazy with pain.
Chris seemed to realize it, too, because she was speaking again, urgently and with alarm. "Salome? Salome, stay with me, Salome. I need you to stay awake."
"I'll try..." She was alarmed on his account. He didn't want to hear that, didn't want to let her down.
"Good. Salome, listen to me, I need to heal your leg. My trunk landed on it. It's badly broken; the bone went through the skin, right below the knee. I think I stopped the bleeding, but it's too dark to tell, and I can't set the bone myself– it's just too much of a mess. So I'm going to have to try magic." Chris's voice was matter-of-fact, almost clinical in her report of his injury. Salome appreciated that, even as pain made everything she said seem distant.
She continued. "I can't use the True Water Rune at full power; Tinto's magicians would be able to spot that miles off. I'm going to have to use just a trickle, slowly."
"I... understand."
"I've never done this before, so I don't know if it's going to work properly." She paused. "I'm not sure if it will set the bone, or just heal the skin and muscle around it. That's why I need you to stay awake, Salome. If the bone starts to shift, it's going to hurt more, and I need you to tell me – if it stops hurting altogether, I need to stop before it heals it the wrong way." Her words were measured and careful; she wanted to make certain he could follow it. "That's why I couldn't do anything about it while you were unconscious. Do you understand?"
"Yes..." He'd shut his eyes, since it was pointless to stare into the darkness, but there seemed to be a faint glow of light in front of him, almost eclipsed by the jagged white arcs he still saw every time his leg throbbed.
"Good. Do you want some water, to wet your mouth?" Something was pressed against Salome's lips and cool water trickled into his mouth. "Don't swallow," she warned. "I'm afraid you can't drink anything until we get your leg set."
Salome weakly sloshed the water around his mouth and nearly choked on it as pain drew another ragged breath from his lungs. Helpless, he let it dribble out again. Whatever vessel had held the water was taken away, and the glow diminished briefly, only to intensify as a faint coolness washed over him.
The pain began to slowly diminish. With this relief came greater mental clarity, followed a brief moment of panic as he realized that his captain might be injured, too, and he still had no idea what had happened. Salome strove to control his shuddered breathing, but he could only get scattered words between the gasps. "What... about...Lady? Where...dark...happened..."
"I'm fine, Salome, don't worry about me," she said reassuringly, and it didn't sound like she was lying. "We fell into a sort of pit after the explosion, I don't know how deep. I think Tinto somehow managed to plant explosives under the camp. I don't think they all went off at once –that's what the earlier shaking was." Her sigh seemed to be swallowed up by the immense darkness around them. "I wish I knew how they did it."
He knew the answer to that, although it was still a struggle to get it all out. "Tinto...is a Probably...they had...some way ... to tunnel."
She laughed self-deprecatingly. "I should've seen that. Good to see you're still thinking like a strategist, Salome."
Neither of them said anything for a moment or two.
"My leg's feeling much better," he said at length. The pain had waned, although the constricting sensation that he supposed must be a tourniquet remained the same. The multitude of other bruises and soreness were fading, as well, although at their words none of them had approached the degree of anguish that was his left leg.
"I'm sorry I can't be sure this will work." Chris's tone betrayed her frustration. "I haven't had the rune very long, and I'm no magician. My father would've known..."
Even if he hadn't before, he probably did now, Salome thought. Wyatt Lightfellow's soul had passed on to the True Water Rune itself, and so he probably understood it better now than he ever had during life. Legend had it that True Rune bearers were able to speak with the runes, and the fragments of their past bearers, but Salome had never heard of anyone who could do it deliberately.
A thought occurred to him. "...Lady Chris?"
"Yes, Salome?"
"Why did you tell me about...what you saw when you received the Rune?"
There was a silence. Salome waited, feeling the intermittent breeze at his cheek pause once more.
When she finally replied, her words tumbled out. "I...suppose it's because I needed to tell someone about it. Talk to someone about it. And you knew my father – I remember when we first met, you mentioned he was the knight you respected most - and I thought you might like to know what had happened to him, why he'd disappeared. But I guess you'd figured it out at that point, hadn't you?" She gave an embarrassed little chuckle. "You practically arranged ahead of time for me to go out searching for him, and the Flame Champion, with Nash. Louis told me you all watched us leave...so it wasn't really necessary, was it?"
"It's all right," he said gently. Her speech was just a little too fast, as if she was rushing to fill the engulfing darkness. "I was glad you confided in me. Besides, resourceful though I am, only the bearer of the True Water Rune could have told me where Wyatt's spirit resided." He paused, wincing. "The pain in my leg is getting worse."
"Good."
Silence stretched between them.
"...that sounded terrible, didn't it?" Chris asked ruefully.
"...yes, I see what you mean." Salome managed a chuckle. "It certainly would have been misunderstood by the casual eavesdropper."
Chris chuckled herself, just as strained and thin a sound as Salome's. "I can see the Budehuc Times headline now. 'The Ice Maiden of Zexen.'"
"Borus would be furious."
"So would I, if Arthur had written such an article. I suppose I was rather lucky – just about everyone else had his or her private business printed by Arthur at some point. I wonder why he let me be? It can't be because I was one of the leaders of Fire Bringer – even poor Hugo had that article about a fan club for the Flame Champion on the wall for a bit."
Salome coughed. "Actually, he did print one, but he took it down very quickly. I'd be surprised if more than half a dozen people saw it."
He could hear almost hear a smile of wicked delight in Chris's voice, overlaying her worry. "Don't tell me Borus or Percival threatened him for slandering me? I'd have loved to be a casual eavesdropper on that conversation myself."
"Actually, it was I." Salome winced. "The pain's getting worse again."
Chris's voice seemed to be further away. "Hang in there, Salome...I'm afraid at this rate, we can expect it to get much worse, and soon. I can almost get a sense of what's happening from the rune..."
"I see..." Salome tried to concentrate on anything but the feeling in his leg.
"...so you actually threatened Arthur?" Chris asked, quickly turning things back to the previous conversation, although she sounded distracted. "You?"
"...yes. As your strategist, I felt you had enough on your plate without having to be distracted by...." He limply waved a hand in the darkness, searching for the right words. "By petty gossip and having to protect your reputation."
"Well, I'm amazed, that's all..."
Was that a giggle?
"...really you?"
"Yes," he replied testily. "Stop snickering, Chris. It was my duty as your second-in-command..." His leg throbbed mercilessly, and he gritted his teeth. "Percival... was just... as bad... as you are...called me... a mother hen." Then he gasped, doubling up as nausea swept over him. He was pushed back down by something across his chest, and it stayed there, holding him down firmly.
Chris seemed to know something else was wrong. He felt her hand on his clammy face and then his neck – he knew what she was checking for. He could feel his pulse slowing, erratically, under her hand. "Don't move. Hang in there, Salome."
He was definitely getting more light-headed, and it wasn't just the pain. "Chris...I think...I don't think I... stay conscious..."
"I'm here, Salome. It'll be okay. Just a bit longer. Stay with me now..."
She was here? But where was here? This place seemed to have no here or there, or even place. He reached out into the darkness, groping for the source of her voice. "Chris..."
He'd dropped her title again. Normally he was immensely conscious of their respective positions, socially and otherwise, but it hardly seemed to matter now. They weren't a man and a younger woman, or a captain and her subordinate, but just two voices alone in a dark sea of pain.
"You know, Salome, I think Percival was wrong."
She was trying to distract him from the pain again; her voice was too high, too pinched for this sort of casual banter to be genuine. "Wrong... about... what?"
Her sweaty hand was on his neck again, taking his pulse. "You can't be a mother hen. You're male. That would make you a father rooster."
Her father? Salome closed his eyes guiltily; as much as he'd admired Lord Wyatt, he could never take a father's role in Lady Chris's life - some feelings, some taboos were too great to be erased by the darkness. "I'm...not... your father..."
If the blue glow from the rune was still there, it was obscured by the white fire across his vision. He grasped for a clear thought, any thought, to hold back the tide of numb darkness sweeping across him. "...not your father."
He felt himself involuntarily jerking upwards, but the pressure across his chest held him in place. "Salome, can you still hear me?"
"...not your......father..." He clung to that thought, a lifeline to a mind drowning in a dizzy world of searing anguish.
"Salome, I'm going to put something in your mouth, so you don't bite your tongue." Chris's voice seemed to come from miles away.
"...a father...shouldn't... father shouldn't..." He forced the words out through clenched teeth. He had to hold onto the thought, make her understand, or else he was lost. Something pressed against his mouth.
"Salome, stay with me!" Any pretense of calmness had been abandoned; Chris's voice rang with desperation.
"...shouldn't... look at... his...daughter...as..."
A strong hand pinched his face, forcing his jaw open, and something tough and leathery was jammed between his teeth.
A roaring in his ears obscured whatever Chris was saying, and he passed out.