Sakura seeks some peace and quiet. Corrin ventures out from safety.
A breeze shuffled the dead leaves on the ground and then lifted them up into the air in a symphony of browns and oranges. The earthen, rich aroma of fall was on the wind.
I wonder if they have winter here, Sakura though. So far, there'd been something like spring and then a very long summer had followed but Sakura had no idea what to expect next. It was only last week that the trees had begun to change colors. She supposed that fall was in the works but she wasn't sure how long it would last or what was to follow. The weather here, wherever here really was, was very different from Hoshido.
Thoughts of home darkened her brow and she wondered, Will I ever see the cherry blossoms again?
It wasn't a question that was foreign to her. She often considered the possibility that her feet would never again walk the halls of Castle Shirasagi. Her lips might never again offer devotionals to the Dawn Dragon in the heady air of the shrine. Her fingers might never again trace the clouds' reflections in the crystalline waters of the pond in the castle garden.
Another gust of wind blew through the trees and pushed her bangs from her face. A leaf caught on her headband. It flitted helplessly against her scalp until she'd plucked it free. Then, she held it in front of her face, peering at the webbing of withered veins beneath the red surface. The wind tugged at it so she let it go. It spiraled up and away into the trees until she'd lost sight of it.
They've probably left by now, Sakura thought. Her fingers twisted together. She stared down at the lake far below her and made shapes out of the sparkling light dancing on the surface.
She saw her brother in full battle regalia, red and shining like the early morning sun, and her sister beside him with her hair pulled high and tight above her head like a declaration of war. They had both hugged her, not one-armed squeezes, but full bodied hugs that enveloped her in tenderness. Ryoma had promised they'd be back soon, but his mouth had pinched and then Hinoka had said, "You damn liar."
"Don't worry, Hinoka, I won't let anything happen to him," Corrin had joked, but none of them laughed. She had wrapped her hands in the Nohrian style with white gauze strung rigidly around her wrist and fingers. Sakura hadn't been able to look at them without thinking, How can she stand having her hands bound like that?
A raven landed on a rock near her feet. Its talons scuffed against the stone beneath it and then it turned to the side, staring at her with a single bleeding-gold eye. It cawed once. Then, it took to the sky in a flurry of feathers and beating wings. Sakura watched it soar to the bough of an orange-leafed tree where it landed. Its molten eyes glinted in the sunlight, staring at her from afar.
Takumi hadn't come to see Corrin and Ryoma off. Sakura didn't know where he had been or where he was now.
It doesn't matter. They're not going off to battle, Sakura thought, but she wished they were. Her brother was born for warfare, brimming natural talent and military genius with every breath. Her sister commanded it with sword and talon and rage and power.
They're not going off to battle, Sakura thought again and then she thought of dead things that crawled and monsters with the faces of men that wailed and wailed and wailed. When her brother and sister had left, they'd stolen away all the balance in her body. Now, she was untethered in a bottomless pool, flipping and turning within the static.
A high voice called her name from the woods, stretching the final syllable long and gooey. Sakura didn't answer. Her stomach growled.
"Oh, there you are!"
Sakura didn't turn to look at her, but she could feel the haze of the other girl's golden presence deep in her skin. The wind blew honeysuckle and sugar and stardust.
"You tended those scouts! Don't you know how dangerous it is to be out here? How did you even get past the guards?"
Sakura had cleaned their jagged wounds before the others had been called. She had witnessed their souls beginning to unknit before anyone else.
I know how dangerous it is, Sakura thought with flashing eyes, but she didn't tell Elise that. She said, "The guards weren't there."
"Well if they'd been there, they would've stopped you from being so stupid!"
Elise's puffed-up bravado didn't scare her. She had needed to get out. The sounds had become too tinny and the sights too blurry.
I had to get out or I would have suffocated.
"Are you even listening to me, Sakura?"
Sakura didn't answer. She could have, but she didn't. She fixated on the glistening water and then the mosaic of algae and dead waves was a pantomime of Elise rushing at Corrin, catching Corrin around the waist in a bear-hug, dragging Corrin from Sakura, from their family. Again and again and again. Far off, the raven cawed.
Elise sat down with a sigh that echoed the shifting leaves. Her porcelain hand stroked the long grass in front of her, cresting into the periphery of Sakura's vision.
"I know it's hard."
Sakura's fingers mashed together in her lap.
"It wasn't your fault they died, Sakura. It happens sometimes."
The soldiers in Silas' party had died under her care, but it was a miracle that they had even survived that long. She had watched their eyes roll and bulge until their irises dulled and hardened. There was nothing she could do for them except numb their pain. Their bodies had been ravaged beyond recognition. A party of seven had set out, only two had survived. But they didn't haunt her.
A fish arced out of the water with a splash. Its slick scales glinted russet in the cool air.
"And it's always hard, but you can't let it hurt you."
Shut up, Sakura wanted to say. You don't know what you're talking about.
She kept her mouth shut. Their friendship was too important. People would turn and look when they passed by together hand-in-hand, Elise's fingers always pulling hard and strong on Sakura's. Once, Ryoma had put his heavy hands on her shoulders, saying, "Your friendship with Elise gives me hope for the future."
But Elise was bossy. Elise was impatient. Elise was loud. Elise was naïve. Elise was overbearing. Elise tried so hard to be bubbly that she spewed nonsense and rainbows constantly. Elise had left her alone with her sister's corpse and had never realized she'd done anything wrong.
"The sky's really pretty today, isn't it?"
Sakura took in the saccharine swell of the clouds overhead. They floated past the sun, dipping the world into subdued light. Then, they continued past on their eternal path for the world beyond the horizon. The sky was so blue it had turned to ice.
"You can talk to me Sakura. You know that, right?"
Sakura looked at Elise. Her long ponytails hung limp against her ears. The purple strands intertwining with the blonde were more egregious than ever. Her hands fiddled with the hem of her skirt, picking incessantly at a frayed thread. She slouched, her body bent like a question mark, but her eyes didn't fold with the rest of her body. Her eyes were focused on Sakura.
"I think I want to be alone," Sakura said. Elise blinked. Then, she was wilting. The exuberant color faded from her cheeks. Her soft edges grew foggy until there was no distinction between the rolling landscape and her slim hands. Elise said, "I… Okay. If that's what you want."
She stood. The grass bowed beneath her feet with a gentle shuffling. Then she was gone. Sakura listened to the wind sing her absence aloud and let it surge within her until the hurt was numb and hollow again.
When they had left, the morning had barely begun to break the night sky. Hours had passed in solemn silence. They had passed ashen groves of trees twisted unnaturally from pestilence and negligence, black rivers that burbled and churned, and infertile lands boasting bounties of corpses and crows. Now, the splendor of midday glowed around them, but the wind was foreboding. Corrin's hair billowed out in a sprawling fan behind her.
The journey had gone without incident. They had set out with fifteen and fifteen remained, locked in tight formation as they traversed the empty world. Corrin shared point with her brother. The scar on her leg wound tighter with every step she took, but she refused to slow.
"We saw a village," Silas had told her. "That's where we were headed when… when it happened."
Silas had spent the night curled against her. The splint encasing his calf had dug into the soft of her belly, but she hadn't complained. He needed her and so she'd kept him safe.
"They shouldn't have died. I shouldn't have let them," he'd said into the black of the night as she pulled her fingers through his thin hair. She had held him as he wept, whispering that it wasn't his fault, that there was nothing more he could have done. The only sleep she had gotten was stolen during the lapses in his misery.
"Are we nearing the site?" Ryoma asked now. His broad voice boomed in the thin Vallite air. The ground before them was dark with soot. Charred corpses dotted the scorched earth. The stench of seared flesh permeated her mouth so Corrin breathed through her nose. The scout, the only other survivor of the ambush, said, "Yes."
The scout was a thin thing, all legs and arms without a solid center. Her hair was a mop of auburn that hung low to mask her eyes. Her arms crossed tight over her chest, hands clinging to the opposite arm so that the skin around her fingers was red and worn. She had not lowered her arms since they had set out.
Corrin knew she was only alive because her lover had set himself and the land around him ablaze to give the rest a chance to escape. Silas had told her that the scout wouldn't stop screaming as they fled. When they'd crossed into the fortress and she had fallen silent, he had thought she'd choked on her own grief.
"Is that it up there?" Ryoma asked.
Smoldering ruins lay ahead. Noxious wisps of smoke ascended to the heavens. The scout made a small, strangled noise of affirmation. They passed a body that was more charcoal than human. The area around it was jet black. The scout began to weep.
I had no other choice, Corrin thought. We needed a guide and Silas can't run on a broken leg.
Corrin set her jaw. She led them forward. Soot smeared her boots. The dragonstone whispered staccato against the hollow of her throat, reminding her of the power dormant in her veins. She had not taken her dragon form since the Bottomless Canyon.
And I'm in no rush to take it again, Corrin thought, but it didn't matter what she wanted. If they were threatened, she would embrace her blood and she would defend them.
"You need to accept what you are," Orochi had told her once after a night spent tossing and turning and screaming. She'd spat it at her like a curse. Corrin knew the sleepless nights were taking a toll of Orochi, but the diviner would never let it show beyond brittle words. She arrived every night at the same time and bound their subconscious minds together until the wrens sang morning. On the first night Orochi had taken up watch over her, she'd said, "You dream and I watch. It's old magic. Queen Mikoto said it was a closely guarded secret from her family."
But it's Vallite magic, Corrin thought. Orochi doesn't know and Azura won't admit it, but it is. It has to be.
But that only complicated things. Nobody could say where Mikoto was from or her family lineage. If she was from Valla, then Corrin was of Valla and so were her siblings and it explained a little bit, like her sensitivity to Anankos and maybe even her dragon form, but it only fostered more questions.
Acrid air tickled her nose. The ruins lay dead ahead. Embers flickered across the bones of the collapsed structures.
"Stay sharp," Corrin commanded. Her brother grunted. Nobody else made a sound.
There were fifteen of them in all; two archers, two diviners, three mages, two healers, three soldiers, the scout, her brother, and her. She and Ryoma were the only ones to volunteer, him immediately after her. She had begged him to reconsider, but he wouldn't. Her harsh words the night before had been meant for Xander, but Ryoma had been the one to take them to heart. He followed her command implicitly.
The others had been handpicked for their skills, their valor, and their levelheadedness. The mission was a necessity. They needed to know if there were survivors of the initial purge. They needed to know the threat they faced. Silas hadn't been able to tell them during his debriefing and he certainly couldn't when she had asked him while he lay against her. He had only talked about the village, how they had nearly reached it, how they had been so focused on it, how they hadn't noticed slinking shadows circling them, how they had heard screaming, how easily they had been lured in.
She brought them to a halt at the foot of the ruins. A clear path weaved through the wreckage before them, the blaze seemingly contained only to the buildings. Burned bodies and rotting gore greeted them on the path. She turned to the party.
"Stay close," she said, "And keep an eye out for anything that moves."
They nodded at her words, but they were apprehensive. The fear coiled in the whites of their eyes. The incident in the arena had shaken their faith in her, she knew. Before, it had been easy to believe that she controlled her power, but, now, it wasn't. She could tell they were scared of it, scared of her.
I'm scared of it too, she thought but she didn't know what she feared more, the dragon or the amalgamation. Leo had said that her reluctance to acknowledge her potency might have been the reason for the claws and scales that had assailed her the day before.
She stepped foot in the ruins and then continued forward when nothing sprung out to kill her. The others followed in silence. As she continued, Corrin realized that the fire and smoke hadn't been the only killer in the village. She moved around the corpse of an old man drenched in blood, a black line etched across his throat and then narrowly avoided stepping onto another corpse, a young woman, that lay facedown in the dirt, a spear protruding from between her shoulder blades.
"Raiders?" Ryoma intoned, but Corrin shook her head.
"I don't know," she said as she chanced a glance back at scout. The scout's fingers clenched so tight into her forearm that blood tickled down into the crook of her elbow.
Ahead, the path opened up into a square and then split in three different directions. She moved forward in silence. There were no dead in the square. A fountain burbled in the center with water that was gray and silty. A marble dragon stood amidst the spray. Its helm arched to the heavens. Its tail hung over the edge of its dais, down into the foul water. Stares burned her back. She didn't say a word in her defense. There was nothing to be said anyway.
It looks just like me.
Ryoma's hand flattened against her pauldron, but she couldn't feel its warmth, only its weight.
"Keep moving," she commanded. The pull of the dragonstone was stronger. Its call was fervent in her blood.
She moved past the fountain, continuing in the same direction rather than branching off in another. Debris cracked under heavy boots.
Four headless corpses lay in a jumbled pile, blocking the way forward. Their heads were nowhere to be found. As horror solidified within her stomach, Corrin could only stare in the stark silence, wondering if the heads were occupying the branches of a tree somewhere.
One of the mages became violently ill, vomiting into the ash and destruction off the path. He fell to his knees and then his hands were gripping a singed beam to steady himself as he expelled his breakfast.
"Let him get it all out," one of the healers said as she knelt to rub his back. His retching drew a single gag from Corrin, but she managed to clamp down on the nausea. When his hacking breaths replaced the sound of his sick, Corrin announced, "We need to keep moving."
She turned back into the square and then bore left. For a while, it was much of the same. Mangled corpses and the smoldering bones of decimated buildings were staples of the landscape. Occasionally, a building would collapse and the noise would startle and deafen her, but nothing ever came of it. They were the only living things for miles.
And that scares me more than anything.
"We should turn back," Ryoma suggested gently. "There's nothing to be found here besides more death and destruction."
Corrin nodded and then announced, "We've seen enough to know that there's something out there. Something dangerous."
As she turned, a small noise caught her ear. The others continued forward, but she remained rooted in place, listening.
It sounded like a person.
She turned back around, staring down the path that she had decided to forsake. Then, a near silent voice, a child's voice, rasped, "Please, I don't want to die."
Corrin leapt into the rubble without a second thought. She called out to the voice, crying, "I'm here! Where are you? I'm here!"
Ryoma shouted at her, but she ignored him. Her gauntlets were black with soot as she dug and scrounged.
"Corrin!" Ryoma shouted, but she turned to shush him. The rest of the party stared at her, incredulous.
"There's someone trapped! A child!"
The healers charged into the ruins alongside her. The rest stayed by Ryoma's side, hesitancy bouncing around them in the wavering air.
"Corrin, it could be a trap," Ryoma said. His hand was poised to draw Raijinto. Corrin ignored him even as she thought, Oh gods, it's a trap. It's a trap and I've doomed us all.
The voice rasped again, but she couldn't hear it.
"Where are you?" one of the healers called.
"Here," the voice rasped again. Corrin saw a small arm flap out of the soot. She vaulted over a downed rooftop. Something in her leg tore, but the flaring pain didn't stop her from plunging her hands into debris. Pieces of brick and tile flew behind her as she chucked them away. She dug with such vigor that her gauntlets warped around her fingers. The jagged metal drew blood from her fingertips. The soot mixed with the blood. It stung. Tears coursed down her face. The waving arm fell still. The voice didn't cry out.
The healers reached her side just as she uncovered a massive beam, trapping a small boy beneath it. His face was caked in soot, blood and snot. His eyes were closed. She could barely hear the hiss of his breath. She grabbed at the beam, pulling and tugging with all her might, but it didn't budge. The healers tried and then they all tried together, but the beam stayed in place. The boy's breath faded.
He's dying, Corrin thought and then the same feeling that had overtaken her in the arena the day before gripped her now. Her hands surged with vigor and then she was lifting the beam up over her head. She threw it away. It soared across the rubble, landing with a thump. Soot and ash exploded around it to darken the air. Corrin reached down to the boy. The scales and claws sank back into her flesh.
One of the healers snatched him from her. The other looked at her with a fear that curdled his strong features.
I saved him! He would have died without me, she wanted to scream, but she didn't. The others joined them and then the boy began to cough.
Forrest green eyes stared at her. The healer took a canteen from her belt and then offered it to the boy. He drank in frenzied gulps as the healer rubbed his back and cooed, "Easy now. Take it easy, son."
When he was finished, he dropped the canteen. It clanged to the ground, hollow and empty.
"You're alright now," Corrin soothed. He was missing several teeth. He couldn't have been any older than twelve.
"Thank you," he croaked. Then, his mouth began to shake. He tried to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. His body rocked with silent, dry sobs.
"What happened here?" Ryoma asked as the boy wept. His hand still clung to Raijinto's hilt. Corrin glared at her brother.
"They killed my mom," he said. His voice was laden with smoke and debris. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Her ears twitched.
"Who did?" Ryoma demanded. The boy quivered in the healer's arms.
"The thralls."
The wind shrieked around her, whipping her hair against her eyes and mouth. The ruins filled with wet groaning and dry shuffling.
"What's… what's happening?" someone asked, but Corrin didn't know who. She didn't look at them. Her stare was focused on the path beside her and the corpse adorning it.
It moved, she thought. I know it did. I saw it.
"We need to get out of here. Now!" Ryoma shouted, but Corrin was paralyzed. Her muscles had all locked together in tight refusal. She couldn't twitch her fingers, couldn't unsheathe Yato, couldn't even cry out in alarm or panic or terror. She could barely feel the weight of the hand that latched onto her ankle above the frigid numb of her fear. A corpse, once buried beneath the rubble, clawed at her leg, ripping through her armor like it was nothing.
"Corrin!" Ryoma screamed.
Corrin ripped Yato from its scabbard and then plunged it down into the epicenter of the pain roaring in her leg. Yato sliced through the dead flesh but the corpse didn't stop. It struck again. Broke her skin. Corrin stabbed again and again and again until the corpse was in pieces. But it didn't stop.
The boy screamed. She looked to him. Both healers had been torn apart. Glistening viscera marked where they had once stood. The corpses moved on the boy.
You need to be stronger.
Pulsing might spread from the dragonstone. But she didn't transform. Not entirely. She was somewhere between dragon and human. She was stronger, tougher, but faster. Deadlier. Her leg didn't hurt.
She lunged for the boy, catching him around the waist with one hand and lashing out at the undead with the other. The corpses split in half. They continued to lurch. The boy clung to her. He wrapped his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist. She could barely feel him.
The others had fled. Only Ryoma fought to reach her. There were corpses everywhere, moving with inhuman grace and speed. She sawed through dozens to reach her brother.
Ryoma raised his blade to her, asking, "Corrin?"
But there was no time for explanations. She didn't know what she looked like. She could sense the mesh of scales around her mouth and beneath her eyes. She guessed she looked like a monster.
"Run," Corrin commanded. He did. She surpassed him within seconds, but fell back as soon as she realized the distance. The undead launched themselves into her path. For every one she cut down, twenty more took its place. She lashed out with Yato and talons. Both attacks felt as natural as the other. The boy bounced and jostled, but he held strong.
She barreled through the horde. Ryoma barely managed to keep up. She could hear him flagging behind her. She didn't really see anything. Everything was sound and smell. And, in a smoldering village full of putrefied, mobile corpses, the latter was a curse. She ran. She fought. Her movements were haggard. Her attacks were wild as the aroma of death invaded every aspect of her being. The rest of their party had been torn apart. The scent of fresh kill was on the wind.
Corrin ran. Her legs whistled beneath her, faster than they'd ever moved before. Her arms flashed quicksilver and scarlet. Yato whirled. Stabbed. Slashed. Ryoma barely kept up. Raijinto spit lightning. The boy keened.
Corrin ran. Valla was no longer an empty graveyard. Skeletons burst from the crowd. Corpses leapt from the trees. They gave chase, fell into the growing horde behind them. It was immense, stretching off into the horizon. They moved in ways they shouldn't. Bodies misshapen. Horrifically deformed.
Corrin ran. The trees became familiar. Here was the meadow she'd first kissed Silas. Here was the lake where she'd taught herself to swim. Here was the apple orchard bearing its fresh bounty of red and yellow fruit. Here was the clearing that the children chased each other and laughed in. Here were the trappings of safety. And it all drowned in the unrelenting tide of the undead.
Corrin ran. The fortress was hidden from sight, masked by the wards that protected it, but she could smell the crumbling stones. She could hear the stirrings of life. The path seemed to continue forever, but it didn't.
Corrin ran and then the fortress sprang into view around her. The sensation was always disorienting, but now, it was maddening. The undead frayed and sizzled against the wards behind her. Rotting flesh exploded when it came into contact with the ancient magic. The boy fell from her hip. He rolled in the dirt and then lay prone. Ryoma collapsed against the wall, panting and clutching his head. Raijinto lay in the dirt. Yato clattered beside it and Corrin, driven half mad by the smell and the pursuit, fell to her knees and shrieked. The sound of it was shrill and resonate. It only worsened the throbbing within her skull. Somewhere close, glass burst and sprayed the courtyard.
Gunter was there. She heard the pop of his joints as he knelt, smelt the age and years that dragged his face long. His leathered hands touched her armored face. Screams echoed. The horde continued to charge into the wards. Azura was there, dress swaying and skin smelling like running water.
"You're safe," Gunter said, but she couldn't believe him, not while decay still stung her head. She clutched at his wrists, her taloned hands locking tight around them. She heard the squish, but Gunter didn't cry out. His fingers fell to touch her jaw, but they strayed no lower.
"Calm down, Corrin," he said. There was a crowd now. The wind broke against their backs. She didn't know whether they gathered to stare at the onslaught beyond the gates or her. Sakura ran to Ryoma, a trail of cherry blossom air stirred in her wake.
"The boy," Ryoma groaned. "Help the boy."
The boy's grimy scent was feeble and fading fast. Corrin trembled. The plated scales encasing her grew heavier. She felt like the ground was caving beneath her.
Azura began to sing.
No, I don't need this, Corrin thought as the song grated against her armor, coaxing it to still and fade. I'm not unstable.
Gunter's fingers quivered against her face. His wrists were limp and thin in her rigid grasp.
"Let her help you," he said, hissing beneath the song.
Gunter released her face. His hands were swollen and dappled with purple. She fell forward onto her hands, her human hands. Her fingers, flayed from digging, panged at the contact. Blood seeped into the exposed dirt. Her scarred leg was torn, throbbing and screaming in time with her burning pulse. The skin around the tear was warm and wet. Her chest heaved. Every breath tore at her raw throat.
"Where are the others?" Sakura asked and then the air sparked with the tang of restoration.
"All dead," Ryoma said. A woman began to wail. Ryoma stood and then moved to address the crowd. He told them of the village, of the boy's rescue, of the attack. The horde was gone, blown apart by the wards. It was silent.
Corrin looked to the boy. His breathing had evened. His eyes seemed brighter. Sakura had moved on to Gunter, healing the bruises Corrin had imparted on him.
He can debrief them, she thought with a glance to her brother. She crawled to the boy. The horror had faded from his face. He was so young.
"What's your name?" Corrin asked of the boy. He stared at her. Beneath the soot and ash, his face was placid.
"Anthony," he said. "Thank you for saving me."
Her head spun. The pain in her leg had crept up into her spine, irradiating throughout her entire body. Her vision blurred and then she pitched forward, disappearing into the raging dark.
A/N: Soooo I had some extra time today and decided to post a day early lol. Depending on how things work themselves out over the next week or so, I might actually change the update day to Wednesday, but that's just a formality really. The story will be updated weekly regardless and isn't that the important part?
I know that Sakura may come off as a little immature or whiny sometimes, but I think it's important to remember that she's in the prime of her angsty preteen years and also grapples with horrible shyness so she's struggling to process her concern for her family, her lingering trauma from her sister being stolen away, her duties as a healer (she literally holds people's lives in her hands and she's like in middle school lol), and her own needs. I also think this is because I tend to write her narrations as relatively mature (especially when compared to Kana's never-ending run ons, even though she's not that much older than him), but her thoughts and actions don't necessarily match up to the maturity with which she views and makes sense of the world around her. Sakura is just a really complicated character and I just wanted to get this off my chest lol
Next week's update is going to be fun because it's one of my favorite chapters in the story, both in the original and in the update, so I really can't wait to post it and see what y'all think! I mean, I always can't wait to hear y'all's thoughts, but I'm pre-stoked for next week lmao