Trigger Warning: suicidal thoughts, dissociation, child abuse (I mean, this is in most chapters so. . .)

"There were thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle."

Pablo Neruda


Things between Raven and Luna had been. . . different since the chess match. Distant, in a way. When they spoke, she got the vague impression that Raven didn't entirely know what to say to her. Sometimes she would look up and find Raven watching her, only to be met by the whip of her ponytail as she quickly turned away.

Luna wished she could chalk it up to wounded pride, residual irritation over having been outmaneuvered - she was used to such responses from her childhood - but she knew the real reason lay in far more troubling waters.

"You're still struggling with what I told you about the Conclave," Luna murmured on the second day of these proceedings, for once her patience failing her.

She'd resolved to let things fall how they may, to give Raven time to come to terms with what she'd heard, but the atmosphere of the lab was getting to her. The stark lights - brighter than anything Luna had ever encountered - blaring all night and all day, threw her into a surreal world that existed without either. She kept herself from Abby and Jackson, too out of sorts to endure the many conversations that only ever seemed to revolve around her blood.

The constant reminder of the black in her veins was. . . excruciating.

Back at the mansion, she felt like an interloper, an alien playing at a life that hadn't existed for almost a hundred years. Everything in that house was as clean and sterile as the lab, everything had its place. When Luna wandered its halls, she felt the distance of the sea and her former life surround her, press in on her. Emori and John kept to themselves, seeming to have no interest in her or any of the other occupants on the island, so she gave them their space. Luna would not intrude on what might just be their final moments on this earth.

But it expanded the gaping hole of loneliness inside her, sharpening the ache of all that was missing from her life.

For years, her days had been full of people, of love. Space was a luxury not often found on the oil rig and whilst that had been difficult to adjust to at first, over time she'd grown accustomed to it - reliant on it, even. She was used to turning corners and being overwhelmed by the presence of others: the cacophony of shouts and laughter; dancing out of the way as children dashed past, blind to all in their path; waking to Adria's face hovering over her, impatient for her company; and falling asleep to the heavy chorus of over fifty breaths, comforted by the reminder of the safety and peace she'd found - the love.

There was none of that here. Her life, which had once been so full, now felt devastatingly empty. She could feel the gaping holes in the fabric of it and tried not to fall through them as she tiptoed along the precarious remains - the skeleton of her existence.

It was hard to grasp - how quickly it had all changed. Within the single phase of a moon, everything had been lost. Irrevocably so.

(should she not be used to that by now, though? Had she not suffered the same after her Conclave? She had grown complacent during her time in Floukru, forgetting the transience of things, how unstable the material of her world really was.

She would not make that mistake again)

Luna often found herself losing time. The world drifting away as thoughts of her family and friends filled her mind. She felt the press of Adria's hug and would blink at its passing, reorienting herself to find that hours had passed and she couldn't account for any of them.

It was too much like life in the first years after her Conclave and it unsettled something inside her, made her tense when she wished only to be fluid.

The only person who calmed that feeling, who made Luna feel like she was exactly where she was supposed to be, was Raven.

And recently she had sensed her pulling away.

Luna couldn't blame her for that.

Fratricide was an ugly thing to contend with.

Just because she had grown accustomed to that aspect of herself didn't mean everyone else would - or could.

Normally, Luna didn't care what people thought of her. She'd been deflecting the opinions of others all her life and they had only grown more brutal since she'd forsaken her 'divine' duty.

She'd learnt to weather it. To be unmoved by the judgments cast upon her by people who could never understand the choice she'd made - the cost and necessity of it.

The only person's opinion Luna valued was her own. She trusted no others. To do so might lead her into that treacherous sea that had nearly destroyed her life when she was thirteen.

But Raven was different.

She didn't know entirely why but. . . she was.

Luna cared what she thought of her.

But mostly she wanted things to return to how they'd been. To the easiness that had flowed between them. The reassuring familiarity that logically shouldn't exist - not with someone she'd only known for a couple of weeks - but did.

She felt comfortable in Raven's presence.

Right now, it was the only place she felt comfortable.

Raven blinked, looking up from her tablet, startled. "What?"

"What I told you the other day - you're struggling with it," Luna murmured, placing another plate of mystery bird on the table beside them, before hefting herself up onto the unforgiving surface to take a seat.

It was more comfortable than the chairs.

Raven narrowed her eyes at the plate, suspicion plain.

"You haven't eaten today," Luna said, as though she needed an explanation. Raven was more aware than her of her lack of self-care.

"You're really taking this whole Ravensitting thing to heart," Raven grumbled, reluctantly reaching for the fork.

( 'You don't have to worry about me. . .')

Luna wondered who it was in Raven's life that had made other people's care feel like an affliction, or something she should reject for the sake of her heart.

Who had taught her that what she could do was more important than who she was? That her abilities and what she could achieve with them mattered more than her life, or her happiness?

Luna had received that lesson, too, and it had taken her half a lifetime to discard.

"No. I just don't like to see anybody starve when I can help it."

It was a throwaway comment but Raven stiffened slightly. "Right."

Luna frowned. She hadn't meant to evoke memories of the conversation they'd had on the dock - that wasn't the story she wished to address today.

Raven shook her head, taking a bite of the questionable meat and chewing aggressively.

She ate too fast but Luna resisted the urge to counsel against it.

It was something she'd been guilty of herself in youth. As a novitiate, they'd been trained to eat everything that was presented to them within a set time - if they did not achieve this, they were denied their next meal. A powerplay, meant to instil ultimate obedience. As they got older and were allowed more freedom and independence - were given more trust - such restrictions ceased.

After her Conclave, when she was on her own, she'd often gone hungry. When Luna did get her hands on food, she'd been incapable of slowing her pace, seeking only to quench the burning in her gut as quickly as possible.

She suspected a different reasoning for Raven, however.

Raven ate like her body's need for sustenance was an unfortunate liability that got in the way of whatever task she'd set for herself. The sooner it was over with, the sooner she could return to more important things. Or what she felt was more important.

It saddened Luna, especially now that she was aware of how little life Raven had left to live. She didn't want to see her race through it.

"I guess I just don't understand why," Raven mumbled after a time.

Her brow furrowed at the remark. "Why I killed him?"

She supposed it would seem strange - even incomprehensible - to an outsider. To someone who hadn't grown up with their traditions, their way of thinking.

When Luna spoke of her brother to her people, the question was always 'why did you run?', not 'why did you kill him?'. They could understand the second, the first was an exercise in mystery. Uncharted territory.

But she could explain it to Raven, if that was what she was struggling with.

Or she could strive to.

"No," Raven said, putting her fork down with such force it took everything in Luna not to flinch. The crash of metal was familiar in a horrible way, her veins singing with longing for the press of unforgiving iron in her hand. "Why it exists. It's crazy, it doesn't make any logistical long-term sense. It's just ..." she flailed a moment, lost for words, "cruel. And wasteful."

Oh.

Again, she had to remember that Raven hadn't grown up in her world, had none of the history or traditions to call upon to explain something so inexplicable.

Luna's shoulders came to rest again, the tension leaving her spine. "There's a reason for everything we do."

Raven raised a doubtful eyebrow. "Even this?"

"Even this."

She'd never struggled to understand why the universe had put her in such an impossible situation, why her people thought forcing children to slaughter each other was the best path for survival. She'd been taught the reason - the many reasons - from birth.

She just didn't think those reasons were a justification, or a vindication for the terrible tradition to continue.

Raven narrowed her eyes, considering that. "Explain it to me."

Where to start?

Luna traced a scuff mark on the table, a new addition from their time here.

How did you condense thirteen years of teaching into a single conversation?

She took a breath, folding her hands in her lap. "You understand what a Conclave is now?"

Raven nodded. "Yeah. A little too well."

Alright. She'd never had to do this before. Explain something that was common knowledge to everyone she'd ever lived alongside. But she would try.

"The Conclave wasn't always a fight to the death. Defeating your opponent was the only requirement. But it caused. . . troubles with the succession." That was putting it mildly. "Some natblidas who failed to become Commander later tried to gain the title regardless, or crafted themselves a leader in their own right; that's how Azgeda - the Ice Nation - was formed." And they'd held onto the belief that they were the rightful claimants to the throne in Polis all through the years, fueled by injustices committed against them in the early days of the clans. "The succession wars were out of control and it made things unstable, too unstable for long-term survival. That's when they decided to make it a fight to the death. If there was only one nightblood at a time of ruling age, then there would be no more contention for the throne. Hundreds, possibly thousands died during those wars. Some clans ceased to be entirely." She exhaled, mouth twisting. "We're so terrified of reliving such a fate that we'll slaughter children to ward against it."

And it had worked. Whilst peace was still a foreign concept to her people, the dark days of their beginning were no less so. War may be a constant they couldn't shake - though, less so since Lexa had ascended to the throne - but it hadn't threatened to obliterate them all for generations.

Progress had been made.

They'd just bought that progress with the lives of children.

To Luna, that was a bitter exchange she couldn't find it in her to forgive.

Raven bit her lip, turning the information over in her thoughts.

Luna waited for her to form her own conclusions. She wouldn't influence them.

"That actually makes a sort of sense," she decided finally, with no small amount of reluctance. Her face was marked by a grimace, as if she'd had to heave rocks out of her mouth instead of words.

"It does." Luna shrugged, unfolding her hands to place them on the table at her sides, more at ease with the conversation - now that she knew where it was going. "I understand the reasoning behind the decision. But it can never justify the cost of it, the hundreds of children they've sacrificed. What they did to us."

Just because there was a good reason for doing something didn't mean it should be done.

Luna would never get back what they'd taken from her. Nor would she ever be able to return what she'd taken from others.

They had made her both a victim and a perpetrator and she'd been struggling to navigate that crushing limbo ever since.

Raven's gaze hardened. "No. It doesn't."

She would be one of the few to think so, to share Luna's view.

Perhaps that was to be expected, considering their contrasting cultures. But, then, Raven's hadn't survived without its own form of ruthlessness. There were things about the Ark that shocked even Luna - and her people had made a murderer of her before she'd even encountered puberty.

Raven hesitated a moment before reaching out and touching her hand. It was a light hold, without pressure or insistence, but Luna's skin lit up under the touch, coming alive in ways it now only seemed to when stealing Raven's warmth.

That sensation had grounded Luna when she'd entered the daunting realm of teaching her how to meditate. She was used to being keenly attuned to every aspect of her body, to feeling the full extent of her nerves as they danced off her surroundings, sung the song of her internal functions. She'd hated that to begin with but, as with most things, she'd made peace with it, even come to enjoy it.

But in recent weeks something had been off. Her body didn't feel. . . right. It didn't feel like hers anymore. It carried that same foreign element indicative of the years after her brother's death when she'd been fighting to grow into the skin that was at once too loose and too tight.

Sometimes, things were muted.

At others, her nerves quaked under the overwhelming onslaught of sensation.

But mostly it was the former.

Her body had become dull, still.

As had the world that contained it.

But the first time Raven had reached out to touch her, something had crackled to life. Her skin had itched before relaxing into a pleasant buzz that she still felt the echoes of even now - especially now, with Raven's hand inhabiting the space over hers.

She. . . had liked the feel of Raven's hand in hers, the tentative glide of her fingers across the skin of her ribs, how it made the breath of the sea fade out of her awareness.

She hadn't expected it. But Raven made a habit of surprising her.

It was nice.

Few things surprised her anymore and those that did were often terrible in nature. Raven's brand of surprise offered a change of pace that she could all too easily become accustomed to.

She would have to take pains to ensure that she didn't.

If the Sky People failed, Raven would join the sea of ghosts Luna was steadily becoming submerged in.

And even if they succeeded, she had a poison inside her mind that slowly worked to devour her.

Luna needed to harden herself against that possibility if she was to have any hope of surviving.

If she wanted to survive.

She wasn't so sure.

Doubtless, her instincts would decide for her - as they had a thousand times in the past. Whether she wanted to survive or not mattered little where her body was concerned.

It wanted to survive.

Or perhaps it wasn't her body at all but her very nature.

Her blood.

All her life, it had hungered to make her conscience as black as itself.

To rule her.

Except once.

Once, her blood, her instincts, her body had succumbed to her will. She had overpowered them.

For a moment.

Luna hadn't decided yet if that was a path she was willing to turn down again.

Much would depend on how events played out in the near future. On whether there would still be a world for her to survive in at the end of all this.

Whether it would be a world she wanted to survive in.

For now, she was content to let Raven take her hand, to open her palm and accept her touch, to hold her close.

She had so very few things to hold onto these days.

As it was, Luna had to fight not to turn her grip hard, to cling.

Things came and they went, she couldn't stall that process. All the times she'd tried, she'd only brought about greater agony for herself.

When she would feel the urge to hold on, she let go.

Let the desperation flow through her fingers, departing.

If a thing was meant to be, it would be.

The flow of the universe would return it to her, or motion it to stay.

Everything else, she gave up to the sea.


"Think often on the swiftness with which the things that exist and that are coming into existence are swept past us and carried out of sight. For all substance is as a river in ceaseless flow, its activities ever changing and its causes subject to countless variations, and scarcely anything stable."

- Marcus Aurelius


"So should it be with persons; if you kiss your child, or brother, or friend . . . you must remind yourself that you love a mortal, and that nothing that you love is your very own; it is given you for the moment, not forever nor inseparably, but like a fig or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year, and if you long for it in winter you are a fool. So too if you long for your son or your friend, when it is not given you to have him, know that you are longing for a fig in winter time."

- Epictetus

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