CAUTION: Spoils aspects of Innocent Hopes, Twisted Realities, When Nothing Remains, and Usurpation of the Darkness.
Seriously, major spoilers here.
Assuming you wish to continue, read on…
Every muscle in Lily's body strained with the effort involved in clinging doggedly to Rose's back while he struggled to throw her off. She dug her claws and teeth in deeper with every spasm and jerk, driven by rage and terror alike. His shrieks battered at her head, her ears already as flat against her skull as they could possibly be. His wing – the one not hampered by her teeth digging into the shoulder – slapped ineffectually against her side. Terrible-tasting blood sprayed into her mouth with every agonized movement, drawn from his flesh by force.
Lily clung to him, grimly digging in deeper with every heartbeat. She had no plan, no aim, no goal beyond making him suffer for what he had done, had planned to do, to Sola. She would not stand idly by. He would not have his way. Sola could join in–
Lily's eyes were closed and the entirety of her focus was on Rose. She had no idea where Sola was now, what she was doing. The teeth that jabbed into her tail right at the midpoint of its length were an unwelcome surprise. The sheer force with which her tail was yanked to the side further caught her off guard, and her back paws both came loose as her body was wrenched diagonally off Rose on the side of the shoulder she still doggedly clung to. Rose pulled to the opposite side, feeling her weight shifting, and her neck wrenched awkwardly as she hauled with all her might to stay on. She needed to keep on his back, if she fell off he could turn and hurt her!
She also needed teeth and an unbroken jaw, and her tail was being pulled so hard that she was almost immediately forced to choose between her mouth and her position. The awkward angle made it impossible for her to use any other part of her body to resist the pull, with the one remaining front leg that still held weight slipping away. Her hindquarters were on the ground, and Rose was jerking back and forth like he thought he could shake her off through sheer speed. Even the flesh she was biting into was loosening, no matter how hard she bit down.
Lily chose to let go, but it wasn't as simple as unclenching her jaw. The instant she relaxed her grip the force on her tail pulled her back, and her teeth were suddenly only holding on because they were fixed in her mouth, but violently pulled outward.
She and Rose parted with a dual howl of agony; from him, and from her as his shoulder slipped out of her grip unevenly, taking at least one tooth with it. The pain distracted her, but only for a moment. She forced her eyes open, spotted Rose hiking his wings up as he scrambled backward, away from her, and rose to her paws.
Her paws rose with her, and then the rest of her as the teeth still embedded in her tail bodily yanked her up and then down, smacking her down on her belly as her paws splayed out. She felt the release, dozens of sharp points retreating from her punctured flesh much more easily than her own had moments earlier. Her assailant tried to stamp on her base fins instead, something that would have hurt and pinned her hindquarters rather effectively, but she was already on her side, rolling to kick upward.
Lily's vision was partially blurred by blood that had been flung into her face, but she saw Sola's overwrought, incredulous face clearly enough before Sola's front paws came down to either side of her head, and she ducked down–
Some explosions had sounded quieter than Sola roaring at top volume, directly in her face. Lily's thoughts swam through suddenly muddied water as she recoiled. Her ears rang even after Sola stopped roaring.
Why, she wondered through her muddled daze, was Sola attacking her instead of Rose?
"Why?" Sola panted, her voice buzzing in Lily's poor, overwhelmed ears, a distant hum instead of the close, breath-on-her-face demand that she should have heard. She barely made out the word, and the meaning behind it…
Did Sola truly not understand?
"He was going to hurt you," Lily growled groggily, disbelieving. In fact, he still might hurt Sola, might hurt both of them!
A renewed bolt of energy had her craning her neck to look Sola in the eye, their noses almost touching. "I won't let him hurt you! We can stop him! Let's–" she tried to roll onto her side, the first step in standing up, but Sola roughly pushed her back down with a paw on her chest.
"You hurt him!" Sola shrieked, her voice high and unbelieving. "Rose!" She made to leap off Lily, but then thought better of it mid-leap, her legs flexing to push up but not delivering the actual push.
Lily took advantage of that to shove up and to the side, unbalancing Sola long enough to turn over underneath her and tip her further onto her side in an ungainly heap. Neither of them was particularly balanced, but Lily had the upper paw, toppling Sola entirely as she rose.
This didn't work out nearly as well as Lily had thought it would. Sola's tail whipped around her back legs and took her down too, right on top of Sola, but Sola took full advantage of that and hauled Lily perilously close, locking her paws between their chests and wrapping her tail. Such a full embrace would have been uncomfortably intimate if Sola was not so toweringly angry, and growing more so with every heartbeat.
Lily's own anger – at Rose, not Sola – faltered as Sola forcibly rolled them over, crushing her with her full weight in turn. All seven of her limbs were stuck.
"Alpha!" The voice of the friendly guard was unwelcome to Lily, further reinforcements that ensured she was truly trapped. Two light wings rushed to Rose, both yelping in alarm at the blood streaming out of him.
"I have killed, for less," Sola hissed.
Suddenly, Rose was the lesser of the two dangers.
"Our pack, has killed for far less," Sola added in the same deadly snarl. All of her skill with fire would be unnecessary if she decided Lily needed to die; a fledgling could kill from such a dominant position. Lily would never be able to fire first, and she had no way of escaping Sola's clutches. Sola herself would be stunned by the blast, but that would be a very small comfort to a very dead Lily, if it came to that.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
"If you were anyone else, I would not be speaking to you," Sola said, the words barely intelligible as they echoed around Lily's spinning head. "I would be hurting you. So answer me truthfully, and do it in as few words as possible. Why. Did. You. Do. This."
"I did," Lily strained through the weight pinning her down, "what I wish someone would have done for me. When my alpha forced himself upon me."
"Alpha, hold still, look at me."
"Aargh!" Rose roared. "Do not lick that!"
Sola's gaze flicked away from Lily, back to Rose. Lily couldn't see him from where Sola had rolled her, but Sola could. When she looked back down, she was even angrier.
"That," she said, "would be worth considering. If I was being forced!"
"You were–" Lily protested.
"Rose did nothing I did not want him to do!" Sola snarled. "You hurt him for licking me. You hurt him for – if I was being forced I would fight him off, not – You could have done anything else! Lily, just, why? Why this?!"
Why? Why did she attack him? Why didn't she push him away and then shriek at him? "I had to hit hard. He would have hurt you more, hurt me if I did not strike first."
"Rose cannot even say no to Obsidian without offering to make it up to him!" Sola glanced back again, presumably checking on Rose's condition, before she continued. "He has never been anything but kind to you–"
"So was Claw," Lily hissed. "Right up until he told me I had no choice, told the pack to obey, beat us to the ground when we tried to fight it, and used us! Alphas have all the power. I had to strike first!" She had to. Anything less would lead to him getting away with it and maybe turning it on her too. If she intervened with words, he might have attacked her, or he might have set the guards on her with a lie, or he might have used Sola's vulnerability to force her silence, or any number of things.
If he was the sort to do those things. Which he was, if he was forcing himself on Sola.
Which he was not, by Sola's own words.
That rather large detail had slipped by Lily in implication if not bare fact, but now it loomed large as she tried to justify herself to the murderously angry light wing pinning her down. To the one she thought she was protecting.
But if she was not…
"I had to," Lily repeated. "He was going to hurt you. I thought he was, and I saw it, and last time I could not fight him, together we could not fight him," she didn't want to be pinned anymore, she never did but now the confinement and the weight were doing dark things to her and panic was beginning to bubble up, "and he killed Granite and he took me and I never wanted it and I had a plan but it failed because my plans always fail and he hurts everyone I love!"
She choked out an unexpected sob. "I can't do it again, I can't let it happen again, let me go, let me go, I don't want to be here anymore, I'm sorry I was wrong, I thought he was hurting you like Crystal but I left her behind and I can't leave anyone else behind again." She was no longer in control of what she said, and only running out of air stopped her from continuing to plead, continuing to beg that she be let up–
Sola hurriedly stepped off her, disentangling their limbs with the speed of dawning horror.
"Do not do that, she needs to be kept from the alpha!" one of the guards yelped.
"I will stop her if she tries to get up," Sola told him.
There was no chance of that. Lily didn't want to stand, she wanted to disappear completely, to be somewhere far away where she had not hurt someone so badly by mistake, for something they did not do. She wanted to stop thinking about Claw, and Crystal, and all that she'd lost and left behind and had taken from her so painfully that even when she had a new life she ruined it by being unable to stop living in the old one.
Seeing as she was incapable of that, she weakly rolled onto her side, and then her stomach. Rose was in front of her, partially blocked from her view by the other three light wings in the room, but she saw the puddles of blood staining their paws as they milled around him. Guilt crushed her. She did not particularly like Rose, but he did not deserve this for doing nothing. And how much of her unease about him was real, when it came from a place and a person that he never knew?
She had ruined everything, and it was solely her own doing.
O-O-O-O-O
The next little while passed in a tense blur.
Rose's health was the most pressing matter for Sola and the guards, but they couldn't ignore Lily either. Lily herself would have been happy to curl up in a corner and do nothing indefinitely, but they wouldn't believe that. She wasn't allowed to leave, either; no one had said it outright, but she knew she would be stopped if she tried. She was guilty of attacking the alpha, and no amount of remorse or justification made her safe to be around, or safe to let go. A snake who would bite if it was clutched close, but who also would bite if one turned their back.
She was a danger they had to keep in mind while trying to keep their alpha from bleeding out in his own sleeping chamber. As such, one of the three able-bodied light wings was always watching her with a wary gaze and ready claws. It was mostly the unfriendly guard who took that position, though Sola did her own share of watching with a complicated, miserable expression that nevertheless promised aggression if Lily made one false move.
Lily, for her part, held very still. No words or actions would help her now. The damage was done. All that was left was for her to make no trouble and watch, though she wished she could look away.
"I do not want – aah," Rose hissed as the friendly guard licked at his shoulder. "Gently! I can feel it shifting." His voice quaked with pent-up pain. "I do not want this to become a pack-wide affair."
"You need proper care, not two light wings who do not know anything useful about severe injuries!" Sola argued.
"I know," Rose snapped. "But I am not dying, so –" he grit his teeth as Sola licked his flank. "So you can be subtle. Bring two who can keep their mouths shut."
"Alpha," the unfriendly guard glaring at Lily called out, "Sulfa needs to know about this threat to your safety. The sooner the better."
"That is exactly what I wish to postpone," Rose said in one quick, rushed breath.
"But why?" the guard demanded. "Custom demands she begin the trial as soon as she becomes aware of the attack."
"Custom demands there be a trial, she does not have to," he huffed out, "start it. Sola. Gather two healers. Three light wings who are not involved in this. Two more guards. Tell them nothing except that they are needed right away. Do not let them leave your sight."
"Your advisors?" Sola asked.
"Later. Bring them in after. Once questioning is done." Rose grunted. Lily couldn't see much of him from behind Sola and the other guard, but his bleeding seemed to have been staunched except for his shoulder. "This cannot go in front of the whole pack as it should. I am revered, because I am alpha. All know me, most covet my attention in some form. It would not matter what was said, only that I was harmed."
Lily was curious about what they were speaking of, but only in the abstract. She had done what she had done. That was all there was to it. The machinations of the Twisted Corridor pack, their existing ways of dealing with such acts, were unimportant. Different methods of reaching a foregone conclusion. She was guilty, and she rather thought that she deserved some kind of punishment. Within limits; she did not want to die. Curl up and disappear for a pawful of season-cycles, perhaps, but not die.
"I will go, alpha," the unfriendly guard volunteered. "I know just who to choose, and I will not be… biased." He glanced at Sola. "Not in the wrong direction."
"Lichen," Rose said, his voice firming despite the pain. It was the first time Lily had heard the unfriendly guard's name, and in the back of her head she realized that she still didn't know the name of the one she actually liked, the one currently trying to hold Rose's wing shoulder in place without pushing on it in any way.
That was merely a pebble of guilt to add to the boulder currently crushing her, but one that she felt all the more keenly for the existing weight.
"Yes, alpha," Lichen growled.
"I am the one she mauled," Rose said. "Put aside your anger. You are here to guard me. Not to avenge me or hold grudges for me. If there is a grudge to be held, I will hold it myself."
Claw would make her suffer before killing her for an act such as this. Or worse, he would make her suffer and keep her suffering indefinitely.
Rose was not Claw. She had flown headlong into this mess because she knew it, but a part of her did not believe it. That part, like a weed, still lived no matter how much the rest of her tried to stamp it out. Even now. Even if he wasn't Claw, he could hurt her and most of his pack would support him. The power was there. Only the will to wield it was in question.
"Yes, alpha," Lichen said reluctantly.
"I am not making decisions on what happens this cycle," Rose said sternly. "I cannot. All I am deciding is that it will happen this cycle. Right now, before the pack can whip themselves into a frenzy in my defense. Sola, please go," he hesitated, "and please return quickly."
"I will," Sola promised. She licked his face before walking past him, into the main chamber. Into view of anyone who happened to look up from the vertical cavern. Everything that had happened, all of the blood and shrieking and fighting, was out of sight. Rose wanted to keep it that way.
For her. Lily looked up, and her gaze fell on Rose, revealed now that only one light wing tended to him.
He was looking at her.
Rose was not impulsive. He did not bray his opinions to the world as they came to him. What he was thinking now, what he wanted to happen to her… She saw nothing in his eyes, only a greatly pained weariness.
Rose broke their stare with a jolt, his entire body shifting as he clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. "Gently," he growled.
"Sorry alpha, but it was not on right," the friendly guard said.
Lily looked away. She didn't deserve anything but scorn.
O-O-O-O-O
Sola returned with seven light wings who didn't know anything about what they were walking into. Such a situation could very well have devolved into a mess of shrieking, panicked, angry light wings getting absolutely nothing done and throwing the entire situation into chaos.
This was Sola, though, and however rattled she was by the events of the cycle, she knew how to make sure things got done. "Healers, to the alpha," she growled as she entered the main chamber at the head of the group. "Guards, keep everyone out of the alpha's chambers, and I do mean everyone. You three, stay here with me. You will be questioning Lily, then the alpha, then me, then his two guards."
The healers came in first, and with a pair of nearly identical barks of shock, rushed Rose. One bodily shoved the friendly guard out of the way in his haste. "How did this happen?"
"Focus on tending his wounds, not how he got them," Sola growled as she came up to the entrance of the side-chamber. "Lily."
Lily looked at her.
"Out here." Sola huffed and stepped back as Lily meekly stood to obey. Lichen growled at her, but a short, wordless bark from Rose had him backing down. "You three, on second thought you should start with Lichen. In here."
In a matter of moments, Lily stood in the crystal-floored circular chamber, with Sola. The new guards were in the usual place outside. Everyone else was crammed in Rose's little side-chamber. They could all hear each other, but Lily would have had trouble making out individual strands of what sounded like three different conversations going on in a very small space, and she assumed the reverse was true as well.
She and Sola were not alone, they would be overheard, but no one was looking at her at least.
"You need to know what is happening, and what to expect," Sola told her.
"I'm sorry," Lily said.
"You still need to know." Sola grimaced. "After, we can talk. We will talk. There are things I must say. Right now, especially as Rose is rushing things to keep them quiet, you need to know what is expected of you."
What was expected of her? She had attacked their alpha. She was an exile who had not been exiled yet, or something similar. Nothing should be expected of her, because they could not rely on her to follow through. Lesser transgressions might be forgiven, but this?
"Those three I brought in, they will be along to question you," Sola said. "They are here to learn all they can, together, and then split to tell what has happened. One will speak on your behalf, repeating the facts and claims in a way that makes you look innocent, justified – whatever helps you. The second will do the opposite, taking all that they heard and interpreting it in ways that make you look bad. The third is there to correct them, either of them, if they lie, claim something as true that is not known for certain, or say something that is not known to all three."
One for her, one against her, and one for the truth as they knew it? "Why?" Lily asked, despite herself.
"That is how it is always done," Sola said bitterly. "I have been where you are sitting. It was the same for me. Once they are done, the advisors will ask questions. There are usually five randomly-chosen light wings to act as judges and decide what the pack believes. They will say whether you did it or not, and any other opinion they have on what you did. The advisors will take that judgment and propose a punishment. The alpha will be able to reject or accept it, and then the judges will be able to do the same. This can go around a few times. When they are all in agreement, if there is a punishment it will be carried out as soon as possible. Then it is done." Sole put a lot of emphasis on that last word. "By the start of next cycle this will be over with."
So fast. So rushed. But it would be justice, and much more elaborately fair than Claw would have dealt out. Sola had been in her position… She was still here. Still a member of the pack.
Lily didn't ask. She didn't deserve an answer. She didn't deserve this, this courtesy of an explanation.
"Cooperate when they ask you things," Sola told her. "Give the whole story."
They would repeat it to all of Rose's advisors, Rose himself, five random light wings, and anyone else who happened to be present. The whole story? No, she didn't want to do that. She didn't want to relive that, and she didn't want it known.
Her reluctance must have shown, because Sola growled at her. "All of it, Lily. You have problems, and you have had them since before you came here."
That was true. Lily looked down at the crystal floor.
"It will be terrible to say it, and it will be terrible to hear it, and it will be terrible for the entire pack to know it," Sola continued. "I know. You will hate it. But it is that, or they will certainly have you beaten and made to stay away from Rose, if not the entire pack, for the rest of your life."
Beaten. Lily's eyes widened.
"You hurt him, so the pack will give you what you gave," Sola clarified. "Pain. Without any explanation… There are considerations for defending another. We do not pity those who act without reason or remorse. It would not be so severe," she said with a low, reassuring rumble, "Bad bruises and a broken bone or two, no permanent harm, but it is something to avoid. There is a more important potential punishment."
Being forced to stay away from Rose? Exile? Lily guessed neither.
"If you do not tell them the whole truth, at least as much as Rose and I know already, I will not speak to you again," Sola said firmly. "Lily. I want to think well of you. Rose does too. Some of this rush is for your benefit. But I cannot be around you if you continue to hide things that could drive you to do that."
Somehow, the threat that Sola would despise her cut deeper than the threat of being beaten or exiled. "I could tell you," Lily pleaded–
"Tell them," Sola huffed, obstinate. "You could have told me any time before now. Now, it is too late. Our pack does not tolerate harmful secrets, and yours have become harmful."
It was hard to argue that with Rose's blood still on her paws and all over her face. She must make a frightful sight. "Have I not already burnt everything between us?" she asked plaintively.
"No," Sola said. "I have done worse for what I suspect is far less reason. But this is part of making up for what you did."
Making up for it. She knew there was no coming back from what she'd done, nothing she could do to make this right, but if there was even a single step in that direction that she could take… "I'll do it." She would hate every moment of it, but she would do it. "And Rose?"
Sola shook her head. "I do not speak for him," she huffed. "I cannot promise anything."
"I'll still do it." This was more than she deserved.
O-O-O-O-O
The light wings brought in to question her numbered three. An old female with two shallow acid-burns the size of paws on her neck, a young male who reminded her of Tellur in his lanky nearly-fledgling look and demeanor, and an older male with a stocky, unusually muscular neck and chest. Scoria, Teph, and Lazu, respectively. Scoria would cast her in a bad light, Lazu in a good one, and Teph would keep them both in check.
They heard her explanation as to why she attacked Rose, and upon questioning her certainty that he was capable of such actions, were the first three to hear her story in more detail than she'd given Rose and Sandstone upon her arrival. Every word had to be dragged, kicking and screeching from her chest. She held back almost nothing, but the mere act of telling about her past brought the memories back, and getting through those recollections without losing control was beyond her, so the actual retelling was slow and fragmented.
She told them of the valley pack, its structure and its history.
She told them of Pyre, crippled by the previous alpha and with an egg stolen from him.
She told them of Claw, the alpha with more mates every season-cycle, and many young fledglings.
Then came her own story; raised by Cressa, Pina, and Grass, finding Pyre, growing up around him. Granite. Crystal. Pearl, Gold, Bone, Honey. Of Pearl's discomfort, of the customs she grew into and began to chafe against, of her disinterest in the alpha and of all that followed.
She told of Granite's death, Pearl's misery, the disappearance of Pearl and Gold, and the final, inescapable conclusion. Herself and Crystal, trapped. Pyre, killed. Crystal, abandoned.
Lily was a wreck by the time she finished her initial recounting, and all three of the light wings with her were thoroughly out of their depth. They still asked questions, clarifying and digging as deep into the details as they could stomach, but that was not very much. They all but fled her once they thought they knew enough; that it all built up to nothing more than a reason to make a terrible mistake had become an afterthought to them.
Throughout her misery, Lily clung to one thing. One detail that she twisted into her story, one thing of no importance to them, but of great importance to her. One lie.
Lily was Blaze's daughter. Lily was Pyre's daughter. Lily was not Claw's daughter by blood.
This was not as simple as a single lie; it filtered down to the rest of her story. Cressa was not Pyre's daughter, she was a random female who had taken in Pyre's stolen daughter, Lily. Lily was raised as one of Claw's children, for all that really meant, but she was not his.
They didn't know enough to call her on the timing not being quite right; she never gave enough information for them to do that, and they were too disgusted by her and her story to dig deeply enough.
They left her a dripping, snotty, blood-encrusted mess on the crystal floor, but she won. She defeated herself by telling the story, and she defeated them by holding back the one thing she wanted to bury so deeply no light wing would ever know it.
After that ordeal, left alone in the larger chamber, she expected to be mostly ignored until the trial itself. But as it turned out, someone was waiting to pounce on her the moment she was done being questioned.
"Up, on your paws if you can," one of the male healers Sola had brought said briskly, bustling out of the side-chamber toward her. "Let me see that mouth of yours up close, it has waited long enough."
Lily was by that point sapped of all energy to protest. She stood, opened her mouth, and waited for him to do whatever he thought he needed to do.
He strode right up to her and stuck his face so close to her gums that he'd poke his eye if she unsheathed her teeth. "We found three in the alpha's shoulder. Do you think you lost all of those, or has he been growing them in place of scales?"
Was that a joke?
"Oh, yes, I see one, two, all three spots," the healer narrated as he craned his neck back and forth. "You did some damage to yourself. The teeth will grow back, obviously, everyone knows that, but your gums are in a sorry state. Do not bite anyone for at least thirty cycles."
It was a good thing he'd told her that, because she was tempted to bite him. Only vaguely, she didn't actually want to, but if she did it probably wouldn't be the first time he was bitten.
"Now for your paws. Roll over."
No. She shook her head mutely.
"Or lift one, if you want to make this take longer," he grumbled. That was halfway reasonable, so she did it, starting with her front left paw. He ducked down to look, but quickly pronounced it "dirty but intact." They went through the rest of her paws in the same way, with him ending up close to her tail to look at where Sola had bitten her.
"Broke the scales, but not the skin in most places," he declared. "Lick it and it will be fine. You should wash the blood off first, but…" He looked down, through the floor. "Still some light wings about. The alpha wants this handled quietly. You flying around bloody and under guard is not keeping it quiet."
At that, anyone looking up would see her and the healer standing in Rose's chambers. The blood on her would be difficult to make out, given the red crystal and distance involved, but someone might notice something odd was going on.
"Mostly quiet," the healer amended. "All of us coming up here will have been noticed. So long as this is done quickly, that should not matter too much."
Done quickly… There was that, at least. Whatever came next, she wanted it over with.
O-O-O-O-O
Rose's main chamber was large, but the sheer number of light wings within threatened to make it feel small and claustrophobic. Or perhaps that was just Lily. None of the other light wings in attendance seemed to mind.
Rose was there, in the entrance to his side-chamber. The two healers were within the side-chamber proper, keeping two sets of wary eyes on his back because they lacked anything else to do and weren't allowed to leave before all was said and done. Sola was to his left, in the circular chamber but right up against the wall, close but not touching. To his right were his advisors, beginning with Peat, who had claimed the space closest by right of being the first to arrive, followed by Sulfa, Obsidian, Gilla, and finally Quartz.
Lily could feel Quartz's gaze on her, but she avoided meeting it, instead looking down from where she sat against the opposite wall, closed in by the now truly exhausted guards she knew best. They were there because they too were not allowed to leave, not because they would really be able to stop her if she moved quickly enough. Between Quartz, Sola, and the other dozen light wings present, an actual guard over her wasn't necessary.
What Quartz might be thinking… She was still bloody and she expected she looked truly defeated, because that was not far off from how she felt. Defeated by her own deeply-rooted issues.
The other advisors could rot. She didn't prize their opinions at all. Peat was an insufferable obsessive, Gilla acted more like Claw in some respects than Rose ever had, Sulfa was mostly an absent authority, and Obsidian seemed incompetent or perhaps just insufferable. But Quartz…
She expected he would no longer trust her after he heard what had happened. That hurt. She deserved to suffer for her actions, but she wished she could know for certain every way in which she had maimed her own life all at once, instead of being struck with each detail as they came piecemeal, each one painful in its own right.
To the right of the advisors, five light wings Lily didn't know sat in varying degrees of withheld unease or anticipation. The ones who would judge her, chosen because they did not know her and, in theory, were not the type to flame her simply because the other light wing involved was the alpha.
She didn't know who had chosen those five. Sola chose the three investigating her actions, but she had not left since. One of the healers had gone around to gather the advisors, so he must have picked these five too. Or he had been given their names by Sola, Rose, someone while she wasn't listening.
It didn't really matter. She was not meant to speak at all, so it was not like she needed to know their opinions to manipulate them. That was the task given to Scoria, Lazu, and Teph, who waited near the middle of the chamber. They too were, as far as Lily understood, random light wings with no prior experience in their roles. They were the ones who would be talking, and they also looked to be more nervous than she was.
That made sense. They could still succeed or fail. Her failings were already set in stone.
All in all, the light wings within or guarding Rose's chambers numbered twenty, a truly ridiculous count compared to the usual five, or three if one discounted the guards. Anyone who thought to look up this evening, for it was evening, would see something truly gossip-worthy based solely on what they saw and no more. By tomorrow the word would already be spreading.
"We are here to listen to the arguments for and against Lily, for her assault on our alpha, Rose." All of the advisors had been informed of that much, by now. Sulfa spoke for them as a group, with a heavy formality befitting such a rare event. "Those who investigated the act and the circumstances around it… speak."
Though perhaps some of that formality was being ignored in favor of speed. Scoria, Teph, and Lazu were ready, but they hesitated in taking up the verbal lead Sulfa had given them, as if they were expecting more time before it was their turn. Perhaps they hadn't worked out who would speak first, or what they were meant to be doing…
Was investigating an attack on the alpha something every light wing of the Twisted Corridor pack learned to do in their youth? Surely not. She doubted any of them had more than a little experience with such matters. They were amateurs, individuals chosen for their personalities or their lack of involvement in their alpha's life, not for their skills.
Their backs carried her fate, and more importantly, their voices would carry her past to everyone in the chamber.
"Uh, yes," Teph spoke up, rising onto his hind legs as he did. "We will be brief. We spoke to the alpha. We spoke to Lily. We also spoke to Sola, both of the alpha's personal guards, and the healers who treated them. Lazu, uh, you first." He dropped back down onto all fours with a loudly audible sigh of relief.
Lazu rose up onto his hind paws, his tail straight behind him as a third point of balance. Standing tall above everyone else in the chamber, all eyes were drawn to him, as was the point.
"Lily came to our pack some time ago," Lazu began. "She was taken in by us, because our own roots intermingled with hers not long ago, the daughter of Blaze and Risa, and because she said she was fleeing a bad situation. She gave few details as to why she fled, but enough that the alpha took her in without further question. Since then she has worked to join our pack in truth, from learning about our customs, to working to protect us with Quartz. She has killed at least once in defense of our pack, blasting a crawler off of a fellow light wing. She has not caused a single problem in all the time she has been with us. Not until this cycle."
That was not how Lily would have spoken in her own defense, were she allowed to. Past deeds did not excuse attacking someone! If they did, would a light wing who one cycle saved a group of hatchlings be allowed the next cycle to slit someone's throat, so long as his prior deed was considered great enough?
This was not an argument, though, and Scoria held her silence as Lazu continued his speech. Whether she was not allowed to interject or simply did not care to, Lily knew not. She might have been the only one in the chamber who didn't know.
Even after all this time, there were still so many things she didn't know about the pack she had attempted to join.
"This cycle, Lily walked in on something she did not expect," Lazu said seriously. "What she saw was our alpha and Sola in, shall we say a compromising position?" He looked to Rose.
Rose stared directly at Lazu, and said nothing.
"We shall say that," Lazu continued, unfazed. "What she saw, and what she says she thought was happening, were not too disparate. According to the alpha, and to Sola, what they were doing was wanted by both. But Lily had no way of knowing this. Our alpha and Sola both say that they intentionally kept their budding relationship secret from Lily as well as the rest of us. All Lily had to go on was what she saw, and what she knew. Unfortunately for all of us, but most especially her, what she knew led her to believe that Rose was taking advantage of Sola in a most heinous way. The reason for this, as she told us, was that in her former pack…"
Lily was standing on all fours, but as Lazu spoke she lowered herself to the ground, hating her own weakness, and clamped her paws over her ears, pinning them back to muffle his voice to the point of being unable to hear the words, even as she could not block out his oratory, pitying tone.
Everyone saw her do it. She was past the point of caring; if she listened to him expound her suffering at length, she might do something worse than further embarrass herself. Speaking it once was bad, listening to it repeated, probably imperfectly and with another's emphasis, might break her even further.
She only ever wanted to forget what had happened. Was this the inevitable end of such a desire, having her pain shared freely to all because she couldn't forget, couldn't move on?
Lazu spoke for far longer than he needed to. At one point Teph spoke up, which had her tempted to uncover her ears, but he only spoke that one time, and Lazu started right back up again after Teph said his piece, whatever it was. Lily avoided looking at anyone beyond the three light wings in the middle of the chamber, and only what little of that she could stomach, so she didn't see how anyone else was reacting.
She didn't need to know what they thought. She didn't want to know. Her part in this was over, until it came time for them to throw her out or otherwise discipline her. She wished she was given the option to wait somewhere out of earshot for their decision. She would never have taken it, but having made the choice to attend would have made her feel less trapped now.
A consequence of waiting until Lazu was done speaking was that Lily had no idea what he might have said after going over her past, how he tied it into her actions, or whether he covered what she did, not just why she did it. When Scoria stood Lily let her paws fall to either side of her head and resumed listening, though she didn't stand. She had no dignity left, any that remained after covering her ears had vanished while Lazu spoke. No point in standing.
"All that Lazu said was true," Scoria began, her voice cold. "So long as you remember that he began most every statement with some variation of 'as we were told'. It was true that we were told about this valley pack. We were told what happened to Lily in the past, and why she might be inclined to attack over a misunderstanding. But we know only what happened here, in our pack. To our alpha. So allow me to say only what we know happened, to contrast against what Lazu has described."
This was much more reasonable, in Lily's opinion. Incredibly offensive, to imply she faked everything during their questioning to make herself look sympathetic, but Scoria didn't care and Lily's opinion didn't matter.
"Lily walked in on Rose and Sola together," Scoria said simply. "Seeing this, she attacked Rose. She did serious harm, and was then subdued. Her only explanation was that our alpha was assaulting Sola, and that this merited a vicious maiming."
"Scoria," Teph interjected. "Our alpha was not maimed. Hurt, but not maimed."
"It was a slip of my tongue," Scoria huffed. "They all know. If he was maimed it would be obvious from where we stand."
"Still," Teph said firmly.
"A slip of my tongue, which you have corrected," Scoria conceded. "My point stands. All we know is what she did. What she did was attack our alpha when he had not, in fact, scratched a single scale on anyone in this pack. A misunderstanding? We have exactly as much proof of that as we do a jealous rage, or a fit of insanity."
"Scoria," Teph said with a much more aggravated huff. He was many season-cycles her junior, but he seemed to be growing into his position as something of an arbiter with every time he felt the need to intervene. "We do not have the same amount of evidence for those things. You are the first to ever voice such possibilities, and every witness we spoke to attested to not knowing her motives, besides her."
"I do not consider her word to be any proof at all, without any way of knowing the truth," Scoria retorted. "So we have no proof of any possibility."
"You still misspoke," Teph said.
"As you say." Scoria shook her head, as if shaking off an annoying fly. "We judge on motive and action. Her action is known. Her motive cannot possibly be known, substantiated, or guessed at by anyone but her. I would recommend no consideration at all be given to her intentions, unless there is some way of proving them beyond a shadow of a doubt."
Why consider her motive at all, then? Perhaps this was what every light wing in Scoria's position said at the end of their speech. Or perhaps other trials were more complex, and there were ways of supporting or disproving what the culprit said they intended to do.
In either case, Lily found herself paradoxically supporting Scoria in theory, while knowing Lazu was more correct. She was in the unique position of knowing her own mind, and outside of that position she would not be willing to trust a story like her own on faith, either. Other explanations, however wrong, were easier and looked the same from the outside.
Besides which, she did not feel like she deserved to be given a light punishment because of what had happened. She couldn't escape her past, but that was her failing. The strange thing about all of this, which she could only now grasp, was that it was never a question of whether she had attacked Rose. She had. But they were going to all this effort to determine whether she was justified in doing so, holding a trial, in theory amending their judgment based on her motives and whether they thought that she was right to act as she had based on what she knew.
Why were they doing this for her? They were bending over backwards to give her a chance to justify herself, through a proxy. They didn't have to do that. Claw would never have, the valley as a whole wouldn't care. Strike the alpha, be struck down or spared as his whims dictate. The why would only matter if enough of the valley knew, and the reason was great enough, that they might go against Claw's authority. Which could never happen. He killed their children on the regular, no sin was so great that it would shake his authority.
The Twisted Corridor pack, though, had customs for this. They had things they did for every trial, every act so problematic that it warranted an official response. Quartz was questioned – questioned on his motives, and on the details of his mistakes. That was not a trial, not like this, but it was not dissimilar.
Here was a group of light wings who cared, or at one point had cared, very much about the why of such things, not only what was done. But why did they care? Had something happened in the distant past that left such an impression that some remnant of old lessons remained? Or was some ancient alpha very personally concerned with understanding the actions of those who were in the wrong? Or something else entirely?
Such idle thoughts distracted Lily as the five light wing judges deliberated in hushed, whispered huffs and growls. There was no pretense at their discussions being fully private; she could have heard if she liked. She ignored them. She didn't want to know what they thought, only what they decided.
They might care about her motives. She cared more about what would happen next. Her own misery was hers to wallow in any time she wished to think of it.
Lily wasn't listening in on the light wing judges, but all of Rose's advisors were, and Lily could hear them growing more heated as they discussed something among themselves. She was particularly used to listening to Quartz talk, and his voice stood out above the others. "Ten, and it will not matter what is on the other side. Obsidian, either go yourself or shut up."
"We have decided," one of the five announced. The hissing, whispering cacophony dropped in a matter of moments, fading to a dead silence as everyone pretended they had waited patiently for a verdict most of them had already figured out via shameless eavesdropping.
Lily looked up, at the male light wing who had spoken.
"On the question of whether Lily assaulted the alpha: yes, undoubtedly," the male said.
Of course.
"On the question of whether it was malicious, or an act of misplaced defense of another," he continued, "we will not decide."
What?
"It is our opinion that a scout should be sent to this valley above the ground, to obtain a clear view of the truth of her situation," the male concluded. "We suggest that no judgment be made until such a time as this is done. Whether she is punished lightly for a grave mistake, or harshly for an act of violence and doubly so for lying to try and escape the consequences… Let a scout seek out the truth of the matter."
"One scout will not be enough if their alpha is a conniving waste of scales," Quartz said loudly. "We will send at least ten light wings. Send her too, as she is the only one who knows the way. Ten light wings can keep her from escaping, if it comes to that."
Obsidian and Sulfa both objected, loudly, in what Lily suspected was a retread of their hissed disagreement a moment ago. Rose looked on, impassive, while Sola stared doubtfully at Quartz. All was organized chaos, and what was more, chaos with a certain shape. A shared assumption.
The truth would be learned. All that stood between them and said truth was a long journey that could be made, had been made before. They were arguing about how and why, not about whether it would happen.
Why? Why was it a question of whether she lied, not a question of how harshly to punish her? Why were they so focused on her, not defending their alpha?
Why were they digging so deeply into her past, instead of deciding her future like they were supposed to?
These questions drove her to her paws, and then across the crystal floor to the one light wing who might have a true answer. The one in charge of it all. Her exhausted guards trailed along behind her, extremely wary. Scoria and Lazu leaped out of her way, abandoning Teph who was facing away. She stepped around him with barely a thought for him, and approached Rose.
"Why?" she asked him, before looking around.
"Why what?" he said, very carefully.
"Why do they not want my blood for hurting you?" she clarified. His advisors were busy bickering. The judge light wings were having their own little argument. The investigators were awkwardly watching the whole thing. He was watching, too. This was expected, it was normal.
"I think," Rose said slowly, "that if you were in my place you would care more about why than about injuries that will heal with time. They follow my lead in this."
Implying he was influencing all of this, which he well might be. That further implied he was not willing to take her at her word, which was understandable. Him being so calm while still actively suffering from the damage she had wrought was less so. She didn't understand him, Claw would–
And that, she realized with a sick feeling, was part of why this all made no sense. He was not Claw, but she still thought of him as someone, something, of the same ilk. As long as she did that, she never would understand.
Lily turned away, unable to think of anything she could say in the face of that.
O-O-O-O-O
By the time all was said and done, another cycle had begun and light wings were returning to the vertical cavern. They slept well, or poorly, but all slept without any knowledge of what had gone on above them in the night.
It was so easy for an alpha to be separate from his people, when he lived apart, labored apart, and struggled apart from them. Rose could easily have been an apathetic, disinterested male with little empathy for those literally beneath him. Previous alphas, beyond him and his Sire, might have been.
Such thoughts were comfortingly normal, but they could only distract Lily for a moment, a fleeting aside that quickly flew its course and returned to the much more tumultuous airs of her current situation.
Rose's advisors had argued long and hard about the expedition. Some details were still entirely up in the air; who would go, how many would go, to what ends beyond learning the truth? If there was nothing there, how long would they search before declaring Lily a liar and heading back? Which light wings could be best spared for a potentially dangerous journey without weakening the pack's defenses? Who would be in charge?
The final decision in regards to Lily's actions was that there was no question of whether an expedition would be sent, only the details. Officially, Rose's advisors recommended a suspended decision, based on what was learned in the valley. Rose approved the decision. The judging light wings approved. And thus her trial was put on hold.
Quartz passed Lily on his way out, straying close to her. "Take a few cycles off," he said bluntly. "Come see me in, say, six cycles. No more, no less. We will be having remedial lessons in looking before leaping."
Looking before leaping, but nothing else? "I do not think I will be allowed to go out beyond protected territory," she told him.
"Perhaps not." Quartz walked off, raising his voice as he went to deliver his parting remarks. "I will find things for you to do within that restriction. It will be lifted upon your return."
He believed her. Utterly, without question. Enough that he was using his faith in her to needle Sulfa and Obsidian, who both glared at him as he squeezed past them to get in front before they entered the tunnel down to the vertical cavern.
They were some of the last to leave. The light wings responsible for judging went first, having no reason to stay and family to get back to. The same applied to those who did the investigating, Scoria and Lazu and Teph. Their duties were finished, and they still had their usual lives to get back to.
Everyone involved in the rushed trial would have to deal with a long, tired day on top of a sleepless cycle. They were done, though. For them, it was over until the expedition returned many cycles from now.
Those who lingered were the ones who were not done dealing with the consequences of Lily's actions. Rose, Sola, Rose's advisors. Lily herself. Now only the three of them, as Rose's advisors filed out.
Too much had happened in too short a time, and too much was still going on. Lily didn't feel she could complain about any of it, not even in her own head, but she was uncomfortable, thirsty, and incredibly unsure of herself, on top of still feeling guilty.
Rose shuffled into his side-chamber once more, his back to Lily. "Sola, could you–"
"Tell your advisors, if they ask anytime in the next three cycles, that you are recovering and are not to be disturbed? Yes." Sola chuffed. "I can deal with them as long as nothing important catches fire."
"The pack needs to be informed," Rose objected.
"You did not tell any of the judges to hold their silence, they are already starting on that task," Sola argued back. "You need to rest. I will go fishing, bring some back." She made for the tunnel exit. "Lily, with me."
Right. Lily wasn't to be around Rose, not one-on-one. For his safety, because that was how it worked now. Speaking to him while under guard, yes. Alone, no. And Sola had promised her an explanation. Lily followed. There were two guards at the tunnel entrance, not the usual two but rather two of those who Sola had brought in. One moved to follow them, but Sola stopped and glared back at him. "No one but me in or out."
"Her?" the guard asked, looking at Lily.
"No one but me, for now."
She wouldn't be sleeping in Rose's chamber, come the end of this cycle.
"Galen will be able to work something out," Sola huffed as they followed the tunnel down. "Or not. We are not hugely crowded right now, with the recent losses, so there will be a space in the tunnels for you."
It would be the tunnels, then, seeing as Galen was liable to be wary of her once he heard what had happened. She wouldn't want an unstable light wing sleeping right next to her children.
They reached the tunnel exit, and Sola dropped down to dive toward the floor, passing a few gliding light wings on her way down. Lily followed at a more cautious angle, feeling far too tired and uncertain to put her life in her own paws by way of her reaction speed.
Her bloodied paws and mouth earned her a wide berth, other light wings staying well away as they stared. She was not, she supposed, approachable. Not like this. That bubble of solitude held all the way to the shore, where she stopped by the water to dunk her face.
The cold was a shock to her, but far better still was the feeling of crusted dry blood being scoured away by her paw as she roughly rubbed at her face, only going gently on her gums where she had lost teeth.
She was tired. The shock of the water only served to make that more obvious. She carefully dipped her other paws in the water, one at a time, turning around to do the back two, before retreating from the water's edge to rub her paws on dry stone, trying to scrub off the last of the blood. She could still smell it, and she resorted to rubbing her face on the ground. Harder and harder, because that scent had to go away, it had to, she could not live with it lurking in the back of her nose–
"Lily!" Sola pawed at her side. "Stop. You got it all."
Had she?
"You are going to hurt yourself, doing that," Sola said. "Come, we should fish now."
Lily was aware of the half-dozen light wings watching them from afar, elsewhere on the shore and in the air nearby. She needed no further prompting to take to the air, away from them, away from the Twisted Corridor pack…
Though she was not at all tempted to leave, not from this cave. Quartz had taught her the layout of the caves around their territory, and she knew from that exactly how little waited on the other side of the vast lake. It was a large, elaborate dead end beyond the water, one that the Noxious Fumes pack could only enter through narrow cracks too small for light wings to use.
Sola would stop her, anyway.
Once they were well away from shore, Sola slowed to a near glide, and shifted so that she was flying next to Lily, her good eye looking ahead. "This was a terrible… Not cycle, the first part was good."
"Night." Evening, perhaps, seeing as she'd made her mistake before it was properly night. "You have no good words for the latter half of a cycle."
"We do not, no," Sola agreed. "It does not often come up. But this was a terrible night. For all of us."
Yes, but Lily deserved it and everyone else did not.
"I told you to speak of your past if you wished to be forgiven. You did." Sola closed her eye for a moment. "I should not have done that, but I was angry. With you, with everything. You hurt Rose and there was nothing I could do for him, and both of those things angered me."
She hid it well. Lily thought she was being too kind, when she was in fact angry. Then again, Sola hid many things well.
"Many may doubt your story."
She had never imagined that would be her greatest problem if any part of her past was made known to the pack as a whole, but she made a lot of mistakes and oversights, so what was one more? It was already beginning, with Rose's advisors and the ones meant to judge her actions.
"I do not – will not." Sola huffed, her gaze still firmly fixed on the pitch-black horizon. "I know what you are going through."
That, Lily did not truly believe. "Do you?" she asked bitterly.
"In some ways," Sola hedged. "I will tell you about it, and you tell me if I might understand once I am done."
Lily was no longer sure if she wanted to hear this, but at the same time… Sola was okay. Her life was good and she seemed happy. Mostly. If there was something in her past that made her think she knew what Lily was feeling now, maybe there would be something there that might make sense of the mess that Lily had made of herself.
Lily flicked her ears, to indicate that she was listening.
"I want to start by saying that I do not want your sympathy," Sola said sternly. "This was all some time ago, and I have moved on. I do not talk about it because I do not wish to, not because it still eats at me. Also because many light wings in this pack believe they know better third-paw than those who were there to experience certain events, and I have only managed to shut them up by not speaking of some things for long enough that they, in turn, stopped thinking about them. If I bring it up, they go right back to arguing with me. It is tiring and pointless."
Some light wings did rather like to say what they thought, think what they thought, and ignore anything that threatened to change what they thought or what they said. There was a comfort in being sure one knew what was happening. A comfort that was as dangerous as it was false, when that understanding was delusionally incorrect. As Lily had learned. She was no better than any of the light wings who frustrated Sola with that sort of behavior.
"What they think they know, well, it is complicated." Sola huffed. "I have always been very talented with my flame. Not my aiming, mind you, I am speaking of normal firing without any forethought or understanding. It is hard to be 'good' at something that everyone does, but I was good. Very good. As good as one could be, without having a clue what I was actually doing." Her voice turned bitter for a moment. "In retrospect, it was my confidence more than anything real that set me apart from the other fledglings. A stray comment when I was learning to flame, starting a rockfall that grew with every passing cycle. When I was a fledgling, it was rather nice to be known for something. Everyone liked me. When I became an adult, everyone still liked me. I held widely-attended lessons on firing, in which I showed off a great deal while teaching nothing, because there was nothing to teach. I thought myself gracious for displaying my talent so that others could copy… something. When the Noxious Fumes pack started trouble, everyone said I should go with the fighting light wings and help put them down. So I did, and I was good at that too."
Put them down, like it was as easy as that. Quartz would have been in charge back then too… But someone who only participated in individual battles wouldn't have any real understanding of the larger situation all around that one battle. The Twisted Corridor pack was very good at not freaking out about the threats to their existence constantly working toward their deaths.
"Quartz appreciated those of us who joined the firing lines, and he liked me most of all for my confidence and competence. Again… I knew I could, so I did, and I never fired beyond what I knew. That was enough, when combined with everyone speaking of how good I was, to throw up a smokescreen that might as well be truth, it was so thick. I felt like I was on top of the pack, right below the alpha and his advisors. Barely done with being a fledgling and there was nowhere to go but up, even though I was already flying high."
Sola continued to stare ahead, into the darkness they were forever flying toward, but would never truly reach. They were not even pretending to fish now, not that Lily cared. She had been snared, completely and utterly, by Sola's incredibly ominous beginning. This was not a start to something that ended well. Especially not down here, when one could only ever fly so high before hitting solid stone.
"I had many admirers," Sola continued, her tone still painfully bitter. "Many friends. My killing for Quartz, for the pack, earned me recognition from the alpha, Rose's Sire. I took a mate, one of my admirers. A brawny male named Coarse. He was always following me around and fawning over me, it was expected I take a mate, and he was easy on the eyes. It helped that he talked a lot about me, a little on occasion about how much he disliked his name, and otherwise said nothing about himself."
That sounded like a truly terrible decision. Lily couldn't imagine taking a mate she knew so little about, and one who openly pursued her – no. Coarse would have received a cold shoulder from her.
"He was better than I deserved," Sola continued, unknowingly knocking holes in Lily's disapproval with her words. "Calm, slow to anger, mischievous on occasion. Not a manipulative bone in his body. He scouted and sometimes fought for Quartz, but he only ever joined the real battles if I was going to be there. If he had his way, we would live our lives in our little cave fit for two, maybe move up to a larger cave once the alpha inevitably allowed us the privilege of an egg, and only fight when we had to. We would have a home and a hatchling or two, be happy, have enough and need no more."
It was very quiet, as far out from the shore as they were. The soft lapping of water against stone far below was nearly inaudible. Lily could hear their wings beating, at different tempos but gradually syncing up as they flew together.
"We had a little over a hundred cycles together," Sola said softly. "He was a good mate. I was not. I was full of myself, flying high, I had everything. When it all came crumbling down, I could not handle the loss."
At that, Sola gently dipped below Lily and came up on her other side, bad eye facing her. "I woke up one cycle," she said, "and something had changed. Tell me," she exhaled, "can you see anything wrong with my eye?" The eyelid that Lily had only ever seen move once or twice lifted, revealing Sola's long-hidden bad eye. Sola's flight wobbled a little, bringing her slightly closer.
Lily had instinctively avoided staring at Sola's closed eyelid in the past, and if this were unintentional she thought she might have looked away, but at Sola's invitation she tried her best to spot the difference. She couldn't immediately see anything abnormal. Sola's bad eye, just like her good eye, had a pale pink iris. The black pupil was a simple narrowed oval, though as Sola flew on, it expanded a little more. It had subtle veins beneath the surface, and was entirely normal as far as size and shape went…
"I don't see it," Lily admitted. "What is different?"
Sola closed her eye once more and let out a harsh, barking laugh. "Nothing," she exclaimed, the word dripping with frustration. "Nothing anyone can see. But my vision was doubled from that cycle onward, and not always by the same distance. Not always in the same direction. One of the two sights bounces along like a springy bit of moss attached to my ears, always dragging along behind, overlapping and overshooting when I stop moving, never quite still and never aligned. But only if I have both eyes open. If I keep this one closed, I see normally, if very flat. One eye is normal, and the other is not. But in a way that cannot be seen by anyone… except me."
Lily had never heard of such a thing. Her first instinct was to ask questions, to try and further diagnose the problem, because surely that could not be all there was to it. But this happened some time ago, and Sola was not done with her story.
"I could not fire straight," Sola said, continuing her story. "It had to be temporary, I thought, and when it did not go away I went to the healers. They could not find anything wrong with me. Some did not believe I had a problem at all. Coarse made no secret of wanting me to back off from the fighting, everyone knew, and some said this was an excuse we had hatched between us. I hated that, and I hated that I could not fire right. I never planned to change what I was doing, I did not want things to be different. Coarse and I argued about it every cycle."
Sola looked up, at the unadorned and wholly unremarkable stone ceiling passing not that far overhead, as she flew over Lily to return to the side she had started on. Her good eye stared at nothing as she continued. "One cycle, I had enough. I lied. I said that my vision was back to normal, and I insisted on going to the next battle, an attack Quartz had planned."
Lily was reminded of another terrible tragedy, another lost mate. Two, in fact. Why did this keep happening to her family?
"Coarse… he knew I was lying," Sola admitted, her voice low. "But he thought the world of me and he let me lie. He came along, to protect me, like he always did. The attack was minor, the Noxious Fumes pack did not put up much of a fight. I did not have to fire a single shot, but everyone congratulated me on being 'back' like I had proven myself anew. I thought I could continue faking it until my vision returned to normal. I promised I would be there for the next attack."
Lily shook her head, unable to completely stifle her dismay.
Sola huffed, still staring up at the ceiling. "The attack was not that far from protected territory. Coarse and I told Quartz and the others that we would catch up to them. Quartz said we were being foolish, but he left us alone. He thought what I thought, that we were going to celebrate my recovery. Instead, Coarse and I argued. About my promise to keep fighting, about how I could not fight, about how my reputation was not worth me being in danger… About how maybe this was exactly what we needed, so I could step back from the war and be happy. It was not going anywhere. I knew what I wanted, and he always let me have my desires. He always let everyone else have their way. He kept a name he disliked, because his Sire and Dam preferred it. He could have changed it, nobody would have batted an eye if he told them to use another name after hearing him complain about it all throughout his life."
It was getting harder and harder for Sola to continue. Her words came naturally enough, but her wings were slowing, and Lily didn't think she was doing that on purpose. They were losing height, enough that Lily settled into a glide, hoping Sola would copy her, which she did.
"He told me he would not stop me. But he begged, and I do mean begged, me to show him that I could do what I kept saying I could. Even though he knew I was lying, and I knew he knew. That enraged me. Now, I think he wanted to believe so badly that he was giving me a chance to prove myself even though he knew I could not. Then, I thought he was taunting me. I fired–"
Sola coughed, then continued, her voice choked. "I fired once. At him. I did not think, I trusted myself to hit him on the shoulder, to knock him back and bruise him. I had done such things a hundred times before, it was instinctive. I could make the shot. Easily. I did not believe my eyes – smart, but too late – when my fire hit him in the stomach."
Lily's own stomach turned. "How bad?" she whispered.
"A very ugly bruise and shattered scales, but it didn't break his hide," Sola said, defying Lily's much more severe assumptions. She spoke like it was a killing blow, though, barely getting the words out. "We flew back in silence. He went fishing. We slept together in our cave." She pulled in a long breath, then continued with the inevitability of a boulder rolling downhill. "I woke to him vomiting blood, and it only got worse from there. I told the healers everything, they knew what was wrong, but they could do nothing except ease his pain. He passed five cycles later."
"There were accusations," Sola recalled, continuing her tale in a low voice. Having passed over the summit, the words came easier and easier to her. "I had killed him, no one disputed that. I told the healers what I did, and word spread. Whether it was truly an accident… I was renowned for my skill, for killing with my fire. Many never believed that my vision was altered to begin with. How could it be an accident?"
"It was taken to a trial, much like the one you went through but longer and more drawn-out, as there were many more light wings involved." Sola sighed. "I cooperated fully, and I told everyone who would listen exactly what happened. They might not have taken my word on its own, but Coarse was able to speak for the first two cycles after the injury and he corroborated my story to the healers, including how much of an accident it was. With that, my word and the few things Coarse said before his death… It could not be proven that I had intended to do anything more than bruise him. That was all. After…"
Sola shrugged her wings, dropping a little bit in her glide. "All of the good things in my life sat on the back of my talent, my unearned confidence. Without that, with the uncertainty around my eye, around Coarse's death? It all fell apart. Some thought I had murdered my mate and gotten away with it, others still believed my sight was never damaged at all, some thought even more ridiculous things… The scorn and rumors got so bad that I went to the alpha, asking for help. He made an announcement about the truth of my eye problem, and that did nothing but silence the few who truly believed I needed to be exiled. I lost the cave I shared with Coarse. I could not and would not fight for Quartz, and I lost his approval. He lost mine, as well," she added with a snarl. "All of my friends proved to be false, drifting away or rejecting me. Those who did not like me were loud, and those who did not care went along with the loudest voices. I, myself, was in a terrible place. My own stupidity and pride had killed my mate. Everyone hated me, or so it felt. There was nothing ahead of me, no future to look forward to."
Sola did understand. The important parts, anyway. Some of them.
"I was," Sola said, "an easy target."
But she wasn't done, and Lily dreaded what had to be coming next. For it not to be over… It could only get worse.
"There was a certain pair of brothers," Sola said darkly. "Two light wings I never really knew before. They knew of me, though, and they had their plans. A little positive attention, a caring ear – it was easy. I felt like they were the only ones who saw me. Stib and Asbe. The honest brother and the kind brother. The vicious fool and the sly liar."
Those were peculiar names, but Lily had absolutely no trouble imagining the light wings they were associated with, in part because she was certain she already knew them. She had met Stib, based on Sola's chosen epithets, and seen Asbe from afar. Stib had struck her as a pale failure to imitate Gold, but for someone who had never known Gold and was at a serious low point in their life…
"They were terrible for me, but they made me feel wanted," Sola admitted. "In exchange, and it was an exchange, no matter how much they tried to disguise their true intentions, I gave them what they wanted. Not at the same time. Rather, I went back and forth to whichever one had not come up with an excuse to make me feel worse in some deniable way. I trust you do not want to hear anything more detailed." She fixed Lily with a piercing single-eyed stare. "You have lived through worse. They only abused my insecurities and emotions."
That was still bad.
"That went on for a rather long time," Sola recalled. "It was impossible for me to move on from anything while they kept rubbing my wounds raw for their own benefit. I had nothing else, except memories of times when my life was better. I wanted that back so badly. That desire was what finally began to pull me up and away from their clutches, though I do not think it would have led anywhere better if I had gone about it differently. As it was, my happiness was tied to my fire. My fire, to my aim which had been ruined by my eye. I could not fix my eye, but I could maybe fix my–"
"Aiming," Lily said. She saw the connection now. The thing Sola considered herself an expert on, the thing that had been conspicuously absent from her story thus far… What else was there for her to latch onto?
"Aiming," Sola agreed. "I wanted to regain my talent. In the beginning I was not looking to learn anything new, only to compensate for my eye. I went out, alone, to unprotected territory where no one could be struck by a badly aimed blast, and fired, again and again. One cycle after another, whenever I was not being pulled one way or another by Asbe and Stib. Nobody knew. I had all but disappeared from the pack's collective thoughts, save for when I was right there in front of them. I kept it from Asbe and Stib, because I feared they would disapprove. There were so many things they picked at me for doing, I did not want to add one more."
"It took," Sola continued in a lighter tone, "a very long time for me to learn what I know now. That our instincts are limited and imperfect, worthless, or outright counterproductive outside those limits. Once I understood, though… I could indeed compensate. Not just for my eye. For all of the other things I learned about through observation and experimentation, the cracks and flaws and failings at longer distances. I learned, by doing, exactly how far from perfect I had always been. Excellent within the limits I accepted, but not outside of them."
That was about more than just aim. It always had been, for Sola.
"I tried to share what I had learned with Asbe and Stib," Sola admitted. "That was what broke me from them. They saw my renewed ability, skill now instead of confidence or talent, and considered it a threat. I might, in their eyes, regain my place in the pack. I might escape their clutches. They tried to put me down, to say it was nothing. I was not willing to listen. Stib put his paw so firmly in his mouth that I cut him off that very cycle. Asbe could not keep me for much longer after that. Their tricks and manipulations no longer worked, because I was not willing to take Stib back, no matter what he said. Soon, I saw Asbe for what he was, and rid myself of him, too."
"Of course, what they feared could never come to pass." Sola shook her head ruefully. "I would not work with Quartz. I still will not. Without that, my new skill was mostly pointless. After a time I began giving lessons on the shore again, this time with no showing off and real instruction on things that could be learned, but after the initial resurgence of mockery interest dipped to how it is now, a few light wings more or less motivated to learn something for a time. The only thing I could have done to actually regain the acclaim I once held, if I even wanted to, was fighting for Quartz…" She growled wordlessly before concluding the thought. "Never doing that again. He buried that tunnel in a rockslide too deep to ever be dug out."
"You came to the battle in the grassy cavern, though," Lily pointed out.
"I do not kill for Quartz," Sola said evenly. "I do not hear when he gives orders. Some of his subordinates are tolerable so long as they keep both of those rules in mind. I sometimes join defensive fire groups. That is not the same as fighting for him."
Sola dropped lower and began a long, wide turn, back toward the distant shore. "I have had bad cycles. I have made terrible decisions that I wished I could take back as soon as I understood what I had done. There are things I dearly regret and will until I die. But life moves on, and I have not, will not, let those things drag me down. Only guide me forward. Believe me when I say that I do understand how you are feeling about what you did to Rose, even as I am still very unhappy on his behalf, too."
After hearing all of that, Lily did believe. "How do you move on?" she asked, more plaintively than she would have liked.
"Fix what can be fixed, burn what cannot, and accept that it all happened but is over and done with now." Sola shook her head. "They are sending you back to ensure you are being truthful. I say good, because now that I have heard what you went through, I think you need to go back regardless. Fixing what can be fixed, no matter how little that may turn out to be."
That was the opposite of what Lily hoped to hear, but she couldn't deny that it made some sense. Forgetting had failed miserably, so all that was left was to go back. She couldn't move forward until she did, a frustrating little catch that she would continue to trip over.
She had to go. For herself, for the Twisted Corridor pack, for Quartz, for Rose…
"Will you go with me?" she asked.
"Do you want me to go with you, or do you want me to stay and help Rose?" Sola asked. "I cannot do both. Where would you rather my eye be, checking your decisions or watching the places you will not be able to see?"
Relying on herself was what had brought her to this low, unhappy point. Her judgment could not be trusted. Besides which, she did not really want to separate Sola and Rose in the immediate future. Sola had not said no, but she had not said yes, either. If Lily forced an answer, she might not like the one she got. Empathy and understanding did not make up for broken trust, and Lily did not know how far she had strained Sola's trust by attacking Rose.
Underneath all of that, though… "Stay here."
Because going back and facing all that she had left behind would be hard enough as it was. Having Sola along for the trip would make it feel even more like others were trying to fix her, instead of her trying to redeem herself.
Was that what she was going to do? Redeem herself by proving that she did not lie? It didn't fit. But whatever she was meant to do, she knew now where it had to happen, and that place was not here in the Twisted Corridor pack. Not to begin. They were sending her out, Sola thought she needed to go, Quartz was all for it…
These were people she trusted, and their certainty was a small comfort. They knew where she needed to go, what she needed to do. The how would be up to her, but in not having much of a choice, she was relieved of all the other decisions. She had to go, it would be a monumental effort to avoid doing so now. All she had to worry about was what she would do once she was there.