Chapter Text
Chaos rules the battlefield.
Mel wars against its overwhelming tide. She presses her soldiers against the gaping wound that’s been cut into the world by careless hands. Spears and banners become stretchers as her mother’s—no—her soldiers cart the screaming and the dying off to medics. There are no spoils here. Or if there are, Mel does not care about them. A wolf feasts after war but Mel doubts she will ever eat again.
“You, we need a medic. Now!”
“No!”
Caitlyn tries to turn away but her body betrays her. She makes a wordless, agonized shout. Dark red starts to flow from the gut wound her mother gave her. Mel knows the wound intimately. It’s the wound her mother gives to those she wants to die witnessing her triumph. Untreated it is deadly, but it is a slow death. Provided you leave the blade inside you. She does not know if her mother explained the wound to Caitlyn. Perhaps she did and Caitlyn accepted her fate as she accepted the blade in her eye.
“Medic!” Mel shouts, ignoring the protest and covering the wound with her hands.
There must be something nearby she can use. But all she can see is tattered red fabric. Caitlyn is going into shock. Her breathing is erratic. Her eye is rolling as she fights unconsciousness. The other tries to follow suit. It cannot. Mel cannot focus on that at the moment. The gut wound will kill her first. Despite her shouts there is no medic in her eyesight. Not one that isn’t working on someone.
“It’s fine—“ Caitlyn coughs. The blood on her lips is from her eye, it must be, “if you see Vi tell her—“
“No,” Mel cuts her off, “there has been enough death here today,” her magic is new but she is a fast learner, “try to hold still. Think of Vi.”
She focuses on her memories of her mother’s lesson. The precise placement of the blade. Caitlyn grinds her teeth together and tries to curl up but Mel ignores her. Her fingers grip Mel’s wrists. Mel hopes having something to hold onto will make this easier. With a look of apology she dips her fingers into the wound and summons the gold light.
Caitlyn screams.
Mel focuses on wrapping the sides of the wound in the gold light. Caitlyn’s fingers dig into her tendons, desperate to throw her off but Mel ignores her. She wraps the damage in her gold light and thinks of heat. Caitlyn keeps screaming but Mel cannot watch her bleed out. The smell of burnt flesh is nauseating even with the death all around them. But she holds the hot gold light there until she’s reasonably sure she’s sealed off the worst of the damage.
Somehow Caitlyn is still conscious.
“You fought well,” Mel says without thinking. But Caitlyn gives a tight nod of acknowledgement, “let me see.”
Caitlyn hisses as she parts her eyelid. She may not have enough strength or voice to scream. Mel is familiar with all kinds of death and wounds. She has never found a way to get used to them. She always feels them echoed in her own body. Her own eye stings viciously at the sight of what is left of Caitlyns. It’s already deflated. Her eyelid has been holding back what is left of it. Her other eye is fixed on Mel.
“They might be able to help,” she says, closing the eyelid gently.
“Vi,” Caitlyn grits out the name, “where’s Vi?”
“I don’t know,” Mel confesses.
“Find her!” Caitlyn says and apparently she does have strength left to put force and volume behind her words, “Vi!” She cries the name tilting her head back.
“Shh,” Mel grips her hand, “I’m sure she’s fine. We will find her.”
Caitlyn gasps raggedly at all of the dead Enforcers. She tries to bring her legs up to plant her feet but it aggravates the gut wound. Mel puts her knee over Caitlyn’s thigh and her other hand covers the wound. No blood touches her fingertips but that is a borrowed miracle. She does not know for how long it will hold.
“I need to find her!” Caitlyn protests desperately.
“You will not make it far,” Mel counters. Two men appear with a proper stretcher between them, “we’re going to move you,” she says. Caitlyn opens her mouth, “I will find Vi!” She says, trying to put more force in the words than she feels.
The medics get Caitlyn strapped onto the board. Mel tightens her grip on Caitlyn’s hand nods at the countdown. When they lift Caitlyn screams again. This time the magic falters and when Mel lifts her hand, it’s coated red again. They need to move quickly. Caitlyn looks at the red on Mel’s fingertips and rips he hand free of her grasp. She slaps her hands over the wound.
“Go find Vi!”
Mel watches them rush away. Caitlyn is still in eyesight when her hands go loose and one falls from the gurney. But they keep running. She is alive. So many promises have been broken today. Mel cannot add to the list. Her mother called her a wolf. Now she needs to hunt.
She finds an actual wolf at the bottom of the tower.
Or, an approximation of one. He’s been blown up very thoroughly, the crater of his body curled protectively up. The poor creature is at peace. From what Mel understands that is a mercy long deserved. Flying takes focus Mel is lacking at the moment. The shields come easier. With them she is able to make an approximation of stairs and begins to climb. The burn in the back of her calves helps her clear her head as she makes her way higher.
There she finds Vi.
The young woman is limp on a ledge that looks ready to fall. She is waiting for something. Perhaps death. It’s a horrible contrast to the way Caitlyn kicked and fought every pull of unconsciousness to shout for her. Mel knows there are things here she does not understand. But this broken creature is a far cry from the woman who demanded their attention in the council chamber a lifetime ago. Who gritted her teeth and picked up the gauntlets to fight alongside people she never wanted to.
“Vi,” she says to the unresponsive girl, “It’s Mel. I’m coming over to you.”
She spreads gold underneath the ledge and makes her way over. Vi is staring up at the ceiling dully. She looks like she’s in shock. The gold light at least makes her blink and look up. Her face is littered with cuts and one of her arms is twisted horribly. But her external injuries seem minimal otherwise. Mel’s diplomat smile feels alien to her, but she puts it on anyway.
“Hello Vi,” she says, “can you stand?”
Vi looks at her and then at the bolts. Mel glances back and sees they have come free. Now both of their lives are dependent on a shield that she has to keep up. A shield she has used so much today. Well at least Mel knows she excels under pressure.
“Would you like to tell me what’s wrong?”
“My dad died,” Vi says slowly, sounding alarmingly young.
“I’m sorry,” Mel says, “my mother did as well,” Vi frowns, “I know people think she deserved to die for her deeds.”
“That’s what they’ll say about my sister,” Vi whispers.
Mel looks down at the curled over form of the wolf. Sister. Of course. Now it makes sense. The death of a parent could cripple you, but the death of someone you were supposed to protect. Like a little sister. That could truly be your undoing.
“My brother passed recently as well,” Mel says. It is not very Medarda of her to air out family laundry. But anyone who could have defined what a Medarda is has now left this earth. The more she talks, the more Vi seems to come back to life, “my mother caused his death. Now she’s gone as well. I hope they are together again,” she says, “do you hope that for your father and sister?”
Vi nods. Slowly she pushes herself into a sitting position. She still looks out of it, but she’s moving at the very least. She glances down and her eyes widen at the sight.
“Vi—Vi!” Mel injects enough sharpness into her tone to draw Vi’s gaze, “look at me. Caitlyn is looking for you.”
“Cait,” her brows draw together and she turns, as though Caitlyn will materialize, “where is she?”
“She was hurt,” Mel says, “she fought very bravely. She sent me to find you.”
“Cait’s hurt?” Vi repeats, “where—“ pain crosses her face at her shoulder, “shit.”
“It’s alright,” Mel says, “I’m going to lower us down. I want you to keep your eyes on me. What do you think your sister and father are doing right now?”
Vi blinks tears from her eyes. It’s taking all of Mel’s concentration to gently lower them. Turning this into some kind of giant elevator. She cannot also worry about Vi panicking.
“Vi,” Mel repeats, “what are they doing? Where are they?”
“She’s drawing,” Vi says, “he’s—smoking his pipe,” she says, “they’re at the old bar. But they’ll go to the arcade next.”
“That’s really good, Vi,” Mel says as she gets them the rest of the way down and out of the shaft. She throws up another shield behind her to block the view, “they sound happy.”
Vi hesitates, looking at the shield like there’s nowhere else she wants to be. But something hardens in her face and she focuses instead on Mel.
“Where’s Caitlyn?”
The medical tent is chaos.
It takes Mel a moment to find Caitlyn. She was unconscious when Mel last saw her. Something has woken her up. Her body twists on the gurney as she tries to fight the hands trying to help her. Mel hurries forward. Vi is ten steps ahead. Mel has no idea how she finds her so easily. By the time Mel gets there she’s already got her one good hand wrapped around Caitlyns.
“You’re here,” Caitlyn dry sobs with relief. Vi’s face cracks with emotion.
“Yeah, Cupcake, I’m here,” she says, “thought we agreed you were gonna be careful.”
“No, you told me to be careful,” Caitlyn counters, “I never—“ she cuts herself off with a cry. Vi leans forward, pressing her back onto the bed, “Vi!” She cries.
“Shhh,” Vi soothes, “I’m here, I’m here. Look at me Cait, you gotta stay with me.”
“I’m trying!” Caitlyn cries.
“I know, you’re doing so good,” Vi says, “so good.”
There Is love here.
It catches Mel off guard. So much death surrounds them. So much pain. And yet they cling to each other. Desperately but hopefully. The girl from the Undercity and the rebellious Enforcer. Two people who, on the surface, could not be more different. Yet there is something inside them that matches. That pulls them apart. Mel had thought that death was the only real thing in this place but she can see that is not true.
She’s not certain what she is doing. It’s as though something in her is directing her movements. Vi looks up as she stands in front of her. Her eyes widen and Mel is fairly certain hers have gone gold again.
“I believe I can help,” she says, “she needs your strength.”
“Whatever she needs,” Vi says.
“No—“ Caitlyn tries to protest again but Vi looks at her desperately. She returns the look and then looks up at Mel, nodding her permission.
Mel touches their hands. Impossible strength flows through Vi. The strength to move mountains and fight impossibilities. She threads it through Caitlyn’s inner steel. That spine of hers that defies what the world tells her to be and aims for what is good and true. Her mother wreaked havoc on it, but it’s only tarnished. A little bent perhaps. But capable of being so much more. Mel finds the tendrils left from the anomaly. The moment when they were one. They cling to each other as Mel fortifies Caitlyn’s strength through the echo of that shared bond.
The monitors steady out.
Vi rocks her head on Caitlyn’s collarbone, their hands clasped tightly under her chest. Mel presses her fingers to Vi’s neck where her pulse thrums. It’s steady. She nods at Caitlyn who exhales in relief, even though she can feel Vi’s breath on her skin. Mel knows this is not fair to the poor girl, but somehow she thinks the loss of Caitlyn would be even worse. While Vi is leaning there she moves her hands to her misshapen shoulder and pops it back into place with a quick twist of her fingers. Vi looks at her.
“My brother taught me that,” she says. The medics nod at her, “it looks like they were able to repair the damage,” she says to both of them. Caitlyn wraps her other arm around Vi’s shoulder, fingers settling on the nape of her neck, “Vi will just need rest.”
“Thank you,” Caitlyn whispers.
Mel would like to think she means for the healing. But seeing the way she clutches Vi to her, it may just be because Vi is there. The knowledge that one is needed is profound. But to be needed by one you love even more so. Mel does not know the limits of her power. If she would have been able to do that without the echo of Viktor in their heads.
But watching how they clutch each other, she thinks perhaps it would have worked regardless.