[Closed] Trimming the Thorns

[Raksha]

10th Hamis, 2719
OLD ROSE HARBOR| EVENING

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“Treat your wounds, then we move. Silk, a word?” Taking her leave from the group for a moment, Alyssa moved away, dropping down to hunch over a pool of water amid the rotting foliage. Reaching down to cup the water in her hands, the woman stared at her trembling fingers, frowning at them before splashing the cool liquid over her upper arms to wash away the blood and grime. Her lacerations were mostly shallow, though there were a couple that would need healing when it was possible. For now, she would tear away the bottom of her dress in strips, and wrap them tightly around the wounds.

“Tell me, how do you know her?” The Wisp said quietly, not looking up at Ava as she wrapped the makeshift bandage around her arm, dark brows drawn heavily over blue eyes. There was an edge to her voice however, something that bordered on anger or suspicion, as though the next things Ava said could turn for better or worse.

“Jon said that she was a stranger to us, all of us except Ceres, yet she seemed to know you very well. And you her. And I—” Biting her words short, Alyssa stood then, shaking the water off her hands and approaching the other woman on silent feet. Around them, rain dripped through the thick canopy, and the quiet mutter of the others voices carried to them. From here, at this volume, no one else would be able to hear them unless Alyssa wanted them to. Her hands crossed over, and her blue eyes flicked to the girl in the distance, before coming back to the brunette.

“What do you know about her? Who is she, this Em?”

[Ava Weaver]

Evening, 10th Hamis, 2719
A Clearing, Outside Old Rose Harbor

Ava followed the Wisp away from the rest of the group without hesitation; her dress and hair were soaking wet, her face a mess of make-up. Every inch of her body ached, and it took a good deal of the strength she had to draw herself up straight, and follow behind Alyssa with small, even steps. There was blood on her arms, where the branches had ripped through the delicate fabric of her dress to snag the skin beneath – even a faint, just barely bloody cut on the back of one hand. There was a wet smear of blood along the bare exposed skin of her chest too, left over from the flying chip inside the Night Blossom.

None of those hurts compared, not really, to the bitterness in Emmie’s voice when Ava had tried to speak with her. She couldn’t yet be twenty, Ava thought; a few years older than the age Ava had been when they parted. None of those hurts compared, either, to Emmie’s use of the name Nellie, to the pain that that name had become for her; she had, she thought, been too tired to keep it from her face, and she knew that Emmie must have seen it strike her like a blow. She had tried to reassure her; she had tried to tell the girl that The Wisp’s – that lady, as Emmie had called her – meant only to keep her safe. It felt oddly like talking to a child, and Ava could not help but draw comparisons.

There wasn’t much time, and these things could not be rushed. Perhaps it was better this way, Ava thought, standing and waiting as the Wisp wrapped bandages around her wounds, her hands clasped together lightly at her front. Wanting something didn’t make it right or possible – but for four years, she had cared for Emmie like a sister. She had meant it; she wouldn’t lie about something so important. She had worried about her – feared for her. Some part of her was glad to know that Emmie was still a child, at least in some ways, even if it hardly made this night pass any easier.

The Wisp spoke, finally. Ava had never taken her gaze from the other woman; she had never let any hint of her thoughts cross her face, nor tense her shoulders or hands. She waited through the first question, because it was clear she had more to say. How do you know her – what do you know about her? Who is she? Ava resisted the urge to look back at Emmie, even when The Wisp’s eyes flicked to her over her shoulder.

When Ava answered, she kept her voice was quiet as The Wisp had. “I met her when I came to Vienda,” Ava said, simply. She knew Alyssa would understand, if she cared to; if she needed it, Ava would explain further, but it wasn’t the sort of thing one liked to discuss – not even on a cold, rainy night, standing in a damp clearing with a woman who had just fought a banderwolf to help you get to safety.

“We were roommates for a time, and we lived in the same house for about four years," Ava continued. “She was Emelia then – Emmie. That was about seven years ago. I can’t tell you much more than that. I can't tell you about her past, or her parents, because she never knew.” That, at least, Ava was confident about; they had been close, then, close enough that Ava was sure that Emmie would have told her – sure, too, that she would have remembered, even all this time later. And, too, she remembered and did not remark upon - remembered the name that The Wisp had called Emmie. Frances.

“I know there was a man in a burgundy coat – she mentioned him again tonight. Someone who she thought of as a protector and a… someone who decided where she went.” She would hold nothing back, Ava thought, but she thought the Wisp wasn’t interested in how brave Emmie had been as a little girl – in her courage, or her kind heart, or how afraid she was beneath it. How afraid they all had been. “I don’t know who she is,” Ava said. “No more than I’ve said.”

[Raksha]

10th Hamis, 2719
OLD ROSE HARBOR| EVENING

“Viend—” The word faded on a half sigh, half scoff, as though Alyssa was unable to finish the word, dragging a hand through dripping black hair. She nodded as Ava continued, crossing her arms again and settling her piercing blue gaze on her with a hard stare, her mind processing things that she couldn’t piece together.

“Emelia. Emmie. Little Emmie no home.” The assassin whispered the bizarre phrase, staring through Ava now, her mind further away than banderwolves and guns and kidnappings in the night. She blinked at the word parents, looking at the other woman again with a frown.

“She would have been just a little girl then, when you met her? Five, six, judging by her now. Handed over to the House.” Her blue eyes looked over Ava, the remark a statement that held far too much understanding, far too much knowing. There was a look in the eye, an unspoken acknowledgement of a shared history even if they had never met before. Of course though, one didn't speak of such things, not lest one wished the past to haunt them forever. The silence grew between them for a moment, building pregnant and tangible, before the other woman broke it with her next explanation. Alyssa’s eyes narrowed, ignorant to the blood seeping from the wounds under her bandages, to the throbbing pain that banderclaws could inflict.

“The man in the burgundy coat? That sounds like a child's imaginings. Why not a name, or a face? I never…I don’t know. I…” Exhaling heavily, the Wisp wilted slightly, her mask of stern emotionless discipline dropping for a precious moment to reveal so much underneath. Hurt, confusion, grief, rage; everything pooled there for a second like the headlines on the Kingsway Post to be read by anyone and all. She staggered, allowing the bone-draining weariness of post adrenaline rush to creep up on her, trembling hands dragging over her face and breath inhaling with a ragged sound.

“She looks very much like someone I used to know, a long long time ago. I thought maybe you knew her too, but that would be impossible.” For a window in time, she wasn't the Wisp anymore. She was a woman, broken and battered by the world, holding herself together for the sake of something that she held close to her heart. For a second, she was just another victim of the galdori regime, gasping for air under the tsunami of their rule.

But only for a second.

Taking another breath, deep and steady, Alyssa crossed her arms again, and like a shadow over the sun on a stormy day the mask was back in place.

“That would be impossible.” The Wisp said more firmly, straightening her shoulders and looking at Ava.

“I expect that this previous history between yourself and Em won’t put our mission at risk? I meant what I said before. If she somehow escapes us, if she is helped, I will track her down and bring her back. But not before I eliminate any threats.” The older woman said quietly, seeing no reason to explain in detail what that entailed again.

“Jon doesn’t seem to know that you know her, or if he did, he didn’t tell me. And he tells me everything.” There was a mild catch to her tone, as though she wasn’t entirely sure anymore that she could believe her own words. Still, she pressed on.

“I suggest you keep this to yourself, for now. Emelia won’t be coming back to Vienda with us immediately, but I have no doubt you’ll see her again soon enough. It would be wise to assume ignorance rather than familiarity in this case, until we know Jon’s plans for her. If he intends for her to be some sort of martyr, it will hurt less.” Glancing at the girl in the distance, holding her bloodied nose and seemingly talking somewhat with Firebrand, Alyssa frowned again.

“Is she human?” The question was genuine, unable to sense a field on the girl and not at all seeing a passive in her features.

[Ava Weaver]

Evening, 10th Hamis, 2719
A Clearing, Outside Old Rose Harbor

Ava knew that Alyssa was listening to her; she had no doubt that the other woman heard every word. Equally, it was clear that Alyssa was far away just now, very far away. “Yes,” Ava said, quietly, in response to the question about Emmie’s age. She didn’t know what the House was, but she did not think that that sentence had been a part of the question, not precisely.

There was something in the air that held between them, and Ava understood it as well as Alyssa did. There were silences that said more than speaking ever could, because they did not bother trying to put things that could never be explained into words. One understood or one did not, in such silences, but they demanded nothing of either party, nothing but a sort of easy sharing.

This one was Ava’s to break, and she did so with her answer to the rest of Alyssa’s question. Ava shook her head lightly at Alyssa’s pushback, as unsure as she herself was. There was so much on Alyssa’s face; she staggered, her hands shaking, her breath coming ragged. She did not owe Ava an explanation, and Ava knew they both understood that, but she offered one anyway. Ava felt herself only a witness to Alyssa’s pain; the words were not directed at her, precisely, but into the world, some half-longed for broken dream falling to pieces around them.

And then the Wisp returned, although Ava did not forget the aching Alyssa beneath. She knew she never would.

“I understand,” Ava said, gently, in response to the Wisp’s threats. “Thank you for the warning.” She knew, in that moment, that these threats were not for Ava; these threats were not for Ava. They were for Alyssa; they had been on the horse earlier too. That did not mean Ava should ignore them, should refuse them; that did not mean they were nothing. The Wisp meant them, every bloody word, but what she was responding to was not something she had seen, but something she had felt in her own chest.

“She believed she was a wick,” Ava said. “Enough to have tried to cast, when she was the right age.” Ava had nearly forgotten those memories; they were not buried, but it felt like more than a lifetime ago that she had watched Emmie whispering monite in the dark, hopeful and then frustrated, as if the lack of what they could both not feel in the air around her might be overcome with the right words.

“I don’t know,” Ava did not glance back over her shoulder at Emmie like the Wisp did; she did not need to, to see her features. Human or a wick; she might be either, from her features, although not a galdor. She had grown into them, Ava thought, grown lovely, and she was glad to see some of that wildness still in Emmie-the-almost-woman. She was glad, too, that it was still almost-woman; Ava was nearly certain of that now.

Ava would hold there, beneath the wet and musty leaves, as long as the Wisp needed, would respond to any further questions the woman had for the world, although she doubted she could answer them. There was too much she herself did not know. Whenever it was time, Silk would go with the Wisp to rejoin the rest, the smooth mask of her face still in place beneath the bloody scratches; back to Vienda, where at least the dreadful was expected, where at least Ava had begun to learn something of how to fight.