Yelena

He was waiting there on the hill overlooking the valley.

She didn’t know how, but she knew that he was waiting for her.

She moved without really thinking about it, and only then did she feel the wind buffet her hair. She tried to straighten it out and found that strands of it merely came away in her hands.

"Everything fades," she heard him say. "That’s what life is. The flower grows its petals, sucks the life from the moisture in the earth and the air, and then it withers away to become a dull, dead twig."

She sat beside him, and the wind picked up again, blowing the distinct stench of smoke towards her. But try as she might, she couldn’t see the village below. She knew it was there. But a film of ooze clung to her eyes, like the thin remnants of tangy sleep still that covered one’s vision in the mornings.

"So how does it feel to be awake, my little flower?" Daddy said.

She opened her mouth, straining to get the words out that were budling up behind her teeth. All she managed was a low growl that slowly grew into a roar.

"Just an animal," he tutted. "Not a flower anymore. You shed your petals and grew into something new. Evolved. Adapted. Just like a predator would. But you’re still just a feral little beast. You’re an ungrateful dog that would dare to bite the hand of its master. But, of course, the only people you end up hurting are them out there."

She saw the village now. It was burning – mother and sister tumbling in a maelstrom of fire. Other faces she knew were screaming as their flesh melted from their bones – Dimedrious, Agathae, Cynthia, Azran. She watched them burn and her stomach twisted like a snake tying itself together and restraining her diaphragm.

She reached out towards him, her hand straining to grab his throat. Fingers twitching with the effort. She was pure rage, now. No tears streamed down her face.

You, she thought with boundless fury. You are not my father.

He didn’t turn to look at her. But she saw the black slit of his mouth turn upwards at its side.

"Good," he said. "You have learned to reject your useless compassion. You are not one of them, my daughter. You never have been. Maybe you can make it home, after all."

His form shifted before she could take hold of his neck, and the whole world was bathed in a sea of darkness. The screams from below faded, and then all at once the void that stretched all around her rescinded, being absorbed into one central point that was silhouetted against a chalk white sun. She stood there, looking into the congealing mass of darkness, till slowly she saw its amorphous form sprout limbs – legs, arms, toes, fingers, each digit snapping and contorting into place like this entity was being molded by an invisible witch playing with some voodoo doll.

She recognized it only as its body shrunk down to her size, and her own sapphire eyes stared back at her from within its scintillating form.

"There’s power in the dark," Daddy said from somewhere outside her consciousness. "Power that you always have possessed. You need only harness it, and you shall vanquish all who dare stand before you. I know the need lies within you, my daughter. It is in your very nature. You can hide from yourself, and you can hide from your little friends, but you cannot hide from me."

The shadow began walking towards her in the weightless realm, its twitching arms outstretched in a gesture of embrace. She found that she could not turn away. She tried with every fiber of her being to let herself fall through this floorless plane, to reject this thing that stepped towards her wearing the blackened, debased mantle of her own skin.

All she managed was to raise a hand as it stood before her, its face inching closer, ready to draw her into its shadowed bosom.

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Her hand balled into a fist and shot out, aimed at its face, the same roar of defiance being hurled from her lips at the black self that reached towards her.

Then the creature vanished, replaced with Daddy’s stern, scarred face. He held her fist in his hand.

"Just an animal," he tutted again. "But you shall learn, my daughter. You shall learn that even the most indomitable will is not unshakeable. You will learn to live as my progeny, or you shall die like a beast."

He let her hand go, and she plummeted down to the waking world.

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When her eyes flew open, Dimedrious was staring right at her. Of course, he characteristically shifted his gaze when he realized she was fully awake.

The carriage jostled against the tundra, sticking to the partially iced main road. She realized this was the same road that Averix’s most condemned criminals took on their way to the pit where their eternal punishment would be delivered.

She shook the tiredness from her eyes and groaned.

"How long?" she asked.

"About a day," Dimedrious huffed.

She bundled herself up and rested her hands on her shins, feeling the cold creep into her. It was a welcome release from the flames of her dream.

For his part, Dimedrious seemed nonchalant. Their progress must have continued throughout the night and remained unperturbed as the light of a new day dawned. Apparently, he said, they had stopped in Yarruck for some supplies, and to rendezvous with a squad that was investigating the area.

"What for?" she asked. "More possessed creatures?"

"Nah," he said as he shook his great mane free of snow. "Reports of a rogue Glancer in the area. Probably trying to set up shop nearby, ambush travelers on the road."

Yelena squinted at the idea. ‘Yarruck gets supplies once every month,’ she said. ‘If you were a bandit that could shoot magic from your fingertips, would you hole up in a freezing, backwater town like that?’

"Yeah, well, who cares," he grunted. "Not like it’s our problem. Besides, its Arekis’ team that’s been dispatched. Despite his methods, he’ll get the job done."

He brought a bottle out from under his cloak and uncorked the stopper. Within the clear-green cylinder, a thick, tar-like liquid sloshed around. He brought it to his mouth and took a hearty chug.

"Di," she suddenly said. "Look, I’m sor-"

Her attempt at an apology was interrupted by his raised hand. He removed the bottle from lips, licked them once, and pushed his drink in her direction.

She looked at him in horror. Only now did she notice his flushed cheeks and red-rimmed eyes.

"Captain Dimedrious, have you been drinking on duty?"

"Ooooooh," he moaned in jest. "How horrible. The big dog man likes a drink."

Then, once again, he pushed the bottle into her hands.

"Yelena," he said. "Warrior of Argent, second in command to Sir Dimedrious of The Fangs of the Wolf, you are seventeen years old and have never yet tasted of the great forbidden fruit. As your Captain, and your mentor, this is a gross oversight that I will correct right now."

She gave him a look that said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

"Di," she giggled. "This is hardly the time or place."

"Wrong," he said, leaning forward and almost falling, steadying himself and giving a slight yet still gruff hiccup!

"Your old mentor still has one last lesson to teach you, it seems. So, listen up. When a warrior goes off on a quest that she might never return from, she needs three things: a strong heart, the company of a loyal friend, and a good, stiff drink."

He fell back against the carriage, almost breaking the wooden beams and tumbling down into the snow field below them.

"If I’mma have to send you off," he said. "I’mma do it proper. If I’mma never see you again, at least I can say that, when he parted, it was with a smile."

She looked at his eyes and saw what was bubbling beneath them. She saw it even as he pulled another bottle from under his cloak and uncorked the thing, staring into the swirling brown liquid that sloshed within.

"Di…"

"No," he said, and this time his voice was tinged with his battle-tone. The kind he used to bark his strategies at them whether they were training or on the battlefield at eachothers’ backs. Back when they were all together.

"I ain’t ever been good at this kinda shit," he said with a heavy sigh.

She sighed along with him and fixed him with a sad smile of her own.

"I know."

They sat with their hands in their laps, letting the snow trickle down around them, hearing nothing but the jostling of the carriage against each bump on the road.

"Di," she said suddenly. "Everything you said at the Denouncement – was it all true?"

He smirked. "You mean my obligatory sad backstory? And all that stuff I said about you?"

She nodded.

"I meant every word," he said quietly.

He kept his gaze downcast, feeling like a proper coward – a pup too afraid of its own shadow. But then he heard her raise her bottle, and he saw that now she was actually smiling.

"To you, Captain Dimedrious," she said.

He watched her down the swill with only three gulps, barely taking a break in between. The smile that crept across his face was one he didn’t even know he could make. He spoke his words to his bottle more than he did to her. He wasn’t sure why they were all he could say in the moment, even with the assistance of alcohol. He needed to say more. He needed to say a lot of things.

"To you, buttercup," he said, and downed his drink without thinking again.