Once, when Emilia was still a child, she almost died.
Okay, so maybe she almost died as a child more than once, but in one particular instance, she almost died protecting an animal. It wasn’t a house pet, or even anything that most people would consider particularly cute. Pravas were, in fact, often hunted. Native to only the Grey Sands—which, while still technically part of Baalphoria, existed separate from it in many of its laws and customs—they were prized for their fur, and while hunting was legal, there were still yearly quotas, and poaching was common.
Emilia had come across the baby prava—which weren’t exactly noted for their pleasant interactions with humans—and proceeded to protect it from the people chasing it. She’d escaped her babysitters, who hadn’t been expecting an eight-year-old to be quite so slippery. She and the prava had gotten lost in the desert, running from the hunters—or poachers. No one had ever found out exactly who they were, so it was impossible to know whether they had been hunting legally or not.
The point is, Emilia has a long history of protecting things and putting herself in harm’s way doing so. Flinging herself forward to catch V. Covering him with her body—as much as someone so much smaller could, anyways. Not bothering to even try to escape the war of her Risen Guard’s blood and his Enclave babysitter’s raging around them.
Almost no one who knew Emilia—and especially not those who had known her before the war ended—would be surprised to learn that this was how she was spending her time inside the raid: protecting her competition.
Regardless of whether V was competition or not, he had still protected them… or simply taken the opportunity to kill someone he obviously didn’t care for.
Emilia hadn’t had to fight Taoran because of V’s actions, and she wasn’t about to abandon him out here, all by himself, while he was unconscious! That said, this really was a miserable place to be!
⸂Emilia!⸃ she heard Rin’s voice call through the aether, a burst of someone’s energy trying to wrap itself around her a moment later. It was trying to keep her safe, she realized as it was blasted away by the power of the blood storm. That was sweet, even if whoever had sent it should be trying to keep themself safe instead.
How long had the last blood storms lasted? Not long. Mere moments.
This one lasted a lifetime. Perhaps because it was so wild—untamed in a way that the previous ones hadn’t been. They’d been violent, yes, but that violence had somehow seemed organized and purposeful. This was all chaos and destruction.
Then again, it hadn’t been since that first one that she’d truly been at the centre of one, and she’d been nearly unconscious at the time, slowly bleeding herself to death on a hunch.
Had V followed that hunch as well? The {Blood Spear} he had used to kill Taoran was almost certainly far too complex for it to have come from his own blood, especially since she had no idea where he had been keeping it. Something like a willbrand, she supposed. Tiny and cute and innocuous—as long as you wanted it to be—until you needed it. She wondered if it were a skill, something the other visitor could teach her—assuming they both survived all this.
As though the universe wanted her to know that was unlikely, a drop of blood shot straight through her arm. Emilia gasped in pain, tucking her body further over the important bits of V, keeping his head safe, even if there were a thousand other places that could be skewered and cause irreparable damage—
Or, not. Emilia could already feel the aether stitching the hole in her arm closed. Well, at least the system’s healing system was working here, not that it had saved Taoran—not that that was a bad thing. The man had clearly been bad news, and she was glad that she had come into the care of more reasonable Enclave members.
Probably…
Maybe it was a bit early to tell? Still, she was pretty sure they were unlikely to go around killing other visitors just because they were competition.
Or… at least Key was, and possibly Rin… Harmony, she had no idea.
Sk’lar, as far as she could tell, would probably kill anyone, save perhaps the Stringer siblings, given the chance.
Okay, so maybe she hadn’t come into the care of the best of people, although for all she knew, they could very well be the best the Enclave had to offer. Hopefully not. Hopefully, someone out there was completely, totally reasonable and sane—in the way Zach was. He’d been nice enough. Informative, even with his decades old information. Willing to indulge her. Had a cute child—although the Stringer children had been cute, from a distance, anyways.
Another drop of blood swiped over Emilia’s arm, between the bindings wrapped around her. More often, the drops were splattering across her armour, which seemed impervious to the blood. Lucky her. Not so lucky V, his legs being slowly ripped to shreds as she prioritized keeping his head and torso safe—and his nether regions. She had no desire to inflict that sort of psychological trauma on the guy!
⸂Emilia!⸃ she heard Rin call again, followed by a trail of words that she thought belonged to Key but somehow sounded… wrong. Why would they sound off? His, but not his?
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Emilia risked glancing up, immediately regretting it when blood sliced across her forehead, just above her eyebrow. The vessel split and blood splattered out of her and across V’s face, already red with the remnants of her bubbles, the storm having popped the majority of them. She wasn’t sure why the blood hadn’t returned to the {Blood Orb}, but it hadn’t. Perhaps there was too much blood? Or the aether couldn’t figure out what blood belonged where? Hopefully, she wasn’t about to get some sketchy disease from any of the blood! There were so many sources, who knew if she’d even know whom to blame!
A whisper of energy seeped out of her, searching for what was strange with Key’s voice. It had barely gotten a metre away from her before a zing vibrated through her.
A zing. The same zing as before—as the moments before Rin had disappeared, before whatever had appeared and seemingly eaten Cade’s deranged babysitter.
“Fuck,” she growled, pulling closer to V as the storm picked up. “Rin! Something’s wrong!” she yelled, although even before hearing the silence that followed her words, she was sure the other girl would have difficulties hearing her over the raging storm.
Silence, just the whistle of blood swirling, the crash of rocks ripped from the walls tumbling and shattering across the ground. There were no more calls of her name, and Emilia’s energy wasn’t strong enough to make it through the world to search for her friends.
Hopefully, if they were gone, it was because they were being sensible—because they knew that at this rate, the cavern was liable to collapse—and not because some mystery monster had kidnapped them.
“Em?”
Emilia looked down at V, wide-eyed as he blinked out of focus eyes up at her. “Careful,” she told him, wiping a hand over his forehead, hand coming up smeared with blood. “We’re stuck here for a bit, unless we want to die.”
V blinked slowly at her, and for a moment, Emilia thought he was going to pass back out. Then, he smiled. Sunshine and happiness, so out of place that she almost laughed.
“So, this is what it’s like,” the man said.
“What what’s like?”
The other visitor’s eyes focused, for the barest of moments. Confusion and regret flashed through them before the clouds shattered, that smile growing teasing and sweet once more. “Having you on top of me.”
Emilia glowered down at him, as much as someone hovering only inches above the object of their annoyance—and amusement—for safety reasons could. “Ridiculous,” she muttered, tucking him back into her neck as the storm began to stutter and break.
V laughed into her neck, body flinching as feeling and pain likely began to return to him. “Yes,” he agreed. “But ridiculous is better than too serious.”
“Stars, yes,” she agreed. Too much seriousness was a terrible fate indeed, especially in the midst of something that was simultaneously dangerous and completely safe. The only people seriousness ever looked good on were Rafe and Olivier. They wore seriousness every day of their lives, although Olivier of the—real-world—day before had definitely seemed more relaxed than the man in her memories. As for Rafe… when that guy wasn’t serious, that’s when it was time to panic.
“I think—” V started, before breaking off into a coughing fit that had Emilia trying to lift as much of her weight off his chest as possible. “I think, it’s stopping,” he finished.
Indeed, around them, the blood was slowly falling out of movement, simply hovering in the air as though waiting to pounce. It was strange and off-putting, reminding her far too much of {Blood Rain} for her liking.
Seconds passed and nothing changed, nothing changed, nothing changed, and Emilia almost hoped that something would change, except that rarely led to anything good. A string snapped through the universe, sharp and dry, and both she and V sucked in harsh, broken breaths.
The world screamed, the blood that was splattered over them and the ground—their own, the remnants from the {Blood Orb}’s bubbles—shot upwards, joining the droplets of Taoran’s hanging ominously in the air.
They screamed as the blood converged on them. Joining them, not attacking them, but painful and overwhelming all the same, and by the time it was done, Emilia was certain that being unknotted cold had hurt less. Everything burned, and she wouldn’t have been surprised had her heart given out from the stress of it all.
Too much, it was too much. There were very few times in her life where skills had been too much. She’d been hit point-blank by some of the most painful skills in Baalphoria, and yet they were nothing compared to the instantaneous forever of whatever the fuck that had been.
“Em?” V croaked up at her.
“Mn?” She couldn’t move—couldn’t muster anything other than an acknowledgement of question, and even that burned her soul. Could souls burn? Obviously, they could because hers was currently inside an oven. Would there be anything left, other than ash and destruction, when she stopped burning?
“That was terrible,” the man said, and Emilia cursed him for making her laugh. His mouth twitched against her, a limp hand rising to wind its way through her tangled hair.
Her nose pressed into the crook of his neck—when had she gotten so low? She’d been hovering over his head before, keeping him safe. Had felt his mouth against her own neck just moments earlier. Now she was the one being held safe, somehow. “How do you have so much energy?” she asked, even as she could feel her own energy righting itself with the speed and efficiency of someone under the care of the most skilled medic. Her soul, sadly, was still burning inside her—trying to burn itself out, obviously. She’d be trying to escape the crazy person who put her in this shitty situation, too, if that person hadn’t been her.
It really sucked to not be able to ditch herself, sometimes.
V huffed under her, fingers gently unknotting her short hair in a far too intimate gesture that she couldn’t possibly bring herself to object to. “You seem pretty awake, too, now that you’ve napped.”
Emilia frowned, pushing herself up to glare down at the other visitor. “When did I nap?” she asked.
V frowned up at her, eyes sleepy and worn out. “A bit ago. You were out for at least 20, 30 minutes. You don’t remember?”
They frowned at each other.
“No…” Emilia said carefully, pushing herself more fully up, cognizant of V’s hands hovering protectively around her, as though worried she were about to topple over or pass out again, which was perhaps fair. “Where are the others?”
“No idea,” V said, shrugging slightly. “If they’re around, I haven’t heard or seen them. Although, I supposed I can’t say I’m certain I’ve been conscious the whole time either, if you can’t remember being asleep.”
Emilia hummed in empty acknowledgement, cursing the burn through her soul and core. “Rin?” she called, hoping that perhaps they had tried to speak to V, and he had simply been unable to hear them.
Silence returned to her, only the sprinkle of rumbling settling surrounding them.
“Well, fuck.”