FicWad

Fallen

/And the stars of heaven fell onto the earth/, Rev. 6:13


She has been waiting anxiously since dusk fell, since the sounds of defeat pulled her from the comforting enclosure of the castle depths, away from her research, beguiled her to seek higher ground.

She is in the Tower when he returns, the one that was used for stargazing...and she does gaze at stars. They are poison green against the night, and they shower down on the distant landscape. Their light enables her to see the smoldering remains of the town beyond the iron gates, the crumbled turrets of the castle, the makeshift medical ward that is spread across the grounds. She knows they have been lucky. The magic that surrounds this fortress has been in place for a thousand years and more, and only a few crumbling battlements are testament to the gradual waning of their power.

She feels his presence before her eyes find him on the stairs. He is dirty, pale with exhaustion and sweat, weary from the burden of a role long played. There are silver strands at his temples. They hadn't been there that morning.

"Well?" she asks as he joins her and her voice shakes on the wind. She turns to him, holds her hands out, palms upturned. He places his own in hers, palm to palm, long fingers curling about her wrists. He feels some warmth move beneath his flesh at the contact and moves closer.

"It is over. The Order has fallen."

A flash in her gaze and she looks again over the grounds, but her eyes don't see the rising smoke, or the figures in the dark, rather they see what lies strewn across villages and towns miles, and minutes, and hours away.

Had she any tears left they would be falling.

Instead she can only whisper in a raw voice. "There's no Phoenix left to rise."

His arms come around her, the warmth of his body a comforting presence at her back and she melds into him as she has so many times before. When he speaks again, she hardly recognizes his voice, dry and brittle, crumbling like the turrets.

"I shall take my place at V-The Dark Lord's side tomorrow."

"What?" She tries to turn in his arms but he holds her still. "Sev-"

"Listen, listen. The dark has won... Those who serve-"

"Serve? Serve those who did this?" A wild gesture. "How can you say such things...the fires haven't even stopped burning..."

"Foolish girl," his voice has little bite, "would you have us rush in and get ourselves killed all in the name of righteousness?" She was still. "Martyrdom is not something to be aspired to." He smoothes her hair. "...Those who serve and serve well will be approvingly looked upon, well taken care of..."

"Welcomed into the circle." The words are dry as ash in her mouth.

"Yes." His breath touches the delicate curve of her ear.

"What about me?"

"Despite His propaganda, He would not be foolish enough to discard someone of your intelligence...as long as we can prove your loyalty to Him through me..."

There's a fray in her voice when she speaks again. "There will be declarations asked of us..."

"I won't lie to you and say there may not come a time when you will be forced to challenge your very nature..." He pauses as her chin falls to her chest. "Survival is the first rule. We do what we must. You know as well as I that we're no good to anyone dead."

One arm tightens around her waist and the other rises to caress her jaw, her collarbone, moves to lie over the place where her heart rests. He holds her so tightly that she can feel the echoing rhythm of his own heart against her ribs.

"We will be helping to raise a new world from the debris of the old, and perhaps...we will find your Phoenix among the ashes..." He kisses her temple and together they look out across the shattered remnants of the land.

Tomorrow they will leave, wade through the survivors that rest on the lawns, and walk through those iron gates into a place where familiarity no longer exists.

But tonight, they stand in the place that had been home to both of them, when she was still innocent and he had much less to lose, and they watch as the green stars burn along the horizon.