(closed) These violent delights have violent ends

[armd]

WHO: Abby & Ellie
WHAT: Two girls one mission
WHEN: they least expect it (October)
WHERE: Wounded Coast
NOTES: Violence, mention of old trauma and past violence/torture/murder

The Wounded Coast is colder than she thought it would be. There's a southerly blowing up off the top of the water that sets Abby's horse stamping in place, shifting restlessly when she tethers him up near the sparse tree-line. She presses her palm gratefully against his cheek, and offers him a bruised apple from her pocket; the later is the real treat. She leaves him munching, and descends down the track to the beach to get a better scope of the area, hands dropping to her hips as she breathes in.

Scouting wants people out to mark new enemy supply lines up the coast, and thinks they could run into a bit of hassle along the way. It's why she's here and working with somebody out of her usual division: she's the muscle, as per usual. She doesn't mind. Means she gets to do a bit of exploring by herself while she's at it, and it's nice to be away from the Gallows, out in the salt air.

Abby just hopes she hasn't been paired with somebody quiet, or boring, god fucking forbid. Guess she'll have to wait and see.

She's waiting on them to arrive, after managing to worm her way out of getting on the back of a griffon. Yeah it would have been faster, but some how Abby doesn't think it'd work out so good for her. She's trying to make a good first impression here. Sorry, Lev. She'll get back to facing her fears... later. Promise.

Comments

[notathreat]

"Yeah."

It's barely a whisper, and there's a distant screaming in her ears. The water feels too cool, with the phantom taste of salt. Her skin aches.

She thinks about the sound he made, when she pressed her switchblade to his throat. The way his eyes rolled because he didn't have the strength to open them. She'd thrown up seawater, later. Just thinking about it.

All the things she's done, and that still feels like the very worst.

"What's his name?" she asks, softly. She can hear the echoes along with her voice

What's your name?

She'd promised, after all.

If I see the kid, I'll point him your way.

[armd]

"Lev."

It doesn't ever occur to Abby to withhold the information. There's no cause for her to have to protect any part of him now that she's here, and he's there. She misses him. The ache is almost physical, and makes her eyes burn for a moment. She didn't even know him for that long. It just really felt like he got her. They understood each other.

Abby thinks she needs to know that he made it. That she could carve out a slice of happiness for him, whatever the cost, even though she owed him so much more.

She thumbs at the corners of her eyes.

"Um," she starts, low and bruised. "Did I kill you?"

Is it strange, that she can't imagine herself doing it?

[notathreat]

Ellie catches the motion, the duck of her head, the flex of her shoulder. The slightly quick breath. It feels too intimate, something she shouldn't have seen, and it tightens the back of her throat.

Abby, being human.

She loves him, Ellie knows that much. That look in her eyes, the way she'd staggered but never once thought of putting him down. She loves him, and Ellie understands it now.

Understands how Joel could love her that much.

The question hurts, catches in her chest. Abby sounds- sounds like she hopes the answer is no.

Swallowing hard, Ellie shakes her head.

"No," she whispers. Her voice soft.

"We let each other go."

[armd]

Abby sniffs, and the sound is obviously waterlogged. It jars her into action a little too late, hands sifting through her wet hair to mask the sound of her upset with splashing water.

She feels very... full. Yeah. That's the best way to describe what's bubbling in her. It threatens to spill over even as she stoppers it up tight inside her heart. She can't process this in front of Ellie, even though this is the kindest they've ever been to each other. Even now Abby might leave the baths and go to sleep and think she dreamed this later.

"... Good."

She really means that. For what it's worth, she's glad that she didn't kill Ellie. It would have ruined her otherwise. She would have let it.

She has no idea what to think about that. Really, it's the worst sort of betrayal to have hunted him down after he took one, and to have left her after she took so many. It's like something has gone wrong with her.

Abby exhales, wobby and final, and wipes her eyes again.

"M'done." A brusque warning, before she plants her palms on the stone, and pushes herself up, and out of the water. Back to Ellie. It's going to be difficult to look at her for a while after this.

[notathreat]

Good, she says, like it means something to her that Ellie is alive, more than an end to the fighting. It sits heavily in Ellie's chest, horrible. It makes her want to scream, and sob, or do anything to physically reject the oblique kindness.

Fuck you, she wants to say, you ruined me, you ruined everything, so I was supposed to ruin you.

It's not forgiveness but it feels too much like it, and Ellie wraps her arms around herself, like she can hold it all in -- naked, in far too many ways.

Uncomfortable with how much she's seen.

With the knowing.

Knowing that maybe, it was that Abby ruined herself far before Ellie ever tried.

She makes a low sound in response, her eyes following her shadowed back before she holds her breath, slips down underneath the warm surface of the water, and watches the rush of silvery bubbles as they escape her mouth.