Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Where is she?”

“Where is who?” 

The last blood-orange spill of the sun had just hidden away into the horizon, yet Judas could tell with a glance. The look in her eyes could only be described as ‘far away’ from the way she didn't seem to hear him at all. Though it was what she replied that Judas would describe as ‘far away from another universe.’ 

“Her? Just her?” repeated Judas. Somehow, Dana’s nod said that alone would suffice. “Half of the world population goes by ‘her’ and that's all you got?” he asked, half knowing she’d spit out a bullshit answer.

“I didn't see anyone else but her.” 

Well, not completely, maybe. “By that logic, you got a good look at her?” 

Again, she nodded, but the steel sliver of her glare softened. That was all the more reason for Judas to prompt, “And?”

“The sun was setting.”

“Obviously.”

Silence fell over them. It wasn't like her to ignore his jabs and think out loud instead. “She was all white before it. Contrasted with the sunset. Nothing I've ever seen before; she's glorious,” mused Dana, which Judas knew was going to be the most she'd reveal. Must be his dumb luck when she added on, “That is if I even saw her right.”

Judas thumbed his chin. “You're seeing ghosts?” he guessed. 

“Must be too pretty to be real.”

“Don't you have an exorcist in your ranks?”

But that wasn't the issue or in the slightest her issue. Brushing Haze’s involvement aside, she proposed, “The plan is I'm coming back here. Tomorrow right as the sun goes down.” Like with the rest of her soldiers, she fixed Judas with a steady glare. “Are you with me or not?” 

Commander Dana was the most serious as they come, and when her voice deepened for the part, her soldiers knew instantly to fall in rank. Judas wasn't another soldier. Or actually, Commander Judas didn't follow her every beck and call, no, not until hell froze over. His hand rubbing his tense jaw, Judas groaned, “Around this time, we gotta report back to the captains or we can have our asses handed to us.”

“And?” she said. 

No, he wasn't a follower, but he was her friend. “No other choice I got than to find this woman in white, isn't it?” he said and she bared a victorious grin. 

“Hmm.”

“What?” 

His handmaid wasn't in her right mind either. Or more likely not in this dimension either as she fluttered toward a vacant military post. Judas was gonna be late at this rate, and Dana acted like tardiness was one of the seven stupid sins. 

For good measure, he repeated, “Bidan, what?” Time wasn’t on his side when the sun peeked from stretched clouds like spun cotton, and soon thereafter, the blue of the sky melted into a waxy, warm sundown. Somehow at that time, a white ghost was supposed to be waiting for Dana? “Bidan, where are you going?” 

“Judas,” she called, and the toe of his boot halted mid-tap. “Were you around that post just before the sun came down?”

Now that she mentioned it, he was around there when the woman in white appeared, apparently. Was it a coincidence? More so than fate would have Bidan provide the answer Dana was looking for. That didn't seem likely since there wasn't much in the clouds of her head or rather a rose garden of distracted thoughts. Even now, Bidan was absently twirling a lock of snow-white hair around her finger.

“Yeah.” He wasn't an idiot. Disappointment definitely shadowed that vacant gaze of hers, but she turned away, strands of a rose furling from her finger. “Did you see anyone there during the sunset?” he asked in return. 

“The sunset? I haven't,” she hummed.

Then it couldn't be. To double check ‘cause he had to be a man to follow up, Judas reiterated, “But you did see someone before the sun came down.” 

With a gaze that could only be described with those epic, star-crossed yearning, Bidan murmured, “I did.”

His glower gleamed. “What'd they look like?”

Inexplicably, Bidan held her own with Judas for the longest of locked gazes. It was beginning to creep on him that she was catching every feature of his face from the narrowed glare of his eyes to the irritated line of his lips. Might be just him but she lingered on his eyes as though she was searching for something that wasn't there. Whatever reason she stared him down, it vanished as she sighed, demure fingers splaying over her porcelain cheek. 

Almost to someone who wasn't there, she said, “Beautiful.”

Yeah, definitely not Dana.

Dana wasn't someone with loads of free time on her hands, but if she wanted to find someone she never knew, she'd find her. 

Asking around more than often seemed to help, and if not, a little show of force was always effective. Especially upon her soldiers who even offered to search around when they had the time she didn’t. The captains didn't like it when they kissed her ass, but they didn't have to know it was more along the lines of saving them. 

In great example was the flight team. Sure, Crown Prince Naga’s schedule was just as hectic as hers, if not even more crammed, but he almost seemed grateful to be ordered to spend time with Sasa and Hyena. With the three of their heads together, they indeed found women in all white. If graded, they'd earn a C+ with the ending fact that the women they brought were mostly grieving funeral attendees. A point was docked because one was a costumed man claiming to save them as his duty as an angel-hybrid.  

On the other hand, Haze’s team outright failed.  

After hearing their commander out, Raptor simply jerked a thumb at Haze, who in turn didn't mind to play as Dana’s woman in white for a hefty price. She would've kicked his ass if Stell hadn't sneezed—mask off—and instantaneously, Raptor-Haze yanked him away from the crumbling watchtower.

That left Judas and Dune, the latter of whom didn't know how he was roped into this in the first place. Both of them actually asked around under false pretenses of an investigation (which, strangely and surprisingly enough, was all Dune’s idea). They hadn't found much except for the following:

One: she only came by the military offices if summoned by her superior. They didn’t have his name because he wasn't around at the time. 

And two: she hadn't cared for any admirers. They came to her as easily as any folly humans to a glorious goddess, and her power was a sharp tongue to bring them down to their worth. Never theirs as she should be. 

Dana understood that much. 

What she couldn't figure out was how they were meant to brush past each other. Though her existence was confirmed elsewhere, she only appeared through slight sightings as though she really was a ghost. Asking around led to small details that Dana carried close to her chest, small pieces of a woman she had yet to but wanted to know: that the woman was seen adorned with butterflies in her hair, was perfumed like fresh frost molding to blood-red roses, was heard humming a centuries-old song, was known to steal hearts from rib cages with a single, lost look in her eyes. A ghost with an affinity to coax others in her wake. 

And Dana would find her—fate be damned. Not that she was having much luck. Sunset had already spilled over their heads and descended for another day, and they'd yet to witness the mystery woman in white for themselves. 

As Judas’ last minute replacement, Dune spoke up, “Dana, I find your search quite admirable.”

“You don't need to.”

“Yes, however, after his passing, I thought that you'd lost everything.” Words failed him as he met her eye, devoid of any emotion that suggested she lost at all. “Yet after all that, you're giving your everything in someone else, I suppose.” 

She shrugged as though past years were tears under a bridge. 

Dune suggested, “I know some soldiers are lending a hand; perhaps I can call on Claude and his comrades or possibly Judas could ask his handmaid to help.” 

“A handmaid?”

“Yes.” A woman surfaced as a blurred memory in Dune’s eye as he hadn't recalled her before. “She's his personal aid as far as I know. I'm sure she mustn’t mind; she looks like a lovely woman, certainly something on the eyes with all those roses in her—”

An urgency injected into Dana's voice, hurrying questions off her tongue. “Roses? As in her hair, his aid— Dune, have you met her before?” she asked.

His fingers fumbled with his glasses. “Yes? At Judas’ post from what I last remember.” 

“Take me there.” Raw resolve was stronger than any blade she wielded as she was prepared for battle right then and there. “Take me there now,” she commanded. 

Bidan was harder to find, at least for Judas, who was her direct superior. At the very least, she was carrying out the tasks he was paying her for; however, the half hour before sunset, it was obvious something or someone was prioritized over him. 

For Bidan, it was someone. 

Her family was her only help, but they proved to be much less helpful. After a very accurate description of her mystery commander, they all gave their answers quite assuredly. After a vehement denial that the mystery commander was her superior, her family gave it up at that. 

“Maybe he has a twin?” suggested the head as he tilted the literal bird's nest of his hair. 

Bidan shook her head. “No twin, only a brother who lives towns away.”

“I've heard,” said one of Bidan’s sisters, “that everyone has a doppelganger. They have to with this many humans. You probably saw his doppelganger who just happens to have the same position as he does. Some are meant to be closer to you than you think. Weird, isn't it?” She flipped around her canvas, which displayed a crudely-drawn picture of Judas and a red-eyed Judas as Bidan had described differently.

She wondered, “Where does one find a doppelganger?” 

“With this many humans, they could be anywhere. You may have seen them months ago, but they could be on the other side of the earth by now,” brought up her brother with the scary lack of eyebrows.

A murmur of mutual agreement hovered around the room, but Bidan was not deterred. Though she wished the twins were here—not that they would be much help, but they'd search the streets with her if she asked—they disappeared years ago. That—this was fine. Bidan wasn't one of tenacious commitment, but deep in her bones, she knew the mystery commander existed out there; she'd find them if it meant the end of her eternity. 

Even though, truth be told, all clues roamed to the fact that Commander Judas fit the description. Maybe the description was even fit for him. All except the color of his eyes and everything else that stirred inside her like a bud that had yet to bloom. It was a strange weight, like that of knowing the stars in her lovers’ eyes burned for her, yet she was the one with a galaxy in her ever searching gaze. 

In all her immortal years, Bidan never thought it was possible to feel so vulnerably human before. 

Judas didn't appreciate that at all, not when she’d pondered with a hesitant hand to her chest rather to her work. The sun had just come down, taking its light with it. Right across from her, Judas watched her gaze out the window like the lovestruck loner she was as beginning darkness obscured her parchment. 

“Bidan. Bidan, Bidan?” he called before muttering to himself, “You're about as efficient as that twattled commander I’ve been wasting time for.” 

“Hmm.”

Since she wasn't listening, Judas leaned back in his chair and stretched. “She's just like you, looking for someone who doesn't appear at the right time, and if I'm gonna be brutally honest, she be looking for someone who might not even be alive anymore.”

“Or someone who might be on foreign lands for all we know,” murmured Bidan with a soft blow of breath. So she was listening, no big deal. 

“Point is you can spend your whole life dedicating yourself, but in the end there's still a possibility you'll be alone.”

“Is that so?”

“Happened to her before. Death is a merciless thief, Bidan. No wonder she wants to move onto with this mystery ghost-woman in white and apparently she's glorious— her words, not mine—”

An amused smile ghosted across Bidan’s lips. “Sounds like a real flatterer,” she teased. 

“Not so much,” he disagreed and straightened in his seat. “She's harsh and straight-laced and always wearing this scowl like everything's an instigator, but hey, I'm told the same because we're mistakened like nine times outta—”

“You and her mistakened? A twattled commander, the same position you are,” Bidan realized, gasping gently between the spaces of quivering fingers. Some are meant to be closer to you than you think. “Commander, what are the color of her eyes?”

He blinked as though his would change. “Red. She has red eyes.” 

There is no weight, only light as if petals unfolding from the blessing of the sun as she leaned into him. 

“Now,” she demanded over their desks, the wings at her hips flapping in wild anticipation. They never did that before. “I want to see her now.”

Stars had hung into the evening sky by the time either of them realized each other's direction. Dune could hardly match Dana's speed as she hopped from tiled roof to roof as easily as skipping stones across a small stream. Judas could keep his own with Bidan who heaved layers of skirts in both hands, all the while running barefoot as though for her eternal life.  

The closer they felt within each other's vicinity, the lighter their exhales emitted, the lighter their pathways deepened, and the lighter their uneasy energy to simply see and speak for themselves radiated. 

Fate couldn't work so inexplicably, so irrevocably, when they finally crossed. 

Dana saw a flash of white upon a dimly lit dirtway. Bidan saw a commander's silhouette against gray clouds. No, there was no linear stairway to a happily ever end as they reversed paths from one wanting to another. 

“Dana, look—” 

“Inane—Bidan!”

It didn't matter if Bidan flew down into her arms or if Dana lunged with her arms out like an absolute acceptance to a blessing.

“It's you.”

What else mattered when at long last—they were together? 

“It's really you.”

There was no better timing to indulge the seconds as they were finally face to face. Yet Bidan’s eyes fluttered closed as their foreheads bump together, warmth for warmth. In that very moment, Bidan thought this was the closest to glorious she'd ever been. In these close quarters, Dana thanked her good stars that she couldn't see how ripe red her cheeks were (she really did have a heady aroma like frost and flowers) and wondered how to ask for her name. It'd seem all that learning was to be saved or another night as Bidan tugged on the links of her hat, closing the distance in an instant faster than they've come for each other.

As Dune chuckled in the palm of his hand, Judas cupped his and shouted, “Get a room, you maniacs!”

Of course, he was ignored as Dana slowly pulled her wide-brimmed hat over their faces and Bidan returned the favor with her arms around her neck, closer, even more closer. Touch was much more intimate than any word could emulate, than any statement of fate. With each brush of her fingertips, Dana felt like she'd already known her name—and Bidan with her whole backstory—but she'd attach a name to these lips in a moment or five. There was no hurry, no, they had days on for nights (pre-evenings and sunsets included) for that anyway.