Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Feet stomping, hearts racing, quicker and quicker, except for one. A single girl doesn't move, not her feet like the others and her heart feels just as frozen. Raelle Collar holds herself still as every other cadet’s feet pound against the floor.

‘Sheep,’ she thinks, ‘followin’ Alder like fuckin’ sheep. It's not storm and fury out there, it's death, cold and lonely and chipped away like ice, like mama was, chipped away in life, chipped away at her death.’
She thinks of her father and how good he used to be, before the drinkin’, before the love of his life would be sent back to him in fuckin’ pieces, she thinks of her mama and bites back tears.

Mama was warmth and light...until she wasn't. Every tour she’d get more and more tired, distance herself just a little bit more from her husband and daughter- she’d always said takin’ on others pain and hurts had a cost.
When Raelle was younger she thought that cost was the ache in her leg. That’d hurt something terrible the day Toby, from down the way, had broken his same leg riding his bike. Raelle had been 8 and she’d found him sobbin’, clutching his bloodied pant leg as his white as paper, bone, poked through the fabric. She didn't even remember layin’ her hands on him, just prayin’ he’d stop crying, and suddenly he had. Her leg still twinges a bit when it rains.

But now she knows the cost- it's also the ache in her heart- as folks back home had learned about her ‘aptitude’ they came from all over the nearby towns. Bringing what little money and food they could in exchange for their pains, some accidental, some not, some with rot not just in their bodies but in their souls too. For years mama would only let her watch, sayin’ she was too young.

She remembered when she was 13 and a woman had come to their house, small and bleedin’, dark finger marks on her thighs and arms. Raelle had been home alone, as she usually was, and papa always said they needed the money when people came callin’ for mama.
Even at 13 though she could tell something wasn't right with this curled upon woman and the angry man sittin’ on her front step smokin’ - the man who wouldn't take no for an answer just telling her to.

“Get to it girlie”

Raelle didn't even know the woman’s name but she went right to work, sayin’ some of the words she’d seen mama chant all her life.

“When you pass through the waters. I will be with you. Through the rivers, they shall not flood you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned.”

Raelle had concentrated as hard as she could, reaching out with her hands and her heart, and as the woman’s bruises and aches became hers so too did an incredible fear she had never felt before in her life.
The man on the step banged on the door, yellin’ out if they were done yet and Raelle cowered in a way she had never done in her life. The other woman began to straighten. Her silent tears no longer streaming.

“Thank you” She had breathed out and left with the man still yellin’ but the woman’s spine was straight as a rod and a newly determined look on her face.
Raelle had curled up into a ball and wept for hours until her father came home. His sudden presence instilling that same fear inside her from before. Papa found her eventually, cowering under her bed, beggin’ her to tell him what was wrong and promising that he would never hurt her.
She hadn't even realized before he said that, that she had been sayin’ it over and over.

“Please don't hurt me, please don't.”

Fixin’ had a cost her mama always said- ‘We take their hurts baby girl and not just the ones on their bodies- that’s why it’s so special, why you’re so special’

Raelle didn't think it was special when her mama would come back from another tour more and more hollowed out in body and mind.
And here she was, sittin’ in the same hall her mama had probably been in, ready to join her in the after life, feet frozen like her mama’s. Just waitin’ to be chipped to pieces out of the ice.

Chapter Text

Fire had always fascinated Scylla far before the Spree had taught her their little tricks. It was actually one of her first memories. One of her only solid ones anyway- at such a young age the life of a dodger tended to make everything blur together. She never knew where they were going, or where they'd been. Just that they never stayed.

She was sitting in front of a fireplace, her parents on either side of her. They must have been hid away in a safe house or an abandoned cabin. It was late at night and the fire crackled and snapped with each new stick and twig she added to it. Her father slept at her left, snoring softly while her mother held her and told her of their family. Their stories, their songs.

Her mother curled closer as the flames danced and seemed to take shapes to match her words. Her mother told her of the world that night.

How life becomes death.
Which then becomes life.
Over and over.

“Death isn't always what it seems” She had told her. “Don’t fear the balance of it all.”

The balance that her mother, and her mother before her, devoted their lives to. The balance that ironically kept them running. Always running.

“The world is like fire sweetheart, beautiful but dangerous. It brings life but death too. A raging fire can destroy a forest but it's also what brings new trees to life, starts the new growth. Don’t be afraid of the fire, of the pain, let it help you grow.”

For years Scylla could feel the warmth on her skin from that night as she stared at the fire, feeding the flames until she fell asleep in her mother's arms, mesmerized by it and her words. Scylla and her mother spent many nights like that after, curled together, singing quietly in the dark. She taught her the cycle of life-

How it ends.
How it begins again

Taught her the hushed seeds passed down from her own mother. Whispers that could never be spoken too loud for fear of being heard and found.

And then they had been found. Her mother had never feared death. And until it came down to herself and Scylla, she'd never sought it either. A raging fire can destroy everything. But so can an army. There's a balance to it really.

When she had learned to change her face for the first time she relished in the pain of the flames as they gave life to a new person. The Spree agent who would no longer hide and run away. Who would fight, avenge her slaughtered parents, avenge all the witches needlessly killed in service of those who enslaved them. Those who still hated them.

She spent a year as this new person. That fire and pain her only comfort until her...Raelle. Her choice. Her end. The Spree and even precious fire itself paled in comparison to Raelle.
Those first few days she had seemed hard and cold to everyone else, but Scylla could see right through her. Raelle wasn't ice as she appeared, but fire that burned bright and hot. She had fury, oh yes, and it froze her veins, but she lacked that callousness needed to truly become cold and hard.

The Spree thought they saw that same thing in Raelle that they had seen in her. But they only saw the surface. Saw her ice and fury and thought she could be swayed. Scylla knew. Raelle would never be able to stay frozen. While Scylla could watch the world crack and chip away to nothing, Raelle could only ever heal, help.

Fire is what she is, mesmerizing, captivating fire. A fire Scylla had felt in their first kiss, that first night together. Raelle’s touch had burned through her in a way Porter’s had never and turned her inside out. Every moment together after had burned her more and more. And then at the wedding. Raelle had looked at her like...

Like Scylla was...
Everything.

She had fought it, denied it, but she knew...Raelle would never join The Spree. Scylla could swear she had smoke filling her lungs. A new person scratching to be free. She just had to choose, not to fear the fire.

When Raelle had awoken on the damp ground and stared at Scylla as if she had raised her from the dead herself- she felt the pain of a forest fire engulf her chest and knew she had chosen correctly. Her chains bit into her wrists, but she felt none of it as she reached for the girl she chose over vengeance. Her fire, her light in the dark. Felt nothing but the aching burn of her kiss again.

But then they had taken her away. She had just heard the most beautiful words in her life.

“I love you. I believe you.”

Love.
Love.
Raelle loves her.

She had endured so much from them for so long, never wavering. Fitting that they used her choice against her. When they dragged away her love, she couldn't help but break....

A favor.
That's all she wanted.

If she was going to burn for them, truly burn, then she should get just one thing right? One last chance to hear those words before she died. And so Raelle had come back to her, walked towards her under her own will.

But her eyes were dull like ice, her fire, her soul muted. Cold.

"Was anything real?"

“I loved you”

Loved.
Loved.

She didn’t believe her. Not anymore.

"I don’t feel powerful, I feel broken, thanks to you."

No.
No.
No.
You’re not ice, you’re fire.
You’re fire.

"I chose you! Please!"

Scylla’s throat burned as she screamed and screamed. Her old self aflame once again, wishing she had her lighter. So the flames wouldn't only be in her heart. Wishing they would let her die. So life could start anew. Fire hurt, but not as much as this. Fire brought new growth, but not as much as her.

She made herself burn.
And burn until the end.

You can't fear the fire after all, how else would you grow?