#accept my garbage

It was late already when the three of them had finally stopped running from the scene of their crime – better to be safe than sorry, Cinder said, and move farther out than any Huntsman or Huntress might go looking for them – and set up camp for the night. Mercury was outside, tuning up his legs and boiling water over the campfire for their dinner, and Cinder had told them she was stepping out for a few minutes to give her mission report. 

Emerald had elected to set up their tents and lay out the bedrolls for the night. Under any other circumstances, she might have been jealous of Mercury for getting a tent all to himself, but she had the privilege of sharing one with Cinder, and was not about to risk losing such a privilege by complaining about something petty. She had just finished, and, thoroughly tired out from the day’s efforts, decided to lie down. Oh, she’d be out to grab her share of dinner in a few minutes, she wouldn’t fall asleep, she was just…resting her eyes a bit…

Five minutes later, she was flat on her back on top of both her sleeping bag and bedroll, out cold. The soft ruffle of the tent flap being pushed back wasn’t enough to wake her, nor were the footsteps slipping in on the grass, but the sharp clanging of metal being thrown to the ground and the muffled thump of a palm on the cloth beside her ear was. She stirred at the noise, and was quickly jolted awake by the feeling of skin brushing her legs and the realization that someone was on top of her. 

To anyone who had spent most of their life sleeping on the streets, waking up like this was high on the list of worst fears, and years of instinct ripped a scream from her throat and threw her arms outward to knock the intruder away. But firm hands pinning her down and the familiar flash of sharp amber eyes directly above her face halted all her resistance in its tracks.

“Down.”

Emerald didn’t need the order to lie perfectly still, her heart pounding, a rabbit in the jaws of a fox. “Ci…Cinder? Wh-What’s wrong?”

Over the past months, she had developed a healthy respect for her new leader. Respect, that was all it was. She was not afraid of the woman who had saved her from starving to death in that miserable city. But she’d be lying if she said that the look on Cinder’s face right now – severe, unsmiling, not breaking eye contact or even blinking – didn’t turn her insides cold.

And when Cinder answered, the carefully restrained anger in her voice only made it worse. “Emerald. Remind me, what instructions did I give you before we left this morning?”

“Uh…” It hadn’t been much, but now she stumbled over her words trying to repeat it back. “Remember the plan. D-Distract the target, then, um, keep her disoriented when you and Mercury go in for the kill. Immobilize her, I-I mean, so you could…”

“Yes. I said, remember the plan, exactly as discussed. Not a foot out of place. Were those instructions in any way difficult, Emerald?”

“N-No, ma’am.”

“That’s what I thought. But if it was so simple…” Cinder’s hands tightened on her shoulders, the heat of the Maiden’s newfound power building just beneath her skin. Emerald gasped in spite of herself, and had to fight not to squirm in the older girl’s burning grip. “Then why did you deliberately step out of line and nearly ruin everything?”

“What?!” Emerald blurted out, completely floored. “I-I mean…I’m sorry, I…What are you talking about?”

“You know perfectly well what you did. You think I wasn’t watching? Didn’t see what tipped the target off to the fact that something was wrong? Think carefully, Emerald.”

Emerald tried, but it was very suddenly hard to pull the memory back clearly through the shock that had frozen her mind. She didn’t know how the Maiden had noticed her – had quickly had much bigger things to worry about, actually – and she’d been standing right next to her. She’d been putting all her focus on the illusion, which hadn’t been that hard; the image of her childhood self was her go-to distraction of choice. The girl had been completely absorbed in the trick, but she’d still reached for her gun slowly and carefully, to land one quick and devastating bullet in each of her kneecaps so she couldn’t run when all three of them fell on her. Out of pure reflex, she had stepped back to take aim, and…

Her eyes went wide. “The dust…I-I must have kicked up some dust when I – ”

“Put your foot out of place, and distracted her from your distraction,” Cinder finished, bitingly sarcastic. “Made this entire job ten times more trouble than it was supposed to be, which in turn stretched it out until the Huntsman could reach us. Now I only have half of what I need, and we’ll have to watch our backs even more carefully when we infiltrate Beacon. Fantastic work, Emerald. Tell me, did you think you were being funny?” 

“N-No! No, of course not, I – Cinder, I swear, I didn’t mean to do that!”

“And so it doesn’t matter?”

“Yes! I mean no! I just…It was just a mistake!” she protested, knowing even as the words left her mouth that it was the wrong thing to say, but having no idea what would be the right thing. 

“A mistake?” Cinder’s expression turned stony. But to Emerald’s immense surprise, her touch loosened, became softer, as she released one shoulder to run her hand down Emerald’s arm, leaving the faint red outlines of her fingers. The tips of her fingers ran gently over her skin, lingering on the long, thin cuts where the Maiden’s ice shards had torn through it. Emerald felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, at both Cinder’s touch and the memory of her own pained screams. “You don’t seem to understand what I want. I meant for this to be a quick and simple task, not an all-out brawl with a Maiden. You two handled it well when she attacked, but I did not intend for you to risk your lives against her in the first place.”

“Cinder…” Emerald hesitated for a second before figuring out what to say – clearly, she really hadn’t understood her leader’s feelings. “Those are nothing, I don’t mind getting a little scraped up. We did it, and we’re all okay.”

Cinder didn’t look convinced. Without warning, her hand moved over to rest directly on Emerald’s heart, and Emerald let out a tiny squeak of surprise, very suddenly forgetting how to breathe. She almost didn’t catch Cinder’s next, quiet words: “She was about to stab you. You could have been killed…All because of one little mistake.” 

“…Oh.” 

She hadn’t considered that, either. Now that it was all over, that moment of pure, soul-freezing terror as she’d stared up at the furious Maiden seemed like just a distant nightmare, compared to the relief she had felt an instant later, as Cinder’s arrow hit home and the girl fell, instead of her. But even so, if Cinder had shot just a second too late…

“I see. I…I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t think of any of that.”

The smile, almost teasing, that the words brought to Cinder’s face sent a thrill surging through Emerald’s veins. Then, quite unexpectedly, Cinder leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, startling the thief so badly she jumped underneath her; she could have sworn her heart stopped cold for that second. Seeing Emerald’s wide-eyed, open-mouth shock as she pulled back, Cinder gave a light laugh.

“Don’t think. Obey,” she said, standing up again. Emerald still couldn’t quite remember how to move, or do anything other than stare. “I expect nothing less than excellence from you once we move into Vale, Emerald. Remember that, and we’ll have no further problems.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am,” Emerald heard herself say dazedly. 

Cinder smirked. “Very good. Come out to eat, when you’re ready.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

With a nod of acknowledgement, Cinder ducked back out of the tent, leaving Emerald lying there on the ground. After a moment, she slowly sat up, still staring at the closed tent flaps. Outside, she could hear the muffled sounds of Cinder and Mercury talking, the fire snapping (probably still aided by Cinder), and of the night’s birds chirping in the trees above them all. She reached up to touch her cheek with disbelieving fingers, and still felt the heat from Cinder’s lips. She had never done anything like that before…Emerald was surprised to find herself trembling a little.

As far as she understood, kisses on the cheek or forehead were fairly chaste gestures, and considering how Cinder had saved her life twice as of today, it was comparatively small. But still, it felt like everything, loosened the grip of fear on her heart, erased the sting of the punishing slaps that more often struck her cheek. For a moment, she let herself think that maybe, if she lived up to Cinder’s expectations of her for their next mission – no, exceeded them – she might earn something even better. 

Her stomach growled, and she picked herself up, walking out of the tent to get her plate of dinner. (The novelty of being able to do such a thing so easily still hadn’t worn off on her.) She could smell something spicy coming from the small pot on the campfire, and her mouth was already watering as she sat down in front of it. On seeing her, Mercury ducked his head like a horse and made a noise through all the food in his mouth, that she guessed was a greeting. Cinder, who had been absently raising and lowering the flames with a flex of her fingers, looked up and smiled knowingly at her. And it was that, more than the fire at her feet, that warmed Emerald inside and out.

She screwed up way more than she should, she knew, sometimes when she didn’t even know she’d done anything wrong. But she tried, she threw herself into every task her leader trusted her to carry out, took pride in a job well done. And Cinder understood that, correcting and forgiving her as she deserved. She was valued enough, needed enough, to warrant the attention. Cinder didn’t waste time or effort; she would have thrown anyone else away long ago. She made sure that Emerald knew that she would never be abandoned again.