#astralgenius

𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚛𝚢𝚔𝚎𝚛, everything else today had happened. abby making the nightblood serum from madi, getting injected with it herself to now bleed like the commanders.  raven hadn’t been with gaia or miller which meant she must have been with abby and the others.  if she could get to raven, then maybe the two of them would be able to bring down the radiation shield.  raven’s brain, her hands.  even exhausted, aching from fighting back against the restraints that she had been in, she was still on top of her game.  after all, there was nothing in the world that was about to come between her and her family again.  no one else was getting hurt.

sneaking in was the only option.

he’s still trying to process it,  still trying to accept that he’s lost one of the most important people in his life right in front of his eyes,  again.  whenever he fails to save someone,  it’s brutal on him,  and this feels even worse because he never had the chance.  

❝  how  -----  how are you  .  .  .  ?  ❞  posing the question to her is easier than asking the question for himself.  because he’s not okay,  and he doesn’t know how to be after losing the one person that has been consistent in his life for so long now.  but ever since he lost his mother,  it’s been so much easier for him to focus on everyone else’s pain,  burying himself in his work whether it be medical or simply just offering his presence to cure any kind of loneliness in another.   that’s why he’s focused on her now,  because maybe,  helping her will help himself.  ❝  are you okay? ❞

                    it’s not quite the reveal she’d intended ------ half of the roof still needs to be secured and tarred, the porch is nothing more than some stairs, and none of the herbs line the front of the house nor flank the walkway in the ways she’d imagined it.

but between the multiple lengthy stays at arkadia ( for both work and for... pleasure... ) and the fact that she was working here alone and in secret, well.

time had gotten away from her.

it wasn’t that she had spent it in the grueling pits of war; in fact, the coalition had never seen such a time of peace, no matter how uneasy it was. even during the most brutal training with her warriors, her fingertips still itched for the hot iron of blood, for the cold steel of her blade. 

but the security of a winter and spring spent with them families wore well on her soldiers. the towns flourished with young, healthy warriors eager to put their restless strength to use building new houses, bridges, towns.

which left her here: standing next to raven in a clearing beside the river, sun just streaming through the break in the canopy of trees, with the half-finished outline of a cabin before them.

“ it’s not.... finished, “ she says, the words careful and measured on her tongue.

raven’s  no  ball  of  sunshine  on  the  best  of  days  but  she  appears  to  be  seething,    ready  to  burst  if  the  right  button  is  pushed,    and  leon’s  gaze  flicks  between  her  and  ryker.     arms  are  crossed  as  he  approaches  the  prime  intimidatingly,    which  he  guesses is  their  way  of  decorating  the  word  murderer.      there’s  a  feeling  of  dread  in  his  stomach  that  will  not  dissipate:     all  of  phoenix  are  at  risk  now.       ‘     if  you  keep  pushing  your  excuses  down  her  throat  because  you  want  her  to  see  your  side  of  things,     we’re  gonna  have  a  problem.      ‘

there’s a vulnerability she has that she’s not afraid to share with raven.  anyone else,  she’s determined to squash it,  but with her,  it’s easier.  she trusts raven in a way she’s never been able to trust anyone before,  and she wants to provide the other with the same opportunity,  too.  what they’re faced with now is something emori didn’t expect to have to deal with so suddenly.  grief is new to her,  something she doesn’t know how to process yet because she’s never truly had anyone by her side that she was scared to lose  ----  not until now,  now that she’s lost them.  

lips purse together,  and she’s silent for a long moment before she says anything.  first,  she collects her thoughts,  tries to reroute what she wants to say,  in a way that won’t upset raven.  she understands the anger  ----   and had emori never experienced what she did in space,  that anger would be her own,  too.  but she understands where monty and harper’s mindsets had been.  she understands why they chose to live the life they did.  

they got to live a happy,  safe life.  that option is hardly presented to anyone anymore.  she envies that.

❝  i meant  -----  ❞  no,  she’s not happy they’re gone.  she’s mad,  too.  but she is happy that they got a choice in this.  she’s happy that they had CONTROL over their lives,  in a world where having control is impossible.  ❝ we can’t hold this against them.  monty  -----  he never wanted to leave space in the first place. ❞   she knew,  because she resonated with that feeling.  she,  too,  was scared to go back to a place that had never felt like home to her.   ❝  they got to be happy.  like we were on the ark.   they got to go back to that.  ❞  her words are uncharacteristically calming,  an attempt to get raven to see this from their point of view  (  even emori is starting to comprehend empathy.  )

❝  i don’t want to hold that against them,  even if i’m pissed too.  ❞  pissed that her family isn’t all here,  not pissed at them.  she won’t hold something she’s envious of against them.  

‘   ah,   sorry.   ‘    he realizes he isn’t alone upon entering the workshop.   leon managed to sneak away once the festivities began,   day dripping to night,   and he aims to explore every nook and cranny of this place.   the news of the eclipse,   and its madness,   has convinced him this is a perilous planet.   he needs to talk to michael;   they shouldn’t be here.   ‘    not in a party mood either ?   ‘ 

it’s my birthday, bitches!! || @astralgenius