#iustine

“Liam,” you gasp, moving forwards as your vision finally clears and the smoke settles, to see him lying on the ground with violet magic sparking from his arms like the tattoos there are a circuit board, not part of a human body.  The others are still standing, and you can hear them call out at all different volumes, various degrees of concern ranging from fully-panicked (your sister) to handling-it-but-worried (Kana).

Sebastian starts to say something about someone checking the exits--that’s right, you were all locked in here, right before--and searching for supplies, other dangers, but his voice fades in the face of Li’s shallow, pained breathing.  You reach down to try and take his hand when it feels like someone shoves a hot knife through your palm and into your forearm.

“Ah--”  You hiss and pull your hand away on reflex, only to see sparks of Liam’s magic crackling off your fingertips as you move.

“Careful,” Azalea says, taking your hand gently in her own.  The red impact mark of whatever just happened fades as she rubs her fingers over it, and your heart clenches before you realize she’s not using any magic.  The marks are just being soothed away.  “We--I think his own spell hurt him.  He wiped out...whatever those things were trying to attack us, but it hit him, too.  I just don’t know...”

“We have to help him,” you say, and Azalea looks at you with determination and sadness in equal parts.  She knows, but she doesn’t know how.

“--have to go,” rasps Liam, drawing your attention.  You look down, and there’s a second where it looks like his eyes are completely black.  They’re not, of course; they’re normal, but it takes you a second to blink away the panic, and that’s enough time for Liam to curl in on himself, turning away from you as he repeats, “Go.  Bef... Before m-more of them--”

He breaks off on a gasp.  You’re not sure if it’s the way his whole body shakes through a wince, the way his breath sounds like it’s getting shallower, or the words themselves, like he expects you to leave him there, that hits the hardest. 

But it doesn’t really matter because before you can think better of it, you’re reaching out.  It’s a good thing your body knows what your heart wants to do and doesn’t need your mind’s help right now because as soon as you touch Li again, that bastardized version of his magic floods into you like the world’s spikiest mouthful of a too-hot drink.  You grit your teeth and breathe through the pain as you roll Liam back towards you, getting an arm under his back as you go so that you can pull him up into a hug.  One of his hands lands on your arm and the other on your stomach, trying to push you away.  But you hold on.

“No,” you grit out.  “No, I won’t leave you.”  Liam freezes in your arms at the words, and it’s a shard of ice in your heart.

“Wait!” you hear Azalea say suddenly.  To your horror, the next thing you feel is a hand on your shoulder.  The magic that’s now sparking off of you, just like Li, jumps to whoever touched you faster than you can turn your head, but when you do, you realize with a sinking feeling that it’s your sister who reached out.

It takes another second to realize that it doesn’t hurt as bad anymore.  Your sister's hand grows almost painfully tight on your shoulder, but she doesn't instantly pull away like you had, like she’d touched a hot stove.  And Liam isn’t almost hyperventilating against your shoulder, either.

“Ow,” your sister says, and she lets go, shaking her hand in the air.  “What’s happening?  Are you two--?”

Her words stop suddenly when the pain comes back and you hunch forward, putting more of your body over Liam’s like a shield, even though you’re getting the sense that this doesn’t work like that.  Liam actually cries out this time, and you squeeze your eyes shut.  If he’d started acclimating to the pain, then feeling relief only for it to get worse again was probably harder than getting hurt in the first place.

“I think I get it,” Azalea says.  She sounds as frantic as she does hopeful, this time, and you look over to her from the corner of your eye.  You want to stop her as you see that she’s also reaching towards you, but you can’t without letting Li go.  Her hand lands on your knee.

A soft sound, like she’d just lifted something really heavy (heavy for her, of course), passes her lips, but she doesn’t pull away.  Instead she nods, and when she speaks again, it’s loud enough for everyone to hear.  (You realize that Liam’s cry probably got all their attention, when it became obvious he was still hurting despite your best efforts.)  “Something here is making all our magic turn against us.  It’s why some of us have had a headache, and why Kana started feeling sick when they talked.  When Liam cast a spell, his magic backfired, and his body can’t absorb it back up because it’s... Well, it’s like it’s been poisoned.”

She uses her free hand to point to the almost thorny lines of violet covering you, your sister, herself, and Liam.  It really doesn’t look like Li’s regular magic except the color.

The touch on your shoulder comes back, and you hear your sister hiss a little bit this time.  But her grip stays solid, and the pain lessens again.  “But this helps?” she asks.

You don’t respond as Liam tries to push away from you again, saying, “Don’t-- I’m fine...”

“Aw, I see!” says Rory, voice bright, circling around the group of you clustered on the floor.  “Spread the force over a bigger area, and the pressure gets lighter, right?”  Rory’s hand lands solidly on Azalea’s back, and this time you barely notice a reaction at all except for your own pain decreasing.  Against your chest, Liam is breathing more deeply, and his muscles are no longer so tight that you feel like you’re holding wood instead of a person.

Kana comes up behind you, crouching in a manner that you’re sure is unfairly graceful before putting a hand on your elbow.  They still don’t speak, probably more acutely aware now than ever about how dangerous it is, but their thumb brushes comforting, silent patterns across your arm.  Sebastian, at almost the same time, reaches a hand down to your sister, who takes it with a smile as she catches the look of concern on his features.

With all seven of you, it barely takes a few more seconds for the pain--now reduced to a feeling like slightly-too-hot shower water rather than anything truly dangerous--to drain away completely, leaving Liam spark-free and flushed as his face remains buried against the front of your shoulder.

For a moment, you all just breathe.

Then you hear movement.  Footsteps, maybe, or something else; you’re sure Rory and Sebastian can hear it more clearly even if the result is a bit of a headache down here.

“Are you good?” Sebastian asks, looking between you and Liam.  As soon as you nod, he lets go of your sister’s hand and goes back to trying to find a way out, and one by one, the others go to help.

You notice Liam trembling slightly in your arms as they all move away, and for a horrifying second, you think he's still in pain.  But you’re still holding him, and you feel nothing except the heat of his breath where it’s trapped between you.  You’re about to ask what’s wrong when he speaks, quietly as always but somehow smaller.

“Told you you should’ve left,” he says, and his voice breaks on the last word.  You have a feeling from the tone that he was going to continue and couldn’t.  You hold tighter.

“Liam Michael Cowles,” you say thickly, dropping your forehead helplessly onto his shoulder, “we are not going to leave you.  Don’t even joke about that.  You’re a part of this team--” (family, you think) “--and you’re my friend, and I won’t leave you behind for anything.”

His breath hitches in your ear.  You pull back just enough that he has to put an arm down to hold himself up as you move your hands to press against his face.  “Whatever’s coming,” you say, “we’ll face it together.”

So when he found her camped out in the woods outside Westcliff, he was in for a surprise. Aya offered no resistance, she didn’t even reach for her weapon. Just waited for him to get it over with. And Walter realised that this Hero, this legendary figure who all of Albion had raised up onto a pedestal as this unstoppable force, was just a woman. A very broken woman who, like him, had given up on living.

When the balverines attacked, they fought to defend each other rather than themselves, and when dawn broke, they decided to travel together because there was something worth living for now. Eventually they fell in love, but given Aya’s troubled past with relationships and death, they kept their relationship a secret with only a handful of people knowing they were together and even less knowing they’d married.

As for Jasper, he was the first and only applicant to the position of butler when Aya purchased Fairfax Castle and her first butler promptly resigned. Her advertisement specifically mentioned that anyone who was unprepared to deal with regular bouts of violence and existential danger need not apply, so Jasper promptly inquired. He never told Aya where he learned to deal with live explosives, but his services proved invaluable as she began to lay the groundwork for Albion’s unification.

He helped her stay grounded in day-to-day activities rather than letting her get caught up in thoughts of war and nothing else, and when her children were born, he assisted her in juggling her parental duties with her royal ones. There was nothing Jasper wouldn’t do for his Queen and friend, and he was one of the few to know just how deeply troubled she really was.

Sister

Aya was young enough when their parents died that she can’t remember them. Rose was her big sister, but also the only parental figure she had growing up. Their family’s farm was seized by landowners and they were tossed out onto the streets, so Rose was having to be a big sister and a parent in a hostile situation all while figuring out how to keep them alive.

Rose worked so incredibly hard so that Aya never caught onto just how precarious their situation was. She tried to stay optimistic when things weren’t great, she came up with stories to help her little sister fall asleep, she was always on the look out for opportunities that would further their survival while being cunning and stubborn enough to avoid more unpleasant options. She made Aya’s toy sword with bits of scrap, and traded some chocolate for another kid’s toy gun for her birthday - she wanted her sister to survive, but also to be a child even if she didn’t get to be one too.

And it worked for the most part. Aya knew their situation was unfortunate, but she rarely saw the worse side of things. She got to be innocent, running around with her sister, swinging her sword at bullies and practicing her shooting with old bottles she found lying around. And as far as she was concerned, she had the best big sister in the world, because how many other big sisters would get you your own sword and gun, and make up bedtime stories for you, and always find a way to get dinner, even when the pickings were almost nonexistent?

She had no idea that Rose was going hungry some nights to keep her fed. She had no idea that that bit of chocolate was the first Rose had managed to get in over a year and she’d still given it away to make her happy. She never knew what kind of work Arfur was pestering Rose about and just assumed he wanted her to go pickpocketing or something along those lines.

It was only when she found Rose’s diary did she realise just how much her sister had sacrificed. How hard she had worked, how much pressure she had been under to keep them alive. She actually sat in the alley where their old shelter had been and cried because she felt so intensely guilty that she’d never realised just how much hardship Rose had endured and how much worry and pain and suffering she’d been hiding for her benefit. As excited as they had both been at the prospect of Lord Lucien inviting them to the castle - especially when he suggested the idea of them staying and living there with him - it was only after digging up that diary did Aya really understand why her sister had wished for that castle so badly. Because it was more than just food and a warm place to sleep, it represented the opportunity to be a child again. To be loved and looked after by a parent, and to be innocent again.

After taking over Castle Fairfax, Aya’s first self-appointed task was to find out what Lucien did with Rose’s body and recover her remains, which were late laid to rest in what eventually became the Royal Tomb. She couldn’t bring her sister back, not at the cost of so many others, but she could make sure she had an actual grave. A reminder that she had lived and she had mattered.

Seer

I have a hard time imagining Theresa being particularly ‘motherly’ but she did serve as Aya’s guardian during their time in the Traveller’s Camp, so she was the one to tend her wounds and such.

Once Aya was a little less dependent and could leave her caravan without the risk of her legs giving out beneath her, Theresa stepped back and let Aya’s care become more communal. She was very conscious of keeping an emotional distance because of what needed to be done. But they did forge a strange little bond, not quite as close as a mother and daughter, but not quite that of a student and mentor. Theresa cared in her own way, and Aya became quite attached in return. She was an adult looking after her in the wake of tragedy, and offered stability, safety, and the chance to do something about Lucien.

Things began to change along the way, however. When Theresa mentioned needing a Hero, not a pacifist monk, only for one of Lucien’s men to show up and give Hammer a reason to break her vow, Aya got a bad feeling. She didn’t want to think Theresa would have done that and ultimately she chose to say nothing because she needs Theresa to get to Lucien, and it was only in the Spire did it subside because it felt so inconsequential. Seeing her again afterwards, hearing her voice and being welcomed home after ten years was enough for Aya to disregard any suspicions she had. She was just happy to see her friend and guardian again, to know that she had not been forgotten.

But then Theresa takes the Spire for herself and Aya is shocked. She spends time, studying Lucien’s old diary, and realises that Theresa had been using her from the start. That for twenty years, she’d been a pawn in a game she hadn’t realised was being played. That broke something inside of her, and destroyed their relationship for good. She never trusted Theresa again after that, and it took a long time for her to learn to trust anyone again.

Future

Aya was the kind of parent who tried her best to be a good parent that her children could turn to while also trying to prepare them for the challenges that were to come. The loss of her first child had been incredibly hard on her, so it was a long time before she was ready for another.

But when Logan was born, she was head over heels for him almost immediately. She adored her son, and she wanted to do everything in her power to protect and prepare him. She brought him everywhere for the first few years of his life because she was terrified of what might happen if she wasn’t there, though she claimed it was so that he would be familiar with the environment of court and such for when he was king. She began to loosen up on that rule when he was about eight and she was expecting Lorna, but Logan always wanted to go anyway because he liked being involved and he wanted to learn so that he could be a good king. He’s a mama’s boy, always has been, and it’d be rare for him to not be hanging off her arm or sitting beside her, listening or asking questions or jabbering about something he’d learned from one of his tutors.

Aya didn’t spend quite as much time with Lorna as she did Logan, something she regretted in the end, but she adored her all the same. For a couple of years it was quite common to see Aya on the throne, Logan on her knee and Lorna cradled in her arm until Lorna was big enough to get bored and she wanted to go explore and play instead. When she realised that Lorna was the one who would decide the fate of both Albion and Aurora, she entrusted her training to Walter. She didn’t want her own experiences as a Hero to taint Lorna’s view of what being a Hero was like. She wanted her daughter to have the opportunity to be the kind of Hero that she couldn’t have been herself, and Walter could help her achieve that while she prepared Logan to be King.

Aya’s hopes were that Logan would be Albion’s King, and Lorna it’s Hero, and that the two would work together to protect their home and their people from the oncoming threat. She had hoped they would find their lives fulfilling and that they would be there for one another.

So naturally it would have broken her heart to see the state they end up in. She wouldn’t approve of the things Logan did, but her heart would hurt to see what the Darkness did to him, to see what he drove himself to out of fear and disappointed when he forced that lesson on his sister because what good did it do really?

Ultimately, she would blame herself because she knew that something was coming and she hadn’t warned him sufficiently. She had always hinted at things, she’d had plans and expectations that didn’t account for the trauma he’d suffered, and she realises that had she just laid it all out for Logan, then maybe he might have done things differently. Maybe someone would have believed him. And maybe he wouldn’t have betrayed everything she’d built, had she just… told him.

As for Lorna, Aya would be so very proud of her. The throne room debacle was never going to be fair, and it wasn’t fair to expect her to live up to her beliefs on the spot like that because it was such a rug pull. One moment everything was fine and then she was being ordered to decide who lived and who died. But it gave Lorna a reason to do better once she left the castle, and she was determined to get it right from there on out. She built up a revolution, took the throne, and then did her damndest to not only rebuild what Logan had torn down, but then worked to improve upon it, all while making her own personal sacrifices to ensure Albion’s safety.

And in doing so, Lorna succeeded not only in saving Albion and Aurora, but in living up to her ideal as a Hero. She kept her promises, she looked after her people, and she did the right thing even when greed would have made everything easier and less stressful. She was the ruler Logan couldn’t be, and the Hero that her mother didn’t think she was herself.