#sweets solace

-

Mev can feel the stress in her neck and knee start to let up as the doors of the lab open before her, and while she’s used to coming across other trolls in the lobby, she hasn’t expected anyone this late. The sun is nearly up… not that Solare has ever seemed to care.

She and Dari are arguing in hushed tones, the discomfort of the latter plain in her face, her stance.

Mevrea ignores the protective urge that swells between her shoulder blades as it spurs her to the pair.

“Dude, I’m not fucking around- I’m game for a good friendly spar, but there’s no point in even trying with you. At least Mev gives me a chance, tells me what I did wrong. Go find someone else to hack open.”

Mev can’t see Solare’s reaction as Dari turns to leave, but she can hear the low growl. Can almost feel it, as she draws close. Can see the lines of her muscles flexing in her arms, for a moment. She may not have worked with the drinker often, but she knows well enough the signs before the woman pounces. And in the instant that it registers, Solare strikes.

Her axe almost seems to leap into her hand with how practiced the motion is, and Mev doesn’t have time enough to step in before Dari’s pulled off balance by the arm, stumbling back into Solare, and she swears she sees fangs before she even gets to her own mace. Dari makes a strangled, startled noise, and Solare is turning to face Mev, the blade of her axe resting close enough under the woman’s jaw to trim peach fuzz as she glares from where she’s burrowed into Dari’s throat. She almost looks excited, as Dari’s blood stains her lips, drawing from its usual golden orange to a nearly royal fuschia.

“Let her up, Sol.”

Mev has no clue what she looks like as she adjust her grip on the mace, but she can the crease beside her nose as she bares her teeth.

When Solare lifts her head, she’s grinning.

There’s a second of stillness, then. Two murderers sizing each other up. And, for just that second, Mev wonders distantly if she’s going to make it out of this.

Then Dari is thrown into her and as she’s pushing her off, Solare buried her axe in Dari’s ribs, and Mev can feel ribs split just as much as she can hear it. But of course, that’s not where it ends.

She lets her fall to the floor- Mev can apologize for that later- and throws her arms up to block the second axe that’s being swung for her this time. It embeds itself in one arm, and she thanks whatever higher powers there may be as Solare tries to wrench it free, and instead, it sticks. She makes another mental note to apologize to Sweets later as she swings for the drinker’s knee once, twice before axe comes loose and they’re falling away from each other. Mev can feel her left arm malfunctioning already, but honestly, that’s hardly a surprise. All she plans to use it for now is as something of a shield.

Solare is favoring one leg as she catches herself, and Mev can’t help but feel a touch of pride.

Pride that is entirely forgotten as she’s crowded into much faster than she expected, and Solare is swinging wildly enough that all she can do is back out of reach as best she can until she manages to knock the axe off its path, metal crying against metal, and she kicks for the same leg-

And she receives a fist in the throat before it can connect.

-

Sweets would have written off the argument as nothing, initially. Dari and Sol argue any time they’re in a room together, any more, and it always turns out fine.

Until I doesn’t.

She’s chatting with Doc, when the fight erupts. He’s not seen either of them fight before, and he’d be lying if he said that she had hoped for that to change. But here they are.

By the time Sweets’s attention is back on the lobby, Dari is bleeding on the floor, and Solare is lunging over her, and… it’s not even seconds before, in a movement that looks far too practiced, Solare is hacking off one of Mev’s arms.

Sweets isn’t breathing. And she can’t look away. And if he could wince as the drinker wails on his best friend, he would. But, for better and for worse, the restraints hold sturdy. Probably a good thing that the both of them don’t get hurt too badly, honestly.

Mev hits the ground, and Solare swings the back of the axe into her head, and Sweets isn’t sure if that’s the sound of her horn cracking or not, and then his view is obscured as Solare steps over her.

Something about that shakes Sweets enough to be able to react, and he cuts on the intercom for Doc’s office, and she can hear how much her voice shakes.

“Um… Doc… Doc it’s real bad- Mev’s hurt. Mev’s hurt, and Dari, I don’t think she’s breathing, and-“

Sweets is too aware of the moment when the motion in the lobby stops. And he hears Solare’s voice.

“Sweets, dear, you’re going to want to let me out.”

He wasn’t paying attention. Solare is stood before the doors, facing away from the cameras, and she’s got her axes back on her hips, hands folded behind her back.

Sweets opens the doors, and locks them as soon as they close behind her.

-

Dari isn’t sure how long it takes for her to come back, this time, but she can hear Solare talking, somewhere to her left. And when she’s able to make sense of things, she can see Mev… and quite a lot of blood. Gods, that’s… more blood than should be on the floor. And wall. And…

Dari pushes herself to her feet far too fast in her haste to get across the room, and she sees colors nearly until she trips over Mev’s own feet.

When her vision returns, she sees into the woman so much more than she ever wanted to. Bits of organ and ribs are exposed, and she can see hints of her own blood mixed in with all the other mixing hues that Mev is bleeding, and all she can think is that she needs to help. She’d bleed herself a dozen times over, if it meant Mev would survive… this mess.

And it seems that she’s not the only one with the idea, as Doc falls to her knees at her side, blade in hand.

The press of it into her wrist stings, and between that and the dizziness that comes after dying again, she lets the doctor guide her arm.

It takes a few moments before Mev seems to realize what’s going on, and… she looks horrified. She’s trying to push herself back against the wall, eyes wide with panic, and if Dari wasn’t so sure that she were about to die, she’d give in in a heartbeat, but… she has no choice. Even if her arm wasn’t being held in an iron grip, she would have no choice.