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nisaconite · 1 year

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daryl wishes the earthquake was the biggest of her problems.

but the bridge is collapsing, and the only way back home and away from the nightmare dimension she just barely escaped from is to cross it. she’s confident in both her own riding abilities and royal’s speed, but the air is filled with so much orange-brown dust, she can barely make out the crystals and stone pillars that fall apart all around them. the path ahead of them is strewn with obstacles, she can’t see the rest of her friends, and the girl she first traipsed into this whole mess to find isn’t looking so good.

she glances back to check on anne, noting with worry the way she slumps forward against her back, barely clinging onto her waist with what little energy she must have left. she doesn’t even look conscious, much less aware. can she really survive the jump through dimensions without, like, falling off? wincing at the thought, daryl momentarily loosens her grip on the reins to adjust anne’s hold around her. should she try to secure her somehow?

to her surprise, anne speaks up. “what’re you waiting for?” her speech is slurred, but she manages to convey her stressed impatience just fine.

“the bridge is collapsing,” daryl explains, trying to stay calm. she doesn’t think anne can see from her position. “i don’t know where the others are.”

anne coughs. “have to keep going. leave them.”

daryl bites her lip. out of it as she is, anne has a point. she isn’t going to find anyone just standing here, waiting for the stone beneath them to collapse. she has to trust their friends will have made it, especially since she’s the one carrying the passenger they’d risked their lives for.

without any argument, she nudges her heels into royal’s sides. she seems (understandably) hesitant to continue into what looks like a death trap, but she doesn’t balk and breaks into a canter. fear and dust chokes daryl into complete, intense silence, which might be the reason she manages to see the pillar that comes crashing down on the path ahead of them in time. they swerve, narrowly avoiding plummeting to their deaths in the empty space below, but don’t stop.

arches crumble over them. the turns are tight. they take one just a little too late and royal barrels sideways into a detoriating stone wall beside them, which is ultimately better than falling into nothingness, but still hurts. daryl’s leg drags strangely against the wall, and she bites back a sound of pain.

the swirling green at the end of the path keeps her going. so does anne’s head, lolling against her shoulder. she almost steers them into a ditch trying to make sure the older girl doesn’t slide off. anne wakes up to right herself, and she doesn’t say anything, but her simultaneous gratitude and annoyance is palpable. eyes on the road, she seems to say, tapping daryl lightly on the back. she gets the message.

her eyes sting, but she squints against the grit and hyperfixates on the enlargening blob of green until it’s the only thing she can see. there’s a weird pressure that comes with traversing an interdimensional bridge that won’t quite ease off her chest, but she stubbornly ignores it. green means home.

royal stumbles the last step into the portal, and despite the unsettling, unending black suddenly surrounding them, and the nausea of space warping around them, daryl feels like she can finally breathe. anne’s weight on her back and royal’s mane tangled around her fingers are anchors, and she clings to them.

the sky brightens into something foggy gray, and there are blurry figures rushing towards the three of them, spilling concerned words that daryl doesn’t care to listen to. she falls forwards against royal’s neck, and says to no one, “anne first.”

she can dismount herself, unsteady as she is, but she’s sure anne will hit the ground with no support to cling onto. it’s only when she feels the warmth of another body pressed against hers leeching away, and hears elizabeth’s careful voice telling her that it’s okay, anne’s safe, that she slides off royal’s back. she wobbles once, twice, right leg throbbing on impact, but rhiannon places a steadying hand on her shoulder before she can fall.

daryl blinks the dust from her eyes and finally absorbs her surroundings. they’re back in the guardian’s dale, anne leaning heavily against elizabeth for support and derek hovering around them in concern. linda and lisa look almost as disoriented as daryl feels, perched on the edge of the empty stone fountain in the centre of the dale. daryl is so relieved to see them that she nearly tears herself from rhiannon’s grasp to insert herself between them.

“you did great,” lisa whispers, nestling her head against her shoulder. linda’s arm wraps around both their shoulders, as far as she can reach. “you brought anne back to us.”

“it’s over,” linda smiles, and her eyes close behind her glasses. she tips her head to the sky, as if basking in the respite. “we did it.”

and in the lightening of the burden on their shoulders, it’s really fair that they don’t notice alex’s absence until tin-can comes galloping through the portal, sweaty and frantic and most concerningly, saddle empty. every head in the dale whips towards him, and daryl shoots to her feet. beside her, linda inhales sharply, and lisa curses.

“where’s alex?”

“she was right behind me, right behind me,” lisa whispers, so quietly that daryl has a feeling she’s reproaching herself rather than telling anyone else. “i swear.”

daryl is not one for offering comfort, not usually, but she reaches out to graze lisa’s hand in silent commiseration. when she tries to tug it back to herself awkwardly, lisa’s fingers tangle around hers, squeezing her hand tight. she’s shaking.

she went after him, tin-can announces breathlessly. not many in the dale can hear him, but those that do all stiffen. i tried to stop her, but-

but alex is stubborn and headstrong and will not take no for an answer. he doesn’t need to say it. they all know how she is, and they all love her for it, but at the same time, daryl can’t stand it when she pulls stuff like this. darko nearly killed them all, sure, and he held anne prisoner for far too long, but they’re not ready to face him now.

not like this.

“we have to-“ linda is already stumbling to mount meteor, eyes wide. “she needs help.”

“we’re losing the portal,” evergray warns. “there’s a chance chaos space will close on whoever goes in now. they’ll be trapped.”

and with that, daryl knows. elizabeth is already halfway back into the portal, her slim figure melting into the glow, but as much as she likes to play up her strength to make them feel safer, her generation of soul riders has passed. the chances of her being able to tap in the sun circle now are slim. anne is weak, probably unconscious again by now. daryl has the best chance of being able to reopen the portal if it closes on her, unpredictable as her powers are, and royal will be her anchor on the other side.

she ignores the knot that forms in her stomach at the thought of going back.

without a word of warning, she slips around the panic in the circle. she doesn’t need anyone to try and stop her now, and she definitely doesn’t want her friends endangering themselves on her behalf. she’s made up her mind. alex is strong, but she doesn’t stand half a chance in these conditions. elizabeth will help, but daryl is their way out. their emergency exit.

she steps into blackness, and when the pressure lifts, her vision adjusts to see disintegrating stone and a sky so filled with smog it almost looks brown now, instead of the burnt orange it had been before. and in the distance, two tiny figures attack each other with bright sparks of electricity. alex’s magic is thinning, and she looks like she’s losing badly. the only reason daryl can tell who is who through the awful visibility is because the streaks of lightning are brightly coloured to each one’s preference.

she sprints forward as best as she can with her leg still aching, but a wide fissure in the rock separates her and elizabeth from alex and darko. she swears in dismayed frustration. she can’t make that jump. it isn’t humanly possible.

alex’s free hand is trembling violently with effort and exertion. she’s yelling, but daryl can’t quite hear what she’s saying through the wind and the distance. but darko’s voice carries. he isn’t fading in exhaustion the way alex is, and so she can make out fragments of his speech.

“without - soul - just an angry girl from the streets.”

it happens quickly after that. alex’s remaining strength finally gives to darko’s, and she’s thrown back against a collapsed wall, now a pile of rubble. daryl lurches forward at the sound of alex’s strangled, agonized scream, but there’s nothing she can do.

darko stands triumphant, and absolutely unaffected. “you are nothing, alex cloudmill. unhinged. unworthy.”

rage bubbles up in daryl’s throat. she wants nothing more than to wipe that smile off his face and get alex the hell out of here. her palms feel hot, almost to the point of being painful, and she barely registers the moment she bursts into a bright explosion of light. it does nothing - it’s just light - but it certainly gets darko’s attention.

“enough,” elizabeth snaps when he whips around to look at them. “alex is the brightest soul i’ve ever known. you won’t touch her again, i swear by aideen.”

“oh, elizabeth sunbeam,” darko greets cheerfully, unbothered. “the last vestige of a failed sisterhood. and what do you know? she’s started to care for trash again. that’ll make this a lot more satisfying, at least.”

and then he turns to alex again. daryl makes a choked sound of protest, turning to elizabeth in a silent plea. do something. please. do something. she’ll die. she doesn’t know what elizabeth could possibly do, but just. please.

elizabeth meets her eyes for a single moment, and her own are so full of determination that daryl can barely find it in herself to be surprised when she suddenly flashes onto the other side of the ravine in a surge of pink. it happened so fast that daryl would have said she teleported if she hadn’t felt the power of the sun circle around her just then. the last bit of magic elizabeth has left, and she manages to pull it out at just the right moment. daryl would laugh if she wasn’t so scared.

but as it turns out, she doesn’t need to be. elizabeth has darko on the ground in a second, unconscious, and then she’s rushing forward to help alex up. she looks so concerned, so worried, and maybe that’s why daryl is the only one to see darko’s pale blue eyes snap open.

“elizabeth! elizabe-!”

elizabeth is solidified in the same pink crystal that had, not too long ago, trapped anne for months on end. pandorian magic, harnessed in a way it was never meant to be. darko approaches leisurely and smugly, clearly not worried about any more threats being posed towards him. alex looks terrified, but she is well and incapacitated.

and daryl yells and storms and curses, glowing brightly, but her powers are as useless as ever. she emits frequent and desperate flashes of light, hurling it all at the wizard, but darko just looks annoyed as he squints against the blinding brightness. he waves a hand, and glowing orange twine snakes its way up daryl’s legs and over her body. she struggles, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t move a muscle.

she can’t do anything but watch.

alex looks like she’s talking, tears streaming down her face as she pleads quietly, but darko is unmoving and elizabeth reassures her in warm tones. and then she uses what must be the last reserve of her sparse magic, effusing a bright pink spark that throws darko back to what must be his death. alex screams. when the light clears, elizabeth is gone, and daryl is free from any restraints.

she’s also completely alone. everything is dark. there’s no light from the portal, no magic brightening the sky, no clear pathways or arches to lead the way. she lifts her hand, trying to summon some light to her fingertips, but all she gets is a scorching heat that rushes up the entirety of her arm and leaves her doubled over for a good few seconds.

clearly, darko’s magic has some unpleasant side effects. she just hopes this isn’t permanent, especially since he’s dead, and wouldn’t be able to fix it under threat of, well, death.

she’s afraid to move, convinced she’ll walk straight off the edge of a cliff or something, but she needs to find alex. with what would be painstaking caution if the sky wasn’t pitch black, daryl starts walking, tripping over loose rocks and protruding cobblestones. she doesn’t stop until she sees a ring of mushrooms (?) that glow a faint purple not too far away.

she breathes a silent sigh of relief. any light is good. she can stop there and pick up a few of the mushrooms to act as glowsticks. not as effective as her magic would be, but it’s better than nothing.

she’s not expecting to find alex curled up against the sharp rocks behind the mushrooms, hand clutched limply to her chest, legs twisted at an odd angle. the fight must have done a number on her. how did she get here, anyway? hadn’t she been on the opposite side of the rift? did daryl go around, somehow? could she have done that earlier, stopped a disaster in its tracks?

her nails dig into her palms. she only breaks herself out of her thoughts when the other girl starts to sob - soft, broken sounds that daryl wouldn’t have heard if not for the dead silence that rings unnervingly through chaos space.

alex barely lifts her head to look at her. “she’s… she’s really gone.”

daryl’s heart sinks, and she has to fight back a sudden wave of her own tears. she doesn’t know what she’d been expecting, but elizabeth had clearly dealt that last blow on her own terms. and if alex hadn’t been with daryl when the dust cleared, who had been to say that elizabeth wasn’t out there somewhere, too, injured but alive?

“i-“ daryl stops. she doesn’t know what to say. her throat feels tight. “i know. yeah. alex…”

she sits down heavily next to the other girl, careful not to aggravate any of the injuries she’s sure alex has but isn’t going to mention. she doesn’t know what to do. she can’t even use her light magic, much less tap into a circle she can barely harness the power of on a good day. she can’t get them out of here.

but they can’t just die here. she has to do something.

daryl shifts, then gets up. “i’m going to look for a way out. maybe… the portal hasn’t closed yet.”

she knows it isn’t true even as she says it. if there was even the slightest hint of a portal somewhere, they’d be able to see its conspicuous glow from miles away in the dark. and although she may not have much magic of her own right now, daryl would still be able to sense any of the other circles if they’d been active right now. instead, she’d felt the ripple of sun magic dying away as the portal closed behind them, effectively trapping them between worlds.

but there’s nothing else to do but cling to false hope.

alex has to have come to the same conclusion as her, because she brushes a hand across her face, blinks back tears, and starts to lift herself off the ground, wincing as she moves. “i can help.”

“no.” daryl pushes her back down, gently but firmly. “there’s no point wasting your energy if there isn’t anything. you’re in no shape to be running around in the dark.”

alex snorts derisively. “don’t think i didn’t see you dragging your leg around like a dead weight. we’re both beat up.”

daryl pauses. she genuinely hadn’t realized it was bad enough that anybody else would have noticed it. she must have been limping on instinct without meaning to. “well,” she says, ready to lie alex into placation, “it doesn’t hurt. it isn’t very recent.”

“whatever,” alex dismisses, settling back against the rock. she wraps her arms around herself, rolling the sleeves of her thin jacket back down. it’s getting colder. chaos space must be ridding itself of the remaining earth life that had leaked in with the portal open for so long. daryl hopes to aideen that warmth and light are the only things the bridge will reject to host, and not two human teenagers left behind on it.

she plucks a couple of mushrooms from the ground, tucking one into her pocket and using the other one as a makeshift flashlight as she picks a random direction to start going in. it doesn’t actually help much, the light too small and faint to illuminate much more than the hand she holds it in, but it’s still comforting to have in the dark.

daryl wanders through unfamiliar tunnels and passages for a long time. she’s not sure how many turns she takes, and she’s not keeping track in the slightest, but she’s not very worried about getting lost. now that she has no goal, having found alex, the pessimistic part of her whispers that she has all the time in the world to navigate back to her starting point. it doesn’t even really matter if she never does, because they’re not going anywhere anyway.

the pandorian crystals that once decorated corners like bushes would a forest have been leeched of their colour, varying in shades of pale grey and white now. daryl, caught up in aimlessly observing them, almost trips over a crack in the ground. the only reason she catches herself before she does is because from what looks like underneath the stone, white sparks flicker brightly.

daryl frowns and kneels to inspect it. she hovers her hand over it, and upon finding that it doesn’t seem warm, places a tentative couple of fingers on top of it. it’s cold to the touch, but what really catches her attention is the way a single sphere of light emerges from the crack and floats forward, disappearing into the dark.

she watches it go, then touches the crack again. nothing happens.

she sighs and continues on, in the direction the light had gone in. she only realizes that she’s been going in large circles when she stumbles on alex dozing behind the same ring of mushrooms as before. she’s shifting constantly, and her position doesn’t seem very comfortable, but daryl decides it’s best to let her get some rest. it’s not like she has any news to share with her. she settles down beside her, the rock digging into her back as she closes her eyes and leans back.

she must fall asleep, because the next thing she knows alex is shaking her shoulder, grey eyes tired and lit a strange colour by the mushrooms. “daryl. hey, daryl.”

“alex?” she replies hoarsely. it’s only when she’s awake does she notice how cold and uneasy her sleep had been. her neck hurts, but it’s nothing compared to her leg. it might be worse than she had previously thought.

“find anything?”

daryl debates telling her about the glowing crack, which she only vaguely remembers, then decides against giving her what’s probably nothing. “i think i must have gone around the whole place. i didn’t turn back when i found you.”

“and the portal?” alex presses. she doesn’t seem very hopeful, but she must have been holding something out for going home, otherwise she wouldn’t be asking.

daryl hesitates, swallows hard. she hadn’t needed to spend all that time looking to know the answer, but that doesn’t mean she wants to admit it. lying is pointless, though. “…it’s gone.”

“no way forward, no way back,” alex observes after a moment of stricken silence. there isn’t a trace of surprise to be found on her face. “elizabeth gave her life for nothing.”

daryl’s jaw tightens. “elizabeth gave her life for you,” she corrects. she’s surprised either of them are able to talk about it so easily, fresh as the wound is. as if it’s reversible. as if any of this is escapable. alex seems to have long since run out of tears, and daryl refuses to let herself shed any.

“yeah, and i’m good as dead right now. not like there’s anything to live on in chaos space.” alex looks away. when the silence stretches on too long, she must get frustrated because she snaps, “admit it, daryl. we’re not going anywhere.”

but daryl stays quiet - she doesn’t need to admit it. she already knows. sooner or later, they’re bound to die of thirst and starvation or maybe even hypothermia; the place is growing to be freezing and they’re both shivering violently, subconsciously, she realizes, huddled together for warmth.

“if she just hadn’t bothered to come for me-“

“shut up, alex.” daryl stands abruptly, patience fraught. “i’m going to look around again.”

she wonders as she walks away, down a different path than she had before, if she should turn back and elaborate on her intentions to alex, lessen the blow of her sharp words a little. tell her that she just couldn’t keep sitting around, or that she was hoping to find… something.

but she doesn’t want to see the hurt on alex’s face, the self-loathing and the anger and everything else. she knows that the tension the situation has brought on both of them will only make things worse. if she sits there trying to tune out alex for a minute longer, it’s very likely that she’ll say something she’ll regret.

she drifts around aimlessly for a while, lost in thought and occasionally trying out her magic again. she doesn’t accomplish much, but the pain whenever she attempts to summon light has definitely lessened. she thinks she sees her palm glow faintly at one point, and forces a small smile in the dark.

“crap!” she exclaims suddenly, the reaction compulsorily slipping out of her when she walks straight into a small outcropping that bruises her knees. she’s face to face with a patch of long grass, which is… glowing?

pushing aside the colourless plants, daryl realizes the light is actually coming from the ground, similar to the crack that she’d come across before. she grips the edge of the small precipice, hauling herself up to perch on the edge so she can place her palm over the crack. this time, she doesn’t hesitate, and when the light emerges from the ground, she jumps up to follow it.

it disappears after a few seconds, but daryl isn’t disappointed. the rock bridge-like formation it lead her to is glowing just slightly, enough for her to know the wisp had been guiding her to cross it. she isn’t sure what’s going on, but that glow looks like the one that had been cast across the memories linda had once transported her to with her magic. whatever these wisps are, they’re a product of the moon circle.

daryl pauses halfway across the bridge. when she’d touched that first crack, she’d immediately found her way back to alex… and then she’d thought that she’d been going in circles, but what if it had been moon magic, using illusions to lead her back to where she needed to go? is there still a way out somewhere?

she tries not to let the hope she suddenly has bubble up in her chest, but it’s too late. she’s desperate, hurrying her steps in an attempt to find the next crack. there has to be more.

and there is. she turns around a column and finds another one, which lights up an arch. she’s almost running now, and is it just her, or is the place getting lighter? she definitely doesn’t need to watch her step as much. another crack, and a tunnel has a faint white light emitting from the other end of it.

she stops. there’s the paranoid fear in the back of her mind that if she doesn’t hurry, the magic will die and stop working, but if she is, by some miracle, being led out of this place, she needs to find alex. she doesn’t know how to get back to her, but maybe the wisps will. they probably don’t understandian jorvegian, or human speech at all, but she’s hoping they will get the gist of the problem. they brought her to alex the first time, after all.

“i need to find my friend,” she says into the air, feeling a little stupid. “i’m not leaving without alex. do you know where she is?”

there’s no response. the tunnel is still pulsing with faint light.

“alex!” daryl yells, cupping her hands to her mouth. the problem isn’t that she doesn’t think the other girl won’t hear her (sound happens to carry in a place that’s dead silent and full of tunnels), but that she won’t know how to find her. the echo that bounces around the stone makes it nearly impossible to know where any sound is coming from. “alex!”

“daryl!” alex sounds panicked. “what happened? where are you? i’m coming!”

“i’m fine!” daryl shouts, relieved to even hear her voice. alex must think she’s in danger somehow; the shouting likely gave her the wrong impression. “i think i might have found something! you need to get over here quickly!”

“oh, yeah, i’ll just magically track you through this maze!” it’s hard to sound sarcastic while yelling, but alex manages. “where the hell is ‘here’?”

daryl runs through solutions in her mind. alex could use lightning to send up a beacon of some sort, but her magic is likely depleted after her fight with darko and might make her injuries worse. she could try to ask the wisps for help again, see if they can somehow brighten enough for alex to see. or…

daryl opens her palms and stares down at them intently. “please work.” a sharp sting travels up to her elbows, locking them uncomfortably, but it’s nothing compared to the pain she’d felt before. “please work.” the lines of her hand start to glow red-pink, as if she’d stuck a flashlight on the other side of it. “please work!” something clicks, and she straightens her arm into the air triumphantly, projecting a beam of light into the sky. it’s not as bright as it normally would be, and it occasionally flickers, but it’s hard to miss nonetheless.

“i see it!” alex yells before daryl can ask. “hang on!”

she waits impatiently, tapping her foot and eyeing the lit tunnel worriedly. the discomfort in her arm almost distracts from the fear that the wisps will stop working at any moment now. finally, she hears echoing footsteps close by, and whips around in time to see alex stumble around the last corner.

“took a few wrong turns,” she explains breathlessly. now, with a better source of light illuminating her features, daryl can see the burn marks and long scratches decorating her face. “what’s going on?”

daryl wordlessly points down the tunnel. “that way.”

she makes sure to keep pace with alex, but doesn’t further explain. instead, she lets alex see for herself, pressing down on each crack she finds and then following the trail it leaves. she doesn’t know what she’s expecting it to end at, but she’s so surprised when she hears the faint notes of music in the distance that she nearly trips.

“do you-“

“it’s coming from over there,” alex interrupts, eyes wide. she takes a few steps to the left, nodding. “yeah.”

daryl grabs her wrist. “but the cracks-“

“are gone,” alex says impatiently, nodding at the surprisingly smooth path ahead of them, in the direction they’d been going. “it must have been bringing us to hear this. come on. before…”

she doesn’t finish. she’s already speed-walking towards the music, daryl close behind. the further they go, the more familiar the voice sounds, the more distinct the instrument playing behind it, until it dawns on daryl why she knows that song.

“no way,” she breathes.

“lisa!” alex cries, the first smile daryl’s seen on her since they first came through the portal breaking out across her face. “it’s lisa. hurry, before she gives up and stops!”

“she won’t,” daryl promises, almost as much to assure herself as it is meant for alex. she can’t stand the chance of that happening. “they’re trying to get us out. the light was linda, and now lisa’s making noise so we know where to go...”

“you think anne made a portal?”

they’re running now. daryl’s leg slows her down, and it hurts worse than ever, but she’s not about to let another opportunity slip through her fingers like this. she can worry about pain later, when she’s safe and has gotten alex out of here. “probably.”

“if she can’t hold it,” alex says desperately.

“she will.”

“no, listen,” alex insists. “if she can’t, you can use what’s left of her magic in here to make one yourself. it’s possible. can you sense the sun circle?”

daryl reaches past the music, listening for the familiar sound of a portal breaching space itself. she’s never known if it’s a sun circle thing, or if anyone can hear it if they just listen closely enough, but the sound helps her focus on the magic instead of being overwhelmed by the power. sure enough, she can feel the burn of what could be comparable to fireworks tingling through her. it’s… different than what she’s used to, but there’s no mistaking the heat of the sun circle.

“yes,” she answers tightly, too caught up in trying not to lose the feeling to say much more.

“good,” alex says. she has her ‘magic tutor’ voice on again, a sharp contrast to the despondency she’d embodied earlier. “hold on to it. maybe your magic feels different than anne’s. so make it yours. instead of doing all the work to summon your own, just keep hers to use later.”

daryl tries to imagine ribbons of pink slithering past her. she reaches out, clenching her fist and pulling them towards her, but they slip through her fingers like sand. she can’t quite get ahold of them; it feels like trying to take something that isn’t hers, like anne is holding it all close to her chest somewhere back on jorvik.

“i can’t,” she tells alex in frustration, yanking the heat towards her again. it barely budges.

“why not?” alex retorts. “what does it feel like? what does yours feel like?”

“hers is just… showy. it’s like an explosion. mine is more subtle, but a lot warmer.” daryl struggles to explain what she feels. “like when something is so hot, it starts to feel cold.”

“so don’t just take it, strengthen it! make it hotter. make it feel like yours.”

daryl pushes her magic out, into the stream of anne’s. she doesn’t have enough to make her own portal, but as the two mix together, she feels it start to increase in power, until it’s subtle and frigid and controllable. once again, daryl tries to take the magic over, but this time, it complies. she shivers, the sudden heat taking her by surprise.

“there!” alex exclaims suddenly. she doesn’t touch daryl - she knows better than anyone how easily concentration can be broken, especially when magic is involved - but gestures excitedly, ushering her forward. daryl forces her gaze up for a second, catching a glimpse of bright, swirling pink that’s rapidly growing smaller, fainter. alex is speeding up, fear seeping into her features, but daryl doesn’t give herself time to worry about it. she forces the magic she’s collected into the portal, enlargening it once again. they’re both so surprised when the magic swallows them instead of them having to run into it that they both tumble forward awkwardly.

space folds in around them for a moment, and all daryl can think is that it’s going to reject them, that the mix of magic will malfunction and spit them back out, but then they land in a heap on the cool marble of the guardian’s dale. the sky is foggy, but a stark contrast from the black of chaos space all the same.

daryl doesn’t bother getting up. for a moment, she just lies there, basking in the uncomfortable humidity and the sparse drops of water that splash against her face. if a few tears leak out to mix with the rain, well, nobody has to know. her chest feels strangely hollow. now that no one is in any immediate danger, she can feel the exhaustion kicking in, the urge to just block it all out and not care about anything else for the next few days.

finally, and only because getting home to climb in bed and burrow in the covers sounds better than lying on the ground, daryl sits up and surveys the situation. anne is unconscious, avalon spitting out questions that neither her nor alex bother to answer, lisa and linda hovering over the both of them frantically, rhiannon scolding-

daryl says harshly, “i think it’s time to let us go home.”

“home,” linda mutters, “that sounds nice.”

“where’s elizabeth?”

daryl’s not sure who the question comes from, but she swears her heart stops for a moment. alex starts crying again. and daryl can’t stand that, doesn’t want to have to force her friend to recount everything, so she’s the one to do it.

“she’s gone,” she hears herself say, and it takes her aback to realize just how detached she sounds. she hopes no one takes her for uncaring. “she sacrificed herself, and she - darko’s dead. he was going to… going to-“

enough, royal demands, cutting her off. she sends warm, reassuring thoughts through the bond, and daryl’s never felt so grateful for her soul horse. when she continues out loud, though, she sounds defensive and indignant. these girls need rest. the explanations can come tomorrow.

“but-“ avalon. daryl pities him in that moment, she really does, because he cared for elizabeth and he sounds a little broken. but they all are, and she has no sympathy to offer him.

no, royal’s right, starshine agrees. haven’t they been through enough?

this is not a time for questions, meteor pitches in. tin-can says, tomorrow. nobody is in any state for this.

alex whispers, “thank you.”

it could be said that daryl has been through hell and back today, but somehow she dreads the thought of just having to summon up the energy to ride home. tomorrow means being home, but she doesn’t want it to be tomorrow, either. tomorrow means facing the truth.

(daryl wishes the earthquake had been the biggest of her problems.)

#sso #star stable #my writing #writing #anne von blyssen #sso mc #alex cloudmill #linda chanda #lisa peterson #elizabeth sunbeam #avalon sso #evergray sso #main quest #main quest spoilers #rewrite

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