EVIE
Evie doesn’t know the last time she slept. Odd minutes and hours in corners or collapsed over her makeshift desk in the Infirmary, long blinks that end in startled awakenings. So few seem to have the healing arts these days, and Evie won’t allow her own exhaustion to be the reason another Halovian dies. So she works, and she prays - something still so new after seasons of solitude and spurned, bitter faithlessness - and she waits.
Waits, and touches the cuff at her ear like a fixation.
We are coming home.
Word travels fast in the wake of the attacks, Evie had commanded it so. The moment there is a disturbance at the gate she is made aware, and only the assurances of the guard - It’s Warden Deimos, ma’am, he’s returned - keeps her from reaching instinctively for her shield.
She runs all the same.
He looks as exhausted as she does, and Evie doesn’t even pretend to think that her own struggles while he was in the Draig at all compare to what he must have faced up there. But as she runs past the gate undergoing repairs to grab him tight. Heedless, careless, of any who might see them, she wraps her arms around him and clings tight. Hundreds of words choke up her throat, each seeking freedom and finding countless more in the way. Nothing suffices it seems, and it scalds her. “You’re alive. Gods, you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re home,” she cries into his shoulder, tears a rush of gratitude and relief instead of sorrow. “Are you okay? Are you injured - what can I do?” It comes out without her meaning to say it, a phrase she has been saying for countless hours, perhaps days now as she approaches each new bedside. What can I do?
Waits, and touches the cuff at her ear like a fixation.
We are coming home.
Word travels fast in the wake of the attacks, Evie had commanded it so. The moment there is a disturbance at the gate she is made aware, and only the assurances of the guard - It’s Warden Deimos, ma’am, he’s returned - keeps her from reaching instinctively for her shield.
She runs all the same.
He looks as exhausted as she does, and Evie doesn’t even pretend to think that her own struggles while he was in the Draig at all compare to what he must have faced up there. But as she runs past the gate undergoing repairs to grab him tight. Heedless, careless, of any who might see them, she wraps her arms around him and clings tight. Hundreds of words choke up her throat, each seeking freedom and finding countless more in the way. Nothing suffices it seems, and it scalds her. “You’re alive. Gods, you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re home,” she cries into his shoulder, tears a rush of gratitude and relief instead of sorrow. “Are you okay? Are you injured - what can I do?” It comes out without her meaning to say it, a phrase she has been saying for countless hours, perhaps days now as she approaches each new bedside. What can I do?
Don't look up, just let them think
There's no place else you'd rather be
There's no place else you'd rather be
