I will fight the end
Before he can look around, everyone is leaving. Ronin feels the world pressing in under the helmet, watching the boys sink - two of them not surfacing. His breath just won’t seem to come, like he’s in there with them, and he spots him, he spots Sunjata, bobbing like a cork in the riotous pull of the river. What the fuck are you doing, he wants to scream at the crowd, staggering back and retrieving the gun.
His mind has no idea what to do with it, but the dream he’s hijacked does, and he cocks it and readies it towards the other guards on the bank. Bullets bark out of it, the noise utterly foreign to the Taliesin who holds the weapon, but it’s enough to send a scattering of warning shots towards the riverbank.
Throwing it down again, he wrenches the helmet off and takes a full, panicky gulp of air. Then he’s running for the edge of the bridge, throwing himself into the water. And gods is it cold, even with the gear he’s wearing. Ronin has to fight the current, has to fight the debris that threatens to drag at him, and distantly he knows he needs to change this. He needs to shape it, to steer it into something shared, something more than this nightmare.
But there’s the boy, and Ronin is swimming for him. He gets there in time to realise he’s stuck fast, and he slips under the water, trying to free his foot from the rock.
His mind has no idea what to do with it, but the dream he’s hijacked does, and he cocks it and readies it towards the other guards on the bank. Bullets bark out of it, the noise utterly foreign to the Taliesin who holds the weapon, but it’s enough to send a scattering of warning shots towards the riverbank.
Throwing it down again, he wrenches the helmet off and takes a full, panicky gulp of air. Then he’s running for the edge of the bridge, throwing himself into the water. And gods is it cold, even with the gear he’s wearing. Ronin has to fight the current, has to fight the debris that threatens to drag at him, and distantly he knows he needs to change this. He needs to shape it, to steer it into something shared, something more than this nightmare.
But there’s the boy, and Ronin is swimming for him. He gets there in time to realise he’s stuck fast, and he slips under the water, trying to free his foot from the rock.
'til the end is here
