[KQ] Bigger A(spire)ations

RONIN if there's one thing i'm good at, it's surviving They had done it. Ronin's blue eyes widened in shock at the detonation, so sudden and so immediate, that blinded him with white hot rays of should-have-been pain. While externally what happened to him was undeniably brutal, a series of lacerations and burns and breaks from which his body would never recover, he felt only warmth. Warmth and comfort, and a nagging sensation that something must have been somehow wrong. The sound of Safrin's voice, like a song on the wind, allowed him to put the pieces together. "Ah," he whispered through lips red with blood. "You did say you would come, didn't you?" Because as disorientating as this all was, Safrin had said she would be with him until the end. And if she was here, then... then this must be it. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more," he rasped, closing his eyes against the touch in his hair, the soft fingers across his face. "C'mon, you can't go breaking any more rules for me. People will start to whisper about us." He tried a laugh but it ended in a hacking cough that tasted copper. He blinked over her shoulder as she told him to look, inhaling softly at the glory of the cosmos that spread up above, at the rippling velvet of the sky, of the stars... Of the star. Of Vanya. Of her laughter, her smile, beckoning him up to warm sands and cool breezes. "Oh," he choked, eyes growing misty. "So she is. We'll sail the sky together." Tearing his gaze away at the mention of his daughter, he gritted his teeth. "Tell her I didn't mean to leave her too," he whispered, tears leaving a trail of clean through the blood and the dirt on his face. Safrin moved back and Ronin felt his feet beneath him, though his eyes were back on the sky. "But I want to..." Oh. Oh. That's right. Glancing around, up at the edges of the pit, through the dust and the debris, Ronin tried to spot his friends.