They say time is relative. "Put your hands on a hot stove and a second can seem like an hour. Put your hands on a hot woman, and an hour can seem like a second." For Imrhien, the day she went back to Hale's Moon after smuggling her family off of Persephone was an eternity.
Td was gone. He hadn't said where or why, but she had a fairly good notion about the why part. The loss left her gasping for air, scrambling for a foothold to keep her from plummeting into some unknown void. Td. He was her rock, he kept her grounded and real and solid. He was the Alpha male to her Alpha female. She had ached and agonized over him for so long, walked away from him as a lover to keep him as a friend, and somehow along the road, they had found eachother again, and suddenly, she had been allowed to love him. Now he was gone. Just gone.
So the curse existed. Oh, she knew it had. How could it not have? First losing her unfaithful fiance, then her distracted husband? She'd feared it with Td, a knot tightening in her chest as he'd dropped to one knee and asked for her hand in marriage. But she'd thrown caution to the wind and accepted despite that fear. And now, she'd lost him, too. Probably forever.
Then there was the wave from Belize with regard to Duncan. She'd fallen in love with him - not that it was hard to do - and they were seeing eachother. The news meant three things to Imrhien: Duncan had come back to Hale's Moon, she had truly lost him forever, as well, and Belize would finally be happy.
Standing in Fook's with some of the townsfolk, she was greeted by even worse news. Lily had died in childbirth. That loss hit her like a house dropping on her head. Lily. She remembered Lily when she first started venturing into Blackburne Downport, this skittish little hairless anthro mutant, and how slowly, she came to trust the people there. She started staying around, and oh, how she'd grown on all of them... Not just into a striped, gorgeous not-cat with a penchant for blundering familiar words like insemination (in salmon nation), anniversary (ants in the 'verse), and amniotic (annie optic), but in their hearts as an adored resident of the town. Imrhien had adopted Lily along with Td, Seana, and Sabrina, hoping to protect her and love her, since Lily was technically a child and unfit to make decisions in her own interest. It had gone very badly between Lily and Imrhien from almost the get-go, with Lily mimcking Imrhien, and Imrhien grasping the reins of motherhood with a bit too sharp of a yank. But in the end of the struggle, both knew they were loved by the other.
Poor Lily. She'd obsessed for months and months over babies - where they came from, what caused them, how they were born. First it was babies growing in pumpkins, then it was needing fish oil to make one in the salmon nation, then it was faeries bringing them in seashells. Now, she was a mother, but had died before she could experience the joy of it.
She was utterly numb. The loss of so much in so short a time was entirely devastating to Imrhien. She could barely wrap her mind around it all. So she stood there, a hair's breadth from going limp, and stared at a spot on the wall, her arms hanging heavily at her sides, utterly powerless. She didn't know how long she stood there, maybe it was a moment, maybe an hour, maybe a day, maybe a week. And she came to a conclusion.
Love was pain. Love was loss. And love was not for her, because it inevitably led to catastrophe. It was a conclusion she had come to long before, but had foolishly pushed aside in the hope that she was wrong about it. But now, it was back and it was real and it was profound, and the only thing keeping her from screaming until she was mute was that numbness that had washed over her and left her in a state of deathly calm.
Then, the Reavers came.
Screams of terror ripped through the town, echoing off buildings and getting lost somewhere out in the desert, followed by snarls and vicious howls. The town was under attack, townsfolk running around in terror to find a safe place to hide, or else with weapons to defend the defenseless.
Imrhien's body snapped into action almost without thought. She had been there and done that a hundred times before, so it was like second nature to her, running out into the fray, Fear and Pain brandished steady in position, ready for their first prey. No need to bring her tortured mind into it, it would only muck things up and get her killed.
Engaging one Reaver that was chasing after a screaming woman, she brought Pain slashing down in a blurred arc, catching the mutilated horror from behind in its shoulder and cutting a good way through its upper torso before running Fear through its mid-back, slicing her katana free through organs and bone. The Reaver dropped to the ground, its ruined body bleeding what was left of its life out, and she screamed.
It wasn't a scream of fear, but something primal, announcing first blood to the heavens, a challenge to her enemies. Reaching down, she let the fingers of both her hands sink into the Reaver's flesh, then drew them up to her face and dragging each digit simultaneously across her cheeks, leaving three bloody lines on each side. War paint. She had somehow managed to channel her deep, aching pain into rage, and was using it to fuel her will to fight.
On and on she fought, her blades blurring violently through the air as she battled to protect what she cared so deeply about. And then, she saw him. Outwardly, she gave no sign, but inwardly... Her blood pumped that much harder through her veins, and she fought on, for what seemed like an eternity.
One Reaver managed to get the drop on her, slashing her side open before she removed its head, and she was forced to retreat to the bar, where Belize was tending to the wounded, mainly so that something important, like her liver, didn't fall out, or so she didn't bleed to death before the town was safe. Belize was quick to patch her back up, but made her wait for the adhesive to dry before allowing her to rejoin the chaos.
And in the space of those few moments, the Reavers began scratching at the steel doors, their glutteral cries and growls seeping through the walls. And they who were in the bar knew they were trapped, their fates in the hands of the fighters outside.
It was what she had been waiting for. The chance to die with honor in battle. Imrhien gave instruction to Belize to take everyone in the bar down to the old shelter below the medpav. It was secure and stocked with food and supplies from the replicant revolt.
Before Belize could argue too much, Imrhien was slipping out the door, screaming bloody murder and running like hell was hot on her heels. It worked. The Reavers gave chase, as was their nature, abandoning their siege of the bar and allowing Belize and the others to sneak out to the medpav and assured safety.
Once on the run, Imrhien hadn't a clue what her next move was going to be. She dared not turn back to engage them, because they would have been on her before she'd gotten halfway around. She didn't know if anyone else was alive, she didn't know if he was still alive, but she kept on running. Some survival instinct had kicked into overdrive, willing her to live through this even though she'd known it was a suicidal plunge.
One of the Reavers grabbed her shoulder with a clawed hand, yanking her to the ground on her back, and they were on her like stink on shit, their teeth tearing at her flesh, and she knew it was over. She closed her eyes, not willing to scream, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of hearing her terror... Shots rang out. Under attack, the Reavers abandoned their meal to seek out new prey.
Bleeding heavily from missing chunks of skin, Imrhien slowly looked around, realizing where she was. The courtyard. She didn't even remember running there. But more importantly, she was just ten meters from the medpav entrance. She begain to drag herself toward the entrance, woozy, her head spinning, and tumbled down the staircase, into the medical bay.
Strong arms lifted her up and carried her somewhere. She didn't know who, and she didn't particularly care at that moment. Her vision was blurry, her body weak and unresponsive, and she lay in the hospital bed, staring at what she hoped was the ceiling as Belize did her damnedest to sew her back up.
She didn't remember much else. She didn't remember trying to get back up as the snarls of the Reavers tore through the air in the medpav. She didn't remember Belize dosing her with another tranquilizer to keep her from getting herself killed. She didn't remember Duncan walking into he medpav searching for her, or that he found her and spoke softly to her. All she remembered was the pain. The physical pain wasn't so bad. but the emotional turmoil... Td. Duncan. Belize. Lily. Their faces revolved around her conscious mind, spinning ceaselessly, unrelenting.
Standing on that hill a few days later... Her hill, the hill where she'd fallen to her knees and prayed the day of Lily's trial, where she'd run to when faced with the decision between the two men she loved, where Duncan had followed her and said goodbye... She let her grief consume her, her hot tears crashing down into the sand at her feet. All was lost. She was alone. There was no hope. This was not home anymore.
And then she saw her. The Raivenn, gleaming in the early twilight. She was there where she'd always been before, where she belonged, warm and welcoming, a beacon of hope and friendship and loyalty... to her, a quiet conversation over tea, and a comfort in her heart. Her footfalls carried her across the cool sand without her even realizing she was moving, and soon, she stood before the magnificent firefly, her face lifted up to take her in as she'd never done before, tears still trailing down her cheeks, her hair tossed wildly around her by the desert winds.
She didn't expect him to be there. She didn't expect him to come down to greet her. But the ramp slowly lowered, the mechanical sound doing nothing to revive her from her reverie. And suddenly, he was there. Duncan. Standing in the mouth of his ship, wearing only a cotton shirt, trousers and boots, his eyes fixed on her, and without a word, she rushed at him like a moth to a flame, the world taking a moment to stand still until they collided, arms locked around eachother in a fierce embrace.
After a hour, or perhaps just a minute, Duncan lifted Imrhien in his arms and carried her on board, closing the ramp on his way inside to take her home.
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