END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

[saltwaterlungs]

Immediately, Darcy regrets it. Regrets saying anything. Regrets looking back like weeping Orpheus before he was torn to pieces. Helena would have been fine if she didn't know Darcy was going, would have kept quiet and passive and sane until they won.

Selfish, as always. She tries to touch Helena's hands through the bars.

"I have to go win our future back," she answers just as quietly.

"I'm sorry. I will be as quick as I can. I swear on the wounds of Christ, I will find my way back to you."

If not here, if not this time, then somewhere else. Some other world, maybe.

[decrypter]

She knows Darcy has to go. That Helena can't do anything here for her, feeling weak and useless, reduced down to her original purpose - there is nothing of value in her that some exhibitor would want. Nothing to keep her for. When they separate the wheat from chaff-

she can't think like this. even in the darkest nights. Darcy needs her strength, her support, needs her to figure out somehow the path to smiling, to bid her off that way. She has to believe, even when nothing seems reasonable to believe in. The door is shut, so they'll find a window. She has to believe, as fervently as she did when they were all locked in the room together.

The bars won't let her reach out and hold her hand, but she presses her fingers through as much as she can. Tries to offer a return touch, coming up and pressing her forehead to the bars. Anything is better than nothing.

"If you do not, I will find you. I will bring you back to me. Whatever it takes."

She'll shuffle through the cosmos, to bring all she loves back to her side. She will find whatever place Darcy ended up, and bring her home. All the certainty she holds, all the conviction she needs to place in herself, crystalizes and grows around that fact. She wants to scream and demand someone stay and cry and fall to pieces. Life is endlessly holding on, despite.

Her fingertips tremble from cold, but she still reaches out.

"...it's Michael, right? When you need protection?"

If there's someone for battles who'd suit Darcy right now better, she doesn't know it.

[saltwaterlungs]

"My Patron," Darcy breathes, and of course. Of course she remembers. Even here, even now. For a moment she almost asks her to redirect to Jenny, for the sake of the plan, but.

The thought is so sweet and perfect that Darcy would do nothing ever to break it.

"For protection," she confirms, sitting up a little to smush her mouth against whatever part of Helena's forehead is accessible through the bars.

"You don't know what this means to me."

[decrypter]

All the writing in fairy tales is true, for the power that one kiss can give to a soul. One touch, one brush. She presses her face closer, as if she could will the bars away and kiss her properly, sending her off to battle instead of fighting for sheer proximity. How many tales had lovers separated by a wall, fighting the barrier for what scraps there were.

"Explain it to me. When you come back."

When, not if. She has to believe, has to. And if something out there gives her knight a flaming sword to wield, that would also be very, very welcome.

[saltwaterlungs]

"When I come back, I'll do anything you ask."

Another kiss, to anything within reach. For now, she fights, but when she returns, all she wants is to lay her head in her darling's lap and not have to make hard choices. To not have their lives riding on her ability and skill. To be nothing but Helena's, for a while.

"Je t'aime."

[decrypter]

It is cold and slightly awkward to kiss through the bars, but she'd do it again and again if it bestows a single drop of protection on Darcy.

"Je t'aime, my knight."

When she's back, she'll steal Darcy away from everyone. Make them all wait, while she is allowed to dote and to hold and soak in her presence. Build a world where everything is soft and gentle without hard edges, without asking for more than a person can take. She has to, somehow, send her off with a smile.

[saltwaterlungs]

Hearing it settles something in her. Hearing it directly. This started with Darcy confessing her feelings and Helena answering that she needed more time, and now... it's fully reciprocated. All of it. They're on the same page. Darcy stands, letting her hand trail a little just to keep contact, but she's resolved now. There is no way this is how it ends.

"I'll be back. I'll win this for us," she promises, "there will be something after which is safe and quiet and you'll never have to go through this again, where you can write poetry and- and I don't know. Have a cat? I haven't thought about it that much but- there will be something else, and I'll fight for it for you. I'll be back."

[decrypter]

"...I know you'll be back. And I want a garden, too."

She's wanted it for a long, long while. A garden like the one she remembers, full of scents and life and things to touch, a place that feels safe and where she can walk without shoes in the grass and lie down on the earth. Saying it aloud, it gives them something to wish for. Something that is safe, something where they don't have to fight and die more times than a person should. Where she can write poetry and Darcy can do whatever she wants - cook and solve mysteries and greet wayward spirits and anything else in the bargain. Somewhere they can have a cat. Maybe a dog too, one that can be her eyes.

Of all the times to not have a knife. She can't even give Darcy a lock of her hair to hold onto.

"Go. Before I beg you to stay."

[saltwaterlungs]

"A garden."

It all started in one, and it will end with one. A last touch, and she does as her lady bids, and leaves.