Alchemised

by SenLinYu

Which meant that she had no memory of nearly nineteen months of the war.

Ferron usually wore nothing, not even a wedding band. The only piece visible was a slender, dark metal ring on his right hand.

A bizarre thing for an iron alchemist to wear.

She was a vibrant corpse, hardly different from the necrothralls haunting Spirefell.

“Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.

Ferron devoted an excessive degree of effort to ensuring her well-being while trying not to appear so.

He wasn’t kind; he simply wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t as monstrous as he could be. And for Helena’s fracturing mind, an absence of cruelty was sufficient solace. For her starved heart, it was enough.

“I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat. It is a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them.”

Her father used to massage her hands like that, even before Paladia. Every night. An alchemist’s hands were like a surgeon’s, he’d said, they had to be taken care of.

“Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”

“You have no idea how hard it is to save someone, to fix all the ways the people like you break them.” She glared at him. “I hope someday you have to try. See how little you think of it then.”

“There are far worse fates than dying, Marino.” She nodded. “I know. But that one you don’t come back from.” He gave a bitter laugh. “All right, then, but only because you asked.”

Sometimes she wished she’d died in the hospital with her father, to be remembered and mourned for her possibilities, rather than live day by day growing ever lesser. Now it didn’t matter if she’d been an alchemist, or a healer, or anything else. To anyone who ever learned of it, she would only be that one thing. Women were always defined by the lowliest thing they could be called.

if the Eternal Flame wants my continued assistance, they will keep you alive.”

but if the Eternal Flame has decided that you are an affordable casualty, I will not be noble or understanding. I can exact dual revenge. I will make them pay if they get you killed.”

“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe.

“You’re a far better person than I am. This world doesn’t deserve you at all.”

“Call me, and I will come.”

“Being alive is not the same as living. I hope someday you’ll have a chance to realise the difference.”

“Because I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order of the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat, it’s a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them. Given that the risk to their lives is the only way to make you value your own.”

He’d loved her, even though he never expected them to be anything but doomed. He’d loved her all the same.

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I’m so sorry for everything I did to you,” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “I love you. You left, and I’d never told you.”

“I don’t want to choose. I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.”

“We’ll go out together, won’t we, old girl? Bennet’s last two monsters.”

“You need a willing soul for that, and you’re not going to find one, because the only person who’d die for me is you.”

“Helena, look at you. You have broken yourself into pieces, over and over, because of me, and you don’t seem to understand that it kills me. Living is not worth it to me if you’re the one who keeps paying the price for it.

I know you love Kaine, and he loves you, I don’t deny that. But I don’t think you realise how inhumanly cold he is to anyone who isn’t you or E. The rest of the world could burn and he wouldn’t care. I don’t think he’d even notice.

“Love isn’t as pretty or pure as people like to think. There’s a darkness in it sometimes. Kaine and I go hand in hand. I made him who he is. I knew what that array meant when I saved him. If he’s a monster, then I’m his creator.”

She was a non-active member of the Order of the Eternal Flame and did not fight.