Alchemised

by SenLinYu

First the fires that rained upon the earth: the calcination. The rising tides that swallowed the great cities were the dissolution. The earthquakes that shattered even the mountains were the separation. The aftermath as the survivors emerged from the destruction: the conjunction. The plagues and sickness and starvation that followed: the fermentation. The death toll, so immense that humanity nearly blinked from existence: the distillation. And finally in culmination, the result of Lumen’s great experiment, mankind itself manifesting alchemical resonance was the coagulation.

“I would rather spend the rest of my life being raped in Central than spend a minute of it having feelings for you.”

😢

“You would have done anything for your friends: made all the hard choices, paid the price without complaint, whored yourself for the war effort.

“I’ve tried everything, Soren. I try to believe, but it’s never enough. Even if I did really believe—if my soul’s the price of saving you, of saving everyone”—she choked—“that’s not a price. That’s a bargain.”

But if Ferron ever suspected it, he’d kill her in a heartbeat. Which meant it would be a gradual process, requiring her to know Ferron intimately, to be able to read his body and emotions. The feelings she evoked would have to seem natural. Subtle as poison until he was too far gone for a cure.

“I swear it, on the spirits of the five gods and my own soul, Kaine Ferron, I’m yours as long as I live.”

Calculating, Cunning, Devoted, Determined, Ruthless, Unfailing, Unhesitating, and Unyielding.

You are all alone, and when the war is over, you will still be alone.

“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”

A healer and killer, circling slowly, the push and pull inexorable.

He kept walls of ice around himself, but there was fire in his heart.

He was hers. The realisation broke her heart.

For the first time, Kaine Ferron was fully human to her. She’d slipped through his walls and peeled away the defensive layers of malice and cruelty, and found that there he carried a broken heart. She could use that.

Of course you’d weaponise your guilt in order to use mine.” He gave a low bitter laugh. “I’m sure there’s something poetic in it all, but right now all I feel is a new set of manacles.”

Like a star, he was glittering and ice-cold from afar, but when the space was bridged, the heat of him was endless.

“You’re mine. You swore yourself to me. Now and after the war. I’m going to take care of you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. You don’t have to be lonely. Because you’re mine.”

He’d dip his head forward, kissing her inner wrist or the palm of her hand, his silver eyes locked on her face. “You’re mine. I’ll always come for you.” He always did.

“I’m going to take care of you. I swear, Helena, I’m always going to take care of you.”

STOPPPP 🥺

“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.”

“What exactly is it that you think I do with all my time? I kill people. I order other people to kill people. I train people to kill people. I sabotage and undermine people so that they will be killed, and I do it all because of you. Every word. Every life. Because of you.”

He looked at her, and she could see the whole war in his eyes, the toll that came from struggling with no end in sight, driven by a terror of what might happen if he ever stopped.

“But we have to win this war. We can’t make choices because we want a certain story to tell later.

“Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we all remember it. What if it’s never that simple?”

“You’re mine,” he said almost against her lips. “Mine. You swore it. Your Resistance sold you to me. I’m not going anywhere without you. And if anyone touches you, immortal or not, I will kill them.”

“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.”

Holdfast, the Eternal Flame, they were never going to win, and I always knew that. Falling for you didn’t change that—it just…it just made knowing worse.”

“I know you don’t want to believe it’s possible, because hoping terrifies you. But I would rather die trying to save you than live knowing there was a chance and I didn’t take it.”

“Why is it that I have to keep all my promises, but you never seem to keep a single one of yours?” She shook her head, tilting up her face so their foreheads touched. “The first promise I made to you was that I’d be yours for as long as I live. I’m keeping that one.”

“Your mother was always so proud of you. She said you were the best thing we ever made.” Then Atreus looked at Helena. “Save him.”

she doesn’t deserve to be forgotten like this. She shouldn’t be a footnote. This shouldn’t be the only entry she even has. She deserves her own chapter. She deserves a whole damned book of her own.”

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