Pain.
Pain-fear-rage-hate-hunger—
“Don’t worry, I won’t let you suffer in vain—”
A voice. Familiar. Known. Cared for—
(Take them.)
(Take them, take them, take them!)
(Make them belong to us!)
No— no, they wouldn’t want that, wouldn’t want to be— to be—
(To be what? Ours? They’re already ours and they know it!)
(And if they won’t accept it, then kill them!)
(And then make them ours.)
PAIN.
PAIN-PAIN-PAIN—
Relief—
(Clarity.)
“—leave this to me…”
Oh… he’s… sad…
(…)
…
(We could—)
No.
It’s over. It’s over. We failed— I failed—
(Giving up so easily, Successor of my Blood?)
Better to die than allow another monster free. Better to let them mourn ash than force them into another war. They won’t survive another war.
(They won’t survive your death anyway.)
No, they can. They will. They’re strong—
(Strength doesn’t matter, not when the number of revenants are falling. Not when the mistle I created are dying, the bloodsprings drying up, the humans fading…)
No— no, they’ll figure something out. Louis is smart, he—
(Has failed two of us, now, hasn’t he?)
That’s— that’s not true—
(You could change it.)
Impossible.
(Look inside yourself. You are the Queen now, and your limitless potential remains.)
I’m dead.
(Not at every point in time. Reach inside and see.)
Why didn’t you?
(Where would I go? Back to the experiments? Back to the pain and torture? Back to the constant struggle to keep myself under control?)
…
(Go back to the beginning, back to when you first woke as the Successor of the Blood.)
(Go back and change this fate.)
…
I will.
I’ll make it better.
I promise.
(I know you will.)
(I trust you.)
(Good luck.)
He wakes with a groan, forcing his eyes open despite the pounding in his head and the ache in his teeth, hunger coiling through his veins. It’s uncomfortably familiar, but at least he doesn’t feel out of control just yet—
Io leans over him, her bright amber eyes worried, and says, “Welcome back.”
Erich groans again. Forces one hand up towards her, feels her catch it even as he murmurs, “Io…”
Her gaze sharpens, hand tightening around his. “You remember?” she asks, voice choked with too many emotions for him to unravel, but… there’s relief in there, he’s pretty sure, and maybe happiness.
Erich hums in agreement, then coughs, pain ripping through his body as he curls in on himself, free hand pressing against his chest. The ache in his teeth worsens, hunger clawing at his control—
“Come, stand up. It’s not far,” Io insists as she hauls him to his feet and holds him steady until he finds his balance. “We’re… at the start again,” she explains as Erich forces himself to take a step. Another. Another. “The bloodspring is not far.”
“And our… capture,” Erich rasps, hand clenching the fabric of his turtleneck, gaze fixed on Io as she leads him forward.
Io purses her lips and glances aside, hesitating for all of a moment before she summons her halberd to hand. “I can fight them off—”
“No,” Erich interrupts with a shake his head. “Oliver… I don’t want…”
“If you do that, Louis won’t know what you can do,” Io points out, even as she allows her halberd to fade away with a sigh.
“He’ll figure… it out… soon enough,” Erich forces out, then takes another shallow, ragged breath. The miasma tears at his throat, making the jagged edges of his hunger grow, but he doesn’t… he doesn’t have his mask. And it… it should be fine. He made it last time, confused and empty and hungry, so… so he can do it again. The bloodspring isn’t far, is just a little further, he can— he can make it—
“We have our equipment,” Io murmurs to him, her hand moving into the shadow of her veil and coming out with— with her mask. “It is bound to us, and so it returned as we did.”
Erich snorts. Stumbles as another cough wracks his body. Leans into Io’s support as she grabs him. “None of… this makes… sense,” he complains weakly. “I died.”
“And I followed you,” Io confirms as she drags him forward. “As I will continue to follow you—”
“This isn’t… exactly following,” Erich tells her with a touch of amusement, one corner of his mouth twitching up as a soft laugh slips free from Io’s throat. “Thank you… I don’t know… what I’d do… without you…”
Io hums as she helps him on, her gaze sliding away from him to take in their location. “You’re my Successor,” she says firmly. “That hasn’t changed, and it never will. No matter what.”
A sob tears its way out of him at her words and he squeezes his eyes shut, trusting her to guide him in the right direction even as he lets relief pour through him; he doubts that Louis or Yakumo or anyone else will remember the way the two of them do, but… but so long as he has Io…
“Here, give me your hand,” Io says as she hauls them both to a stop and then grasps his left arm, tugging his glove off and his sleeve up as she does. “Let me just—”
She bites, wrenching a cry from his throat, a cry that turns sharp as the smell of blood — his blood — fills the air. It’s not exactly tempting, not really, but it tickles the back of his nose. Makes him aware of the life right next to him, of the life he could just— could just take— could sink his teeth into and tear—
“Well this is going to be interesting to explain,” Io muses to herself before she drops his arm and takes a step away from him, veil rustling as she moves. “But that will come later. For now… Erich, look at me.”
Erich huffs and pries his eyes open again, squinting blearily at Io and the— the blood bead she’s offering him. He snatches it from her hand, fingers trembling, heart pounding, and lifts it to his mouth. Feels the slide of fangs extending over his teeth. Feels the ache of hunger digging deep-deep-deep into his chest. Bites—
The white top flexes. Gives beneath his fangs like flesh. Floods his mouth with the not-quite-right taste of blood bead—
The beast inside his chest wavers. Peels a claw back. Another—
The blood bead runs dry.
“Io— Io, it’s not— I need—”
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, here’s another. Drink your fill, Erich, there’s plenty here,” Io murmurs as she drops another, slightly larger blood bead in his hand.
He bites. Drinks. Drains it dry. Doesn’t protest when she hands him a third, because the ache is still there, is still vicious-violent-furious, and he can’t help but wonder why, can’t help but fear, because if this is his hunger now, if he can’t just survive on a single blood bead like before… what will Louis and Yakumo say? How will they all survive? He’ll be more of a burden than a blessing like this, he knows he will—
“You were deep into frenzy at the very end,” Io says as she takes the third empty bead from his hands and then reaches up to tilt his head a bit more towards her. Her frown lightens as she takes him in and she adds, “I’m not surprised it took more this time. I am… unsure if you will continue to need more, or if the frenzy will always be closer than it is for others, but I will make sure nothing happens to you again.”
“Thanks,” Erich murmurs, leaning into her touch as familiar exhaustion begins to drag at his limbs. “I think… I’m going to sleep now…”
Io glances over her shoulder, her body tense as she asks, “Are you certain you wish to rest here? There is no guarantee that what happened before will happen again.”
“I need to try. Oliver… Oliver didn’t deserve that fate.” Erich swallows as he bows his head, remembering the things he saw in Oliver’s vestige. It’s not… there’s no guarantee that he can actually change Oliver’s fate — the man must be near starvation, with how quickly he succumbed to the miasma — but he has to try. He has to. If he can change this, then… then maybe he can change the rest of it too. Maybe he can save the other Successors, maybe he can save Silva, can prevent Louis from ever having to make that horrible decision—
(Maybe he can live…)
(…maybe…)
Io scans his face once more, then gives him a small nod and says, “If that is what you wish, then we will remain here.”
“Thanks, Io,” Erich murmurs as she lowers herself to the dusty ground, then follows her down and settles at her side. He tips his head back to stare at the starry sky for a long moment, then sighs and carefully stretches out, laying his head in her lap as he had before; it takes a bit of adjustment — his preferred veil is not exactly the easiest to lay on his side in — but it’s not long before he settles. Stills. Lets his breathing even out and his eyes close, and—
It feels both easier and harder to fall asleep this time; he’s more exhausted, more wrung out, than he ever remembers being, but at the same time… he knows what’s about to happen. Knows what’s looming over him, all the choices he needs to make and the things he needs to do, all of it so achingly, horrifyingly uncertain because… because what if he can’t? What if there’s no way to win? What if he can’t change anything?
(What if he’s as helpless now as he was before?)
(What if—)
“Go to sleep, Erich,” Io says softly, her fingers threading through his hair in a slow, steady rhythm. “Close your eyes and rest. I will keep watch.”
He sighs again. Tips his head slightly to give her better access. Lets his mind drift and—
Sleeps.
He wakes to voices – cruel voices – and to an unknown hand gripping his arm, pulling him up-up-up away from Io, away from safety and—
He snarls. Lashes out. Feels his fist connect, feels cloth and armor give beneath his strength as whoever he hit stumbles back, stumbles away, dragging him with them as they go, their hand clenched tight around his upper arm and—
::Shh, be calm, these are the ones who brought us back last time,:: Io’s voice whispers through his mind, even as he feels something crack against the back of his head.
He doesn’t have to pretend disorientation after that. Doesn’t have to pretend at the way his knees buckle and his body falls, or the way he reaches up to touch the back of his head, flinching at the sharp-bright-vicious pain and the trickle of fresh blood. He could fight through it, could destroy his attackers with barely a thought, but… that won’t get him where he wants to go.
“Huh, guess this one’s got some fight in him after all,” one of the voices says with a harsh bark of laughter. “Better learn your place, revenant, because you belong to us now. Too much resistance out of you and we’ll ash you without a second thought.”
“Or maybe,” the second adds, voice laden with anger as the hand on Erich’s arm tightens even further, making his veil creak with the force of it. “Maybe we should do something to the girl first. Get too out of line, and we’ll ash her in front of you, how about that?”
Erich grunts in response, then hisses as he’s dragged roughly to his feet and given a shove. He staggers forward a few steps, trying to regain his balance even as the pain in his head spikes at the movement, then tenses as someone grips his right arm again and tugs—
“Just me,” Io murmurs as she drapes his arm over her shoulders and wraps her other around his waist. “Come on, before they get any angrier,” she adds, barely loud enough for him to hear, before she starts guiding both of them away from the bloodspring.
The walk to the thrall pits is tense and mostly silent, broken only by the occasional mocking comment from one or the other revenant that had captured them. Surprisingly — or maybe not? He’s not certain exactly how he should be reacting to these bastards — it gets easier to ignore them the longer they walk; they’re incredibly uncreative in their insults and comments, cycling between his unusual veil, his lack of mask, his apparent docility, how he must be practically a Lost already with a veil like his, and so on. They don’t even extend their comments to Io that much, except to further comment on something about him, which is… odd. He knows she doesn’t look like much without her halberd out in the open, but to overlook her so thoroughly?
It feels… wrong.
(Well, their loss.)
Either way, with everything Erich’s seen, everything he’s lived through, their words are… insignificant. Like the tiny spark of pain that happens whenever he draws blood to revive a mistle or bloodspring, compared to the strike of a Lost.
(At least his silence doesn’t seem to bother them.)
(He really has no idea how he’s supposed to even react to some of the things they’re saying, so… silence is safest.)
They arrive soon enough, and with a sharp, “Get over here!” from the revenant leading them, they’re brought to the edge of the pit and promptly kicked, sending them tumbling down to the unforgiving ground below.
“How did I ever sleep through that last time,” Erich mutters as he slowly picks himself up and casts a dark look at the revenants above them.
Io shrugs and dusts herself off, casting him a sidelong look as she murmurs, “I might have broken your fall, before. You needed the rest and I didn’t want to see you harmed.”
Erich shakes his head — of course she had — and sets the thought aside to scan the area around them, taking note of the other revenants — other thralls, he should say — scattered around. It looks like whichever group this is put them in the same pit as before, which is both a good thing and a bad thing: good, because it means nothing seems to have changed yet, and bad because it means he can’t try and speak with Oliver before they’re thrown into the ruins in search of blood beads.
“Guess you two got caught just now, huh?” one of the revenants asks as he leans around the bit of rubble he’s resting against. He immediately frowns as he takes them in, though, and points behind them. “There’s some spare masks back there, since it looks like yours are gone. They aren’t the best, but they’ll keep the miasma from getting to you as quickly.”
“Thank you,” Io says as she turns away and starts rifling through the available masks. When Erich steps up to her side, she leans into him and slips a mask into his hand, murmuring, “This looks like one of the better ones available. Will you need another?”
He considers that for a moment, then gives a small shake of his head even as he carefully adjusts the mask and clicks it into place on his mask frame, feeling immediate relief at the way the harsh, dry taste of miasma finally begins to fade from his nose and mouth. The other revenant is right that these masks are old; it’s similar to the ones Erich remembers seeing during Queenslayer, which was… he doesn’t actually know how many years ago that was.
(No one ever really told him how long he’d been… gone.)
(He’s not sure if he even cares or not.)
(…should he…?)
With a grimace, Erich shoves those thoughts aside and quietly says, “I’ll give him this one and use mine if it comes to it.”
Io makes an agreeable noise as she selects another mask for herself — a better one than last time, he notices — and clicks it into place as well. Once she’s satisfied, she grabs his hand and tugs him away, past the handful of revenants scattered around the pit and towards a spot behind one pillar that’s mostly out of sight from all of them. “Here, sit,” she murmurs as she drops to the ground and hauls him down with her. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m…” Erich cuts himself off when Io’s eyes begin to narrow, then snorts and leans back against the pillar, drawing one leg up to his chest as he quietly says, “Fine, I’m starting to get hungry again because of the miasma. It… shouldn’t be a problem, though. My head still aches a bit, but I can sort that out once I’m in the ruins. If they drop me where they did last time, there’s a mistle right there, so I can heal before anything else. You?”
“I… do not think I’m hungry just yet,” Io muses as she looks down at herself, one hand fiddling with her bracelet as she thinks. “But there is something you need to be aware of. You are… lucky that your hair is such a vibrant blue, and that the revenants who caught us didn’t notice the color of the blood on your fingers.”
“What…? The color of the blood… on my fingers…?” Erich frowns as he brings his hand up to look at his fingers more closely, not that it’s of any use; the blood on them is smeared thin and covered in dust from when he landed, hiding any difference from view. Curious to know what Io’s getting at, he wipes his fingers mostly clean on his pants and then reaches up to poke at his head wound again, feeling traces of tacky blood sticking to his fingertips as he does. And when he brings his hand down and actually looks—
His fingertips are purple. A very blueish purple, actually.
(Almost Queen’s blue in fact…)
(Fuck…)
(Fuck!)
(How will he ever explain this?!)
Io drags him down into her lap and starts to run her fingers through his hair, careful to avoid his wound. “Shhh, it’s alright,” she murmurs as she curls over him, as if to shield him from the world. “You’re alright, my Successor. We simply need to be careful who discovers this, is all.”
“And when they inevitably do?!” Erich can’t help but hiss back at her.
She shrugs, leans over enough to look him in the eyes, and asks, “Why would we know why your blood looks like that?” even as she fixes him with the same wide-eyed, blank look that she often wore at this point in time in their previous lives.
(At the point when neither of them knew anything.)
(When it would have been the truth.)
“You— that— Io!” he sputters, even as he raps his knuckles on her knee. “You know that won’t hold up very long,” he hisses once he gets himself back under control. “Louis asked for a sample of my blood practically the moment we reached h— reached their base, and there’s only so much I can do to hide things when I’m reviving mistle and bloodsprings with them.”
Io shrugs and ruffles his hair lightly. “We only need to stay silent until they learn about the relics, my Successor,” she murmurs with a tiny, lopsided smile and a tired look in her eyes. “Then… well. You are the Successor of the Blood, after all. Why would it be a surprise that your blood is… different?”
“They’re going to think I’m the Queen,” he can’t help but whisper, throat strangled and chest aching with emotions he doesn’t quite know how to name.
(Fear, he thinks, but… more than that, too.)
(He wishes his Yakumo were here…)
(He wants—)
(But it doesn’t matter.)
(He’ll just have to do his best to figure everything out by himself.)
(That… shouldn’t be too impossible.)
(Right?)
“Does it matter?” Io asks as she tugs lightly on a lock of his hair, dragging him free of his swirling thoughts. “Our friends from before… they wouldn’t have cared. Why will these ones care, so long as we take care to keep you from frenzying?”
“They… they won’t know me,” Erich whispers, squeezing his eyes closed and tilting his head towards the floor. “There won’t be the same sort of trust and you know it.”
Io huffs at his words and tugs on his hair again, sharper this time. “I see no reason why you cannot build it again. We did it last time with less—”
“It’s because we had less!” he can’t help but snap. “We had nothing, and they made an effort—”
“Ah, I was unaware that Mia had as few memories as we did when she arrived,” Io tells him airily. “How foolish of me for missing that.”
Erich stills as her words register, then sighs and mutters, “Stop being logical about this damn mess.”
Io laughs softly in response and curls herself tighter around him, pulling him against her chest and resting her head against the glowing spikes rising from the shoulder of his veil. “I will not,” she says gently but firmly. “You worry so when you have no clear direction to move in, so why should I not attempt to bring some clarity to things?” She pauses, humming a meandering tune as she thinks, then slowly adds, “I know that… that meeting them again so soon is… not likely your preference, but we cannot do everything alone, my Successor. But… if staying with them is too much, especially in the beginning, then there is nothing keeping us from going out on our own every so often, now is there?”
“I suppose there isn’t,” he replies thoughtfully, moving a hand to lace their fingers together as he turns the suggestion over in his mind. “It… would be wise to figure out my current strength, as well.” Because he’s been ignoring it, but he can feel a new blood code in him, a code saturated with such aching loneliness that he almost doesn’t want to acknowledge it. He has a sinking suspicion that he knows what new blood code has settled within his body, but at the same time he… he hopes he’s wrong.
(He knows how unlikely that is.)
(After all, he did become the Queen, didn’t he…)
“Then that’s what we will plan on doing,” Io says as she tightens her fingers around his. “Until then, however, we should rest while we can.”
Erich makes a quiet noise of agreement and tries to force his body to relax, no matter how difficult it is in such a dangerous area, surrounded by unknowns.
(He hadn’t known what he was looking at last time, hadn’t even thought back on it when told, but… that’s the Red Mist barely a stone’s throw beyond the crumbling edge of their current prison.)
(He’s not so sure he likes being so close to something that Louis said drives revenants mad.)
(Not to mention all the strangers around him, and the memories of what he’d just revived from, and the low, dull ache of his chest, every inhale noticeable in a way it’d never been before, and he doesn’t want to think about why, doesn’t want to remember—)
“Focus on me,” Io murmurs in his ear, her breath warm against his skin. “Focus on me and let everything else fade away, my Successor. You are safe here while I guard your rest. You are safe.”
He latches onto her voice, her murmured words, and tries to breathe — tries to ignore the sensation of breathing — as she keeps speaking, her rambling words repeating a mantra of safe-safe-safe until he almost believes her, until he can almost forget about the mist, and the strangers, and what came before.
Until he can almost relax.
Almost breathe.
And rest.