title: captain of my fate when: post the tinkerer where: rome trigger warnings: none
There is no shame in dying early.
No shame in being bested, when facing impossible odds. The Elder Great Ones had planned their attack carefully, planned their return slowly and malevolently, all in hopes of recreating the empire that they had lost.
There is no shame in dying early.
There is a lot of fucking anger though.
Evy is not ashamed of dying, not ashamed of fighting until her last breath, until the demigod's ability had stopped her from moving. She had failed back when Eden fell, too, died early and painfully, but back then, she had hope to sustain her. She had known it could not be the end of humanity, that she had another life to look forward to. She had known that sooner or later, she would find her husband again and Aren would rise in all his glory once more.
She had known the world would recover from Eden’s fall.
She doesn’t know it will recover from Rome’s burning.
Her last precious seconds are spent thinking of Andreas, hoping for his survival, hoping for him to find happiness even as she is gone. There is rage coursing through her veins as she thinks this, rage at the knowledge that Tiamat has come to get her due and there is no escaping her deal.
Evelina Cirillo dies defiantly, not afraid of what it’s coming, despite knowing that there will be no kindness to her death.
She awakens as if her death was a bad dream, a maladaptive daydream sweeping through her eyelids between one blink and the next.
It’s entirely unlike recalling, but her well-honed instincts scream her to act with the information sitting dreamily at the back of her head and she does.
Quick as the wolverine she shares a trait with, she jumps into the nearest demagorgon, shifting into the animal itself and tearing through them with the anger she had gathered as she died.
She would not die.
Not again.
She doesn’t know how she has escaped Tiamat’s tightening fist, but she will not allow the opportunity to escape her pass by. Not again. Not when in the midst of battle clarity reaches her, and she knows Aren would not survive her.
Not if she died like this.
She can’t very well let her Archdruid and her love die, can she?
Evelina fights like a rabid animal, like an immortal warrior that has seen battle over and over again through the years.
She fights like a woman desperate to survive.
And she does.
The war ends.
A new page is turned.
She considers for a long time, allowing herself to forget.
But then.
An offer is delivered, and she can’t say no.
Not when she will always do everything for her people, no when she rather enjoys doing so.
Evy becomes a Keeper and a Senator, and swears to do right by the survivors, for the fighters.
And to do that, she cannot allow Tiamat to take her.
Not again.
Not ever.
She needs to find a way to break a deal with a Goddess of Death.
She knows where to start looking.
