Despite the pressure she attempted to create, blood dripped past her fingers in persistent rivulets, Acxa’s wound dangerously deep—she won’t get far like this, Krolia thinks. Any forced movement would only encourage circulation and that’s the last thing they’d want, especially with their limited, or nonexistent, medical supply.
“No. We need to stop and patch this properly, otherwise you’ll lose more blood” she answers, slipping pieces of cloth from a quickly made pack she’d thrown together. Actions careful, she presses the material to Acxa’s torn skin.
“Hopefully I can stem it down this way, so just sit still.” If not…Krolia’s brows crinkle; she’d hate to put the poor girl in anymore pain than she already was. The team owed her a debt after all—or at least, she personally owed Acxa plenty.
She’d done her best to give Keith his space, only held him when danger seemed imminent and out of his control. A tentative relationship like theirs left her with no other option; while she undoubtedly cared for and loved her son above all else, she couldn’t deny her absence in his life and all ensuing repercussions—never mind her good intentions. It was a struggle sometimes, instinct that fought reason. She’d wanted to soothe away his hurt and make up for lost years, yet recognized that it could only happen on his time, until he showed comfort enough to let her.
Patience, she’d remember, long past echoes of her Marmoran training. He’s alive, he’s strong; be happy with that.
It’s why moments like these, then, filled her with a steadfast warmth, the typically indifferent line of her mouth melding into a soft smile.
“Tired?” She asks, lightly touching a hand to his back, testing but tender.
It’d been a simple assignment; reconnaissance on Earth for the rumored existence of The Blue Lion and what Marmora operative failed at reconnaissance? It was the core of their organization, intelligence gathering, if nothing else. Far from enemy lines, Earth was an easy target, too; there weren’t any nearby Galra to try and intercede and Earthlings were considered primitive beings against the bulk of the universe.
There should have been no resistance.
And for a while there wasn’t.
She’d been on Earth for a handful of weeks. Dry and particularly barren, she wasn’t all that impressed with the terrain. A disappointing fact given the circulating stories of the planet; the land itself was depicted as impressively large and diverse in its show of elements, and while her confining strip had been rather wide, sands that stretched farther than the ability of her vision, there wasn’t much in the ways of diversity, though.
Maybe it was just the limiting nature of her assignment. She’d been set to land on coordinates provided by Kolivan; This is where the energy is coming from. You’ll go in and scope the area to try and pinpoint the Lion’s location. Report anything that seems strange, and remember, our priority is to keep the Lion hidden out of Galra reach: do not try and engage it.
Krolia respected Kolivan; he was a level man firmly devoted to his cause, playing all cards with a seeming mercilessness, stitched expertly by wisdom, that granted his every whim. He’d taught her a lot, too, and so she tried her best to abide by his law.
She supposed the wildlife was interesting enough; little critters that skittered across dusty surfaces and winged beasts that glorified a shockingly blue sky with piercing song.
The sky.
An absolute treasure.
She’d been used to atmospheres that absorbed the grizzliest of hues; reds, yellows, purples, and a never-ending array of dark. Wearing at her hopes with its signal of a galactic tyranny, planets mined and festering with the commands of poisonous regimes, it’d been a palette she’d learned to despise.
Earth, though, offered something lighter, clearer; that shocking blue. A confection of powered clouds that swung free against endless light, steadily escalating to an explosion of momentary red, breathless climax of the day as sunshine pulsed with its last glows, until finally, an inevitable cooling towards a navy that glittered hypnotic, moon shine and stars. She’d come to place great value on this sky; image blessed with a fleeting gift of freedom, an absence of toxicity.
Inevitably, she’d encountered something else that gave her freedom, too.
“So. The weapon you’re lookin’ for… is a lion—” he starts, tone rough like the sand crunched under the soles of their shoes. Sometimes it seemed like Tex was born from the fine-grained terrain, conceived by the canyon’s salted core. He was a compilation of rough sediment; dark eyes, chipped features, and calloused touches that made one shiver. His stares could be the dry patches that exhausted breath on long days, and his words the prickled skins of cacti. He had an attitude as malleable and moveable as a rock worn ridge, and a smile that gleamed more blade than her own weapon when pressed.
But there were little utopias between his seams, unhidden yet tricky; the buried streams that sometimes drummed like rivers, offering a rich and rare vegetation she couldn’t help but pick from.
“Yes, a lion,” she repeats, exasperated. And with that simple smack of her lips she’d broken Marmoran law, had revealed the depths of her mission—only after he’d proven his worth, of course. The two had met a few days after her crash through Earth’s atmosphere; she’d been camping out in her craft, tangled in a myriad of lively technology, when he’d stumbled into her territory.
“Shit—wait, I ain’t trying to start anythin—!”
“Who are you?” She’d growled, her every last demeanor an imposing threat, daring him to give her the slightest cause.
“Tex—argh—Kogane, I’m—I’m a engineer at a nearby school…Swear, I was just passin’ by, Miss…”
She’d been viciously skeptical, cautious, and released him after a thorough assessment had revealed that his person posed not a single danger. His ensuing reaction had been a wide-eyed wonder, and she was mildly impressed that he hadn’t scurried off screaming, or worse, attacked—she wasn’t fond of killing, but if the mission called for it…
“You ain’t from around here,” he’d hummed after gathering his wits, expression relaxing into something easy and thoughtful; a lazy smile and curious, wondering, eyes.
“Isn’t that obvious?” She’d shot, arms folding over a glowing chest plate.
“—A magical lion,” he elaborates, following the narrow path gutted into a cool and moist cave.
“It’s not magical. It’s powerful. Very powerful. That’s why I need to find it—”
“So the enemy don’t. ‘Cause if they do, bad things happen. That about it?” Tex concludes, reaching the end of the cave, bristled over by unyielding stone.
“…Yes,” She concedes, touching a dusty wall. There’s a tremor of a pulse, energy she can feel at her fingertips. We’re so close, she thinks desperately; the end of this war. It rattles in her chest.
“…You ever gonna give me anymore than that, Kro? Or is that gonna be it?” The words bounce firm off the cave’s dim interior, pull her hand back as she tenses, looking at him.
He’s done so much for her. Given her food and shelter, fixed the communications on her craft, and helped her map this endless, foreign land in more than just geography. He’s done so much, and she’s fashioned him with scraps of information.
But it’s still more than she’s allowed, and so she settles.
Her gaze holds steady as it’s used too. “Don’t waste our time by asking questions you already know the answers too.”
Tex turns back, catches the ethereal glow of unnatural eyes, and smokes with flashing brown like cinders. “Only time I’m wastin’ is mine. The hell’s the point of me doin’ all this if you can’t give me the basics? For all I know, you’re playin’ me into some kinda trap—”
Krolia growls, the accusation slicing sharp at her core, and the distant echoes of energy fade. “If you don’t trust me then leave.” It’s short and sharp and final, but there are a thousand things floating through her mind, the height of which resound; the truth is danger. The truth makes you a target, Tex.
She turns to leave.
Her feet carry her out of the cave, deliver her into the crisp of twilight. The sun radiates heat that percolates the canyon’s deepest corners, and she basks in the touch of gold. It soothes her hurt, soothes her worries, reminds her of the fires from home.
To the side rests Tex’s bike, fresh and black paint that glimmers under the dying sun. Moonlight does it better.
Inevitably, strong arms encompass her waist. They drag her back into a frame that barely reaches the breadth of hers, but she settles after a pulse.
“Let’s get home,” he says easily enough, the dim of the cave swallowing their worst. “Don’t think we’re gonna find that magical lion tonight, anyways.”
The cutting breeze of the ride back, set against the display of a melting sky turning towards celestial dark, brings her a rush of freedom, intensified only by the man she molds too.
This was a moment he never thought he’d experience. In front of him stood his mother, his birth mother. The woman who was in and out of his life faster than going through a worm hole. The feelings and questions that raged through him were a mix of feelings Keith wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before. For a moment he couldn’t believe it, that on a mission he’d run into her. Then it hits him. The blade knew about her and they kept her from him. He had her knife, and they attacked him when he first met them.
The question he wants to know the most is WHY. Why she left him, how she managed to just leave him behind and continue life as if he never happened. He couldn’t count all the nights he kept trying to imagine what she looked like and who she was, but this ? He never imagined he could come from her.
❝ I, ❞ He takes a deep breath as his eyes fall to the floor, its as if an iceberg has formed in his throat and is blocking all the words he wants to throw at her, but he can’t. It’s as if he can’t say a word. ❝ Did you leave thinking you’d never see me again ? Is that what you wanted ? To hide yourself from me ? To leave dad and I ? Do you have any idea what I went through growing up without you ? ❞
He looks down and, somehow, it’s an action that pulls tight on her heart strings—don’t look away from me, she wants to plead, but it hadn’t felt right; a request she simply couldn’t make. And it’s his following words, accusations that haunt the realms of her dreams, that exacerbate why it’s a request so out of reach—she’d left him. She’d left him and, at the foot of him now, she realizes that no past reasoning could mend the pain that choice had inflicted. She holds strong, though, and relaxes enough to answer smoothly—it’s the least she could do.
“I wasn’t sure,” she starts low, motioning towards her, his, blade; “I knew our time was limited the moment I found out I was pregnant…I was—I’m a member of the Blade, Keith, I have my mission...” Her fight against the empire, to protect the free universe, and in that moment, falling back so many years on a cooled Earth day, to protect her only child. It’s that final thought that steadies her tone as she adds; “And if I hadn’t followed it, I wouldn’t have been able to protect you. The Blade didn’t just give me an opportunity to save the universe—it gave me an opportunity to keep you safe...but I’d hoped,” she continues with a softer breath, “that I could see you one day…that’s why I left my blade. To bring us back together.” She swallows back the thickness of her throat and chest.
“I don’t know what you’ve gone through, I don’t know how hard it must have been. I can’t tell you if my choice was wrong or right…but I can tell you that it was never my intention to hurt you. I just—I wanted to keep you safe, and I did it how I knew best.”
It’s a moment she’d only dreamed of, standing before the boy she’d left behind—her boy. Regret was a feeling she’d known would be there; it teased at the dark of her lids and gripped at her chest upon waking, and yet…the burn of it now was almost unbearable.
Suspended immortal by her memory, the little bundle of a crying and sweet child was changed, now. Keith was grown, a soldier and Paladin for the universe to praise. It was a knife’s edge truth, but he was no longer hers, and it was a consequence of her choices that she’d needed to make peace with.
“…You’ve grown so much—” she blurts out first, inwardly wincing at her start; of course he has. She proceeds with a soft breath.
“I just want to tell you, whenever you’re ready…I’m here, Keith. We can talk and I can answer whatever you need me to.” // ( @bladesmcn ♥ to plot ! )
stormborns
2087
izzy806
romaincrisis
gracieabrams
tangentwithtanner
