Gem roams over the streets and alleys and shadows of Hermiton.
She's quiet and fast and hard to spot, but people know she's out.
Not always the same area, the same routes. But Gem is always somewhere in the city.
Always closer than any villain might want.
Than any “hero” might want.
Between the alerts to any sort of activity that's reported and her power, she gets eyes on enough of the things that happen.
Even when there's a hero already on scene she'll check.
Keeping the weeds from the garden so the planted seeds have time to grow.
Gem patrols. Keeping things safe and… good for the civilians of Hermiton.
Always out at night. Sometimes the day. When she can’t sleep. When she wakes up earlier than she meant. Whenever she gets an alert on the combined police-scanner-hero-radio she’d cobbled together.
It’s not as healthy as she should be.
Still better than The Commission’s schedules for her.
Gem can’t be a hero if she doesn’t take care of herself.
It’s the only reason she does.
The city is wary around her now. Something she should maybe put more effort into fixing.
But she can’t quite bring herself to care enough.
Gem acts the hero. Stops the muggings, passes out food to the people on her patrol she sees, pulls off the car door to free the trapped civilian, fights the villains who show up to cause chaos.
She doesn’t care what the city debates. Not really.
They’ve been wrong before.
Gem just patrols and helps people no matter who they are if they need it.
She knows what they’re calling her now. CWD. Not-Cervus. The Broken Hart.
As long as they call her a deer she doesn’t care.
Armour pieced together from what she had that day and what she could find-make-buy that didn’t remind her of The Commission.
Antlers in loose hair she only tried braiding once after. Cut shorter the day after with hands white around the scissors.
Stars and space covering up her left arm, across her chest and neck. Keeping them close. A half cape Gem’d added only because it was the same color as her eyes and she’d had one.
Her sword the only major thing that stays from her time as Huntress. Because she’s always been better with a blade in her hand. Needs to be the best possible version of herself.
Mask dark above her eyes and down her nose. A shade lighter than her skin under them other than the tears.
Eyes visible and green and …
They had to call her Cervus if she looked like a deer.
Something close enough anyway.
Gem doesn’t care about those specifics.
She watches over the city. Does her duty as a hero of protecting civilians, helping people.
Sitting in a desk chair, lying flat on the forest floor, on a bed, in front of a set of frosted glass doors, pulling herself up a fire escape as fast as possible.
Standing under a willow tree looking up.
Crumpled on a roof, vision blurry and chest aching. Looking over.
Gem unable to do anything and watching Pearl die, except the first time never happened.
She should have been able to do something.
Pearl had broke through the Director's power and fought her with broken bones and burns and poisoned and she won.
And then Pearl had cut open the Director's throat with an earring.
And Gem moved but did nothing.
Not before the other wolves came.
And she was there and it didn’t matter.
And the world fell out of its shell.
She hadn’t let anyone near the body.
Cradling her as close as possible and wiping away the blood from her eyes.
So sure she would come back.
That’s what happened the last time apparently.
She hadn’t let anyone close.
Except then The Tangler and Ethos had dragged her away.
Had cared for Pearl better than she ever did.
Had helped Pearl when all Gem had even done was leave her.
They were the ones with any true claim to her.
Gem had fought them anyway.
Not fighting them, just fighting to get back.
She was never something solitary.
And a hole without that half.
None of them let her go back to Pearl.
The wolves taking her body away.
Passing Gem off to the heroes who showed up.
Gem had fought them then.
She was supposed to go with Pearl.
Fought the others to do so.
Done better than against the villains.
And then Gem woke up again.
The world’s hollow with it.
A black hole where Pearl was, pulling at everything, setting it off balance, off kilter.
Gem thought she’d mourned Pearl before.
That Gem still has her Pearl, she’s just not looking.
That Gem still thinks grief is sadness and empty pockets in the world.
It’s a hole in everything because it’s a hole where her heart had been.
Nothing where the most important part of her was and it eats through everything else now.
Almost everything else now.
The world is empty and dull and she moves through it just as empty and dull.
Nothing quite correct anymore. A facade that’s lost even its support structure. Paper thin, ready to crumple or shatter with the smallest bit of pressure.
She’s still a hero, still saving people, because Pearl thought she was one.
Pearl thought Cervus was a hero.
She can’t let her be wrong.
She can’t let anything like The Commission form again.
Pearl died to bring it down.
To save the people she cared about.
Gem knows how to devote herself to a single cause.
Makes herself be good at everything else.
There were stars and suns and constellations inside her.
And the stars burned out.
She walks through the world a layer of skin over a black hole and dead stars and she is a hero.
Pearl thought she was a hero, so she is a hero.
In rain and snow and smoke and cold, and Gem never really feels it. Eyes picking apart the darkness and hiding holes and alleys. Listening for anything off. Anything too sharp or too quiet.
Gem patrols the city and keeps it safe.
Patrolling solo. Patrolling alone.
She'd almost gotten used to being with someone before… Before.
Almost expects the extra presence, the person (not quite right) at her back.
Something almost, but not quite.
And the nights are so much like the ones where she’d left Pearl behind.
Even then she was still there.
There were still clothes in the laundry hamper. Meals in the fridge. Counters cleaned and white fur in the corners of the couch.
But the quiet’s the same.
A cave that doesn't echo the gunshot, noise only ringing in her ears.
She patrols alone, in the dark, and silence, and emptyness, and it's familiar like she belongs there.
Gem makes sure she patrols properly. Keeps her ears and eyes open, senses alert and ready even with the rest of her dead and dull.
She's a hero, she has to be ready.
The city’s burning. Smoke and gold pooling through the trees and windows. Broken glass glinting like filigree over the dirt and trash. Cobblestones streaked with ashes. Sparks dying out as they dance across the asphalt.
Gem pulls people from the building. Going back in over and over even as the fire grows.
It takes less than three minutes for a fire to change. Engulf an entire building.
Someone's calling her name.
They’re calling her name.
Gem breaks down the door and freezes, caught in place.
Fire racing up through the chasm cutting through the floor, a wooden support beam half fallen through.
Her power isn't useful for this. Gem can't get to her. Can't reach her.
Gold-Silver eyes look back at her with emotions she doesn’t want to name.
“Why are you so upset?” She asks and Gem’s on a roof, frozen in place. “Villians’ roles are to die.”
The flames scream. The woman rises. Gem falls. The stars dragged back out of the building even as she yells, fights the hands and arms on her.
Begging with teeth and claw and howling to let her go back, let her go, let her go, Let her Go, LET HER G—
Pulling herself up firescapes.
Dragging herself through the motions.
Wading through the red of her faults.
The inclusion she grew up with.
Half mortal, half divine.
Outliving her other half.
No gods to bind them to the stars.
Moth made immortal by the amber.
Killed by what keeps its body safe.
She should be used to it.
It’s been like this for years.
She wants to scream. To cry. To demand answers from the world and the city and the people who killed Pearl.
And she has to be A Hero.
It’s the only thing she can do.
Everyone who killed Pearl, who hurt her, is dead.
And Gem can’t make it up to her.
She can’t apologize, can’t help her, can’t avenge her.
Everything she wants to do is impossible.
All she can do is be a hero.
All she can do is be Cervus.
All she has is Cervus. The silent, empty space around it.
She failed Pearl for years.
She abandoned her, and hurt her, and didn't listen, so certain she knew what she was doing, what the right thing to do was. Left her alone, left her to The Commission, left her to fall by herself.
Gem was supposed to be the one to fall if anyone.
Was a hero because Pearl was.
But Gem had always been better at following the rules than Pearl.
The Commission just another system made to keep people inside the borders, stay out of the woods, stay where you belong.
Those systems never wanted Pearl.
Had said she'd stick with her forever.
Pearl had always been the Hero.
Has to be what Pearl still thought she was that last fight.
Has to live up to who she’d said she'd be.
She goes to Joel's wedding because she owes it to him.
He's better at it than she would be.
Always fighting, always protecting.
Making the decisions herself, no voice in her ears, no written text she’s memorized.
What Gem remembers of them.
Assuming the best of people, but prepared for if she’s wrong.
Playing two parts in one.
When she’s barely even half.
Gem has to do it, do it well though. She’s a hero.
She protects, and saves, and serves.
Holds herself to the best standards she can think of.
Trying to hold all the pieces together, every action she needs to take, every reaction she needs to be aware of, respond to correctly.
But Gem ensures they’re minimal. Fixed as soon as they happen.
She fights to protect. To save.
It’s the one allowance she gives herself.
That she is a fighter first and foremost.
No matter the situation, the person, the cause.
But she fights to protect the city.
There are only two exceptions.
Two times she doesn’t fight, only guards if no one else is around and there’s a true danger.
Gem fights protecting Hermiton. A Cervus for the city in turmoil.
Yellow flickers fanned around the empty face.
Always following the light.
Circling the same empty space.
Ocean still with dead tides.
No pull to direct them in any direction.
Nothing chasing the deer.
“You won, deerest.” She tells her, grinning wide and bright and bloody. “Congratulations you won!” Gripping moon white fingers around blood red hands.
Gem’s gut feels like she’s falling. Blinking the blood out of her eyes as her head aches.
The sword runs her through.
Splitting her ribcage open like bones already picked over at a banquet.
The eyes like void watch her. Unblinking. Hungry and proud and hungry.
Gem’s left eye burns. Vision wavering, unfocused.
She grins, a red line around her neck. Crescent crown embedded in her head.
Copper in her mouth and gasping for air like a landed fish.
Mussel sliding down her throat.
She pulls the corpse from the water.
Drags the body out of the ocean.
Lighthouse flashing in it’s cyclical, there and gone warning.
Eyes wide open and unblinking because justice is blind.
“You won! Isn’t it worth it?”
Unable to claw open her neck.
Where the seams should be.
Something holding her wrists.
Hands kept gripped around the sword plunged into white flesh as the rivulets of red run down over Gem.
“Good job, my deer.” She says.
They pull her from the lake’s green-brown water.
She was the one who made the first move.
Who never cared about being a hero.
She didn’t expect to survive fighting the Director.
She knew that the moment she said her name was Cervus.
Gem could never make up for everything she did.
If she kept Pearl alive. Just one time like she was supposed to.
Then that’d mean something.
Mean she hadn’t failed completely.
But Gem keeps hurting the people she's closest to.
Keeps getting them killed.
Backs facing her, shielding her from the danger she caused.
And it takes them instead.
She stands at the edge of a stake and cord fence, train tracks running almost parallel to the border, red triangle banners occasionally flapping with the wind.
Near more populated areas there's signs explaining things and more proper chainlink fence.
Here it's just the line of wooden stakes driven into the ground and the red flags warning people not to enter.
They still haven't gotten here with the replanting.
Probably won't until next spring.
Taking the work section by section, piece by piece, expanding outwards slowly.
The burned landscape isn't even as bad as the first months after, patches of green in broken grey-brown as things come back to life.
Wildflowers and dandelions. Weeds and the idea of undergrowth. And a rare sunflower reaching up to the sky.
Gem’s hands are white around the stake in front of her.
Eyes scanning past the foreground, locked on the distance as she looks for a flash of pale fur.
But she keeps coming back anyway.
Grian finds her on patrol.
It’s not the fact she’s patrolling that’s surprising.
When it’s quiet. When there’s nothing happening.
“We’re getting together. The group. You should come.”
Searches through the city and night for anything out of sorts.
“You can’t push everyone away. This job is dangerous Tr—Cervus.” He stumbles over the last word. So used to another name.
“It’s not what she’d want.”
Gem throws herself into the alleys, weaving through them faster than he can adjust to get to the mugging a couple blocks over.
“At least patrol with someone. Let M run your comms.” He continues after catching up with her, rethinking the hand he almost puts on her arm.
She climbs up the fire escape one handed, wrapping the shallow knife wound as she continues back up.
“You’re going to kill yourself like this Gem.” Grian tries. Pleading almost, but she keeps her attention on the streets.
She can’t be a hero if she’s dead.
Gem jumps to the next roof. Keeps up her patrol.
He’ll go home eventually.
His wings are still healing.
Slight scars under the feathers.
Same as the rest of them.
The Mountaineers all have more scars after The Commission fell.
Skizz didn't have the one across his face when he showed up on the roof where Pearl died.
Grian will leave eventually.
There’s a gold sun and a silver moon in her ears. Hidden by the false ones. By her loose hair.
There’s no wolf at her back.
She still doesn’t make soup.
Those aren’t the right reminders.
There are stars down her left arm. The idea of them.
Moons on her chest to keep the half-cloak in place.
Tears in her left eye. Antlers branching and sharp.
A sun and moon on either side of her head.
Dying slowly, walking the same route every time, unafraid.
Hollow eyes watching, ready to cut out the rot as soon as it’s seen.
Snow not quite falling, but still filling up the corners and edges of the city.
Softening them, with all the razor chill of frost and ice.
She’d led people to the shelters she knew.
The ones funded and the ones abandoned.
Most people aren’t out though.
Enough warning or knowledge.
The cold isn’t anything new.
The empty streets and empty sky and empty hart.
The traffic lights flick between yellow and red. Lamps holding a steady circle glow on the white-covered pavement below.
The snow growing. Light and fluffy in single flakes, perfectly formed six pointed fractals.
Melting against the brick and concrete and asphalt until enough of them have joined.
And the thin layers of ice across the surfaces grow.
It’s dangerous to be on the roofs in this type of weather.
It’s why she’s not on the roofs.
So far from the sky. From the stars she can’t see. All the fake, fast fading ones around her a false comfort.
She walks through the streets.
Half tracing paths she’d taken before.
When the days were bright and warm.
When she chased something important.
The night’s cold, but no colder than any other time.
No moths flickering around the street lamps, using the man-made light in instincts not made for the altered landscape.
Gem keeps moving forward.
Steps somewhere between unconscious and unwilling.
“Why so upset my deerest hart?” The familiar voice says, arms draping over her shoulders. “It’s a villain's role to die.” Tone somewhere between cheerful teasing and darkly mocking.
Her hands are red. The weight pressed against Gem’s back like the training exercises where they were made to carry each other through obstacles and simulated dangers.
Pearl liked whispering small warnings to her.
“Look at how peaceful it is.” She breathes into Gem’s ear, stars softly falling down around them as they walk. “Isn’t it beautiful?” She asks.
The city. Quiet. Calm. No sounds. No smell. Area dark in the way blanket forts and camping are.
“Wasn’t it worth it?” She asks, teeth against Gem’s ear and the red bleeds over the white. Corpse weight turns solid as ice, and Gem missteps.
No one there to catch her.
The promise of rest and respite.
She can’t make herself move away.
“Is that all it takes?” She asks, incredulous. Almost affronted. Almost worried.
The red glitters in the side of her vision.
White floating through blackness around her.
“That’s it?” She says. Gem almost always the one to call an end to their practices.
On the roof, watching the two figures with blurry vision and confusion that melts into Fear.
She was the one who snapped and lunged.
Of course it’s her place to be the one that fell.
The world isn’t as silent.
The peace ripped from her
“You think that’s enough?” Someone says, and no. No, she doesn’t. Knows it’s not.
Gem doesn’t. She knows what to do. What she has to do.
“It’ll never be enough.” She answers.
And she named Gem a hero.
So Gem stalks across the roofs and alleys of the city she died to protect.
