Chapter Text
Prologue—One Month After The Events Of Resson...
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Revenge used to taste sweet when I thought there was an end coming for me when I’d finally had my fill. But just like typical Glory, she’s found a fucking loophole somehow and now I’m stuck somewhere over the line. No doubt she thought she was doing me a favour. But I just wanted to get my sweet revenge so I could get back to Spense as quickly as possible.—Paragraph from ‘The Diaries of Broken Hearts’, section from the actual diary of Maxceelia Polt.
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“They’ll find you eventually. You know that.”
Of course she knows that.
But she can’t stop now.
Not that she could stop before...
And it’s not just personal anymore. That’s what’s turned this whole thing from a cold-blooded and well deserved dish of revenge into a full-blown fucking headache of doing simply what’s fucking right.
And even if she doesn’t have the heart for it anymore, because that heart was ripped out of her—twice over in the space of mere soul-crushing minutes—she still somehow manages to keep that tiny ember of hate in her now hollow chest alight. With every morning she wakes, she pushes herself through the motions and right onto that hate. Gripping it with everything she has left...which isn’t much.
At that last thought, her mind grips on to that last memory of him—smiling up at her with blood stained teeth as he told her to ”—fight them, Maxxie, promise me you’ll fight them—“ and as she clutched him tight and stared down at him helplessly...and utterly heartbroken—just as surely as her hand now grips on to that first gift he ever gave to her. The curved coin feels heavy still, even without the weight of the chain attached to it. Said chain having been ripped off all those years ago, never to be found again.
Healer—because she refuses to learn names, even if she knows they both know they’ve slowly become friends over the years in solitude together—has eyes on her. She can feel the heaviness of those ocean green orbs staring right into her soul, the way that only he ever could. But this gaze from Healer always feels more scolding, like she’s waiting for just the right time to strike with those annoyingly always reasonable and right words of hers.
“Max,”
“I heard you.” She’s quick to answer to save herself anymore grief, or anymore of a headache, but her voice is soft, distracted.
Healer’s eyes turn soft, and Max doesn’t know how she even feels that when nobody is supposed to feel any kind of magic at all around these parts, but she does, and Max huffs before slipping the coin back into the safety of her breast pocket, right over her...where her heart used to be.
“I’m fine.” She says, even musters the faintest of smiles, sighs slowly, nod and repeats with assurance, “And I heard you.”
“Yeah, I’m not quite sure you ever hear anything passed the rage that burns in those veins of yours.”
Max doesn’t know if that’s supposed to mean something, so she’s half glaring, half narrowing her eyes in a challenge.
Healer narrows her eyes right back in the same fashion, arms folding over her usual dirtied cream robes. “Don’t think I don’t know where you disappeared to last week.”
Max rolls her eyes and her tone is as cool and collected as usual as she says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She lifts her nose in a snobbish manner, sniffing the air for show before moving around the healer and walking over to their tiny shared kitchenette. She grabs an apple from the stone bowl on the wooden breakfast table-for-two, plopping herself into one of the two chairs before taking a large bite out of the red fruit. It’s a little too tart for her tastes, but she’s so hungry it barely makes her face sour.
Gods, she’s always so fucking famished after a night of...does what she does at night really even count as cannibalism?
While she’s wondering that, Healer speaks her own wonders aloud, “Why are you doing this?” She turns to face the older woman, all the fight leaving her and when Max really sees the fear and worry in her (not friend) friend’s eyes, she can’t help leaving her own fight behind, too.
Instead, she sighs and for once, really actually tries to not be a bitch about it when she says, “You know why.” But she also really can’t help the meaningful look—the “leave it the fuck alone, I don’t wanna fight about it again” look she adds on the end like she typically does.
Healer lets out the faintest of laughs, but it holds no mirth at all, just pure sympathy as she nods and says, “No, I know all about your bigger picture, and believe me,” She pauses for a real smile this time, and Max is only confused for a split second before she continues with, “I’m more than grateful to any Gods left listening in on a place like this that you’ve finally come to your less vengeful senses...mostly, anyway.” Max nods in acknowledgment, and then, Healer finally asks, “I mean why are you suddenly so interested in the dragons?”
Max shoots her a sarcastic smirk. “You mean why am I setting myself up for more heartbreak?” She chuckles and yes it’s a real fucking sound, because: “Yeah, I don’t have a heart anymore, remember? So, I think I’ll be OK.”
Healer doesn’t look so sure. But then again, she never looks sure unless she’s doing her thing and healing someone. (That someone mostly being Max...)
Max doesn’t let it bother her. Doesn’t let much bother her... Doesn’t know if much can bother her.
Sure, she’s intrigued with what all that fuss in Resson was a few days ago. But that’s all it is...
She has no desire to be near the dragons ever again.
But that doesn’t mean she won’t have to be near them ever again...
And Healer doesn’t need to know she hasn’t quite let go of all that vengeance...