Master of None: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

22.

Content warning: torture, violence, war, death, descriptions of a plague, very brief implied alcohol use. this chapter is like, 10,000 words of darkstalker having a complete mental breakdown. it's a doozy.

Darkstalker

This is how I die.

I can feel it in my bones. It's the only thought that's clear to me, as I lie there, burning up a fever on a small, uncomfortable cot.

Anonymous.

Powerless.

Alone.

However I'll go, it'll be painful. I'll cry out, and no one will hear me, and I'll be glad because at least I won't have to suffer the indignity of being cared for.

And then my heart will stop beating, like the dragon in the bed beside me. I was supposed to die on a battlefield, fighting for something important. I was supposed to be shown in paintings and written about in legends. I was supposed to suffer, not be treated gently. I deserve to suffer. That's the only conclusion I can draw.

I picture how they'll burn my body. How the smoke will hang heavy over the streets. Clearsight won't be able to find my ashes, won't even know until she shows up at my window and finds it empty.

Oh, Clearsight.

She comes by, I think, tapping on the window.

Or maybe it's not her, maybe it's that nurse with her eyes. Their faces warp and change, the bright colours swirling overhead.

Clearsight promises to marry me again. My talon is too weary to reach up and tell her I'm sorry.

***

I think it's her, checking my heart rate. Forcing me to drink water. Giving me another dose of laudanum. 

"Here—do you have enough strength to hold this up, or do you need me to help you?" I hate the taste of whatever it is they make me drink–sharp and bitter, clinging to my throat.

With the last vestige of strength I have, I lift up the dark-tinted bottle to my mouth, and swallow its contents.

"Clearsight, you shouldn't be in here," I murmur. "You're gonna get sick."

I want to reach out and hold her. I want to be stronger than her. But I'm so tired, I can hardly move.

She clears her throat. "You're hallucinating--it happens with patients who are really, really sick. You need to drink some water. Can you do that for me?"

She pours a glass of water for me without waiting for an answer, lifting it to my mouth.

I reach to grab it from her, mumbling, "I don't need your help." But I just knock the glass over too, leaving a pool of water on the floor.

She closes her eyes, sighs heavily. Her face shifts, rearranges, then goes back to normal. 

"Darling, isn't there something you're not telling me?" it sounds like she's whispering into my ear, even though I can see her fading away.

I can feel the medicine slowly sinking in–the familiar rush of warmth, followed by a dull, quiet empty.

You don't want to know, honey. You think you do but you don't.

***

I'm pressing a red-hot metal rod to the scales of an IceWing whose face keeps shifting. She screams, and I want to feel nothing. I wonder why, after all this time, I still don't.