Chapter Text
“Zero!”
She’s having the dream again.
“Fire!”
Her vision bursts into light; the searing heat of dragonfire rushing overhead.
“One!”
Songs roar in her ears, a sickening cacophony of cast-off copies.
“How can he still have so much strength…”
No matter where the dream begins, it always ends the same.
“No!”
A scream, and then silence.
Zero springs to life with a familiar name on her lips, uneven gasps of air forcing themselves through her lungs. Her sheets are stained with sweat, and she sits there for a long moment in darkness, alone.
“Damn nightmares,” she hisses under her breath as it steadies. Tension gives way to resolution; she twists herself towards her nightstand and begins to fumble about. After a few moments, her hand closes around the increasingly familiar smooth surface of her prosthetic arm. It clicks into place a moment later, and she gives each of its joints an experimental flex—habit, she guesses.
Strange. It feels somehow different than normal. But it’s as responsive as she needs it to be; no reason to be picky.
A shuffling sound outside brings her to stiffen, but she relaxes as a familiar voice follows it a moment later. “Zero?”
“Hey,” she murmurs into the darkness. Her throat is raw. She almost asks him to give her some light, but immediately thinks better of it. That would be an easy way to burn her house to the ground.
He’s little more than a baby, after all. He’s not Michael.
“Are you alright?” he asks. “You were shouting again.”
“It was nothing.”
“But—”
“I’m fine, Mikhail.”
The dragon falls silent, and for a moment Zero wonders if she’d spoken with more bite than intended. But that's ridiculous—she's usually much harsher with him, after all. A little snap like that won't bring him down.
“Hey,” she says again. “Get your nose out of the window. I’m getting dressed.”
“Oh!” he exclaims, as if stirred from reverie. “Sure thing, Zero! No problem!” The cottage creaks slightly as he pulls away.
“He seems oddly happy,” she murmurs to no one in particular.
Clearly the sun has yet to rise, but she knows from experience she won't be falling back asleep. She slips out of bed somewhat regretfully, grimacing as she trades surprisingly comfortable sheets for frigid air.
Fumbling about blindly again, her hands fail to find a match or a candle. “Shit,” she swears under her breath. “Must’ve ran out.”
Resigning herself to working in darkness, she stumbles forward in the direction of her dresser. The wood seems oddly smooth as she makes contact—she could’ve sworn this old thing had been falling apart. Rifling about inside, she fails to find her usual clothes—had she left them out on the line? Nice going, dumbass.
She settles for a black blouse—at least, she thinks it’s black—and leggings. These clothes, too, seemed oddly comfortable—and she didn’t think she owned this many clothes in the first place. Hard to go shopping when you’re half-dead and in hiding, after all.
Grimacing, she shakes her head and closes the dresser. Either something really is off today, or she’s finally losing it—and she knows which one is the more likely option.
“Zer-oooo,” Mikhail calls, stretching out the last syllable. “Are you up? You haven’t even turned the lights on!”
She sighs. “Would if I could, asshole.”
“That’s mean, Zero,” Mikhail pouts. “But don’t worry, I’ll help!”
Before she can even begin to protest, Mikhail is hooking a claw through the window, clumsily fumbling about as he tries to squeeze through. She winces at the clattering of things being knocked off her desk.
“Mikhail, would you—” she begins in a scathing tone, but suddenly the dragon lets out an “ah-ha!” of triumph, there’s a soft click, and the cottage is bathed in light.
Zero's first thought is this: Where the fuck am I?
It looks like her cottage, at least at first glance. It's not any bigger or smaller, and the furnishings are all in the same places. But the more she casts her gaze upon her surroundings, the more disparities reveal themselves: there’s no holes in the ceilings, the windows are made of glass, a strange silver object has been knocked off her desk (sort-of like Accord’s trunk, she thinks, only thinner), and everything looks so damn nice.
The light comes from the ceiling—several crystal-like orbs that cast a pale artificial glow upon the room.
Zero doesn’t even know where to begin putting this together, so she opts to fall back on the familiar—berating Mikhail. “How many times have I told you not to try to squeeze your smelly scales in here?”
“But they’re not smelly!” Mikhail exclaims. “I’ve been washing just like you taught me!”
Zero takes a deep whiff, and is surprised to find that he’s completely right. Mikhail smells almost downright pleasant.
This is, by far, the most disturbing of the morning’s revelations.
“Whatever,” she sighs. “Just don’t do it again. I have to clean up your mess now."
“I can—!”
“No. Helping.”
“Oh,” Mikhail says, freezing half-way through trying to squeeze a wing in again. “Right. Sorry, Zero.”
Rolling her eye, she sets herself to picking up the belongings Mikhail had knocked to the floor. Most are just alien enough to be unfamiliar—bottles with unrecognizable labels, papers that are blindingly white, and that strange silver rectangle. It hums slightly as Zero lifts it up, and she nearly drops it again. Whatever it is, she gingerly places it back on the desk.
Finally, her gaze falls upon the mirror. Remarkably, it seems to be the one thing that doesn’t look any different than she remembers. It cracked when it hit the ground—dammit—but it hadn't completely shattered. It wasn’t as though she put much stock in her appearance anyways, it’s not the end of the world—
Zero stops breathing.
There is a dull ache on the right side of her face. She’s gotten used to it at this point. Sometimes it hurts like a bitch, but mostly it’s just there. An eternal reminder of her failure.
The ache remains. Her eye is gone.
So is the flower.
The first thing Zero can think to do is lift up the patch—that’s what’s covering her eye now. She’s not the type to get queasy, and after a brief examination in the mirror she confirms it—the flower is gone.
She slips the eyepatch back into place.
The flower is gone.
Zero doesn’t know what that means. Has the infection regressed? She didn’t think that was possible—she’d tried to destroy it even before she’d lost the eye, and she knew what that had gotten her.
She needs to be sure. Zero hastily begins searching the room— shit. Her sword is nowhere to be found among these strange belongings, or any other blade for that matter.
She has to put it to the test the other way, then.
Slowly, with tantalizing anticipation pounding in her chest, Zero begins to sing.
It’s a nameless tune, soft and solemn like a funeral dirge. She doesn’t know where she picked it up—she doesn’t care, but it's hers, the one thing she’d had before the flower. Songs can’t be stolen, only twisted—as the flower had twisted one of the few joys in her shitty, shitty life.
Gradually, she raises her pitch, shaping wordless sound into lyrics etched into her heart.
But power does not spring to life at her fingertips.
The world hears her, but it does not respond.
Her song cuts off suddenly, dying on her lips as her voice cracks. Blood thunders through her veins, oxygen through wheezing breaths, she—
She’s not an Intoner.
She’s just…
Human.
She can’t help it. She laughs. A slow, breathless chuckle at first, but before long she’s doubling over like it’s the funniest thing in the world. Zero slips to the floor, clutching her knees in a fetal position and just laughing.
“Zero?” comes Mihkail’s voice from outside. He sounds genuinely concerned. “Are you okay?”
For a moment, she feels she doesn’t have the strength to respond
“I’m free.”
“I’m confused,” Mihkail says, poking his head through the window again. “You weren’t free before?”
Zero takes a deep breath. Her good eye bores into the wall.
“Not really,” she admits in a very small voice.
“Oh,” Mihkail says. In an instant, his voice is bright once more. “Well, I’m glad you’re free now!”
“Thanks, dummy,” she says. They're earnest words of gratitude.
She sits there on the floor in silence for several minutes more. Morning light begins to shine through the windows. Finally, she resolves to get up—she really should…
She really should go…
...What am I going to do?
The flower’s destruction was all that drove her. The very most she had ever hoped for was a blissful death when all was said and done. The all-consuming fires of her resolve were probably the only thing that had kept her corpse of a body walking.
She’s pretty sure she isn't a corpse anymore, at least.
She’s here, and the flower isn’t.
“Zero!” Mihkail chirps, stirring her from her rumination. “Hey, Zero! Aren’t you gonna water the garden?”
“Garden?” she echoes. She definitely doesn’t own a garden—the idea that she’d have the patience to take care of something is absolutely laughable.
“Yeah!” Mikhaill affirms, against all odds. “I don’t think they got enough water the last time it rained. They look kinda sad.”
“Plants don’t get sad, dummy,” Zero sighs.
“I think they do,” Mikhail murmurs under his breath. “But anyways!” he hastily continues. “You always water the garden in the morning! You say—” and suddenly his voice takes on a tone that Zero realizes with sickening clarity is supposed to be an impression of her, “—plants are weaker than us, Mikhail, so sometimes they need our help to grow big and strong!”
Zero stares blankly. “I have literally never said a single word of that sentence.”
“Zer-oooo!” he pouts once more. God, when had he gotten so bold?
“Alright!” she relents, if only to stop his whining. “I’ll go water the garden.”
As Mikhail happily stomps about outside, Zero slips on a pair of boots and realizes she’s smiling.
What is wrong with her?
Stepping outside, she takes in a breath of crisp morning air. Here, at least, things seem mostly the same—though the road too looks different than she remembers.
“Zero!” Mikhail calls from behind the cottage. “Come on, Zero!”
“Stop repeating yourself, dummy!” she exclaims exasperatedly. “What’ve we got here, carrots or—?”
Rounding the cottage, Zero’s gaze falls upon her garden.
She tries to twist her head away, but it’s a futile effort.
She vomits into the field of flowers.