Bone Chilled

[aquaace]

The long day ached in her bones before it was ready to be over with.

Sleep came mercifully easy beneath the weight of exhaustion. This was a rare occurrence as the exhaustion itself was often too tiring to tackle, leaving Sam to stare at the back of her eyelids for hours longer than she got to spend in the depths of unconsciousness. But again, this was one of those rare exceptions.

It was a perfect stew of opportunity: the lulling stretch and pull of the tide, the gentle creaking of the boat, the clear fresh air, the allies surrounding her sleep, the leather wrappings on the handle of her sword at her finger tips, the physical tire of the day setting in the moment she lay down…

It was a rare moment of peace.

The crash of waves follows her into her sleep, drifting deeper into the nothingness of rest with each slowing breath. A white noise to cancel everything else out. Louder than the absent noises of those already snoozing, louder than the pains her joints unendingly groaned about, louder- finally– louder than her thoughts. An everything so stagnant it was nothing to a nothing so loud it was everything. Her fingers involuntarily twitch as she hovers over the true threshold of sleep, nails scratching into the dry earth below her.

The action gives her pause.

Why?
Why would that give her reason to stop her descent into slumber?
Why-?

Why was it so loud?

It’s by pure instinct alone that she rolls herself away before the down swing of the blade can cut her in half.

Sam sucks in a gasp and immediately chokes on it as wide eyes try to process the world around her. Above her is an endless expanse of smoke, further smothering the acrid air and source less blood red light fighting to get through. Around her is a roaring of voices and cacophony of noises all fighting to be heard all at once. There’s a layer of grime already accumulating onto her skin from the settling dust and drip of sweat she had begun to obtain. Her finger dig into the mix of hot sand and dirt below her with a half thought of desperation fueled by denial.

“What in the Hell-“
More accurately, who in the Hell?

Sam. Sam was in this Hell.

There’s no time to ask questions as the towering bony fiend twists and jerks its body so that it turns to face her one misshapen flesh strewn piece at a time. It’s an ugly thing it is- made of disproportionate pieces clubbed together with a yard of flesh stretched too thin across its surface. Within are too many edges that poke and prod from below, displaced in such a way its hard to distinguish whether skeleton or disfigurement lie beneath. Rips and tears scatter between scars, open wounds oozing congealed messes. Sturdy, thick yellowing claws stretch out from its appendages matching in color to the one hooked horn growing out its head and the barbed blade it holds that pulses a sickly green. Deep sunken sockets have beady lights peering out from their darkness, blazing hungrily into its prey. It clicks and grinds its inter-meshed teeth as a slimy tongue darts out to lick across its own face.

Despite the presumption of mindlessness that can be given from its feral appearance, there’s a chilling intelligence of satisfaction in the form of a grin that reaches too far upward when it sees her hesitate in horror at the sight if it.

The weapon is yanked out of the laceration in the ground to raise above its head. Without another moment of thought, Sam throws her handful of dirt into where its eyes should be, rolling over her shoulder to get to her feet. The monstrosity hisses and spits, thick droplets splattering into the sand. A clacking comes from deep within its chest as the thin layer of skin over its trachea jumps and pulls unnaturally in what can only be irritation.

Sam returns its animalistic noise making with a forced growling behind bared teeth, reaching for her sword-
Her sword.
Where was her sword!?

She is saved once again by her instincts.

Throwing herself back, she collides into a torrid metal wall that shakes with the roaring noise she’d registered before. It’s louder here, pressed into a physical amplifier like this. A furious rattling catches her attention and reveals a chain link extension of the solid wall stretching up and protecting anything behind it from the below. Or, more accurately, keeping anything behind from jumping in. Demonic and devilish faces loom and leer down at her through it, cheering for bloodshed in hardly recognizable Infernal.

There’s a sinking feeling in her stomach that isn’t from the sudden drop she does to avoid the decapitating blow swinging right where her head had been.

An unlucky batch of hair that hadn’t made the dodge sprinkles down on top of her, but she ignores it in favor of diving between the legs of the top heavy miscreation. She drags herself by her forearms to pull the rest of the way out, kicking back as fast as she’s able to turn around and get a good look. Her head swivels to take in the blood thirsty crowd encircling her in crude elevated seating. Wasted corpses and remains decorate the stained grounds around her and her opponent. At the opposite end, she can make out a box of seating separated from the rest. Beneath it, the only exit.

A gladiatorial arena of the Hells.

There’s no point in wasting time in asking how or why she’d ended up back here. That fiend had finally gotten its gnarly looking blade pulled out of the wall and was lumbering toward her, gaining speed with each step. She scrambles toward the nearest glint in the sand in hopes of wretched salvation. She knows she won’t reach it in time and dives to the side, allowing the fiend to charge past her and miss piercing her flesh for a third time. It’s far enough away that she chances another dash toward her only chance. Fingers claw into the sand to find the edge and rip it from the earth with strength unburied by desperation. It’s clear immediately that it’s too large to be a weapon, but anything is anything in a waste land, and big, bony, and ugly has already finished its U-turn. She’s sunk too much opportunity into this long shot for a clean getaway, so she has to see it through. The object yanks free just as the blade collides.

Sam is knocked flat from the blow, and the other is thrown off kilter in another heavy footed stumble. Gripping the leather straps behind the plating, she twists off the ground and swings the stand-in weapon in a full spin to maximize the force as she meets the next blow of the blade. The rebound flings both weapons back, but there’s hardly a breath between that and the next clang. Sam has to brace this one with both arms to compensate enough not to be knocked down again. The moment the blade connects, she feels it resonate into her bones, and then immediately after, she feels the tips of her fingers on her left hand go numb. Before the pain and panic can register, she decides to use this to her advantage.

The monster doesn’t get the chance to pull back as Sam grabs the blade by the end with her worse hand and yanks.

Of course, it’s not enough to disarm the lumbering monstrosity. Only pause their movement, but if at first you don’t succeed-

She yanks again, the barbs shredding into her palm. It pulls the blade just close enough that she can lunge forward and slam her makeshift weapon onto its wrist. Something like a grunt comes from the fiend as the bones in its wrist crunch and loosen like she was trying to return the previous favor tenfold.

“Satlos!”

She barks the Infernal word like she were chastising a particularly vicious dog about a bone held between its teeth that it wasn’t supposed to have. A dog twice her size and ready to maul her at a heartbeat’s notice. Truly, it’s a ridiculous thing to say, especially as it could very well be her last word. Still, it’s said with a full chest and promise of wrath that she puts into each syllable.

And, in an unexpected miracle, it works.

It drops the sword handle like it had been burned. Coincidentally, the full weight of the sword pulls into her palm where she can feel every tooth of the serrated blade eat into her muscle but not the screaming pain it should have inflicted. All the more reason to yank it once more. This time out of reach of the fiend to lay at her feet.

Both opponents have the sense to be shocked before they remember where they are.

It dives for the weapon just as Sam drops hers to pick up the sword with bloodied hands. Grip slick and unbalanced, she only manages to get it up in the air before it collides with her, off kilter horn slashing the already wounded arm. Despite it’s win the race was decided a second before when the sword pierced just below where its collar bones should be, shishkabobbing him diagonally through its chest and out its back. It only stops its dive when it catches on its broad guard. The full weight slams into her, and she doesn’t fight it, stumbling back and letting the sword slip from her grip. The fiend falls face down into the sand with a sickening crack.

Hazy gasps filter up through the background noise as it jerks and processes what just happened. It seems just as surprised as her that it’s in this position. An arm tries to look up and make a grab for her, but it doesn’t get halfway off the ground before flopping back down, like a puppet cut from strings. The other tries the same task but can’t figure out how to reach across itself at its awkward slumped angle, arm dragging and giving up as well. She thinks that by the way it breathes, it’ll die from suffocation before blood loss… if whatever that is dripping from it is blood.

Her own breath comes in heavy and worn. She doesn’t move her eyes off of it as she stretches out the toe of her boot to pull the broken piece of armor she’s been using as a shield closer. Reddened fingerprints smear over its edge as she picks it up with both hands and raises it over her head.

By no means was Sam exceedingly merciful to creatures of evil that she faced. She just knew the rules of hunting.
And she thinks it’s been established that she’s no longer the prey here.

Once. Twice. Three times. Four-
The roar of the crowd is overpowered by the roar of blood in her ears as she brings the metal down on its skull again and again and again and again. It’s a deafened rage tunneled into a world of deep, searing red. She doesn’t realize that she’s screaming with each hit until she sucks in a deep breath to quell the dizzy spell creeping up on her and it scratches the back of her throat.

The monster is limp and lifeless with a considerable dent in its skull. There’s blood dripping from her hands where she grips the metal like she had gripped the blade of the sword. The world is a discord of emblazoned blood lust spinning and screaming around her and the corpse. Sam fills her chest again and screams back. Louder. Until her world starts to go dark and her body goes slack against the adrenaline holding it up.

She lays on her side, staring at the only exit still on the other side of the arena between blinks. The sand is warm against her cheek. Her eyelashes flutter with all her remaining strength and blur the outline of the little figure getting bigger by the heartbeat. Something glitters from the little box above the gate. She has the oddest feeling that the glittering is smug somehow.

It’s the last thought she has before she passes out.
—
When she starts to wake, she doesn’t remember what happened. Whatever she did though, she is currently facing the multiple consequences for it.

The world is hazy. Her body is heavy. There is an undercurrent of agony at the beginning of consciousness. She wants to sleep it off for the next fifty years.

“Adriem ed erdam…”
“Take it easy. You really took a beating.”

Scratch what she just said. She’s wide awake before she sees the face she knows belongs to that voice.

“Emory! Redoj-”

She jack knifes half way up, only to double over her left arm with a groan. Ah, right. The consequences.
It doesn’t stop her from trying again out of pure spite and need to confirm what she heard.

Rough hands grab her shoulders and try to push her back down, “I’m serious, Sam! Lay down! You really got hurt! I thought-”

“Hey, hey, you know me.” She bats at the hands and presses a fist into the ground to leverage herself up, “I just need a second. Death can’t even keep me down.”
“Only because-!”

And then he’s forced to swallow his chastising words as she looks at him with tears already slipping down her face. Not a lot. But enough to streak the grime.
He can count the number of times his sister has cried in front of him on one hand.
“I know.”
She hadn’t forgotten the why. She couldn’t have if she tried.
A shaky hand wipes away his own tears with gentle knuckles. She gives him a sad smile.
“I know, Kid.”

Her baby brother.
He looks so grown up.

She lurches forward and pulls him into a tight hug, “Just- just give me a second, alright?”
He’s stiff, arms hovering uncertainly until she squeezes him tighter. Slowly, Emory returns the gesture, nodding into her shoulder.

They sit there together until Sam winces as the feeling of burning pain starts to resonate through her left arm and steadily worsens.
“Maybe more than a second.”
She pulls away with great effort, keeping her good hand on his shoulder so he didn’t disappear on her again, “You got a heal to spare? I have something in my belt, but it’s-” She makes a vague gesture to the empty space it should have occupied with her good hand.

“I- I already used it. But you-” He huffs, “You’re some type of maniac who grabs swords by the blade.”
She grimaces and tries to mold it back into half a grin before it sets, “Heat of the moment. And hey, it worked, didn’t it?”
“It sure did. Though not as it was intended probably.”

Emory grabs her injured arm gently, albeit with a great show of restraint considering the plain exasperation on his face, and extends it fully between the two of them. He tilts his head down when Sam raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything.

Sam doesn’t make the extra effort to translate what she has to say into Infernal this time.
Emory does make the effort not to laugh at the frankly impressive string of swears, but he doesn’t hide the exhausted amusement dashed with fond sympathy from his expression.

There’s a shimmer that starts at her fingertips and has crept up her forearm. It’s faint in the dark of the tunnel but visible enough in the licks of torch light that Sam recognizes it immediately. The outline of her own bones appears against her skin in eerie pulses like a mirage of pain. Not that the pain wasn’t very real. The wrap on her palm was already bleeding through, and that wasn’t even touching the way the bones in her wrist were in gory scattered pieces. Seeing it somehow made the low radiating agony worse.

“What in the hells, man?”
“You got bone chilled.”
“I’m- I got that, odotolebas. Just, like, why-”
“You grabbed a visibly cursed sword. By the blade, Samantha Romera. What did you think was going to happen?”
Sam winces, again, but let’s the full naming slide just as her gaze does to the side.
“I didn’t realize it was cursed.” She mumbles, “I just thought it was cool.”
“It was cool. Chilly even.”

He grunts as he’s slugged in the shoulder, not missing the flickering grin even as he rubs at the will-be-bruise.

“Reach.”
“In bounds.”
“Loser.”
“You thought it was funny.”
“Did not.”
“Get a better humor then.”
“I think I need a radius first.”
Emory blinks twice before he scoffs and shoves her, barely rocking her as he did.
“Now that was a reach.”
“You learned from the best.”
“Debatable.”

The moment’s almost… comforting. It’s definitely familiar straight down to the choice of words. This is how things were for them: poor choices made by one or both of them leading to chaos, Sam rushing in and pulling through with a feat of pure luck and/or rageful spite, Emory dragging and chewing her out by her armor within the remaining inch of her life, patching each other up while roasting one another (Emory more successfully than Sam usually), and then… things being okay. The two of them ready to face the world all over again.

A scream of agony from the arena shatters the moment, startling both of them. Sam curses again as she reaches for a weapon not there and jostles her injury. She also clocks the way Emory holds his breath but doesn’t fade into the shadows. He just sits there, eerily still until the noise cuts suddenly. Neither of them relax again.

Violent cheers echo down the dark hall as the silence settles between them. Sam grimaces as she shifts to a more comfortable position to check over her shoulder again and then to the way her brother’s hands fidget with the cloth of his frayed tunic. He carries more scars on them than she remembers, more than she can count in a glance. She used to let him count the ones on her knuckles in time to counts of breath he needed to calm down. A mindless task to distract and soothe his anxiety. He carries a look that makes her want to offer now despite how useless it’d be with the blood that’s dried into her skin. She bet he doesn’t need her hands and could count his own long enough to have the same effect.

Her hands clench into fists to give her a different reason to feel like puking.

“So,” she swallows, “how long am I gonna be like this?”
“Don’t know. No one else survived long enough for that to be a problem.”
“Well, if I had to choose a problem…”

The tension doesn’t ease, but the pain stays dull. Not bettering just managed.
Her fingers twitch again, fight or flight itching the back of her brain.
They were being watched she could feel it.

So could Emory if the way he kept glancing to the darkest edges of the shadows spoke of anything.

“Listen, anamreh,” he says, finally managing to keep his gaze mostly forward, hands still fidgeting, “There was- al Ablaid. I placed- She let me place a bet on the match. I swear I didn’t know you’d be in it until I saw you, but I did, and I- I placed my bet, but-”

“The Coins? The debt! You-” Sam sputters as a grin comes on so strong she can’t get the right words out, so she hugs him again instead with both arms. She tilts her arm to keep the blood from dripping on him while still holding on tight enough to shake him. There’s a watery edge to her voice when she finally manages a, “You clever kid you! I’m so proud!”

She pulls back from the sudden assault of affection and wipes at her face with her forearm. Her good hand fumbles for one of his to squeeze and show all her love and pride in a way that lets her see his face, “So what happens next? You come back with me, and we get back to being the best dynamic duo out there?”
Emory swallows and glances to the side again, “Sammy, I-”
“I know, you probably want revenge, and I’ll get it for you, but I want to get you as far away as possible-”
“No, Sam-”
“I know, I know! But I have friends who can help! I haven’t asked yet about anything like that but I bet they would! Oh, Em, you’re gonna love them. I can’t wait for you to meet them-”
“Sam!”
She cuts herself off. It’s then she realizes the nails he’s dug into the back of her hand and how stiff he’s sitting. Her mouth opens again but she doesn’t get the chance.
“I bet against you.”

Her white knuckle grip loosens.

“…What?”
“I bet against you. In the arena.”
“Like on- on purpose? You just said you didn’t know-”
“I placed it after.”
“…Why-?”
“Part of the conditions was telling you if I lost, I wouldn’t’ve-”
She pulls her hand away entirely.

“Why place it against me?”

He doesn’t look at her. In fact, she realizes he hasn’t been looking at her since she hugged him. There’s a slow raise of hair on the back of her neck. When did the lights get dimmer? They were only torches, but the growth of shadows felt sinister. She wants to look over her shoulder and look the threat in the face. For some reason, it feels like she already is.

“…It’s been over a year, Sam.”
Her mouth is dry. That seed of guilt she’s been nurturing blooms into a pit of dread in her gut.
“…What?”

Now he looks up. Eyes glinting and jaw hard set, it’s a sneer carved with a knife. She knows that look from the mirror she’d seen it in everyday. Resentment. Fear. Rage.

“It’s been over a year. I’ve lived in Avernus for over a year. I thought you would have already gotten the coins already.”

She blinks, “Already- they’re Soul Coins, Emory. They’re not growing on trees. I’ve been hunting them down every second I’ve had.”

Really, she’s more confused than anything. They’d been having a moment. What was this? Where was this coming from? Was he really that angry at her? How much had changed between them? With them?

Her guilt and confusion twist real fast the moment he rolls his eyes at her. Something else takes their place. Something far more familiar and quick to light.

“What?” She says with a scowl of her own, “Spit it out.”

Emory doesn’t say anything, only taking a deep breath through his nose and looking further away. Sam shoves his shoulder hard enough to break his straight backed tension with a glare.
“You think you could do better?”

He scoffs, so bitter of a sound that it leaves a sour taste in her mouth, “I think I wouldn’t be playing hero with my new friends while you sat in the hands of a devil after giving up everything for me.”

There’s a tingling numbness in her left arm and a ruby tint pulling over her vision.

“You giv- The only reason we’re here is because you sold my soul for this! My soul! Because I did give up everything I had. I’ve always given everything up for you. I gave you my life to raise you. I gave my life to save you!”
“Maybe I should have let you!”

Sam jerks back, the words cutting right through the haze and cutting deep. She squeezes her fist but nothing comes through. The only thing she feels is the gash in her chest right between her ribs. It bleeds freely without intervention. She raises her hands to put pressure on it and maybe staunch this horrible twisting-

He flinches.
Full body, raising his arms in front of his face and squeezing his eyes shut, flinches.
She freezes.
Full tension, eyes widening and pit of dread blooming into suffocating horror, freezes.

What… what is she doing? Is this who she is to him?
Why did he feel like he needed to cower from her? What about being his protector?
Where did she fail him so badly?

A perfume of pomegranates and roses answer her unspoken questions.
A second wind hits her.

She lurches forward and forces her way through to hold his face in both her hands.
“Sam, I’m- I’m sorry- I’m sorry-”
“No, you’re not. Do you hear me? No, you’re not.”
His face squishes in her grip, smearing red across his cheeks. His eyes are wide as she looks to him with a tear brimmed intensity.
“You are surviving. You are doing exactly what I taught you to do. You are looking out for yourself.” Her voice cracks on the last sentence and it’s all she has left to keep from crying again, “You keep surviving. I will come back. Just hold on a little longer. Okay? Okay?”

The world is dimming again but no shadows move. She can still see him nod to her question. Or at least, she feels it dislodge her weakening grip that she moves to his shoulder. She let’s the rest of herself slump forward, arms loose around him as he fumbles to catch her. There’s enough coordination in her limbs to press a kiss to his cheek before dropping her chin on his shoulder. Her eyes are starting to flutter close. Between her lashes she can see the blurry glittering of gold and purple satin. That vague feeling of those shimmers being smug returns.

A feeling of protection rises in vain. She curls her fingers into the back of his tunic and closes her eyes completely. Fingers curl into the back of her own cloth and pull her close. She manages an upturn of her lips despite the call unconsciousness has on her.

“Et oma, onamreh. Odadiuc ochum. Ís?”
“…Ís, ís. Otnemorp. Et amo. Ol otneis.”
“Shh…”
Emory tenses, pulling her closer, shaking her as she droops further.
“Sam- Sa-!”

—
This time, she remembers what happened when she wakes up laid across the grass.

Crickets chirp amongst the swaying of trees and nocturnal life. The air is cool and light against her skin. Her eyes are closed, but the dark is a blanket over the ache she carries, hiding her away from the world. The smell of pine is strong and the smell of a campfire is distant but a balm to her frayed nerves all the same.

She’s home again.
And the sense of relief it brings is sickening.

Sam turns and presses her forehead to the dampness of the earth below her. The sensation shakes a gasp of relief she didn’t know she had from the tightness in her chest. Something like a laugh but not at all quite- too alien, too ugly- follows.

She grips the grass in clenched fists, the pain different than every other time she’s ever been when wounded. This pain is different than any other time she’s ever felt. A nauseating tide curling through her stomach as the bones shift under her skin, as the world turns on despite the vertigo it brings to watch it. There’s a loss that dwells beneath the obvious that is control and feels more like the absence of ground beneath her feet. This is a new pain that Sam had taken pride in not preparing for and suffered twice as much because of so.

But she has to feel it.
To repress this is to let a wound fester and infection is preventable.

She is a fighter who knows how to wrap her own wounds and take care of herself. By the gods’ interference alone would she let herself fall to something as preventable as infection. She can handle this. She can, and she will, and she *has* to.

She has to, she has to, she has to.

A chant, over and over. An affirmation she has told herself countless times. One she continues to whisper to herself and the blades of grass she is trying not to rip from the Earth. A choice of kindness that has blurred the line between herself and the by-standing life around her.

She has to, she will, she can.
She can, she will, she has to.

Exhaustion burns behind her eyes, but she knows she won’t be able to close them long enough to sleep a the threat the company unconsciousness would bring. Adrenaline continues to thrum through her heart. Fists press into the ground to help her stand, faltering with a hiss as it puts too much weight on her injury. Gritting her teeth, she forces her way to her feet anyway. It sends her stumbling into a tree with the momentum, but she doesn’t stop. One step forward after the other, back to where she needed to be.

Moving forward.
It was the only option.

[Author]

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