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It happens like this:
Mercury is 16, and he’s laying next to Emerald on the floor of yet another shitty inn, and Emerald’s telling a story about some heist she pulled off, illustrating it with illusions, and it’s not the first time she’s added pictures to her stories, but it is the first time Mercury realizes he doesn’t like it.
“You know,” he starts, and he’s not sure if she can hear the bitterness in his voice and he’s not sure if he cares, “pictures like that are a crutch. You’re never gonna tell good stories if you can’t use your words.”
Emerald rolls her eyes and elbows him. “Do you want to hear the end or not?”
He settles down, but he doesn’t really hear the end of that story. He’s thinking about Emerald, lost and broken, without her semblance. He’s thinking about how she’d shatter, if she had to face someone head-on, without lies and misdirection and trickery.
He tells himself it won’t come to that, but he knows better than anyone that he can’t make that promise.
It happens like this:
Mercury is 17, and he has to push the buttons of everyone he meets. Neo is frustratingly smooth, smiling in a way that Emerald later tells him makes her look like an airhead, but Mercury thinks makes her impressive. She has perfect control, under her child-like pouts and exaggerated facial expressions. But Roman is responsive, easy to get a rise out of, and there’s something in Mercury that delights in playing with him, insulting him and teasing him until he can’t help but rise to the bait.
There’s strategy behind it too, of course. Mercury isn’t sure where his joy in getting a rise out of someone ends and his joy in cracking someone else open and reading them like a book begins. And people, he knows, lash out with their semblances as often as with their weapons. But Roman’s threats are mundane, centered around his cane, and Mercury can’t help but respect the guy a little more. The respect doesn’t quite feel earned, though, so he covers it up with snarky comments, and he doesn’t think Emerald can tell the difference between watching someone so he can read them and watching someone just to watch.
It happens like this:
Mercury is 17, and fighting feels like a balm on his ragged soul. He’s alive in the arena, and he knows Emerald like the back of his own hand, and together they move like poetry. He’s deadly and direct and effective, and it feels better than any chemical high he can imagine. He isn’t questioning if he likes it because he likes it or because he’s supposed to like it, he’s just feeling the pounding of his heart and the rush of adrenaline. He revels in every surprised moment he forces out of his opponents. He thinks he’d hate being underestimated so much more if it didn’t lead to this, to the impact of boots on flesh and the shock in their eyes as they realize they fucked up.
He might just be a broken assassin, but he’s a damn good one.
It happens like this:
Mercury is 18, and he knows something is off before Cinder does. Vernal doesn’t have the confidence in her bones that a Maiden should, the quiet power that Cinder exudes until she opens her mouth. She’s prey, not a predator, and Maidens are apex predators, circling hawks, lone wolves. It’s Raven who oozes power, who stands like she’s the most important person in the room, like she isn’t afraid of anyone. Anyone who can stare down Cinder like that, who can watch a cornered dog growl and bark without even a moment of fear, they’re someone to watch.
And, maybe, someone to test, not that Cinder will let him size up Raven properly, find her weak points and twist until she comes apart like a ripe fruit.
He considers telling Cinder, warning her that someone’s trying to trick them, but the penalty for being wrong will be steep, and Raven’s coming along anyway. This little ruse won’t hurt anything, and Mercury can feel his shame or smugness in private, when all the cards are revealed.
Maiden or not, he keeps his eyes on Raven. Either way, she has magic on a leash, and he’s more afraid of the owner than the dog.
It happens like this:
Mercury is 18, and he wants to say “I told you so,” but Emerald’s unconscious and he isn’t sure Hazel has a sense of humor. He isn’t sure that it would help, really, but he’s willing to try a lot of things if it means that his father’s voice will stop echoing in his head, sneering about what happens to people who are weak and who use their Semblance like a crutch. He should have warned her, but he’d been too weak, hadn’t wanted to fight with his (friend?) ally.
He won’t need to say it, not when she wakes up. Almost dying scares people, and Emerald fights when she gets scared. He’ll help her train, make sure she’s strong enough to kill when she needs to. It’ll be like old times, the two of them sparring and making jokes, not just dancing around the gallows, but on it.
He reassures himself with the slight movement of her chest as she breathes.
It happens like this:
Mercury is 19, and his life doesn’t feel anything like old times. He doesn’t like fighting Emerald, doesn’t like hurting her, and he isn’t sure when he started caring about her but he certainly does now and it’s terrifying.
He’s pretty sure he trusts her, which might actually be worse. He never talks about his father, about how his father reached into his soul and tore-
He expected it to hurt, at the time. Everything his father did hurt. Pain was his constant companion, his first friend, the one thing he could count on. What he didn’t expect was the emptiness, the cold, the sense of loss. It was worse than when he lost his legs, the way flesh that wasn’t there would still itch, but it was similar. Like when you miss a step, put your foot down a little too hard, but every time he reached for his Aura.
He got used to the lurch in his chest, welcomed it even, tactile feedback that his Aura was still there, scarred as it was. He still had at least part of a soul.
But alone, lost in memory, missing his best friend, all he can feel is the empty cavern inside him, and how it threatened to drag him down and drown him in the Grimm-tar of loss.
It happens like this:
Mercury is 19, and he’s too busy gloating to feel. Emerald can suck it. He might just be a tool, an attack dog, but he’d made sure he was on the side of the winners. Salem was getting impatient with Cinder; couldn’t she see that? It was only a matter of time before Salem killed the impudent woman, who thought she could have her own plans, who thought she could sneak around behind her back.
Mercury won’t be swept up in any of that. He’s allied with the most powerful person around, and she is going to win. She’s proud of him, for recognizing that he needed to move on, for not getting caught up in the crutches of emotion and connection. Even Tyrian, the little shit, had been impressed by his ascent through the ranks.
He doesn’t care that he’d left Emerald behind, he tells himself. He doesn’t need someone who couldn’t see the obvious when it was in front of her nose. Cinder had been useful, but she was on the way out. You were loyal to Salem, completely and utterly, or it was only a matter of time before she decided you were too much trouble to deal with. Mercury is going to survive.
He doesn’t need anyone else.
It happens like this:
Mercury is 19, and he supposes that, technically, Emerald did listen to him.
He’d said that Cinder didn’t care about her, would cast her away as soon as she wasn’t useful anymore, and she’d taken that to heart. She’d left Cinder without so much as a word, and he can’t help but want to give her a pat on the back for that, mutter a “well done” quiet enough that no one else can hear.
He doesn’t care one way or the other. He’ll miss having her skills on his side, but he’ll manage. He doesn’t need anyone else, not ever. He’s a weapon, solitary, self-contained. He’d only stayed with her, with Cinder, so long because it suited him well. He’s happy now, with Salem, on the winning side.
He misses Emerald like he misses a part of himself, a bone-deep ache that hurt again each time he’s reminded of that emptiness.
He doesn’t care about her. He doesn’t care about anything. He hasn’t cared about anything since his father ripped his soul in two, and he’ll never care again. Emptiness is his friend, a source of strength. Caring about people is a weakness. It’ll get her killed.
He wishes she’d stayed.
Mercury watches Emerald follow Oscar out of the darkness, and he wishes for something.
He isn’t sure what.