Chapter Text
The turning-away begins with a single, simple difference: late in the year 1097, only days before the tragedy at Hillock, Rhodes Island elite Operator Misery is tasked with observation of the remnants of the scattered Reunion organization. Around the pivot-point of that tiny deviation, someone's fate bends.
[December 24th, 1097 - Bleached Wasteland north of Sargon]
Misery steps across the barren ground, slipping through space itself with a whisper of Arts. From one sparse point of cover to another, he closes on his objective. Ahead, on a ridge, stands his primary observation target: Nine, de facto leader of the new reunion movement. With her, a scattering of other figures; a few masked Reunion members, others in ragged garb—Rusthammer, most likely—and the enigmatic merchant known as Cannot Goodenough.
As he advances, bit by bit, he thinks of someone better suited to this task. His old friend would have no need for cover, nor even for this proximity. Scout would simply be beyond their ability to perceive. The memory of his lost friend keeps him company as he continues, drawing close enough to hear, at last, their conversation.
"It was never my intention to play with words," the merchant says, his voice turned tinny by the odd helmet on his head, "but not everyone is able to accept the stark, unvarnished truth. Some truths are better left unspoken, Miss Nine."
Misery's target answers. "Reunion does not need lies and deception."
"You have roamed the wastelands, the myriad realms of Terra. What have you seen?" He fixes his stance, sweeps an arm out to gesture toward the breadth of the land. "Let me tell you what I've seen."
And then he speaks, and Misery nearly forgets his task in listening. Nearly. But his words are captivating, spoken from some place deep in the heart, or else worn glass-smooth by the tumbler of long consideration.
One thing he says lingers with Misery long after the mission is complete. The low emphasis, the urgency in his tone as he says: "Someone needs to do something."
[September 1098, Londinium Streets]
Misery watches as a brief, bloody clash plays out. Another act of butchery among the many making up the Londinium crisis. Dublinn, this splintered little piece of it anyway, makes its stand against the Military Commission. In the brief moments they are allowed, they come to understand why Manfred holds the rank of general. Misery has very little sympathy to spare for them; since his mission in the wasteland he has lost another old friend, this time at Dublinn's hands.
The unit's leader, a too-thin Feline with potent Arts, is the last to fall. Even defeated, she spits venom and fury without hesitation. She does not ask for mercy. She wishes Oripathy on herself and her fellows, because then at least they might not die so powerlessly. Even Manfred, stoic soul that he is, is taken aback by the words.
And then he turns, departing with his troops behind him, and the Feline crumples where she stands. Hate, it seems, was the only thing keeping her upright. When the sound of her hoarse breathing quiets and the footsteps of the Sarkaz unit fade, Misery steps out from the gloom. He stands beside her, his triptych gaze impassive. Another death in an ocean of deaths. He wonders for a moment at the balance sheet; will the death of this killer save lives, or will it cost them? In the long run of history, in that unknowable expanse Kal'tsit looks out across, will it mean a thing? He isn't her. He cannot know.
The ragged lump before him, her clothes rapidly darkening as blood seeps from wounds beyond counting, reaches out to touch the face of a slain compatriot. She whispers: "No one's... after us now. Let's go home."
Misery speaks without quite understanding why. "Even though your meeting's end will be in death?"
She looks up. She meets his eyes. She grins.
Misery wonders just what it is she's seeing.
And then willpower can offer her no more, and she slumps to the cold pavement, unmoving. Another death among the many.
In the silence that follows, though, her words linger with Misery. If only she had the power to fight this fate, this miserable unmarked death. If only there were anything she could do, she would bear any suffering to see it.
Someone needs to do something.
She's Mandragora. A leader of Dublinn. A murderer, a wretch possessed of little beyond blind hatred. Her work, however directly or indirectly, stole Outcast's life away. She wants death, has accepted it before his eyes.
But, but. There is something he can do. Misery crouches low, and takes the dying woman in his arms.
[??? - ???]
In a dark, distant place, Mandragora drifts. She is alone, but not once is she left alone. She feels the heat of fire on her skin, the choking sear of her lungs filling with hot ash. Hillock. Londinium. A childhood home lost so long ago that her mind can only cling to its shape in its silhouette, ablaze.
She feels soil under her feet, dark and wet and rich, but with nothing to offer her. Though she walks and walks, the canopy yields no starlight and the press of trees never widens. The Dark Forest turns her away. Black with decades of caked-on blood, the blood of killers and innocents without distinction, her soul belongs better to the dread mist than to the lights of the cities beyond. Tara, ever distant.
The mud swallows her. Heavy muck that sucks at her clothes, finds every hem and grips with the fervency of a dying friend. She opens her mouth to cry out, but the mud floods in, driving out even the air in her lungs, driving out all that would keep her going. Nothing is left, and she sinks. She feels her body no different than the mire all around.
...But. But. Some deep fire, some spark even this burial cannot smother, seizes her. Floods her veins with desperation. She claws, she thrashes, though she does not know where her desperate scrabbling will lead; to light and air, or to darkness deep enough to finally snuff out what little of her remains.
Toward anything, Mandragora drags herself on.