Work Text:
If she slips the cap on and watches herself disappear, she can almost pretend she’s not alone. Almost. Like she’s still next to her, just as invisible, and she’s not sitting in her tent, doing to herself what she swore never to watch another suffer again, all because of…
Her.
If she slips the cap on, she doesn’t have to look at herself, either. The sleeves cover the scars, sure, but she knows they’re there. She’s pretty sure everyone else does, too, and it only makes it worse, makes her worse. Makes her do it again.
Footsteps outside. She slips the bottle into her parka pocket with practiced ease and resents herself for it. The footsteps pass and even though her hands tremble, twitch, itch to reach for it again, she tries to force herself to be still. For herself, not. For her, yes.
Her lady surely knows. Few things escape the attention of the goddess. She hasn’t said a thing, not about the scars, not about the bottle, not about the crumpled pack of cigarettes she keeps in the other pocket. As long as she performs her duty and keeps her vow, there is little that interests her lady.
If she knows about the boiling hate that’s been festering inside her lieutenant, fermenting and blistering and biting away at her insides… she hasn’t seen fit to do a thing about it.
The cap comes on and all the world stops mattering.
She can convince herself it still smells of her.
She’s plucked a single hair from the inside, keeps it in a locket around her neck like it’s her most treasured possession.
The bottle is invisible, too.
Somehow, it’s found its way into her hand again. Burns as it’s going down, tastes like today’s cigarettes, tomorrow’s vomit, and yesterday’s broken promises. It can’t bring her back, but if she keeps it up, she might just join her.
Is it still death in battle if the battle is within you? Nobody’s ever bothered to tell her.
But even the most resilient minds can break, the strongest spirits be shattered, and she’s drinking herself away to forget to remember one. At this rate, she may be the next – her spirit’s already broken any way, it’s just a matter of time until the body follows suit.
She grips her dagger and tosses it away for her own sake. The blade becomes visible mid-throw, just as it leaves her hand, a spinning blur of silver and ivory. It embeds itself in her bedroll, just where her head would be if she were as asleep as she ought to be, and if that isn’t a sign, she doesn’t know what is.
The cap comes off.
She flings it away in anger, changes her mind right away and snatches it back out of the air. The bottle falls out of her pocket in the process and rolls downhill, out of her tent and into the night. If they don’t know already, tomorrow they will.
Just one more day. Make it one more day, every day. One more day, and then the rest of eternity.
Her hands twitch for the dagger and she clenches them into fists to keep still.
One more day, every day.