This blood keeps me alive, but what is it that runs through you?
Outside it was freezing, but Fiona could not bear to suffocate in front of the fire. She trudged through the snow; anyone looking on would think her oblivious to the soaking of her shoes and pants. To her, it still seemed nice to feel the cold like that.
Glynna was seated, huddled, in a little alcove around the corner from the Herbology classroom. She had wrapped herself up in the biggest winter jacket she owned.
Fiona immediately curled up beside her, and not because Glynna was basically dressed as a human pillow. The two sat with their heads on each other’s shoulders for a few minutes in silence.
“Did you write Ma back?” Glynna asked finally.
“Oh...” Fiona didn’t move her head. “Of course you know. You two are like constantly chattering birds.”
There was a notable lack of resentment in her tone. She just sounded tired.
“She just told me she was gonna write you,” said Glynna. “I think she really missed you when you didn’t come home.”
Glynna’s words fidgeted around a question - and Fiona could tell it was implied somehow.
“Mm,” Fiona wrinkled her nose, clinging to Glynna’s arm, causing her jacket to make a crumpling noise. “I didn’t want to go home.”
It wasn’t in Glynna, at this moment, to shoulder all of Fiona’s emotions without showing any of her own. She leaned just as heavily on her twin’s shoulder.
“It’s all I wanted to do,” she said, feebly. “I dunno how you didn’t.”
“I dunno,” replied Fiona almost in echo of Glynna’s words. She felt weak too now, and couldn’t manage to shake it. All she wanted to do was sit there in the comfortable silence of home. There it was - she felt mildly surprised at the realisation that she longed for home too; that she wanted her mother to come and hug her until she felt better.
“I know you were trying to help,” continued Glynna, her voice still weak. “But I don’t know what I’d have done if he’d taken Dari then.”
Fiona had no idea, either.
“He didn’t,” she responded, curtly. As though saying that would make it all better.
“I’m sorry about Myr,” said Glynna, sounding genuinely upset.
Fiona looked up at her finally.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
“I know ... it wasn’t yours either,” said Glynna, though it was barely audible. Then she leaned on Fiona heavily. “I can’t believe he did that. I can’t believe he did that to him.”
“I know,” breathed Fiona. “But it’s all right, because Myr’s like that. He was protecting everyone.”
All efforts to try and talk Fiona out of her own trauma were failing. Glynna was barely able to keep the fears out of her mind.
“Can you imagine if he’d done that to Dari?” she said, as though that was any different - a worse crime.
“Yeah,” Fiona responded instantly. Of course she had. It was hard to shake the memory of your friend getting a sword through his arm. “I’m trying really hard not to. Because I don’t know what I’d have done.”
“Tried to stop him,” said Glynna instantly. There was such a gut reaction about the way she said it.
“Yeah, of course,” replied Fiona without any heart. She imagined them all getting shot down, faces shoved into the table, blood splattering over the floor as they tried to save Dari, in vain. “We could’ve all jumped up and fired our best spells and still been knocked out so fast, he would’ve still taken Dari. And we would’ve been fucked.”
It was far too harsh. Glynna was shuddering.
“...I’m sorry,” said Fiona, hugging her tightly. “I’m just frustrated about it all. I wish I could’ve done something and I just- felt kind of helpless, like there was nothing we could do at all.”
That was an understatement. Fiona felt it grating on her - the helplessness. The uselessness. It weighed her shoulders down almost physically at that moment. She held her hand over her head.
“I feel so useless,” she mumbled.
There was a muffled squeak from her sister. Eventually it formed itself into words.
“So do I.”