Dust

to dust

to dust

to dust

to dust.

It seeps into his eyelids, threatening to push in further if he cracks them open; dust cakes itself between his eyelashes, his lips, his teeth.

All the screaming, all the shouting and the shrieking seems so far from here, this plot he's buried under. This strange resting place.

And rest he wants to, to lay his head back, give in, let go. Enough is enough.

We'll be there soon, an old voice promises, and when you get there, you wish you had more time left.

Hiran opens his eyes.

Ruben.

His world is rubble, brown, muddled rubble, and he sifts through it, unearthing slowly, painfully. He's expelling his limbs from the dirt and the dirt from his lungs, clawing out like a thing out of quicksand, like one of Finn's moles from a mucky hole.

Kneeling doesn't seem to be in the cards right now; standing is right out. So he crawls, Hiran Baulieu, esteemed son of Regalius, lord of this and that and everything else. He crawls, like a baby who doesn't quite know how to use his legs, up a newly formed mountain, or maybe out of a newly formed hole.

There's tingling in his toes—a good sign—as he reaches the crest, rolls over it, sliding down the other side. Its rock, not dirt here, and he topples over.

Boulders litter this side of things, big, ugly, red asteroids not from the sky, but the deep earth. Hiran is looking around them for a different color, a different shape, lying down like he is, strewn out over top of a wobbling few—

But Ruben isn't on top; he's underneath.

"Shit," Hiran whispers, whimpers, twisting onto his belly, clutching dirt and pulling himself forward toward the prone body. "Shit, shit, shit—"

The rock is big. It's fucking big, and shit—

When he pulls himself close, the old Skillmaster's eyes open.

"Hiran," he croaks.

"Just don't move," he says. "J-just don't move and don't look—"

"Hiran," Ruben repeats. "It's okay."

Hiran looks down at him, at the lined face and the calm, blue eyes.

"None of this is okay," he throws back, his voice cracking. "You're— you're—"

But his throat can't work the words out. He changes tracks.

"And Dost," he says, "Dost is gone, Tara's— Tara's— shit, and Lei is missing. It's not okay."

"It's going to be," Ruben says, and his hand suddenly has Hiran's, holding it. "You're going to be okay."

Hiran laughs, a wild thing.

"How can you even know that? Now, after everything? We've had such shit luck ever since the cave-in—"

"Hiran," Ruben says quietly. "Do you really think that was an accident?"

The sun is beating on them, the heat blasting, but all Hiran feels is a chill running through him, like falling in cold water.

"W-what?" he manages, mouth working, throat tight.

"You're a clever man," Ruben says. "You know the truth."

It was just a second, just a millisecond, a brief second of movement. Two of her fingers, just two, flickering up, like a beckoning, only the right hand. Up, toward the ceiling, toward the point that started to groan, started to lean, to break... But it could have been a trick of the light, a reflex, an itch being scratched—

"Hiran," Ruben says now. "You need to be careful."

Hiran shuts his mouth, swallowing the words like sour medicine, bitter pills.

"Keep Tara close—and Fae, Caj. Don't trust her."

"W-what are you saying?" he asks, gaze flickering around wildly, only to settle back onto the Skill master's face, onto the thin red line that has started to ooze out of the corner of his mouth. "Ruben, you're... you need help—"

But the Skill master grips his hand—he's trying to squeeze it, Hiran realizes, but his fingers aren't quite working any more.

"I asked you once what you would if you could help people—Tara, Finn, Caj—not just your countrymen. I'm asking you again."

"Ruben, now is not the time—"

"Now is the only time," he answers, gaze clear and unwavering, even as his complexion turns ashy, gray. "Tell me."

"I can't fucking help anyone," Hiran blurts out and the corner of his eyes burn. "I couldn't help Finn, I couldn't help Tara, and I can't help you—"

Another squeeze, faint this time, and through the blurring waves of unshed tears Hiran watches another track of red run down the old man's face.

"I don't need you to help me, Hiran," Ruben says, these final words stumbling out like the last trickling stones of an avalanche; the final, straggling notes of a song. "I need you to help whoever remains."

He finds her, or maybe she finds him.

He's walking now, staggering, really, less steady on his feet than a newborn calf, lurching like a man in his cups. It's still going on—everything, everything. The drills and catapults are indiscriminate and everywhere bodies are jolting and clashing, but some people aren't even fighting, some are just sitting there, holding stumps, keeled over in stained dirt and muck.

I didn't know, Hiran thinks. I didn't know it was like this.

He doesn't care if anyone sings songs about him anymore.

Maybe she shrieks his name, maybe he hears it, or maybe it's just intuition finally knocking at his door. Lady Luck showing her face, now that the cards are down and the dealer is buried.

It doesn't matter. He turns, Tara sees him. She runs.

"Hiran," she chokes, her face a patchy mess of dust and dried blood, her gold hair matted and caked in it too. "Hiran."

He tries to say her name back, but only manages to hold his arms open and she crashes into him, gripping him tight.

I got you. I got you, he thinks, clutching tightly too as the earth rumbles and roars, and the dust blows through again, shards and shattered things blowing over so that they have to stumble down to their knees, crouch over the exposed earth.

"They're coming out of the gates," she's sobbing into his ear. "All of them. Lei's after Isati, I tried to follow, I tried—"

"I know. I know."

The earth rocks again and they hold onto each other.

"Dost— Hiran, Dost—"

"Ruben's gone too," he says. "It's us now, Tara. It's us."

She cries this time, and he thinks of before, of Eastwatch, of starving in the snow. He hadn't known then, hadn't known anything at all. He'd thought they were in control, even when they were so out of it, that they could be in control if they just had that one thing.

They never did. They never could. There's no stemming the tide now, no culling the flames, and it rages and roars around them, buffeting, blowing, and spraying, and as they fall down, as they cower underneath it all, Hiran finally understands.

We have to remain.

He holds her and prays.

A/N: What am I doing? I'm making horcruxes, that's what I'm doing.

*collapses into crying mess*

Chapter notes: Ruben warns Hiran not to wish for the battle to come too soon and first asks if he might do something better with his life in Prodigal's "Letters in the Dark;" Hiran reflects on being put into songs and death in Partisan's "Low Horizon."