Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 132
132
Layla had just finished checking Dorin's head -
Okay, he's going to need a looooot of stitches before this night is through.
- when Mother came rushing over, swinging her big black bag by her side. Her clothes were completely shredded. Her sleeves were all but gone and the hem of her dress now ended at the knee in raggedy tatters. Just one more sign of how unexpected this turn of events really was, and how woefully underprepared they were. Layla was surprised they had managed to hold out this long with what little supplies they had. But still, seeing her come storming in like that, her clothes ripped to the edge of indecency just to make bandages, her bare legs and arms seemingly immune to the cold, lifted Layla's spirits to a huge degree. Mother was an absolute beast. A mountain of a Fox. If there was anyone who could take charge and make a bad situation seem manageable, then it was her. Layla could already hear her sounding off just a few seconds from now, like a time-reversed echo.
Him again!? Didn't I treat him less than an hour ago, and already he looks like this!? All my hard work, ruined! Do you think bandages grow on trees, Mr Dorin!? What's the point in patching you up if you're just going to go off roughhousing with your hooligan friends at the first opportunity!? At least have the decency to regain consciousness when I'm talking to you!
But that didn't happen. The closer Mother came, the more her face came into view, and the more Layla's smile began to falter.
No! Don't stop smiling! If you do, then... then you'll look like her!
Mother was an absolute mess. There were streaks of soot across her forehead and her fur was ruffled in every direction. Her eyes were dancing in their sockets and there was a nasty cut on her bottom lip, probably from biting herself.
"Mother?"
Gone was the authoritative figure she had known and loved her entire life. Gone was the mountain who would look down at her with disapproval whenever she did something wrong, her eyes blazing fire and her hands on her hips. This vixen walking up to them now... she was nothing more than a lost child, and that frightened Layla down to her very core.
"Nilia?" Mother said in a soft little voice, compulsively squeezing her bag and shifting her weight from foot to foot. "What are you doing here? Why are you here?" There was none of that commanding aura about her anymore, just a sense of panic, barely restrained. "Where is Ander and all the others? And what happened to you? By the gods..."
"I am not hurt," Nilia said, the scratch in her arm glistening dimly in the firelight, "but Dorin is. Please help him, Bethany."
Mother started a little, as if Nilia had given her a light slap instead of a request. She looked at Dorin, at all his cuts and bleeding gashes, blinking in surprise as if seeing him for the first time. "O-Of course..." she mumbled, dropping down to her knees. "What happened here?"
"Cuts and lacerations," Layla said, hating those words a little more every time she had to say them. "Bites and scratches, mostly. Also a bad hit to the back of the head."
Mother nodded and absentmindedly bit down on the red patch across her bottom lip. "Okay, I see. Layla, can you fetch my bag?"
"Your bag?"
"My medical bag! The black one!"
"You mean the one in your hands?"
"The -" she looked down, and the confused look on her face was somehow even worse than the panicky nervousness she had arrived with. "Oh! I..." She gave her head a brief shake and fumbled with the clasps until she finally got it open. From inside she pulled half a pillow case, the edges torn and frayed, a flask that looked suspiciously like the one Bartholomew always carried with him, and a needle and thread. "All out of bandages..." Mother whispered. "All out of disinfectant. Not even any aloe vera left. Had to resort to such barbaric methods..." She tried to unscrew the flask, but it tumbled out of her shaking fingers and fell to the ground. Luckily none of it spilled, and Layla handed it back to her, trying her very best not to let the worry show on her face.
Please, Mother, keep it together! You're supposed to be a light to these people! I can't do it by myself, so please!
Mother gripped the flask with both hands, but before she tried again, she fixed Nilia with a stare so haunted, so unlike the grumpy, yet well-intended frowns they were all so accustomed to, that Layla broke out in gooseflesh.
"Please, Nilia..." Her voice was slowly taking on the cracked quality of someone on the verge of tears. "I have to know what happened. I have to know what's going on out there. Where's Ander and Michael and everyone else? Did you... find Banno? And did you see -" Mother glanced in Layla's direction, her bottom lip trembling, and quickly looked away again.
She thinks I don't know that Kiana is missing.
Well of course she thinks that. I'm smiling like a lunatic over here.
But don't stop. For the love of all the gods, don't stop. If you break down, there'll be nothing to keep her from diving right off the edge with you, and if that happens, people might die.
So Layla did the only thing she could do. She took all her worry, all her fear, and carefully hid them away behind the mask of her smile.
"Bethany." Nilia put a hand on Mother's shoulder, her eyes grim. "I know you have questions, and I swear I will do my best to answer them, but right now Dorin is in serious need of your help."
"But -"
"Ander and Sorrin and all the rest are safe. You have my word on that."
Mother swallowed hard and tried to keep herself under control, but she was clearly struggling.
That's because Ander and Sorrin aren't the ones she's most worried about.
Mother caught Layla's eye, and Layla returned a warm smile that felt like razorblades inside her mouth.
Keep smiling, Layla. Even if only to give her a reason to buckle down and do her job. Even if only to make her believe that you aren't just as worried as she is. Even if only to force her into keeping her head so she doesn't end up killing someone by mistake.
Put on a brave face, even if it's a lie. She needs you.
Mother looked down at Dorin's still, motionless face, every scratch and bleeding tear thrown into sharp relief by the glow of the fires, and nodded gravely. "You're right... I need to... I need to focus."
She tore a piece of cloth from the shredded pillowcase and splashed a bit of brandy over one side, an act that would have had the twins screaming blasphemy if either of them were around to see it.
"What can I do, Mother?" Layla asked, still holding her smile in place, feeling like she was holding up more than just the corners of her mouth, feeling like she was holding up her mother's very sanity.
"Take this," she said and dropped the sodden rag into Layla's waiting hands. "You know what to do."
She did. Layla carefully dabbed the brandy-seeped strip of cloth on Dorin's forehead, expecting him to frown, or open his eyes, or wince, or cry out in pain, do something, but he didn't react at all, even though she knew that brandy in an open wound burned like a son of a bitch. It was eerie, to say the least, and something she didn't think she would ever get used to, no matter how many times she saw it.
"I'm done with this one," she said, looking up. "Is there..."
Mother had a deep frown on her face and tears were already beginning to show in the corners of her eyes. She was trying to thread the stitching needle, but her hands were shaking too badly and the thread kept missing its mark. She licked the end and tried again, but the thread simply bent back every time.
"Oh come on, you stupid..." She stabbed at the eye and missed it completely.
"Mother, do you need any -"
"No, I have this."
She held the thread between the thumb and index finger of her right hand, and slowly brought the eye of the needle closer, beads of sweat standing out on her forehead. It was a sight that made Layla's heart trip hammer wildly in her chest. Mother was normally so calm and collected, a trait she greatly admired because it was something she often lacked in her own life, but now she couldn't even thread a needle properly, something she ordinarily could have done blindfolded. It was so painful to watch that Layla had to restrain herself from snatching it out of Mother's hands and doing it herself.
Come on, Mother. You don't get to go to pieces now. If I can't, then you can't either. We're healers. That means people depend on us, and that means we're not allowed to go to pieces.
Mother slowly brought the two together, needle and thread, her hands shaking, her mouth working as she chewed on her lip. The pure white bandage around her finger stood out in stark contrast against her blood-splattered clothes.
We're not allowed to think about ourselves... We're not allowed to think about what might have happened to our daughters... our sisters... Not when there is so much pain and death all around us... not when we're the only ones who can stand against it... so please, Mother...
The thread wavered up and down and the eye shifted from side to side as she tried to get them to line up. She eased them closer, closer...
You're not allowed to...
The thread bent back against the metal eye and Mother threw the whole thing down with a curse. "Damn it!"
"Mother, it's okay, let me..." Layla began, reaching for the needle.
"It is not okay!"
Every Wolf and Fox turned to look at them. The healers. The Foxes who were supposed to be taking care of them. Sitting here next to a Wolf who may or may not be dead for all they knew, a pair of nervous wrecks, blubbering and shivering in the cold. Layla could practically feel their hope leeching away. She could see it in the way they hugged their blankets closer. The way they glanced at each other. The way they lowered their heads and turned their ears back. And oh... how she loathed it. How she hated it. They could show their feelings without any remorse or regret, but she...
She smiled and took her mother's hand, being careful not to squeeze her cut finger. "Mother, it's okay."
"No, Layla, you don't understand!" she wailed, her face contorted into something eerily similar to little Tio's. "I looked everywhere, but I can't find her! It's your sister! I sent her to go fetch some blankets, but then all hell broke loose and I haven't seen her since and it was so long ago, Layla! It was so long ago!"
Just like Tio... Just like a child...
Oh gods... please forgive me for this...
"Mother, you worry too much." Layla put a hand on her shoulder. "You know Kiana. She's always getting herself into trouble and then clawing her way out again. She's not helpless, and neither is she stupid. I bet that, the moment everything started, she immediately found a place to hide. She's probably still there, right this very moment, huddled inside a barrel or snuggled underneath a blanket fort with a bunch of other Foxes, passing a bottle of wine around. We just need to be patient, that's all."
"How can you be so calm!?" Mother shouted, teetering on the edge of hysterics. "It's your sister and she's out there!" She gestured wildly in the direction of the line, tears streaming down her face. "She's out there, and- and-"
Layla couldn't stand to hear such words bubbling out of her mother's mouth, because to hear them was to think of them, and to think of them was to lose her mind completely.
Already the images were building up inside her mind, threatening to burst right through the fragile mask she had so painstakingly crafted.
Her sister, lying dead in a pool of her own blood, her hair fanning out across the crimson snow. Her big sister, caught in the jaws of some Wolf, biting down on her neck while she gasped and struggled for air, blood flowing from the corners of her mouth. Kiana, her only sister, begging, screaming for help that would never come, because her family was stuck here in the middle of a battlefield, treating the same Wolves who had come to kill them all, the same ones who were trying to defend them now, and the same ones who were, this very moment, tearing her apart, limb from limb, to die an excruciating death in the -
Stop it stop it don't think about it JUST STOP IT AND SMILE!!
Layla flashed a smile so radiantly painful it felt like she had taken a knife to her own face. But on the outside, it was the smile of someone who believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that everything would work out just fine, that her sister was perfectly safe, and that they would see each other again before this night was out.
It was the most painful smile of her life, and before it could break, before any cracks could appear in her mask, she wrapped her arms around her mother's heaving shoulders and embraced her like only a daughter could.
"Layla?" Mother whispered, more in awe than shock, her body frozen solid with the emotion of it all.
"Mother, everything is going to be fine," Layla said, pouring everything she could into this one embrace, warm and caring. Even in the face of all this blood, pain and suffering, even with all the screams floating through the night, even with the stench of smoke and disinfectant permeating the air, even with her sister missing and a hundred maws out there searching through every nook and cranny for innocent flesh to bite into, even with a dead, fake smile stuck on her face, she could still give her mother a real hug.
"People need us. They will die without us. That means we have to be strong. We have to focus on our jobs. That is the best we can do for now."
"But Kiana is -"
"Kiana is fine, Mother. I have faith in my big sister. She may be a bit foolhardy sometimes, but she's not stupid. She knows how to take care of herself. How many times has she nearly died this year, only to pop up unscathed later on? This time will be no different."
"You can't know that!" she said, her tears leaving burning hot spots of heat against Layla's shoulder. "I'm the one who sent her to fetch those stupid blankets, Layla! If anything happens to her, I'll- I'll-"
"Nothing will happen, Mother."
"But -"
"Listen to me." She took Mother's face in her hands, preventing her from looking away, and spoke directly and succinctly. "Before you know it, this will all be over. The Wolves will get tired of fighting and Kiana will pop right out of the woodwork, probably with a big armful of blankets. And when she sees how worked up you are right now, she'll roll her eyes and ask if you still think of her as a child. She'll be so fine you'll wish she had at least some sort of scrape on her to justify all the worry. You'll yell at her for a bit, if you want, and then we'll both give her the biggest hug she's ever had. We'll squeeze her so hard she'll wish she was still out there, hiding in a barrel."
Mother gave a weak half-chuckle, and that was the opening she was hoping for. Layla embraced her tightly, resting her chin on her shoulder. "Everything is going to work out okay," she said, patting her on the back. "The sun will come up, just like always, we'll all go home as a family, just like always (and maybe sleep for three days straight because by the gods am I tired), and everything will go back to the way it was before. You, me, Father and Kiana, all snuggled together in that little house, getting on each other's nerves. It'll be great."
This smile. This damnable smile, like a puss-weeping gash through the centre of her face. She could feel it burning like fire, rotting her from the inside out, using her up, leaving her empty. She wanted to break down and cry. She wanted to slam her fists on the ground. She wanted to rip her hair out by the roots and scream to the sky. But...
She couldn't.
She wanted Kiana. She wanted her big sister by her side...
But she couldn't.
Mother raised her arms, slowly, hesitantly, and then slammed them into Layla's back, pressing her close. For a moment it sounded like she was trying to say something, but any resemblance to actual words quickly deteriorated into heart-breaking sobs.
"It's okay, Mother," Layla said, lightly rubbing her back. "It's all going to be okay..."
Are you doing this for her, or for yourself?
That thought appeared out of nowhere, like a slap in the face, leaving her stunned.
No, of course not! I'm comforting her because she's my mother! Because I love her! Because -
Because it's so much better being the comforter than the comfortee. Because as long as you have Mother or Tio or anyone else to cry on your shoulder, you don't have to do any crying of your own.
No, it's not like that!
And as long as you keep forcing yourself into this role of healer, caretaker, loving daughter, you get to keep forcing yourself into wearing this terrible smile you hate so much. But why would you do that? Why would you willingly force yourself into such a fake smile? It doesn't make any sense. Unless...
Shut up! Shut up!
... you already believe Kiana is dead.
A burning hot line running down her face. A crack in her mask.
No! No! I have to keep smiling! I have to show everyone that there is hope! That they're all going to make it out of this alive!
(Kiana is gone where is she oh Kiana where are you by the gods I need you so bad Mother needs you so bad I can't do this by myself)
I'm just a tiny little vixen with an oversized tail. If I can smile, if I can show a brave face, then all these people have no right to despair. That's why I have to... I have to...
Her bottom lip quivered. She could feel the corners of her mouth turning down.
(Kiana lying on the ground her lovely green dress I'm so jealous of covered in blood her blood pouring out all over the snow melting right through it her eyes staring out at me asking me why I couldn't have been there for her why I'm such a terrible sister why did she have to suffer like that oh Kiana I'm sorry I'm so sorry there's nothing I could have done)
Layla held her mother tight, trying not to shake, trying not to blink, lest the crack split her face right down the middle. The wind and snow was blowing into her face, carrying the sounds of battle with it. Shouts and screams and horribly wet, guttural shrieks of primal rage. The thuds of bodies hitting the ground. Wolven names screamed to the winds and ripped apart. The twang of bowstrings. The snarls and grunts of animals biting down on flesh and bone.
Kiana...
Another burning hot line across her face, another crack in her mask. Layla shut her eyes tight and held on to her mother with panicky tightness, refusing to let go, refusing to let her see her face as it was now.
Get a hold of yourself, you weepy bitch. Get a hold of yourself right now!
Layla took a slow breath, all her concentration focussed on not hitching or gasping, and opened her eyes.
Nilia was crossing the grounds towards the medical tent, her injured arm cradled to her chest and her head bent against the wind.
Layla followed her progress for a while, wondering when she had gotten all the way over there, but then her eye caught someone else, and this time her breath really did catch in her throat, despite her best efforts.
It was Danado again. He was sitting just outside the medical tent, staring at her with the coldest eyes she had ever seen.
No, that wasn't true. She had seen eyes like that on him before. The very first time she met him, as a matter of fact. Sitting on their kitchen table, quietly seething away, he had looked just like that. Only his gaze back then had been directed at someone else entirely, someone who wasn't there. But now... now he was looking directly at her with those cold, cold eyes... those dark, sunken eyes...
Layla blinked in surprise. No, it must be a trick of the light, or maybe it was just the icy wind blowing into his face. There was no way Danado would ever look at her like that. He could be a bit grumpy sometimes, a bit emotional, sure, but he... he would never...
He promised.
You'll smile for me again, won't you? If things look really bad, you'll smile again and make me feel better, right?
Beneath the old oak tree, he had promised to smile for her, because, if the biggest sadsack Wolf in all the valley could find a way to smile, then surely, there must be hope.
Oh, Dan... Layla thought. Please, I need you to keep your promise. I don't know if I can keep going like this. Please smile for me just like you did on that hilltop. That hesitant, crooked, bashful little smile I love so much...
Please... even if only for a second...
Make me forget...
She smiled for him, but Danado simply stared back with those cold, distant eyes and slowly shook his head.
He looked disgusted.
It was like a hammer blow to the heart.
Layla felt the cracks grow wider.
*
Danado watched her fragile mask crumble to pieces.
It started with a shine in her eyes: tears on the verge of spilling over. Not hopeful tears, not happy tears, not even blissfully naïve tears. These tears were cold and dreadful, like the single drop of water always hanging off the tip of an icicle, refusing to fall. Her lip trembled. The corners of her mouth turned down. Her whole face was slowly contorting with the immeasurable effort required to not break down crying.
She was on the verge of despair. Her smile... her beautiful, impossible smile... It was fake, and that meant Danado couldn't return it, no matter how badly he wanted to.
It would be the worst kind of lie.
Layla stealthily wiped the unspilled tears from her eyes, and when she pulled away from her mother's embrace, the smile was back, as resplendent as ever.
Danado understood why she was doing it. She was doing it for the crying boy, for her mother, for everyone who looked upon her hopeful smile and found hope within themselves. Just the fact that Bethany was now able to get to work was proof enough of its necessity. In her own way, Layla was using a fake smile to save lives. But still... after the promise they had made to each other, after everything they had shared in the shadow of that oak tree, he simply couldn't keep his promise like this. To smile now, to exchange a fake smile for a fake smile would be worse than breaking it. It would be like shattering everything that promise stood for, and Danado couldn't do that, no matter how badly it was hurting her. She deserved better.
She deserved something real.
Nilia was making her way over here, carefully stepping around groups of huddled Wolves, lines of blood slowly dripping down her arm.
Danado pulled the flap of the tent open for her (one of the few jobs available that didn't require him to stand on his crippled feet). She nodded her thanks, but before she could step inside, Danado wrapped his heavily bandaged fingers around her ankle.
"Nilia."
She stopped and looked down at him as if he were an insect. "What is it, Dan? I'm in a hurry."
"You sure are."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Why are you running?"
"I don't have time for this."
She tried to pull free, but Danado kept his grip, unmindful of the pain slowly pushing its way through his stubby fingers like darning needles. "I know something happened, Nilia," he said, gritting his teeth. "It's written all over your face."
"Danado, every second counts, I have to -"
"I saw you talking to Layla and Bethany. I heard every word. You went out searching for Banno, but you haven't spoken about him at all. You haven't told anyone what happened while you were gone. You came back here by yourself, without Ander or Sorrin or any of the Foxes who accompanied you. Bethany asked you about it, but you brushed it away. And then, the very moment she started talking about Kiana, you snuck away like a thief in the night."
"I did no such thing."
"I'm not stupid, Nilia. Something happened. Something so terrible that even you're afraid to talk about it. Something about Banno and -"
Nilia reached down and clamped her blood-tacky fingers over his muzzle, trapping his words inside. "You will keep your mouth shut about that," she hissed into his upturned face. "Bethany is enough of a wreck as it is, but at least she knows to keep doing her job. Now why don't you do yours and let me do mine?"
Danado's eyes went wide and his fingers slipped free from around Nilia's ankle, but not because she had yelled at him. The two parts of the story had clicked together in his head like a lock and key. Banno and Kiana.
"No..." he whispered, but Nilia was already gone. The only sign of her presence was the swaying of the tent flap, and that could have been caused by the wind.
Danado caught a glimpse of Layla's smiling face through the milling crowds and tried to convince himself that there must be some kind of mistake, that he was jumping to conclusions, that there was no way Banno could possibly...
Her sister... Her big sister...
Danado reached up and bit down on his bandaged fingers, hard enough for the bitter, metallic taste of blood to flood over his tongue.
Watching Layla's face was like looking into the face of his dying sister. Only... Lana's smile had been real. She had been dying in his arms, but her smile had been real...
Layla's face right now... it was more like how Lana had looked after...
Danado couldn't stop shaking. A tear ran across his cheek and dripped onto his bleeding fingers. He half-expected to see a dagger's hilt sticking out of her chest, twitching in time to her heartbeat, counting down the last seconds of her life.
Behind that smile... Behind that beautiful, horrible, fake smile...
Layla was killing herself.
Oh wow, Danado. You guys have no idea how many subchapters I ended up writing and scrapping and rewriting and rescrapping because of this dude. I think it might be because it's been a long time since I actually wrote from his POV, so I couldn't get in the right mindset. At first he was incredibly wimpy, sitting there with his fingers and toes, being all "Boo-hoo, woe is me, my fingers hurt, won't Layla please come hold my hand?"
But then I remembered that he's had some pretty badass (and almost evil) moments in the past. He almost killed Dorin, for crying out loud! So my second crack had him focussing solely on that. He was so angry at seeing Dorin again, all seething with rage, staring out and thinking about his sister, all broody-like, but that ended up sucking, too. The entire point of his confrontation with Dorin back then was about moving on and putting the past behind him. Sure, I think it's probably reasonable for him to still harbour some bad feelings for that particular Wolf, but harping on and on about it made that entire section of my story (which I'm actually quite proud of) seem like it was all for nothing. So I ended up scrapping it again.
There are many more subchapters dealing with Danado that ended up in the shredder, but I'll get to those at a later date.
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