#Glen is like the one familiar person Arya has after Gil'ead and the same goes for Glen to Arya

[modern-inheritance]

Modern Inheritance: Reunion, pt. 2 (Reluctance and Recall)

(A/N: I just wanted to get this out there. I might continue writing it and put a better ending on it, but for now I just want it off the WIP pile so it stops haunting me. Happy New Year and the like. Hopefully I'll have more stories out this time!)

~~~~

It hadn’t escaped him that she had left her combat jacket on that night. Or that she was wearing it when she came out the next morning. Or the day after that. Or the next six mornings. 

They portioned out their days. Arya would spend the morning drafting reports and debriefs, filling out paperwork to reverse her apparent death and half begrudgingly taking on Brom’s share of more mundane documents as he joined Eragon and Saphira at Oromis and Glaedr’s lessons. They split the evenings, Arya going sometimes to guide Eragon and Saphira around Ellesméra or attempting to mend her fragile relationship with her mother. Other nights she joined Glen for dinner and spent the night remembering the days they spent crawling in trenches and infiltrating camps, Fäolin perched above them in his little nest.

Afternoons, though, were for wandering the pines together, walking aimlessly and just talking. Glen told her about the last months, his recovery and the process of fitting, building and bonding with his new arm. The struggles and the joys of connecting the nerves without further surgery, the excited yelling that earned him a pair of tongs to the face when he finally picked up a mug without shattering it or throwing it into his own teeth. 

The three months he spent without leaving Rhunön’s shop. He didn’t tell her it was because he couldn’t find the courage to face the Queen. 

In turn she told him the entire story of Eragon and Saphira, everything the two had shared and every bit of information Brom would reveal about his and their lives in the village of Carvahall. The Raz’zac, the disastrous first flight, Brom’s near death experience, the young son of Morzan and his surprising allegiance. Glen could tell she glossed over the madcap escape from Gil’ead, their eventual return to the Varden getting a similar treatment along with the post battle recovery under Farthen Dûr. 

He didn’t press for a time. But eventually, he knew he had to.

It was eight days after their impromptu reunion, meandering alone past one of the solitary beech trees that some elf had planted and warded years ago with leaves near dripping with the winking lights of bioluminescent moths, when he finally tried to break through. 

“You know you can take that off, right?” Glen teased, plucking a wrinkled fold on the arm of Arya’s combat jacket. “You’re gonna get more looks than usual if you keep wearing it with those cargos.”

Arya looked down with a frown. “Hey! I think it looks good with these! Green and tan go good together, right?” She had never been much for fashion, or even being all that presentable beyond the occasional inspection back during basic or black tie events for the Varden. At those, all it took was a black dress to get whoever dragged her along off her back, even if she insisted on wearing combat boots with it. 

For a moment she remembered, with some fondness, the first time Fäolin had been forced to join her at a fundraiser in Surda. Teasing him about his slicked back hair, chucking him under the chin to get at the bowtie that was damn near choking him over the starched collar of his borrowed suit. His laugh when she asked him where he had put the backup pistol, her own when he subtly touched the grip of the one strapped to her leg under the dress. “You’re my backup pistol, remember?”

Then it was gone again.

Shaking his head as if his commander were a lost cause, Glenwing peered up from under his brows at the dappled sunlight filtering through the heavy needles above. “Come on. What are you hiding under there?”

“Nothing.” 

The medic closed his eyes with a deep inhale and soft sigh at the deadpan tone, the sharp hint of warning contained in the single word. So it would be like that.

He stopped walking. “Arya.”

“What?” Her momentum had carried her three paces beyond, so she had to stop and turn to him. Her fists were jammed in the pockets of the combat jacket.

“We don’t lie to each other.” He fixed her with that look. The medic look. The look that said ‘I am here to help and if you don’t let me there will be a very difficult road ahead.’ A look that he hadn’t given her for years, decades. 

His heart sank when she cut her eyes away from him. “I don’t…” Arya broke off and rubbed the back of her neck again, fingers digging in roughly. “There’s too much to do. We can worry about it later.”

“You finished the paperwork this morning.” Green eyes slid closed in a quiet, nonverbal curse for telling him that earlier. “You– we –were relieved from guarding Eragon and Saphira days ago, and we won’t be called to that again until they leave. Please.” Movement caught his attention. “Your hands have been shaking since you got back.”

Arya looked down. The tremors had been increasing in frequency since Tarnag. The moments of recall around her wrists always followed their appearance. 

“Arya, you know that I can’t break my oath to you. I can only help you if you allow me. I can’t tell anyone unless you tell me to.” Careful that his approach was seen well before he reached out, Glen touched his commander’s shoulder gently. “I don’t want you to do this alone. I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

And still, she refused to look at him. “You don’t need this on top of everything else.”

“Cut the bullshit.” That got her attention. Glen swore only half as much as the rest of their little squad, and when he did it was usually cause for alarm. No one wanted the man holding their bleeding guts in suddenly swearing out of nowhere. “You’re scared. I understand. And I’m here to help you.”

The accusation made Arya let out a short bark of laughter. At Glen’s raised eyebrow, she merely shook her head, half a twisted grin on her lips. “Ah, Glen. I’m not scared. Nothing really scares me anymore.” Again she let out a short laugh, squinting up into the needles above much like he had and put her hands on her hips. 

He really didn’t expect her explanation. 

“I’ve puked on a shade’s shoes before and lived through the consequences. And I did it again, too. Twice.”

Glenwing stared, bewildered. It took him some seconds to find his words. “...I…I don’t know if you’re joking with me, or if this is your way of saying you’re going to talk about it, or–”

“Oh, I one hundred percent puked on Durza shoes multiple times. That’s one of the things that I like to remember about all that.” Arya was smiling broadly. It didn’t reach her eyes. “If you really want to know,” The smile fell. “I’ll tell you. But later.”

“No.” 

“Glen–”

“I have the file. You know I do.”

Arya closed her eyes in surrender. The file had been sitting on the table for days now, a clear sign to her that he was waiting for her consent to begin the process of unraveling the last nine months. “Yeah.” She inhaled. Smelled wet concrete and tasted copper and iron. Released the breath with a rough sigh. “Okay. Tonight.”

“Tonight.” 

~~~

Glenwing was sitting on the couch with tea already made, file sitting undisturbed on the coffee table, when the door slid open and closed. Relief seeped into his limbs, feeling cold on his left and warm on his right. He hadn't been entirely convinced she was going to show up.

He looked up when she didn’t immediately sit beside him. Arya stood in front of the low table, shoulders tight and fists again firmly shoved in the front pockets of her combat jacket. Every line of her body reflected tension, but her dark eyes glinted with steel when he met her gaze. 

“You sure you wanna do this?” Arya motioned to the file with her chin, sharp and jerky. “It’s a lot less…” She paused, searching for the right word. “Brutal. If you read it from there.”

Glen nodded. He did his best to sound gentle but firm. “I need to hear it from you.” 

Her jaw clenched. “...I don’t know how much I can tell you.”

“Whatever you can. Whatever you want to.” The medic patted the cushion next to him. “We’ll stop whenever you want.” She waited a few more moments. Then, with stiff steps, Arya sat a few feet down the couch. “Take all the time you need.” 

Arya braced her elbows on her knees and leaned over, studying the moss that made up part of the floor of their flat. “I’m not…I’m not ashamed of what happened there.” A shiny backed beetle meandered onto the edge of her boot. She reached down and let it crawl onto her finger, lifted it to examine the iridescence of its carapace. “Hell, I’m proud of what I endured. I don’t know why it's so hard to talk about it like this.” She grinned as the little creature fluttered its hidden wings, the thin sheaves dark in contrast to the elytra’s color. “I’ve joked about it plenty.” 

Glen leaned back. He had his notepad in his hands, rumpled and scuffed and one of the corners charred. “You’ve always preferred deflecting whenever something’s bothering you.”

With a gentle puff of air, Arya encouraged the glittering insect to take flight. They both watched it go, floating to the window where it escaped through the barely open latch. “...Yeah.”

She took a deep breath then, resumed her previous position, and rubbed the flats of her palms together. “I guess I should start from the beginning. 

“That night we were ambushed, when you lost your arm and Fäolin was killed, Durza captured me after I teleported Saphira’s egg.” Again the woman focused her eyes on the ground, watching the miniscule hairs of the moss waver in the near imperceptible movements of air created by the cracked window, her breath, and Glenwing’s breath. Connecting currents that linked everything in the room. “I was in and out, but when I woke up fully I was in a cell under Gil’ead’s keep, their maximum security wing. 

“There were shackles on my wrists. They weren’t connected to anything, so when Durza came in I obviously tried to take his face off.” Half a smirk touched her lips, a tone of bitter pride coloring her words. “So he locked the shackles to the wall. Then I tried to headbutt him when he got too close. So he put me in a chair and locked me to that.”

The woman tilted her head slightly, brow knitted in a hint of confusion. Her braid slid over her shoulder to hang free. “He just…talked to me that time. Sat across from me and told me who he was, gloated about the spells he made to break our wards with just bullets and Urgals at his disposal.” To Glen’s surprise, Arya had an almost wistful, crooked grin when she looked over at him. “You know what he did next?” 

Despite her previous assertion that nothing could really scare her, Glen saw, buried beneath the convoluted and contorted emotions in his friend’s eyes, a glimmer of fear. He shook his head, afraid to break whatever courage was driving her to speak. 

“He asked me, point blank, if I would submit. Asked if I would surrender then and there, knowing the spells he had created, the potential he had, knowing what he was. He told me what awaited me if I did. I would be taken to Urû’baen immediately and presented to Galbatorix. He would receive the information I had to give, take more if he wanted, and then I would be released into his service. I’d swear oaths to him and become his new Forsworn, and used however he saw fit to bring down the Varden, Surda and Du Weldenvarden.” She let out a soft scoff, that pained look still twisting her lips. “I told him ‘no.’ Only word I said to him besides ‘bite me, bitch’ and ‘fuck you’ a few times.” She laughed again, and it sounded desperate, near panicked at the edges. “He just smiled, that fucking smile, and said ‘good.’”

Her own smile gone, Arya dragged a hand down her face, skin going pale as she remembered. “He spent…I don’t know how long. I’ve got no sense of time anymore. He spent what had to be hours just…just telling me what he could do to me. What he would do to me. He paced around and around that stupid fucking chair, grabbed my neck from behind and whispered in my ear the experiments he wanted to try.” 

A shudder passed from the back of her skull to the base of her spine. Arya did her best to focus on the swaths of moss between her boots. Pincushion moss. A bryophyte. They grew it there because it was soft and stayed that way even when the weather turned dry for weeks at a time. 

She could feel his hand gripping the base of her braid, head yanked back against the metal edge of the chair. The way he cupped her throat, thumb pressing just under the joint of her jaw and stroking her skin as she did her best to appear nonchalant. Simply met his gleeful gaze with cold fire in her eyes. She would not look away. 

The elf took a shuddering breath and untangled her fingers from where she had been clenching them together hard enough to leave bruises. “And then…he did. He did all of it and more.” She blinked, willed the floor to return to its green carpet rather than the grey creeping in. “And I fought it. I fought whenever I could. He stopped using the shackles in the cell because my wrists were shredded and I wouldn’t stop fighting them. I don’t know how long it was till I…” Her words caught in her throat. She blinked again. Why was this what made her choke up? “Till I couldn’t fight anymore. 

“He dosed me with Skilna each day, tried to wear me down.” Her lungs hurt at the memory. The time that he had sat on her cot, one leg daintily crossed over the other while he let the poison run its course longer than before. Watched her, that fucking smile plastered on his face, the antidote held in his lap, as she coughed up blood until she couldn’t anymore, as she writhed against the feeling of her bones shattered like crystal glass and the overwhelming, all encompassing fever that turned her veins to molten lead. 

He had wanted her to ask for it. To beg for the antidote. 

She crawled over, every movement triggering more liquid glass to explode within her cells. Grabbed his leg. Saw that triumphant, gleeful grin in the haze above. 

With her last ounce of strength she slipped a finger between his leg and his high, polished boots and deposited a mouthful of blood into the space.

Her gurgling laughter at his disgust made her smile briefly, lost when the noise ended abruptly with a crack and the sound of a tightly gripped, torn throat struggling to breathe. Still. The broken jaw and flail chest had been worth it. And she didn’t even have to ask for the antidote.

“He uh…” Arya cleared her throat, tasted the same blood as he dragged her out of the cell again, fury evident in each step. “He had to change it. To a longer form. One he could trigger at will. I was apparently getting some sort of tolerance.” She could see the pen moving from the corner of her eye. “He couldn’t always be there. Something about reporting to Galbatorix. He told the guards to keep his…his work, going while he was away. Only rule was no blows to the head. Needed the information in my mind unscrambled.”

Glenwing’s pen slowed. He didn’t want to ask the question. He knew she could feel his eyes on her, the way she shifted and raised her laced together hands to her lips. The way she tensed when he put the pen down and leaned toward her to touch two fingers to her forearm. “Arya….”

She refused to look at him. “They didn’t.” Her jaw was clenched. “They…they tried.” One of her hands twitched before the other clamped down on it. She blinked. “One of them…one of them must’ve found some old book somewhere…talked about elf customs or something.” Slowly Glen saw her entire body go tense, muscles locked and coiled to their limit. The first mumbled words of her next admission were lost in the quiet breath that delivered them.  

“...tried to notch my ear.” 

Glen’s blood went cold. The practice was ancient, heralding back to the bonding of the dragons and elves and the…peculiar…additions the dragon’s blood had on elves' practices of coupling. While a gentle bite on the ear of a mate was considered a pact of love, of devotion…a notch was a symbol of bitter solitude. Any elf with a notched ear was considered almost untouchable when it came to love, mating, partnership, acceptance. They were given only for horrific deeds, the slaughter of children, taking an unwilling mate, murder of a partner, and, above all else, for the betrayal of the entire elven race. 

If Durza had learned of this from his men he would have carried it out as the ultimate humiliation, and bound the mark to her body so that no healing could touch the wound. 

It took every ounce of Glenwing’s self control to not seize his best friend’s face and turn her to him, looking for the telltale rift. Instead, he steadied his voice as best he could and managed an only slightly enraged, “They tried?”

“They didn’t manage it.” The words were hollow, the memory of just how close she came to being marked still bouncing in her skull. Unlike the others, this one was…hazy. She could feel the panic in her chest and the many hands forcing her to the ground as she struggled to lift her broken body. They wanted revenge for the men she had…disposed of…after their attempts to take advantage of her weakened state. The cold, cold metal of a set of wire cutters sliding against the side of her head and behind her right ear. 

Then just…relief. Gratitude? And spending time curled under the cot, pressed as tightly against the wall as she could manage until the pale hand dragged her out for another span of agony after a longer than normal gap. 

For some reason the sense of relief sparked warmth that soothed the growing lump in her throat. She pressed her fingers into the spaces between her knuckles, grounded herself in the discomfort as she found sore tendons and protesting connective bands. “Eragon was captured some time after that. I don’t know how long. Adrenaline and pain tablets kept me on my feet long enough to get out with them. Eragon, Saphira and Brom healed what they could and got me awake. The rest you already know.”

Glen picked up his pen again and rolled it between his fingers. “Poison?” He had masked the tremor in his tone, but the rage wasn’t going to fade quite so easy. He wouldn’t press, not now at least. This was enough for one night.

“Right.” Gil’ead retreating from her mind, Arya straightened somewhat and clasped her knees with hands now blooming with fingertip shaped bruises. “Durza activated it. We got through the Hadarac before it caused problems. I might have…had to use the dream state to survive it.” She winced, fully expecting a lecture. 

Instead, Glenwing chewed the end of his pen. “You got out of it.” It was a statement of fact, laced with a hint of assurance that he wasn’t angry. He had taught her how to trigger the dream state for emergencies, and poison was certainly on the qualifying list.

“After a bunch of Tunivor’s Nectar…yeah.” Arya blinked, suddenly remembering another visitor during her half-addled state in Tronjheim’s hospital. “And the Wise One gave me something to pull me out.”

Glen stopped his absentminded chewing, pen dangling from his lips as he shot his commander a look of shock. “She’s back?” The way the stylus bobbed with his words made him look almost comically like Brom with his pipe. 

“Werecat and all.” Arya frowned. “Didn’t I say she’s the one that fixed Eragon’s back?”

“You kind of ignored the recovery period.” 

“Ah.” 

The woman’s bearing had shifted again. Glen saw more anxiety than before, less tension in her limbs as she cut her gaze away again and picked a loose thread by her knee. “Speaking of the recovery period…” 

“I broke the Star Sapphire, injected myself with four full doses of adrenaline to try and stop Eragon’s back from bleeding, overdosed, had several cardiac events, and Vilks put me on strict orders and told me I’d die if I didn’t follow them.” 

‘Ah’ indeed. No wonder she looked nervous. There was nothing that could trigger fear in a lifelong, diehard soldier with nothing else but their deployment than the anger of a very exasperated medic with the power to put them on an indefinite hold.

“You what?!”

Arya had already bolted off the couch, skittering past the coffee table. “Look, I know you’re upset with me for pulling a stunt like that again–”

“FOUR?!” 

She was already down the hall, nearly slingshotting past her room when she grabbed the doorframe. “Just…read the file, Vilks took good notes, I’ll change, just…yeah!”

Torn between fuming and alarmed, Glen grabbed for the file on the coffee table. He swore when his knuckles impacted the side of the wood, the metal leaving a decent dent. Making a mental note to speak to Rhunön about his continued issues of emotional override, he snatched up the packet with his right hand and flipped it open to the tab at the very back.

Vilks’ handwriting still kept its tight scrawl in his advanced age, and after so many years the doctor had perfected the art of short, sweet and to the point in his notes. Possible seizures. Fluid in the lungs, intubation for two hours, O2 mask for six after. Five VTach events before AED applied, unknown number post. Repeated attempts to leave bed before fully aware. Restrained for aprox 10 minutes before reminded of patient history. Energy extremely depleted, side effects of poisoning, imprisonment, poor diet, adrenaline overdose and magic overuse. Given orders of NO MAGIC two weeks, consistent bedrest and sleep (unlikely), multivit 2/d two weeks, recheck two weeks. Warned of consequences. 

A quick note at an angle, dated eleven days after the initial list, added ‘Given consequences after discovered participating in rigorous PT. Patient given icepack for forehead contusion and required to replace hospital clipboard at next possible opportunity.’

Despite his frustration, Glen couldn't help the smile that curled the edges of his lips. ‘Of course.’

“If you’re going to chuck that at me, let me get a head start first.” The medic looked up at his commander’s wry request. She had donned a pair of jogging shorts and a loose tshirt, the standard PT gear of Varden recruits in Fathen Dûr. 

Glenwing snapped the file closed. “I wouldn’t warn you if I was going to throw it, especially after reading that. Let’s sit at the table, better light.” Arya shrugged, thumbs hooked in the small pockets of her shorts, and followed him to sit in the dining area where bright werelights hung above their heads. 

They sat together, bathed in light tinged with the greens that dominated their home away from the Varden. Arya, after a moment of hesitation, placed her forearms on the table, palms down.

The medic resisted sucking his teeth, and instead bit the tip of his tongue as he reached out and gently lifted the woman’s left arm. A swath of scar tissue encircled her wrist, creeping up her hand and palm just slightly before diving down and dipping a concave wrap two inches down her forearm. The right side mirrored the same mutilation, both dark and a mottled red mix of soft ridges and silken patches. With a light touch to the back of her hand and a nod of acquiescence, he turned her palm up to reveal her tendons etched at the surface of her skin, as if locked permanently taut. 

“They’re just like that.” Arya broke the silence. A half hearted shrug tilted her wrist, and the flexor tendons jutted out further. “Tissue’s gone. Tendons just kind of…stand out, I guess.”

Glen hummed in acknowledgement, inwardly swearing at the possible damage that lurked beneath her skin. “Do you have any numbness in your hands or fingers?”

“No. The shaking started when we were around Tarnag. It feels like pins and needles sometimes, but it’s not affected my grip or range of motion.” 

Gently manipulating the joints, Glenwing confirmed her words before picking up his pen and scribbling a note down. “And you didn’t heal these…?”

“I like them.” Arya’s eyes were clear when he snapped his gaze up to hers. 

“Arya, they've got nerve damage. In your hands.” 

At that the woman pulled her hand from his grip and crossed her arms, hiding the dark bands from view. “Can you heal the nerve damage without healing the scars?” 

Glen frowned. “Yes, but–”

“Then we do it that way.” She held him in her gaze for a long moment, waiting for him to acquiesce. “This is my way of taking it back, Glen.” And again, she suddenly cut her eyes away with a quiet mumble.

“What?”

“It helps…” He could see her flex her fingers involuntarily under her arms, gnash her teeth at some unseen jolt. She looked like he did when the phantom pain kicked in unexpectedly, a shock that lingered for minutes or hours. “It helps when I have recall. When…when I touch them it’s like….” The woman fumbled for words, distress building. “He never left scars when he gave me hallucinations.” She gripped the table edge with white knuckles, tilting the chair back slightly. “And when I feel the scars I just…I know I’m not there. It helps bring me back sometimes.” 

Sometimes. Not always.

‘Recall.’ That cursed thing. Sensory recall and elvish memory went hand in hand, making the calling up of emotionally charged memories laden with past sensory detail a normal, if not somewhat uncommon, occurrence among their race. Arya’s had always been strong, bringing back physical touch and involving a majority of the senses for most of her moments of involuntary recall. Glen’s near rivaled hers, built up from the years of war and countless moments where PTSD took hold of the accursed skill, if it could even be called that. They both relived their traumas, ricocheting to the past as the world went on around them, seeing but not seeing.

Every time he thought of the ambush, he smelled the smoke, felt the hot ash and cinders embedding in his clothes and his skin. He could taste blood and pine ash, the grit between his red stained teeth and the excruciating wrong that was the needles and the dirt and bark and ash collecting, sticking to the mangled flesh of his ruined arm. He didn’t always see it, and for that he thanked whatever stars watched over him. That was his only escape. Seeing the metal limb that now dominated his left side, a zing of phantom pain that reminded him that the original limb was long gone…it made coming out of the recall easier. Something to remind him that the past was the past.

Glenwing reached out and, with a feather touch of his mechanical hand, reminded his commander to release the creaking wood of the table. He cupped her scarred knuckles, turned her palm to run a cold thumb over the ghost of a hastily healed burn. 

“I’ll do my best.” He promised. 

A rush of air left Arya’s lungs, a relief she didn't quite realize she needed. An acknowledgement of the scars beyond the cursory looks cast her way under Farthen Dûr, the concerned frown Brom gave them every once in a while. Glenwing understood their purpose, in a way that no one else could. “Thanks.”

Satisfied he could mend some of the frayed nerves, Glen turned to examining the smattering of new scars that littered the woman’s arms. Nothing was particularly egregious, and while several of the straight lines that slid down from beneath the woman’s sleeves looked near surgical, Arya simply told him it was ‘healed fully’ and ‘not a problem.’ Again, he didn't push it.

“Is there more?” Glen took a sip of his now cold tea, making a face before reheating it with a quick word. If this was all that needed checking then he could call himself pleasantly surprised given her previous description. 

Arya paused. “There’s a few on my legs but those were…those were healed. He healed them to the surface at least.” She tried to shake the sudden jolt of seeing steel nubs protruding from her shin, the excruciating ripping, tearing, snapping, as the bone split down its length. All that remained were four pale pink spots in a line from the last time that particular method was used. “Eragon and Saphira healed a scrape on my right leg, but they did well. No complaints there.”

“Uh-huh.” Glen tapped the point of his pen at the upper corner of his paper, resisting the urge to chew on the end again. She wasn’t telling him everything. But it was a start. “Is that it?”

“...No.” Arya sighed and pushed back from the table to stand. “I’m not healing these either, okay?” Her voice was muffled as she tugged her shirt up and over her head. She tossed it into the achingly empty chair across from her and stood clad only in her shorts and sports bra. “Make me look badass.” She turned and pulled her braid over her shoulder, gesturing with a jerked thumb at the expanse of her back. 

Glenwing dropped his pen. “Well. Shit."

“Hey!” Arya whirled to him. She seemed genuinely offended. “Come on, Glen! I survived this shit. You know what that took? I’m fuckin’ proud of these, and I’m not healing them for bullshit vanity.” He didn’t answer. Just stood and put his hands on her shoulders. “What are you–”

And pulled her into another hug.

Arya froze. She could feel the cold metal of his left arm holding her around her shoulder blades, a stark contrast to the warmth of his right hand squeezing around her ribs. Someone was touching her back and he wasn’t recoiling, wasn’t probing, wasn’t hurting. She wasn’t struggling, fighting, desperate to run away. An ache that she didn’t even realize had been tied into the muscles along her spine for months suddenly released, bringing with it a rush of relief and a soothing mix of warm where warm was needed and cool where cool was needed. 

“Don’t lie to me.” Glen murmured in her ear, his voice catching. “You tried.”

Arya squeezed her eyes shut. 

The day after Vilks cleared her for magic use. Checking the multitude of scars that covered her back and criss-crossed her skin with burns, cuts, hills and valleys of hypertrophic and concave bands. The visible slide of muscle where the layers above had been carved away. There was space between them, yes. But all she could see was the red, pink and silver of lingering damage made physical and, above all else, undeniable. She looked…she looked almost broken.

She had tried to heal them. And found herself scrabbling, clawing, writhing on the floor of that stupid little bathroom, choking back a scream of unimaginable pain as the nerves in her back exploded in protest. Everything she had endured, condensed and dripped in a steady, maddening flow along each pathway, electric and burning and pain. Once again it was all that existed for her in that moment, an extended second that encompassed months and months of time she could not begin to grasp nor understand the passage of. 

She ripped away from the magic and lay, panting, on that stupid, stupid bathroom floor. Blood steadily streamed from her forehead to the tiles where she had cracked it on the stone, trying to breathe through the lingering aftershocks and remembering the spells that he had used to the same result. Felt, deep in her chest, an interwoven pity and horror for Eragon and the new hell he was beginning to endure. She couldn’t heal herself. And she couldn’t heal him. Magic wouldn't erase these wounds.

Arya reached up and grabbed onto Glenwing, clutched at the loose folds of his shirt under his shoulder blades as if he were her last hope against drowning. “They’re…” She shivered, pressed her forehead to his shoulder. She had decided already, that day back in Tronjheim, that if she couldn’t remove them then she would wear them as a badge of pride. She wasn’t broken. She couldn’t be. They were the proof. “I’m…. I beat them. I beat him.”

Glenwing didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He knew, and she knew as well. They’d weather it just as they always did, together and steadfast and strong against the push of everyone else. So they had scars. That didn’t mean they were lost, or broken, or could be cast aside as soldiers who had long passed their expiration date. Fifty years, seventy in her case, was a long, long time to fight.  

They’d just have to keep fighting.

They wouldn’t have it any other way.