Work Text:
Free Until They Cut Me Down
By Iron and Wine
When the men take me to the devil tree
I will be free and shining like before
Fia’s breath comes in quick, short, gasps, tears sliding unimpeded down her face.
The night air is bitterly cold, seeping into what seems like her very bones. She is shaking because of it, or because of fear, her whole body trembling with the effort to keep still, not to flee.
Not that there was anywhere to flee to.
The press of iron beneath her feet is unyielding, the platform she stands on isolated in the middle of a yawning pit. Her hands are bound behind her, the rope chafing into her wrists. Her apron pocket shifts with the weight of a little red tome's nervous fluttering.
“Miss, what’s happening? Miss, where’s Irina?”
The tears come faster at her friend's name, but Fia just hisses, “Please Bukvar, be still!”
The torch-bearing townsfolk make a ring around her, their yells of hatred and disgust worse than any stone or weapon. But despite the crowd, she is alone. Isolated, standing on the scales.
Papa don't tell me what I should've done
She's the one, she's the one who begged me
“Fia Boginya. You have been accused of dabbling with the Trickster’s magic, and aiding a fugitive in escaping the fair Reaper’s judgment.”
The man addressing her and the crowd is dressed in black, a staff in one hand and a ragged book in the other.
Her father stands on the other end of the scale, balancing it.
He is priestly, authoritative, and most of all, angry . He stares straight at her, rage and disappointment, and something she couldn't name.
Sadness ?
No. He could not be sad, he had put her on these scales.
“For your most sacrilegious, profane, unholy crime,” he continues, pointing his staff at her, “We will not decide your fate. Us mortals have no jurisdiction in that matter.”
Fia starts shaking again.
She has been telling herself she is ready for this moment, knew it would come the second she swapped places with Irina and sent the girl to safety.
Then why is she so terrified?
"Take me"
"Take me home”
Fia looks at the faces of the townsfolk around her, people she had known all her life. People who had been, if not kind, at least indifferent.
The gathering here only looks at her with loathing. These men and women have turned on her without question, ready to kill her for the sake of their god.
This isn’t her home.
“We will leave it to the hand of God to judge your fate.”
“Father? Father, please, I am very scared now, if this was meant to teach me a lesson, I have learnt it, please-”
His eyes flicker down again, that unnameable look flashing across his features, before settling into heavy resignment.
“I didn’t think it would come to this, Fia.”
When the wind wraps me like the reaper's hand
I will swing free until they cut me down
Fia’s father steps off the scales.
A shuddering thunk, tipping downwards.
Time slows.
There is an intake of breath.
An exhale.
The fog of air condensing in the cold.
The shuffling of Bukvar’s pages as he struggles to get out of her apron pocket. To save her.
She hangs, suspended, floating.
Her eyes flutter closed.
A warm gust of wind embraces Fia, smelling of tobacco, wood, and spiced tea. A cackling laugh splits the air, and a hand covered in rings snags her collar, stopping her fall.
“Relax, girl!”
Papa don't tell me what I could've done
She's the one, she's the one who begged me
The crowd gasps as Fia looks up at the wrinkled face of a witch.
Long silver hair flows around her as if it is unimpeded by gravity, kept in check by a floppy black hat that looks older than the woman herself.
She is swathed in a many-pocketed cloak of deep purple, decorated with jewels and amulets.
Runic symbols are tattooed all over her weathered body, from her buckled black boots all the way to the shadow of her jaw.
A curved silver blade is belted at her side, glinting in the moonlight along with dozens of potion bottles and worn pouches.
She floats on a gnarled wooden broomstick, flecked with scars mirroring the ones peppered on her own body.
"Take me"
"Take me home"
With almost no effort, the witch hoists the startled Fia onto the broomstick, letting out a maniacal laugh.
“That wasn’t very fair! Sending her all tied up!”
She takes the wicked blade from her hip and Fia flinches, but the woman only cuts her bonds.
Quieter this time, but still energetically, she says, “My name’s Batilda, by the way.”
“You are not the Trickster?”
Batilda lets out another sudden cackle, and grins, “No! Just one of her followers,” and leaning down for a conspiratorial wink, whispers, “and a friend of Irina's too.”
The crowd is in a panic now, screaming and shoving each other in their attempts to run. Fia’s father is yelling for someone to shoot this heretic out of the sky, but his voice is easily drowned out by the woman, loud again.
“Whatdya think, Little Fang? Should we get out of here?”
Fia laughs, and tears sheet across her eyes.
She nods.
When the sea takes me like my mother's arms
I will breathe free as any word of God
Fia sits in the crows nest of the Allette.
She is alone, the perch still too precarious for two people despite Hank’s repairs. She embraces the night air, a gentle breeze mussing her hair, making her wrap her cloak a bit tighter.
The horizon stretches out before her, the dark ocean mirroring the brilliant constellations above. Eventually she takes her eyes off the sky, downwards, to the deck, the sounds of summoned music filtering up to her.
Hank Jr. claps his hands to the beat, laughing as Henry dances with Irina. Zirk nods his head in time, bent in conversation with Bukvar. Shank coalesces in the flickering torchlight near the elf to scoop him up. They all laugh as Zirk, shrieking, is deposited next to Henry and Irina. But it is all in good nature, and the shadow and the elf are soon mirroring the others' jig.
Fia chuckles quietly to herself, and settles against the mast.
Papa don't tell me what you would've done
She's the one, she's the one who begged me
Fia’s gaze lingers on Irina.
A tinge of guilt spoils her senses, as they always do when she thinks too much about her girlhood friend.
She hears her father in the back of her mind, his objections to her feelings.
Hears him utter Reaper doctrines to her, the small and shaking form, opposite him on the scales.
Hears his voice, echoed in the mist.
“I was wrong, Fi.”
She pushes him aside.
Irina stops dancing, glancing around, then upwards. She smiles and waves to Fia.
“Fi, come down from there!”, she begs.
The others look up, and start chorusing their agreements. Fia mimes shaking her head melodramatically, but that just makes them call louder. Zirk reaches into his pocket and brandishes a cigar, waving it invitingly. Fia laughs and rolls her eyes.
There is a rustle of pages beside her and she turns to see Bukvar.
“Come on miss, won’t you come down? I’m making pizza!”
Despite her best effort, a grin spreads across Fia’s face.
“Well, someone’s going to have to put out the fire”.
"Take me"
"Take me home"