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"I can't fight as I am now," Erza said through gritted teeth, pain sharpening the edges of every word to knife points. "Cut it off."
A sword materialized in front of her, clattering to the ground. She held her arm out from her body, perfectly parallel to the ground, shaking with pain and exertion. Her fist curled tighter and tighter, fingers going white and bloodless.
There was a collective intake of breath, every face painted with horror, but Lyon couldn't look at any of them. His focus zeroed in on that damaged arm with its trembling fist, the belt tied tight in a tourniquet below the shoulder, the venom crawling through the veins. For a moment, another image seemed to waver superimposed over top of it. He tried to blink it away.
"What kind of stupid idea is that?" Gray demanded, because he had never been able to do the things that needed to be done if they were too ugly.
Lyon looked down at the sword gleaming in the dust. At least he wouldn't have to do that part himself this time. He stooped to pick it up. It was heavy in his grasp. Heavier than the ones he made of ice.
"I'll do it."
He could do what needed to be done when there was no other choice. He was the one who could do the dirty work when no one else could.
Gray sucked in a breath. "Lyon, you…"
"Do it!" Erza growled. Her head was lowered, but her eyes were hard with determination.
Lyon could feel the blood slicked across his hands already, making the hilt slippery in his grasp. He could almost taste the tang of iron in the air like a promise.
"I'm sorry," Ur murmured underneath Erza's ragged plea. "I know it's not fair. I wouldn't ask if there was any other way. I need you to be brave for me, Lyon."
Lyon's hand tightened around the hilt, and he raised the sword high.
"Don't!" Gray shouted.
"We can't allow her to die here."
Oración Seis had disappeared again, but their parting gift carried on right where they had left off. Erza couldn't stand and fight with the snake's venom coursing through her veins, not while she was writhing in pain. And she would not survive either, if the poison made its way to her heart. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made.
Everything was so loud, people shouting back and forth about what they should do, but it was all a dull roar in Lyon's ears.
"Do it now!" Erza ground out, eyes screwed shut, her voice slicing through the white noise.
"Come on," Ur whispered. "You can do it. Just like that."
"Don't do it, Lyon!" Gray said. "Don't you dare!"
Lyon brought the sword down. It whistled through the air, and he could already feel the split-second fleshy shearing of skin and fat before the jarring impact of steel against bone. He could feel the bone splintering beneath his blade, see the blood spurting out in a grisly fountain.
He wished he could close his eyes, but they were stuck wide open and unwavering, locked on the limb he was about to sever. Like pruning a dying branch from a tree so that the rest of the plant might live.
And then, between one moment and the next, Gray slipped into the space between. Instead of the sharp splintering of bone, the sword clanged against a jagged burst of ice shooting forth from Gray's outstretched hand. The jarring impact drew Lyon up short, making him catch his breath, and that was when he realized he had stopped breathing altogether somewhere along the way.
"Don't be a fool," he said coldly. "Are you saying her arm is more important than her life?"
"I'm saying there may be another way, so don't jump at the first simpleminded solution that comes to you," Gray shot back.
Another way…? No. There wasn't another way. There couldn't be. Otherwise, that would mean he had… Ur had… No. It was necessary to save her life. He hadn't had a choice. He had done what needed to be done. Would do what needed to be done. Gray had never had the guts, but Lyon… Lyon could do it. He knew he could. He knew he had.
Lyon wasn't sure exactly what he was going to say, but it was cold and biting, the sharp edges of every word cutting into his gums as he opened his mouth to spit them out. But then Erza gave a little gasp of pain and toppled over, her eyes rolling back in her head and then fluttering closed, and Lyon's words evaporated like dew in the sunshine.
Everyone clustered around in a panic, talking over each other as they debated what to do and what it would take to save her life.
"Wendy could save her," Charle said over the racket. The little cat looked down on them with her usual haughty, unamused expression as she explained the healing magic of the sky dragon slayer.
Suddenly, a new plan was coalescing, an unforeseen third option that required neither amputating Erza's poisoned limb nor waiting for her to die: they would rescue Wendy and see if Erza could be healed.
The sword was still heavy in Lyon's hand, but for the first time, he allowed himself a small measure of hope.
The air was oppressive in here. Stifling. Everyone was talking and laughing, all the different guild representatives gathered in Cait Shelter's hall to celebrate their win over Oración Seis and Nirvana. Despite the exhaustion, the injuries, the lingering remnants of mistrust between guilds, everyone was in high spirits.
It wasn't that Lyon wasn't happy. Of course he was glad they had achieved such a hard-won victory. Of course he wanted to relax and celebrate for a few minutes after such a trying day.
He was just so achy and exhausted after battling all day and jumping off a cliff and getting caught in the blast from Racer's bomb, that was all. It was hard to feel excited or celebratory when everything hurt. That was the only logical explanation for his ill temper. Everyone's good cheer grated on his nerves, and the laughter and chatter were too loud in his ears. All he wanted to do was sleep.
Sherry was off bickering or flirting with one of those ridiculous Blue Pegasus Trimens. Yuka and Toby had been talking about their plans for when they got back to the guild, but their discussion had since devolved into an argument. Lyon had not been following the conversation closely enough to know what was so contentious. Jura had long since wandered off, presumably sick of the squabbling.
So when Lyon stood up and walked outside, no one noticed. He hoped that when the door swung shut behind him, blocking out the worst of the noise, it would clear his head of all the clutter too. Ease his tension and help him unwind. The fresh air and relative quiet had to help.
Unfortunately, his head seemed just as loud out here. His mind was blank, but a swarm of half-formed thoughts buzzed incoherently in his ears. He couldn't make out any one of them, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. If he reached out to take hold of one, it slipped through his fingers. If he peered more closely, it shimmered like a heat wave and sidled out of view. If he strained to listen, it dissolved into static.
So there was no peace and quiet out here, but if he didn't look too closely at the jumble of inchoate thoughts bouncing around his skull, if he just stared out at the trees and let the din wash over him in waves, everything began to blend together and the clamor died down into white noise. All he had to do was ignore it.
Behind him, the door opened. He tensed.
"What are you moping out here for?" Gray asked.
Lovely. Lyon did not feel like sorting out his complicated relationship with Gray right now. Despite the recent softening of relations, something about Gray's presence itched at the underside of Lyon's skin. Maybe an old frustration at Gray's tendency to stir up trouble and leave everyone picking up the pieces.
It was an uncharitable thought. Lyon would not have volunteered for this mission and risked the very real possibility of running across Gray if he hadn't more or less come to terms with Gray's role in the tragedies of their past. This had been a chance to reconnect, but Lyon was not in a reconnecting mood right now.
"I'm not moping," he said, trying to dial back the irritation. "Just wanted to get some air. It's loud in there."
Gray stepped up next to Lyon, leaving a good five feet of space between them like an unbreachable gulf. With all the baggage and history driving them apart, Lyon supposed he couldn't fault Gray for keeping his distance.
"You seem mopey to me," Gray said. "You've been quiet and distracted all evening. Not nearly as cocky and loud-mouthed as I'd expect."
Lyon raised his eyebrows. "Been watching me, have you?"
"Yes, actually."
Lyon wasn't sure what to make of such a blunt admission. "Why?"
Gray shrugged. "What's on your mind?"
"Nothing."
The distance yawned wide between them, a chasm that seemed impossible to cross even if they wanted to.
Finally, Gray sighed. "Are we not going to talk about the whole jumping off a cliff thing?"
It was so far from what Lyon was actually thinking about—or pointedly not thinking about—that he stared at Gray blankly for a long minute before the words clicked.
"What–? Why would we need to talk about that?" he asked impatiently.
"You protected me."
"So what?"
"Because I picked a fight I couldn't win on my own."
"Like you always do."
"By sacrificing yourself and nearly dying."
"I'm fine," Lyon said irritably, throwing out his arms in a 'look at me, I'm still here' gesture. "A little banged up, but perfectly fine. What does this have to do with anything?"
Gray opened his mouth and then shut it again. His brows drew together in a troubled line as he considered whatever he was moping about.
"It doesn't remind you of Ur?" he asked finally.
"Of…?" Lyon shook his head, utterly gobsmacked by this ridiculous conclusion. His voice came out sharp and cold as he snapped, "Not everything is about Ur. You're still so obsessed, aren't you?"
Gray drew in a breath, again thought better of whatever he was going to say, and let it out. "Okay," he said in a low voice, looking away.
They lapsed back into silence. All the words left unspoken chafed at Lyon's skin. He shouldn't have snapped, even if Gray was being an idiot. Maybe he wouldn't have if Gray hadn't been as right as he was wrong.
"So…" Gray said cautiously, still not deterred enough to back out of the conversation. "Did something else happen after that?"
"Nothing happened," Lyon huffed. "Don't you have someone else to bother? I don't want to talk to you right now."
"Because you're moping."
"I'm not–" Lyon broke off with an effort, closing his eyes and drawing in a steadying breath. "Look, I don't know why you've decided I'm secretly upset about something, but you're wrong. And it's not any of your business anyway."
Gray frowned off into the distance, face wrinkled in thought. "Is this about Erza? You were acting strangely. Not yourself."
Lyon's heart stuttered to a painful stop before restarting with a series of sickening thuds against his ribcage. "Not myself? Who else would I be? You don't know nearly as much as you think you do. You don't know me at all anymore."
"Maybe not," Gray conceded. "But you weren't yourself. Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you, but I had to stop you somehow."
Lyon flushed hot and then cold. "You think I'm upset because you yelled at me? Are you serious?"
"No, but if you were already upset–"
"I'm not upset about anything. I'm glad everything worked out in the end and you found a way to save her without having to– It's over. It's fixed. You got lucky this time."
"I don't think it's like you to jump to the immediate worst-case scenario and take such drastic and irreversible action before even considering another option, at least not when you're in a good state of mind. So yeah, I do think that something–"
"I'm happy it worked out," Lyon said sharply. "Do you really think I wanted to chop her arm off?"
Gray frowned at him. "That's not what I said."
"Someone has to be able to do the ugly things if they need to be done. Could you have done it? If there was no other way, could you have done it?"
"I…"
"Or would I just be cleaning up your messes again?" Lyon closed his eyes and bit down on his tongue, trying to tamp down his rising anger. He could feel himself veering out of control, and Gray's increasingly concerned expression made him realize that he was starting to sound like a lunatic. "Look," he said, striving for calm. "I misjudged the situation. That's all. I didn't see a way to save her without taking drastic measures, so I was willing to do what she asked. We got lucky that we just happened to have someone with healing powers around. But if Wendy hadn't been there and the only way to save Erza was to cut off her arm to stop the venom from spreading, I would have done it. I'm sure it seems barbaric to you, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made and someone has to be willing to make them."
Gray hummed quietly in the back of his throat and didn't say anything for a long moment. "I don't know," he said finally. "I don't know if I could have done it. Maybe I couldn't have. Or maybe when it came down to the wire, I would have stepped up. I guess we never know how we'll react to a situation until we're in it."
Lyon grunted noncommittally, his heart twisting itself into another painful knot. "Well, then. There you go."
"What did you mean about cleaning up my messes again?"
Lyon sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Forget about it. I was just feeling petty."
Gray frowned some more. "Because if I hesitate, you do what needs to be done instead, even if it's ugly like performing an amputation or jumping off a cliff. Even if it's my screw-up you're fixing."
"Let's not do this," Lyon said tiredly. "I'm sorry. It was a spiteful thing to say. I don't really mean that. You were just annoying me."
"No, it's alright. But… I know you said this wasn't about Ur, but it kind of sounds like it is."
"Excuse me?" Lyon asked, affronted. "I haven't said anything about Ur. You're the one who keeps bringing her up."
"I mean, you're doing everything but saying her name, but everything about sacrifices and cleaning up my messes and jumping to drastic measures is ringing some bells."
"You are unbelievable," Lyon hissed, spinning aside and stalking off through the buildings towards the surrounding woods. "Not everything is about you and your obsession with–"
"She lost a leg," Gray said. His voice was quiet, but it drew Lyon up short. "I didn't see it happen, but… I saw it after. Maybe it brought up memories when it looked like Erza might lose a limb."
Lyon hunched his shoulders, back to Gray, and stared sightlessly into the distance. He coughed out a brittle laugh.
"Ha. You really think–?"
"Did you see it happen?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"You had this look on your face. I don't know what it meant, but it wasn't right. I'm just trying to figure out what shook you up so badly."
Lyon wanted to snap back that Gray had no right to know anything at all and needed to back off, but he was obviously a dog with a bone. Gray was stubborn when he got an idea in his head. Always had been. Telling him to leave it alone wouldn't do any good.
"You got me," Lyon said, his voice sounding thin and bitter even to his own ears. "I saw it happen, and it was horrible. Yeah, there were some similarities between the situations. So what?"
Brittle leaves crunched underfoot as Gray slowly crossed the intervening space to hover a step behind Lyon's shoulder. "The thing is," he said, "I would have thought that if you were traumatized by seeing Ur lose her leg, you might have frozen up when it nearly happened to Erza. Maybe you wouldn't have wanted to see it happen again. But you were quick to volunteer."
Lyon's breath caught in his throat, sticking like a lump before escaping his lips in a strange, hitching wheeze. "So now you're the feelings police?" he asked scathingly. "An armchair psychologist? Dictating how we should react to our traumas? Well, I'm so glad you have the intricacies of the human mind and heart worked out so that you know just how I'm supposed to act."
"Lyon–"
"You don't know anything. You don't know what I think or how I feel. You don't know what I've seen or done. You don't know what I'm capable of. Get off your high horse. You aren't any better or cleverer than the rest of us."
Gray sighed and laid a hand on Lyon's arm. Lyon flinched away, but Gray's light touch followed him, fingers just barely fluttering against his skin.
"You're right," Gray said quietly. "I don't know what you're thinking or how you feel or what you've been through. That's why I'm asking. And since you're not answering, that's why I have to guess. And yeah, I know it's none of my business and you don't have to tell me anything, but… I'm…worried. About you. I thought… You seemed better this time, not like on Galuna, and I thought maybe you've been doing okay. But that was weird, Lyon, and now you're acting strangely, and I'm just trying to figure out what happened because I don't want to see you fall apart again."
Lyon closed his eyes. He probably didn't deserve that kind of consideration after how poorly he'd treated Gray on Galuna. He hadn't exactly put in a lot of time or effort to parse out Gray's emotional state when it came to that fateful night with Ur and Deliora or what the following years must have been like. It had been easier to be angry. To blame him. He didn't understand why Gray was so tenacious on this point, after everything.
"I'm fine," he said tiredly. "I just wanted to be left alone. Can't you just let it go?"
"Maybe, but not yet." Gray paused and added, "What are you capable of?"
Lyon glanced at him sidelong before thinking better of it. "What?"
Gray's eyes were solemn and murky. "You said that I didn't know what you were capable of. That someone has to do the ugly things that need to be done. That you have to clean up my messes. What is it that I don't know you're capable of, Lyon?"
Lyon felt the tension winding tight in his chest, threatening to snap. "What are you trying to say?"
"What did you do, Lyon?" Gray asked softly, shadows playing across his face like ghosts. "To clean up my mess?"
"Nothing," Lyon said forcefully. Too forcefully. Too defensively. Like he had something to hide.
"What did you have to do for Ur?"
"Nothing," he spat again. "If you're accusing me of something, you'd better have the guts to come out and say it."
Gray shook his head slowly. "I'm not accusing you of anything."
But something about the haggard cast of his face made him look decades older than he had at the start of the conversation, and Lyon swore those night-dark eyes were staring straight through him and into his very core.
"Say it," Lyon snarled, hands fisted and trembling at his sides as he glowered at Gray.
They stared at each other, the silence and tension spooling out between them. Lyon had thrown down the gauntlet, but in this fraught, brittle moment where he held his breath to see what came next, he couldn't be sure whether he wanted Gray to say the damning words or back down and walk away with the unspoken secret hanging between them.
"No," Gray said finally, turning away. He sounded very tired and somehow very bleak. "You were right. I don't know anything, and it's not my place to take guesses. I'm sorry for pushing so hard and upsetting you. But if you do decide that you want to talk, you know where to find me."
He started back towards the guild hall without a backwards glance. Lyon stared after him, stomach churning with a sickening, heady mixture of stark relief and bitter disappointment. It was what he wanted, yet…
He took an abortive half-step after Gray before stopping short again. "Are you really going to make me say it?"
"I'm not making you do anything, and I don't know anything either, so you can keep it that way if you want."
It didn't feel like that, though. It felt like Gray had somehow peeled back Lyon's layers and glimpsed a secret he'd meant to keep hidden. Maybe Lyon was just paranoid and Gray hadn't guessed anything at all. Maybe some small part of him wanted Gray to have guessed, just so that the sordid tale might finally be dragged out of him and into the daylight rather than left festering inside him.
"When did you get so good at seeing through people?" he wondered out loud, his voice low. "You were never any good at noticing things before."
Gray huffed out a soft, sardonic laugh and turned back to raise his eyebrows at Lyon. "I never thought of anyone but myself back then, so I didn't notice much of anything else. That's what happens when you're too wrapped up in your own head. I pay more attention now. Enough to make guesses. Sometimes I'm right. Sometimes I'm wrong. It depends. Understanding people is never straightforward."
Lyon coughed out a sound that might have been something close to a laugh if he hadn't choked on it. Somehow, it had never really occurred to him that Gray might grow up during the years they spent apart. He had always still been that small, angry boy in Lyon's mind, but now he was something else. Someone else.
"Yes," Lyon said with that awful wheezing laugh, feeling suddenly, wildly unmoored. "I did it."
Gray was shaking his head, eyes clouded over and mouth drawn into a tight line. "Lyon, don't–"
But he had already started this, set this into motion, and Lyon was sick of hiding and running away.
"It didn't come off clean," he said, shuddering and twisting his hands together. He could nearly hear Deliora's echoing roars in the background, layered beneath Ur's harsh, ragged breathing. He could see the blood splashed across the rubble and the way Ur's face had gone a ghastly shade of white as she looked up at him and opened her mouth. "It was trapped under the rubble. I tried to dig her out, but some of the pieces were too heavy to move. I wanted to go for help, but there was no one else and we didn't have time. There was no time because–"
"Because you had to come save me," Gray said quietly.
"She asked me to," Lyon said abruptly, hunching his shoulders. He wrapped his arms around himself, clamping his hands around his upper arms and squeezing tight to chase out the feeling of an icy hilt wrapped in his fingers. "She said there was no other choice. She tried to do it herself, but she couldn't get the right angle or enough force with the way she was trapped. I thought there had to be another way, but her leg was already mangled, and it was worse when she was through with it, and– And I… I can still feel the way the bone splintered. There was so much blood. I didn't want– But there was no other way. There couldn't have been."
He had been so small then, and the human body was tough. He had been terrified that he might not even possess the strength to carry out the deed. That he wouldn't make it through the bone and would have to hack at it like a savage and hope he eventually sawed through, Ur writhing in pain the entire time. But then, fear and desperation and adrenaline could make a person stronger than they ever could have dreamed of being, at least for a moment. He had sheared through the bone at one of the weak, broken points, and the jarring impact—the shattering and snapping and splintering of bone—had haunted his dreams for years.
Gray closed his eyes.
"It isn't that I wanted to," Lyon said, his last defense. "Or that I was jumping to the most drastic outcome. It was a…a necessary evil. We didn't have a choice."
Everything felt too big and sharp inside him, jagged pieces of memory slicing through him in every direction like splinters buried beneath his skin. He could taste that sickening mix of copper and iron coating his tongue when he drew in a breath, like it still hung heavy in the air. He could feel it slicking his hands and puddling at his feet.
Gray stepped closer, hesitation and grief carved into every line of his face. He reached out tentatively to touch Lyon's arm. The gentle press of his fingertips against Lyon's skin chased away some of that sticky, blood-damp feeling for a moment.
"I'm sorry," Gray said. His voice was hushed and miserable, wavering. "That sounds terrible."
"Oh, yes," Lyon said. He tried to smile, but he could feel the way it stretched strangely across his face, warping and twisting into something brittle and ugly. "I still dream about it sometimes. But it was a long time ago now."
"Just because something happened a long time ago doesn't always make it any easier to bear. Time doesn't heal everything." Gray hesitated, mouth working soundlessly as he searched for something to say, and then added, "You shouldn't have had to go through something like that. I'm sorry that I– That you had to go through that because of my screw-up. I didn't mean for any of that to happen. You could have just told me, Lyon. You had no problem throwing everything else back in my face."
Lyon twisted away and stepped back, glaring at Gray as his anger flared again. "It's not about you. Don't make this about your self-pity. I'm not interested in your self-flagellation. It isn't about you, and it's not about Ur either, not really. It's about me and how I feel. It hurt me. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want it to become one more notch to add to your belt. This one thing is mine, it's between me and Ur, and I didn't want to share it with anyone."
Gray looked stricken, eyes wide and glassy, and shame nibbled at the edges of Lyon's self-righteous anger. Lyon meant it, but it wasn't a kind thing to say and he probably shouldn't be falling back into old habits trying to wound Gray when the younger mage was just trying to help.
"You're right," Gray said finally. "I've carried so much guilt about this for so long that I get caught up in it instead of really noticing how it affects other people. I shouldn't filter everything through the lens of my mistakes instead of seeing it from your perspective. I'm sorry for upsetting you, and I'm sorry that you had to go through such a traumatic experience without having anyone to really support you through it. I wasn't there to help you before, and maybe there's really nothing I can do, but if there is something, even just listening, then I'm here now."
"I don't want to talk about it," Lyon said in a grating voice, half turning away. "What do you want me to say? There was lots of blood. There were bones sticking out. I threw up everywhere and nearly passed out. I don't really know what more there is to say. It was awful seeing her mangled like that—and worse to be the one doing it."
"When I–" Gray stopped, took a breath, and tried again in a more ponderous manner. "It's…awful that you had to see that. And do that. It would be terrible to see someone you loved be in so much pain, to see them torn apart. To not be able to help them, or only be able to do so by hurting them more. That sounds very traumatizing."
Lyon glanced back at him suspiciously, picking apart his odd tone and the careful way he chose his words, and then let out a breath. "I suppose you'd know, wouldn't you."
Gray had watched his parents and friends and neighbors die. He had never talked about it much either, but there was no doubt he'd witnessed a good deal of bloody carnage. Even if he hadn't done the things Lyon had, he would have some understanding of that much.
One corner of Gray's mouth quirked upwards, rueful. "It's not about me."
Lyon winced. "Sorry for snapping at you so much. I don't even know why I'm so angry. I shouldn't take it out on you."
"It's alright. Maybe it needed to be said. I want to help, and I was going about it the wrong way." Gray hesitated, debating some point with himself, and then added, "If I could reference my experience one last time, though… It would be a bit hypocritical of me to hold something like that against you when I was such an angry kid and took it all out on you. It's really easy to turn pain and grief into anger. Maybe it helps us feel more in control, or maybe we think it hurts less that way. I think it's pretty normal, honestly. You just have to be careful not to take it too far, or it will take you somewhere you don't want to go."
Lyon grimaced. "I guess."
"And… It's okay if you're angry with Ur too."
He started in surprise and stared at Gray. "What? Why would I be angry at her?"
"Because it wasn't fair, what she asked you to do," Gray said immediately, without hesitation. "No one should ask a child to do that."
Lyon's breath caught in his throat as a fist wrapped itself around his heart and squeezed. He didn't want to hear that. He couldn't even think about it without shying away.
"It's not her fault," he snapped. "She didn't want to, but she didn't have a choice. You don't understand, she was so sorry about it and–"
"Because she knew it wasn't fair to ask of you," Gray interrupted. "She was sorry because she knew. Maybe there was no other way, but it's still a terrible thing to ask of someone, especially a child. No, it's not her fault, but you trusted her to look after you and protect you, and she couldn't protect you from that. If some part of you resents her for putting you in that position, whether she had much choice in the matter or not, that's okay, Lyon. That doesn't make you a bad person or mean you love her any less. There will always be a part of us that resents people when they hurt us, even if they didn't mean to."
Lyon curled in on himself, shoulders hunching and caving in around his chest like folded wings. His hand rose unconsciously towards his chest, fingers spasming and curling tightly into a fist above his heart as it seized.
"I'm not angry at her," he said, but his voice was thin and cracking, and everything smeared together in a hazy blur of colors before his eyes. "I was the one who hurt her."
He stiffened as arms wrapped around him, but when he drew in a breath to demand Gray release him, it got stuck in his throat. He choked on it, and it came out as a sob. Bowing his head against Gray's neck, keeping his face out of view, he struggled to calm himself as the tears gathered in his eyes and slid down his cheeks.
He was the one who had hurt Ur. What right did he have to be angry? It wasn't his fault, really. He knew that. But he'd still done it. He still remembered the pain arcing across her face like lightning, the sharp hitching of her labored breathing, the blood and bone and gristle torn into the open. He had done that.
"Oh, Lyon," Gray sighed, tightening his grip. "You were a child in a terrible situation, fighting to protect someone you cared about. You did what you had to. She understood that. I mean, she was the one who asked. I know that doesn't make it any better, but it's still true. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to survive, isn't that right? To help someone else survive."
"She died anyway, though," Lyon croaked. "So what does it even matter? It's like the whole thing never happened. What was the point? It didn't even save her."
"Everything matters," Gray said with a strangely grim sort of finality. "Nothing cancels out. Every choice we make is something we have to live with. Those moments were important to you. And they were important to her too. The things that happen to us will always leave marks."
Lyon unclenched his fists just long enough to twist them in the front of Gray's shirt instead. "I didn't want you to know," he choked out. "I didn't want you to know that I…"
"It's okay, Lyon. I don't think any less of you. No one will."
"…At first it was just that I didn't want to talk about it, and I didn't want anyone to know. But now I… I didn't want you to know because I didn't want you to blame yourself. I blamed you for so much already…and made sure you blamed yourself too. I…didn't want to add that too."
"It's okay," Gray said again, quiet. "Thank you, but don't worry about that right now."
Lyon choked out another strangled laugh. "That's why I first started one-handed molding… I kept thinking about what I did, imagining what it would be like to lose a limb like that. I wanted to see what it was like to handicap myself and my magic. Then later, when I realized I could still mold and learn how to use my magic a different way, I became more focused on surpassing her. I don't know… Maybe I was angry. She couldn't overcome it, but I could. She should have been able to get up again and live, but she didn't. Maybe I resented her for that. So I was going to do it better and get stronger than ever and… I don't know."
Gray released him abruptly. "She did get up," he said in a very serious voice. "She used her molding to make a replacement leg, remember?"
Lyon frowned. He had been worked up into such a state then that some of the peripheral memories had smeared into a blur, but… Yes, he supposed Ur had replaced the missing limb with ice.
"Yes…"
"Right before she… She kind of pointed it out to me, like, see how great molding is? Because I'd been such a brat, you know, about saying it was useless to me and I wanted to learn a more powerful magic. You shouldn't be handicapping yourself, Lyon. The whole point is that we can use our magic and our wits and our determination to overcome those challenges. If she lost something, she made herself whole again. Different, but whole. And if you've lost something, I believe that you'll be able to overcome that and make yourself whole again too, even if you won't be the same. Our losses don't define us. They only highlight the places where we need to build ourselves back up."
Lyon blinked at Gray blearily through sore and swollen eyes. "That is so corny. When did you become such a philosopher?"
Gray scowled. "Oh, come on. I'm trying to be supportive here."
Lyon scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes and managed a small, wobbly smile. "And you are. Thank you, Gray. Really. It means a lot."
"I could…" Gray chewed on his lip, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot as his gaze slid off to the side. "I could be more supportive, you know. If you didn't up and disappear for another decade. If you stuck around this time, or at least dropped by every once in a while to say hello."
"You're still so dim," Lyon said with fond exasperation. "What did you think this whole Oración Seis nonsense was about? It's a start, at least. We can build from there."
A hesitant, hopeful sort of smile tugged at the corners of Gray's mouth. "That sounds nice."
He stepped forward and wrapped Lyon in one last hug, squeezing tight, and this time Lyon pushed aside the old memories clamoring at the edges of his mind and squeezed back.