Storyteller1358

A Vow Of Vengeance
A Warrior’s Heart
At Home

Summary: Being imprisoned and dying over and over again can make some people lose their mind. For others, it makes them even more determined to win
Warning(s): Spoilers for the movie; references to violence

###

Quynh knew exactly how long it took to drown. Exactly how long the water took to fill her mouth. How long she instinctively tried to hold her breath for before she inevitably failed and the water filled her lungs.

And then the pounding in her head. The silent screams. The cold darkness of death.

Only to revive and have to go through it all again.

How long had she been trapped here for? A long time, she believed. Long enough for others of her kind to awaken. She felt them. Every single one. And they felt her, too. Knew she was reaching out to them. At first pleading, begging. Then demanding. Now, she threatened. Find me, or I will exact a revenge so terrible, your ancestors will tremble.

And still, no one came to free her from her watery prison. Still, she failed to hold her breath. Still, she drowned. Revived. Screamed inside her head, because the water that killed her over and over again wouldn’t let her scream out loud.

She couldn’t even scream.

Images swirled around inside her head. Memories and glimpses of the world now. She saw Andromache, the warrior with shorn hair. Now calling herself Andy. As if changing her name and appearance could make any difference to the woman who’d abandoned her. Who’d left her to die, over and over again, while Andromache got to choose when and where and how she died.

And then light touched her face.

Someone was staring down at her. Someone had found her. Finally. From the glimpses she’d had of the modern world, she recognised that the person was a diver. And they had an oxygen tank attached to their back. Oxygen she desperately needed.

She didn’t have long before the water took her again.

It was impossible to tell whether the person above her was male or female. Old or young. All she could see were eyes.

Her prison shifted. Tilted. If she wasn’t trying so desperately to conserve her oxygen, so that she didn’t die again, she would have tried to scream. Would have struggled. Instead, she held her body unnaturally still as her whole world tilted on its axis. As the cage that held her bound began to rise.

It was slow going. So slow. But she’d learned patience. She clung grimly to life. Fought against the darkness that threatened to draw her down. Fought through the water that surrounded her; that suffocated her.

And suddenly, she could breathe again. Her face was out of the water and she turned her head to one side, coughing up the water that had drowned her so many times.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

The voice came from above her and Quynh slowly focused on the person who floated in the water next to her. Now, with nothing obscuring the person’s features, she could see the face: a young woman, perhaps in her late teens, red hair damp and slicked back and face pale, save for a few freckles scattered around her nose.

Not one of her kind. An ordinary human had been the one to find her. To drag her up out of the deep, dark depths.

Hands grabbed her, pulling her free of the rotted bindings. Someone else, perhaps more than one person, pulled her up and onto the deck of a ship. A thick, rough towel was draped over her shoulders and she wrapped it around her shoulders, shivering in spite of the warm sun that beat down on her head and shoulders.

A woman with the same red hair as Quynh’s rescuer knelt down in front of her. Offered a flask that had steam coming from the top.

Quynh took the flask. Sniffed at it experimentally and then took a cautious sip, all without taking her eyes from the woman’s face.

Scalding hot liquid coursed down her throat, but that didn’t stop her from greedily drinking down the rest. She’d been cold for so long, she had to cling to any kind of warmth possible.

“What are you?” the woman whispered, her eyes wide.

Quynh didn’t respond until she’d drained the contents of the flask, shaking the last few drops into her mouth. Then, she placed it on the deck in front of her and forced a smile to her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just an ordinary human.” She would have thought hearing her voice out loud for the first time in centuries would sound strange, but it didn’t. She didn’t even sound hoarse. And speaking the same language as the woman was easy. She’d learned a lot from the glimpses of the others she’d caught.

“Bullshit,” the woman said. “You’re not like us. That cage you were in? It’s old. Ancient. And someone doesn’t just survive getting dropped into the depths of the ocean like that. What are you?”

Quynh smiled. There was no humour in it, but she smiled nevertheless. “My name is Quynh. If you want answers, you can help me find who I’m looking for. Her name is Andromache of Scythia.”

The End

Summary: Rachel prepares to follow orders
Warning(s): Spoilers for most of the series; AU; violence and minor character death

###

I knew why Jake had sent me to carry out the mission. I was the heavy hitter of the team. The one who wasn’t afraid to carry out the tough decisions. I’d killed before. Not before becoming an Animorph, but afterwards? I knew the nickname Marco had for me. I knew how all of them saw me: as an Amazon warrior, a real-life version of Xena, Warrior Princess.

This was why I was here. Ready and waiting to kill Tom. Because Jake, my leader, had asked me to. Had ordered me to. And even though Tom, the human who wasn’t under the control of the Yeerk, was my cousin, so was Jake. And as the whole world was at risk, I couldn’t choose to save Tom. I couldn’t. I had to do what Jake said. I had to kill the Yeerk. And by doing that, I had to kill Tom as well.

And I knew this was one mission I wouldn’t be coming back from.

You might think that knowledge would scare me. Knowing that Jake had sent me to what amounted to my death. But if you’ve been following our story, you’d know the truth. The reality that I’ve been facing death ever since that day at the construction site. The day my whole life, my whole world, changed forever.

Dying doesn’t scare me. Losing the war and becoming a Controller? That does. And I saw the future where that was a possibility. I saw the future where I had one of those things inside my head and it made me turn against all my friends. I’d betrayed them.

But that was only one possible future. And this, what I was doing now, would make sure that future could never come to pass.

Did it make me sad, knowing what my fate was to be? Well, yeah. Don’t get me wrong. Despite what my attitude might show, I don’t have a death wish. I rush into things because I know the fear will overwhelm me if I step back. If I hesitate for even a second, that weak part of me will take over. I’ll be a coward.

And that’s not who I want to be.

As I heard Tom speaking, I knew I had to wait. To bide my time. I was prepared to sacrifice myself, but I had to keep my promise to Jake first. I had to take Tom with me.

So as soon as I saw my chance, I did it. I morphed. And I took out the pilots before they knew what hit them. I pinned Tom, my cousin, to the metal floor under the weight of my polar bear morph. And I prepared to tear out his throat.

And he looked up at me, his eyes wide…and for an instant, a tiny instant, I saw. I saw the loss of control. I saw the Yeerk lose control and I saw…Tom. I saw my cousin, peeking out of those eyes. And there were tears in them. Tears that fell down his cheeks, but he looked…determined. “Do it,” he ground out. “Don’t let me live as a slave anymore!”

It was what I was here for. To take him out. To kill him, to kill my cousin. And to sacrifice myself doing so, because…there was no way I was coming back.

But I hesitated and Tom’s eyes shifted past me. Widened a fraction.

It was enough of a warning and I turned, side-swiping with my paw and catching the Controller who’d sneaked up on me. He toppled to one side, bleeding from a head wound. I didn’t think he was breathing.

I turned back to Tom.

The Yeerk was back in control. He stared up at me and sneered. “I think I should be flattered. That you were the one who was sent after me. That you think I’m enough of a threat….”

<Shut up,> I snarled in thought-speech.

“You’re not really going to let me live now, are you?” The Yeerk laughed. “You’ve killed all of them here on the ship. I’m the only one left.”

<And you have no way out now, Yeerk.> This morph wasn’t really conducive to delicate acts of precision, but I didn’t need that. I dug my claws into the Yeerk’s shirt and I pulled him towards the wall of the ship. And then I demorphed. I knelt on the floor in front of him and I looked into his eyes. “I’m going to watch you fry, Yeerk. But I’m not going to kill my cousin to do that.”

The End

Summary: Serenity and its crew feels like home
Warning(s): Spoilers for the series and the movie; minor references to canon character death

###

River had been trapped in her mind for such a long time. It should have been a familiar place, but really, it was scary. She still struggled to tell the difference between the past, present and future. It wasn’t as bad as it had been. Most of the time, she knew. She could differentiate. The confusion was just occasional now.

She walked along Serenity’s decks, humming dreamily to herself. She might not be able to see the space that surrounded the ship, but she could feel it. And that comforted her.

There were so many ghosts on the ship. So many memories that lingered; that whispered to her.

She wanted to share those impressions with the others, but on her better days, she remembered that they still grieved the loss of their friends, of their family.

She didn’t grieve. There was no need to, because they were always with her. Sharing the space inside her mind. The good along with the bad.

Serenity too. The ship had its own space inside River’s mind. Inside her head. Serenity occupied the space that had once belonged to her parents. Serenity was home.

It had taken her brother too long to realise the same. Simon was smart. Not as intelligent as River, but he was closer to her level than the rest of the crew; the rest of the family. But sometimes, that very intelligence clouded his intuition. He looked at the cold, hard facts. And it had been his responsibility to save River for so very long.

Not anymore, though. Since she’d led the crew to Miranda and showed them the history that had been burned inside her mind, she didn’t need her brother to keep on protecting her. And he was free to pursue relationships outside of being with her.

There was a little bit of confusion playing in her mind today. She’d done this dance before. Followed this same path before. In her dreams, in her mind, in reality? Was today the day she would interrupt her brother as he looked for some privacy with Kayleigh? Or had that happened last week? Would it happen tomorrow?

“River.” Inara’s voice broke into her reverie. Stopped the dance and her rhythm.

River turned, slowly, to look at the woman.

She supposed the two of them might be considered alike, in a way. Both had bodies and skills that made others want to use them. Both were on Serenity to escape something; or had been, perhaps. Inara no longer seemed to be moving away, but now reached for a different thing.

The only thing she now ran from were the demons that haunted her dreams.

“I think Simon’s with Kayleigh,” Inara said.

River heard the words she didn’t say. That maybe Simon could do with some privacy. She didn’t put voice to what she thought, though.

“Does Serenity feel like home to you now?” River asked, focusing on Inara’s face. “Will you stay for good now?” A tiny note of hope crept into her voice. The others hadn’t left, at least not willingly. She could feel their ghosts lingering all around her.

Inara paused and River could tell she was choosing her next words carefully. All of them did, around River. Even if they didn’t mean to, they saw her as a child who needed to be protected and sheltered from the world.

None of them could see the things that she saw. If they had even a glimpse inside her mind, they’d know that what she saw had wrecked her innocence a long time ago.

Inara looked into River’s eyes and asked, “Do you want me to stay?”

“It’s not home if not all of the family is here. At least not truly,” River answered.

Inara looked around, almost as if she too could see the ghosts that lingered around them. She then looked back at River. “Would you like to come inside my shuttle?”

It wasn’t a vow to stay, but River took the invitation for what it was.

The promise of hope.

The End