Feb. 14th, 2008 09:45 am
Longest Battle 7/8
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lovely_ambitionThe Longest Battle 7/8
Pairing: Ambrose/Cain, Queen/Ahamo
Disclaimer: I do not own them at all.
Summary: The Witch won't rest until she has the O.Z. in darkness, no matter how she must do it, no matter how long it takes.
Rating: PG-13.
Notes: This acts as an AU to the entire Tin Man series and hinges on just one question: "What if DG hadn't let go?" Fifteen annuals pass and while some things may remain the same, many is different. EXTREME thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blackletter for being a wonderful & efficient beta. Well, here we are, close to the end. Part eight is still something of 13-14 pages, so it's not all done yet.
CHAPTER ONE: In which DG holds on, Zero takes matters into his own hands, Adora Cain is a casualty, Ambrose is given a lifetime of glitches, and Jeb Cain gets into Ambrose's bed before his father does.
CHAPTER TWO: In which the search for the Mystic Man begins, Cain makes failed attempts at bonding, Jeb hides well, and a tentative agreement is made between Ambrose and Cain.
CHAPTER THREE: In which Ambrose reveals why he hates Zero so much, it's Jeb's and then Wyatt's birthday, and Cain finds out that you can never have too much heart.
CHAPTER FOUR: In which Cain and Ambrose are exiled, they meet a Viewer named Raw who can feel the O.Z., Ambrose has to face the facts, and mobats have a nasty bite.
CHAPTER FIVE: In which Cain heals from wounds rendered, Jeb admits he doesn't know Ambrose, Zero makes a house-call, and Ambrose informs Cain that he and Jeb are moving back to the palace.
CHAPTER SIX: In which Cain and Ambrose adjust to not being alone, the Royal Family finds out, and Azkadellia is taken from under their noses.
Word from the palace travelled swiftly to them and Cain took that as a sign that they weren’t going fast enough if the post could find them. Ambrose had gone pale when he’d opened the letter and had wandered off to pace and mutter to himself, far enough that Cain couldn’t hear the words, but close enough that Cain could keep an eye on him while they stopped for a meal that neither of them really had the appetite to eat.
Finally, Ambrose wandered his way back, looking lost.
“They’ve stolen the machinery for the shield,” he said, completely baffled by the sound of his words. “It was while the palace guard was making sure DG and Jeb were safe with the Queen and Ahamo. Someone ransacked my lab and took all the components that make up the machine.”
“Why would they do that?” Cain asked, keeping the food roasting atop the small fire he had built for them. He’d allowed no more than thirty minutes rest to read the letter and get going again, which meant that there was a lot to be done in not enough minutes.
“I don’t know!” Ambrose exclaimed wildly. He seemed to be willing to pry his hair out in order to find the answer and Cain wasn’t about to stop him. So, instead, he just sat there patiently and didn’t say a single word as Ambrose paced back and forth with the letter in hand, reading its contents and mumbling formulas under his breath as the minutes passed.
Cain settled in to eat while studying a map, checking to see that his planned shortcut wouldn’t lead them through any wild territory.
“Oh,” Ambrose finally interrupted the silence, the singular sound wary and filled with fear.
“What’d you figure out?” Cain prodded, already packing their things up to get a move on. He pushed some food into Ambrose’s hand while circling him to pick up dried-clothes and left behind things they wouldn’t need.
“If she has someone intelligent enough,” Ambrose kept speaking, his face pale and his food untouched, “I’m fairly sure she can figure out the polarity of the shield and reverse its purpose.”
“Meaning?”
“Instead of keeping things from getting in, it will let her out.”
“Then why take Azkadellia?” Cain demanded, wishing at times like these that Ambrose could at least share some of his smarts through osmosis. “If the Witch can get out herself and start wreaking havoc firsthand, why abduct her?”
“I said if she has someone intelligent enough,” Ambrose pointed out. “I am the smartest man in the O.Z., you know,” he added haughtily and even though it sounded like smug bragging, it wasn’t like Cain could argue with the truth. “Not just anyone can figure out the work that went behind that,” he added, a small and proud smile on his lips.
“All right,” Cain agreed with a slight sigh. “Here’s the plan. We’ll cut across the river here,” Cain said, poking at the map. “And make for Finaqua and double back on the paths to cut them off.”
Ambrose nodded his agreement, leaning in to brush a kiss over Cain’s lips when he least expected it, staring at Ambrose warily and wondering if that was a ‘goodbye’ kiss or if he’d just been feeling affectionate.
“I love you,” Ambrose offered lightly, but firmly.
Oh.
It wasn’t that Cain didn’t understand the emotion implicitly, deep down in his soul. It wasn’t that he was surprised that Ambrose felt that way. It wasn’t even that Cain didn’t feel the same way right back. It was just that neither of them had ever said those words all bundled up in the same sentence together and truth be told, Cain had forgotten what they sounded like when they weren’t coming from a man’s son or unofficially adopted daughters. And then Cain could only wonder at the timing and whether it was ‘goodbye’ in more words than one.
“Stop thinking so much, that’s my job,” Ambrose chastised when Cain didn’t say anything for a long while and kept packing up their things.
Cain swallowed hard, but couldn’t find it in him to say those words back just yet, for fear that when they came out of him, they would sound like ‘goodbye’ and that was the very last thing he wanted to ever say.
They spent the rest of the day in silence cutting across the O.Z. and keeping an eye on the suns for time. Ambrose made a comment at one point about the decay of the fields and how they’d been scorched by human means, but beyond that, they focused on arriving. After so long navigating the realm, Ambrose and Cain both knew each path intimately and kept a close eye on how they changed with time. The roads were still in decent condition, to Cain’s satisfaction and Ambrose seemed to appreciate the fact that not everything around them was dead.
Standing there at dusk on the path and waiting for Longcoats to arrive, they were surrounded in thick silence and the bristling of trees.
Cain’s gaze was to the sky. After his brush with the last mobat, he didn’t want a repeat performance anytime soon. Ambrose kept his eyes forward and gave a sharp “Cain!” when they heard hoofbeats accompanied by loud shrieking and muffled cries. It didn’t take a genius to know that it was Azkadellia, but when Cain saw exactly who had taken her, all rational thought went out the window.
“I’m going to kill him,” he announced evenly while Ambrose dragged them both off the main path to duck behind a grouping of trees by the side of the road. They needed the element of surprise and if Cain had been thinking properly, he’d have remembered that part of the plan, but all he could think of was shooting a bullet through Zero’s heart or punching him until he couldn’t bleed anymore.
After everything, after all he had done to the people Cain loved, this was the last straw.
“I am going to kill him,” Cain informed Ambrose sharply, trying to wrestle his way out of the surprisingly tight grasp that Ambrose had on him. “Ambrose, let me go.”
“No,” Ambrose spat at him. “No. Killing him means you don’t have a heart in you, means you’ve shrivelled up and forgotten everything it means to be a human being,” he railed in a cold whisper, never once taking his eyes off of Cain. “Kill him, Wyatt, and you are no better than him. Kill him and you’re going to lose a part of yourself to him and to his darkness and I can’t lose you,” he admitted bluntly. “I can’t. I need you and I’m sorry if that’s selfish, but you can’t.”
“He’s not just getting away with this,” Cain pointed out as the sounds grew closer and closer and every little sound of Azkadellia’s suffering killed a little more of Cain’s patience.
“No, you’re right,” Ambrose agreed. “I know just what to do. Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then follow my lead.”
Louder and louder the sounds came and then Ambrose was gracing the path with his presence, waltzing out there as if this wasn’t a standoff at all, but just two travellers on the road coming across some of the same. There were four of them on horseback and Azkadellia slung across Zero’s horse. To Zero’s left, a man on horseback cradled Ambrose’s machine to his chest.
Cain ambled his way out with gun cocked and ready to fire and the horses came to a slow stop.
The men dismounted the horses, Zero last, and Ambrose stood before Cain.
The silence drew on and neither party acknowledged the other by name, just standing there with hands by their weapons. Cain was a quick-draw, but he wasn’t sure he could manage to fire on four men before one of them inevitably got a good shot on him.
“Ambrose?” Cain finally spoke up first, because he didn’t like this at all. They needed a plan.
Ambrose wasn’t listening though. He walked right up to Zero and offered a kind smile before decking him with a punch, launching into action as he grabbed one of the Longcoats’ arms and kicked him in the chest, sending him skittering to the side before ducking to avoid the punch of the second Longcoat and then a graceful step back helped him avoid a kick from the third. Cain had his gun drawn, but it didn’t look like Ambrose needed any of his help, seeing as he managed to knock three men unconscious in about thirty seconds.
Cain chose to cross the distance and press his gun right up against Zero’s forehead.
With the barrel pressed up against Zero’s flesh, he was close enough to see Zero’s pulse rocketing. It was so tempting to pull the trigger and for a moment, Cain’s world grew so narrow that Azkadellia and Ambrose ceased to exist and it was only Cain and Zero there with mercy and death in Cain’s hands, alone for him to choose.
“Cain,” Ambrose’s voice broke the spell and Cain let his tense finger release off of the trigger a small amount.
Zero just looked up at him and smiled that slimy lift of his lips that he had, a comment at the ready.
So Cain decided that mercy meant he could still pistol-whip Zero unconscious. The blond man went to the ground, crumpling over in a pile as Cain turned back to Ambrose. The Advisor didn’t look outwardly pleased, but there was a look of approval in his eyes.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Cain encouraged, heading to the horse to help Azkadellia down to the ground while getting her unbound and pulling the gag out of her mouth. “Hey Princess, how are you feeling?”
Azkadellia gave an angry huff as she stormed over to Zero’s side and kicked him with her bare foot, giving Ambrose and Cain a slightly worried and fiery look. “Are Mother and Father worried?”
“More than anything, kid,” Cain agreed. “Let’s get you back,” he encouraged, resting a hand on her shoulder to bring her over to the path.
They’d have to find her shoes somewhere and clothes to sustain the journey. She threaded her arm through Cain’s and clung a little tighter than she ever had before, but Cain wasn’t about to say anything against that. She’d had a hard few days and they were just lucky to get her back in time.
“Ambrose?” Cain tried to locate him as he picked up the machine from the arms of another unconscious Longcoat. He wasn’t by their side and it took Cain a minute to register that he was still hovering over Zero’s prone body behind them. “Ambrose, what are you doing?” Cain asked, his voice wound up tightly. If he had stopped himself from killing Zero, he didn’t see the point in lingering until that tiny thread of Cain’s patience snapped.
“I told you to trust me, didn’t I?” Ambrose demanded. “Help me get him on a horse. We’re taking him somewhere.”
Cain didn’t move an inch.
“Wyatt,” Ambrose snapped. “Trust me.”
Cain knew he would trust Ambrose with whatever it was he wanted to do, that he had given the man not only his heart but all the loyalty he had in him and though he hated it, he nodded and muttered a gruff, ‘Fine’ at Ambrose, still letting Azkadellia cling to him. He tried his best to calm her as if she were a spooked horse and eventually, she settled and was even able to let go of Cain and help Ambrose get Zero up onto the horse.
“Come on. We have a half day’s ride,” Ambrose gestured with his chin to the stolen horses.
*
It turned out that Ambrose’s plan for Zero had been worth all of Cain’s trust.
They pulled up on horseback to a field near the Realm of the Unwanted’s entrance where the marshes were still growing high. There, amidst the yellow and sickly plantation there stood a rusting iron suit, open and waiting. Cain’s jaw tensed when he saw it, recoiling at even having to look at that thing again. Azkadellia was riding behind him on the horse and she hadn’t said much the whole journey. Neither had Cain.
“Ambrose,” Cain said in a low tone as Ambrose dismounted and dragged Zero with him, keeping a firm grip on the man as he carted him over to the Iron Suit. “What is this?”
“I believe you Tin Men call it justice,” he said lightly. “He doesn’t deserve to just walk away, but you killing him…” Ambrose shook his head, staring into Cain’s eyes before his gaze lowered to his chest, to his heart. “This is better in my eyes,” he insisted. “Don’t put more blood on your hands, Cain.”
This is better. Ambrose’s voice echoed in Cain’s mind as he watched the scene, feeling completely removed. It was like an out-of-body experience as Ambrose pushed Zero into the Iron Suit with some relish, sealing him up and tightening all the locks and screws. Zero had been half-conscious and had started to fight just before he’d been locked away.
Cain remembered that same sense of struggle vividly.
Justice. Cain wasn’t sure he had a completely objective definition of the word, but he felt okay when Ambrose came back to them and brought Azkadellia onto his own horse, leaving the black stallion for Cain to ride alone. His fingers reached for the reins, still feeling removed from himself. Slowly, he mounted the horse and adjusted his hat, tipping it in Ambrose’s direction as thoughts struggled to process in Cain’s mind.
That’s it. Zero’s dealt with. Justice has been served.
The entire ride back to the palace, Cain didn’t relax.
Two days later when Azkadellia was safe in her parents’ arms and guards were being sent out to deal with Zero’s men, Cain still couldn’t put it behind him, the idea that Zero was locked up and dealt with. It didn’t matter that Ambrose would coax him into bed or his son would ask to play games of chess with him. The world still sounded distorted and everything felt muted.
Zero was out of the picture for now.
It took a full week for Cain to come back to himself, to wake up in the morning with his face buried in the crook of Ambrose’s neck, for him to acknowledge that a very large enemy from his past was taken care of.
“Thank you,” Cain murmured that morning.
Ambrose didn’t ask what Cain was thanking him for. He only said ‘you’re welcome’, and that was just one more reason why Cain loved the man.
*
Cain longed for the days where they wouldn’t have to worry about what was coming next. He wished for peace and he wished that when he woke up in the morning and looked in the mirror, he didn’t see new wrinkles all over his face. The pain of his early aging due to stress was only slightly lessened by the fact that when he looked in the mirror in the morning, he also got to see a tousled Ambrose over his shoulder, sleepily mumbling orders for Cain to make room by the sink.
“I am afraid it is time for us to do something,” the Queen had announced that morning when the Royal Family and their closest companions met.
As far as Cain was concerned, it had been time to do something the moment that Azkadellia had been snatched out from under their noses and all this time sitting around and doing nothing about it was a waste. He’d yet to sit down, yet to even visibly relax, and he didn’t plan to until they were ready to go out there and do something.
“There is something that could defeat the Witch,” the Queen spoke, one hand protectively on Azkadellia’s forearm, her other wrapped around DG, as if afraid to let go of her daughters. “I have not wished to speak of it because finding it is risky and may alert the Witch to our plans. If she gets a hold of it…”
“What ‘it’, Mother?” DG asked curiously.
“It is a relic possessed by our ancestor,” the Queen murmured, her eyes drifting up to Cain and Ambrose. Cain didn’t have to be a Viewer or a psychicwoman to know what was coming next. “It lies in a very reverent place, in the hall of those who came before us. It would take days to travel there with no interruption, but you would need aid in opening its doors.”
“A key,” Ambrose interpreted softly.
“Yes, Ambrose, precisely,” the Queen concurred, stroking DG’s hair. “DG is still too young to go and fetch the item,” she insisted, ignoring the determined cry from the girl of sixteen annuals that she could do it, silencing that with a simple, “She is too young. I will travel with you in disguise.”
“No.”
The disagreement startled everyone. It had been a clear and ringing sound with all the force and determination that the Queen possessed put into words and it had come from Azkadellia, who had taken to resting one of her hands over Jeb’s in the quiet family portrait they made. Her other hand clasped DG’s and from where Cain stood, it looked like they were posing for a picture and he and Ambrose were there to take it.
“No,” Azkadellia reiterated, strong and beautiful and firm, her long brown locks spilling over her back and curling at the tips. In the light, she almost looked like an avenging angel without a weapon and Cain knew that tone of voice meant LISTEN. She was twenty-one annuals now and she already looked all the part of a monarch at her young age. “I’ll go. It’s safer if I go,” she insisted, turning to look at the Queen. “Mother, please,” she begged. “We can go faster and Cain and Ambrose won’t let a thing happen to me.”
While that was true, Cain wasn’t sure how he felt about this arrangement.
They were, however, united in one belief. It was long past time to put an end to all of this and if that meant taking a leap out into the O.Z. and risking their lives to save everyone else’s, they would have to. So when the Queen turned to look to Cain for his opinion on the matter, he’d already made up his mind.
“I’ll protect her with my life,” he swore.
“My life, as well,” Ambrose voiced quietly, determination steady as any heartbeat.
Zero was now put to justice and the Witch was vulnerable without her right-hand man. They all knew this and they knew that to take advantage would mean to walk into the face of danger and challenge it. While no one wanted to take on the grim task, Cain knew that sometimes, you had to do something unpleasant for the greater good.
“I suppose it is now or never,” Ahamo finally spoke up, fear lurking in his eyes. Cain could feel it from everyone in the room, including himself if he were honest.
Cain was the first to leave the room. He took Jeb along with him and left to have whatever moments of quiet and solace he had left with his son before he ventured out into the O.Z. to make a stand and be done with this war.
*
“She sleeps between us,” Cain announced when they pulled up into a small clearing by the shore of the lake. He was on his feet, keeping a weather eye on the horizon and refusing to give in to drowsiness or exhaustion when they had hours of travelling yet before they reached their destination. He might not need the sleep, but Ambrose and Azkadellia had been sighing with that hint of sleepiness that Cain could recognize a mile off. They’d only been on the road for the better part of the day, but not everyone was accustomed to travelling with great speed.
So he’d found this little bastion of privacy and made his announcement.
Clearly, from the looks on both his companions’ faces, it wasn’t the right thing to have said. “What?” they chorused in incredulity and shock and what Cain hoped wasn’t horror from Azkadellia. Cain levelled a dubious ‘don’t challenge me, Princess, I’m protecting you’ look that a Father might give his girl.
“I’m twenty one annuals,” Azkadellia pleaded, shooting a wary look between both Ambrose and Cain. “I can manage to sleep on my own.”
“Sorry, Princess, but seeing as you were kidnapped not long ago, I’m not willing to take chances,” Cain offered flatly. “You between the two of us means that one of us will notice if someone’s trying to take you away. I’m not asking,” he offered apologetically. “I’m telling.” Then he turned to deal with Ambrose, who was looking at him with crestfallen disappointment. “We’ll have our own time when we get back,” he finished patiently.
“Fine,” they echoed in chorus once again, making Cain smile to himself as they settled down for the night.
Cain didn’t sleep a wink during the night, keeping his eyes open to protect both the Princess and Ambrose.
When morning rolled around, all he did was close his eyes and pretend to rouse when Azkadellia and Ambrose slowly woke from their sleep.
“Let’s go,” Cain said simply, ignoring the exhaustion that clawed at him from so much worry and his inability to do anything but continue on their journey forward. Azkadellia had their guide, the compass that the Queen and Ahamo had sent her with and every once in a while, little whistles went off and indicated a new direction to travel in. They travelled by horseback for speed and for ease of getting across the terrain.
If the stories were true, they had less than two days’ journey to get there.
Cain wanted to make it there as soon as possible. He’d been waiting for an end to arrive and too many annuals had passed. There were the usual pleasant associations that came with all that time – after all, he’d earned a family for himself and for Jeb and something he couldn’t put a name to yet with Ambrose – but it was still subject to the dark cloud that reigned over the O.Z. most days, always threatening to storm.
None of them spoke much when they were moving. When they took time for breaks, Azkadellia would sit with Cain and they would exchange stories about Jeb while Ambrose tinkered with the machine he had been carrying with him since the palace, only mumbling that it was, ‘instrumental in defeating the witch while protecting all of us’.
The days passed quickly and it wasn’t long before they arrived at their destination.
“I don’t see anything,” Ambrose commented as they stood side-by-side before a forest. Cain tilted his head to one side to look for anything that might have been there, but he was with Ambrose on this one. They were literally looking at nothing. “Are you sure this is it, Princess?”
Azkadellia tilted her head in the same direction as Cain had moved his and stepped forward no more than three steps.
She whispered something and held up her palm to the forest.
Just like that, as if it had been standing there and staring them down the whole time, two doors swung open and a grim and austere room beckoned them inside. Azkadellia turned and smiled at the both of them, pushing on forward when Cain moved to follow her.
“The Emerald,” Azkadellia murmured words that the Queen had spoken to them, “lies with the Grey Gale.”
Not one of them knew what it meant, as the Queen had merely murmured ‘you will know when you arrive’ in her cryptic and mysterious way and Cain figured that if things got too confusing, Ambrose would be their best bet on figuring it out, being the smartest man in the O.Z. and all. Cain wasn’t sure what exactly that made him by association, but he didn’t mind being a little simple of mind (except for when Ambrose seemed to be on a mission to make Cain feel addled in the mind).
Inside, it looked to Cain like any other tomb might, even if this one was a little grander than the ones in Central City. All it did was bring to mind his simple grave for Adora behind the house with its well-preserved garden and its small gravestone to mark her name. She didn’t have great slabs of marble to encase her or etchings engraved into walls. Cain didn’t think she’d want that either.
“There,” Azkadellia exhaled the word, staring up at words written in a plaque and nailed to the wall.
“Dorothy Gale,” Ambrose read the name, turning to Cain. “It’s familiar. It’s…” he snapped his fingers. “She crossed from the otherside. She was the first to ever come here from there. She’s your ancestor, Princess,” he informed Azkadellia with a smile. Azkadellia stepped in front of the doors, palm upwards and they slowly drifted open, though no one had been there to pull them. She turned, waiting for Cain and Ambrose to follow.
While Cain was ready to take a step forward, Ambrose’s hand on his chest prevented him from getting too far.
“I don’t think we’re meant to go with her,” Ambrose murmured and Cain obliged by stopping in place, tipping his hat to Azkadellia.
“Good luck, kid,” he offered, and then the doors closed behind her.
Silence remained in the room and no matter what Cain thought, the place was still one large tomb and it was starting to creep into his consciousness and make him breathe faster and feel too warm.
“Are you okay?” Ambrose asked gently, resting a hand on Cain’s shoulder.
“Bad memories,” was all Cain would allow himself to say. Three days inside that suit was nothing at all compared to the horror stories about Zero locking up others for years before they were discovered, but the idea of it, just the idea of watching Adora die again and again for longer than the seventy-two hours of torture he had endured made him panic to the point that he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
They stood in silence as the minutes ticked by and Ambrose eventually threaded his fingers into Cain’s, standing there and watching the door.
Neither man could quantify exactly how much time had passed, but eventually Azkadellia emerged with her palm closed tightly around something glowing, green, and small.
“Did you get it?” Ambrose asked eagerly, eyes wide.
Azkadellia nodded, a proud smile on her face as she let just a glimmer of it show. “She gave it to me and said she’d been waiting a very long time,” she spoke, finding a chain to hang the emerald on, draping it around her neck and brushing her hair off her shoulder to do so. “What now?”
“We end this,” Cain said firmly. “We go South.”
*
Azkadellia was in possession of a single sword handed down to her through several generations of men on her mother’s side of their lineage. She had received it for her fourteenth birthday and had taken care of it, though it was little more than an antique for several annuals. It had taken Cain to come back from one of their missions to discover the weapon and teach her how to use it, practicing graceful, but deadly strikes in the garden while he clashed back with brute force and constant alertness.
Every time he had come home, she waited for him to greet Jeb and for him and Ambrose to return from the lab before greeting him with the sword slung across her back.
He’d always wordlessly agreed to train with her until she was a vision to be seen in the sun, long hair swirling and the reflection of light shining off the steel blade of the sword. While Cain had always preferred a gun, she had found that he had something of a talent for other weapons as well. Occasionally, Ambrose would watch and offer his own criticism and aid.
She had brought the sword with them and with the emerald on a chain around her neck, she knew she was ready to face anything.
Cain and Ambrose had finally let her be for a moment, escaping only twenty feet to her side to carry on a private conversation with each other while she watched them for a change. She liked to watch them, though in a completely innocent way. It seemed difficult to remember a period of her life in which Jeb and Wyatt Cain weren’t there with them and now that she had shed off the awkward light of her teenaged annuals, she was better able to see the world for what it was. She knew that when Jeb (now fourteen) looked at her, he did it with a different intent than he had years ago. She knew that Cain was a good man and a better father and that he was incredibly in love with Ambrose, even if his stoicism refused to let it show. Devotion, however, was not always in words. Azkadellia was a smart woman and she knew when actions meant more than the loudest of words.
Ambrose was holding tight to the material at Cain’s elbow, whispering something to him as Cain’s eyes scanned their surroundings.
Then Cain said something and they both went silent. Azkadellia didn’t dare blink as she kept her eyes on them both and pretended not to be too surprised when Ambrose jumped Cain forcibly and managed to knock his hat off in the process, kissing him furiously. Her eyes widened as one of Ambrose’s hands made a beeline for Cain’s trousers, but Cain smacked his wrist to keep him out.
When they returned minutes later, Cain’s cheeks were a deep red.
“What,” Azkadellia asked, brushing a stray leaf from Ambrose’s hair as he bounded over to her and hugged her tightly, apropos of nothing, “was that about?”
“Oh, nothing,” Ambrose said, delighted and sounding like he was in one of his glitching states. “Cain just loves me is all,” he added, beaming away in the direction of the former Tin Man. Now, Azkadellia had known that already, but the way the two men were acting, it was almost as if Cain had never said the words before.
Had Cain not told Ambrose before?
“Congratulations?” Azkadellia offered, hugging Ambrose back and floundering in a general state of not being sure what to do. “I would have thought this was old news by now.”
“It is,” Cain insisted, checking his gun in his holster as he set his hat back on properly. “Come on, the caves are within a couple hours’ reach.”
The caves were the end of the journey, where Azkadellia would stand with Cain and Ambrose by her side as they finally dealt with the witch. While Azkadellia’s magic wasn’t enough on her own, the small invention of Ambrose’s (derived from the projector that had once entertained her, DG, and Jeb for hours) would be able to channel the emerald’s power and hopefully protect them all and manage to kill the witch in the process.
Azkadellia was terrified.
She was also ready to be done with the mess.
*
She led with her sword drawn and her hair blown by the fierce winds that seemed to pick up as they approached the cave. The suns blazed above, but there seemed to be a dark cloud that hovered over the caves and brought ill portents with them. Azkadellia took deep breaths as she walked steadily, taking solace in Cain at her right with his gun armed and Ambrose to her left with the machine ready.
The emerald glowed against her pale skin and the sound of her heart beating harder than it ever had before in her life steadied Azkadellia’s paces as she entered the cave first.
“Be careful, Princess,” Cain warned.
“You’ll shoot if you have to?” Azkadellia asked, referring to herself and not to the Witch. She wasn’t sure if Cain would catch the difference, but she hoped that if it came down to it, he would put aside his feelings and do the practical thing.
“In a heartbeat.”
There was the quiet sound of laughter from somewhere deep within and Azkadellia knew this place intimately from too many nightmares that had refused to go away over the annuals. The mouth made of stone had long ago crumbled to the ground and the cave smelled of death and decay, accompanied by the sounds of wings flapping in the darkness.
“Mobats,” Ambrose whispered behind her. “We need to keep moving.”
Azkadellia hadn’t even noticed that her feet had frozen in place and almost refused to take her forward. It took Cain’s hand to lightly rest on her back to remind her to keep walking forward. Azkadellia worried that they would hear the beating of her heart, so loud that it pounded in her ears and the only thing that kept her remotely calm was the gentle green glow of the emerald that tied her to her family. She didn’t have to close her eyes to think of them and she knew that Mother and Father and DG were with her and wouldn’t let her fall.
They wouldn’t let go.
She could see the figure waiting for her within the depths of the cave and it was all she could do now to stop from moving, charging forward with her sword and the protective shield the emerald provided. Ambrose handed her the device at some point, but as far as Azkadellia was concerned, there was only one thing to do and she needed to focus.
“You came back,” the Witch creaked in her low voice, turning around and transforming from a helpless little girl and into her genuine form, bent over and swathed in black robes. “Come here, girl,” she gestured.
“No,” Azkadellia said defensively, her chest heaving with each nervous breath as she stood her ground. Both her hands employed a weapon, or else she might have reached out to hold onto Cain and Ambrose for support, even though magic didn’t run in their veins. “I’ve come to end this.”
“One wrong move and I shoot,” Cain warned evenly, gun at the ready.
The Witch didn’t laugh. She didn’t move. Her eyes seemed to be focused on Azkadellia and her alone, her dark look focused on the emerald. It made Azkadellia wish that they had simply searched for it earlier, that they had acknowledged the depth of the threat. It made her wish for a more effective monarchy, one that didn’t cling to hope.
“You’ve brought me the emerald,” the Witch growled in her discordant tone.
“No,” Azkadellia said again, stronger than before, her tone taking on depths of its own to express how very serious she was about ending this. “I’ve brought you nothing.”
“We could have been something together, my dear,” the Witch sidled closer to Azkadellia, her tone softening some and Azkadellia didn’t dare flinch. She could hear Ambrose to her side expressing worry, but the world faded away save for the Witch in front of her. Azkadellia could feel the dangerous ebb of magic flowing around them, but couldn’t move. She felt trapped and stuck and as she stared down at the Witch, her form seemed to change into that of the beautiful young girl again. “I could love you more than anyone in the O.Z.,” the little girl promised her, extending a hand out to Azkadellia. “Please?”
“Princess,” Cain’s voice was mottled and murky, but it reached Azkadellia’s conscious. It just barely reached her.
“Az,” Ambrose’s whisper filtered in and Azkadellia knew that the Witch couldn’t touch her, not without breaking through the protection that both Ambrose’s machine and the emerald gave her. She knew she had something to do, something to fulfill, but the sweet and dulcet sounds of the little girl made her mind a foggy wasteland. She even let her sword clatter to the ground, as if she didn’t need to defend herself.
“You’ll do fine, Az,” DG had said before they’d left on their journey. “I don’t think there’s anyone in the whole O.Z. who could be braver than you. You’re smart and so good at knowing what to do. I know you’ll be a hero. And I’ll hold on from here.”
Azkadellia came back to herself and knew what she had to do.
“The only thing I’ll do is end this,” Azkadellia promised, her tone brittle as she began to input numbers into Ambrose’s machine to activate the small power source and tie it to the emerald, whispering to herself the numbers in her head as Ambrose spoke them aloud.
More and more numbers.
Her birthday. DG’s birthday. Her mother’s. And then three numbers that held no great significance to Azkadellia, but served as the final number in the sequence.
“I have a family,” Azkadellia insisted as she pulled the small lever and yanked the emerald off from around her neck to slide it into the waiting slot, holding the shuddering and shaking device in her hands as it emitted a light so bright that it dazzled the cave with blinding light and made it seem like the suns had relocated to blast their light within the darkness. “I don’t need you,” she shouted above the shrieks and cries of pain that Azkadellia hoped were coming from the Witch.
The machine in her hands grew more and more volatile as it trembled harder, like it was experiencing its own earthquake. Azkadellia held on tightly, her fingers burning up by the force and the heat of the light and she refused to drop it, especially not when this depended on her.
Eternity seemed to pass by as they stood there in the bright light, but it proved to be shorter than that.
The light faded.
When Azkadellia could open her eyes, she found that she had severely burned each of her fingers from the machine (which fell to the ground as her strength gave out and they weakly couldn’t hold on any longer). She also saw that instead of the form of a Witch, there was a melted black pool of substance standing across from all of them.
“Is it over?” Azkadellia asked, noticing now that her sword had been dropped to the floor and that Cain and Ambrose were looking at her with grave concern. She wanted to ask them what was wrong, but the world swam around her and great spots of black dotted in her vision before it all went black and someone caught her in very strong arms.
tbc
Pairing: Ambrose/Cain, Queen/Ahamo
Disclaimer: I do not own them at all.
Summary: The Witch won't rest until she has the O.Z. in darkness, no matter how she must do it, no matter how long it takes.
Rating: PG-13.
Notes: This acts as an AU to the entire Tin Man series and hinges on just one question: "What if DG hadn't let go?" Fifteen annuals pass and while some things may remain the same, many is different. EXTREME thanks to
blackletter for being a wonderful & efficient beta. Well, here we are, close to the end. Part eight is still something of 13-14 pages, so it's not all done yet.CHAPTER ONE: In which DG holds on, Zero takes matters into his own hands, Adora Cain is a casualty, Ambrose is given a lifetime of glitches, and Jeb Cain gets into Ambrose's bed before his father does.
CHAPTER TWO: In which the search for the Mystic Man begins, Cain makes failed attempts at bonding, Jeb hides well, and a tentative agreement is made between Ambrose and Cain.
CHAPTER THREE: In which Ambrose reveals why he hates Zero so much, it's Jeb's and then Wyatt's birthday, and Cain finds out that you can never have too much heart.
CHAPTER FOUR: In which Cain and Ambrose are exiled, they meet a Viewer named Raw who can feel the O.Z., Ambrose has to face the facts, and mobats have a nasty bite.
CHAPTER FIVE: In which Cain heals from wounds rendered, Jeb admits he doesn't know Ambrose, Zero makes a house-call, and Ambrose informs Cain that he and Jeb are moving back to the palace.
CHAPTER SIX: In which Cain and Ambrose adjust to not being alone, the Royal Family finds out, and Azkadellia is taken from under their noses.
Word from the palace travelled swiftly to them and Cain took that as a sign that they weren’t going fast enough if the post could find them. Ambrose had gone pale when he’d opened the letter and had wandered off to pace and mutter to himself, far enough that Cain couldn’t hear the words, but close enough that Cain could keep an eye on him while they stopped for a meal that neither of them really had the appetite to eat.
Finally, Ambrose wandered his way back, looking lost.
“They’ve stolen the machinery for the shield,” he said, completely baffled by the sound of his words. “It was while the palace guard was making sure DG and Jeb were safe with the Queen and Ahamo. Someone ransacked my lab and took all the components that make up the machine.”
“Why would they do that?” Cain asked, keeping the food roasting atop the small fire he had built for them. He’d allowed no more than thirty minutes rest to read the letter and get going again, which meant that there was a lot to be done in not enough minutes.
“I don’t know!” Ambrose exclaimed wildly. He seemed to be willing to pry his hair out in order to find the answer and Cain wasn’t about to stop him. So, instead, he just sat there patiently and didn’t say a single word as Ambrose paced back and forth with the letter in hand, reading its contents and mumbling formulas under his breath as the minutes passed.
Cain settled in to eat while studying a map, checking to see that his planned shortcut wouldn’t lead them through any wild territory.
“Oh,” Ambrose finally interrupted the silence, the singular sound wary and filled with fear.
“What’d you figure out?” Cain prodded, already packing their things up to get a move on. He pushed some food into Ambrose’s hand while circling him to pick up dried-clothes and left behind things they wouldn’t need.
“If she has someone intelligent enough,” Ambrose kept speaking, his face pale and his food untouched, “I’m fairly sure she can figure out the polarity of the shield and reverse its purpose.”
“Meaning?”
“Instead of keeping things from getting in, it will let her out.”
“Then why take Azkadellia?” Cain demanded, wishing at times like these that Ambrose could at least share some of his smarts through osmosis. “If the Witch can get out herself and start wreaking havoc firsthand, why abduct her?”
“I said if she has someone intelligent enough,” Ambrose pointed out. “I am the smartest man in the O.Z., you know,” he added haughtily and even though it sounded like smug bragging, it wasn’t like Cain could argue with the truth. “Not just anyone can figure out the work that went behind that,” he added, a small and proud smile on his lips.
“All right,” Cain agreed with a slight sigh. “Here’s the plan. We’ll cut across the river here,” Cain said, poking at the map. “And make for Finaqua and double back on the paths to cut them off.”
Ambrose nodded his agreement, leaning in to brush a kiss over Cain’s lips when he least expected it, staring at Ambrose warily and wondering if that was a ‘goodbye’ kiss or if he’d just been feeling affectionate.
“I love you,” Ambrose offered lightly, but firmly.
Oh.
It wasn’t that Cain didn’t understand the emotion implicitly, deep down in his soul. It wasn’t that he was surprised that Ambrose felt that way. It wasn’t even that Cain didn’t feel the same way right back. It was just that neither of them had ever said those words all bundled up in the same sentence together and truth be told, Cain had forgotten what they sounded like when they weren’t coming from a man’s son or unofficially adopted daughters. And then Cain could only wonder at the timing and whether it was ‘goodbye’ in more words than one.
“Stop thinking so much, that’s my job,” Ambrose chastised when Cain didn’t say anything for a long while and kept packing up their things.
Cain swallowed hard, but couldn’t find it in him to say those words back just yet, for fear that when they came out of him, they would sound like ‘goodbye’ and that was the very last thing he wanted to ever say.
They spent the rest of the day in silence cutting across the O.Z. and keeping an eye on the suns for time. Ambrose made a comment at one point about the decay of the fields and how they’d been scorched by human means, but beyond that, they focused on arriving. After so long navigating the realm, Ambrose and Cain both knew each path intimately and kept a close eye on how they changed with time. The roads were still in decent condition, to Cain’s satisfaction and Ambrose seemed to appreciate the fact that not everything around them was dead.
Standing there at dusk on the path and waiting for Longcoats to arrive, they were surrounded in thick silence and the bristling of trees.
Cain’s gaze was to the sky. After his brush with the last mobat, he didn’t want a repeat performance anytime soon. Ambrose kept his eyes forward and gave a sharp “Cain!” when they heard hoofbeats accompanied by loud shrieking and muffled cries. It didn’t take a genius to know that it was Azkadellia, but when Cain saw exactly who had taken her, all rational thought went out the window.
“I’m going to kill him,” he announced evenly while Ambrose dragged them both off the main path to duck behind a grouping of trees by the side of the road. They needed the element of surprise and if Cain had been thinking properly, he’d have remembered that part of the plan, but all he could think of was shooting a bullet through Zero’s heart or punching him until he couldn’t bleed anymore.
After everything, after all he had done to the people Cain loved, this was the last straw.
“I am going to kill him,” Cain informed Ambrose sharply, trying to wrestle his way out of the surprisingly tight grasp that Ambrose had on him. “Ambrose, let me go.”
“No,” Ambrose spat at him. “No. Killing him means you don’t have a heart in you, means you’ve shrivelled up and forgotten everything it means to be a human being,” he railed in a cold whisper, never once taking his eyes off of Cain. “Kill him, Wyatt, and you are no better than him. Kill him and you’re going to lose a part of yourself to him and to his darkness and I can’t lose you,” he admitted bluntly. “I can’t. I need you and I’m sorry if that’s selfish, but you can’t.”
“He’s not just getting away with this,” Cain pointed out as the sounds grew closer and closer and every little sound of Azkadellia’s suffering killed a little more of Cain’s patience.
“No, you’re right,” Ambrose agreed. “I know just what to do. Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then follow my lead.”
Louder and louder the sounds came and then Ambrose was gracing the path with his presence, waltzing out there as if this wasn’t a standoff at all, but just two travellers on the road coming across some of the same. There were four of them on horseback and Azkadellia slung across Zero’s horse. To Zero’s left, a man on horseback cradled Ambrose’s machine to his chest.
Cain ambled his way out with gun cocked and ready to fire and the horses came to a slow stop.
The men dismounted the horses, Zero last, and Ambrose stood before Cain.
The silence drew on and neither party acknowledged the other by name, just standing there with hands by their weapons. Cain was a quick-draw, but he wasn’t sure he could manage to fire on four men before one of them inevitably got a good shot on him.
“Ambrose?” Cain finally spoke up first, because he didn’t like this at all. They needed a plan.
Ambrose wasn’t listening though. He walked right up to Zero and offered a kind smile before decking him with a punch, launching into action as he grabbed one of the Longcoats’ arms and kicked him in the chest, sending him skittering to the side before ducking to avoid the punch of the second Longcoat and then a graceful step back helped him avoid a kick from the third. Cain had his gun drawn, but it didn’t look like Ambrose needed any of his help, seeing as he managed to knock three men unconscious in about thirty seconds.
Cain chose to cross the distance and press his gun right up against Zero’s forehead.
With the barrel pressed up against Zero’s flesh, he was close enough to see Zero’s pulse rocketing. It was so tempting to pull the trigger and for a moment, Cain’s world grew so narrow that Azkadellia and Ambrose ceased to exist and it was only Cain and Zero there with mercy and death in Cain’s hands, alone for him to choose.
“Cain,” Ambrose’s voice broke the spell and Cain let his tense finger release off of the trigger a small amount.
Zero just looked up at him and smiled that slimy lift of his lips that he had, a comment at the ready.
So Cain decided that mercy meant he could still pistol-whip Zero unconscious. The blond man went to the ground, crumpling over in a pile as Cain turned back to Ambrose. The Advisor didn’t look outwardly pleased, but there was a look of approval in his eyes.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Cain encouraged, heading to the horse to help Azkadellia down to the ground while getting her unbound and pulling the gag out of her mouth. “Hey Princess, how are you feeling?”
Azkadellia gave an angry huff as she stormed over to Zero’s side and kicked him with her bare foot, giving Ambrose and Cain a slightly worried and fiery look. “Are Mother and Father worried?”
“More than anything, kid,” Cain agreed. “Let’s get you back,” he encouraged, resting a hand on her shoulder to bring her over to the path.
They’d have to find her shoes somewhere and clothes to sustain the journey. She threaded her arm through Cain’s and clung a little tighter than she ever had before, but Cain wasn’t about to say anything against that. She’d had a hard few days and they were just lucky to get her back in time.
“Ambrose?” Cain tried to locate him as he picked up the machine from the arms of another unconscious Longcoat. He wasn’t by their side and it took Cain a minute to register that he was still hovering over Zero’s prone body behind them. “Ambrose, what are you doing?” Cain asked, his voice wound up tightly. If he had stopped himself from killing Zero, he didn’t see the point in lingering until that tiny thread of Cain’s patience snapped.
“I told you to trust me, didn’t I?” Ambrose demanded. “Help me get him on a horse. We’re taking him somewhere.”
Cain didn’t move an inch.
“Wyatt,” Ambrose snapped. “Trust me.”
Cain knew he would trust Ambrose with whatever it was he wanted to do, that he had given the man not only his heart but all the loyalty he had in him and though he hated it, he nodded and muttered a gruff, ‘Fine’ at Ambrose, still letting Azkadellia cling to him. He tried his best to calm her as if she were a spooked horse and eventually, she settled and was even able to let go of Cain and help Ambrose get Zero up onto the horse.
“Come on. We have a half day’s ride,” Ambrose gestured with his chin to the stolen horses.
*
It turned out that Ambrose’s plan for Zero had been worth all of Cain’s trust.
They pulled up on horseback to a field near the Realm of the Unwanted’s entrance where the marshes were still growing high. There, amidst the yellow and sickly plantation there stood a rusting iron suit, open and waiting. Cain’s jaw tensed when he saw it, recoiling at even having to look at that thing again. Azkadellia was riding behind him on the horse and she hadn’t said much the whole journey. Neither had Cain.
“Ambrose,” Cain said in a low tone as Ambrose dismounted and dragged Zero with him, keeping a firm grip on the man as he carted him over to the Iron Suit. “What is this?”
“I believe you Tin Men call it justice,” he said lightly. “He doesn’t deserve to just walk away, but you killing him…” Ambrose shook his head, staring into Cain’s eyes before his gaze lowered to his chest, to his heart. “This is better in my eyes,” he insisted. “Don’t put more blood on your hands, Cain.”
This is better. Ambrose’s voice echoed in Cain’s mind as he watched the scene, feeling completely removed. It was like an out-of-body experience as Ambrose pushed Zero into the Iron Suit with some relish, sealing him up and tightening all the locks and screws. Zero had been half-conscious and had started to fight just before he’d been locked away.
Cain remembered that same sense of struggle vividly.
Justice. Cain wasn’t sure he had a completely objective definition of the word, but he felt okay when Ambrose came back to them and brought Azkadellia onto his own horse, leaving the black stallion for Cain to ride alone. His fingers reached for the reins, still feeling removed from himself. Slowly, he mounted the horse and adjusted his hat, tipping it in Ambrose’s direction as thoughts struggled to process in Cain’s mind.
That’s it. Zero’s dealt with. Justice has been served.
The entire ride back to the palace, Cain didn’t relax.
Two days later when Azkadellia was safe in her parents’ arms and guards were being sent out to deal with Zero’s men, Cain still couldn’t put it behind him, the idea that Zero was locked up and dealt with. It didn’t matter that Ambrose would coax him into bed or his son would ask to play games of chess with him. The world still sounded distorted and everything felt muted.
Zero was out of the picture for now.
It took a full week for Cain to come back to himself, to wake up in the morning with his face buried in the crook of Ambrose’s neck, for him to acknowledge that a very large enemy from his past was taken care of.
“Thank you,” Cain murmured that morning.
Ambrose didn’t ask what Cain was thanking him for. He only said ‘you’re welcome’, and that was just one more reason why Cain loved the man.
*
Cain longed for the days where they wouldn’t have to worry about what was coming next. He wished for peace and he wished that when he woke up in the morning and looked in the mirror, he didn’t see new wrinkles all over his face. The pain of his early aging due to stress was only slightly lessened by the fact that when he looked in the mirror in the morning, he also got to see a tousled Ambrose over his shoulder, sleepily mumbling orders for Cain to make room by the sink.
“I am afraid it is time for us to do something,” the Queen had announced that morning when the Royal Family and their closest companions met.
As far as Cain was concerned, it had been time to do something the moment that Azkadellia had been snatched out from under their noses and all this time sitting around and doing nothing about it was a waste. He’d yet to sit down, yet to even visibly relax, and he didn’t plan to until they were ready to go out there and do something.
“There is something that could defeat the Witch,” the Queen spoke, one hand protectively on Azkadellia’s forearm, her other wrapped around DG, as if afraid to let go of her daughters. “I have not wished to speak of it because finding it is risky and may alert the Witch to our plans. If she gets a hold of it…”
“What ‘it’, Mother?” DG asked curiously.
“It is a relic possessed by our ancestor,” the Queen murmured, her eyes drifting up to Cain and Ambrose. Cain didn’t have to be a Viewer or a psychicwoman to know what was coming next. “It lies in a very reverent place, in the hall of those who came before us. It would take days to travel there with no interruption, but you would need aid in opening its doors.”
“A key,” Ambrose interpreted softly.
“Yes, Ambrose, precisely,” the Queen concurred, stroking DG’s hair. “DG is still too young to go and fetch the item,” she insisted, ignoring the determined cry from the girl of sixteen annuals that she could do it, silencing that with a simple, “She is too young. I will travel with you in disguise.”
“No.”
The disagreement startled everyone. It had been a clear and ringing sound with all the force and determination that the Queen possessed put into words and it had come from Azkadellia, who had taken to resting one of her hands over Jeb’s in the quiet family portrait they made. Her other hand clasped DG’s and from where Cain stood, it looked like they were posing for a picture and he and Ambrose were there to take it.
“No,” Azkadellia reiterated, strong and beautiful and firm, her long brown locks spilling over her back and curling at the tips. In the light, she almost looked like an avenging angel without a weapon and Cain knew that tone of voice meant LISTEN. She was twenty-one annuals now and she already looked all the part of a monarch at her young age. “I’ll go. It’s safer if I go,” she insisted, turning to look at the Queen. “Mother, please,” she begged. “We can go faster and Cain and Ambrose won’t let a thing happen to me.”
While that was true, Cain wasn’t sure how he felt about this arrangement.
They were, however, united in one belief. It was long past time to put an end to all of this and if that meant taking a leap out into the O.Z. and risking their lives to save everyone else’s, they would have to. So when the Queen turned to look to Cain for his opinion on the matter, he’d already made up his mind.
“I’ll protect her with my life,” he swore.
“My life, as well,” Ambrose voiced quietly, determination steady as any heartbeat.
Zero was now put to justice and the Witch was vulnerable without her right-hand man. They all knew this and they knew that to take advantage would mean to walk into the face of danger and challenge it. While no one wanted to take on the grim task, Cain knew that sometimes, you had to do something unpleasant for the greater good.
“I suppose it is now or never,” Ahamo finally spoke up, fear lurking in his eyes. Cain could feel it from everyone in the room, including himself if he were honest.
Cain was the first to leave the room. He took Jeb along with him and left to have whatever moments of quiet and solace he had left with his son before he ventured out into the O.Z. to make a stand and be done with this war.
*
“She sleeps between us,” Cain announced when they pulled up into a small clearing by the shore of the lake. He was on his feet, keeping a weather eye on the horizon and refusing to give in to drowsiness or exhaustion when they had hours of travelling yet before they reached their destination. He might not need the sleep, but Ambrose and Azkadellia had been sighing with that hint of sleepiness that Cain could recognize a mile off. They’d only been on the road for the better part of the day, but not everyone was accustomed to travelling with great speed.
So he’d found this little bastion of privacy and made his announcement.
Clearly, from the looks on both his companions’ faces, it wasn’t the right thing to have said. “What?” they chorused in incredulity and shock and what Cain hoped wasn’t horror from Azkadellia. Cain levelled a dubious ‘don’t challenge me, Princess, I’m protecting you’ look that a Father might give his girl.
“I’m twenty one annuals,” Azkadellia pleaded, shooting a wary look between both Ambrose and Cain. “I can manage to sleep on my own.”
“Sorry, Princess, but seeing as you were kidnapped not long ago, I’m not willing to take chances,” Cain offered flatly. “You between the two of us means that one of us will notice if someone’s trying to take you away. I’m not asking,” he offered apologetically. “I’m telling.” Then he turned to deal with Ambrose, who was looking at him with crestfallen disappointment. “We’ll have our own time when we get back,” he finished patiently.
“Fine,” they echoed in chorus once again, making Cain smile to himself as they settled down for the night.
Cain didn’t sleep a wink during the night, keeping his eyes open to protect both the Princess and Ambrose.
When morning rolled around, all he did was close his eyes and pretend to rouse when Azkadellia and Ambrose slowly woke from their sleep.
“Let’s go,” Cain said simply, ignoring the exhaustion that clawed at him from so much worry and his inability to do anything but continue on their journey forward. Azkadellia had their guide, the compass that the Queen and Ahamo had sent her with and every once in a while, little whistles went off and indicated a new direction to travel in. They travelled by horseback for speed and for ease of getting across the terrain.
If the stories were true, they had less than two days’ journey to get there.
Cain wanted to make it there as soon as possible. He’d been waiting for an end to arrive and too many annuals had passed. There were the usual pleasant associations that came with all that time – after all, he’d earned a family for himself and for Jeb and something he couldn’t put a name to yet with Ambrose – but it was still subject to the dark cloud that reigned over the O.Z. most days, always threatening to storm.
None of them spoke much when they were moving. When they took time for breaks, Azkadellia would sit with Cain and they would exchange stories about Jeb while Ambrose tinkered with the machine he had been carrying with him since the palace, only mumbling that it was, ‘instrumental in defeating the witch while protecting all of us’.
The days passed quickly and it wasn’t long before they arrived at their destination.
“I don’t see anything,” Ambrose commented as they stood side-by-side before a forest. Cain tilted his head to one side to look for anything that might have been there, but he was with Ambrose on this one. They were literally looking at nothing. “Are you sure this is it, Princess?”
Azkadellia tilted her head in the same direction as Cain had moved his and stepped forward no more than three steps.
She whispered something and held up her palm to the forest.
Just like that, as if it had been standing there and staring them down the whole time, two doors swung open and a grim and austere room beckoned them inside. Azkadellia turned and smiled at the both of them, pushing on forward when Cain moved to follow her.
“The Emerald,” Azkadellia murmured words that the Queen had spoken to them, “lies with the Grey Gale.”
Not one of them knew what it meant, as the Queen had merely murmured ‘you will know when you arrive’ in her cryptic and mysterious way and Cain figured that if things got too confusing, Ambrose would be their best bet on figuring it out, being the smartest man in the O.Z. and all. Cain wasn’t sure what exactly that made him by association, but he didn’t mind being a little simple of mind (except for when Ambrose seemed to be on a mission to make Cain feel addled in the mind).
Inside, it looked to Cain like any other tomb might, even if this one was a little grander than the ones in Central City. All it did was bring to mind his simple grave for Adora behind the house with its well-preserved garden and its small gravestone to mark her name. She didn’t have great slabs of marble to encase her or etchings engraved into walls. Cain didn’t think she’d want that either.
“There,” Azkadellia exhaled the word, staring up at words written in a plaque and nailed to the wall.
“Dorothy Gale,” Ambrose read the name, turning to Cain. “It’s familiar. It’s…” he snapped his fingers. “She crossed from the otherside. She was the first to ever come here from there. She’s your ancestor, Princess,” he informed Azkadellia with a smile. Azkadellia stepped in front of the doors, palm upwards and they slowly drifted open, though no one had been there to pull them. She turned, waiting for Cain and Ambrose to follow.
While Cain was ready to take a step forward, Ambrose’s hand on his chest prevented him from getting too far.
“I don’t think we’re meant to go with her,” Ambrose murmured and Cain obliged by stopping in place, tipping his hat to Azkadellia.
“Good luck, kid,” he offered, and then the doors closed behind her.
Silence remained in the room and no matter what Cain thought, the place was still one large tomb and it was starting to creep into his consciousness and make him breathe faster and feel too warm.
“Are you okay?” Ambrose asked gently, resting a hand on Cain’s shoulder.
“Bad memories,” was all Cain would allow himself to say. Three days inside that suit was nothing at all compared to the horror stories about Zero locking up others for years before they were discovered, but the idea of it, just the idea of watching Adora die again and again for longer than the seventy-two hours of torture he had endured made him panic to the point that he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
They stood in silence as the minutes ticked by and Ambrose eventually threaded his fingers into Cain’s, standing there and watching the door.
Neither man could quantify exactly how much time had passed, but eventually Azkadellia emerged with her palm closed tightly around something glowing, green, and small.
“Did you get it?” Ambrose asked eagerly, eyes wide.
Azkadellia nodded, a proud smile on her face as she let just a glimmer of it show. “She gave it to me and said she’d been waiting a very long time,” she spoke, finding a chain to hang the emerald on, draping it around her neck and brushing her hair off her shoulder to do so. “What now?”
“We end this,” Cain said firmly. “We go South.”
*
Azkadellia was in possession of a single sword handed down to her through several generations of men on her mother’s side of their lineage. She had received it for her fourteenth birthday and had taken care of it, though it was little more than an antique for several annuals. It had taken Cain to come back from one of their missions to discover the weapon and teach her how to use it, practicing graceful, but deadly strikes in the garden while he clashed back with brute force and constant alertness.
Every time he had come home, she waited for him to greet Jeb and for him and Ambrose to return from the lab before greeting him with the sword slung across her back.
He’d always wordlessly agreed to train with her until she was a vision to be seen in the sun, long hair swirling and the reflection of light shining off the steel blade of the sword. While Cain had always preferred a gun, she had found that he had something of a talent for other weapons as well. Occasionally, Ambrose would watch and offer his own criticism and aid.
She had brought the sword with them and with the emerald on a chain around her neck, she knew she was ready to face anything.
Cain and Ambrose had finally let her be for a moment, escaping only twenty feet to her side to carry on a private conversation with each other while she watched them for a change. She liked to watch them, though in a completely innocent way. It seemed difficult to remember a period of her life in which Jeb and Wyatt Cain weren’t there with them and now that she had shed off the awkward light of her teenaged annuals, she was better able to see the world for what it was. She knew that when Jeb (now fourteen) looked at her, he did it with a different intent than he had years ago. She knew that Cain was a good man and a better father and that he was incredibly in love with Ambrose, even if his stoicism refused to let it show. Devotion, however, was not always in words. Azkadellia was a smart woman and she knew when actions meant more than the loudest of words.
Ambrose was holding tight to the material at Cain’s elbow, whispering something to him as Cain’s eyes scanned their surroundings.
Then Cain said something and they both went silent. Azkadellia didn’t dare blink as she kept her eyes on them both and pretended not to be too surprised when Ambrose jumped Cain forcibly and managed to knock his hat off in the process, kissing him furiously. Her eyes widened as one of Ambrose’s hands made a beeline for Cain’s trousers, but Cain smacked his wrist to keep him out.
When they returned minutes later, Cain’s cheeks were a deep red.
“What,” Azkadellia asked, brushing a stray leaf from Ambrose’s hair as he bounded over to her and hugged her tightly, apropos of nothing, “was that about?”
“Oh, nothing,” Ambrose said, delighted and sounding like he was in one of his glitching states. “Cain just loves me is all,” he added, beaming away in the direction of the former Tin Man. Now, Azkadellia had known that already, but the way the two men were acting, it was almost as if Cain had never said the words before.
Had Cain not told Ambrose before?
“Congratulations?” Azkadellia offered, hugging Ambrose back and floundering in a general state of not being sure what to do. “I would have thought this was old news by now.”
“It is,” Cain insisted, checking his gun in his holster as he set his hat back on properly. “Come on, the caves are within a couple hours’ reach.”
The caves were the end of the journey, where Azkadellia would stand with Cain and Ambrose by her side as they finally dealt with the witch. While Azkadellia’s magic wasn’t enough on her own, the small invention of Ambrose’s (derived from the projector that had once entertained her, DG, and Jeb for hours) would be able to channel the emerald’s power and hopefully protect them all and manage to kill the witch in the process.
Azkadellia was terrified.
She was also ready to be done with the mess.
*
She led with her sword drawn and her hair blown by the fierce winds that seemed to pick up as they approached the cave. The suns blazed above, but there seemed to be a dark cloud that hovered over the caves and brought ill portents with them. Azkadellia took deep breaths as she walked steadily, taking solace in Cain at her right with his gun armed and Ambrose to her left with the machine ready.
The emerald glowed against her pale skin and the sound of her heart beating harder than it ever had before in her life steadied Azkadellia’s paces as she entered the cave first.
“Be careful, Princess,” Cain warned.
“You’ll shoot if you have to?” Azkadellia asked, referring to herself and not to the Witch. She wasn’t sure if Cain would catch the difference, but she hoped that if it came down to it, he would put aside his feelings and do the practical thing.
“In a heartbeat.”
There was the quiet sound of laughter from somewhere deep within and Azkadellia knew this place intimately from too many nightmares that had refused to go away over the annuals. The mouth made of stone had long ago crumbled to the ground and the cave smelled of death and decay, accompanied by the sounds of wings flapping in the darkness.
“Mobats,” Ambrose whispered behind her. “We need to keep moving.”
Azkadellia hadn’t even noticed that her feet had frozen in place and almost refused to take her forward. It took Cain’s hand to lightly rest on her back to remind her to keep walking forward. Azkadellia worried that they would hear the beating of her heart, so loud that it pounded in her ears and the only thing that kept her remotely calm was the gentle green glow of the emerald that tied her to her family. She didn’t have to close her eyes to think of them and she knew that Mother and Father and DG were with her and wouldn’t let her fall.
They wouldn’t let go.
She could see the figure waiting for her within the depths of the cave and it was all she could do now to stop from moving, charging forward with her sword and the protective shield the emerald provided. Ambrose handed her the device at some point, but as far as Azkadellia was concerned, there was only one thing to do and she needed to focus.
“You came back,” the Witch creaked in her low voice, turning around and transforming from a helpless little girl and into her genuine form, bent over and swathed in black robes. “Come here, girl,” she gestured.
“No,” Azkadellia said defensively, her chest heaving with each nervous breath as she stood her ground. Both her hands employed a weapon, or else she might have reached out to hold onto Cain and Ambrose for support, even though magic didn’t run in their veins. “I’ve come to end this.”
“One wrong move and I shoot,” Cain warned evenly, gun at the ready.
The Witch didn’t laugh. She didn’t move. Her eyes seemed to be focused on Azkadellia and her alone, her dark look focused on the emerald. It made Azkadellia wish that they had simply searched for it earlier, that they had acknowledged the depth of the threat. It made her wish for a more effective monarchy, one that didn’t cling to hope.
“You’ve brought me the emerald,” the Witch growled in her discordant tone.
“No,” Azkadellia said again, stronger than before, her tone taking on depths of its own to express how very serious she was about ending this. “I’ve brought you nothing.”
“We could have been something together, my dear,” the Witch sidled closer to Azkadellia, her tone softening some and Azkadellia didn’t dare flinch. She could hear Ambrose to her side expressing worry, but the world faded away save for the Witch in front of her. Azkadellia could feel the dangerous ebb of magic flowing around them, but couldn’t move. She felt trapped and stuck and as she stared down at the Witch, her form seemed to change into that of the beautiful young girl again. “I could love you more than anyone in the O.Z.,” the little girl promised her, extending a hand out to Azkadellia. “Please?”
“Princess,” Cain’s voice was mottled and murky, but it reached Azkadellia’s conscious. It just barely reached her.
“Az,” Ambrose’s whisper filtered in and Azkadellia knew that the Witch couldn’t touch her, not without breaking through the protection that both Ambrose’s machine and the emerald gave her. She knew she had something to do, something to fulfill, but the sweet and dulcet sounds of the little girl made her mind a foggy wasteland. She even let her sword clatter to the ground, as if she didn’t need to defend herself.
“You’ll do fine, Az,” DG had said before they’d left on their journey. “I don’t think there’s anyone in the whole O.Z. who could be braver than you. You’re smart and so good at knowing what to do. I know you’ll be a hero. And I’ll hold on from here.”
Azkadellia came back to herself and knew what she had to do.
“The only thing I’ll do is end this,” Azkadellia promised, her tone brittle as she began to input numbers into Ambrose’s machine to activate the small power source and tie it to the emerald, whispering to herself the numbers in her head as Ambrose spoke them aloud.
More and more numbers.
Her birthday. DG’s birthday. Her mother’s. And then three numbers that held no great significance to Azkadellia, but served as the final number in the sequence.
“I have a family,” Azkadellia insisted as she pulled the small lever and yanked the emerald off from around her neck to slide it into the waiting slot, holding the shuddering and shaking device in her hands as it emitted a light so bright that it dazzled the cave with blinding light and made it seem like the suns had relocated to blast their light within the darkness. “I don’t need you,” she shouted above the shrieks and cries of pain that Azkadellia hoped were coming from the Witch.
The machine in her hands grew more and more volatile as it trembled harder, like it was experiencing its own earthquake. Azkadellia held on tightly, her fingers burning up by the force and the heat of the light and she refused to drop it, especially not when this depended on her.
Eternity seemed to pass by as they stood there in the bright light, but it proved to be shorter than that.
The light faded.
When Azkadellia could open her eyes, she found that she had severely burned each of her fingers from the machine (which fell to the ground as her strength gave out and they weakly couldn’t hold on any longer). She also saw that instead of the form of a Witch, there was a melted black pool of substance standing across from all of them.
“Is it over?” Azkadellia asked, noticing now that her sword had been dropped to the floor and that Cain and Ambrose were looking at her with grave concern. She wanted to ask them what was wrong, but the world swam around her and great spots of black dotted in her vision before it all went black and someone caught her in very strong arms.
tbc
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Some favorite moments:
“I don’t know!” Ambrose exclaimed wildly. He seemed to be willing to pry his hair out in order to find the answer and Cain wasn’t about to stop him.
Ambrose didn’t ask what Cain was thanking him for. He only said ‘you’re welcome’, and that was just one more reason why Cain loved the man.
, brushing a stray leaf from Ambrose’s hair as he bounded over to her and hugged her tightly, apropos of nothing,
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And thank you so much for reading!
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Brilliant chapter! I love how have kept and built on the charm of the show all the while making it your own.
I do have a question, how long do you plan things out? And how much detail are in your notes for your stories? I'm just curious cause mine go on for pages and pages sometimes. ^^;
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As for notes, I usually go in with an idea and maybe a page? I don't write linearly for grand works like this, so the editing is where most of my time is spent, making sure the scenes all line up.
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Don't answer that.Thank you for reading!
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Thank you for reading!
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an addictnice and offer to write ficlets of missing scenes that people want to see!Thank you for reading!
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I loved how you showed that moment from Az's point of view.
I'm happy that Az conquered the witch!
I'm also sad to see this end.
It has be great following along with Cain and Ambrose.
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Thank you so much for reading!
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