A friend for the end of the world (Victoria POV)

The room is dark when Victoria sits up with a gasp. For a moment, she looks around in a panic before remembering how she got here, the flashes of consciousness coming back in a rush. She looks around the dark room, her eyes falling on the figure asleep in a chair beside the bed.

Kaeli. Victoria almost tears up to see her oldest, truest friend at her side still, in spite of all that has happened. She starts to reach for her, to wake her, but hesitates. Doubt creeps in. So much time, so many changes. What if it’s not the same? What if what was lost can never be found again? What if…

Victoria shakes her head, angrily. She is a warlord! Fear is beneath her! Still, she doesn’t move. Just watches her once friend and lover sleep. Victoria sighs. Now what? The Order is no more, rotted from within and shattered. The wars that savaged the land are over, crushed by the Order. And now…

And now….what?

She realizes she has no real idea what’s happening now. No idea what to do. Looking at Kaeli sleeping peacefully, she knows how to find out, but does she really want to know?

Victoria nods. Information is victory. Taking a deep breath, she reaches out to Kaeli’s mind with her power. Gently, so as not to wake her, Victoria draws out the memories. Immediately, she feels a guilty pang of jealousy over the emotions she sees towards Nicholas. She tries to shake it off. The man has done so much for everyone, and even more for Kaeli and herself. Still, the feeling lingers, at least for now.

Pushing past, the memories come out in a flood. Victoria gasps at the rush. So much has happened! The empire crumbling. The Great One fallen. The Hunter lost. A strange entity. The fate of the world. Chaos and order, nothing and everything. A final battle.

Grimacing, Victoria withdraws from Kaeli’s mind. The technomage stirs, her dreams disturbed, but doesn’t wake. Sitting in the dark, , Victoria considers her options. There’s not much she can do. There’s no battle for her to fight. No war depending on her. The fate of the world is out of her hands. There’s nothing left for her to do.

She looks at Kaeli, sleeping peacefully once again, and realizes that that’s not entirely true. There is a battle left for her. A personal one. Her past. Her present. And her future, if there is a future. Hesitantly, she reaches out, gently brushing some of Kaeli’s dark, curly hair away from her face. Victoria’s hand shakes as she softly touches the soft, brown skin of her old friend’s face, stroking her cheek tenderly. Kaeli murmurs, stirring once again.

And then Kaeli opens her eyes. Those beautiful eyes, which open wide as they focus on Victoria. Kaeli gasps, sitting up in her chair.

“Vic?!”

Victoria nods, more nervous now than she ever was before a battle. How will Kaeli react? What happens next? She sits on the bed, bracing for any reaction.

Kaeli leaps out of her chair, wrapping her arms around Victoria in a hug, both of them falling to the bed. Kaeli bursts into tears, sobbing with joy, and her reaction breaks the dam on Victoria’s emotions as well. The two of them cling to each other and cry, out of relief as much as joy.

No words are said, and none are needed. They cry until the tears are gone, and then there’s silence. They simply hold each other, truly reunited.