“forever never really felt so right, but it feels so safe when you dig my grave”

Everyone was alive and well. As she worked the oil into the wood Lysenna kept telling herself that. If she stopped, if she started thinking about what could have happened, how everything could have become even more wrong…
She couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“I know you know we both see the end of us”

Sanding the wood, she kept seeing all the ways everyone she loved being taken from her. The stricken faces of the ones who trusted her, who looked to her. She saw the blood splashing out onto the dark earth as it spilled from the man the elf had murdered.
Had sacrificed.

The twisting growth of the heartseed and Chropolar’s apprentice enterwined. Pallid light pulsing, a bright green but wrong somehow in a sickly imitation of life. The chalky dust of the remainder as it fell through Henri’s clenched fist.

“follow my lead, take my hand, things don’t always go to plan”

She kept seeing the fear and agony in Isabel’s face. As she pushed against the presence that had worked to alter her.

The rage and disgust in Granny Jo’s voice as she order Hugo to take action against Alphonse.

The despair in Marinette’s pleas to everyone to think things through.

“close your eyes, let’s misbehave, while you dig my grave”

The strange dreams with their dullness and emptiness were nothing now compared to the reality of the gathering. The luminous colors and exuberant music of the maypole dance all seemed so far away now. As far removed from the bloody shadows of the night before as the Throne was from their meager village.

“tell me why I tried so hard to hold you so it wouldn’t come, can’t keep pushing all the weight of everything that came undone”

She couldn’t undo the past. Or do the impossible. But she could do everything in her power to keep those she loved from harm. She could continue to stand up. To speak up. To shout. To scream. To fight. To bleed. To live. To die.

“I’m no hero, babe, but I can take a punch”

If all she could do was live and die, she could at least make it count.