veryroundbirdfics | Arknights | Weight of a Feather, Weight of a Stone

Rating: Piquant
Words: 3245
Characters: GreyThroat, Mudrock
Relationships: GreyThroat/Mudrock
Summary: GreyThroat hoped for Mudrock to join Rhodes Island. What she didn't expect was that Mudrock's presence would force her to confront a few things from Wolumonde and from Lungmen that she hadn't quite processed.
Notes: This is my rarepair Mudrock OTP. I don't know why no one else writes this. I am a brain genius

"Operator GreyThroat calling in. Requesting assistance—no, the situation in Wolumonde is... resolved. But—I need to speak to Operator Logos, if we're going to do our best to prevent another tragedy."

GreyThroat isn't an optimist.

She's seen too much for that, to ever hope for the best outcome—the world rarely has stories that end that way. There's always a part of her that's calculating the ways something could go worse.

So she doesn't put too much investment into outcomes. Or at least, that's what she tries to do, at the encouragement of her therapist, which is also a little bit of an experiment. It helps, at least, that the way she's deployed, she goes to a location, does the best she can, and then gets out, onto the next place that needs a woman of her skills.

Which leaves her thinking, for a moment, when she sees the horned, helmeted head looking out over the railing on the upper deck of Rhodes Island, that she's seen a ghost.

But no. The red scrap of fabric flutters from that hammer in the wind, a far more vivid color in the barrens sun than it had been in the Leithanian winter.

She'd called in Logos herself, but she hadn't expected that to work. She'd expected it to end just like most of the stories she's collected over the course of her career—in a telling silence, or a bloody ending.

It takes her a precious few seconds to realize she's been spotted—when the figure on the deck slowly turns to look at her. GreyThroat, on reflex, reaches for her crossbow—

Mudrock slowly raises a hand, like an abortive wave. "...Should I still consider us enemies?" they say, after a moment, voice gravely through their helm.

GreyThroat flinches back, slightly—embarrassing. Her reactions shouldn't be beyond her own control like that. She shakes her head. "That's up to you," she says, in a way she hopes doesn't come off as too brusque, and turns back toward the hall. "I'll leave you be."

"Hm," says Mudrock, and there's a long pause, before it seems like they remember that they're in a conversation, and add, "All right."

For a moment, GreyThroat just hangs there, swaying slightly on her feet—and then she flees down the corridor, boots tap-tapping down the metal flooring as fast as she can go without seeming like she's turning tail and running.

Obviously—it shouldn't surprise her to see Mudrock around base. She's hardly the person least comfortable with their presence; Folinic, more than looking like she's seen a ghost, looks a little bit like she's coming apart at the seams, to be reminded of all that happened in Wolumonde.

GreyThroat has never been good at knowing what she's feeling at any given time, or at least being able to name it. She writes down what she can name, to analyze: cold in her extremities, queasiness, difficulty sleeping. Stress symptoms, certainly.

Her therapist suggests that it might be post-traumatic stress, and GreyThroat can't entirely disagree, but there's something more to it. She adds irritability, after she snaps at Blaze during a training exercise and gets both of them covered in paint.

"...you doing okay?" Blaze hazards, as they're cleaning off in the showers. "You seem like you have something on your mind."

GreyThroat stares into the water for a few moments. "Blaze," she says. "I was thinking about—"

She shakes her head, as if trying to get the thoughts to sort themselves into place for her. "I was thinking about Lungmen."

There's a pregnant pause. "Ah," says Blaze, after a moment, her voice hitting a slightly strained note. "Yeah."

For a while, there's only the gentle patter of water against the tile floor; then, Blaze reaches out a hand, like she's asking for permission. GreyThroat nods, and feels the gentle weight of Blaze's palm on her shoulder.

"Would she be happy?" asks GreyThroat, abruptly, without turning. "With how it turned out."

There's the quiet sound of Blaze scraping her teeth lightly against her lower lip. "No way to say," she says, at last. "I feel like she's the kind of person that never would believe the work's done, though. Always something else to be fighting for."

"There's a lot of people in the world who don't know when to stop," mutters GreyThroat, testily.

...is that it? she thinks, briefly, before Blaze sets her chin on GreyThroat's head to make an overwrought complaint about how she's unfairly maligned in her time. After shoving a sponge in Blaze's face and toweling off, she goes back to her notes, and adds a few disjointed items: Lungmen, FrostNova, anger.

She's angry, but she doesn't know why. Something that sets her off about FrostNova, about Blaze, about Mudrock, and it's not the stark difference between Infected and not—she knows that feeling. It's different.

Some old trainer of hers suggested, half in jest, that you'd think GreyThroat would be better at working out her own emotions with all the time she spends looking like she's lost in her own world. The problem is no matter how much she thinks about them, they're not things she understands.

And she definitely doesn't have time to work things out before she finds herself in over her head. As usual. She's gotten used to it, like she's told Folinic that she's used to her fear, but that doesn't mean she's good at handling it all the time. Which is to say—

—which is to say, she didn't expect to get tapped to help with Mudrock's combat evaluation, but it makes sense. As Instructor Dobermann says, they've been at odds on the field before, so GreyThroat knows how to test them.

When she walks in, she realizes she's not the only one; not surprising, admittedly. Someone of Mudrock's skillset should be able to take on several opponents at once—

She notes elevated heartbeat, for later, while waiting at her station. Shortness of breath. Anxiety symptoms. She's used to it. Dobermann blows the whistle—

The room erupts in an initial flurry of practice bolts, and then a secondary clatter as Mudrock deflects them in a spray of dirt and dust. GreyThroat realizes she's held her fire—not out of intention, just... distracted. Another one for the notes.

Get it together. She's hardly a talented crossbowman, but she can do this much; she can pick up her crossbow and do as she's meant to.

But after the first set of trials, she sees the instructor conferencing with Mudrock, who gives a slow nod. The layer of dirt and clay packed down on the floor of the training grounds for this exercise starts to shake, and then rise, coalescing, responding to Mudrock's raised hands—

Something in GreyThroat's chest feels like a snapped bowstring. She's just noting that to herself, in confusion, when a sudden, single shot flies out from the bank of snipers—right at Mudrock.

The whole room feels like it draws in a breath, and GreyThroat realizes that the stray bolt came from her—or, rather, she could say it had gone astray if it wasn't right where she'd intended to put it, right in the middle of their palm, exploding into a bright spray of blue paint powder.

"Oh," says Mudrock, after a long, pregnant silence. "Should I continue...?"

Dobermann, across the room, opens her mouth to say something, and GreyThroat realizes that again in her miserable life she is ill-advisedly forming her own words—"Don't."

The word rings out through the room, and GreyThroat realizes that all eyes are on her. She realizes, also, that whatever she is feeling in this moment, she is not fit for this responsibility.

When she methodically lays down her crossbow and then turns on the ball of her foot to flee, no one follows her. That's fine. She hasn't earned their sympathy, and she's not sure it would help.

But she thinks she knows who might be able to.

Operator Folinic has kept her distance, since Wolumonde. GreyThroat, at least, isn't particularly shy, just conservative about when she feels she really needs to trouble anyone. But in this case—well. She wants another opinion, and she thinks she understands Folinic enough to know where her opinions come from.

Folinic freezes when she sees her in the doorway to the med wing. "Do you need someone—"

"No," says GreyThroat. "I need to talk to you." She pauses, after a moment. "You really don't need to give me that much room. I know when I'm in danger."

She also knows how her reputation has spread, so she doesn't take it as a slight when Folinic hesitates a moment before following her to a quiet little meeting room.

They both sit, and for a long moment, there's silence. Then GreyThroat talks.

"I can't trust my own judgment," she says. "And—you were at Wolumonde."

They've never talked about it, together. They each did their own separate debriefs, and then the records were sealed. Folinic laces her fingers together, and takes a deep breath. "Is this about—"

"Operator Mudrock. Yes," says GreyThroat. "Rhodes Island extended an offer to their people on my recommendation. I don't know..." She stops, thinks, rephrases. "You're aware that I joined Amiya's team in Lungmen, during the incident there. There was another Reunion operative I met..."

Folinic tenses. She recoils from Reunion in the same instinctive way GreyThroat found herself recoiling from the Infected, after losing her father—and that's why GreyThroat wanted to ask her. Because, she can't just accept everyone like Amiya does; she can't hold herself back like Dr. Kal'tsit. She knows what it's like to not know what's right.

Across the table, Folinic takes a deep breath, curls her palms tightly closed, and then uncurls them. "Go on," she says, belatedly—apparently having noticed GreyThroat's hesitation.

GreyThroat nods, and does so. "I didn't understand... why some Infected would turn to violence, would fight their neighbors. Would do terrible things. But then—I also saw what terrible things they endured. I thought I couldn't understand them—that I couldn't understand you. But that changed. Or, at least—"

She pauses, and folds her hands in her lap, eyes fixed on knitting her fingers together. "I thought it did. I don't know why I'm..."

Folinic waits patiently while GreyThroat assembles her thoughts, which she appreciates; sometimes she just needs time. "I'm upset. I think—not because they're here, though."

There's a brief silence; Folinic frowns, slightly, and GreyThroat can't tell if she's unhappy or thoughtful or concerned. When she finally speaks, her voice is unusually soft. "When we were in Wolumonde," she says, "it was a terrible scene. It's difficult to think back on it."

Is it? GreyThroat has to think hard about that. She can remember it keenly, and uncomfortably—the thick smoke in the air, the crackling of flames, raised voices, the way the earth shook under her feet. The sick, twisting feeling in her gut the whole time that she could never quite get rid of.

"That town..." She laces her fingers tighter together. "In that town, I didn't see anything worse than I did in Lungmen."

"Mm..." Folinic's mouth thins. "But if it changed how you look at things—maybe, then, you saw things differently in Wolumonde. You were able to talk to Mudrock in a way that I wasn't."

"I could understand, better—" What she might have been through. What she'd be willing to die for.

FrostNova, lying like a puppet with her strings cut, light in the Doctor's arms. GreyThroat had been just barely chasing the cold from her own limbs, but that fight—

It had been strange. For a moment, she thought of her father, even though he and FrostNova had nothing in common. That dull, hard ache in her gut...

...was the same. "I think," GreyThroat goes on, finally—picking her words very carefully—"that I'm afraid. But I didn't know what I was afraid of."

Folinic tips her head just slightly, and glances at her sideways. GreyThroat doesn't know what expression she herself is making, but if she had to guess, Folinic's might be its mirror—lip curled slightly down, brow furrowed. "What... did you come up with what, then?"

GreyThroat pushes back from the table and stands from her chair. "I think so," she says. "But—I think I need to talk to Operator Mudrock now."

She double-checks with Amiya, because, again, she does know her own reputation, and it wouldn't surprise her if someone had put in a request for her to not talk to Operator Mudrock. (It wouldn't be the first fellow operator to do so.)

Amiya is Amiya, so of course she also makes sure to ask if GreyThroat is all right after hearing about what happened, and for once, GreyThroat pauses before answering that question.

"I think—I will be," GreyThroat says, glancing just to the side of Amiya's piercing gaze. "You remember... well. You remember Lungmen."

"Mm... I do," she says, and even though her expression doesn't exactly change, there's something in the way the corner of her mouth wobbles that GreyThroat understands. "Is that what you wanted to talk to Operator Mudrock about?"

Honestly—she's still not sure what she actually wants to talk about. But—"I want to apologize," she says. "After all—" How should she say this. "Because I couldn't sort out what was bothering me, it caused a problem for her."

Amiya smiles, face brightening up. "I don't think it'll cause any problems, actually. I know I rely a lot on you these days," she says, "So I was pretty sure you'd work through it."

Which implies that maybe someone else had a complaint, but that Amiya spoke up for her—which gives her a strange little feeling of tightness in her chest. "But Operator Mudrock wouldn't mind talking to you. She hasn't requested that you leave her alone." (She? GreyThroat registers, with a little surprise, but somehow in retrospect it makes sense.) "I don't know that she checks her communications very often, but I think she's in the workshop this afternoon..."

At least GreyThroat has never been one to avoid the things that make her uncomfortable. (Unfortunately her therapist has described what she actually does as "marching face-first into them.") Even so, when she finds herself in the workshop doorway, it takes her a long moment before she raps on the metal door with her knuckles to announce her presence.

And there's her hulking, haunting shadow—but this time, jumpsuit unzipped halfway and hood off, and GreyThroat didn't know what she expected, but...

But, there's a strange feeling competing with the nervous energy, something that's not quite surprise at the unexpected fall of long pale hair framing gentle features.

It's the same thoughtful, slow voice that speaks, though, when Operator Mudrock looks up from her work at last. "Oh," she says. "Hello, Rhodes Island Swallow."

"If you have a moment," says GreyThroat.

Mudrock makes a quiet humming sound, and then nods, solemn, before shaking her head slightly side to side just enough to get stray hair out of her face.

Good enough, then. After a moment of hesitation, GreyThroat crosses the threshold into the workshop; Mudrock is alone.

"I wanted to apologize for my missteps in the training exercise yesterday," says GreyThroat, without preamble. "I was not in a reasonable state to perform those exercises, and furthermore, I am not in any position to pass judgment on your choices."

Mudrock unclasps her hands from around her work—not a weapon, or even metalworking, but a tiny clay figure, like one of her "friends." She doesn't smile, and doesn't look at GreyThroat—just slightly to the left, thoughtful.

"Hm... what was it..." At first GreyThroat thinks she's gotten distracted, but then Mudrock's chin lifts, slightly, as she remembers something. "What you said... back in Leithania. About Reunion, lighting the fire... I remember, I thought: 'Warm words, from a cold person.'"

She pauses. "No, that's not the right way to say it. That makes it sound like your personality was cold, doesn't it? More like... it was a reminder of someone I used to know."

GreyThroat stops breathing for a moment, throat tight. "FrostNova."

"Yes."

"When I met her..." GreyThroat shuts her eyes. "When I met her, she said—it wasn't fair. That the little flame would die in a foreign land—"

Her voice gives out. Ah; her eyes are stinging. Mudrock, at least—Mudrock at least seems to be the kind of person who will wait for her to collect herself, even if it takes a minute.

All right. One more time. GreyThroat takes a deep breath, balling her hands at her sides. "The way she died—she pushed herself past her limits to fight us, to prove her point. In Wolumonde—in the square, I thought: it keeps happening. And then, in the training exercise..."

There's a long pause. Then, Mudrock says, "That's a new reason for someone to be afraid of my Arts."

The quizzical expression on her face almost gives it the air of a joke, and GreyThroat admittedly isn't sure that it isn't one. "It's—not something I can tell you to do, or not to do," GreyThroat manages, half-choking on her words awkwardly. "It's—just. Even if I'm bad at expressing it, even if there are some things I can't help but be reminded of—"

Just be blunt like you normally are, she tells herself. Her words so often come out wrong, or too sharp where she should have blunted the edge—but this one, she thinks she can manage.

"I'm glad you're here," she says.

There's a long silence. For a moment, she thinks that Mudrock must have spaced out in the moment she took to think her words over from the distant look on her face. When she speaks it's abrupt enough to startle.

"Ah, I was trying to remember, but... I don't think anyone's said that to me before. No, I'm pretty sure..." She shakes her head, firm and deliberate. "Sarkaz aren't welcomed in many places. I fled Kazdel... and then, from then on, kept fleeing. Along the way, I left a lot of companions behind, who fell while I lived. I've been thinking—'Should I get comfortable here? Can I live on like this?'"

Mudrock hunches her shoulders slightly, in a way that ends up looking a little sheepish on her, and picks up the little clay doll she'd been working on before standing, unfolding to her full height.

And then—she takes one of GreyThroat's hands, pressing the doll into her palm. "I always thought, I'd just keep going where the soil is my friend. But, ah, I wonder... if maybe, it could go the other way...? I'm not sure if that makes sense."

GreyThroat only sort of understands what she means, but her insides are too busy doing a weird kind of flip-flop she'll have to over-analyze later. So she mostly mutters a kind of awkward agreement, and excuses herself with the most suddenly nerve-wracking "I'll see you later" she's ever said.

Sometimes, GreyThroat can't believe her self of a couple years prior—the self who thought she and the Infected couldn't understand each other. Embarrassing, when she can have a conversation with a former enemy this uncomfortably relatable—

—but also, even if it's full of complicated feelings she doesn't entirely understand yet, and probably won't get any less complicated: she can live with that.