“[i]Bella![/i]”

Her throat is raw, and it shouldn’t be. It’s raw and trying to close up and her body is shaking and it’s small again, the Shepherdess receding from her in bright ribbons shining in the sunlight. There are a hundred reasons why, and all she can do is trust the last squeeze against her skin as reassurance that this isn’t a retreat from a moment too painful to relive. But she’s still afraid. And why shouldn’t she be?

Her Bella is sprawled limp in her arms, bloodied and surprisingly heavy now that her muscles are no longer supporting her, keeping her up, keeping her moving, and Redana knows enough about how a body is shaped to see Bella’s body for what it is.

A fellow Olympian.

“Bella, you can’t,” she says, and her eyes are hot, and her legs itch where she’s kneeling in the grass, and she’s pulling Bella close but Bella’s not resisting, Bella’s not opening her eyes, Bella is barely breathing. “No, no [i]no[/i], I won’t let you, it’s not [i]fair![/i]” She gulps down air, and hiccups, small and dumb and useless. “[i]Stop![/i] You can’t! After this whole thing! I stopped the Assassins, I got you out of that awful— and you haven’t even apologized to Vasilly!”

The tears land hot on Bella’s bare skin, her matted fur. She doesn’t move.

Redana lifts Bella onto her shoulders. One hand on her thigh (and she doesn’t even flinch) and the other on her wrist, and Redana deadlifts from kneeling. She is small, and tired, and her face is wet, and Bella is very still. So Redana takes a step forward. And then another step. Then another. All that matters is taking another step, because there will be triage set up by the Lanterns now that they’ve won. It was in the meeting. She was listening. She knows where they are. So all she has to do is carry Bella, and then there’s a chance. Maybe everything will be okay. Masters don’t abandon their pets. Her face is red and she feels like she’s running the last lap of the marathon, but she can’t see the finish line.

There’s so much, she doesn’t say, because she’s focusing on breathing: in, out, in, out, hiccup. There’s so many apologies. Apologies to Dolce and Vasilia and the film! Bella doesn’t even know that Dany saw them! Bella can’t die without knowing that Dany knows about the holos and the Lanterns and they still need to talk about how Batrachomyomachia is [i]good,[/i] actually, Bella! And she needs to apologize to you, and you need to apologize to her, and you need to talk about what happened with Skotia, and so she’s going to! She’s going to get you there!

…and she would have, too, if she hadn’t heard the long, slow round, a twisted braid of voices rising and falling, singing—

[i]And when I fall, don’t lay me
under earth or lonesome sky;
and when I’m gone, don’t mourn me
just send me out and watch me fly.

Lay me down among the stars,
let me soar through veil of night;
send me out on one last jaunt,
see me shining far and bright.[/i]

The strength leaves her. She could be strong enough to carry Bella. She could be strong enough when she was just thinking about the things they couldn’t lose, all the reasons that Bella can’t die here, not yet.

But here they come, Coherents in all their beautiful glory, their incredible bodies, bearing one body from the field: her four arms limp, her arms and armor laid out on the stretcher, missing her head. And Dany breaks. Her legs crumple beneath her and her knees hit the earth hard, and her body convulses as she’s reminded that she’s lost Alexa, brave Alexa who was fighting so hard against her creator, Alexa who kept her safe and came with her all this way, Alexa who ended up here (like Bella) because of Redana, because she insisted, because she escaped, all of this hers.

All of it.

The dead. The dying. Bella, Alexa, Lanterns, Alcedi, even the horrible Kaeri. Her fault. [i]Her fault.[/i]

And she’s lost. She failed. Alexa’s never going to know what it means to be free. Bella is never going to get to make anything right. All because she was selfish. Because she had to ruin everything. If she’d just stayed home, none of this would have happened at all.

It’s the Coherents who stop to help her, who take pity on the little princess who dirtied her hands and put her shoulders to the work without complaint, no matter the task. It’s the Coherents who change their song, who help Dany find the last of her strength, who make a work-song of it.

Dany can do that. She can do the work. Even if she’s sputtering and snot’s on her lips and chin and she can’t see what’s in front of her for grief, even if her chest’s torn open and all her love’s spilling out on the ground, useless useless useless, she knows what to do when there’s a Coherent on either side of her and the round is changed, because it’s what Alexa would have wanted.

Bella lies on Alexa’s body, bloody cheek against her chest, and Dany puts her shoulder to the work, in her place, bearing the two beautiful women she ruined back to the world that will be less without them, a thought she does not have to think because there is only the work, and the song, and the knowledge that everyone around her is lifting, too.

She can play a part. And when they finally reach the triage, when they finally find themselves among the Lanterns, that’s when she’ll fall apart completely. When she’s got nothing else to do, that’s when she’ll crumple in on herself and break so completely that she’ll be really, for real useless, and not even a song will work to get her moving.

Only a miracle, then.

Only eucatastrophe.