Snippet - Adaman

Very much did not happen, but an AU snippet version I wanted to write where Adaman learns his sister was alive before the war ended. Camps were closer in AU and left a version where this is possible. 

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He’d been trailing behind, lost from the droll of conversation. From where he followed, it was snippets of talks of food that he could overhear. 

Adaman was slipping his knife back in its sheath at his belt when one of them walked back over a few paces, knocking his shoulder with a fist. It made him look up, brows raised, peering up at him through strands of loose hair.

“What’d you’d think?” His head was cocked sideways, a lopsided grin.

“What?” Adaman asked dumbly. 

“You in?” He pressed.

“I-“ he stopped as quickly as he’d started, “sure?”

Which was probably stupid since he had no idea what he had just agreed to. But worse came to worse, he could duck out and claim boredom.

But it seemed to be the right answer. As his company wrapped his elbow around his neck, grinning from ear to ear now, pulling him onwards, back to the crowd with a low cheer.

Adaman only smiled back, more confused. And feeling like maybe he had made a bigger mistake than he’d just assumed. But that didn’t stop him from continuing along. And he didn’t put up a fight as he trailed after, still pulled over by the arm around his neck.

“It will be worth it, I swear.”

“Sure,” Adaman rolled his eyes, skeptical, regardless of his own confusion, “if you say so.”

He was half way removing the arm from around his neck, about to push him away playfully, but that’s when he saw it.

Where he stopped in his tracks and almost brought his company stumbling off his feet, pulled back by his arm gripped by Adaman.

“Woah - what?” They interjected roughly. He tried to pull back his arm but Adaman’s grip was too tight, zoned out, caring about anything but his protest.

“Who’s that?”

His company stopped pulling at his arm, turning to look over his shoulder. He scanned the crowd in front of them. His gaze passed over them once before he was quick to realize who Adaman was staring at.

“Wha- oh,” they looked over at Adaman, “Dawn and Dusk.”

 

Adaman let go of the arm. But his company didn’t move away. Instead he had leaned closer.

“That’s Dawn and Dusk?” his voice was distant.

“Yeah,” they said, knowingly.

“Holy shit,” Adaman’s voice had gone lower.

His company leaned on his shoulder, looking at them. “I know,” their voice was cocky now, “but don’t even waste your time. They’re not into sharing-“

Adaman jumped away so quickly, he nearly sent them sprawling into the ground after losing their perch.

“What the fuck - no!” He exclaimed way too quickly.

They righted themselves, brows raised. He looked between Adaman and the pair halfway across the clearing, who were getting further away by the moment.

Adaman was staring at them again, mouth agape.

Because there they were, on horseback. Passing through the camp, deep in a conversation. He rode a tall black and white beast, hers was smaller and buckskin. 

It would have been inconsequential. Would have been nothing more than a glance. If not for the fact that there was no way it wasn’t her. That ghost of a child he barely remembered, who was supposed to be dead. And yet, from the obscured and momentary glance he got of her before Dusk blocked her from view, he saw her again, smiling, ear to ear. Sharp and pointed.

“That’s my sister.”

And before he could think better of it, before his company had the chance to even think about what he was saying, Adaman took off in a sprint. 

He probably never ran faster in his life, at least than the time he’d been chased by one of the neighbor’s guard dogs. He made it to them in record time. 

And yet his speed was nothing compared to theirs.

Dawn had taken out her sword, pulled her horse to the side, protecting herself from danger as he suddenly rushed them. But it was Dusk that was truly surprising - especially his speed for his sheer size. He was off his horse in an instant, and before Adaman could even register what was going on, he was knocked to the ground, the tip of Dusk’s sword digging into his neck, pinning him to the ground. Any movement causing it to dig into flesh.

Adaman raised his arm and a half over his head, yielding before the world came to. When it did, he saw Dusk staring him down, without a grain of sympathy in his glare. Who would tear out his throat in a second given any reason to.

“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice wasn’t even raised, and yet it had enough authority in it to make him question all his life choices at that moment. 

It certainly had gotten everyone nearby to stop what they were doing and turn around to stare at the scene.

He feared even giving an answer, less he would make himself a fool and feel the sword slice his neck.

But by that time, she had gotten off her horse and stood at Dusk’s side. 

She truly was not small, but next to him she looked at it. Or perhaps it was a side effect of having his back in the dirt, looking up.

He watched with bated breath as Dawn looked over at Dusk, lowering her sword slightly. Then her gaze traveled down his blade, and all at once, her expression shifted. She sheathed her sword immediately.

It had been almost 20 years since he had last seen her. Where her face had been rounder, her hair shorter and shorn, and she’d been so much smaller. But it was her. Scarred, sharper, and spiteful. He was now missing an arm, she, an eye.

They held eye contact for a moment, where her eyes widened, and she stilled. And then she was pushing Dusk’s sword off his throat, and with a simple light touch, getting him to back up a step. 

She took one step forward, as if she still couldn’t believe her eyes. 

“Adaman?” She asked cautiously.

He nodded, raising his hand to feel where the blade had been at his throat. Rubbing it, his voice was hoarse, “yeah…”

Dusk had taken a step closer to her. “Who’s-?”

She had turned to look up at him, “my brother.”

And if Adaman could say anything, it was that Dusk’s posture certainly switched. Gone was that hard frown and hostility. That edge that would dull only for her. Suddenly his brows were raised and he looked far less tall and far more warm. 

And then he was reaching down to offer a hand to help pull him up. After a moment of hesitancy, Adaman took it, righting himself back to his feet, the world still spinning behind everything.

But he wasn’t given a moment to register it before he was pulled in a hug. One that almost sent him off his feet again, that took him a moment to wrap his arms around her.

He almost missed the soft voice in his ear, “I thought you were dead.”

A low laugh escaped him. “You too.” He couldn’t hide the surprised joy, one he wasn’t sure he was allowed to feel.

She just shook her head into his shoulder.

He pulled back after she did, taking a step back to look at her, hand still on her shoulder.

The scars on her face were deep, her eye clouded over with blindness. She took no shame in the wound, did not try to hide it. 

He had heard descriptions of her, but it felt different seeing it up close. Knowing it was her. He could see that cunning, that wit that lit up her eyes, the frown lines from war. She was hardened and sharp, no longer that eight year old he had said goodbye to. She was her own person. One who had grown up without him. Who had grown up a fighter. Who has survived. And who now led.

“You’re Dawn?” He found himself asking. He could hear his own disbelief.

She let out a breath and then she nodded. She took a step back, his hand leaving her shoulders. She looked over at Dusk, then back at him. She nodded again.

“Yeah.”

“I think there’s a lot to catch up on…” he muttered.