Enchanted -N. Lantsov

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

Once they made sure there were no other squatters, they left David, Genya, and Misha to get started procuring materials for the production of lumiya and blasting powders.

Olysia had all but begged to leave with the rest of them, not quite sure she could handle being around the couple. She mentioned they would need a Fabrikator in case anything were to happen to the ship or if something worse would happen.

Alina agreed when she saw the pained look in Olysia's eye whenever she looked back at David and Genya who were never more than a few feet apart from each other.

The others reboarded the Bittern to cross back to Ravka.

They planned to reunite with the Soldat Sol at the monument to Sankta Anastasia that stood on a low hill overlooking what had once been Tsemna. They made camp for the night. The air was still warm enough that they didn't need tents so they laid out the bedrolls next to the foot of the statue near a patchy field studded with red boulders. Mal took Harshaw with him to try to find a game for dinner.

Olysia found herself alone, stuck staring at the memory of a once forgotten woman in favor of a so-called Saint.

Anastasia had helped Tsemna survive the wasting plague that had claimed half the population of the surrounding villages, but Tsemna wasn't lucky enough to survive the Fold. It had been swallowed up when the Black Heretic's disastrous experiments first created the Unsea.

The monument was an eerie sight, a giant stone woman rising out of the earth, arms spread wide, her benevolent gaze fixed on the nothingness of the Fold. Anastasia was rumored to have rid countless towns of sickness, a miracle from a Saint. But Anastasia was nothing more than a Healer.

As Olysia walked away from the stone, she let herself imagine what it would have been like. To have statues erected in your honor, to be this symbol of divine intervention when in all odds when you had simply been just a person. A person who used their gifts to do good. A person with a life. A life filled with friends and family. A life filled with laughter and tears. A life filled with happiness and hardships, and hope, and heartbreak. A life without miracles to save themselves.

Saints lived and died no differently than Olysia would.

She kept walking until she found Alina staring at the Fold. "Would you like company?"

"If you're here to tell me to look on the bright side of things, I'll pass." Alina didn't look back at her.

"I think you have me confused with someone else." Olysia snorted. "Misery loves company so I thought we could share."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Olysia nodded to the black mass in front of them. "How have you been coping with everything?"

"I don't really think I have." Alina frowned. "I've just had to keep moving. Destroy the Darkling, destroy the Fold, find a way to keep Mal...." She trailed off.

"That was a rather unfortunate turn of events, wasn't it?" Olysia sighed.

"I can't imagine a world without him in it." Alina scrunched her eyes. "There has to be another way. There just has to be."

Olysia stayed silent.

"How can you do it? Go on, without him." Alina clarified when she saw Olysia furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Without knowing if he'll ever come back."

"Because I have to. There's no other option. I can't just stop. I just have to keep moving." Olysia's shoulders collapsed. There was a sting in her chest that she quickly tried to get rid of but like every other time it happened, it lingered. "To be honest, I don't think I have been."