Episode Two, Part 3:
S e r u m

I've got a secret for the mad: in a little bit of time, it won't hurt so bad. 
And I get that I don't get it, but you will burn right now, but then you won't regret it. 

Sol was at the back of camp, practising her shooting against a wooden target that she had hung up on the fences. 

As the bullets ran out, Sol turned around, chucking the weapon to the ground and searching for what else she could work on. Taking her by surprise, Elara was standing a few metres behind her, having watched her aim for several moments. 

"Elara!" Sol warned, softening slightly when she realized she wasn't a threat. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that. Especially if they have a gun." 

"Sorry." Elara mumbled apologetically, glancing around at everything the Sovereign had scattered around: knives, swords, several different types of guns. It shouldn't have intimidated her, but it didn't. 

"What are you doing here?" As she spoke, Sol picked up a dry cloth, wiping it across her forehead to rid of her sweat. 

"I-I..." Elara was nervous to ask, looking around for a distraction - something she could bring up to avoid the question. 

"You're supposed to be resting." Sol pointed out, folding her arms as she released the cloth. "Do your brothers know that you're out here?" 

"I feel fine," Elara muttered, tired of everyone being so worried about her, even if they had every right to be; Elara wasn't fine at all. More than anything, she didn't her brothers to feel like they had to watch over her every move, or not leave without one of them staying behind with her. 

"Okay, but until everything's one hundred percent with you, you need to be careful-" 

"Nothing is ever going to be one hundred percent." Elara snapped, tired of everyone waiting for her to get better. "It's not going to be the same. I won't go back to normal." 

Sol tilted her head, trying to read what was between the lines. She knew if she asked Elara directly, then she would scare her off, and wouldn't be able to get to the root of her problems. 

"What are you doing down here, anyway?" The Sovereign asked. 

Elara didn't seem to recognise her tactics and was quick to discuss something else, even if she was somewhat afraid of rejection. 

"I want to be strong," Elara admitted, eyes finally flickering up to Sol. 

She was intrigued at what the younger girl had confessed, wondering what her statement was leading up to. She didn't answer, encouraging Elara to continue. 

"I'm so tired of everyone always having to save me. I want to save my own damn self once in a while. I want to know how how to fight." 

Sol smiled a little, confounded at what she had said. 

"You want me to teach you how to use all this stuff?" The Sovereign clarified, looking at everything around her. 

Elara nodded. 

"Why didn't you go to Bas or Kodiak and ask them to help you? Or even Wynn?" 

"Well, Bas just left camp with Dreea..." Elara mumbled as if that was the reason she hadn't asked him. "And... And I wanted it to be you." 

"Because you don't want Kodiak or your brothers to know..." Sol finished, searching Elara to see if she was right. 

Elara looked up, choking on her tongue, unable to say otherwise. 

"You can see where they're coming from, right? I know you've heard it, but whatever they did to you is something you are still recovering from. You can't rush that. " 

Elara rolled her eyes. 

"They're just trying to look out for you. After everything that's happened, they-" 

"After everything that's happened, I think I've proved that I can survive. I just want to know how to defend myself. Targo are still out there, aren't they?" 

Her last question caught Sol off guard. They hadn't specifically told her anything about Rhea or Kane, only that once they arrived at the labs, Basilisk killed all the guards. 

"How do you know that?" 

Elara shrugged. "Everyone's still on edge. It's like you're all tiptoeing around me. Whenever they come up, there always feels like a part of the conversation is missing, and you're all too afraid to tell me that after everything, that after getting me back, I'm still not safe." 

"You are safe here, Elara." Sol stepped forward slightly, asserting her words. "They'll have to go through me, and everybody else who cares about you, before they even come close to taking you away again." She promised. 

"And speaking of holding things back, I know you didn't tell us everything yesterday." 

Elara looked up at her for a moment, the drawing away, knowing she had been caught out. 

"So what?" 

"So I think you need to tell me what's really going on in your head. If you want me to train you, I need you to tell me everything." 

A wave of emotion hit Elara, suddenly deteriorating her tough-girl act and revealing how afraid she was underneath. She couldn't have her brothers finding out what she did to them, even if it 'wasn't real,' it was still a choice she made 

"I need you to promise that you won't tell them," Elara demanded, beginning to shake a little bit.  

"Woah," Sol muttered. She moved forward and carefully took hold of Elara's arm, guiding her down to sit on one of the logs. She couldn't imagine what was so traumatic that she couldn't even bring herself to tell her brothers. 

"Elara-" 

"Promise me, River!" 

"Okay, I-I promise." The Nobel agreed, knowing already that she would have to break it if it would put Elara in danger. 

The young girl sighed, most of her anxiety seeming to cease at being told her brothers wouldn't find out. 

"It's the visions." Elara began. "Every time they'd move me onto the next Phase, the visions would change. Like I said yesterday, they all had their purpose: strength, survival..." She trailed off. 

"But I never knew what was coming. I-I remember the first one I had; my family and I were back in the Bunker, and it was dying-" 

"The Bunker was dying?" 

Elara nodded. "We were running out of food," she tried to recall it, realizing that it wasn't a central part of the story. I could overhear Azha talking to my dad; he didn't want to leave, but dad knew it was the only way we would survive. I knew where the exit was in my dream, and I reached the top and opened the Bunker door, and it was like it was when you guys found us, only it was Targo, and they didn't come for everyone, just me and my dad. I counted 15 shots - one for everyone in the Bunker." 

Sol was careful with how she asked her next question, trying to piece together everything Elara had already told her so far, and what was so unforgivable about it that she couldn't tell her family. 

"I-I understand how terrifying that must have been, but I have to ask: you said you were worried what it said about you - how is it your fault?" 

"Because I opened the Bunker. I was the one who let them in." Elara explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

"Elara, just because you feel something horrible happening to you doesn't mean you are a horrible person." 

The young girl shook her head, pulling her arm free from Sol. 

"I knew you wouldn't get it." She whispered, fearing that no one would ever understand how she felt. 

"I'm here and I'm listening." Sol reminded her. "And I'll keep listening until I do get it." 

Emotion pooled in Elara's eyes, blinking it away before it could get the best of her. She nodded, understanding that she could trust in Sol, and found the strength to continue. 

"They only seem to get worse. As soon as I thought it was over, I would slip into another one, and I didn't know when they would stop coming. There was a crowd of people, and everyone was yelling and arguing, and in the distance, I could see people coming our way. There must have been a few hundred people around me, and suddenly, they were all looking at me, begging me to save them. Some of them were kids, people my age - all afraid. I knew if I didn't do something to stop the stampede from coming, then we would all die. They called me their Commander, and it was like it triggered something in me, and I had to do something... I-I had a torch in my hand, and I set fire to the grass, and it didn't touch me, but it burnt everyone who was coming. Everything was black for a minute, but once the smoke cleared, I realized who it was. It was you, Basilisk, coming to find me. Then the next vision-" Elara choked, feeling sick at the very memory of what happened. 

"It's okay. Take your time." Sol comforted her. 

Elara knew she had to tell her. There was something about confiding in her that seemed to take some of the pressure off of her chest, but she couldn't bring herself to go into as much detail as before. 

"It was the night my mum died: Lyra had a gun to my head, and when I forced myself free, the gun fired, killing Ares and Wynn. Quill appeared and he... H-he said to me, 'what have you done? They're dead because of you.'" Elara cried, recalling the awful image in her mind. 

"There was a flood and I was caught underwater. Ares jumped in to save me, he pushed me to the surface, but he didn't make it. There were a group of kids. I think you were trying to kill them, or me, and I had a sword against you. Wynn was begging me to step away, but you wouldn't, and I killed you. I told Targo to kill Kodiak, and when I woke up from the vision, he wasn't in the room, and I thought I had actually done it. I looked down at my hands and thought they were red." She explained, recalling them all one by one. 

She brought her hands up in front of her, turning them over to see her palms. "Even now, even as I look at them, I have to blink twice for the blood to go away." 

"It was never once beautiful, it was just red..." Sol mumbled, looking down at the girl's hands. 

Elara looked up, recognising the words she had said to her when Kodiak had been shot, and they were trying to get him back to Basilisk in time. There really was blood on her hands that day, but at least it could be washed off. 

"None of these things make you who you are," Sol promised her. "It's like Ares said, it was a test. So they could see how you responded." 

"Yes, but when I was in the visions, I didn't know they weren't real. I made all those choices thinking that was it, and every time, I killed someone I loved. That's what I'm capable of. Real or not real, I was responsible for all of those terrible things that happened." 

Sol exhaled. It was a lot to take in. She knew, like everyone else, that Elara wasn't the sum of what went on in her visions: she wasn't a monster, and she hadn't killed anyone, but it made sense now. The fear wouldn't go away because the memories wouldn't go away. And her memories would only go away once she completed the Alteration. 

Sol couldn't tell her yet, but she worried that unless Elara completed the Alteration - and allowed for it to take every memory away from her - then she wouldn't ever be able to escape the visions. 

Two // Part Three
I want to be strong.

I really liked this scene with Sol and Ell. I know they haven't had many scenes together (alone), but that's definitely gonna change after this!