We’re still deep in AU territory here.
Cya died in If I Die Young.

So here’s Thistle.

There were things Thistle knew, the way she knew her own name and how you always had an escape route, the way she could tie a knot, the way she could shoot a bow, the way she breathed.

And there were things she didn’t know until she knew them.

He’s hurting so hard, she thought, and she realized that she wanted to take care of him.

And she knew I’m a kid still. She looked down at her fingers, at her hands, too small. “They’re not big enough,” she muttered. And then she cleared her throat, because she knew better than to talk like that.

Except this was…

“Leo.” She tried out the name. It came out warm and affectionate, a little exasperated, and full of love.

It made her blush a little, and it made her aware that she wasn’t remembering everything.

It made her aware that she was a kid, and he was a grown-up. That had never happened before.

“Leo.” She cleared her throat. “That’s you? Yeah?”

He nodded slowly. Had he heard in her voice what she’d heard?

“Sir…” she tried, and noticed that he frowned.

“Leo,” he agreed. “That’s my name, though most people call me Leofric.”

“Leofric.” It sounded like she was irritated with him. “Leofric Lightning-Blade. So you… you know.”

He cleared his throat. “I know…” He sounded like he was asking her. Like he knew, something in her suggested, but he didn’t believe.

“I told you I’d come back.” There she was sounding exasperated again. She shook her head and cleared her throat, trying to get everything sorted out. “There’s – there’s…” There’s me and there’s me. And they’re both me, but one of me isn’t grown-up yet and one of me is a hundred years old and she… and she… “Oh.” She put her head down on her knees. “Reincarnation,” she said slowly, “it’s what happens, my dad said, when a soul is reborn. Which means, uh. Which means dying first, doesn’t it?”

He didn’t have to answer, which was good because she didn’t think he could.

“Sometimes I remember things that happened before I was born. Sometimes I don’t. But I always know who I am.” She looked at him and tried to put it into words. “I’m Thistle. And… uh. I’m Cya. Cya, not Cynara.” She tried that on carefully. “And… I was born being told to survive and to learn. So um. I think that school is a really good idea.”

My hands aren’t big enough yet. But she couldn’t have made him wait any longer.

And her hands would have to grow kinda fast, from the looks of things.

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This is… just a scene. Came into my head pretty much full-formed

“Jasfe Tlacatl, Jasfe Tlacatl, damnit.“ Cya pounded on the ground uselessly. She didn’t have enough juice left in her to barely say the Words, much less to do any good. He was broken, bleeding, unconscious – dying, no, nearly dead. And there was nobody else close enough to save him.

“Dead gods and dragons, Leo, you are not allowed to die on me,” she swore. “Stop it. Stop it!“

He coughed up blood and opened his eyes. “Jasfe Tlacatl,” he gasped, and his wounds began to knit. He lost conciousness again, but it was enough.

He’d live. She passed out, while the battle petered out around them.

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Okay, so last night I wrote this: If I Die Young. It’s a seriously non-canon what-if, read the content warnings.

Still seriously non-canon. Lots of angst.

The first time she remembered the mink in her head, she was four years old and it was admonishing her to listen. Pay attention, it scolded her. To everything. Look, reincarnation isn’t a given and I don’t think you’re strong enough to do it again the way I did, so, for now, your only jobs are to learn everything and to survive.

She’d asked her father, later, when he wasn’t teaching her how to build a snare, “what’s reincarnation?”

Something in the back of her mind had gone oops at her father’s expression, a strange one, a little twisted, but he’d put her on his lap. “Well, my little pricker-bush, there are people that say that a soul can be reborn once it’s passed on, brought back to life. That’s why your given name is what it is – and not just because every second girl-child was named for her – and that’s why we don’t tell anyone what your name is, all right? You’re my Thistle, my prickly-pear. And don’t ask anyone else about reincarnation, all right?”

“All right,” she said, because she paid attention.

It was many more years before she identified the mink in her head as memories. Then she had another conversation with her father.

“If there are memories that come from before I was born…”

Again, the look, and this time she understood the oops. He knew, somehow – not somehow, probably from naming ceremony – what was that? – and it worried him. “Well, thorn-child, I think you know what it means, don’t you?”

“It means I was here before,” she whispered.

“It does. You were here before, and now you’re here again, my daughter, my baby girl. Until you are of age, you are my baby girl.”

Other children in the town had mothers. She’d learned early on not to ask why she didn’t.

“Until I’m of age,” she’d agreed. She’d been seven.

She’d been just a couple months short of ten when her father and the mink in her mind had pulled her out of bed in the middle of the night. “Raiders,” he’d hissed. “Go. You know where to go, we practiced this. Go now.”

Your jobs are to learn everything, and to survive.

Don’t just survive, live.

She took the escape route out of town and walked until she reached Cloverleaf.

“I’m looking for the blond warrior,” she told the guard. His image had been in her mind since she ran away from her home.

And there he was. Kneeling, oh, dead gods, his antlers touching the ground. He looked a wreck. He was still alive.

“My lady.” He sounded a wreck. She didn’t care. “You came back.”

“I came as soon as I could.” She put her hands on his shoulders and tried to sort through all the memories.

Don’t try to make sense of them. Just remember that he is your sword.

“My sword.” The words sounded perfect on her lips. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long.” She knew she was crying, and she only sort of understood why. “But I’m very glad that you waited.”

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Okay, so a long time ago Cal wrote a piece about Leo dying and Cya finding his reincarnation. This is something of a companion piece.

Content warnings for major character death, AU, violence, more violence, angst, and orders.

If I die, she’d told him, all my other orders are null and void. Everything except this one: live.

If you were looking for bright sides, she only felt the first blow. The giant that killed her broke her spine first, at the neck. The second blow was a rowan sword through her throat. After that, he tore off her armor and stabbed his sword through her heart.

Do what you have to within your oaths and your morals to survive – and live. If you have to take revenge, I won’t order you not to.

Leo had an oath against killing, but he didn’t get to the giant in time either way. The giant was felled by a granny with a very large rolling pin and her granddaughter wielding a puddle of water and a couple live wires. They cut off the monster’s head with a hatchet, cut out his heart with a carving knife, and threw them at the enemy.
The rest of him they dismembered and burned. The ashes and bone chips they buried in hawthorn, in lead, in the most toxic waste they could find. They were taking no chances.

But don’t just stay alive. Live. That’s my final order to you, Leo. Live.

There was mopping up to do, but the battle and the war had been won, and Cya’s city would be safe, even if she was gone.

They buried her with honor, under a statue with her face on it. She’d planned for everything, but she’d left no orders for her funeral. The city chose that.

Stay alive, because if we come back – if we come back, I’m going to find you. And you’d better be there for me to find. We live forever; 100 years is nothing for an age difference. So live, so you’re there when I come for you.

Ten years was nothing; it was an eternity. It was a blink; everything changed.

She was still short and still young. Her power hadn’t blossomed yet. But she had walked across half of what had been Montana at one point, because the mink in her dreams told her she had to.

“My name’s Thistle,” she told the guard. “I’m here for the blond warrior.”

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