Chapter Text
In the vault of Haven Academy, Cinder falls.
The spring maiden’s final strike sends her flying over the cliff’s edge, rendering her defenseless. Ice bites into her flesh as she plummets through the air, crystals quickly growing across the length of her skin.
There is no time to save herself. The ice encases her completely as the vault slips away, leaving Cinder with nothing but the dark, the cold, and the stinging realization that she has failed.
The world fades away.
***
Time passes. How long? Cinder is unsure. Awareness evades her, hovering just outside her reach.
When consciousness does return to her, it returns abruptly. Her eye shoots open to find that the ice has thawed, leaving her submerged in frigid water. She attempts to move, swim, find the surface before she drowns, but her half-frozen limbs refuse to cooperate. Water fills her lungs as her vision begins to blur.
In a final act of desperation Cinder reaches within for the last reserves of her magic, and the smoldering embers of the maiden powers respond. She thrashes, struggles, and fights her way to the surface, somehow managing to claw herself free of a watery grave.
Crawling onto the rocky shore she hacks up the water from her lungs, gasping for air. She collapses in a heap, betrayed by her broken body. Without the specter of death looming immediately overheard, she allows herself a moment of rest. Memories of the events leading up to her fall return to her, crashing over in a wave.
The mission at Haven Academy. The plan that went awry. The plan that Cinder had altered.
Raven Branwen. The spring maiden who had made a fool of her. The powers that have evaded Cinder’s capture.
The vault. The relic-
Cinder tenses. She had failed to secure the relic.
Cinder knows just how well Salem tolerates failure.
Banishing that thought from her mind, she decides that she has rested enough. Remaining in the vault of Haven Academy is not an option. Experimentally she tries to conjure the maiden powers, only to find that her reserve of power is depleted entirely.
Alone, defeated, powerless, and yet somehow still alive, Cinder slams the fist of her Grimm arm onto the ground in frustration. The force of the impact is stronger than she expects; it opens a crack in the wall, just large enough for light to filter in from the outside world.
Light. A promise that she will not die here. This vault will not become her tomb.
The realization her story does not end here propels her forward, giving her the confidence she needs to push through the pain. With the ghost of a smile, Cinder prepares to tear down the wall that stood between her and her future.
Destiny awaits.
***
The escape from the vault takes energy Cinder does not possess. In spite of that, she stubbornly presses on, staggering through the downpour. Her limbs scream at her in pain (the parts that weren’t still numb, anyway) and she clutches her side where the spring maiden had dealt the finishing blow. Her ribs are badly bruised (if not broken) and her breathing is labored. The flame of her semblance has been snuffed out alongside her aura, leaving the cold set heavy into her bones.
She is certain that she is not a pretty sight. There is nothing dignified in the way she stumbles down the path through the pouring rain, but it does not matter. All that matters is moving forward.
Cinder grits her teeth, wincing at the pain in her side. While her current situation was…bleak, to say the least, she is confident she will survive this. If nothing else, Cinder has a talent for survival against all odds. No matter what has happened to her, no matter how many times life has torn her down and ripped her to shreds, Cinder has always survived.
Always. And this time is no exception.
“You are a cockroach,” Watts had spat at her once with no small amount of disdain. This was after the Fall of Beacon, when she had first returned to Evernight missing an arm, her eye, and her pride. Back when she had an absent voice and could not make the disgraced scientist regret those words.
She thinks of that comment now as her legs give out from underneath her, sending her falling face first into the mud.
Pathetic.
She pauses to take a shaky breath, but refuses to give up. Giving up is not an option. Reaching forward she claws through the mud, dragging herself forward inch by inch.
After whats feels like an eternity later, her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of footsteps squishing in the mud. Pausing her pitiful crawl, she looks ahead and sees a pair of sandals.
“Gods, a-are you okay?” a voice asks. The voice is unfamiliar; a stranger.
Something nameless twists in her gut. A stranger looking down on her is unacceptable. Cinder wants to be strong. Feared. Powerful. She is the fall maiden; she would not accept the pity of a helpless passerby.
“Where did you…” the stranger continues, and Cinder moves her monstrosity of a left arm forward. The action has the desired effect; the woman before her gasps, the items in her hands tumbling to the ground.
Cinder’s lips curl up into a faint smile. That was better.
Mustering up what little strength she has left, she pushes herself up and prepares to meet the stare of the stranger before her. She calls upon her depleted reserves of magic to conjure the flame in her eye in a show of intimidation.
When she looks up, she is met with the sight of a woman with lovely lilac eyes. Those eyes are the last thing she sees before she collapses, having expended the little strength and power she had left.
Cinder falls unconscious in the mud, and she is left to the mercy of a stranger.