Chapter Text
If you were to ask what people thought of Ricky, the word brave would rarely be the first to mind. Simpering , perhaps. Nervous , occasionally. Insincere , very likely. They'd almost certainly fail to mention words such as noble ; courageous ; a born leader .
They weren't words used about Richard Banes.
Flight UAE229 was ten hours into its journey when it lost all electrical output. Ricky knew nothing about planes. He'd flown on hundreds of them, having been born into relative wealth and enjoyed the perks of such living, but he'd never flown one himself, and he had certainly never been involved in one steadily drifting to earth without power, a runway, or any kind of light to guide the landing. At the instruction of the air crew he dipped his head, braced himself for the crash, and in the back of his mind he'd been aware of one thing.
He was thrilled.
The Boeing 777 had crashed dramatically onto a mountain range in the centre of Revenge Island, sixteen thousand square miles of inhospitable arctic tundra, and part of an archipelago north of the Canadian mainland. Ricky had been aware, from the moment he'd opened his eyes to the sight of smoke, flames and bodies, that his life would never be the same again.
For the first few days the group had been in a state of shock. They'd buried what dead they could, and cast the rest on the burning pyres of the wreckage. And in the middle of it all, Ricky began to form his plan. Here, in this new world of ice and snow, he could be someone different, someone respected and admired. He would lead this group and command authority. He would be the very thing he'd failed to be beyond the borders of before .
Yet as the days rolled by, as they became weeks, he knew he would lose his battle here too. Other people in the group spoke down to him, mocking him, undermining him. His ideas were dismissed, his leadership ignored.
And then they met Low.
He'd arrived, silently, like a nightmare, slipping into their consciousness while they slept and filling them with an unsettling fear. Worse than the timberwolves which watched them from the ridges, worse than the polar bears, or the muskox, Low was that thing every creature knew to fear; an apex predator.
Ricky had met him on one of those dream-stealing nights. A borealis had sprung up over the lake nearby their shelter, illuminating the electrical lights in a group of fishing cabins, long abandoned and a perfect place to rest and regroup. Ricky had been watching it when the shadow had moved in, a silver-haired wisp, staring at him from the black cave of a hood. He hadn't fled, nor sounded the alarm. He'd stared back, fascinated at the new, shooting, burning star which had come into his orbit.
“Hello. God, it's cold out tonight. And you, all alone, out here, freezing your pretty nose off.” The man smiled, revealing a row of straight, grey teeth. “So, what are you doing? Taking a piss? Topping yourself? What's the deal?”
“Ricky Banes.” Leaning forward, Ricky extended a gloved hand. After a moment of tension, only the glowing light of the sky to illuminate their still, black silhouettes, Ned took it.
“Hey, Rick. Nice face. Shame if someone messed it up.”
Within a moment, the hand holding Ricky's had pulled him forward, and the blade was at Ricky's nose, a thick edge slicing roughly at the bridge of it, already half a centimetre into the skin and cartilage. Ricky thought about screaming in pain and found that he couldn't, the shock and trauma of it stealing the sound from his throat. So he did the only thing he could. He stared wordlessly at Ned, and Ned had stared back, the pressure of his blade faintly releasing on Ricky's flesh as he realised the man wasn't scared.
“Hello? No swan song? No fucking tune?”
“What's the point of it all anyway?” Ricky asked reedily, his face now throbbing with the splintered agony seeping into his sinuses. He spat out some blood, and it looked dark on the snow. “None of them ever listen to me.”
“You want to be listened to?”
“I should be in charge. But no-one wants to look up to Ricky. No-one wants Rick when a dull thug can lead the group. I've asked them to start doing things my way, but they're all useless.”
“Well, man. That's exactly where you're going wrong. You don't ask for respect. You fucking demand it. You take it. Hell, if I’d waited for respect I'd still be locked up on the mainland.” Low’s face changed, and Ricky knew that something intrinsic to the future of both of them was about to happen. He could feel the warm blood dripping over his face, his cheeks, into the lines around his mouth, and wondered absently why he wasn't more bothered.
“Let me come with you,” Ricky said and Low had smiled that tooth-filled, dangerous smile once again.
“You're going to demand that respect first, friend.”
The flames had licked high into the sky as Ricky watched the cabins ignite, one by one. His hands were bloodied from where he'd taken the thick crewel needle. Using the wire they'd reserved for making rabbit traps, he'd visited each person who'd spoken down to him and, after utilising the help from his new friend, he'd managed to knock them out long enough to sew their rebellious mouths up with a cold detachment, unbothered by the obscene tableau. Low had stared at him with a simple, peaceful smile. He seemed charmed, delighted even, by Ricky's offensive to take back his lost respect; the teacher watching the student.
By the time the rest of the small group had realised what had happened, their old leaders were already screaming muffled shouts in their locked cabins. Ricky had wiped the blood from his mouth, as elegantly as catching wine from his lips, and stood before the glass lake like a god, Ned at his side, the devil on his shoulder.
“Welcome to the new world,” he'd said.
No-one would challenge him now.