[ There is no word for it, there never will be he is sure, what it is to have part cut out and ripped from gripping fingers that never thought it possible to let go.
But they were forced to, and no matter how he wished. and her words break something, small and simple and it might be crystal for how pretty those shards are and how soft her voice had been in his head when he never thought to hear it again. She was too kind, she was always too kind and he gets stuck in that all over again. He does not have her, but he barely needs to think to have that come back. Touched with void and ( -- these waters are greedy, they will never give back what they have taken ). ]
Be careful, Miss Amber, what comes back is not always... [ parts dry lips on a black deadened tongue, or at least that is how it feels, still feels where he dwells on how they seared him. ]
[ Her eyes meet his in challenge, barely contained fury in her gaze. How dare he question her resolve, let alone her ability, to make things right? He knows nothing of her. Nothing. He doesn't know how many times she would fight a war for the smallest chance at ensuring his safety and how many more battles she would still fight for him. An eternity is a very long, long time and yet she would spend it all to buy him one more second, one inhale, one heartbeat. ]
He's coming back. Not a what.
[ She means for her words to bite. You see, her devotion to Hei is selfless only in the sense that she would allow him to choose his own path in life no matter how much those choices hurt her. But she won't see him dead. Not even if he chooses it. ]
[ Knows that look, knows it utterly and sure and maybe, if he was less exhausted, less tired, didn't know better about it all, he might argue more with her. But he is as he has been since then, resigned, exhausted and past simple bitterness. Empty now. ]
I hope so.
[ That she should be selfish, it doesn't surprise him. He had been, he continues to be because he cannot let her go. He held her heart in his hands and she begged quiet without understanding anything of what it meant, to rest.
And he would not give it to her. Never mind if he could not, he could never lift a hand to her. ]
For the madness it might give you otherwise, I hope so.
[ There's no clear line between madness and sanity. She thinks that it all began the moment Hei smiled for her that one time, when she realized utterly and completely that there was nothing she wouldn't do for him. For him to keep being able to smile like that. The moment was worth everything, an eternity.
That's a kind of madness too, isn't it?
Corvo's warning doesn't frighten her. But she grows subdued nonetheless, nodding in agreement. ]
Are you angry with me? For bringing you here under false pretenses?
[ He blinks, in a muted sort of surprise. When had anyone cared for that? Not for a very long time. Terra, perhaps, for hurting him, but only so much as she thought she was afraid of him.
Fingers curl around the cup, strong and broad and broken. Holds there, solid. Looks up at her and shrugs, lopsided, one short jerk and lifts the cup again. ]
How could I be? You think I have anything left in me like that? [ and something in him that never makes it, laughs and laughs and laughs itself sick. It's black and writhing and void like and bubbles, and he swallows it deep, deep down, takes the tea and drinks slow like he could steal the warmth out of it. ]
[ Amber drops her gaze to the still surface in her cup, what could almost be a smile threatening to show in the corner of her lips but she doesn't let it. Because it's unlike the ones she wears to seem friendly, more humane, and unlike the ones that come easily when there's something to be joyful about. This one is wry, a parody of the real thing. Does she have anything of that sort left in her yet?
For a moment, she feels afraid of the moment she becomes just like the broken man before her. But then she remembers where she stands, what she had lost, and she would rather break than lose him. ]
Are we the same, you and I? Or have you walked on farther? [ Carried the burden for far longer. ] Tell me, what comes next?
[ the answer comes quick and easy. Spoken all rasp out from his lips against the warm steam of the cup. ] Farther, [ it's a long silence, looks past her and the void comes so easy, as it did with the first and he sinks into it in slow breathes. Water at his ankles, trickling over his wrists. Cools is blood, his heart, his head, dead and cool and not dead enough.
There will be relief there one day, but not yet. ] -- I may have accepted it as all grief comes, but they... made me be something different, with what they did.
[ That interests her, the hope that there may be something to be done about all this. Some promise of an end to the pain that she can't seem to silence no matter what she tries to do. She leans forward, lowers her head as if expecting to hear a secret from him. ]
[ He shrugs, idle, like this is all just normal conversation, like it was something that could just be spoken of, and he might never... except that it is all in his file. There's no point in pretending otherwise, and he doesn't have the energy of it. ]
They tortured me, for months and months, after they killed her. Accused me of the crime and burned me over and over to try and have me admit I did it. I refused... [ another sip, contemplating, and he has done too much of it. There was nothing else to do in that cell. In the long hours tucked up in the Hound Pits between missions. Just the river and the void and him. Slumped over and quiet. ] ... the grief became my only weapon against it. I used it, because it was the only thing left to me.
[ and it's not the answer she's looking for, but it is the only he one he has. the only thing he had to make the time passed easier. ]
[ Amber has, in fact, read his file but also knows that her own says little about what actually happened. The view from the outside tends to be massively different from the view from within. The villains become the heroes and the heroes don't seem so noble when you look too closely.
There's no pity in her eyes. No sympathy either. ]
The Outsider. That's not the personification of your grief, is it?
[ meets her in a blank flat stare, and that -- that is laughable. But there is a reason that no matter how she looks at him, he is unflinching, and it begins and ends with the cruel flat smile in the dark. The voice he cannot shake that gives him no peace whilst offering him something else instead. ]
No, his interest is not my grief, or any other longing such as that, that would be to say he cares, and believe me, there is nothing in those black eyes of his but void. [ And in enough time, they will all be devoured, but he shakes his head of it, of the cold that runs up his marked hand that glows and burns with a darkness he cannot always help. ] He chose me, I think, because of what I did, what I will do -- and that because of them, I will make an Empire rise and fall.
[ and it's too much weight, so he doesn't think about it, he thinks only about one thing. ] Or at least that is what he says, whatever the others keep saying. For all that I care, I would only have Lady Emily safe again. Regardless, I did not see to my own escape with his help. I did it alone, I saved myself. I found my own reason, my own way forward, and my grief made it possible.
[ She wonders if it would be better to know the reasons why one is chosen to wield a certain power or to never know at all. Is there ever a good reason to be saddled with abilities to mess with the threads that make up the fabric of reality? To make an Empire rise and fall. Is it better to be given a purpose?
Amber takes note of his every word with diligence. Never mind the hollow feeling in her own chest. Duty is duty. She never once forgets to observe. ]
So grief can also be a fuel. Like anger, like vengeance.
[ Even if that reason amounts to regaining what she lost. Amber reaches a hand across the table to hold his, a gesture of trust, whether or not he understands it. ]
[ he stiffens, can't help it, knows it for what it is but there's that flicker that runs up his arm, his back, holds him so, so, so still. Breath short in his throat, and his fingers curl back around. This deep in that place and it's slow, and his hold is careful, like wrapping around glass. She is fine bones in his hand and things more fragile -- something like trust. ]
[ Amber doesn't remember ever being held so tenderly. Memories of any family she had has been erased without trace, while war grants few reasons to touch another, as for Hei-- he has always held on to things, clothes, hands and bodies, with a certain desperation. She has never been so fragile and it frightens her, so she returns his touch with a fierce, white-knuckled grip. ]
[ He doesn't blink when she grips tightly, and he doesn't give it back. he still stays light, the same way he soothed Emily's feverish brow when she grew distressed in her dreams -- all her dreams now. She had done nothing but slept fitfully since that day and he doesn't think Amber has either. Some things did not need explanation.
Which there is nothing to say, so he doesn't. That was all of it, and it wasn't much, but there wasn't much left of them either, so he makes up for it the simple ways, the little ways. His hand in hers, the pad of his thumb rough against the dump of her knuckle. His hands broad from years of sword work, as much as they are marred.
But right now, at least, they're sure of this small space and the littleness of her digits. ]
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no subject
But they were forced to, and no matter how he wished. and her words break something, small and simple and it might be crystal for how pretty those shards are and how soft her voice had been in his head when he never thought to hear it again. She was too kind, she was always too kind and he gets stuck in that all over again. He does not have her, but he barely needs to think to have that come back. Touched with void and ( -- these waters are greedy, they will never give back what they have taken ). ]
Be careful, Miss Amber, what comes back is not always... [ parts dry lips on a black deadened tongue, or at least that is how it feels, still feels where he dwells on how they seared him. ]
no subject
He's coming back. Not a what.
[ She means for her words to bite. You see, her devotion to Hei is selfless only in the sense that she would allow him to choose his own path in life no matter how much those choices hurt her. But she won't see him dead. Not even if he chooses it. ]
no subject
I hope so.
[ That she should be selfish, it doesn't surprise him. He had been, he continues to be because he cannot let her go. He held her heart in his hands and she begged quiet without understanding anything of what it meant, to rest.
And he would not give it to her. Never mind if he could not, he could never lift a hand to her. ]
For the madness it might give you otherwise, I hope so.
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That's a kind of madness too, isn't it?
Corvo's warning doesn't frighten her. But she grows subdued nonetheless, nodding in agreement. ]
Are you angry with me? For bringing you here under false pretenses?
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Fingers curl around the cup, strong and broad and broken. Holds there, solid. Looks up at her and shrugs, lopsided, one short jerk and lifts the cup again. ]
How could I be? You think I have anything left in me like that? [ and something in him that never makes it, laughs and laughs and laughs itself sick. It's black and writhing and void like and bubbles, and he swallows it deep, deep down, takes the tea and drinks slow like he could steal the warmth out of it. ]
no subject
For a moment, she feels afraid of the moment she becomes just like the broken man before her. But then she remembers where she stands, what she had lost, and she would rather break than lose him. ]
Are we the same, you and I? Or have you walked on farther? [ Carried the burden for far longer. ] Tell me, what comes next?
no subject
There will be relief there one day, but not yet. ] -- I may have accepted it as all grief comes, but they... made me be something different, with what they did.
no subject
What did they do to you?
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They tortured me, for months and months, after they killed her. Accused me of the crime and burned me over and over to try and have me admit I did it. I refused... [ another sip, contemplating, and he has done too much of it. There was nothing else to do in that cell. In the long hours tucked up in the Hound Pits between missions. Just the river and the void and him. Slumped over and quiet. ] ... the grief became my only weapon against it. I used it, because it was the only thing left to me.
[ and it's not the answer she's looking for, but it is the only he one he has. the only thing he had to make the time passed easier. ]
no subject
There's no pity in her eyes. No sympathy either. ]
The Outsider. That's not the personification of your grief, is it?
no subject
No, his interest is not my grief, or any other longing such as that, that would be to say he cares, and believe me, there is nothing in those black eyes of his but void. [ And in enough time, they will all be devoured, but he shakes his head of it, of the cold that runs up his marked hand that glows and burns with a darkness he cannot always help. ] He chose me, I think, because of what I did, what I will do -- and that because of them, I will make an Empire rise and fall.
[ and it's too much weight, so he doesn't think about it, he thinks only about one thing. ] Or at least that is what he says, whatever the others keep saying. For all that I care, I would only have Lady Emily safe again. Regardless, I did not see to my own escape with his help. I did it alone, I saved myself. I found my own reason, my own way forward, and my grief made it possible.
no subject
Amber takes note of his every word with diligence. Never mind the hollow feeling in her own chest. Duty is duty. She never once forgets to observe. ]
So grief can also be a fuel. Like anger, like vengeance.
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Yes. It may not keep you warm, but it can keep you moving.
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[ Even if that reason amounts to regaining what she lost. Amber reaches a hand across the table to hold his, a gesture of trust, whether or not he understands it. ]
Thank you.
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I am sorry I cannot give you anything more.
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It is enough.
[ Nothing will ever be enough again. ]
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Which there is nothing to say, so he doesn't. That was all of it, and it wasn't much, but there wasn't much left of them either, so he makes up for it the simple ways, the little ways. His hand in hers, the pad of his thumb rough against the dump of her knuckle. His hands broad from years of sword work, as much as they are marred.
But right now, at least, they're sure of this small space and the littleness of her digits. ]