[The pain persists. How could this sort of twisted, inexperienced thing be “friendship”, she had railed at Akua after the Oracle had been lost. How could she be expected to tolerate those who claimed to care for her also caring for those who had wronged her irreparably? How could she swallow the indignity of being betrayed a hundred tiny little ways? How was it she had to adapt, why didn’t it just fit? And that woman, another who had offered her that strange concept and called herself her friend, said that such relationships were supposed to challenge you.
But in every single one of them was hurt. In Set’s dealings with her enemies, in Akua’s detached morals, in Liem’s secrets, in Claude’s lies… there was always something hurting. She had never truly imagined she would ever have a friend… but when she had been younger and naive and thought just maybe… She had not thought it would ever hurt this much. It’s almost as if…
As if it were because she, in the end, was-]
I despise him.
[John Gaius. The King Undying who had died all too easily without his tricks and his magics. She had combed his crushed skull into Set’s hair herself in offering. That man, who seemed to have not a single loyal bone in his body to anything but science and experimentation, who consorted with Aetos and the mockingly named Burning Garden, who gambled with all their lives in the pursuit of “truth” without care for what side he stood on…
Her hatred is clear as it always is now that she lives in a world where she doesn’t have to swallow her opinions and her feelings in order to be a “good horse”, to survive- and the hail and ice howls still around them in tempest, even as she achingly presses her forehead to Set’s and her lips twist, her voice cracks-]
How can you ask me to entrust you to men like that?
[She could…. she was a warrior sworn to him, she would serve, she wouldn’t need to be bribed or cornered or weigh the pros and cons-
And even though she had thought differently, that he thought better of her after demanding she live and thrive and find pleasure and peace some day-]
… Do you think I can’t do it? That I can’t not kill?
[Like the others who accused her and dismissed her as something cruel and unwanted, something that couldn’t be brought to an ambassadors meeting, that couldn’t be trusted with anything but violence… Just because she was good at it, raised for it, understood it-
She had already killed John Gaius for his treachery. She didn’t need to kill him again. (Until now).]
no subject
But in every single one of them was hurt. In Set’s dealings with her enemies, in Akua’s detached morals, in Liem’s secrets, in Claude’s lies… there was always something hurting. She had never truly imagined she would ever have a friend… but when she had been younger and naive and thought just maybe… She had not thought it would ever hurt this much. It’s almost as if…
As if it were because she, in the end, was-]
I despise him.
[John Gaius. The King Undying who had died all too easily without his tricks and his magics. She had combed his crushed skull into Set’s hair herself in offering. That man, who seemed to have not a single loyal bone in his body to anything but science and experimentation, who consorted with Aetos and the mockingly named Burning Garden, who gambled with all their lives in the pursuit of “truth” without care for what side he stood on…
Her hatred is clear as it always is now that she lives in a world where she doesn’t have to swallow her opinions and her feelings in order to be a “good horse”, to survive- and the hail and ice howls still around them in tempest, even as she achingly presses her forehead to Set’s and her lips twist, her voice cracks-]
How can you ask me to entrust you to men like that?
[She could…. she was a warrior sworn to him, she would serve, she wouldn’t need to be bribed or cornered or weigh the pros and cons-
And even though she had thought differently, that he thought better of her after demanding she live and thrive and find pleasure and peace some day-]
… Do you think I can’t do it? That I can’t not kill?
[Like the others who accused her and dismissed her as something cruel and unwanted, something that couldn’t be brought to an ambassadors meeting, that couldn’t be trusted with anything but violence… Just because she was good at it, raised for it, understood it-
She had already killed John Gaius for his treachery. She didn’t need to kill him again. (Until now).]