[You wanted it. It feels — strange, hearing Rynlan admit to it so easily, without dodging or sidestepping or putting up the sort of fight he's grown to refer to affectionately as bratting. He did want it, didn't he? Wanted it and let that wanting roll over him like an ocean wave and recede back from whence it came, unwilling to force obligation onto Ryn when every telegraph told him to keep his distance, to respect the lines he was drawing in the sand. Wanted it and let it go so he wouldn't want it too much, and it would still be all right in the end.
Oh, I could say I need you, he thinks with the rhythm of the fingers in his hair, eyes half-closed, breathing steady, but then you'd realize that I want you in ways I'm trying to disguise behind "I love you"s that we pretended were lies, when all I wanted was —
...Ah. Oh.]
I did. I do.
[Oh, no.]
...I don't tell you the things I should often enough.
[his ears flick. it's-- a little terrifying to open that door, in all honesty. to invite thancred to say things that, before now, he was afraid to hear; to open himself up to acknowledging them.
the motion of his fingers continues, uninterrupted for now.]
[Well. No pressure, then, hm? But maybe it's easier to be raw emotionally when he's equally so physically — and even when his instincts twinge to hold back, to shirk away, he thinks of Gideon bleeding from her severed fingers and the hole in her chest, curling miserably against his side because he was still the only comfort she had, and all the things she deserved to hear before throwing her life onto her own sword.
His breath shakes when he draws it in.]
I want us to escape this place together. And then I want you to forsake everything you know and follow me back to my own star. I know it's so much to ask. Unfair in that I can't even contemplate the notion of leaving my own for yours in return. Unfair that I can't say with any certainty that I'd want to live a lifetime as long as yours even if Bixing can give it to me. I barely knew what to do with the life I had before this, and that one only lasted some thirty years, much less ten times it over again.
[Down at his side, his fingers curl just slightly into the blankets beneath him.]
And yet...every time you hold back your hand, I think of the outcome you spoke of before. You, back to your star; me, back to mine. Talking on occasion, until one day we don't anymore. That sounds like a hell in itself. Letting you get away because it's what would hurt least sounds like the greatest damn fool mistake I could ever make.
[He pauses, swallowing silently.]
But I can't promise that the things I want won't hurt you. Destroy you all over again. And so I go on, making no promises at all and pretending there are none to be made to begin with. As though that's any better for either of us.
[it's a long time, before he manages to say that-- he's busy taking everything in, truly listening to what thancred wants to say. thinking, once again, of how it felt to see him lie there nearly motionless (how it might feel again later, to see the same again.) i can't promise that the things i want won't destroy you, he says, and rynlan quietly thinks-- well, i've destroyed myself, too.]
But I think-- I think it might hurt me either way. To keep you, and to let you go. And if that's the case, if it happens both ways, then-- at least in one of them I still have you.
[Ah, the third option. The rightful province of the brightest beacon of hope in all the universe, the ones who look at a dichotomy of certain doom or desperate flight and say neither, let's do the impossible instead.]
That mayhap there's an end to all this where it doesn't have to hurt to begin with?
-I think hoping for that and not getting it would hurt most of all.
[it takes a lot, for him to admit that, but if they're being honest...
he's thought about it. he does want it-- it's why he asked bixing about the possibility of ensuring thancred survives. what if it all goes well, what if.]
Well. I admit I'd be a bit offended if I slipped through your fingers and it didn't affect you at all. 'Tis not that there would never be pain, or hurt, or regret.
[He turns over slowly, positioning himself so that he can look properly at Rynlan; tired and injured and wrung-out as he is, there's still the faintest hint of warmth in the edges of his mouth.]
But could it be worth it? The joys. The laughter. Could you think of me and smile for what we shared, to temper the loss?
Don't-- Thancred, don't ask me to think about that.
[it's a reflexive response more than anything. a little defensive, maybe, the kneejerk response to protect himself and not think about things that might be too much.
the warmth in thancred's expression helps, though.]
One of the ferries spirited Nav and I away to an island occupied by some manner of magic shop. Its proprietor was distraught over the loss of a missing infant princess, and conscripted us to gain a mastery of magic to help find her. Most of our time was spent being tasked with trials. Testing our aptitude for the crafting of magicks.
Not "again". They didn't give back what was lost, just...afforded us both something new, for a time. It went part and parcel with the ridiculous outfits. We had wands, with a finite number of cartridges we could expend on spells.
["Cartridges", says the gunbreaker, unthinkingly analogizing magical girl bullshit to a form of weaponcraft far more familiar to him.]
On their face they were all benign. We crafted a meal for our arbiters. Claimed them a table near a lake at which to eat it. Routine, until the catches started rearing their ugly heads.
Mnnnnh. In one trial, we were attacked by...what looked like people we knew. They came out of the woods and accosted us. Harrow attacked with skeletons under her control, and Ryne...got hold of her daggers.
[His tone of voice strongly suggests that he may have fucked up and allowed her to get hold of her daggers and go on a stabbing spree because he, himself, was stupid about them.]
But then Nav decided to use magic to deal with some of the skeletons. She magicked a — a sort of portable kitchen, appliances and all, into the air and crushed them with it. She didn't take into consideration how close I was to it when it fell.
[-no, it's okay, it's okay, she wouldn't have done it on purpose. he's all right. it's nowhere near as terrible as it could have been; he exhales a slow breath, there.]
...suppose that explains how you both reacted to her.
It caught me in the back. Fire from the fuel and the oil. Glass from the windows.
[The compulsion not to hurt him sits on one side of a set of Nald'thal's scales, balanced against the determination not to hide things from him. But he knows what that breath means, and where the panic that precedes it derives from, and shifts to reach up and touch the side of Ryn's face with a gentle drag of fingertips down his cheek.]
And to think after all that, we even still succeeded in our mission. The one we — the one we failed came later.
[fire and glass like a burst vial, oil like an alchemical catalyst-- thancred knows exactly where that brief panic springs from, definitely, but the soothing way he touches ryn's cheek helps.]
She was holding her gut wound shut. Moved her hand to hold it. I aimed for it because it was a prime target for inflicting the most damage, and I don't miss.
[And it kills him all over again to say it; the only way he can seem to manage it is like this, flat and methodical and factual. But his eyes squeeze tightly shut as he does, stinging hot, and after a second he has to open them again from the twisting apprehension in his gut of not wanting to be engulfed in the darkness behind his eyes when he says these things, either.]
I'd lost my other dagger to Ryne earlier. If I'd had it, my next throw would've killed her.
[he just-- leans in to rest their foreheads together, eyes closed, after thancred shuts his. he doesn't have to look. (and maybe it's just as much for rynlan's benefit, not having to see the look that goes along with that flat and methodical affect.)]
The rules weren't explained in advance. For all she knew she was just —
[It's so strange to talk through this, that feeling of not quite being in his own body settling in again, like he's looking down at himself and hearing a stranger saying these words as memories of didn't he think about me at all, what it would do to me and all he thought about in that moment was that you would live press in at the sides of his vision.]
I thought of it, too. As soon as I realized what was happening to us. I — if I had she'd still have her hand but I tried to find another way.
[It's Ryn's turn, now, to hear what he's not saying but that's so evidently placed there for him: I hesitated because I knew you wouldn't want me to.]
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Oh, I could say I need you, he thinks with the rhythm of the fingers in his hair, eyes half-closed, breathing steady, but then you'd realize that I want you in ways I'm trying to disguise behind "I love you"s that we pretended were lies, when all I wanted was —
...Ah. Oh.]
I did. I do.
[Oh, no.]
...I don't tell you the things I should often enough.
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[his ears flick. it's-- a little terrifying to open that door, in all honesty. to invite thancred to say things that, before now, he was afraid to hear; to open himself up to acknowledging them.
the motion of his fingers continues, uninterrupted for now.]
I'll listen this time.
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His breath shakes when he draws it in.]
I want us to escape this place together. And then I want you to forsake everything you know and follow me back to my own star. I know it's so much to ask. Unfair in that I can't even contemplate the notion of leaving my own for yours in return. Unfair that I can't say with any certainty that I'd want to live a lifetime as long as yours even if Bixing can give it to me. I barely knew what to do with the life I had before this, and that one only lasted some thirty years, much less ten times it over again.
[Down at his side, his fingers curl just slightly into the blankets beneath him.]
And yet...every time you hold back your hand, I think of the outcome you spoke of before. You, back to your star; me, back to mine. Talking on occasion, until one day we don't anymore. That sounds like a hell in itself. Letting you get away because it's what would hurt least sounds like the greatest damn fool mistake I could ever make.
[He pauses, swallowing silently.]
But I can't promise that the things I want won't hurt you. Destroy you all over again. And so I go on, making no promises at all and pretending there are none to be made to begin with. As though that's any better for either of us.
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[it's a long time, before he manages to say that-- he's busy taking everything in, truly listening to what thancred wants to say. thinking, once again, of how it felt to see him lie there nearly motionless (how it might feel again later, to see the same again.) i can't promise that the things i want won't destroy you, he says, and rynlan quietly thinks-- well, i've destroyed myself, too.]
But I think-- I think it might hurt me either way. To keep you, and to let you go. And if that's the case, if it happens both ways, then-- at least in one of them I still have you.
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[Ah, the third option. The rightful province of the brightest beacon of hope in all the universe, the ones who look at a dichotomy of certain doom or desperate flight and say neither, let's do the impossible instead.]
That mayhap there's an end to all this where it doesn't have to hurt to begin with?
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[it takes a lot, for him to admit that, but if they're being honest...
he's thought about it. he does want it-- it's why he asked bixing about the possibility of ensuring thancred survives. what if it all goes well, what if.]
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[He turns over slowly, positioning himself so that he can look properly at Rynlan; tired and injured and wrung-out as he is, there's still the faintest hint of warmth in the edges of his mouth.]
But could it be worth it? The joys. The laughter. Could you think of me and smile for what we shared, to temper the loss?
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[it's a reflexive response more than anything. a little defensive, maybe, the kneejerk response to protect himself and not think about things that might be too much.
the warmth in thancred's expression helps, though.]
...maybe.
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[His tone goes a touch lighter still.]
Oh, and to make wishes come true. I passed my exams in that as well.
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[his ears flick, blinking at him; rynlan settles in a little more, there, slightly more at ease.]
...you know, I didn't get the chance last night to ask you about it.
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[He glances away, briefly.]
Some more benign than others.
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[he hasn't forgotten what he was told, before.]
What sort of trials?
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["Cartridges", says the gunbreaker, unthinkingly analogizing magical girl bullshit to a form of weaponcraft far more familiar to him.]
On their face they were all benign. We crafted a meal for our arbiters. Claimed them a table near a lake at which to eat it. Routine, until the catches started rearing their ugly heads.
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[a slight shake of his head, there.]
What happened then-? You both seemed...
[pretty fucking hurt]
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[His tone of voice strongly suggests that he may have fucked up and allowed her to get hold of her daggers and go on a stabbing spree because he, himself, was stupid about them.]
But then Nav decided to use magic to deal with some of the skeletons. She magicked a — a sort of portable kitchen, appliances and all, into the air and crushed them with it. She didn't take into consideration how close I was to it when it fell.
[...]
And exploded.
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[-no, it's okay, it's okay, she wouldn't have done it on purpose. he's all right. it's nowhere near as terrible as it could have been; he exhales a slow breath, there.]
...suppose that explains how you both reacted to her.
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[The compulsion not to hurt him sits on one side of a set of Nald'thal's scales, balanced against the determination not to hide things from him. But he knows what that breath means, and where the panic that precedes it derives from, and shifts to reach up and touch the side of Ryn's face with a gentle drag of fingertips down his cheek.]
And to think after all that, we even still succeeded in our mission. The one we — the one we failed came later.
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...what was the one you failed, Thancred?
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[He says, with a sudden bitterness and self-loathing that fits oddly against the tenderness of his movements.]
They put us in a room and bade us fight. When we were too slow to comply, they took our b—
[Unexpectedly, he finds himself choking on the word. Strange. He would've thought...]
They took our bodies, and did it for us.
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They made you-- then what you were saying about her hand, when you came back, you were...
[worried because he'd done it, more concerned for her because of what happened at his hand.
ryn's careful with him, considering all the injuries-- he rests a hand on his cheek, thumb stroking over the skin gently.]
That wasn't your fault, Thancred.
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[And it kills him all over again to say it; the only way he can seem to manage it is like this, flat and methodical and factual. But his eyes squeeze tightly shut as he does, stinging hot, and after a second he has to open them again from the twisting apprehension in his gut of not wanting to be engulfed in the darkness behind his eyes when he says these things, either.]
I'd lost my other dagger to Ryne earlier. If I'd had it, my next throw would've killed her.
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[he just-- leans in to rest their foreheads together, eyes closed, after thancred shuts his. he doesn't have to look. (and maybe it's just as much for rynlan's benefit, not having to see the look that goes along with that flat and methodical affect.)]
You're both here.
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[Soft as it is, not needing to be much louder than a whisper with Ryn's sensitive ears so close, it still cracks regardless.]
In front of me. Wrested back control just long enough to dive on her blade rather than swing it at me.
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[little more than a whisper, himself, full of worry at the way his voice cracks. at the thought of what happened.
silently, a small part of him is relieved thancred didn't have to be the one to do it, but he shoves it aside.]
...it was a way out of what it was forcing you to do, then.
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[It's so strange to talk through this, that feeling of not quite being in his own body settling in again, like he's looking down at himself and hearing a stranger saying these words as memories of didn't he think about me at all, what it would do to me and all he thought about in that moment was that you would live press in at the sides of his vision.]
I thought of it, too. As soon as I realized what was happening to us. I — if I had she'd still have her hand but I tried to find another way.
[It's Ryn's turn, now, to hear what he's not saying but that's so evidently placed there for him: I hesitated because I knew you wouldn't want me to.]
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