thusia | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Any and all
When: Day 47, early afternoon
Where: The baths
What: Nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

[And while people are busy with petitions and late breakfasts and lunches, whole most are well settled into going about their daily routines, it seems as good a time as any to slip into the relative peace of the public bath.

Now, if only it would remain peaceful for the time needed to soak away a day's worth of dust and ash and heavy thoughts.]

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[. . . stiffens, but doesn't move away]

[Immediately drops his hand when he feels her stiffen, and doesn't ask]

[looks over her shoulder at him]

[Just shakes his head, looking apologetic]

[turns back around]

. . .

I would not leave with him, so he tried to kill me. The night my village burned.

........

[reaches back to touch where the scarring starts. Lightly]

A rather retched man, isn't he?

It's not really my place to say.

Mmm, I suppose it's not.

...

You don't have to talk about this. I wouldn't have asked.

But you saw them.

I did, yes.

[shrugs a shoulder, dropping her hand]

I do not mind much.

[Quiet for a long while, eyes skimming the path his hand took earlier, before looking away]

Did I ever speak to you of my brother?

[shakes her head a bit]

I do not think so, no.

Twins. I didn't even know until the very end...

He did terrible things. Killed many people, tried to kill many more. I helped him with much of it; I was his sword. But when I finally killed him, with my own hands, I still cared for him in some small way. I think it took me a long time to admit that even to myself.

At the end of everything, he was still my brother.

[turns, finally, to look at him]

. . .

[Shrugs, somewhat helplessly]

So. It's okay. Is what I'm saying, I guess....

[shifts . . .back, actually, against the arm of the couch, drawing her legs up and hugging them]

It isn't okay. Family is . . . one thing, but he—

[trails off, frowns] It isn't okay.

[Shaking his head, tempted to argue, but...]

I guess it's important to remember that these are the words of a murderer. I probably don't get to say what's okay and what's not.

Maybe it would be more apt to say 'I understand'.

Then it is one murderer speaking to another. And who gives a damn what we get to say or not.

He was not my brother, nor the man I was intended to marry. Not a cousin, not even someone from my village. He was a traveler we let stay to recover from his wounds. I had known him but a handful of weeks.

Do you think it is still okay?

You loved him. That's about the long and the short of it.

I'm not saying it was okay to kill him-- I have no opinion one way or another. But to still care for him, even after that? Yes.

. . .

[Ughhh truth effects just make us sad at each other. Takes the empty glass from earlier and uses it as a convenient excuse to retreat to the other room]

... Sorry.

[tugging her hood up ._.]

It is not your fault.