ruinations | adsom: reunions

If it was possible for her to be smaller, she would in that moment. Instead, it felt more as if she was tucking herself closer inside of his heart, burrowing herself, that she might vanish and not be seen again.

But Neria's gaze was focused on his shoulder, that she might not look him completely in the eye. It lasted several moments.

Then, "I was told to kindle True Faith in someone who loves me...and then to ask them to die for me, as I died for the world." Slowly, she looked up at him. "And as I cannot kill those who love me, even if I had wish to, I must find people. Make them love me, make them have unshakable faith in me. And then, when they are primed and ready, I must ask them to kill themselves for me."

There was so much wrong with it. That she must manipulate and lie; that she must be selfish; that she must twist a person so tightly that they cannot imagine living without her.

All for her, when she'd never felt worthy enough before. Why would this change any of that, beyond making her loathe everything she was and would be?

Hatred, rough and breathless, poured over Kell's nerves, tingling slowly as the reality settled. It could be nothing else. Of course it could be nothing else.

Kell thought of the night in the front, of Antheia's hand in his chest, of his choice back then. He had given his life, not as Neria had for Asora, but for Rhy. For Rhy, and for his own selfishness. For his own wish to keep him alive.

"That does not sound like a decision that would make you a rounded god," Kell whispered, not bothering to curb his harshness, or the emotional wellspring that came with it.

"Nor does Symon's. Even if you manage to complete the trial, it will have only caused you pain. Symon's overall gain would be far more than what he will have lost."

Kell set his jaw.

"Magic takes a price- this sounds like a toll. And if said toll is the suffering of would-be gods, then what is it feeding?"

It was difficult to argue with Kell. Not because she was tired, or that she did not want to spend her time with him bickering; those were true, of course, but not the crux of it.

It was difficult because Kell was right.

Neria felt the burst of anger, the emotion. She did not try to quell it. Instead, she settled with it, with that ache and that burn, and let it wash over her.

"I imagine it feeds Asora. We are building faith in some manner. Gods can create mana by existing but only if they are strong enough. And they do not become stronger without followers and faith." But Kell would feel the unasked question: if that's true, then why am I killing the people who would follow me?

She left it at that, though. Neria shook her head. "Perhaps it's feeding us in other ways. You speak of tolls, and some of these... Some people are taking their fees from others. I am, unfortunately." Something else shimmered, pained. Neria pushed it aside.

Softly, she said, "I'm glad you left. It's... I never cared what it would ask of me, what this path would demand of my flesh or my soul. I care how it hurts the others, how it hurts the people of the world. And you--" Her voice caught. "It's hard enough watching him suffer. If I had to see you go through the same, or Rhy, or Hakkyuu..." And there was anger there, at long last, beneath all of the hurt and the exhaustion.

"If I had to sit here, powerless, while the world demanded more and more of you and the others... Asora asked too much."

"A world that demands suffering and lifeblood as tribute."

Tieren would call it dangerously out of balance, and Kell would be hard-pressed not to agree entirely. Life and magic were two sides of the same coin, but why place a value on suffering?

Kell went silent again, fuming, let her own tangle of emotions wash through his own, catching and snagging, matching, creating friction. She was not the discomfort here.

If Neria had to sit here, silent, watching-

"Something else happened."

It was easier to focus on him. Always was. He would feel the way Neria tried to place that attention back on him, perhaps lapse into the easier task of seeing to his own emotions and not her own.

Neria went very still.

Once more, she didn't meet his gaze. And then, she pulled away very slowly, with great reluctance. She did not move very far from the circle of his arms, just enough to pick at the tunic and pull it up and over her head. Pulled away, the branded whorls that ran from her left shoulder and over her breast, hidden by the band around her body, would be obvious. A parting mark from her time in the dungeons.

That wasn't what she wanted to show him.

Over her heart was the imprint of a skeletal hand. And in the palm were Murphy's clan markings in the shape of jaws. It thrummed with divinity, burning, and seemed to have its own life to it.

Neria did not look at it. Slowly, her eyes met Kell's. She said nothing.

Had the mood not been so very heavy and raw, Kell might have questioned why Neria was disrobing, but he recalled that time in her tent, the reveal of the scar over his own heart, and even before it was revealed, it was where his eyes were drawn.

Kell's heart skipped a beat.

Thinking nothing of propriety, he reached out to lay his own long fingers over the marks, as if he could overlay that touch, lift it up and off her skin with will alone. Beneath his fingers the magic was tangled, alien, a power that made his skin crawl when he touched it too directly. He did not pull away.

"... what did she do?"

There was magic around both scars. The first, around her arm and breast, had been cleansed of the fire Kaevir had put into them. Now, they pulsed softly with the Dark. Neria's Dark, safe and sound, utilizing the branding for her own. But the other, as he could sense, was foreign and strange.

Kell would sense what it was if he looked a bit harder. It wasn't difficult to recognize the binding for what it was.

"She took my magic. All of it from home. My healing," and here her voice caught again, for her healing was hers, her identity -- "She took my Arcane and my elemental magic. All of it, every scrap from Thedas. Too it and bound it to herself. It..." Her throat closed up.

Neria's eyes were no longer blue. They were a moonlight-silver.

And only once Symon's eyes were cast off did the tears start. They fell down her cheeks before she even realized they'd sprung up. They dripped off her jaw and onto her hands, pooled in her lap.

"Like before. Back there, in the dungeon, in the dark." Her heart was beating too fast as she remembered. Neria closed her eyes and saw it. She opened them again. "In that fucking room where they...where he--" Burned her. Brutalized her. Made her into an animal. Made her weak and powerless. "And she took it from me, like they did."

Edited 2018-04-05 06:25 (UTC)

Limiters--

No, more than a limiter. This was far worse than a chain keeping her contained. Horrified, Kell took his hand from her chest, reached up to touch her cheek, where the tears were too much to be contained by his fingers.

God-magic. Powerful, binding, but...

Gritting his teeth, Kell stared at the markings as if he could burn them off of her.

"Why?"

"It's her trial, I--" Already the words were stilted, as if she couldn't truly trust or believe them. "She said the Herald told her to destroy me. To bind me. And Murphy told me she refused."

Stupid. Neria had been so stupid to trust it. She put her face briefly in her hands and her shoulders gave a single shudder, as if she might begin to sob in earnest. Somehow, she did not. "She told me she refused and...and said she wanted to give me something to help me with mine. All I kept thinking was that I-- I wanted her to stay with us. To stay with me." Everyone was slipping from her grasp.

She wiped at her tears with the heels of her hands. "I didn't want to take it but she insisted. And...she didn't give anything. She simply plumbed me of what was mine and bound me." Neria gestured. "And then she went off and did the same thing to Archer. Bound his will like a Servant to her whim."

What worth was it, to be gods, if they gave up everything good about themselves? Everything that made them worthwhile?

Kell reached into his pocket, brought out the black square of cloth that had been stained with blood so many times over the years, and pressed it into Neria's fingers.

It didn't reconcile -- the Murphy who had called him Salroka, who had been so insistent that she owed him a debt, and would not be denied. His throat threatened to close as he struggled to find a reason, and could not.

"... her trial. It was binding others?"

Edited 2018-04-06 03:38 (UTC)

"She told me it was to bind me. To destroy me." Kell pushed the fabric into her hand and she looked at it a moment, as if uncertain what it was. She did not use it to dry her eyes. Instead, she simply clutched it, her thumb rubbing across the soft fabric.

Neria forced herself to breathe, just a few steadying breaths.

"I assume that's her trial. Why... I don't know. I know why I've been given my trial. For her--" She looked up at the ceiling, as if she could find the answers there. "To betray? To...bind people, as I kept her in collar?" Kell would know the thought before it even formed: Is all of this my fault?

She never gave voice to it. Her fingers curled in the fabric he gave her. "I don't know."

Kell was silent, a foul taste in his mouth, knowing it didn't and wouldn't add up. Murphy could not do something so awful without a reason, especially to Neria.

He lifted Neria's hand, the cloth between her fingers, and touched it to her face.

"Murphy came to me after the battle, the one in which you nearly fell. To thank me for keeping you safe. She swore a debt to me; said that she owed it to me... because you were important to her."

Kell leaned in, catching her eyes, meeting them, his voice firm, rough at the edges.

"You did not bind her any more than Hakkyuu bound me. You did not keep her in a collar, they did. You are the one it would have hurt her most to do this to."

His words hurt, cut her deeper than they should have. Neria stared at Kell, long and hard, with a wide-eyed sort of disbelief. Even back then, Murphy felt she was important. Neria remembered Murphy coming into the tent with her injuries, the both of them embracing. And she had sworn a debt to Kell--

The lines didn't match up. It twisted her heart deep in her chest and she felt another sting of utter agony at the loss.

"I deserved it," she whispered, almost too low to be audible. "I deserved it for allowing it to continue. I should have refused her. I should have asked for her to be set free." She closed her eyes. "We were together one night, when I sent Archer away. I wanted... I wanted--" Her thoughts were spinning without a place to catch on. She curled in on herself, looking so much smaller, fingers slipping into her hair. "I always lose things when I try to be selfish."

It didn't. It didn't match up. Something had happened, something more than either of them knew -- perhaps Kell had too much faith, but Murphy had never struck him as anyone truly cruel. As anyone who would ever enjoy power over others, enjoy causing them pain.

It fit. The other trials Neria had told him about were designed to be as painful as possible for those that underwent them. If that was Murphy's trial, then it would make sense.

As Neria looked away from him, Kell moved closer.

"Should Hakkyuu have refused me?" Kell asked, more sharply than he meant to, but then his voice always seemed to come out that way, his hands too harsh, his magic too strong. He was not the healer she was. But he knew he was right, knew he was telling the truth.

"Was it selfish of him to keep me close, when that was where I wanted to be?"

Kell grit his teeth, hard enough to feel them creak in his jaw.

"There is a reason for this, but that does not mean the reason is you."

"That was where you wanted to be-- And I'm certain that Hakkyuu considered refusing you," she bit back, not looking at him for several moments. "Hakkyuu is as disgusted with slavery as I am. But he wouldn't have sent you away. Who knew where you'd end up, if not with him?"

But it had been the same with Murphy. Neria was afraid of where she'd end up.

A breath escaped her, harsh, painful. Her grip tightened in her hair. "I know it isn't about me," she ground out, remembering what he'd told her in the wake of Daud's death. Do not make this about you. She closed her eyes tightly. "I know." But it did not make the pain less.

"She has to succeed," she whispered. "That's all this is."

"Exactly."

It came out in a voice that caught at the edges, though the core was still steady. Kell set a hand on Neria's hair, next to hers, though far less tight of a grip.

"Of course," he added, a dangerous note in his voice, "that doesn't make it any less wrong to do to you."

What godhood was worth that? What anything was worth that?

Kell tried to picture it, but even the split second of imagining burning those marks into Hakkyuu's skin turned his stomach. It made him think of Astrid and Athos, of Holland and his scars. Of Rhy and how he'd twisted in the grip of that magic.

No. It was not something he could do.

She breathed in silence, eyes shut tightly, and said nothing. At length, one hand unwound from her hair and looped fingers with his own. Neria tugged his hand back down so she could simply hold it, her anchor in the moment, something to pull her from her grief.

It took several moments for her to unwind. For her to drop the other hand from her hair and to finally allow herself the space to be safe again, even in the memories that wrapped around her heart and squeezed it too tightly.

Neria did not give voice to the ache that lingered deeper. But Kell would feel it, a whisper of a thought: I miss her.

The loneliness burned deep into her bones, deeper still with the knowledge that if they should all succeed at their trials and come together later, they would be so fractured not only as people but as a unit. As a group. And she could not help but feel all of it had started at the ambush. All of them broken as people from that one day.

She did not blame Kell. In her heart, where she let him wind himself again, there was no trace of fury any longer, no condemnation. But that day in the snow was the first crack that spun into fissure she saw now. She only wanted to fix it, and feared it was too late.

Her fingers threaded with Kell's. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I... My mess isn't what I wanted to linger on." It wasn't fair to him and Neria was tired of dwelling in her own mire. She tipped her head up to look at him. "What's happened since you came home? How are you?"

Kell held on, anchoring them both in the moment. Upset as he was, he couldn't make sense of it. There had to be something else, some bit of information that would have it all falling into place.

As it stood, there wasn't.

... and as Neria didn't give voice to the feeling, it was mirrored all the same in Kell. They had both her. Lost what they'd had. The ties borne on that battlefield, in the campfire's glow, with drinks and cards and imperfect understandings.

Things would never be the same.

Kell's lips thinned as Neria asked, but Rhy did the same when he was hurting, even if he did it with a joke, making light of what he'd suffered to change the subject, and Kell had learned to let those moments go. He threaded his fingers with hers, looked down between them.

"We came back only hours after we'd disappeared," he said quietly. "No one, not even our guards, had noticed we were gone. We explained what happened to the king and queen, but... have agreed to keep the reality of what happened to us a state secret."

Kell ran his thumb over Neria's knuckles.

"We did much the same with Rhy's death, but his eye is harder to conceal, so... we will not. The royal family has not yet addressed the rumors to the public, but it's been implied that it was a natural, if late, manifestation of Rhy's talents.

"No one living knows much about Antari," Kell added. "Even if there are whispers, it would be nearly impossible to dispute."

... of course, when Rhy and Kell failed to age, failed to die... things would need explaining. But they would cross that bridge when they came to it, and it was not a new problem to consider.

She held his hand and listened, eventually scooting closer once more. Her gaze was on Kell's face as he recounted how they'd only been gone for hours, how no one knew, and the concern their parents must have had. Neria's lips drifted into a frown.

Quietly, she told him, "One of the guards seemed suspicious. It seemed like he knew I didn't belong." And now she knew why. "I'm so sorry, Kell. I was trying to be discreet." But she didn't know how else to find him.

Briefly, she lapsed into silence. And then--

"Do...Do the king and queen know what has happened to both of you? Or is that something you've concealed?"

Kell squeezed her hands back, holding on tight, but did not seem particularly concerned.

"There are hundreds of strangers in London for the Games. For most you will pass as one of them. The guard you spoke to was one of the older officers. The message had to go through the King before it came to me."

Kell looked down at their joined hands, and for the first time shifted in discomfort. Not tied to her... but for the obvious display of mistrust.

A few months ago, he would have been allowed to act freely.

"They know what happened- we told them an overview of what we went through, detailed a few parts. Tieren is the one who picked our stories over; he knows nearly everything."

Kell made himself look into her eyes.

"They are concerned about Asora, and what is happening there. Of how it could potentially reach Arnes, and our world. Your appearance is... alarming, to say the least. I insisted on seeing you first, and seeing you alone. I've assured them you're a friend and would never mean us any harm, but they will have questions."

She went pale, realizing the reason why it had taken so long for Kell to find her was not because he had waited but because the message had not gone through him first. And he'd had to advocate for her, to explain she was not a harm. He'd had to convince them.

Her fingers tightened on his. She thought of the guard and his blade and wondered how quickly he could have cut her down if he'd really felt she was a danger.

(Worse, how quickly she could have cut him down to keep herself safe.)

Neria held his gaze for a long moment. And then, softly, she asked, "When would you like for me to see them?" If Kell had fought for her, for her safety and their privacy, then she would fight just as hard to convince them she meant no harm and would do her best to return. She'd need to find ways to ensure Asora could not leak over into Arnes.

But then, she might have to close the door on Kell's world forever, and truly never see him again.

Kell squeezed back. This was no small thing, nothing to brush aside, but he knew that she understood that. Of all of the people it could have been, he was glad it was her.

"It's late," he answered. "And you need sleep, something to eat." Never mind that they were dead -- they still hungered, they still felt tired, even if it wouldn't kill them to be so. "They would like to see you once it's light, if that will suit."

Kell squeezed her hands again. "My family is not like the warlords of the army, or like the elves. They are firm but fair, and care deeply for their people. I've told them how much you've done for me. For Rhy. They have questions, but you will be welcomed as a friend and ally."

His assurances helped. Neria loosed a faint breath and slowly nodded. Firm but fair. She could work with that. Her fingers briefly tangled again with his as she nodded, and then she sat back with a quiet sigh.

"I'll do whatever you need me to." If that meant giving them assurances or being truthful...she'd do it. She'd try her best to give everything.

Neria made a small gesture with her hand. "It's all right. I don't...sleep or eat anymore," she murmured. "But I'll rest. And food might be nice in the morning." It would be better, too, to eat and convince them she was not a monstrous thing, that she had wants like anyone else.

Given what they had come home as, given what Kell had done to Rhy, it wasn't far of a stretch, but parents could only be pushed so far.

Kell braced himself against the wall, providing a steady support for her to lean against. It was late, the air cool but calm, the single flame of the ever-burning candle reflecting off of the inky black of his eye.

With a deep, slow sigh, he let go of it all to look down at their joined hands, and along their connection, she'd feel the ache, the bittersweetness of seeing her again, knowing it came at a high cost, of the enormous relief that came of forgiveness, even if it prickled at the guilt, given that he had not fully forgiven himself.

"I'm happy to see you again, Neria."

And lean she did. Neria tucked herself in close to Kell, soaking in the warmth of his grip and the solidity of his frame. Her head rested on his shoulder. Slowly, she pushed out a sigh, and seemed almost smaller for a moment.

With care, she tilted her head up, and briefly kissed his cheek.

"I'm glad - immensely glad, beyond words - to see you, Kell." To have this time to say things and to tell him she had forgiven him, that she loved him, and she never once hated him.

Beside him now, she felt at peace for the first time in months. "Your city is very beautiful, too," she whispered.

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