ruinations | adsom: reunions

"Some can see or sense magic in others," Kell answered, "but those who can past more than a feeling are few and far between."

He touched the table, spread his fingers. "Elemental affinity is common. You might choose one or two. Healing is less so, but welcome anywhere. Travel is an ability unique to Antari."

With a shake of his head, he lifted his eyes to the royals. "If Neria stays close to me and anything seems amiss, our guests would easily dismiss it as my doing."

"For the best," the King answered, but his golden eyes were pinned to Kell. He knew exactly what he was doing, but didn't care to stop him.

"But how would they be able to know I could Travel if I don't seem like an outsider?" she asked. "If my ears are hidden and I do not use magic near people--" It would be incredibly limiting but she could do it for the duration of the Games if it meant keeping Kell and his family safe from prying eyes. Whatever the cost, she would pay it.

Neria saw Kell's setup for what it was. She swallowed the other protests, certain it would just unravel whatever he was doing.

Elemental affinity was common, one or two. Healing. She could...keep to those. No Arcane. She breathed out and took a sip of her drink.

"Whatever you would have me do, I will do it. As I said, I know my presence is a burden. I'll do whatever must be done to ensure no one looks at me twice."

"It will work," Kell insisted. He was nowhere near as persuasive as Rhy, but he had the weight of truth on his side, and he knew that his parents would rather have Neria as close as possible, rather than hide her away somewhere they would not be able to keep close track of her.

... and they could trust Kell.

Couldn't they?

The royals exchanged a glance, but then Maxim nodded.

"I would not call this a burden, so much as a concern. Stay close to Kell. He will keep you from a misstep."

And in the meantime, it would keep Kell occupied, give him a distraction from the circumstances of the current situation.

If Kell insisted, she had to believe in him. She trusted him completely. Being told she could remain beside him and close was a relief, even if it did not appear so. Her posture remained the same; her expression never shifted. If anything, she took the statement as one might take a command, and only dipped her head into a nod.

"As you say."

Her foot pressed back against his own, seeking a moment's reassurance.

"Thank you, Your Grace."

She would not name it aloud but to be allowed to remain in the kingdom, even temporarily, was a boon. It kept her from an important duty, yes, but it allowed her this time to heal and a reprieve from all she'd been doing. That was, in and of itself, an immeasurable gift.

Beneath the table, Kell shifted his leg to press against hers from knee to ankle to boot, steady. This had gone well.

King Maxim acknowledged the thanks with a nod, then turned to Kell, his voice lowering to the tone of a command.

"See Tieren later today. He will be busy with the last of the Games to prepare for, but we dare not let this lie longer than we must."

Kell inclined his head, a slight bow. "Yes, sir."

"We have more preparations to see to," Emira said quietly, looking between the both of them. "Is there anything else?"

Kell said nothing, but his eyes flickered toward Neria, in question.

She shook her head at the question. There were no more questions, but as she started to speak, she paused. In her stomach, she knew it would simply be easier if she let it go and did not speak of it immediately. Kell's world was safe for the moment. But if it came out later that she held something back, surely she would be seen as an enemy too.

Her fingers tightened. Quietly, she began: "There is one more thing." Her gaze turned to Kell for a moment, apologetic. One more burden to carry. And as she turned back to Maxim and Emira, her posture straightened again.

"I have a question, Your Grace, but one that is dire." She had to phrase it well. She knew what part of the answer was already, as Kell had confirmed it once. But if something had changed... "Have you heard anything of a Blight? Or...the Void?" A pause. "Or an emerald gem in the heart of worlds?"

This time, it was Maxim who slipped, something coming awake and molten in his eyes, a fascination as well as a protective steel.

But it was Emira who answered -- and before she did, her attention went to Kell. Something about her seemed... colder. Far colder.

"We know nothing of a gem -- however, if the blight you speak of is similar to our Black Night, then yes." She paused. "Has Kell told you of the destruction of Black London? Of the Black Night? Is it similar?"

As Emira's gaze fell upon Kell, Neria's met Maxim's for a moment, recognizing that look. She rallied beneath it, bolstering herself. Her hands curled in her lap. "Kell has told me some of what transpired. I'm aware of the danger the Black Night poses." Spreading to people like wildfire, burning through them. "It is to my understanding that many worlds have something similar, something dangerous that threatens their world in one form or another. My own world has the same and it is called a Blight. What I speak of, though, is not from my world."

Briefly, once more, she looked to Kell, and then her gaze returned to the King and Queen. "In Asora...there is a green gem that exists in the depths of the world. That gem is a piece of the heart of creation. And supposedly there are others. The Blight in Asora - something I have not witnessed personally - has set its sights upon this gem. If Asora falls to ruin, this...this thing will continue to spread across other worlds, especially if those worlds have these gems. And I believe that most, if not all, worlds do, even if we have never seen them."

Neria breathed. "I understand you are concerned for the particular people who will come through the veil to this world. You should be, I agree. But this is the greater threat...and I do not think it will stop if the veil is closed." Her gaze was steady. "The worlds will weaken as the thread of creation shrivels and collapses, as it breaks off from Asora or any world that falls in a similar manner. And the Blight will find its way here in one form or another, perhaps even as the Black Night. It has already warped itself to adapt to other version of the Blight, called the Starscourge. It may try to do so again."

She should not speak above a King or Queen, and yet, she had some small authority over this - as godling, as protector. As Warden-Commander. Unconsciously mirroring Kell's arrival to Asora, she spoke as an ambassador might before another head of court. "It does not change our course - to close any holes in the Veil and ensure a proper defense to protect your borders. But it is information you must know."

All through Neria's explanation, Emira's eyes flickered over and over toward Kell, taking in his expressions, how he held himself, his reactions to what Neria was saying.

Maxim absorbed what she was saying as if he himself were steel, grim with purpose.

And Kell -- Kell listened with dawning horror of what was to come.

He hadn't known, and it was obvious. Even to Emira. His brow had furrowed, he'd swallowed his words, and he'd gone still. Very still, eyes fixed on Neria's face, searching for any hint of-

What? That it wouldn't be true? That she was having them on? Neria would never joke about something like this.

"... Antheia," he whispered, like a soft curse under his breath. He swallowed back the faint nausea, Hakkyuu's words in the back of his mind, what he'd tried to make Kell promise, and what Kell had dodged around.

"Do I need to go back with you?"

To his question, Neria was only silent, watching Kell with wide eyes. It took every scrap of willpower she had left not to speak informally, to reach for him, to do anything that exposed how very much it hurt her to hear him ask that question. Her heart ached, twisted in her chest.

Her inclination was selfish. She wanted to tell him to come back with her, to be part of their Pantheon, to stay by her side so she wouldn't be alone or hurting any longer-- She wanted to beg for it.

Neria's fingers were digging into her wrists again, deep enough to almost draw blood.

Pulled taut as a bowstring, her answer was terribly soft. "No." In this, she could not be selfish. She had to think of him, of Rhy, of his home. Last night, she had told him that she did not blame him for leaving - that even if she loved him, she knew his love for Rhy and his duty to his home had always come first, and so she understood why he had to go. And faced with that choice after Hakkyuu's disappearance, why would he ever want to stay in Asora? How could he ever be happy?

"No, Kell," she whispered. "If... If we fail, then you are your world's best hope of survival and protection." Him and Rhy, the latter of which was unspoken, but Kell would know. He had made the right choice to come home. If he left now and returned to Asora, no doubt he would be forced to ascend in order to fight. She couldn't let that happen to him, not now after he'd finally found some measure of peace.

Neria's response made sense, but he didn't need their connection to see how much it hurt. Not even Maxim and Emira did. There was no hiding it, and Kell threw aside pretense, reached out to put a hand over hers, squeezing firmly.

He couldn't see exactly what she'd been doing, but he had a similar tendency. It was something Rhy had never said a word about, but he'd started to touch his hands, much like this, when he felt Kell doing it.

He felt relieved, but also faintly ill at being so. Perhaps he would tell her just how many factors had gone into his decision to go back to Red London, someday. ... if they ever did have time.

There were a lot of things he wanted to tell her.

Kell squeezed, edging his fingertips into hers.

"May we be excused?"

Maxim gestured an assent, but Emira's dark eyes followed them as Kell drew back his hand, tugging gently on Neria's hands.

The first touch of his hand immediately brought her world to a stuttering halt. The tightness in her shoulders seemed to settle briefly, all of her thoughts and struggling brought down to the narrow scope of Kell's hand on hers, grounding her. A soft exhale greeted the touch, her eyes finding his and remaining there.

And then, she reached back, grasping his fingers.

It seemed such a shameful thing to do, to nearly break in front of the King and Queen, the people who were the parents of his dearest brother. Neria remained silent, not quite able to meet their gazes for fear of what she'd find. Some measure of condemnation or confusion, even as Kell coaxed her hand to open, to take his, to stop hurting herself.

He took her hands, excused them, and tugged her along. She could do nothing else but follow, though she managed another brief dip of her head in apology and respect as he took them away from the table and back out the door.

I'm sorry, she immediately whispered once they'd cleared the threshold, as if she'd been afraid of even utilizing that power around them. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

Outside the room the guards were waiting, and they fell into step as Kell kept walking, still holding Neria's hand. Refusing, now, to let go.

Why?

He left it open-ended, letting everything come apart and fray between them, kept his attention forward through the marble hallways, the deep carpet runners that swallowed their steps.

Why was she sorry? Why had she lied to the king and queen about staying? Had she been lying?

She couldn't stay. He knew that. She couldn't stay.

It tore him up more than he wanted, or felt ready to admit, but he put it all into the next step, the next turn, and brought Neria to the place he felt was his -- past the heavy wooden doors and into a room of dark wood and darker drapes, deep shimmering blue and black.

The chamber itself was meant to evoke the middle of the night, even as Rhy's was the golden and blush of dawn.

Kell closed the door behind them with a slow sigh, and snapped his fingers softly. The candles burned to life, lighting the parts of the room not touched by the sunlight shining in from the balcony's doors.

A fire burned to life in the grate, dancing over the wood placed there, licking at it, burning hot with magic before it took to the fuel and settled. Becoming something natural.

She did not answer the question, even as Kell tugged her along. Neria walked willingly, never feeling as if he was taking her somewhere unsafe, or somewhere she would rather not be. She kept her head up as best as she could, even as she felt more and more of her control over herself snapping.

Between them, her thoughts did not reach out. Not until they were past the heavy wooden door of his chamber, where he closed the door behind them, and Neria was faced with the deepest blue of the night sky, the one place she had become so accustomed to being hers.

And it was Kell's.

A small fire flickered at his bidding, called up to cast the chamber in deep shadows all around them. Her gaze traced over the room, mapping it, admiring in silence even as her thoughts seemed to fall apart. She tried vainly to gather up the pieces. Her hand remained in his.

I couldn't hold it together in front of them.

She'd tried her damnedest to remain as unmoving as a leader should be, as a goddess might be, as a hero could be. To remain steadfast. But in the end, everything spooled out through her fingers, and she scrambled to reel it all back in before she lost something else that was precious to her.

And because...I don't know what to do.

There was a duty to fulfill and worlds to keep safe - but Neria had wanted (and still wanted) to fight for him. To stay by his side. To hold fast to Kell because he was one of her life's greatest parts...and to admit that she was powerless and unable to keep him burned bright and painful in her chest. Her hand held fast to his.

It took longer than Kell would have wanted to finally look at her. To find Neria looking over his room, the walls he'd grown up in, where pulling aside drapes would have her finding spellwork traced into wood, old bloodstains seeped into stone, burnt ash and the smell of flowers and old paper and woodsmoke and frost and the herbal ointments Tieren gave him for the hurts he gave himself, in his service.

The couches and the desk, the bookshelves and the oldest, ugliest chair from the library that Rhy hated, but Kell still felt was the most comfortable place in the world, even to sleep.

The deep soft bed with its midnight canopy. The reading nook stuffed to the gills with research books, handwritten journals, inkstains and the smell of old blood on stone.

Kell squeezed Neria's hand, and in the moment, he could offer nothing. He had taken them from there because he'd been inches from cracking, too.

With a soft, smooth tug, he drew her by the hand. First closer, and then into his arms to hold on tightly.

... I don't either.

It felt strange to be there with him, surrounded by the deepest midnight, as if she had fashioned the room herself. Neria remembered that place in the Void she'd found, shadows flung in all directions, reflections of herself in the black water. This was softer, more comfortable, but of a similar essence.

She felt at home. More so when he pulled her close and brought his arms around her. Neria did the same, embracing him, leaning into his chest.

I don't want to leave. I meant what I said: I want to fight for you.

Her thoughts could be pragmatic; she could rationalize the need to for her to leave and return to Asora. But she could not stop her heart from wanting, from loving. She'd learned it was impossible. Better that she could be balance, both head and heart, even if in this moment she could only be the latter.

She was not ready to let him go. Not again.

Neria drew a staggered, painful breath into her lungs. Her grip tightened on him.

What could I tell them? That I was planning to stay, to dig my heels in, and you'd have to command me to go before I would ever consent to leave?

How could she explain that she would gamble a world's safety for a few weeks of happiness?

One arm settled around her waist, holding her to him, but the other found her hair. He buried his fingers in it, tipped his head forward, and shut his eyes, letting her words rush over him, her guilt and want and pain and feelings of duty, and deeper still, her heart-

The lines of the worlds and threads of fate seemed to spool out endlessly before them, and Kell looked out on them bitterly in his mind's eye, heavy with the knowing. The last time he'd been selfish, hundreds had died.

The last time he'd tried to do the right thing, it had been thousands, and Neria still carried the scars of what they'd done to her.

No matter what they did, they were destined to be tangled up in this.

Grim, Kell stroked her hair, slowly shutting his eyes. He took what she'd handed him, and tucked it away, knowing.

We will sort this.

Somehow.

Edited 2018-10-16 04:37 (UTC)

She could almost believe it, when it came from him. Neria wanted very desperately to believe that was true.

Kell's fingers were tangled in her hair, stroking, and he bent towards her. She leaned up in turn, bringing her hand to the back of his head. With care, she tipped her head up to press to his. Neria remained there, feeling the knots between them, the strands of their lives twisted up in each other. And spinning out was their shared duty as godlings, as protectors of worlds, the shields for loved ones and the futures of countless people they called their own.

No matter what they did, it would be messy.

Neria echoed him. We will see this through. One way or another, that was something she could promise.

She lifted her hands to cup his face, to cradle it gently in her grasp. It took no effort at all to look into his eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered. For bringing him more pain than promise; for making things complicated again. The last thing she ever wanted to do was cause him pain.

Kell resisted being comforted at the very best of times, and now was no exception. His lips twitched as she took his face in her hands, pressing together in a grim line, his eyes nearly shut. This close his eyelashes were darker than his hair, coppery in the firelight. His hands found her shoulders, curled against the fabric of her clothes, gripping.

It took him several long seconds to meet her eyes, and then he swallowed that impossible pain with a cut-up sigh.

... he could not think that it would have been better if she had not come. Even this chance to see Neria again, to reconcile, to have this much was better than what they'd had.

"You aren't to blame," he answered, his voice deep and soft. "You no more asked to wake up in the blood than I did. From that moment there was no stopping this."

Kell's perpetual frown, even in this tumultuous moment, only made her briefly smile. Her thumbs brushed over the high bones of his cheeks, fond, and he held her in his grip.

"Even so, I don't want to keep hurting you." In every way. Kell was free now, free from Asora and the expectations of true godhood, even if he was still cursed to life unending as a godling, adrift in a world that already regarded him as mover of stars and sun. She was the blade that dug up the old wounds, and she dearly wished she was not.

Her hands fell from his face after a time, also settling on his shoulders. They slid past there, too, to wrap gently around him and keep him close. "I--" Words. There were too many things she wanted to say and it never seemed the right time to say them. Did she tell him, again, how she missed him? How she wished things could be different? Should she reassure him, as he had reassured her, that they would overcome this too?

Neria swallowed. For a moment, she could not quite meet his gaze. "Thank you. For...For everything." For allowing her to reconcile with him; for providing his support and his solidity in front of his parents; for not sending her away.

As Neria wrapped her arms around him, as she drew him close, Kell lost the breath in his lungs -- and it stayed out. He didn't need to breathe anymore. It wasn't something he did often, but he caught it, in these moments. The small bits of uncertainty.

The moments his body forgot to pretend to be human.

"That sounded very much like a goodbye," he said softly. His voice seemed to come from far away.

Her gaze met his, the quiet around them settling. Neither of them breathed. And then, she reached up with her hand, brushing a few strands back from his face. Neria's smile was small, fragile. Sad.

Voice hushed, she shook her head. "It wasn't." Not for the moment. "I only... It was something I didn't tell you before we parted," she said quietly. "That I was grateful to you. That you brought joy to my life; that you were one of my life's best parts, even for the few months I had you." Here, she paused, realizing her words were still implying that she was leaving, that she would leave - and in the moment, it was not what either of them wanted or needed.

"I need to...to say things instead of keeping them inside. I've tried so hard for so long to simply swallow what I have to say because it never seems the right time--" She looked up at him. "But then it will never be the right time. And I've done it over and over, forgetting how much it hurts when the moment passes. When I know I can never have the things I want because of my own failure." She never told people she loved them until they slipped through her fingers; she never offered her appreciation until she had moved on; she forgot to be genuine with those that mattered, to savor the moments, and she continued to live in the past, in regrets.

It had to stop.

Neria went up on her toes. She pressed her lips to his cheek. "So I want you to know now. That's all. You were my rock today. I needed you. I'm glad you stayed with me."

Kell's fingertips found the folds in the back of her outfit, caught there and held on, still not quite able to look her in the eye. Air still wasn't quite coming -- even Rhy had never spoken to him like this, as free as he was with his affection.

It still felt very much like he was standing on the threshold of losing her. As though she were saying this because she feared she might lose her chance to do so.

But that, he sensed, did not make it less true.

He lifted a hand, brushed her hair back from her face, parted his lips. He wasn't made for soft things, for spelling out how he felt, for romantic gestures or even (he considered, ruefully) for true honesty.

With Neria's kiss still warm on his cheek, he leaned in, caught the edge of her mouth with his own. Warm. Soft as he could make it. Pulled back, just enough to meet her eyes.

There were things she wished she could tell him now. How she wanted to stay, how she wanted to try to remake her life and salvage the pieces she had lost. The despair she felt when Murphy had taken her magic, or the howling rage in Archer's eyes. The desperate feeling of being alone finally staved off by Kell's warmth in her life once more. How she wished she could pretend it would be all right.

It would be all right, she knew. But not for them. Not down this path.

As she came down from her toes, Kell tipped his head and kissed her. Neria started, wide-eyed, and stared back at him as he pulled away only enough to meet her gaze. Kell's fingers were caught in her coat, keeping her there, but she knew if she tugged away that he would let him go.

But she did not want him to.

Neria's exhale came out faint, not enough air to make a real sound. She reached up to touch his cheek. And then she leaned in and kissed him, direct, tender. For now.

It was the touch to his cheek, as much as the kiss, that threatened to take him apart at the edges. Neria had wanted away from where she was. She'd wanted to be somewhere she felt safe, and the magic had taken her here. To him.

She had to go back -- but even if he did go back with her, he wouldn't be able to protect her. He knew that now. He could do his best, but it wouldn't stop what was coming.

But it wasn't here, in this moment. Not yet. Not right now.

The kiss had been Kell's own version of what Neria had said aloud; the things he felt that he couldn't quite name or explain. He felt that she deserved to feel safe, to feel wanted, to be accepted as well as admired. He took her as a whole, complete with scars and fears and broken pieces. They were both far from perfect.

They didn't have everything, but they did have now.

Kell worked his fingers into Neria's hair, drawing her closer with a hiss of breath, like he wouldn't get another chance.

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cw: self-harm-ish

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