[Riot 2718] [Closed] The Unlikely Bonds

[Gale]

the forge and the dives | evening

29 YARIS 2718

“Sometimes those few more houses is all you need,” the hand reached up to the bellows, grip finding familiarity and some comfort in it. The arm pulled it, the rush of air filling the base of the furnace. A wave of heat struck against the exposed skin, living it tingling, revitalising the points that had grown cold and numb. Another pull, the second rush of heat, the felt the gore begin to stick and the eyes flickered down to it. Sighing, she saw the caked shirt, the stained sleeves leaving a lingering sense of disgust.

You are a failure. A danger to your beliefs. A danger to us-

“All manner of things can happen in a few houses. Politicians can politick, master surgeons heal a heart, steel can be melted and tempered. I…” She paused, fingers shaking at the buttons of her shirt – her vest was underneath, the various bindings and straps designed to keep everything flattened peeking out. The press of gore pushed her to remove it, bare shoulders rolling as she held the piece in her grip. More aggressively she threw it into the brine water of the quenching trough, watching the staining blur in with the water.

You could still kill him. It would be so easy-
No.
Coward.

“You’re right. I didn’t. But I still could,” She began. Her head turned back to the forge. Her gaze locked onto the embers, back to him. Fear, it was strange to at least hear it from the other side for a change. Gale was very aware of it, more so as the conscious Seventen tried to pass through the mental loops of what just happened, “I won’t. Doesn’t line up with my interests.” The smith shrugged, “I expect, after this is all said and done, that you’ll probably get your cuffs out.” A snort, “Well done Inspector. You witnessed and caught a murderer. With a firearm no less. Single handily. Medal to you.”

With the flickering heat the smith turned to the trough. Fingers traced the surface, grasping onto the shirt before hands and forearms were submerged. What was available was used to wash the grime away, scrubbing out the tangled hair and the sore features. The numbing cold caused her to gasp, the salt stinging against the small nicks and cuts. Hands rubbed at her features, eyes screwing up as she released a shuddered breath.

The hollow gaping faces, the twisted corpses and gore greeted her in the darkness. She hissed, fingers clenching tightly. Screwing up she shook her head as the pain came more jerking to reality, “Until then, we’re both on the same level. Equal. Makes a change I guess.”

Stepping around she stood the opposite side of the counter, damp features peering at him. Bruised knuckles took the bottle, lifting it up to her lips before a long, deep glug escaped. She forced herself to swallow, the cheap alcohol burning her insides, her reflex to gag as the memory of blood filled her senses. The bottle slammed down, a deep inhale as she felt herself seize up and tense. Still, motionless, the eyes bored down onto his crown.

How like him she looked. The hair was the same, a fine blonde that sat and graced their features. There were differences of course, his nose was broader, the eyes blue – but they still shared looks. Her hands clenched, resting upon the bench. She forced herself to move some, grasping a stool and sliding it over to him. She however needed to remain standing – she was not sure her knees would willingly bend.

“I don’t want reputation.”

Her voice was a whisper. She sniffed, thumb rubbing across her eyelid – it pushed away the warm moisture that was growing there. What was she supposed to say in situations like this? Nothing would help her out of the current predicament, she could not control the will and actions of another.

“And those bastards had it coming to them.”

She forced her lungs to breathe, hand instinctively pressing against the bruising that was growing there. It stabbed at her, teeth biting her lip, a sharp croak of an inhale. The pulse was still elevated, wrestling with base instinct to survive, yet her own attempts to gain what little control remained. Strands of the self that was being ripped from her grasp due to her own stupidity. Alcohol served as an enabler, the defences set up crumbling as the sensation set in. A second, long glug was taken, a bitter gasp as she shook the taste away.

She hated the taste. But it would do for now. Flushed in the face, brow creased, her free fist slammed against the surface of the worktop. Frustrated, she rubbed the moisture that continued to grow around the eyes.

“I have my reasons, dammit. Bloody stupid. Fuck,” she sucked in a breath, the sting crawling up into her palm. A relief in the growing pressure in her chest. Suffocating as her mind hissed and spread its poison within, “None of it matters now. Just throw it all away why don’t you Gale? Everything you probably had. Because you got to be better than them. Fuck. All the brains but so stupid.” The knuckles struck against the tender part of her temple, a wince as she hunched in, “Such a coward. Just can’t do it. Can’t-” her head titled up to him, eyes taking on a red tint as tears welled up, “I’m not crying you moron!”

[Rhys Valentin]

The younger human made cleaning up almost look good, desirable, necessary, but Rhys lingered in grime that was at least two days old in a uniform covered in the gritty details of a riot out of control. Fear, panic, blood, and death—Gods, he probably reeked of Yaris sweat and so much fighting, but he didn't care. He watched anyway, not with the attentive expression of a voyeur but the blank stare of someone half-awake, watching the movement of the other blonde and made suddenly aware of the efforts the woman went to just to be someone else.

The young Valentin had only ever wanted to be someone.

Or be with someone.

He wasn't sure which anymore. Everything was so clocking confused.

Clocking hell, she still could, and Rhys swallowed something molten hot and heavy when she looked at him. When she said she wouldn't. He held her gaze and exhaled through his teeth, running a tongue over them before he spoke because he couldn't seem to salivate away the tang of his own blood, "I don't want a clocking medal. I didn't join the Seventen for recognition, for accolades. I don't have anything to prove because no one's ever believed I could do a thing. It's always a surprise when I succeed. Fuck, yeah, I could arrest you. I could watch you hang, too—three murders and a gun? The King himself would sleep better at night knowing you breathed your last from a gallows in public view."

That was harsh.

"I won't. Assisting in the aid of a superior officer of the Seventen absolves you of whatever means you felt necessary to do so. We can be heroes together, you and I." He chuckled, the expression on his face almost humor but he was still too out of his mind to actually admit he was trying to be funny. He wasn't. For all he knew, when this riot was over, he'd be the one hanging and her kind would be cheering from the throne room, dancing over the body of their clearly mentally unstable king.

He no longer had a filter, if he'd ever had one at all. Burned away by fire, dipped in the blood of innocents, and seared from his mind by exhaustion, there was only raw Rhys in the forge, and he couldn't bring himself to lie to the woman who pretended to be a man, who'd been kissed by his addict of a lover, and who'd shot three ersehats to keep his one sorry erse alive.

He just drank more, sloshing from the bottle while his bleary gaze looked away from Gale cleaning herself up.

Equal.

He choked on a swallow, gurgling and sputtering while everything burned down his throat and threatened to set fire to his lungs, barely catching himself from spilling the whiskey all over her work table as the bottle tipped precariously from his grasp while he gasped for breath. Thankfully, she took the disgusting liquid instead, and he just grinned like a half-mad fool until he'd found he could inhale again without coughing. Oh, gods.

"Equal. All manner of things can happen in a few houses, right? Clock the circle—" He spoke from behind his hands, suddenly overwhelmed by the grime and the blood that filled his nostrils, the heat of the alcohol he'd already filled his empty stomach with, and he looked up, almost gasping for air, eyes wide and wild when Gale admitted she didn't want a reputation, when she knew those ersehats deserved what they got in the end, "—fine then. Today and here, I'm not opposed."

Why didn't everyone speak so fucking plainly?

The pretense of those he unwittingly called his people when they weren't was exhausting, the drive for power over others who had just as much, if not more, to contribute to society as a whole was already tarnished for the Sergeant who'd arrested just as many galdori as he did so-called lower races throughout the course of his rather fast-moving, almost illustrious career thus far.

Rhys groaned, curling fingers into the wood of the table to keep himself from falling over, from missing the stool that had been shoved in his direction entirely, attention coming into focus on the younger blonde's face just as she began to delicately fall apart. His expression faltered and for a heartbeat, his bruised, blooded face begged her not to. He didn't want to see, but he couldn't look away—Gale's eyes warmed with tears, her jaw set, and her body language hardened as if to resist all that welled up unbidden inside her, hidden but still so very real.

Dirty fingers brought the whiskey back to his lips to keep from saying anything right away, to attempt to wash the empathy back down his throat and into the fiery pit of his stomach where it belonged. He regretted the swig as soon as it settled, feeling it all sink in far faster than he was used to because he wasn't himself after half a week of rioting. Blue eyes stared at the label, blurred vision because he'd overspent himself, ears ringing but he could still hear every word said by the younger human who indeed resembled him in familiar ways, especially now that his judgment was blurred by stress and booze. Her breath hitched and he held his in because if he looked up when she snapped at him, if he acknowledged that she was, indeed, crying, he probably would, too,

"I don't care if you do." Cry, that is. He staved off the inevitable with a grunt, jaw clenching one more time, even if the flexing of those muscles that carved the angles of his face hurt to move,

"Better than who? Me? A galdor? Galdori? We're just a bunch of clocking ersehats, like everyone else."

Gods, who was Mister Saunders? Gun-toting, body-dropping, too smart for her own good. Human. A godsbedamned human. Something niggled beneath the hurt and the trauma. Some flag he would have seen if it weren't for the smoke and fire.

He pointed from around the bottle at her, still holding it almost as if he was prepared to hug it, ignoring the sting of moisture around his eyes, "I've been told my whole clocking life I'm less than—among my own damn kind. From the day I set foot in school. I'm towheaded. My field is too weak. I'm too tall. I'm from fucking nowhere. Never good enough. Not even for her. But you've gotta live that shit more than me. I'm not supposed to get it, I know. I'm just another ersehat in a uniform, but I rub shoulders with you folks all the time, and I'm not better. I fuck up. A lot, but I tell you what, it's not about being better. I just want to do better. Gods, I so want to do better."

One more swig. Just one more. Who was counting?

He set the bottle down and dug gross palms into his eyeballs.

[Gale]

the forge and the dives | evening

29 YARIS 2718

Gale choked back a sound, the clenching, wet gurgle of noise as she screwed her features up. A desperate attempt to block out a sense, to fight back against the shifting, visual torment that was swaying back and forth before her. His words stung, but were understandable – in a sense of the word. It did not mean she wanted them to be true however, her head shook, the contents sloshing within making her disorientated. The dark hollowed eyes stared back at her, gnawing hands and exposed nails grasping onto imagined skin-

The hand slammed once more onto the surface of the workstation. Sobering of the thoughts despite the distinct haze that was taking over. Her eyes cracked open, the moisture stinging as it rolled down her cheeks. She croaked, “I don’t want to be a hero. Not like this. Not for just one day.” Fingers reached for the bottle once more, calloused digits briefly tapping upon the flesh of the other – before taking the drink from him. The smith raised the bottle in mocking cheers, before knocking a load back.

At least the taste was becoming more palatable now. Or perhaps it was just the fact her tongue was already coated in the substance, taste buds growing numb to the flavour. Eyes rolled, cheeks flushed, the mind rushed from one set of emotions to another, twisting and turning between facets quicker than she could keep up. The bottle slammed down, a hiccup of noise as she attempted to suck back the tears – yes she knew he did not care, but she still had to save face – before they settled down onto his hands.

Her finger jabbed out, not at him but to the unconscious Seventen, “Better than them, in every way. Not in strength ‘nd arms,” she shook her head as if attempted to shake out the distinct slur, “To show com-what… com-pass-ion? T’show intellect. T’show care and want and…” She blinked, feeling her innards slosh about once more, “T’be equal and do better... fuck I’m out of words and I’m out of ideas on how.” The finger then gave him an accusing point, “You. Sit down. Gonna fix the mess.”

She all but glared at him, “No argu…ing.”

Pushing herself away, the smith wobbled around the forge, hands finding a bucket. There was a brief pause, brow furrowing over the quenching trough, before the bucket was dumped in. Liquid consumed – admittedly an off colour – she staggered back. Contents sloshing, the bucket was placed onto the work bench. Fabric was found next, ripped off into chunks as she swayed. The drink had hit her hard, mind addled as she blinked at him.

“I need a smoke before this.”

Her fingers fumbled for the cigarettes, packaging ripped off and matches found. With the eyes narrowed down, one end was popped into the mouth while a set of shaking hands awkwardly lit the end. Several failed attempts later, and the smith was sucking on it. The taste was sweeter, yet an after taste left a tang in her mouth. The packet was nudged towards him. Another, deep suck of the smoke and an exhale through her nostrils. A brief cloud of white split between them, sweeter – she was certain her father used to smoke this brand, and that in turn gave a small comfort.

“The shit I live is different shit. Look, Pa raised me a boy – didn’t want same stuff happenin’ to me that happened to Ma,” a hand gestured for his, the other dunking the cloth into the liquid, “Plus, got to take on the man’s roll. None’d take a woman seriously in a forge. Man’s world or whatever. So, I’m the quiet lad Gale Saunders.” The cold bit upon the digits, and ringing it out the moisture she looked at him, “Humans are scum on that. I’d probably end up gettin’ dead or worse.”

Drink, she needed to slow down on it. The act of doing however provided a temporary balm. Another puffing inhale, she continued, “What’s the sayin’ – always greener on the other side? I dunno. Guess that’s what us lot see it as. You got your ed-you-cat-ion, and your books and your… fuck I’d like a good book.” Her gaze tipped sideways, momentarily distracted by the thought of literature, “Wassit, learnin’ makes people happy. Like, they know stuff so they can then get ‘emselves out of whatever shit they’re in.” Her digits fumbled with the damp cloth, “Then, they can do better. Not just for them, but everyone else. And then it keeps improvin’. And round and round it’d go.”

“Fuckin’ Nowhere sounds good. Less noise, more quiet. Never been out there much,” her hand gestured as if to mean beyond Vienda and her walls, “Don’t know what it’s like. Sounds fresh. No smoke. No soot. Good air. Least that’s what Pa always told me. Also said everythin’ got to start somewhere, and in the most unlikely placed you’d… well. Find stuff.” The smith hiccupped again, “Not much I can say ‘bout this field stuff though. I feel it though, all of ‘em – gives me the shits every time.”

Rubbing her eyes she averted her gaze. Being good enough. A bane of many, perfectionist mentality that dwelled in many regardless of their origin. She adjusted to his height best she could, hand braced onto the table, the other snatching up the bottle. If she was about to give a piece of her mind she needed to be somewhat more intoxicated. Her finger came up between them, the rest still clenching tightly to the neck of the bottle, waggling as if scolding him as she spoke, “Good enough for whom? Honestly now. Go on, say it. No lies now. So easy to attach worth to others. Some kind of odd safety there. Weird mind stuff. Anyway!”

The smith swayed briefly. Green orbs locked to blue, leaning closer as the expression furrowed, “Now, for the self? That’s fuckin’ terrifying – you create the value to meet and you fail, then only you can blame yourself. S’much easier to measure against others, agree or not, close to who you are – don’t matter. You’re not livin’. You’re existin’. All in your little boxes and line ups. All preplanned and decided. And you forget.” A finger jabbed at him then, aiming for the centre of the chest, “You forget yourself, who you are ‘cause you use others? So what if you’re the one with the shortest dick or whateffer... I lost where I was goin’… right, your little mind is a horrible little convincing bastard liar, and there is often more right then wrong in yourself.”

Withdrawing the Smith took another mouthful of whiskey, “You gotta make and accept peace with the now before you can reach the later. Got to live for you. Not them.”

[Rhys Valentin]

He blinked at the motion of Gale's finger, not at his bloodied chest, not at his exhausted body, but toward his Ensign who clung to life so weakly. Them. He was one of them and his field bristled, confused. The other blonde kept talking, however, and so he listened, reaching for the whiskey again. There was not enough in there, he squinted, vision blurred by what alcohol he'd already consumed and the lingering after effects of his magic use, there wasn't enough in there to prepare him for all of the blonde smith's words.

The burn was starting to feel so damn good, gnawing at his guts and searing through his frayed veins.

He hissed, discerning the meaning behind the one word that stuck him, "This mess? Oh. Sorry. I can—" Rhys' fingers strayed to the buttons of his cuffs as if he considered rolling up his sleeves, and his gaze wandered the mess of his shirt, so he fiddled with the fastenings at his collar instead. Looking up at the young woman when she fumbled for a cigarette, smirking when she slid them his way. His motions vaguely mirrored hers, but it was her words that slowed him, not the alcohol. He found himself blinking at the match as he lit one, staring through the sputtering, dancing flame at her talk of her mother and of human expectations. He let the stick burn to his fingers even after he'd lit the edges of the paper, snuffing out the match between his thumb and forefinger without a wince while smoke filled his lungs and then the space between them with a sigh.

"Learning makes the wrong people restless. The more those who aren't in power know, the more aware they become of their shitty situation. That's how oppression works, keepin' the majority dumb and in the dark, keepin' them poor and dependent. That's Anaxas. That's the Law I should uphold." He spoke from over the rim of the whiskey, pressed against his bloodied lip. His expression was a shit-eating sneer and he mocked a superior air before he drowned it in more liquid fire, "Please. Us gollies are educated as fuck, and look how godsbedamned happy we are, making everyone else miserable because we think we know better."

Good Lady, he wasn't even sorry to throw his so-called people under the crove. He'd arrested enough of them that they deserved it. What was it Gale'd said—those bastards had it coming. If this riot taught him nothing else, it reminded him not to take his uniform for granted. Things were bad, and he just wiped up messes on the floor and pretended the insides weren't beginning to smell rotten.

The young Sergeant waved his hand toward his Ensign, toward the door where somewhere in the street not far away three dead bodies still oozed for emphasis, implying that what was going on outside, the riot chaos that had dragged on for days now, was as obvious a sign at who knew what without having to speak about it.

He shoved the bottle away from him like he was done with it, flushed and hot, letting the cigarette distract him instead, "I'm from Elmonton. Just a lower class farm boy, making a name for himself in the big city." Rhys snorted, coughing, intoxication seeping into the very marrow of his aching, overspent bones, "Brayde County's clocking lovely, though. I'll give you that."

Good enough for whom?

His eyes fluttered heavily, blond lashes touching, bloodied face softening into something much more helpless when he scrunched them shut tightly. His free hand snuck between undone buttons and rammed the heel of his palm against his sternum, rubbing a chest that ached from days of too much action, a metal pipe, and way too many feelings at once.

"Say what? You want honesty? Fine. Sure, I've only found my worth in one place, and yet I've never been good enough for Charity—no—not her, her stop-clocking father. Patrol Captain. Beyond ersehole, honestly. The high as a kite perfection who kissed you—th' fuck was that?—she was telling the truth. Brunnhold sweethearts, and she could have had the whole kingdom from me, but, like I said, I'm just a lower class farm boy. Brayde county trash title and all. Us gollies have tiers of impressiveness, you know. Gotta separate even our own kind. It's why I'ma Seventen, that bastard." He shoved the cigarette between his lips and held up both hands, curling dirty fingers until only both middle ones stood at attention, "Just to make sure Captain Damen D'Arthe saw my huge fuck you until he retires—or someone finally offs his erse."

Gods, how he'd fantasized.

There were tears again and he eyed the bottle like it was his delicate pianist's face, reaching, "Godsdamnit, I love her. I feel like I have my whole life, but she's a mess. I can clean up the streets, earn my damn snaps, but I don't know if I can fix what's been broken. I'm still that dumberse school boy in a fancier uniform. That's who I am."

Gale leaned closer and he hid behind another swig, warily watching the young woman who could pull a trigger and end whoever she wanted. Her words made him uncomfortable, stirred something strange underneath all the ache and grime, dug under his skin. His ears rang and he felt dizzy, snuffing out what was left of the sweet tobacco he would have otherwise enjoyed when her finger jabbed at his chest,

"I'm nobody, nobody for a galdor. A shit sorcerer. Just a rank an' title who hits hard, plays harder, and right now? Here? With all that outside? Not even that. Clock off—I'm no bastard. My father's just a lesser ersehat than Charity's chroveshit sire, a man never given power like Damen has hoarded. Thank the Good Lady on that, 'cause he'd be a real terror, judging by the shit way he's always treated the staff. I haven't gone home in clocking years. I'm just waiting to sell the estate when he's dead. I don't want it. I don't want anything—I don't know what I want?"

Rhys' last words were a very inebriated whine, finally at least vaguely aware that he was out of his godsbedamned mind.

"Never bothered to peer into the future, really, and I've only gotten this far 'cause half the Kingdom gets off telling me I can't. Fuck 'em all, look at me. Another decade of investigations, and maybe I'll be Captain. That'll show them, but what will it show me?" The tall blond laughed then, some sarcastic and bitter sound, wanting to dunk his whole head in the bucket, staring at the younger human in front of him and realizing just how much he'd said to a creature who had to hide themselves in more than just the obvious ways she'd admitted. An intelligent young woman with a most likely impressive skillset, born without a field and making her way through the world without a guarantee for anything.

"Fuck 'em all. I'm the nicest uncle on my squad, and they all know it. Even my Constable, Potiphar, chafes that I care so much about respecting you lower folk. Like that's a crime or something. Clock the Circle—maybe I'm kinda drunk now."

[Gale]

the forge and the dives | evening

29 YARIS 2718

Gale was far from a soft touch. When the fingers curled forth, the human reached out – firm and pulling. The cloth was dunked into the bucket and applied to the hand. Edges worked into the palm first, pressing and rubbing as the grime was peeled away. Piece by piece, the once dark smears of decay were lifted, the cloth rinsed out as the staining became too much, before the process repeated itself. The cigarette hung limply in her lips, muting her for the moment while she worked. Fingers, practiced in the dextrous acts of building delicate pieces, were more haphazard here – infused by the vigour of alcohol. Had she been sober she would have been better at reaching into the tiny cracks and crevices that made up his skin.

Then again, if she was sober she would have told him to wash his own damned hands.

Fists scrunched the material up, once more submerging it and taking up the other hand. She allowed him to drink through the whiskey, her mind addled as she raced to try and remember the words, their meanings and the distinct tone of sarcasm that thrummed between them. She did however, snort particularly loudly at the mention of Us gollies; and shook the thought away with a smirk.

“Oh you sweet, sweet summer child,” she chuckled, pinching a finger she currently had, “Have you learned nothin’ of tonight so far? Look where you and your educated state got you tonight. Out of all possibilities in the world, ‘ere you are in my forge, drinkin’ horrible whiskey and smokin’ cigarettes. And with who out of all people in the damned city? Funny how things like that happen,” She released it, point made before she began to rub at his nails, “Though seriously, keepin’ the majority in the dark and dumb is probably why we’re in this mess right now.”

And it probably will not be the last time they will rise up in such a reaction. Not the last time they ask for blood in their ignorance.

Her brow raised at the mention of Elmonton, the thought tickling at the back of her mind. It stirred a more sober thought, while the Seventen continued his slurred prattling, “I didn’t start it. She did. Not guilty. Personally I’d say fuck the bastard, but I ain’t an expert in all things romantic. Dunno if you noticed but my situation makes that sort of stuff nigh on impossi…possi…ble?” The fingers went for his chin then, pausing briefly at the gesture he made. She smirked, “But you should be careful what you wish for. Certain people hear it… well.”

She let the thought sit there, drifting down between them for what it was. She dunked the cloth, the other hand gently tilting the head to catch the edges in the light. High cheekbones, fair hair, equally fair eyebrows. She applied the cold fabric to his face, dabbing to begin with to absorb what caked his features. Gradually the pressure grew, the intoxicated mind picking out the small changes in tone, the small pulls to flinching and pain. Discomfort was not her goal.

“You can’t fix what doesn’t want to be fixed,” the thumb pressed into the shadow of his eye, dragging along and collecting what laid there. Withdrawing she studied the red mark that remained, “She ain’t a piece of metal that can be fixed with a weld. Or stuck back together. Even I got that much from the little bit I saw. Me thinks your lass is less addicted to the taking, and more to the drama of it all. How fun it must be, to dance ever upon the edge and not know if you are gonna keep balance or fall. But, what do I know? Nothin’.”

Elbow propped against the worktop, the smith squashed out her cigarette on the wood. The tone turned dry, lids half closed as she attempted to find the right words, “Oh you are a bastard. A right one.”

The smith studied her work for a moment, before nudging his face to turn the other way. She continued there, taking all her focus inwards to stop the words that bubbled within. Jaw tensed, the unease worked its way up, seeping into her throat and onto her tongue. If she was right of mind she would have kept quiet. She would have held her tongue, swallowed and buried whatever was possible in the dirt where it belonged.

“So. Rhys Valentin, son of Theodore Valentin, mother fucker master of Plantations and whatever you’d get in Brayde county – which is a damn sight more than us human folk,” she paused, entire form seizing up. Her fingers turned into a clench, eyes moving from the features, the small flecks and scars. It came again, that burning pressure catching in her throat, that unpleasant sting as emotions tipped sideways and out of her immediate control, “With his head up his own arse, who won’t dare raise his head and dare to dream bigger; When you gonna wake the fuck up?”

She had said too much already, she knew that. She did not care, “When you going to find what you want? Stop licking the hands of the status quo. It’s shit, but it does you a damned sight better than us down the ladder?” Her hand withdrew, form tensing, hunching almost as if waiting some onslaught from him – instinctual to recoil and pull away, “When you gonna do it for you? Not for him, or her, or them or whatever arse hats…”

Her voice cracked, a poor attempt to utter a nervous laugh. She was back there again, the distinct scent of death filling her senses, the cold earth, the poor man’s burial and the realisation that she was indeed alone. She sniffed, withdrawing her hand, shaking her head, “When you going to realise you are who you are, not where you’re from. That you’re the lucky one who can change things? When you going to stop thinking the world owes you a goddamn favour just ‘cause you have a bunch of…”

The cloth was slammed to the floor, a moment of furious outburst released. Gale stalked away, retreating to the comfort of the heat and bellows. Even in her intoxicated state there was some logic in doing something she knew. Her hand grasped around the pull rope, “When you gonna start asking the questions? Start asking for the truth? Start rememberin’ that we all exist to. That what you’re told up there ain’t the truth all the way through.” A flare of heat, the tears rapidly drying as it caressed against her face. The voice dropped, a lingering sting of words that escaped despite the want to swallow them back, “The world don’t owe me nothin’. I made my peace with that a long time ago. You should too you stupid Wick.”

[Rhys Valentin]

He wasn't sober enough all of a sudden, glancing down at the way some almost-stranger—some human he'd kept from a beating and an arrest, some human he'd paid for a meal in coin with as an apology to for his own lover's intoxicated antics—had taken to washing his hands. He was confused by the actions, as if the executioner was cleaning a body before it was dead. He searched her face and listened to her slurred words, finding everything even more difficult to understand because unlike the world of galdori he was used for, the damned human didn't have a field. The Perceptive mona that had settled into his own over the years, that called him theirs, couldn't tell him a thing, not in his state of mind, but also because she was silent in that way. Mute but not without words.

Gale scrubbed his hands, and while he could see his skin beneath the grime and gore, they were still dirty somewhere in private darkness of his own personal opinions about himself.

"I'm not disagreeing." He grunted, his grin faltering and humor draining from his face because her words felt heavier as the whiskey burned its slow fire through his ability to think straight, as if he hadn't been half-mad with exhaustion and duty before. The blond Sergeant had slowly, unwillingly come to the conclusion that things in his precious homeland, in the only Kingdom he knew, were wrong. Who had it backwards, he couldn't put his fingers on it, but as he looked into the faces of those he'd arrested, as he read case files, as he listened to the stories of the patties who beat the streets harder than he did, he knew. He knew and it twisted the knife of disillusionment deeper between his already aching ribs.

"She's hurting." He defended Charity with a hard swallow, "It's not a show so much as a begging for help. She just can't see I've already held out my hand. Careful? Ah, no. Alioe forgive me, but I'd give people an address if they wanted it. I'd probably give them a fuckin' free pass outta prison if I got to write the dead on arrival confirmation for that ersehat myself."

Rhys didn't shy away from Gale reaching for his face, but he flinched in caution like an animal objecting to the touch. She wasn't flirting—it wasn't that kind of hand that dragged a cold cloth across his days' old grime—and she wasn't doing him the kindness it would have looked like to anyone else. It was something else, but he was incapable of reading between the words her gruff, slurred speech was laying before him, he couldn't count the cards she'd set down on the proverbial table. Was it an act of care? Did she want to be his friend? Did she feel sorry for his stuck up, privilege self? Did she just not want to go to jail? She couldn't be any less drunk than he was, but he couldn't get the gears to find traction in his thoughts.

He wasn't sober enough, but he hissed when she pressed too hard and he stared when she called him a right bastard.

"What—"

Had this been a trap?

His bleary blue eyes widened and he tensed, unsure whether to struggle free or whether to stay still and wait it out.

The young blonde breathed his father's name—a name he hadn't said out loud—his full name and the intoxicated Seventen froze, body tensing. The heat that had crawled through his veins felt like it solidified and the weight of too much whiskey was suddenly tangible in his otherwise empty stomach. Something churned. The ringing in his ears grew quiet beneath the rush of his pulse and felt drown out by the words that continued to spill from Gale's lips,

"—the fuck—"

Vita tilted on her axis further than she had before and a wave of nausea-filled vertigo gripped his senses with a lover's embrace, his now-clean fingers forced to grip the table, white-knuckled, to keep himself in the stool that was surely suddenly made of gelatin. He wobbled, washed by a wave of angry questions he felt more than heard. He couldn't grasp the reason for her outburst, and his eyes slipped to the cloth that wetly smacked the floor when Mister Saunders slithered away from him and woke flames of her forge like she was the match.

"—are you talking about?"

He spoke slowly, dizzy, making effort to separate the end of each word from the beginning of the next. It was hard to breathe as if the alcohol had been poured into his lungs instead of his gut, but he didn't dare stand up, not now, trying to make connections with dulled neurons already worn thin by stress and fear and violence. Had she been stalking him? Is that why she'd been in the dsoh shop beneath his apartment? How did she know his father's name? Who were her words about?

They felt pointed and yet they felt expressive and he couldn't separate the sharp pointed you from the sharper proverbial we.

"How do you know my father's name? I didn't say it—I said lower class, not illegitimate. There's a clocking difference, I think. Maybe? Gods, I don't even know. I had a mother, but she died. Theo—gods, how do you know that ersehole? what is going on?—is a hard man, but no one owes me anything. I don't owe him, either. I'm never gonna be a Magister, that's for fucking sure, and this uniform is th' only way I'm gonna make a difference. But change—"

Wick.

How many times had he been compared to one on the school grounds? How many snotty little sorcerers in Brunnhold teased him as possessing barely a glamour instead of an actual aura? How many of those snotty little sorcerers dry heaved on the training grounds after he'd busted their soft bodies in Numbrey?

Rhys wasn't sober enough. Or intoxicated enough. He wasn't enough of anything, save perhaps perceptive enough to piece together the string of words, staring at the young human's back that was now turned to him, staring as if he could see the face lit by the ruddy glow of her forge. He made the connections, but his mind refused to finish the process.

Because only galdori could do what he did.

Because only galdori were capable—

"—I can't change anything, not yet. Asking questions? Truth? That's why I'm not a clocking Patrol Sergeant. I made my choices for, uh, er, reasons. Yeah. Reasons. I'm not as stupid as I look. Mostly. There's things I can't see, and it's all right under the surface. And I want to see it. I'm gonna find it. Whatever it is." He waved fingers as if chasing minnows in a stream, his thoughts wild and racing, his mind lingering on that one word—wick—and unsure of why he absolutely refused to allow Gale the victory of understanding, the victory of a revelation he didn't want.

"The Resistance isn't the only secret—that clocking King's Crop that's eating Charity form the inside out—the Bad Brothers—there's more and I want it all—fuck—"

He threw up his hands and almost fell out of his stool for a second time, a helpless noise of frustration flapping with his lips when he exhaled,

"—I don't understand. Am I your mark? What do you know about me? Why am I here? I'm a galdor, possibly illegitimate. I passed that entrance exam and had letters of recommendation from my professors, just like any other—oh, gods. I wouldn't put it past my father to lie for legal reasons, but what ... are you saying?"

It made sense and he tasted fiery bile.

It made too much sense.

"How do you know me?"

[Gale]

the forge and the dives | evening

29 YARIS 2718

There was a long, drawn out silence. The rushing of air to and from the bellows, the ever breathing of the forge replacing her own. In and out. Dull and glow. The heat picked up, the faint crackle and hiss as blackened coals turned red, and gradually grew lighter – form inevitably breaking down as the long heat continued. Fingers flexed around the cord, pulling it down while muscles strained against it. Tendons flexed, joins eased into a sense of life, the rich blood being pumped around the body with an increase of speed through the basic use of movement. Chemicals pulsed within, the lingering nicotine from the cigarette, the thrumming of some malt slithering around her innards. But there the smith continued, the oranges and yellows of the forge casting stretching twisting shadows across the room. The heat picked up, shifting through her senses, the pulse elevating as veins looked to cool themselves on the surface.

“Forget it,” she breathed. She swallowed the growing sense of pain, the searing heat burned away the rest. Another pull of the bellows, she saw the bare innards and realising they needed more fuel she began to feed it. She needed to do something needed to keep herself occupied. Hands became blackened, powdered in dirt as the clink and crunch of material rattled around the inside. A quite noise that filled the absence that should have been filled with something, anything, but silence.

“I was out of line,” she continued. The head of the smith did not look at him, but the shoulders attempted to square, to fill out a form. To not feel but to just do. She found the poker and jammed it into the fiery heart of the furnace, turning and twisting the pieces. Spread out, a fresh, blackened layer gradually covering what laid beneath – but the heat was still there, lingering and waiting to roar back into life.

She encouraged it. Another pull of the bellows, the heat sinking in, burning out the impurities, chasing away the unfavourable – cathartic almost. Her mind continued to slur, the thoughts spiralling round, sinking into the dark void alongside the deceased that laid outside.

Weak. Pitiful. This is what you get for trying. Should have just-

“-stayed silent. Fucking idiot. So weak. Thought you could? Should have just left it. Nothing but trouble. Doesn’t care. No one cares. No one fucking-”

-does. You are nothing but a weakness. You letting in those emotions Gale?

“-you going to start having feelings? Start trying to build something so fruitless?”

Her voice was stuck in a whisper, a silent self-flagellation of words – infused by alcohol and fed by fire. Her father never had time for her to show weakness, to show emotions. Boys don’t cry. Boys must be tough. You’re not a girl, you’ve got to be a man for me now.

“You fucking killed her. You fucking killed her, Gale. All your fault. Shouldn’t have been-”

-born. You’re a failure. WEAK.

The face creased. Fingers pressed into her throat, the imagined nails scratching and scraping into her skin. They dug in, the heat searing and burning as veins burst and drained. Staining, relentless, refusing to lift – the floor was covered in it now, the walls slowly being covered with a red rust decay that cracked and crumbled the very foundations.

In reality the smith had grown still. Lungs barely moved, the gripping hand slowly loosing what hold it had. The limb dropped, palm slapping against her side in defeat. The eyes looked deep into the flames, face creased as the sharp pain traversed its way along. Barely breathing, barely there in honesty. The screaming features of the others looked at her, wide eyed as they took a firm grasp on her mind. The legs were locked in place – probably the only thing holding her in place really. The rest of her strength had left her.

“Should just stayed quiet. Should have. Shouldn’t have told him. Why you open your damned mouth? No one cares. No one fucking cares. Better off alone. He won’t fuckin’ have you.”

She did not register the dampness that had returned. Nor the headache that bloomed at the back of her head despite the numbing effects of alcohol. It sunk in, relentless and refusing to let go – a further unhinging as the usual barriers and walls were now so easily breached. She was sobbin; the sharp inhales as starved lungs tried to remember to breathe out of base need more than anything else, the gurgled noise at the back of her throat.

“No. No. No mark. Just…”

Just what though? The smith hated the word ‘just’; it was so pleading in tone, a word that looked to pull on the emotions and compassion of others in the hopes of influencing them. The inside of her shrunk away, growing smaller as a sense of numbness consumed, unable to break past the barrier and into a state of reasoning, “I just know what Pa told me. From when he was there. And Ma. And her name. And him. And you. And to be careful. Please don’t. Please… I didn’t mean to. I didn’t-”

She was still just a child in some ways. Barely an adult, barely able to understand the world and how it worked. When she did dip into it, the smith retreated quickly – sticking instead behind the mask of Gunner or the sly, smug look of Artful. But none of those existed here, and she had opened herself up too much, the nerves exposed to the air and left aching in the aftermath of stupidity. She hid in the recesses of her mind, stuck alongside her own monsters in the night and the fears that gnawed at her.

The eyes stared deeper into the glowing coals.

“Please don’t… I… sorry.”

[Rhys Valentin]

Rhys Valentin had always been underestimated, undervalued, and undersold. As far as he knew, and as far as everyone else around him knew, he'd come from nothing and he'd never amount to anything, not in galdor society, anyway. He'd never been that right kind of popular in his Brunnhold days; he kept the wrong company (like that Siordanti boy) and effortlessly maintained that bad boy image despite being an excellent student. He was loud. He was rough. He did things his own way and didn't give a fuck who disliked it.

And yet, somehow, he'd stumbled like the drunk he was now into success.

It had just sort of happened, his out of the box thinking surprising his professors in Brunnhold and catching his instructors in Numbrey off guard. His willingness to be a decent person to those he'd been told were lower than himself, perhaps because he'd heard his whole life how less than he was, too, had allowed him to gather intelligence differently than his peers. He cared. Strangers talked. He wasn't perfect, too willing to participate in conflict when it dissolved into violence, too willing to give folks a second chance when any other Seventen officer would have issued an arrest.

He'd never questioned who he was even when he often questioned what he was doing with his life.

Now, in this moment, he questioned both.

The younger blonde had turned away from him, hiding her face with the bright ebb and flow of fire and heat from her forge as if she sought to burn away the words she couldn't take back, the slurred hints of things that even intoxicated, Rhys was just sharp enough to piece together. Mostly. He watched her, feeling his insides churn, feeling his whole body object to days of shitty sleep, of too much magic, of too little food, of too much blunt force trauma. He groaned, the next wave of vertigo stronger than the first, the ringing in his ears bringing the sting of tears to his eyes because it seemed to have grown in volume and intensity.

Still, he heard Gale's words clearly, unable to discern whether the human was speaking to him or speaking to herself. The young Valentin sat in silence for several moments, fingers listless over the glass of the whiskey bottle as he contemplated more, as what he'd already consumed both crawled through his veins and threatened to crawl out of his stomach all at the same time.

He gurgled, the glow of the forge searing into his blurry, Perceptive-magic warped vision and leaving trails of bright nothingness when he looked away, phantoms of the younger woman's silhouette. Her rambling tirade spoke volumes into a story he wasn't self-aware or sober enough to entirely piece together, but snippets of it still dug under his flushed skin because they were so full of vehemence and hurt and the blond Sergeant was a feeling creature,

"Him? You mean Theo. My father. Your parents knew mine? Your parents lived in Elmonton? On our estate, then?" Godsdamnit, he was too drunk for this. The gears turned and his guts rumbled, forcing a rude belch from him that burned like bile and forced him to wince,

"Fuck."

She was too young, and yet not so young that he should be this ignorant. He would have still been home—

"Please don't what? Gale—" Rhys decided the best way to settle himself was just one more clocking swig, so he took it, and for a few moments, no regret washed over his face. Confusion was still creased into his expression, however, confusion and fear.

Wick, she'd said. Wick.

"Are you a passive? Did that old ersehat Theo actually get it on with someone else other than th' unwilling help? Another galdor other than his dead wife? Shit. I don't believe it. Wait. Are we related? I mean, I could see it. Theo always said I took after my mother—my mother—oh, gods. Wait. But, you're a whatnow? Human, though. Maybe. Idon'tfuckingunderstand." He squinted at her after spewing all those words in one breath, face scrunched into over-exaggerated, inebriated stare while he inhaled sharply, his voice wavering because that last swallow of whiskey had not been a good idea. With all the gracefulness of a kenser in a Hoxian glass shop, the young Valentin slid/fell/melted from the stool, gripping the worktable to steady himself, feeling the long, dangerous days of this godsbedamned riot suddenly in his muscles, in his bones,

"That's not what you said. You said—you called me—" He hooked a thumb into his bruised, narrow chest, his still dirty fingernail digging into the skin that was exposed by a few unfastened buttons,

"—you called me a wick."

The vertigo was waiting for him, and as he attempted to take a few steps toward the forge, toward Gale, the alcohol and the whirlies slammed into his battered body and dragged him behind them both as if he'd been hit by steamboat on the Arova. He swallowed, staggering, and felt that tide of bitter saliva fill his mouth while his pulse roared above the tinnitus and his stomach churned in rebellion to the motion he forced his body into. He gurgled, holding it all together while he left the safety of the edge of the worktable, fingers trailing reluctantly away from the wood.

There was no vehemence in his words, no threat of violence, no anger. Fear, concern, and insatiable need filled the tenor of his voice instead, as if the unspoken answer that hung between them would both assuage a lifetime of self-doubt as well as give him the purpose he'd waited for.

Little did he know, it held neither of those promises.

The truth was far more dangerous than that.

"Am I?"

He stopped, his insides shifting, aware of the inevitable. Holding up a hand as if in warning, he was able to avoid vomiting on any nearby body, at least. Doubling over and curling fingers into the dirty knees of his uniform, he watched all the whiskey he'd consumed during the course of their quickly unraveling conversation splash onto the forge's floor at his feet, perhaps even more fiery on the way out as it was on the way in.

The blond Sergeant groaned, remaining in the bent over position, swaying, attempting to form the words of an apology before he managed too straighten, one back of his freshly scrubbed hands reaching up to wipe his face like a child, "Ah, shit. I'm sorry, I—"

He should help with that. He began to look around in embarrassment and panic, a feeling of dread filling him just as quickly as the sudden shame, flooding into the emptiness he'd just made inside his own body with the tossing out of all that drink. Instead, held fast by fear and suspicion, weakness weighing down his limbs, he rambled wetly, unable to bring his bleary blue gaze back up to Gale's face,

"—Ol' Theo said I killed my mother coming into the world. Never showed me a fucking spectrogram. Never told me her family name. But here you're a stranger I shouldn't have fucked with on the street and you know me. You know more than me. Is that what I am? Theodore Valentin's half-breed bastard, Special Enforcement Sergeant of the Seventen?"

Fuck 'em all.

Look at me now.

"Who are you?"

[Gale]

the forge and the dives | evening

29 YARIS 2718

“Please, just… I don’t. I can’t-”

Don’t want to be hurt. Don’t want to feel pain. Don’t want to be a target for your anger. You’re still a Seventen. You still hold all the power here.

“-I don’t know.”

Gale muted herself. Lips locked shut, an attempt to control the words that bubbled beneath the surface. The slosh of alcohol stung, muddling the mind that attempted to work through the mental loops laid out for her. It should have been different, it should have. Then again if Gale was sober of mind this never would have happened to begin with, it would have stayed buried somewhere deep within lost and forgotten until death. Where he had lost balance, her own vision violently lurching from side to side as she stared into the flaming abyss. She was lost, somewhere between, the hands of the minds eye flailing at strands in an attempt to find something, anything, to hold onto. Sound became little more than a white noise, the pain in her temple searing across the veins and into the socket. She winced, cursing the shifting numbness that was quickly being replaced with something much more real. Somewhere beyond the bottle rolled, the grinding of glass across the worktop, the uneasy steps that shifted.

A single ember drifted out the forge, caught upon the updraft of the heat. It flickered, floating too and fro across the expanse of the space in between. Gale gave a small flinch when the hot ash landed against muscle, body reflexively tensing as a fresher, different pain tickled against her consciousness. Weakly the hand moved, shifting to the other forearm to squeeze the point where it landed. The smith shook their head to the questions posed, voice lost for the moment. Vision sloshed side to side, the distinct sound of water rolling about within their ears; churning and rolling over her hearing in a wave of noise.

Fingers and thumb squeezed, the sound of water beating against the sound of voice. It jumbled into a noise, tiny pieces being picked out. Mere snippets of something else. She leaned herself forward, the hand resting to plant itself next to the entrance of the furnace, the heat prickling at the palm and digits. It did not burn, but through the brickwork the smith could feel the growing heat within. It was her crutch, something that grounded to the present.

She needed to speak. She needed to say something. She had gone this far and backing out now was no longer an option. The sound of vomit, the wet splash of noise that slapped against the stone of the forge. It was the lingering acidic bile that stirred something, her own stomach knotting in retaliation to the intrusion. Within she screamed. Her mouth cracking open to let a slither of pain filled air escape.

“Yes,” she croaked. Her body shuddered to the use of her voice, constricting as she forced the air to traverse down it to fill her starving lungs, “You are. And yes, we are.”

The gaze lowered, looking down to the hand that hung limply. It swayed, useless while the rest of the weight rested upon the other. She dared not move, certain that she would loose any foothold she held upon this earth if she did. She knew she was panicking, the mind desperately trying to rip itself from the reality it found itself in. Tearing, slicing, breaking until there was nothing left connecting her to here. Her lungs laboured, the weight on her chest sinking ever deeper and threatening to pull her to the ground. A violent twitch of one of her legs, her gaze averted as it began to visibly shake – and inevitably give beneath her.

There was no cursing as knee struck ground. But her face screwed up, the rest of her shifting to clamp onto the misbehaving limb. It was stupid, all of it was. Her shoulders hunched in, the rest of her crumpling, vision now brought level with the tops of the coals. She shivered, not from cold, but the weakness that took over. The last of her strength drifted away, aided by the whiskey that burned her innards, her head rolling forward.

Where could she begin?

“Her name was Yelenn,” her voice murmured, crackling along the flames that danced around the forge. Crisp, gentle, it was not her words, but the words of another, the story she had been told so many a time in her youth by her father. A warning of the blond Valentin, “Hair of spun silk, of golds that no master of metal could ever hope to achieve. Eyes of deepest sapphires, deeper than the darkest of lagoons, a smile brighter than the thousand stars that dot the night sky. A human, untouched by the mona but still ever so alluring.”

Her brow creased, darkened by the soot and grime that she had collected from working the forge – a familiar feeling that brought comfort in a moment of darkness.

“She once, in the heart of the County, came across the elder Valentin – a master of dyes and colours, but not of the heart. He took what he wanted, for he deemed it his by right… I…” she faltered, the sweat turning cold against her cheek, “She did not die. Not then at least. The master would not allow it. He needed it, needed the boy and out of… he weaved a lie, a lie that ran so deep that he had to remove those that knew too much. The true mother died in the birth, he said. A tragedy that he forced the woman to mimic despite the pain it brought. But he did not release her from the torment. Not yet. He locked within a cage to care and raise the product of his work.”

She coughed, choking back the tears. Somehow she managed to rub the socket of her eyes, the pressure pressing into the lid as she attempted to push the feeling away.

“And that, was how she lived for a time – until one day, the Masked Gunner and his loyal friend the Tipper of Scales, Teeter appeared,” She snorted. It was ridiculous really, her father always set it up as some story to tell children, “The years had waned her, but the Masked Gunner saw her and the moment their eyes met he knew he would not leave without her. For many a night they schemed, planning the escape for both her and her boy and upon the night of it, the Master knew what they were planning.” The inhale was sharp, “He would not let them leave with the boy, but he would let her leave on the basis she left his heir behind, and never speak of it to anyone – he no longer had use for her, grown tired and bored of her nature.”

“It broke them all, each in their own way. But in time, as the years went by Yelenn and the Masked Gunner wed and found happiness once more…” she drifted off, a small, nervous tilt of the head in his direction. She did not look at him, unable to bring herself to make eye contact, “… least until the second, the daughter, came. And then, the lie became true.”

The dying embers of Gale flickered, curling inwards as the sparks shifted and faded. She could not bring herself to say the rest; all implied but unspoken. Her fingers stiffened, knotting into the fabric of her trousers, “That's how I know.”

[Rhys Valentin]

"You do know, though. That's the fucking problem." Rhys was aware that his words slurred a little, tired of the other blonde dancing around things, uncomfortable by how the younger human seemed far more content talking to themselves than to he who'd just vomited way too much whiskey onto their forge's floor. He found something to lean on, just in time, really, for the words he'd beg to hear but didn't actually want to listen to.

Yes.

You are.

We are.

No. Lies. This was a trick, all of this was some kind of elaborate—

Any other galdor would have laughed in Gale's face. Any other Seventen Sergeant would have simply tossed the pathetic human to the dirty ground and restrained them, drag them through the bloody, clocking riot and make sure the murderer of three people would hang in public view. Any other galdor would have told Mister Saunders they were full of chroveshit.

But Rhys? He wasn't a galdor, was he? That queasy, dream-like feeling of always knowing but never knowing coalesced into a very awake, very aware state of knowing like someone had just dropped a stone into the cavity of his narrow chest. The taller blond grunted, but it was a broken sound instead of one of rage or frustration. It was the sound one may make when something made sense, only twisted by pain, the sharp edge of understanding ripping and tearing through not only the fabric of his comfortable, uniformed reality, but through the very flesh and bone of his existence.

He wanted to sit down.

He wanted more to drink.

He wanted to crawl away back onto the rioting streets.

He wanted the young thing in front of him to wave her gun instead of her words.

Gale didn't exactly sit so much as collapse, the very weight of Rhys' old reality so heavy in the room like his frayed field that it crushed her with the truth of the new one, the one the younger human had clearly held onto. A burden.

Yelenn: He didn't want to hear her name, but it was spoken anyway, searing itself into his memory as if the smith had taken an iron from the fire and written it in his flesh by her own hand. Did he echo it in his own voice out loud? Did he breathe the syllables? If he did, he didn't hear it. The tinnitus couldn't drown out the truth of things, and while he swayed on his feet and took steps forward instead of backward, toward the storyteller instead of away from the story, he was unsure if there was a safe distance or if he wasn't close enough.

He couldn't get far enough away.

He wanted to be closer.

The smith filled in the gaps of his childhood, revealed the cracked foundations that had been hidden by lies as if all of his life had been a field left to lay fallow, overgrown with weeds, and filled everything with molten lead. Digging, she dug up every root, overturned every rock, and tore up the soil of his existence and then purged it all with fire.

Close to the forge, Rhys' restless hands fussed with his collar and unfastened buttons, tangled in his hair, and rubbed at battered ribs that ached.

He knew his father was an odd man, unkind, distant, and far too comfortable with inappropriateness around lower races when he considered them attractive examples of their species. Rhys had seen it, and he'd honestly never seen the man ever show an interest in his own kind. His father had never married, or, as he said, remarried. His father had, as far as he knew, never kept the company of a galdor in the form of a relationship, even after he'd sent his son, his only son, off to school. Rhys had eagerly left his home as a boy of ten after scoring his meager 3.4 on Brunnhold's entrance exam.

His father had replaced the whole staff. His father had held his mother captive just to care for an infant she didn't know he would want to take from her. She wanted to leave with him! Who would he have been, if not Special Enforcement Sergeant Rhys Valentin? Who could he have become? What could he have had? This forge? This job? This sister? Not Charity. Not Seventen. Not—Alioe, goddess of time! He simply couldn't process.

The story felt somewhat entangled with fairy tale and idolization, as if it had been told to Gale as a child and the childish lack of details and questioning encouraged until the young smith had memorized it without reason to disbelieve. The young Valentin couldn't deny it, not while he watched the other blonde struggle through the words, as if the telling of them cut them as deeply as it cut him, but in totally different, equally vital organs.

Her heart clearly ached with the truth.

Rhys simply felt gutted. Everything he was, butchered by the truth.

He sat just out of reach of the younger blonde who wouldn't look at him, whose downturned face resembled his, whose dirty hands toyed with their clothes. His sister—a full-blooded human. Himself—a half-bred lie. Nausea gripped him hard, but his empty stomach only churned and cramped, yanking a groan from him instead of allowing him to maintain the shocked silence he'd crawled into. Palms against the floor, fingers curling into stone and dirt, Rhys' lanky self folded like a crumpled sheet of paper, like a melting candle, leaning forward until his face was near the floor and he could look upward into Gale's face.

Supplication.

Surrender.

"Shit."

The taller blond sobbed the word, bleary blue gaze searching for any hint of untruth in the familiar features stained with tears opposite of him.

"How you know. Knew. Always known. On the street! When I said my name! When I took your testimony! You've known the whole time. The whole godsbedamned time. You came to Kingsway—you were under my house—did you—were you looking for me? You knew out there—on the street. This whole time. If you weren't my sister, you would have fucking shot me, wouldn't you? I'd just be another dead uncle. But you didn't. You couldn't. My sister."

Rhys refused to repeat the obvious, the word wick burning the back of his throat like bile and whiskey only hotter, singeing the base of his skull.

"I'm not a galdor, but I've done a fucking better job of being one than all of 'em. What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

His face was on the floor at her feet, forehead against the dirty, hard surface, eyes closed tightly as he labored to breathe, room spinning and holding in that painful sensation of wanting to dry heave. He whined, curling fingers against dirt and stone in the sudden, intoxicated hopes that he'd just wake up at home and roll over to find Charity there—

"Everything—ruined—just—fuck."