hey nightmare, where’d you get them teeth?

father, father, let me figure it out
i'm gonna swim in the thick of it now,
i can't even tell the difference now

“He will if there’s proof.” Sunjata’s quick to say even as she removes the baton from his chest and Sunjata takes the first deep breath he’s had in a while, even as his limbs want to shake. She turns away from him and he remains stock-still against the damp alley wall, watching her with concern pinching his brows. “He’s just going to pick some other asshole who wants it better, who’ll do a better job than I did. And you’re free of me.” No more public appearances with the disappointment, no more when’s the date.

He shuts his mouth smartly, however, as she continues and she stares at him, and even though most of his face is covered there’s still the hint of confusion that blares in his gaze at the mistakes he’s made all in the hopes of trying to make it easier for everyone. It was something he wasn’t good at – incapable of thinking past those in his immediate circle, thinking that perhaps if he took himself out of the equation everything would go back to how it once went. But that isn’t the case, and the Platers love nothing more than gossiping and talking.

He doesn’t know what to say, dumbly taking a step toward her, hand outstretched to grasp onto her arm to meet his fiancée’s gaze. “Vera, it would have been the same if I had stayed.” He offers with a frown. “I would’ve been killed or imprisoned, and you would’ve been taken in for questioning nonstop, stripped of everything. It’s bad either way.” He exhales a sigh, unsure if his hand even lands on the padding of the enforcer’s arm. “I’m sorry. So sorry, that I couldn’t think past what it meant for you.”

She’s right in the assumption he would have made a better diplomat than anything close to an enforcer.

SUNJATA

Savera

holy water cannot help you now
see i've come to burn your kingdom down

"Oh fuck you," Savera snaps, shoving his hand back and turning away. Now that she has his apology she finds she isn't interested. She wants... what? Wants him to understand, to be in her shoes, to know what it was like living as an outsider all your life, only to finally, finally have a shot at getting in. To have bet on someone who couldn't cut it, been tied aboard the mast of a sinking ship. To have tried so hard to claw her way to freedom, only to have it all stripped away because she's shackled to him.

But he'll never understand it, just as she'll never understand what it was like living under the Arbiter's thumb. At the end of the day they're just two chess pawns in a game of chess they could never hope to win.

She's still facing the alley from where the came in, hands crossed tightly over her chest. She wears her anger like armor, refusing to let it slip away, to give him a chance to see her as anything other than hard and unyielding. "So what comes next?" Savera asks gruffly, dark voice too empty to give away much of her thoughts. "You start your revolution? Bring down the Plates? Or is the plan still to escape to Garanenz?"

holy water cannot help you now
a thousand armies couldn't keep me out

father, father, let me figure it out
i'm gonna swim in the thick of it now,
i can't even tell the difference now

She shoves his hand back and he freezes, as if her curse and her touch at him has burned him, working his jaw beneath the mask as he tries to think of what to say. He remains where he is, though, that distance between them, her facing the opening of the alley while he tries to pick apart what he should say, what else he could do to prove to her that it wasn’t his intention to destroy her life. Shaju had done that when he’d realized that they were reconnecting friends.

But Sunjata’s always had a bleeding heart, and he knows that Shaju had only done that because she would be the strongest between the two of them when it came to the things his father wanted to see in him. Sunjata would be too weak, too impulsive. And so far, each judgement has been true.

Her voice is gruff behind the mask and she’s stiff when she asks her question, and Sunjata turns his attention away as he takes a deep breath. “I’m… Staying here. I need to help these people.” He pauses, frowning despite her inability to see it when his head swivels back her way. “There’s comfort from the top at the expense of thousands of people’s suffering. I just want to even it out.” The Platers could deal as far as he’s concerned, so long as it meant the Drench got better.

SUNJATA