There’s a stutter of an exhaled laugh from Calina, much too quiet, even in the still night air, to carry very far. Not sharp enough for impact, when she is only amused by the familiarity of Regina’s words- the sense they make to the way she thinks. Even if the one place her head has never been is in the clouds. Her mother tried for years to get Calina to believe in hidden magic, left them both vulnerable by refusing to tether to solid ground. And so Calina has never had the chance for whimsy, for dreaming, even if she play pretends with the best of them.
The stars though, she’ll allow that presumption. Is mesmerised by the idea of belonging somewhere, fastened safe against the black by name alone. It’s all she has.
Is inclined to believe that Regina doesn’t mean it as a threat anyway. Couldn’t attest to the other woman making threats, when surely her aggressive impulses lie in action and not words. Has heard tell of that at least. There’s no point in being fearful, for if Regina wanted her dead she wouldn’t warn of it.
It might be the most they’ve said to one another, in substance at least, veiled beneath their riddles and tacit opposition.
“I had a task to complete. And now that it’s done I find myself without direction.”
“It seems we are allied in this one matter, for however long it might last.” Redundant for either of them to commit to restraint, when neither have moved to do what they should, and neither of them can trust that the other wont.
Still, it will hold for as long as it holds. The bridge beneath them having witnessed truces more extreme than this.
“You’re not obligated to anything, when neither of us are as we should be. Adequate excuse with the fog of war surrounding.” She lifts a hand and skims it through the air, as though her reference is obvious- no one can see very far ahead on this night, no one to tell what shapes form on the bridge from any vantage point but on it. Drops her hand to the wall as she asks of Catherine’s recovery.. “..It would be unfair to diminish what she did to the act of a sibling, when we both know that love isn’t inherent. Would you have done the same for her?” Has the decency to look away so her question seems less like a provocation, when all she is is curious. Protection isn’t something she’s familiar with, and yet she and Regina held something common between them that night. And this one, with the absence of wounds they should have suffered, at the very least.
No matter what little time they spent together, Regina did not pretend like she knew Calina. Assumptions may have been incorrect, but they were not ones she banked on, not ones she held any expectations of. This woman was now supposed to be her enemy after she’d been told she was her ally mere days ago, both positions coming as a result of monumental events, ending in injury and suffering. Regina doubted it followed Calina; more likely, it was Faron’s orchestration, a creativity many in Verona may have doubted until this moment. Still, Calina was first painted as someone the Capulets should get to know for business purposes, and now they’d painted a target on her back.
Regina did not hate her. She did not feel so strongly towards anyone to hate them, and Calina was not special.
Her life did not matter to Regina, as well, but she was not stupid enough to believe she could kill a Spade at random suffer minimum consequences for her actions. It was never hard for Regina to take a life—it wasn’t like she felt remorse for them, after all—but she also preferred to keep her own, and knew there were deadly consequences for killing off such a high-ranking Spade without careful and extensive planning. She was not ruled by such an impulse, anyways; she felt nothing and was nothing. She was not her trigger finger. She was not the hint of a smile on her lips when a body fell to the ground. She was not the murderer of Calina, at least not tonight.
“You are without direction? Or is your entire party without direction?” asked Regina, doubting she would get an answer in the first place. Still, perhaps she could learn that they did not know how to wield the powerful weapons they sought, after all. Perhaps she would learn just how far into the future Calina’s boss made his plans. She, of course, did not get her hopes up.
Regina shrugged, leaning against the bricks behind her. “I do not care who finds me. I do not care what they think my purpose is up here, or what consequences they think I deserve. More importantly, I do not fear them.” This included the Spades, but Regina did not outright utter the name. She did not need to. Of course, she could likely have mentioned Grace by name, but again, the words did not have to be uttered, especially not as they spoke about Catherine.
“I do not love. I cannot love. I am grateful she did what she did; it makes her reputation look more favorable, though our other sister, not so much. I don’t know if I would do the same—I have never been in such a situation. I certainly owe her.” None of this was a secret to Regina; anyone who knew her could have predicted such an answer. What use was it to Calina, anyways? The middle Daly could not think the information useful.
