#answerred

@bannerofstarlight​ said:

"Soi-fon Taichou." Toshiro nods, "I hope my Lieutenant hasnt been giving you much trouble."

"No more than others," Which was to say, not very much. It wasn't like she saw very much of the blonde outside of the S.W.A or off-duty anyway. If anything, she saw more of Isane and Nanao than most Lieutenants, sometimes even more than her own.

🍆  :    [ Min ]  makes  a  suggestive  joke  but  [ Leo ] actually  acts  on  it . 

Min knew better than to do this but in the heat of battle, you didn’t always think straight.

“You can’t be tired already.” He exhaled wiping the sweat from his brow, runes glinting silver and black and gold, “I hope you aren’t as shortlived with Alex as you are with me.” He cracked his neck, “Feel free to try and prove me wrong.” A pause then, because he knew what was coming, he immediately jumped up and away to the top of the closest streetlamp out of Alex’s reach, “In the fight. We’re fighting. Actually, stay where you are. Forget I said anything.”

Me? Late? No way.

Aubrey watches the light of dawn spill over the horizon. It turns the tips of her fingers a brilliant gold, flashes cold and sharp in her eyes. It was a bitterly frosty night, but now it is a too-warm morning as the Monongahela forest— and the lodge— burns around her.

How could this even have happened? She wondered. Who could have— who would even have wanted this?

She feels dumb right after thinking it, though she’s not sure if it’s warranted. There are plenty of beings that would have— well, no. But... maybe they live in the forest, but— tactically, it’s a sound move… right? Or. No. Nobody would destroy their own home just to—

Aubrey sighs as the answer comes to her. “...Just… just to drive a few people out.”

It’s not anybody else. She knows what happens when she’s— when she’s not all here. Nobody would destroy their own home, sure, but there’s exceptions to that rule. Nobody would destroy their own home; not unless they were cursed with fire power that go wildly out of control when they’re unconscious.

“Shit,” she curses. “Shit.”

It’s funny, kind of, to watch it burn. The house looks ethereal. Somehow. The sun shining behind the lodge, with the fire lighting it up so that it crackles in a glorious blaze… it would be a fantastic picture, a beautiful memory, were it not the destruction of something she knew and loved.

A wave of guilt and agony washes over her. How could she do this?

Even if she wasn’t conscious, even if she wasn’t awake, how could she destroy something that she so dearly loved? Unless… she didn’t love it enough to still know otherwise. Her pain is near unignorable, curling and folding her heart up into her chest ‘til it forms the tightest of knots. And still it pumps, pumps even as the flames lick at her heels and her elbows and the flats of her feet. Her head pounds to the beat of the fire, to the crashing of furniture and of wooden floors, the howling of Thacker in the basement.

Aubrey watches the light of day spill over the horizon. It turns the tips of her fingers a lazy yellow, flashes warm and bright in her eyes. It’s always the coldest before dawn, she thinks, tugging her coat closer to her body even though it is dangerously hot.