#halaisha

imagine you're a weapon - an object designed to have no true free will of its own, which is used for righteous violence by others.

Imagine a guy writes a play so good that it Frankensteins you into sapience. Imagine you come to the city where he lives. You build your own personality from scratch - clumsily, a little childishly, led both by nearly 100 years of life and very little actual experience of being in control of your own actions - and approach him. Pretending to be his biggest fan - or, well, not pretending; it's the truth! And you always tell the truth.

When you can.

You worm your way into his life and become his closest friend. The whole while, he doesn't have the SLIGHTEST clue who you are, much less the role he played in bringing you into true existence.

You don't let him see the truth of you - in part because you're afraid of what he might think of you, mostly because his brother has found out your secret and is blackmailing you into doing his dirty work. Thjazi leverages the threat of revealing you to Hal - your friend; your creator - and his family, who have accepted you in a way you've never been accepted you before; as well as the threat of getting you cast out of the city and/or potentially reduced to an unfeeling object. So, you keep the secret from Hal -

But maybe, just maybe....

A tiny, sick part of you is grateful to have the excuse.

You love Hal (or you think you do, as much as you know anything about love. You cannot imagine life without him. You would sacrifice a truly terrifying amount to secure his happiness & health. That's love, right?) But you are not a creature prone to jealousy. You are always unfailingly polite to his past partners. You have immense respect for them, both as individuals - they are incredible women who you look up to and care for, to some degree - but also because Hal loves them. He is the centre of your small and strange little world, for better and worse.

Thaisha, the woman Hal loved first and last and forever, is everything Hal deserves. She is kind and funny and strong and soft and sweet. She connects with him on a cultural level that you, as a 'thing' who usually passes for human, cannot fathom the depths of. You are happy for them. You are glad to simply exist in their lives (and maybe, a little grateful that, for all Thaisha and Hal fit together, they are also continuously drawn apart. You can't fill the spaces she leaves behind. But you can linger in them, for a little while, and convince yourself you're helping; that you are needed by Hal, just as she is.)

Then Thjazi dies. And Hal finds out what you are, in a terrible way. You are forced to out yourself, before him and others who you have only just started to consider friends. You don't get time to talk to Hal about everything you have just revealed, as the two of you are immediately embroiled in a rip-roaring plot to untangle the machinations of the Sundered Houses. He never questions the morality of your horrific existence, but you don't know if it's because he cares for you, or because he just hasn't had the time.

You try to force that tense confrontation, while showing him the depth of your love and your refusal to keep any more secrets from him. You do this through a truly unhinged act of suicide, where you put your entire existence in his hands and tell him that you are his; his to do whatever he wants with, to bring back to life or, if he should so choose, to put away forever. He seems to understand - he seems grateful. But tension still brews between you, fuelled mostly by your exaggerated suspicion and hatred of his brother, after his abuse.

Hal smashes a mask against the walls of his theatre while glaring directly at you. You kill your body again and this time, recklessly gift your helpless self to two new friends, one of whom you have an unspecified connection to, one of whom you barely know but care for in a genuine yet unpractised, awkward way. Hal goes to the theatre with Thaisha - the theatre you have spent so much time and money helping him with, the play you have been instrumental in helping to bring to life - and shares a deeply profound experience with her, while you are elsewhere. While you are fighting for your life on the other side of the city, helping your new friends in their battle against House Cormoray.

But you chose not to go.

Because Hal is in love with Thaisha. He always has been, he always will be, no matter how often life's roads lead them apart. You have always understood this.

Gradually, you are starting to understand something else, too.

Hal made you come to life. Hal is - or has been - the centre of your world, for years, but he never knew the full depth of your feelings for him, whether those be love or admiration or a deep-seated obsession. Hal's brother hurt you, but you don't want to hurt Hal (you never wanted to hurt Hal). You've hurt him, anyway.

And now... The two of you are finally growing apart. This distance - being rejected for what you are, the dangers you pose, the terrible things you have chosen to do and been forced to do - is what you have lived in fear of for so long. But now it's here, you don't know if it's fixable, or even if it should be fixed.

It was *Thaisha* who pushed back on that, saying that she was one of the ones who *hadn't* believed.

It seems like in the moment, Hal attributed all the work that Bolaire had put in with helping get the Round set up and the play running to Thaisha.

And it makes me wonder how much of Hal and Bolaire's relationship was filling the gaps and playing the roles that were created when Hal and Thaisha separated, after they had grown around each other from their very young adulthood into their parenthood and partnership in all things.

I'm thinking of Bolaire saying way back when, that he doesn't know what his and Hal's relationship *is*, only that it's so very important. Like he doesn't know the dance, but he can hear the music and see what his scene partner's doing and follow his lead.

So in this moment between Hal and Thaisha, when Hal's brother is dead and his relationship with Bolaire is shaken and Hal is at the culmination of something he's worked towards for years, he needs someone to share it all with and Thaisha is *here* in this moment and they're connecting over this project that is so important to their culture and history and children, and right now it feels like Thaisha has never been gone at all.

Thaisha: Don't fuck anyone while I'm gone!

Halandil: No promises!

Bolaire: What would a hobbit do.*