#revilion

Yes, Revilion is in the infirmary. By the gods, did he do another stupid thing and get himself injured? Please, it’s too warm here to be rubbing your hands like that, don’t you dare tell me you’re not feeling some sort of smug pleased. Yes, Revilion, the one with the attitude who runs with the wrong crowd. He of little morals and so lacking in goodness that he couldn’t possibly be one of us. The one with the temper that flares at the slightest provocation—yes, him. I bet you saw it coming, no doubt that’s how his life will end. Stupidly. At the end of yet another rash decision, and you’ve all warned me. Oh how you’ve all made it abundantly clear that he is trouble.

And how you made it so damn clear to him, too.

But it gets better, Verdance. I asked him to take me back. You read that right—I asked him. Not he begged me, he hasn’t been following me about pleading to resume our relationship. I asked him. He asked for some time to think about it, and now he’s in a fucking coma. My luck is just neverending and please, don’t even hide that smile. He’s hurting you again, Sadie, oh—just fucking say it. I’m sick of seeing it in your eyes. He’s bad for you, you can do better, you don’t need to be cleaning up his messes like this, he’s going to drag you into trouble.

Let’s get one thing fucking straight. He has never intentionally hurt me. He’s never gone out of his way to be cruel to me. He has never lifted a hand to me in anger, and he has never put me in a position of danger. With the work that we do, we both had to accept that there was an element of danger in being close to the other---did you even consider that being with me might put him at risk? Of course you didn’t. And did you even ask what he does? No, no you didn’t. It’s a gods-damned trade empire, complete with private muscle. They operate for profit. Do they dip below the law at times? Of course they do.

Don’t forget that we do, and have, as well. You can drop that self-righteous look. It has no place here. It might not be the most honourable profession but it’s a far cry from the codeless mongrel mercenaries of the Reach. Which is what you seem to think he is.

You seem to think he is entirely without ethics. He’s rash and impulsive, he’s not particularly suited to a command environment. People having authority over him makes him wildly uncomfortable. I guess you never asked about why that is---the time he spent at the beck and call of pirates who used and abused him. Why would he want to give anyone that power over him? He had a chance to escape that captivity and he took it. Perhaps I’d feel the same way if I hadn’t gone back into service almost straight away. On that point, though we have grown differently from it, we relate to each other. His understanding for my experience is valuable.

He’s passionate. It drives him, sometimes to decisions that aren’t necessarily the ones that you or I would make, but they are his decisions. He acts quickly. Not always with wisdom, but he gets things done. It sickens him to see people hurt, he feels deeply for the downtrodden, he’s fiercely loyal to those who earn it. He would go to the ends of Cantha to put a smile on someone’s face. He would let his mind and body waste away if it meant someone he cared for would live. And if you’ve not seen that, it’s because you haven’t earned it. Because you haven’t given him the chance to show you.

He tried. He tried so hard during his stint at the coalition, to conform to what you---what I thought I wanted. To fit in with our authority structure and to curb his impulsive nature, to act in a way that he’d never learned to be. A way that in some respects, he never wants to be. Do I think he could benefit from thinking more before he acts? Yes, I do. But the level of expectation I held at that time, the ideal that I tried to force him into was constricting and cruel. Worse yet, it destroyed some of the parts of him that I loved the most. His determination to get the job done at any cost, his sense of freedom. He tried so hard to be that, to impress all of us, and to be accepted that it destroyed him when he continued to be treated as an outcast.

He hurt every day and I did nothing but try and tell him how he could be different to be one of us. I’m ashamed of that now. I was motivated by this certainty that I had constructed that if he was not like us—if he could not be family—I too would be outcast for so long as I was with him. So I made a choice. I chose the coalition. I didn’t hate the way he was, he never hurt me. I tried to make him something he’s not, but that was an error on my part. I didn’t do it so I would love him more. I did it so I wouldn’t feel I had to choose anymore. When I realised my cruelty, that’s when I chose to leave him. So he could be his own person without my interference.

So he could be the person that I actually fucking love.

And you look at me now, pathetic Sadrienne, despairing over his broken body. Yet again, cleaning up his mess. When will I ever stop? I’ll tell you. I’ll stop the day he stops returning that help. When he stops trying to make me smile on the days I feel like I can’t, when he stops asking me how I am and how he can help. On the day he finds me beaten and vulnerable, and walks away instead of taking me in? Then I’ll stop. And it has happened. Since our separation, it has happened. He’s provided me support at almost every turn even though it hurts him to do so, and no—you aren’t aware of that. He does it without expecting any reward. He doesn’t brag about the times he’s rescued me and nor does he hold them over my head. He doesn’t even expect me to return it.

Do you see now why I have to try again? Aside from the fact that I’ve never stopped needing or wanting him near me, aside from the fact that I could be entirely consumed by a project and he breaks me out of it by just walking into the room---I owe it to both of us to try again and do it properly. To treat him with the love and respect that he deserves. That’s not to say that there aren’t things that I hope he would do differently, there are. I want him to see me as I am, not as he romanticises. I’d ask him to be civil in dealing with you, but I wouldn’t go as far as to make him one of us. Not this time.

And what he learns from there is up to him. If he learns to surrender to some authority, wonderful. If he learns to calm his attitude and think things through before acting, that’s nice. But I don’t expect it. I may be frustrated by it, but that’s between us. Like all of this—all of it is between me and him. You don’t get a say, I never should have let myself believe I had to choose.