#theninthcard

she feels too light in his arms.  as though no weight at all.  something ephemeral, ethereal, ascendant... unreal.

but reality was in the blood red streak, slipping down paper skin.  leaving a stain in it’s wake from a sore and ragged wound.  perhaps it’s an unconscious magic lending him strength - an unthought shift, a transformation beneath his skin to lend fortitude in the moment he needs it most.

None of us are safe from each other.

he already knows they aren’t safe from him.  or so the shade foretold, as though from a state of future unavoidable.   but -- he still can’t bring himself to believe that there’s nothing to be changed.  he still can’t bring himself to believe that these shades are everything they purport to be.  something still so -- wrong -- about the division.  the more and more blatant attempts to drive them apart... to take those already fractured pieces and scatter them to the wind... a mirror to glass.  glass to sand.

None of us are safe from each other.

bullshit. they may not be safe, but they’re only not safe from each other the moment they start buying into that fact.  the moment they start believing it to be the truth... a fact not a prophecy.  yes, he still has the gun, but now - more than ever, he swears to use it to protect them.  against whatever it might be trying to rip them apart.

he didn’t ask for permission to scoop lani into his arms.  and perhaps if there was any magic seeping from her into his past, then it would still be less of a terror than whatever it was that had hijacked her power to deliver another message of foreboding.  any protest would fall upon deaf ears.  in this he was unmovable.  he was taking her to the infirmary and she was going to rest and recover and there was -- NO -- argument to be had about that.  and if anyone thought to try - they obviously thought better of it...

...only one other on the coat tails of death as he ground the hallways beneath the thud of his boots.  one softly stepping, a lilt of something that softly sounded a little like home to his ears in the few words he ever managed to overhear.  the one person who might just be able to do something to make reparation where he could not.  perhaps there’s a small flutter of gratitude in his chest at her presence.

a gentle but firm press of words to lani as the infirmary flickers bright.  stepping over to a bed more comfortable than any emergency room... 

❝ okay, easy now... this is the part where you don’t argue, little owl. just rest, we’re here and we’re not going to leave you, okay? ❞

finally turning to dana with a steady gaze ( a veneer of calm and control that was donned with tantamount ease - it was an expectation, it was the soldier once more arriving to take control )...

❝ and this is the part where you fix this. ❞

fix it. fix what?  there was too much broken to be repaired with the whim of one magic.  but he’s not talking about the whole.  just this part.  this very important part.

❝ can you?  can you fix this? ❞

he guesses that most of the others are still engrossed in whatever fireworks or fearfulness had spurred them all away from the council chambers the night before.  can only imagine at some of the conversations that must have taken place in the fractious aftermath.  and sure, he’s not the longest time served here - but even in four years, he hasn’t seen a fanfare of true colours as had been on display in that room.

from aerons perspective, it had been like watching a bunch of children, ( literally ) squabbling over who gets to sit in the ‘big chair’ next.  missing any glimpse of what purported to be a bigger picture.  vaguely wondering if their worlds were so small, or their sensibilities so self-absorbed that they simply… forgot.  about why the hell they were even here in the first place and - more to the point - who had brought them together.  or… if opportunity meant that they just… didn’t care.

or - in more simple terms - they were a bigger bunch of arseholes than even he might have imagined.  well - that was a sweeping thought… not all… but certainly - some.

ironic then -              -- soldier.  peacemaker.  maybe they were the same thing.

however – idle musing and introspection aside - his feet wind him back along hushed hallways back to the place he’d sought some manner of solace the night previous.

again -- it’s not to be a solitary moment.  but he might be forgiven for thinking so in the first instance.  one might think that she was the one gifted with the talent for going unnoticed - quiet and unassuming.  but to - death - perhaps her presence was a more ephemeral thing than a physical weight...  

and it’s not as though he hadn’t noticed - he’d watched - each and every one of them in that chamber.  the quiet observer seeing faces pale with fear, grow fragile with shock, ugly with greed and anger...

...but hers -- -- she hadn’t even been in the room with them.  somewhere else.  somewhen else.  he knows the look.  he’s seen it before - up close.

he doesn’t move too close - not at first. there’s a respect for physical boundaries - the first time they’d - touched - had been something of a revelation... for both of them.

❝ have you told anyone??? ❞ 

or perhaps he should ask - did anyone else notice???  or were they all too wrapped up in the frenzy of the moment.  and most of them weren’t actively using their magic at the time of the -- glitch.  there was no intense severing.  and using magic wasn’t easy at the best of times, to have a sudden disruption like that... he honestly has no idea how that would feel.

[ Arcana meme ]The Emperor: Do you trust authority?

eyes lift from the newspaper in his hand - idly scanning the ink to see if there night be a clue in the bigger world outside of the lair to explain recent occurrences.  and he does smirk slightly –  ask that question of ‘the soldier’ - sure.  he can see the irony of that one rolling in in waves.

he followed orders.he did his duty.but did he trust that the acts they told him to do were always the right ones, for the right reasons – no.  did he trust that those people who sat in their lofty towers, far from the coalface, never a glimpse of the battlefield or bead of sweat on their brow knew what it was to pull a trigger, to take a life - because ‘they said so’.  also – no.  so...

❝ no. ❞

people in ‘authority’ didn’t always make it there by rote of their values, of hard work, experience, knowledge... sometimes they were just the next person standing in line, sometimes they were there because of family connections or wealth... they weren’t always the best person to be taking the lead... to be making decisions that inherently impacted the lives of so many more.

that’s not to say that he distrusts all those in authority - but that’s not because of some title or hierarchy.  it’s because those ( admittedly seldom few ) individuals had proven themselves.  had earned his trust, rather than simply demanded it.

❝ you want to put your trust in something?  then put it in the person, not the position. ❞