KATARZYNA MAKOWSKI

Katarzyna flashed a soft smile. "and-- perhaps i do. intend to ensnare you completely and utterly, i mean."

Benjamin mirrored her expression, a bit shy as he reassured her, "Then mission accomplished. If it weren't for my duties, I daresay I'd never leave this tent."

Katarzyna reached up to cup his face, her touch soothing and gentle as she trailed her fingertips up along his cheek, down through his hair, and then back up toward his cheek again. She spoke of making Hickey sweat it out, and he knew she was right -- he deserved to squirm for all the pain and suffering he'd inflicted; for what he'd inflicted upon her.

Edgin had known where Katarzyna stood when she never once attempted to see him in the short span of time before he and Holga were carted off to the prison at Revel's End, and her absence gouged a cut deeper than he would have anticipated. Had she spoken at all on his behalf? Or is she too affronted to look at him, even now? Katarzyna loathes him, more likely than not; it's a truth Edgin has come to terms with over the past two years while locked in a cell. Well, she can get in line, though she'll need to fight him for the spot closest to the front. It's one he has occupied for quite a while now, after all ( even if he's never said so aloud, instead allowing that hatred to gnaw at him every instance the wound might begin to heal ).

Regardless, Edgin had passed some of those frigid, lonely hours wondering at the possible depth of her disdain, and whether she ever even thought of him — though he suspected that he would never see her again. The aftermath of his escape with Holga did nothing to turn such musings less foolish, since he was of the mind that they would abscond with Kira without looking back. Not at the Order, anyway, nor anyone affiliated with it.

Thus, the surprise scrawled across his countenance when he opens the door to what was once his home only to find Katarzyna awaiting him there is thorough.

Is she here at the behest of the Order to return Edgin to prison? Certainly, the comradery they once shared is no secret to those who had known them, and it's hardly above the Order to utilize such connections for their benefit ( it's smart, really, though not a play he can appreciate given the circumstances ). Will his resolve waver should they come to blows? All Edgin is sure of is the fact that he won't forfeit the chance to be a true father to his daughter again. Even if there is no care left for him inside her, Katarzyna should understand that. He hopes she does.

The sliver of light from the open cottage door illuminates her visage, a familiar blue gaze holding his while she sits in a seat she had at one time occupied as his confidant. What are they now? Enemies? Something worse?

Before Edgin can move, Katarzyna's voice shatters the shock. ' Kira isn't here. ' Attempting to quash the sudden panic that rises in his chest, he muddies through it. Perhaps Forge was required to move Kira elsewhere, and a note or clue of some sort was left inside that he might follow to find her. The validity of the idea isn't permitted a moment to marinate as Katarzyna continues to speak what Edgin presumes is meant as a form of reassurance. So, she's not here for the Order. Still, there must be a why, and there it is —! Something more important. Still, she won't hold Kira's return over his head whether she hates him or not, of that he holds no dubiety.

But Forge with a red witch.

"No. That can't be right." Even as he shakes his head, memory whispers that it can. After all, who was the primary magic user, other than Simon, that had been there with them that night in the vault when everything went to shit? "Except it is, isn't?" Edgin's hands curl into fists so tight that his fingernails cut into his palms. "It has to be Sofina. She's the one Forge introduced to us, who hired us to break into the vault."

It's then that his eyes truly linger on Katarzyna's face, catching the flickers of hurt and exhaustion there. "They promised me the only thing that would ever even make me think of going against the Order. I thought I could fix everything. Or I let myself believe that." Closing the door behind him, he took a few steps closer. "But all I did was fail again. I failed Kira, and Holga, and the Order." Edgin trails off on the last element of his list, because the part of that one that he regrets the most is sitting right in front of him.

he's cautious right now, unsure of the meaning of what's before him but he's not offensive in this moment.

she's thankful for that too, her hand gripping the top of the chair until parts of her hand nearly lose outward pigment. a lot of what she's done in the last day has been reckless. the amount of power she'd used to get there had been downright foolish. not least because of how it weakened her but also because she'd held no real knowledge of if it'd work at such a distance from where she'd been. all the same, she is there now, standing in this house and staring at him, hurt playing across her face in a way she hasn't learned to mask yet. or, maybe it's because it's him.

she doesn't know.

or...

maybe she does and doesn't want to admit it.

"edg--" katarzyna begins when she sees doubts play across his features. he doesn't want to believe it and she understands why. to believe it means everything he'd been told was lies, or at least some of it had been. to believe it means his daughter is with someone dangerous and not a protector. she lets his name trail off as she watches realization dawn upon him. he's smart, he's always been smart when it mattered. it wasn't to say he wasn't when it didn't but edgin was.. edgin. he the bard had his own way about him.

sofina. so now they had a name. it was a beginning. she thinks, maybe this at least will place them ahead of the order. not words she ever thought she'd be on the side of and in a way they feel wrong. they feel like a betrayal of the first thing that had truly felt right since she'd been reborn from the ashes of flames and yet hadn't edgin been a part of that beginning too? the beginning that had been her start with the order. somehow it was all tangled up together in her mind and in her heart and it made everything meddled. and she'd known the moment she'd come here what her actions meant. but it's now as he looks at her that the weight of it hits her. the moment she came here. the moment he'd walked through the door and she'd spoken instead of subdued him her path was sealed and locked to his until they changed it for the both of them in the eyes of the order.

what the fuck was wrong with her? why had she done this? why had she let herself? what if they failed? but she knows what it feels like to have your parents taken from you. she knows what happens when dark magic is allowed to corrupt people. what it can drive them to. and kira.. she can't let that child know that pain too. and further.. she understood why he'd done what he'd done and she couldn't be sure, in the weakness of a moment when things had been presented with sweet lies, that she wouldn't have been tempted. she thinks maybe there's a reason she'd never known the relic was there until it wasn't anymore. while katarzyna never went to him in the aftermath of what happened, she realizes, maybe she never actually fully stopped caring. that's why she'd been so angry. if she hadn't cared, she'd have been able to let go. if she hadn't cared, she wouldn't be here now.

"i-- know." she states finally, a breath escaping her lungs as she looks away for a moment. "i hate what you did and i'm so angry at you for it but i don't hate you." are her next words, letting them linger in the air before she turns her face back toward him. (it'd be a lot easier if she did hate him.) he's closer now, she hadn't even heard him get closer. that should bother her, it doesn't though because despite everything some part of her trusts him still. or, at least trusts he's not trying to get the jump on her, trusts he's not going to harm her. foolish. she can hear the word in many voices in her mind, from her mentor to others. she releases a breath.

"you can fix it. or, at least mend it. the only way to get kira away from forge is to stop forge and the red witch. they are one in the same quest, edgin." maybe they are, maybe they aren't. but it's the only way to at least attempt to mend everything that's broken. to mend the path they both were on now. "if we do that you won't be wanted anymore. if we do that before the order catches up, it saves us both and it saves kira from the fallout of actions past and present." she watches him, feels the lightest essence of his aura near hers before he withdraws slightly. she frowns because she can't help it.

"i--" don't want that. she thinks and realizes it's true because she wants to reach out too, starts to before she can stop herself, stepping slightly away from the chair as she lets go of it. now that she's here, now that they both are she doesn't want to think of the finality of never seeing each other again. she thinks, even if events of late hadn't played out in the way they had she'd have gone to see him at some point, if zalan allowed it or not. but the words don't finish both because she's not sure if she's fully ready to voice it and because within a fraction of a moment dizziness begins to wash over her and the room spins, making her stumble forward into him.

A soft, sated smile touched his face, and then he lifted a hand to cup her cheek, gently running his thumb back and forth over her full bottom lip. "Thank you," he murmured. For choosing me, for helping me, for loving me.

Katarzyna flashed an almost impish smile. "oh-- i think we should have such stirrings with each other often."

Unbidden, his face flooded pink and he grinned. "You mean to ensnare me completely," he accused. "Though from where I'm sitting -- or rather, lying -- I could see the benefit from this arrangement."

Katarzyna appeared embarrassed, and then she buried her face into his chest. Nuzzling into the top of her crown, Benjamin murmured, "It's all right. You certainly didn't say anything I wasn't already thinking..."

but now, even as war was ever-present in their lives, being here with benjamin caused something to stir within her. it caused something to spark with hope and light bringing with it thoughts of more than gore and horror. the gentleness of his touch, so foreign to her, made her crave it, the feeling of his love sung in the way his aura swirled around him and merged with her own. it opened some part of her heart that had been hidden away, bringing traces of that girl who dared to dream of so many things onto the surface, as if a part of her soul was reconnecting with itself, reforming the ashes she rose from into a marriage of past and present. she was the girl she used to be and the girl she had become in one.

and perhaps..

perhaps she didn't have to be one or the other. oh, she thinks maybe she should be the one thanking him, for the feeling which washes over her is one she wants to hold onto. despite the events of earlier in the night, despite the worries of war and traitors and death and risks, she felt irrevocably content in this moment with him, her face buried into his chest with flushed features upon her skin.

"i'm not used to.. this." she speaks into his chest as she feels him nuzzle into her crown. "i'm not used to tenderness and care.." the marks on her body were enough to speak to that. "i'm not..." she pauses, lifting her head to look upon him as her hair falls out of her face. "-- thank you. i-i don't think i understood what love.. or, what this kind of love really was until now." there's a vulnerability to her admission, truth and honesty unfiltered. for now, in this room she felt laid bare in more ways than one and for the first time such didn't scare her. quite the opposite.

she circles back then, to his previous comment, a soft smile crossing her features. "and-- perhaps i do. intend to ensnare you completely and utterly, i mean." too soon his thoughts drift back to the world outside of this moment and her hold on him tightens slightly, as if she can not bare the thought of separating. not yet at least.

"soon, but not yet. let him stew in agony at least until morning light." she reaches a hand out and cups the side of his face for a moment, letting her hand continue up to his hair, moving some of it from his eyes and then running it through his hair. she likes his hair like this, down and slightly unkept from what they'd shared, she decides, face flushing more upon the thought.

his heart sinks a little at her reply. it is, of course, no different than what he'd expected. he'd known from the moment he'd left camp that his chances of success were not great. war would see to that as surely as war saw to undermining everything. he could not keep the bitter edge from his thoughts - a state of affairs he found growing all the more common. this conflict was senseless enough, and now were young men to die preventable deaths because of it? back home, he'd been told by friends and tutors alike that he took such things too much to heart. that he allowed that heart to bleed it when it ought to harden and bear up better against the cruelties of the profession he'd chosen. but he could not. he did not wish to let war and an unpleasant world numb him against suffering. and he would not now let the color of his uniform prevent him from helping his men.

" perhaps you are right, " he concedes. " but i would be failing in my duties if i did not at least try... "

he opens his mouth to say more, to press again for her aid in finding the nearest town, when a sudden gust of wind whips through the trees. beneath him, his horse whinnies and stamps. it's strange - this horse had heard the canons and musket fire of the battlefield. and yet something in the wind so unnerved him that dwight had no choice but to grasp the reins tighter, cooing reassuring words in an attempt to soothe the beast, his mission momentarily put to one side. but before he can regain control, another gust rushes around him, upturning the leather valise he carried everywhere. his collection of vials and bandages and rudimentary instruments spill onto the ground - thankfully, at least, cushioned by the dead leaves in the road. dwight's jaw clenches in frustration. it is the last thing he needs - to be delayed by his own clumsiness and a spooked horse.

" i am, yes, " he replies, flashing her a tight, but grateful smile as he takes the jarred tincture from her hand. he returns it to the bag and dismounts, preparing to collect the rest of his belongings.

was he the only doctor within his camp seeking to stop something of which would surely continue to take lives or was he the only one who cared enough to meet the risks of venturing out alone in seek of aid?

there's no way to know, yet the inferences she can make of his character by his presence here and questions does grant him a semblance of trust from her. she's known humanities horrors too, yet often, in her experience as yet, some doctors could usually be more accepting of many things the world had to offer-- at least once they witnessed it. maybe it was the need to understand.

"i am not here to take sides in this senseless war." he's right to question. she would if the roles had been reversed. it also showed he was more intelligent than the redcoat who she'd encountered previously who'd been far too loose lipped about many things he should not have been. drink did that to people, especially the undisciplined. "but if i am right in what assails your men, you have no idea what you are dealing with and it will only bring death upon everyone in it's path. i have no desire to see such play out upon loyalist or colonist alike when such can be prevented." she allows a moment to pass to let her words wash over him. she knows he has no real reason to trust her or believe her but they must start somewhere.

Emhyr murdered my child, and I lost my brother, my husband, and hundreds of our people, because of your lie? I can’t undo what I’ve done. He deserves it. He deserves to suffer just as you have.