[ set is not the first person to beg cassian for something.
help. hope. mercy. cassian has regarded many a man with the same inscrutable expression he turns to set now. his shard of glass has gone returned to its hiding place, once it became clear set wouldn't ask for its use, and he regards set's torturous journey to his answer. the violence he takes to his own body (messy, some detached part of cassian's mind notes), the sap on his mouth and wrist, the exposed red shard. it's the kind of vulnerability cassian would call unwise to show him, that brought regret to those who have.
whatever else he is, he isn't the empire. he doesn't steal peoples' free will; he doesn't conscript or condemn them to lives they didn't choose. causes they didn't choose. (to deaths, yes, and he's even done that here. he is what he is.) he betrays, but not like this, and not for nothing. so: there is not even the most fleeting of temptations to coerce set to zenith. it doesn't cross his mind to go back on his word. set says, i need to remain meridian, and that's the only thing that matters. ]
Then remain Meridian, [ he says, and it's not unkind.
he takes his own shard to set's wrist, first, then replaces it in his hand with the sap facing outwards. then he pulls forward to smear his bleeding palm on set's red ruin of a shard.
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help. hope. mercy. cassian has regarded many a man with the same inscrutable expression he turns to set now. his shard of glass has gone returned to its hiding place, once it became clear set wouldn't ask for its use, and he regards set's torturous journey to his answer. the violence he takes to his own body (messy, some detached part of cassian's mind notes), the sap on his mouth and wrist, the exposed red shard. it's the kind of vulnerability cassian would call unwise to show him, that brought regret to those who have.
whatever else he is, he isn't the empire. he doesn't steal peoples' free will; he doesn't conscript or condemn them to lives they didn't choose. causes they didn't choose. (to deaths, yes, and he's even done that here. he is what he is.) he betrays, but not like this, and not for nothing. so: there is not even the most fleeting of temptations to coerce set to zenith. it doesn't cross his mind to go back on his word. set says, i need to remain meridian, and that's the only thing that matters. ]
Then remain Meridian, [ he says, and it's not unkind.
he takes his own shard to set's wrist, first, then replaces it in his hand with the sap facing outwards. then he pulls forward to smear his bleeding palm on set's red ruin of a shard.
and just like that, they are connected — ]