[A kinder person would tell him he needn't apologize. A more understanding person would grant some sort of absolution in words to a man about to die.
But Hayame does not.
He should be sorry. Sorry that he wasn't strong enough to resist the lies and false promises of Zenith, sorry that he'd traded away the hope Meridian offered all of them, sorry that he was making her watch him die again- Sorry for making her look as if she might cry, the one eye remaining to her glistening that something that must be imaginary. She won't, though, she won't, because she's forgotten how. It's such a shameful action, but she's... Did they think she wasn't tired, too?
His knife splits fabric and skin in the stab inward, and she holds his head tightly between her hands, as if she will keep him standing upright even if his knees buckle with that alone if she has to. She has the strength for it. She has the patience to wait, because she has to. He has to. She has heard countless stories of warriors who cleansed their honor in this way, generals who commanded their subordinates take their heads before the enemy could claim them, criminals given the chance to slice their own bellies open in repentance, and he must bleed first. Even if so much of what she'd been raised on had been human and not jinba, had been the realm of the men who had subjugated her kind used to keep them in line-
It sometimes feels like all she has. Every time she thinks she has someone else-
Their blood is sap-like now. It runs down the blade, it coats his fingers, and even if she'd wanted to hesitate... a tranquil impression of a day spent in Liem's courtyard, listening to him read from the Order of Numbers leaks into their Communion, an image of what she wanted to return to rather than be here, in this awful place in this sick game for the Oracle that was so much in the mind instead of what made sense-
He has suffered enough. She will restore him later, he will return to Meridian where he belongs once the oppressive chaos of this place is left behind, he can apologize properly then, and with that decided-
A sudden snarl of effort is the last thing he'll hear before Hayame wrenches his head and snaps his neck like a twig.]
no subject
But Hayame does not.
He should be sorry. Sorry that he wasn't strong enough to resist the lies and false promises of Zenith, sorry that he'd traded away the hope Meridian offered all of them, sorry that he was making her watch him die again- Sorry for making her look as if she might cry, the one eye remaining to her glistening that something that must be imaginary. She won't, though, she won't, because she's forgotten how. It's such a shameful action, but she's... Did they think she wasn't tired, too?
His knife splits fabric and skin in the stab inward, and she holds his head tightly between her hands, as if she will keep him standing upright even if his knees buckle with that alone if she has to. She has the strength for it. She has the patience to wait, because she has to. He has to. She has heard countless stories of warriors who cleansed their honor in this way, generals who commanded their subordinates take their heads before the enemy could claim them, criminals given the chance to slice their own bellies open in repentance, and he must bleed first. Even if so much of what she'd been raised on had been human and not jinba, had been the realm of the men who had subjugated her kind used to keep them in line-
It sometimes feels like all she has. Every time she thinks she has someone else-
Their blood is sap-like now. It runs down the blade, it coats his fingers, and even if she'd wanted to hesitate... a tranquil impression of a day spent in Liem's courtyard, listening to him read from the Order of Numbers leaks into their Communion, an image of what she wanted to return to rather than be here, in this awful place in this sick game for the Oracle that was so much in the mind instead of what made sense-
He has suffered enough. She will restore him later, he will return to Meridian where he belongs once the oppressive chaos of this place is left behind, he can apologize properly then, and with that decided-
A sudden snarl of effort is the last thing he'll hear before Hayame wrenches his head and snaps his neck like a twig.]