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“Would a sedative work on you?” “No,” he said dully. “Everything wears off. I can barely get properly drunk.”
He was in a crucible, and he was the crucible, and he would either die terribly or be wholly alchemised into something that could survive the paradox.
A build your own man kind if stitch
She thought of him flipping that silver coin and telling her what the Eternal Flame needed for the attack. He’d known he’d be punished.
As he was regaining consciousness, she took his nearest hand, careful not to shift his shoulder as she started massaging the palm and worked slowly to his fingertips, knuckle by knuckle, her resonance seeking out every bit of tension and knotted muscles.
Nah bro Im crying...
“Good. Then it’s Kaine now.” She needed to make herself think about him differently. She’d made too many wrong assumptions while seeing him as Ferron.
She was replaceable. Ferron wasn’t.
She noticed the streaks of silver while treating Kaine’s back. They were just barely visible at his temple, glimmers of silver-white threaded through his dark hair.
So this is where we get our silver boy from
“Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”
Uuuuuuuughhhhhh cries
“Marino.” Kaine’s voice was annoyed. “Are you more afraid of thralls than you are of me? I’m actually offended.”
“Fuck off,” she said. “I didn’t know you could swear.” He sounded amused. Her jaw clenched, and she turned and told him to fuck off in three more languages.
HAHAHAHAHA
“I designed it,” he said quietly. That information was shocking enough to sober Helena. She sat up. “It was my punishment,” he said. “I expected it would kill me, but if I survived, I didn’t want them to choose what I became. So I asked to design it, as proof of my penance.”
So he decided to look older for her then
The autopsy would take place in the Alchemy Tower’s operating theatre so that Falcon Matias and several of the Flame Keepers who managed the crematorium could observe to ensure she did nothing to violate the sanctity of the body.
If its such a big deal, THEY SHOULD DO IT
“Healer Marino, prior to this autopsy, you performed a transmutational dissection, did you not?” Helena nodded, fingers flexing inside her gloves. “At the Council’s request—” “That was a yes or no question,” Matias said sharply. “Yes.” “And during that dissection, you used transmutational abilities to examine and reverse the creation of the chimaera in ways that any other medical personnel would have been incapable of, did you not?”
Piece of shit
It was both unsurprising and undeniable that Falcon Matias wanted Helena removed from the Eternal Flame, possibly the Resistance.
“He wants you gone, and now he’s begun taking steps to achieve it.” Helena swallowed hard. “Is that something you’ll allow?” He glanced towards her. “Are you doing anything that would make interfering worth the effort?
This poor woman has no one on her side
Luc doesnt count because hes a puppet
“I’ll—I can have Ferron healed by next week,” she said in the lift afterwards, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She was cold all over, and the light hurt her eyes. Complicit. Complicit. Complicit. The word rang through her head. “I’ll get it done.”
“You’re deluding yourself.” Why was he suddenly sceptical when this was the mission he’d given her?
RIGHT???
You gave me to him,” she said, her voice full of fury. “Now, and after the war. Those were the terms. You said it was Ferron or lose, and so I chose him. When was he ever expected to let me go?” She drew a shaky breath. “You said to make myself the mission for him. He is changeable right now, and this may be the only moment in which he ever will be. If you think what I’m doing is too dangerous, then give me a different option, because this is the only way I can give you what you asked for.”
She finally talks back
She’d always thought that she could do anything for her friends. She didn’t need recognition, just the comfort of knowing she’d done what was necessary.
Like Strout said "Reducing yourself so you could be accepted"
Kaine had stood. His shoulders were twisting and contorting as he moved. Small movements at first, but they progressed until his arms were overhead, his back arched like a strung bow. He gave the most indecent-sounding moan, his face slack with relief.
Big stretch
“You know, there’s something about you, Marino, that inspires the most terrible decisions from me. I’ll know better, but then I’ll still…” His voice trailed off as he tucked a stray curl behind her ear, finger running along her jaw. She knew she should stay. For the purpose of her mission, staying during moments like this was her job.
His hazel-grey eyes were gone, replaced by a silver-bright glow. This was no mere transmutation; Kaine Ferron was becoming something altogether new. She had finalised the process with her bare hands, drawn into completion something that he alone knew the entire purpose of.
“I don’t have a regenerative liver,” she said in protest, looking dubiously at the amount inside and realising only then that the entire bottle was the “one drink” she’d agreed to.
“You’re going to regret this if I start crying.” She could already feel the alcohol in her face. “I get emotional when I’m drunk.”
Girl same
“I never realised how much I enjoy leaning against things.” “Should I give you and the sofa some privacy?” she asked, trying to scoot farther into the corner.
He shook his head in disbelief. “Is there anyone you don’t feel responsible for?”
Faster than she could blink, her hand was in his, and he pressed her fingers against his chest. “Do I feel cold?”
Raw
“I must admit,” he said in a low voice as though making a confession, “if anyone had told me you’d become so lovely, I would never have come near you. I was rather blindsided when I saw you again.”
Liquor made him proficient in poetry
“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”
That tongue turning silver too
I was worried my father or I might slip away like that and leave the other all alone. So he’d hold my hand until I fell asleep, so I’d know he was there. You looked lonely just now, so I thought…” She shook her head and let go. “I don’t know. It’s nothing. Sorry.”
“Would you do something for me?” The question was quiet. She looked up. His expression had relaxed again, and his hair had fallen across his forehead, softening his features. She scanned him quickly. “What do you want?” He tilted his head. “Will you take your hair down? I want to see it.”
Ugggggggggh dont make me love you
He wasn’t looking at her hair anymore; his eyes were on her face, on her lips, that silver gleam lighting them again as he shifted closer. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, you should say so now,” he said.
“Why are you crying?” he finally asked. She smeared at her cheeks with her hand. “Because I’m lonely, and kissing you, and you don’t even like me.”
My heart
“Why do you think I was kissing you?” he finally asked in a tight voice. “Because I’m here.” He looked at her again. “Why’d you kiss me?” She stared across the room at a tapestry of Tellus, spinning the earth into being. “You made me feel like the parts of me that aren’t useful still deserve to exist. Like I’m not just all the things I can do.”
Kaine had handed himself to her on a platter, gone above and beyond what Crowther and Ilva had ever hoped, and Helena had sabotaged herself because it wasn’t real and she’d wished it was.
Her loneliness is tangible
Soren was still watching her. “You know, I forgot your hair looked like that. It’s pretty, the way you braid it now.”
Fuck off Soren
“I’m going to tell you a secret,” he muttered while she was finishing his hands. “You’re going to lose this war. No one can stop the Undying. They’re the new gods. Someday I’m going to be one of them. People are going to know the Lancasters.”
Shiiiiiiiiiiit, this explains so much...
“You know,” Helena couldn’t help but say, “there’s other ways to get information out of people. You don’t have to torture them.” Ivy looked up with her sharp eyes glittering. “I like hurting them. It’s the best part of the job. The rest is boring.” “Oh.”
Ok you little creep
“Yes, I’ll escort you,” he said. “You healed Ferron? Was it a success?” She gave an idle nod without looking at him. Whether he was pleased or disappointed by this, she had no energy to care. “Yes. The procedure was a success.” There was a pause as they ascended the stairs. Crowther blocked the exit, his eyes skimming across her. “I hear you were out all night and returned—dishevelled.”
Ahhhhhhhh I hate hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim
“What happened?” She gestured limply at the metal spike still running through her calf. He barely glanced at it. “Yes, I noticed. I’ll admit, your commitment to the bit is impressive. I can’t say I expected you to go this far.” She stared at him, not understanding. “Tell Crowther I have no time for his tricks. Pull something like this again, and he can consider the deal off.” Kaine turned, walking away.
“There’s leftover carbolic dilution in my satchel.” He rummaged through it and found the vial.
WAIT WAIT WAIT....Does he have her satchel in part 1? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
She’d grown so used to seeing him always straddling chairs, it was surprising to see him seated on one properly.
Where is your mind going girl xD
So he was back, no explanation for his month-long disappearance, while she’d been left to endure being written off as a failure and castigated for wasting critical resources on a gamble that had failed to pay off.
vivimancers were parasites by nature, and they would rot and burn in the bowels of the earth for an eternity if they did not repent and purify themselves by giving up every drop of the vitality they’d taken.
“So…” Ferron said slowly, moving idly towards her, “you use your vitality to save—anyone you’re told to save, as penance?”
“It didn’t work,” he said. “It’s not possible to take it by force like that. If it was that easy—” He scoffed. “—Morrough wouldn’t be bothering with most of this. Try it yourself now.”
His expression hardened. “I don’t need you to get it, I need you to believe it. You’re being driven by the guilt over crimes you never committed, that you think you deserve to suffer for, and that’s making you a liability for me.”
Agreed with him, she's a total pushover
“My father sought treatment for my mother prior to my birth. A vivimancer they employed believed she likely possessed a latent degree of vivimancy, and didn’t realise that using her vitality wasn’t necessary.” He wasn’t looking at her. “Perhaps it was similar for yours.”
So the mother willingly gave her vitality to the baby...
It was possible that her mother’s death, while still her fault, had at least not been her doing.
