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[queenofechoes]

Network ⛥ Action ⛥ Psychic

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Re: backdated to pairing day

[queenofechoes]

"Done." Simple, efficient, and fit to bursting with ferocious relief.

[howtheyshine]

Edwin is, of course, studying the tree as Maddie arrives. She's no sooner through the door than he's locked on to her presence, bright and eager and trying so very hard not to tackle her in a hug.

"I want to ask the Admiral to give you back your powers."

[queenofechoes]

It already feels surreal, having him back - that doesn't happen, not really, not without some other dire consequence - and starting with that?

"Um. Shit." Stunned, overwhelmed, yearning, loving - "For all you know I've killed half the ship while you were gone."

[howtheyshine]

Edwin can't help grinning at that, then realizes that's probably a bad reaction and tries to look serious.

"Okay. Are you going to try killing half the ship now that I'm back?"

He doesn't sound terribly worried.

[queenofechoes]

"Maybe!" She's grinning, too. "I mean, I'd have to aim for at least sixteen."

To beat Sebastian, obviously.

[howtheyshine]

He ducks his head, forcing himself not to laugh at that. He would feel genuinely bad about it later.

"I like your current streak." He does try to hug her now. "It's better than mine as an inmate, that's for sure."

[queenofechoes]

She doesn't even pretend; she just accepts and returns the embrace.

"You were, what, a month old?"

[howtheyshine]

"People always say that like it makes murder less murdery."

He relaxes into the hug, relief and gratitude making his throat tight. "I'm really glad I get to see this through with you."

[queenofechoes]

"Well, no. The Barge makes murder less murdery."

As blithe as she's trying to sound - there's a lump in her throat, hearing that.

"Me, too." She swallows, claws her composure back. "I knew you were all right, thanks to Jedao. That helped."

If he hadn't gone, or if she'd lost both of them -

Well, she'd have lost her streak, that's for sure.

[howtheyshine]

"No." Softly insistent. "The only thing the barge does is bring people back. They still died, and I still killed them. Even if I didn't really understand what killing them meant."

He never, even for a second, wants to lose sight of that.

Edwin draws her over to sit on the floor next to the tree rather than going to the couch. The black kitten who followed him from Ulthar, Menes, slips out from under the nearest table to climb onto his lap.

"I haven't really talked about it, have I? Well, I haven't talked about it with anyone really. But I can, if you want."

[queenofechoes]

"...I forget, I think. What death means to most people." It was the helplessness that really got her when it finally happened onboard, the sheer gall of it - but the shock, the pain, the fading away, that was just...

She lets herself be pulled, curling up beside him; Menes earns a gentle huff of surprise, before she reaches out to scratch his chin.

"You said it was about as long there, as it was here?"

[howtheyshine]

"I think a lot of people here forget. Or have reasons they forgot before the Barge."

He touches the tree gently, smiling at Menes and then at Maddie.

"Just about, yeah. Might have been a longer there. Some places in the Dreamlands, time flows a little sideways."

[queenofechoes]

"Limbo is like that, too." One more reason she can't really track how long she's existed as herself, but maybe the measurement matters less than the context.

"...No kittens, though. As far as I know."

[howtheyshine]

"The cats in Ulthar are protected, so there are a lot of them. Some cats come just because they know no human can hurt a cat in Ulthar without getting eaten by the rest of them."

That is a perfectly normal thing, no?

[queenofechoes]

"Perfect system."

Boil it down to the essentials and that's exactly why mutants come to the Limbo Embassy.

[howtheyshine]

"That's a good pun."

Does he get puns half the time? No. But in his defense that sounded like one.

[queenofechoes]

She stares at him for a second, brow furrowed and head slightly cocked, before -

"Oh. Purrfect." Apparently, she can roll her Rs perfectly.

[howtheyshine]

Of course she can. He grins.

"That."

He takes her hand and gives it a little squeeze. "I'll tell you stories if you tell me stories about how it's been for you while I've been gone."

[queenofechoes]

"Well damn, that's a perfectly fair trade." Rueful, but not exactly reluctant.

"Dying sucked." And she squeezes his hand back as she says that, just as a reassuring gesture for the stuff that's too complicated to say out loud, like it wasn't your fault and it could have been so much worse. "But it was the first time onboard, and then - I woke up, in a place I knew, with people who gave a damn."

She wasn't a raging echo or a restless spirit; she wasn't fractured and lost and forgotten.

[howtheyshine]

His own grip on her hand tightens with a mix of worry and unbridled rage that comes on with enough of a roar to be scary. It takes him a nerve-wracking few seconds to get a grip on the feeling.

"...Good," he finally manages, clearly in reference to how she woke up. "You deserve at least that."

Even if he should have been here for her.

[queenofechoes]

It may scare him, but it doesn't faze her; she leans right into him, as if sinking into the warmth of a hearth.

"Vash made sure I came back. John made sure I wouldn't be helpless. Hakkai took what Sebastian did seriously, and made sure it wouldn't happen to anyone else."

[howtheyshine]

"Sebastian did it?"

He did not see that one coming. At least his reaction this time is soothed by how comfortable she stays even with the glow of fury smoldering in his psyche.

He wraps both arms around her. "I died twice as an inmate. I was tied to my crown before I got a body--break it, break me."

[queenofechoes]

"His boy disappeared while Hakkai was in a coma. Typical Barge timing." Her disdain for the Admiral has not lightened, and hearing that -

There's ferocity in her embrace, restlessly protective. "See, that kind of shit - he shouldn't let Inmates be that vulnerable."

[howtheyshine]

Ah, that would make sense. He's not as close to Sebastian as he wants to be, but he does know something something kill everyone in this room and then himself, as far as Sebastian and His Boy goes.

He nests in the hug, thinking this must be how cozy metal feels when it starts to melt in a flame. And he agrees with her. He does. But there's an odd resistance in his heart to a world where he never got very literally broken.

"I think... I think I needed it, truthfully. I needed that, to understand death better as a consequence. When I got here, almost the first thing I did was kill Arthur. Made him fall down some stairs and break his neck. I knew I won. But I didn't really... understand what that would have done to someone in a world without the Admiral bringing us back. I didn't care that death hurt the living, even if the dead came back."

[queenofechoes]

"...Death never taught me anything." It was just more pain, more helplessness, more of her life stolen, more reason to resent the world and all of its heroes. All those hard-won miracles and lofty ideals.

"That's half of why the Barge is such a clusterfuck. All of us needing wildly different things." She's not benevolent enough to grant the Admiral more than that. "...Anyone caught you up to speed on Trevor's bullshit?"