Chapter Text
“You could be done, you know.”
Pyrrha stubbed out her cigarette. “No, I couldn’t.”
Palamedes crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the rail near the window that looked out into the deep, black nothing of space. “I don’t envy you this life. I lived your life, but worse, and couldn’t imagine carrying on as such for myriads.” He regarded her around a pair of glasses that somehow looked right on his face. “If you wanted to go… I would help you arrange that.”
“God himself couldn’t take me out,” Pyrrha said gruffly. “I’m in it for the long haul. Maybe one day I’ll find something like what you and Cam have.”
Palamedes laughed once, short and abrupt. “I don’t even know if I still have what Cam and I have– had– I don’t know.”
“You do.” Pyrrha wished she had something to do with her hands, suddenly. Shouldn’t have put out that cigarette. “You two will always have that.”
“You said,” Palamedes interjected, as though if he didn’t say the words right then and there he would perish, “that you loved us. Not well. Not even wholesomely.”
“Yeah.” Pyrrha turned her whole body to face the boy. “Why?”
“I just… We did too.” His face colored a pretty shade of pink. “I asked her if she wanted to–”
Pyrrha decided to put the boy out of his misery. “I asked if she was down to fuck too.” Palamedes made a strangled sound that nearly made her laugh. “She said no. Said she didn’t want to ‘fuck around and find out while someone else was in my body’.” The tone his voice took on when quoting her was so funny Pyrrha couldn’t help but laugh. “But now…”
“Save it, Warden.” Pyrrha made a show of looking him up and down. “One day, maybe. After we’re settled and you’re rooted in that new body of yours. After I get a chance to know you two again.”
“So you’re coming with us?” Hope brimmed in his eyes. Pyrrha wasn’t used to seeing that sort of thing going in her direction. “To New Rho?”
“Someone has to deal with BoE. And We Suffer likes me… though not as much as she likes your mum.”
Palamedes shuddered. “Thank heavens I never allowed the two of you to have more than a cursory conversation. I was always concerned I’d have to have the “did you fuck my mom, Pyrrha Dve?” conversation, which would have significantly harmed the new body made for me.”
“A hot MILF was always my undoing,” Pyrrha mused, and gloried in how Palamedes instantly rolled his eyes. When that didn’t work, she scooted over to nudge him with her elbow. “What’s on your mind, Sex Pal?”
Palamedes grimaced. “I hate that.”
“Well, hey, I had to work to come up with nicknames for Cam. Yours got handed to me.”
“I have a hard time believing Camilla allowed you to nickname her.”
“She couldn’t stop me.”
Palamedes smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “What were they?”
“Cameo.” Pyrrha begins ticking them off on her fingers. “Camalamadingdong. Camothy. You know.”
“Variations. How clever.”
Pyrrha stared at him. “Come on. Spill.”
He averted his eyes when he asked, “Do you think… You asked us not to do this. Do you think I broke her because I did?”
“Behold the king of the subtle transition,” Pyrrha grumbled, mostly to buy herself time. She was never very good at considering matters of the heart, especially where necromancers and cavaliers were concerned. “No. I don’t think you broke her. I think you both made a choice, and I think you both never expected to have to live with it.”
That seemed to be enough for him. The words hung there for a long moment, so long that, when Palamedes speaks again, Pyrrha is so far back in her own head she almost misses it.
“We were happy. When we were one… we were happy.”
Pyrrha nodded. “I know. Are you happier like this, or as you were?”
“Like this,” Palamedes nearly whispered. “I know it’s cruel, I know ripping my soul from Cam’s wounded her, I know I’ve left her alone for five years, but she’s here and I can touch her again and I’m a selfish fool, but I’m so happy.”
“Well then.” Pyrrha, once again, wished for her cigarette. “You made your choices. Now you have to live with that, and the happiness that comes in spite of it.”
I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. ...
We are all going forward. None of us are going back.