Chapter Text
Days later, Wick still isn't sleeping through the night. Tyranny hears him outside of her tent, pacing around the nearly-dead campfire, muttering to himself. She can feel his pain in her chest like a brand. She knows he's hurt, and she knows she caused it, and she knows that's the only thing she'll ever be able to do to him.
She slips out of her tent, silent as a ghost, and sits next to him by the dying coals. She does not look at him when he looks at her. She does not move when he fidgets. She does not know how to say what she believes, like someone put a brick wall between them when she wasn't looking.
In the end, she says, “Take it one day at a time, Your Radiance.”
He says, “Don't call me that.”
She says, “I'm sorry,” and wonders if he knows what she's apologizing for.
He punches her square in the face.
She dabs at her nose as he sits back down, not making eye contact, and her fingers come away black with blood. She imagines tracing that blood over his tattoos like a prayer, covering the light he so hates in her own darkness. She wonders if he would consider it a sin or a mercy. She imagines punching him back, once for every time she believed she could be saved. She wonders if he bleeds light.
She does neither of those things. Instead, she stands up. Bows deeply. Says, “I'm forever at your service, Lord Wicander.”
She does not look back, though she can feel his eyes on her, she can hear the small, desperate sound he makes, and she knows he doesn't want to be alone.
She goes back to her tent. She has a nightmare of light, and a nightmare of beauty, and she no longer remembers which realm she wanted to escape from.
- - - - - - -
Days later, Tyranny still isn’t talking to him. She still does as he commands, still curtseys in that slightly mocking way, still says of course, Your Radiance like she doesn’t know how much it hurts - but they don’t talk. Maybe they never did.
He shouldn’t have punched her. He shouldn’t have let her walk away. One of those things is true.
He thinks about the smudge of black blood on her perfect cerulean skirt. He thinks about his nurses and his mother and his grandmother, punching him like you would kick a disobedient dog, because this is what he deserves. This is not what she deserves. This is all he knows how to be.
He finds her illuminated in the light of the campfire. He stands next to her, and she does not acknowledge him.
He says, “I’m sorry I punched you.” His voice is shaky. He wishes, just this once, that he could hide his fear or his pain. But there is no light here to grant him miracles.
She says, “I forgive you.” Her voice is steady, cold steel. She levels it like a blade at his heart, and he can’t help but be cowed by it.
“Just like that?” He asks, because he thinks she is lying.
“Forgiveness is one of our pillars, is it not, my Lord?”
“Bullshit.” Wick says.
And finally, finally, her composure breaks when she gives him a surprised look. “Cursing is a dimming,” she says slowly, like she’s worried he’s been replaced.
He shrugs. “My family has been torturing an angel for its blood since before I was born. If my soul survives that, I think it can deal with some cursing.”
Tyranny turns back toward the campfire, face already placid and still. “You’re the teacher, Lord Halovar, not me.”
Wick wants to punch something. He wants to have an actual, full conversation. He wants to wash the blood out of her pristine clothing, and he wants to drown the world in it. “I hate you,” He says, and, “You’re my only friend.” Both are true. Neither are true. She still isn’t looking at him. He is pathetic, and he is angry, and she still isn’t looking at him.
“Is that so?” Her voice is pointedly neutral.
“I just want to have a conversation, Tyranny.” He pleads.
“What have we been doing?”
“Please.”
“What do you want me to say?” And all at once she sounds angry, bitter. “You have done me the service of keeping me in this realm after I lied to you for months, because you are good. I am doing you the service of obeying your every command, because I will never be good. What else could you possibly want from me?”
“I want my friend back. I want to talk.”
“You can’t save me, Wick! Why do you care?” She’s finally making eye contact with him, fire burning in her eyes, as she closes the gap between them in two steps to jab at his chest with a finger. This close, she smells like brimstone and campfire smoke, and he can see the way her pupils have dilated with anger. “Why aren’t you acting like you hate me? I lied. I could have protected you, and I didn’t.” Then, quietly, devastatingly, “Why don’t you just hurt me like I deserve to be hurt?”
Her eyes are glittering, reflective in the firelight, and all at once he knows that she is about to cry. He’s never seen Tyranny cry. He didn’t know she could.
He pulls her into a hug. His mind screams that it’s improper, that he will sully his light even by touching her - but it all goes quiet when she presses her face into his chest and sobs. Nothing else matters.
He finds his voice, finally. “I don’t know what my family or your family thinks, but I still think you can be good.” Then, after a pause. “I don’t think you need to be, though.”
She doesn’t say anything. But she doesn’t pull away either, and they stay like that for a long time.
It isn’t beautiful. Finally, Wick has something in his life that isn’t beautiful.
It isn’t dark. Finally, Tyranny has something in her life that isn’t dark.
Neither of them deserve it. But they are both so tired of getting only what they deserve.