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"I have a talk to settle with you." He tells her, and she walks away with him no questions asked. Same way he accepted her, when she came by, still a soldier of the Plains. That's how they live.
He could almost say she's the only person he can trust in this world, but he can never trust anyone.
They're equal, though. That's it. Ivory and him are partners in every crime they commit, and it is all a crime, every murder of an innocent. There's more of them, of course. There's the leader of the Exiled, Doly. There's Night, there's Squid, oh, Squid, who he has unsettled, really, scores with from the last iteration of the world, as much as Squid told him it was alright and he didn't truly care.
The thing is, the only one who could ever get him was Ivory, he knew it from the start under his skin.
So he goes to her.
He asks her to talk.
There's an end crystal in his bar that he eyes every second, and the thought makes him feel sick, but he misses the buzz in his hands and he wants something to break.
He's really that messed up. How has he never noticed? What kind of a... Of course he knows what he was. A killer who always wanted to turn a blind eye to that same simple fact.
Ivory is better than him, because every time she holds her sword at the neck of someone who did not deserve to die, she knows that. He gets it now.
"I think I'm an... I think we're all awful people, Ivory." He stares past her with his eyes wide open behind the mask, because then it's easier to pretend he doesn't feel the tears and tear tracks down his cheeks. "That's all I've been thinking of the past few days. Nah. Every... Since we came to the Desert Nation, and I thought we were going to slaughter them like pigs 'cause they'd look at us like we were ones. You know, about the same as Plains."
He breathes out in a loud wheeze that hurts his throat. Although it might just be swollen and red 'cause he can't stop crying silently behind the mask.
He's a hypocrite.
"And then..." She finishes for him, slowly. Gentle. "They were not. They were nice. Human. Hah." She laughs lightly, just slipping a breath. "And that's where you started to think."
Rasplin doesn't want to say a word. He doesn't know what to.
"And then you couldn't stop thinking, ever." Ivory drawls. "They were all so peaceful! They just wanted to live. But you couldn't stop, it was too late to. You couldn't do anything but go on, and on, 'til you bleed out and fall, and die."
"Why are you in my head?" He breathes.
"I'm not." She smiles. "I'm just thinking. I'm sure that's the way quite a few of us think. The Exiled. We don't have a choice. We never really had a choice, did we, Rasplin?"
"I wanted to be a leader." He wants to scream. It comes out a pained sound, with him out of breath. "They just left me to die. My own damn home, the Waste. They were never good enough anyway. They... Ivory, I don't want to be what they saw in me anymore." He wheezes. "I just want to get away."
"There's nowhere to run, Ras. There never is. You're wanted in every nation, and the only way they're okay with you being is dead."
"I know. I know that. I just want to leave. I don't want... I don't want to be."
"It's... it's okay. I mean, it's not, not at all, but remember, you were never alone in this. Like the Plains, they were scared of me too." Ivory is still smiling, and the corners of her mouth twitch as she puts more and more press into it, and he knows she hurts. "Same as always. Same as everyone."
"They never even game me a choice." He repeats after her.
"But, Ras." She chuckles. "You have one now."
"What?" Rasplin blinks. He can't see her for a second through the blur in his vision. He wants to scrap his face off from the way it itches. He can't even touch it.
"You can end it all." Her breath hitches.
The image breaks.
She holds her empty hands up to her face and stares at them, all paper white with ugly red marks, and covers her expression, like her palms are a mask she can hide behind.
Her body shudders quietly. He knows that's how she cries, just 'cause he does the same way.
"Ivory." His voice sounds rough. "Come on."
"Nah, no, I'm fine." She lets out. "I'm perfectly... It's just the thought, really, you don't have to do anything, not for me, I'm alright, Ras, I just..."
He takes a step closer. It's too loud.
He's bit his lip hard behind the mask and the spot burns.
"It's, you have, you have the crystal, from back... from..." Her voice dies out.
Rasplin steps up close, and she leans onto him, letting him hug her. He needs the comfort more than her, he realizes. He needs many things. To feel helpful, to be in power, to look at himself in the mirror and see someone he can respect.
When was the last time that ever was the case?
Ivory lets her palms rest on his shoulder, and he sees clearly for a second, from the corner of his eye, that her face is clean like a porcelain mask, and there are only tears glistening deep in her eyes. In the right one that's red he could mistake it for blood.
Ivory laughs quietly, rattling, like a broken record.
"Ras, I think there's a way out in this. This mess." She settles it. "I think you should kill us all." The last words sound light from her, slipping off the tongue easily. "When we're out in a field, hunting like the carnivores we are." She chuckles again.
Rasplin can see the moment the smile comes back to her lips covering her expression with the perfect mask where he can only read the strain.
"You have your hands." She grips his wrist. "Use them. You can. That's a blessing for you."
"Ivory... Are you telling me, I... I can..." His lips are numb, and the words come out tumbling.
"Kill every Exiled that deserves it, Rasplin. That's the way out. Burn us. We're the bad seed, everyone's thrown us out for a reason. We deserve to die. Now, we definitely do."
"We do." He admits simply.
She holds his hands up and open with a death grip, and he summons the end crystal in them so it floats up and down, incorporeal. Unable to hurt. For now.
"Will you do it?" She doesn't ask. It's a statement.
The aura of an Exiled frames their figures white at the exact same time and makes Ivory into a holy being, with the ghostly wings spread wide behind her back, full of gold and blue glitch.
Then, the illusion falls, and the only thing Rasplin can see through his blurred vision are the bloody horns on her head.
"Ivory, you're the devil." He rasps.
"Then you have sinned." Her grin is inhumanly wide now, and every one of her teeth shines sharp.