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He couldn't look at her. Hadn't been able to during the whole exchange. He wasn't exactly sure of the reason why, only that he knew that he just couldn't bear to see the look of shock and disgust that surely covered her face after hearing about the family he had murdered in cold blood. Instead he gazed out over the rocky landscape and engraved his painful words into that very scenery.
He knew that she was listening intently behind his back, weighing his every word just like she always did. She was a peculiar woman, the mercenary who wasn't a mercenary. So headstrong, and loyal and… different. Most killer-for-hires would have bolted long before the final showdown with the Father, and yet here she stood. There was no fidgeting from her as he talked or tried his best to answer her questions. No visible sound of regret or uncertainty. Just calm, level headed thinking. He would have admired that about her, if his own mind hadn't been so shattered at the moment.
He knew where this was leading up to. He had made up his mind the moment he had stepped through the corridor and beheld his failure in its entirety. The whole room was gone along with the fate of the Father and his faithful Rhalâim. All Tharaêl’s efforts up till now, all his sacrifices - all the lives he had sacrificed - had all been for nothing. There was no point in going forward anymore.
"All for the greater good, I told myself. All for the death of the Father", he finished and closed his eyes hard, clenching his teeth together.
There was a heartbeat of deafening silence, and in that moment Tharaêl became aware of just how much the mercenary had come to mean to him. The pain of his failures, his mistakes and his regrets was unbearable, so utterly crippling to the point where he knew he couldn't continue living… and yet that void of words from her caused him such agonizing fear that he thought for a moment that his heart had been ripped clean from his chest. He had thought that he couldn't feel any worse than he already did and he was still wrong. He concluded then, in the second that followed, that if her next answer would be laced with nothing but loathing for him, that he would step off that edge right then and end it without another word.
And still, she surprised him yet again, for when she finally spoke she said:
"It’s never too late for repentance. You can make up for what you did."
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd held in.
"Familiar words. You said the same about Qalian, didn't you? I… I don't know. How could I possibly make up for all that I have done? The lives I have ended, and for what? Revelations? The confessions of a mad man? It won't make a difference in the world to anyone but myself. And I can't be that selfish anymore. I just can't."
"There are still people out there who would care about the impact your presence could achieve over time. People left with nothing would value kindness above all, no matter how small an action."
Letho.
Tharaêl glanced to the side, where the cooling husk of what had once been his best friend lay against the wall. Tears streamed down his cheeks now and he couldn't care less.
"The only person who was important to me-"
No, that wasn't quite true anymore. He corrected himself.
"The most important person to me is dead. And I…I killed him. I'm nothing more than a monster. I was just so angry. So consumed by my wrath that I just yielded my control. I let it fester in me and I saw no wrong in doing so. And in the end, what did it get me? Blood on my hands. Letho's blood..."
Her voice was so… careful when she spoke next. Careful and considerate.
"Letho and Brother Sorrow were never one and the same. Don't do yourself the disservice of mixing them up."
"... maybe. But what does that make me? Am I even… real? What is this body? Do I even look like myself or of someone else entirely?”
His voice broke as he continued:
“I feel so utterly and irrevocably lost… and I don't even have the comfort of my own skin to fall back on. I am already falling through the dark, Shurah. Might as well decide upon a landing."
Had she been unsure of his intentions before, he figured she wouldn’t be anymore. Now he heard the scraping of a step. It was hard to determine if it moved closer or further away.
"You have memories of before and therefore your mind, at the very least, is still you. It's still intact."
"No, it's not!" he snapped and then groaned at the absurdity of her statement.
"Of course it's not, have you not been listening? I am lost and my mind is being pulled in so many directions that I'm not even sure what’s left of it. The guilt is eating me alive and I can't even rationalize anything anymore. Blazes, I am standing on a literal edge here. Does that look intact to you?"
Another sound from behind him, this time the crunching of gravel under a boot. She… was she approaching him? The thought gave way to more tears.
"I am so sorry for all that's happened to you. But it doesn't have to end this way. Please, Tharaêl. Step away from that edge."
He shook his head. Both in disbelief to what he was hearing, but also in disagreement.
"I can't." He fought to swallow, struggling to get the next words out.
"Maybe there was still some part left of him inside. Had I only… I could have tried harder to reach him. We could have looked for help elsewhere or-"
He stopped himself mid sentence and squeezed his eyes shut, more tears escaping from them.
"It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter anymore."
He couldn't do this any longer. He drew another breath and prepared himself to say good-bye.
"Tharaêl", Shurah choked from far away. She was crying too. He should apologize as well, before he jumped.
"Look at me. Please."
He could do that. He owed her that much, for putting up with his sad reasoning for so long.
So he turned and beheld the woman who had had his back from the beginning all the way to the end.
The first thing he noticed was that she was much closer than he had first anticipated. The second thing he noticed was her puffy eyes, wet cheeks and tense body language. She looked absolutely heartbroken.
Why? he asked himself. Sure, her convictions had sometimes strayed from his own in ways that told him of her human loving nature, but he had never taken her for an overly sensitive creature. What was this reaction? He couldn't make sense of it. The agony in his chest grew by each passing minute, clouding most of his mind by now. The roaring in his ears was deafening.
"Please don't do this. We are not finished, you and I."
Right. His cloudy thoughts went straight to the bargain they had made.
"Of course. You want your payment. And I keep my promises…"
He went searching for the key to the chest that held all of his belongings. As he took his eyes off of her, he missed how she finally lost her composure.
"My-my payment?" she all but bellowed into the crisp mountain air.
"You think that I- you think that I have been arguing for- I don't give a flying FUCK about your coin, I just want you to keep breathing!"
She screamed some more, but there was no coherent wording among her frustration.
Tharaêl had stilled at this emotional reaction, his fingers clasping the small key in his pocket but making no move to remove it from there. He just looked at her, incredulously.
She was breathing hard, angrily wiping away the tears with the palm of her hands.
"Why?" He asked hoarsely. "Why do you care so much that I live? I haven't exactly been a ray of sunshine in your life, have I?"
“So what? Of course I care! We’ve been through too much together for me not to.”
He let go of the key and rose to his full height, scoffing as he did so.
"I am not worth saving, alright? Back there, if that mercenary woman hadn't been there with us, you know what I would have done? I would have shot you instead."
She kept crying, but the expression of fury upon her face had faded into something achingly close to a look of compassion. Or was it pity? It hurt, goddammit, whatever it was. It would have been easier if his words had made her angrier. Why wasn't she angry anymore?
"Didn't you hear me? I would have killed you. I would have butchered you like an animal just to open that last door. After all that you've done for me, I still would have... Don't you understand? It is-"
"I know that already", she said with a stronger voice than her appearance would have suggested. "I know and I don't care."
He shook his head in disbelief.
"Tharaêl, please look at me."
And he did, dammit. He truly and fully looked at her.
There was a fire burning in her eyes, but it wasn't the kind that burned you. It was a light born from sheer will - a beacon to follow in the dark, a lighthouse to guide you in the storm.
There was love there. Not the superficial and shallow one he had scorned to her face at the Refuge, but pure, undiluted love. Forgiving, encompassing and utterly eternal. A core of appreciation and support… and of understanding.
A kindred spirit.
He all but lost his footing and he wasn't even moving a goddamn muscle.
And then Shurah opened her hand towards him.
"Stay with me", she asked.
There was a force slamming into his guts upon hearing those words - her words - in such a manner. And he finally realized that she was sincere. She was actually begging him to not go through with this, as if she truly wanted him alive, after everything that had transpired. After everything he had told her.
He didn't think he could ever find his voice again, but he heard himself ask her:
"Why?"
It was getting increasingly harder to look into her honey brown eyes. There were so many emotions there, swirling around and shifting faster than he could keep up with. And he didn’t know what even half of those shiftings meant.
“I want you to live."
He blew out air from his nose.
"Why."
Why do you bother?
Why would you want that?
Why can’t you just let me go?
Why are you crying?
Shurah bit her lip, bracing herself. In the time they had known each other, she had barely mentioned even one thing about herself. He had drawn the conclusion that she was a very private person. It hadn’t bothered him before. But now… Now he craved some answers.
"I have several reasons why, but the most important one is that I truly wish for you to find some happiness in this world. And this," she gestured towards the cliff and the nothingness that awaited beyond it, "will not guarantee you a chance at that. At least not by my own beliefs."
He blinked.
"You want me… to be happy?"
"Yes, I do."
He couldn’t believe his ears.
“And what makes you think”, he said so slowly that she couldn't miss the rage behind his words, “that there would even exist a fucking chance in hell that I could ever become happy after this?!"
He glared at her, his gaze practically brimming with resentment… but it was a superficial feeling. A shadow of emotion over his skin. And it wasn’t really directed at her, either.
“Tharaêl. The life you have led up till now… have never truly been a life. You have lived only for vengeance. You clawed your way forward on the wings of wrath and you joined the cult of your nightmares, all for your goal of revenge. You completely forsook all else. Nothing else mattered. You told me this yourself, remember?”
When he didn’t interject, she continued:
“All those years of planning and loathing and focusing on your revenge… you never actually lived for yourself. It wasn’t as important to you then, I understand, but… have you ever even tried to find happiness, in anything? Finding meaning in anything other than this mission?
“I understand more than well that the circumstances are... less than ideal, but this could be your chance. A second chance, if you will. The Father is gone and your vengeance is gone with him, but you remain. What if this is not only a tragic ending but an opportunity as well?
“I am not saying that it would be easy - or that it would even work. But I think it is worth a try. I think… that you owe it to yourself to take this second chance. You owe it to the boy who survived and woke up when his peers did not.”
It took him a moment to process all she had said, but when he did his mouth went dry.
She was throwing him a lifeline. A rope. A purpose, carefully crafted and held together by ideals and faith and love for others. Did she really think he deserved it? That there actually was a choice at stake here?
Was it?
“I don’t deserve a second chance, Shurah. Even if… even if a part of me would have wanted one, I really don't deserve it anymore.”
Something soft on her face. A piece of warmth and so radiant that he could almost feel it on his own skin as he beheld her appearance and the small smile that painted the corner of her mouth.
“All it takes is a genuine will to change. That’s how you earn a second chance.“
Tharaêl stared at her for a breath or two, then the air in his throat turned into a sob. Before he knew it, his knees had buckled and connected hard with the rocky ground, but he barely noticed. Sobs kept making their way through his body, wrecking it in their wake, claiming it as their own. All he could do was to try his best to keep breathing.
Shurah’s hands were a whisper of touch over his shaking back and shoulders, first hesitantly and then with more confidence when it became clear that he wouldn't fight her off. Kind, soothing motions followed her hands and he succumbed to the grief that welled out of him.
She held him through the storm and he let her. The vastness of this feat wasn’t lost on him.
When the wave had been ridden out and all that remained of his emotional turmoil was the sound of the occasional sniffling, she said into his ear:
“I am right here. Remember that. I am right here, with you, on this cliff. You won’t have to be alone anymore.”
His heart started racing from what she said. He was terrified to hope for what she meant by that. There was no way he could ask her for an explanation. He wasn’t that brave.
“...you saw right through that, didn't you? My speech at the orphanage. Of course you did.”
She snorted, but not unkindly.
“There are very few people in this world who truly want to be alone.”
“Hn.”
Sometime during his crying he had grabbed onto her clothing, clenching it hard in a cramping grip. Now he struggled to release her and to stretch out his stiff fingers.
Shurah let go of their embrace as well, but she kept sitting so close that their knees still touched. He wondered if it was a deliberate choice, to maintain some sort of connection in the hope of providing him with some grounding. If it was, then he absolutely, unequivocally, didn’t deserve her companionship.
"I am just so tired. So goddamn tired."
"I know."
He closed his eyes and felt the wind slowly dry away the tears on his cheeks, turning the traces of them into faint whispers of salt.
“Stay with me”, she said again and he inhaled the sentence into his lungs, her words like a balm on his wounds.
“Stay and I will find a way to help you.”
The last two words sent a shiver through his body.
"Help me", he echoed. He locked eyes with her again and gone were his notions of anger and confusion. Now there was only weariness and doubt.
"But you've seen what I am. You know what I have done. I have told you-", he loosened a shaky breath, "-everything and yet…and yet…" he swallowed, unable to continue.
No one has ever offered to help me… but Letho.
He looked into her eyes for so long that the surroundings started to fade away and in her eyes he found his answer.
“You… actually want to help me. Don't you?”
“Yes”, was all she said and smiled that smile made of sunshine again. This time he did feel warmer, he was sure of it.
“I believe you, but I don’t understand it. I really don't.”
"In time, I think you will."
She slowly got to her feet and reached out a hand towards him.
"Let's go home, Tharaêl."
A last tear escaped upon hearing such a wonderful suggestion. But he managed to keep it together long enough to take her hand and as he did, he felt something shift deep within him. It was as if some of all the broken pieces had fused together once more. Only this time, into something stronger.
She pulled him to his feet and stood right next to him as he took his first, tentatively step away from that edge. He found that it was a whole lot easier doing so with someone by his side.
Sure, he was still nowhere near being in a balanced mindset - and he was tired to the bone, an exhaustion he wouldn’t sleep off anytime soon - but where once only ice had kept him solidly upright, now a small kernel of light burned in his heart.
Maybe he had been wrong, yet again. It wouldn’t be the first time after all. Maybe somewhere out there, there was a second chance even for him. A chance to repent for his crimes and maybe, just maybe… find a small piece of that happiness she wished for him so badly.
Tharaêl was weary, bruised and bloody; mind shattered, soul compromised and he was even scared a bit shitless if he was completely honest.
But there was one thing he wasn’t, one thing that would make all of the hardships mentioned into something bearable, at least for now.
He wasn’t alone.
And if he was really, really lucky, he would never have to be so again.
“Home”, he whispered out loud, tasting the word and its meaning.
“Sounds like a promising start.”