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Dhurke Sahdmadhi is resting. Eternally. And peacefully if Nahyuta can help it. This is precisely why Nahyuta Sahdmadhi is not resting. Not for a moment, and not in the slightest. If Dhurke wanted to save Khura’in, well it was a bit late for that now. But the task fell into his son’s lap, and he wouldn’t waste any time not honouring it.
Dimly Nahyuta recalls how that was his goal too. A million years ago, five years ago. Save Khura'in. After that, his goal was to save his sister. He's not sure when his goal was to save himself.
There is a beautiful stained glass window in the palace. Lofty ceiling, spacious room. When the light comes in from the east in the morning, just over the mountains, the sunrays splay across the room’s every surface, dappling it all in hues of the holy mother. In the time of Ga’ran, the glass turned to one colour. Red. Suddenly the room, the kingdom, was cast in it constantly.
At twenty years old, Nahyuta, naively, believed he could sneak in each night to rearrange the panels one by one, piece by piece, a little at a time. There was no way to change this picture without becoming a part of it. At twenty-five Nahyuta Sahmadhi has taken a large hammer to this window and smashed it to pieces. At twenty-five Nahyuta Sahdmadhi is building a mosaic with broken shards of glass.
He picks up a piece and cuts his fingers open. He finds a place for it and places it there. He's one step closer to a finished picture. The window is almost whole again. Khura’in is almost whole again. Nahyuta Sahdmadhi is bleeding out.
In actuality Nahyuta Sahdmadhi stands before this mural of light in a palace which is now his, for a time. He's made a ruler in the room that rules him. How do you lead a country of citizens you've doomed to die?
He addresses the people, his people, in the first days. When he looks out at the crowd his eyes catch on those of a girl not much older than Her Benevolence. She doesn't break from his gaze. Her eyes are hard, angry. He can't stand to look. What would Nahyuta look like? If he was forced to follow the person who sent his father to die?
-
"Wow, you look terrific."
Apollo Justice says this with more than a note of sarcasm.
"Thank you."
"No really. You look like shit"
"Thank you. The Holy Mother couldn't give me a brother kinder than you."
Nahyuta tries reading over the passage in front of him a third time. Three is a holy number. Maybe he'll comprehend it this time.
"Hey. I'm serious."
Apollo takes the file from the table in front of him. He carries it to the altar underneath the office's window, next to Dhurke's framed portrait. Apollo sits back down and watches as Nahyuta watches Dhurke watch his sons.
"Can't you look away from work for a second? It's been what, a month now? You can't expect to review years and years worth of verdicts in a month."
"These people are grieving. Some because of me, directly. I can't assuage that sorrow soon enough."
"If you keep going like this you won't be able to help anyone."
"No rest for the wicked."
Nahyuta says this with a smile he's sure looks no more sincere than it feels.
"You're not wicked."
Apollo says this with a frown that Nahyuta is sure is as sincere as it looks.
"It is a common English idiom."
Nahyuta gets up from the decades-old couch. He crosses over to the office fridge. Dhurkes eyes follow him.
"An idiom which, in point of fact, originates from an English interpretation of the Christian Bible."
He opens the fridge. Apollo's leftovers with a bright yellow sticky note. Datz's leftovers with two. Someone should buy groceries, he notes. He pulls a beer can from the bottom shelf, no doubt left behind by Detective Skye.
"The Old Testament, specifically."
He pulls the tab on the can and takes a sip. Dhurke watches.
"A doctrine which I do not conduct myself by, in a language that is not my first, so the phrase has little weight to me, as any other English idiom."
"Are you allowed to drink that?"
Dhurkes eyes make the air inside the office heavy and humid. The room is filled with a fog so thick he can barely breathe.
"Excuse me. I'll be stepping outside for a moment."
The back door of the office opens onto a grassy patch of land. The mountains surrounding Khura'in are easy to see in the distance. Somewhere between five minutes and five hours, Apollo sits down next to Nahyuta in the grass with a can of his own. Nahyuta doesn't remember sitting down. He remembers seeing his father's autopsy report. He remembers other fathers he sent to die.
Apollo shakes Nahyuta's shoulder with his free hand.
"What's up?"
This he asks in Khurainese. Apollo probably hasn't been speaking much of it since he was nine. His accent is atrocious; Nahyuta laughs at him.
"Hey! I can't sound that bad right?"
He sounds affronted, but even after all this time, Nahyuta knows his brother. Loud doesn't mean angry. Loud is just… Apollo.
"Your… volume is just as I remember. Your accent could use some work. When did you become such an American?"
"Well there's no hope for me to improve if you only ever speak English with me."
"Drink your beer."
Apollo blinks. Thrice. Holy number.
"..What?"
"Exactly. Your listening comprehension is atrocious. What would your father think of you now?"
"Which one?"
This dry humour is markedly Apollo.
"Dhurke."
He hasn't let himself say the name out loud. Not in a month. He's not sure if he meant to. Now his blood runs cold. Colder than his can which, now, has grown warm in his palm and the sunlight. Apollo watches him from the side of his eye. Dhurke watches him from everywhere else.
"Hey."
Apollo is his little brother. Not by much, but enough. There was nothing he could do for Apollo then. What can he hope to do now?
"It's my fault he's gone. I'm sorry for that. I repent that that is all I can be."
"It is, decidedly, not your fault. Are you ever listening to me? Feeling bad doesn't fix anything. I miss Dhurke and I feel bad. I don't really miss my bio dad and I still feel bad. It doesn't bring anyone back."
Absently, Nahyuta notes that Apollo calls Jove his biological father, not his real father.
"The last time I saw him, Apollo, I was so awful. There isn't a hell hot enough for the way I behaved."
"Fuck. Me too."
Apollo's watching the clouds roll over the mountains.
"Dhurke came all the way- or Miss Fey came all the way- to the US. For Dhurke. Miss Fey came as Dhurke."
"I understand, Apollo."
"Anyway, he came all the way to California. And I was pissed. He abandoned me. I mean I was nine, on my own in a new country. Now I finally had a whole new life there and he wanted to be back in it? He was my dad, at some point, so I loved him. But he was an ass, at other points, so I kind of hated him."
There's not many clouds to watch. It's an almost clear, beautiful day.
"Hell. I kind of hate him now. Like, 'Why'd you have to be such a martyr, Dhurke? Why'd you have to leave me behind? Again.' Are you crying?"
He hadn't noticed. Now he feels his shoulders shaking, and the tear that falls on his lip explains why his can is salty. It's beer. Call it what it is.
Then Apollo's arm is around his shoulder. Nahyuta is silent even though he's sobbing, but his voice comes out more like gravel than he expects.
"I really miss him. I am… so sorry."
Apollo pulls him into a real hug now. It's a little awkward, the way it is when you hug a sibling. It's a lot heartfelt, the way it is when you're losing something together.
"I lost my best friend, back home, in California. He died. And I beat myself up over it for a long time."
"I'm sorry."
"Please don't be."
He's not much else.
"Time doesn't mend. Anything. You think you're better off and then one day you're putting on your coat or looking out the window at night and it hurts as much as it did the first time, and it's so strong there's nothing else. Grief is like that. Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm sad, everytime I'm sorry. I don't think that feeling ever gets better."
"You're a terrific motivator."
Apollo pulls back to shove him in the shoulder, then hugs him again.
"Let me finish. It doesn't get better, but it gets less frequent. One day it's all you think about. You keep living until it's not."
Nahyuta has seen the other pictures on Apollo's altar. There's one of Jove and another next to it. He's never asked, but he assumes it's of the friend in question. Apollo's strong, stronger than him. Apollo looks at the faces of all these people he's lost, everyday. Nahyuta feels these losses, sitting on his shoulders, weighing on his back. Crying now, letting himself truly grieve the way Apollo says feels like something splintering in his chest. Something gives way and a dam is breaking and it all spills over and out. Something floods and something else washes away.
"Thank you."
-
Nahyuta is resting. He's making a fervent attempt. The vigour with which he tries to relax is almost counterintuitive. He lays on the office couch with a book. Apollo is out shopping for groceries, Ahlbi insists on shadowing, Datz is.. who knows where.
A knock comes from the door. Detective Skye lets herself in.
"Detective Skye."
He's happy to see her, as always, but she's fiddling with something. Something shadows her face.
"Your Regency."
Detective Skye approaches him and holds out a butterfly shaped locket. Nahyuta flinches, paper-cutting his finger on the page of his book, colouring the corner of the page red.
"Technically this is evidence. Which means it should be kept for records. Mostly bureaucratic nonsense. But I figured you'd want to have it."
She fixes his gaze. Nahyuta has always respected her steadfastness over anything else.
"Plus, you're pretty much my boss. Still. So the only person I'm answering to is you."
Nahyuta gives her his palm. She gives him the locket.
"The last time I saw this, it was covered in blood, in an evidence bag, in court."
"Sorry. I figured that would've been kind of a cold gift. If that's how you wanted it I guess I figured wrong."
The second thing he respects about her has always been dry wit.
"Thank you, Detective."
She nods an affirmative, making a move for the door.
"Ema."
She looks back.
"You left your beers in the fridge."
"I know."
Then she's gone. Back out the way she came.
Nahyuta gets off the couch and crosses to the altar, placing the pendant around Dhurke's frame.