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Ri’kara stepped through the threshold and immediately bowed before she had even seen the other Protoss in the room, giving herself a few more moments to steady the lingering anger at even being near him.
“You do not need to bow, Ri’kara. I asked for you as a friend.”
Friend. She straightened and looked into his gentle blue eyes, letting her face fall into a slight frown and keeping her tone polite but short.
“I’d prefer to keep it as acquaintances, Hierarch.”
“… I know that what we did was rash—”
She immediately scoffed. She couldn’t hold it in, not with the way he spoke; how soft and comforting she supposed his voice was trying to be.
“’Rash’ is an understatement. What do you want from me?”
“I wanted to talk and try to mend things before you stepped down, apologise for my actions.”
Tears welled up in her eyes again for what seemed like the millionth time. She hardened her scowl and crossed her arms over her chest. “I suppose he set you up to this.”
“I have a message from him in addition to my own, but no. I hold as much blame as he does.”
“At least you have the decency to recognise that.”
There was a tense silence. She knew she was being more difficult than needed, but she didn’t particularly care. He should have known better, should have sat Alarak down and asked him what exactly he thought he was doing. Instead he went along with it.
“… What will you do now?”
“Everyone keeps asking me that. I don’t know.” She shrugged, faking nonchalance and waving her hands dismissively. “Get a ship, go out into space, hope the walls close in on me as I’m crawling through the vents to keep it running.”
“Ri’kara—”
“You wanted an answer, Hierarch. It isn’t my fault you both robbed me of the choice I wanted.”
“You still have that choice.”
She scoffed again, rolling her eyes. “Do I? You won’t even tell me where he’s gone so I can go and see if he’ll grow a spine. Have him if you’re so interested in protecting him from me.”
At that, he looked a little confused, one brow raising. “He is a friend. A brother… You know that.”
“You could have fooled me.”
He tilted his head a little, eyes narrowing just slightly, suddenly seeming to catch what she was implying. “I am not trying to protect him from anyone, least of all you. Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Ri’kara.”
There was a slight chastising tone in his voice made her physically recoil, her head snapping up to shoot him a harsh glare. “It isn’t jealousy, Hierarch; don’t patronise me. As though I haven’t known how he feels about you for decades.”
“I was not—"
She held up a hand, not bothering to let him justify himself for his tone. “It’s frustration at the fact that you both huddled together in a corner conspiring without me. I gave two hundred years to you even though I was lied to from the outset. You most likely knew how I felt about him regardless of any of that. Wasn’t it all enough? Wasn’t I important enough?”
Carefully, Artanis held up both hands, trying to calm her as he stepped forward. “I should have told you. I know that I should have, even when I was first pulled into this. When we discussed your involvement, he was insistent that we kept quiet; he was panicked, and I had never seen him act in such a manner. He told me that he didn’t want any complications. I trusted that there was a better reason that he could not speak about and went along with it.”
His voice was soft, softer than she had ever really heard it, and twinged with sadness. For a moment, she remembered Arun’s own conclusions, how trapped Alarak may have felt with so many things that could have gone wrong. She let a little tension from her shoulders and sighed, not bothering to answer. At least he made some sense.
“You have done more than enough, given more than I ever expected; grateful does not begin to describe it. I can only say that I am deeply sorry that we did not involve you and that I allowed myself to go against my better judgement. We both regret it, but… No matter how flawed the method, he did this for you.”
Ri’kara slumped down on the chair behind her, rubbing her face with both hands and trying not to tear up all over again. She wanted… Something. Some way that time could be reversed so that everything could have turned out better, so that she didn’t feel so hurt and betrayed. None of their apologies helped quell how angry she was at all of it.
“It doesn’t even matter if you’re sorry. It doesn’t matter if he did it for me. It doesn’t make me feel better. Why did it have to turn out this way?”
He sat beside her after a moment of hesitation, giving her a gentle, brotherly pat on the back as she stayed hunched over. For some reason she let him.
“I should never have let Verinis talk me into going back to my room; I should have chased after him. If I had, maybe he would have cracked, would have told me. The fact that the opportunity to spill everything I was holding in was there and I was forbidden from taking it is maddening. The fact that I was kept in the dark and made to feel hopeless was just cruel. I knew he was going to die. I grieved and had to pretend I wasn’t while Var’gash poked at me, I continued to wade through work, and you let me. If I had been told, then… I wouldn’t have been blinded by hope; I know better than that, but I wouldn’t have had to go through hell thinking he was dead.”
“I did not know he was going to confess to you before he left.”
With a scoff, she rolled her eyes, spitting her next statement out bitterly. “Maybe he just wanted me to fall into his arms once he came back.”
“… He might have. He regrets that too.”
She shrugged him off. “I’d rather hear that from him. He can explain for himself why he decided to treat me like I was stupid.”
He folded both hands in his lap and nodded, waiting to see if she would say anything else.
“As for what I will actually do next… I’m going to be with my friends for a while. I don’t know how long I’ll need, but once I’ve cleared my head, I’ll decide if I even want to ask you where he’s gone.”
“Of course I will tell you when you are ready. If you are sure, that is.”
For a moment, she softened. “I suppose you really only kept it from me because you didn’t know if I’d want it.”
His own expression softened with her, the tension in his shoulders lessening. “Yes. We had planned for you to go with him as soon as he was able, but… Obviously with how we treated you, I did not want to assume.”
“I understand… I’m sorry.”
“Please do not apologise; there is nothing that you could be sorry for.”
She let the silence just hang between them for a while, feeling him shift a little uncomfortably beside her. He once again seemed so concerned with how she and Alarak ended up, just like when he spoke to her after the solstice.
“… So you will be staying on Aiur for now?”
Ri’kara nodded, passing a hand over her crest. “I need time to myself. I don’t think being around you or Var’gash is helping me get over just how angry I am. Var’gash smiles like his father and tries too hard to be friendly even after trying to stick himself where he isn’t wanted, and you… Well… I feel like you’re being too quick to try and patch everything up and make it better to the point that you ignore how I feel.”
The Hierarch nodded, leaning back in his seat and sighing. “I am sorry.”
“I keep telling you to stop trying to push us together. You’re so eager for his happiness that you don’t care about the situation that surrounds us. Yes, unlike before we might be free now to pursue whatever we wish, but after what both of you have done… You have certainly delayed it from happening, if it does at all. I just… Want to know why I wasn’t allowed to know.”
“I could not tell you; I did what he asked of me even though I knew it was a mistake. I can only say that I am sorry for that.”
“I suppose there’s a chance I’m never going to know.”
He hesitated, shifting again with what she could only guess was nervousness before he spoke again. “… Will you at least hear his message before you leave?”
“Fine.”
“He asked me to tell you… that he does not expect you to ever want to look at him again, but that if you decide to follow him, he will spend every day after earning your forgiveness in whatever way you wish.”
Her reaction was almost instant, a spark or irritation taking hold of her before she could soften. “Tch. I didn’t expect him to grovel.”
“He is not—” He frowned just slightly. “Ri’kara. I can understand that you are angry, but please. I have not ever seen him cry like that; he means those words. I did not think that you would be so callous as to twist his intentions.”
She scoffed, keeping her voice harsh. “You’re doing it again. I can be as callous as I want, Hierarch. They are just words. You can’t expect me to forgive him instantly because he cried and ‘he’s so sorry’; I don’t trust him or you right now. I want him to prove that he means it, or he can enjoy his new life alone. I won’t make excuses for him; he hurt me. So did you.”
The Hierarch went silent, blue eyes cast to a spot on the floor as shame and some hurt danced in them. It was so odd to just have access to exactly how he was feeling by looking at his face. That little voice that she had tried to drown out tried again to calm her down slightly at the sight of his expression, and she sighed.
“… I can at least appreciate that he can say he is willing to do what it takes. Maybe he isn’t as much of a coward as I thought he was.”
All he could really do was nod at that.
After another awkward bout of silence, Ri’kara stood.
“Well, thank you for the apology, at least. I appreciate it… Does he want his clasp back?”
Standing with her and offering a bow before she could, he shook his head. “No.”
For a moment, unbidden, the memory of him holding her wrists to keep her from giving it back caught the attention of her mind’s eye, and she had to quickly shake herself, giving her voice an edge to try and ward off the urge to start crying. When would she ever just stop crying?
“Tell him that he’ll get his new limbs whether I see him again or not; I’d rather not have anyone else make them after I spent so long drafting them up.”
The Hierarch nodded again, that same troubled expression in his blue eyes. “I will hopefully speak with you again soon.”
She shrugged and stepped back out into the corridor, letting the door shut behind her.