CONTENT WARNING:
This installment of Fractal Alliances features a post-torture psychotic break and includes traumatic dissociation, attempted suicide, and the associated aftermath.
June 1987 E-10
Ev laid in the middle of a Hellhound pen, their head on the stomach of a dozing retiree hound twice their size, three others surrounding them and on top of them. They contemplated what exactly they had done to deserve it this time. Had the filed a report wrong? Was it because of the failed mission to Laax? Was Deis just mad? They had to have done something to deserve the brutality they’d been dealt recently…
Maybe getting closer to Fin had been the problem. He was a great man, a great friend. Ev would be lying if they said they’d never considered him romantically—the 1950s were testament to that. But look where that had gotten Talis. Maybe they Council caught on, and were punishing Ev since they couldn’t touch Fin.
Or maybe they didn’t need a reason, and Ev had just been made into a punching bag for fun.
The final attack on an unnamed satellite world between Tartarus and Aetheria had come to a brutal end at Ev and the Second and Third Councilmen’s hands a day ago—the first of many punishments Ev had endured. The satellite world had sent a cell of rebel fighters to the edges of centra, and Garris had pursued two weeks ago. Yesterday, the fight had ended in an unnamed world where nearly two thousand rebels and sympathizers had been killed. Ev, under Deis’s control, had personally been brought in to obliterate the last cohort: two dozen former IAF soldiers—defectors. When Ev closed their eyes, they could still see some of their faces. They had fought with some of them once upon a time.
In the twenty-four hours since returning from the massacre, Ev had been taken back to Pal’eca de-Rêve and stripped of their armor. Their HOLO account had been put on lockdown. They had been brought to the private sparring salles in the residence wing and thrown around like a ragdoll. When they asked Deis why, in the middle of an attempt to gouge his eyes out, he said something about their failing to prevent the initial rebel attack, letting the Arensha warriors out to intervene in the first place…
Ev stopped listening after Garris said they were lucky a cover-up squad wasn’t being dispatched to mind-wipe everyone in the outskirts who had witnessed the massacre or the ancient stone warriors’ appearance. After, they really stopped listening when their HOLOchips were turned off and their concealment and stabilization charms were stripped. They remembered being dropped into a training room with a glamor on, set to face at least a dozen fighters who needed something to take out their anger on. They knew they’d been getting live psychoempathic orders to downplay their strengths and let themselves be beaten down further. The orders were accompanied by degradation of Deis’s harshest caliber. By the time they staggered onto the warp pad on Heran Manor’s southern ridge, they were lucky to be standing at all.
The specifics were a blur. The last twenty-four hours were a blur. Everything was a swirl of pain, exhaustion, and confusion. They didn’t understand. They could never understand…
And here they were, fully healed except for some surface abrasions, sore muscles, and a black eye. They had been looked over by VaTiera and the new Chaser (who wasn’t “new,” anymore, she’d held the title for three years since she transferred from Firefliers) had put them through a familiar gauntlet of healing spells, stitches, IVs. This morning, they were ejected from medbay. They’d left for the Hellound den immediately.
Ev had spent the last five hours surrounded by affectionate senior and off-duty Hellhounds, and they were still miserable. Emotionally, they felt nothing. Not anger, not despair, not guilt. A bit of confusion and expansive numbness were all that remained. A distant part of them knew they adored hellhounds, that they had been thrilled when Alkaline took an interest in the Mercishan military’s K9 program and decided to reform the breeding and training processes. But here and now, while they lied on the floor in a state of near-unconciousness, they felt nothing. Not pride, not solace, not regret. They barely registered the warm stone floor beneath their back, or the wiry fur of their canine support team.
What was the point? they wondered. Feeling anything. Trying to hold on. Deis had said it himself, there was none. They could let go, hand over the crowns, and be done with it all. After eighty years of torture, they could die and leave it all behind. All they had to do was say the word.
When he said it, Ev was trying to thrust a dagger into his neck. They hadn’t cared about anything but staying alive. Now, they were beginning to consider his offer. What else was left? Everyone they loved had either been brutally murdered or had to be kept at arm’s length so they didn’t meet the same fate. Their little sister, their extinct people, Cole Hackerie, Axel Variett, Talis Errison, all of Star-Delta. Their being here, at Heran Manor, was likely just delaying the inevitable demise of the Heran family. It would be better for everyone if they left now and didn’t look back.
In the medical bay, VaTiera had said something about them being “practically slated for execution,” that their fight after the salles should have killed them. Maybe it was time to surrender to that. The numbness consuming Ev shifted and suddenly they needed to be anywhere else. Their canine entourage protested with high wines and imploring looks as they extracted themselves from the dog pile. Their heart thundered in their chest as they fled the barracks caverb, too intimately aware of everyone’s heat signatures in the Void grid, of the buzzing of multiple empaths trying to get a read on them as they made for the hoverlifts.
Anywhere else. Anywhere.
Sometime later, Ev found themselves alone in their room. It was quiet and secluded there, tucked back in the corner of the second floor residence wing. They left the door cracked and started pulling their combat armor and weapons from the void. Everything was still scuffed, muddy, or spattered in blood from ending Garris’s campaign. They found cleaner and a rag and went to work, trying to distract themselves. To prepare for what they were about to do. They let themselves drift, trying to distance themselves from the erratic pounding of their own heart. They did their best not to think of Talis as they scrubbed their armor with the cleaning solution he had recommended to them.
They didn’t think of Talis, but they did think of someone else. They shoved Fin out of their mind so many times they started to scowl at their shaking hands. They tried to banish the thought of him—how he could get hurt, of how all of their friends could get hurt so very badly just by continuing to associate with them—and channeled their jittery anger towards cleaning.
Eighty years and they still didn’t understand why the Council operated the way they did. The gag orders, the media control, the complacency gas, the massacres, the cover-up projects, the way they handled the IAF… There were days it all felt so unreal, so dystopian, that Ev wondered if they had truly died on that beach in Averon and this was Hell.
Since 1927, their eyes had been partially opened to the greater game the Council was playing. They’d become aware of the true nature of the corrupt regime they and their squad served so excellently.
Since 1941, they’d known exactly how far the source of the corruption, Councilman Shas, would go to protect itself. In the 1950’s, he demonstrated those lengths even more brutally.
Since 1962, Ev had known the pain of that cruelty even more directly. They suffered more that year than they had ever thought possible. The pain of losing one’s family (again, their mind screamed, again) to a horrific cause was overwhelming. In just the past five years, they’d learned how that pain could be warped and turned against them in even worse ways.
Stretched over it all was the death toll. So many dead, so many killed for knowing too much or thinking for themselves, and Ev was at the head of it. Ev was the one who’d carried out execution orders, who razed towns, who signed the papers discontinuing life-saving supply runs. It didn’t matter anymore that they couldn’t remember most of it, that they hadn't been in control. They had still carried it out, they’d still done it. It was still their name on all the papers.
When they were through cleaning their armor, they laid everything out, including their folded undersuit. They considered writing a note, but the files in their HOLO would be enough. Everything was already backed up on the HOLOdot on their desk beneath the window. They picked up their IAF-issued pistol and began to clean it. When they had reassembled it, they clicked off the safety.
It would be for the best if the Council couldn’t use them anymore. Shas wanted a bank of power, someone capable of what a ziojic could do. Someone he could control. If Ev removed themselves from the equation, he no longer had that. Loresia would get the crowns, the Council would be out of balance for a couple years, and Ev would have time to resurrect and form a plan to stop them. Or, if they weren’t allowed to resurrect again because they were such a colossal failure, then maybe their death would start a rebellion. Maybe it would be the Coalition’s last straw.
Either way, they were out. Permanently. It would still be better for everyone else. It would put them in less danger, after all.
Ev primed the battery pack and aimed for a clean shot under their chin, through their skull. They tested the trigger…
And hesitated.
Why did they still hesitate, after all they’d been through? Why put it off until the Trifecta got another shot at their life?
But then, why here? Why should they commit suicide in their room at Heran Manor, their place of solace? Why not wait until their next fight with Deis, when they knew he would get the blame? Ev worked their jaw as they considered their options.
A knock at their door startled them out of a standstill. They turned to see a familiar face: a TAC Colonel, Rose veaBlanche. No longer a kid, and no longer a Private. He hadn’t seen her in almost twelve years. The sight of her, of her rank bars, short hair, and emerald eyes, shocked them to silence.
“Boss said you were in the Manor for a visit,” she said. “Thought I would stop by…”
She trailed off, her eyes flickering as she saw the pistol in their hand. Her gaze snapped to their face, registering the scared, desperate look in their eye, and she closed the door behind her. Ev was disarmed in under three seconds, then Colonel veaBlanche pulled them to the floor, holding their hands tightly in hers. They couldn’t reach for another weapon or cast a spell without hurting her first.
“Where are you?” she asked sharply.
“Heran Manor,” they answered hollowly.
She cursed in Talkian. “No, I mean where’s your mind? What made you even consider doing—that?”
She nodded toward their pistol, the battery pack a yard away from the weapon itself, which had gone dark.
Ev swallowed, their mouth suddenly dry. They couldn’t tell her. She couldn’t know, she’d tell Fin—
“One of my squadmates ate her own blaster last week, Stark,” she told them, her voice shaking. “And my sister did it three years ago. Don’t you dare try and tell me you weren’t considering offing yourself, that you didn’t have your blaster pointed at your throat the second before I walked in. I know that expression. I know those eyes.”
Ev with struck with the notion that she had been there to see her squadmate kill herself. They swallowed hard and squeezed their eyes shut, trying to focus on the heat radiating from her hands.
“I wasn’t going to do it,” they lied.
“That’s what everyone says,” she snapped.
She studied them closely, squeezing their fingers, then reached for a blanket atop their bed. She wrapped it around their shoulders, still holding onto their left hand, then summoned a candy bar.
“Eat that,” she ordered. “Might help.”
Ev wasn’t one to disobey a fully armed TAC officer. They peeled open the candy bar and bit off a chunk. She looked away just long enough to send a message ping—to Arv’hein Heran, they read backwards on her screen—then took both their hands again and sat cross-legged in front of them, between them and the door. She was letting them keep watch.
“I’m sorry about your sister and your squadmate,” they said quietly.
She glared at them, like she hadn’t quite forgiven them for almost joining their ranks. “Thanks,” she said bitterly. “Keep eating.”
Ev finished off the candybar, held aloft by magic since she had stolen both their hands. Her calloused fingers rubbed patterns into their icy hands. Fire flickered in her neatly trimmed, patterned buzz cut.
Fin burst through the door a minute later and she stood, staring them down until he was fully in the room. She nodded to him and made to leave.
“Thank you, Colonel veaBlanche,” they called after her, their voice weak.
“Any time,” she said, meeting their eyes. “Seriously. Any time, Stark. And… call me Rose.”
Well, considering she had just stopped them from committing suicide, Ev figured that was fair.
She ducked out the door, closing it to a crack behind her, then Ev had an armful of Tritaran-Miiredian Shade. Fin hauled them in close, practically putting them in his lap, and they held onto him, the numbness returning as he swore in Rekahn Talkian and gripped them like a lifeline.
“No one I asked had seen you leave the Hellhound den,” he said when he pushed them away to see their face. His eyes were wide and scared. “You weren’t in medical, you weren’t with Banshee… I wasn’t worried until veaBlanche pinged me. You tried to shoot yourself?”
Ev nodded, not meeting his eyes.
“Why?” he demanded, gripping their shoulders. “Gods know I’ve tried too but—but why?”
He had tried and failed to commit suicide at the end of the War Between Worlds, largely because of the amount of death he’d seen and how thought he had failed his troops. It had been a spur of the moment thing, and he hadn’t tried since. The only other attempt he made was when he was a distressed teenager, long before he met Ev.
Their attempt just now, by comparison, was more sinister. They’d been thinking about it for months, sometimes for days at a time. Today—since yesterday, really—it had come to a peak. They still felt the need to get it all out, to destroy themselves before someone else got to them first. But here, tangled up on the floor of the only place they could still call home, being held by the only person they could trust and were still in contact with, they didn’t want to die. They didn’t want to imagine his reaction if he had walked in and found them with their brains blasted out.
A sob escaped their throat and they lost it. The weight and pain and confusion of the last two weeks was drowning them as they fell apart in front of Fin, and they held onto him for dear life. Like he could save them from the monsters controlling them. He couldn’t. No one could, except maybe the gods. There was no plan where they permanently fled the Empire alive. There was no way out except death, and Fin couldn’t change that. The Coalition couldn’t change that, no one could—
They must have been babbling because Fin hugged them close and began to shush them, holding them tight and pulling their blanket around them both. Sobs wracked their whole body and they might have fought against him, demanding to be let go, but Fin was strong and he was wearing armor. He just continued to hold them.
It made them furious.
They had just been let out of Aetheria after being forced to slaughter revolutionaries—IAF defectors who know what they were fighting, and civilians who just knew they were fighting evil. Ev had killed two dozen of them, Garris and her troops had killed almost two hundred. The same thing had happened countless times, and Ev had an endless list of names on their kill record. They didn’t deserve help, or affection, or whatever the fuck Fin was trying to do here. They didn’t deserve friends like him. They didn’t deserve his pity, or his concern, or anything else.
They shouted at him and he put protection wards on the walls. They wriggled until they were free of his arms, blindly shouting curses at him as they fled to the opposite side of the room. There were knives in their kitchenette drawers. They could try and—
The drawers wouldn’t open. Orange runes held them in place. They turned, setting burning eyes on Fin. He had taken their pistol and vanished it, along with the various blades by their desk. One of the wards he had placed prevented them from opening their Void and summoning others. They spat more insults at him in Aetherian and he stood still, taking it. The eyed the door, still cracked open. They marched over and kicked it shut, the protection wars sealing.
They could let loose. They could destroy themselves and keep Fin out of it altogether, just by focusing the magic the right way. They could let themselves uncoil. They exhaled and let everything start to unspool, bit by bone-grinding bit. They turned to Fin started where this friendship should have ended.
“You should’ve arrested me back in ‘sixty-two,” they snapped, speaking in CT and fixing Fin with an angry look. Magic roiled around them, but didn’t quite heed their command.
Fin’s careful mask of concern flickered with alarm, then pain. “What? Ev, you had just had your entire squad massacred, your family, why would I have—”
“Because there’s an increasingly plausible chance that I was the one who massacred them.”
His eyes went wide and they ripped their gaze away. They began pacing from one side of their room to the other.
“When Garris takes control of me, she works a little differently than Deis,” they explained, drawing on recent experiences. “Deis pulls on painful memories to anchor himself in people’s minds, like a malicious curse, but Garris forces her own memories of violence in to block out everything else. Recently, whenever I fuck up, I’ve noticed her putting memories back into my head, ones I’ve already experienced while under her control. Things we were both there for in the past.”
Their voice was cracking oddly now, panic clawing its way up their chest. “She used the memories of their deaths this time, and—she used– and- it was- it was my sword, my magic. Fin, I–”
They whirled and stopped in front of him, tears pouring down their face amidst the rage and desperation. “I think she might’ve used me to kill them.”
Fin’s expression twisted painfully. He shook his head. “You said they kept you on the ship while it happened, that you were taken there after. Garris wasn’t even there, you said it was Shas who killed Star-Delta.”
“That’s what I thought,” they sobbed, stumbling over a vambrace before kicking it away. They felt Fin’s discontent at the treatment of their armor reverberate across the room. “And that’s not even the worst of it!”
They felt his aura shift subtly. Out of the corner of their eye, they studied his expression just enough to tell he was contemplating what was worse than being used to murder their own family. Nausea wrenched at their gut. They staggered back to the kitchenette and tried the drawers again. When that failed, they slumped down in the corner of the cabinets. Fin started towards him, but they shot him a look.
“I used to be able to tell when they pulled me into a blackout mission,” they said, their voice shaking. “I’d wake up somewhere I wasn’t seemingly just a second ago. It’d be obvious.”
They shook their head, their vision going fuzzy at the edges. Stress pushed on their chest like a murderous drakon.
“I can’t tell anymore. I used to always know, but now- now I’m thinking maybe I never could. They just… let me think I could. Because now… everything just seems like one seamless, bloody whirlwind. A never-ending eon of pain, of suffering. It’s- it’s been like this for years.” They choked on a another sob and hit their head against the cabinets. “I’ve wanted to- to end it for years.”
Fin’s shoulders slumped. “Dai Morsanna, Ev’ara…” he murmured sadly.
They spotted a sharpened letter opener on the floor near the closest bookcase, but their didn’t have the strength to lunge for it or the magic to summon it. Every part of their being felt dead. Fin started towards them again, slowly, and they didn’t look at him. They stared at the letter opener instead.
“I could kill you on one of my visits and never even know until I hear it on the news,” they whispered numbly. “I know how it would go. You’ve seen my traumatic stress responses. It would be as quick as that, with patched memories to get me back to Aetheria afterwards. I wouldn’t know until Tartarus declares war on Aetheria and I’m forced to fight everyone I’ve still trust.”
Everyone I’ve still love. The ones who are left.
“I’d probably forget that too,” they whimpered.
“That’s not a reason to kill yourself,” Fin insisted, and now he was right in front of them. His hand came to rest on their folded knee.
“Isn’t it?” they asked mournfully. They shook their head. “You’re safe when I’m not here. If I show up one day, under their control, you’d all let me right in. I’d have a clear shot the moment I warped in.”
His thumb ran over the fabric of their sweats. He was studying their face, but they wouldn’t meet his eyes. “That’s why you haven’t been to Trivaal in four years, or Korenna, or Mercai, without it being a Coalition event. You can come here and there’s a better chance the connection will be cut upon landing.”
They nodded and sucked in a shuddering breath. “Anywhere else and I could kill any of you on-sight, and you wouldn’t suspect a thing until there was a blaster burn on your forehead. I might not even remember it. My entire government could frame me for it and succeed. Isn’t my death worth preventing that?”
“They could send anyone to kill me,” he countered. “Hell, I could die two days from now in Azia because of an assassination attempt by the old Imperial Remnant! Any of us could. We live in Tartarus, we have enemies everywhere, in-world and out. There’s a man in my personal council who tried to murder me in bed.”
Ev scoffed.
“Have you considered that using you to kill me would just land your Council in the hot seat? If they killed any of us themselves, using you or some other IAF pawn, can you imagine the wrath the Coalition would bring down onto them? The Coalition would know it’s not your fault. We know more than you give us credit for. The survivors would destroy the Council, free you, and more, Ev.”
They didn’t like to think about that. It made them consider how many people could die if word of it got to the Imperial Council. They swallowed and tried one more thing, to see if they could truly scare him off.
“I could stop the Council myself,” they said. “Shas said it himself: he’s scared of me. Of most ziojics.”
Fin’s eyes held nothing but worry. No fear. “Why haven’t you?”
“Because if I try, they can kill me in an instant. I’ve heard rumors of detonator chips being implanted in Vanguard soldiers. I imagine I’m one of them. If that fails, they can just—zap!—crank up the biolock and use my own magic to fry me.”
In addition to being a murderer, they were also a ticking time-bomb. They expected Fin to leap away from them. Instead, he just looked horrified. Like he wanted to carry them to medical over his shoulder, remove their chips, and have them scanned for explosive devices.
“I’m entirely their pawn! I couldn't resist if I wanted to! What makes you think they wouldn’t use that same power to take out the entire Coalition if they had to?” They shook their head. “I’m a power bank at their disposal, Fin. I should be locked out of their reach or killed.”
They eyed the dagger in his boot and he vanished all his weapons with a stern frown. He reached for them and they fought him again as he pulled them into his arms. They blacked out as they wrested themselves away from him again. When they came out of it Fin was still by the kitchenette, but they were brandishing the letter opener at him, feeling like a cornered animal as they backed towards their bed.
Fin magicked the blade away from them with a flick of his wrist and sighed. Tears welled in their eyes.
They were a terrible friend. Here Fin was, trying to help them and get them medical attention every time they showed up at his home a delirious wreck, and here they were threatening both their life and his. On top of that, they were a murder machine who could theoretically break at any time Deis wanted them to. Yet they still came to their friends for help, putting all of them in danger. Their friends who, as good fighters as they may be, would not last long against Ev’s or any other Vanguard soldier under Deis’s control, with his sadism—or Garris’s megalomania, or Shas’s all-encompassing control. In the face of the trifecta, all of them could be slaughtered.
Their thoughts rolled back to Star squad, to this recent campaign in Laxa and what Garris had shown them, and sobbed again, the force of it wracking their entire body. “I was their CO, Fin. Their family, and I killed them.”
Khloe Sarrdah, Xira Ka’Mero, Louis Tarren, Taren Vex-Har, Madux velHara, Hann Farlow. Talis Errison. Four names from Delta squad they had never had time to learn, they’d been in the vanguard for such as short time. Other names and faces flashed in their mind. “They were my family and I failed them,” they sobbed. “I failed my family again.”
They always failed their family in the end. Vodé-Cyresia, Cassius Varril, Cole Hackerie, their entire joint squad, Talis, the Coalition. Ev would never forget the aftermath of Pycithea, coming back to Tartarus in 1931 in shambles and everyone refusing to look at them. Everyone had thought so differently by the end of that day, shifting from quiet disgust at their alleged actions to outright horror at what they and Talis had actually been through. Some buried part of them knew their friends would likely react the same way to this, but they were too focused on how horrified of how everyone might be instead. They couldn’t pay any attention to logic.
Then there was Fin. He had to be horrified by all of this, by the truth of their job and circumstances. A flurry of panicked emotions swirling around them that weren’t Ev’s own, and their heart sank as they realized they had likely failed Fin right here, right now, not only by their admitting their faults, but by projecting the unavoidable empathic backwash of their thoughts and feelings. He knew everything that they had just felt and thought. They swayed and made to run. To leave. He didn’t need to deal with them anymore, there was no point. They staggered backwards into their bed began to tip over instead.
And again, Fin was there. He slung their arm over his shoulder before Ev could hit the ground again. His hands were warm where he was supporting them, with one palm on their chest and the other at their lower back. With all of their fight gone, they let themselves be walked—carried—to the couch and set down, and Fin slotted himself between their back and the arm of the couch before they could settle. He drew healing sigils on both their arms and on their chest, then levitated the blanket Rose had found them to wrap around their shoulders. Then he hugged them.
Guilt, shame, and the whirlwind of other emotions that came with being a treacherous bastard resurfaced and worked their way from Ev’s rib cage outwards. They wanted to throw Fin off again, to bat away his careful hands, to continue to rage and scream and cry for the things they’d done and the people they’d hurt or lost along the way. They didn’t want to hurt anyone else. They wished Rose hadn’t come through the door.
Fin squeezed them tighter as they cried it all out, most of their violent desires too high-energy for their tired body to carry out. Slowly, the rage disappeared and the guilt settled in, and when they had dissolved into hiccuping sobs, Fin began to work his armor off. He had to stand to remove his greaves and boots, but then he was right behind them again. He held them until the weight on their chest was gone and they had no more fight left in them.
“I’m sorry,” they panted, clinging to his undersuit.
He shook his head and pressed his face into their hair. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t. But they didn’t have the energy to fight him on it. They let him pull their body against his chest and he was so, so warm…
They were sorry for hurting him, for scaring him, but for so much more than that too. They were sorry for failing their tribe. For failing their Aetherian family. For putting Loresia, who was so young compared to them, in such an awful position. For scaring Fin and Rose and Hiro and probably everyone else, because there was no way their recent disconnect had been subtle. They were sorry they ever became Emperor, that they’d ever finished carving that fucking rune on their chest with their own poisoned blood.
They were sorry for everything, for ever thinking they could make a difference against massive corrupt machines who didn’t give a damn. They hated it all. They hated themselves.
Shame reared its ugly head as Fin’s hand found a hold under their arm and shifted their position so they were both more comfortable. They found themselves with their head on his chest, his heart thumping beneath their ear.
“Why are you still here?” they asked hoarsely. Everything felt raw and broken inside. Guilt had slithered its way into the very core of their being years ago, and right now it was festering. They didn’t deserve this, not after how they’d treated him—today and in recent years in general.
“Because you were there when my world was in shambles,” he said softly. “Multiple times. Why wouldn’t I be here for you now, when yours feels like its ending?”
Because they were a monster. A pawn in the scheme of a horrible trifecta of mindbreakers. They were a murderer. An (albeit unwilling) imperialist. When Fin's world fell apart, it was because of his parents or because of personal betrayals. Betrayals like the ones they had made tonight. Of his trust, of his goodwill.
They must have projected all of that because he snorted indignantly. The brush of air ruffled their hair. “The Evansen Stark I know is nothing worse than a sarcastic, war-weary asshole who cheats at Demon’s Chess and refuses to let medics keep them in medbays,” he said, pulling them ever closer as he pressed a kiss to their temple. “You’re not a monster, Starkie. You never were.”
Ev couldn’t help but laugh at Talis’s old nickname. It was a broken little thing of both disbelief and shocked amusement. The sound made warmth bloom outwards from Fin’s chest as he relaxed his aura to bleed comfort and- and love into them. Fire danced across their skin.
“We both know that’s not true though,” they sniffed. “I’m so much worse than that.”
“Nah,” he protested. “I mean, VahTee probably hates that you’re an impossible patient—so does Jesse Feht. But even they don’t think you’re a terrible person. Not at your core. You’re just in pain a lot, physical or otherwise. Which is drakon shit, might I add.”
They scoffed an wondered how they’d ever landed him as a best friend. “I just told you I could kill you in a heartbeat and you’re holding me like a distressed rookie,” they deflected.
“I’m not nearly this nice to the rookies,” he snorted.
They buried a watery smile in his chest.
He shifted to let them uncurl their legs and wrap their arms around him, then went back to holding them tight. “I’m not stupid, Ev. I know what being your friend entails. I know what you go through, I’ve been seeing it happen for decades. But you know what being my friend entails too—my family, my anger, my enemies.”
Softer, he added, “I know what it’s like to feel like you’re worth more dead than alive, too. I could never leave you alone when you feel the same way.”
Ev squeezed their arms around him in wordless thanks. They had no response to that.
“If it helps, think of it like this,” he continued. “If Phantasma took over Tartarus today and made us all carry out terrible things under his control, would you hold me or any of our friends accountable for what he made us do?”
They shook their head.
He squeezed their arm, smiling. “Exactly. Most of Aetheria has been subjected to the control of beings who aren’t that much better than him. Your Council operates very similarly to the original leadership of the Old Aetherian Empire, and to the empire my mother inherited. It’s not hard to see once you learn the truth about your real role as Empera.
“They’ve been doing this to people for millennia, vi’ardor. You’re their latest victim, and they’re exploiting and targeting you because they know what people like you are capable of. Ziojics with their powers, yes… but the kind of people who strive to save people too. Those who want to help, to make things right, to stand up to people like them. The ones who believe in rebellion. You said it yourself: you scare them. So they try to break you.”
“And that justifies any of it?” they sniffed.
“Of course not,” he whispered. “But you need to remember that you’re not to blame. You’ve been a victim in all of this—as much as Star/Delta was, as much as your people are. And still, despite all of it, you’re trying to protect them from the worst of it.”
“I’m not doing a very good job,” they muttered.
“I disagree. Without you doing what you are, as little as it may seem, things would be much worse without you. Star-Delta, for one, benefited greatly from having you in their lives. Each and every member of yours and Talis’s squads did."
He sighed. “But that doesn’t mean you should have to deal with this kind of abuse. My offer to get the Chirrells involved still stands.”
His offer to the involve the Chirrells, which still stood after three long years since he first issued it. Ev sighed shakily, wishing they could take him up on that offer more than anything.
“No,” they told him again. They picked at a loose thread on his undersuit. “But maybe I’ll pay them a visit while I’m here. Fill them in on- on some of it.”
On why they’d been so absent for the last five years, at least. They all deserved that much.
“Good,” Fin said into their hair, where he placed another kiss. He squeezed them tightly and their eyelids began to droop.
“What did you mean about being able to take out the Council yourself?” he asked into their sleepy haze.
Ev’s eyes shot open. Fin’s fingers were still carding through their hair casually, like he hadn’t just asked another deadly question. He just wanted to know. They tried to settle, but their heart had leapt at his question.
“The crowns,” they said, moistening their lips. “I bear the crowns of Aetheria, which are almost completely undiluted and have been since the New Empire’s formation. They’re more powerful than your crown. They hold more than just symbolic weight. That plus being a ziojic means that I, technically, possess enough power to pull a ‘Nathan Shasear:’ snap everyone’s necks and take over. Except for the biolock.”
Fin fingers stilled. “The… what?”
The fire prickling over their skin seemed to burn a little more dangerously. Ev swallowed.
“The biolock. I swear I told you before. It- it’s like a regulator program on steroids. A lock on my HOLOchips that partially blocks my magic reserves. I can never access my full reserves at once, not without overriding the biolock program—which I can’t normally do.”
They had once, when they were in a dog fight with Phantasma’s drone ships in the Void. But Shas had been there, and he’d allowed it. They had been… supervised. Even then, they’d only used their abilities to navigate the mine fields and take down ships with otherwise impossible accuracy. A great feat, but nothing like what they were supposed to be capable of. Turning people inside out and all that.
“I… don’t remember you telling me about this biolock,” Fin said sourly. “You should stop telling me irritating shit if you don’t want me to get mad about it.”
“I like it when you get mad about stuff,” they protested, although a nagging voice in the back of their head screamed that they shouldn’t have said anything.
It was true, though.
Fin chuckled and started pulling his fingers through their hair again. “Go to sleep, ziojic’a.”
Ev jabbed him in the stomach and he hissed, flicking their ear in retribution, which made them grin.
“Thank you,” they said, looking up at him. “I don’t deserve you.”
“No one deserves me,” he teased. He winked. “But you come pretty damn close.”
They flushed and closed their eyes again. “Dia vitsas, Fin Heran…”
“‘Dia vitsas’ yourself. Kas’i tu hetarnaika Council, while we’re at it.”
They snorted at him again. Then they got a HOLO ping from the IAF and the pleasant silence flooded with pinched anger again—and it wasn’t their own. Fin’s hand crept protectively to the back of their neck and he shifted a little closer to them.
“Is it urgent?”
They glanced at their HUD. The message was from requisitions, asking for their armor back to alter the support tech. “No,” they told him.
“Then you’re not answering it.”
And that was that.
“You wanna get cleaned up or just nap here?”
Ev pulled their blanket over him as they settled in. Fin’s choice was overruled by their nonverbal answer. He sighed and made himself comfortable. “Rest here it is.”
They just registered his tail coiling around their ankle as they drifted off.
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