The Keep, Ebon Askavi, Kaeleer, Monday Evening (Fandom Time)
The last time Karla had been here, she'd been incredibly nervous about how that evening would turn out and affect her future. Standing in the Keep tonight with a crowd of people around her--some of them almost complete strangers--made her almost laugh at how naive her fear had been the last time.
Her Offering was nothing. This was the completely ( Read more... )
Her Offering was nothing. This was the completely ( Read more... )
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It took him a while to be able to find a quiet moment to approach her, but the instant he'd found one...
"We need to talk."
Because if she'd taken him aside before the fact and explained her reasons for only giving him a year, maybe he would have been more amenable to accepting it. But in front of everyone, with no warning?
He wasn't letting that go.
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And she didn't want to cave. She had reasons, dammit.
"As you wish," she agreed. They had watched the documentary on Sunday; he figured he'd get that.
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"I wish," he intoned. "I very much wish."
The sting that he'd been feeling before was still there, but there was a sort of simmering frustration now, welling up beside it. Throwing a year at him with no warning had been more than a little underhanded. How was it that she so often managed to remind him just how young she was in the most painful possible ways?
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Her Glacians were stuck here, no matter what happened.
Everyone else though...they had a choice.
Karla followed Warren out of the receiving area, settling down on a bench and looking up at him. "I know you're upset," she said. "And you have every right to be. I'm sorry I blind-sided you with that."
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"Why?" He was angry. God, was he angry. And hurt, and... and humiliated. "Why would you do something like that with no warning, knowing it was going to hurt so damn bad? Like apologizing after the fact can just... We're supposed to talk about things, remember? That's what we do?"
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"I expected you to be angry," Karla protested. "Furious even. I...I...Would you have let me offer you a year contract? If I'd told you earlier, would you have accepted it?"
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"I don't know," he said, softly. "Would telling me have at least come with an explanation? Because I'm still waiting for one of those. I had kind of figured the whole 'life together' thing was kind of a given, by this point. But when other people are being offered three years to life and all I get is one...?"
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She went to run her fingers through her hair, then paused just before, so she didn't ruin her hairstyle. It had taken forever to do it. "I just...The Glacians are stuck here, no matter what. They don't have a choice. But you do. All of you. And once the first year is over, hopefully this stupid war will be over, too, you can decide for certain that you this is what you want."
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"Karla... I don't think you realize just how much this is something that I want. Something that I'm always going to want." And that stung, too. Another deep breath, and he was putting his hand down to his side, looking at her evenly. "I can appreciate the gesture, trying to leave me a way out. But I'm not signing the contract in order to be locked in."
His hands slipped into the pockets of his dress jacket, now. One closed around the Ring she'd given him. The one he still had yet to put on.
The other, around another ring.
"That's not what it means to me."
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She reached for his hands, right before he slid them in his pockets, and her hands fell back to her lap.
"Wars change people and neither of us are soldiers. It's just...when a year passes and I offer you a lifetime contract the way I gave it to Morton because I know I can't live without you, I just...I'll feel better knowing you're promising me forever after seeing the worst of it. That the promise comes after, not before."
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His hands closed around either ring, gave them both a tight squeeze while he held his breath and tried counting to ten again.
"I didn't run after Agio," he said, softly. "Or after Trigon and Raven turned New York into a twisted lump of flesh. I came back after that mess with Brother Blood. I've stopped existing for you. I'm... pretty sure there are two or three things our love has survived that can put even this through its paces. Karla, I've made that promise to you. I made it a long, long time ago. I just... I want to be able to acknowledge it, now."
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Bloody Hell, Warren, it wasn't like she hadn't offered you a ring at all!
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He exhaled again, letting go of his Ring in order to scrub at his face with one hand. Tonight wasn't going quite as he'd hoped.
"I want to be able to acknowledge forever. And if you weren't ready to do that... some warning would have been great."
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Her arms dangled limply by her sides. "I don't want to get rid of you in a year. The things we've experienced so far, especially with Fandom...they end. People come back to life. The good guys always win. Raven was resurrected. Katniss wasn't dead, she was saved. You began existing again. We got out of the dungeon and no one was dead, they were all sleeping. But that's not how real life works! Whatever we think we know about warfare and the real world, most of it is colored by Fandom whimsy. This won't be a crazy weekend or a terrifying week. This will be non-stop. Is it so wrong for me to want to know that, at the end, the people I love best have a choice to go, even if they'll never take it?"
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