directly referring to this / @gloryseized
There's a part of Kane that's been preparing for this, he thinks.
Because without it, he's not sure he'd be entirely upright. Entirely conscious. He's not sure he'd be here: heart thudding a dull rhythm in his ears, hand outstretched and grasping at nothing, forehead tingling from the last touch it knows and will know from his brother. He blinks — blinks again, and keeps blinking like something is wrong with his vision, like if he just opens and shuts his eyes enough times, Shion will be there again. Shion will be there, sword poised high, and Kane will have the time and wherewithal to stop him from severing the one thing tying them together.
Kane only has time now.
He will only ever have time now.
His chest collapses in on itself, bones shattering and piercing through flesh with all the force of a terrible, terrible grief. He chokes on the blood that bubbles up, chokes on the petrified tears that've turned his voice into screaming silence — and isn't that funny? That they are petrified. That they aren't sobs that hollow him out, that scrape out all the insides of his veins to fill them with a poison seeping to the core, but rather sobs that are still holding out for something.
I will be safe, Shion had said. Had sworn, as if that promise hasn't been broken a hundred times over since they woke up to a fairy who belonged to no one. Kane drops to his knees, a hand pushed against his lips and the awful sounds coming from them, because there's a thread in all that he is — pained and undone — that's blisteringly furious. It tunnels into: what about him? Demands: what about me?
But it's never been about him. It's never been about him. There is no room for it to be about him when his brother is the Hero of Time, when his brother's the one who saved everyone, when his brother's the one who had to sacrifice everything. Kane remembers clasping him in his arms, a quivering hero that needed to not be a hero for a breath's respite — and Kane remembers his tunic ripping out from his grasp, a hero that no longer knows how to be anything else.
He almost expects the world to rupture. To really end. Shion has been the linchpin to it for his whole life that it feels — now that he's gone and faded into a column of light, more than merely absent — an inevitable outcome. Kane cannot hold his breath against the gasps rippling through his body, but he looks at the fucking Master Sword and dares it to suddenly fall to pieces like smashed glass.
The sword does not break. The world does not rupture. Because the world has never only just been Shion; Shion's only just been Kane's world.
His fingers touch the Master Sword's hilt for the first time. Nobody but Shion has been allowed this cursed honour. They wrap around it tight, desperate, pleading as he braces his weight against the plinth and tries to stand. He can't. He can't. He can barely lift his head because he's ten again, his world upended as the Door of Time slid shut behind him — he's ten again, small hands still soft from unpracticed combat pounding on the stone with a reckless ferocity, begging for his brother back. Begging, and begging, and begging.
The dead must find solace in the noise torn from the remains of his throat, because there are several answering ghastly wails. Or that's just the Temple of Time's marble walls, reflecting his anguish back at him: that's just him, echoing so intensely he half-hopes it'll reverberate across timelines to reach his brother.
There is a Kane out there who will have his wish granted. There is a Kane out there he should be deliriously happy for.
There is a Kane out there he loathes with the kind of teeth-sinking resentment he wants the ground to swallow him whole for.
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when you're going to the market. and you think oh i dont need to bring my silly old people groceries cart i only need to buy a couple things anyway! do NOT listen thats the devil speaking
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GOD, but the slow dawning horror azure must’ve had as he realized he couldn’t escape his family, his legacy. he ran off with chrysi to study the problem and own three cats and be, ultimately, two normal ppl (or as normal as you can get when your girlfriend can still see and communicate with ghosts long past the age when her abilities should’ve faded, but… hey, he still got to meet the family and meet her four adoptive brothers and try to impress them! normal ppl things!!).
then thoughts that weren’t his own began to press into his head. he’d be watching chrysi make him tea and then he’d feel the urge to take her hand and press it into the hot stove until it gave her permanent scarring. and, god, he was so scared—of himself, and for chrysi—until he realized that they weren’t his thoughts, and then got even more scared.
nothing he did helped, after that. mordecai’s smart—he’d give azure ring scares like that, then lull him into a sense of security by allowing azure total calm for weeks. sometimes months at a time. but he’d always come back with a horrible thought or impulse or dream, to keep azure on edge. keep him sleepless. weaken his defenses so he could take control over him.
it was the end of azure lafaye as azure lafaye the night that he woke up with his hands around chrysi’s neck. they were hovering, really, but azure woke up and knew that if he’d been just a moment too late, he would’ve killed the only person that mattered to him. in fact, he knew that mordecai had woken him up on purpose. it was a warning—return to the fold, else he’ll kill chrysi by azure’s own hands.
so azure returns. he could never run away. he was trapped from the start. there was no escape. his father allowed all his rebellions, and he decided when they would stop. and now his father would take his place for him.
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