#i am so unwell and its fuckjng thr morning I CAN'T DO THIS

[saphflare]

Actually no nevermind I'm not going to shut up about c!Owen and c!Magic because I AM NOT READY.

I'm not ready for Magic to face Owen, to stare across at someone she called protector, leader, caretaker, brother, friend... family, in the ways that matter. I am not ready for her to come to realize that the Owen that she has been living with for the last weeks, months perhaps, is not the one she loves and cherishes so dearly. I am not ready for how she will stare at him, perhaps with anger at him, perhaps with sorrow for those killed. I am not ready for her to realize all the ways in which he had deceived her and tricked her and hurt her and USED her.

How he used her name to coax information from the others to kill.

How he used her to get to Rasbi.

How he mocked her behind her back, taking her for a naive fool.

How he discarded all his bonds so easily

How he used the things, the people, he most prized and sought to preserve, used them to hurt and bloody and maim and kill.

How her beloved friend and confidante, the one she believed who would ultimately do all the right things, did not make that decision which mattered in the end.

How Owen had ultimately turned his back on all of them.

Believing none of them were worth saving.

I'm not ready for the heartbreak that will come with those realizations, her world turned upside. Seeing one of those pillars she leaned on, watching as it collapses on her. He condemned them all to burn, condemned her to a fiery death.

(I'm not ready if she still offers her hand, if she pleads with him to stop and despite everything and likely everyone else, if she still tries to reach out to him. I am not ready for when he will not take her hand with his own.)

And most of all, I dread how Owen will react. Will he turn the blade against her so easily, no tenderness nor care left in his aged eyes, his resolve towards the extermination of demons hardening him. No hesitation to add her to the list of those that he simply will dispose of. As if the time between them, the promise he made to them, to her, all those things that they built together, not mattering at all in the end. That he will hurt her, leaving a mark, a cut, a wound more visible than all the things he already have done.

---

His friendship with Apokuna certainly didn't matter all that much in the end. His grief, the years worth of tears as he cried over a friend, all cast to the side with his purpose rediscovered again. Easily throwing away his promises to protect and guide to chase once again as a hunter. To ready that spear in a familiar motion that stuck into the side of, perhaps, the one he cared the most out of all of them. Apokuna who he dragged and let be washed away to the bottom of a well source, doing his best to make sure no one will give him a proper funeral.

---

Or will he still care to a degree, this bond forged still worth something to dictate his actions. Will he show a softness, but still sheath of blade in her direction. A conflict, however brief, as he weighs this mutual friendship forged by trials against the insidious beliefs he has chained himself to. Will it matter at all, after all he has already killed three of them, not by some indirect consequence of a lever, not by the haze of panic in cutting a rope justifying it as survival. No he killed those three by his own hands, plunging a sharp blade through each of them by choice. Every moment he could have backed out, he didn't, no he planned, he watched, he let them be punctured by a blade.

Would he do any differently with Magic before him, so human and one of the best of them all? Magic whose faith in him was infallible, who would still cherish who he was, who gave second chances to people that might have never deserved her grace. Who might still care, still love him, even for all the things he has done.

---

Even if it didn't matter then, he hesitated before Apokuna, he gave him a chance, even if it didn't matter in the end. Even if it didn't stop him from holding the sharp blade in their direction. He still counted, he still watched the one he called friend once run from him. Owen standing longer than he should have as he finished the grace period, looking upon the hall where he last saw Apo with any joy in his heart. He still stood there for just a moment before finally giving chase.

(So perhaps then it mattered in some way, even if he denies it so strongly)

---

Would it mattered at the end of it all, with this actions that cannot be taken back and people that they cannot bring back? Would it matter when he gave up already on all of them, on himself most of all? Would it matter when that trust between them, all of them, has become so irreparably broken?

Would it matter at the end of all things?