𝚒𝚗𝚋𝚘𝚡 — 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚗𝚒𝚊.

[sacral]

EVEN WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS

Comments

[hallowedly]

( A beat. ) How are you?

[sacral]

[ Bluntly: ] Too awake.

[hallowedly]

Ah, I'm inconvenient.

[sacral]

Not what I said.

[hallowedly]

You've hardly been saying anything, for some time. ( Steel edge, serrated. Snagging. ) Let's try again. Subaru-kun, how are you today?

[sacral]

[ Its cutting hits nothing but give. ]

I'm alright. Awake, because I slept too long and spilt too much into the sea.

And yourself?

[hallowedly]

...unrelatedly impatient and seemingly ill mannered. I apologise.

I expect you've seen him. I also expect you'd have been... vocal if you had seen the other. It didn't occur to me that he would allow them to be apart.

[sacral]

It may be that the will of our host is at least equal to his, when it comes to this. [ In power and petulance both... ] But you're talking about Shirou Kamui.

I met him, yes. Not for very long.

[hallowedly]

You enjoy this part, don't you? Where I tease and taunt every word out of your mouth.

Truly, Lady Sumeragi's grandson.

[sacral]

So I've been told.

If you also met him, I imagine he had even less to say.

[hallowedly]

What business is he of mine, anymore?

I expect Subaru-kun's corporate loyalties are more complicated.

[sacral]

Of yours? Someone I know. Or someone who knows me, I suppose.

Your expectation is right. I met him in the sea, but he freed himself from me before we reached the next layer.

[ Likely for the best... and yet. ]

[hallowedly]

...Subaru-kun, be patient with him.

[sacral]

You must have been.

There's nothing to blame him for.

[hallowedly]

Now, you don't witness an apocalypse stirred by one boy's choice and truly believe that.

[sacral]

Then it's likely more that...

I don't have the right to blame him for anything.

[hallowedly]

..."but I do." Is that what's missing?

[sacral]

I told you how I felt about the world's future.

[hallowedly]

The studied venal indifference of a man with nothing to lose.

That was then.

This is now, in an arena where the thirteenth head of the Sumeragi has been working tirelessly to support every passing stranger.

[sacral]

In this "now", you've already marked the difference for me.

For him, there may be something still left there.

[hallowedly]

I suppose this means you'll want him in custody.

[sacral]

If he agrees to that.

I did betray him.

[hallowedly]

Even princes of death need a court.

You're shy. It's sweet.

[sacral]

My kekkai still numbers me in his.

I'll have to unlearn it.

[hallowedly]

I'm — ...whatever we call my state. ( Laughter ripples through the Murmur, scant. ) I'm afraid that leaves you squarely in his custody, though defection is always a noble cause.