{se} my lips are full of ruby lies

Jude

I remembered I had fists today
I wash my hands and they are red like the sunsets of paradise

Hadama's silence is unfairly cast in the light of the ice that spiderwebs chills through his throbbing face, felt as something removed and impartial instead of kindly and contemplative. Everything feels darker and crueler out here with only the moon and the waves to light the way on a path he's terrified to tread alone.

He's not expecting an old memory to be what Hadama brings up first, and it's enough to get him to pause and slowly lift his head from his knees to watch the King with something like wariness shining from his bloodied face. Dark eyes - his mother's eyes, as Hadama quietly reminds him in so many other words - follow the trail of ice as it builds a bridge meant to span a gap Jude can feel in his chest. But worthiness has never been something Jude has attributed to himself, and though it's a comfort to hear, it's not enough to fully lower his defenses.

Questions, however, he can answer.

"I don't think anyone is perfect," he argues weakly, only for his eyes to fall back to the bridge between them. Maybe it's his inherent sentimentality, but the metaphor makes him want to be more honest. "But through everything, Dad was always the one who stayed. Who tried. He's as close to perfect as I can imagine someone being." Jude had always been closest to Harper of all his parents, and the man's utter dedication to Jude had not gone unnoticed. Nor had the effects of that dedication - exhaustion and hurt that had been direct inspirations for Jude to age himself, wanting to lighten the burden on his father's shoulders. "He's my Dad," he says like it's a phrase that holds the entirety of the world. Hero worship, love, codependency. But it also comes out lost, because how is he supposed to cope with his father finally joining the ranks of parents who have abandoned him?

Am I a murderer?
Or did I just kill all my thoughts in self-defense?