i can't save the world if i'm not happy anymore.

She stopped. That was a good sign, he hoped. Then again, there was always the chance that she stopped and would turn around to hurl lightning bolts in his direction. Not like it hadn’t happened before. Hells, he managed to jump through her lightning fence with only a few scrapes from exploding shrapnel to slow him down. Wasn’t like he couldn’t handle what she had to throw at him. But instead, she laughed. It was then that he knew for sure she recognized his voice, likely putting together that he was the one she had been training with. He couldn’t tell at the moment if he liked that or not. Kalt watched the lightning flicker in her veins. Part of him was relieved to see it. She had been so quiet, withdrawn. Even at this moment, she was ready to bury herself underground to escape the world. Seeing that lightning, hearing her voice directed at him, it brought such a sick sense of relief that he could have settled where he was and laughed just as she had. But he didn’t. No, he didn’t laugh, didn’t even even crack a smirk. ”Missed you too, blue,” he said, nodding his head to her once. He sighed, removing his handkerchief and gloves and stuffing them into his pocket, then pushing his hood back. There was no point in hiding anymore. She knew who he was, what thy had been doing. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t hide anymore. She knew how to find him, knew how to track him better than anyone else in any other world, if she would even want to. Given how she was looking at him at that moment, the chances of her seeking him out were pretty low. He opened his arms, showing her that he wasn’t there to fight her. Kalt remembered their last conversation too well. It replayed in his mind over and over and over again, like he was trapped in an endless loop of that agonizing fucking moment when she looked at him with such hatred. He accepted every one of her expressions towards him, love, anger, joy, even fear. But that hatred was burned into his mind in a way that he didn’t think he would ever be able to forget. His arms lowered, and he looked at her for a moment in silence. He didn’t feel hatred in her eyes. It almost felt as though she wasn’t strong enough for hatred. ”I know why you’re mad at me.” His voice was soft, gentle, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. He wanted to be more guarded than he felt, but something wasn’t letting him be. ”You have every right to want to dispatch me here and now, but you’d be punishing the wrong man.” Swallowing his nerves down, stifling them into nonexistence, he took a single step forward. Kalt wasn’t remotely afraid of her, of her magic. After all, those five weeks spent in the cellar... He had been the one to wake her power, to call out to it. Why should he be afraid of it? ”You have to listen to me for a moment,” he continued quietly. ”I know what you came home from that job to find. I know you have my arrow, but Ashe, I swear on everything I’ve ever known, I was not the one who loosed it.” She had no reason to believe him, and he half expected her to fry him where he stood, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. She was alone. She felt more alone than she possibly ever had, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t. Ashetta kalt give into the night.