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

Her eyes still did not turn up when she heard his blade slide free. She waited for the fear, the bleating panic that she needed to grab her sword, to fight, to run… but there was nothing at all. Would it be a blessing, for him to slide that blade home, somewhere where her blood would spill from her too quickly to recover? What would be easier on her family: her disappearing, or her murder at the hands of someone that had every right to her blood? She stared down at her cloak and her sword with fractured eyes, exhausted eyes. She pulled in a sharp breath when steel warmed by being stored so close to his arm touched under her chin. She didn’t fight it as he tilted her face up, though it took her a moment to lift her eyes to him… His blade drew back then, and her heart plunged from the cliff it had been poised on when his hand replaced it. This isn’t real. How could it be? Calloused fingers held her chin, thumb rasping just below her lip. ”I’ll never draw your blood again.” Her blood turned to ice, and she outright shuddered as her mind skittered away from coherent thought, to somewhere dark. She had to shut her eyes briefly, grasp at the parts of herself that tried to escape her. After a moment, she opened her eyes once more, forced herself to slow her erratic heart. Breathe. This wasn’t right. The quiet forgiveness in his eyes wasn’t right. She had forced herself to hate him enough to leave him for the gallows, made herself move on and forget him. And she had been wrong. She didn’t know what to do. Nothing she could say would fix this. It was proof of the pattern that trying to be anything more than a weapon simply could not be done. You couldn’t place a dagger in a basket of roses and call it a flower, not when it was shredding all the petals. Ashe sucked in a sharp breath as his arms wrapped around her then, and she went as still as stone. Held her breath. Her heart felt like it would burst as she was pulled into him and all at once she wasn’t her anymore, not this version of herself - she was seventeen again, and she knew him and he knew her, and for a moment … just a moment … her shoulders fell, and she leaned forward to the solidity of him. Her eyes stared out into the night beyond the mouth of the underground, but it didn’t feel like she was there. The Keep, maybe. Or out on contract. He had said she would never be rid of him. Promised, she remembered when he did. Then her lips parted with a shaking breath with his next words: ”And Silver Wing isn’t my name, Ashe.” ” Kalt .” Kalt’s name fell from her lips near immediately, as if some sort of reflex, and … gods … gods. How long had it been since she had said his name, even thought it? Kalt. Kalt Ravenshire. Ashe shuddered and suddenly drew herself away from him, something in her coiling tightly and snarling at her. Idiot girl. Her hands clenched tightly to her arms as she cast her eyes downwards, biting down on her lip until it bled. She was not who she once was. What had she done with her life? What was it that she was now? Whatever Kalt remembered in her, whatever strength or clarity.. that was gone now. Ashe paused stepped towards her cloak, staring down at it for a few breaths, her hands digging into her arms to hide their shaking. There was the threat of tears, but she didn’t let them fall. Instead … she gingerly lowered herself down to the ground, crossing her legs beneath her as she sat down beside her cloak. Her hand reached out and took a worn corner of it into her hands, her thumb running over the fabric, over threads that were beginning to come loose. She didn’t speak, as if just saying his name took everything from her. She stared down at the deep blue, her signature cloak that had earned her painfully obvious alias from the masses. Ashe swallowed past the lump in her throat and flicked her eyes up to him again. Still, she remained silent, and finally she let herself look at him. Really look at him. Kalt had chanced too. He seemed harsher. She had never seen him let his facial hair grow this much and.. She furrowed her brow, then her jaw feathered as she clenched her teeth and looked back down to her cloak. ”You tattooed your face.” ashetta it's live or die my way.