W E S S E X
Through all of this, the Wraith, who has almost always been a do-er, still hears what is not - or perhaps cannot - be said to her face. That despite Hotaru’s love for her, for Nate, for her niece, it isn’t enough. It isn’t worth it. They aren’t worth it fighting for.
She believes the Valkyrie when she swears to high heaven that she would never hurt them. If not for the love she bears them, then because Wessex’s retaliation would be dark and swift. And Wessex believes that she isn’t much use as a pawn, if only because it’s quite clear who the demigods will choose if it were Hotaru or their kin. But Wessex doesn’t believe that there’s nothing to be done.
“But it would be everything to us,” she says, lifting her head to look again at the tear-stained face. “I know it sounds like too much. I know -” what everyone else in her life thinks, where their loyalties lie. Wessex isn’t naive. “But to stand up and say this isn’t okay?” It’s all Wessex wants, aside from Safrin’s head on an onyx platter. The world doesn’t have to love her, it doesn’t have to like her, it doesn’t even have to particularly like Ascended. But for someone, anyone to stand with them and say that murdering a whole race isn’t okay? That would be enough.
“That is something. The smallest something.” Wessex doesn’t want her to try and change the tides of war. She just wants to be chosen, for once. She wants to be loved. She wants to be worth the effort. But even as she whispers it back, the demigod begins to prepare for rejection; Hotaru had never chosen her before, she’d been an idiot to think that it would happen now.
She believes the Valkyrie when she swears to high heaven that she would never hurt them. If not for the love she bears them, then because Wessex’s retaliation would be dark and swift. And Wessex believes that she isn’t much use as a pawn, if only because it’s quite clear who the demigods will choose if it were Hotaru or their kin. But Wessex doesn’t believe that there’s nothing to be done.
“But it would be everything to us,” she says, lifting her head to look again at the tear-stained face. “I know it sounds like too much. I know -” what everyone else in her life thinks, where their loyalties lie. Wessex isn’t naive. “But to stand up and say this isn’t okay?” It’s all Wessex wants, aside from Safrin’s head on an onyx platter. The world doesn’t have to love her, it doesn’t have to like her, it doesn’t even have to particularly like Ascended. But for someone, anyone to stand with them and say that murdering a whole race isn’t okay? That would be enough.
“That is something. The smallest something.” Wessex doesn’t want her to try and change the tides of war. She just wants to be chosen, for once. She wants to be loved. She wants to be worth the effort. But even as she whispers it back, the demigod begins to prepare for rejection; Hotaru had never chosen her before, she’d been an idiot to think that it would happen now.
The Wraith
