sky turned black like a perfect storm

Sohalia

Right. His job. The Luminary looked away, biting her lip. Of course he wouldn't be doing this out of any personal feelings. And why should he? She'd given up the right to his affection seasons ago, and she wasn't sure why she'd expected any different now. Gods, how she wished this was easier. That they had just become friends instead of star-crossed almost-lovers, that she could go back and change how she'd treated him. How she'd treated him and Jude, who she missed sometimes with a fierceness that left an ache in her chest.

But she swallowed down those feelings and followed along when Koa gestured to her, falling into step beside him and doing her best to look casual as they strolled through the streets. "Here and there," she answered, her gaze roving the street for any sign of danger. "I went to Torchline to see Flora and Hadama, and then the Grounds and the Climb... I'm working on finishing a quest for Frey, and I wanted to see about updating some of my maps. You know, this and that." She paused for a moment as they turned down another street. "What have you been up to?" She was afraid to ask how he'd been, not sure she would like the answer. Not when he'd seemed so bitter and angry to see her.

Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Sohalia.

So tired trying to see from behind the red in my eyes
No better version of me I could pretend to be tonight

I went to see Flora. Koa nearly trips over himself at the name, his stomach dropping as his heart flip-flops. It hadn't even crossed his mind that Soh would have seen Flora, though of course she did, they're best fucking friends and he's an absolute idiot. Gods, though, what had they talked about? What had Flora said about him? He can almost hear it: 'Ugh, Koa, he's such a try hard. Can you believe he thought I would want to be with him? You'd think he would have learned from now he's never gonna be good enough, instead of being so pathetic and---'

Thoroughly distracted by his reverie, it takes him a moment to register the pause, or Soh's question. "Huh?" Unbeknownst to the boy, his hands have clenched back into fists, jaw once more clenched tight enough to hurt. "Oh. Just... busy. Working." Does she know? Koa stares intently at Sohalia, trying to gauge from her expression just how much Flora has said. It seems like she doesn't, but then, if Koa's learned anything it's that he's actually terrible at gauging what girls really think of him.

Maybe Soh just pities him too much to bring it up. It would explain why she hadn't told him she was coming, had (in his mind, now) seemed so eager to get away from the Dragoon before.

Wanting very much to make an escape from this suddenly (and one-sidedly) fraught situation but feeling too stubborn and proud to do so, Koa settles for the worst of both worlds and picks up his pace, all but charging in tense silent toward the street that houses Sohalia's shop. If she and Flora want to mock him they can feel free; he's not going to let it get to him, not going to show her how much he's rattled.

Let's not tell him he's doing an awful job just yet. We don't want to break the poor thing.

Koa

No other version of me I would rather be tonight
And, Lord, she found me just in time

Sohalia

Soh droned on, oblivious to the sudden stuttering of Koa's heart. She didn't know about Flora and Koa - not yet, anyway - but if she had, she would have been mortified, might have insisted that he let her wander Stormbreak alone rather than be bound by any sense of obligation to escort her. It was an argument that she might not have won, but she would have tried - tried to spare him the pain that he no doubt felt to have been rejected not once, but twice. Something that her very presence had to remind him of.

His response to her inquiry was terse and distracted. Perhaps he was just keeping an eye out, watching for danger as they hurried down street after street. Maybe she should stop talking and let him do his job, since that was surely all this was for him - just another assignment to be completed. It was possible that that was all that would ever again be between them.

But Soh wasn't okay with that.

Maybe it was selfish of her, but she wanted Koa to look at her, to talk to her, without it being a painful reminder of what once might have been. So despite her better judgment telling her to shut up and walk in awkward silence, she tried again. "And your family? I trust they're well?" She may not have gotten along particularly well with Noe, but it seemed like a safe enough conversation topic.

Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Sohalia.

So tired trying to see from behind the red in my eyes
No better version of me I could pretend to be tonight

Fuckity fuckity fuckity fuck, you're spiraling again, dude. Clench your fists and grit your teeth and get it together, will you? Sure, you've been abruptly reminded of the other girl who dumped you for a twink, but that doesn't mean we can fall apart on the street. You're better than that, Koa.

Right?

Thus flows some of the internal monologue currently blasting in the Dragoon's head, a war between stubbornness and a wounded ego unsettling his already rattled thoughts. Nails bite into the palms of his hands as he shoves his fists deeper into his pockets; he can feel the tension shoving into his spine, thrumming through his shoulders like the string of a guitar. "They're good," he's quick to answer Soh, distracted, clinging to this benign topic with desperation and relief. "Dad's threatening to retire, which he's done at least once a season since the dawn of time. Noe's got some big commission keeping her busy. I think she's mad I haven't been spending much time at home, so I'm glad she has Jude---"

Oh.

Right.

Fuck.

Abruptly Koa bites his tongue, but it's far too late. Awkward cat is out of the bag, and gods, as if things weren't weird enough? Doing his best to keep his voice from sounding too strangled, Koa clarifies: "Oh...Yeah, I guess- Jude's staying with us. Has been since the end of the season. Moved in after his dad died." Does Soh know about his dad? Has she spoken to the third spoke in the convoluted love polyhedron that Koa's somehow been trapped inside? He can feel his sanity slipping slowly, hysterics at the absurdity of their situation clawing up his neck. He doesn't dare look at Sohalia. All that's needed now is for her to be Jack's ex and the tenuous thread keeping him together will snap beyond repair.

Koa

No other version of me I would rather be tonight
And, Lord, she found me just in time

Sohalia

Koa grasped the offering conversation topic, and Soh relaxed slightly, pleased to have found something that could draw him out and get him talking to her again. For a brief moment, she realized what things might have been like if everything had gone differently, if she and Koa were friends instead of ex-almost-lovers, and it was... nice.

Or at least it was, right up until Koa said something about Jude.

Soh's face fell - she couldn't help it, having never been good at hiding her emotions - as she thought about the last time she'd seen her one-time best friend. It had... not gone well. And Noe had been there, and had stood up for Jude as Soh had dug her grave even deeper, and, well, if Jude still had Noe, then Soh was both horrifically jealous and greatly relieved that he had someone, even if it wasn't her -

Wait, did he say -?

Soh wasn't even aware that she'd stopped moving. She stared at Koa, absolute devastation on her face. She couldn't hear past the blood rushing in her ears, the suddenly frantic pounding of her heart as it squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter. She couldn't breathe -

"What?" she choked. "Harper's - dead?"

No, no, no, no, no -

Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Sohalia.

So tired trying to see from behind the red in my eyes
No better version of me I could pretend to be tonight

In a very Flora-esque moment, Koa's first thought to Soh's reaction is oh god, who the fuck is Harper and did she date him, too?

But no- Harper is Jude's dad, Koa swiftly remembers, with whom it appears Soh had a closer relationship than the Dragoon had reason to suspect. Realizing his companion has stopped, the young man similarly pauses, turning back in surprise and alarm to watch as the Luminary's face falls. "I'm sorry," he exhales instinctively, taking a step toward Sohalia and reaching to brush his hand over her arm - an abbreviated action, his body freezing as he realizes what he's about to do. Clearing his breath Koa drops his hand, feeling quite miserably out of his depth. This encounter has gone in too many directions too quickly, and it's dizzying for his poor, shallow little brain.

"Are you... were you close?" Yes, obviously, based on this reaction, and Koa winces as the words leave his tongue. Feeling utterly lost, he bites his lip unhappily, glancing briefly away from Soh before back to her distraught face. He's bad with words and feelings and platitudes; usually when faced with distress Koa offers his body, as punching bag or bulwark as the situation requires. And without any other tools in his arsenal, it's what he defaults to now, his voice soft and only slightly awkward as he offers:  "Do you... want a hug?"

Koa

No other version of me I would rather be tonight
And, Lord, she found me just in time

Sohalia

This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening.

In a dizzying moment of deja vu, all Soh could think was, not again. The world couldn't possibly be so cruel as to take away the closest thing she had to family. Why was it that she couldn't keep anyone she loved? Not her parents, not Auden, not Jude, not Koa, and now... not even Harper.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry.

And if this was how she was feeling... oh gods. Jude.

She was dimly aware of Koa speaking from somewhere far away, everything dulled by the pounding of her heart in her ears. The first time she'd felt like this, she'd been so young, and though she missed her parents with a dull ache that would never truly fade, there was something about the innocence of childhood that had protected her from lasting damage. But this... this, after everything else she'd survived in recent years... this was too much.

"He's - he was - like a father to me," she managed to choke out, wrapping her arms around her middle in an effort to pull herself together. Back when she and Jude were inseparable, she'd practically lived with he and his father, and she'd gone to Harper for advice and love more than once, even after she and Jude had broken up. To know that she no longer had that option...

Her devastation, not just for herself but for her one-time best friend, was clear on her face. "Gods, Jude - is he -" She cut herself off, backing a step away from Koa, shaking her head. She no longer had the right to ask how Jude was, and even if she did, she shouldn't be asking Koa.

Her offer of a hug took her by surprise, and for a moment, she almost laughed, feeling slightly deranged and not entirely attached to her body. A hug. He was offering her a hug. The boy she'd hurt over and over again was trying to help her, to take away a portion of her pain, even though she didn't deserve it. Certainly not from him. But at this moment, he looked so awkward and earnest that she couldn't help but think he meant it, that maybe he wasn't offering just because it was the thing that one did in this kind of situation. That maybe he really did want to comfort her, even after everything.

"I -" she started, intending to decline, to tell him that he shouldn't offer out of pity, that she didn't deserve his kindness - but she had never been a particularly strong young woman where Koa was concerned. And so it was that, with a trembling chin, she looked up at him with tears in her eyes and whispered, "Yes."

Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Sohalia.

So tired trying to see from behind the red in my eyes
No better version of me I could pretend to be tonight

Like a father is a surprise, Koa struggling to hide his doubt in Harper's fatherhood abilities. From what little Jude has told him it seems that the Stalwart deserves an award for Absentee Father of the Year - but then again, who is he to judge the families of others? And it doesn't matter what he thinks, or knows, or thinks he knows: Like Jude, Soh has experienced a terrible loss, and in the hour of her grief, Koa's the one who's here.

He half expects her to decline, but she doesn't and it's too late for him to back out, as awkward as this may be. Not that he would - how could he, when she's standing there with tears in her eyes, and there's nothing else he can offer to dull that familiar pain? "Alright. C'mere," Koa murmurs, extending his arms to envelop Sohalia against his chest.

She's thin and brittle within his embrace, delicate as a porcelain flower; he fears her edges will shear his heart, but still he holds her close.

And yes, it's selfish, as Jude accused, but Koa is just a man. No hero, no saint: only a boy, doing his best to find some purpose in a ruthless, lonely world. Maybe in pain he can find redemption. Maybe if he keeps letting others shave away slices of him in their own search for happiness, the parts that remain will finally take a shape someone can love.

Koa

No other version of me I would rather be tonight
And, Lord, she found me just in time

Sohalia

Maybe Harper hadn't been a very good father where Jude was concerned, in the end - but Soh remembered the days that she and her best friend had spent in and out of Harper's home in Torchline, the days when it had really felt like she had her own little family. And yeah, maybe it was a little fucked up that she viewed Harper as a father figure even after she and Jude had broken up, but he was the closest thing she'd had to a parent in years. As starved for affection as she had been, she couldn't help but latch onto it with all she had.

But it could also be argued that she didn't really know what a true parental relationship should look like, having lost her parents so young and having been raised by a guardian who may have loved her in their own way, but not in a way that had been enough. Maybe Harper had failed her, too, in the end - disappeared from her life as surely as she'd disappeared from his. Maybe they had failed each other.

Soh stepped into Koa's embrace, hesitant but miserable enough to push past that unsure feeling in the pit of her stomach, wrapping her arms around him in return for the feel of his around her. And for a moment - just a moment - she allowed herself the space to grieve, and rage, and feel. And for a moment, he let her. He held her as her tears flowed and then slowed and then dried, and when she withdrew from his embrace, it was with clear eyes and a calmer soul.

"Thank you," she said, her voice soft but sure, and after gathering herself up, she led the way to her shop, which was still just as she'd left it (albeit a bit dusty). And perhaps things were still a bit awkward, still a bit uncomfortable, but the time they spent for Soh to look around, gather some of her things, and lock back up was pleasant enough that the girl began to believe that maybe, just maybe, they'd be able to work together to put their past behind them.

fin

Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Sohalia.