when water is as thick as blood

WESSEX

Almost as tense as Amalia, Wessex holds her own reservations in, winds them tightly around her tik-tok core like a spring. Her heart will not race in anticipation. Her pupils will not dilate. Her hands will not resort to nervous habits in order to compensate, but that doesn’t mean her thoughts are running a mile a minute, trying to form the right combination of words to play the diplomat she’s never been. She’s run through life with a sledgehammer, a machete, and a loud mouth; bulldozing, cutting down, and yelling when logic didn’t prevail. But this relationship (old and unique to the two of them as it is)  isn’t something that will survive her normal tactics. She must evolve if she wants it to survive.

This might be her most difficult teaching endeavor; at its core, it relies on Wessex revealing her vulnerabilities and keeping the give-no-fucks facade at bay. A facade, which, given the world they now live in, is a  24/7 mask. It’s not as easy as simply taking it off.

Nevertheless, she will try. For Amalia.

Wessex blinks and nods, looking up and above the girl’s head for a place to begin. When she has it, the words come slowly, as if remembering is painful, as if she has to dig deep into the earth and wipe the bloody sludge off the bones of her past. “I don’t think you ever met my mother, but she was devout. So was Magrethe, and even me, for a long time. We did our duties to Safrin, Frey, and Ludo. Even to Vi when things were dire. My mother - every small response she got kept her coming back. Same with Magrethe. But to me, it eventually felt like they were teasing us, keeping us on the hook by giving us just enough to keep the faith burning bright. Because when the time came and it counted most. When they were ill and dying. Despite their fervent prayers, their offerings, no one answered. I carried them to the shrines. I pulled long vigils, begging for powers, for an answer, for a hint of something. Nothing. No one came.” She pauses, and with a soft sigh, looks back at Amalia. “They turned their backs on me and mine long before I decided to try something new.”

She swallows, looking down at her hands. “So when I got the first symptoms of the sickness, I wasn’t going to chance it. I wasn’t ready to die. And it was clear that no one was going to help me unless I helped myself.” Back to Amalia for the kicker, though her voice remains steady an calm. Just the facts. “When they tried to burn me with sunlight at a shrine after I Ascended, actively tried to kill me, who had done nothing but make a choice in order to survive? Well... That was that for me.”

Not everyone was as beloved as Amalia. Some fell through the cracks. Some made choices for survival. Some were forced to changed. It isn’t as black and white as the Gods make it out to be. And ambition doesn’t equal evil.

No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all