RORY
The dark, angry part of him, the part that hurt and seethed and twisted, wanted death on that day. It wanted punishment, it wanted pain, it wanted the Outlanders to pay for their arrogance with blood: to feel, acutely, just how powerful the Demon were.And how powerless they were to stop it, as they would stand on the sidelines and watch it tear them apart, strip the flesh from their bones as they screamed in anguish and agony.
He wanted them to suffer, as each and every Natural had.
But he did not want anyone to die. He did not genuinely, truly want anyone to die to the Demon ever again. His heart was pounding in his chest, fleet and wild, carrying the fear through his body. What if any one of them died? What if they succeeded? What then? Death of man he knew; death of the demon he did not.
He couldn't even begin to fathom what it would do to him, to them, to his world.. to everything he had ever known. So it was with his heart galloping in his throat, trying to escape through his teeth, that he watched what he thought would be the end.
When the world erupted into light.
Rory's eyes closed and he turned away, putting his arm around
The first thing was what he didn't see, and that was the demon.
Then he saw what could only be Safrin, radiant and bright and starry and beautiful and breathtaking. Rory, abandoned as he was, had never seen her before, and no story had ever done her justice.
But he was no fool. He saw Remi. He saw the two women. That meant that the man in her pallid starlight was Ronin.
That meant that Ronin was dead, though it seemed unfair that he was to be taken to the stars, that an Outlander was risen to the strange and sudden midnight, when all the Naturals who had died before had just been left as bones and bodies.
It hurt something fierce.
Then Safrin, and Ronin with her, was gone, and daylight returned.
His hand held Jigano's as hard as the other held his; his free hand rose to touch his fingers between his eyes. The blue of them glistened with tears as he bowed his head. He wanted to say, not Ronin... but what he meant was, not another one. He felt sad in a distant sort of way, thinking about the man who had so easily got smiles out of Remi, who had decided to trust him just because the Alchemist did, had declared him a friend. They had stood together at the front of the meeting where Wessex returned, where Rory asked them all to wait, to not rush, to not throw their lives away...
The breath he pulled in was ragged. Jigano was talking, as if there were any words for what had just happened; Ronin's death had blotted out the more difficult part of the issue, the one he could not quite comprehend. Grief was tangible. Easy. He'd done it before.
But the Demon being dead?
That knowledge had no shape which could fit within his body.
Rory just shook his head as if to say don't talk, not yet, there's no point, for what words could make sense of what they had just seen? Instead he extricated his hand from Jigano's and put it around his waist instead, holding him close as he leaned back, resting his bowed head against the edge of his collarbone.
They stood like that for a while, before Rory looked up again. "There's nothing more for us here," he murmured. "We should go."
And so, they left.
as if you were on fire from within,
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.
