[Mini Event] who tells your story

RORY

Roana quickly became the icon of everything Rory loathed about the Outlanders, just like the mouthy woman during the fight had: oblivious, arrogant, full of herself and whatever fantasy world she lived in. A couple in the mob identified her and her cadre as the Outlanders who sought to entire the Spire, and a few calls rained down on her approach. 'Go home, ya Outlander whore!' someone jeered; 'You don't get to put yourself above our Gods!' another cried. Rory thought that her timing was disastrous.

To be frank, everything was disastrous, from the power he felt slipping through his fingers (and if this comes unbound, how much damage will it cause?), to Amalia's revelations, to Evie and Maea's bickering, to.. just, everything, and Rory hated how he had put himself in the center of it.

He wheeled away from his fractured friendships for a moment to stare daggers at Roana. "Obviously not," he said, his voice uncharacteristically cold and harsh. "Your plan is dumb as rocks and you should go home before you get hurt." Some of the mob had drawn closer around the knot Rory found himself in, pulled in by the allure of the Outlander woman, the scent of blood and misery and strife. It was clear from the charged air that the tension was high, and it would take very little for them to be provoked into actually attacking her.

But then Wessex... proud, ferocious, lonely Wessex lived up to every single of the adjectives he associated her so closely with, every word a blow to a bruised heart and an uncertain mind. No, of course I don't think that, don't be stupid, but the words were dead in his mouth. It wasn't Wessex he feared. It was the others, Kristopher and 108, and it was the Voice herself.

"Wessex, please—" he called after her, pleading, lost, hurting, angry. That she so recklessly abandoned them, that she didn't even try—that she gave up whatever sway she held over Rory, and simply walked away.

He ached. He felt empty. Beside him, Amalia reached for her, and Rory's soul did the same.

Amalia fell to her knees. Evie joined her. They asked for help, both of them, but in different ways: one asked for knowledge, the other for guidance, and Rory's eyes burned with dry fire as he looked up from them and to those gathered.

He wanted to be good enough, to hold on to a faith that had labeled him Abandoned and unwanted, to prove the Gods wrong, but sometimes he wondered if it wasn't the blood flaw in him that made him so bitter. He called their names in his mind, the whole pantheon, yet afraid that the push of his tainted thoughts would drown out the clear voices of the others.

How many prayed in silence? How many were Abandoned? Would the Gods listen through the foul din of their presence?

And he noticed that one name was not spoken. The one they were not to let out, the one they were—in some backwards way—guarding. He bit his lower lip. All cards on the table he had said. We do this together he had meant.

That included everyone.

"We should ask the Voice for her side of things as well," he commented in an odd voice.

as if you were on fire from within,
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.