Years, he says, as if there is a great gulf between the man he was and the man he has become. Years, and yet it hasn’t even been an hour since new wounds were torn open his pen. Years. Eleven of them, in fact, eleven years with more than blood, more than death, only that smell of smoke and burnt flesh. 

She doesn’t know why she is here. Her cousins need her, or at least need someone. They have the greater wounds in all of this. Yet Hel’s standing here, in front of the only father she’s ever truly cared to address as such, and no words come. Does it hurt him, or was it just another death, another layer of blood for his hands? That’s the answer she was looking for, when she came here in lieu of those whose pain rose to the surface.

Is it killing him, too, after all this time?

There’s a lot she can make right, the more she learns. So he wasn’t the hero she thought him to be. She’s become that instead, brought that girlhood vision of a great protector into reality. So he lost himself to his misery, his losses. She blocks off any such thoughts, never permitting a moment alone with her mistakes or losses. Her own hands can heal now, but they cannot raise the dead. She cannot fix this for her cousins, unsure she can even find the words to make it an easier burden. That happens, when you don’t mourn your dead – You don’t know what words might help, when you’ve never been in a position to learn them.

“That’s different –” All the men she knows are killers. Each of them must reek of it, somewhere she cannot sense it. His warmongering and his brutalities are so commonplace that only numbers set him apart from his peers. Part of her is sick to recognize it. Even her healer has such terrible, gore-streaked hands. Hel took another’s lessons too close to her heart. She can’t stop that terrible fact now, can’t burn every blade to a great slurry of melted metal so no man might ever hurt another.

Molten gold. The texture springs to her mind unbidden. She ensnares it, sends it away somewhere deep inside of her. Instead, she finds herself drawn closer to her uncle, til his broad shadow looms long over her. Even  grown, he seems insurmountably taller than her, like one of the mountains that cradled their tower made flesh.

So he wasn’t a hero. So he was, by many a measure, a terrible man. So he was worse than she imagined in ways she never could have imagined. At the end of that summation, he is still the man that actually wanted to be there for her. All that he’s laid bare before the written word is a part of that same man.

Blood, and death, and smoke, and burnt flesh. She had such beautiful hair, like gold itself. Hel thinks she would have forgiven the man he’s become, but then, Hel has come to realize she doesn’t know anyone as well as she thought. Maybe there’s less forgiveness in the world than she thought, too.

“They’re going to want you to answer for this.” Their house has enemies that will capitalize on this, potential allies who might turn their back on him, those who will call him weak and those who will fear him all the more. Yet they all seem so distant to her. All she can think of is blue eyes weeping, and what they might see when their father faces them again.

What will you do, that’s what she means. What will you do, when the consequences catch up not for your coalition, but for you?

He stood, hands on the railing of a balcony, high in the tower city of Urithiru, drinking in the cold air. He could feel her behind him, even before she spoke. She didn't know how much of her mother was in her-- even though they shared no blood, Navani's touch on this child was unmistakable.

Her nails dig painfully into her scalp, parting dark braids as she braces herself against the words. It’s not what he was meant to say, really. If she knows anything, it’s that he’s meant to tell her something to bury the man she mourns, something to distract her from the still gaping wound in her chest that carries his name. It’s been six months, and she’s running low on scraps to stuff into it. 

He should know that. Of everyone she knows, he should. Because her uncle doesn’t, or she can’t bear to think of hurting him with that shared ghost. Her sister is so busy now, and Hel can’t distract her from the kingdom, whether she wants to or not. If he doesn’t know how to fix this, then who can?

“I can’t.”

The choke in her throat shames her. Her refusal only deepens the humiliation. It’s not what she’s saying, but what it means. Difficulty and grief? Those are strangers in her life. She’s refused to make their acquaintance for twenty years. Her life has been too full for it, busting at the seams with the problems of others. 

Even now, she cannot name what such charity was meant to drown out. Only that there’s a blade scraping its way up her throat, threatening to bring her to tears. It’s grown sharper and crueler with every passing year.

If she meets them both now, faces Difficulty and Grief on this precipice, then they’ll come with an army at their back. Not just her brother, but every other wound she’s hidden for so long that she’s forgotten their name. This is an ambush, and she is not going to cede the field to it.

All she wants is for him to shield her from it. She’s certain that’s all this came down to, not a desire for empathy, but a chance for him to take her away from it all. Hel hadn’t come courting the soldier to fight for her or the brother that knew where she stood.

She’s been looking for a healer, and his words fail where hands so often succeed.

“I’m sorry, I– I shouldn’t have come.” Pulling her fingers from black strands, she finds skin beneath the nails of her freehand. Has she been clawing at herself? “Not like this. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up.” Hel finds she can’t even thank him for all he’s said, after one of them poured out everything to the other. Which of them had done that? She can’t seem to remember. Her chest is so tight, and her throat burns. She wants to hide from him.

She wants to hide behind her brother, or be held by him, as if the last six months have been a terrible dream. But there’s only Kaladin, and his words, and some void in her that she struggles now to bury. So she stands still despite her urge to run from what cannot be outrun, the wounded animal, waiting for his pity or disgust to guide her next action.

Those, at least, she knew intimately.

"Hey." He said it so softly, like a whisper on the wind. Kaladin knelt down next to her, careful not to touch, not yet. His eyes flicked to Syl, who landed on Hel's knee, staring up at her with sorrowful eyes. Kaladin felt that way too. But maybe....maybe he could help.

deathless ♚ sentence meme

“It’s a courtesy to–”

Oh, storm it. The day her sister cares for little things like propriety and courtesy is slow-coming, if it intends to arrive at all. Rising from her desk, she reaches absently for her walking stick – ah. Ah, that’s right. Unsure what to do with an unoccupied hand, she smooths down the skirts of her havah, watching her sister commandeer the room. After a moment, she steps into action, clearing the scraps of papers and maps from the corner of her desk and motioning that Jasnah might set down her burden.

“Thank you, Jasnah. It will be a blessing to have a reference in my studies.” Somehow, she doubts that her mentor is going to let her lug an entire book into the surgery, but a little light reading before bed should help compound whatever he teaches her during the day. Speaking of which…

“I really can’t thank you enough. It really is going to be helpful to review the standard after my work is done.” Smoothing an errant braid back, setting the rubies that hung like bloodstains from the dark locks chattering to one another, she continued. “I’ve decided to apprentice with Kaladin for a little bit, while he’s away from the front. Theory and experience as one. I’m sure I’ll be the premiere Edgedancer by the change of seasons.”

Unsure of what she’s holding her breath for, Hel widens her smile, tries to encourage Jasnah to be encouraging. If anyone will be, it ought to be her. Still, it’s her first time admitting her plans to a member of her family, and even now worries that propriety will try to strangle her ambitions as they so often have.

Jasnah sets down her load with a soft sigh, and then a small, sharp intake, breathing in a bit of Stormlight. Just enough to attend to the ache in the lower portion of her spine. She straightens as she listens to what her sister has to say, giving a sharp nod at the end.

“Stormblessed has a talent for caring for others-- though one would suppose that from his status as the premiere Windrunner. He’s a good choice.” 

Jasnah closed her eyes a moment, taking a slow breath to release the tension she always held. Such was her lot, to hold all that tension in her everything-- she was not just a scholar and Princess anymore, she was now a Queen. And that came with a whole host of new stressors. 

Her eyes opened, and she smiled at Hel, expression softening. While Jasnah would never be one to be as caring and compassionate as their mother, she had her moments of softness. “You’re doing wonderfully as a Radiant, Hel. I want you to know that. Your progress is amazing and you’re really coming into your own. I’m proud of you, little sister.”

— Ray Narvaez Jr. (via pussyliiquor)