Ilsa fell, she felt her consciousness leave, the last thing she saw was a pair of crimson eyes.
She died.
Zolani held the knife after it came out and looked at it and looked at her hands and the shaking had stopped. Her body frozen, a stillness of a person who had used up everything available.
Revé stepped into view.
He stopped.
Looked at the woman on the ground.
At the blood stained knife.
At her equally dripping hands.
At her face.
He did not say anything.
She looked at him.
"She was going to stab you," she explained. Her voice was — she heard it from the outside — very flat. Robotic, her brain only stating things that seemed like facts. She could feel herself disassociating.
"I know," his voice was low, almost consoling. Like he knew what was going on.
"You didn't see her."
If he had moved when she shouted things may not have escalated to this point.
"No." He paused. "I didn't." Another. "Thank you is not—" he stopped. Started again. "Thank you doesn't have the right weight."
She looked at her red sticky hands.
Fuck. What has she done?
"You're welcome," she muttered, flatly. Her body plopped to the floor as she sat down.
Not a decision.
Her legs had found the ground and made the choice and she was sitting in the forest with the blood on her hands and the knife beside her and she was looking at nothing specifically and feeling everything that later had been accumulating since the carriage.
Revé was quiet.
She appreciated that — the not-talking, the not-filling-the-silence, the allowing of the silence to be what it was. She had not expected it from him. She had expected the performance to continue, the flood of words, the chaos turned to deflection.
Instead he sat down across from her on a root and was quiet and it was the right thing and he had known it was the right thing without being told.
She looked at her hands.
At the blood that had gone tacky.
At the specific brown of dried blood on skin that was warm-brown to start with.
"First?" he said. Quietly.
"Yes," she said. Well she didn't exactly kill the other assassins outrightly, she just disabled them enough for them to die if not attended to immediately. She didn't give the last blow.
He nodded.
She looked at him — at the bruised jaw, the blood at his ear, the revolver back in his coat, the fang knuckles hanging loose in one hand. The blue hair catching the light between the trees. The expressive eyes that were not performing anything right now, just looking at her with resolution in his eyes to be present and remain to do so.
"It doesn't go away," he sighed.
"I know." At least that's what the books say.
"But it—" he paused. Choosing his words.
"It gets separate. From you. It becomes a thing that happened. Not a thing that's happening." He looked at his own hands. "It takes time. But it becomes separate."
She looked at him. She didn't understand a thing he vomited from his mouth. But it was a welcome distraction.
"You're speaking from experience," Her brows rose in question.
"Yes." He looked up. "More than I'd recommend."
Silence.
Great. She was now a murderer and now she was somewhat acknowledged by another.
Birds of a feather truly flock together. Her damned luck.
"I killed a man who was going to kill you," she rationalized. Not to him — to herself. To the accumulating laters. "I made the calculation and I executed the calculation."
"Yes," he grunted. His gaze observing.
"And the fact that it was a calculation doesn't make it—" she stopped. Self defense? Mistake?
What she trying to say exactly she already knew the answer, running from it wouldn't change things.
"No," he bluntly replied. "It doesn't."
Her hand hit her forehead, exasperated. No filter much? Which was a bad mistake the blood was now on her face.
"I thought it would make it easier." The sticky sensation made her more overwhelmed. She needed a bath.
"I thought that too," he said. "The first time. It doesn't."
She looked at the trees.
He looked at the trees.
They sat in the forest together with the aftermath settling around them — the birds coming back, one by one, the fog thinning at the edges as the morning progressed, it was like the world didn't care about what happened few minutes ago and continued being a world that remained still.
"Rake," she called. He eyed her, his irritation visible.
"The name is Reve."
"Oh..."
"Yeah, remember it this time around." He chimed, sarcasm dripping.
"You said it's not your real name."
"It's the name I use," he said. "The name they gave me is different. I don't use it." He paused. "But Revé is what I answer to. It's mine. I chose it."
She thought about this. About names that were chosen versus names that were given.
For a second she wondered if he was reincarnated too. Or it was common to change a name people know you for. Either way she felt a weird sense of camaraderie because of it.
"Same. I'm Zolani."
He looked at her.
"Got it," he said. Quietly. Like it hadn't surprised him.
She looked at him.
"Thanks?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
"I just—" he stopped. "It suits you. That's all." He looked at his hands. "Some things are just... right."
The thread was humming in Zolani.
Not loudly. Low and constant, the way it had been humming since they stood back to back in the trees, the warm frequency that had found its match somewhere outside herself for the first time since the water.
"Zolani."
Vesper's voice, from the trees to the south — moving toward them, the determination heavy in her voice.
She appeared between the trees.
Took in the scene — the bodies, the blood, the two people sitting on the forest floor in the middle of it — her expression somewhat controlled but failing miserabl, she had been through a great deal today and was continuing to manage it by not allowing her face to do the talking.
She walked through the blood.
Around the bodies.
Crouched beside Zolani.
Opened the bag she held.
Removed the shawl.
Put it around Zolani's shoulders without asking. Without speaking. Her hands covering Zolani's hands — the blood, the tacky warmth of it — and holding them.
She said nothing.
Zolani looked at her hands covered by Vesper's and felt something in the tight-managed place in her chest come loose by a small amount. Not much. Enough.
Revé watched them, quietly.