[It isn't any one particular factor that makes Vandelin jerk his arm away from that touch as if burned. It's a whole confluence of them--the weight of his cousin's words, the shame of Kit's concern for him, the fact that he's standing here in nothing but a pair of flimsy linen shorts while his emotions rise up and rebel against him more violently than he had against the Hasmal loyalists.
(Not more violently. Nowhere near as violently, because fuck it, he can still see. He'd never thought about lying down and surrendering himself to the Fade, never had to wonder if it would be better to burn all the color and feeling out of the world than face another day in it with the weight of the rebellion's aftermath on his shoulders. He'd locked his memories of Myr tightly away because he could afford to, because he could distract himself, because he had the chance to supplant feelings with fighting until the entire bloody affair had hardened over in his mind like a callus.)
He knows what it feels like to rip off a callus and leave it bleeding-raw. It's nothing so painful as this, everything flooding back at once, the notion of accepting forgiveness he hasn't earned and then having to explain to Kit why he needed it in the first place. But he deserves it. He hasn't set foot in a confessional in nearly twenty years--he's got penance built up to the rafters. He'd far sooner owe it to Myr than to the Maker.]
I never would have let you hear the end of it. I would have hunted you down in the Fade. [If he'd ever found out. How would he have known? He would have tracked Myr down with the Inquisition's resources as soon as he got his hands on them, had it not been rendered unnecessary by his timely arrival, but--]
I thought you were safe when I left. I didn't think I would have to track you down. I thought--for the longest time, I thought the tower was still standing, just--without us. We didn't know. It was chaos out in the world, but when I asked for news about Hasmal, nobody knew of anything that had happened beyond the uprising, and--as far as I knew--you'd only been asleep when I left. I thought you had snapped out of it and...gone about your life. I thought you'd gotten what you wanted and I'd gotten what I wanted.
I never saw Rohesia again once she slipped the gate.
[The explanation is for Kit's benefit, too, even if he doesn't say so, doesn't tailor it to him. He knows he'll need to explain. He can't escape it. But this is a start.]
no subject
(Not more violently. Nowhere near as violently, because fuck it, he can still see. He'd never thought about lying down and surrendering himself to the Fade, never had to wonder if it would be better to burn all the color and feeling out of the world than face another day in it with the weight of the rebellion's aftermath on his shoulders. He'd locked his memories of Myr tightly away because he could afford to, because he could distract himself, because he had the chance to supplant feelings with fighting until the entire bloody affair had hardened over in his mind like a callus.)
He knows what it feels like to rip off a callus and leave it bleeding-raw. It's nothing so painful as this, everything flooding back at once, the notion of accepting forgiveness he hasn't earned and then having to explain to Kit why he needed it in the first place. But he deserves it. He hasn't set foot in a confessional in nearly twenty years--he's got penance built up to the rafters. He'd far sooner owe it to Myr than to the Maker.]
I never would have let you hear the end of it. I would have hunted you down in the Fade. [If he'd ever found out. How would he have known? He would have tracked Myr down with the Inquisition's resources as soon as he got his hands on them, had it not been rendered unnecessary by his timely arrival, but--]
I thought you were safe when I left. I didn't think I would have to track you down. I thought--for the longest time, I thought the tower was still standing, just--without us. We didn't know. It was chaos out in the world, but when I asked for news about Hasmal, nobody knew of anything that had happened beyond the uprising, and--as far as I knew--you'd only been asleep when I left. I thought you had snapped out of it and...gone about your life. I thought you'd gotten what you wanted and I'd gotten what I wanted.
I never saw Rohesia again once she slipped the gate.
[The explanation is for Kit's benefit, too, even if he doesn't say so, doesn't tailor it to him. He knows he'll need to explain. He can't escape it. But this is a start.]