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LAURA
I killed you once, didn’t I?
THIAN
Surprised you actually remember that.
LAURA
I’ve always been bad at forgetting.
THIAN
You killed me twice, for the record.
side a:
the blood of witches that demanded a better world lives and breathes in her veins, and her parents die in the afterthought of another man’s duty. takes what’s left behind of the family before she could learn vietnamese. gives them a new home, and everyone calls her the daughter of heretics and monsters, as they overwrite what remains of her name to a more acceptable alternative. she is not
trinh, make her
prince, and let everyone ignore the blood in her bones.
the girl had a brother, once. it didn’t last.
side b:
the blood of witches that yearned for a better world lives and breathes in his veins, and his parents die one-by-one in the classic story of runaway immigrants hung on the noose of their traumas, demons, and burdens. governments do as governments do, take what’s left behind of the family before he could learn vietnamese. gives them a substitute for a new home, at least temporarily, promising there will be better, and everyone calls him the kid who can never let go. there is no escaping his name, his face, or the person he is, but fuck, does trying to be palatable never turn out.
the boy had a brother, once. it didn’t last.
THIAN
Why the hell are you even here, anyway?
LAURA
I thought I could talk you out of this.
THIAN
You want to talk me out of this. You, of all fucking people?
LAURA
You sound like you hate me.
THIAN
I do. Fuck you.
the girl makes a friend, and he’s everything she isn’t. sunshine and gold in a person, with a heart so big it hurts. he’s a believer — in good, in worth, in salvation that always seemed so far away from her two hands. she thinks she loves him. it will never be enough.
when people speak of stories, he is the protagonist, and everyone else proves themselves a character worth remembering in each retelling. he’ll bleed for someone,
anyone, and the world will call him great. and she will watch him in the sidelines, allow each decree and demand of her knowing it always comes with strings she willingly takes because it’s
something, and she’s never the person chosen for the story, or the time, or the reason, or the cause — too difficult, too sad, too angry, too distant, too imperfect for someone else’s perfect hero’s journey. and he will keep winning, and she will keep losing, and her life will become a symphony of ghosts, almosts, maybes, and forgetting, until it drives her mad, and death takes her with the bullet of a man who wanted to reclaim his crown by killing his usurper — not her, but another. she just happens to be collateral.
wrath’s prince likes her enough to save
her, though. so at least there’s that.
she’ll live.
the boy makes a friend, and she’s everything he isn’t. easy laughter and unrelenting hope in a person, with an unsated curiosity so big it’s overwhelming. she’s a believer — in possibility, in worth, in what might be. he knows he loves her, albeit not in the easy way many others understand. it will kill him. the first time, anyway.
when people speak of stories, he is the one surrounded by protagonists — the people proven to be worth remembering, with their own grand story, goal, motivation, or possibility for a place in the world. and he’s the one who waits and watches, always the love interest, the objective or the opportunity, and he’ll bleed for someone, anyone, and the world will call him foolish for even trying. difficult for trying to stop. and that will be the rest of his life: a series of loving and losing, personhood overwritten for the way someone wants him, until there’s no more to want — too difficult, too sad, too angry, too distant, too imperfect for someone’s perfect love story. and someone always has to leave, and it is never him, and his life will become a symphony of ghosts, almosts, maybes, and regretting, long after the first time he’s died with the bullet of a girl who just desperately wanted to be worth something. his death is not intentional, mind, simply collateral.
lust’s prince likes him well enough to save him, though, so at least there’s that.
he’ll live.
THIAN
Is this some sick way to atone in your head for killing Hathorne?
LAURA
That was two years ago. The Garden’s only come up in the past six months.
THIAN
You didn’t answer the question.
LAURA
I know.
THIAN
Are you even fucking sorry for what you did to me?
LAURA
I know you’ll never forgive me, so I’m trying to be better instead.
THIAN
Fuck that. I don’t get to be filler angst for your goddamn redemption story. Not after what all your bullshit put me through. The after-effects of what you did to me were fucking real, and I’m the one who’s still dealing with it.
LAURA
I know.
THIAN
So how the hell do you have the audacity to say shit like that?
LAURA
I’m sorry.
THIAN
I don’t forgive you.
LAURA
I know.
THIAN
…Do you mean it.
LAURA
Why else am I standing here — trying to talk to someone who’s decided to give himself up for a cause?
THIAN
This isn’t some Society bullshit?
LAURA
I’m sorry, Thian.
THIAN
Cool. I still don’t forgive you.
LAURA
I know. I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t either.
THIAN
And yet you’re still standing there?
LAURA
...I guess I just know what it’s like. To think you’re a lost cause.
hunters will remember her as
the witch who’d doomed their future. a cause she’d given a lifetime for, twiceover, will see only the failures and the problems she’d left. a match of good intentions, striking fire to burn it all down. she who killed her dearest friend, symbol of tomorrow,
greatest witch hunter of this generation, future leader of the holiest creed, son of saints and kings. she who’d married witchcraft with the divine, ushering forward a new dawn of warfare and ammunition. the very pillars in which a cult hellbent on ringing forth kingdom come with their own hands has used to rise in prominence.
never the child soldier who just tried to listen, obey, and perpetuate. all because her survival rested on how well a weapon she could be.
laura prince thinks she really should not have been the one to live past the graveyard.
she thinks she will always be sorry, and as long as she lives, wrath’s song will whisper in her ear — a shackle and a collar that burns with all her regrets and mourning. she thinks all she wants anymore is to rest.
what a disservice that must be, after everything she has wrought.
perhaps there are fates far worse than death, in the end.
monsters will remember him as the voice of a generation. a cause that presents itself as the only road left when a mentor holds a gun to your forehead and your savior leads you into the only place left to go — with nowhere to return to, no home or person to find shelter in — where else can you stay, but the one that presents itself as that which is left for you? and so many others begin to see him, and hear the sound of the music he plays (never mind how much of it is colored in the undercurrent of desire itself), and all that’s left of the person is an idol. messenger. beloved, by the thousands, and never known.
all he is left is a mask — the proponent of injustice, demand, change — dissected into the hurts and fury of every monster that wanted something more. someone has to be. someone will. in the unstable balance that is the fate of this city, there is always one group who has to bend, and one who has to be hurt until they’ve had enough.
thian lê thinks st. romain really shouldn’t have missed the shot.
he thinks that, in the end, this must be all he’s ever been good for. a hollow vessel for a roaring crowd, and he thinks that this could be enough for him when there’s nothing (no one) else left with him.
maybe that all makes sense, then, and at least the illusion of love feels nice in the moment.
he doesn’t think there’s any coming back from this.
LAURA
You know that none of this is love.
THIAN
Yeah.
THIAN
Not like I have any other option, though.
LAURA
I said the same thing, once.
LAURA
It cost me everything.
once upon a time, a desperate girl shoots a boy in a cave, and he should have died. instead, his life is granted an irreparable cost.
skip a year or two later, and she’s everything she shouldn’t be — gave herself in to a demon, its promise, and can burn a man alive with her own two hands. huntress becomes hunted, but the cause still remains, and when there’s nowhere else to go, she meets the symbol of her god head on, awaits execution.
he offers penance with a single extended hand, and a query:
don’t you want to change this world for the better?
where else can you go, but to the end of the line?
fast forward years down the line — both witches, one hunter and the other hunted, and in searching for a way to keep herself alive, she takes aim.
once upon a time, a desperate boy follows after a dead girl in the eve of a macabre masquerade. she saves him from a mentor, and brings him to her safe space, and it isn’t his, and it’s ruled by a woman who’s lost everything to revolution, but she still extends a hand to him, sees how well he plays, and poses a simple offer.
aren’t you tired of being this way?
of losing. of having nothing. of always, always, always being the one left behind as the world moves forward, carrying the wounds of everyone else’s story.
don’t you want to change this world for the better?
he takes it.
she takes it.
he misses the person he used to be, and mourns everything he couldn’t become.
she misses the person she used to be, and mourns everything she couldn’t become.
she really should not have been the one who lived through this story.
he really should not have been the one this story turns to be about.
THIAN
I’m not like you. Shut up.
LAURA
I really hope you don’t turn out to be.
THIAN
Shut up.
side c (a different timeline):
“you know, you remind me of someone i once knew,” a boy with bright ginger hair says as he enters the car. immediately, thian considers slamming the door in his face. it’d make more sense, given their loyalties.
“if you say my brother, i will jump out this car.”hathorne laughs, and it makes the blood in his veins boil.
“no, no. not him. she’s—she was definitely not him.”thian’s not stupid enough to dismiss the word choice, but he can’t help the curiosity that comes with a comparison. even if to question it feels, dangerously, like accepting prophecy.
“was?”
LAURA
Do you think The Garden’s cause is worth dying for?
THIAN
I don’t know.
LAURA
Worth killing for?
THIAN
I don’t know.
LAURA
Worth San Llorona for?
THIAN
If this is your way of talking me out of the hole I dug myself in, you’re doing a shit job at it.
LAURA
Then I guess I’ll see you at their deadline, Hamelin.
THIAN
…
LAURA
For what its worth, I’m hoping not to pull the trigger a third time.
THIAN
But you will, if worst comes to worst?
LAURA
You sound like you want me to.
THIAN
…
all he ever wanted these days was to finally rest.
LAURA
Yeah. I know the feeling.