Burden of Loss

Post-COVID fatigue sucks balls. Had to cut back on hours at work yesterday and today, which is Not Great when I had to take a full week off from being ill.

[u]Just a heads-up, I'm going on vacation from the 6th to the 16th. I hope to do some writing, but no promises, I might just need the time to relax and have fun.
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Content warning: this chapter covers topics of self-harm and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

The two stared at each other for several long, uncomfortable moments. “Why… why do you have poison hidden in your desk?” Ahsch asked.

In the span of a few seconds, he watched as his wife seemed to go through every stage of grief as her gaze lowered and she replied, in a small, disturbingly un-Avery-like voice, “That’s the same poison that killed… that killed Miri.”

Ahsch blinked a few times. “Is it…” he glanced down at the bottle, which was labeled as ‘Assassin’s Rose.’ “It’s not… illegal, is it?” Even as he asked the question, he knew that wasn’t what had his wife so distraught; though she flirted with legality on a regular basis - and every once in a while stepped over that line - being caught holding onto contraband wouldn’t cause her to react like she was.

She shook her head. “Do you remember what I was doing? On the anniversary of Miri and m-” She paused and swallowed heavily. “And my father’s ****?”

The hrafthi frowned. “You… hadn’t you dismissed all the servants? And you were sitting in here, drinking orange…” He froze as the realization struck him, and he felt the blood drain from his face in horror. She’d been forcing herself to drink an entire kettle of lemon drop tea, alone in her office, with _something _set out beside the kettle. Something that Avery had used Oblivious Focus to conceal from him. And assuming that ‘something’ had been the vial of ‘Assassin’s Rose’ that he was looking at, the same poison that had been in the orange drop tea that Miri had died to…

Haltingly, Ahsch’s gaze slid up to his wife’s face. “Who was it meant for?”

Avery gave a guilty, desolate smile. “I’d always thought I’d be the last of my family. Miri… father…” her gaze hardened into an intense, everlasting hatred. “Fauna,” she spat the name like a curse, before the energy of her wrath simply… left. She slumped, eyes falling down towards her desk. “And me,” she concluded in a quiet voice. “We would all die to… well… that.”

Ahsch’s heart wrenched at the unspoken revelation of how Pavel had died on the anniversary of his son’s **** - and where Avery’s anniversary memorial ceremony came from. The hrafthi closed his eyes as the secondhand grief washed over him, instinctively reaching out with his bond sense to the bonds of that office, of that desk and chair and…

Tears spilled from his eyes at the flood of history from those bonds, and he recoiled at the weight of that emotional agony. Then he simply sat, silently failing to process the situation he was in. Across the desk, Avery stood, equally silent, her stare gazing into nothing.

Nobody disturbed them in their suffering, not even Mahat. Ariin didn’t come knocking, Rwnil didn’t stroll by to chastise them, Butler didn’t bustle in with tea. Even Avery’s constant companions stayed locked in the glass cabinet, the alcoholic burn and numbing bliss forbidden in such a moment.

Finally, Ahsch stood. Avery’s eyes snapped up to him for a brief moment, but quickly dropped back downwards under the weight of her pain. Her husband rounded the desk to stand beside her for a long moment. Her face eventually twisted in angry anguish. “If you’re-” she began, turning towards him, only for her words to catch as he suddenly embraced her. They both felt the trembles running through the other.

“I can’t - and won’t - make you,” Ahsch whispered in a broken tone, “But please, don’t give me reason to contemplate a vial of poison every year for eternity.”

The moment stilled, stretched into infinity. Then Avery returned her husband’s embrace fiercely, desperately. “I won’t,” she choked out, smothering a sob. “I don’t… I don’t…”

“Shhhh,” Ahsch soothed, even as her strength left her and they both slowly collapsed to the floor, still in each other’s arms. “Just mourn. Just remember. Just rage and hate and feel.” He clutched her closer. “Just live. For them. To spite her.”

And as Avery wailed, her fingers easily bruising Ahsch’s pale skin as her nails drew his blood, the hrafthi imagined untold scenarios of the endless suffering he would inflict upon Fauna, were it not his wife’s privilege to claim the woman’s miserable existence.

Eventually, as her sobs eased and her grip loosened, the two broke their close embrace and sat back, arms still around each other, but with less desperation, less need. They sat in silence for several minutes, contemplating.

“I don't think I could, anymore,” Avery whispered at length. “Not with… with you and the… the future that I… that I want. With my son.”

Ahsch frowned at her. “I thought you…”

“I have a feeling,” she interrupted. “And I don’t want you to make it happen. But with you and him, I don’t think I can… I couldn’t. But the years alone… so alone…”

Nothing Ahsch could think of was appropriate in response. Questions of what would happen to the House’s holdings, to Butler, how her friends… He almost laughed in wry, morbid amusement. Avery didn’t really have any friends. Friendly acquaintances, peers and colleagues, yes. But no friends.

Or at least, she hadn’t had any.

The door quietly opened, and Mahat walked in, closing the door behind her and then transforming mid stride as she approached the couple on the floor. Rather than her attachment to her Master usually required, the familiar laid down beside Avery, curled around the shaid with her canid head in the woman’s lap. Ahsch saw the flood of emotion only by virtue of Heart Sight - in the presence of another, even one who saw through his eyes and knew his mind more intimately than any other could, Avery’s guard was back up, an impenetrable, frozen wall of will and determination. Still, as the weight was shoved aside, to be dealt with later, one emotion remained prominent, and it could be seen without magic as Avery’s hand began to slowly stroke down Mahat’s head and neck, fingers digging into the thick fur.

Shifting to sit beside his wife, Ahsch laid his head on her shoulder, his arm around her back. Without hesitation, she leaned against him in return, the only external indication of her internal turmoil the slight shake to her breath as her eyes squeezed shut and a single, tiny tear escaped her control.

“I love you,” Ahsch whispered.