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Her breathing stilled.

The first coherent thought she managed in the mess was, No, because this wasn't the point to be backing off, this was the point where he should have exploded, where anger and instinct took over everything else (weren't they what everyone was ruled by in the end? weren't they?), this was supposed to be the point where her work paid off, not--

You're not worth it.

And for a moment, Stormy threatened to call everything off. It wasn't working. It wasn't enough. Baiting Ian was a brute force method she wouldn't have ever endorsed had she been more cogent, and now it was coming back to bite her. Of course she wasn't worth it, she was useless. Her mind scrambled for ideas to gain control of the situation, but the voice was starting to drown in a sea of white noise. What was up and left and right and down and wrong and right blurred right into each other until she was left directionless and cold. She was angry, she was furious, she wanted to strike him for pretending he had the credentials to know just how little she meant, she was bitter, she was

miserable. They both were. Her plan seemed concocted out of madness now, crazy.

Her facade left her. She couldn't bring up images of cruelty to fuel it when she knew deep down inside Ian was suffering, because no matter how hard she tried to pretend, she couldn't do it. The mask fell and she looked far more exhausted than before, and when Stormy remembered how to breathe it was shallow and audible. "You're hurting," she said in a gravelly voice, and everything about her just seemed to sag even more, ache even more at the thought. "I just want to help. Acceptable villain, acceptable target, here and not a-at that place." The Haunted House, the insidious no man's land that had given her nothing but grief.

She had no illusions that one fight would fix everything, but maybe it would mean one less trip there--because she knew at least one of them would be stalking those foggy halls now. She had done the very same thing after Nevada had lost her eye.

"You're hurting, and some of that comes from things you need to vent. I just want to help, Ian," she repeated in a thicker voice, gripping the greatsword tighter. "That's all, that's all. When my friends hurt, I hurt. When my friends die, I die. If helping is selfish, then call me whatever you want--but I'd rather you take it out on me than just stew." Her eyes were begging him to stay. "Please. Let me help you. Let me take some of it away. Let me be at least worth that."

hp 32
damage n/a
charge 0/3

Stormy stared at him without comprehension at first. Her breaths were shallow and painful, like she was getting a stitch in her side, or if she was breathing smoke. Just breathing and breathing and finding herself lightheaded instead of calm, anxious instead of clearheaded.

She wanted him to stop talking, and at the same time she wanted to run away. Every word went deeper and deeper until it felt like there was a hole carved straight through her, showing every layer of dirt, the worms, the bones of things she meant to keep buried. Dirty. Crawling bugs and deep pits and very little lights.

Stormy shivered, tensed, breathed harder, kept staring. The tables were turning and it was disorienting her and it needed to stop stop stop.

"No, no, no. Some things need a push." Her voice wavered. "Some things need it, you can't just ask. Some people need help and they just need a little push and I'm not..." She trailed away, her mouth moving wordlessly for a moment, and then she picked her weapon up before it fell too slack. "Heroes don't--don't think like that. Villains don't care. I'm not either. I'm not anything." She wasn't even herself.

A wordless noise like a whine left her as she shook her head, trying to stop thinking because it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, none of this was supposed to be happening, stop it.

"Let me help," Stormy repeated plaintively, clinging to the phrase when all else threatened her. "Please. Please. I don't know what else to do, I can't..."

Stormy kept gulping down air but for all the good it did her she might not have been breathing at all. She trembled as Ian drew too close for her to ever have a chance at clearing her head, the greatsword a lump of metal at her side.

"You're Ian Rahal-Nazari, the prince," she all but whispered, feeling small again. "You are not perfect, but you are important, and--and you carry a burden no-one should alone."

She had not read his letter; she hadn't needed to. Stormy and Nevada loved pretending they were regular roommates on their downtime, back when things hadn't become so dire, and thus they partook in many conversations about their daily lives. Boys were a natural part of that: secret discussions about exes, whether or not she was getting serious about Gale yet (to which she always diverted the topic to something else or gave a non-answer), how things were with Tuck or Roland and then eventually Otto. She remembered the way Nevada had described Ian, how Stormy had come to the same conclusions the first time they had met for a patrol on the beach: like a Disney prince straight from the animator's studio from head to toe, an amazing listener, and a great cuddler. Her sister's best friend.

It struck her that she didn't know more than that all of a sudden, that much like with Otto, Stormy only knew cursory things because of Nevada and the very few times they had interacted. With that in perspective, she wondered how she must look now: one moment servile, the next attempting to be antagonistic, the next twisted and pleading. She wondered what anyone really thought of her aside from Gale who, in spite of all of their time together, also did not completely understand.

She couldn't help but wonder, with a fresh new wave of fear, if that was enough to drive people away after too long, if that sad look in Ian's eye was the telltale sign that she had ruined something for herself before she had even begun to grasp it. More than that, she wondered if others would follow suit soon enough. First Nevada, then Ian, then Otto, then--

Stop it.

Stormy clenched her eyes closed as if in pain, her shoulders heaving in a sob denied. "Hatred and bitterness and revenge were what killed her, Ian. She was blinded by it. I-If . . . If I had been better, maybe I could've stopped her, but I wasn't. And I can't, I can't, I can't let you sink into that hole, too." When her eyes opened to look at him again, they were significantly brighter, her words running into each otherfrantically.

"I couldn't save her and I dragged you all with me in vain and I need to be punished for that. Nobody did it on their own, so I-I have to act out. I need someone to beat sense in me because I don't know what that is anymore and if I don't find it again I'll lose myself completely." He had to understand that, right? That wasn't just crazy talk, was it? Her earlier behavior spoke for itself, but she was trying so hard to explain herself even as her thoughts continued to scramble themselves. "I gave you all false hope," Stormy continued, her voice cracking. "I gave you all the worst gift anyone could ever give, and that's a sin I can't take anymore. Trying to take care of you guys that day wasn't enough. Hating m-myself isn't enough either. I need to be hurt."

She had to pause, her breath hitching, her chest tight, her mind filled with Thane's complete disapproval and distant sneering. She bit her cheek hard enough that she drew a little blood, and that was enough to trigger a tear despite her best efforts; it was quickly erased by a shoulder swipe.

"I-I asked for you because I can't trust anyone else to do it and . . . and because deep down, I still think you want me to pay, too. Acceptable targets. I-It's just logical: I need to be punished, you need to vent. It's just . . . logical, isn't it?"

(Wouldn't Gale be so proud to see her actually reasoning?)

He was drowning anyway, and she recognized it. Was familiar with it, more like, the spiral downwards and the cyclical thoughts. It was so difficult not to join him, as they had been traveling together for a while now even if it was for different reasons. Rather than panic or even more anxiety, however, she felt something cold slither through her veins. It was fear, yes, but also grim determination, a brand of adrenaline that for the moment suppressed even her own pain like personal morphine. It was easier to focus on others anyway.

Her breathing became less erratic though no less sniffly, her eyes a little less glassy but no further from sorrow. All things were forced into a bottle where they would have eventually ended up anyway.

"Don't say that."

Stormy dared to take a few steps forward, desummoning Thane as an afterthought so that her hands could clutch one another. "We need moments like those. We need--We need somebody telling us it'll be okay even if it isn't, because facing reality like that day after day j-just breaks a person." Her jaw trembled and another tear slipped free, but she let it go; her focus was on him.

"I think that's why she went to you two," she continued with the faintest hint of a sad smile. "You made her feel normal. The--Th-The last time I ever talked with her, I yelled at her. I slapped her and yelled at her because she was hurting herself and jeopardizing everything, and the last thing I ever told her was that I'd fix it. I-I kept throwing reality at her, and she called me poison--but you reminded her how to be happy even when e-everything was falling apart. You were her friend to the end."

A soft sob left her, her hands gripping each other tightly as she tried to rein it back in. The last conversation left with Nevada was a letter she couldn't open--not after all of that. If she wasn't a villain, then she certainly wasn't helpful. A wounded victim looking in all the wrong places.

"My advice?" My advice, like she knew anything at all, like she was in any position to offer (like she could have let it go). "Keep living. Surviving. Giving up now'd be an insult to her memory." She took one more step until they were within a polite distance, imploring him quietly. "You aren't a villain either. You can live, Ian," Stormy said in a steadier voice even as another tear trickled down, belying inner turmoil. "That's the only way to make up for it, I think. Help others. Protect them. Let them do the same back when you can't. You have friends now, Ian, friends--friends that need you as much as you need them."

It was like looking into a mirror and watching the shards of glass fall out one by one. Her knuckles turned white with restraint, wanting to reach out and grasp them until they turned red.

She wanted nothing more than to speak out, but a part of Stormy recognized that words wouldn't do anything at this point. Ian needed someone to listen, just as she had made Gale listen. The impulse to want to fix it was ingrained in her, but it contradicted her familiarity with the rant, the need to expel a pressurized stream of thoughts that weren't always cogent and connected, forced out by emotion like steam through a crack. It wasn't anything even meaningful advice could get to, not because it was wrong but because the mind receiving it wasn't open or wasn't in the right state; words would get buffeted back by gusts from the internal storm. It was a one-way communication, so Stormy provided the only things she could for him: a sympathetic ear and silence to let him go as long as he needed to.

She couldn't judge him, even if she wanted to. There was nothing but empathy in her eyes as she gave a slight nod.

She couldn't exactly say that was a bad plan, anyway, even though a part of her knew it was innately wrong. It hadn't stopped her before with other things.

Stormy of course wanted to continue being there and trying to help, but she remained in place as Ian started to back up. "You do care," she said softly. "That's why it hurts." But the rest of it was a path he'd find on his own. Everyone did, eventually, even her. Even with her reluctant shuffling and constant meandering or, in this case, complete stop. Dug heels. Head down.

She watched him run without a word. Slowly, slowly, her hands quit suffocating each other, uncomfortable spasms of pain radiating from the strain, the press of the clawed ring into skin. Her legs felt like cracked pillars: steady but ready to collapse if she moved.

What you're saying to me doesn't mean anything unless you put your own words to practice.

"But I am surviving," she said to thin air, her eyes falling half closed from sudden exhaustion. "I am living. I've been protecting, I've been helping, I've been trying all this time . . ." Her methods weren't always the right way to go about it, but there were efforts being made. Food. Violence. Words. She was still missing punishment, though. She had to try everything. If Ian couldn't do it, surely someone else could fill the role. It was twisted thinking, but the pain was like purifying fire: every second of it meant a chance for an exquisite baptism.

Nevada had suffered every day of her decline, while she had felt only the artifact mission's aftermath. The balance had to be set straight.

Stormy stared vacantly ahead of her, in communion with every hearbeat that made her bruise throb for a span of time. And then, ignoring Thane's growls, she fished for her phone as if in a trance and searched for Jack's name.

"I'm sorry."