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Encke had a way of being relatively easy to find. It wasn't just the presence of his aura, of course, though something about being an eternal was hard to mask unless he had his cat with him (and why would he do that on a standard neighborhood patrol?). It was his general glow, his tattoos reflecting off the sides of the shiny road even if he didn't want them to. It would probably make him a beacon for Pendour, when he got close.

If his voice didn't do that for him.

He was careful -- not quite knowing what form she'd be in, he was calling for a mermaid, not Pen or Sadie. It didn't earn him any responses, and he couldn't help feeling nervous with the request to meet him so quickly and the fact she wasn't where he originally expected her to be, but some of those nerves eased back as he felt the presence of a knight. (A knight that clearly wasn't his sister; she was working on a fashion project back at home last he checked--)

Encke wasted no time jogging over to her, nevertheless.

"Pen," he murmured, keeping his voice low in case she had her head against the brick because her head hurt. "You alright?"

He didn't think she wasn't, but he wasn't sure that meant she was good, either.

Perhaps the draining was all it was, and it would have explained her state, but he had a feeling there was something more to it. And he wasn't wrong; she told him as such when she expanded to the fact that they talked. What had Faustite said--

Oh.

He knew what broken meant. He knew how much Pendour struggled with the concept of broken. He knew how she had been on Astraya, but he had seen her beyond that, too. Encke hadn't even considered it at the time because he was so happy to just see her and know that she was still living, but he knew the fact that he had accepted her coming to his house without even a question or a stutter had done wonders. He hadn't seen that brokenness she saw in herself.

"That doesn't even surprise me," he muttered, with a snort. "Faustite has implied I'm only an Order tool to him. If I was a more bitter person, I'd've stopped helping him."

Their constant runnings-in hadn't gone well in years. It was surprising they seemed to be going as alright as they were.

Encke took her hand without a question and found himself instinctually channeling that energy he could tap into so easily now. Her wonder would help, the water would help, but he could help, too.

Hearing that Faustite wasn't being malicious would have felt like an aberration if he hadn't seen it as such recently. Even declarations that implied Encke was moreso a tool than a person trying to help him weren't necessarily said maliciously, they had just been said. Encke wondered if it was because anything else would have risked Encke walking or if there was a truth to it; perhaps it didn't matter in the end.

Encke had entered this arrangement determined to give Faustite the same chance he had. If Faustite never liked him, that didn't change what had initially had Encke convinced they needed to help. This man was their husband's near-murderer. That definitely hadn't changed then--and hadn't changed now, either.

Would it have really changed at all if Faustite had been malicious toward him? He wasn't sure. Toward his family and friends? That might have changed the calculation, but even then.

He didn't know.

Encke pulled himself away from those thoughts to make sure he was fully focused on Pendour. It made sense that they spoke of brokenness. A lot of people said being a half-youma was broken in itself. Perhaps it was arguable that Encke did too, but not quite in the same way. Faustite himself was not broken, or at least, not in any physical way.

The circumstances that allowed that to happen to him, though?

"Probably because his body's setting him aflame. Hard to accept that as anything other than dying." Encke followed where she tugged him, heading toward the cove. "Does he see it as something else?"

Or was it just that everyone was so hyperfocused on that aspect?

Encke kept an easy, even pace with her, there in case she did stumble despite where they were and the energy boost from him. "Good to hear it's not denial, though," Encke's chuckle was airy, "to approach me at all he'd have to know it's serious, Our relationship has always been, ah," ah, indeed. How had he ended up here with the man who not only tried to kill those close to him, but also had gone for his own starseed before? How had he watched this man while he slept to protect him but also regret he hadn't just ended it right there?

"Tenuous."

He left it there, focusing instead on the rest of it. Temporary. It was an interesting approach. He supposed there was something true to it for all of them; humans didn't live forever, and not even the ancient Velencians in theory had a limit. But to be temporary as a human of any variety hinted at as different sensation. It reminded him of the kinds of narratives he saw in scripts about the terminally ill.

But Faustite didn't want to be seen as sick, didn't he?

"He definitely was," Encke confirmed, squeezing Pendour's hand in turn as he felt her shudder. "There was nothing about the way he talked that hinted he actually ... wanted what I was offering. He always said to get rid of the youma. Remove the youma. He abandoned the conversation when he realized what that meant."

But to think he would prefer death was a fascinating one. Purification was always a deeply personal choice, and Encke supposed the choice for death was ... also one that could be taken. It was one Encke was uncomfortable with, but there was a whole moral debate to be unpacked there. If death was inevitable, was it better for it to be by choice? But was it really inevitable? "He seems to think Order will organize to force him to act against Chaos, but we mostly just want people free from Chaos. I remember my past life -- before all of this," he gestured vaguely, "the People didn't do any of this kind of fighting, and I think that's all we really want to return to. We want people to heal from this war, right?"

The conflict was different. It wasn't wars surrounding stolen souls.

"... But I can also understand what he means. It's a hard decision, and nothing about memory loss and loss of identity is innately appealing. Even when we get freed, Chaos scrapes one last punishment."

He let out a heavy sigh. He thought Faustite deserved the chance he had, but would he even want it? Did he have to convince Faustite it was worth it to live?

It was a very different paradigm, because it was hard to see Order as anything but freedom. Freedom from having to follow other people, freedom from the pressure to mine from the Earth, freedom from military uniforms, freedom from all of it.

But perhaps, especially from the perspective of chaos poison, it would feel like bondage. It was hard to break out of that, and some people didn't want to. Some people had too many things to hang on to, and for Faustite, it may have been his life as it was. A part of him, months ago, might have been relieved. Let him burn himself out. Now?

Now, he didn't know.

He heard the way her voice's cadence changed as she spoke, something Encke didn't usually hear her use. To him, at least, the fear was palpable. She wasn't wrong. There were cycles of vengeance. He could see it in the way some he knew behaved. Could see it in his sister, for sure, and the way she always went after everyone chaotic due to things that were done even by others. But he could understand that too -- complicated, and he pushed a bit closer to her, as a support in case she needed it.

He looked out to the waterfall, too.

"I don't think it's cut and dry, necessarily," Encke bit his lip, and ran a hand through his hair. "It's complicated. Everyone's motivations are different -- and chaos poisoning in itself complicates things further, I think. It can make it hard to see what's bad or just make it acceptable. It can even make it acceptable in the name of not losing other things... But I think you have saved lives. A lot of them. Probably more than what's readily obvious."

He let out a quiet sigh.

"But it is complicated, and ... I don't know. I worry that no matter what, one side will just restart it all, all over again. And I know which side I'm concerned that'd be."

Encke wrung his hands.

"And I don't want to lose more people to it, more that perhaps something could have been done about it before they are nearing that seemingly irredeemable point." Faustite once tried to leave. He once tried to leave, And now? Now he might rather die.

There were no easy answers.

"I do, too."

Encke could make an argument that Chaos had ruined his life. And it had, from its original trajectory. Did he like his life now? Sure. Encke was comfortable in it, and his found family, and his friends, and his career -- and it was something he'd never thought he'd get back to. But he didn't get back to anything, did he? This was a new reality, a new path, and what it was before was something he would never get back.

He'd never know what life would have been like as an adult without the nightmarish reality he had to navigate, sometimes even within his own mind.

"I think we're fighting an uphill battle in this. And it's hard. And it wears. And there's no real good answer, I think." There wasn't. Had he ******** up? How could he have known, when hindsight was twenty-twenty? And was it really a ******** up when it allowed him to save a life? And had he even been a contributor -- had he known Faustite at the time? Was it before then, during then? Would Faustite had even said anything, or would going for his starseed still have been the response?

He let out a breath that made his whole body deflate. "Offhandedly, Faustite told me he tried to leave, once before. I... don't know when that once was, or if anything could have been done with it. Or if I even could have, if I somehow knew. Or if that was a point where there was a return, and now he's passed a point and maybe, on his own, decided there is no returning. And we can try to keep being kind to him, and offer everything we can, but it might no longer matter."

They were all what-ifs with no answers.

"Chaos is the reason why we have these questions in the first place. It keeps taking and taking, and from people too young to understand, and from the old, and just normal citizens, and--" Encke glanced out to the waterfall again.

"I don't want to sound hopeless. Fought hard to get some hope back. It's just hard."

I wish you could help me.

That hit deep, and Encke wrapped an arm around Pendour to pull her close to his side, but something about that was painful. She couldn't see them helping her in that way. And perhaps she wasn't wrong. As much as their goals were similar, the way they walked to them was different. They both wanted to see Chaos eradicated. Pendour walked the peaceful path, even in the face of adversity, getting herself in the way and protecting without attacking. Encke walked a path of reaction, not necessarily intentionally seeking out fights but finishing them when they started. Was either the right answer? Could either be the right answer?

It was a combination and then some, no doubt.

"You're already doing amazing, Pendour," he murmured, his words careful. He clearly had said something wrong. Perhaps he shouldn't have shared those thoughts of Faustite's. Like Lysithea said, he lied. Perhaps those had been a lie too (oh, he doubted that). Perhaps he should have found another way to say it, or a new approach. "You walk a hard path, but you're not going to catch everyone, and pushing yourself too hard might result in the opposite. You're important too.

"Don't give up. Even if our perspectives on this are different, maybe I can help in this way. Always an ear. Always have your back."

He swallowed.

"And ask that you don't burn the candle from both ends. Important to me that I can see you and talk to you, too. And important to the other people who love you, too. This is a long haul, and it will continue to be, because it keeps... Starting."

Starting, starting, starting, and never finishing.