deercountry | 13 . autumn catch-all

Yeah. Gods, demons, portals. Ultimate evil, last time I was home. And I don't mean me.

[Willow exhales a slow breath. So he says he has regrets, and what ifs, but given the chance... he'd change nothing. It's a lot to swallow.

She's trying her best not to look at the water, or the shore, and instead keeps her focus on him.]

So. If you'd do it again, you don't really regret doing it in the first place, do you? So what are you leaving out?

[She gestures vaguely behind to worsening scene around them.]

We both know how this works, and I don't think either one of us wants to be stuck here much longer. You may as well just say it.

[ The idea of Willow as ultimate evil is laughable to him, but he doesn't crack a joke about it. He reaches up to rub the heels of his hands over his eyes, and never mind how it jostles the boat and sloshes the blood around them. ]

You misunderstand.

[ He drops his hands and looks at her, exhausted. ]

It was the only option left. [ He says this with hard and vicious determination, without a moment's give. ] We made the best - I made the best - I had to do it. But we could've caught it earlier... we could've kept our escape routes... I could have killed the motherfuckers who put us in that corner, and I could've made it count.

Of course I regret it. [ His voice has dropped so low, backed only by the shuffle of crows' wings as they feast. ] I have spent ten thousand years trying to make it right. Trying to finish this fucking fight, even when no one else is left to remember.

You know the sad thing? I envy you the demon portals. [ He sits back, decisive and disgusted with himself. ] All we had was flooding and nukes.

[Willow sighs. It's horrifying, of course. Most of what John does is, at the very least, mildly horrifying. Clearly, he's convinced that destroying the world was the only possible route to take, and she doesn't think anything she can say will convince him otherwise.]

How is there even still a fight now? The world was destroyed, and if there's no one left to remember it... who's still fighting?

[She draws a deep breath. The world ending through more mundane means, she's not sure she would have a solution for anyway. Nuclear weapons and floods are a little outside of her usual wheelhouse.]

Yeah, I guess I have to admit it. I'm not sure what we'd do if it was a less... supernatural type of apocalypse?

[ The question closes his expression to something still and bitter. For a moment, set into the blacks of his eyes, it's a frightening look. ]

The ones who left us there to die.

[ He sits back even as the horizon starts to fade. This little pocket world is crumbling around them, its toll paid and its purpose fulfilled. The sky is nothing but the abstract whirl of crow's wings. ]

You know the story of Noah and the ark? [ He tips his head to her, his eyes flat with unnatural light and with a great, horrible distance. His little smile does not touch those eyes at all. ] How pissed do you think Noah would've been if someone stole his boat?

[It's not directed at her, she assumes, but the situation. Still, the expression in John's eyes gives Willow pause as she considers his words. Probably better to step lightly here so it doesn't become directed at her.

She isn't going to push, but it sounds like he was going to destroy the world and ditch before he was destroyed right along with it. With the mention of Noah's ark, she assumes he had a selection of those he would save right along with him.]

Ohh, I can imagine. How did you even manage to survive?

We didn't.

[ They don't have long now; they speak under the rush of wingbeats. Good. He's done with this place. He'd been done with it the first time, back at the very start. ]

People act like this town is a clean slate, but I've seen a clean slate. Nobody got back up but me. I had to work it out from there, in the ashes... How can I say I regret it, right? After all that?

[ World of confessions, right? That's the trial, that's the task. So he looks at her, that bitter anger in his eyes, and says low and splintered: ] How can they expect me to start over?

[In light of his experiences, calling Trench a clean slate is clearly particularly traumatizing for John, and maybe, she thinks, it's understandable. She looks back at him, trying to maintain her calm in the face of his anger. It's fine. It's not directed at her.]

This place is what we make of it. If you want a fresh start, away from your old home, and all the problems you faced there, then you can have it. If you don't... Well, I don't know. It's not like there isn't plenty of new threats and problems here. Are you really sure you want to pick up that same path again? Especially given it's not the same threats, or the same people you knew before? Especially since there's people you care about getting caught up in the crossfire?

[He does care about them, doesn't he? All these young people he's rallied to his side, and the people from his own world who have found themselves here as well? She's relatively sure he does, otherwise the river wouldn't have such an affect on him, and probably, Never Mind wouldn't be putting them through this again.]

[ His voice has gone low under the building noise of the crows. There are so many of them they black out the sky. ]

That assumes we're at a crossroads, right? But how can I be anyone else while they're here?

[ There's a note of frustration to it; he reaches up to rub at his eyes, and it breaks the intensity in his face. He huffs a sigh into his palm. When he lifts his face away to look at her again, he's put the fury somewhere out of sight: now there's only a dull exhaustion left. ]

I'm not game to start over. I've got nothing but unfinished business. [ His mouth twists, wry. ] Maybe that's why they love showing me ghosts.

It doesn't change who you are. You're still you, and this place isn't going to take that away from you. But you do realize there's more to who you are than the fight you had at home, right? And bringing it here, trying to pick fights with the Pthumerians? What's that doing besides hurting the people around you?

[Willow's tone is quiet, and gentle under the sound of beat of the crows' wings, and their cries.]

Maybe it's not about starting over, but about moving forward from it. I'm not saying that's an easy thing to do, but hanging onto old grudges that you can't satisfy from here is just going to drive you insane.

[ He exhales a low breath, looking back at her. The King Undying dips his head just once in a tired nod, something old and anguished in the lines of his face. ]

Don't I know it.

[ But he doesn't believe her, that he's more than his fight. That he could ever just walk away. It's worse, in ways he could not express to her, to think that he could simply shrug off that weight.

There is a swirl of black feathers, and the vision ends. ]

13 . autumn catch-all

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