Shortly after Team 6 left the room...
The two women stood across from each other in silence, both trying their utmost to avoid eye contact. Sighing, Ophelia broke the silence by gesturing toward one of the chairs opposite to her desk, “well, who are we to argue with the words of an Oracle? I suppose we will just have to work together.” She tried to keep her tone casual, and confident, to not reveal what a mess she was internally right now. She doubted it was working, Isemay could always see right through her.
Isemay wavered, debating whether to address the woman before her as a dangerous stranger, or a long-lost friend. Finally, she managed to break her silence, uttering a single word. “Why?” she practically whispered, her voice almost breaking.
The silence returned, even more oppressive than before. Ophelia took a half-step forward, reaching for her old friend before withdrawing quickly when Isemay flinched away. “Why?” she repeated, this time louder, with a coldness that caused Ophelia’s heart to sink. Just how, after all these years, was she supposed to explain herself? “I- I’m sorry,” she managed, dropping her facade for the first time in what felt like forever, “I never wanted to hurt you, either of you.”
“You never wanted to hurt us?” Isemay said derisively, “we thought you were dead! You let us think you were dead for twenty years. How could that possibly not hurt?! I thought that I felt you die! I mourned you, we both did. It nearly broke us.” Tears had begun to pool in the woman’s eyes, as she crossed her arms around herself protectively.
Ophelia clenched and unclenched a fist, before beginning to try and explain the unexplainable. To defend the indefensible.
“After my brother died, and I saw how truly desperate the situation my people were in, I had to make a choice. I knew it was a path you and Lavan couldn’t follow me down. It was better, safer if I could keep you out of it. I didn’t want you to bear the consequences.”
“You could have talked to us, we could have helped you!” Isemay was nearly shouting now. “We could have found a better solution, the three of us, together. How could you think running off and becoming some…some criminal would be the answer?”
“There weren’t any better solutions!” Ophelia felt her own anger bubbling to the surface now. “Not everything is black and white Isemay. I tried to do things the right way. No one cared! Not the Watch, not the Council, no one. I tried. You have no idea what it's like to have someone look at you like you aren’t even a person like you are less than worthless! Someone had to do something to end the pointless violence and bloodshed, so I did, and it worked. So no, I don’t regret becoming ‘some criminal.’”
“You could have at least told us! Not leave us wondering what happened, leave us wallowing in guilt. We blamed ourselves Fia! We blamed ourselves for not finding you, for not saving you.” Isemay’s voice trailed off at the end of that statement, thinking back to the nights she and Lavan spent worried sick when Ophelia went off on her own. Thinking back on the night that her arm had burned with a white-hot pain and one of the stars in her arcane tattoo lost its shine.
Ophelia winced. She hadn’t been called Fia in a lifetime. “I couldn’t tell you. There is no way you would have been able to keep that secret, no way you would have supported me Little Miss Rule Follower. And there’s no way in the Nine Hells I was going to drag Lavan into it! He was still in hot water from what happened with his parents, he couldn’t even leave the tower without being watched by Pembroke and Lightfoot! Go on, tell me I’m wrong! Tell me!!”
“I don’t know Ophelia, I don’t know what would have happened, what I would have done. Maybe we would have tried to stop you, maybe we would have helped. Who’s to say? You made the decision for us.”
“What do you want me to say? I was young, I was angry, I was scared. I’m sorry! I knew it was something I had to do, and I didn’t want anyone else I loved to get hurt. I couldn’t lose anyone else!”
Silence descended back on the room, before Isemay finally asked, “How did you do it? How did you cut yourself off, how could you hide from us?”
Ophelia rubbed her forearm apprehensively, “I just removed it.”
“Show me,” Isemay demanded, stepping forward to close the distance between them.
Reluctantly, Ophelia rolled her sleeve to her elbow and revealed her arm to Isemay. A soft gasp escaped Isemay’s lips as she saw the terrible scar that wound up Ophelia’s arm from wrist to elbow. The skin was a dark purple-gray that stood out against her comparatively lighter complexion. The thick and fibrous texture revealed it to be the result of at least a third-degree burn. Isemay reached out hesitantly, brushing her fingertips against the scar. There was no trace of their friendship mark. “I couldn’t lose anyone else.” Ophelia repeated in a whisper, almost to herself, as her throat tightened and tears began making tracks down her cheeks.
Isemay’s anger broke, as she reached out and embraced the woman before her, gut-wrenching sobs escaping from her own throat as the two slowly descended to the floor. They stayed there a while, crying in each other’s arms.
After the tears stopped and their breaths came easier, the two slowly got to their feet. Wiping her face with a sleeve, “I’m still mad at you,” Isemay asserted. Ophelia responded simply. “I know.”
“So you’ll have to do something to make it up to me,” Isemay cracked a smile. Ophelia laughed, “I know. But maybe first we should figure out how to save the city?”
“Yes, let’s” responded Isemay.
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