andras
i am angry.
i have nothing to say about it.
i am not sorry for the cost.
A
ndras winces. We can’t go back to who we were before.This is what the king tells him after an extended silence, after they have both looked at their hooves long enough that they fail to take any memorable shape, like a word said over and over until it no longer sounds like a word.
Andras knows this. Sometimes he thinks he is the only one that knows it. Each time his magic goes back to sleep some door in him closes and seals itself shut. He is running out of conduits for his rage. He is running out of places to keep it. Sometimes Andras watches Po bubbling just beneath the surface, like he does, and wonders what will happen when it all comes to a head. (Then, he wonders what will happen if he, himself, reaches that point. Andras has the sneaking suspicion that he is far more dangerous than anyone thinks. He thinks it is only a matter of time before they find out.)
They can’t go back to who they were before.
We can only go forward.
The warden takes this cue to look ahead, at the slumped shoulders of hedges and the bright red holly berries peeking through the snow where Po has not yet brushed it off of their waxy leaves.
When Po touches his shoulder, an act of solidarity, an attempt to comfort, Andras cannot meet his eyes. A blue fork of static reaches out to catch his weight, or pull him in, or push him away-- even it doesn’t know. Andras wishes he would say it: It’s okay to be angry. But Andras knows. Andras has always known. But there is only the brief touch of their skin, the fork of static, and the cold that sucks into the space between them as they are separated again.
There is an open seat on the council, Ipomoea says. The warden nods. It will need to be filled sooner or later. Sleepy Delumine is at nothing but a disadvantage with their current Emissary locked up and twice over insane. He opens his mouth to respond, to make a suggestion, when he is asked: do you want it?
This all feels terribly familiar.
It feels like a storm on the cusp of summer, fat green leaves clattering together and the distant roll of thunder. Andras had said You’re joking and the king had looked at him with level, blood-red eyes. Too still to be untruthful. Too tired to be insincere.
“Are you--? Me?” he begins to ask, but he knows. So, as Andras always would, because Ipomoea asks it of him, because he would do anything, if Ipomoea asked, he tucks his chin into his chest and nods, grimly.
He always gets the sense that Po knows something he doesn’t, or knows him better than he knows himself. “If you're sure, I’d be honored.”
(Somewhere, in some far-off part of him, Andras is wondering what Pilate would say.)
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
