Chương 114: Chapter 135: Understand

Vancy, Rinne, Elica and Trazom turned and looked at us with some degree of surprise as I stood, and clapped my hand down on Yheta's shoulder. He stood before I could escalate things from there, and we walked out together. I was prepared to clamp down on him and drag him out by his shirt but he moved before that was necessary. The door swung shut behind us, closing away everyone that might care about what we were saying. The people of Nurvedvu did not give a shit about us at all, they had their own problems.

I rounded on him, and I could feel the force of a shout building up in my chest- I just didn't have words for it to fill out.

"All right, but before you get mad-" Yheta started, already wincing, almost cringing. His face offered a mix of fear and contrition, his hands up in a bid for peace.

"Before I- Yheta. How could you!?" I was mad enough to put my hand through his chest. I was shaking all over. Gotta drop out the steel, steel is not quick to anger but it is decisive when it does get mad. If I channeled steel essence into myself right now, I was going to murder him. I needed something slower, heavier, and less ruthless. I channeled clay and felt all my feelings dull and blunt. I released my fists, and after a few more seconds I opened my eyes. He flung his hands up.

"How was I supposed to know you had a cousin that looked just like him?! That's ridiculous! Nobody does that in real life! It's just those things from stories like that Agent Cooper story!" My anger, well-earned, well-deserved, was thick and slow and sodden. Easy to control and mold.

"That's not the title- forget that. But Yheta! Were you trying to kill Nathan?! At Fashion Week?! My brother!" I shoved my hands behind me and grasped them together, palm-to-palm. I can't kill Yheta. I need Yheta. Now more than ever. I really, really wanna see him bleed right now, but Yheta does not know how to forgive even the smallest slight, let alone an actual attack. And very soon I'm going to need access to a network of criminals, smugglers, murderers and thugs. Yheta was not aware that I have plans for him.

He's still trying to argue his way to me forgiving him for trying this.

"But you hate him!" he was protesting. As if hating my brother was a good reason for me to condone the murder. Where did this even come from? Yheta was not killing people in the original game!

"I don't - All right, I hate him a little. But I hate him this week. Maybe even this year. But I've... I've had him as a brother my whole life!" Can I say that I love Nathan? Can I say that to someone who will know if I'm lying? It's cliche to say that I love the idea of Nathan. I admire him. Adore him. But.. well, even respecting him is kind of come-and-go. Liking him?... Depends on the day. Shit has been really complicated lately. And I'm in a pretty weird place emotionally.

Fair to say, it's hard to really love anyone when you're fifteen years deep in culture shock and homesickness inside of a video game you can't actually control. Yheta was on a totally different track though.

"I thought that if we- and you know who I mean by we - could just get rid of Nathan then that would..." he gestured, one hand following the other, indicating a progression of events. You know, like getting rid of my brother would make our coup easier. Okay. Gotta think fast. Gotta come up with a credible pragmatic reason not to kill Nathan that makes sense to his point of view.

"Think it through. In a year, the Dominionists are going to be looking for a figurehead to lead their endeavor. It will need to be someone who is not guilty of the Freckentop crimes and someone who counterpoints your movement. The natural fit is for them to back Nathan because the symmetry of that will grip the public perception. And I can beat Nathan, every time. Unless Nathan is not there. If he's a martyr, I can't measure up."

Yheta listened and his eyes got big as if he was just now understanding important issues that had been over his head. Frankly, I'm not convinced by my own argument. The appeal of 'martyrs' has never really made sense to me. If someone is able to rally troops after they're dead, they would be able to rally even more troops if they're alive, right? Whatever a martyr can accomplish after death, a hero can do better before death, so it's always preferable to kill a hero and make them a martyr right?

Everyone wants to be the next hero, nobody wants to be the next martyr. Then again, I also used to not understand all the emphasis on "don't cause a panic". Maybe this is the same thing and I just haven't seen the proof yet? Or maybe martyrdom is just some stupid romanticized bullshit about the eulogy of a hero and makes more sense if you're a lot more sentimental than I am. Because, no surprise, I'm not a very sentimental person.

I'm cold, and vindictive, even when I'm not using magic to alter my emotions with steel or clay. I'm nasty and harsh. I am small, and scared, and angry. I'm not the sort of person that responds to martyrs, and I'm not the sort of person that respects martyrs, and I'm sure as hell not the kind of person that respects people willing to become martyrs. But Yheta buys into it.

"Oh. Martyrs... I hadn't thought about that. If the Freckentop allies rally around that, I don't know what we'd do!" We'd rally around me, the twin who's still alive. And obviously a better choice than the twin who's dead.

"Yheta, what have I told you about trying to help me without communicating?" I could tell that I was going to have a lot of emotions to process soon. My hands were shaking hard, repressed rage was bubbling up through the clay filter on my feelings. But right now I needed to get through this conversation without throwing away everything I've planned for the next year. I cannot afford to blow this. He looked frustrated.

"It's not.. Natalie, not everything goes through you! A lot of what happens comes through channels, and I can't just submit everything for your approval! You just got here, you're fifteen, you don't know-" And he was getting very defensive. Gotta de-escalate, without softening my point.

"While all of that is true, Yheta," I said, "can we agree, going forward, that attempts to assassinate my family should probably be the exception and that I should be included in discussions before the poison is administered?" He looked away, casting his eyes across the plaza, and stuffed his thumbs into his belt.

"How was I supposed to realize you'd react like this?" he sulked. By knowing anything about the real me and not just the version of me you've made up in your head. Those are the words I can't afford to say. I cleared my throat.

"It's not about how I react, Yheta. You should talk to people even if they're going to react well, too." His jaw tightened.

"But it's Nathan. He stole your ranking! He sold out your duchy to the trade minister, and I know you're angry over that! And he's been pushing you around and overshadowing you for your whole life!"

"But it wasn't Nathan. It was Wendy." He tossed his head, shaking his hair out.

"I know. And I am deeply irritated by that. Bastard has more lives than a cat." I had a moment to be amused by that. I'm the twin sister, there's no way for Nathan to be a bastard without me being one as well. But, moving past that.

"Yheta, I'm still waiting to hear you say that you're going to include me in decisions."

"It wasn't supposed to go this way!" he blurted.

"I won't let you make me the bad guy here!" The words 'but who else is there' almost sprang from my lips but years of practice in holding my tongue paid off, and I did not blurt out the most obvious thing to say. It is grossly unfair that I have to manage his insecurities while I'm also managing my righteous wrath. After he had my cousin killed. I can't just go get another cousin!

"There doesn't need to be a bad guy here," I said.

"But my cousin is dead. And I deserve something for this. And what I want is to be included in decisions." Yheta was conflicted, but I kept my eyes on him. He stood, staring off at the dingy shopfronts and unadorned edifices of Tumnassed, and he ran his thoughts in his head. Contemplating. I stared at him, keeping my eyes firm and my stance straight. And after a minute, his resistance was eroded.

"I'll talk to them," he said.

"That's all I can really do. And I can't promise more. They still have not decided whether they are even accepting your offer, you know. It's being discussed. I think they'll take you in, they'd be fools not to, but there's discussions, internal talks, about how this works."

"Certainly," I said "But surely they don't need me to be formally signed on as the rank and face of their big endeavor for me to be sat at the table for these conversations." He puffed his cheeks and blew out a slow breath.

"All right. I'll ask. But... uh, there wasn't really an order to kill Nathan. I was asked to weaken his position. A partnership between Harigold and Freckentop is a disaster for us, after all. It's more important that he can't form that alliance, than that we have an alliance with you. And I just figured 'well, nothing weakens someone's position more than their own funeral', and-" I had a fast, flickering flashback to Threeday.

Sitting at Wendy's funeral, Nathan sitting twenty feet away from me in a black suit with red-and-white trim. One row back from the close family. Bruce at a podium speaking with more sincere emotion than I had thought he possessed in all his soul, the kind of honesty that leaves a bleeding wound with every word. I imagined Nathan in the casket, Nathan in the ground, while I stood before the circle of Harigolds and spoke those wounds of my own. This was the scenario that Yheta just figured would be best.

"Uh," he said, looking at my face.

"I'll give you a moment." The anger that washed over me hit so fast it took my breath away, and I clenched my eyes and fists shut. My breath caught, and my teeth clamped so hard that my molars squeaked against each other. Heat baked the clay hard, my anger mixed with that dulling essence and overwhelmed it. I start cycling essences fast to try to manage my emotions. My clay essence is currently in baked broken shards, porcelain-hard and glass-sharp.

I am running water essence now, because it is soothing and cooling and more easily channeled into specific directions, but I can't let it rest with my anger or it turns to a storm-tossed sea. I would turn over for steel, hoping that it would back my resolve without lending me its edge, but the affinity was too finely tuned to me, I have trouble giving it anything less than all of my feelings. I mixed clay and water, hoping the cool slow muddled mixture would dull me out enough that my anger became manageable.

Again, failure. I was trembling against my emotions. I was failing to manage this. It's all right for me to hate Yheta, but I can't let myself be visibly angry with him until after I don't need him anymore. And at this rate, I'm not going to last more than a few more minutes. It's taken all my willpower not to start screaming at him in this street in front of everyone. Even knowing how many long-term plans that would ruin. My strategy is failing.

All these essences are bending to my emotions, instead of absorbing them and stilling them. Behind me, chattering and laughing. I can't even hear it, it's murky sounds and indistinct. Time to try something unintuitive. I reached for the essence of void. I let it rush in. Small emotions crumbled off the edges of me first, falling away. I was afflicted not only with a single large hate but with a myriad of accompanying annoyances. My failure to control my emotion was causing me anger and adding to my troubles.

The annoyances snowballed with the avalanche of anger, and I could not hold that back entirely. Because I was treating those things as important. But, clearly they are not. My failure is not worth anger. It exists on its own, and only has emotional context if I choose to give it one. If I just stopped caring about these petty worries, they disappear. And the anger becomes manageable. I took a slower, calmer breath. The void is an essence of hunger and appetite. It does not understand anger, but it understands need.

I look at myself through those eyes. Purpose. Clarity. Mission. There are things I need to do. The rest is distraction. Distractions do not exist. Yheta is a tool I need, for now. His timeline is specific. I can use that amount of time to plan my revenge. He will suffer. And knowing that his suffering is inevitable is the same thing as if he was suffering now. All of time is one instant shared. I have a goal. I will move towards it. I will do what I need to do.

The void swallows away the heat and pressure, and the knot in my chest becomes manageable. I breathe easily, and start releasing the essence. My hurt is still there. My feelings for Wendy are still there. But now my grief over her loss can metamorphose into a helpful, useful hatred instead of a bumbling ball of fury that distracts me from everything else. I have not given up my needs, I have mastered them. I ride it out, and just let all the emotion release me, and then I forced my jaw to relax.

Forced the breath to ease out. I kept my eyes shut, but made my face relax, lids laying shut instead of clamped.

"Yheta," I said.

"You told me that the orders came from above. That this came through channels."

"Well it wasn't really an order, that's not how these things work," he hedged. Bit by bit, I was dragging out the information. For all his excuses, it really seemed that Yheta had gotten some vague instructions about inconveniencing Nathan and had interpreted that to mean he had permission to kill my brother. And when it didn't work out, he was trying to spin it so he's the real victim here. Okay, so I know you can't talk sense into a victim complex. Instead, I spoke directly to the victim complex.

"All right, Yheta, I can see this has been pretty tough for you. Plans don't work out and people don't understand. But from now on, you can let me help you with things like this." He blew out a tense breath.

"What a relief. I really didn't think you would understand." How did this get so twisted that I'm apologizing to him for being mad that he killed my cousin by accident when he was trying to kill my brother and trying to blame it all on someone else? If I'm having to make allies like this, I'm probably not on the right side of this conflict.

Now I just need to figure out what exactly it is that changed so much that Yheta, who was bitter and resentful and unreasonable in the original game, has now turned into a murderer. Was this always there off-screen? Did the goddess make changes to put him in my orbit? Or is this actually my influence, something about having me in his life has made him sharper, colder, and less respectful of human life. And I'm entirely disturbed by how much that third one seems the most likely option.

I am noteworthy for being sharp and cold, and I've got a legal record that demonstrates a lack of respect for human life. Is he trying to impress his crush the mass murderer by showing that he's able to commit murders too? If that's the case, that is beyond gross, and very troubling. I try not to see myself as a villainess, I try to see my antagonist-branded rival status as filling a role adjacent to but distinct from that of a villainess.

But it is requiring me to keep a much rougher sort of company than Nathan's allies, and there are certain inevitable conclusions from that. I choose to give myself more credit than that. In the original version, he was indicated as the [Older Brother], and in my playthrough he's [The Mafioso]. If anything made the difference, it was the way that the world itself redefined his role in it. My needs as a [Rival] may have created a new role for him, but that's not a reflection on me.

I started easing my mana channels clear, letting my emotions return to normal.

"All right," I said carefully.

"I'm going to get back inside and finish my crayfish. You owe me a huge favor for this. And I am going to trust that nothing like this is going to happen again."

"Oh, certainly," he said easily, and held the door for me. I can't say anything, but I suspect his 'certainly' here means that next time he'll check that he's assassinating the right family members.