[ true to his word, it doesn't take very long for strohl to come - striding towards rosamund wherever she is, his expression sort of inscrutable. complicated, at first, but mostly just intense. it's not an unfamiliar face, likely, as its one he often wears at trial. ]
Your highness. [ in greeting - his voice's a little low in that same intensity, and he cuts right to the point. ] Will you tell me true what you're offering? In no metaphors [ (lol) ] or shortened words.
[She'll be there, looking equally tense. Apprehensive, too, a bit pale. But she stands straight and grounded, and turns to him with no quavering. Eyes steady on him.]
...If you wanted. If it wouldn't be something that might gut you later, that the guilt wouldn't eat at you? You could trade my life for that wish.
[She wets her lips. Sets her jaw. Then, in a rush:]
And know that I'm saying this fully expecting to be refuted, and I know it's a terrible, awful thing to ask of you, to even say aloud. But I can't not offer. Not when it's the only thing she's asked of me.
strohl is intense in general, and that intensity does not fade even an inch here. he strides forward, meets that look eye for eye. ]
... Your highness. [ it's softly said, but it's low, gravitas. ] I see a lot of myself in you, in many ways, and this is one of them - that you're offering this to me. I can see, were I in your shoes, I might offer the exact same.
[ ... ]
But you're mad if you think that your life is so worthless that it can just be thrown aside in favour of someone else's - that the value of your personhood is lesser, or that there is any equivalency in that measure. A life for a life? Because your agency was stolen from you? How would that be any better than what this place did to you? I reject it entirely.
[ it was barely a few days ago in the spattering of memories across the floor that someone had a similar talk with strohl. about his own self-worth, about the guilt he carries for failing his home, his people, about how he feels every failure as intensely and painfully as anything. they talked about it, in a sense; he saw the cracked reflection in the mirror of the girl falling apart in that bar and ran to her, not to yell but to hold, because he knows how it feels to be utterly fucking battered by the intensity of the burden you place upon yourself, of the horrors of your regrets. and beyond the idea of a sacrificial lamb, which burns him fiercely in the way only familiar fire can. halia, burning, shoulders full of guilt. noble obligation and how it's never once been obligation at all.
he steps forward a little closer. in her space. not yelling or shouting or screaming, not angry or jubilant, but fierce. protective. that's who leon strohl is. ]
Your life matters to me, your highness - not out of obligation, not because of or despite of what you were forced to do, but because you are and have become one of my own. And if you will not take protecting your life seriously, then I will.
When I leave here, I intend to find my way out with Vi one way or another, and I'll not submit to this stupid game's whims to do so. I'll not let it control a single one of our actions. Not yours. Not hers. And not mine. Not ever again. We finish this together or not at all.
[It's exactly as she expects. Maybe she could have written this out, paraphrased on parchment scroll for him to read out. Because she might say it all the same. She might come with equal fury, indignation, insistence that the idea was lunacy.
Equal compassion.
And yet, standing here as he comes closer and shoots her down with damning precision, Rosamund finds iron spikes have been hammered through her feet. She stands her ground. Fists clenching, brows cinching together, air turning hot within her lungs.]
I never said my life was worthless. That's not what this is about. I want to help you. Both of you. All of you.
And I don't need to be protected. If anything, I've been more protected here than I have been since I left the briars! [Isn't that so funny? She and Strohl are alike in so many ways, but he echoes another, darker thing. A former part of her body. Coiling and possessive, destructive when its cargo was threatened. They never liked to listen to her either.] Frankly, I don't think I could break a nail here without twenty people coming to check my fingers! Everyone's so determined to protect me. Just because I lived? Because I'm — I'm some pretty little princess? Because I looked upset where everyone could see me? Do I still seem like a stupid damsel to you all?
What if I want to protect them? What if I want to protect her? From facing whatever hell she's got to go home to? From the loneliness she'll feel if she has to lose you again?
Isn't that good enough reason? I can't do anything else for her, but this is something. And it could be the best thing. I want you all to get out of here as one, and to never have to look back.
That's not an insane thing to want. I'm not mad to ask.
[ well okay the first thing out of his mouth is snapped because he does have a temper, and because her saying they see her as a stupid damsel, a pretty little princess, could not be further from the truth -- ] Because we care about you, Rosamund!
[ CHRIST A FUCKING LIVE. heated, here - honestly, that rosamund pushes back is fine, it's good, because he'd not like her as much as she does if she didn't stick to her convictions. ] It's not just because you lived, it's because you're a person I care about. There's not a damn moment I've ever thought anything even remotely close to that - I'm more insulted you'd think I don't respect you enough to call you anything close to a damsel in distress.
It's the fact that you're the same way I am, that you've decided the way to protect her is to die so she can live in your stead. I get it. My parents died protecting my village, and I thought I'd die protecting the prince, and it'd help him survive one minute longer, help him stop Louis - whatever it was, I didn't care. A noble sacrifice for the things that I cared for, the things I want to protect.
[ he stops himself there, finally, cutting himself off short and sharp as he breathes in, and the initial anger drops again, down a peg. he gets angry when he cares. he cares now, too, but rosamund needs to hear this part too, the more painful and visceral part, the vulnerable part. ]
Vi's the person who told me I have to stop trying to sacrifice myself for the sake of others all the time. It is what my parents did. It is what she does, I know it is, and we went at each other about it the first week we got here because we were both so concerned with trying to save each other that we were ready to throw ourselves away in the process. It is a lesson I am bad at learning, and this damned place is ready to shove it in my face one way or another at every moment, and by the gods, if I'm going to learn it, and she's going to learn it, we all are. All three of us. Together.
[ a beat. he exhales out. ]
You've been through this damned gauntlet twice, had your will stolen twice. And you'll go along with the whims and rules of this place again? That's what it wants. For us to keep harming each other.
[There really is something about hearing a man hit the full breadth of his volume in anger. It pings an instinct to cow. Back down, regardless of what is being said. If it weren't for the gravitas of the offer, the fire simmering beneath her for nearly a month, for the boldness this week lends them both, she might have folded under that force alone.
He uses that force to insist how much he cares. That he knows what she is and what she's doing, because he's said and done all the same. Rosamund feels her lungs cinch tight. Her mouth opens, ready to push back.
But it's the lowered confessions that catch her breath in truth. That he's played out this same conversation before. The particulars may have been different, but the players and pleas were all too similar. She shudders, looking away. It hurts to imagine Vi on the other end of this, saying the same thing he has to her just now. Or maybe they gave each other as good as they were given. Heroic instincts gone awry, and she can see it so easily in both.
Her fists are iron balls beside her. It's odd, she thinks. How little of this was ever part of her own story before. The guilt. The need to sacrifice. The urge to jump in front of every shot. Is it really all that selfless? Or is she desperate to prove what she's not?
Is it still about Vi, in the end?]
...I do. [Her voice is husky now, still in that pristine pitch but ragged, though she's hardly put in the work to run it so.] I want very much to break the cycle. I want these games to end, for good.
But we can't from here. Did the crew not tell you? We can't even get them back unless we achieve enough. Unless something bigger than us all reveals itself, unless some hole opens in reality itself, we're not getting out and we're not getting them back until we've played along.
I don't want to play by these rules, but right now that's the field we're in. That's the game we're being forced to play. Why not use it for something good for once? Some measure of kindness?
[But he won't do it. And if he won't, she doubts Hulkenberg would either. It's a lost bet already. She won't be able to shout or shake or beseech him into it. She's hit not against pliant flesh, but unyielding bone. A core belief.
Rosamund closes her eyes. Inhales thin, takes a second.]
It's fine. [It isn't. But it's a white lie that eases the concession, for her sake and for his.] It was an offer, not a request. You don't have to do anything I ask you to.
[ the heat finally comes out of him with that - an exhale as much as it is a temperature drop, sagging more than releasing. nothing about it feels good, but when she goes soft and ragged so does he. the reason he angers here is not out of vengeance or fury, it's frustration and compassion, laced together and tied with a bow.
silence passes for a moment. strohl takes a deep breath. holds it. holds it till it hurts. then exhales, slow. stay calm. ]
I know about the achievements. [ that, first. all of that compassion and fire, laid low and softened in the face of the hurt and horror of their current situation. he's come down two notches, three, and though he's serious still, it's not full of righteous fury. there's a cracked open rawness, a vulnerability. he so often wears his heart on his sleeve. ] And... I can't say that I don't - that I don't see your logic. I understand where that comes from, too.
[ because strohl is practical. he is smart, and if it hadn't - if it hadn't been so personal he might have even been willing to take the offer. maybe if it was framed a little differently.
but seeing the way rosamund punishes herself - seeing her break apart in his arms on saturday after siffrin was voted for, after rupert shouted at him for an hour about his own tendencies, about how easy it is to throw yourself away and how cruel it is to leave others behind, how badly it hurts those you care for makes it impossible. the idea so fiercely goes against who he is and everything he's done that he can't let himself say yes. he's clever and practical, willing to do wrong to do right, to win against louis by being the snake in his garden.
but he's not louis guiabern, in the end. and the empathy he feels here is so deeply intwined with his nobility that there's not a chance.
nothing he says is angry, now. just plaintive. honest, as he tries to catch her eye. ] What achievement would that get us? Is there some twisted vengeance one we're unaware of? Or is it just that you're the easiest victim because you've done wrong? If that's the case, then so's Todomatsu. So's Matsuoka. So's any other person we've not yet identified that got away with it, your highness. I don't think you're the type to weigh value of lives.
I know what you're getting at, I swear it, I see the logic, probably better than any damn person in this entire bloody terminal. I just - [ a beat, and heavily: ] I won't take a shot blindly into the dark with your death as the arrow and pray that it hits.
[ silence, for a moment as he brings a hand up and rubs it over his face, rubs away what feels like heat of frustration behind his eyes. ]
... You're a bloody bad liar, you know. [ this is even softer - a tiny bit rueful. it's fine. he can tell it's not. ] You don't have to pretend.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Where are you?
no subject
no subject
[ true to his word, it doesn't take very long for strohl to come - striding towards rosamund wherever she is, his expression sort of inscrutable. complicated, at first, but mostly just intense. it's not an unfamiliar face, likely, as its one he often wears at trial. ]
Your highness. [ in greeting - his voice's a little low in that same intensity, and he cuts right to the point. ] Will you tell me true what you're offering? In no metaphors [ (lol) ] or shortened words.
no subject
...If you wanted. If it wouldn't be something that might gut you later, that the guilt wouldn't eat at you? You could trade my life for that wish.
[She wets her lips. Sets her jaw. Then, in a rush:]
And know that I'm saying this fully expecting to be refuted, and I know it's a terrible, awful thing to ask of you, to even say aloud. But I can't not offer. Not when it's the only thing she's asked of me.
no subject
strohl is intense in general, and that intensity does not fade even an inch here. he strides forward, meets that look eye for eye. ]
... Your highness. [ it's softly said, but it's low, gravitas. ] I see a lot of myself in you, in many ways, and this is one of them - that you're offering this to me. I can see, were I in your shoes, I might offer the exact same.
[ ... ]
But you're mad if you think that your life is so worthless that it can just be thrown aside in favour of someone else's - that the value of your personhood is lesser, or that there is any equivalency in that measure. A life for a life? Because your agency was stolen from you? How would that be any better than what this place did to you? I reject it entirely.
[ it was barely a few days ago in the spattering of memories across the floor that someone had a similar talk with strohl. about his own self-worth, about the guilt he carries for failing his home, his people, about how he feels every failure as intensely and painfully as anything. they talked about it, in a sense; he saw the cracked reflection in the mirror of the girl falling apart in that bar and ran to her, not to yell but to hold, because he knows how it feels to be utterly fucking battered by the intensity of the burden you place upon yourself, of the horrors of your regrets. and beyond the idea of a sacrificial lamb, which burns him fiercely in the way only familiar fire can. halia, burning, shoulders full of guilt. noble obligation and how it's never once been obligation at all.
he steps forward a little closer. in her space. not yelling or shouting or screaming, not angry or jubilant, but fierce. protective. that's who leon strohl is. ]
Your life matters to me, your highness - not out of obligation, not because of or despite of what you were forced to do, but because you are and have become one of my own. And if you will not take protecting your life seriously, then I will.
When I leave here, I intend to find my way out with Vi one way or another, and I'll not submit to this stupid game's whims to do so. I'll not let it control a single one of our actions. Not yours. Not hers. And not mine. Not ever again. We finish this together or not at all.
Do you hear me?
no subject
Equal compassion.
And yet, standing here as he comes closer and shoots her down with damning precision, Rosamund finds iron spikes have been hammered through her feet. She stands her ground. Fists clenching, brows cinching together, air turning hot within her lungs.]
I never said my life was worthless. That's not what this is about. I want to help you. Both of you. All of you.
And I don't need to be protected. If anything, I've been more protected here than I have been since I left the briars! [Isn't that so funny? She and Strohl are alike in so many ways, but he echoes another, darker thing. A former part of her body. Coiling and possessive, destructive when its cargo was threatened. They never liked to listen to her either.] Frankly, I don't think I could break a nail here without twenty people coming to check my fingers! Everyone's so determined to protect me. Just because I lived? Because I'm — I'm some pretty little princess? Because I looked upset where everyone could see me? Do I still seem like a stupid damsel to you all?
What if I want to protect them? What if I want to protect her? From facing whatever hell she's got to go home to? From the loneliness she'll feel if she has to lose you again?
Isn't that good enough reason? I can't do anything else for her, but this is something. And it could be the best thing. I want you all to get out of here as one, and to never have to look back.
That's not an insane thing to want. I'm not mad to ask.
no subject
[ CHRIST A FUCKING LIVE. heated, here - honestly, that rosamund pushes back is fine, it's good, because he'd not like her as much as she does if she didn't stick to her convictions. ] It's not just because you lived, it's because you're a person I care about. There's not a damn moment I've ever thought anything even remotely close to that - I'm more insulted you'd think I don't respect you enough to call you anything close to a damsel in distress.
It's the fact that you're the same way I am, that you've decided the way to protect her is to die so she can live in your stead. I get it. My parents died protecting my village, and I thought I'd die protecting the prince, and it'd help him survive one minute longer, help him stop Louis - whatever it was, I didn't care. A noble sacrifice for the things that I cared for, the things I want to protect.
[ he stops himself there, finally, cutting himself off short and sharp as he breathes in, and the initial anger drops again, down a peg. he gets angry when he cares. he cares now, too, but rosamund needs to hear this part too, the more painful and visceral part, the vulnerable part. ]
Vi's the person who told me I have to stop trying to sacrifice myself for the sake of others all the time. It is what my parents did. It is what she does, I know it is, and we went at each other about it the first week we got here because we were both so concerned with trying to save each other that we were ready to throw ourselves away in the process. It is a lesson I am bad at learning, and this damned place is ready to shove it in my face one way or another at every moment, and by the gods, if I'm going to learn it, and she's going to learn it, we all are. All three of us. Together.
[ a beat. he exhales out. ]
You've been through this damned gauntlet twice, had your will stolen twice. And you'll go along with the whims and rules of this place again? That's what it wants. For us to keep harming each other.
Do you want to break out of this cycle or not?
no subject
He uses that force to insist how much he cares. That he knows what she is and what she's doing, because he's said and done all the same. Rosamund feels her lungs cinch tight. Her mouth opens, ready to push back.
But it's the lowered confessions that catch her breath in truth. That he's played out this same conversation before. The particulars may have been different, but the players and pleas were all too similar. She shudders, looking away. It hurts to imagine Vi on the other end of this, saying the same thing he has to her just now. Or maybe they gave each other as good as they were given. Heroic instincts gone awry, and she can see it so easily in both.
Her fists are iron balls beside her. It's odd, she thinks. How little of this was ever part of her own story before. The guilt. The need to sacrifice. The urge to jump in front of every shot. Is it really all that selfless? Or is she desperate to prove what she's not?
Is it still about Vi, in the end?]
...I do. [Her voice is husky now, still in that pristine pitch but ragged, though she's hardly put in the work to run it so.] I want very much to break the cycle. I want these games to end, for good.
But we can't from here. Did the crew not tell you? We can't even get them back unless we achieve enough. Unless something bigger than us all reveals itself, unless some hole opens in reality itself, we're not getting out and we're not getting them back until we've played along.
I don't want to play by these rules, but right now that's the field we're in. That's the game we're being forced to play. Why not use it for something good for once? Some measure of kindness?
[But he won't do it. And if he won't, she doubts Hulkenberg would either. It's a lost bet already. She won't be able to shout or shake or beseech him into it. She's hit not against pliant flesh, but unyielding bone. A core belief.
Rosamund closes her eyes. Inhales thin, takes a second.]
It's fine. [It isn't. But it's a white lie that eases the concession, for her sake and for his.] It was an offer, not a request. You don't have to do anything I ask you to.
And I won't ask again.
no subject
silence passes for a moment. strohl takes a deep breath. holds it. holds it till it hurts. then exhales, slow. stay calm. ]
I know about the achievements. [ that, first. all of that compassion and fire, laid low and softened in the face of the hurt and horror of their current situation. he's come down two notches, three, and though he's serious still, it's not full of righteous fury. there's a cracked open rawness, a vulnerability. he so often wears his heart on his sleeve. ] And... I can't say that I don't - that I don't see your logic. I understand where that comes from, too.
[ because strohl is practical. he is smart, and if it hadn't - if it hadn't been so personal he might have even been willing to take the offer. maybe if it was framed a little differently.
but seeing the way rosamund punishes herself - seeing her break apart in his arms on saturday after siffrin was voted for, after rupert shouted at him for an hour about his own tendencies, about how easy it is to throw yourself away and how cruel it is to leave others behind, how badly it hurts those you care for makes it impossible. the idea so fiercely goes against who he is and everything he's done that he can't let himself say yes. he's clever and practical, willing to do wrong to do right, to win against louis by being the snake in his garden.
but he's not louis guiabern, in the end. and the empathy he feels here is so deeply intwined with his nobility that there's not a chance.
nothing he says is angry, now. just plaintive. honest, as he tries to catch her eye. ] What achievement would that get us? Is there some twisted vengeance one we're unaware of? Or is it just that you're the easiest victim because you've done wrong? If that's the case, then so's Todomatsu. So's Matsuoka. So's any other person we've not yet identified that got away with it, your highness. I don't think you're the type to weigh value of lives.
I know what you're getting at, I swear it, I see the logic, probably better than any damn person in this entire bloody terminal. I just - [ a beat, and heavily: ] I won't take a shot blindly into the dark with your death as the arrow and pray that it hits.
[ silence, for a moment as he brings a hand up and rubs it over his face, rubs away what feels like heat of frustration behind his eyes. ]
... You're a bloody bad liar, you know. [ this is even softer - a tiny bit rueful. it's fine. he can tell it's not. ] You don't have to pretend.