gunmetal falls over gold and all he will find is the last fleeting bit of anger and frustration as coolness draws tautly over her like a film. there is an uncomfortable, forced resignation with which she holds his gaze, and a muscle in her jaw flicks as he speaks. 

FERNANDO SILPH is the most tenured. 

PENELOPE LIVY is head of accountability. 

and kyle lopez, kyle, is the one who threw him to the wolves in the first place. 

why should it be her? 

still, the idea of shoving freshly awakened wounds back under gauze (it's a children's band-aid, at best) and pretending she's not bleeding out sounds marvelous. thinking about how they nearly died is much more preferable. more familiar. 

she shoves the door open and gestures him inside. 

"so what, in your opinion, navidson, went wrong?" 

Michael Navidson

☉

he sits down and makes himself at home. already, she's shut the door behind them, stalking to her desk to lay her palms on the table, back to him. she only half-listens to his prattles at first, still coming apart at the seams and trying to put them together before collapsing into a heap of frayed thread and moth-eaten textiles. 

the question he answers with his own makes her bristle. her chin snaps over her shoulder, one golden eye narrowing angrily at him. 

"by following a fucking protocol," she snaps. "by having the right priorities. by working as a gods-damned team."

she should stop. she should stop and think, but she can't think straight. not through the terror and the rage and grief. 

"you were a disgrace, navidson."

Michael Navidson

☉

he affords her anger. he is not a self-righteous statue wearing the skin of a person, perfectly unperturbable. he is not the calculated cut of a scalpel, dissecting her every worst fear and throwing them onto the table to analyze her horror. 

he is just a man, thrown in over his head, ideals too big on his shoulders and a weight too heavy balancing on top of his spine. 

"you are not a bag of meat, nor are you kindling for the fire." not bait. not a throwaway body.

the implication of her own stupidity makes her teeth clack. 

"others are swayed by their patrons. by no means should MATIAS SILPH and PENELOPE LIVY be given the exception to the rules - in fact, their inability to control themselves in the face of sudden danger incenses me to no end - but they have their reasons for their show of ineptitude. you, on the other hand - " 

running to the flame. running towards something. is that why you hate him? because it wasn't away? because he wasn't running from it all? like you? 

"reacted before any of us could get a word in edgewise. if you'd have waited a moment, i could have told you not to touch the dragon's fucking hoard."

Michael Navidson

☉

he meets her at her fever pitch, fanning flames with indignation and defenses, and she takes those lacerations in stride, with a taut grimace - almost-smile - on her face, eyes blazing as she casts the spotlight from the fetal positioned self taking residence in her mind's eye. 

"and lopez can," she snaps in exasperation. "but hypotheticals over what it could and couldn't have done don't matter." 

...

she bristles. "and is that what happened? was it stupid? did it turn its back? or did it change tactics after fighting a barrage of our attacks? did it awaken an energy we still don't comprehend in an attempt to overwhelm us?

"if that's all you could think to do, then you're not to stand with us." 

he holds her gaze, but her own is still sparking, embers turning red to white with the heat of her frustrations. her palm comes down on the surface of her desk with a resounding slap, fingers bone white with tension. she shoves her tongue in her cheek and exhales, realizing her voice had risen an octave too high. 

Michael Navidson

☉

his voice tenses, coil tightening, pressure threatening the seams. the corners of her vision darkens in rage (or is it grief? anxiety? worry that she isn't strong enough to hold this together? to keep all of it from falling apart.) and she runs her tongue along her teeth, the flat of her hand still stinging from impact. 

"you think i believe for one moment that all of that down there wasn't some hero complex bullshit?" she fires back. choices. there are always choices. difficult, awful, heart-wrenching choices and making them hurts people and when you make those choices and you hurt those people, it is so easy to say that it wasn't a choice at all. 

a forced hand. fate. divine intervention. 

anything to shrug off the hurt. anything to not bear the ever-growing burden. 

"you're fucking - " her hand is raised, shaking with indignation, and seeing her own trembling makes her lose it. "right." a whisper. she slumps back, awkwardly perching on the edge of her desk. not quite sitting or standing. 

"not about a lot of it, mind you, but...damn it.

"i just...i expected it from them. not from you."

Michael Navidson

☉

"and that's all i'm good at too," she says, exasperated, but her voice is smaller now. she shakes her head. combat preparedness, she'd told dahlia. that's what she can focus on. because she has fought for territory, dominion, rank, her name. she has fought bloodied and bloodless wars and though she'd been trained in the swordplay of the mind, of wit and tongue, she'd never taken to it like claw and fang. 

"just...think before you act, okay? whatever lopez has told you, there's value to your life. i don't care if he can resurrect the dead. there's no coming back from that, not really." her relationship with ALEXANDER STONE had never been a secret so he should be able to piece what she's referencing.

her best friend is still a ghost of what he was.

"you can tell me you'd throw your life away for the cause a million and one times and i won't believe you. you're too much like me."

Michael Navidson

☉