Cyran shook his head at Thalia’s awkward apology, breaking the tense silence that had followed their walk here. The good mood from their reunion, the promise of exploring the gardens, had been burst like a bubble, leaving Cyran unsure of how Thalia was feeling right now. Though she’d apologized, he still got the feeling he’d made her uncomfortable. “There’s no need to apologize to me.” He murmured. And that was the truth - there was nothing that Thalia could say or do about this situation that would make him feel worse about her. Now that the initial shock of the revelation had worn off, he would make sure to keep himself calm, no matter what she told him.

Thalia needed someone who would assure her that everything was going to be okay.

Cyran braced himself, and prepared himself for whatever horrible things he was going to hear.

There were a few people mulling about the common room of the inn, a place that could not properly be called a bar but occupants used as one nonetheless. People barely paid the two moon elves any mind, too wrapped up in their miseries to care about the problems of others. Cyran ushered Thalia to follow him to his room, stopping just before they went in. He paused for a moment, tempted to offer to have this conversation in the common room if she preferred, but he wasn’t too keen on the idea when it meant giving access to alcohol for someone who was wont to drink. She was already so distraught that Cyran in good consciousness couldn’t allow her to drown her sorrows in a bottle. Not today.

When they were inside, Cyran opened the window of his room, allowing the cool air to drift inwards. The smell of an oncoming storm lingered in the air. He took a seat on the bed, gently patting the spot next to him for her to sit if she wanted.

“Take as long as you need.” He started, after a long moment of silence as he contemplated how to start. “I know it’s hard. You told me that things suck right now… you feel like you don’t have any options, between a rock and a hard place. Let’s make things not suck. You’re not alone anymore… you don’t have to handle it on your own. Whatever you want to say, I want to hear. I want to help.”

Once they were out of the public eye and in Cyran’s rented room, Thalia let out a heavy sigh. The noise, both inside her head and out, was quieter now. However, there was a lump forming in her throat as she realized that there wasn’t any turning back, that everything she was about to say could cause her to lose her first friend. Just the thought made her bat her eyelashes, staving off impending tears.

Thalia wasn’t crying. She refused to cry, not after all of this. In one last attempt to stall for 30 more seconds, the moon elf removed her boots and took Phigaro off her shoulder. She placed him on the bed, where he didn’t stir, breathing peacefully and making a tiny grunting noise. Thalia sighed, sitting on the bed and tucking her knees to her chest, head resting atop them.

She doesn’t speak right away, structuring exactly what she needed to say in her mind loosely so she didn’t go in spiraling. This was a true testament to how much Thalia’s mind had changed, taking the time to actually think instead of charging in like a bull. She wondered what expression Cyran was making, too afraid to see for herself.

“…My brother’s name was Ty’rei. Mine was T’alia’mei.” Thalia started, deciding to tell the story from the beginning. Her gaze is distant. “Our parents weren’t home often, so we stayed to each other. It was hard, as we weren’t allowed to stray too far and we weren’t the healthiest, but we persisted.”

Thalia coiled a finger through her hair, her voice growing steadily shakier as she thought back on these memories. “My parents weren’t bad people…or maybe they always were. E-Either way…my brother ran away from home. He was gone for…gods a few weeks I think? I can’t even recall anymore.” She knows that she’s retelling old information, but Thalia knows its importance. “It was then that their attitudes toward me shifted. I was in charge of him, a-and the fact that I let him run away was mortifying. They were furious with me, and rightfully s-so.

“When my brother came back, he had changed. He was sickly, thin, and above all cruel. He said…awful, awful things to me. I didn’t let him get to me though, I’d be mad too if I thought I was abandoned, yknow?

But it only got worse…so, so much w-worse.” Thalia’s unnaturally slow heartbeat was starting to get faster, so she paused before her panic could reach higher levels. When she continued, Thalia spoke much slower. “One day we got into an…an argument, I think? I don’t even remember what it was about but he was so…so angry with me. I tried to apologize and I think I got mad and said something cruel to him.”

Thalia takes another long pause, taking her fingers through her hair, her nails scraping her scalp and eye shutting tightly, the phantom sting in her throat and the screams of her own agony shooting through her mind. “I deserved it, I swear I did…” Thalia whispered, reliving her own death, her first one, over and over. Thalia raises a shaky hand to the ribbon around her neck.

“Cyran, I died that night.”

It’s the first time Thalia has ever said it aloud, often electing to say she’d been resurrected to ease people the nitty gritty details. But something about straight up saying that she’d died was something she’d never done before. Still, she refused to cry, pushing on.

“Ty’rei, h-he tried to behead me. He was t-too frail to finish the job so he left me there...” A wet sob escapes her, and she shakes her head, tightening up and refusing, refusing to cry. “I-I died twice actually. I-I only remember the first one b-but the second time was really blurry. I died midway through the resurrection, my father took me to the Temple of the Moon when he came home and something went wrong. I came back, but I wasn’t able to think straight. I think the way that a priest explained it was that I was midway between alive and undead, and a part of my spirit was still vengeful, or some shit? So my father took things into his own hands and just...”

Thalia made a swift motion, gesturing to the ominous pink eye on her eyepatch. “…The resurrection resumed, and since I came back I’ve felt off. I don’t feel quite alive, nor do I feel like I’m a person anymore. My parents, they were furious that I let my brother get away again. I couldn’t tell them that he killed me, I just couldn’t. He’s my brother, my twin. So I took the fall. In that, they gave me a debt to pay off. The original price was 50,000 but they cut it down to 10,000 solars. It’s for the resurrection, losing my brother twice, and above all else raising us. Into a murderer and a monster.”

At the end of her explanation, Thalia is silent. Her fingers were itching, twitching to do…something. She wanted shrink away and die, for good this time. Her heart only felt heavier now, the weight of a life and death she remembered too much of hurting her. Thalia sucked in a soft, simpering breath, and her voice broke, moments away from sobbing her eye out. “I have no choice…I have nowhere else t-to go...if I don’t I’ll be a-alone…but how am I supposed to redeem myself if they never wanted me to?! I-I just…I don’t understand!! Why didn’t they just let me…?!” Thalia can’t speak anymore, tears streaming down her face. It’s not fair, but admitting it out loud was somehow leagues harder than keeping it bottled up. Thalia tugged at her hair and dropped her head, trying to stave off her panic to little to no success. She needs to hear from Cyran. She needs to know if she needs to leave, what she’d do from here.

Though their first meeting had been half a year ago by now, Cyran could recall Thalia’s story about her brother with perfect recollection. He remembered their conversation on the rooftop of the inn of Lilicors Village, the regret on her face as she shared with him the details. Their fight. That she’d been tasked with watching over him, because he was weaker and she was the stronger one. How they’d done everything together… until the day that he disappeared and came back a changed man, attacking her until she blacked out. Her lack of memory of the event. He remembered it all because it had clearly broken her up, left her unable to allow herself to learn what it meant to be loved.

He remembered, but remained silent as Thalia recollected her thoughts and recounted the story from the beginning. The very beginning, starting with her name. T’alia‘mei. A pretty name, he thought. The waver in her voice as she described her parents, how she tried to insist that perhaps they couldn’t always have been bad people. Given what he’d heard about her parents, a piecemeal impression cobbled together from offhand comments and Thalia’s own reaction to affection.

Cyran remembered thinking the same of his own father, in the days after his exile. That perhaps things had not always been bad. Trying to pinpoint where he’d caused everything to go wrong in his life, because it must have been his fault, hadn’t it? Thalia’s narrative, in certain ways, wasn’t that different from his. Cyran merely kept his lips pursed together, silent and understanding as Thalia continued to weave this familiar story.

Up until it wasn’t anymore.

Almost a year ago, Cyran had gotten a tattoo inscribed on his face, a tool of the trade. He’d gotten good at spotting lies in others, though Cyran had always been naturally perceptive. But as his influence grew and his sight was crippled he knew that he needed more, needed to be the perfect information gathering agent. Too many clients and victims that peppered lies in their information the way that chefs peppered seasoning in their food. It was a useful tool, but one that unfortunately did not turn off when he was not working. A small consequence, really, a sort of tingling feeling under his eye whenever someone uttered a lie to him. Most of the time it was little fibs or white lies from orphanage children, nothing more serious.

Never before in his life had he wished for that sensation than now.

“… What?” Cyran whispered, brows furrowing. It was not a lie. A joke, then? One in poor taste, perhaps, but anything would be better than… this. The only option left, which was that Thalia was genuinely giving Cyran the honest to gods truth. That she’d died not once but twice, and in such a brutal way, a botched beheading. So brutal. So painful.

Cyran wasn’t quite sure when he’d started crying - perhaps when Thalia started describing her status as a vengeful spirit, nothing but the embodiment of anguish at the wrong that had been done to her. The poor girl, in pain, only to be taken advantage of by her father. He didn’t dare move, break the silence and break her confidence. Not while she was sharing something so cruel with him, this awful hurt. But he knew that his cheeks were wet. That his throat felt thick with all the condolences he wanted to offer that were caught on his tongue, a dam waiting to burst.

Fifty thousand solars…

His eye grew blurry, Thalia an indeterminable blob of gray in front of him. Scared. Alone. Demanding why the cruel universe had kept her alive when she’d just wanted rest.

“Oh, Thalia…” Cyran murmured, reaching up to put his hands on her cheeks, brushing the tears away from her only remaining eye with his thumb. Hands that had killed, so gently embracing the girl that had been murdered. It was autopilot and fatherly instinct that guided him to press a small kiss to the crown of her head, all the condolences he could not offer in words, he gave her in acceptance. “I don’t know what to say… thank you for telling me.” He swallowed, lower lip wobbling. He forced himself to still.

A Fenastra doesn’t lose their head.

“And I’m sorry.”

He pulled her into a hug, fierce and tight - as if to drive the rest of the world away.

“Listen to me, Poppet. I’ve been a father for… a long time now. Twenty-two years.” Though he had not been able to see his daughter grow for the last ten. “And a son longer than that, to a noble in Eclipse City. I used to wonder what I had done wrong that I had never earned his love, or even truly his favor or approval. But when my daughter was born, I…”

He blinked away tears.

“I learned it was not me, but it was him. Because being a father? It was the best thing to happen to me. And getting to help bring a life into this world, it is the greatest privilege. The way your parents treated you, it’s not right. And it never was. A child did not ask to be born, nor did they ask for the vulnerability of depending on another person for survival. You, my dear, did everything right. You took care of your brother the best you could. And his disappearance does not rest on your shoulders. To hear that your parents have guilted you in such a way, put a price on love for you, it breaks my heart.”

He shook his head.

“I don’t know why they have brought you back. I don’t know why they have charged such a steep price for your revival. But I promise you this.” He pulled back, looking into her single eye with his own. “We’re going to take care of this. Myself, you, and Del.” She would want to help, he thought. “Do you remember when we first met and I told you I was a hunter? It is not entirely untrue, though it’s not monsters I hunt.” He paused, unsure. But Thalia’s feelings of him were less important than ensuring she was safe. It was a fearful thing, speaking of the darkest parts of one’s self, placing your head in front of the executioner’s axe and praying for their mercy. But Thalia shared, and so would she.

“I hunt people. Information. These things you don’t know, these debts you don’t deserve… I will help take care of them. I want to help. We will figure this out together.”

Cyran was crying.

It was the first thing that Thalia registered in the midst of her teary lament, outside of the pained ache in her heart and the lump in her throat. She had started crying a long time ago, a staple at this point. Talking about her life, or what was left of it, often drove her to tears or alcohol, whichever came first. Today she was sober, so she would be able to remember Cyran’s face, the pain that her revelation had caused. She wished that she had kept her mouth shut.

As soon as his hand touched her face, Thalia froze. The tears still poured down her face, none falling from the eyepatch, thankfully; she didn't need a repeat of what happened in Darkveil. The more he spoke, the harder it got to hold in, until suddenly she was pulled into a tight hug. She'd never been hugged like this, not this fiercely. Her mind was still getting used to the concept and feeling of a hug ever since their first meeting, but it somehow felt like it was the first time all over again. The first time since she was a child, since Ty’rei had hugged her when they were little kids braving the world.

And all at once, Thalia broke down. She's crying into his shoulder, shaking and sobbing quietly as he speaks, trying to hold back her sounds. Every single word he says is put to memory, every reassuring and calming touch and phrase soothing her inner child. It's the way that he delivers every sentence, his voice trembling and raw with emotion and empathy, not sympathy or pity. A father with so much love, even for someone who was not his child, was alarming to Thalia. He cared. She kept reminding herself that Cyran was an enigma, yet for some reason in this moment it finally solidified in her mind, no matter how rotten it may or may not be.

Cyran cared.

Pulling back from the hug, Thalia would normally be extremely embarrassed for her behavior, for her two tears and the probably hideous expression she had on her face from sobbing herself hoarse. They made eye contact as the older moon elf assured her, and when he continued Thalia's eye goes wide. There were two reasons: 1, the mention of someone that goes by the name of Del. She figured it could be coincidence, that perhaps another person was known under such a name, that it couldn't have been the same Del that had cared for her eye when it was revealed to be infected, the first person living that she told that she was resurrected. Granted she didn't tell her everything, but it was a bit ironic.

The second reason for her surprise was Cyran revealing his occupation for what it really was. She remembered seeing him for the first time and immediately thinking there was a lot more story behind all of that black, and it was more likely a joke than anything to be taken completely seriously. However, she was starting to realize that her silly joke about him being of the “people hunting variety” was a little bit more than spot on. It was exactly that. This didn’t change her opinion of him in the slightest, but what he offered made her pause.

The tears still flowed freely down her face, not quite calm to down from the massive distress she had inadvertently caused to herself. She still tried to speak though, her hands going to her hair and pulling a bit. “I… does that mean… Cyran you can't kill them. O-Or whatever you have in m-mind. I have nowhere else to go, I'll be left to wander alone.” It sounds less like Thalia is against hunting or even killing people, and more like she's afraid of being left. Wandering Charon alone with no one but a creature who couldn't speak her language was dauntingly lonely, and the highlight of half of her journeys were the people that she met along the way. But they never stayed, for they had lives and families to get back to, rightfully so. This wasn't her situation. She had Cyran to write to, but that was about it outside of that.

"I didn't mean to make you cry...but I-I can't keep doing this, Cyran. This is too much...everything sucks so bad a-and... gods why would you even help me?"

His eye widened momentarily at the shock in Thalia’s voice. “Oh; no, not kill them. I would never do something like that…” Well, he would, if that was what she asked of him, but that was neither here nor there. “I just mean, goodness, that if you want answers, I can help you find them.” He tried to grab at her hand, hold it to stop her from tearing her hair out. This much stress, watching her mutilate herself like this, like it was habit. The fear, spoken in hushed words, as if even living with such horrible people was preferable to being forced to wander alone. So fragile, on the tail end of crumbling in his arms at the slightest kindness, the barest human empathy. He broke a little inside, watching this poor girl who’d been forced to grow up into a young woman without knowing what it meant to give even herself kindness.

Who believed that abuse and neglect was the state she deserved to live in so long as it meant she had people in her life.

“It’s not your fault, dear.” He promised, doing his best to compose himself, to be strong for Thalia right now. “It’s not your fault. I cry because I care, and because it sucks right now. That is the last thing I’d ever want for a friend.”

He fell silent at her last question, before:

“Why wouldn’t I help you?” He asked, like it was only the most natural assumption in the world. “You’re hurting. Thalia, you’re such a bright soul. You bring fun and laughter and joy wherever you go. You stop to talk to strangers in bars and draw them and create things because it’s fun. Even dead, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so alive. And so it… it breaks me, to see your light so dim. You’re a good kid, Thalia. Any parent should be happy and proud to claim you as their own. I may not be your father, but… I want to help. There’s no point in bearing all these bad things to spare others when it’s eating you up inside. It makes me happy to see you happy. So let’s make things not suck together.”