Chapter Text
Obi was, admittedly, not so well-versed in politics and bureaucratic manner. In his experience, his role has always been more along the lines of “how does this affect me?” and “what should I do in-turn?”
He wondered at what point that began to change, where maybe he thought he ought to know a thing or two about their dealings, question the request he’d been given, think twice about the money he pocketed.
It probably had to do with them. With her.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. An admission he only had the strength to pull halfway out from under his bed, something he had now, one that was formally his. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, either.
In any case, no amount of such thinking did anything for him here.
Miss was already gone.
The sight of her face, quietly confused and freckled with uncertainty, etched in his mind.
He didn’t like it. Made his forehead ache with the depth of his frown creases. Put a bitter taste in his mouth. Prickled at his fingertips, where they almost brushed hers, when he reached for her, almost caught her, almost had her small palm wrapped in his long fingers, but-
But again, she wasn’t here.
And she might not be again, if someone played their cards right, had their way.
Standing before Izana, unfettered as ever, he couldn’t decide if it was a chess match or a pissing match. Often the two looked very similar.
He also wasn’t sure if Raji knew what he was doing. It’d been a long time since he went anywhere notable in Tanbarun, but everyone knew of his…”princely capabilities,” regardless.
If it was a chess match, Obi wondered how long it would take him to realize Izana was not the type of person to play moves without premeditated considerations.
It didn’t take Obi long, at least.
Zen broke the silence. “Brother, you’re being unreasonable.”
His exasperation, likely intending to move Izana, rolled off him without a hitch.
“I don’t think so,” he unfolded his perched hands, “I think you are merely personally displeased, which, as you should know,” darted a gaze across the room, “has no weight here,” and popped the young man’s frustration seamlessly.
They had been over it already, more than enough times to hammer it into Obi that they had failed, he had failed, but he found he didn’t mind so much. No one overtly blamed him, remotely connected it to him, but that was alright. They didn’t have to. He knew it on his own.
“They shouldn’t have been able to take her-”
“But they could, and they did.” His voice settled and sunk over them, a layer of clay where no water nor words could pass through.
Obi did not flinch at the finality, though he came awfully close.
“A girl takes refuge in our country and begins working, becomes employed, but that’s all she has. That is not enough to keep a foreigner in our country, even if she is fleeing from the prince himself.”
He could almost hear the gritting of teeth.
“It is not enough to ruin our relationship with Tanbarun for, a single girl with meager merits,” or maybe Obi was the one gritting his teeth, “and a single prince of Clarines’ infatuation with her.”
“I never said-” Zen started.
“That girl was in this…situation, from the start, inevitably.” Izana waved his hand, bored, and eyed the clock behind them. “She ran here because she had nowhere to go. It was not fate,” the word dripped between his teeth, “that she came here. She came here because there was nowhere to go, no one to turn to, and no family to miss her.”
Obi’s breath stuttered.
“That is why she could be returned-”
“Taken!” Zen spat.
“Whatever you wish to call it, it does not matter. She left, because there is no one who will look for her,”
Just a little.
“No one who will mourn her,”
Just a-
“No one who will miss her, because there is no one left who can, and-”
And he didn’t remember opening his mouth, didn’t remember deciding to speak, deciding what to say, didn’t remember anything.
Still- still, he-
He couldn’t just leave it there.
“But I w-”
Except his throat regained sense and closed up around the rest of the words that made him want to claw at his throat, like they were a noose.
Izana raised his eyebrows, amusement flicking across his features briefly before scattering into silence. Zen’s surprise, another wound, and he wished he could show the man how he was bleeding right there before them.
Maybe the noose was already in place the moment she was led into a carriage, hands bound, face contorted and damp.
“You?” Izana prompted.
Obi said nothing.
Pretended his knees weren’t shaking.
“Well if our dear knight here has something to say about it, maybe he should be the one to do something about it.”
His nails bore into his palms.
Bloodied crescents traced the indents across his skin. Long ago he had been told they could tell his love, his life, his future, and he wanted nothing more than to paint them over with scars, if only to hide what was and what would be - cross out the potential of the future with the smothering mistakes of the past.
It stung, but-
But it wasn’t nearly enough.