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[inklongdry]

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"Arthur Inkwell here.
I've no earthly idea how this thing is supposed to work, but leave me a message if you're so inclined. I'll retrieve it at some point or another!"

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[inklongdry]

[ He looks at her a moment, eyes sweeping over her face. At last he gets up, easing himself back onto the couch to sit next to her. His hands curl around her own, where they rest in her lap. ]

I'm sorry, my sky, for the evil they have done you. I would like to tell you that you owe them nothing. Not forgiveness, not revenge, but I know it is not that simple. So instead, I will simply ask you to be careful. And please, whatever happens, come back to me.

[velluminous]

[ she starts to shake. ]

I will.

[ she doesn't know that. the only guarantee is that she will be evil to them in turn. after, she may end up in jail, or worse, and there is no promise besides her own capability that she'll be able to find Arthur or anyone ever again. it may all just be smokescreen. ]

I will.

[inklongdry]

[ Oh Sprezzatura. He gathers her close, arms looped around her to try and soothe away the tremors. ]

Sssh. No more talk of the future. I'm here now, and so are you. We shall make the most of it.

[velluminous]

[ this only serves to make her shake HARDER. every reminder she's going home alone bites into her sharper, little jagged teeth, even though she's reminded herself that's always how it was going to be, again and again and again and again and again

what does she even want anyone to say? ]

There isn't enough time. I can feel cliff face racing up onto us.

[inklongdry]

I know, my sky. I know.

[ Don't think he hasn't noticed the cell blocks thinning out. The lack of people to replace them. Something is looming.

He holds her closer, embrace tightening. ]

[velluminous]

We could have forever and it would not feel like enough.

[inklongdry]

All the more reason for us to make the best of what we have while we still have it.

No regrets, my love.

[velluminous]

I don't know how to live like that, Arthur. My life is graveyard of regrets.

[inklongdry]

Would that I could impart the how of it to you, but mayhap if they are a graveyard, it is high time you laid them to rest.

[velluminous]

[ she is just, like, getting smaller and smaller in his arms

again: ] I don't know how.

[inklongdry]

It's okay. Talk to me. Why do you cling onto things so?

[velluminous]

[ is this when the truth comes out? it appears so. she pulls back to look at him, really look at him, with the ugly splotchy-faced dampness of someone on the verge of tears ]

I have nothing else but what I hold onto. My college is burned and I am expelled—I am forbidden from Waterdeep's libraries. My observatory burned, my life's work burned with it, and I am out of money and out of time! I am being evicted, at home. One week left. And for everything Eunoia and Selcouth Vaux have done, for how sinuously and cleverly they plucked what they wished from my life and burned away everything else, it will amount to nothing, because they are too stupid to do anything more with what they thieved from me. They will never break open Weave. They do not see it how I see it, and so they will enjoy their soirees for now, praised for ingenuity that was never theirs, and soon their peers will realize it, but I will never be Scribe! I will never be Scribe!

[inklongdry]

[ It all comes out in a torrent, and Arthur realizes that Sprezzatura is a woman drowning, clinging onto anything and everything that has the slightest chance of keeping her afloat. Even those things made of lead, the ones that hinder more than they help.

His hand comes to the side of her face, thumb brushing lightly over her cheek. She can cry, if she needs to. ]

Then perhaps... you do not need to be a Scribe. With or without the title, you're still Sprezzatura. Still utterly brilliant, still the fiercest, most beautiful woman I know. These things that were taken from you, that were burned away, are not things to hold tight to. Stand atop them, and climb higher.

[velluminous]

[ she doesn't want to... but it's happening. ]

You don't understand.

[inklongdry]

I suppose I don't. The things you have been through... I can barely conceive of it. I don't know how best to help you... by the Twelve, I wish I did.

[velluminous]

[ ugh. she pulls away and starts wiping her cheeks as the tears spill down them ]

No one can help me. Only I can help me. I have to change things... being Scribe is what I want most from my life!

[inklongdry]

I hate the thought of you having to do it alone.

[velluminous]

I do it alone all my life. [ sniffs, wipes ] I will win. You will see.

[inklongdry]

What if you didn't have to? Do it alone, I mean.

[ Said as he reaches over to wipe away another stray tear from her cheek. ]

[velluminous]

[ her whole body jolts as if seized by an electric shock ]

Arthur, please. I can't...

[inklongdry]

And why not? We've no way to know what will happen should the Warden lose power over this place. If I could go with you...

[velluminous]

We can't know this. What if you come, and you can never leave? What if you are cut away from your family and your world?

[ she can't ask him to leave it behind for her, someone he's known for months at best. ]

[inklongdry]

It wouldn't be forever. Between the two of us, surely we could find a way back.

[velluminous]

[ of course we could. but if we couldn't... then I would be the woman who tore you in two ]

I am not strong enough that I can promise you this.

[inklongdry]

[ He leans in, touching his nose to hers. ]

I would do it for you. If you wanted me to.