"I can’t tell you my thoughts are my own."

The words had come quieter than anything she’d said at the flap.

"I probably never will."

Bronnya’s head turned.

"His magic could have shaped me in ways I would never see, and perhaps he himself wouldn’t be aware of. That’s the nature of the thing. I don’t know if I’m the girl you lost, or I’m still me. I can’t prove it to you."

Her gloved hands folded together in her lap.

"What I have is every memory. Every feeling about each of you. I want to believe that is still real."

A pause.

"I want it badly."

Her gloves tightened.

"That’s all I can offer you, and I’m sorry if it’s not enough."

The tent held.

A sound came out of Bronnya.

She had not meant to make it. Her hand came up and pressed hard against her mouth. The brave tanker who faced down impossible odds and jumped into harm’s way for the sake of her friends found herself taking the kind of damage no amount of sturdiness could help her deal with.

Her eyes had flooded before she felt them do it, and she was blinking fast and wet and furious at her own face for betraying her.

"...Lilith."

It was wet.

She turned toward Lilith. The tears were running down her cheeks freely now, and her face was open in a way it never was.

"How can you keep telling me to treat her like she’s already gone?"

Her voice broke on the last word.

"How can you keep telling me that? I’ve been doing it. I’ve been doing it for months. I’ve been pointing my axe at her across every battlefield because you said she’s his, she’s his minion, she isn’t our Scar anymore, and I’ve been fucking trying-"

Her hand came away from her mouth and shook in the air between them.

"-and she’s sitting right there."

Her eyes were streaming.

"You’re telling me that’s not my Scar? Then I must’ve gone blind because all I see is a change in her skin color!"

Her voice had cracked all the way.

"That girl IS my Scar!"

She lunged.

Scar did not have time to lift her hands. Bronnya’s arms came around her off the stool and crushed her into a tackle hug that buckled Scar’s spine backward.

A wet, mangled sound came out of Scar through the mask.

"Bronnya-"

"No!"

Bronnya’s face pressed hard into the side of Scar’s mask. Her shoulders were shaking.

"My ribs-"

"I don’t care!"

"I might be dead but I still have the build of a rogue, you’re going to send me back-"

The boisterous tanker’s laugh broke wet through the tears, and her grip got tighter, not looser.

Scar’s gloves beat weakly at Bronnya’s shoulder blade. Bronnya was weeping into her mask and laughing at the same time, and not letting go.

Jallen wasn’t overcome with emotion like her far too honest friend, her voice staying strained yet level.

"I want to believe you, Scar. I want to believe you so badly. But all my study of magic is screaming at me that there’s a ploy here."

Scar, still being crushed, turned her mask as far toward Jallen as the grip allowed.

"Yeah."

Bronnya’s arms slackened a notch.

Scar got a hand wedged between them, got her stool back under her, and sat down hard. Her cloak had twisted around her hip. She did not fix it.

She looked at Jallen.

"There is."

Bronnya’s hand twitched. "W-what?"

Scar raised her palm and pushed the overly expressive woman back as much as she could before looking them in the eye one by one and declaring,

"I’m here because I want to fight alongside you four. I really hate having to face you all the time."

The tent went quiet enough to hear the cot ropes.

"That’s-" Jallen’s mouth worked.

"I’m in~"

Void’s cheek stayed on Lilith’s shoulder, her eyes shut.

"Void..." Lilith grumbled.

"It’d be a lot more fun."

"Fun isn’t the concern right now!"

Void shrugged under Lilith’s arm, one small lift, and let it go.

Scar’s gaze came back to Lilith.

"Let me guess. He’s the man who killed your friend and now controls her. And he’s the man who enslaved your sister."

Lilith’s jaw set.

"We’ve already discussed my case. We were enemies. We were hunting him. He was pushed into a corner by us."

Lilith drew breath to answer.

Scar’s voice cut across it.

"Your sister. The rabid hound. We all hated her, Lilith. You know we did. You kept your own distance from her too."

Lilith’s hand on Void’s back closed.

"She did to him exactly what we did. Was he meant to keep running away while she chased him over the whole continent? Would you have done that if you were in his position? No, you would’ve cut your enemies down without a second thought."

Lilith had no answer for that. Her gaze held Scar’s and would not leave it, and her mouth was a line.

Scar stayed with her.

"We are grown women who make our own choices. We were ready to kill a man and his family for nothing personal, just our benefit. We don’t have the right to complain when our loved ones get killed by him. That’s the game. We all knew the rules and decided to play."

Silence.

Bronnya was staring at her hands in her lap.

"Morgana is on his side now, alive..." Void murmured into Lilith’s shoulder. "...you can go make up with her..."

Lilith’s head whipped down toward her.

"Why are you so intent on switching sides?!"

Void yawned.

"Too many words needed... Don’t wanna..."

Her breathing evened out again. She was gone.

Jallen put a hand over her face.

A muscle pulled in Lilith’s throat. "What about our shared dream? Only Kaede can help us achieve that!"

"Is that really the case?" Scar asked.

Lilith’s head snapped up, alarmed.

Her eyes had gone cold.

"Did you tell him what Kaede offered us? Are you here to make a counter-offer, Scar?"

Scar’s gloves tightened on her own knees.

"...no."

It came out small.

She was not looking at Lilith when she said it. She was not looking at any of them. The mask was still on, but her shoulders had folded in on themselves under the cloak, and one gloved thumb was pressed hard against the knuckle of the other hand.

"Master never asked."

A breath.

"...and I kept my lips sealed."

The silence that followed was worse than anything Scar had said all evening.

Bronnya’s eyes were on her. Jallen’s hand was no longer over her face. Even Void’s breathing had gone very quiet against Lilith’s shoulder, which was the Void-equivalent of sitting up.

Scar was the girl who had sat at the edge of camp with her back to them for a century. They all knew that posture.

She was hiding in it now.

The shame and guilt were coming off her in waves.

A long moment passed before she was able to lift her face again.

"But let me ask you one thing. If Kaede can take down the veil around the continent..." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Her voice strengthened.

"...do you really think he can’t?"