Chapter Text
Sometimes Bas’ir lies in Spagyrics and mourns his prosthetic arm. Sometimes he mourns his dignity.
Laid low by his oldest friend and only ghost. G’raha Tia. He’d rather have a machine to fix than a name to curse. If he could sit up, he could get to work on his broken arm, even without his backup prosthetic. He could take stock of what’s melted and what’s salvageable. He could start picking at wires, perhaps even jot down a list of parts for the twins to begin collecting.
But the hypothetical is pointless, given his current inability to sit straight of his own accord. Hells, he can hardly get his pills down without breaking a sweat. So, who’s to blame?
Bas’ir grinds his teeth. The question poisons his recovery every day. He wants to name the man who abandoned him back in Mor Dhona, the man whose efforts saved not one but two stars, and likely some half dozen others. But the sin was not the saving, nor the plotting, nor the plucking Scions from the Source.
His sin was loving Bas’ir too late.
The thought is visceral, as painful as any wound from the battle with Hades. Bas’ir presses his head into his freshly changed pillowcase, trying to quell the involuntary twitching of his lip. If today is the day G’raha—the Exarch visits him, Bas’ir will have nothing to say. Or rather, he’ll have so much to say that he can’t say any of it.
Why did you choose destiny over me? Why couldn’t I have been your destiny?
Maybe the cruelest part is that he was—but not as a lover, as he dreamed fervently in Sharlayan. As a savior. As a weapon. As a pawn.