Blood from Stone [AU]

[Smith Family]

"Man like that doesn't have a family. At best, he's got livestock he can breed to gain more power." Kyle flushes, belatedly recalling who stands before him. "I shouldn't... He had other options. He just didn't want to bother himself with them."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"He had a family. I just wasn't part of it. The same with my mother -- as soon as she had a human daughter, she took a dislike to me, and I could never be good enough for her. She encouraged me to starve myself nearly to death, in the hopes I'd become more beautiful and she could sell me at a higher price. My sister hated me as well. They all knew what kind of person I was. Then I left, and I was able to lie to you and Jaina and you both loved me for it."

[Smith Family]

"So they knew about how you prefer salmon to any other fish, unless it's got a honey glaze, in which case you like cod? They knew how love to cuddle up to your family and listen to someone read a bit of story? How you'd take the time to drop off ginger and mint tea when Will was still suffering from those bad chest colds each winter, even when your Scale work got busy?" Kyle scoffs loudly. "They may have known you as a child, though I doubt it, but they have no idea about the woman you've become."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"They know there's something dark inside me, something that thirsts for vengeance as much as it hungers for justice," she whispers, cheeks a bit flushed. "They know I wasn't even sad when my fiance died, even if they don't know I killed him."

[Smith Family]

Kyle frowns at her. "Your... fiance? I remember you telling Jaina about..." He stiffens. "You mean the sick little shit that- that- dishonored you?" 

[Coquette Blacquin]

Now she looks at him blankly. "He... what?"

[Smith Family]

Kyle frowns. "Did he... I just, I saw how you were, leading up to that... Well. Leading up to the news. I keep a good ear out for rumors about the Scale, of course. How could I not? Between that and your visits, wasn't hard to realize you spent near a month or maybe more recovering from that night." His frown deepens at her expression. "When you left your gear with me, taking only a single keen-edged knife? You were... sobbing and desperate. Told Jaina you were running off to elope but then..."

[Coquette Blacquin]

Taking only a single, keen-edged knife.

"A knife with no maker's mark," she whispers, the color -- what little color there is -- draining from her face. "Perfectly balanced. You... you made that knife. It was.... it was real?"

[Smith Family]

"I- yes. I hadn't quite finished it. Needed to finish the last bit of grinding on the pommel and set my mark, as you saw. What do you mean, about it being real?"

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I... I thought I must have dreamed it," she whispers. "It makes no sense. I don't remember why I had it, or what I was going to do with it -- did with it? But I remember being desperate, and I remember that knife. I didn't, two nights ago. But something... I remembered. Only that, nothing else."

[Vigile]

Vigile's tail lashes sharply and he murrs low in this throat. "That reeks of mind magics. I know little save a few of the signs of such to be wary of, but I am sure Seeker Helene could at least start us on our hunt for answers to this mystery."

[Smith Family]

"Well and good, yes, but could it perhaps wait until Cindy is... well again?" Kyle sounds more pleading than chiding, though there's a hint of the later as well.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I don't... I don't think I've been well for a very long time," she says, slowly. "Just better at lying. I think... I can't shake how desperate and miserable that memory feels. Like it spoke to something inside me, something that never goes away no matter how hard I pretend. I think... I don't think I'm ever going to be well."

[Smith Family]

"Maybe not... entirely whole, but well I think is possible." Kyle smiles weakly. "And perhaps a hug to start?"

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I-- I would like," she begins, faltering, and that's when she loses what little self-control she has left, bursting into sobs.