faderift | (closed) honey honey

For a moment, he feels a little bit as though he's being interrogated with her eyes; he doesn't know what she expects him to say and he doesn't have the energy to figure out what he ought to say. With memories of home and Genji preying on him he doesn't really know what to do with himself; that's why he's here, sitting, feeling overwhelmed.

"Why should I remember it?"

He knows why. He's working hard to redeem himself, he's working hard to prove himself as being better, working hard to get his honour back, to show that he is more than what he had been. He knows that he shouldn't be forgetting the pain, the horror, the magic, but... Hanzo bows his head, breathing out.

"I am not... Entirely unhappy."

"Our stories are many threads, weaving together. If you forget, then things can be unravelling. We fall apart before the rest of our story is being made."

She shakes her shoulders out, elicits a crackling from her back. "Come. We fight. Maybe you lie less."

"I am not lying."

Hanzo gives her a sharp look. He's not telling the whole truth - the depth of his misery is not something he's willing to admit to, even a little bit - but he's not entirely unhappy. There are still some things that he takes joy in, that he takes pleasure in; his work, his spirits, his tiny room with its tiny decorations. The small lizards he won at the tournament. His purse of gold.

Idle things that mean nothing, in the end.

Still, he stretches all the same, pushing himself up and standing taller, watching her with a wary expression.

"We do not need an excuse to fight."

"I am not sure."

Her head tilts to the side very slightly, and she shrugs, crouching to re-tie her laces, and idly starting to trace patterns in the sand, stick figures.

She is not so very good at listening, always. There are strange things that can be clues, that she can tease out for better understanding. Sometimes she just watches. Invades and investigates. Takes apart. Messy, thorough dissection.

Hanzo is sharp and jagged, a hunting knife. It seems, though, it seems to her that maybe he is the one who has been gutted.

"No." A quiet agreement, as the sand keeps trailing through her fingers, and she grabs another handful. And then, with a quick snap of her wrist, she tosses the sand towards his eyes.

You do not know me as well as you think.

It would be a cruel thing to say and Hanzo bites his tongue. He doesn't have the energy for a verbal argument right now, not when he knows he'd be bested by it; his emotional state is in ruins and he's messy enough that he would give in and break if pushed too hard. Helena knows enough that she could rip him to shreds if she wanted to.

It's good for him that she does not seem inclined to.

It's easier, now that he's back from Tevinter, now that he is not faced with his mistakes and his dishonour so clearly and obviously. Feeling pained by it is natural, he thinks, but he can force himself to shrug it off.

Hanzo is about to speak when the sand hits his eyes and he curses, shifting back and moving into a crouch. It takes a moment for him to blink his eyes clear and, when he does, his eyes are narrowed, dark, dangerous. He is ready to fight, now.

Helena's smile is sharp and she moves back, keeping crouched; a spider, still, ready to strike. Her fingers roll, and then she draws the daggers from her belt and tosses them aside, so they clatter onto the crates. Armed, maybe, but perhaps not those arms. They could improvise with what was to hand. Would be more fun.

"You need to be quicker, Hanzo. Perhaps you are getting too old."

She moves swiftly, then, lunging forward aiming to strike at his throat with the ledge of her knuckles; perhaps an over-ambitious plan. Fun, though.

"Not so old that I cannot best you."

His age does not upset him as much as it might - thirty eight is not ancient, not for a Tevinter Magister with blood such as his, but he is not long for the role of scout, he thinks. Eventually age will catch up with him and he's not sure what he might do with himself then; leadership, perhaps, if he can risk it. He's not sure if anyone would accept him, but it might be a path all the same.

Watching her makes predicting her movements a little easier and Hanzo shifts, dropping to rest his weight on one leg as he reaches to grab her wrist, fingers around her, and twist - to throw her over his shoulder, using his other hand to lift her by her stomach or hip, whichever he can reach first.

His aim is steady and his strike quick, and Helena's back is hitting the sand with a whump that knocks the air out of her. It's a feeling she's used to, used to pushing through. Sometimes her advantage comes in taking people by surprise and almost always in fighting dirty, and so—

she doesn't quickly push up or roll or move. A pained sound sneaks past her teeth, and she exhales heavily, slowly, slowly trying to get back onto her feet and faltering, ankle giving way beneath her.

Watching her as he twists and pushes himself to his feet, Hanzo shifts, leaning back on his heels and preparing to defend himself once more. When nothing comes he hesitates, looking at her for a moment, eyes moving over her body as he drinks her in. He didn't think that the throw would do anything to harm her ankle, but he's also conscious of the fact that she had thrown sand in his eye and kneed him in the groin - playing dirty is second nature to her.

He moves closer, shifting down into a crouch, still on guard. "... You are wounded?" He asks, voice low, clear and careful. If she is truly hurt and proves as such then he will help her, but if she is not then he will go no closer. He sees no reason to embarrass himself by falling for what may be another of her tricks.

Her mouth hooks into a smile that is bright and devious in equal measure. He's not in arm's reach of her, but maybe—

A lunge forward, not to grab him, but to bring herself more into range, so that she can swing and kick hard to try and knock one of his legs from under him.

"You are clever to be cautious," she replies, and before twisting out of reach (she hopes.)

Hanzo presses his legs down into the ground, so her kick makes him shift, almost dropping to one knee; he reaches out with his hand, using it to push himself forward into a leap, a forward wall, turning around to look at her with a tilted head and a twitch of a smile.

She almost had him, she thinks, and he shifts, adjusting his stance and rising up enough that he looks almost as though he's a beast on the prowl this time rather than her.

"I am learning that, in a fight, I cannot trust you." Outside is a different matter, but... "You are dangerous."

"This is true." A little tilt of her head, to the side. For a moment it seems— innocent, almost. Curious. "That is what I was made to be."

Quiet, frank, as she looks at Hanzo. He is quick, and he is clever. They understand what combat is, and when she comes from a world where many people do not understand how she works, people who can grasp what she is without seeming judgmental are rare.

Perhaps she idealises. She doesn't consider this.

"What have you been made to be, Hanzo?"

"This."

Hanzo shifts, his form bulky, heavy with muscle from a decade of training himself to use a bow, to fight, practicing and working and becoming the assassin he had never truly been meant to become. He had been born to a family with good blood, a strong, magical family; he had been destined to be a Magister before he even knew how to speak. He's a world away from how he was in his youth, smaller and lither.

He is changed. Different. Sharper, sadder, and not in a way that makes him stronger, necessarily. He's clearly exhausted, unsure of himself as he frowns, lifting himself a little higher.

"I am what I was meant to be."

"Who meant you to be this? You?" He is sharp angles and harsh edges, she thinks.

"Or what someone else wished you to be?"

She had been sculpted, changed, moulded into what she has become. This is not what most people were. She was not a thing many people could understand, and she would not wish them to, because what would that mean had been done to them? What would that mean they could see in her?

She moves towards some crates towards the side of the arena, though she's not reached them yet.

"Does it matter?"

As far as Hanzo is concerned, it hadn't mattered. He was raised to be the perfect heir and that's what he had become. When his father had died... He had done what he thought was correct, what he thought was his duty. It was the burn of the spirits bound to his bow that had helped him realise the path and he hadn't looked back since.

He knows that he's still a monster. That's something he can never undo. If the Inquisition found out about the truth of his heritage, about what he had been before he had found his way here... He is sure he would not be as welcomed as he is currently. There's nothing that is enough to change his mind on that.

Slowly, he picks up his pace and follows her, uncertain.

"Yes." Simple, that. "Sometimes we are marble pieces. The people shaping us, they can be helping us become stronger, mastering our bad parts. Or they can be monsters, and they... are carving pieces away."

A glance over her shoulder. "Does this make sense?"

Reaching the crate, she takes some time to examine it, and wrenches away a couple of panels - balances the end of one agains the ground and kicks it, breaking it in half, and then does the same for the other.

"Mostly blunt," she advises, tossing two of the pieces to Hanzo. "Maybe some splinters. Improvising weapons, working with them, this is important."

"It makes sense."

That does not necessarily mean he agrees with it, but he follows her all the same. He knows what his family did to him wasn't particularly good; in hindsight, he can see why being raised to be a master mage, a Magister, an assassin on magical terms and having spirits thrust upon him might lead to a road he couldn't turn back from, and how you could lay the blame at the feet of his parents. He knows it, but his mind cannot rationalise it as easily as someone far removed from the situation might be able to.

Catching the pieces in the air, Hanzo turns them in his hands, letting his eyes drink over the awkward shape, the danger of the splinters, the mess of wood and panelling before he looks back over at Helena. He holds still for a moment before he breathes out, frowning.

"Fight me again. If you win I will tell you why I am broken edges."

Helena tilts her head to the side, curious. He is interesting man. Does he wish to speak, and need an excuse? Or does he simply wish to fight? Is he wishing to lose, or to win?

For long moments she is quiet, rolls her neck and her shoulders, and nods. Very well, they fight.

And because this is a fight, and fights in reality are never so controlled as fights in the training arena, Helena hurls one of her pieces of wood towards Hanzo, immediately chasing after it to aim a kick to sweep his ankle away and try to throw his balance.

There is a part of Hanzo that doesn't want to win, that doesn't want to allow himself a victory. He wants to take the burden from himself, to share the shadow that crawls over his shoulders and haunts him so surely, but it cannot be so easy. It cannot be so simple. He is more than that.

But Helena agrees. It's enough for him. It has to be, for his heart being so thick and heavy with pain and burden. He shifts, holds his stance, and watches; he knows her. She is tricky, she is dangerous, she is much.

The wood is not what he expected. He should have learned better, he thinks, as the wood distracts him enough that the kick has him on the ground. He moves as swiftly as he can, shoving himself to the side to try and roll from her, lurching forward as he goes to try and tug her down with him.

That twist to the side saves him from the second piece of would, which strikes the ground hard, the splinters from it biting into her palm. She snarls with it, but doesn't have time to jerk back up when Hanzo throws her off balance, dragging her momentum beyond what she planned.

Good. He is not making it easy. She falls, the knuckles of both hands slamming into the dust and sand to brace herself. Old tricks are sometimes good tricks, and she grasps for dust before snapping her wrist to try and fling it to his eyes.

Hiding is not so easy when you are blind. This she knows.

The splinters are enough to have Hanzo on edge, eyes drinking in the shape of the ground before he shifts his body. There's magic that thrums through him, asking for him to use it, to embrace it, but he quashes it. He shoves it to the side and uses the strength of his arms and his legs to push him, moving him, not letting himself be dragged down or bested.

He knows her, know. He knows her tricks and does not trust her, so when she falls to the ground he's moving, barely avoiding the throw of sand and dust into his face, snapping them shut as he moves with a roll to escape the reach of her arms. Pushing himself up, Hanzo adjusts his weight, half-crouched as he shifts to look at her.

THere's nothing that will blind him. He wants to win, but he wants to lose. He wants her to earn this.

Lifting his arms, his eyes drag over Helena before he moves forward, grabbing at a scrap of wood to try and bring it down on her back.

Her mouth curls in a snarled smile as he evades her. The dust is hanging in the air around them, billowed up like smoke from the disturbances.

The wood resounds against her back and she grunts as the force of it knocks the air out of her. A piece of the wood catches on her shirt, jerking it upwards just enough to expose long, overlapping scars cross-hatched over her lower back and reaching upwards. It is only the briefest glimpse, and then she twists sideways, trying to get behind him. He is quick, yes. Stronger than her, probably, but she is sinew and explosive speed, and an alarming sort of determination.

With a jump, she tries to get on his back, to hook an arm around his throat and drive her foot into the back of his knee.

She is fast, faster than Hanzo even remembered, and it fills him with a wild joy he could barely begin to imagine himself feeling before now. Her determination matches his, at least, and he knows there's no hesitation for either of them - they move to dodge, to fight, to take one another down, to win this. As much as Hanzo wants to lose, to unburden himself, he also cannot allow for the shame of the loss.

It's hard to move, to dodge her, to jerk out of her reach and shift, but he's not as fast as he might have been ten years ago. He's slower than he'd like to be, how he imagines himself to be, and that makes it easier for Helena than he'd like, he thinks.

Her foot hits his knee and he grunts in pain, dropping down, gripping at the dirt as he shifts to try and shake her away.

This is where Helena thrives, fighting like a feral creature, latching on like a parasite. The arm across his throat tightens, and in her other hand she snatches for the improvised weapon, brings it up to swing it towards Hanzo's face, and stops short. Just short of driving it into flesh, the surface of it rough and jagged.

This is not a man she wishes to blind. There are others who have deserved that fate, and her hands were stilled from it - Sarah saving Tomas, still confusing to her - but this time she stills her own. Archer needs his eyes.

"You are stubborn man."

It has been a long time since he had been as proficient in hand to hand as he was with a bow, and his sparring with Helena is starting to show him that he has some work to do. His archery might be as good as he had ever dreamed of it being, but losing to her time and time again is showing that there is so much work for him to do. There is so much for him to do and the realisation of it makes him want to tear his own hair out.

Lifting a hand, he touches the wood close to his face, brushing his fingers over it. He wants to laugh, but at least some of the pain in his chest has eased. At least he feels a little more like he might be able to breathe. Having his ass handed to him might be the thing that he needed the most.

"I was born stubborn. That is what I was told as a child." Carefully, he offers a hand, shifts his body, urging her to move and sit at his side.

Slowly, a little awkwardly, she lets go and moves to sit. The piece of wood is tossed aside, and she looks at Hanzo curiously for a moment. She probably should wipe the dust from her face, or shake some of it out of her hair; she does neither.

"I was born a demon. This is what nuns at convent told me. Unholy child," she says, not quite matter of factly. Exchanging words in place of exchanging blows.

"Stubborn children are strong though, I think. Stubborn is hardy will."

"I was born the son of a strong family. Not one as well known as my father may have preferred, but one that was known all the same." Sojiro had wanted great things for the Shimada family and Hanzo was to be the heir of that; he was to take what was a growing empire of crime and underhanded movements and make it better. He was made to listen to his uncles, to do as he was told, to follow in his father's footsteps and fulfil the promise of his potential as a true Magister.

It was not to be.

"I do not think I was strong. I was talented, I had power, but I was not strong." If he had been stronger then he would have known what was the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do. He would have known when to stand with Genji and when to abandon his foolish dreams for the future. "My father wished for me to take his place, and I did. I was a Magister from Tevinter, and I promised to keep the tradition of the Shimada family alive. I failed in that."

Will she even know what a Magister is? Perhaps this is what makes telling her this easier. She won't understand the politics, the titles, the games; only the truth of what he gives her and the pain and tightness of his face.

"When my father died I took his position and I lead my family. I thought that I was doing what was my duty, that it was my honour to lead the family into greatness. I did as I was asked. Seeking power... I killed my brother, but without him, I am lost."

She listens. Her hands, in fists, are fidgety, her fingertips slowly kneading against her palms as she focuses on Hanzo's words. There are many things to absorb and understand, pulling together the pieces that she has learned in this place and laying it out to try and make a complete picture.

Magister, he says, and she looks at him sharply, but does not speak. Magister is type of mage, yes? That she thinks she remembers, but she has never seen Hanzo to be casting magic. Dangerous magic (devil work some part of her still says, lessons beaten into her across her life) and a tempting power, and maybe a thing that Hanzo is resisting. She chews her lip, pensive. Hanzo is in pain, with his speaking. Pain is something she knows too well.

"You killed brother?" He has said, she remembers, that his brother died, and that he was an assassin. I am not a lion. I am a dragon, these were his words. Helena fidgets a moment longer, the corner of her mouth tugging uncomfortably, before she reaches out and sets a hand on Hanzo's wrist. "When I... was first meeting Sarah, I was trying to hurt her. There are—" sisters, she almost says, but Sarah's anger about the way Helena had talked about sisters before flares in her memory, how they can't tell people what they are, and she adjusts course, "— family, many people in family, who I have killed. I thought this was holy mission. And... now I am knowing this was lie, and I am murderer of innocent peoples."

It stumbles out uncomfortably. She isn't really sure how this is meant to be helping. "I am sorry you have these hurts. What was brother's name?"

Hanzo is used to sitting in silence for a long time; meditation, practice, training. Silence accompanies him in more places than he can admit to now, and he welcomes it more than he would have been comfortable with before. It makes him think of home, of his father, of Genji, of all the things he had done and all the things he, perhaps, should not have done, and the weight there is something heavy, solid on his chest, painful and thick even now.

The sharpness of her gaze does not elude him. There are few people here, even Rifters, who might be unaware of what a Magister might be. The haunting nature of the title is enough to make someone turn from him, and he's aware of what he might be losing with the acknowledgement in her gaze.

"... I did. I murdered him with my magic. I doubt there was much left of him." He can remember it now, remember the scream, the horror, the pain of his spirits fighting back in revolt. He had almost lost one because of it and he knows he will never be the same again. Not without his brother, not with all that he had lost and given up in return.

His attention turns back to Helena, though, and he pauses. He... Understands. She understands. It's a miracle that he hadn't expected, and his eyes narrow sharply before he breathes out. It is not a good thing, feeling less alone here, but...

"His name was Genji. Genji Shimada." His eyes close and he bows his head. "It is why I cannot return home. I should not have gone back to Tevinter."

"Genji." She will remember. She does not think she can remember the names of all the sisters she hunted. Their names didn't matter, only that they were abominations. And now that she knows Sarah, is learning more of Cosima and their other sisters, she can't afford to think about it or it will consume her. (She needs to speak to Sarah, to Cosima, but how to speak of this?)

Silence again, as she thinks. "Why was killing Shinji the path to power?"

Helena doesn't really expect an answer. She wonders if Hanzo even knows, or if he was absorbed in the mission and the focus it granted him rather than understanding all things. Maybe it is simply magics, the dangers of Magisters.

"You do not use your magics any more?"

"My uncles - my family - told me that he was a disgrace to our name and our blood. They told me that in order for the Shimada family to gain power he would have to be dealt with, since he would not do as they asked. It fell to me, as Magister, to make sure that he was given a suitable punishment. It... It was not what I had wanted for him."

Hanzo would have been happier if Genji had just left, but that was not an option. His brother fell because they were both too stubborn to make any other choice, to even consider another path.

Shaking his head, he tries to focus. He lifts himself, reaching out and wrapping his fingers around his bow, drawing it close and feeling the familiar presence of his spirits. They know him; they know his hurts.

"No. I used my magic to kill Genji. On my path to redemption I have chosen to abandon my magic."

"This is brave thing. Magic is... frightening, to me. In my world, they say it is work of witches who cavort with devil. The power of monsters. Many are fearing, even though magic is not real. So here, where it is, and where it can make you strong— I think not using it would be hard"

She struggles, for a moment, to try and articulate her thoughts. It all feels so far removed from what she knows, the framework, but the heart of it makes sense. "I have... I used my hands to hurt people. I cannot just stop using hands."

Always, always, she will have used these hands to murder her sisters. Some of them had been so young when they died, teenagers, barely out of childhood. Helena swallows, and her gaze drops.

"These uncles, I think they are the disgrace."

"It is normal in Tevinter. The lines of family are chosen for who will give the best powers, the most strength, whatever natural abilities there might be. We are bred to make our family line the strongest that it can be. Magic is what the Magisters look for in their children, and the heir must be the best." Hanzo shakes his head, frowning intensely. It's a pained, uncertain thing, and he settles down, tries to make himself comfortable.

It surprises him, he thinks, that she can understand so well. He had not anticipated her being able to empathise, to know how he felt, to know the pain of this - it is something he thought isolated him completely. There's a part of him that finds it almost refreshing to have someone who recognises the burdens, even if he's sympathetic to the fact that it must be causing her the same level of pain that it causes him.

"I... Should not have stopped. Magic is what I was raised on, what I was made to do. It is... Wrong for me to have given it up, but I cannot allow myself to return to what once. Not when the blood of my brother colours my hand." His eyes flick back over to Helena, pausing, hesitant for a moment before he breathes out.

"Perhaps they were, but I listened to them." And then, softer - "May I show you something?"

Her mouth twinges uncomfortably. The shaping of people, choosing how they should be, breeding lines, it grates too close to her memories from home, scientists meddling with babies before they are born to sculpt them.

Helena's back is slouched, and somehow rigidly uncomfortable at the same time. She bites at the side of her fingers, at the skin around the nails. "Like livestock," she murmurs, quietly. "Best produce."

It was strange, all the ways that their worlds were so different, but Hanzo talked about things that were so familiar. She wasn't sure if it was comforting or horrifying. If he cannot use his magic, what is it that she should do in penance? She's not really certain what to make of any of it, and she almost misses his question.

"Hmm?" Oh. "Yes."

It's something that he had been used to since he was very young. He had been raised with the understanding that the relationship between his mother and father had been made for the fact that they would have strong children - children like himself and Genji. They had been powerful in their own rights, strong in different ways, and while Hanzo might lack magical control now, thanks to years of ignoring it...

"Yes." Hanzo nods, once, slowly. "The best blood means the best children, the best heir, the best families." He doesn't turn to look at her, doesn't dare let his eyes drink her in, fearing what her reaction might be. The two of them are more similar than either of them would like to admit, but...

Moving, Hanzo lifts and grasps his bow, drawing it closer and stroking over the wood of it. It's familiar now, shaped to the weight of his fingers, and as he concentrates he feels the warmth of the two spirits spread over him, the twin dragons moving to curl around his arm, to appear, heads turning to press into the skin of his neck.

"Honour and Honour."

She starts, shocked, reaching for her knife instinctively and finding it not there—

Helena is tense, drawn tight as the string of the bow might be, in different circumstances. "Ghost dragons?"

Scared, rasping, and somehow fascinated. She looks to Hanzo, at the spirits curling around his arm and his neck, and she can't decide if she should bolt, or stay. Magic, she wants to hiss, and yet she has been learning. Jester tiefling has magic, and Jester is her friend. Tense though she is, Helena studies his face, tries to see what this means. Are they danger? Are they safe?

"Is this why you call yourself dragon?"

"They will not hurt you."

The spirits move and curl around Hanzo's body, almost nuzzling into him, as if they're more catlike than anything else. He reaches up and lets his fingers trace along the shape and twisting bodies of them as they make soft noises, almost like whispers, against his skin. He is gentle with them in a way that completely betrays just how much warmth and affection he has for them buried deep down in his heart, fingers soft and tender.

Turning back to look at her, he nods, letting them shift and move down his arm, curling around him, peering curiously at her. It's not as if Hanzo lets them be around people too often; he keeps them a secret. They might understand why but that doesn't mean they like it.

"It was the symbol of my family. The Shimadas have always been dragons. My spirits have always looked like this." He smiles fondly at them and they twist, preening a little. "You may touch them. They will enjoy the company."

She wonders what the symbol of her family would be, their family of clones. Swans, she thinks. Like the swan man, who made them. Peering at them from her crouch near Hanzo's shoulder, Helena glances to him, nods, and moves closer, one of her hands braced on Hanzo's shoulder.

Swallowing, she very slowly, tentatively, reaches out to the dragons, as though they were a dog she had been warned was inclined to nipping. Helena does not know much of petting creatures. Tomas had begun her lessons in detachment and alienation from an early age. A little awkwardly, she pats one of the dragons on the head, and frowns at herself, suspecting that perhaps that is not the best way to pet anything. Hanzo had traced his fingers along them, and so she tries that instead, a slow stroke of her palm, along to her fingertips, that follows down a coil of the dragon's odd bodies.

It's a little hypnotic, really. "Hello, little dragons."

The dragons shift as soon as she reaches to touch them, moving to make it easier, letting her fingers trace down the shape of them. They're not quite as corporeal as they could be, not like touching a real, living animal, but they can still be felt. Hanzo knows from experience, knows from a near lifetime of having them so close and near that it was like having a constant friend in your mind, and there's something of a warm, soft smile that settles on his face as he watches Helena.

They had not been seen nor touched by anyone since his brother had died. He had not permitted it.

"This one," he touches the nose of one, who wiggles, "is Tomo. The other is Kenji." A pause, something like colour on his cheeks. "I named them when I was quite young." Both their names speak of the awe he held for them - names meaning intelligence, second son, chosen. He puts the bow to one side and sighs. "They are my friends."

"Tomo," repeated softly, as she tickles her fingers under its belly, the strange sensation of seeing something and yet it being not entirely there, as though she were running her fingers through smoke. She does the same for the other. "Kenji."

A little nod, determined, focused. She will remember these.

"They are very beautiful." Helena watches them with fascination, the caution of before giving away to a small, delighted smile as they respond to Hanzo. Her gaze flickers back to Hanzo, her hand still resting on his shoulder, and the smile softens. "You are strange man, Hanzo."

It sounds like a compliment, from how she says it.

They are something like his brothers now, Hanzo thinks, or kinsmen if nothing else. The dragons, his spirits, are all he has left of anything that might remind him of home, that might remind him of what he had been once. He had never allowed himself to use any of his magic, but these... These kind, devoted spirits... He had not been able to give them up, no matter what damage he had done to them.

Tomo and Kenji are good. They are more than he deserves.

Both dragons move and curve around her, settling against her, preening and almost chittering. It's Hanzo they speak to - they rarely use words with anyone else - but they're happy to curl and twist and to introduce themselves. They can sense from Helena something similar to Hanzo, the same confusion, and they want to help.

His honour is healing. Kenji is weaker than his brother, and that is obvious, and Hanzo knows why.

"Strange?" He smiles, almost. "I have been called worse."

This is far from anything Helena has seen before. She can imagine the nuns or Tomas or Maggie, how they would say this is devil work, but she can't help the delighted smile that comes as Tomo and Kenji twist around her. She chitters back, the imitation awkward at first, before she practices it more, to try and make the right dragon sounds.

Kenji looks smaller, slighter, and she rubs under his chin. Better for hiding, this one, although it's hard to imagine a spirit dragon needing to hide. Even so she asks, with a teasing note, "Are you the sneaky dragon?"

A glance back to Hanzo, and her smile softens. "Strange is good. If we are not strange, we are all the same."

The dragons are something that Hanzo is so used to that he cannot imagine not having them, or for people to find them strange or frightening. He is so used to spirits, to spirit magic - it is what he was trained in, what he would have specialised in if he was given the chance. If he hadn't run and fled before he had been properly trained. If he hadn't... Well.

The past should be left in the past, even if it haunts him, makes him feel sharp and bitter and all edges.

"They are both sneaky. No one has noticed them so far," Hanzo smiles fondly, reaching as Tomo curls around him, Kenji choosing to dance around Helena's fingers and play with her, catlike and happy.

Softening, he nods carefully, watching her with some fondness colouring him. "It would be terrible if we were all the same."

A nod of agreement, even if there is something— uncomfortable.

You are the same as all the others, Tomas had shouted at her, when she thought to spare Sarah's life, to say that her sestra was not the same as the other clones. It would be terrible if we were all the same feels like it so easily cut into the meat of who she is, of her sisters, than it being about the type of person she is.

(It would be terrible if all people were killers, like her.)

Her smile falls away a little, as she focuses on Kenji, teasing him by feigning going one way and moving the other, tapping at his snout with her fingertips. "I am sneaky also, Kenji."

(closed) honey honey

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crawls back in here ten years late

:eyes:

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idk who shinji is but he probably deserved to die ??? good job, me

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