They have had no reason to hurry at this point and he has. He follows them like a man possessed. Maybe he is. This is, quite frankly, madness, and not a madness he is normally given to. He had never once wavered in his loyalty to Bashat, not in all the years he had served. He had believed what they did was for the greater good-- or at least, he had believed that Bashat had believed. Now... seeing the hurt in Kai's eyes out under the trees, he wasn't certain anymore.
He hadn't been lying, when he had said that he hadn't known what Kai was like. It was maybe the truest thing he had ever said. He took the dismissal then for what it was, started to prepare to return home with all haste, to report whatever he could to Bashat before the rest of them could do... whatever was next. But his mind and heart wouldn't settle, and he tossed and turned, could find no good way to rest. It drove him after them, instead, knowing that there was no reason to trust him, more reason to kill him than to let him live, but...
It was foolish. He knew it was foolish, but, apparently, it was what he was doing anyway.
And so, after they put down near the first town after their reunion, he catches Kai momentarily alone and approaches, making no moves towards stealth as he does. He says nothing as he comes into the light, waits for Kai to see him, to react however he's going to react. He presumes nothing, not anymore.
There was still a bit to be done- Zeide and Tahren wanted to make sure their children were alright, after a year being separated from them, and while they had the vague goal of 'find something to unburn,' that did still mean they had to pick something. For now, they were just heading home, to get some sort of stability back under them after... everything.
Kai, at least, hadn't expected to hear from Romad ever again. He certainly wasn't going to be paying any calls to Bashat in the near future, but at the same time he'd felt he'd made it pretty clear that he wasn't going to mess with his plans any further. There was no reason to send the spy after him, no reason for the spy to follow.
And yet... there he was. Kai couldn't place what he was feeling- annoyance? anger? for sure the small spark of hope is quashed immediately- so he ignores Romad long enough to be sure the man wasn't aiming to have the first word, to give Kai some sort of direction on how this exchange is going to go.
"What," he says finally, his voice flat and refusing Romad the pleasure of getting any emotion out of him, not even the intonation of a question.
Lying is something that comes easily to him. Or, perhaps not lying, but saying words so that people will draw the meaning they wish (he wishes) to from his words and never hear the words he isn't saying. He is a good spy.
He does not know how to have the conversation he wants to have. He doesn't know if there are even words for the conversation he wants to have. He doesn't know what conversation he wants to have.
"If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't be here," he says, even though it wasn't a question. Even if it had been, this wouldn't really have been an answer to it and he knows that as well. He lingers, awkward to his bones, at the edge of the firelight. He has no reason to come closer. He knows he's not welcome to come closer.
He can't leave.
The next words out of his mouth sound threatening, but there is no better way to say what he still isn't sure of the shape of. He tries to convey that it is not a threat by tone alone,
"You should have killed me back there. The only wise move would be to send me back to Bashat in pieces," he says nothing else for a long moment, then adds, "Despite our escapades, I do not think there are very many people who know that you are once again walking the earth that are both alive and cooperative. I do not think it will escape him for very long, but you likely have months before Bashat will hear of it from any mouth save mine, if you went to ground."
Truth be told, he has no idea if this concerns Kai or not, but he suspects he will know in short order.
This isn't answering any of Kai's unasked questions, but then again, he sort of expected that. Romad has no reason to play along now, no reason to seem like he's fully cooperative and on Kai's side. This charade is played out.
"I seem to recall you saying Bashat wasn't a tyrant." Only a tyrant in Bashat's position would come after Kai now, after having wrecked his plans but otherwise ceding the field. The damage there is done, and there would be nothing to be gained from action against him and plenty to be lost. Only a tyrant who cared about the perception of it, and revenge for wrongs, would bother.
Of course, Kai doesn't fully believe that Bashat isn't a tyrant. Really, nothing Romad has told him is new information. Ziede had even be a little cross with him (privately, of course) that he'd just let Romad walk off- but even she only spoke of a little, knowing Kai and his heart too well. Knowing that he simply did not want to. He could have, had he felt he truly had to, but it would have continued his slow descent into nothing but razor edges.
"I did say that," he admits, though he's not sure if it's an admission if he's not hiding it to begin with. There's something telling in the tense, there, even Ramad hasn't fully realized it himself. If they weren't all on the move, he would have waited longer, thought more about this before acting. He does not like being impulsive and he doesn't like not knowing what he's trying to say or do, either. And yet, here he is. "I have served him faithfully for many years. I have many reasons," his tone says he's both not interested in revealing them and also doesn't think they're relevant to the conversation, "not the least of which was that I believed he was a good leader and a good man. In history, many good men have had to make hard choices. I believed this was one of them," his hand gesture encompasses both himself and Kai.
"Now, I am not sure what I believe him capable of," he finishes, quieter after a moment. He means that he's not sure he's a good man, but he also means that he's not sure he's a good leader.
Kai's watching him, his dark black eyes narrowed and suspicious. There are certainly ways, in Ramad's normal way of speaking, that this could be one of those lies; it's tone certainly implies some doubt, but the words don't have to mean that. Moreover, there is nothing anywhere that has told Kai that the man before him couldn't lie wholly. The opposite, in fact.
He's had Ziede listening on their heart pearl connection from the moment Ramad arrived, because he's not an idiot, and in the silence that follows there's a soft 'Kai...' in his mind. He's never really trust Ramad, but not trusting him hadn't meant that he couldn't be hurt by him. He shouldn't open himself up to that again. It's a mistake he really needs to stop making.
"Why are you here?" he finally asks instead, because that is truly the heart of the matter. There hasn't been enough time for Ramad to get new orders with updated information, so this is something he's elected to do. But to whose benefit, Kai hasn't quite pieced together.
"I don't know," he says, at first. It's said quite simply, because it is true. But it is also not the entire truth, "I am still trying to figure that out myself, but your departure has been swift enough that there was not time to unravel it all. I do not like this." The last is an admission, something he would not normally say under any circumstances. But everything has been upended, now. Still, he falls back first on old ways (don't they all?),
"If you were thinking of taking some kind of vengeance, or even just teaching him a lesson, I would be an excellent hostage."
Kai resists, barely, from rolling his eyes. "I am not taking you hostage," he says flatly, because that sounds like a recipe for disaster in more ways than one. He's sure Ramad could get out of many a binding, so really they'd just be taking him with them without even the pretense of him being a helping hand like before. Not to mention there is no real proof of what Bashat did, given that 'what he did' was mostly 'allow an already existent plot to happen'. Sure, being a demon and the Witch King would grant him some leeway in places, either an assumption of him being all knowing or of being unstable, but he really does not intend to keep playing in that field.
He also just... is very cool on the idea of vengeance. He used to live for it, during the war. There was nothing else to live for, at the start of it, other than making Hierarchs pay for his torment and the deaths of all his people. But such a flame is short lived, and he knows better now what kind of emotions better keep the fire alight.
Ramad shrugs slightly to that, as though it makes very little difference to him whether he's a hostage or not, which is both true and also likely not helping his case any.
"Then I suppose I come to you empty handed," he's not happy about that and it shows, but he's worked with worse, "May I sit?"
There is a part of Kai that knows that the smart thing to do is to tell him know, and chase him off, and threaten something or other should he ever darken his door again. Fool me once, and all that. But that blasted little spark of hope refuses to die, and so he just sighs.
Ramad goes to sit by the fire, curling his legs under himself comfortably. He doesn't speak for a long moment, still trying to figure out what to say, what he even wants to say. After a moment he runs his hand back over his hair in a slight, but still rare, show of frustration. He doesn't know the words for what he's feeling and it makes him want to scream. He's used to talking around a subject, never quite asking the real question or saying the real words, but he's always known what those words were. But now, he circles because he doesn't and it's a wholly different feeling.
"I don't want to return to Bashat," he says, finally, "I don't fear his displeasure," he adds, because that's important for some reason, "but I do not wish for his praise. Not for this."
Kai's watching him still and his suspicion is still there, but there is a definite edge of confusion to it now. Again, he would not put it past Ramad to lie or to act conflicted, but he can't help but read this as true. It's no where near enough to absolve or trust him, but it does make him a little more willing to listen.
"Why not?" he asks, managing to keep his voice more or less disinterested, "You seem to have done a fine job in your mission, all things considered." You know, that job of keeping him out of the way. That thing you did. To him.
"I did," he says, and again, it's simply said because it is the truth. So is what follows, "It all came together better than I could have fully planned for, and yet I don't think there was anything to complain about in my actions, either, given what happened. I am sure I would not be able to be openly recognized, but I doubt I would want for anything from now on."
It is the next bit where it becomes murkier, harder to fully follow his own thoughts,
"But I would still be expected to serve, as I have done. I... don't want to," Ramad struggles harder with what he is trying to say, "I am not in Bashat's emotional confidence and have never wanted to be. I cannot be sure. But I have not seen him show even the barest flicker of remorse about his actions. I believed it the strength of a leader, the ability to sacrifice for the greater good," he shakes his head, "Meeting you, traveling with you, I think it a betrayal of the highest order. I do not wish to work for such a man."
It is not exactly what he wants to say, but it's close enough to get him a step closer to it.
Having done the impossible, some of the peoples conquered by the Hierarchs were beginning to rally together, to fight back in a way they simply hadn't known was possible. It was by no means a quick thing- the Hierarchs were doing their damnedest to make sure that news of what happened at the Summer Palace spread as little as possible. But the word was out, and while it didn't move as swiftly as it might unimpeded, it was making waves.
However, it only worked if they kept their forces going, which is why they were on the move, trying to stay out of the Hierarch's reach. Ziede and Tahren did a lot of that work (sometimes together, which Kai studiously made himself scarce for), but he'd been a scout in the war before and it only made sense to him to keep it up.
This particular scouting attempt didn't go as cleanly as it could have, but they were dead and Kai was not so he considered it a success. It did mean when he came into Bashasa's tent there was blood seeping through the tunic around his stomach, a large tear in it that looked a lot like a spear slash through it. "I'm back," he reports, looking in to see if the man had any company- he usually did.
He's used to Kai getting hurt on these missions, of course, Kai gets hurt in front of him all the time and most of the time when he doesn't have his eyes on him and he's only ever been seriously injured the once, really. But that doesn't mean he likes to see it, doesn't mean it doesn't bother him.
He is talking with a few other leaders when Kai comes in, but all of them take one look at Kai and he can feel the room shift a bit, an unease that he doesn't really understand passing over them,
"You're dismissed," his voice is soft but the other three leaders all but shoot to their feet and out of the tent, trying not to show how eager they are to leave and failing miserably. Bashasa rolls his eyes and comes up to his feet, moving over to Kai,
"Anything urgent to report, or can you reassure me you're alright first?" it's teasing slightly, but it's also not.
Kai moves out of the way, even though there's plenty of room in the opening of the tent, to allow plenty of space between him and the other leaders. It's starting to sting less, or perhaps there's just a numbness to it. The Hierarch's rhetoric about demons seems to have stuck, even among those who know how much of what they've said is a lie. Perhaps, if there were more of his kind around- if he'd been able to convince them to stay, despite what he'd done- it would get better eventually. With just him, however, it's clear that this isn't going to change anytime soon.
"I'm fine," he says, with an eye roll of his own- he'll even pull back the tunic a bit to show him, the skin underneath a bit red but otherwise looking entirely unharmed, "Sorry I interrupted." He's supposed to, Bashasa does expect him to report in whenever he returns, but, well. Him breaking up a discussion by existing has happened before.
Bashasa reaches out when he lifts up his tunic, laying his hand against the red mark on Kai's skin for a moment, as though needing to reassure himself that Kai's not actually injured with all of that blood.
"It must have hurt, all the same," he says, somewhat mournfully. He really doesn't like sending Kai out to get hurt, even as he's practical enough to know it's better than sacrificing someone else, when Kai will be fine. "Don't be sorry," he adds, letting his hand fall away and stretching slightly, "my back was just getting a knot in it. What did you find?"
Kai shrugs, trying to look anywhere but the other man's face as he touches him. "It's fine. I made it useful." Intentions are still something he's getting the hang of, a lot of learning as he goes, but it does make pain feel more... productive, in a way. At least he can use it for something. At least he can cause some pain back, after so long of it just evaporating into the air along with all his hopes.
"There was a small patrol; a messenger, with some guards. They're, uh... gone now." Sorry if you didn't want that, but he didn't really have a choice. He reaches into his pouch, pulling out the correspondence he'd taken and handing them over.
"I presume there was no other alternative?" it's not really a question, he knows Kai wouldn't hurt people without a need to. He's all business for a moment, taking the correspondence and moving over to a small travelling desk in the tent, spreading out the missives and scanning them,
"No new information on the surface," he says after a moment, "though I'll have one of our codebreakers take a look at it. But it's good it didn't get where it was going all the same-- it mostly looks like information about our whereabouts rather than the...irs...," he's talking as he's scanning and there's something that suddenly makes him pause for a moment and raise an eyebrow, and then shake his head and set the missive down with maybe a little more speed than normal. Bashasa is good at concealing his expressions quickly, but the involuntary flush is a little harder to shape into anything else.
Kai simply shakes his head. It had been a near thing, and he's a little annoyed at himself for it because if he'd been a little bit more careful, a bit more used to the size of this body, it might have been fine. But he wasn't, and it happened, and he's just grateful that something good seems to have come out of it- other than fewer of the Hierarch's people on the playing field.
He hadn't bothered to try and read them himself- his Arik reading is improving, out of necessity though he is trying to learn- and it didn't seem terribly important. However he knows Bashasa well enough to know that something is wrong. "What is it?" he asks, coming closer to look over the man's shoulder- hopefully he'll be able to get enough of an idea.
"Oh, ah, nothing," he waves a hand a bit dismissively and he's not lying, it really is nothing, but it's also not nothing. There's a little chuckle from him, not forced but maybe a little tight.
"They ah, accuse me of consorting with demons," well that probably doesn't sound so bad, he realizes, and he knows Kai is going to point out that he is consorting with demons and he's going to explode have to explain anyway, so... "As in, that I've taken a demon as a consort."
Kai had opened his mouth to retort exactly that, point out that Bashasa was doing that right now, when the man continued to... say, in Kai's mind, the same thing. He frowns, able to tell this is some sort of translation issue on his part, but not knowing enough to guess at what the correct interpretation is.
"And that is different... how...?" he asks slowly, looking over Bashasa's face for clues. It's clearly bothered him, and there's a little pang of fear in Kai while he waits for what it means.
The main clue on Bashasa's face is that he's blushing harder than Kai has ever seen him and his eyes don't seem to want to settle on meeting Kai's, which is unusual.
"A consort," he says with a tone that clearly says that, for a moment, he's hoping if he just repeats himself, Kai will magically understand. When he obviously doesn't, he tries again, "That we're sleeping together," no wait, that's not helpful either, they often are sleeping together. Innocently. In separate bedrolls right near one another because Kai is his bodyguard and his confidant and friend not because... "They think the relationship is sexual," maybe if he keeps it clinical this will be easier, except his mouth and his brain seem somewhat disconnected, "Based on the context clues, I think they believe I've trapped you somehow, like at--" no, he really doesn't want to draw that comparison, now that he thinks about it, so it's an even more awkward pivot, "-- that I'm using you. For sex. Among other things."
Why is Kai standing so close? He has been trying very hard for a while now as they have travelled to not think about any of this, but it's exponentially more difficult with Kai easily in reach, almost half backing him up against his travel desk, though Kai probably doesn't even see it that way and that's the problem isn't it?
He recognizes when his thoughts are chasing themselves and makes an effort to calm them. He's not used to being this flustered and he needs his wits about him right now possibly more than he has in a long time.
The note meeting his eyes is unusual, and worrying, because lots of people don't want to meet Kai's eyes because of what he is but Bashasa has never been one of them. There's a lingering fear in that, that somehow the man grief fueling the man when they first met had made him blind to what Kai was in some sort of fashion, and that time has made him more align with his fellows in his opinion of the Fourth Prince.
Still, he forces himself to wait, and the look on the other man's face does a bit to ease his nerves- blushing is not really a response that makes sense, but it's also not horror- until Bashasa's explanation finally clicks into his head.
"Oh." It's perhaps a bit more of a subdued reaction than one would expect, Kai's brow furrowing as it takes it in. Sex with demons is not some horrible thing that the Hierarchs and the Arik seem to think it is, it was a foundation in Saredi culture for getting demon blood into their family lines, but then the fact that he is the demon in question properly sinks in. "Oh."
Kai flushes now too, eyes suddenly darting to be literally anywhere else. He's thought about it. Of course he has, he's neither blind nor stupid and he's pretty sure he loved Bashasa within a week of meeting him, but Bashasa is also just that kind of person. Everyone loves him. Kai is nothing special in that regard. "Anyone who knows you knows you wouldn't," he says, which-- he means they know Bashasa wouldn't use someone like that. That might not be what Bashasa hears.
"I'm not worried about what my enemies think of me," he says almost vehemently, dismissively, except that he realizes a moment later than if he doesn't care what his enemies think, then he's going to have to keep explaining why this is a problem. He knows Kai isn't going to leave it alone. When he'd first met the demon, he would have said it was sometimes like dealing with an overly precocious child-- he knew Kai wasn't a child, of course, but between the body he'd been in and the kinds of questions he would ask (and needle at) it felt that way.
It feels... quite different, now that he's in a handsome, adult body, now that he's saved Bashasa's life multiple times over, sometimes by quite literally getting between him and danger. There's something relentless about it instead of precocious and he finds it almost stunningly attractive-- no one pushes quite like that in diplomacy. It leaves you too open to attack. And yet, with that relentless nature, it also makes him feel cornered, trapped. With anyone else, he would send them away for that, at best, but with Kai...
"Use someone like that? Use you like that?" he clarifies a moment later, "No, of course not. I'd be no better than the Hierarchs and I've no stomach for it besides." He doesn't know why he continues after that. He should put the matter behind them and the faster the better, but he can read something in Kai's posture, knows that he's unsettled Kai in some way that has less to do with the thought of sleeping with him and more to do with his reaction, and he doesn't want Kai to think that he's somehow disgusted with the idea, when it's the complete opposite.
So he reaches out and brushes just the tips of his fingers through the blooksoaked edges of the shirt,
"I suppose I can see why they think so, though. This sort of devotion is usually more compelled than earned."
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2025-06-17 02:08 am (UTC)They have had no reason to hurry at this point and he has. He follows them like a man possessed. Maybe he is. This is, quite frankly, madness, and not a madness he is normally given to. He had never once wavered in his loyalty to Bashat, not in all the years he had served. He had believed what they did was for the greater good-- or at least, he had believed that Bashat had believed. Now... seeing the hurt in Kai's eyes out under the trees, he wasn't certain anymore.
He hadn't been lying, when he had said that he hadn't known what Kai was like. It was maybe the truest thing he had ever said. He took the dismissal then for what it was, started to prepare to return home with all haste, to report whatever he could to Bashat before the rest of them could do... whatever was next. But his mind and heart wouldn't settle, and he tossed and turned, could find no good way to rest. It drove him after them, instead, knowing that there was no reason to trust him, more reason to kill him than to let him live, but...
It was foolish. He knew it was foolish, but, apparently, it was what he was doing anyway.
And so, after they put down near the first town after their reunion, he catches Kai momentarily alone and approaches, making no moves towards stealth as he does. He says nothing as he comes into the light, waits for Kai to see him, to react however he's going to react. He presumes nothing, not anymore.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-17 02:56 am (UTC)Kai, at least, hadn't expected to hear from Romad ever again. He certainly wasn't going to be paying any calls to Bashat in the near future, but at the same time he'd felt he'd made it pretty clear that he wasn't going to mess with his plans any further. There was no reason to send the spy after him, no reason for the spy to follow.
And yet... there he was. Kai couldn't place what he was feeling- annoyance? anger? for sure the small spark of hope is quashed immediately- so he ignores Romad long enough to be sure the man wasn't aiming to have the first word, to give Kai some sort of direction on how this exchange is going to go.
"What," he says finally, his voice flat and refusing Romad the pleasure of getting any emotion out of him, not even the intonation of a question.
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Date: 2025-06-17 03:15 am (UTC)He does not know how to have the conversation he wants to have. He doesn't know if there are even words for the conversation he wants to have. He doesn't know what conversation he wants to have.
"If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't be here," he says, even though it wasn't a question. Even if it had been, this wouldn't really have been an answer to it and he knows that as well. He lingers, awkward to his bones, at the edge of the firelight. He has no reason to come closer. He knows he's not welcome to come closer.
He can't leave.
The next words out of his mouth sound threatening, but there is no better way to say what he still isn't sure of the shape of. He tries to convey that it is not a threat by tone alone,
"You should have killed me back there. The only wise move would be to send me back to Bashat in pieces," he says nothing else for a long moment, then adds, "Despite our escapades, I do not think there are very many people who know that you are once again walking the earth that are both alive and cooperative. I do not think it will escape him for very long, but you likely have months before Bashat will hear of it from any mouth save mine, if you went to ground."
Truth be told, he has no idea if this concerns Kai or not, but he suspects he will know in short order.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-17 12:51 pm (UTC)"I seem to recall you saying Bashat wasn't a tyrant." Only a tyrant in Bashat's position would come after Kai now, after having wrecked his plans but otherwise ceding the field. The damage there is done, and there would be nothing to be gained from action against him and plenty to be lost. Only a tyrant who cared about the perception of it, and revenge for wrongs, would bother.
Of course, Kai doesn't fully believe that Bashat isn't a tyrant. Really, nothing Romad has told him is new information. Ziede had even be a little cross with him (privately, of course) that he'd just let Romad walk off- but even she only spoke of a little, knowing Kai and his heart too well. Knowing that he simply did not want to. He could have, had he felt he truly had to, but it would have continued his slow descent into nothing but razor edges.
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Date: 2025-06-17 01:28 pm (UTC)"Now, I am not sure what I believe him capable of," he finishes, quieter after a moment. He means that he's not sure he's a good man, but he also means that he's not sure he's a good leader.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-17 01:36 pm (UTC)He's had Ziede listening on their heart pearl connection from the moment Ramad arrived, because he's not an idiot, and in the silence that follows there's a soft 'Kai...' in his mind. He's never really trust Ramad, but not trusting him hadn't meant that he couldn't be hurt by him. He shouldn't open himself up to that again. It's a mistake he really needs to stop making.
"Why are you here?" he finally asks instead, because that is truly the heart of the matter. There hasn't been enough time for Ramad to get new orders with updated information, so this is something he's elected to do. But to whose benefit, Kai hasn't quite pieced together.
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Date: 2025-06-17 01:48 pm (UTC)"If you were thinking of taking some kind of vengeance, or even just teaching him a lesson, I would be an excellent hostage."
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Date: 2025-06-17 01:57 pm (UTC)He also just... is very cool on the idea of vengeance. He used to live for it, during the war. There was nothing else to live for, at the start of it, other than making Hierarchs pay for his torment and the deaths of all his people. But such a flame is short lived, and he knows better now what kind of emotions better keep the fire alight.
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Date: 2025-06-17 02:04 pm (UTC)"Then I suppose I come to you empty handed," he's not happy about that and it shows, but he's worked with worse, "May I sit?"
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Date: 2025-06-17 02:08 pm (UTC)"Fine."
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Date: 2025-06-17 02:19 pm (UTC)"I don't want to return to Bashat," he says, finally, "I don't fear his displeasure," he adds, because that's important for some reason, "but I do not wish for his praise. Not for this."
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Date: 2025-06-17 02:27 pm (UTC)"Why not?" he asks, managing to keep his voice more or less disinterested, "You seem to have done a fine job in your mission, all things considered." You know, that job of keeping him out of the way. That thing you did. To him.
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Date: 2025-06-17 02:42 pm (UTC)It is the next bit where it becomes murkier, harder to fully follow his own thoughts,
"But I would still be expected to serve, as I have done. I... don't want to," Ramad struggles harder with what he is trying to say, "I am not in Bashat's emotional confidence and have never wanted to be. I cannot be sure. But I have not seen him show even the barest flicker of remorse about his actions. I believed it the strength of a leader, the ability to sacrifice for the greater good," he shakes his head, "Meeting you, traveling with you, I think it a betrayal of the highest order. I do not wish to work for such a man."
It is not exactly what he wants to say, but it's close enough to get him a step closer to it.
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From:In the past
Date: 2025-06-18 12:30 am (UTC)However, it only worked if they kept their forces going, which is why they were on the move, trying to stay out of the Hierarch's reach. Ziede and Tahren did a lot of that work (sometimes together, which Kai studiously made himself scarce for), but he'd been a scout in the war before and it only made sense to him to keep it up.
This particular scouting attempt didn't go as cleanly as it could have, but they were dead and Kai was not so he considered it a success. It did mean when he came into Bashasa's tent there was blood seeping through the tunic around his stomach, a large tear in it that looked a lot like a spear slash through it. "I'm back," he reports, looking in to see if the man had any company- he usually did.
Re: In the past
Date: 2025-06-18 02:07 am (UTC)He is talking with a few other leaders when Kai comes in, but all of them take one look at Kai and he can feel the room shift a bit, an unease that he doesn't really understand passing over them,
"You're dismissed," his voice is soft but the other three leaders all but shoot to their feet and out of the tent, trying not to show how eager they are to leave and failing miserably. Bashasa rolls his eyes and comes up to his feet, moving over to Kai,
"Anything urgent to report, or can you reassure me you're alright first?" it's teasing slightly, but it's also not.
Re: In the past
Date: 2025-06-18 02:18 am (UTC)"I'm fine," he says, with an eye roll of his own- he'll even pull back the tunic a bit to show him, the skin underneath a bit red but otherwise looking entirely unharmed, "Sorry I interrupted." He's supposed to, Bashasa does expect him to report in whenever he returns, but, well. Him breaking up a discussion by existing has happened before.
Re: In the past
Date: 2025-06-18 02:23 am (UTC)"It must have hurt, all the same," he says, somewhat mournfully. He really doesn't like sending Kai out to get hurt, even as he's practical enough to know it's better than sacrificing someone else, when Kai will be fine. "Don't be sorry," he adds, letting his hand fall away and stretching slightly, "my back was just getting a knot in it. What did you find?"
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Date: 2025-06-18 02:28 am (UTC)"There was a small patrol; a messenger, with some guards. They're, uh... gone now." Sorry if you didn't want that, but he didn't really have a choice. He reaches into his pouch, pulling out the correspondence he'd taken and handing them over.
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Date: 2025-06-18 02:35 am (UTC)"No new information on the surface," he says after a moment, "though I'll have one of our codebreakers take a look at it. But it's good it didn't get where it was going all the same-- it mostly looks like information about our whereabouts rather than the...irs...," he's talking as he's scanning and there's something that suddenly makes him pause for a moment and raise an eyebrow, and then shake his head and set the missive down with maybe a little more speed than normal. Bashasa is good at concealing his expressions quickly, but the involuntary flush is a little harder to shape into anything else.
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Date: 2025-06-18 12:45 pm (UTC)He hadn't bothered to try and read them himself- his Arik reading is improving, out of necessity though he is trying to learn- and it didn't seem terribly important. However he knows Bashasa well enough to know that something is wrong. "What is it?" he asks, coming closer to look over the man's shoulder- hopefully he'll be able to get enough of an idea.
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Date: 2025-06-18 03:32 pm (UTC)"They ah, accuse me of consorting with demons," well that probably doesn't sound so bad, he realizes, and he knows Kai is going to point out that he is consorting with demons and he's going to
explodehave to explain anyway, so... "As in, that I've taken a demon as a consort."no subject
Date: 2025-06-18 05:02 pm (UTC)"And that is different... how...?" he asks slowly, looking over Bashasa's face for clues. It's clearly bothered him, and there's a little pang of fear in Kai while he waits for what it means.
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Date: 2025-06-18 05:17 pm (UTC)"A consort," he says with a tone that clearly says that, for a moment, he's hoping if he just repeats himself, Kai will magically understand. When he obviously doesn't, he tries again, "That we're sleeping together," no wait, that's not helpful either, they often are sleeping together. Innocently. In separate bedrolls right near one another because Kai is his bodyguard and his confidant and friend not because... "They think the relationship is sexual," maybe if he keeps it clinical this will be easier, except his mouth and his brain seem somewhat disconnected, "Based on the context clues, I think they believe I've trapped you somehow, like at--" no, he really doesn't want to draw that comparison, now that he thinks about it, so it's an even more awkward pivot, "-- that I'm using you. For sex. Among other things."
Why is Kai standing so close? He has been trying very hard for a while now as they have travelled to not think about any of this, but it's exponentially more difficult with Kai easily in reach, almost half backing him up against his travel desk, though Kai probably doesn't even see it that way and that's the problem isn't it?
He recognizes when his thoughts are chasing themselves and makes an effort to calm them. He's not used to being this flustered and he needs his wits about him right now possibly more than he has in a long time.
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Date: 2025-06-18 05:29 pm (UTC)Still, he forces himself to wait, and the look on the other man's face does a bit to ease his nerves- blushing is not really a response that makes sense, but it's also not horror- until Bashasa's explanation finally clicks into his head.
"Oh." It's perhaps a bit more of a subdued reaction than one would expect, Kai's brow furrowing as it takes it in. Sex with demons is not some horrible thing that the Hierarchs and the Arik seem to think it is, it was a foundation in Saredi culture for getting demon blood into their family lines, but then the fact that he is the demon in question properly sinks in. "Oh."
Kai flushes now too, eyes suddenly darting to be literally anywhere else. He's thought about it. Of course he has, he's neither blind nor stupid and he's pretty sure he loved Bashasa within a week of meeting him, but Bashasa is also just that kind of person. Everyone loves him. Kai is nothing special in that regard. "Anyone who knows you knows you wouldn't," he says, which-- he means they know Bashasa wouldn't use someone like that. That might not be what Bashasa hears.
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Date: 2025-06-18 06:14 pm (UTC)It feels... quite different, now that he's in a handsome, adult body, now that he's saved Bashasa's life multiple times over, sometimes by quite literally getting between him and danger. There's something relentless about it instead of precocious and he finds it almost stunningly attractive-- no one pushes quite like that in diplomacy. It leaves you too open to attack. And yet, with that relentless nature, it also makes him feel cornered, trapped. With anyone else, he would send them away for that, at best, but with Kai...
"Use someone like that? Use you like that?" he clarifies a moment later, "No, of course not. I'd be no better than the Hierarchs and I've no stomach for it besides." He doesn't know why he continues after that. He should put the matter behind them and the faster the better, but he can read something in Kai's posture, knows that he's unsettled Kai in some way that has less to do with the thought of sleeping with him and more to do with his reaction, and he doesn't want Kai to think that he's somehow disgusted with the idea, when it's the complete opposite.
So he reaches out and brushes just the tips of his fingers through the blooksoaked edges of the shirt,
"I suppose I can see why they think so, though. This sort of devotion is usually more compelled than earned."
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