[prp] i'm just another lesson to be learned (ezra + leila)

[cibarium]

"Ezra?"

Leila had decided to approach her son a minute or two after the conference was brought to an official close... in the most uneventful and anticlimactic manner she'd yet witnessed for any gathering of magic people she had attended. The worst thing that had happened was that she saw him drink himself into some kind of bitter angry stupor. She'd take it over more people getting murdered, even though it made figuring out how to talk to him in this setting more difficult than it was already.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I don't want to talk to you here," said Ezra, who had polished off both of his final glasses of wine. He pushed himself to his feet, and waved away one of the fetches who came to help. "If you want to talk to me, I'm going to go check on my daughters."

He left, navigating the press of fetches and the empty whitewashed halls with the alacrity of the very drunk who is, nevertheless, in their own home and following a path they've trod many times.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila didn't know Ezra had daughters. Had he meant that literally? Nonetheless, she nodded and quietly followed, keeping her distance and becoming increasingly tense.

shibroane

 

[shibrogane]

Ezra's space within the Court was behind a nondescript wooden door. He opened it without a key or any kind of spell; he stepped through the door and they were suddenly outside, in a light drizzle, looking at a small cottage. Ezra seemed to relax as he crossed the field towards the yellow light of the home.

"July," he called, pushing through the gate. "September."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

The scenery change was surprising, even though it was nothing new, because this was about a part of Ezra's life Leila knew absolutely nothing about. She felt like she was intruding even though she was allowed in. Instead of following, she decided to stay behind the gate and wait.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Ezra stopped at the door. There were two small girls there waiting; they weren't children by any means, but they smiled to see him and hugged him tightly. Ezra didn't introduce Leila. He kissed their cheeks and sent them back inside, and turned to Leila with a sheet of parchment-like paper in hand.

"Did Eve ever tell you what I said about the Charter," he said.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Not Mom. Just Eve.

If Leila had any internal composure left, it was quickly crumbling away. There were only one or two reasons why Ezra would ask something like that. Her jaw felt like it was fusing shut, but she pushed against it to answer, nodding slowly and fixing her gaze on the ground.

"She did."

shibrgane

 

[shibrogane]

"You signed it," said Ezra. "You gave your permission and consented to the torture of the woman I loved more than anything." He wasn't jittering. He ought to have been; he always jittered. But he wasn't. He was still as death. As a stopped heart. "You'll retract your permission now."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila knew what was coming. She was dreading it. As Ezra spoke, the dread slid down into shame; terror. She was guilty. Anything about this situation that might've made her ask questions didn't matter. They were unnoticeable. They didn't exist. She was guilty.

She looked up but didn't meet Ezra's eyes, didn't dare.

"How...?"

How could she have done such a thing?

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"You put your thumbprint here." Ezra showed her the markings on the paper. Four bloody thumbprints already; Leila's would make five. "You revoke your consent to have your magic warped by that thing."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Per Ezra's instruction, Leila looked down at the paper -- and registered, with dull surprise, the presence of four thumbprints already there.

"You didn't say you were already doing this," she noted, momentarily confused. Why hadn't he brought this up at the Conference? He certainly hadn't been planning to.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I don't owe you a ******** explanation," said Ezra. "And I don't care what they decided."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

The response made Leila flinch and grit her teeth. Why didn't he care? What about Horace? He'd actually been talking to Melany. They'd all voted, at least in part, to see to the outcome she was hoping for.

As Leila hesitated, she unconsciously inched backwards. "That decision was made based on what she wanted," she said. How did that not matter to him?

shibroane

 

[shibrogane]

"You're welcome to try to run," said Ezra. "But there's nowhere for you to go. Don't you see? This stupid ******** Court, the way they've twisted all the magic around themselves--take it apart, go back to the beginning, make it better--it's never going to create anything but more of itself. A self-perpetuating cycle of abuse and hate and all of it built on top of an innocent person. It can't be made better. So it has to be destroyed, and left that way."

He said, "You can give me your thumbprint, revoke your consent, willingly. Or I'll take it off your dead body."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila turned pale. The fear returned to crush her ability to observe once again, and it was just her, and her guilt, and Ezra's anger. He was threatening to kill her.

"What about Eve..."

She didn't want to die and leave her wife behind to suffer. And Ezra was right. There really was nowhere to run. She brought up both her hands, uncertain which one he wanted.

shibrogane