Patience watched her quietly. She hadn’t really planned this conversation, but if she’d thought about it beforehand, she thought she probably would have expected this reaction. She picked up the kittens one by one and set them down on the floor to let them explore her house. The doors and windows were closed, and she was careful to make sure that there was nothing King could get into when he was in here, so she was confident that they would be fine exploring on their own. If not, she’d likely be alerted by the sound of their mewls.
“I know how strong you are,” she said. “And I don’t want to think that there might be anything you can’t handle, believe me, I don’t.” She should probably stop there, but she couldn’t. “But what if you don’t win, Chas? What if something happens and the whole world gets uprooted?” She did not look pleased with this idea at all; Patience was a spirit of peace and harmony, and while she didn’t necessarily agree with the way things were now, she would prefer this tenuous balance to the disruption and ending of everything that she knew and cared about. “I don’t want you to fight to the death, Chas. Not even for my sake. What scares me most about that idea is that I might lose you.”
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"We're not going to not win," Chas replied instantly, a growl in her voice that was almost never present when she was with Patience. It was a side of her that she didn't usually let her twin see, feral and confident and angry. She rolled up her sleeve, showing her Mark as she said, "Fighting to the death is my duty. For the cause. For-" But that wasn't really it, was it? She hadn't taken the Mark because she believed that much in the cause, she'd taken it because it had been what she'd needed to do to keep her and her sister safe. Chas shifted slightly, emotions flickering through her eyes as her thoughts continued to race. It wasn't just about her sister and her anymore, because there was someone else who had her loyalty and that was the real issue here. She wasn't just fighting for the cause, she was fighting for a man she believed in. Barty.
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Patience stared at her sister. Her expression conveyed complete surprise, but not anything even remotely like horror. Chastity didn't scare her, although she did feel somewhat smaller compared to her, when she was still seated.
"Well," she said after a moment, her gaze sharpening as she tried to discern the flickering emotions on her twin's face now that Chastity had quieted. "I had hoped you felt some duty to keep yourself alive, for me. But at least I know what to expect."
She hadn't given up, not by a long shot, but it seemed futile to argue with her sister when she was like this. She could try again, and would try again, if the situation grew any more dire.
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She couldn't help the way she deflated at Patience's words, feeling almost strangely guilty in a way. "It's not like that," she replied, her voice rough. "It's-" With a sigh, Chas ran her fingers through her hair and leaned back against the wall. "I'm not stupid. I don't want to die. I want to stay alive, for myself and for you. But it's... complicated. You don't know everything, you don't understand why..." Her head fell back against the wall as she groaned. "There are other reasons why I want- need- to fight."
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“Just explain them to me, please,” Patience said, looking up at her. She hadn’t moved from her seat, although she realized now that her fingers had curled slightly tighter into the arm of the chair. Forcing herself to relax, she folded her hands in her lap instead. “I don’t want to make you do anything or hold you back - you know that, don’t you? I just--” her throat started to close over, and she swallowed. “I would feel so much better right now if I knew that you’d be safe, that you’d survive, if the worst were to happen.”