Kahl scowls, a mixed-up miserable pout of an expression, even as he leans forward to grab Zerxus's hand. For a moment, it's his hand, smaller, warm and strong and dry, gripping tight. Then it's a bright orange scorpion filling Zerxus's palm. Then the butcherbird, black and white with its brutal wedge of a beak, too big to really be held that way, claws digging into the heel of Zerxus's thumb.
He's never flinched from Kahl's sharp edges, and he's not about to start now; his hand is steady as stone as he cradles the bird to his chest.
"I'm angry at them, too. I wish I could tell them how badly they failed you, and how they sewed their own destruction with it." He doesn't envy Sieh, put in that final position, but he can judge him for walking there. "He should have tried to pull you back. He owed you so much more than he ever gave you."
"It was not in his nature, to love his own death," Kahl chokes. It is not given to birds to cry, so the sound of it stays knotted in his throat. He felt - for a moment, briefly, he thought - he had heard Sieh's cry, when Yeine and Nahadoth together reached to unmake him. He had seen the way Sieh sagged, when they failed, in what looked so much like relief. But then he had done it anyway, done it himself.
It was not possible, he tells himself, for Sieh to love him, because if it were possible, then the sting of betrayal would only be that much sharper. Adults, dramatic, existential, obsessed with legacy, will often love their dooms. Children, almost never. Whether they wish to grow up or wish to delay it, children still wish to live. And when they don't - that, too, is the ruin of childhood.
"And what did Yeine and Nahadoth owe me? Nothing. Sieh was their child, as I was not, and they owed him their protection, their bitter loving fury. They would never have ceased hunting me. That's why it's different. Because Asmodeus could live, if he set aside his hatred. Even if he were not forgiven, he would not be hunted down. If they had both the means and the will to execute him, they would have done it already. Therefore, at least one is lacking."
"You were more than that." It's quietly fierce; not quite an argument, just another layer of truth. "I know it isn't fair, to blame a child for being selfish. But I don't have to be fair to him."
(Sometimes, championing one person can mean failing another. Maybe he has to make his peace with that.)
"You're right, that Asmodeus has options you didn't." The sheer weariness in his voice speaks to how often he's advocated for them in vain. "But if you did see another way, if you were able to find allies that could have helped you without all of that destruction - would you have taken it?"
"If I say it matters, that I wanted to live, then it matters that he wanted to live." Kahl is not the god of justice, or fairness. He knows there is no such thing. But there is a childish fierceness in him that cares about it anyway, some of the time, the fierce bitter sulk of well it should be, before the swelling fury of a response that cannot ever be fair, one way or the other, that substitutes the more attainable poetic for the impossible proportionate.
Even already mortal, elderly, doomed. Even too late, Kahl will allow that it matters, that Sieh wanted to live. That he had the right. He had been selfless, in the end, saving the world from Kahl even though it would not save himself. But surely wanting live helped steel him for the blow. It's easier to imagine himself hated than simply loved insufficiently, once again, that Sieh chose the world over him just as Enefa chose Sieh.
He turns back into the teenager, a shameless gangly heap in Zerxus's lap, with none of the self-conscious aloofness a better socialized teenager would have.
"I don't know," he admits, soft and sad, into Zerxus's shoulder. "Maybe. It would have depended on...when I found them. Once I had committed to the plan, it would have been very hard to turn back. But I looked. There was a time I looked for them. I looked for a century."
Not so long, for a god. But a long time for a lonely child, finally free, watching the wide vivid world from hiding, still alone.
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"I'm angry at them, too. I wish I could tell them how badly they failed you, and how they sewed their own destruction with it." He doesn't envy Sieh, put in that final position, but he can judge him for walking there. "He should have tried to pull you back. He owed you so much more than he ever gave you."
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It was not possible, he tells himself, for Sieh to love him, because if it were possible, then the sting of betrayal would only be that much sharper. Adults, dramatic, existential, obsessed with legacy, will often love their dooms. Children, almost never. Whether they wish to grow up or wish to delay it, children still wish to live. And when they don't - that, too, is the ruin of childhood.
"And what did Yeine and Nahadoth owe me? Nothing. Sieh was their child, as I was not, and they owed him their protection, their bitter loving fury. They would never have ceased hunting me. That's why it's different. Because Asmodeus could live, if he set aside his hatred. Even if he were not forgiven, he would not be hunted down. If they had both the means and the will to execute him, they would have done it already. Therefore, at least one is lacking."
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(Sometimes, championing one person can mean failing another. Maybe he has to make his peace with that.)
"You're right, that Asmodeus has options you didn't." The sheer weariness in his voice speaks to how often he's advocated for them in vain. "But if you did see another way, if you were able to find allies that could have helped you without all of that destruction - would you have taken it?"
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Even already mortal, elderly, doomed. Even too late, Kahl will allow that it matters, that Sieh wanted to live. That he had the right. He had been selfless, in the end, saving the world from Kahl even though it would not save himself. But surely wanting live helped steel him for the blow. It's easier to imagine himself hated than simply loved insufficiently, once again, that Sieh chose the world over him just as Enefa chose Sieh.
He turns back into the teenager, a shameless gangly heap in Zerxus's lap, with none of the self-conscious aloofness a better socialized teenager would have.
"I don't know," he admits, soft and sad, into Zerxus's shoulder. "Maybe. It would have depended on...when I found them. Once I had committed to the plan, it would have been very hard to turn back. But I looked. There was a time I looked for them. I looked for a century."
Not so long, for a god. But a long time for a lonely child, finally free, watching the wide vivid world from hiding, still alone.