hold my hand in yours

[valeas]

WHO: Emilia & some closed starters.
WHEN: One is backdated to dragon shenanigans. Others throughout October.
WHERE: The Bessis Tower. Doxe's palace. Places!
WHAT: Cold misery. New allies. Wrath.
WARNINGS: Food that might make you hungry. Some KotC spoilers. I'll add the rest as we go.

( if you'd like anything with emilia, please feel free to send a PM or hit me up at moonstones. i love writing starters. ♥ )

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[valeas]

The last thing Emilia wants is her family in Taravast. The steps she took prior to finding herself here was to protect them and protect the mortal realm. She marched straight into the underworld and made sure to lock the threats in with her.

No such assurance here, with the undead swarming ever closer. And still, her heart gives an ache to hear Diego speak of his sibling. To know several of them are within reach for him, something Emilia will never have again.

"Five is..."

Actually, now that she's begun this sentence she has no idea how to finish it. Wrath is the one more familiar with Five, and Five is not an easy person to summarize. "... prickly. But he seems to care for you all deeply."

[gladiokinesis]

"There's nothing he wouldn't do for us."

And while that may sound hyperbolic, in the case of Five? It's not. He spent how many years trying to get back to them? He joined the Commission, became an assassin, all to get back to his family. To stop the end of the world. To save them. Everything he's done has made him dangerous, but it's like he told Lila shortly before he arrived here:

He knows how it feels to love dangerous people, the difference is they love him back. And his family for all their many, many, many flaws, love one another. Diego's powers may not be as impressive or dangerous as Vanya's, or Allison's, or even Five's, but that doesn't make him any less determined to do his part in keeping them safe.

....Even if he's sometimes dumb about it.

[valeas]

Emilia herself has decided she will go to any lengths for Vittoria. She decided early on she would destroy anything that got in the way of her mission. Some days, it feels like she gave up everything in the pursuit of it.

Including parts of her very soul.

But as much as she would like to bring her twin justice and peace, she's learning there are some lines she may be able to cross, but does not want to. It doesn't frighten her, this fury that grows inside of her, and she thinks it should.

"And you?"

Is there nothing Diego won't do in turn?

[gladiokinesis]

"They're my family. I'd die to keep them safe."

Diego is probably the most recklessly heroic -- but that determination comes in handy. He had gotten close to Vanya the last time, using his knives to pull himself closer to her. He had shut down Grace before the others could, trying to give her a peaceful death when it seemed like she might have been the one behind their father's death.

He's gone down the vengeance path himself, after Patch died, but Five had been the one to pull him back from it, remind him that's not how she would have wanted to be remembered.

[valeas]

"I understand."

A certain gravity colors her tone, suggesting her answer is no pleasantry.

The night she stumbled on Vittoria's ravaged body in the monastery, she was consumed with if onlys. All of the different choices she could have made to save her sister, to have the murdering beast take her instead.

She failed utterly in that regard. But she can bring her sister justice. Peace.

Once Emilia brings herself to a stop before a room door, Diego will notice that she's been leading them back to his room all along. The wolves recognize it as well, and sit expectantly. "I believe this is where I bid you goodnight."

[gladiokinesis]

Diego remembers seeing Ben die when he was a kid, and how hopeless and powerless he felt. The relief and joy he felt when he could talk to Ben again through Klaus' body. He remembers how empty he felt when the news about his father's death came in. He remembers shutting down Grace to protect her. Finding Patch's body. He remembers all of it, and how most of them (save his father, obviously) were better than him.

He let Hazel and Cha-Cha go because he knew that's not how Patch would have wanted to be remembered. It wouldn't have brought him peace.

They arrive to his room and he's surprised she's led him there without him realizing it -- but Diego is not always the most observant. "I believe so." He pauses for a moment.

"I know you're good friends with Allison and Grace Three here has seemed to have adopted you -- that makes you family too."

Which is his way of saying he'd try to keep her safe, if it ever came down to it.

[valeas]

Emilia lingers at the pause he gives, and it's clear his words reach her even as they surprise. Kindness is not a virtue that Emilia takes lightly in a world, or several as the case may be, that seems to possess a severe lack of it.

It should not surprise her that Diego and Five aren't very much alike in personality, really. She and Vittoria were as different as night and day. Emilia the dutiful and reserved twin. Vittoria the fun-loving and irrepressible one.

When they were growing, Vittoria always rushed whatever task would be given to her. In turn, Emilia would stumble over hers in an effort to keep up. One twin too impulsive and the other too cautious. Neither strategy, in the end, was ideal.

She keeps trying to course-correct, but finding balance is hard.

"Thank you," Emilia says in earnest. She doesn't feel the need to impress she can take care of herself. That's not, in truth, the point of this kindness. "I do care very much about Allison and Grace Three. By extension, I endeavor to do the same with you all. Though I suspect your brother would not be too fond of the offering."

He was highly suspicious of Wrath and Emilia upon meeting them, and did not like Allison befriending either. Then again, Wrath's taken a strange liking to Five, so stranger things have indeed happened.

[gladiokinesis]

Diego grew up mostly starved of kindness -- outside of Grace, of course. Reginald had been a cruel man. For a long time all Diego could feel was anger and a desperate need to prove himself -- and while he still feels those things he feels other things too.

He knows sometimes forgiveness is the answer. Sometimes kindness is. A knife can't always solve a problem as well as words can. Sometimes he still stumbles on his words when they matter most, when he feels the most vulnerable.

Balance is hard, and he's not sure he always manages it himself but if there's one thing he knows it's that survival is easier when you have other people you can count on.

Diego laughs a little at her comment about Five. "See, that's just a bonus. Five needs to be tested sometimes."

He loves his brother; his brother is also a paranoid pain in the ass sometimes. Both of these things can be true.