06: Time to Think

He was going to hurt Chevalier and Lucas.

Alexa had only that thought to comfort her, and it was a grim one. The man she had killed was trying to kill her friends.

'But did it have to be so brutal?' She thought. 'Did death have to be so painful? Did La Chanson need to treat people with such finality?' And the more frightening thought, of course: 'Was La Chanson only giving me what I wanted? The ability to help. I just wanted to help.'

He was going to hurt Chevalier and Lucas.

She could only heal so much - she could only help this way for so long. All too suddenly the battle was over and she was humming the tiny phrase she knew, knitting Lucas' wounds together, healing him, sure, but also trying to distract herself from the man who lay still - burned, she knew - not a mark on his skin.

Around them lay the dead, the moaning, the crying, the celebratory growls of lizardfolk, smells - the scent of blood and viscera, sounds - so many sounds, the cracking of bones, tearing as lizardfolk... celebrated...she did what she could to block it, but even focusing on the Song in her mind for those few seconds she helped Lucas, it reminded her of the screams she had caused.

The screams, his screams, had harmonised with the Song. Only she could know that, and it wasn't something she would share with anyone. Not even Vee. His death had been gruesome - but so beautiful it had pricked at her eyes in more than just sadness.

He was going to hurt Vee

and how was she supposed to tell Vee that she couldn't stop hurting people? That so quickly she had discovered what was worth taking the lives of others to protect? Vee was there to protect her, not the other way around and yet -

He was going to hurt Chevalier and Lucas

and although she wanted to use the power she was given to heal, the longer they fought, the more tired they would get - and those arrows were deadly - how Lucas could just walk out there knowing he could die was beyond her. He wasn't Vee - made of metal. Lucas was made of flesh, and he could very easily have died in this fight. He had fallen. He had fallen and she had scrambled around a door, panicked, doing what she could to keep him from dying.

They would have killed her friends.

Watching Tallman sleep, for all Lucas' dragging of him into the bunkhouse, it was she who made sure both men had been sitting as comfortably as their wounds would allow, she who sat in confused contemplation, her eyes passing over the man who had orchestrated the other half of the fray.

Was this what it mean to be noble? The ability to manipulate others into dying for your cause - be it with money or sweet words...the ability to encourage self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. Was this what it meant to be a Donadieu? Between the two of them - between two houses - they had managed to hurt hundreds of people. Was this noble? Was it right? Was it just? She didn't feel very noble, didn't feel honourable.

She reached out and gently touched the lump on the side of his head, wincing. She knew what had caused that.

He was going to hurt Vee and Lucas...and he wanted to hurt me. She withdrew her hand, stood and took a step back, grasping one hand in the other as if burned. Glancing around the bunkhouse, she stopped the hum that had begun to rise in her throat.

Instinct had told her to heal the giant man, that he shouldn't be in so much pain, not now that the fighting was done - but a deeper part of her, perhaps the Song, perhaps something grandmère or Vee had said that was buried deep in her mind said not to do the same for Tallman.

He wanted to hurt Vee - he wanted to hurt Lucas, and Spider and all of them. And he wanted to hurt her family, her house, Shining Capital...and he would not regret it the way she would. If he escaped, she knew he would be even more dangerous now. And she knew the others were not as predisposed to preserving life they didn't see as valuable. She knew that they would want to dispose of the problem. Perhaps she was the only one who saw that the problem was human - that there were scores of dead.

She was not, she knew, her grandmère. Grandmère was ruthless and sure of herself and could do things for the greater good because they needed to be done.

Alexandrie didn't want to deal with any of this. She wanted to crawl under one of the bunks and cry, or climb a tree far away and pretend it had all been a dream, or wake on her wedding day and realise the only responsibility she had was to produce children and do as her husband requested.

Running a household seemed laughable now. The household responsibility her mother had tried to train into her - tending to such domestic things...it seemed childish now. Like playing with dolls. She returned to her chair and sat, staring at Tallman. Was that what these people were to him? Dolls?

Were her friends - when had they become friends - and all the people who had died today... were they dolls to be played with? Destroyed? A flash of anger passed across her face and she slapped him sharply.

It was time to talk.