"Blake."

"Sun," she ground out from between clenched teeth. "How did you find me?"

"I've been in Vale for how long and you didn't think I knew every decent hideaway in the city?"

Blake let out a long sigh. "Fair point." She resumed staring out over the water, a shaking hand clenched around one half of Ember Celica.

She heard Sun laugh mirthlessly. "If you're just running off, why did you keep that?"

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" she spat, bow tilting forward as she whirled toward him. "You think I'm running off."

"Well…" He shrugged. "Aren't you?"

"Of course I'm not running off." Her fingers trailed over the gauntlet.

He raised an eyebrow, which she caught out of the corner of her eye.

"Okay. Maybe it looks like I am. But I - "

He let out a snarl that surprised her. "Blake, do you know what you did to her? Do you know what you did to Yang? The second she woke up, the very second, her very first words were to ask for you. Do you know how hard it was to tell her that you'd just scampered off like a coward - "

"I'M NOT RUNNING!" Her voice broke over the last word. Visions of Adam's mask, his voice, taunting her, reminding her of how… She shook her head. "I'm not running," she repeated more softly. "Not like that. Not really."

"Then why?"

"Because I failed her. Because Adam is going after everyone I care about. So if he thinks I don't really care about them…don't really care about her anymore, then maybe he'll leave her, and everyone else, alone."

"You can not be serious right now."

She stared him dead in the eyes. "I'm more serious than I've ever been."

"Blake…" Trailing off for a moment to regain his composure, he paced back and forth a few times, his tail twitching. "Blake, listen. She was…she was really broken up about it. Kind of out of it at the time. She was just going on about the look on your face when he – when he stabbed you, how she thought you were gonna die, how she just cared so much and would even have given her other arm or died for you and all you'd been able to do was run."

Her hands tightened around Ember Celica, knuckles going white.

"I know you think you have your reasons. But…" He sighed, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck. "I saw the way you were looking at her that night. I know how torn up you were about it. And as much of an attempt at caring as this may be, it's the most fucking misguided one I have ever seen."

"Well, maybe it is. But it's all I've got right now. He was gonna kill her, Sun, gonna kill me, I saw him cut the head off of one of my clones, I saw - "

"You think that really matters to her right now?" Sun spat back. "You know where she is? On Patch, at her dad's house. Yeah, that dad. Professional huntsman. Ring a bell? She's in good hands, and she'll only be in better hands if you get over there to help her."

"Doesn't she hate me right now? What will going back now do for her? Do to her?" She turned back to the water, squinting across to where she could just see the tops of a few towers on the island to which Sun had referred.

Sun sighed, taking a seat across from her. "I honestly don't know for sure," he said quietly. "But if I had to guess…Yang's a good person. You know that, I know that. She's probably mad. Probably furious. But I think…I think she's just waiting. Waiting for you to show up, apologize to her face, and make things right. I think she needs you to."

"I…" Blake drew in a long, shuddering breath, resting her forehead on her knees. "I can't. I…I can't."

"Then maybe you're not who I thought you were."

Her amber eyes flashed at him, and he would've recoiled back a few feet if he wasn't already seated against the wall. "I can't go back until he's dead."

"He. You mean Adam."

"Yes."

Sun scowled. "You couldn't face him before; what makes you think you can now?"

"I thought I could reason with him - "

"Are you kidding me?"

"BUT NOW IT'S DIFFERENT!" They both winced as her voice went echoing off every flat surface. "It's different now, because now I don't need to reason with him anymore. He's a complete piece of shit and he needs to die."

"So…you're angry, and not out to save him anymore."

"Precisely."

He let out a snort. "God, Blake. Really. You really think that's gonna work."

"And why not?"

"Maybe because this guy is powerful enough to cut straight through Yang's aura without a second thought. Maybe it's because the last time someone attacked him out of anger, THEY LOST AN ARM!"

"Get out," Blake spat at him. Her hands shook, digging into any corners of the gauntlet they could as she tried to hold them steady. "I don't need this from you right now."

"Ugh – you don't – you don't understand," Sun mumbled, but got to his feet so he could pace. "I'm not – I care, okay? About you, about Yang, about everything."

She sat in silence, giving him a chance to talk.

"Okay. Blake, if this Adam guy is who I think he is, you'd know better than anyone what he's capable of. And honestly, the last thing I want to see is another friend dead because of this…this whole thing." He waved a hand in the general direction of Beacon. "And if you go off and do this, if you run off and try to find him, and kill him or whatever it is you're planning, you're going to end up dead. Your friends deserve more than that." He let out a deep breath, seeming to resign himself to something. "Yang deserves way more than that from the girl she loves."

"L-loves?"

"What do you think it means when a person wakes up from something like what she went through and the first thing they ask is how you are? What do you think it means when they got themselves hurt in the first place jumping between you and what they see as your certain death? What do you think that is?"

She was silent.

"So…if you care about her even half as much as she cares about you, don't do this, Blake."

"I have to."

"Blake - "

All he could do was watch as the girl in front of him faded into smoke, carried away on the light sea breeze.