A/N: Prompts used in this chapter: brainy, adaptable, pull, pricey
shadow spirit
10
The children he lost to the malbeast are still gone. He realises that, before he quite realises he's been whisked away, near-senseless, by Rem.
He wakes in Crusch's castle, with Felix over him. 'Your back,' he muses, 'but you smell worse than when you left.'
The witch's miasma, of course. But the time, in which Felix says he left and returned, was filled with many unspeakable things.
'I'm sorry,' Subaru returns. 'I forgot… but now, I may have to do some unsightly things to make sure it doesn't happen again.'
He tilts his head, and no wonder; the words sound nonsensical to even him… and yet they tell the truth. He's powerless to stop a problem of that scale… or problems, really. Too many problems for him to handle, and it's a miracle he managed to handle the malbeasts at all.
But at least now he knows. Except it doesn't do any good at all. He goes to Priscilla because she's helped him before (and Crusch, who hosts them, is the last boat he wants to rock) but she's quick to toss him out.
His dedication to Emilia is more than a slobbering dog to their master, he knows. But the words hurt anyway. And he can't afford mistakes and lost chances much more because there's two big enemies waiting on the road. He needs to do better. His question to Crusch isn't "can you lend me your power to save Emilia" but rather "how can I ask for someone's power?" and she laughs.
She laughs, but she gives him the address to a bar and tells him a master negotiator will be there.
So he goes, and there is Anastasia Hoshin, and he does learn a little. He learns how it feels to be strung along by words and how he's said too much and only realised it too late. 'You're desperate,' she finishes, as she stands to leave. 'It's an ugly look, and I don't know why Julius thought he could educate you.'
Julius… His heart still rages but Rem calms him and even Reinhard said that Julius had been harsh, but not wrong. It is Subaru who is wrong, then. Charging ahead without thinking. Storming along with pride when he has nothing to base it on. Thinking Emilia will understand and keep him at her side without a worry because he's saved her, when she doesn't know his limits are so different now from hers…
And, in that moment, he wonders why Puck doesn't bestow this sort of immortality on her after all.
Is it the witch's favour, the witch's scent upon Subaru that allows him to do so?
Is it even still there, or does removing it restore things back to the way they were?
He was arrogant. Arrogant and proud and powerless because he'd lost sight of what he had and what he didn't and he still doesn't know what he has.
Remi is there, though. Just like Puck and Priscilla and Anastasia can tell him what he lacks, Rem can tell him what he has.