A/N: This was supposed to be just a stray thought about how Griffin felt after the whole happenstance but alas, here we are with another chapter instead.
Oritel didn't speak to her. Not even when she used her magic to heal the small cut on his throat. She didn't really have the desire to approach him at all and would've let Marion do it, but she didn't want to risk an infection. It would make her interference pointless and she had trouble not regretting it already, grasping at the thought of Daphne and Marion and the baby she was carrying to avoid letting anything else in her head. It would be the death of her to think about what had brought on the dead silence that neither her, nor Oritel had any desire to break despite the fact that she could almost hear the war in his head mirroring the one in her own.
The ship landed on Domino and they prepared to get off. She let Oritel go before her as she didn't want to feel his gaze on her. Not that he seemed very present currently, the look in his eyes rather unfocused as he no doubt tried to put some order in his thoughts and make sense of what had happened when there was none. It was all emotions that had ruled them that day and the consequences had been nearly catastrophic... for them. She hoped that at least that would make him stop questioning Valtor's humanity. Though, what did it matter if he died for sparing Oritel's life?
She tried to push the thought away–they wouldn't kill him, they needed him so they would instead make him regret he was still living–but it was too late. And the sight of Marion and Faragonda waiting for her and Oritel instead of Valtor greeting after a successful mission cut through her composure as if it was the blade of the sword he'd abandoned on the battlefield. She'd wished to take it, to touch her fingers to where his had been and feel what little of him she could get nowadays, but she'd made herself leave it. He could need it, could decide to go back and get it, and she couldn't allow herself to take any more from him. She'd taken enough when she'd run away and pulled all the safety and comfort he'd found in her embrace out of his reach. His sword was the only thing left to protect him other than his fire that she'd also weakened by taking her magic away, the thing that complemented it, and it had never worked against his mothers anyway.
"Oritel," Marion called his name with relief before throwing herself in his arms and he held on to her but somewhat distractedly, as if he couldn't remember how to move his muscles that had failed him during the battle with Valtor. Yet, even that couldn't help soothe the burning agony inside her because Valtor wasn't there to do the same with her. He could no longer hug her thanks to her betrayal, yet he'd chosen to protect her despite knowing the consequences. He loved her and she loved him so why wasn't she with him? Why wasn't she in his embrace and whispering soothing things to him to help him deal with everything thrown their way? Why had she left him for a world that had never wanted either one of them?
"Griffin," Faragonda called out to her, still a good distance away and expecting her to walk over to her. It should've been Valtor waiting for her and calling her name, but that was lost to them and she only had Faragonda now. Nothing else. She'd left everything else behind. She'd left him alone.
Griffin felt the longing and rage filling her heart and pushing to make it burst out of her chest and go back to where it belonged. And she couldn't hold it in on her own. She needed help.
She ran into Faragonda's arms, almost tackling her to the ground in her haste, and she pressed into her, hoping the even rhythm of Faragonda's heart would help hers calm down and her chest pressed against hers would keep it in place and prevent her from losing it just like she'd lost Valtor.
The thought was too painful with the potential it carried to come true in the literal meaning and she couldn't take the pain of that blade running through her being. "They're going to hurt him," she sobbed out, the anguish spilling both from her eyes and her mouth as she held on to Faragonda, trying not to get lost in it herself. It wouldn't help her help him but she didn't know how to get through it. She didn't even know if Faragonda could help her and that just terrified her all the more, for the fairy had always been the one sure thing in her life providing security.
"What?" Faragonda asked, her voice quiet but the confusion and the helplessness it dragged out of her where very distinctive, poking at Griffin like the Ancestral Witches had poked at her with their punishments and words. And she hadn't even had it bad compared to him, yet the thought of returning at that place where they'd hurt her had her shaking. And the thought of him being there right now would've had her screaming but she had no strength left, all of it forced painfully out of her by the terror wrapped around her in place of his arms. It was only Faragonda's warmth keeping her grounded but even that had limited effect when she could still feel the cold of Belladonna's magic and she knew he would have to go through it because of her. Because he still loved her. Even after what she'd done to them.
"They're going to hurt him," she sniffled out, her voice so weak and pathetic, just like she felt compared to them. Just like she knew they'd make him feel for his failure. And the knowledge only weakened her more, like no other knowledge had ever done to her before. But they were like that, tearing apart everything they touched. And there was no one to keep them from laying their hands on him. He was just their property and she'd abandoned him to that terrible fate. She couldn't understand how he loved her still. It would've definitely made things easier for him if he didn't and she knew it. Yet her heart jumped in protest at the thought like it hadn't even done when she'd left him behind. She was selfish, but not enough to have stayed with him, and the awareness of her own strength that had come out in the wrong moment would cut her into a million pieces if not for Faragonda's arms around her and grounding her in the present. But the past was doomed, all sliced through and bleeding by her own hand. Why had she been so cruel to them? Why had she let the world make her hurt them?
"Oritel, what's going on?" Marion's voice startled her with the alarm it carried and all the pieces of the present it pushed in the empty spaces in her mind. She was pregnant and they all had to be careful not to stress her. They had to keep things like that away from her, had to protect her and the baby from pain. And Griffin wanted to scream at them and at herself because they were failing. They were failing to protect her and the life inside her even after Valtor had paid the price, and they couldn't allow themselves a waste like that. It was a crime.
"Oritel," Faragonda's voice was the one slicing through the atmosphere this time and keeping her from sinking too deep into the thoughts and drowning in their burning agony. "What happened?" she asked, her tone sharp like the negative energy making up her aura at the moment. She was worried like Griffin hadn't felt her be recently and it was all starting to spill, control slipping through her fingers as well, proving it was far more elusive than they would've liked it to be if it was escaping from Faragonda too and Griffin held on to her tighter, hoping to keep her into her reasonable state. She didn't need someone else–Faragonda of all people–paying for their love for her. It would be too much to know she could turn even love into a weapon. What kind of monster would that make her?
"I..." Oritel sounded like he needed someone to finish what Valtor had started and slice his throat open so that he could breathe. "I lost the battle against Valtor," his quiet voice was almost lost in the gasp that tore away from Marion and crashed into Griffin as hard as the knowledge of what Valtor had to go through, for they were piling burden on top of her too when they weren't supposed to. "He was going to kill me," Oritel sounded like he was in a trance, like what he'd seen had been a vision and Griffin was almost praying for all of this to turn out to be a trick of Lysslis'. It would be easier to accept the invasion of her head than that of her heart. "But when he saw Griffin... he left," Oritel said, the disbelief in his voice almost giving Griffin the strength to turn around and punch him for having the audacity to still doubt Valtor's feelings for her but the thought of those and the reminder of what they would cost him took all of her energy away again, leaving her leaning on Faragonda heavily for the support she couldn't find anywhere else. "He didn't even take what he'd come for," Oritel said, forcing a cry out of her that got lost in the endless open space around. The endless space between her and Valtor that neither of them could cross to have the other in their arms again.
"Griffin," Faragonda said and her hand tangled in her hair as gentle as the understanding laced in her tone now that she knew. She knew what Griffin was going through and she was offering sympathy because there wasn't anything else she could give. But that was more than Griffin could give Valtor after she'd chosen to leave him.
She sobbed between heaving breaths when she needed to stop. She had to, had to get herself under control, had to be her logical self and accept there was nothing for her to do. She had to stop because of Marion, because of the baby. Them at least she could protect despite her conflicting loyalties. And she could stop the three monsters if she found the strength to keep fighting against them even when it meant fighting against him. It was a choice she had to make when he was choosing to stay with them. Because he was. She'd been selfish and chosen to run away from him to save her conscience. And he was selfish, choosing to stay with them to protect his pride. He'd laid down his sword to avoid hurting her but he refused to surrender and join her on the side of light, refused to admit he'd been wrong by serving his mothers, refused to admit he needed to be saved from them because he was nothing more than a weapon they could yield. And his stubbornness was the only thing that could hurt her as badly as they were hurting him when he refused to choose her no matter how much she knew he wanted her.