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[sunmon]

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[sunmon]

you seem to believe it's different enough to avoid

[morozova]

Apologizing for the collar would be a lie.

( an acknowledgement of his fault is about as much as she can expect here. at the end of the day, ravka will always come first. the grisha will always come first. )

What happened in the studio, though.
I don't understand it, but that hardly excuses it.
For that, I am sorry and will accept whatever punishment you deem necessary.

[sunmon]

youre already being punished.

[ the apartment. she rubs at her eyes. does she really want to delight in being cruel to him? ]

what do you mean you don't understand it?

[morozova]

I have endured far worse than what you did.
It made me angry, certainly, but not to the extent as that. Everything felt magnified.

[sunmon]

i told you.
we make each other worse.

[morozova]

I think it's the nature of opposites to push against each other, Alina.
This was different.
Do I strike you as someone to do something so reckless, especially when I am very angry?

[sunmon]

what do you expect me to say?
that you're too SMART to attack me?

[ well, he is. she'd told andy and jess as much. yet she feels uneasy about it now. both because it means no matter what he says on the subject, it could happen again — and because it makes her anger muddy. just as andy had said it would. ]

[morozova]

You don't have to answer me.
I know you know the answer.

The point is, I shouldn't have done it.
And I did.
And I don't know how to fix it.

[sunmon]

you miss washing my dishes that much?

[morozova]

Not especially.
But as I told Mr. Crais, if I must bend the knee to someone let it be to someone that matters.

[sunmon]

and when it was baghra asking you for forgiveness, what mercy did you show her?

[morozova]

Baghra has never asked for forgiveness a day in her life.
She would tell you as much herself if she were here.

[sunmon]

would that have made a difference, if she were?
if she had humbled herself, would you really have shown her mercy?

[morozova]

I don't think Baghra is capable of humility.

[sunmon]

you're avoiding the point.
which i guess means you know that i'm right.
you don't have it in you to forgive anyone. how can you ask it of me?

[morozova]

Because you're better than I am.

[sunmon]

i was better.
before you got your claws in me.

[morozova]

Is that the truth or are you afraid that you might be more than Alina the mouse, after all?

[sunmon]

i've never been a mouse.
but i was never cruel, either.

[morozova]

Sadly that is the cost of leadership: ugly hard choices that whittle away at you.

[sunmon]

i never asked to lead.

[ a lie. she realizes it as soon as she sends it. she had demanded the king make her leader of the second army. she scrubs her hands over her face. ]

not until i had to deal with you.
if there's no leadership without cruelty maybe i don't want to lead at all.

[morozova]

None of us do.
The Old King didn't ask my feelings on the matter, either, when he had me form the Second Army.
But I made it mine.

[sunmon]

you made the grisha your tools.
and you became a monster.
i don't want that.

[ she'd been so lonely. so isolated. that's how the tether kept snapping between them. she was calling out to him, drawing him to her. she can feel it trying to do the same now. ]

i don't want to be like you.

[morozova]

Given the alternative that awaited many of them, they were all too happy to make that decision.
You've only ever known Ravka, Alina. And a relatively tame one to what it once was precisely because of the Grisha that trusted me to make the choices that would give them a life other than fear.

So, yes, perhaps I am a monster.
But a man would never have been able to do what I have done. And I will have to shoulder the weight of that for as long as I live.

[sunmon]

and a man would never be able to stop you either.
that's how you're making one of me, too.

[ can he shoulder that weight? ]

i don't know how to forgive you for what you've done.