The box, covered in deep metallic black, twists and shimmers as if its couturier is a weaver from the night sky. A simple, thin gold string wraps once around its length before turning to its width. If one were to rattle the box, a short but comparatively deep shape, gives a dull fuss. Once opened up, it reveals in its belly a treasure like that swallowed by a sea monster: a thick onyx ring set by the curling figure of a shining gold dragon. Elaborate carvings decorate the black sides, adored by the sleeping figure of a doe and on the other side, a lion. It looks as heavy as it feels. And on the perfumed stationary folded delicately inside the box, is the note: Captain, I had meant to give this to you some time ago. For all the treasures you have captured, I felt you deserved one given in good faith. It belonged to my father, and has significant meaning to my family. As I am no son, there is no one it rightly passes to, so I have made my decision as to where it should lay. Should you ever find yourself in grave trouble with the Alliance, present this. Perhaps it will allow you to see another day the way you once did for me.
For a day that demands truths, I’m sorry I can only give you half of mine. – With heart, K.
when he first opens the box and looks at its contents, he’s amazed, surprised, flabbergasted, estranged. he doesn’t usually receive gifts, hardly ever acquires treasure he doesn’t have to steal or slip away from someone else. not that he’s never been gifted something before, but those moments are so far apart with so much space in between, he can count the number of them on one hand, each time leaving him breathless, alighted from the inside out, his bones shimmering white inside his chest, the rough coarseness of his lungs uncertain how to react, uncertain how to respond. he was raised with closed fists, claws for fingers, fangs for teeth, grasping at anything he could reach and bringing it inside himself as fiercely, as desperate as possible. before it would inevitably leave him.
so this, a ring, something small and beautiful tucked against its bed in a box, actually renders him speechless, full of white noise for a moment, the cacophony of his life held in suspended awe. he picks up the trinket, turns it this way and that, admires it, imagines wearing it, imagines walking with it. it’d match most of his wardrobe, such as it is, and he already worries he won’t have enough words to bestow on kamora when he sees her next, when he has to thank her.
but then he reads the note, the last few lines of her letter, “to the alliance, present this,” and suddenly everything tumbles down around his ears like a house of blocks, brick and mortar crumbling to his feet like the thousands of dead bodies he’d waded through on battlefields she could never understand, could never fathom. the white noise gives way to catastrophe, horror burning around him, the ghosts screaming in his ears, begging him to save them, begging him to kill them already.
to the alliance, present this. if ever he’s in danger with the government, he ought to simply reveal this ring, and everything will be better? a flash of this onyx and suddenly he won’t be a universally-wanted criminal? what is that supposed to mean— this ring has meaning to the alliance? this ring gives him a new identity, erases the one he’s spent his entire life building? this ring acts as some sort of protect spell around him, some sort of force field? does it make him an operative of the alliance? does it make him her brother, if it’s supposed to be given to a member of her family? rewrite his history from the dredges of valluria, paint him pretty, paint him soft, paint him sihnon-born, raised like a flower in a garden?
does she think he wants this?
all at once, his good mood for yue lao’s string disintegrates in the wildfire that blazes through him, his skin incinerating into flames, his eyes shifting back into twin suns, and he snaps the box shut, storms out of the room like a fury. he reaches her shuttle and slams the door open, breath burning through his nostrils, fingers reverted back into cages, and he doesn’t care that she has a client standing in the room with her, he doesn’t care about her shocked, upset expression, the silk of her wrinkled, the dove of her unsettled. he strides up to her, face full of shadows and ill-intent, teeth clenched tightly together, lips pulled back in a feral snarl.
he’s never been so angry with her. she’s never seen him darkened this way before, not directed at her. he grabs her hand and shoves the box against her palm, yanking her roughly, close enough to imbue his words with enough force to make mountains fall.
“i spent four years of my life murdering your precious overlords, the great, indomitable alliance, four years drenched in more blood than you have in your entire body, more blood than you’ve ever seen, ever even dreamed about! you think i want to wear something they’d recognize, something they’d value?! you think i want your influential family’s protection, kamora?!” he pauses a moment, explosions in serenity valley echoing eternally around him. “you think i want to survive capture?! you think i wouldn’t rather just fucking die?!”
he turns from her, leaves her, rips the two of them apart, black boots thundering against the grazed metal, his heart on fire, his bones ringing, his own self-destruction already woven into the tapestry of his future. “then you’re not paying enough attention.”
