["You seem awfully calm considering everything that's happening."]
["Oh don't let me fool you, I am absolutely livid."] Vasa said, calm and happy as he took his seat across from Florian. The same one he'd sat in when he'd talked to Lord Boykov.
The two of them sat in an awkward quiet, the scared city stretching out below them. Looking at it now, like this, there was no way Florian could call it home. For himself or anyone. It was just another battlefield now, the ground that soldiers trampled underfoot with no care for what it might have once been. At least the sight let him distract himself from his father's unblinking eyes. Or the bloody bullet hole in the couch he was sitting on.
Vasa was the first to test the waters. ["I'll be honest. I have no idea where to start with this."]
["I find just diving in is the easiest way. Just go for whatever's furthest at the front of your mind."] Florian looked up, saying it in an uncharacteristically Lilithish tone. Luckily he'd gotten his share of this conversation over the past few days. The experience was standing him in good stead.
["Why?"] Vasa said after some thought. ["I have... so many questions. How this happened, why it happened... where have you been for so long?"] The coldness was starting to drain from him now. They were alone, he could let his guard down, just a little.
["Which one would you like me to answer first?"] Florian sat up properly, crossing his arms. His guard was up as high as it would go.
["I still can't bring myself to believe it."] Vasa stared into the middle distance. ["Tell me, please tell me you were taken, that something horrible and vast snatched you up. That this is something just beyond my understanding and you've come back to make it all clear."] He almost seemed to be begging.
["I'm not going to do that."] Florian said flatly, not leaving a pause where his Father left off.
["No I didn't think so."] Vasa matched him perfectly.
["I guess I should start from the beginning."] Florian sighed. It was only right that he go first. ["Can you promise not to interrupt me?"]
Vasa nodded and with a push Florian got to recapping his reasons for leaving. It went better than it did when he told Erik, no one was drunk and no one got decked. He'd been through this enough times and was given enough space to actually explain himself properly and do it in a clear and eloquent manner. And Vasa listened in silence, even after Florian was done he was silent, just letting it all sink in. It was quite the task but he felt he was up to it. Meanwhile, Florian was left to stew in his capture until he stepped up to take his turn in the questioners chair.
["So can I ask, why did you let this happen?"] He held his hand up to the window, motioning to the battered buildings. ["Carrying on where we left off, that I get, speeding things up... ugh, understandable but this... this chaos, it was never part of the plan. You've sat back and let them run rampant. Letting the family tear itself and everyone standing too close apart. There's no future in this, there's no logic or reason to it, there's just one dragged out bloodbath after another."] Florian knew his father wasn't a stupid man, hell, you didn't even have to be a smart man to see this. IT just didn't make sense to him. Everything he'd known Vasa to do served a purpose, however small, everything had its purpose.
["What did you expect from me, Florian?"] Vasa laughed bitterly. ["I'd lost you... and Anna soon after. All this time, boy, you think this was for me? You think I'd bother to topple a regime just so I could struggle to climb the ruins with my hobble and wear my cane down to the handle? This was never for me and this was never meant to be
my war! It was for you and your mother, all of it was for my family!"] He was getting angrier now, more indignant.
["Don't you dare use her, don't you DARE try and hide behind her now!"]
["You are in no position to play Anna's champion, not after you left her when she needed you most. All the life left her when she heard you died. Her only child sent back to the ash, forced to watch you burn. Say what you will about me but I swore I'd do better by you than my father did by me, that I would act selflessly as any parent should."]
["You turned half a city into your own weapon for selfless reasons?"] Florian sneered cynically.
["I did it to return those I loved to where they deserved to be... to where those that claimed our power for themselves said they could never go."] He took a deep breath. ["I never expected to see the end, Florian. To live to see what you would make of your birthright. Honestly, I never thought we would be capable of something like this!"] Vasa laughed a little at that, at his little personal joke. ["But the world looked at me and expected me to take my revenge and I'd be lying if I said I didn't want it. So here I ended up, with no one left to fight and no one to fight for. Looking down my final years alone and getting passed by by younger, hungrier fuckwits of a generation. So let them fight over the ruins I said! What do I care? I Wanted to see the world around me burn, lets see how much I can fan the flames. I was leaving a legacy of war anyway. What reason did I have to keep going but just for the sake of it?"]
Florian didn't know what to say to that. Vasa's tone and his meaning was all too clear, that his was his fault, that htis wouldn't have happened if he'd stayed. He knew it. He'd known it for a long time and like his father, he'd have to live with it. ["Guess that didn't work out?"] Florian finally offered.
["No you've made me feel quite silly there."] Vasa countered snarkily. After a while they had to start again. ["I take it you aren't here to claim your place among the family then, given all you've done?"]
["I'm not the only one. A lot of people aren't happy about the way things of gone and they're looking to see a real change."] Florian said sadly. ["I'm just here to speak on their behalf."]
["Yes, I know."]
He knew? Well of course he did, he'd taken Irena after all. Hopefully that was as far as his knowledge went. ["This doesn't have to end in violence. Not again."] Florian offered, taking on his old priestly duties one more time.
There was a knock at the door and Sergei let himself in as Vasa turned back to see him. ["I'm afraid it's too late for that, Florian."]
["What are you talking about?"] Florian asked as he saw the long strip of red fabric and a panic came upon him. No, it couldn't be. No.
["I know you were fond of her, son."] Vasa looked back to him solemnly. ["But she wronged us, personally and posed a threat to everything. We couldn't let her bring any more outsiders into this, you know that."] He would have sounded soothing if everything wasn't making Florian sick to his stomach.
["Shame to waste a piece of ass like that."] Sergei quipped. He started saying something else too but Florian didn't hear him, it took all he had to keep looking as the scarf was passed over and he saw the blood stained white heart.
This couldn't be happening. This wasn't true. She couldn't die, not like this, not to someone like him. There was noise going on around him. He still didn't hear it. Vasa tried to say something too but he was interrupted as Florian sped passed him and hit Sergei like a speeding crawler, falling on him like a madman and raining blows down on him. Florian may not have realised it yet but he was screaming like an animal.
["Guards! Can you please take my son to his room until he calms himself down?!"]
Armed men ran in quickly and tried their best to drag Florian off of Sergei who started crawling away in surprise, clutching at the bloody mess of his face. ["What the fuck kid?!"] He snarled as he spat out blood and what looked to be part of a tooth.
Florian wasn't listening. He'd given into the red mist as he struggled against the gathering of men that were struggling to hold him back, lashing out at them in a wild attempt to get free. ["You're a dead man, you hear me?
YOU'RE A FUCKING DEAD MAN!!!"] It was the last coherent thing he said as something heavy hit him between the shoulder blades and he was brought to his knees.
