reamer watching social media videos where the public’s voicing their disapproval of Reamer and are starting to question the system. Videos of Scra speaking at the rally also pop up with tags like “The crow king?” “dropping facts tho”
Keelee looks over at him from coloring.
KL: My brother says those things are bad for your brain.
R: Your brother’s probably right. (puts phone in pocket) I need to leave for a bit, will you try to escape?
KL: You said we’re far away from everything.
R: We are, so don’t try it otherwise you’ll get stuck in a canyon and no one will find you. All the doors and windows are locked, anyway. Change your clothes while I’m gone, you’ve been wearing that shirt too long.
(R leaves, KL looks down at the O-pinions shirt and mutters “I can’t…It’s Ky’s favorite band.”)
Reamer flies to the director’s house. Charlee greets him at the door.
R: Where’s my Grandmother?
C: (cringes) Asleep in the guest wing, Young Master
R: Good. Don’t tell her I was here if she wakes.
R strides to the Director’s office, but she’s not there. Looks in the greenhouse, not there. Confused, he goes to her room where he knocks tentatively.
Director: Come in, Reamer.
R: (enters) I suppose I’m surprised…I assumed you slept in your office, I think.
D: I don’t sleep anywhere, at the moment.
R: Something we have in common, finally.
D: There are more things than that, surely.
R: Our ambition, perhaps.
D: Our predelection for being controlled by others, definitely.
R: (scoffs) Neither of us have been controlled for a while now, Mother.
D: Don’t you crave it, though? To not have to plot and scheme just to maintain your place?
R: Is that why you’ve allowed Grandmother to return and seize your position?
D: I’ve never allowed my mother to do anything. Not stopping the Doves from locking her away was the greatest act of defiance against her I’ve ever committed.
R: And now she’s back, and the Anniversary Event is tonight, and the entire Island is primed for war.
D: I expected no less from her return.
R: This is serious, Mother.
D: Oh of that I am well aware. So that’s it then, you’ve come to ask me what to do about it? Because you didn’t account for the ambitions of others in your plans and now they’ve all gone awry?
R: I can always attempt to predict their actions, just as they’re able to change them at a moment’s notice. Every idea would be executed flawlessly if it weren’t for all the things I can’t account for.
D: And that’s just the way of it. What is it you need from me? I’m far from being able to fix everything with a few stern looks and threats anymore, I’m afraid. From the reaction to your little speech, we Eagles are not long for this perch on top. What did that Dove whisper to you that scared you so badly you changed your entire tactic?
R: (flashbacks to walking, altimeter in his ear) Blackmail. He knows about Keelee. He has informants on Avarie, siphoning information back to him. He showed me a picture of her exiting my car that very evening - I hadn’t even realized she was there, but I caught a glimpse of a child running away as I arrived at the hotel for the conference…so I couldn’t be sure he was just bluffing. He told me right as I was walking to the podium, then stood behind me as I made the speech. I didn’t have time to think of a plan to get me out of it. Get us out of it.
D: (laughs humorlessly) That Altimeter’s so unimaginative. He’s blackmailed both of us with the same threat. It’s the reason I had Cyras bring her to me - I needed her close, so the Doves couldn’t use her to undermine our entire dynasty. The scandal of my husband leaving me for another Species, and to govern a country this government insisted was destroyed, was not something we would have survived. Another aspect we are similar in, then.
R: if she was so detrimental to our power, why didn’t you help when I was looking for her?
D: Please, I knew you weren’t trying to find her, you were just using that as an excuse as to why you were working so diligently. And I did not want you to find her anyway, I wanted her gone. The Altimeter suspected I was keeping her here, it’s why he kept showing up for meetings and dinners he was not invited to. He wanted me to know that he knew. He was watching our every move, and I needed a way for the girl to leave that he couldn’t trace. Your ex-fiancee and the Murder Boss provided that for me. I had thought that keeping her close would be the safest option, and her grandfather agreed, but she was always better off far away from all of this. Although it sounds like she’s made her way back, after all.
R: Looking for that brother of hers. The loyalty between the two is…irritating.
D: Admirable, you mean. I did always lament that you were an only child…but of course your father gave me no say in the matter, leaving as he did.
R: why did you…allow him to leave? If it was something that was going to put our power in jeopardy?
D: Sometimes, I think, you can do everything you can think of to try to stop someone from doing something you don’t want them to do…and they still do it anyway. Just as it’s always a choice to do as we’re told. Blackmail and influence can sway us from one decision to another, but the decision is ultimately ours, in the end. The regret that comes from deciding to take the wrong path is ours, too.
R: You…regret not going with him?
D: [looks at him] every day.
R: But you would have had a Council to answer to, you would’ve been controlled -
D: We will always be controlled by something - someone more powerful, our emotions, those we love. We will never be free from it. And we shouldn't be. without the things that tie us to the ground, we are set adrift. The only power we have in this life is choosing what it is we let control us.
R: [looks away from her, at her desk. Her jacket with the pin showing is draped over the chair. A letter {the one from perig] is on the desk, with the crumpled photo of his dad] tell me what the pin means
D: i know you've been visiting the murder boss in the prison - it’s gotten you curious, hasn't it?
R: It’s the same one on his neck. I’ve combed the archives, but only found it linked to Ash Guard…?
D: It was theirs first, yes. Until your great grandmother took it for her own. It’s a symbol of peace, bastardized by generations of betrayal, now standing as the mark of a King-killer.
R: And the brand of our rule.
D: Yes.
R: Why not drop it, when Grandmother was locked away?
D: Because I have always lived in her shadow and known nothing else, and so she’s one of my weaknesses. She had always prepped me for rule - she let me in, so I understood her justifications for it all, and it made me unable to see the faults when I should have, and ignore them when I did.
R:...You never let me in. You always kept me on the outside of it all, struggling.
D: If we were to get out of this, I needed you to remain objective. Skeptical, when it was called for. What use would you have been if you followed me blindly, reaping the rewards of the system and unable to foresee and stop the problems that arose from it. I needed you to be better than me. Stronger. More empathetic…or at least capable of seeing injustice. Capable of stopping the disgusting things I had let go on for too long.
R: You’ve wanted me to be my own man, but have orchestrated the entire fabrication of who I am, anyway?
D: [sadly] that’s what parents do, Son. Whether they know it or not.
R: You left those pictures of the Dove experiments on your desk for me to find as a child, didn’t you?
D: Does knowing that make you abhor them any less? It’s still true, what they’re doing. I needed you to see it, but only you could decide how you felt about what you saw. It served another purpose, though. I needed you to know that those at the top of the hierarchy were fallible, and start questioning what you were being taught, and therefore wonder if those at the bottom were really so different. I needn’t have worried in that regard though - You knew Eagles were not perfect, because you saw the imperfections in yourself.
R: You kept Keelee here, instead of hiding her somewhere the Altimeter couldn’t find her, in the hopes that I would see her, didn’t you? what was that - a test of how far my prejudice ran, or my loyalty to you and this family?
D: I am glad you two met. There are more Hybrids out there than we have allowed the public to believe, and if we can get them to be accepted by the population, the Altimeter can no longer use her against us. It is a shame she is lost, or we could use her to appear more…sympathetic, to the public.
R: why not just change the laws yourself? You have the power to do so!
D: your power is what people decide to give you, not what you are able to take. That is the mark of a true leader, and that loyalty is more devastating than any weapon.
[charless comes in with bfast on a platter]
C: Breakfast, Ma’am. All your favorites.
D: I trust you to make the right decisions, Reamer. And do what I cannot.
[Charlee in the kitchen, putting the bowls away. There’s a bottle of pill capsules on the side. Reamer picks them up, appearing from the shadow]
R: You’re working for him, aren’t you? No act of conscience alone could make my mother so forthcoming.
C: [pulls a gun from her skirts and aims it at him] You won’t be able to take me.
R: Oh, I don’t want to arrest you. I want you to send the one who’s got you drugging my mother a message. Tell Lars I want to meet. Tell him there’s someone I need him to bring with him, too.
Ep 300! Phew! I never thought we'd be here tbh, but I wanted to make this ep extra special and get some longtime questions answered, and give a lil peek into the Director's life too. Also have a Cyras backstory ep coming up y'all can brace yourselves for!