ree is getting dressed in the room she shares with farrah. farrah enters and takes her shirt off to change, not looking at Ree.
R: When’s the last time you slept? At least before we shared a bed so I could make sure you did, but now I never see you unless it’s on business.
F: if you wanted me to come to bed, you just had to say so. (approaches her, ree raises an eyebrow)
R: Oh? that’s all it takes? (wraps arms around her)
F: Why not? We’re about to go into battle, and life is short, you know.
R: (fingers on her back still) Ah. So this is just an in case we die hook-up.
F: I mean, we don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t want to die with regrets.
R: I would be a regret?
F: I would regret what happened between us. I’d rather remember a good thing.
R: [steps away] And when we win? You’ll be able to put all the bad things behind us and move on, when it’s over?
F: If we win then the work’s just beginning. But I’ll be sure to still come to bed sometimes -
R: and you’ll just keep working, and i’ll keep waiting for you in the hopes you’ll come home that evening, living on the scraps of affection you throw at me, while so ridden with guilt I feel like I have to tiptoe around every conversation for fear of reminding you of how horrible I was to you, bottling my own emotions because they’re not as important as yours because you’re the hurt one.
F: What are you talking about? of course you won’t have to - ive just got people that need me, I’ve got to -
R: I needed you, and you didn’t even tell me if you were alive or not. You left me, and I get it was because you were bullied at the roost, but you didnt tell me it was happening, and you didnt give me a proper chance at helping you through it. You left me a note saying not to follow you, so i didnt. we came to this island because you wanted to find the missing royal, so i followed you. we enrolled at the roost because you said it would be a good way of assimilating and working our way into high-clearance jobs to gather more info, so i followed you. then you told me not to follow you, and i was left stranded. I know I fucked up, and i know a lot of what happened was my fault, but at what point do i stop paying for it? i love you, and i love how driven you are, but i’m never going to mean more to you than your work does. which is fine, your works important and is gonna help so many people have a better life, but maybe i want a better life too.
F: You don’t understand - you don’t understand what’s at stake -
R: If I don’t understand something, it’s because you never fill me in.
[leaves farrah standing in their room, shocked. a tear runs down her cheek.]
[Ky approaches the cell holding his gfather. gfather looks up]
GF: Well? Did he do it?
K: Did my father use me to escape, then pull a gun on me so I’d let him go? He told you he was going to, didn’t he. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have stopped him.
GF: Would you have listened? Would you have wanted to hear it? It was the first conviction he has shown in his life, I suppose I was curious to see if he would go through with it.
K: …He told me something, before he left. You told him to steal Keelee and bring her here, didn’t you?
GF: You thought he could make such a decision by himself?
K: He made the choice to escape here and pulled it off, didn’t he? He also told me you were…involved in things. Things I couldn't imagine. Tell me what they were, so they don’t get in the way of anything going forward. I need to know, so I can plan.
GF: Export. From this island to Avarie.
K: Export of what, exactly?
GF: Technology. Medicine. Whatever people could pay for.
K: You came all the way here to start an illegal trade ring?
GF: No, I heard my bondmate was still alive, so I came to find her.
K: And when the Director discovered her mother’s first husband had returned, she just put you in charge of her imprisonment? For what, some sick kind of power play?
GF: For access, and opportunity. I was able to smuggle her out during your little prison break fiasco. The backup generators were always on standby should the grid lose power, but I found you cutting the lights a good excuse to get her out, as well as ensure we capture an important figurehead in return.
K: You knew Cyras would be there?
GF: I had been advised to apprehend him at any opportunity, should it arise. That cousin of yours has quite the head on him.
K: Reamer sure likes to think he does, anyway. You tried to get Father involved with your little side business? Why did you even start it in the first place?
GF: Because Avarie was too behind…and because our house has not been as prosperous as it once was in generations now. Your father did not have the required acumen for the business, and therefore proved useless to me again.
K: We’re…running out of money? But I was at Dockside recently, and everything seems fine -
GF: It functions on a skeleton crew when no one occupies it. The vaults were near empty, when I commenced acquiring things of worth for other noble houses. Many felt it only a matter of time before Kooup made another attempt for domination, and did not fancy the idea of standing by, defenceless, allowing them to do as they wished.
K: You’ve been selling them weapons too, then.
GF: Weapons you will be grateful for now, as I hear it.
K: …Father was right about that too, then. Mother would never have let us go, unless us being gone served her own purpose. She told him to take Keelee, didn’t she? And when that didn’t work, she decided to use Scra as bait instead. For what - a reason to break the treaty? To link the two nations back again?
GF: No, grandson. To invade.
K: [devastated that his family is like this] That's why you said I'd regret it, if I took Father with me? He knows too much about what’s happening with the Resistance so will just run straight back to Mother and tell her everything?
GF: No, I don’t think there’s much danger of that, their resentment for each other still runs deep. I said you would regret it because I know, to some extent, you still care for him, and it’s what he said he was going to do with that gun afterwards that I think you’ll regret.
(Scra and Ky sitting on a bed in their room.)
S: So it was all just their plan? Use Keelee as bait as an excuse to invade this Island? And when that didn’t work, use me? For what? As a way for your family to regain their wealth?
K: Something like that. Mother is the Cardinal, but Redguard aren’t much liked nowadays, and it sounds like her and Grandfather were trying to make a play to rule Kooup or something, y’know - to gain more status or something. Grandfather lives for the glory of his war days, and I reckon he’s started to miss them. It would never have worked regardless, they’d never get passed Reamer.
S: And…your dad told him he’s going off to…
K: Stop my grandfather’s sick little experiment once and for all…I can’t remember how old I was when I realised dad was fallible. Maybe when he came home drunk for the 100th time and smashed one of my school awards. Maybe when he locked me in my chambers and told me he forgot to tell the maids to feed me for 3 days. he wasn’t a good father, or a good person, but it’s strange to think that he’d just…give up like that. And it’s worse to think that, most likely, our lives will just go on as normal without him. I called him a coward, the last time I saw him. And he was one. But to just end it all without even trying to do something brave first just seems…like such a waste. We only have this one, short life we’re given. If you don’t like something about it, why not just do your best to try to change it first? You’ve literally got nothing to lose if the other option is just…nothing.
[scra sits there, holding his hand. Ky gets up, looking back at scra before leaving]
K: We’ve been called for a meeting, come o -
[Lars whispers in his ear, like he did at the start of the comic] L: I’ve got a gift for you -
[instead of shivering, Ky grabs him by the neck and slams him into the wall] Speak, sneak.
[Lars smiles, holding up the picture of KL exiting Reamers car at the hotel] L: How do you feel about a family reunion?
Lots of sad things in this one :))) I felt like Ree did need a moment of realising she was grovelling and trying to placate someone who had moved on and would never forgive her or love her back the way she used to, and to decide whether that was how she wanted to live the rest of her life or not. The guilt will always be there, but when does the punishment for it stop? Should she let it stop? Should she grovel forever? Who knows!