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text; un: koby

[kobes]

[Somewhere in the middle of the malaise of loss and grief, Alicent's presence blooms: green, of course, in the midst of winter. Still, he hesitates for a long, long moment before:]

You're back. Are you?

[unapparent]

[ on the second day of being herself once more: ]

I am.
Did I see you before?

[kobes]

[There's a pause.]

Before?
I don't understand.

[unapparent]

I wasn’t myself, when I first came back.
I’m not sure what I was.

I hurt many people I care for, sweetling. It’s a relief you were not among them.

[kobes]

When you first came back?

[There's a pause, then, as Koby puts the pieces together -- hurt people, not herself, the timing of it all, Tim's cageyness, his refusal to explain his injuries. The alteration of Hawk, after his death. Pieces, clues, forming a picture that he doesn't like at all, not one bit.]

You've been back. It was you.
Tim didn't tell me. Nobody did.

[Absurd, insane, beneath it: why not, why not, I could've helped, I could've been useful, why wasn't it my veins you opened, why wasn't it me. Koby shuts the thoughts away, reminds them with teeth, with steel: you aren't her son, she owes you nothing, especially not her pain.]

You're all right now, then?

[unapparent]

I asked that it be kept from all, to prevent further harm and lessen the damage to my House, fragile as our position is. None who saw me escaped injury, Koby.

[ as for herself, well. ]

I am alive again, if that is what you mean. I do not know that I am wholly unchanged. I’ve the strangest feeling, you see.

[ a wrongness at the back of her mind. ]

[kobes]

[Alicent sees things from a wider perspective, from the potentials -- a witchhunt, even by people who cared for her, wouldn't be perceived well by anyone who wanted to harm the Greens. Koby sees the immediate, the emotional, the fact of her absence and the staggering grief it had caused. But: he's not stubborn in his single-mindedness, at least.]

Then I'm glad your wishes were respected. Tim wasn't vengeful or even angry, when I saw him, but he wouldn't say a thing. That's good.
Do you need anything?

I see. Hawk was that way, when he came back. I'd never felt him before his death -- it happened right before the awakening, so I don't know how different he is, but Tim says he's changed.
But you think it's more than that?

[unapparent]

[ It's a relief, to hear Tim did not speak ill of her, particularly when he had every right to do so. ]

I do. The change for me was so extreme, Koby. I can't help but think something would linger.

Do I feel different, to you?

[kobes]

It makes sense, when you put it that way. [When he thinks of what he'd seen, the state she'd left Tim in...that isn't the woman who'd torn her skirts in the hedge maze, who'd embraced him in the library, who he'd grieved on the icy lakeshore. Something had been and was gone, but maybe it lingered, still...

The question is permission, and a moment later the subtle warmth of Koby's unseen presence, his energy, will, mind reaching out towards Alicent's becomes more tangible, more like he's actually there, pressing careful fingers to the shape of her mind, seeking out edges and corners that weren't there before. There's a sense of concern, of worry, laced through with the relief that it is her, that she's back, albeit altered.

Because:] A bit, yes. You're still YOU, I can feel that, but there's something
Else. It's hard for me to get hold of, which makes me think you're right, it's because of the house. The house doesn't like letting me see it too clearly.

[unapparent]

Perhaps it will be gone, when I see you next.

[ unsure whether she means to comfort him or herself. ]

Thank you, for looking.