January 18th

Knocking. She hears knocking, but she?s much too fuzzy to figure out where it?s coming from. It won?t stop.

When Lenore?s eyes open she?s staring up at the ceiling of her room. The bed beside her is cold and lacking Cris? warmth but there?s a distinct weight vibrating with purrs settled on her chest. Two more sharp knocks land on the door that make her groan and carefully shift the cream point himalayan cat onto the mattress next to her despite his growls of protest. ?Hang on!?

It?s still so foreign for her to have to answer the door. Usually the only bodies that come in and out of the room are herself or Cris. Sometimes Nicholas when he?s attempting to make a daring escape. Where is Cris anyway? Probably out walking. Possibly the teashop. Taking in the city and solitude, so similar to Lenore?s needs for the same things now and then so she?s not inclined to question it.

She?s not sure who could be knocking on their door this late at night. Constance is the only person that really comes to mind. It is late, isn?t it? She has no clock but moonlight streams into the darkened room from the window over the little wooden desk. She pauses at the door with her hand on the knob to release a final wide mouthed yawn before tugging it open.

?What is it, four steps from your bed to the door? How could it possibly take that long to answer it??

The cool voice, biting words, and shock of bright blonde hair on the too tall, too lanky form instantly shake the lingering bits of sleep from her. ?Andrew??

?I?m not going to dignify that with an answer.? He glances over her head easily enough thanks to the difference in height. ?Your Nephilim isn?t home. May I come in??

?You could at least pretend to be normal and ask those sorts of things instead of stating what you know from scent alone.? She exhales a teasing sigh through a weak smile, relieved to see the familiar face.

Yet again he has no response for that. Already thin lips press together tighter, the threat of something much darker lingering in his expression. She realizes too late she probably shouldn?t have said something about being normal but it?s saying something that he?s attempting to refrain from snapping at her.

?I?m glad to see you, Andrew, honestly. Come in.? Stepping back the door opens wider to allow him to sweep past her and it?s after she closes the door that she flips the rarely used switch to turn on the abrasive overhead lighting of the room. It doesn?t make Andrew bat a lash as he takes his time analyzing what little is before him in the modest room but Lenore winces, not used to the brightness.

?I didn?t think I was going to see you again. I left you? a few voicemail messages. I?m not sure if you got them. The last time I called, your phone was shut off.? Her slim torso is covered by a chunky knit black sweater, thin arms lost within the sleeves folding awkwardly over her chest. ?I almost thought the two were related? like maybe you did it on purpose because you didn?t want to see me??

Andrew rolls his eyes but it?s hard to tell what is getting that reaction out of him. Either it?s the pitiful explanation from his own flesh and blood or it?s Nicholas who is now at his side, elevated enough by the bed that he can reach Andrew?s hand to slash claws at it and nip his knuckles with sharp teeth. Andrew?s hand swipes aside at the cat dismissively.

?I heard your voicemail messages and I got my number changed to save you the embarrassment of having anymore pathetic audio displays captured for all eternity.? A snarl brims from behind Andrew?s teeth but it?s not meant for Lenore. It doesn?t seem like he?s interested in wasting much energy or emotion on her right now but Nicholas? incessant clawing at Andrew?s hand and growling earned the reaction.

?I? What?? Thick lips part in surprise even though she?s not sure how she still manages to be surprised when Andrew says something so thoughtless. ?They weren?t pathetic displays. I was apologizing to you. I was telling you I?m sorry-?

?Yes, sorry. You?re a sorry excuse for a Shape-shifter but I will give you at least some credit for being remotely intelligent to a degree. Maybe.? Andrew?s hand swats at Nicholas with the intentions of knocking the cat backwards. Really, if he would move two steps from the bed it wouldn?t be an issue but even Lenore knows, as failing as she apparently is as a Shape-shifter, it?s more about territory than anything. ?Something you said really stuck out to me, Lenore.?

?Nicholas, cut it out.? She feels the cat has more sense to stop the fight than Andrew does, especially with the ice in his voice. ?What did I say?? This reunion already isn?t going how she had planned. All those days of imagining their face to face reconciliation, a new beginning for them as family members. This isn?t it at all and she?s regretting that she put so much time into getting Andrew to stay in RhyDin even if it only involved a few phone calls.

Another quick bat of his pale hand at Nicholas only managed to make the cat hiss and spit louder. ?The one time you actually stood up for yourself against someone and it only took you a matter of days to blame it all on yourself. I didn?t even have to say anything to you. You?re so weak that you managed to talk yourself out of your stand and come crawling back to me and I didn?t even have to lift a finger.?

She could feel her chest deflating with every word he spoke and she?s positive at some point he?s going to strike a nerve so hard that she?s going to shatter. She?s going to crumple, it?s not going to be a pretty sight, and it will only give him even more ammunition to use against her. ?I assumed I was being loyal.? Her voice cracks and she?s mentally damning the lighting above that would make it obvious his words have wounded her. ?I thought we were supposed to stick together and I was attempting to make amends for what I said to you. I didn?t mean it.?

?No, Lenore. Don?t say that. As I mentioned, you made a very wise declaration and I intend to follow through.?

Nothing about this was funny and yet she laughs. She laughs humorlessly through the tears and brushes them from her cheeks as they began to fall freely. ?What did I say? To leave? That you bring out the worst in me? What??

Nicholas has been winding up for quite the attack while Andrew was distracted but when he makes his leap from the bed to catch Andrew?s unsuspecting hand he?s in for a surprise. Quick as can be Andrew snatches up the cat mid-flight and brings him around using the little fluffball?s own momentum to hug him to his chest. It?s so quick and Lenore only has enough time to process that perhaps Andrew is going to hold Nicholas to keep him from fighting as she and Cris have done so many times before, but the thought is barely put together when reality sets in.

Andrew?s other hand crosses over Nicholas? head and? it?s nothing to him. It?s like snapping a brittle stick from the winter sidewalk, the jerking motion he makes and the sickening crack that follows. That?s all it takes, just a second... not even that... and all the spitting and hissing comes to a stop leaving the white himalayan still and lifeless within Andrew?s grasp.

?You told me to consider you dead and that we would all be better for it. I think you?re right.?

His words still manage to be so calm, cool, and collected but they?re lost amongst the gut wrenching scream of anguish that spills from Lenore.

It?s hard to make out the shape of her hand... is that still her hand? Difficult to say with blood gushing out of Andrew?s throat in a steady stream over her knuckles, down to her wrist and soaking into the fabric of her sweater cuff. She could only really see the top of her thumb since it isn?t sunken into his skin. Where her pristine little harmless human nails had once been was something much more dangerous. Thicker knuckles, longer bones, strings of muscle, and it?s when Andrew sinks to his knees in front of her freeing her with a squishy tearing of flesh that she realizes she is wielding a handful of claws like she never imagined. Like some sort of hybrid between human and lion coated in a sticky layer of thick blood with bits of meat and muscle dangling off them.

Andrew sways on his knees, eyes wide and glassy staring up at Lenore. Everytime he tries to speak it comes out as gurgling causing even more blood to pour down the front of him.

?Andrew...? The way she says his name is apologetic yet she doesn?t make a move to bring herself down to his level or to help him. Her hand is held aloft, dripping in his blood which glistens in the fluorescent lighting. ?I?ll tell your parents you were brave when they find me... And the others.? Because this could not, would not, be the end. She?s not naive enough to believe that.

Andrew?s body sinks to the side, falling with a similar but much louder sound compared to the dead cat he?s sprawling beside. Lenore stands by, shaking yet watching. Didn?t she owe him that much? For someone to watch the end of him. Maybe she deserves it, to have his golden eyes latched onto hers and to watch the life drain out of them until he went perfectly still. She deserves having that image burned into the back of her eyeballs.

The room somehow manages to echo with death. Who knew that death could make such a sound? Maybe it?s the opposite and it?s actually devouring all notes of life that pass over the two bodies laid out on the floor.

Lenore is silent as the grave motionlessly picking up the shattered parts of herself that lay all around and piecing them back together. Perhaps if she leaves the room for just a little she can clear her head and return with a plan of action of what she?s going to do.

Now that she thinks about it, she really needs some fresh air. Her body always gave off a certain amount of heat compared to a human but she feels likes she was actually sweating causing her sweater and skirt to stick to her skin.

Her stomach rebels next. She hadn?t eaten much at all today but it doesn?t stop the dry heaves that wrack her body to the core causing her to double over. Hands wrap her convulsing abdomen and she can feel it beneath her fingertips which thankfully returned to their usual innocence at some point. Pale skin ripples like the surface of a lake being broken by stones skipping across it.

In her head she knows she?s not attempting to shift. She doesn?t want to. She?s not even concentrating on it. But her body fights back giving into the urge on its own. No fur, no hooves, no paws or claws. It?s hard to tell what?s happening to her without a mirror to look at but she?s well aware that it hurts and she wants it to stop.

The blood comes next. Bright red passing through her lips, down her chin and neck in a morbid fountain staining her skin and soaking her sweater. It spews forward mingling with tears, screams, pain, relief, confusion, fear. It all attacks her senses at once and overwhelmed she finally shuts down.

One moment her entire body feels like it?s against her and the next she is consumed by welcomed darkness.

Eyes close and her head hangs forward from her slouched position, taking the time to breathe deeply now that whatever attack that had come over her seemed to be finished. It's the easiest she's been able to inhale for a while now and the first time that she hasn't been on the verge of vomiting. A few more deep breaths are taken and on the final one she lifts her face to meet his, her green gaze on his. She's ready to tell him that she thinks she'll be okay but the way he's looking at her, that expression like she's never witnessed before on him turned in her direction; it makes her whither in place. "I'm oka-" She cuts herself off. Something isn't right. "I'm alrigh-." No, that's not right. A hand lifts to cover her mouth and a cough even though manners really should be long gone considering the mess that looms around them. Fingers are thin and pale, foreign and familiar all at the same time. She sits up straighter suddenly and the hand is drawn out to sit mid-air in front of her, the one holding Cris' following to do the same. She stares down at her hands, his hands, rotating them to display the familiar thin scars along knuckles and the black etched eye staring back. Panic begins to overtake her again. "What is happening to me? What is happening!?" Blood soaked hands are turned out to him. "These aren't mine!" They grasp at her too thick throat. "This isn't my voice! What is happening?"

He can do nothing but watch. Watch---his own hand move his own hand, watching himself look upon...himself in awe and confusion. The same Marks, the same scars, even the one across the bridge of his nose, a bit off center and darker than his skin tone. Eyes, mouth, brow, frown. He did not know what to make of this any more than she did. ...But it was clearly a shift. She'd changed because she was upset over the deaths of Andrew and Nicholas. But to shift into him... There was time to figure that all out later. "I don't know..." croaking. His voice gets stronger the more he repeats it until like a firm clap it shakes the room. He puts his hands onto Lenore's shoulders, his eyes closed so that he can try to see her instead of himself as he gives her a firm shake. "I don't know. But we will figure it out... Yes? The bathroom. Come, let's get you cleaned up first. You need to calm yourself so you can tell me what happened." He feels his own spare muscle as he searches for her hands for the second attempt to draw her to her feet.

He says he doesn't know repeatedly and each time it hits her hard, beating her down until the Cris replica is folded like a broken ragdoll, shoulders trying to curl in on themselves in hopes of vanishing before they're grasped and shaken. "Yes... yes." The one strong voice countered by another which doesn't sound anywhere close to being as sure. Scar and Rune covered hands join and lace and this time around it's a much easier task for her to rise to her feet without doom and blood emitting from the pit of her stomach. Once steady on her feet it's clear that Lenore has even gained a few inches to meet Cris in height. This only adds to the absurdity of the thin black jeans covering his legs that don't reach his ankles but the sweater that usually is so oversized on Lenore?s waif-life frames manages to fit this new form rather comfortably. She knows she shouldn't, he told her not to, but green eyes flicker to the mess nearby, Andrew and Nicholas covered in blood and distorted. "Oh God." The body might be Cris', the voice might be his too, but the mannerisms are all Lenore as she presses trembling scarred fingers to her lips.

It was absurd. Awkward, odd, extremely abnormal. All of those things. To pull at himself like he was strong and direct himself toward the bathroom. He has to turn her to steer her around Nicholas, step over Andrew's splayed legs, but he comes up behind her to stop her from seizing up or suddenly refusing to go on. Even the look she gives the bodies is countered by a firm hand stained with sticky red ichor, to push her head down. "Don't. Just keep moving. Go. Go, go, go," like he's leading a charge. The moment she steps over the threshold to the bathroom, he shoulders in behind her and closes the door at his back with a snap.

She makes a sound of rebellion out of habit when he's nudging her along but too smooth steps carry the replica into the bathroom, directly to the sink and mirror while Cris handles the door. She doesn't make a sound, she doesn't want to. While she's always enjoyed Cris' voice she doesn't like hearing it come from her mouth. What she sees in the mirror, well, it's what she assumed she would be faced with but it's only here and now that the reality sets truly in. Rather than focusing on the stain of blood from bottom lip to down her neck she's poking at her lips and nose, tugging her hair, brushing fingertips along stubble. All of these things she knew because of countless hours of study but they were all wrong because they were being worn by her. "I don't understand..." Wincing at the sound of her own voice before looking to Cris. "I can't do this..."

As she admires or criticizes her own face, he shucks his coat at the door, drawing the towels and washrags from the racks on the wall and he passes behind her to get to the bathtub, a hard pull causing a fountain of steaming water to thunder to life. He avoids her gaze, focused on his task. All of it was to the end of calming her enough to get her to shift back. "Unfortunately, your ability, or lack thereof, to do anything does not matter. For it will not stop it from happening. Not now. Sit?" Nodding to the side of the tub. He puts the stopper in the drain.

"How can you be so calm!?" The question is shrill and sounds off coming out of his mouth in his voice. While that should very well propel her towards unraveling even further she grasps desperately at the front of her sweater, shoulders rolling as she attempts to calm down. She doesn't want to be stuck like this, she doesn't want to sound like him when she speaks. "I'm sorry." Even before he has a chance to reply to the errant question. Barefeet pad along to carry her closer and she turns to ease herself onto the edge of the bathtub. She can't even make sense enough to help him along in his journey to clean her up but she looks at him, green on green, pliable and willing to cooperate.

Stomaching a flinch, obvious only in the way that his eyes close for a moment until he's certain his expression is under control. He takes one of the washrags from the pile of laundry he'd gathered and wets it in the hot water. By the time he's of the mind to answer her, the moment is too long past. "Take off your sweatshirt? Any clothes that've been dirtied..." He sits next to her on the edge of the tub, his attention studiously turned to the rising water.

She flinches similar to how he had just done at his request. She personally has nothing that could be considered modesty within her and is close enough with Cris that she doesn?t blush at the sight of him in any state of undress but under these new circumstances? Something about it made her hesitate and wait far too long to follow the request. Eventually she gives in, scar covered hands gathering the hem of the black sweater and peeling it off, pausing here and there when fabric sticks to skin by way of dry blood. It's dropped on the ground leaving behind streaks of blood on her chest, neck, face, hands, and hair. "Just the sweater." The pants might have some blood on them but she doesn't check, they're not coming off either way. The big toe of her foot drags along the tile floor, hands folding in her lap. A large sigh expands pale rune marked skin and on the exhale deflates. A few more quiet beats of looking straight ahead then that frosted green gaze meets its match.

There was nothing to do but wait until she turned her head to look at him once more. This time he meets her gaze. Because he has to, and nothing more, but he can't stop the wandering of his eyes over her, his, body. Every plane, every angle, every notch and Mark and scar. He can see the network of slices littering her back, clawing through a large rune between her shoulder blades. He wets the washcloth and reaches for her, his, face, to scrub the rust red out of pepper dark stubble and away from full lips, their mirror now caught in a tight frown. This must be the feeling that others experienced with younger siblings. "Start at the beginning. I thought that Andrew had left town. We both thought that." Without harder scrubbing, he wouldn't be able to get all the blood off. But he'll leave that to her later.

She can't stay entirely still, fingers and feet fidgeting although she manages to keep head and shoulders in place for the most part beneath the washcloth. It's easier to focus on his face, his eyes, and his expression. If she doesn't look down at herself it's almost possible to forget what she looks like. "He wasn't taking my calls and the last time I tried his phone was shut off. I thought he was gone. I assumed he was doing exactly what I told him to and leaving." Her lips, his lips, turn downward to match his frown perfectly. "But he showed up, he knew you weren't home and wanted to come in. He..." Her head drops, impossible to stop even if it only makes his job harder. "He said I sounded pathetic in the voicemails I left for him. Begging and already falling back on the first stand I've taken. He was wound right when he got here. And..." A distinct sniffle. "Nicholas wouldn't leave him alone."

As she spoke, as he listened, he tilted her chin up and scrubbed at the Marked, stubble scratched through before him. The remnants of an Idris accent caressed his ears, soothing something in him even though it was his own damnable voice he was listening to. This was the most awkward situation he had been in in a long, long time. It's only when she looks down that he lowers his hand, the pink cloth and waits, jaw tight after he listens to himself sniff. "What happened to Nicholas?"

"It was awful, Cris." Both hands lift, rough and calloused pressed against her face, his features. Majority of the blood was dried but it still undid some of Cris' handiwork with the washcloth. She didn't care. Her head bowed, shoulders shaking. "He snapped his neck. Twisted it like it was nothing, dropped him on the floor like he was nothing." Any calm she had managed was quickly coming undone the more she spoke, not fitting for the Nephilim's voice. "I was going to shift but he stopped me. He told me if I did he was going to wait for you and... and..." Her back arched further dipping her face deeper into her hands, the usual pops of thin pale skin and vertebrae replaced by his marks and scars.

There was little he could do with her face buried in her hands, his own hands. He grips the washrag in his fingers, wet and pink with her blood and the worried flesh of scrubbing. It was hard not to feel as if her pain was not his, hearing his own broken voice, wondering if it was not really he who was saying this. Mourning the death of a cat he barely knew or liked. "What happened next?" It was better not to dwell. Keep the forward momentum.

((Thank you to Crispin))

Wrapped up in him it's too easy to get lost. The press of him against her, his voice so close, the relief of his arms around her. She wriggles in a burst of protest but it doesn't last, she can't and doesn't want to fight finding contentment in him but too much and she worries it might prompt another shift. "My hand..." The words come forth when her movement stills. She realizes she's jumping too far ahead so she backtracks, words coming much more quickly than before to distract herself. She doesn't want to think about any of this either, but it's the lesser of two evils. "I told him to do it... to end it... be done with it...I didn't think I had a chance anyway so I wanted him to get it over with." Her voice lowers, gulping. "I didn't want to die crying and begging."

The heat of the bathroom hides the chill her words puts into his blood. His touch already damp with water and sweat, his unease hides like a wary animal. Pressed against her shoulder, however, she can feel the tightening of his jaw as he grits his teeth to restrain himself a moment before he'd calmed down. "What then...?" Keep moving forward: a mantra now for him as much as it was for her.

"He didn't like how easily I gave in. He..." She fades out, wondering if she really needs to share everything but it doesn't seem fair to omit details now. "He was going to wait for you, figuring you would put up more of a fight." Her hand slowly lifts and it takes just about everything she has to manage. Blood soaked, having been deep within Andrew's throat not long ago but now she trails fingers, her fingers, through Cris' hair assuringly in an effort to give him some comfort in return. "He teased about cats and their nine lives." An exhale that would have been a dry laugh any other time. "I realized... I didn't want him to take everything from me. I didn't want all of my years of surviving to be ruined by him. I did not want to go the easy route..." Brows furrow tightly, trying to remember exactly what happened next although that was falling into a blur, a loss of time. She knew what she found when she had her senses about her but getting to that point? She wasn't entirely sure. "I had an outburst."

He wishes that it did. By the Angel, he wishes that it did, but her touch instills within him a desperate need to pull away from her. He had done nothing to receive comfort, and he had not shown her that he needed it. Hand wanders up her arm until he finds her wrist and gently disentangles her hand from his hair. "And so..." adding to her story on his own to steer them where they were supposed to be, "...did you attack him?"

When he captures her wrist and pulls it away fingers curl in on themselves. Hurt has been taking up residence on her expression majority of the night so the change isn't easy to pick out and it's lost on him anyway with the way they're piled onto the floor. "My hand shifted. Only my hand, only part of it." The hand he was clutching as they spoke, fingers briefly unfurling and turning in on themselves again. "I don't know how. I didn't know it was possible. But they were claws... I didn't realize until... after I drove them into his throat. After he fell down."

He had not thought that possible either. He'd asked her some time ago, and she'd told him as much. For what it was worth, he did not let go of her hand, nor did he loosen the grip he had round her back. Eyes half mast, matte as a dirty stained glass window regard the closed door, beyond which lay two corpses that begged the question: What were they supposed to do with them now? He need not speak what they both already knew. She'd killed her cousin. "If you struck first...how is it that you became unconscious and bleeding?"

Her voice is still surprisingly calm despite being at the heart of the matter, everything that had happened before Cris walked in through the front door. Maybe she was accepting it. Maybe she had no more emotions to give right now. Maybe she was completely spent and she would be this cool and cold for a long while. Part of her hoped it would be true. It made everything easier to handle. "I watched him until the very end and while I stood there trying to decide what to do I got sick. I felt like I was shifting but... it wasn't the same. It was like when you were here. I was in so much pain, like nothing I've ever experienced before and..." Fingers wriggled. "This is his. Everything else is mine. I didn't have any sort of control and it hurt so bad. Then... nothing."

His own calm was nothing different from how he'd handled the situation save for the first few frantic moments. Still, he considers the door, his frown tightening on his mouth. Palm presses a bit more firmly against her shoulder. "I'm sorry... I know that you were hoping for reconciliation. I hoped for that for you as well."

Right when he says I'm sorry she begins shaking her head. The same way he gently rebelled her comfort she was trying to sit up under her own power, not forcefully shoving him away but attempting to disengage like it's not something she deserves any longer. Unfortunately, it was harder than she imagined. "It doesn't matter... it doesn't matter what I wanted or hoped for. Andrew is dead. He's dead. Because of me. I killed him. I killed someone." Her hand lifts, Andrew's spilled blood fully on display. "I just unleashed hell onto myself."

Her shakes upset the gentle lean he'd acquired against her shoulder and he draws back as far as he's able to look down at her in gentle confusion. "Unleashed it from whom? Who is it that you think will exact this punishment?"

"His parents knew he was here. Who knows how much he told the Shifters he was staying with about me. Maybe I got lucky and he was so disgusted by me that he didn't brag to anyone local about his darling cousin." Untangling herself from him she manages to straighten finally and press her back against the tub. The nearby fallen washrag is dipped into the cold leftover water behind her and not caring how much she splashes or what puddles she makes she brings it around to begin harshly scrubbing the dried blood off her hand.

She pulls against his embrace and he lets her break it, scooting back along the floor to set his spine to the sink. Allowing her distance to clean her skin. Knees propped up, Marked forearms balanced atop them, a scowl joins the dark frown on his mouth. "He's only met with you a handful of times. For all we know, he could have been lying about local Shifters. Clearly, he was lying about everything else. Yes?"

The blood had been there this long so it's hard to tell what suddenly made it not okay but it?s clear she?s no longer at peace having it cover her skin. More water, more scrubbing that left her skin pink and raw. "Only a handful of times and whatever it was he wanted me to prove to him I failed miserably." She pauses in her scrubbing long enough to lift her gaze up to him. "I take back everything I've said before. Family be damned. Maybe it works for some but I'm fine without the ties of blood." Not that she had many left that she knew of but that could go unspoken. Her ravenous scrubbing continues. "Do you really think that? That he might have been lying about it or are you only saying it to make me feel better?"

Puts his own hand through his hair and that is where it stays, scarred fingers curved and conformed to his skull. This time, from around his Marked wrist and from beneath half lidded eyes, he meets her gaze. "His real intentions became clear to you tonight. Any shortcomings you believe you have or any strife you feel you may have caused him is false. Now more than ever, you need not worry about pleasing...that," jerk of a side nod to indicate the bathroom door. Her latter queries give him pause. He seems to be readily weighing which of the two options he'd like to answer with but then he reaches forward to stop the scrubbing of her hands. "I think...that that will work better if you use hot water and soap and allow yourself further time to calm down."

That. She winces visibly at the word. It's a good thing that he leans forward to stop her mid-scrub because there's another spike in her emotions and she seems ready to remove her next layer of skin beneath the blood when he stops her. Instead her hands flop down into her lap, head tipping back and eyes closing. "I don't know what to do... about any of it. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. Or what I'm supposed to think. Or how to act or..." She lifts her head and mirrors his side nod to the door, less weird now that she isn't the spitting image of him. "I don't know what to do about that."

He could tell her stories, but he does not think now is the time. Sliding his fingers between hers, taking up more of the washrag with each forward inch. "Whatever you decide, he will still be dead later. Focus on yourself...yes? You are alive, and he is not, and that is so because he chose to try and take your life from you. Guilt over his death has no place here. It was necessary. ...But before that," drawing his feet beneath him, he begins to stand. "I'm certain that once you're free of his blood, you'll be able to think a bit more clearly."

((Thank you to Crispin))