tofi's trail

I’m not so sure about this.

The voice echoed within his mind, a wary tone to it. William let out a breath of air that wasn’t quite a sigh. His fingers kept combing through smooth, pale hair, and the breath brushing his collarbone remained steady.

“It’ll be useful,” he murmured, so quietly that it didn’t hold a sound. But Patri would hear the words. “I know how you feel, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have an insider.”

I trust your judgement, however he is of the most treacherous family- He may have proven himself in a sense but he saw to a death of one of them for the sake of revenge for a human. And he betrayed his own.

“Am I not doing the same?” William thought of Julius. He thought of the other captains, his parents, the members of his squad. He thought of Yami. “There is no turning back.”

He felt the unspoken words that didn’t pass between them.

William could still turn his back on Patri’s plan; there were many things that Patri could not do, if he couldn’t be in control of their body, and if William didn’t let him take over, or if he decided to tell the humans the truth, it would put a stopper in Patri’s plans- plans that he had created together with William, plans that were still barely in motion.

“We’ll have to do some revisions,” William told him, and he knew that it would in one way make things more difficult, to recruit the Silva. In other ways, it would help. Another captain, a royal, even if disgraced and on limited time, could get access to places and people in other ways than William could. They needed to revise the plans regarding Fuegoreon. As soon as they had the magic stones, they would manage the rest as intended. Once they had all the magic stones and the elves were all revived and awakened properly, then—

William didn’t finish the thought, just in case it slipped through the connection between them.

I guess. It may make things somewhat more subtle. They don’t need to know of our presence just yet.

“And if they don’t know, they can’t attempt to hinder-....”

William fell silent when he felt Nozel shift in his arms, drawing in a deep breath created by sleep, and press further into his embrace. Nozel had allowed him to lead him out of the water, to the empty Silva mansion, and there they rested. He didn’t wake up. William thought of how peculiar it was to see such a man asleep, how peculiar it was to see his face wrinkle in dreams and then smoothen out as they dissipated. The shadow of a nightmare playing in his mind, in his skin. He wondered how Jack had been allowed to see him; it was clear that the man had meant a lot to him. Or else he wouldn’t be laying in William’s arms now in the first place.

Humans... Wretched beings, he heard Patri mutter. Felt how unsettled he was over how the situation had changed.

“Don’t worry, my dear friend,” William murmured in assurance. “It will all work out in the end.”

Chokehold Epilogue: And for the future