Ep 196 script

K: …ok. ok. …my family is…complicated. i come from a long line of Ospreys who gained their…standing through military careers, mostly. we’ve always been members of the Royal Guard, always been respected, trusted for our loyalty. my grandfather fought in the war, won a few medals for it.

it wasnt until years later, after i was initiated into Redguard, that it all got to him. my mother…cheated on my father. the moment Keelee hatched, my family lost the centuries of respect they’d accumulated. my grandfather couldnt take it. suddenly, the rhetoric of the Raptor purists didnt sound so outlandish. he left Avarie. my father, who was nothing without my grandfather, soon followed. with Keelee.

our mother has a demanding job, so it usually fell onto him to watch her, despite keelee not being his, and despite me being the one to actually care for her when he failed to. which was always.  iim not convinced he didnt take her to get back at our mother a bit for the betrayal. regardless, i couldnt let her go with him, but knew i couldnt stop him, knew i couldnt go against him. knew she wouldnt survive with him. so…i joined them.

i left Redguard, abandoned my position, became a deserter. we flew to Kooup, only flying at night to remain unseen, and have a break from carrying keelee. it took days. when we made it, we hid in a cave for a week until my father found his father. he was not pleased to see us.

he set us up in a shack, then promptly forgot about us. my father deteriorated, unable to hold a job, to leave the house. i started doing odd-jobs, telling people id moved up from the south if they asked. keelee stayed inside, as hybrids are taboo on Kooup, as you know. it was no life for her, for any of us. i know my father regretted going, but his pride didnt let him do anything about it. one night, the director appeared at our door. the work of my grandfather, she knew who we were, knew the threat we posed to her regime should anyone find out about our origins. (show keelee sleeping)  the deal wasnt a hard one to accept, when she offered it. it probably helped that the only other option was to be imprisoned, and keelee taken from me.

i enrolled in highschool, as per her orders. she made it sound like she was doing me a favor, absorbing me into society, giving me a chance at a future, and a means to provide for my family

my father had failed in every job my grandfather, and his species managed to get him, so it was down to me to support us all. the director offered me an income on a supposed support scheme, but i knew it wasnt without conditions and one day, she’d come to collect. i spent the year after highschool, waiting. I didnt see my grandfather. i heard rumors in town that he’d died. it didnt fill me with the sadness id thought it would. i worked more odd=jobs, went fishing for our food, and kept waiting. sometimes, i took keelee out at night, just so she could feel a breeze, hear the ocean. i realized it had been years since she’d felt the sun on her face, and knew we had to get out. or, at least, i had to get Keelee out

it was then, of course, that the Director chose to strike. she gave me a mission that i couldnt refuse, but had every intention to,  and i knew i was running out of time.

before i attempted to leave the island on what was most definitely going to be a suicide mission since i was sure we were under surveillance, i retuned from fishing one night to find a crow in my house, my father mercifully  nowhere to be seen. crows weren’t people i interacted with often, by the coast. i’d heard stories from the older fishermen (show kingfishers?) about them using the caves to smuggle goods of value trawled up back throughout the Island, and that it was good business for the sea-folk. id wondered if there was a limit on what they would smuggle. on Avarie i managed a coastal border, every now and then we’d get refuges from Kooup staggering through. i’d questioned them myself, although they never answered who helped them, i knew someone had to have been. they’d arrive on boats, the majority of them were older Crows, a Hybrid here or there. it didnt take a genius to figure it out. i just hoped i was right.

he said hed heard i might be interested in his services. i didnt have the presence of mind to ask where hed heard that from

assumed my questioning of the fisherfolk hadnt been as nonchalant as id thought.  i offered him all of our money from the Director to take keelee wherever it was they took the people who wanted to leave, hoped against anything that i was making the right choice.

S: but it wasn’t, was it

K: no. no, it wasnt.

a soldier turned up at my house, the next night. took me to the director, who told me what had happened. that her guards had rescued keelee from some crows who had surely been attempting to steal her for their own nefarious purposes. and how she was going to put her somewhere safe, in the meantime.,

while i carried out the mission. the mission i had decided i wasnt doing, but now had no choice but to, and do it well. i knew she was blackmailing me, of course i knew, but i knew telling her that id been trying to leave the Island would be worse, would be treason to her, that id be locked away with no hope of seeing keelee again. i kept my mouth shut. i did as i was told.

i was told where to find you. i found you. …school started.

i continued to be unremarkable, as i had in highschool, to not draw attention to myself, to not encourage questions over my fighting ability, to be invisible. i wasnt there to learn, i was there to follow you. keep an eye on you. despite all my training, the director had failed to grasp that i had never been trained in espionage - i was just a guard, after all. after i was caught following you, i realized it would be easier to just…get you to ask me to. to befriend you, gain your trust. fortunately, the former wasnt a hard thing to do, and there were times where i forgot that it was all a lie. unfortunately, you were too forthcoming with the latter, too. i could see it, the trust in your eyes when you looked at me,

despite your life giving you no reason to hand it to me so easily, and i wanted to scream. i wanted to tell you to be cautious, be wary of me, please, because whatever you told me, i would have to tell the Director.

it was you or keelee, and i wont lie, by the end the choice was impossible.

S: why didnt you want to do the mission? why were you gonna refuse her?

K: because I hadf nothing against you, or Crows. i wouldve refused regardless of who the target was.

S: …why did she have you follow me? what did she want to know?

k: to make sure you were working for her, not betraying her. she also wanted me to find out anything about any of the crow operations. i just got lucky that you started looking into the old Crow disappearances. it kept her interested, and kept me useful to her, for a time.

S: what happened?

K: i…stopped telling her information. started accusing her when she had soldiers attack you for no reason. probably wasnt the best thing for me to do, given my situation. i wasnt finding out enough, so she expelled me so i would have more time to trail you. but by then, you’d stopped confiding in me, anyway. i was getting desperate. she told me to find out about The Croaking, and gave me only weeks to get answers. she even tried implying that the sooner i found out, the sooner the attacks on the crows would stop, too. i knew she was lying, but couldnt help it plaguing my mind. i knew it was my last chance to not completely fail the mission and lose keelee forever. but i failed at that, too. and worse, you were on to me at that point, werent you.

S: the croaking is what she was having me investigate. you revealing you knew about it sorta outed you as also working for her…but yeah, i was kinda suspecting you at that point. it only confirmed everything.

K: ree…had been doing her own investigating too, apparently. she found out about keelee, where she was being kept. in the director’s own house, no less. she went with me to try rescue her, we decided to use the wedding as a distraction to sneak in. but you sorta upended that plan, too.

S: sorry. if id known it was her - Deacon covered her face so i couldnt see -

K: it’s fine. you couldnt have known. and im the one apologizing here. im sorry. im so fucking sorry for lying the entire time, about who i am, where im from, for the old crows…the stupid thing is, the friends part was never a total lie, for me. the premise was, of course, but seeing you as a friend was always the easy part of this. sorry - that still sounds really messed up - what i mean is -

S: it’s ok. i get it. and i wont lie, if this hadnt all been for your sister i dont think i would ever be able to forgive you. i just…wish youd told me sooner about her. i couldve helped -

K: you had more than enough going on without my problems being added to the pile, Scra. and i wasnt gonna put you in more danger. and above all else, she’s my responsibility, and i needed a way to fix my own mistakes. anyway, id say we have more than enough to be dealing with now, anyway.

S:...if we get out of here,  it might…take me a while, but…id like to be friends with you. properly. no lies.

K: i would like that. very much.

That was SO much text Im so sorry lmao

hope ky's a bit less scummy after this but the bois still got a ways to go ha