The Stormfather

The next morning, Mark woke up much later than he normally would. He went about his day for a little while, before dropping everything he was doing and going back over to the house. (The one where people were watching the games.) He throws up on the side of the road when he walks past the battlefield where he had fought the Marksmen. I can't do these things anymore. This is... Horrible. You did what needed to be done, Mark. Would you rather they kill all of your friends? No. I... I know that it needed to happen. It still hurts. The amount of people killed by me... If not you, Adris would have sent someone else after them. If someone else had been hired as Adris' assassin, Sereine would have killed all of the Rusted. Why does it always have to be us or them? Is there never a place where a fight can end without one of the parties involved being slaughtered? Yes. There is. Do you think every single Peacekeeper was killed in the revolution? Every single person who had been running the Hunger Games? When you look at things that happen in this place at a larger scale, it never ends with everybody being killed on one side of a war. The problem is, when you have small gangs of ten or twenty, with more Investiture than they need, it becomes far too dangerous. I wish there was a way to resolve this better. I didn't listen to any of them, in the first fight against the Marksmen. I just killed. You remember them. I know you do. You will not forget. If all you can do in the situation is support one of the ideals, it is still Honorable. You did not have a chance to listen to them, unless you wanted to listen to the guns being fired and the screams of all the people you know. I... Could he really still be honorable? After all of the things he's done? He had been a hired assassin, he had been the person to murder a revolutionist and then raise a revolution, and he had killed the people whose lives had been destroyed by the revolution. He had done so, so much bad in this world. Yet you never see the good you have done to counter it. Mark, you are not a Killer. You are an Edgedancer, you are a Radiant of Honor's ideals. You are a soldier. Nobody from either army will call a soldier a murdurer. Not often. Not in war. They know that the soldiers on both sides are just boys who've been tainted by blood. Nobody remembers them. Nobody cares about the kids on the front lines of battle. So YOU have to. Mark made his way over to the house and knocked on the door, giving an explanation of what's happened to whoever answers.

Mark slowly begins walking back to his house. It takes a lot longer than it should have. He takes a route specifically to go around the places where he had recently fought or been captured, eventually making his way back to his (And maybe Astra's idk) house.

"I... The best we can do is just... take care of ourselves. They have medics here. They have everything they can give to her. If there isn't stormlight that I can use... There's very little left we can do. You... You should stay here. I need to get home..." He looked down at his bloodstained clothes and grimaced. "I don't think that much of this is mine. I should change."

Mark tapped Tinker on the shoulder. "I think we may want to wait for a moment- There were a hell of a lot of bullets flying. There... There very well could be other injuries we haven't noticed." Not to mention the fact that I don't want to face that conversation. Not yet.

"I..." Mark thought for a moment before speaking. "Thank you, Mare. If you hadn't been there... Most of them would be dead, and I would be dead as well."

Mark backed away, wanting to give the two of them some space. Mark, you haven't said any Words in years. I know the pain you've gone through, but... It might be time. "I don't know the Words." Does anybody, ever? Is it something you know? No, its just Words that come straight from your heart to your lips, in the moment. "Then how... How am I supposed to say them?" Be there. In that moment. Listen. Remember.

"Yes,"

Mark itched to help them. To lift his Blade, breathe in the Stormlight, and rush out with them to get his vengeance on those that had pursued him for this long. No. NO. I can't do this again. Sooner or later, my luck will run out, and I'll get myself killed. He would always do what he could. He would remember. He would listen. But that was all he needed to do. He wasn't a Killer, he was... Well, he wasn't exactly sure what he was. but he knew what he wasn't. And he knew that if he went out there again, it would never end. There's always someone else to fight, always someone to take the place of the last enemy. You'll never not have a knife at your throat. Adris' words, from a long, long time ago. Murder doesn't solve all of the problems. You can't go on as an assassin, Mark. Words... Words from further back in his memory. A time when things had been good. Words spoken by Sereine. Maybe his blade had sung it's final song. He dearly hoped that it had. The bloodstains already wore deep into him, and any further... There would be very little of him left.

Mark released a sigh of relief. "Rusts..." He murmured. How. How the [flip] are we still alive?! Mist curled around Mark's fingertips. "Will you be sending officers to find these people?" Mark asked, anger in his eyes.

Mark called for Tinker, and rushed over. She's alive. How dissapointing. "Shut it." Mark whispered. He raised his voice to a normal level. "Is she okay?" He asked the doctor(s).

Mark spent the next few minutes trying to convince a police officer to give him a gun so he could fight them better. It didn't end up working. He also tried making a Shardpistol. Unsurprisingly, that also didn't work. Eventually, he gave up and started pacing around the room, every few minutes checking the windows, wary that he could still be in danger.

"I'll... I'll wait until we know what's going on."

"Do you have any stormlight at the house?" Mark asked.

"I... I don't know where the medics took her. They said they would bring her out when she was conscious."

"Mare's... Injured. I did what I could with the stormlight I had, and I think we got here to the medics in time. She's... It's pretty bad, what happened. She's not conscious, yet."

Mark very badly explained what was going on. He was mentally wrecked, and couldn't be bothered to really tell the police what was going on. "Tinker? Is everyone back at the house all right? I wasn't sure if any more of those people were around." Mark asked, standing up and walking away from the confused officers.

How long has it been since someone died?!

How many people are left in the Drominad Hg?

"Crap!" Mark grabbed her and began pulling her out of the car, as police began to scream and file out of the building. "Construction site! That way! Get those people in a rustin' cell!" A few rushed to help him with Marewill, one spraying a fire extinguisher on the front of the automobile. "Light. Now." Mark groaned, Shardblade dissipating into mist. His hand continued to flare with pain, and his ears were ringing from the gunshots and engine. "Did you not hear all of the gunshots?!" One of the officers tossed him a few glowing spheres. "We've been busy!" He exclaimed. "What the hell's going on?" "We're-" Mark coughed. "Being attacked by these people who were harmed because of the rebellion," He said, breathing in the stormlight and pushing it back into Marewill, using his surge of Regrowth to heal her head.

"Police?!" Mark summoned his Shardblade as a large shield, placing it at the back of the automobile to hopefully avoid a bullet going straight through the back into Mark or Mare.

Mark popped his head up, looking in the side mirror. A few of them were pursuing, though they quickly lost heart, apparently somewhat affected by Mark's arguments. A few more gunshots were fired, though more as a warning than any attempt to kill the two fleeing tributes. "Surely someone will hear these gunshots!" He shouted. "We could really use some help."