Jedao spent most of his life ruled by fear; and his fears were never unjustified, and often insufficient to the real magnitude of his dilemmas. And in the black cradle - he could scream for a year, or thirty years. For a week or a month or a half-year campaign he might seize a bloody reprieve, but then he went back.

There's a stinging, numbing pressure, nerve strikes, and Quentin's arm is hanging limp and Jedao is halfway across the room, a small pistol in his left hand, aimed responsibly at the floor in one point of steadiness while the rest of him lurches and lashes on his feet, trying to balance like a fencer but he doesn't have his fucking sword. He misses it more than he missed his arms, in the cradle. His hand grips the edge of the dresser and it rocks, just shy of Jedao shoving it over, but he doesn't quite have the strength right now, ends up half slumped against it.

"It never passes," he hisses, a feral animal noise. His cheeks are bright red now with adrenaline and exertion, the tear-trails stark on his face. He chokes. The dark is always, always there behind his eyes; his poison heart is always there in his chest. Wherever you go, there you are. He shoves the muzzle of the barrel against the lump in his throat, and it's a slim comfort. Even that wouldn't work, as all his aches attest. Even that. "Nothing ever passes, Quen-shei," he whispers, and he sounds human again, voice thick with hopeless sorrow, all the moreso as it curves around the endearment, reserved for lovers. But he wants to say it, just for himself, and Quentin doesn't have to know. Even alone in the dark, he has his own feelings, at least for as long as he can remember them.