She rises, tall and firm, and protects those behind her, as she has ever since she took her second breath. 

"By the oath you swore to me," she says, tone even and words clearly audible, in the moment between when she perfectly parries one attack and when Elathea reorients for the next - she says, instead of taking that moment to counter physically - 

"Your battle is with me alone."

She disengages, suddenly -

And takes off into the mountains, away from the life they've built together. 

Fucking-

Fine, if that's how she wants it.

Elathea chases Gleam into the mountains.

She's fast, when she wants to be. Faster than Elathea. She can't hold it indefinitely, though, even if she wanted to just - run away. 

She stops in a clearing well away from anyone they could hurt and stares up at the visible patch of sky.

She waits for Elathea to catch up. 

Which she does, of course.

Angrily, like a comet crashing to earth, caste mark and spearhead blazing.

She doesn't retaliate. She defends herself, dodges or parries what she can -

This doesn't feel real. She's angry. Scared. Heartbroken. Horrified. Grieving. Confused, desperate, hurt -

Nothing has ever hurt this much, and Gleam's brain is still very disoriented about her attacker being her wife. 

The crash of emotions -

Drifts off, or perhaps Gleam is drifting off. She'd do this as a mortal sometimes. Spitefully, when the thing wanted from her was a reaction, any reaction -

Gleam slows down.

There's a body, and it hurts, and it's feeling some very unpleasant things, but that doesn't matter, because it isn't Gleam's and she isn't in it, she's somewhere far away, cocooned, painless.

Essence still coruscates around the body, but there's no one home to direct it. The body's injuries stop healing. The body stays standing where Gleam left it. It can breathe, and blink, and flinch, but it doesn't understand how to raise its arms to guard itself, how to stand if it's knocked down, how to do anything other than stare numbly at a person it recognizes but doesn't know. 

When Gleam comes back to herself, her wife is standing in front of her. Blood-drenched spear held loosely in hand, tears running down her face.

She looks up -

"Elathea?" she asks, voice uncertain. 

Her weapon drops, clattering to the ground.

"Gleam..."

She starts crying, too.

Stand and hug?

Yeah.

Elathea should definitely sit down with her so Gleam can curl into her and sob.

A good plan.

Snuggle.

She gradually drifts back into her body enough to realize -

She's still kinda in a lot of pain.

"Can you heal me?" she mumbles into her wife's shoulder.

Hum.

Her hands begin moving in a soothing massage pattern, glowing with Essence

It's nice. Wounds closing, and a warm slow pleasure curling through her -

Familiar, though usually under happier circumstances.

It's good that all the anger burned out of her. She's too tired to be angry.

She doesn't want to fight.

But.

"...I want you to apologize," she says, softly.

"For which part?"

Shrug.

"...Which ones will you apologize for?" she asks.

She feels... Small.

"...Chasing you toward the house."

Nod.

"...No others?"

"You attacked me."

She's quiet for almost a minute.

Then: "I tried to remove the thing you were working on from your hands, because - I was angry that you were acting like it was more important than our daughters being happy. That was my fault, and I shouldn't have lashed out."

"You then nearly broke my neck."

She squeezes her eyes shut. "That - I hadn't been so scared since I Exalted. You'd completely cut the blood flow off to my brain, if I hadn't figured out how to use Essence to keep myself moving - "

"Do you know how fast brain damage happens, when you cut off blood flow? Permanent brain damage, that not even the greatest healers can treat?" She's shaking, now, at the memory. "I - panicked, and I wanted it off - "

"And then you relaxed it - and - "

"I was scared and in pain and confused and there was an angry Solar standing over me, demanding I beg for mercy, and - "

"It wasn't you I was seeing. Attacking."

"And you don't regret it."

"Mm."

"I don't like being interrupted while I work."

Oh.

Okay then.

"If I asked you to remove my collar, would you?"

A vague gesture, a soft click.

The collar comes undone.

She starts crying again.

"Thank you - I - "

...What does it say of them, that she hadn't expected Elathea to do that?

That Gleam had expected -

She's been enslaved by a Solar before. It's - normally not this hard, remembering what's the past and what's the present.

"I'm... sorry things have- come to this."

"...Yeah."

A pause.

"I want you to swear an oath never to hurt our children."

"I can see the logic."

"I'll invoke the existing one for it. I - "

"I didn't invoke that oath to protect myself this time, because - I knew you weren't going to stop. And I love you, and I - don't want you to have an oath's backlash - "

"I'll invoke it for myself if - only if I think you're about to kill me before the girls are all fully able to support themselves, or if we're too near other people, but - "

Ragged breath. "...I need to protect my children."

"I don't think - Samira or Micqui would push you, but - Layla has never met a challenge she doesn't want to swing at, and - "

"She's so, so fragile."

"I don't know that I'll always be there. That I'll always be able to - "

"So. A separate oath."

She squeezes her eyes shut. "Will you?"

She's silent for a while.

"I will. For the children."

"Okay. Thanks."

It occurs to her, numbly, that if she gets too depressed, too overwhelmed, needs to escape no matter what that means -

She can't tell Elathea. All Elathea will do is try to stop her. 

So. 

She'll keep it to herself. 

"Let's head back," her mouth says, as Gleam's mind withdraws just enough she doesn't have to feel any of this. 

(A collar isn't the only definer of slavery, is it?)

"Yes. Let's go."

Elathea helps them both to stand.

Gleam's body accepts the hand up. 

And back to their lives.