[Letting go of it probably is. But that's not what's happening- and Taako has never been good at letting go. Why isn't she backing him up on this? He's always been behind her, even when it hurt. When she became a lich, when she had her plans for the relics, staring down Lucretia hand in hand and saying I wish I could. And now she's there with her, across from him. In opposition. In defiance.

How dare she.]

What the fuck, Lup. Ten years-- it was ten fucking years! You're just okay with that? That she just changes everything about us in seconds and it's back now so it's okay?

[His throat feels tight, voice raising as he continues. As much as he tries to hold himself together, the stress is written over his entire body; his hands are tight, clenching into fists. He's not standing as tall as he wants to, crouched just a bit like he's preparing to take a blow. This is a stance for a fight, and he might not be armed, but he won't go down.]

She has to pay for this! She can't just-- just do that! She can't just turn us loose and then call us when it's fucking convenient, when her plan crashes and burns and she needs us to come pick it up for her! She fucked up. She has to answer for that.

[He doesn't yet know the extent of it; Lucretia's plan, the careful configuration of placement and knowledge and where everyone would end up. But what he does know is that Merle came back with a family. He had kids, a home-- that he left, sure, but it was there. Magnus had a fucking wife. These were the places they were from, the lives they once had.

And why was it, when it was all said and done, that they got homes and families and love, and Taako ended up back out on the road?

It's hard, somewhere in his subconscious, not to take it personally.]