Call me selfish when I say this

Sing to me, I am not doing well
Getting tired of my own words

"... because. When the bloodlust hits, they're all the same. Birds, deer, a person..." Her gaze held a faraway look that seemed to pass through him, unseeing. It was not an unfounded fear, because she knew exactly where it came from. She wished she didn't. Wished it wasn't there, wished she could think it away and be safe in the knowledge that she would never be carried away and fall to a point where she turned on a friend, a foe, a random passerby in the street... "I don't want to, but the urge is there. Watching you... it's like seeing where I'll end up if I get too comfortable in this place."

He was right again; she didn't know herself. How could she? It had only been a year since she hatched from stone and began to figure out who this new being was. A tiny monster with a dreadful hunger and a broken heart - was it not too much to ask, that she should have it all figured out when far stronger beings were struggling too?

It was stubbornness that made her keep pushing to rise. Too tired to shift or draw on her magic, rising and moving was all she could manage. Awkward and weak and surly, she reluctantly trundled after the Butcher. Because in the end, she really had nowhere else to go.

Sing to me, cause I can't hear myself
through the loudness of my own hurts

base inspired by Odd <3

/// i'm uncontrollable, emotional, chaotically proportional
i'm visceral, reloadable

Shaking his head immediately, Astaroth isn’t sure where exactly she gets the idea that they are all one in the same. Perhaps she hasn’t experimented enough with her own bloodlust to know the beginning triggers. That if she started craving raw meat more often that she ought to do something about it before the opportunity to strike a human even came close to presenting itself.

He has to fight to roll his eyes at her comment, because certainly he’s not understanding how she thinks she could become someone like him, but he turns on his heel to head back to the light of the Dusklight as the doors open once again, trudging through the snow as she follows him – as he hears by her own fawn-like steps through the snow. “Too comfortable around me? Or is it that you worry you’ll somehow absorb what I do despite it not being in your nature?” He asks a touch dryly, finally finding relief within the confines of the bar, skipping the bar seeing as the commotion had certainly prevented anyone else from trying to start anything, as Astaroth aims for his room.

Astaroth

i'm crazy, i'm crazy, i'm crazy, i'm crazy ///
everybody in the world knows i'm a little twisted

Sing to me, I am not doing well
Getting tired of my own words

"Around all of it. You, Danta, Charlie - you'll excuse anything, right? No rules, no consequences for anything - I bet there won't be any for you even if what you did came out. Even though a person died. Where does it end? There's no bottom, nothing to stop the fall if I were to slip. And then I'll wake up one day and realize I've become all the things I hate, by which time it will be too late."
Too tired to care if she made sense or not, at least the words spilling from her lips were unadultered truth. A glimpse into the churning mess that was her mental state, gnawing and chewing on the same old worries over and over again. And she was sick of it. Yet she didn't know how to change, how to escape herself.

Tonight in particular, it felt hopeless. When the Dusklight came back into view it seemed less like the home she'd named it to Danta, and more like that cage she dreaded so much. That she returned even though her gut knotted with unease was pathetic. That she had been unable to tear away from the Butcher's shadow was even more so. Was she so desperate for company that she would settle for anyone now? Was a bit of kindness really enough to throw all her values and beliefs down the drain and accept this bullshit nightmare Asta claimed as normal?

Fuck. Gods, how she hated all of it right now. Him, herself, this place and everyone in it.

At least now that they were inside, it didn't matter where she went. "I'll find somewhere else to sleep," she muttered, sure that he was as eager to be rid of her as she was to be away from him.

Sing to me, cause I can't hear myself
through the loudness of my own hurts

base inspired by Odd <3

/// i'm uncontrollable, emotional, chaotically proportional
i'm visceral, reloadable

“You do realize that there are rules, don’t you?” Astaroth answers, tone a bit more clipped as more of his Whitebrim accent slips out. “At least set the record straight, Maea, he was a horrible person.” Comes the follow up answer, pausing to get around a group of people on the trek back to his room.

He pauses at the door to open it, because of course he’d had the key and when she’d left the door had been unlocked, and it creaks on its hinges as it opens further to display the fireplace and the warmth of his room. “Do me a favor. The next time you want to follow me knowing what I am and what I do, then judge me — so very harshly, mind you — just don’t. Especially when I have been so kind and patient with you and have helped wherever I fucking could.” He stares into his room with absolutely zero relief in his shoulders now, a rare curse escaping him as his proper speech blends with the traditional tones of Whitebrim. “I do not need nor want your criticism from the high horse you’ve nailed yourself to.”

With those parting words, Astaroth’s boots thunk against the floor heavily as he enters his room and closes the door behind him, snuffing out the sounds from the rest of the Dusklight.

Astaroth

i'm crazy, i'm crazy, i'm crazy, i'm crazy ///
everybody in the world knows i'm a little twisted

Sing to me, I am not doing well
Getting tired of my own words

"Oh, I'm sure there are, though what they are beats me - tell me where to look them up and I'll help myself." Her mouth was turning into a thin line, fraught with tension and irritation. "They're no good if they're not enforced though - and it's fucking ironic to me that it's the enforcer who's doing the most horrific things in this place. But maybe you've been made judge, jury and executioner over all who set foot in the Grounds? I must have missed that announcement too."

Stopping outside his door, it was pure spite that kept her upright at this point. The easy thing would be to just agree with whatever Asta was saying, but Maea was far too stubborn. Her eyes flashed when he told her to get the 'record straight', as it were. "I never said he wasn't a foul git. But I'm not going to let you use that - use me - as an excuse to justify your actions! He was foul, and so is what you did. And if you think my criticism is hard to stomach, you have another thing coming for you when your secrets are exposed to the rest of the world. You think my stance is too lofty? Wait until you hear from the people who wiped Whitebrim off the map - and pray that whatever judgement is passed on you then isn't plastered onto the rest of us, because if it is? I will never forgive you."

He vanished through the door and Maea stalked off down the corridor, biting off curses as she went in search of an empty room. Despite the exhaustion it would be long hours before she finally drifted off to sleep, too worked up by what she had seen and experienced to settle down. And when she eventually woke again she felt more wrung out than before, like a dark cloud had settled over her.


[Fin]

Sing to me, cause I can't hear myself
through the loudness of my own hurts

base inspired by Odd <3