[SE] really rings a bell

girls can be dangerous and still win

Venturing to King’s End had been simple – along air routes and maneuvering winds before she’d settled the Firecracker by Sunjata’s house and then went to bother him in town. There were hordes to talk about, but Melita chose to focus on one in particular while they perused the merchandise nearby.

The stalls themselves weren’t wholly plentiful, understandable, given the time of day and season, but she’d paused every so often, sample wares or hold her hands behind her back, the picture of innocence while her mind navigated several avenues, then burst upon one without a second thought. “Heard Colt talked to you,” she offered as a thread, eyes glancing at her uncle once with a slight smile, hoping it was because the Accepted had apologized and not railroaded something else.

Melita

she knew exactly what she was doing when she invited the wild in

// i'm not so good with tenses //

Luckily for them, it isn’t snowing terribly hard today. It’s enough to blot out the sky but the flakes that fall are relatively small in the grand scheme, unlikely to pile up too quickly on the walkways through New Haven. And with the shoveling and attention put on it for this season, he can very clearly see the glimmer of gold veining throughout the cobblestones as they walk – distracted by the thread that Melita offers.

His silver gaze flits up, scanning over to his niece as he nods and slows by a stall that has a variety of trinkets for the coldest season. “She did, yeah.” He hums, picking up a warm scarf to inspect, black and emerald yarn used to do interlocking designs. “She helped me with my quest from Frey.” And it had descended into a bad trip, which.. Honestly, was exactly what the Heartless needed, even if it had left him feeling relatively helpless in the moment. "Did she say anything about it?"

the Heartless

// i'm tensin' up thinkin' about what i'm supposed to call you now //

girls can be dangerous and still win

She hummed by the trinkets, glancing this way and that before determining none of those caught her eye, still toying around the subject line like a cat might bat at a mouse. “Oh, so you did get a quest!” came on a more excited tone, her smile there, meeting her eyes, rather than basking in the potential for ruin. “I didn’t hear from you, so I wasn’t sure.” Nor had Iskra, she presumed, as much as the three of them had discussed assistance in pursuit of said heart. “What do they have you doing?”

Her brow arched, the grin remaining, though she was somewhat distracted at the next kiosk by the sumptuous unfurling of treats. “She said you were…surprisingly happy.” She left him to fill in the gaps there, if he so chose – more details were likely to follow, as she was trying to pry apart the seams and all the unsaid matters. "Did she apologize for all that shit?"

Melita

she knew exactly what she was doing when she invited the wild in

// i'm not so good with tenses //

As if the dawning realization hits him when he mentions the quest that Melita would be imagining a different quest, his steel gaze snaps to her with a slight wince and an apologetic gleam in his gaze. “It’s uh, not for my heart.” He reaches up to rub at the side of his head, ignoring the bells for the time being. “I did talk to them about it, though. We decided to give it a little bit before doing it, so, instead I’ve got a quest to get new magic to help people and myself feel inebriation better.” Here he is again, fucking up his words. But he thinks she’ll understand the gist with how much he’d complained about not feeling anything despite how much he drinks and whatever else he might try.

The next kiosk comes up, though, and Sunjata focuses on the treats within it – flashing an easy smile to the merchant as he picks out a cake pop and points toward another one in the shape of a bee with a raise of his brow, willing to get it for her if she wanted it (it seemed too fitting to not get it), after all. “She did. She also had a pretty bad trip, so.. We were able to talk it out.” He finally answers, taking the cake pop he’d picked out and turns toward Melita with a softer twitch of a smile to his face.

the Heartless

// i'm tensin' up thinkin' about what i'm supposed to call you now //

girls can be dangerous and still win

Her brows furrowed slightly as misunderstandings came into play – because they’d had a long and lengthy discussion about how he’d think about himself. About becoming better, doing things that mattered to him.

So now it was just…about inebriation.

Her expression emphasized a whole of unimpressed endeavors, glancing at him up and down as if trying to puzzle through the decision making, before rolling her eyes and moving away from the treats, suddenly either disappointed or dismayed by the answer. “Why, I guess? What’s the point of putting it off?” Sure, he could go and get drunk and have other people merrily lose their shit on drugs – and if that was some sort of end goal for Frey and whatever else influenced his decision making, far be it from her to strive and make a point. In one ear and out the other. That part of her uncle remained unchanged.

Maneuvering towards another stall and trying not to let the frustration seep outward – a constant reminder that it was his life and not hers – she only just then noticed the cake pop offering, all bee-shaped and cute. Narrowing her eyes, she took it, suspicious and mulish, before plopping it into her mouth and listening as her teeth hit honeyed confections. “Well, that’s good at least,” she answered from the side of her mouth.

Melita

she knew exactly what she was doing when she invited the wild in

// i'm not so good with tenses //

The second the question leaves her lips, Sunjata knows it hasn’t landed the way he’d wanted it to. He works his jaw as he catches the brief way her eyes roll before she turns away and he follows after her with the treats in his hands. “It’s not really hurting anyone not having it.” He starts off, even though it isn’t exactly what he means. “It’s also kinda made my life a rotating wheel of disappointment lately.” His nose wrinkles slightly, shaking his head. “So when I talked to Frey about it, I decided that I wanted to wait a little more and work on things without it getting so complicated. I didn’t say I’d never get it back, I’m just taking a break.” He does still intend on getting it back, when he has some time to trust himself on making decisions without romantic entanglements to make everything more confusing. “And.. I guess part of me is worried what it’ll feel like when I do get it back.” The heartbreak of breaking things off with Ru was easier because he couldn’t feel it. And it also meant he couldn’t feel the hurt of Nate in his chest.

And it was entirely selfish but it felt nice to not have the heavy weight on his shoulders for once.

Regardless, he follows her to the next stall and hands the honeybee treat to his niece before he takes a bite of his own once she accepts it. As for Colt, Sunjata nods and glances to the items on display at this current stall. “She offered to help wrangle unicorns with us for the healing river, which I gladly accepted.” He shrugs a shoulder lightly, clearly relieved in that aspect.

the Heartless

// i'm tensin' up thinkin' about what i'm supposed to call you now //

girls can be dangerous and still win

It hurts you she wanted to say or explode. But she couldn’t fathom living without a heart, no emotions, no boldness, no impudence. Nor had she suffered in the same capacities; now with keen edges turned blunt and almost nothing seemed to rankle. But should that be what his life was like too – naught at all?

Taking a break, he said. Something clenched in her jaw and she loosened a breath through her nose, dragging out sentiments that, had she voiced them, would’ve probably launched devastating turns. “What if you end up waiting for years?” She voiced instead, glancing back his way after taking a bite of the cake pop, letting the sweetness trickle in and absorb the bitter convictions threatening to take hold. Gods, she wanted him to do something for himself so badly – but he had to be willing to commit. She couldn’t do it for him, and maybe that was the more frustrating part. For all their talks and understandings, everything still ground to a halt, went in opposing directions. “That’s not healthy either.” She should know; she tried it all the time by rarely looking back at the trauma – granting leaps and bounds and thinking it wouldn’t touch or scorch her again.

At the next stall were bells, and because she knew they needed one for the upcoming festival, she perused and circled, rather than stomping off or shaking her head. Colt was easier to discuss, she supposed, and she grew more muted despite it all, striving to wipe the mulish complexities from herself and failing. “That’s good. How’s the rest of it going?”

Melita

she knew exactly what she was doing when she invited the wild in

// i'm not so good with tenses //

It doesn’t seem terribly daunting to wait years to get his heart back, but he gets what she means and the intention behind it. “Then I don’t fall in love for years.” And given his track record, would that really be all that bad? “It’s not like it affects how much I care about people or things. It just prevents me from romantically loving them.” And maybe that’s the distinction that Melita needs to understand.

He bites down the rest of his own cake pop in the interim, mulling it over as he tacks on an additional comment. “Like I can still feel and tell how much I care about you and the things you get up to.” Because it wasn’t romantic. He loved her in the familial light of being his niece, and so the romance heart that had withered and died had nothing to do with it.

But as he lets a little more honesty escape and she reminds him it wasn’t healthy, he puffs out his cheeks in a quiet sigh. “Yeah, I know.” He opts to answer rather than indulge in the easy route. The one that wants him to say that it felt a whole hell of a lot better than to actually feel the shit his heart would be found through. So the subject of Colt is easier to answer, and he looks quite busy peering at the variety of bells on display when he answers. “Everything else except the wrangling, purifying, and the full dig and tree relocation has started. I think I’ll have to wait til Flowerbirth because the grounds too hard with all this snow.” That and with the amount of it, it’s blocked out all of his markers he’d sat in the snow.

the Heartless

// i'm tensin' up thinkin' about what i'm supposed to call you now //

girls can be dangerous and still win

She gave a loud, heavy sigh at the introspection – it hadn’t been about her, but more or less about him moving onward. But if he wasn’t ready, then she supposed it scarcely mattered, and all the things they’d discussed had been chucked ahead or maneuvered back into a fold of ‘later’, that, given who Sunjata was, might never occur. “Yeah but,” she started to argue, twisting her nose into a vague wrinkle as if that might form the rebuttal on its own. What if you do find someone? she wanted to ask, but maybe it was too soon. For all the relationships he’d had, there’d been death and drama and things torn apart so readily, so easily; perhaps all of that waiting would be for the best. “I get it, I just-,” her jaw clenched, trying to bite down on what she really wanted to say and making sure it came out in precise measures, rather than her usual flare for impudence. “I don’t want you lose out all over again, y’know.” Then she shrugged her shoulders, letting the overprotective portions ease and fall away, polishing off her cake pop in stewing silence.

Both knowing the route wasn’t healthy didn’t settle much, so she opted to continue glancing at bells that didn’t catch her eye, eyes and mind not focusing on the patterns or complexities of the ornamental figments. Once the honey finished dispersing across her tongue, she swallowed the remaining sugar, chewing on the end of the holder. “Ah, okay.” Enough to keep him busy and occupied then, by the sounds of it. “Did I tell you about the weird dream shit?” She couldn’t quite recall, based on how that occasion had gone, and maybe it’d be easier to swing subjects away from those perils and into others.

Melita

she knew exactly what she was doing when she invited the wild in

// i'm not so good with tenses //

He waits for the judgement to come, the impending sense of how wrong he is – but perhaps they’ve both grown in a way, because while he debates whether or not it’s too fast for him to move on and fix his heart just to get into trouble again, her concern is whether or not he’d miss out. And that sentence alone has his steel gaze snapping to her, a slight flare of warmth blooming in his cheeks at the thought he hadn’t considered entirely, already expecting multitudes of people to judge and grow upset with the fact he might try to move past it. So, he’d chosen to stay, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Do you think it’d be too soon if it did happen?” He asks, just for the clarification. He doesn’t expect it to, but he’s also worried about how it might come off.

Even if Hotaru had vanished seasons ago and he felt like he had come to terms with it back then, especially with the realization of all the things that had happened that would have hurt worse had his romantic heart actually survived. “I promise I’ll do it when I’m done with this quest. I’ve just got two things to do now.” He vows quietly, shooting her a small smile before he’s tossing the stick of his own cake pop into a trash can.

When it comes to the dream, however, Sunjata’s brows lift slightly as he peers over at her with the question. “Little bits and pieces. I heard some stuff from Deimos, too. I’m really curious what you saw.” He gives her his full attention, even if he snags a few bells to look at curiously, before putting them back. His ear is aimed toward her, at least, ready to hang on every word.

the Heartless

// i'm tensin' up thinkin' about what i'm supposed to call you now //

girls can be dangerous and still win

“Too soon” was a judgement call. One could wonder and wonder and wonder and still not have the same answer from person to person. Much like grief, she supposed, the timeframes were all different for each person, and that discernment had to come from within, rather than anyone else’s input. Only Sunjata would be able to make such a claim on his own terms. “I don’t know. Without it though, you won’t ever have the possibility.” It was an honest and earnest answer, with another shrug to accompany, or perhaps to grant him permission to figure it out without those prying and dramatic footfalls.

Sighing, she hunted along the bells again, teeth still biting down on the stick so she didn’t launch into another tirade, eyes flickering over one that had been cast in Ludo formations – before moving to one nearby, similar in its depictions. “Okay,” she nodded at his compliance, and then she wouldn’t have to be such a hovering git.

With the dream thing though, her lips pursed, nose wrinkling slightly. “So like, I had no control over going to sleep. It just happened.” No end and no beginning, just a sudden lurching. “Then there was sand all around – some weird monster thing with a friend’s face, and it swallowed the stag and desert and then everything exploded outward.”

Melita

she knew exactly what she was doing when she invited the wild in