// somebody told me that there's two sides to this life //
The wall kept her from swaying. It felt like some vast drop was opening up before her feet. One wrong move and she would find herself slipping, tumbling, falling beyond any point of return. It could be overly dramatic... but she didn't think so. The heat in Danta's voice might be because of the drink but she had no doubt that he meant what he was saying.
As for her... she felt sad, mostly. Beneath the defensiveness and the stubborn inability to swallow her fucking tongue and stay quiet, she hated that they kept coming back to this point. Why was everything either blissfully fine or a wrong word from crumbling apart altogether?
Why was her way of thinking being painted up to be this horrible shackle around the throat of this man?
"Says the countless generations of men and women who lived in this land before I was born," she said quietly, "and the parents who raised me, and their neighbors who starved to death rather than eat another person. Reason, and kindness, and to set the good of all over my own selfish needs - that's what my father taught me, and my brother, and my grandparents before them. How am I supposed to believe that they were all wrong to think that way?"
Ah, fuck. The waterworks were starting to flow after all. She really hated that part of herself. Almost as much as she hated the grubby, dark, dinky nooks and corners of her own mind.
"I am grateful. You've done so much for me - and I am trying to change and fit in, Danta, I swear it. But everything I've ever been taught says that what happened last night is wrong. Yes, that man was a useless scum, I don't deny that. But so is what Asta did to him. There was no trial, no chance for him to speak, and the way he died was.... in my opinion just as bad as what he tried to do to me. Clearly you disagree. So... I really don't know what else to do."
By his logic she was just as welcome to think what she wanted; and since they were at an impasse, was there any option other than to leave? If she couldn't stand to live like them, and they didn't want to change?
As for her... she felt sad, mostly. Beneath the defensiveness and the stubborn inability to swallow her fucking tongue and stay quiet, she hated that they kept coming back to this point. Why was everything either blissfully fine or a wrong word from crumbling apart altogether?
Why was her way of thinking being painted up to be this horrible shackle around the throat of this man?
"Says the countless generations of men and women who lived in this land before I was born," she said quietly, "and the parents who raised me, and their neighbors who starved to death rather than eat another person. Reason, and kindness, and to set the good of all over my own selfish needs - that's what my father taught me, and my brother, and my grandparents before them. How am I supposed to believe that they were all wrong to think that way?"
Ah, fuck. The waterworks were starting to flow after all. She really hated that part of herself. Almost as much as she hated the grubby, dark, dinky nooks and corners of her own mind.
"I am grateful. You've done so much for me - and I am trying to change and fit in, Danta, I swear it. But everything I've ever been taught says that what happened last night is wrong. Yes, that man was a useless scum, I don't deny that. But so is what Asta did to him. There was no trial, no chance for him to speak, and the way he died was.... in my opinion just as bad as what he tried to do to me. Clearly you disagree. So... I really don't know what else to do."
By his logic she was just as welcome to think what she wanted; and since they were at an impasse, was there any option other than to leave? If she couldn't stand to live like them, and they didn't want to change?
Maea
// I think I might've chosen darkness over light //
