[SE] Roads we walk in the dark

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

It wasn't. It was. Being different meant there were no rules that applied to all, no right answers, no frame of reference to lean on in a changing world. It meant no one was right or wrong, that everyone could make up their own truths and the only way to tell if it was just was by deciding if you agreed or not. It meant she had to decide for herself whether it was alright to make a meal out of a prisoner, whether a person could be both monster and friend, whether she could live with being something other than what her father had raised her to be. 

And all the responsibility of her choices would lie squarely upon herself. A very different way to live from the obedient, devout follower she had been in her youth. It was beyond frightening.

Her slice of pyrina barely entered the pot before Maea withdrew it. She didn't bother blowing on it before putting it in her mouth, conscious of the lingering warmth on her hand after being touched. The flavor of the broth was mild but subtle, adding to the natural flavor of the meat rather than obscuring it. She tried a piece of mushroom next, struggling with the chopsticks and nearly dropping everything into the campfire. It was good. "It's very good." More than just a little. Tearing up out of nowhere, it was silly but something about all of this really got to her. Softening hard surface in her heart she'd thought beyond salvaging.

How was it different from being Ascended? "Like day and night," she admitted, rubbing at her eyes. "I couldn't feel heat or cold, couldn't taste, smell or even really feel at all. Any physical feedback was muffled, a dry and dispassionate line of information only. You would think it would be nice to feel no pain... but it made me careless, and cold, and numb. Being Ancient... is the opposite. Or maybe it just seems that way after being numb for so long. It is... overwhelming." Better, in many ways; she was not sorry for leaving that unaging existence behind.

"Do you think me ungrateful? I'm still alive, I have my health, I've friends and magic and several shifts... It must sound like a lot of whining." He gave away so little in the face of her unburdening. Whatever he was thinking was hidden well, and it made her falter, suddenly uncertain. Was she really the only one who worried about these things? Wasit really non-issues, pointless hemming and hawing that didn't matter to anyone else?

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

base inspired by Odd <3