// now I've been crazy, couldn't you tell? //
For a lack of pockets to hide her hands in, Maea kept fidgeting with the counter, with the puckered scars that covered them, with the sleeves of the dress that suddenly seemed too short. Too many things crowded on her tongue pressing to be spoken, yet very little seemed relevant. How Flora seemed under the impression that she was itching to cram a crown onto her own head and play at royalty, when she still doubted her suitability for such a role, for example. How she even had leaped from 'staying' and 'helping' to 'leading' Maea didn't know - yet objecting smacked too much of insincerity, when she really had encouraged Liam to do those very things. Did it matter why she was doing anything, when the results would end up the same?
"You say that like I haven't tried," she sighed, as the subject touched on her relation with the other leaders. "I'd like nothing more, but there's only so much I can do when words are all I have to offer. So far, only Hadama and Sunjata has even acknowledged the letters of apology I sent - if Deimos or Danta won't even reply, how am I to change anything?" She was banned from the Dusklight, barred from Halo by the deadly cold, and even if she was not it would help nothing to simply show up on their doorsteps without anything to show for her sincerity.
"The thing is, even if I am sorry for the danger I placed us in, fundamentally I don't believe I did anything wrong. My error, as I see it, lies in expecting someone else to be proxy in the challenge I issued. That I can apologize for. But standing up to a bully? Speaking the truth? You cannot make me believe those things are ever wrong, no matter the time or place or how 'convenient' it would be to play along. I don't play those kinds of games. Can't, honestly, because I suck at them even when I try."
Showing her palms in a shrug, Maea had no answers for how to do what the Doubletake suggested. She was not the kind of person who could lie or bend the truth to accomplish a goal. The best she could manage was saying nothing at all, and they'd both seen how good she was at that. "I'm the first to admit I suck at diplomacy. I realize that apologies don't amount to much without a change in behavior. But if my truth doesn't matter enough to even warrant a response, then... I don't know that anything else I do ever will."
"You say that like I haven't tried," she sighed, as the subject touched on her relation with the other leaders. "I'd like nothing more, but there's only so much I can do when words are all I have to offer. So far, only Hadama and Sunjata has even acknowledged the letters of apology I sent - if Deimos or Danta won't even reply, how am I to change anything?" She was banned from the Dusklight, barred from Halo by the deadly cold, and even if she was not it would help nothing to simply show up on their doorsteps without anything to show for her sincerity.
"The thing is, even if I am sorry for the danger I placed us in, fundamentally I don't believe I did anything wrong. My error, as I see it, lies in expecting someone else to be proxy in the challenge I issued. That I can apologize for. But standing up to a bully? Speaking the truth? You cannot make me believe those things are ever wrong, no matter the time or place or how 'convenient' it would be to play along. I don't play those kinds of games. Can't, honestly, because I suck at them even when I try."
Showing her palms in a shrug, Maea had no answers for how to do what the Doubletake suggested. She was not the kind of person who could lie or bend the truth to accomplish a goal. The best she could manage was saying nothing at all, and they'd both seen how good she was at that. "I'm the first to admit I suck at diplomacy. I realize that apologies don't amount to much without a change in behavior. But if my truth doesn't matter enough to even warrant a response, then... I don't know that anything else I do ever will."
Maea
// I threw stones at the stars but the whole sky fell //
