// May the road rise up to meet you //
Did she really want brutal honesty, if this was the result? Was she not the one walking away after hearing the truth? They could argue semantics and degrees of abuse until the end of days, and it likely wouldn't change a thing. And she found that she didn't have it in her to keep going. Or beg someone to stay when they didn't want to be around her. "I'd have preferred no threats at all, but neither of us are getting what we want today, so just forget it."
Maea's misty gaze trailed her back across the room, towards the door, wondering why it was that drove people away from her. She couldn't see it. Couldn't understand why it was such a dreadful thing to stand for what she believed in, why it was good when Astaroth did it but terrible when it was from her lips. Was she just not charming enough? Not silvertongued enough - was it simply too much work to care, far easier to slide freely on the moral gray scale and only think about yourself and a select few others?
The irony was not lost on her. Maea already knew what it was like to live that way, knew it did nothing for her. What she'd seen in the Dusklight had done nothing to convince her that she was missing out - and if Thalassa preferred that lifestyle to one that Maea sought, then she was welcome to keep it for herself.
"I'd rather be on my own than in the wrong company. Don't hold your breath," she muttered after Thalassa, the bitterness scalding her tongue, making it harsh and mean. All the things she meant to avoid - yet here she was, yet again. As the door snicked shut behind the captain, Maea closed her eyes again; against any tears, against the feeling of dreadful loss and most of all, against any feeling of doubt that would topple everything she knew and believed in, if allowed to take root.
The idea of what would happen if that occurred... the sheer unknown of it... terrified her more than anything else. More than being alone – that particular pain was at least familiar.
[FIN]
Maea's misty gaze trailed her back across the room, towards the door, wondering why it was that drove people away from her. She couldn't see it. Couldn't understand why it was such a dreadful thing to stand for what she believed in, why it was good when Astaroth did it but terrible when it was from her lips. Was she just not charming enough? Not silvertongued enough - was it simply too much work to care, far easier to slide freely on the moral gray scale and only think about yourself and a select few others?
The irony was not lost on her. Maea already knew what it was like to live that way, knew it did nothing for her. What she'd seen in the Dusklight had done nothing to convince her that she was missing out - and if Thalassa preferred that lifestyle to one that Maea sought, then she was welcome to keep it for herself.
"I'd rather be on my own than in the wrong company. Don't hold your breath," she muttered after Thalassa, the bitterness scalding her tongue, making it harsh and mean. All the things she meant to avoid - yet here she was, yet again. As the door snicked shut behind the captain, Maea closed her eyes again; against any tears, against the feeling of dreadful loss and most of all, against any feeling of doubt that would topple everything she knew and believed in, if allowed to take root.
The idea of what would happen if that occurred... the sheer unknown of it... terrified her more than anything else. More than being alone – that particular pain was at least familiar.
[FIN]
Maea
// May the wind be at your back //
