Everything's made to be broken

// somebody told me that there's two sides to this life //

Pain flared as her nails dug into her upper arms through the shirt. Realizing that she was close to drawing blood, Maea carefully pried her fingers away, only to grab hold of a fistful of hair instead. He had to go and make it personal. Part of her wanted nothing more than to assure that she didn't mean him... but the rest caused her jaw to set stubbornly.
"If violence is your only way to solve problems, then yes. It's not about what anyone deserves; it's about what is right, and what is necessary. Tell me there really was no other way to deal with that man? Torture and murder was the only choice anyone had in this case?"

He was pressing on triggers she didn't want to acknowledge. But though the young woman wanted nothing more to say no, tell him he was wrong, that she'd never taken pleasure in a hunt ever - she couldn't. The truth twisted in her mouth and dropped into the space between them in silence, catching in her throat like she was a fae who couldn't speak untruth. Shallow breaths exacerbated the mounting headache; Maea cast about the room as if looking for a way out, some physical escape when reasoning started to fail her.
"I've - I've never tormented anyone who couldn't defend themselves," she grated out, tail curling tightly around her leg. "This and that spar - that's completely different! I'm not - I don't want - !" Slippery thoughts fled her grasp like panicked minnows; what was she even trying to say anymore?

"You're allowing cannibalism," she finally managed to get out, nearly choking on the mere word. "And murder."

Maea

// I think I might've chosen darkness over light //

Dantalion

innocence died screaming
honey, ask me, I should know

"And who decides what is right and what is necessary?" Danta wonders, his brow furrowed and his hand clenching around the glass he holds. "Because for me, it's my goddess. Dygra - I believe you've met her. Entropy, chaos, ring a bell? I promise, nothing about what has happened here would displease her." He has, after all, named himself Theocrat for a reason. "But besides that, ouch. I didn't tell you about my past for you to call me a failure in the present." And down goes the third shot of liquor.

"I'm sure there are countless other ways the situation with that man might have been dealt with. But I didn't make the decision, because it wasn't my job, and it isn't yours - it was Asta's." He shrugs, sliding the glass away lest his eyes start to glaze.

Raising his eyebrows as Maea tries to fight her way out of his questions, eventually all Danta can do is softly shake his head, a sad smile playing across his face. "So are you," he says, if she hasn't realised it yet. "You can fight with me about it here, but you were too afraid to call Asta out at the time? You're still here now, working? You're more complicit than most of the Grounds."

I slithered here from Eden
just to sit outside your door

Table base by Skylark

// somebody told me that there's two sides to this life //

Closing her eyes, Maea forced down a deep breath. Feeling so twisted up inside that she didn't know whether to cry or scream or throw up on Danta's pretty carpet. She felt stuck, that was the problem. Trapped between the reality of a situation she probably had put herself in, and the kind of life she wanted for herself.
"If you're a failure or not depends on whether you put any stock on reason at all," she sighed, grinding the butt of her hand into the eyes until white flashes danced behind the eyelids. It didn't help. "You asked for my honesty, so that's what I'm doing. Saying what I think."

Another deep breath, and she pulled her head up and turned red-rimmed eyes on the Maverick, her face so far from the polite smiling mask; and if what came through was miserable and tormented, that was just another bit of truth.
"I am, yeah. And it makes me sick to my core whenever I remember, just as it appalls me that I'm still here when I know - " Her voice broke. Looking away, Maea bit her jaws together, sucking down breaths to keep useless pointless tears out of her eyes - she didn't want it to look like she was vying for pity, because she really was not.

"I don't want to live with this kind of feeling. So... if this is what Dygra is about, and if this is what the Hollowed Grounds is going to be like... then I really don't belong here at all."

Maea

// I think I might've chosen darkness over light //

Dantalion

innocence died screaming
honey, ask me, I should know

"Says who, you?" Danta scowls, feeling the liquor in his veins start to ignite, loosening his tongue and coaxing his temper to life. "Who made you everyone's judge, jury and executioner, Maea? Who made what you think the only way to think?" She doesn't have to worry about his pity - Danta doesn't feel it for many people anyway, and it's his own honest reality that the cannibal in his life far outranks all others, and has done for some time.

"What Dygra is about is being free to do what you feel, regardless of what others think or whether it's selfish or base or a failure of the rational mind." He rolls his eyes. "And for all that you find us so disgusting, we have done nothing but open our arms to you and welcome you in. And in you walked - nobody forced you. Just because you don't know yourself as well as you believe, don't put it on us."

I slithered here from Eden
just to sit outside your door

Table base by Skylark

// 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?

Maea

// I think I might've chosen darkness over light //

Dantalion

innocence died screaming
honey, ask me, I should know

"No one is saying you are wrong," Danta says with a frustrated shrug that begs to paint shades of grey over her black and white thinking. "I didn't have parents to raise me, or brothers or neighbours to leave me hungry and call it kindness. I'm an orphan - I was taught to take what I can, give nothing back, and never to turn down a meal. What makes your upbringing more valid than mine, or mine more than yours?"

He's reached for the bottle again without thinking about it, automatically pouring another large measure of liquor. "This is the crux of it, Maea - no one here is going to tell you how to live, or what's right or wrong, or how to be. But it goes both ways - you can't preach to them either. If you want to do things your way, you can, but you can't force other people to do it too. Either," he pauses to take a drink, "the man you see out there at the Dusklight everyday, the charming one who likes you and whose job it is to protect you and everyone else in the building matters more than the one you followed... or he doesn't." It's as simple as that - and it goes for all the people Maea knows, not just Asta.

"And if he doesn't, that's fine," Danta adds, and he means it. "No one is going to twist your arm and make you stay. But if you do stay - and I hope you do - we can't have another conversation like this."

I slithered here from Eden
just to sit outside your door

Table base by Skylark

// somebody told me that there's two sides to this life //

He made it sound so simple. Tempting, alluring, like a will-o-wisp in the deepest darkness. Just throw away all cares and do whatever, no judgement. And as a cherry on top, he hoped she would stay. That was almost blackmail. Seduction of a high degree. Join the dark side, we have pats on the head and free drink. Or, well. Not free, you just had to leave all morals at the door.

Sniffing and wiping pointlessly at her wet cheeks, Maea turned her gaze to the ceiling. Traced the edge of it from corner to corner and back, counting the boards and beams - there were twenty three, broad and nicely varnished without a speck of dust to be seen - until the snot stopped dripping. Fuck, but she hated this high-strung weeping. It was so undignified.

"... what if I care, but still feel icky about your habits? Where do I put that?" It was more than ick, of course. Deeply grossed out, with cold shudders and a constant feeling of needing to throw up... Not to mention the nightmares. "What if I want to stay, but have this constant feeling of being out of place? Like I need to choose between you and everyone who isn't Ancient? How - I don't know... how to smile and laugh with one person while another is being torn to pieces somewhere out of sight..." Raising her hands helplessly, she looked at Danta, all but pleading for some crumb of logic, some piece of rationale that could explain what to do with all the dread that filled her at the idea of staying. What it would mean, to stay complicit in that kind of madhouse.

"I don't want to become a - " A monster. Gorged on carrion, seated atop a mountain of bones with blood dripping off her hands with nothing to say when her friends asked what she was thinking; heart so black that she no longer recognized or cared for the emotions, thoughts, and feelings of others " - a cruel person. Or someone who can overlook it and do nothing."

Maea

// I think I might've chosen darkness over light //

Dantalion

innocence died screaming
honey, ask me, I should know

Of all the people in all of Caido, for Danta to be the one to have some kind of magic word or catch-all solution is nearly giddying to the Maverick, and he seals his laughter behind a large sip of his drink. "I think you've got the impression that this happens all day every day. It does not," he drawls, raising an eyebrow at her. "What Asta did was the exception, not the rule. He keeps his proclivities to the infirmary, in general." Not that it matters - Maea's decision is already made, and he thinks they both know it.

Sighing deeply and shrugging, Danta sets his glass down. "I'm not going to make you a cruel person. Only you can decide to be that. But the things you find so vile happen in every region, everywhere - murder, assault, torture - sometimes from the people who are meant to divvy out justice. What's an execution if not murder? What is a duel if not one person killing another?" He scoffs.

"Not being able to do nothing, though? I don't know if anyone here can help you with that. You might get lucky and find paradise where cruelty never happens - but it's not here."

I slithered here from Eden
just to sit outside your door

Table base by Skylark

// somebody told me that there's two sides to this life //

Believe it or not, but the frank truth really might be it. It was a painful reminder of how truly powerless she was - yet in that there was a kind of freedom, wasn't there? If she could never defeat every monster in the world no matter how she fought and bled and cried, did it really matter if she chose which ones to go after? If it was a matter of choosing her battles, Maea already knew there were far more terrible beings out there than the ones she had come to know.

It may even be that she was more dreadful than any of them. Certainly she was quicker to pass judgement.

A deep sigh from the frail seeming frame spoke plenty of her defeat. Or maybe it was relief. Pushing away from the wall, she was almost shocked at how steady her legs were as she padded across the floor to where Danta sat. Stealing the glass from where he had put it down, she held it out, looking tired and careworn. "Could I have that drink, after all?" A quiet surrender - a promise to keep her prejudice to herself. Most of the time.

"Asta said that there were rules in this place too... Any I should know about, aside from 'no sexual assault'?"

Maea

// I think I might've chosen darkness over light //

Dantalion

innocence died screaming
honey, ask me, I should know

The theft of the glass has a frown knotting Danta's brows together, and whilst at no point has he considered throwing hands with the pale Ancient opposite, for those few seconds he really does give it thought. Of course, he'd assumed she was taking it for the purpose of being a contrary shitbag, rather than asking for a drink herself. "You absolutely can," he drawls, tipping the bottle of liquor to pour a generous measure into her glass. "First rule is that you don't swipe another man's glass from under him, though."

Rolling his shoulders and slumping back in his chair - he's well on his way to wasted after all, with so much liquor in his system in a relatively short period of time - he rubs his eyes and tries to think. "Uhhh... don't walk into rooms where the symbol on the door is twisted upside down? It means they don't want company." No sexual assault, duh, no being a drunken ass, obvious (unless it's Danta, he gets a free pass).

Shrugging honestly, the Maverick comes up short. "Ask Asta?" he suggests. "He probably put most of 'em in place as security."

I slithered here from Eden
just to sit outside your door

Table base by Skylark

// somebody told me that there's two sides to this life //

Pausing with the glass half raised to her lips, Maea gave him a quick look. Shrugging, she took a long sip. "I've been washing more glass that I can count this week," she murmured over the rim, as the liquor burned its way down her throat. "Just sparing myself more work than necessary."

The list was miserably short, and confirmed a suspicion she'd had that Asta had been making shit up on his own. Rolling her eyes a tad sourly, she drowned her opinions in more alcohol - at least the burn helped keeping her breathless enough not to make any more mistakes.
"I'll have to do that." Someday. When she could look at the man without wanting to throw him off the Spire. Gods knew how long it would take, given her memory. More important was the way the temperature between her and Danta seemed to be returning to normal.

"I'm sorry for calling you a failure," she murmured, sinking into a chair opposite his desk. "Never meant it that way."

Maea

// I think I might've chosen darkness over light //

Dantalion

innocence died screaming
honey, ask me, I should know

Given that Danta has not washed a single glass this week - and nor does he intend to - the Maverick allows Maea this win. Besides, the bottle is still right here, and he'll drink from it just as easily as he will out of a glass, just watch him. Speaking of watching, he does raise his eyebrows at the rolling of her eyes, but since she says nothing about it (as requested), he contents himself with a sip of liquor and stretches his legs out once more to prop them on the edge of the desk.

"S'alright," he mutters, regarding the things said and done in the past few minutes. "I really did used to be one, if you hold it up compared to the way I am now. But it was the only way I was taught to be." Something something a fish only growing to the size of its aquarium something something. "Thanks for decidin' to stay."

I slithered here from Eden
just to sit outside your door

Table base by Skylark

// somebody told me that there's two sides to this life //

She nodded with an understanding hum, watching the dark liquid swill in the glass as she twisted it between her palms. "It's hard to break free from old patterns," she acknowledged softly. "The flip side of being raised to put others first is that when you can't do anything to help them, you're not worth much. Even if I'm told to do things for myself... I don't know what that means. Or how to stop caring what anything I do will mean in the grand scheme of things. Seems like we're pretty much polar opposites, there." In the best of worlds, they would have a lot to learn from the other.  Maea thought she might enjoy comparing notes with Danta if they were less emotionally fraught, and felt less like live or die, decide now kind of arguments.

Though when he thanked her for staying, she had to bend her head down. A tangle of salty white hair half obscured the complicated expression ghosting across her face; bittersweet and far too soft, grateful yet resigned at the same time.
"Mmnm.." she murmured quietly, shaking her head. "Thank you for wanting me around. It'd be far easier for you to just kick me out. But you're not." Somehow, for some incredulous reason she didn't entirely understand. But as she apparently didn't want to be anywhere else, Maea was not about to question it.

Falling into a contemplative silence, she lingered until the glass was empty. When she left the office it was to look for someplace to sleep. It would be a lie to say that she felt better after their talk, but at the very least she wouldn't be fleeing into the night. Still at an impasse, there would be many sleepless nights to come, weighing pros and cons and options and agonizing over the meaning of making friends with monsters... and the significance of being one herself.


[Fin]

Maea

// I think I might've chosen darkness over light //