[Training] [SE] Got a pain in my mind

Maea

You think killing is hard?
Try healing something. That is hard.

For a second time her arm was caught up in the water, sending cold shivers across her skin. Hissing in frustration Maea summoned fire right against the skin this time, attempting to burn the moisture off from the inside. It was a reckless move, as the subsequent explosion did far more than heat the water; it battered her skin and tore at the fabric of her dress - which fortunately absorbed most of the damage, though not all.

It was hard to think like this. Staggering back and  clutching her battered arm, she scowled at the demigod, not sure where he was going with this. The different perspectives... sure, she could sort of see that one. Applying it to the Grounds new citizens and to other opppsitions made sense, and she accepted that she was narrow minded in a lot of areas - some of which simply came down to personal preference.

But the rest? "Do you regret choosing to fight for us?" she asked - because that's what it sounded like. "Are you saying you shouldn't have picked a side at all? I don't see how that would have made any difference. Would Nate.... forgive me, but would doing nothing really have kept Nate alive?" He'd made his own choices after all - if she recalled correctly, he could also have made the choice to hide and stay safe instead.

But he had not.

Summoning more flame, she fed it into becoming a massive orb almost as tall as her. It scorched the fresh grass as she pushed it towards Sunjata - for the first time in a long while, she was beginning to feel the bottom of her endurance when handling magic.

You can break something in two seconds
But it can take forever to fix it

THE FLOOD

// take my heart and make it feel,
take my soul and make it real

He doesn’t know the details of what she’s internally struggling with, but he does offer her the tidbits of what he’s learned. And he keeps the water hovering nearby in anticipation for her next attack, listening as her frustrated voice reaches his ears, and he focuses a bit harder onto her. “I regret a lot of things.” Sunjata answers simply, huffing a sigh. “I regret not doing more. But the point of it was that no matter what I did to try and change people’s opinions on the Ascended and the Voice, it ultimately didn’t fucking matter, did it?” He asks her point blank.

He watches as she makes that column of fire, a giant orb of flame that burns through the clearing beneath them, the heat curling against those that extend out of the little circle he’d made, even further as she pushes it toward him. Once again the water around him pulls up in a swirling shield, protecting him from the ball of fire that blooms toward in, hissing and steaming as it wears down the ball of fire.

“At the end of the day, regardless of the things you do, you can’t change people that don’t wanna change. Nor can you actually change if you don’t want to.” He says from behind the steam and the swirling water.

'cause i was bright, yeah I was pale and blue,
starry eyed by every thought of you //

Maea

You think killing is hard?
Try healing something. That is hard.

With a grim expression she watched the flames sputter and go out, dousing their fury in the endless water. Though he was sweating in the sun, Sunjata showed no sign of wearing out, while she had to strain to summon another spark.

"What you did wasn't meaningless," Maea protested. "Ultimately we lost, yes. And people died, and it didn't go the way many wished it had. But that doesn't mean that your choices were bad, or even wrong. Do you know how much it means even now, that there was someone who fought for my right to exist? Even when I didn't believe it myself, even though I couldn't do a single thing to protect anyone - you did. If you regret that..." she shook her head, upset for reasons she couldn't articulate.

He turned the conversation back to her again, and Maea raked long hair out of her eyes in a barely contained gesture, bursting with pent up emotion.
"If I hurt people who get close to me, it's not about wanting change, it's about necessity. Either I stay the way I am and lose all meaningful connections along with any self-respect, or I do something and try to fix what I broke. It's just... people are happy to tell me what I do wrong, but they can't seem to cough up how to be different." It was really easy to acknowledge that she'd been selfish and short sighted, and those things could be remedied with expanding her priorities. Being told to care less, though... there she was at a loss.

"The thing is... I barely stay afloat as it is. If I can't care about the big events and I can't care about the place where I live - what's left? What's the point of getting up in the morning if there's no point in trying to do anything?"

You can break something in two seconds
But it can take forever to fix it

THE FLOOD

// take my heart and make it feel,
take my soul and make it real

He was much stronger than he had been the last time they’d done any of this. As she reaches the end point of her endurance with the magic, Sunjata’s only reason for the sweat comes from the sun shining down on him. He could go for much longer without tiring out. But he does sense that she’s reached the end of her rope, so he settles, letting the water fall away, soaking back into the earth. “I never said it was meaningless. I just said that it didn’t fix anything.” His scarred brow rises toward her, as if trying to get her to see the point he’s making. “I don’t regret fighting for the Ascended. I don’t regret betraying Safrin. I regret not having more time.” The lists are easy to conjure in his mind, lest she continue following the path of mishearing him.

Nodding as he folds his arms across his chest, he sinks back onto one leg a little heavier than the other, considering her words. “It’s probably because nobody can tell you how to make that change. Only you can figure it out.” Nose wrinkling briefly he exhales a heavy sigh. “I didn’t want to change after the war. I didn’t even go and see Frey. Eventually, it took me realizing how shitty I was and felt that I asked Frey for something to do. And I made the House of Midnight.” Tattooed shoulders shrug as he moves to collect his bottle of water.

Taking a sip, he reflects momentarily about her last statement and Sunjata snorts a little, shaking his head. “I’m not saying not to care about it. But you don’t have to make it everything you are.” Gesturing to her with his lightning scarred hand. “People aren’t just one thing and nothing else. And it sounds like you’re just basing people and yourself off of what you can do for everyone else or how you’re perceived by others. That’s not life.”

'cause i was bright, yeah I was pale and blue,
starry eyed by every thought of you //

Maea

You think killing is hard?
Try healing something. That is hard.

When he didn't attack again and the water disippated, Maea let her flames burn out with a sigh. Squeezing water out of her sodden sleeves, she frowned at Sunjata's words. She really didn't get where he was going with this. Regrets and meaning and futility only sounded like the same kind of tangled web she was battling, and she couldn't make out what lesson she was supposed to take away from his experience. But she didn't want to argue, so shesimply shrugged and let the subject drop - she didn't know what to say anyway. 

Her mouth twisted uncertainly as Sunjata went on. Maybe it wasn't all life was about... but when she didn't have anything else, what was the supposed to do? "No? Then what is life? What exactly is it that I'm not doing enough of? Because I don't know anymore. I've tried all I can think of. I've stayed busy, I've engaged with others, I've taken interest in the world, I train myself and travel and it's still not living?" 

What else was there?

You can break something in two seconds
But it can take forever to fix it

THE FLOOD

// take my heart and make it feel,
take my soul and make it real

Letting her wring out her sleeves, he waits before she seems particularly frustrated – misconstruing his words as she always had despite how he’d never quite been the best at saying it anyway. So he sighs, hand weaving through the air briefly to pull the rest of the water from her sodden clothes into a glittering ribbon of rainbow hues so very similar to the Oasis where they’d swam what felt like ages ago. When he’d been a different man. When Caido was different, and yet they were still acting the same.

“Maea, you’re misunderstanding me. Again.” A punctuated point to try and get through to her – though this time without the anger that he’d always shied away from because of his father. It wasn’t like their argument on the beach before she’d went and died, but the sentiments were the same. A feeling of just fucking listen for a minute.

Steading himself with a breath, focusing on the water like a moment of meditation, he looks back to her and lets the water drop to the ground in little raindrops. “Remember when I first met you? Remember when you didn’t want to use your magic because you were too afraid of what you’d be like with it?” He cocks his head toward her, an avian flare. “You let it dictate your life. You couldn’t do this because you didn’t know the extent of your magic and what happens if you hurt someone?” Feathers sprout through his navy tattoos for emphasis as he watches her, a lingering look that seems to say ringing any bells?

“Now you're trying to tell me that power's gone to your head and you don't know how to stop it? Reflect on that. Think about other people, first of all, like you used to. Maybe take a second to ask them what they want, instead of what you think they want.” Pausing for emphasis, he sighs a little and tries to subconsciously smooth out the feathers sprouting from his skin. "Like how in the meeting with Dahlia you just decided for all of us that we couldn't play nice because it wasn't what you wanted?"

'cause i was bright, yeah I was pale and blue,
starry eyed by every thought of you //

Maea

You think killing is hard?
Try healing something. That is hard.

It wasn't like she tried to be contrary. If she misunderstood him, it was because she genuinely didn't follow his line of thought. Dragging down a harsh breath of air, Maea pushed against the frustration and stilled herself, really tried to focus and listen – only to end up confused again.

"I remember that, yes," she said, raking her nails against the scalp - somehow it helped her think clearer. "I also remember you mocking me for needing help to get out of that line of thought." Their argument outside the house they'd never bought still echoed in the back of her mind, fainter over the years but not gone. "Now it sounds to me like I was right to be worried. I - I'm sorry, Jata, but I really don't get it. To me it feels like one massive contradiction. Like - I'm to consider other people's wishes, but not too much because then I'm letting it dictate my life, and I should listen to others thoughts but I should also make my own decisions, and that's  - I don't understand how anyone gets anything done. No matter what I do, it's wrong."

Bewildered she spread her arms wide - flinching slightly to find them dry, having failed to notice when he had pulled the water from the sleeves. "At the meeting... I really did think it was the consensus that she wasn't welcome, you know? Nothing anyone had said up until then had indicated anything else. And I've never seen leaders balk in the face of a threat either. I realize I was mistaken, but... can you at least see why I acted the way I did? Based on everything I've had as an example up to that point?" Or was she really as insane as he'd made her sound like?

You can break something in two seconds
But it can take forever to fix it

THE FLOOD

// take my heart and make it feel,
take my soul and make it real

He had mocked her – but only because it was always the same shit each and every time and if it was exhausting for him he could only imagine how it must’ve felt like for her. Tough love, as it had been back then. Reverting back into a portion of himself where that kind of thing worked. He was no longer a soft, gentle child. He’d grown razor sharp edges and fractured so many times. And as they continue to talk, he seems to take note of her doing the same.

Sighing, he draws silent, mind trying to filter through how to make it make sense. Words were never his strong suit, something she knows and yet still always seemed to twist his words in ways he never meant them to be. And unlike with Hotaru, where he can share the feeling and sensations through the Attuned bond to try and explain with feeling rather than his vocabulary, he’s stuck trying to figure out how to break it down for her.

“It’s moderation, Maea. You keep swinging too hard in one direction that you can’t find that middle ground. That’s why you’re fucking up. Either you’re too considerate or you make your ideas the only ones that matter.” Give and take, give and take. “It is very easy for people to talk shit about what they would do when faced with an event. It’s much harder for them to actually do anything about it in the moment.” Shrugging, he reaches up with the scar flecked hand and brushes back the silver streaked hair. “I can see why you did, I just think you need to think about your actions a bit more. Which, I know, is kind of a lot coming from me.” Flashing her a small smile on the edge of a wince, he exhales. “Took me a lot of years to work on my impulsivity. A lot of fucking up my relationships, too. And only now are things starting to kinda work out.”

Literally years.

'cause i was bright, yeah I was pale and blue,
starry eyed by every thought of you //

Maea

You think killing is hard?
Try healing something. That is hard.

Let it not be said that effort got you nowhere. They were both trying here. He to convey his thoughts in words that made sense, she to listen to the meaning just as much as the words themselves. And behold, finally a coin dropped and the cogs and wheels of her brain began to turn again. The understanding manifested like a look of clarity on her face, like a deep breath and a long, weary sigh - not quite a 'why didn't you just say so' but also not quite 'so I was right, it is a contradiction' - before she folded her arms loosely across the chest.

"... I hear you," she murmured, and for once that was the honest truth. "That... is going to be difficult, isn't it? Like constantly compromising." Which was damnably hard sometimes, especially with people who didn't wish to. "Is there anything you have found that should not be done in moderation?" Ludo's words kept echoing in the back of her mind - it had spoken about moderation too - and while she had tried to live according to that, Maea had to admit that she was also straining against the idea. What she wanted, what she really wished for, was to fling her arms wide and erupt with all that she was and all she could do - and find that it wasn't too much, that it was enough, that it was exactly what she and someone else had been looking for all this time.

But that might be the true pipe dream.

You can break something in two seconds
But it can take forever to fix it

THE FLOOD

// take my heart and make it feel,
take my soul and make it real

Finally they are getting somewhere. And with it, the tension starts to bleed from his tattooed shoulders, his steel gaze focusing on the pale Ancient with a nod as she continues to speak. “Well yeah, it’s not going to be easy.” If it was easy, what was the lesson learned? And when she proceeds to continue to ask if there was anything that shouldn’t be done in moderation, he really has to think for a second before snorting lightly and shaking his head.

“Everything, to an extent. I mean, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.” He starts to say, returning over to where the water shimmered in the ground beneath them, drawing it back up with his magic just to have something to do with his hands to try and help him focus on the words he’s trying to explain. A ribbon of it swirls around, catching the sunlight and emitting rainbows in varying sizes on the ground between them. “Too much bad shit’s only gonna get worse.” Sighing softly, his steel gaze flits up to her as he continues to swirl the water around. “That’s where the compromise comes in. You’ve got to give and take.” He’d always gotten a lot of bad, but for all the trials and troubles he’s endured, he’s finally at a point where things have started looking up. “Take too much and you're selfish, but give too much and you get taken advantage of. There's a balance in between that you have to find.”

'cause i was bright, yeah I was pale and blue,
starry eyed by every thought of you //

Maea

You think killing is hard?
Try healing something. That is hard.

Absorbing what he was saying, it felt painfully obvious now that it was voiced out loud. Logical in a way that made it embarrassing to acknowledge how difficult it was to live by, and mortifying to realize how far she had strayed. Despite the sweet flowers and the breathtaking reflections cascading across her hands, Maea had a sense of being lost in the woods, with brambled paths extending before her bare feet; no matter which one she chose it would hurt, and yet remaining where she was would be just as bad.

"Makes sense." Rubbing her sore arm, she kept her eyes on the ribbons of water, hesitant to let her gaze linger with Sunjata for too long. She didn't trust herself around him; even now, after all this time, he was still a weakness she had to resist. "Thank you. I will... find a way to change. And... I really am sorry. For the mess I made." For deluding herself into thinking she could make a difference, when the should have known better.

You can break something in two seconds
But it can take forever to fix it

THE FLOOD

// take my heart and make it feel,
take my soul and make it real

Still maneuvering the ribbon of water, Frey’s demigod watches the pale Ancient through the ribbons of rainbows cast by how the sun reflects through the streams. He takes note of how she doesn’t look at him, not long glances anyway, though he doesn’t comment on it.

Nodding despite it as she speaks, he starts to let the water fall away, droplets joining the water again. “Pretty sure all anyone’s asking for is for you to learn from them.” The mistakes, that is. Not that he can speak for everyone, but those that he has talked to, that has been the one lingering thought. There’s only so many times one can beat their head against a wall trying to prove a point. “But thank you for your apology.” He offers, flashing her a traditional roguish smile in spite of everything, allowing her to step away and continue her day.

'cause i was bright, yeah I was pale and blue,
starry eyed by every thought of you //

Maea

You think killing is hard?
Try healing something. That is hard.

Pausing to look at him, she almost said that it amounted to the same thing. Didn't it? So far, she seemed incapable of drawing any kind of conclusion from her fuck ups beyond how bad she was at so many things. None of the revelations were helpful, nor did she seem to grow from experience. The deeper she dug herself into this pit, the more apparent it became that something fundamental would have to change before she could heed his advice.

But for once, Maea kept her thoughts to herself. She smiled instead, and nodded. Hovered awkwardly for a moment, before taking a step back.
"Thank you for trying to help. I really appreciate it." She raised a hand in a little wave. "I should get going... see you around, Sunjata."

She had taken several hurried strides away, when she remembered the cloak she had dropped in the fresh grass. Flushed and with a sheepish expression she doubled back and picked it up, waved again for good measure and scampered off - for good, this time. The last thing she wanted was to overstay her welcome, when they almost had managed an entire conversation without shouting at each other. Was that progress? It felt like progress.

Mostly his, but... all the same. She was quietly impressed.


[FIN]

You can break something in two seconds
But it can take forever to fix it