step on the glass

\\ Get my pretty name out of your mouth \\

Sighing, she pressed a frustrated hand against her face. "Maea, I want you to be brutally honest, to be frank and open about things without speaking in half-truths or hiding something just because it may upset me." As for her 'threat,' Thal laughed, throwing up her own hand in exasperation. "Not against you! I'd say burning or throwing something might fall under the 'so much worse' category, wouldn't you? Unless you would have been fine with a dagger in your door?!" She pointed to the wooden structure so similar to the one that she'd peppered with holes in her own home. The fact that Maea was completely convinced she'd hurt her to send a message sent a sharp pain in her chest, like they'd never really known each other. 

The ache only increased as her point was proven. It felt like things were being pushed back onto her again, that she wouldn't get what she wanted, when all she wanted was honesty and a lack of judgement. But apparently that was too much to ask for - even in comparison to Maea's iron-clad condition of wanting to keep her conscious clean of interacting with anyone who didn't support her opinions. 

Thal couldn't understand, her mind still puzzled over how someone could be so rigid and unwilling to compromise, even for someone they supposedly cared about; but she refused to play the conditional game of how they were allowed to be friends, of having to constantly worry about how she'd be perceived. Her lips pursed against the pain, nodding her head with a sense of reluctant finality. "Well, when you get lonely in your ethical purity, you know where to find me." And with a last glance at the pale Ancient, she turned to leave, her anger having shifted to a strange emptiness that felt suspiciously similar to the months after Maea's disappearance.

Thalassa

// 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

// May the wind be at your back //