10-28-2018, 02:36 PM
Leilan
a dragon who couldn't be hurt on the outside
could have so many ragged holes inside
could have so many ragged holes inside
He doesn’t visit - doesn’t do what she asked. Pretending to be a family friend to her and Thorgal is pretending that the mare and he are alright, and pretending he’s not the boy’s father. He doesn’t want to mentally orphan the kid. Besides, the boy would pick up on the tension between them.
Whatever she had thought when she offered him that tiny bit, it wasn’t going to work.
And so he refused it, because it wasn’t going to be good enough.
He doesn’t know why she wants him to visit at all. Why she feels a need to put him to the test instead of just use her damn eyes and ears to make her decisions based on the other horses’ stories, if she cares that much. Or why she doesn’t just take the boy and move elsewhere, pretend his father is someone who died or something of the like - it would kill him, but probably not much more than it does now. Staying in Nerine. Like holding out a piece of candy in hopes of getting him to move into the trap she’d laid out.
He doesn’t want that.
What he does want, is a chance to explain. No, he doesn’t. It wouldn’t matter to her, he’s sure about that. She would just cling to her side of the story. When someone tells you they’re not lying, either they are lying about that too, or they really don’t - either way, no-one could ever have the truth of it.
He’d briefly considered asking Breckin to just share his memory with Roseen, too. The ones he’d shown her when he came back home and give her the choice of what to do with his lousy self, since he didn’t know what made her happy any more. But he doesn’t want to burden his queen with any more of this than what is part of it is already eating at her. That she doesn’t admit it, doesn’t mean he doesn’t know. Doesn’t feel it. He knows where she came from (before she became a Leviathan, before she became queen); in fact, safe for the desperation with which Roseen had wanted to find her perfect love and little family, the sooty bay had not been much different from the spotted mare. Too low a self-esteem to be truly healthy for them - now, sometimes he wondered if the encouraging he did to work that self-consciousness into something they’d be proud of, wasn’t working against him. Wouldn’t it be easier if he was what Roseen said that he was - one to take their self-doubt and use it against them? It feels so wrong though, and he can’t fatom why anyone would; if there’s nothing left of those insecure girls but a scared body, then they’d be not much different from a walking corpse.
One only sees what they want to, he supposes. It’s only when the sooty mare speaks that he notices her, but he doesn’t move a muscle for a while, thinking she’ll probably not want to be near him at all and was just trying to pretend to be polite, but would go.
When she doesn’t leave, he finally caves and asks, though he still doesn’t really look at her, his voice sounding tired. He’s so tired of all of this. How should he see the difference if he wasn’t actually allowed near her? Sure, she’d said he was, but he knows she doesn’t really want him to. It had been quite clear that she wanted none of what he could offer, last spring.
”What do you want, Roseen?” There’s no malice, only the flat sound of someone too tired to bother with the fight any longer. ”If you’ve come to hurt me some more, just get it over with.” Because he sure as hell doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do that would make any difference at all. He’s not trusted, and that stinks, but it’s not like he could magically change what happened or simply make himself look more trustworthy all of a sudden.
It’s an endless circle, of thoughts he can’t break out of, of things dropped and picked back up and put down. It’s killing him, but, he guesses that’s what she wants, otherwise she wouldn’t give him such impossible fake-solutions; wouldn’t have laid out this kind of a trap.
Whatever she had thought when she offered him that tiny bit, it wasn’t going to work.
And so he refused it, because it wasn’t going to be good enough.
He doesn’t know why she wants him to visit at all. Why she feels a need to put him to the test instead of just use her damn eyes and ears to make her decisions based on the other horses’ stories, if she cares that much. Or why she doesn’t just take the boy and move elsewhere, pretend his father is someone who died or something of the like - it would kill him, but probably not much more than it does now. Staying in Nerine. Like holding out a piece of candy in hopes of getting him to move into the trap she’d laid out.
He doesn’t want that.
What he does want, is a chance to explain. No, he doesn’t. It wouldn’t matter to her, he’s sure about that. She would just cling to her side of the story. When someone tells you they’re not lying, either they are lying about that too, or they really don’t - either way, no-one could ever have the truth of it.
He’d briefly considered asking Breckin to just share his memory with Roseen, too. The ones he’d shown her when he came back home and give her the choice of what to do with his lousy self, since he didn’t know what made her happy any more. But he doesn’t want to burden his queen with any more of this than what is part of it is already eating at her. That she doesn’t admit it, doesn’t mean he doesn’t know. Doesn’t feel it. He knows where she came from (before she became a Leviathan, before she became queen); in fact, safe for the desperation with which Roseen had wanted to find her perfect love and little family, the sooty bay had not been much different from the spotted mare. Too low a self-esteem to be truly healthy for them - now, sometimes he wondered if the encouraging he did to work that self-consciousness into something they’d be proud of, wasn’t working against him. Wouldn’t it be easier if he was what Roseen said that he was - one to take their self-doubt and use it against them? It feels so wrong though, and he can’t fatom why anyone would; if there’s nothing left of those insecure girls but a scared body, then they’d be not much different from a walking corpse.
One only sees what they want to, he supposes. It’s only when the sooty mare speaks that he notices her, but he doesn’t move a muscle for a while, thinking she’ll probably not want to be near him at all and was just trying to pretend to be polite, but would go.
When she doesn’t leave, he finally caves and asks, though he still doesn’t really look at her, his voice sounding tired. He’s so tired of all of this. How should he see the difference if he wasn’t actually allowed near her? Sure, she’d said he was, but he knows she doesn’t really want him to. It had been quite clear that she wanted none of what he could offer, last spring.
”What do you want, Roseen?” There’s no malice, only the flat sound of someone too tired to bother with the fight any longer. ”If you’ve come to hurt me some more, just get it over with.” Because he sure as hell doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do that would make any difference at all. He’s not trusted, and that stinks, but it’s not like he could magically change what happened or simply make himself look more trustworthy all of a sudden.
It’s an endless circle, of thoughts he can’t break out of, of things dropped and picked back up and put down. It’s killing him, but, he guesses that’s what she wants, otherwise she wouldn’t give him such impossible fake-solutions; wouldn’t have laid out this kind of a trap.
@[Roseen]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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