07-23-2023, 05:22 PM
who could ever leave me, darling,
but who could stay?
but who could stay?
After invading him so cruelly with her empathy she finds that she is afraid of touching his emotions at all, as if it is one of her own nerves rubbed raw. If anything, she has placed a shield between them now, knowing that if she felt anything from him in this moment that she would lose all fortitude. She could not afford to feel his anger, or his pain—she does not trust herself to not immediately revert back to herself, and to not desperately twist herself inside out in an effort to earn his forgiveness.
She knows, as much as she knows anything, that if she felt even a glimmer of his emotions that she would not have what it takes to erase the only one who has been a constant in her life since she first arrived in Beqanna.
His voice pulls her focus back to his face, and she can feel her chest tighten as her jaw clenches, steeling herself for what she is about to do, for what she knows she must do.
She doesn’t say anything to him when she first begins to brush across his memories, not allowing herself to linger over any of them for long. She sees them in flashes, and for the most part they reaffirm why this needs to be done—for every memory full of light there are twice as many marred by darkness, shot through with anger and hurt. She takes them one by one, dissolving them as if they are dust, and finds relief in knowing that soon she, too, will not have to remember any of this either.
It is the final memory that causes her to pause, letting herself get tripped over it and losing focus just long enough that her selfish nature regains control. A single memory that she cannot bring herself to eradicate, a last, thin thread left between them: the two of them, all those years ago in the valley, just after she had first arrived; not friends, but not strangers, either. She shields this one and only memory, wrapping it in magic that neither of them would be able to touch, assuring that should they ever cross paths again there would be only a flicker of recognition, but nothing more.
“I hope someday you find someone you do not need to be afraid of loving,” she says softly as she begins to withdraw, preparing to teleport herself away from him as her own memories begin to evaporate, saving herself the trouble and confusion of trying to understand why she is caught in the simmering stare of an almost stranger.
She knows, as much as she knows anything, that if she felt even a glimmer of his emotions that she would not have what it takes to erase the only one who has been a constant in her life since she first arrived in Beqanna.
His voice pulls her focus back to his face, and she can feel her chest tighten as her jaw clenches, steeling herself for what she is about to do, for what she knows she must do.
She doesn’t say anything to him when she first begins to brush across his memories, not allowing herself to linger over any of them for long. She sees them in flashes, and for the most part they reaffirm why this needs to be done—for every memory full of light there are twice as many marred by darkness, shot through with anger and hurt. She takes them one by one, dissolving them as if they are dust, and finds relief in knowing that soon she, too, will not have to remember any of this either.
It is the final memory that causes her to pause, letting herself get tripped over it and losing focus just long enough that her selfish nature regains control. A single memory that she cannot bring herself to eradicate, a last, thin thread left between them: the two of them, all those years ago in the valley, just after she had first arrived; not friends, but not strangers, either. She shields this one and only memory, wrapping it in magic that neither of them would be able to touch, assuring that should they ever cross paths again there would be only a flicker of recognition, but nothing more.
“I hope someday you find someone you do not need to be afraid of loving,” she says softly as she begins to withdraw, preparing to teleport herself away from him as her own memories begin to evaporate, saving herself the trouble and confusion of trying to understand why she is caught in the simmering stare of an almost stranger.
Ryatah
@Ashhal