04-22-2024, 10:42 PM
— i would rather learn what it feels like to burn than feel nothing at all —
She does not know why she is always surprised when someone actually approaches her.
She does not know when she stopped caring that they do.
There had been a time when she had been so afraid of burning someone, and her abrasive nature had been the only way she knew to force others to keep their distance. It had been easy for them to assume back then she was just a plain girl with an irascible attitude — no one could fathom that someone so plain looking could burn in the way she warned them that she could. But ever since the fire had consumed her and turned her into a living, breathing warning sign she stopped caring so much.
If they were drawn to the flames she would not shoulder the blame for them being scorched.
The reflex to tell him ‘no’ when he asks if she is looking for company is nearly overpowering, and she has to bite her tongue to keep from saying it. Admitting such a thing felt like a shortcoming; admitting that she needed anything at all was a failure. Her anger had been her closest companion for years, their party crashed only by her intermittent fights with Brigade. She realizes, in this moment, that she has forgotten how to be anything other than irritated and resentful.
“I suppose so,” she answers him, her tone clipped but leaning more towards a bored indifference. It’s the best she can offer, at the moment, with genuine kindness still so far out of reach. “A little odd that of everyone here you chose to approach the one on fire, don’t you think?” The question, strangely enough, does not have the bite behind it it may have once had. In fact, there is almost a trace of amusement, accentuated by the faintest upward turn of her lips.
She does not know when she stopped caring that they do.
There had been a time when she had been so afraid of burning someone, and her abrasive nature had been the only way she knew to force others to keep their distance. It had been easy for them to assume back then she was just a plain girl with an irascible attitude — no one could fathom that someone so plain looking could burn in the way she warned them that she could. But ever since the fire had consumed her and turned her into a living, breathing warning sign she stopped caring so much.
If they were drawn to the flames she would not shoulder the blame for them being scorched.
The reflex to tell him ‘no’ when he asks if she is looking for company is nearly overpowering, and she has to bite her tongue to keep from saying it. Admitting such a thing felt like a shortcoming; admitting that she needed anything at all was a failure. Her anger had been her closest companion for years, their party crashed only by her intermittent fights with Brigade. She realizes, in this moment, that she has forgotten how to be anything other than irritated and resentful.
“I suppose so,” she answers him, her tone clipped but leaning more towards a bored indifference. It’s the best she can offer, at the moment, with genuine kindness still so far out of reach. “A little odd that of everyone here you chose to approach the one on fire, don’t you think?” The question, strangely enough, does not have the bite behind it it may have once had. In fact, there is almost a trace of amusement, accentuated by the faintest upward turn of her lips.
Brinly
@claudius