08-14-2015, 10:50 AM
I think it has been…just about forever. Since I could breathe, since I could move, since I remembered what it was to feel at home in this body I live in. It doesn’t feel like mine, somehow. So colorful and vibrant and unscarred somehow when all I feel is scarred. Gendry erased the marks left behind on my skin. He put me back together, and he healed the damage to my body. But the monster broke something in me so many years ago, something that had already been so terribly fragile.
And I have never quite felt whole since then.
I try not to let the broken parts show too much. They’re all living their lives, moving on and trying to be happy. Building futures, building families, recovering from all the tragedies that struck our family. Hallows has a sweet little family of his own, his lady and their lovely daughter. Gendry’s always had his Arrya. Xero may not be with someone, but she’s…she’s happy. She always has been, even during the hard times. I used to envy her resilience. But I’m glad at least one of us isn’t broken.
Dröm has vanished off the face of the earth, and frankly I think it’s for the best. He…I love him because he’s family. But he’s…there’s something wrong with him. A darkness in his eyes, in the way he looks through everyone but Drow. In the way he looks at Drow like he is something to be possessed. And Drow…he hurts enough without Dröm’s help. Without him around, Drow has been healing. He seems almost peaceful sometimes, our volatile volcano slowly going dormant. The fire inside him easing, dying down to embers.
Tarnished is...well, I haven’t seen a lot of him. I think he has old hurts to work through still, and it keeps him away from me. Then again, there has always been a bittersweet, aching kind of distance between the two of us. Momma Luna showed me beauty and joy and happiness, taught me about the wonders this world can hold long before I entered it. She taught Nish about the nightmares. About the dangers, and the way the choices we make can ruin the lives of those we love. I think…I think we should have learned from each other, should have balanced each other. Instead, there was always this subtle dissonance that kept us apart. I bet we’d understand each other better now. Maybe I would hurt him less, now that…
Now that the wonder is so far out of reach.
I haven’t been alone all this time. That’s something none of them would so much as think to allow. No, I see most of them from time to time, quick visits, short talks, fleeting smiles that sometimes even feel natural on my face. And I hate that I don’t know how to do this anymore, that I don’t know how to be…who I was. The bright eyed, carefree, adventurous little girl they knew. I wish I could, if only because it feels like letting them down every time I hide, every time I hit that point where I just can’t be around anyone anymore and I pull away. I wish I knew how to tell them it’s nothing they did, nothing they didn’t do, nothing they could have done, that it’s just too much. That too long without the quiet makes me shake, makes my chest tight and my jaw clench and my breath start to fight me. I was always something of a hermit, spending more time by myself exploring the world than I did with everyone else. But after the monster…
So I try. When I can, I try to put on the smile, try to be unscarred and unbroken long enough to soothe the worst of their fears, long enough to buy a little more time before someone decides it’s time to intervene and try to fix me. I don’t think anyone can fix me. Gendry fixed my body, erasing every patchwork scar I tried so hard to hold onto until I realized it would have hurt him too much. I let him restore my outsides to shiny and new when all I wanted was to be what the monster had made me. Scarred and tattered and roughly pieced together. It’s so much work to be shiny and new, but it hurts them less. And some days hurting them less is all that I have.
I still explore. I think they’d worry more if I didn’t. Spending days by myself, wandering up a mountainside knowing there is no one for miles and miles, no mask to wear, no half-hearted smile to plaster across my face, knowing I can shed all the shiny and new and just be unashamedly broken for a little while, knowing no one will hurt a little inside just looking at me. And knowing I’m far from any monsters the crowded places hide so cleverly in plain sight. God, the meadow is too hard. Too big, too much, too many people, I can’t watch that many strangers all at once, can’t read that many people, can’t tell who’s safe and who might whirl around and tear me to pieces. And even when it’s only a few, I’ve been wrong so many times. I’ve been so very, very wrong, and I’ve hurt too many people I love by being too naïve, too blind, too starry-eyed to see when someone is danger and ruin and heartache just waiting to fall on us all.
Alone is easier.
Alone is safer.
I stand at the precipice of a mountain I’ve never climbed before, muscles shaking from the exertion as I look down on the world from far away. So quiet, so still, and it’s in these moments where I find a moment of peace. Where the skittering under my skin eases, where the breath in my lungs is sweet even if I’m panting and my coat is stained steel blue from sweat. There is no past, there is no future, there is only this moment, this view, this breath, this single solitary beat of my pounding heart. For just this moment, I fit in my skin and in the world. It never lasts long, but for right now, I can breathe.
And I have never quite felt whole since then.
I try not to let the broken parts show too much. They’re all living their lives, moving on and trying to be happy. Building futures, building families, recovering from all the tragedies that struck our family. Hallows has a sweet little family of his own, his lady and their lovely daughter. Gendry’s always had his Arrya. Xero may not be with someone, but she’s…she’s happy. She always has been, even during the hard times. I used to envy her resilience. But I’m glad at least one of us isn’t broken.
Dröm has vanished off the face of the earth, and frankly I think it’s for the best. He…I love him because he’s family. But he’s…there’s something wrong with him. A darkness in his eyes, in the way he looks through everyone but Drow. In the way he looks at Drow like he is something to be possessed. And Drow…he hurts enough without Dröm’s help. Without him around, Drow has been healing. He seems almost peaceful sometimes, our volatile volcano slowly going dormant. The fire inside him easing, dying down to embers.
Tarnished is...well, I haven’t seen a lot of him. I think he has old hurts to work through still, and it keeps him away from me. Then again, there has always been a bittersweet, aching kind of distance between the two of us. Momma Luna showed me beauty and joy and happiness, taught me about the wonders this world can hold long before I entered it. She taught Nish about the nightmares. About the dangers, and the way the choices we make can ruin the lives of those we love. I think…I think we should have learned from each other, should have balanced each other. Instead, there was always this subtle dissonance that kept us apart. I bet we’d understand each other better now. Maybe I would hurt him less, now that…
Now that the wonder is so far out of reach.
I haven’t been alone all this time. That’s something none of them would so much as think to allow. No, I see most of them from time to time, quick visits, short talks, fleeting smiles that sometimes even feel natural on my face. And I hate that I don’t know how to do this anymore, that I don’t know how to be…who I was. The bright eyed, carefree, adventurous little girl they knew. I wish I could, if only because it feels like letting them down every time I hide, every time I hit that point where I just can’t be around anyone anymore and I pull away. I wish I knew how to tell them it’s nothing they did, nothing they didn’t do, nothing they could have done, that it’s just too much. That too long without the quiet makes me shake, makes my chest tight and my jaw clench and my breath start to fight me. I was always something of a hermit, spending more time by myself exploring the world than I did with everyone else. But after the monster…
So I try. When I can, I try to put on the smile, try to be unscarred and unbroken long enough to soothe the worst of their fears, long enough to buy a little more time before someone decides it’s time to intervene and try to fix me. I don’t think anyone can fix me. Gendry fixed my body, erasing every patchwork scar I tried so hard to hold onto until I realized it would have hurt him too much. I let him restore my outsides to shiny and new when all I wanted was to be what the monster had made me. Scarred and tattered and roughly pieced together. It’s so much work to be shiny and new, but it hurts them less. And some days hurting them less is all that I have.
I still explore. I think they’d worry more if I didn’t. Spending days by myself, wandering up a mountainside knowing there is no one for miles and miles, no mask to wear, no half-hearted smile to plaster across my face, knowing I can shed all the shiny and new and just be unashamedly broken for a little while, knowing no one will hurt a little inside just looking at me. And knowing I’m far from any monsters the crowded places hide so cleverly in plain sight. God, the meadow is too hard. Too big, too much, too many people, I can’t watch that many strangers all at once, can’t read that many people, can’t tell who’s safe and who might whirl around and tear me to pieces. And even when it’s only a few, I’ve been wrong so many times. I’ve been so very, very wrong, and I’ve hurt too many people I love by being too naïve, too blind, too starry-eyed to see when someone is danger and ruin and heartache just waiting to fall on us all.
Alone is easier.
Alone is safer.
I stand at the precipice of a mountain I’ve never climbed before, muscles shaking from the exertion as I look down on the world from far away. So quiet, so still, and it’s in these moments where I find a moment of peace. Where the skittering under my skin eases, where the breath in my lungs is sweet even if I’m panting and my coat is stained steel blue from sweat. There is no past, there is no future, there is only this moment, this view, this breath, this single solitary beat of my pounding heart. For just this moment, I fit in my skin and in the world. It never lasts long, but for right now, I can breathe.
Daeryssa
of the restless heart
