I wish I could take the hands of time and turn them in reverse
I'd take back every long goodbye with venom in my words
Adna has never enjoyed the prickling sensation of vulnerability. She preferred the guarded feel of her scales and the knowledge that while she was not the scariest creature in the woods, she was scary enough. So why then does she feel the need to bare it all for this perfect stranger? Why does she feel comfortable letting him see the ugliest parts of her? The questions loop in her mind, tumbling over themselves.
He continues to ask just the right question—putting pressure on just the right spot to make her nearly break. She resents it and finds that it’s almost cathartic to not care. It is cathartic to just lay it out for him to pick through. Let him see the carnage of his life and know—let him know just how worthless she is.
“I had every opportunity as a child and I squandered it. My father was Champion of Loess and then King, and he took me on his kingdom visits to train me up.” It is easier to paint him as a monster. It is so much more difficult to try and remember the kind parts—the beautiful parts. The parts that she had worshiped so much as a child. “My mother was always kind and quiet. She was a healer but then she got magic one day and became Queen of Tephra.” A moment of puzzlement on her face. “I think that she still is.”
She isn’t sure where she’s going with this—why she’s unraveling her history for him.
“I have done nothing. I let my parent’s tumultuous relationship leave me angry and mean and I abandoned my family. I left my sister. I had children with a man I knew could never love me like he loved his wife. I almost left my own children—“ she cuts herself off, breathing hard. “No, I couldn’t do that.”
Tears glitter in her sage green eyes as she looks down at her feet, at the ground beneath her.
“I don’t even have a real reason for being the way that I am. Maybe that’s the worse part."
the only way to being found is getting lost at first
but all I find are more bridges to burn
