Maybe she shouldn't be surprised that that's what he snags on—
but the widening of her eyes, the way she fumbles for an answer, that's not feigned. How long has it been since she thought on that, the curiosity that had drawn her nearer Casimir in the first place — the envy? How much of her anger had been tangled up in the unfairness that she saw in the misuse of something that felt so ... so sacred to her. How it had appalled her, still appalls her, the way the Tranquil are seen and treated or not seen and brushed past, because—
how freeing it had seemed, how clean. How unfair it was to see it made something ugly and ill-treated.
“I am so fucking tired of myself sometimes,” she says, because she doesn't have a better answer than the truth. “I spill over feeling like a stumbling drunk, I—” her face twists, “break perfectly good chairs and fight about stupid things and sometimes my heart beats so hard I can't breathe and it's not like when I was dead, there's no reason, it just happens, I just make myself sick and then when it's gone and it's empty it's not useful. I don't do anything useful or see anything sensible or act logically, I just lie in my fucking bed for days until I have to do something else or else rot.”
This isn't how she meant to tell him these things.
She looks down at their hands—
“Casimir and Alistair and Cullen and Pentaghast,” she says, quiet, miserable. “I'm afraid.”
Angry, and sorrowful, and — afraid of where sorrow has led her, before. Of how much less lovely being so particularly herself can be, when this thing that they've made between them is still new, and still fragile where it isn't yet familiar.
no subject
but the widening of her eyes, the way she fumbles for an answer, that's not feigned. How long has it been since she thought on that, the curiosity that had drawn her nearer Casimir in the first place — the envy? How much of her anger had been tangled up in the unfairness that she saw in the misuse of something that felt so ... so sacred to her. How it had appalled her, still appalls her, the way the Tranquil are seen and treated or not seen and brushed past, because—
how freeing it had seemed, how clean. How unfair it was to see it made something ugly and ill-treated.
“I am so fucking tired of myself sometimes,” she says, because she doesn't have a better answer than the truth. “I spill over feeling like a stumbling drunk, I—” her face twists, “break perfectly good chairs and fight about stupid things and sometimes my heart beats so hard I can't breathe and it's not like when I was dead, there's no reason, it just happens, I just make myself sick and then when it's gone and it's empty it's not useful. I don't do anything useful or see anything sensible or act logically, I just lie in my fucking bed for days until I have to do something else or else rot.”
This isn't how she meant to tell him these things.
She looks down at their hands—
“Casimir and Alistair and Cullen and Pentaghast,” she says, quiet, miserable. “I'm afraid.”
Angry, and sorrowful, and — afraid of where sorrow has led her, before. Of how much less lovely being so particularly herself can be, when this thing that they've made between them is still new, and still fragile where it isn't yet familiar.