Some of that— goes over her head. There is a neat pile of books beside the bed they now share, full of anatomical diagrams and increasingly full of marginalia that she has solicited him for his thoughts on, making notes and occasionally corrections, winding down in the evenings with just more study to be even more of use. (It is hard, still, not to understand her place in the world directly in relation to her use to it. They really don't have time to also unpack that.) It is practical and actionable and through the lens of medicine as understood by Thedas, not Earth, so concepts like hormones and brain chemistry are not natural to her—
but she understands, enough, what he's saying. He can see it on her face, the way that understanding blooms and disorients,
I thought we were past this. It is, perhaps, not her fault that they aren't. That there is no medicine for the terrible emptiness in the middle of her is not because she should have just been better. Even his world, which seems to the point of frank irritation to take the attitude that so many things are and should be easy to solve, is challenged by this thing that she hasn't been able to brute force into rightness.
Maybe as far as she's got isn't so little as it feels, when it would be unrecognisable to her if she were to see it from ten years ago.
“Oh,” feels so stupidly small, for so monumental a thing. (What if there had been something like that, before Tranquillity, when Casimir had been frightening the Circles he was in—) Her eyes close and she presses her mouth against his palm, holding herself there. The hard wood flooring underneath her. The boning of her corset, dug into her waist with the way she's sat. The warmth of his hand on her face and the other, in hers. Here she is. Here she is. “I—”
It is better to know. She, too, always wants to know — wants to understand — but she can't quite move through that understanding as quickly as she wants to, forcibly sat with it now. Maybe it isn't her fault if she isn't just past it, and maybe that is an entirely new thought she's never had before, and maybe having that thought deserves to be sat with.
And there are ways that this ... makes sense, things that it connects to, her head tilting, “I've used elfroot for the panic, before,” she says, “I didn't think of it in so many words,” had been dismissive when Margaery, watching her breath out wreathes of smoke and the uncontrollable agitation that had sent her careening out into the garden, had queried her on when that started, well, why did you start drinking wine, as if she hasn't also used wine to drown grief and sorrow and rage and the inability to just be fucking still when she desperately wished to be still and quiet.
Easy to grow accustomed to the ordinary thing that had always been ordinary around her; to soak in liquor and sedate the terrible, clutching limitlessness of those feelings.
no subject
but she understands, enough, what he's saying. He can see it on her face, the way that understanding blooms and disorients,
I thought we were past this. It is, perhaps, not her fault that they aren't. That there is no medicine for the terrible emptiness in the middle of her is not because she should have just been better. Even his world, which seems to the point of frank irritation to take the attitude that so many things are and should be easy to solve, is challenged by this thing that she hasn't been able to brute force into rightness.
Maybe as far as she's got isn't so little as it feels, when it would be unrecognisable to her if she were to see it from ten years ago.
“Oh,” feels so stupidly small, for so monumental a thing. (What if there had been something like that, before Tranquillity, when Casimir had been frightening the Circles he was in—) Her eyes close and she presses her mouth against his palm, holding herself there. The hard wood flooring underneath her. The boning of her corset, dug into her waist with the way she's sat. The warmth of his hand on her face and the other, in hers. Here she is. Here she is. “I—”
It is better to know. She, too, always wants to know — wants to understand — but she can't quite move through that understanding as quickly as she wants to, forcibly sat with it now. Maybe it isn't her fault if she isn't just past it, and maybe that is an entirely new thought she's never had before, and maybe having that thought deserves to be sat with.
And there are ways that this ... makes sense, things that it connects to, her head tilting, “I've used elfroot for the panic, before,” she says, “I didn't think of it in so many words,” had been dismissive when Margaery, watching her breath out wreathes of smoke and the uncontrollable agitation that had sent her careening out into the garden, had queried her on when that started, well, why did you start drinking wine, as if she hasn't also used wine to drown grief and sorrow and rage and the inability to just be fucking still when she desperately wished to be still and quiet.
Easy to grow accustomed to the ordinary thing that had always been ordinary around her; to soak in liquor and sedate the terrible, clutching limitlessness of those feelings.