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+--- Thread: King Elk Forest -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin (/showthread.php?tid=24238)
-- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Seabreeze - December 17, 2017
she is avoiding him.
which, of course, she had been doing all along. but it was more apparent since him lashing out at her at the borders. she could overhear the first bit of conversation — she doesn't have the authority — and could not help the bubble of laughter that threatened to escape. oh, right? only leadership? that's fucking funny when delight had been recruiting people left and right.
but she figured so long as delight would kiss ass and die for the silvery prince, then it was justifiable to him.
and it was true she'd been avoiding delight, too. he still needed her founding story but she wasn't so inclined on giving it now. not until this blew over, if it blew over. when she could contain herself.
she had been taking risks more often at night, sneaking out to the caches to eat a mouthful or two, and hunting with @Zada as she repaired brienne's side. she still looked pitiful, but it was getting better.
she knew he would come for her eventually. it was just.. the waiting game. so she took her chances one afternoon and crept out from her den, skulking to the heart of the forest and weaving around every tree and bush she could find, leaving an obvious scent trail.
come find me. get it over with. i can't live like this anymore.
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Ariel - December 17, 2017
makin a couple little assumptions, can edit if needed!
something would have to give eventually. delight's been worried about brienne since she came back, even if they'd struck an uneasy understanding with each other. but he is a coward; he is weak and scared and he does not know how to account for everything being topsy turvy. he wasn't supposed to be in the narrative. he knows it's not really because of him -- mato and brienne would be on the outs regardless, but a part of him wonders, worries.
he's been half-heartedly looking for her, too afraid to barge directly into her den, skulking in the shadows like he did when he first met them. she's -- not like herself, he knows. blowing up at strangers on the border - and he's caught her scent outside their border line, too, fading off into elk-knows-where. unlike morwinyon, he's not angry, not cold - just, really concerned for a friend - whatever trauma she's been through, whatever's happened to her and mato.
she's doing some weird thing when he catches her scent trail. the androgyne takes a deep breath and steps forward into the clearing, calling out after her quietly: "bri..?"
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Seabreeze - December 17, 2017
someone has found her because, well, of course they have. but once again it is not the silvery prince she expects, and a wave of relief washes itself over her. it's delight.
even though she doesn't want to, she blames him a little bit. jealousy festers deep within her gut. she wants to warn him. don't fall in love with him, i can see it in your eyes. he will devour you and leave you nothing but ash. but she doesn't.
oh. hey.she offers instead, keeping her eyes fixed on the frozen ground before her. she really doesn't want him to see her like this. even though she had been eating she'd been vomiting the majority of it up, so her hips and shoulders were visible, ribs easily palpable. and so mean.
but she had promised him, right? that they were okay? so she had to accept this, whatever it was.
are you alright?
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Ariel - December 18, 2017
she doesn't pull away or snap at him, which he takes as a cautious good sign, and steps a little closer. his toes disappear under the layer of snow that's settled on the forest floor as he walks.
(even if he could sense the warning she wants to give, all he'd be able to do is shrug, helpless: it's too late, it's too late.)
delight tries not to make it obvious that he's looking at her bones under stretched thin flesh but - she'd not been this thin at the pack hunt, right? what a miserable leader he is to let one of his own be in this condition, right? but, no, she asks him, like they can just play this off.
"i'm me," he says by way of an answer, and sits, a frown drawing across his face. "you don't look alright, though." he knows she knows medicine - and frankly he doesn't - but she must be sick or something. when he speaks again, the usual harsh edge to his voice is gone, made soft with a usually-hidden vulnerability: "what's going on..?"
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Seabreeze - January 12, 2018
she wants to will her heart to harden as his long fingers of curiosity smooth their way under the armor she's carefully brandished.
but in a way she loves him. not like she loved mato, but not entirely different either; he had been there for her before she had disappeared, he had been her friend. and she can't let that go.
oh,[q/] she says, caught off guard even though she knew that the conversation would turn this way. alarm bells rang in her head, blackout stars in her eyes like when you stand up too fast or get dizzy. [q]i — nothing,and she wants to ask why but she knows why.
i've been eating, promise.
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Ariel - January 13, 2018
he cocks his head, scans her critically. "wasn't really worried 'bout that til you said that," delight tells her, "but you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to. i mean -" he fumbles, never very good at interpersonal skills, "- i wanna know, but i won't.. push you? i know things are, um, weird. to put it lightly."
delight tries to smile. it doesn't quite work. his guilt is overwhelming. "you were probably looking for mato, huh," he says, referring to her scent-marking before he bumbled along. delight singing-sunlight: always the back up, always the stand-in, for one or the other. he doesn't think mato's going to go looking for her, though - he's got in his own head, he's got burke to worry about, he's.. well. he's kind of selfish, delight can admit that (he just loves him anyway).
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Seabreeze - January 21, 2018
she narrows her eyes at him. she saw the way his gaze had trailed over her strewn-out figure, but she lets it drop without rebuttal. she doesn't want to argue, she's had enough of that.
he mentions mato and her ears flatten, expression turning sour. i mean, yeah, she had been looking for him. but maybe it'd be best to just.. not. just not.
i don't think i'll be seeing him around.
she sighs, forcing the air out of her lungs.
what do you want to know? specifically? i will tell you.
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Ariel - January 21, 2018
he lets out a small, humorless laugh -- more a whoosh of breath than anything. "probably not," the androgyne agrees, mouth twisting into a grimace, "sorry, he's..."
delight doesn't finish the sentence, shrugging a little helplessly. you know. her question gives him pause. what does he want to know? selfishly the first thing that comes to mind is -- will she forgive him for loving mato, but he can't just ask her that. instead he fidgets, and finally says, "i'm not gonna ask what happened to you, but... do you think you'll ever be able to forgive us?"
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Seabreeze - January 21, 2018
her slender jaw parts as her eyes turn liquid, and her breath hitches in her throat. in reality, it doesn't matter what happened to her (it matters to her, oh yes) but the reception she got upon her return home.
she didn't understand why nobody else understood that.
oh, delight.her voice is full of almost fondness, wavering with ripples of hurt.
of course, i forgive you. i must forgive you both — if i am to grow from this, if i am to survive.
she lowers her head, eyes cast at the ground.
i love him. i will always love him. but he is not mine, and he never was. what he did to me, how he treated me was wrong. but maybe i was not as passionate or receptive as i could have been.
she thought of her dark friend waiting for her in the woods. her heart is torn; she loves delight, she loves mato. but she is infatuated with that girl and the moments they shared in the den, her tending brienne's wounds.
i cannot promise i will always stay here. but delight, this is not your fault.as much as she wanted it to be, somehow.
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Ariel - January 24, 2018
of course she rebuts him, of course she forgives him -- she's the nicest wolf delight's known, but when you get right down to it, that wasn't what delight meant. "he loved you too," the androgyne confides, wondering when he's going to step over the damn line he's been tiptoeing for months, "he told me that he almost abandoned tindómë for you, but then he didn't. he hardened himself instead." does he still love her somewhere deep down? he suspects the answer is so, but he knows it doesn't matter either way, that mato is good at closing off. that he'd rather burn the bridge between them than offer that moment of vulnerability. and delight agrees with brienne -- hadn't he said as much to mato before brienne had even returned?
he's playing with fire and he knows it, but the burn is so lovely against his cold feet. "you know i love him," he says, finally, and feels the words raw in his throat. "and you, of course, in a different way -- i don't blame you if you don't want to stay, but i do love you too." and in an alternate reality, a better one, maybe, delight would be the quiet bachelor, the (if he can be a little arrogant) godfather to their children, protective but distant, still orbiting the happy couple. not happy himself, maybe, but content enough. he'd accepted his fate the minute he'd realised a) his decision to follow mato had less to do with a promise of pack and more to do with the prince himself and b) the way brienne and mato looked at each other meant mato would never be his to look at. and mato never would have noticed -- or so he thinks, anyway, because he can't cast himself as the homewrecker when he'd worked so hard to not be that to them. even if in the end, maybe he is a little bit. or maybe it's just all too complicated to fall back on these archetypes -- and all he can do is hope that each of them are able to grab onto whatever small happiness they can find, whether it's together or apart, tindómë or not.
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Seabreeze - January 30, 2018
the corners of her mouth turn into a grimace. she did not think delight was correct in his assumption that mato loved her.
she never asked him to forsake tindome for her. but to at least.. be excited about her return? be relieved she had survived? she had expected that. was it really too much to ask?
she didn't think so. not if he had loved her. not if what they had was more than infatuation. looking at it from an outsider's perspective she realized too late that she had built herself around him, a pitiful amnesiac following a prince to his kingdom with promises of forever.
she had never really learned who she was outside of them, and when it was gone? she had been left with nothing.
i don't think so, delight. i don't think he loved me. but that's okay, because he has you now. i see myself in you and i want to tell you — he will do to you what he did to me. he will cast you aside as easy as he abandoned me.
she meets his eyes now, serious.
i don't mean that in a bad way. if you can love him, then love him. i know you do. go and be happy together. but i swear, delight, if he hurts you? i will find him.and it was a threat she intended making good on.
RE: -- we both know a break does exactly what it says on the tin - Ariel - February 05, 2018
he takes her warning to heart.
he does!
it's only -- delight was never supposed to be the one mato fell for anyway. the silvery prince didn't exactly sweep him off his feet. delight's love is a quiet thing, meant to be hidden away, unexplored, and now that it's out in the light of day he has a hard time imagining mato will be able to do to him what he did to brienne. not because delight is so special as to not be cast away, no. but because delight expects it. there is a casual cruetly in mato he'd be a fool not to observe, and although he's willing to overlook his love's narcissism and ego, and although he does not mind being burned by mato's bright star, he is not blind to it.
there will come a time when he, too, is left behind for someone else or some other grand idea. and delight will do what he does best. he will fall back into the shadows and steel himself and learn to be okay with loving quietly from a distance again. just like he was always meant to do.
"bri," he says, anyway, his voice choking on the syllable. "thank you." it is more of a blessing than he expected from the battle-wounded girl, and he will guard the words jealously in his heart. "we should form a club," he jokes, or tries to, the words falling flat even to his ears. he sighs and shakes his head, quiet for a moment before he says, "i hope one day, things won't taste so bitter," and hopes she knows what he means.