Dragoncrest Cliffs [m] there's no more searching for answers

My face isn't weirddddd! Maleah squawks out indignantly. Yerrrr just mean. Or maybe I'm mean, haha.
Feeling now that her skull was more like a giant paper-weight and she could no longer be assed to hold it up, she shrivels into a crescent moon shape and tucks her forepaws between her thighs. Y'wanna know who I hate, Miette, baby? Lemme tell you a little story.
She did not wait for an answer.
I used to know this, this, um, this woman. Big, biiiiig scary lady. Kinda mean. She made us live in a pppphhhfffuckin', swamp, for a while. And, y'know, I-- she-- my family was full of a lot of bad people. Scary people. And she made me feel safe, at first. Like I could-- be more than what my dad wanted me to be.
But, y'know, the longer I stayed there, or-- after I left, the more time I spent away, the more I realized... I had just, walked myself right back into the same environment I grew up with. Lots of, y'know, violence, people always after her head. I was a pawn, to her. To tend her soldiers when they were done, like, terrorizing people. I was so blind to it! And I remember when she died, how distraught everyone was, and how I-- I stayed friends, with some of her friends. But she was... a bad person. She hurt a lot of people. And then, I look back on it and I wonder if, if-- does my past with her make me a bad person? Do I deserve a good life here, in Sapphique? With people I'm starting to love?
She pauses only to take a shaky breath, blown out her nose in the way one would do with cigarette smoke. It scares me, y'know, the way I care about you. And your maman. And your siblings, and your aunts and uncles. I've never... had that. I've never let anyone close to me. I don't know how to, Miette, I-I mean, here I am, telling, like, my whooole life story to-- you. And I'm probbbbably not gonna remember it tomorrow.