Bitter Victory, Bitter Defeat

[PRIVATE] Bitter Victory, Bitter Defeat

Psyche the DarkEmpress Posts: 380

Deceased

Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 hh :: 8 (ages in Orangemoon) Buff: ENDURE

RayoDeSoleil

#14

02-05-2014, 12:12 AM

His honesty surprised a snorting laugh from her lips, so often laced with poison in the past. If she were the soul-searching kind, she might accept that her disgrace had in fact made her a better individual. She might agree that she was better off without the stress, better off having been disillusioned with her family's obsessive hatred, better off without the constant disgust that had pervaded her lifestyle - but she was not the soul-searching type. She was not interested in introspective ponderings, not interested in finding her 'true purpose' or any of that zen nonsense - no, she was interested in action, and making changes, and being better. She just didn't know how to make that happen.

"He was my general out of necessity, not choice," the shade found herself admitting to the equine. "I did not like him, but he followed along with the goals that we - I -" she cringed at the word, as though hating to take the blame but knowing that it was, indeed, her fault, "- had set. He was useful. That's what it was about, you know - all of my officers, all of my followers, they were selected because I could use them." There was hatred there now, directed not at those she had deemed lesser than herself, but at her own naive, blind stupidity.

She quieted as he threw himself into a rant, though she would be hard-pressed to call it that - his voice was not raised or spiteful, despite the fact that she was very clearly to blame for the pain that he (and so many others) had suffered. But now, it seemed, he wanted her to do something else - he wanted her to go back to what she had been, if not for the reasons that she had before. She shook her head. "I cannot take the Basin from Deimos," she told the stranger. "I was never their choice for leadership. I was a replacement, and a poor one, in their eyes, when Mauja disappeared last Frostfall. They do not support me. They do not want me.

"And yes... I am satisfied. Would you and I be conversing if things had been different? I think not. I would not be seeking a better life. I would not be asking forgiveness. I would not be facing my own doubts about the lifestyle I have led. Is it convenient? No. But maybe it is better." She paused, taking a breath, her voice having become more earnest than she had expected, almost as though she were trying to convince him - or herself. "I am sorry," she told him. "I cannot bring back your loved ones, but I am sorry to have taken them from you."

"Talk talk talk."