*“I wouldn’t really say we stomped them in the nuts. We forced new leadership at the request of our allies.”*

Something was starting to itch in the back of my head and my original complacency towards the Edge was wearing thin. Before I’d been content to just let them sit in my mind as bland, faceless assholes on a shitty corner of the map—but increasingly their name kept popping up in ways I wasn’t expecting and I wasn’t sure if I was willing to let their name keep sliding from my vision like that. The World’s Edge. Something told me I was gonna keep tabs on them, whether I was trying to or not.

I didn’t really react to his definition of “racisim” all that much but I latched onto it hard, gnawing on it in my head, picking apart his words and wringing the meaning out of them. It was a concept so foreign to me, the idea that you’d only want to hang with people who were the same race as you; growing up with Jiji, who had both a horn and a pair of wings, it just felt…I dunno, ass-backwards to let little shit like that matter to you so hard.

Did that make them wrong? I wasn’t so sure—but I know that if I wanted to be left the fuck alone by the majority of the world I’d shoot the first bastard who came creeping on my doorstep. I mean…I dunno. I guess they had a right to their own form of privacy.

I…I guess, I dunno.

I sighed—the knots in my body easing and loosening, surprisingly, even though we were talking about some heavy shit. But there was something…I dunno….soothing about the act of talking about something, hashing through it back and forth, your heart fluttering here and there with the ideas but none of them lashing out and making it all muddier.

Not gonna lie though. I almost sprayed laughing as his eyes cut at me, glowering and angry at the way I poked at his care, like he couldn’t fight against my logic. Which was a weird thought in and of itself, the fact that I had logic that no one could refute. Not sure if I was proud of that or what.

*“I care when I shouldn’t, and that is… fundamentally bothersome.”*

I snorted loud and sloppily. “Preaching to the choir,” I muttered—cuz having a heart’s only fine when it’s not always twisted and sore and bleeding and scarred and bursting and breaking breaking breaking and healing just in time to break again.

*“You won’t change the world in a day; it’s rather set in its ways. But, you are bright, which is not much I can say about others. Do not let your heart trip up your head.”*

I opened my mouth—almost, almost shocked into speaking, but then I just looked at him funny, at the words he had said that were digesting in such a weird way in my heart. “I…” I started, but it was no use; these kinds of things didn’t have an answer, didn’t need an answer, cuz I was realizing that these were pieces of wisdom sticking to me too tightly to ignore and shake. So I accepted them, swallowing them down like fat, sticky pills doing their damnedest to cling to my throat on the way down. Not gonna lie—kinda fucked me up when he called me “bright”. I don’t think anyone’s ever really...called me that before. To my face, anyway. Usually I was content with running around like I was the village idiot.

“I…” I started again; something felt like it was wrapping up, cuz he needed to make this apology he didn’t really understand (or want, I guess), while I had my own…shit…to deal with. But I wasn’t really done with Ulrik, not yet, cuz here was a guy I could pick out for days and probably never get bored once. “…Hey,” I asked, my voice going softer, “If I…If I’m ever…uh…able to swing back by here, again….” And I didn’t pretend to mask my real meaning, a meaning surrounded by mountains and graced with a beautiful lake, “I wanna…well…I wanna check out that metal horse thing a little closer.” It spewed out of me seemingly from nowhere and I was unabashed about it but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t awkward at all, “Cuz that shit was savage.”

Now wasn’t the time for that, though; he had an apology to make and I wasn’t gonna be the one to stop him.




"talk"
@[Ulrik]--but no need to reply again!

Quit Hollerin' "Why God?", he ain't got shit to do with it.