The mood changed, he changed and Dacianna took an uncertain step back as a frown crossed her face. One moment he was pulling on her heartstrings with tears staining his snowy cheeks and now… Now he was answering her with a cold slap to his words, as if she’d somehow offended him in her innocent unknowing and she must now bear his icy wrath. Taken aback, Dacianna stared at him in surprise as her ears slid towards her neck, his sudden hostility was unnerving and she began to regret offering him her sympathetic shoulder, her listening ear and her gentle heartbeat. She said nothing to his harsh no, unable to conjure the words to reflect her startled feelings and instead she began to think about just leaving him alone. He was quite clearly fine now… Or maybe he wasn’t, but she certainly didn’t know him well enough to take his anger that may or may not stem from his sorrow. Even now she could feel her own ire welling in her chest as she felt like a fool for even feeling sympathy for him, however, with a calming breath, she reminded herself of his previous state.

She should not judge him; instead, she should just leave before she said something regretful.

With conflicting emotions, Dacianna began to turn her head away from his chilling look and was settled on making her departure when his bitter laughter caused her to stop and turn back. She watched him, listened to him as he brutally drove a knife into her chest with his harsh words, like he was mocking her for her stupidity. Her expression twisted into one of angered hurt and her rage boiled onto the tip of her tongue taunting her to return his savage words with her own. Even now he had the audacity to turn and walk away from her causing Dacianna to snort. She watched him slide into the water with his back turned, she was quite ready to push his arrogant face into the sea and drown him if it wasn’t for what he said next.

For a while she said nothing, she didn’t know what to say, although Dacianna now understood a little more of why he was acting the way he did. Still, she wondered, if this happened to be her father who was sat moping around because she had died, would she be happy? Her gaze dropped to the floor for a moment as she considered simply leaving again, but Dacianna knew she had already decided to linger a little longer anyway. Besides, no one got to speak to her like that and just walk away, who did he think he was?

She began to walk over to him, this Mauja, splashing her gold and granite hooves into the shallow water that he was sat in, before finally turning to face him, the mope. "Yes" she answered his question with confidence "because to think otherwise would be disrespectful to those, like your daughter and your friends daughter, who died fighting those monsters" her voice was firm but it held compassion. "Don’t belittle me because you think I know nothing when all you can do is mope and cry" she threw at him, knowing her words were harsh, but her gentle sympathy hadn’t gotten her anywhere either. "Did your daughter die so you could sit in a puddle and lament your life away-" she stopped abruptly, looking at him up and down with a note of disgust "why did you fight in the first place? Get up" she began to move towards him and tried to push her body into his with force. "Get up and live. Stop being so pitiful" she almost begged of him, unable to stand his tear stained face any longer.

"Show me you can fight, show me how to save myself from this land fraught with greed and violence and pain. Please" her voice dared him as part of her screamed what the fuck are you doing?! Yet, he looked like he needed to let something loose and Dacianna, in her complete annoyance, had somehow gone from refusing to take his anger to nominating herself to be the punch bag.

Still, it would make her feel better too by throwing a few kicks at him for his savage words.