| INNOCENCE
You will never be mine
Ophelia had not expected the verbal backlash, and she jerked her neck back in surprise, crimson tainted forelock falling over her face. She was struck by the vehemency in Phaedra's tone, the angle of her body pointed so forcefully in her direction. The white mare's brows furrowed over her two color eyes as she listened, but it did not take long for her defensive posture to be cut down, broken down by every subsequent word.
She felt weight on her shoulders again, boring her into the ground and pulling her hooves into the soil. Ophelia felt like she would be crumpled against the surface of the earth until its pores opened to drown her down into the fiery deep. Ophelia wanted nothing more than to join her friend in a tight embrace, but she assumed that distance would be only fair, since she had abandoned her.
Ophelia wanted to scream back, to retell what she had told the herd. She wanted to scream that she was falling apart, cracking from the inside and barely holding the pieces together. She wanted to cry that when she looked inside herself, it was not HER she was seeing. Ophelia was still struggling to bring the two halves of herself that the Sun God had split from her loss of memories, still trying to make herself whole, to bring herself back to some of what she was.
And yet with every contract, with every threat of death it widened the fissure between who she was and what she had become. Ophelia had been on a bullet train to self destruction, and she had taken a leap of terror from the tracks and onto unknown ground. She did was not naive enough to think that this was a good idea, or the best way, but for her, this had been her only choice lest she turn into something she could no longer recognize and no longer remedy.
How could she explain that?
Ophelia stammered, her own eyes turning glossy as the cool facade began to crumble, exposing the lost girl beneath the snowy exterior. "I have no.... no apology that would set anything right," she murmured, avoiding eye contact as her gaze fell to her hooves. "What good would I be doing you, asking for you to come with me?" she asked with a strained voice. "You are not at fault, you are safe in the herd. Why would I drag you into this hell as an outcast with me? I am not... I am not so cruel." She tried to take a deep breath, but it shook.
"I know that I did this to you, and I am so sorry, if... if you knew how tortured I am about this decision, perhaps you would understand." Ophelia frowned deeply. "The Grey was an idea from my sister, one that I had to scramble in my head in order for the concept to not make me sick. I lied to myself and in doing so, I lied to you, all of you. For some, the thought of killing, lying and stealing for our own material gain is a natural way of the world, and... in a way that is true. But with every action and whisper, I was being shattered."
Ophelia clenched her jaw to try and keep tears from falling. "I have lost everyone who was important to me, and I cannot lose anymore. Already my soul is becoming foreign to me, and I still have not managed to fix when my mind had been broken in two. The god I love has chosen to never see me again, my beloved confidant, Tor, betrayed me and left without saying a word, and I have turned my own life into a wreck. I can't.... If I were to stay on that path, I would have turned into a monster, but at least this way... I... won't... become something you can no longer recognize," she admitted openly, though she was not comfortable with bearing her soul again, only for it to be forsaken.
"I am so sorry. My intention was not to break a family, it was to make sure that I did not drive us into ruin. The contract with the Basin truly made me see, made me understand. Archibald nearly got us killed because of his over confidence and pride, and my sister's inability to see beyond her own desires was becoming too much to manage on my own. I am not a leader, and I never was. I never wanted to be. When Ktulu and I started this, we were children, and it is a child's dream that turned into a nightmare, for me."
"I realized that there was wisdom in my father's choices. You can love without condoning actions, and you can care without supporting. That... that is what I have to do, for me, and for Tinek. I cannot... I cannot put him through the disaster that is my head anymore. I am not... whole. I need to find... who I am again..." Ophelia tried to find words, and she finally just sighed, head hanging low on a frame that was weary, hanging off of her skeleton like a damp rag. "I do not ask you to forgive me, how could I? But I am always here for you, even if I do not live where you do anymore. You will always be my family."
@[Phaedra]
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[O] Perfect Porcelain [aka "The Booby Trap" - Ophelia Capture]
