*“I’m sorry Ros, I didn’t mean to just disappear.”*

I scuffed my hoof on the ground a little, shrugging my shoulders, my eyes shifting away from him again, forgiving him on the spot. “S’kay,” I muttered. I mean, I had actually tried to go ghost in the past, to run away from whatever huge thing that Pa and the rest of the world was trying to shackle me to. When I still believed in that shackle.

There wasn’t a chance of me keeping my composure and keeping a poker face when he mentioned his Ma. So I didn’t try; my jaw went hard and my body tensed up a little, hearing how he spent “time” with her, which wasn’t doing any good for my frayed nerves. What with the whole “suspect” thing, her being a flamboyant bitch (I should really stop knocking on her like that. But—I mean—she was guilty of being his Ma and I wasn’t completely over it yet). I took a breath; let it out; took another one, trying to find something to say that wasn’t totally incriminating, or stupid, or too harsh for this reunion. I was still happy to see him. It was the situation that was the shitty part of this equation, and come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure if he knew about any of that shit anyway.
Pfft, what am I talking about? He “spent time” with her, didn’t he? Eugh.

He said something about my Pa—asking me about him, what kind of person he was, what he was like—and I snorted and found something to latch my explosive unease on. “An asshole,” I snarled sarcastically, tossing my head a little, because it was the truth and it felt good to rant out a little about Pa. I mean, he was my Pa, but. Y’know. “He’s a smart-ass and a know-it-all and likes giving me shit to do.” Which was true, and you could say that I stomped away from Mesec out of irritation for my Pa without too much of an investigation. I wasn’t about to start spilling all the other stuff that I had started thinking about Pa, and Ma; all those nasty little suspicions that were probably gonna make it hard to sleep at night. I wasn’t here to complain to Mesec.

I took a short, deep breath, bracing myself, deciding it was time to face the thing that I needed to face. I turned back to Mesec, giving that tiny little shrug again, stammering out, “I don’t know, man…you know how it is.” I paused, jumping into cold water, “How…how was your Ma?” I gulped; then pressed on doggedly, beating down the thick, awkward atmosphere that I could almost chew, “Did she…did she say anything to you? About the…world or anything? Or the gods, or….” When it became apparent that all my words were gone, I clamped my mouth shut—and waited for the sky to fall.


@[Mesec]
speaking