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03-27-2016, 12:17 AM
She should have known that he would not be able to understand her motivations for staying away, should have realized that the complexity of the situation would be lost on him. It was not that she thought him to be stupid; on the contrary, she knew him to be a remarkably intelligent stallion. He had never seemed to be particularly in tune with his -- no, her -- emotions, and she wondered now as she paused, breast heaving, words catching uselessly in her throat, if he had ever really understood her at all. Oh, he had loved her in his way, she knew that, but how had they gotten so far when their communication skills were so ridiculously atrocious that she could not even apologize properly without making things worse? She swallowed her rambling, gritting her teeth and looking away, resentment growing from some small seed left in her heart from a time when she had been betrayed by him: he had murdered her firstborn, after all, and though she had forgiven him for it, she had certainly not forgotten. She blamed herself more than she blamed the WildFire, for if she had only been there, if she had only -- but there was no use in 'if only,' not anymore, not when it was so easy to let her anger at herself morph into something cold and bitter and directed at him. "Happier?" Gaucho mumbled, and she might have shouted in him with frustration had her zephyr not dug his claws into her withers, advising her against rash words. No matter the wikiya's feelings about Gaucho, he had no desire to feel even more self-hatred through the bond later, when his gentle bonded would no doubt come to regret her words. Besides, the stallion's phoenix had taken it upon herself to flutter gracefully to the ground before the mare, gaining interest and approval from her electric cousin. Astraeus joined her, landing on the side closest to Gaucho. The lightning-bird huffed softly, chittering a response that was something akin to agreement, then stared pointedly at the Transcended as though to prove that yes, they could all get along, so stop freaking out. The fight went out of the Transcended then, a heavy sigh releasing her negativity into the air to be dispersed. She looked, suddenly, tired, weary, as though she had been carrying the weight of the world upon her slender shoulders. In a way, perhaps, it was even true: she had carried nothing but guilt and self-loathing ever since she had realized that she had disappeared again, only to return to be informed by her son that her mate had moved on to have a family without her. It was not that she blamed him -- hell, why should he have just waited around for someone as unreliable and seemingly uncaring as she? -- but it had hurt all the same, even more so when she had decided to leave him to his family, to hope that maybe he would be better off that way. So, was she happier? She had flown along the beach in high spirits, but the sight of her former mate had brought the illusion crashing down. Her bi-colored gaze searched his. "I... don't know," she admitted softly, defeated, allowing her eyes to shift to the waters surrounding them. A silence followed, uncomfortable and sad, seeming to stretch for hours as though to finalize their inevitable separation. "Gaucho --" she whispered, her voice breaking with the strain of all that she had done, all that they had endured. But they were broken now, weren't they, shattering here on the beach into a million sharp-edged pieces that would never be put back together. Did she even want to fit into the puzzle anymore? "I heard about the Rifts," she offered softly, seemingly at random. Her voice was odd, abnormal, monotonous, almost as though she had finally died inside, as though there was nothing left to fill the void. "I don't know if I got... caught in one, or..." She sighed, shaking her head. What did it matter? Why was she still trying to explain, to convince him of her innocence? "I would have come back, but... I didn't think that you would... want me anymore," she finished in a whisper, staring at the sand, ashamed. It sounded hollow even to her, a useless explanation that would, no doubt, get her nowhere. And really, where did she even want to go, at this point? "Talk talk talk." |
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@Gaucho
