"How could you?"

So this was it, then.  This was the battle that they had always avoided, the war that she had tried so desperately to stop.  The thing about the truth is that it always comes out, and this time - this time it was her sin, her mistake, her failure.  This time it was she who had hurt him, and somehow she knew that that made all the difference.  She could see it in his eyes when the lightning flashed.  She could feel it in the tension that stretched between them.

This was the day that would break her.

"How could you?"  It echoed in her skull.  Bile rose in her throat and she turned her head away, rage and sadness vying for a place in her darkened gaze.  Of all the things that would haunt her in the days to come, it was this sentence that would drive her mad:  the softness, the sadness, the betrayal that lingered just beneath the surface.  She knew him, knew his voice, had heard him speak to her a thousand times.  Never had he sounded like this.

I made a mistake, she might had said.  She might have stepped closer, searching his eyes for any sign of forgiveness.  She might have apologized, sworn that it was never supposed to happen, that she wouldn't have done it if she hadn't felt so alone.  She might have told him that she regretted it, everything that she had done.  Aleta's face flashed before her eyes, illuminated by lightning and full of rage.  No.  None of her children had ever been a mistake.

She hated herself for wishing Aleta away.

The storm howled around her and rage began to fill her, slowly at first, and then faster, bubbling and boiling in her blood until she swung her head around to glare at him.  How could she?  Well, how dare he ask her that?  How dare he when it had been he that couldn't wait to fall into someone else's bed as soon as she disappeared?  How dare he when he had children beyond count, only some of which were with her?  How dare he when she had lost a child, all because of his weakness?  For the first time, she realized how much anger she held for this man that she loved.

She wouldn't play the victim any longer.

A laugh bubbled to her lips unbidden, a hard, brittle laugh that did not reach her eyes.  "How could I?" she mused aloud.  "When I returned and Ivezho told me you'd been perfectly happy with another mare, without me -"  She broke off, gritting her teeth to hold back the angry tears that brightened her eyes.  "Do you know how much that hurt, Gaucho?  Every time I wasn't around, you just couldn't wait to find someone else, could you?"

She paused, fighting to get her emotions under control; for once, she failed.  "I never wanted this!" she shouted.  "I didn't ask for a child with anyone else but you!  It should have been you, but..."  An angry breath escaped in a hiss.  "You were too busy with someone else to bother looking for me, was that it?"  Never had she raised her voice to him before; she had never realized how free she would feel.

"I won't apologize for something that you've done to me, too.  You don't get to be a hypocrite, Gaucho.  Not over this.  I won't apologize for my daughter."

words words

OOC | omg my feels are breaking and Soh is furious what is this.