There is so much she hadn’t seen, so much she hadn’t heard, the wounds still too raw to rip the bandaid off and tell her more than a name. So yes, she speaks of curiosity because Deimos seems like someone worth knowing, and she cannot hope to meet him. Not unless she travels back to the underworld and tries to find him, but she’s not sure Death’s that kind. She doesn’t get to stay and hang around when she dies. She just pops on in, says hello, and is kicked back out to the land of the living. And she’s not arguing, because he lets her come and go, and that’s more than most.

But it’s something that even a newbie like her wants to know the man behind the stones, beneath the rubble. It’s something that his legend carries at all. Most are buried and forgotten, their names and faces and stories left to the moths and the dust bunnies. If he was nothing, she would not be here. If his memory was worthless, she would not be curious. Erebos finds rocks where there is gold, daggers where there are flowers.  

He mutters a response, and maybe she takes it the wrong way, but her eyes harden and she sighs. “Why do you hate me?” she spits in his direction, tired of whatever keeps his lips in a damn thin line, tired of his bristling at nothing. Because she has done nothing, because she walks on eggshells around him, because she cannot fathom what he’s feeling right now. For many reasons, but the foremost being she is simply not capable. Her mind and heart don’t work that way. One day, her mother will die. But she’s already left Straia behind anyway. Weaver won’t be there to mourn her mother. No one will.

Already, her mother’s name was probably just a tall tale. Atrox’s name was forgotten, though his heart quite literally beat in the ground beneath the feet of generations. Starlace and Infection were hazy memories at best, their whole blood alliance across four kingdoms erased by time. That is what happens. It’s not her fault she wasn’t here to meet The Reaper, but anyone called The Reaper was someone she wanted to meet.

It should be enough that she’s here. It should be enough that she’s trying.

She is never enough.

She softens only slightly when he offers to tell her, but she can’t let it go. Can’t let his tight lips and hard eyes follow her everywhere. But they do. The hurt behind them when she’d asked should I trust you in this moment? The ice behind them now. Why does she care? What does she care if this boy she hardly knows likes her? Since when does she care if anyone likes her? But she cares now. She cares about this place, about it’s residents, about being worth something to them and Helovia. Not just something to herself, which is new too for her.

“I want to know him, if you can believe that.” Her words are still encased in ice, but she tries her best to soften the edges so they don’t cut. She tries to be everything she is not. “But I was too late for that privilege. So instead, all I can ask to know if what made him so special? What made him so special to you?” Because she is tired of walking on eggshells. Because she’s never been good at it anyway.