fridgetothefire | 065 ☣ fish for fallen light

Essentially.

[This time, she was ready for the possibility. She wonders what he's gotten into, but - well. For once it is truly not her problem.]

Do you have those often?

[ She doesn't look much different - certainly not really older. He might, it's been a few years. ]

How long has it been, since we spoke?

Occasionally.

[She swallows.]

Almost two years, for me.

I understand they must cause trouble. But I am glad for them.

[ He's glad to see her. ]

Nearly double that, for me. You look well.

[It surprises her, at first - it's been a rough few months, altogether - but then, the last time this happened, she was a shaky new warden less than two weeks recovered being tortured to death by Sylvanas. So she probably does look better, all things considered, and a curt little laugh startles out of her.]

Thank you, I suppose.

You're welcome.

[ There's more gentleness in his voice than any have heard from him in some time. ]

You're still working to pay for your deal? Or have you succeeded?

[Anya gets a particular smile at that, warm and worn and a tiny bit wise. If she is proud of nothing else - and she is sometimes very proud - she did this.]

Yeah. Wanda's - good. She's with good people now.

[ He smiles back, small and almost hopeful and so very proud. ]

Good. I'm glad. Can you tell me about her? The people she's with? Are you still there to stay or-or for some other reason?

[ He tries - and utter fails - to keep his tone causal, but it's hungry instead. Good news and good news about his children, even if they aren't his. He needs it. ]

She's. I guess she's fifteen now. Shy when I left, still a little in shock. She's with - I assume Erik talked to you privately so I couldn't see?

I hope he wasn't too much of an ass.

He did, actually. And no, he wasn't that bad at all.

[ Because they had spoken of his children and grandchildren. ]

Thank you Anya. Really, she's very lucky to have you.

[She flinches away, face tight, shoulders up.]

No. Look. Just.

I killed her, alright? I was supposed to take care of her and I didn't and this is. The least of what I owe.

Edited 2015-02-18 02:11 (UTC)

You gambled and worked hard to a past mistake. Anya do you have any idea how difficult that is, how few people, when given the option wouldn't have the courage to take it?

There are actions which are unforgivable, and others which we can never forgive ourselves for, but neither means we have to dash out heads into a wall repeatedly in penance.

[She closes her eyes, swallows. The tension in her shoulders stays.]

I do know. I don't hate myself most days. I've. Come a very long way from the person who did that.

[She's had some bad days recently. Opens her eyes.]

But she'd have been lucky to be quit of the lot of us a long time ago.

That is all any of us can do. I used to think it was just I, the shadows which mar my soul, that these were my burdens to bear. But that isn't true, those I love, they have their own. Some of it, more than I like to admit, caused my actions, my madness, my zealotry, and inability to value properly what I had, in wake of so much grief and rage over what I'd lost. We aren't less for those shadows Anya, though are lives are made more difficult because of them. But you and I, and here in my world, Wanda as well, we've chosen to not let ourselves be defined by those shadows, to try to set right what we can, to not become again the people we were. To continuing growing. There is nothing more difficult, no greater challenge. You aways struggle, the paths laid earliest are deep, and the older we are, the deeper they hold to us. We falter. We slip. We pick ourselves up, continue going on. Aided by those who love us, by those we love, but ultimately we are on this path alone.

It is a worthwhile one.

[ He may truly believe his soul is damned, he may truly believe there is no going back from what he has become, but he isn't the monster, the Evil Mutant he once was. He changed however slowly. ]

All of you would have been lucky to not be born into my storm. But you were. There isn't a one of you I would chose to not have, have chosen not to meet, especially you.

[ And he did not mean the girl he'd buried long ago. He means the young woman he's met twice now, for all her struggle. ]

[At first she just listens, somber and silent, with an occasional nod - it's things she's come to terms with, mostly, even if it's harder to hear from him. She wonders if her father could have ever gotten there, and she - doesn't know. She doesn't whether she wants him to have been able to, and what that means for her killing him. But she has to go forward anyway.

And then he says the last bit, and she chokes, turns her face partly away, reflexive defensiveness summoned up by the vulnerability of sudden tears.]

I used to say. I was his bad-luck charm. I'm always - the trigger. For everything going wrong. If I exist at all.

No. Quite the opposite. The bad-luck charm in my family, the thing which rains curse down upon those I love, has always been my temper. As Magda would so often scold me to temper it. But you. We never thought it possible. The first time I truly felt happy, felt peace, it was seeing my child's eyes stare into mine.

For what happened, for what didn't, for what I've done. None of that is because of you.

[The quiet, sniffling tears crack open into messy sobs. She tries to talk but she can't; it's just so much.]

Anya.

[ It's soft, emotion laden. He longs to reach out, to hold her, to comfort her. And he can't. For a moment, rage boils within him and he forces it down. Not the time. He swallows a couple times. ]

I can't imagine anything which has lead you to this path has been easy. But my dear girl. I'm so glad you've managed to get away from all of this. Whatever the cost. I am thankful for this.

065 ☣ fish for fallen light

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I had to sit on this a while to get that speech written

/purrs

Re: /purrs

/purrs

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