065 ☣ fish for fallen light

[fridgetothefire]

If you know me, I probably miss you. And maybe even if you don't.

[She repeats this Romani, and then Russian, and then German. And then ASL.]

Comments

[fridgetothefire]

[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.

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

[magnetic_magpie]

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. ]

/purrs

[fridgetothefire]

[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.

Re: /purrs

[magnetic_magpie]

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.

/purrs

[fridgetothefire]

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

[magnetic_magpie]

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.