[It does not feel so long ago that Hayame was venting to Akua in her makeshift stable, railing against the advice the other woman was giving her and arguing with her about the nature of friendship as if she could change it through simple force of will alone. The villainess's words had left cracks in nearly everything she said, from her right to feel betrayed by the actions those who supposedly cared for her had taken to her insistence that it should not be so wrong to expect loyalty from those who would claim to be her friend, and what that had left in its wake...
She had said that people who truly cared about you would challenge you. That you would enjoy being challenged by them. But what did that mean? Hayame has never had the time nor the desire to philosophize over such things. By the time she'd begun to question what she'd always known, begun to imagine that things could be different... she had offered to give up her life, and the time for thinking never came. But in Horos, now in Kenos... she had reached a breaking point.
Now... She has to change, if she wants to survive without trying to crush her own shard underfoot or throwing herself recklessly into fight after fight in the hopes that one might become her last. If she wants to survive to see her world again, to die where she belongs...]
I cannot...
[What? Stop trying to change his mind? Love him? Accept that he isn't lying? Let the guilt go? She doesn't know, and it makes her expression twist, her skin heat, her one remaining eye darken. He smiles at her, shy and sincere, and what- She had long forgotten how to smile, those muscles wasted away from lack of use just like he spoke of her feelings, and she... she turns her face away. Her shoulders stiffen.]
... Is that what you wish from me?
[Someone to cry on his shoulder, to complain in his ear, to hunt with, to come to him to have her wounds tended, to smile with...]
Is that not any different than allies? From "friends"?
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She had said that people who truly cared about you would challenge you. That you would enjoy being challenged by them. But what did that mean? Hayame has never had the time nor the desire to philosophize over such things. By the time she'd begun to question what she'd always known, begun to imagine that things could be different... she had offered to give up her life, and the time for thinking never came. But in Horos, now in Kenos... she had reached a breaking point.
Now... She has to change, if she wants to survive without trying to crush her own shard underfoot or throwing herself recklessly into fight after fight in the hopes that one might become her last. If she wants to survive to see her world again, to die where she belongs...]
I cannot...
[What? Stop trying to change his mind? Love him? Accept that he isn't lying? Let the guilt go? She doesn't know, and it makes her expression twist, her skin heat, her one remaining eye darken. He smiles at her, shy and sincere, and what- She had long forgotten how to smile, those muscles wasted away from lack of use just like he spoke of her feelings, and she... she turns her face away. Her shoulders stiffen.]
... Is that what you wish from me?
[Someone to cry on his shoulder, to complain in his ear, to hunt with, to come to him to have her wounds tended, to smile with...]
Is that not any different than allies? From "friends"?
[He had said he...
He had kissed her.]