Forge Contact II

[priscilla]

You've reached Priscilla. Please leave your message as you prefer. I will absolutely return your contact, especially in the case of business concerns!

[...]

I'm sorry I left that terrible message up for so long!

[beep!]

Comments

[priscilla]

Then why are you telling me?

Is there something you'd like me to do about it?

[She just barely manages to avoid saying what she's thinking. Which is, "I don't understand why people keep agreeing to fight him and then complaining to me about it."]

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

No. There's nothing that I expect you to do. It's ...done with.

I just thought you should know.

[priscilla]

All right, then.

If it upsets you so much, then I'd recommend opting out of further confrontations with him. He probably isn't going to be any nicer next time. The most I can really do about it is ask him to show self-restraint, but I'd prefer to ask as little of him as possible.

He's very indulgent of me, but everyone has their limit. It would be better if he didn't reach his as far as giving me what I ask from him.

I--

[Hurr. She presses her lips together.]

--are you all right?

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

[She partly hopes that he won't be nice next time. If there is a next time. It's not as if there are a lot of people that can really push her limits.]

I's not my intent to place you in the middle of this. No need to ask him anything, I was merely relaying the information. I'd prefer if you didn't ask him anything on my behalf.

[Decisions. Decisions. And this one is fairly easy: just tell the truth.]

No. But I will be.

[...]

...are you?

[priscilla]

I know you will be. You are a strong person, and more than capable of recovering from an incident like that.

[...]

And my well-being is no longer your concern.

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

[You seem to know her better than she knows herself, then. She'd doubted her ability to recover at the outset.]

I am far less strong than you believe.

[...]

Ah. You would rather I not care, then? I lack the ability to decide what I care about and what I do not.

[A little quieter:]

You don't say things that you don't mean, so ...why bother asking if I am alright?

[priscilla]

You can care about anything you like. That doesn't make it your concern.

And you seemed distressed. I don't really know why - I'm sure you've been more injured than that. But it isn't as though I like seeing people upset.

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

I can care about your well-being, just not concern myself with it? Essentially, you are telling me to care from the sidelines.

Fair enough.

I was ...distressed. I still am, to some degree. And you are not incorrect - I was injured far worse when I lost my arm.

No, you don't. But I was, and am still under the impression that I no longer...

...the question was surprising is all.

this icon: -_-

[priscilla]

I'm not telling you to do or not do anything, Irene. I can't control how you feel. But that doesn't mean I need to grant you access to information about me.

Who knows where that kind of information would end up?

[ :| ]

[And yes, her voice is as flat as that mouth.]

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

No, but you can tell me what would be less uncomfortable for you and I can do my best to abide.

[Flat, but not quite as flat as what Priscilla said prior.]

Deneve's forge, yes.

[priscilla]

...I'm sorry, but when did you become concerned about what does and does not make me uncomfortable?

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

Believe what you will, but I was always concerned with it.

[priscilla]

Not very much.

[Her voice sharpens a little.]

Not enough to make a difference.

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

[Oh, but she did make a difference! Just in the opposite way that she wanted. But still. Ouch. So have some self-directed bitterness.]

Didn't I? Look at how much has changed in the space of barely more than a week.

[...]

You're right. Maybe not enough. Maybe too much. But it's irrelevant to you now, isn't it?

[priscilla]

It's not irrelevant.

If it were irrelevant, I wouldn't feel so sick about it!

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

It was never my intent.

[Of course, it makes the sickness that's uncurled itself after that spar feel like a fitting punishment. She'll let it settle in some more. Let it get a bit more (un)comfortable beneath her skin.]

But that doesn't matter. What matters is the ruin I've left you with.

[...]

I do see that, now.

[priscilla]

It doesn't matter if you see it, or if you don't see it, or -- it doesn't matter what you think.

What you did... I can't ever forgive that. And what you said when I confronted you over it? I wouldn't be able to stop it from echoing in my head even without that betrayal.

It's good to know what you think of me. That's the only positive thing I can possibly say about the entire thing.

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

I'm not asking for your forgiveness, Priscilla. It's something as lost to me as [sigh] I don't know ...turning back time.

But regardless of what I think the outcome is still the same.

As for what I said. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth, and it certainly isn't what or how I think of you. Every thought, every momentary consideration came spilling out without direction or filter.

But it in no way excuses what I did.

[priscilla]

Then why are you talking to me?!

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

In truth? I suppose I would rather the anger than the silence.

[...]

And because I wanted you to know.

[priscilla]

So. Now I know.

[...]

And I'd rather the silence.

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

[What she really feels like doing is screaming. But.]

If that is your wish, Priscilla.

...welp now she's off and running.

[priscilla]

You say you don't want my forgiveness, but if that's the case, then what is the point of continuing to talk to me? Then you tell me that you're doing it because you prefer my anger to my silence.

But since all it does is upset me more, all that makes you is selfish. At least if you were aiming for forgiveness you'd have a reason. Now it's... prodding at wounds just to make me scream.

But that's all this ever was. Violation with no purpose, no point. Not one of your justifications or Deneve's ever made sense, because neither of you even tried to talk to me, and neither of you did anything with whatever you learned. Instead you just... traded gossip about me picked apart my pain and judged me and--

--when we first spoke about it, I said we were done. And I meant it. I only kept speaking to you because it would be impolite to crush the Forge while you were still listening. And you asked me if this is how little it takes make me turn my back on someone... as though it were something small. As if I were unreasonable to want to get away from someone who would betray me that way. But that just means you have no idea what you did to me. Even now, that you could say that you may have cared too much about my comfort... it makes me sick.

/ gets a lasso?

[halcyonthird.livejournal.com]

I never said I didn't want your forgiveness, I said I wasn't asking for it.

How could I let myself hope for the possibility of pardon? You are a swift, harsh and impartial judge of things, things that are always black and white, all of something or nothing at all, and never shades of gray. Except when it comes to him, then everything seems to become shades of gray.

I did not say any of these things to Deneve. They were my observations, my opinions, and not facts. What I relayed to her was brief. And I was heartsick over what was being done to you.

Should I have come to you? Perhaps. But perhaps I should likely have choked on it for all the good it's done, because there is nothing I could have---

---I didn't judge you.

[She judged him, many times over, though.]

You gave no quarter, no regard to the fact that what was falling from my lips was influenced by this place, and not the full picture of what I thought or believed. There is chaos in my mind, and you heard but one fragment of something I couldn't even properly understand. Let alone give voice to.

For a very long time, longer than I have known you, I spoke only of what I wished to be, not the fear and doubt that lay beneath. That is what crept to the surface when I called you a liability. Do you not have doubts? Thoughts that rush past and are beyond your control?

The least I can do is make you understand that it is not the whole truth, or even a greater part of it - the least I can do is take away that pain. The sickness I caused when it was said. Because it means nothing if it was not true.

Nothing.

[...]

The silence is a reminder of a time when you were [something else] ...gone.

[...]

It is unbearable.

/deflects it :|

[priscilla]

Don't you dare tell me you're not judging me. You're doing it now. Everything is black and white except him. Really? How in the world could possibly know that?

I gave no thought to the circumstances because the circumstances don't matter. It isn't as though you spouted it out at random. You betrayed me. The fact that you did it alone already tells me what you think of me. Th fact that you admitted it when you were incapable of lying just confirms the obvious, and I-

[...there's a long pause, in which she is trying not to explode and then...]

I am gone, Irene. The person I was before that day is gone. Just like the person I was before Senji died. And the person I was before I did. And the one I was before I came here.

I'm cutting off pieces of myself, and cutting off pieces of myself... all the time cutting off pieces of myself. And I'm tired. And I like the silence.