[For a moment, Hayame thinks she has misheard him. That the howl of the wind and the icy sleet it carries with it has drowned out what he actually meant to say and that she is only hearing what she wants.
Because she… she does not think of Set in terms of failure. That is how she views herself, her own shortcomings and flaws and unfortunate scars inflicted one by one from the moment she was ripped from her armless dam’s body, but others… it is “betrayal” that frames her rage. To fail… she would have had to ask them to succeed in it. But to betray… Her trust, her affection, her devotion, her offerings… all of it could be betrayed so easily.
She wants to deny that he had scared her, but the reality is that she could not without making herself a liar. She had been scared, when she could find no trace of sand in the corners of her mind and she had been forced to consider what out there in this strange world could have so quietly and secretly eliminated a god of war. She had been scared when she had reached for him, and in place of where he always was since that one fateful day… there was nothing. Just her and her own thoughts and the suffocating weight of everything that came with it.
All she wanted… All she had claimed she had wanted this entire time was-]
I would have told you that I thought you were a fool. That I did not think you should die for just the chance of a talk.
[And she would have been “wrong”, apparently. He had succeeded, and maybe something “good” would come of that… But it didn’t change that that is what she would have said before knowing that. She didn’t want him to die for a risk with no guarantee of pay-off, she didn’t want him to die at all, but-]
But I would have taken a place by your side despite.
[Her hand tightens where she’s still accidentally (instinctively, desperately) holding his hand. Despite her intent, there is a crack in the raw anger she covers her other emotions with, a glisten in the eye.]
I would have made sure nothing happened to your shard. That you came back. I would have waited- !
[Without being afraid, without feeling abandoned, without mourning the potential loss of the first person in this place she had believed when they called her “friend”. She would have. So why- Why doesn’t he let her?]
no subject
Because she… she does not think of Set in terms of failure. That is how she views herself, her own shortcomings and flaws and unfortunate scars inflicted one by one from the moment she was ripped from her armless dam’s body, but others… it is “betrayal” that frames her rage. To fail… she would have had to ask them to succeed in it. But to betray… Her trust, her affection, her devotion, her offerings… all of it could be betrayed so easily.
She wants to deny that he had scared her, but the reality is that she could not without making herself a liar. She had been scared, when she could find no trace of sand in the corners of her mind and she had been forced to consider what out there in this strange world could have so quietly and secretly eliminated a god of war. She had been scared when she had reached for him, and in place of where he always was since that one fateful day… there was nothing. Just her and her own thoughts and the suffocating weight of everything that came with it.
All she wanted… All she had claimed she had wanted this entire time was-]
I would have told you that I thought you were a fool. That I did not think you should die for just the chance of a talk.
[And she would have been “wrong”, apparently. He had succeeded, and maybe something “good” would come of that… But it didn’t change that that is what she would have said before knowing that. She didn’t want him to die for a risk with no guarantee of pay-off, she didn’t want him to die at all, but-]
But I would have taken a place by your side despite.
[Her hand tightens where she’s still accidentally (instinctively, desperately) holding his hand. Despite her intent, there is a crack in the raw anger she covers her other emotions with, a glisten in the eye.]
I would have made sure nothing happened to your shard. That you came back. I would have waited- !
[Without being afraid, without feeling abandoned, without mourning the potential loss of the first person in this place she had believed when they called her “friend”. She would have. So why- Why doesn’t he let her?]