[Hayame would love to believe what he says, then, to pathetically latch on to any claim that Set makes about how he treats her and her enemy (now torturer, abuser) differently. Not because she is petty, or possessive, or spiteful, though she can be those things, but because… She doesn’t think she is “strong” enough to hear otherwise. Not now. Not if “strong” was measured somehow in the flexibility others asked of her that to Hayame sometimes just seemed like excuses to allow her pride to be trampled on. The planted, carefully nurtured idea in her mind that none of her so-called friends or allies would rally to her side against the demon, that any efforts she made to expose him would be useless, that a soul-eating beast incapable of empathy would always be more welcome than a woman who had dedicated her second chance at life to protecting her world and righting her wrongs, just because she wasn’t a devilishly handsome man who spoke politely and wore a mask of helpful servitude… ?
It’s sometimes too much to bear, like just another reflection of another world that seemed designed for her to fail or suffer.
But as he envelops her, somehow the Set she has always known while simultaneously also being somehow greater, larger, she somehow feels like she might almost be safe, even though everything is hurting, her pride and body both, shown just how easily she could be incapacitated with the single prick of a needle, made into a plaything, an object for someone else’s sick fun or idle amusement cloaked in the guise of “making things right”. As if that demon cared what was right between them? She curls tighter in his hold even though a part of her still wants to rail at him, demand to know what self-respecting person would be mollified with the consolation he offers of simply not discussing her or laughing at her, oh, that made it all fine and normal and acceptable—
… Except Hayame had not been bred and raised to have self respect. Just enough to feel she was superior to the Armless, yes… but not much more was tolerated. Her whimpers echo in the hollow cave deep in the mountain and echo back her, shame, shame, as she curls tighter in Set’s embrace no matter the pain, the whisper of his touch over bruise and bite and burn and puncture marks that don’t exist in the real world anymore.]
Then why—
[He says that she did not deserve what had been done to her, and she… needed, to hear that. Wanted to hear that. But he says he understands, too, understands, and though Hayame doesn’t doubt his experiences themselves, having seen enough flickers of shared vision and cursed memories to put together a vague sense of certain darker things in their time together…]
Why do you not rage for me, Set?
[Her voice is accusatory and vulnerable and passionate and despairing all at once, unsure herself of which feeling was more dominant when she twists in his hold to finally look at him-
Revealing a sickly green eye in her left socket where he’d once only seen a dark, scarred emptiness surrounded by perfectly preserved lids and thick black lashes. A sickly green Hag’s Eye, implanted into her head against her will, with needles and paralytics and no anesthesia for the cutting, the peeling, the seizing and pulling of a shriveled severed nerve, the invasion of shadowy tendrils, the burn of forced reconnection-]
Why do you not rage beside me?
[He was the god of war, who’s strength and violence and aptitude on the battlefield had convinced a jinba who had long abandoned the gods who abandoned her kind to instead reclaim hope and pledge herself to his worship.
Together… they could be so glorious. Couldn’t they?]
cw eye stuff
It’s sometimes too much to bear, like just another reflection of another world that seemed designed for her to fail or suffer.
But as he envelops her, somehow the Set she has always known while simultaneously also being somehow greater, larger, she somehow feels like she might almost be safe, even though everything is hurting, her pride and body both, shown just how easily she could be incapacitated with the single prick of a needle, made into a plaything, an object for someone else’s sick fun or idle amusement cloaked in the guise of “making things right”. As if that demon cared what was right between them? She curls tighter in his hold even though a part of her still wants to rail at him, demand to know what self-respecting person would be mollified with the consolation he offers of simply not discussing her or laughing at her, oh, that made it all fine and normal and acceptable—
… Except Hayame had not been bred and raised to have self respect. Just enough to feel she was superior to the Armless, yes… but not much more was tolerated. Her whimpers echo in the hollow cave deep in the mountain and echo back her, shame, shame, as she curls tighter in Set’s embrace no matter the pain, the whisper of his touch over bruise and bite and burn and puncture marks that don’t exist in the real world anymore.]
Then why—
[He says that she did not deserve what had been done to her, and she… needed, to hear that. Wanted to hear that. But he says he understands, too, understands, and though Hayame doesn’t doubt his experiences themselves, having seen enough flickers of shared vision and cursed memories to put together a vague sense of certain darker things in their time together…]
Why do you not rage for me, Set?
[Her voice is accusatory and vulnerable and passionate and despairing all at once, unsure herself of which feeling was more dominant when she twists in his hold to finally look at him-
Revealing a sickly green eye in her left socket where he’d once only seen a dark, scarred emptiness surrounded by perfectly preserved lids and thick black lashes. A sickly green Hag’s Eye, implanted into her head against her will, with needles and paralytics and no anesthesia for the cutting, the peeling, the seizing and pulling of a shriveled severed nerve, the invasion of shadowy tendrils, the burn of forced reconnection-]
Why do you not rage beside me?
[He was the god of war, who’s strength and violence and aptitude on the battlefield had convinced a jinba who had long abandoned the gods who abandoned her kind to instead reclaim hope and pledge herself to his worship.
Together… they could be so glorious. Couldn’t they?]