[ closed ] when i say forever, it's the goddamn truth

[otrazhenie]

CHARACTERS: Elena Gilbert otrazhenie, Damon Salvatore blooded, Misato Katsuragi wille
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Tents
WHEN: Day :017 - Day :018
SUMMARY: A Feelings Talk. Coping with Grief.
WARNINGS: Feelings. Blood. Talk of death, suicide. Will update as necessary!

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[wille]

[ Ah, but of course. She betrays a frown at the mention of eternal life. Humans have been seeking immortality ever since their consciousness understood the possibility of oblivion. It was her father's trade. It was her trade. But at what cost?

She dunks her robe back into the tub, her lack of grace bordering on irreverence, a rebellion against a certain set of expectations rather than an inability to comply. ]

Is it what you want? Immortality?

[otrazhenie]

It's the last thing I want.

[ Even now with a possible future with Damon stretching before her, the only thing making that unnaturally long life seem bearable is being with him. If something happens and they don't spend that life together... She'll still have to watch her loved ones grow old and die without her. Without someone to help her through that pain, she's not sure she'd even survive it.

Kneeling down beside the other woman, Elena picks up the soap and reaches into the bucket to grab an end of the fabric, locating the nearest stain and setting to scrubbing. ]

[wille]

[ It is one thing to take another at their word, because it reveals what they want to believe about themselves. But it may not be so different to doubt the girl's words. She opts for the latter. Absolute statements are too often a lie, to oneself or to others, and one can be lied to (by oneself or by another) only when one wants to.

She keeps at her scrubbing, vigorous and diligent, and doesn't lift her eyes from the cloth when she speaks. ]

Then why are you living against your nature?

[otrazhenie]

Because I'm eighteen years old and not ready to die yet.

[ She had been. In Matt's truck at the bottom of the lake, she'd accepted her fate and been ready. She'd wanted to die, to just have everything be over, all the pain and constant fighting for her life. But then she'd woken up and... When the choice was presented to her, to fight and live or just let herself die again, she'd chosen this.

Whether she would make that same choice, knowing what she does now, is a question she's not ready to ask herself. ]

[wille]

[ Tragedy cares not for age. Death comes for all. Eighteen or fourteen, or a hundred years old, none of it matters.

Belying her line of questioning, Misato would choose the same as her. Life, always, at whatever cost. She had made that choice at fourteen, adrift in a dead sea at the end of the world, when the possibility of a slow and miserable death was the only thing looming on the horizon, and she would choose it again. Always, or so she tells herself. ]

What does that mean? That you'll count to 70 or 80 then give it up?

[otrazhenie]

[ Elena's hands pause in their scrubbing, though her gaze remains fixed on the wet fabric and the pink-tinged water. What does it mean? In that moment, she's glad that Damon isn't here, because she knows he'd hate the answer she gives. ]

It means I'll live for however long I have a reason to.

[ It's not the first time she's thought of ending her own life; she very much doubts it will be the last. ]

[wille]

[ Misato follows suit, stopping the work at hand to grant the girl the attention her answer deserves. Kindness has never suited her, softness has never served her, but severity does. And the truth hurts as well as liberates. ]

That's not enough.

[ Her voice is certainty itself, without room for doubt or cruelty, for that matter. ]

Choose your reason. Make it count. Anything less won't measure up to the lot you've got in life.

[otrazhenie]

[ Elena looks at Misato for a long moment, taking those words in and knowing they're true. That truth is terrifying, though.

Choose her reason. She's been telling herself that her reason is Jeremy, getting back to him so he's not completely alone, but... What if he doesn't want her in his life anymore? I need my sister, not another one of them. His words have haunted her for weeks, filtering through her dreams and turning them all the nightmares. Of all the people in her life, she couldn't take it if he hated her too. ]

I know.

[ And then she goes back to scrubbing, moving on to another part of the costume, her ministrations thorough. ]

[wille]

[ The words on the tip of her tongue. Water pressing against a dam. She wants to ask: So what? Will you keep cleaning after other people's mess -- make that a life's purpose? Greater men have done so for lesser men, of course, but would it be enough? And most of all she wants to say: He needs you to need him more than you actually need him. The difference there is fundamental, reality-altering, a nudge at the start of a series of dominoes, but she also finds she doesn't sympathize enough to dig her fingers through that bit of yarn.

Instead she stands most abruptly and drags her sopping wet robe out of the bucket so she can wring it again. Instead she says: ]

Don't worry about it. I'll finish the rest tomorrow.