[ 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]

[ 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.