WHO: Alexandrie, Athessa, Bastien, Barrow, Derrica, Nell, and Poesia WHAT: A Very Riftwatch Summer Vacation WHEN: Late Solace WHERE: Churneau, Occupied Orlais NOTES: Violence cw etc. Bunch of details here.
She shudders again, once, to be answered, and then nods slowly and sniffs before bending stiffly to pick up the remains of the dress from the dirt where her numb hands had dropped it.
And Athessa walks alongside her, hands busy with what they can do, should do, even if what they want is to seek a hand, fingers intertwined to say she's not alone. Neither Lexie, nor Athessa, nor Derrica.
"That was part of it," she concedes. It was what Byerly cited as the worst of it. "He also said you bloomed into his life like a rose."
Alexandrie isn’t ripping the cloth, just picking the loose threads and releasing them when they come free. The birds in the area will have a little colour in their nests soon.
“A carefully cultivated blooming,” she says a little distantly, “until it grew wild without my notice and terrified me into thorns when finally I saw what it had become.”
“—made a figure of fun and a scandal of me before I had even debuted at court? Yes. It was.” One thread. Another.
“When I finally returned to court I had no hope of reaching him—but I needed to show I had claws and could—would—use them, or the options for the course of my life would be to simply retire to private life or be a pitiable creature for others to climb, neither a fine prospect for marriage.
“And so I chose the disinherited disreputable son of a Fereldan Bann. It was elegant: A show of surpassing cruelty, to lift such a man and then drop him, and while it would barely inconvenience Rolant, all would know whom I dared aim the insult at.”
"Was it worth it?" She asks, quietly. "Do you think you...avenged yourself?"
When Devigny reared his ugly head back in Drakonis, Athessa wanted to kill him herself. To sever his hands for ever having touched her, for having hurt anyone after her. She wanted to pour wine down his throat so he might drown in it, choke on it the way she did when he did the same to her. There's a great many things she would've wanted to do to make him suffer, but in the end that opportunity was taken from her. Now she'll never know if revenge would've been worth it.
"I have asked myself the same question many times in the last years," she replies, "and I still do not know the answer. What does it mean, to be avenged? The same cruelties visited upon the transgressor? To see them shamed, hurt, killed? To force them to know themselves what they made you know?" Alexandrie lifts a shoulder, smiles a sad thin smile.
"It is enough for me that I no longer care about him, that I have everything he sought to take from me... but I bought my happiness with pain. Byerly's. My own. That of so many others afterwards I ruined out of a belief that the only two choices I had were break or be broken."
"Are you happy? No. I'm sorry, you don't have to answer that."
She feels laid bare by Lexie's musings on what it is to be avenged, because every syllable is what she's thought it must be.
Athessa lets out a soft huff of a laugh through her nostrils, watching the ground ahead of them while they walk. "I'm starting to think I don't know is the only honest answer anyone can offer. About anything. The other day someone asked me how I was and I said I don't know. They let me alone after that, as if they understood perfectly what I meant."
The same little huff of a laugh is echoed through Alexandrie's own nose.
"D'accord. Feelings are so..." She waves a hand. "Complicated. Sometimes I know, sometimes I am wrong.
"But I am happy, yes. I have friends I cherish who cherish me. I love, and am loved. There is good work to do, good wine to drink, good sky to paint." There is the thin smile again, as her head tilts back so she can look at the stars. "And I am sad, too. Some love is harder than others, and we hurt each other so much." She shakes her head, echoes herself quietly: "We hurt each other so much."
There's another long silence between them, just the sounds of scuffling feet and the odd pained sound when someone overextends themselves, stumbles, or feels a twinge.
What a sight they all are.
"I don't want to hurt Derrica," Athessa whispers, and even she isn't sure whether she's saying it to Lexie, or to herself.
This time a hand does cross the distance between them; Alexandrie reaching for Athessa's unhesitatingly, but with a gentle enough hold that it is for the elf to decide whether or not she takes it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Now they’ll really have to boil them.
“That I used him cruelly, no doubt.”
She can walk, so she does.
no subject
"That was part of it," she concedes. It was what Byerly cited as the worst of it. "He also said you bloomed into his life like a rose."
no subject
“A carefully cultivated blooming,” she says a little distantly, “until it grew wild without my notice and terrified me into thorns when finally I saw what it had become.”
no subject
"It was his cousin, wasn't it?" She asks, trusting that Lexie will know of what she speaks. "The one who--"
no subject
“When I finally returned to court I had no hope of reaching him—but I needed to show I had claws and could—would—use them, or the options for the course of my life would be to simply retire to private life or be a pitiable creature for others to climb, neither a fine prospect for marriage.
“And so I chose the disinherited disreputable son of a Fereldan Bann. It was elegant: A show of surpassing cruelty, to lift such a man and then drop him, and while it would barely inconvenience Rolant, all would know whom I dared aim the insult at.”
no subject
When Devigny reared his ugly head back in Drakonis, Athessa wanted to kill him herself. To sever his hands for ever having touched her, for having hurt anyone after her. She wanted to pour wine down his throat so he might drown in it, choke on it the way she did when he did the same to her. There's a great many things she would've wanted to do to make him suffer, but in the end that opportunity was taken from her. Now she'll never know if revenge would've been worth it.
no subject
"It is enough for me that I no longer care about him, that I have everything he sought to take from me... but I bought my happiness with pain. Byerly's. My own. That of so many others afterwards I ruined out of a belief that the only two choices I had were break or be broken."
no subject
She feels laid bare by Lexie's musings on what it is to be avenged, because every syllable is what she's thought it must be.
Athessa lets out a soft huff of a laugh through her nostrils, watching the ground ahead of them while they walk. "I'm starting to think I don't know is the only honest answer anyone can offer. About anything. The other day someone asked me how I was and I said I don't know. They let me alone after that, as if they understood perfectly what I meant."
no subject
"D'accord. Feelings are so..." She waves a hand. "Complicated. Sometimes I know, sometimes I am wrong.
"But I am happy, yes. I have friends I cherish who cherish me. I love, and am loved. There is good work to do, good wine to drink, good sky to paint." There is the thin smile again, as her head tilts back so she can look at the stars. "And I am sad, too. Some love is harder than others, and we hurt each other so much." She shakes her head, echoes herself quietly: "We hurt each other so much."
no subject
What a sight they all are.
"I don't want to hurt Derrica," Athessa whispers, and even she isn't sure whether she's saying it to Lexie, or to herself.
no subject
aaaand scene