Her expression clears, somewhat— she understands very well the difference between surviving and living, catching up when it's reframed in a way that doesn't catch her quite so off-guard. She shrugs, then,
“I think that's exactly what I said,” she says. “If you're empty, you might as well be dead. If you're living as if you might as well be dead, you aren't really living. Empty things are dead whether they've noticed and stopped moving, regardless. Just look at the Dalish.”
That's an unkind thing to say; that she isn't saying it to be unkind, but to illustrate her point as if it goes without saying, is perhaps worse than if it were spiteful. But it's more, with the question clarified, that she doesn't see the point of the question at all; that it followed the answer she'd have given it.
Her framing and his have positioned this as a pendulum of equivalents — empty and dead, whole and alive. If this, then that— if she is not empty, then she must not feel that way, then she's made something to fill the gap,
but that isn't the case. She's adapted, slowly, to the changing of her circumstances — to the different things that are valued, now, by the people around her. She's learned to value those things, more than she's necessarily entirely comfortable with, but ultimately the mechanism is no different than it was when she was a little girl struggling to keep her hands still during a lesson: she wants to be valued, too. She wants to be approved of. She wants to make someone proud, to be shown that she's valuable in a way she can understand and accept. She will do anything to be loved,
it is very difficult to hold that back, and use literally any other measure of deciding how to proceed.
Today is terrible. Tomorrow might be terrible, too. There is no promise of a good day; there is no promise of feeling differently. Better things have come into her hands and slipped out of her grasp — but there is no better way to guarantee she'll never hold onto them than if she gives up. To just give up is to decide that there is nothing she can do and no world in which she has the things she wants, and she has simply decided that that is unacceptable.
She is not prepared to promise failure. Maybe that's one thing her mothers managed to teach her.
“There's no— what you're talking about, I don't know what you're seeing, I don't...what you said before, I understood that, but this talk of 'patching' just feels like the sort of thing people tell themselves to feel better about abandoning someone.” It's bitter, but not precisely accusatory; purposeful, in telling him how it feels to hear instead of assuming how he means it. “You don't have to feel obliged to someone if— if a person has learned how to live without feeling safety, then there's no need to provide them with it. They won't ask for it.”
Her mouth twists, sideways, and she shakes his hand off. A person. They. It is safer (ha), at a distance. She requires a distance, abruptly.
“There's nothing there. I simply don't see that I should have to accept there never could be.”
And no one's making the Dalish, either, so if she's wrong, then at least she's in good, dead company.
no subject
“I think that's exactly what I said,” she says. “If you're empty, you might as well be dead. If you're living as if you might as well be dead, you aren't really living. Empty things are dead whether they've noticed and stopped moving, regardless. Just look at the Dalish.”
That's an unkind thing to say; that she isn't saying it to be unkind, but to illustrate her point as if it goes without saying, is perhaps worse than if it were spiteful. But it's more, with the question clarified, that she doesn't see the point of the question at all; that it followed the answer she'd have given it.
Her framing and his have positioned this as a pendulum of equivalents — empty and dead, whole and alive. If this, then that— if she is not empty, then she must not feel that way, then she's made something to fill the gap,
but that isn't the case. She's adapted, slowly, to the changing of her circumstances — to the different things that are valued, now, by the people around her. She's learned to value those things, more than she's necessarily entirely comfortable with, but ultimately the mechanism is no different than it was when she was a little girl struggling to keep her hands still during a lesson: she wants to be valued, too. She wants to be approved of. She wants to make someone proud, to be shown that she's valuable in a way she can understand and accept. She will do anything to be loved,
it is very difficult to hold that back, and use literally any other measure of deciding how to proceed.
Today is terrible. Tomorrow might be terrible, too. There is no promise of a good day; there is no promise of feeling differently. Better things have come into her hands and slipped out of her grasp — but there is no better way to guarantee she'll never hold onto them than if she gives up. To just give up is to decide that there is nothing she can do and no world in which she has the things she wants, and she has simply decided that that is unacceptable.
She is not prepared to promise failure. Maybe that's one thing her mothers managed to teach her.
“There's no— what you're talking about, I don't know what you're seeing, I don't...what you said before, I understood that, but this talk of 'patching' just feels like the sort of thing people tell themselves to feel better about abandoning someone.” It's bitter, but not precisely accusatory; purposeful, in telling him how it feels to hear instead of assuming how he means it. “You don't have to feel obliged to someone if— if a person has learned how to live without feeling safety, then there's no need to provide them with it. They won't ask for it.”
Her mouth twists, sideways, and she shakes his hand off. A person. They. It is safer (ha), at a distance. She requires a distance, abruptly.
“There's nothing there. I simply don't see that I should have to accept there never could be.”
And no one's making the Dalish, either, so if she's wrong, then at least she's in good, dead company.