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[totalize]

INBOX text / audio / video / action I'd much rather hang out with all kinds of people than fight monsters I can't even talk to. After all, there is nothing more complex and interesting than "people" in this world. art credit code credit

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[opposed]

[ Hearing that these Ravenlocks would likely enjoy Noxus brings a faint furrow to her brow. It does sound as if there’s no love lost, no real attachment. A part of her wishes to ask more but she lets it go for the moment, if only to respect his privacy. That thought is practically validated instantaneously as he brings up the very word she tries to avoid: loneliness. For so long, she was in denial of such a feeling, but it dogged her every step like a shadow. Without her brother, she felt adrift; banished by her mother, she felt shamed and abandoned. Now she has lost most everyone she has ever kept in her heart, and when it comes to Ambessa…

No. No, there’s nothing left of a mother there, only the ambition she wields as shield and sword. ]

It is.

[ Who is she to deny her own vulnerability when he has just shared his own? It would be cruel, and she is trying so very hard to be so calloused these days. ]

To be in a room with so many and to know you are surrounded by others and still alone…

[ It’s unique, as he said. It is protective and it is right to do in measure, but that makes it a loneliness of her own making. Would it have been better to befriend Cassandra or to speak more with Shoola? Or would that have just been one more thing to be carved into her heart, a cut that would run deeper now in their absence. ]

I have been…encouraged to act differently. To be open and vulnerable and kinder. [ The latter is easier. The rest are not. ] But then something like this happens and I am reminded that it is easy to lose everything.

[ The loss of her allies and Imprints made her restless, furious, afraid. If they’d died… She doesn’t know what she would do. Mel is not a woman of violence but she can feel the way it claws at her chest, that desire for retribution. ]

[totalize]

[ He smiles faintly, but it’s one of deep understanding, even if it’s understated. That loneliness is what he’s felt as an underpinning for the vast majority of his life. It’d been so present that it was actually shocking to have befriended Jack and Lycaon and find out that things didn’t have to be that way.

…It’s just too bad it hadn’t lasted. At least when he’d welcome back that protective loneliness a second time, it’d been his own choice, more or less. Better to keep people at arm’s length than to experience the betrayal of being cast aside. He found the loneliness of loss far worse than the dull hum of it when he simply refused to connect to others.

The irony isn’t lost on him in this moment. He knows he’s staring at that chance to connect with someone in the face. He’s even the one that brought it up, and she’d answered in kind. Yet. It’s that last part, isn’t it? ]

—It’s why Imprints are so troublesome. It’s really cheating the natural progression of openness and vulnerability, isn’t it~?

[ He’s airy as he laughs, but there’s a tiredness to it. He cares deeply for all of his Imprints. He hates that the connection exists. It’s a complicated, contradictory feeling that’s also dangerous. ]

That is… I can understand why people encourage that. It even comes from a place of kindness, I think. I just also find that the walls we erect aren’t out of an unkindness in turn.

[ It almost sounds like he’s gently giving advice in turn to ignore those words of encouragement, but it’s not that. He wouldn’t go that far, because it’s not that simple. It’s just a quiet understanding of the hesitation. ]

[opposed]

The Imprint is challenging in all of the ways that I hate.

[ When one has a singular friend for so many years in a dynamic that isn't equal, the process of forming even normal friendships is difficult. Taking that, tangling it, making her question whether any of her feelings or the feelings of others represents truth, and then adding in all of these extra emotions around people who claim to be her friend... It's maddening. So much of her life has already been thrown into question. Now she struggles to know her very sense of self.

She cants her head in a half-nod, agreeing, though she's turning over his words just the same. ]

That, too, is harder than it seems. As you said before, some people here are not cut out for this environment, and I mean that in the kindest way I can. [ She does, honestly. ] Some people give their heart and trust to easily. And others take advantage of that.

[totalize]

As do I. Why, I have a feeling it’s our shared stubbornness on the matter that keeps us from Imprinting, in fact. Not that it’s a complaint, mind you, but it’s funny~.

[ He’s Imprinted with people for less, after all. He’s Imprinted people almost against his own will, as the scars of Set’s teeth in his bones remain as a testament… But that’s why he’s actually glad that the two of them haven’t, in a way. It feels like a more genuine connection as a result. ]

But I know you mean it kindly. I wouldn’t have expressed my own thoughts on the matter if I didn’t think you would understand what I meant.

[ Especially because he intimately understands how easy it is to use trust. He’s a conman and a thief, after all. Half of his work before a heist was just being friendly and charming enough for someone to trust him with information they really shouldn’t have. Even if he can couch his thievery in a principled stand, he’s still fully aware of the crueler parts of the process.

He sighs, but it’s with a light-hearted, slightly overdramatic humor. ]

My kinder hearted fellows really do stress me out. Admirable as wanting to save the world may be, goodness, they’re so quick to trust Patho-Gen’s words about the matter! I’d knock some self-preservation into their thick heads first, really.