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[somatosensory]

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[seaboard]

Ma — [ sniffle. ] Maybe. But... but shouted. A lot. At everyone. Even if - meant to be - private.

[ WINCE. ]

I can't believe did that. 'm supposed to be the quiet one.

[somatosensory]

The shouting isn't the problem, Gilia. ( frankly, he'd been as much into her like that as the rest of them had been: how fierce she'd been, how unapologetic in her anger. )

The problem the man clearly doesn't respect you, or any of us, and we're all supposed to be working together, relying on each other. But from what I've seen, he's just dead weight. Worse: dead weight with an attitude.

[seaboard]

[ This is the agony, isn't it? Loving someone so much you hope and wish for better, even when it did not even serve anymore. ]

Is it not pride for me to do so? Making fights. Just more conflict of the same?

[somatosensory]

As opposed to what? Rolling over and giving him your throat? He's not seeing what you're doing as anything other than weakness.

[seaboard]

It's hard, it frightens — fright — frightening.

[ there is a pause where she takes another long mouthful of cheap, nasty vodka. ]

Easier to just — just be what they need. Then it stops.

[somatosensory]

Does it stop? It seems like it just drags on in the background until your man opens his mouth again.

[seaboard]

When we're - just us, it's good, he makes me so happy, my heart burns in it. He looks at me, and it's like I'm — like he can't... can't see anything but me and I am... beautiful, and wanted, and... it's good.

[somatosensory]

Let me ask you something: do you keep animals back home? Not just cattle, but ...hunting animals. Hounds, that kind of thing?

[seaboard]

Yes? I have, uhm, several.

[somatosensory]

And how do you treat them? With care, right? They need to trust you, to be loyal. And they perform so much better when they're taken care of, rather than neglected or ignored.

( is she picking up what he's putting down, here? )

[seaboard]

[ There is a undignified sniffle, the sound of yet more drinking that comes straight from the bottle from the hefty amount she downs. ]

They bite you, when you - be mean.

[somatosensory]

Yes, but that's not what I meant. What I'm saying is, we can love animals in our own way, find them beautiful and useful, but they'll never hold the same value to us as a person.

Cesare might care for you, Gilia. But it's more like how a man cares for a hound, not an equal, let alone a wife.

[seaboard]

That's what — what Danny said. But hate Danny.

[ mumble. ]

Not his wife, just a mistress for him to - to have what he wants.

[somatosensory]

And you deserve better than that, don't you? Enough of us seem to think so.

[seaboard]

Sometimes, I wonder if we simply accept what we always know.

[somatosensory]

( this is cutting a little too close to home. yikes. )

And to accept that what we know might not be the best or only solution to something.

[seaboard]

[ She lets that sit for while, drunken and upset at she is, she is not exactly at her best or most clear.

The only thing that comes to the one idea, again and again. ]

'm afraid, Aristaeus, think been afraid my... my whole life. I don't.... don't remember when... when I wasn't. Don't know... don't know how to be...

Not until... the awful, horrible thing... that... that made Murphy all... all mean.

Not until it took it away.

[somatosensory]

Do you miss it?

( low, patient. without an ounce of judgement in his voice, because he knows what it's like to be part of that kind of singular oneness: to be without fear or doubt. to yearn for it, even as you know it will destroy you if you let it. )

[seaboard]

Yes. No.

[ She remembers so faintly the dream the Void gave them, of how connected in that place of his home she had felt, even as she was there to break him from it.

Knowing now, as she did, how it felt, perhaps she was always cruel, to tear him from it. ]

It w's.... mm - most beautiful song I had ever heard. Was joy, and love, and always with us. It was... was awful. Every second of it was knives, scraping the inside of our mind, like knives... knives scraping against bone. But the inside of our skulls. Inside of ears. Like, like feeling your ears bleeding back into... into your... your head. I know - many, many songs. Songs for every day of the year. For good and bad. Can't... can't find that song again. 'S gone. Makes ... makes my teeth ache, 'so empty?

But... but I miss... I miss knowing myself, knowing my purpose.

[somatosensory]

( here's where he should reassure her: she can find her purpose without a song to remind her. he should, but he doesn't because he knows what it is to be that bereft, to suffer in that silence. )

I'm sorry, Gilia.

[seaboard]

[ Could the answer be more understanding, yet more drowning? ]

My... my people have a saying that life... life makes graveyards of us all. Surviving is how you... you bury them.