[ she has long thought this. that if she had been there, she could have done something to prevent it. they'd have stood a chance. she has never considered before that it was not her failing that kept her from being there, but the jarl's. that he was the one who doomed their people, out of hypocrisy and cowardice.
it makes her useless. frozen by the senselessness of it all, by the sudden deluge of grief that she has postponed her whole life. the tears come quietly at first, but she can't stop them, and they only escalate into tremulous sobs that rack her whole body. she is made weak by the injustice of it. the gaping sense of loss not just of her people and her place among them, but loss of her orientation around a world that made sense, that had ascribed a logic to her suffering.
she tries to reply, but her thoughts can't cohere into words. ]
( he stops what he's doing—freezes, more or less, caught off-guard by the influx of emotion. grief. terrible, overwhelming grief the likes of which he'd barely understood before coming here.
now, he did, and the helplessness he feels in the face of it is unbearable. )
I'm sorry, Mavis. ( if he could, he'd hold her now. would pull her tight against his chest and bury his face in her hair. he can't do that — not yet. words will have to do. )
I'm sorry so many have failed you. You deserved better.
[ it's a cold comfort. condolences for damage that can't be undone, a life that can't be salvaged. years lost, and for what? nothing. there had been no purpose. no real argument to support her exile.
the response can hardly be called that. it's not a message so much as her own thought, revisited over and over, but finally able to surface as something intelligible that boils down at the root of all of this: it's not fair. ]
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the jarl decides what is wrong
[ she doesn't answer the rest because at this juncture she is spiral dissociating into her little rut of irreconcilable truths. ]
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You tell me I'm wrong all the time.
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your head is full of the metal gods lies
he was jarl because of how much he knew and because we all knew his judgment was good
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And a coward.
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it was for nothing
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If he'd kept you with him, kept you safe, maybe he would have lived.
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it makes her useless. frozen by the senselessness of it all, by the sudden deluge of grief that she has postponed her whole life. the tears come quietly at first, but she can't stop them, and they only escalate into tremulous sobs that rack her whole body. she is made weak by the injustice of it. the gaping sense of loss not just of her people and her place among them, but loss of her orientation around a world that made sense, that had ascribed a logic to her suffering.
she tries to reply, but her thoughts can't cohere into words. ]
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now, he did, and the helplessness he feels in the face of it is unbearable. )
I'm sorry, Mavis. ( if he could, he'd hold her now. would pull her tight against his chest and bury his face in her hair. he can't do that — not yet. words will have to do. )
I'm sorry so many have failed you. You deserved better.
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the response can hardly be called that. it's not a message so much as her own thought, revisited over and over, but finally able to surface as something intelligible that boils down at the root of all of this: it's not fair. ]
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