04-10-2020, 10:07 PM
“Ah, yes. Too much sleeping.” Tenzin laughed, and there was something both sly and greatly amused by it. She gave Jacinda time to process the question. It wasn’t a pleasant one, truth told. That kind of self-honesty rarely was. She scented the changes in the other woman more than she observed them, and was mostly quiet while the emotions worked themselves through properly. She didn’t offer comfort. It wasn’t that kind of pain. And sometimes it just needed to be felt.
“Hierarchy important,” she said eventually. “Can’t complain for that. Can’t wonder why it made sense for the time.” The words were solemn, but didn’t offer an excuse; it was a purely practical observation, because she understood more than most the sense of belonging to something outside of yourself. Jacinda would have to make peace with her own conscience for the rest, for how long she had lived that way and why, but Tenzin would listen without judgement.
It hit hard and vicious as teeth snapping a throat, that burst from subconscious to active thought.
“Ah, maybe apology step too fast. Doubt he feel nice for woman who tries to kill him? Action matter more. Let him see that, means more than words. And even if he never sees, Jacinda, matters here most of all.” She tapped her own heart again, brows aloft in punctuation of how important she considered that last part.
Tenzin’s own resolutions about the girl had already been made, in quieter but no less iron terms. She had lived months to the Athari’s rules, but her boundaries had never shifted, and she would continue to operate amongst them while she could -- and while the Great Destroyer still breathed. As long as her brethren lived in flux, leaderless, she had little choice, else risk being hunted herself. Jacinda burned hot as flame. They would need to be careful of that. “Thinking careful. They would hunt us for this, your brothers and sisters.”
“Hierarchy important,” she said eventually. “Can’t complain for that. Can’t wonder why it made sense for the time.” The words were solemn, but didn’t offer an excuse; it was a purely practical observation, because she understood more than most the sense of belonging to something outside of yourself. Jacinda would have to make peace with her own conscience for the rest, for how long she had lived that way and why, but Tenzin would listen without judgement.
It hit hard and vicious as teeth snapping a throat, that burst from subconscious to active thought.
“Ah, maybe apology step too fast. Doubt he feel nice for woman who tries to kill him? Action matter more. Let him see that, means more than words. And even if he never sees, Jacinda, matters here most of all.” She tapped her own heart again, brows aloft in punctuation of how important she considered that last part.
Tenzin’s own resolutions about the girl had already been made, in quieter but no less iron terms. She had lived months to the Athari’s rules, but her boundaries had never shifted, and she would continue to operate amongst them while she could -- and while the Great Destroyer still breathed. As long as her brethren lived in flux, leaderless, she had little choice, else risk being hunted herself. Jacinda burned hot as flame. They would need to be careful of that. “Thinking careful. They would hunt us for this, your brothers and sisters.”