That demon has never let me forget for a single second that he has those who favor him or find him useful! That he has far more of them than I no matter how much I strive to prove myself or how despicable he is!
[Akua asks if she did not see that to Meridian she was a valued ally, and perhaps that cuts to the core of one of her many angers, to the reason the demon was able to worm so easily into that wound and exploit it. No, she did not feel as if she was. The few people who did seem willing to listen to her could not outweigh how alienated she felt in any group setting, where her opinions were often dismissed or ridiculed as too hard-line, too "outdated", too straightforward, or too cruel. And yet, like a fool, she kept trying and trying and trying...
She had always been reduced to just a weapon and a tool, if not one striving to be a "warrior". She had always been fine with it. But here... here, she kept being told she could be more, that she should be more, except every time... Yet the literal demon, the thing that ate souls, that could not even form bonds outside of benefit and business- ?
Hayame's spirit rails against the unfairness of it, against the way this world had made her think that she could be more but then constantly reminded her she might not, that she might never escape the confines of the world she'd come from. Her "friends" want her to survive, to be grateful to be alive, but-]
A true warrior would rather be dead than suffer this humiliation!
[Once, she would have rather been. She, a woman who had grabbed her enemy and tried to throw the both of them off the edge into a raging waterfall, who had agreed to bring the flame to a man who had festooned himself in gunpowder to cleanse her dishonor, and now...
Now she has to live with the knowledge that the demon could simply stick her with that poison and kidnap her off the streets gods only knew when, that he wouldn't kill her? That he would only take, take, and take until she had not a single scrap of dignity, not a single "friend" left? Like a caged beast her spirit clangs and collides with the "bars" of their communion, the wound so fresh that she struggles for rationality, for sense, for calm. She knows she should stop, that nothing she's doing is productive or helpful, and still...]
What can I take from a demon that he will actually care about? You tell me, Akua, since you are such good friends!
[... Now that the demon isn't watching, can't derive perverse satisfaction from it...
no subject
[Akua asks if she did not see that to Meridian she was a valued ally, and perhaps that cuts to the core of one of her many angers, to the reason the demon was able to worm so easily into that wound and exploit it. No, she did not feel as if she was. The few people who did seem willing to listen to her could not outweigh how alienated she felt in any group setting, where her opinions were often dismissed or ridiculed as too hard-line, too "outdated", too straightforward, or too cruel. And yet, like a fool, she kept trying and trying and trying...
She had always been reduced to just a weapon and a tool, if not one striving to be a "warrior". She had always been fine with it. But here... here, she kept being told she could be more, that she should be more, except every time... Yet the literal demon, the thing that ate souls, that could not even form bonds outside of benefit and business- ?
Hayame's spirit rails against the unfairness of it, against the way this world had made her think that she could be more but then constantly reminded her she might not, that she might never escape the confines of the world she'd come from. Her "friends" want her to survive, to be grateful to be alive, but-]
A true warrior would rather be dead than suffer this humiliation!
[Once, she would have rather been. She, a woman who had grabbed her enemy and tried to throw the both of them off the edge into a raging waterfall, who had agreed to bring the flame to a man who had festooned himself in gunpowder to cleanse her dishonor, and now...
Now she has to live with the knowledge that the demon could simply stick her with that poison and kidnap her off the streets gods only knew when, that he wouldn't kill her? That he would only take, take, and take until she had not a single scrap of dignity, not a single "friend" left? Like a caged beast her spirit clangs and collides with the "bars" of their communion, the wound so fresh that she struggles for rationality, for sense, for calm. She knows she should stop, that nothing she's doing is productive or helpful, and still...]
What can I take from a demon that he will actually care about? You tell me, Akua, since you are such good friends!
[... Now that the demon isn't watching, can't derive perverse satisfaction from it...
She wants to scream. She wants to cry.
So she does.]